Mary Ann Smith married John Bootle the innkeeper at the Bell & Crown in 1850 and 12 months later she had a daughter, Mary Ann Bootle. The baby was baptised at St Bartholmew’s, Prospect, the church where her parents had married. Soon after the young couple had a domestic dispute and Mary Ann fled home to her parents with the baby. The circumstances were bad enough for her father to come to the inn to collect her belongings with a horse whip to punish his son-in-law. In the struggle that followed John hit James over the head with an iron bar killing him. James’s funeral was conducted from the the Bell & Crown to St Bartholmew's churchyard for burial, 29 October 1851. John Bootle was charged with murder but convicted of manslaughter and served 2 years in prison. After his release, his wife returned to him and they had a son John Walter Leslie Bootle in 1853. Two years later John Bootle died and is also buried in St Bartholmew’s churchyard.

Mary Ann subsequently married Robert Haslam, and then Alexander Greenlaw Hamilton who was an Irishman who managed the quarantine station at Athol Bight.