Community & Business
7 November, 2025
The Meehans of Mareeba
THE Meehan name is well-known within Mareeba, with a street named in 1962c. to honour John (Jack) Jerome Meehan, a horseman, cattleman, businessman, and councillor.
John (1880-1953) and Beatrice Bluebell Nash Emmerson (1888-1956) were married in Cairns on 3 July 1906, and had many children – Charles Jerome (1907- 1981), Ellen Beatrice (1909-1916), John Joseph (1912-1956), William John (1913-1914), Thomas Patrick Gabriel (1915-1981), James Lawrence (1918-1932), Joseph (1919-1997). Mary Genevieve (1923-1998), and Henry Meehan (1926-1979).
John was born in the United States, but came to Australia and worked as a stockman in the Mt Garnet area, and later opened a butcher shop there after his marriage.
He then became the manager of Brooklyn Station, and then became a buyer for the Biboohra Meatworks.
Over the next few years, he went into a number of partnerships and opened butcher shops in Mareeba, Atherton and Herberton, and then eventually resided in Mareeba.
Sadly, they were to lose their infant son in April 1914, when William John passed away. He was buried within the Mareeba Pioneer Cemetery on 5 April 1914.
Tragedy came again to the family in 1916, when daughter Ellen Beatrice passed away on 31 August in Mt Carbine at the age of only six. She is buried within the Mr Carbine Cemetery.
On Friday afternoon, 1 April 1932, a gloom of sadness came again, with the tragic loss of their 13-year-old son James “Jimmy” Lawrence when he was driving his father’s meat cart from the butcher shop to the slaughtering yard alone. It was believed that the wheel of the vehicle came into contact with an obstacle, causing the lad to fall and the wheel running over his head, killing him instantly.
A passerby noticed the young boy’s body lying on the road, hurried into town, informing the police, who then attended the scene and identified the young James. James was buried within the Mareeba Pioneer Cemetery the following day.
His father John (Jack), was a councillor and later a Deputy Chairman of the Mareeba Shire Council, chairman of the Mareeba Hospital Board and was well known in the tobacco and mining industry.
Jack’s brother Thomas Aloysius Meehan, fought in France with the 9th Battalion during the Great War and was wounded in action on 7 May 1917, receiving a gunshot wound to the face.
This injury caused him to lose sight in his left eye and he returned back to Australia. His name is listed on the Mareeba Memorial amongst those who fought in World War 1 and returned home.
