Chapter 1
Introductory
When the Canterbury Pilgrims arrived, in December 1850, they were bound by Land Regulations which were contained in the charter of the Canterbury Association, granted to it by the Crown in 1849.
The Canterbury Association's plan depended on the sale of land in the Canterbury Block—the Block being Banks Peninsula and the Plains between the Waipara and Ashburton rivers—over which the Association had an option at 10/- an acre from the New Zealand Company. The members of the Association hoped to create a new and better England. Men of capital were to buy large estates and form an aristocracy, and working men were to save money, buy small parcels of land and become yeomen or peasants. The whole spirit of the Association was against cheap land and the squatting system—squatting means renting large areas cheaply and running stock on the native pasture.
Later Waste Lands Regulations did provide that the Waste Lands (unsold land) might be leased with a preemptive right at the rate of 16/8 a hundred acres, but only to persons who had bought land., These could rent five acres for every acre of freehold they had bought, but the privilege was confined to immigrants arriving in the first batch.
A third part of the comparatively high price (£3 an acre) which the Association charged for the land went to education and the endowment of the Church; a third was spent on immigration; a sixth provided for administration and public works, and the remaining sixth went to pay the New Zealand Company for the land.
All this was very well in theory but did not work in practice. At the end of the first year only some fifty thousand pounds' worth of land had been sold, instead of the half million pounds' worth which the Association had counted on having sold by the time the First Four Ships arrived in New Zealand.
The Association's Resident Agent, John Robert Godley, 'The Founder of Canterbury 'as he is rightly called, met the settlers when they arrived at Lyttelton. He had had practically autocratic powers delegated to him, but did not like to alter the land policy on which the Association set such store, though he seems to have seen that it would have been wise to do so. (A colony depending on agriculture, which requires expensive public and private improvements and preparations, must be slower to produce revenue than one which depends on cattle and sheep.) He was short of money to carry on the most necessary public works. In the first six months of the Settlement I suppose less than twenty thousand acres of land were either sold or leased, so that there was an ocean of waste lands surrounding a little island of settled land round Christchurch and Lyttelton.
There had been a very bad drought in Australia in 1850 which disgusted many of the squatters there with the country. Some of them sold or abandoned their runs and came to New Zealand early in 1851 to try their luck again with what money and stock they had left. They not only brought money and stock, but experience, which was most valuable to the young colony. They had unlimited faith in the squatting system, and a great contempt for the Canterbury Pilgrims' desire for freehold agricultural farms. The Australians were nicknamed 'Prophets' or 'Shagroons' and it was they who nicknamed the Association's settlers the 'Canterbury Pilgrims.'
The Prophets had not been here long before Godley, who was afraid of driving their capital to neighbouring provinces, took the plunge and issued new regulations allowing the waste lands to be taken up in runs of from five, to fifty thousand acres, according to locality. These runs were called Class III runs. Class I runs were the old pre-emptive right sections belonging to the freeholders. Class II runs were runs of under five thousand acres which were held at a somewhat higher rent and under different conditions; most of them were either close to Christchurch or attached to Class III runs.
A few runs had already been occupied even before the Settlement, by the old 'Pre-Adamites' who were settlers who had arrived before the First Four Ships. These runs were all either in North Canterbury or on Banks Peninsula. Some were held on pasturage license from the New Zealand Government, and some rented from the Maoris.
The result of the new regulations was that by the end of 1855 all the plains and low hills were taken up, and during the next ten years every acre worth stocking (and a good deal of country that wasn't), right back to the main range, had been taken as part of some run. In the end there were over six hundred Class III runs altogether, but many men held more than one, so that finally they were grouped into about two hundred and fifty stations. I am writing this book to record these stations and to try to give some account of their early owners.
A great scramble for runs began when Godley issued the new regulations. The Pre-Adamites got new licenses for their Maori leases and the Prophets hurried to take up the most accessible country. The Pilgrims held off for a time but soon caught the fever and were as keen as anyone. The new squatters came from every walk of life—baronets, younger sons of good families, soldiers, sailors, parsons, lawyers, tradesmen, shepherds, farmers, and there were several foreigners.
