The first European explorer to pass over the future site of Wagga Wagga was Captain Charles Sturt and his men in 1829 during his expedition along the Murrumbidgee River. Sturt was aided by Wiradjuri guides who handed the explorers to different Aboriginal guides downstream. The first settler in the Wagga Wagga area was Charles Tompson, an emancipated convict who along with his family established the Eunonyhareenyha 'run' on the north bank of the river in 1832. Soon after another ex-convict George Best established the Wagga Wagga 'run' on the south bank, named for the Aboriginal term for the waterhole on the property where crows congregated. Other settlers followed, all of them squatting on the land illegally. By 1836 the colonial government regulated their tenure and established a licensing scheme.