Gould’s Country a rural area off the Tasman Highway and is approximately 15 kilometres west of St.Helens. Although it is now virtually a ghost town, it once had a population of about 400 with a post office, school, three churches, council chambers, bank, hotel and a public hall. The town went into decline once tin mining in the district ceased. The district is named after Charles Gould, who was appointed the first Geological Surveyor in Tasmania (1859–69). The foundation of the Union Church is linked to Benjamin Smith who arrived in Gould’s County in 1870. Smith was a devout Methodist and was instrumental in establishing a church. In 1871 when Bishop Charles Bromby passed through the district he observed: “In Gould’s Country I found a young but enterprising body of settlers, who had carried with them to their seclusion a love of religious ordinances. As no ordained clergyman lives within fifty miles of them, it was gratifying to find that one settler reads the prayers of the Church to
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