The Queen's Arms on Cameron's Hill

He was a man of influence in Hamilton – James Cameron. So influential was he that the locality boasting his hotel, the Queen’s Arms, became known as Cameron’s Hill. Cameron’s Hilll supplanted Winship’s Hill, which had been named for James Barron Winship, a mine manager for the Australian Agricultural Company from 1860.

Deitz Hardware - a Hamilton fixture

Guest blogger Sandra Hargreaves

Sandra Hargreaves is a Novocastrian who lives and works in London. She is the granddaughter of Charlie Reilly Deitz, who began working in the hardware store at 88 Beaumont Street, Hamilton [1] after World War 1. Reilly (as he was known) purchased the business in 1932 and after World War II, his son Charles Douglas Reilly (Doug, Sandra’s father) joined him.

The American's wife

It was a house everyone admired – an elegant, two story residence at the west end of Hamilton – belonging to the Americans. A medical doctor, Silas Rand, and his brother Thomas Rand, a dentist, had their practices there, and their homes. They’d grown up in Minnesota. Their house had once been a Turkish bath house. Visitors reported pipe works still visible on interior walls.