A man applied at the Land Office for a likely piece of country which he had seen on his travels, usually in such terms as 'Ten thousand acres more or less, bounded by the river such and such on the north and the river so and so on the south and extending from the western boundary of Mr Blank's run to the required distance towards the Snowy Hills.' If no one else established a prior claim the Waste Lands Board gave him the run. Within six months he had to stock it with one sheep to every twenty acres, or one head of cattle to every hundred and twenty acres. He had to pay a farthing an acre rent for the first two years, a halfpenny an acre for the next two, and three farthings for the fifth and all subsequent years. If he did not fulfil these conditions he forfeited the run. No term was stated to his license, but he or anyone else could buy the freehold of all or any part of the run at any time, except that if he built a hut or made a fence, or put any other improvement on the run, the improvement gave him a pre-emptive right over so many acres adjoining it. Anyone could challenge his pre-emptive rights at any time, and if the owner didn't buy the land challenged within a month the other man could, and then the runholder got nothing for his improvement.
Before I describe early station practice I must try to give readers an idea of what the country looked like to the early runholders. Most of us think of the plains as we used to see parts of them from the train even at the beginning of this century, as a boundless sea of dry tussock. But the heavy land along the sea coast and round Lake Ellesmere was originally deep swamp or in places heavy fern, or what was called 'dry swamp'— that is, rather wet with fern, flax, toe toe, rushes and cutty grass growing on it, and with boggy creeks running through it—just sound enough to ride over if you were careful. On parts of the dry plains there were large tracts of high manuka over which a man on a horse could not see. The largest belts of scrub were on the north banks of the Waimakariri, Rakaia and Rangitata.
Even what in our time looked like pure tussock had Irishman scrub growing through most of it in the old days, and where it had not been burnt by Maoris or early explorers there was a tangled mass of dead tussock between the live ones—their waste from time immemorial. In many places cabbage trees were dotted about—old hands used to say they were always a sign of good land.
Nearer the hills, where the land is generally better again, Spaniards grew thick and were large, and they and the snow grass added to the overgrowth. By the way, the tussock form which all these plants in Canterbury take, from toe toe and flax down to the little blue tussock, was said to be nature's way of protecting them, and the delicate plants which grew between them, from the nor'-westers. There were some very valuable plants growing between the tussocks, such as wild parsnip, wild carrot and aniseed. They have bceome scarce now even in the high basins in the back country, but before the country was eaten out they grew all over the plains. Blue grass, also, which, now only seems to grow in the middle of yellow tussocks in the hills, grew everywhere. Old hands used to say that horses living in it could work as hard and keep in as good condition as horses fed on oats. All these plants are so palatable that stock will not touch anything else while they get them, and eat them right out.
All this overgrowth, especially on hill country, made it impossible to get sheep on to unburnt country, or to find grazing for them when they got there, so the first thing the aspirant squatter did when he found his run was to burn it. People knew that burning and grazing injured the native grasses but supposed that as they disappeared hardy English grasses and clover would take their place. It is worth noticing that our native pastures are the only ones in the world that were evolved without competition from grazing animals.
The squatter then brought his sheep to the run— usually 1000 to 1500 ewes. He also brought a horse or two and a bullock dray loaded with stores and tools; he brought what men he could afford—perhaps a shepherd, a bullock driver and a couple of extra hands for bush work and fencing. As a special luxury he sometimes brought a cook who was called a hut-keeper and had to join in the general work, as of course did the squatter himself. The squatter chose a place for his homestead, pitched a tent, built a temporary scrub yard to hold the sheep at night until they were used to their new ground, left the shepherd to look after them by day, and started off with his other men and the dray to the nearest bush for timber for a hut and fencing. If there was no bush handy he cut sods and built with them. The fencing at first only meant a very simple sheep yard and a paddock to hold the horses and bullocks.
