Peter H. MacFie
Published: 2013
Total Pages: 105
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A History of North West Bay & Margate, Tasmania provides a detailed study of this locality south of Hobart and includes the first contact with local aborigines by the French Baudin expedition in North West Bay in 1802 and land grants to Marines authorised by Lachlan Macquarie in 1814. Grantees include Munday, Pearsall, Whaley, Gangell and Davis. An 1823 convict sawing station operated with the colony?s first sawmill, coinciding with the start of a local ship building industry. Original military, convict and free settlement families are examined, including those from the Irish fever ship, Bussorah Merchant, quarantined there in 1837. Early farming, orcharding and fishing industries are examined along with the Sandfly Coal Mine and associated tramline as the community developed. Local schools, churches, and sporting teams are documented, plus the shipping and jetty system entering the D'Entrecasteaux Channel. Beginning with indigenous people, the sheltered North West Bay was used by many seafarers, including French and British explorers, and in the 1920s was regularly visited by the Royal Australian Navy. The study contains 28 period photographs and 19 maps. These include 2 maps depicting the areas volcanic origins. Historic maps portray early years of settlement and feature 6 unique combined maps. These use a technique devised by Peter MacFie with cartographer Marie Giblin, where historic maps are overlaid on satellite images of current topography. These locate original property boundaries, and also reveal the first 1857 survey of the then infant Margate village. The history includes endnotes and detailed index.