SHELLBACK HOTEL FIRE 1873
Daily Southern Cross (10 April 1873, page
7)part:
ACCIDENTS AND OFFENCES. [From March 18 to April 9]
“Our Thames correspondent writes : — "Shortly after 8 o'clock on
Monday morning, March 31, the district was aroused by the alarming sound of the
fire-bells, and a strong glare to the northward of Grahamstown indicated the
direction in which the fire lay. Notwithstanding the unseasonableness of the
hour a number of people hurried to the scene of the conflagration, and arrived
in time to see the Shellback Hotel and store, and three adjoining
tenements in full flame. The Grahamatown and Shortland Fire Brigades, with one
of the Grahamstown engines, were already on the spot, but as the tide was out,
and a sufficiency of other water was not available, the engine could not be
brought into play; and, therefore, beyond pulling down a baker's shop occupied
by Mr. Goodwin, and which happened to be the last house of the row, nothing
could be done to arrest the progress of the fire, which, in a comparatively
short time, burnt itself out. The house destroyed was the Shellback Hotel
and store, belonging to, and kept by, Mrs Sawyer; an empty building, once used
as a blacksmith's shop by one Job Taylor; the dwelling-house, with stable
attached, belonging to Mr. Murdoch; and an adjoining small tenement, also owned
by Mr. Murdoch, but occupied by a mining contractor, familiarly known as Hoppy
Clark. How the fire originated is, as yet, a mystery. Although no one can speak
positively upon the origin of the fire, very strong suspicions of incendiarism
exist, and are directed against the man Job Tyler, who once passed as the
husband of Mrs. Sawyer, and was the nominal proprietor of the hotel and stand.