If a man were too late to find unoccupied country he could of course buy it. Samuel Butler says in his First Year that the market price of unimproved runs in 1859 or 1860 was about a hundred pounds for every thousand acres, without the sheep, of course. Sheep were then worth about a pound to thirty shillings a head according to their age and sex. In the end, as I have said, there were about 250 stations in Canterbury; perhaps twenty of them, mostly along the coast, carried cattle. The rest carried merino sheep. When the runs were fully stocked the flocks varied from 1500 to 2000 on small poor runs where there was a lot of scrub, up to near 100,000 on Glenmark and the Levels, two of the largest and best. When the Association's settlers arrived in 1850 there were perhaps 12,000 or 15,000 sheep and 1000 head of cattle already in the Province, belonging to the Pre-Adamite settlers. In the early fifties thousands of sheep were imported from Australia and Tasmania, and when the overland route was discovered, from Nelson. Of course by the time the hill runs were fully stocked, all or part of some of the plains runs on good land had been bought freehold, partly by the runholders themselves and partly by settlers, and had been turned into farms or estates of various sizes. Settlement has been eating into the runs all the time.
In 1876 the provinces were abolished and the New Zealand Government took over the administration of the Canterbury runs. The Government allowed the squatters to hold their runs under the old conditions until May 1st, 1880. Under the Land Act of 1877, however, the runs were revalued according to their carrying capacity and situation. The new rents varied from 9d to 2/-a sheep and from 4/-to 10/-a head of cattle. The tenants could take their runs for ten years at the new rents, but their pre-emptive rights were abolished. They could, however, remove their improvements within three months from land bought by outsiders.
Before the leases ran out again in 1890, the runs were let by auction for terms of seven, fourteen or twenty-one years, according to when, if ever, they were likely to be wanted for settlement. At this time a good deal of land was cut off the runs for immediate settlement and whole runs were given to the Midland Railway Company in payment for their work, but most of the old tenants got their runs again.
Runs have not as a rule been let by auction since 1914. The Land Act of 1908 gives tenant a right to such part of his run as is not wanted for settlement, at a rent which is assessed by the Government, but subject to arbitration.
The runholder's practice was simple at first. He put his sheep on the run and tried to keep them there. He marked the lambs when necessary and shore the sheep once a year. Until scab broke out there was no dipping, and few people had the facilities for washing sheep before shearing. Everyone tried to breed up his flock as fast as he could. Until about 1868 when all the runs were fully stocked there was always a good market for store sheep.
The sheep were kept on their ground by a shepherd who went round the boundary, and saw them camp for the night. When there was danger of fire he worked them on to a river bed or some other bare place to camp. The sheep got so used to their country that a whistle would send them to camp even if given between them and home. If a few were left, they would follow bleating after the others. When the flock increased and it became necessary to run it in two, the runholder built a hut and yard on another part of the run and put another shepherd in charge of a mob there. Conveniences such as woolsheds, drafting yards and so on came gradually. On some of the plains stations 'crow's nests' were built—platforms on poles or up cabbage trees from which the shepherd could watch the sheep without disturbing them.
About 1854 sheep from Nelson brought scab into Canterbury and whether a flock were clean or scabby, it was most important to keep it from any contact with other sheep, so for some years on the plains many sheep were yarded at night and tailed by a shepherd by day. Wire fences were introduced soon after 1860 and the runs which had not natural boundaries were fenced in, and boundary keeping became unnecessary. As wire became more plentiful the runholders divided their runs into blocks. At first a block each for ewes, wethers and hoggets was as much as the runholder cared to pay for. The ewes and hoggets had to have blocks with water in them, but on many of the plains stations no water was available for the wether flock and the wethers never saw water from year's end to year's end unless it rained, except when they came in to the home paddocks for shearing. Merino wethers do quite well without it so long as they are undisturbed.
By about 1868 all the runs were fully stocked and store sheep became unsaleable. On one station the unwanted culls are said to have been driven over a cliff into the sea. Soon afterwards boiling down sheep for tallow came into practice and that relieved the position. From 1872 on, water races were made on the plains. This made more subdivision possible and the carrying of halfbred sheep. Freezing sheep for the Home market came in just after 1880 and that was the end of the native pastures on any but the worst land, and of merino sheep on the plains. Settlement, cultivation, and tree planting went on steadily and most of the old plains stations are now either moderate-sized freehold estates or altogether broken up into farms. The hill stations have altered less, though most of them are smaller than they were, and Corriedales and halfbreds have displaced the merinos except on the lightest and highest country.
