The Steam Packet Hotel, Taree

William Wootton was born on the Manning in June 1840.¹ He became an early landholder in Taree township and was elected to Taree Municipal Council at its inception in 1885.²

In January 1867, described as a shoemaker, he purchased land fronting Victoria and Commerce Streets.³ It was here that he erected an hotel reputedly known as the “Ship Inn”, and later the “Steam Packet Hotel”.⁴

The premises were transferred to William Owen McMahon in June 1890 and thence to William’s wife, Hannah, upon his death in 1899.⁵

The hotel was used not only for convivial social events, but was also the setting for coronial inquests such as that relating to young Andrew Mervyn Gill in 1898 and William Dawson who died as a result of an horrific work accident in 1901.⁶

In 1913 disaster struck. The hotel was, by then, a two storied timber structure of mixed vintage affording sixteen bedrooms and extensive stabling. It was no match for the ferocious blaze which engulfed it, and threatened adjoining buildings, on the afternoon of Wednesday 22 October. Mr W E Phegan, a commercial photographer, recorded the event and sold the photos as souvenirs.⁷

Hannah McMahon subsequently opened a new business elsewhere in Taree (the “Exchange Hotel”)⁸ and this site again became a Taree landmark with the construction of the “Bridge Service Station” in 1939.

Author: Penny Teerman