George Geraghty, Martin's youngest son, became known in Maryborough as the Midnight Grocer because he often delivered goods to customers on his bicycle late into the night. When 88 year old George closed the store for the last time, in the year before he died, he left the shop complete with stock which included curry powder dating from the 1890s and toilet paper from the 1950s. George's old bicycle is on display at the entrance to the store. A mobile exhibition featuring items from the store made a four year tour of Queensland, New South Wales and Canberra, ending in 2000.

Lucy's Cottage.
A convict who twice escaped the hangman's noose was the first owner of this house at Lennox and Walker streets, overlooking Queens Park.

In the 1820s, Edward Priddy was convicted in London of stealing, and was sentenced to be hanged. Priddy escaped, was recaptured and again sentenced to death by hanging, but his penalty was altered to 'transportation for life'.

So in 1828, after 128 days at sea on the sailing ship Countess of Harcourt, the twenty six year old found himself in Sydney without his wife and child.

Priddy began 'doing his time' as a farm labourer and it was fourteen years before he was issued with his 'ticket of leave' in 1842, making him a free man. Five years later, Priddy described in the records as a widower, married his second wife, former convict Mary Davis, and in 1850 the couple headed north to Maryborough to a new life.

They obviously prospered, because in the 1860s Edward built the Carpenters Arms Hotel, the first pub on the site occupied now by the Central Hotel. He was also the licensee at various times. Sadly, Mary had become a slave to the 'Demon Drink' and in April, 1866, Edward found her on the floor of the hotel's living quarters in a pool of blood from a burst blood vessel.

A fortnight after his wife's death, Priddy married thirty year old widow Lucy Moore Grubb. They were married for twenty one years before the man who twice beat the hangman died aged eighty two, leaving Lucy his property, including the hotel.

The house, built in 1874, became known locally as 'Lucy Priddy's cottage', even after Lucy married a gentleman named Cheek and became Lucy Moore Cheek. The cottage, named Parkview in recent years, is one of several in Maryborough which still have wooden shingles beneath the roofing iron.  

Stirling.
One of Maryborough's leading merchants of the late 19th century named this two storey timber home Stirling, after his birthplace in Scotland. He was George Stupart, who bought and extended the North Street house, near the river, in the 1890s.

Stirling is just a block away from Point Lookout, an area named because, in the early 1850s, messengers would ride there from the old township and climb a tree to see if a boat was coming into sight around the river bend.

If so, the messenger would ride back with the news. Aborigines gave the signal by smoke from a fire, as they did to each other about Captain Cook.

George Stupart was a man who made the most of his opportunities. He began as a hawker, selling goods around the Ipswich district and later in the Gympie area, before moving to Maryborough where he established his business in 1871.

Stupart's Drapery Palace, later Stupart's Emporium, was one of Maryborough's best known businesses in its position at Kent and Bazaar Streets, diagonally opposite the Royal Hotel. The big store was a popular place for shoppers.

At its peak the department store employed about 80 people. The Stuparts title can still be seen high on the Bazaar Street facade of the building, although the business ceased trading under the Stupart name in 1977. George Stupart died in 1918 and Stirling went to his widow, Matilda, who lived there until her death in the house in 1939.

In 1945 Stirling was bought by another family of Scottish blood, the Mackays, who produced fortified wines from orchards at Bidwill, near Maryborough. Mackay's Orange Wine and a mandarin version, called Marda, were to be taken with a dash of caution because of the hefty alcohol content of 22 per cent!

Stirling was in the Mackay family until the late 1990s and new owners renovated the house extensively. Stirling now looks over its back fence to Maryborough's entertainment centre, the Brolga, opened in 2000.

Watson's House.
When dental surgeon Harry Watson married his fiancee, Olive, soon after 1900, they moved into the gracious home he had already had built for them on the corner of John and Churchill Streets.

In later years the spectacular, octagonal-shaped rotunda room, crowned by its turret, was added. Mr Watson raised the flag in the turret on many mornings, using a wheeled, folding ladder to make the climb.

The turret was sealed to prevent seepage when a Maryborough doctor and his family had the home renovated in 1989.

Among features in the house from the Watsons' days are two striking sets of leadlight windows, a wide floor-to-ceiling mirror and a keyhole archway separating the rotunda room and the 'music room'. That room had been Mr Watson's billiard room but he had the floor inlaid with parquetry and gave the room over to his daughter, Elma, as a music room, containing a full concert grand piano.

In the following years the Watsons often entertained guests at musical evenings. Elma, who became Mrs Heaven, recalled in 1996 that, at her wedding reception in 1932, about a hundred guests were seated in the huge rotunda room to celebrate her marriage to Hector Heaven. Afterwards, to complete a truly heavenly evening, the rotunda was cleared of tables and chairs and the guests danced to the music from an orchestra seated in the music room.

The house was again linked to music for several years in the 1960s when the Meincke family opened it to the public to display a large collection of rare musical instruments. Police were alerted and bomb disposal experts arrived from Brisbane when builders involved in the 1989 renovation found an old, wartime piece of ammunition among belongings of the departing previous owner. The story ended safely.

NOTE: The above words and sketches are from the book, "Maryborough - A Rare Old Town" ©
by Danny Lynch and Greg Lunney.

Mavis Bank.
Mavis Bank was built about 1874 on land bought by "a most excellent good man" by the name of Cleary in 1849. The home is a fine colonial with fretwork, lattice, iron lace and coloured glass.

James Cleary was a friend and protector of the aboriginals, the first vegetable farmer, first dairy farmer, first catholic school teacher and an alderman on Maryborough's first council. A bachelor, he called his property "Laura".

In 1859 his brother Daniel and family arrived to live in Maryborough. He divided the 28 acres in half. Daniel's half was called "Ormand" the house's name until 1903 when Eliza Jane Smith and family bought it in and changed the name to Mavis Bank. Today the home is furnished with antiques from 1620 to 1940 including a Hepplewhite chair.