Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Pitsawing timber, Edward McGaurr's Sawpit, Medley Street, Gulgong

Pitsawing timber, Edward McGaurr's Sawpit, Medley Street, Gulgong

1872
Glass photonegative

This is Edward McGaurr’s sawpit in Medley Street, which supplied timber for the town. As the Sydney Morning Herald, 10 October 1872, noted:

In a week, as if by magic, stores, inns, theatres, shops, butcheries and bakeries - all the trading component parts of a large town arose; claims were marked out; windlasses swung; sawyers, splitters, labourers of all kinds, thronged the ground, and in a wonderfully short time many claims were ‘on the gold’, and ‘all went merry as a marriage bell’.

From the Sydney Morning Herald, 17 June 1884

GULGONG, Monday. Percy, son of John Moverly, licensee of the Albion Hotel, fell down a sawpit yesterday, and came in contact with the saw, severely lacerating his back and side, and exposing four of his ribs. He had a wonderful escape from death, and is now doing as well as can be expected. [The Sydney Morning Herald (NSW: 1842 - 1954), Tuesday 17 June 1884, p 8]