The word 'Station' has changed its meaning in the last forty years. Originally it meant a place at which a squatter stationed himself to work his run, and this sense of the word is still preserved up-country, where shepherds when in camp mustering say 'We shall get to the Station to-morrow'; also in the word 'Out-station.'
The word gradually came to include the whole run, buildings, freehold, and stock, and this is the sense in which it is generally used to-day, by station people themselves and by everyone else. But even this meaning of it has changed. I suppose no two people would give exactly the same definition of a station, but now-a-days most people seem to call any property a station, if it carries more than 2000 or 3000 sheep. Formerly a station meant a place which had included Government or Maori leasehold land, though it was still applied to the place if it became freehold. The word 'Station' is being driven out of use in its original sense of 'a place from which to work a run' by 'homestead.' When the Government began buying land for settlement in the 'nineties, they and their surveyors adopted the word 'homestead' and the settlers have followed them, but when an old-fashioned squatter or station hand used the word 'homestead' he generally used it to signify the owner's residence, as opposed to the men's quarters and other station buildings, and then only when the residence was at some distance from the working buildings, otherwise he called it the 'Big House.' However, as it is a writer's first business to make his meaning plain to all his readers, I shall use 'Homestead' in its new sense instead of 'Station' in this book.
On the whole, runholding has not been much of a business in Canterbury. Some runholders have done well, but I think more have lost money. Scab ruined a lot of them in the 'fifties. Before the scab was cleaned up speculators and settlers began buying the best parts of the runs. Bad times in the 'eighties ruined more runholders than scab had done, and rabbits became a pest before the bad times had begun to get better; and the severe snowstorms of 1862, 1867, 1878, 1887, 1888, 1895 (the worst of all), 1903, 1908, 1918, 1923 and 1939 each used up several years' profits of high country runholders. Besides, hardly one of the early squatters (except the 'Shagroons') had any sheep-farming experience whatever. A few were natural sheep men who soon learnt their business, but the only thing that saved any of the others was that competent Scotch managers and shepherds were more plentiful in the old days than they have ever been since.
There was one other branch of the early pastoral industry which I must explain before going on to the particular stations.
In the 'fifties and 'sixties putting sheep out 'on terms' was a favourite investment for men who had not runs of their own. Sheep were dear, ewes from 25/-to 30/-a head as a rule, and most of the stations were only half stocked.
A man bought a mob of ewes and handed them over to a runholder who was under-stocked and had not money to buy more sheep. The runholder allowed the owner of the ewes 2/6 a head a year for their wool, and marked 40 per cent of the lambs for him as well; or they shared the increase equally. When the ewe lambs became old enough they were bred from as well, so that by the end of the time arranged (anything from three to seven years), the owner had a much larger mob to sell than he had started with. The last sheep on terms that I have heard of were at Horsley Down in 1870.
This practice was so much in vogue that in 1863 Claude Morton Ollivier, the accountant, published a pamphlet computing the increase and profit of sheep 'on terms' at the various lengths of time.
Chapter 2
The Plains Stations Between the Waimakariri & Selwyn Rivers
Note.— The second and third chapters were originally published in June and July, 1924, and the accounts of runs and people are only brought to that time, except where otherwise stated.
Coringa
(
Pastoral Runs 27 and 102)
Coringa, the nearest station to Christchurch, lay on the South bank of the Waimakariri and came down to Riccarton Church, and to the back of Fendalton, then the outer fringe of the freehold sections. The two runs, originally of. ten thousand acres altogether, were taken up by Charles Church Haslewood, an old Australian squatter, in the autumn of 1852.
In 1858 Haslewood, having drawn the charge from a gun, held the nipple to a candle and looked down the barrel to see if it were clean. The remains of the powder went off, causing him such injury that he died next day. His executors sold the station a few months later to Edward Merson Templer, another Australian squatter. Templeton and Templer's Island, which both lay on the run, are named after him.
Being so near Christchurch, the best of the land on Coringa was soon bought out of the run. By 1865 the ten thousand acres had been reduced to four thousand, and the leases were put together and renumbered 136, Class II.
Templer sold Coringa to George Gatenby Stead in 1882, the place then running about 1000 sheep.
