Original Maryborough Town Site
| Original Maryborough Town Site | |
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Looking NW across lower town site, from site of Furber's Inn, near Furber Street, 2005
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| Location | Russell Street, Maryborough, Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 25°31′31″S 152°40′20″E / 25.5253°S 152.6721°ECoordinates: 25°31′31″S 152°40′20″E / 25.5253°S 152.6721°E |
| Official name: Original Maryborough Town Site | |
| Type | state heritage (archaeological) |
| Designated | 4 September 2007 |
| Reference no. | 602393 |
| Significant period | 1848 (fabric) & 1840s-1850s (historical use) |
 Location of Original Maryborough Town Site in Queensland
Location of Original Maryborough Town Site in Queensland
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Original Maryborough Town Site is a heritage-listed archaeological site at Russell Street, Maryborough, Fraser Coast Region, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 September 2007.
The Original Maryborough Town Site was occupied between 1848 and 1855, and is located about four kilometres northwest of the current city centre, on the southbank of the Mary River. It provides evidence of the early settlement of the Wide Bay district, and is unique amongst the pre-1859 towns of Queensland in that it retains most of its originally occupied town site in an open, relatively undeveloped state. The evocative, peaceful site has the archaeological potential to shed light on life in an early Queensland settlement.
The free settlement of what later became the colony of Queensland commenced on the Darling Downs in 1840. In 1842, the same year that Moreton Bay was opened to free settlement, Andrew Petrie was commissioned to explore the Wide Bay district. With a group of men that included Henry Stuart Russell, the explorer, pastoralist and historian, Petrie travelled by boat to explore the Mary River (then unnamed) as a possible source of Bunya trees. The explorers travelled about 50 miles upstream, and it was concluded that the area would prove suitable for sheep rearing as the river would allow wool to be transported by boat. One of the men, Captain Joliffe, was an employee of the pastoralist and businessman John Eales, who later took up a large run at Tiaro and sent Joliffe there with 16,000 sheep. Although this venture failed, due to a combination of disease, attacks by the traditional owners, and financial problems, other pastoralists soon took up runs in the area. By 1847 more than 20 license applications for runs had been lodged in the region. In July 1847 the government surveyor James Charles Burnett gave encouraging reports of the suitability of what was then known as the Wide Bay River as a location for a port to service the area. The river was then named Mary after Lady Mary Lennox, the wife of Governor Fitzroy.
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