File:StateLibQld 1 134897 Entrance to old Cumbooqueepa, the residence of Thomas Blacket Stephens, South Brisbane, ca. 1872.jpg

English: Entrance to old Cumbooqueepa, the residence of Thomas Blacket Stephens, South Brisbane, ca. 1872

The early part of William Boag's career was spent in Sydney where he was in partnership with portrait photographer Joseph Charles Milligan. (Images made by Boag are in the collection of the Campbelltown and Airds Historical Society.). Boag arrived in Queensland in November 1871. He travelled around the south-east, along the foreshore of Moreton Bay and the township of Cleveland. He then moved into the Logan and Albert area where he captured images of local crushing mills and sugar plantations. While at Yatala, he took on a partner, John Henry Mills, and by the end of 1872, both men were in Stanthorpe where they remained for several months, producing views of the booming tin-mining settlement. In July 1873, after stopping off in Warwick, Boag and Mills extended their operations to Mackay, where they remained until October 1875. During this time, Boag made trips to St Lawrence and Cooktown, however his movements after this are difficult to trace. It is known that by mid 1876 he was at Copperfield and Clermont, and in February 1878, he inserted a notice in the Peak Downs Telegram announcing that he was leaving for the west. Then information ceases abruptly. It is possible that Boag never reached his destination, since his death certificate records that he died in 1878 at an unknown location.

T.B. Stepehens, the owner of old Cumbooqueepa, was a Member of the Queensland Legislative Assembly, a former Mayor of Brisbane, and (for ten years) proprietor of the Brisbane Courier newspaper. He also owned fellmongeries and wool scourers at Cleveland and Ekibin and acquired extensive landholdings in the Nerang district in the 1870s. His home was one of the grandest in the South Brisbane area, and remained so until ca. 1890, when it was demolished to make way for the South Coast railway line. His elest son William Stephens then erected a larger house on a higher site nearby. The original Cumbooqueepa with its decorative barge-boards, brick chimneys and substantial outbuildings stood on 16 acres of land and had a large garden stocked with banana plants, hoop-pine and prickly pear. The man standing behind the front gate was probably the gardener.