Laurie left the church and founded the Portland Herald, of which he was sole proprietor and editor, making a few enemies in the process.
[5] The widowed Janet Laurie and her four sons moved to Gambierton (now Mount Gambier) and set about founding a newspaper, The Border Watch, whose first issue came out on 26 April 1861 as a 4-page, single broadsheet weekly.
John Watson (ca.1842 – 13 December 1925), another Scotsman and later Mount Gambier's first mayor, joined in 1863 as editor, and he and A. F. Laurie as publisher managed the company for the next 50 years.
In 1882 he married Dora Kean; they spent the next two years touring the world: Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Turkey, Italy, England and America.
On their return he purchased Tallageira station and built a new house there, where they lived for several years before moving to "Laurie Park" on the Mosquito Plains.
When Kybybolite Station was subdivided he took up a block which he named "Eurinima", built a house and operated a mixed farm, living there until his death.