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descript=Maria Island has unique history that encompasses fossilized sea life, aboriginal heritage, and penal settlements.  Thousands of years ago Aboriginal tribes crossed to the island in reed-canoes. By 1825 Maria had become a penal settlement for convicts who committed offences against the colony. The island was soon infamous for the number of escapes and was known among convicts as a place of ease. At its peak, the convict population reached 492 in 1846; however Darlington was closed in 1850, following the cessation of the probation system in Van Diemen’s Land. Cement works were set up by Italian entrepreneur, Diego Bernacchi in the late 1880s utilising the island's limestone deposits.