Templer was a great reader and a very cultivated man. He spoke and read French, German and Italian. He came to Australia in 1839 and started two stations in partnership with his brother. He was driven out of Australia by the 1850 drought and came to New Zealand with some of his sheep in 1851. He first lived with his brother-in-law Caverhill at Motunau which he managed for a time, and he also owned Longbeach for a short time in partnership with Michael Campbell. He was a member of the Provincial Council. After he sold Coringa he lived in Christchurch until his death in 1897.
Stead kept Coringa until his death in 1908, when it was sold to James Nixon for £42 an acre, but Stead had let it from 1893 to 1900 to one of the Mangins. Stead will long be remembered as the most successful owner we ever had on the New Zealand turf. He was born in London in 1841. He spent some time in South Africa, and arrived in New Zealand in 1865 and joined the Union Bank. He eventually became a grain merchant and leading man of commerce in Christchurch, and made a fortune.
Coringa is only a farm now, but there are still some eight hundred acres of riverbed leasehold attached to the old freehold. It is hard to say why it was not taken up until 1852 when so many runs further from Christchurch were taken up in 1851. Perhaps there was a doubt as to how far the freehold round Christchurch would extend, or Coringa may have been taken up and forfeited afterwards, though I can find no note of it in the old Land Office records.
John Carter, afterwards of Maronan, managed Coringa for Templer in 1861, and Richard Collings managed it for a long time for Stead.
The first recorded public sheep dip in Canterbury was at Coringa. In 1867 the Provincial Government authorised Templer to make charges for cleaning sheep of scab.
Ashfield
(Run
37a)
Ashfield, the station above Coringa on the South bank of the Waimakariri, was taken up in October, 1851, by Charles Church Haslewood for Charles Wedge, and was originally in one run with Tresillian, the next station above it. I have been unable to find out anything about Wedge except that in the electoral rolls of 1856-57 he is described as a gentleman living in Oxford Terrace.A fellow-passenger from England to Perth in 1935, also called Wedge, told me that Wedge was a relation of his and that the family still had many stations in several states of Australia.
He was probably an Australian friend of Haslewood's. Anyhow he only kept the run a year, selling it to John McLean and Allen R. Macdonald, by an agreement signed at Melbourne in October, 1852.
McLean and Macdonald divided the run at once, McLean taking the eastern part, of about ten thousand acres, where his brother Allan started the Ashfield Station. Although it was in John McLean's name alone, he owned it in partnership with his two brothers, Allan and Robertson McLean. They owned several other stations in Canterbury and Otago together, and it was Allan (the founder of the McLean Institute) who started this station and lived there. A very old hand has written to me that Allan 'lived there with his mother and sisters; the younger sister married George Buckley, and when the mother died, the other sister moved to a house in Durham Street, the house and section now being part of Holly Lea …. When I first stayed at Ashfield there was only a few square yards of garden—no paddocks—the horses being tethered or hobbled. The only servant was a little Chinaman, and Allan McLean milked his own cows. A brother, Robertson, occasionally visited him from Ashburton, and Allan and he would ride into town by the Harewood Road, and were conspicuous a long distance off by their McLean tartan waistcoats.'
I shall give a fuller account of the McLeans when I come to their more important stations, Lagmhor and Waikakahi.
In 1863 the run was nine thousand one hundred acres and was reduced by purchases of freehold in 1865 to seven thousand five hundred.
In 1873 the McLeans sold Ashfield with 3000 sheep for £4000 to Charles Newton and John Tucker Ford.
Ford and Newton, who were leading Christchurch stock and station agents in those days, sold Ashfield after one shearing to William and Henry Clarkson.
The Clarkson brothers lived at the homestead until quite recent years, and were familiar figures on all Canterbury racecourses.
A great deal of freehold was bought out of their run in the 'seventies, and some of it was afterwards taken for the Waimakariri conservation works, so that by 1890 they only had seven hundred and fourteen acres of leasehold left. Up till 1887, however, they shore over 4000 sheep on their freehold and leasehold there.
The old homestead is just by the junction of the Harewood Road and Clarkson's Road.
