and we never yet met any one able to give us the required information ; except one gentleman, who suggested his connexion with the shipping interest, in consequence of his having a punt somewhere on the Yarra. Hodgson's Punt The punt ran across the Yarra River near from the foot of what is now Clarke Street, Abbotsford, the exact location being where the remains of the original Johnson Street Bridge are still visible today. The punt can be seen in Nicholas Chevalier's painting 'Studley Park at sunrise' (1861)The painting., also an etching (which was attributed to Chevalier's work) by F. Grosse (1828-1894) and watercolour and gouache (1876) by H. Burn (1807?-1884). By 1861 the punt had stopped operating. It was probably put out of business when the Penny Bridge was constructed from Church Street to the Park in 1857. According to a letter to the Argus the Punt was still operating in 1856 but a coronial inquest reported in the Argus of 1859 said the body had been found 'near where the old Hodgson's Punt crossed the river.' Residences Hodgson owned land between Flinders Lane, Queen and Flinders Streets - one and half of Hoddle's 'allotments' in section 1 of the new city. He built an 'ambitious' residence known as 'Hodgson's Folly'. 'It was for some time a centre of the social life of the young town, but when its owner decided to go farther afield to the pleasant riverside atmosphere of Studley Park, where he built a new home, it became a boarding establishment for young women'. His own advertisement in 1840 called 'Yarra House' a 'splendid Mansion, finished in every part in a very superior and substantial manner, containing numerous entertaining rooms of large dimensions, the bedrooms, offices, and cellars are very complete, in all twenty six rooms... The garden achieved colonial fame. The Sydney Herald and the Hobart Town Courier and Van Diemen's Land Gazette both carried reports of a cucumber grown by his gardener. The newly formed Port Phillip Club rented the building in 1840 for £600 a year. Hodgson put the 'elegant house' up for auction in February 1841, and it was 'bought in at' £3,700. There is some uncertainty about the 'new home by the river'. One reference says that 'The site of the former St Heliers Convent was originally purchased ...by Major Henry Smyth of Sydney in 1838, and leased to John Hodgson.'