The schooner, Empress of India, was travelling from Port Macquarie to Sydney loaded with sawn hardwood when she encountered fierce weather. Captain Peter Williams sheltered in Cape Hawke Bay but during the night the winds were so violent that the ship started leaking and was in danger of being driven ashore…
Christian Sander, his wife and three daughters, arrived in Brisbane aboard the Japanese steamer “Aki Maru” in December 1923. Sander, an Estonian national, told of colourful adventures in escaping from the Bolshevik regime in Russia. Circa 1926 Sander commenced the production and sale of ice-cream in a small premises in Victoria Street, Taree. The success…
In November 1854 an advertisement was placed in the Sydney newspaper Empire seeking the services of “a competent surveyor to lay out for sale the township of Cundle on the Manning River” The set out, and probably also the design, of this private township was subsequently awarded to Walter Clayton. Walter came from Sussex, England…
In the mid 1960s whilst undertaking work on the Chapman Place parking area, traces of brickwork were uncovered which were believed to be part of an underground well used by the Manning Steam Laundry. Henry W Alcorn was a local builder who, in 1915, saw the potential in developing a commercial laundry to service Taree…
In the alleyway beside the building at 89 Isabella Street, Wingham you will see a ghost sign. A ghost sign is a hand-painted advertisement on a brick wall from years gone-by. This particular advertisement is for Lifebuoy soap which was popular in Australia between the two world wars. Lifebuoy soap was introduced in 1894 as…
For a week in 1929, three camps of timber getters and gold diggers near Copeland Tops lived in a state of fear. Then at dusk on 9 October their fears came true when James Herbert Curran, 47, came seeking Alfred Lawrence Edwards, 23…
Charles Edwards was a talented man. He lived at the Purfleet Aboriginal mission station four kilometres south of Taree. Charlie was an outstanding sportsman playing both cricket and rugby league…
Audiences tend to love fictional rabbits such as Thumper or Bugs Bunny, but in Australia rabbits have caused widespread environmental and economic devastation since their introduction in the 1850s. Governments have spent millions of dollars fighting these pests. In 1906, Broughton Island became the scene of one such attempt. Microbiologist Dr Danysz from the…
Albert Augustus Smith was a baker who owned ‘The Old Bakery’ in Comboyne, and a bakery and the ‘Majestic Theatre’ in Church Street, Gloucester. After his wife’s disappearance…
George Cassimaty was a well-known business identity in Taree running a fruit exchange and refreshment rooms in Manning and Victoria Streets for many years. Born on the Greek island of Kythira…