Gibsons Store 1881

Description

Limited Edition of 150 Reproductions each of 5 sizes, 750 in total Only

Ebenezer Gibson was the first to open a Butcher’s Shop and General store in the pioneer gold town of Mount Britton. He opened for business in April 1881 at the start of the gold rush, with his goods displayed under a bark, sapling and canvas shelter.

When he killed his first beast, the meat-hungry diggers rushed him and bought chunks of meat straight off the carcass. The weight was guessed and paid for in gold. It is said that he did very well indeed from that first beast and within minutes the valley was full of the delicious aroma of sizzling meat.

Eb prospered and soon built a bark and sapling store beside his rather open butcher’s shop where he sold a vast variety of goods from mining equipment to flour, boots and buttons. He married in 1883 and within 6 years had 4 children. He rebuilt the store at least 2 more times before leaving Mount Britton in 1902, having served the town for over 20 years.

By that time only two families and a few lone prospectors were all that remained of a once thriving community. In this painting a mounted customer and a delivery man are deeply engrossed in their yarn spinning outside Gibson’s store. What are they talking about? Could it be the passing miner’s good luck?

He’d been dubbed “Lazy Burgess” by some of the other miners because of his annoying habit of dragging his shovel rather than shouldering it. Now he was the talk of the town because his shovel had snagged among some tree roots, and when he stopped to extricate it, he found that it had unearthed a handsome gold nugget!

This is one of a collection of twelve paintings called the MOUNT BRITTON COLLECTION that my husband Ron Marshall and I painted, of the pioneer gold town of Mount Britton near Nebo 100km west of Mackay.