Narrabeen

Narrabeen is a beachside suburb in northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Narrabeen is 23 kilometres north-east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Northern Beaches Council and is part of the Northern Beaches region. This area was named Broken Bay by James Cook as he sailed by.HistoryThere are a number of theories on the origins of the name "Narrabeen". One is that it derived from the Aboriginal word Narrabine meaning swan. However the most popular one has been that it involves the first settlers in the area, a Captain Henry Reynolds, a first fleeter, who took his family there to near the Narrabeen Lagoon. They were all massacred by attack from escaped convicts turned bushrangers and their homestead burned. The location was then named after the young Aboriginal girl Narrabine / Narrabeen who tried to assist the settlers and helped soldiers capture the escaped convicts involved in the massacre. However detailed research by David Patrick and John Byrnes in 2017 found there was no Henry Reynolds on the First Fleet, and every other detail of the story was false or un-confirmable. The "Narrabeen massacre" story proves to be one the earliest great total fabrications by Australian journalists.The first land grants were made to John Lees (40acre), Philip Schaffer (50acre), and James Wheeler (80acre) all along the south bank of Mullet Creek. Alex Macdonald was granted 80acre at the beach in 1815 and west of this land JT Collins had 93.5acre by 1857.