the output exceeded per day and a large overseas trade had developed from this mine. In May 1906 the company purchased a half-share in the Aberdare Junction to Cessnock railway for £40,000 which, already owning the other half, placed them in full ownership of the line. With the post-Great War slump, the company ceased its coal-mining activities in the early 1920s, sold their assets therein, and moved on into the cattle industry. The AACo's coat-of-arms are affixed to two stone columns erected in Gordon Avenue, Hamilton (originally known as Pittown, Borehole or Happy Flat)located on the corners Learmonth Park (Alexander Street and Gordon Avenue, and Jenner Parade and Gordon Avenue)in an area once known as Newcastle's garden suburb. Australia's first railway On 10 December 1831 the Australian Agricultural Company officially opened Australia's first railway, located at the intersection of Brown & Church Streets, Newcastle, New South Wales. Privately owned and operated to service the A Pit coal mine, it was a cast-iron fishbelly rail on an inclined plane as a gravitational railway, described as follows: The AACo constructed a total of three gravitational railways: the second was in 1837 to service B Pit and the third was in mid-1842 to service C Pit. The gravitational railway from B Pit connected with the 1831 railway. The gravitational railway from C Pit, which made use of the last of the government’s offer of cheap convict labour, feed onto an extended gravitational railway to reach the port. It is presumed that when the A Pit mine was exhausted in July 1846 its railway was directly transferred to form the C Pit railway, although no hard evidence can support this thought. On 10 December 2006 a plaque was unveiled on the southern shore of Newcastle Harbour celebrating this event. Short-lived coal monopoly and providing land access: disputes with James Mitchell In 1828, 3 years after commencing their 31-year lease, the AACo was accorded a monopolistic position after the company received a grant of of coal land in the centre of Newcastle. Further, it was feared that the company may have had control of the entire coal supply in the Colony had the Crown Law Officers responsible for the substitution of a grant for the lease not objected and an alternative agreed upon. Between 1835 and 1850, the AACo was involved in significant Australian historical law events relating to monopolistic coal mining and private railway