Enterprising ‘tall timbers’

From the 1860s, sawmilling entrepreneurs sought timber from the Sunshine Coast.

William Pettigrew, James Campbell and McGhie, Luya and Co became household names in the timber industry.

The rivers and lakes were the highways into the thick scrub and  dense forests where cedar, beech and pine were sought. On the Maroochy River at Maroochydore, William Pettigrew established a sawmill in 1891.

He was a Scot who arrived at the Moreton Bay settlement in 1849. Working as a surveyor, he became aware of the abundance of timber and built Brisbane’s first steam sawmill in 1853. Previously, timber was cut by pit sawyers.

Other mills he built and owned were at Dundathu on the Mary River and the Union Sawmill at Maryborough. His Brisbane mill burnt down twice and was rebuilt. The great floods of 1893 and 1898 also meant serious losses at all mills.

Pettigrew’s Maroochydore Mill was dependent on logs rafted down the Maroochy River and its tributaries.

Pettigrew owned or had interests in a fleet of ships delivering supplies and returning to Brisbane with timber. Memorable were: Elizabeth, a schooner;  the Granite City, a schooner refurbished as a stern-wheel paddle steamer and renamed Gneering; and Tadorna Radjah and Tarshaw, built to negotiate shallow river mouths.

By 1900, his empire had collapsed and the Maroochydore Mill was sold to James Campbell & Sons which removed the machinery to its Brisbane mill in 1903.

On tributaries of the Maroochy River, small sawmills were established.

Each miller owned a ship to transport timber to Brisbane and return with supplies to settlers.

Pedlar & Heddon, along Paynter Creek, owned the Laura Belle, Mitchell & Sons along Petrie Creek owned Sylvania and George Etheridge owned Lucy. On the Noosa River, McGhie, Luya and Co established Elanda Point Sawmill in 1870 and developed its own shipping service.

Timber was delivered by small, flat-bottomed paddle steamers known as timber droghers: Black Swan, Elandra and Alabama, which towed punts of sawn timber through the lakes to Tewantin, where the sawn timber was loaded onto the steamer Culgoa for Brisbane.

For 20 years, Culgoa made regular trips until wrecked on the Noosa Bar in 1891. The sawmill closed in 1892.

DL Brown’s Arakoon and Dath Henderson’s Adonis also regularly carried timber to Brisbane. In demand were drayloads of sawn hardwood which were taken to Gympie for the mining industry. Passengers on the boats continued the journey by coach to the Gympie goldfields.

James Campbell arrived in Brisbane in 1853. Like Pettigrew, he was a sober and industrious Scot and established a building supplies business – the beginning of his empire. He built his first sawmill at Capalaba and the second of 10 sawmills on Coochin Creek in 1881.

Previously, the timber from the Blackall Range was hauled to a rafting ground on the creek, made into rafts and steered downstream on tides to Pumicestone Passage. Little steamers or schooners towed the rafts in this sheltered waterway to Campbell’s Brisbane City Wharf. Campbell owned a fleet of ships.

Many of them were delivering timber from the Mooloolah and Maroochy rivers, Bribie and Coochin Creek to Brisbane.

Sometimes valuable cargoes of logs made the journey from Moreton Bay to southern states or overseas.

Savvy with business, Campbell relocated the Coochin Creek mill machinery to establish a mill at Albion in Brisbane in 1890, realising the ever-expanding railway would change the way timber would be transported.

 Audienne Blyth is a member of the Nambour Historical Museum, open  1-4pm Wednesday to Friday, and 10am-3pm Saturday.