Campbellville - Ghost City of the Sunshine Coast

Aboriginal Meaning of Caloundra
Suggested to be derived from an Aboriginal
word, Callanda, meaning beautiful.
Also suggested to mean Place of Beech
Trees, possibly due to, the fact that logs were
floated down Coochin Creek, to Campbell’s
Sawmill, situated at Campbellville, on
Coochin Creek 1880-1890.

Campbellville Settlement & Cemetery
1966 Forestry employees discover the remains of the Campbellville Cemetery which operated between 1890-1893.
Roys Road Coochin Creek, Bribie Pumicestone Passage
James Campbell established a sawmill on the banks of Coochin
Creek in 1881 to mill timber from the Blackall Ranges. A settlement
grew up around the mill. The mill closed in 1890 when the railway
line reached Landsborough. The settlement was abandoned and
only remnants of the settlement and mill survive. The most
significant evidence of the settlement is the cemetery which contains
approximately nine graves.
Significance
Campbellville settlement is significant as evidence of the patterns of
timber exploitation in the district. The mill was located on the banks
of Coochin Creek to facilitate ease of transportation of the milled
timber. The remnants of the settlement are evidence of the rise and
decline associated with timber settlements.

From the Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs General Advertiser,
Saturday, May 1, 1886:

There are many in Toowoomba who will remember P.G. Clancy, once
railway stationmaster, and a promising officer in the Railway Department.
His active habits and business capacity secured for him the appointment of
Station Master at Brisbane, the "blue ribbon" of the Railway Department.
When leaving Toowoomba he was presented with a magnificent gold watch and
appendages valued at (pounds sterling) 50, and his health was drunk in
bumpers of champagne. Unfortunately, like too many young men, he needed
ballast, he was not proof against the effects of sudden prosperity, he
yielded to the seductive influence of the cup, and the inevitable result
followed. He lost his situation, his character, everything in fact that
made life dear, and become an outcast from his home and family. The
following paragraph in Thursday's Courier records his sad end: -
"It is reported that the remains of a man were found in the bush near
Campbell and Son's sawmills at Coochin Creek. The body was identified as
that of Patrick Griffin Clancy, formerly railway
stationmaster at Toowoomba and Brisbane, also station auditor and pay
clerk, and who subsequently retired. Clancy is supposed to have left
Brisbane a few days ago in the steamer Mavis."

Inquest at Campbellville

In 1966 Forestry employees discovered a site containing 5 to 9 graves in
the Coochin Creek area. Folklore has it that a man named CLANCY was a schoolteacher
at Campbellville (Coochin Creek) in the saw milling days of the 1860's. It
was believed his weekends were spent at the Mooloolah pub on the old Gympie
Rd where he would forget it all. One Monday he didn't show up for work and
after searching for him he was found dead in the bush. It is said he had
become stuck in the branch of a tree whilst wending his way back and had
attempted to cut off his leg with his pocketknife. The townsfolk buried him
where they found him on the high creek bank and fenced the grave.

The truth is that CLANCY, first names Patrick Griffin, arrived at Coochin
Creek on the little paddle wheeler "Mavis" from Brisbane. George
Bartholemew the manager of Coochin Creek Sawmills in his disposition at the
Official Inquest on 27 April 1886 stated "about 6 or 7 weeks ago, a
man dressed in a grey tweed suit and helmet hat arrived here by the "Mavis" steamer
from Brisbane. I enquired who he was and was told he had come up for Joseph
McCarthy of the Blackall Range". Patrick Murphy a labourer at the sawmills
who had known Clancy since 1885 said in his disposition "I saw the body
now lying in the bush on the bank of Coochin Creek and by the clothes I identify
it as the body of Patrick Clancey (sic) who came here by the Mavis on Friday
about 6 or 7 weeks ago, I was talking to him on board the boat on that day,
I have known him since 1865, he was at my house between 7 and 8 o'clock the
same evening he arrived at the mill in company with the steward of the Mavis,
he told me that Joseph McCarthy of the Blackall Range put him on board the
steamer and that he was going up to McCarthy's place, and that he was to
send a horse to take him up, he left my place in company with the Steward
of the Steamer Richard Ormrod. Between 4 and 5 o'clock the next morning he
came to my place and asked the way to Mellum (Landsborough) and went away
again in the direction of the wharf. I saw nothing more of him after that.
He was sober but appeared to be suffering from heavy drinking". The
inquest of death stated that "his profession was unknown, that he was
wearing grey tweed sac coat and trousers, mock lace ES boots, about one mile
from Coochin Creek saw mills, date of death unknown, cause exhaustion".
The full text of the Inquest has been obtained by Lyn Bateman of Landsborough
Shire Historical Museum. A very interesting bizarre story from the past.

by: Bill Johnston Maleny