His ability to converse with Aboriginal people made Tom extremely well known in Brisbane, where he was sought out by explorers (including Ludwig Leichhardt), local business men, government bureaucrats and Queensland governors alike, for his knowledge of the area and its indigenous inhabitants and to assist in locating commercially exploitable timbers and in marking roads.

Looking for good grazing land in the vicinity of Brisbane, Petrie sought advice on a suitable area from his friend Dalaipi, a distinguished elder of the North Pine clan.

The assistance offered to Petrie was a mark of the regard in which he was held by Aboriginal people and made it possible for him to live in a place generally considered unsafe for European settlers.

Mrs Jane Griffin was willing to sell Petrie the lease to ten square-mile sections, reputedly because the frontier violence made it impossible for her to work the land effectively.

Most of the land was open woodland of gum, ironbark, oak and bloodwood – the product of centuries of regular firing by Aborigines – with vine scrub restricted to small pockets in low-lying areas.

With the help of a small group of Dalaipi's people Petrie cleared two acres and built a hut and stockyard near Yebri Creek, below Murrumba Hill.

Petrie also explored the North Coast between the Blackall Range and the sea, looking for stands of valuable red cedar (Toona australis) and reporting on the commercial value of other indigenous timbers.

Working with William Pettigrew and employing Aboriginal labour, he extracted considerable quantities of cedar and hardwoods from the Maroochy area to build up capital to develop Murrumba.

Like his father Andrew, who had been instrumental in the declaration of this reserve, Tom Petrie understood that the Bunya pines and the ranges in which they were found were sacred to Aboriginal people.

The square-mile pastoral leases over this area – including Murrumba – were withdrawn and the land re-surveyed as small farm allotments available for purchase or rent-purchase.

[1] By 1864 Petrie had constructed a more substantial timber homestead at the top of the broad hill above his original slab hut – likely reflecting his recently acquired security of tenure.

[1] Tom Petrie's occupation of Murrumba was the catalyst for further non-indigenous settlement of the North Pine district, which in the early years he facilitated by conciliating between new settlers and local Aboriginal people.

[1] By 1884 improvements on portion 23 comprised two dwelling houses, kitchen, stables, dairy, milking shed, and two huts; and by 1888 the family held 3,000 acres (1,200 ha) in the North Pine district, closely fenced and stocked with horses and cattle.

Also in the 1890s a commercial dairy (Yebri) was established on the eastern side of Gympie Road (later Anzac Avenue), facilitated by construction of the North Coast Railway through portion 23 in the late 1880s.

[1] From Murrumba gate to the house there is a long avenue of waving bamboos, cool and inviting and in the garden there are stately pines, bunya and poinciana trees, rows of palms "magnificently old and gloriousy tall".

When Sir William MacGregor, our onetime Governor, paid a visit to the old Petrie homestead he remarked what a joy it was to see so many fine trees ...[2] In the early 1940s, the ornamental hedge along the street frontage was still a local landmark – "ten-foot hedges of duranta bushes that are well-known to all who use the Redcliffe Road"; these shrubs (Duranta repens) had delicate blue flowers followed by bright golden berries – and the grounds were still distinguished by the "great bamboos on either side of the drive", by "towering kauri and hoop pines" and by a giant weeping fig (Ficus benjamina) near the back of the house.

[1] The former Murrumba Homestead Grounds are located within the precincts of Our Lady of the Way Primary School, situated near the top of a broad hill overlooking Anzac Avenue at Petrie.

[1] Interpretive signage or plaques have been erected: at the site of the Murrumba homestead (established c. 1864) near the Armstrong Street car park; at the site of the former stables beside the approach to the car park, commemorating the association of Murrumba with Cobb & Co. as a changing station and accommodation house (established 1869); and at the hoop pine forest likely seeded from trees probably planted by Tom Petrie.

The only visible remnant of the built structures associated with Murrumba Homestead is a section of early handmade brick paving that once was the floor of the bakehouse.

The Murrumba Homestead Grounds are important for their special association with early Queensland settler Tom Petrie, who was a member of the first free family to settle in Queensland; a friend to the Turrbal people and an important historical source of information about them; and a pioneer of the north coast district, marking roads that linked Pine Rivers to Brisbane, Gympie, Redcliffe and the North Coast.