The Port Albert township.
:
In its heyday, Port Albert was a thriving township with
its own shipping company, wharfs, customs house and bond stores, steam
tugboat, port pilot service, lifeboat and signal station, the "Gippsland
Guardian" newspaper office, McKenzie's coach building company, two stage
coach lines, police and immigration barracks, courthouse & jail, three
hotels, boarding houses, race course, brick works, Bank of Victoria branch
with a blue stone vault to store gold (now the Gippsland Maritime Museum),
powder magazine & jetty, boiling down and salting works, three churches,
schools and of course, many businesses, one of which was John Robert's
draper store and residence - Gowrie House.
Gorwie House, 65 Tarraville Road.
:
John Lloyd Roberts, draper, purchased the land in 1855
for 250 pounds sterling and had the shop and residence built of rendered
ships'
ballast stone and handmade bricks in mid 1856. He sold the business and
freehold to Samuel Griffiths, draper, in 1868 and in an 1871 survey, it
is described as houses, a shop and store. By 1874, a timber addition of
two bedrooms and a hallway had been built - a later survey description
was - a nine room house and store - which continued as such into the 1880's
when James and George McKenzie owned and occupied the business. The McKenzie
family members established many substantial businesses in both Port Albert
and Yarram with many relatives still living in the area.
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