Tresillian
(
Run 37)
When McLean and Macdonald bought Wedge's run in 1852 (see the account of Ashfield), Macdonald took ten thousand acres—the western half—as his share. He and his brothers, William Kenneth and Angus Macdonald, worked this and their other runs in partnership in the early days. They thought that this run would be very valuable as a wether station, being so near Christchurch, but all the same at the end of 1854 they sold it to Charles Reed for £200, without the sheep. They had shorn 3000 at Tresillian that year, and took them to Orari, their station in South Canterbury.
Reed named the station Tresillian. He had 2200 sheep and lambs there in 1857, when John Carter was his manager. J. T. Ford took over the management in 1859 when the run was still only half stocked. Ford built a six-roomed wooden cottage to replace the original sod hut. He managed Tresillian until 1864 when Reed sold it to John and Joseph Brabazon with 4500 sheep. In 1863 Sandy Knolls, the next station up the Waimakariri river, had been bought by Reed and added to Tresillian.
Joseph Brabazon only stayed in the Colony a few years. He then sold out to his brother and went home to Ireland, where he did well by fattening bullocks for the Liverpool market.
John Brabazon had been a partner with Samuel Butler at Mesopotamia, where Mt. Brabazon is named after him. He won the Canterbury Oaks in 1892 with Dora.
The original Tresillian Homestead was on the bank of the Waimakariri about two miles north-west of the Miners' Arms, but Brabazon moved to near the railway line at Aylesbury, where he made five or six thousand acres of the run freehold, and went in very extensively for farming. The land there is light, and he came to grief. The National Mortgage and Agency Company took over the place from him in 1895 and he went home to England and died there. The Company sold off the land bit by bit. The Aylesbury homestead now belongs to A. Boulnois.
Duncan Frazer (the pigeon shot) managed for the Company for some years, and was succeeded by Hugh Nurse, who has distinguished himself in another branch of sport and now trains horses at Riccarton—one of them Rapier, who won the New Zealand Cup in 1927.
I will give accounts of the Macdonalds and of Reed when I come to their other stations—Orari and Westerfield.
Sandy Knolls
(
Runs 26 and 114)
In the old days the name Sandy Knolls was spelt in several different ways; Sandy Knowles, Knowles's Land, and so on, and there is a tradition that an Alexander Knowles once lived there. There may have been a shepherd of that name there for a time, but I could never find anyone who had seen him, and I think the station was named after the sandy hummocks near the riverbed there.
Run 26, on the river, was taken up by Augustus and Charles Perceval on 7th September, 1851, and they took up Run 114, which lay further out on the plain near the present railway, shortly afterwards. Perceval brothers transferred both runs to E. M. Templer very soon after the leases had been issued. I believe that George Duncan Lockhart, who in those days lived at Coringa, was a partner of Templer's at Sandy Knolls. Lockhart was afterwards part owner of the Hakataramea station on the Waitaki. His grandson is the present Sir Greame Lockhart. An account of the Percevals will be found under Easedale Nook.
About 1854 Templer sold Sandy Knolls to Thomas Rowley, who by 1858 had 2300 sheep there on fifteen thousand acres.
Rowley's father was the first dean designate of the Christchurch Cathedral. He was appointed dean but never came to New Zealand. Rowley lived at his farm, Middleton, afterwards for so many years Sir Charles Bowen's residence. His son who managed Sandy Knolls for him married one of Archdeacon Mathias's daughters, and I believe his son is now in the Federated Malay States Government Service. There are several of the family in Otago and Southland.
In 1863 J. T. Ford bought Sandy Knolls for Charles Reed and it became part of Tresillian.
To disarm future criticism it is as well to note that Rowley transferred his leases to Ward and Newman in 1860. This was probably to secure a mortgage, as Ford certainly told me he bought, the station from Rowley. The homestead was on the Waimakariri riverbed close to the western boundary of the run. There is no trace of it left now.
The Desert Station
(
Run 39)
The Desert Station was the next above Sandy Knolls on the Waimakariri. The eastern boundary ran in a line from the river past the present Aylesbury Railway Station, the western boundary ran through Kirwee. It was taken up in August, 1851, by Muter and Francis and contained about eighteen thousand acres. Muter and Francis did not stay very long in Canterbury, but they took up runs together in the early 'fifties. Captain (afterwards Colonel) Dunbar Douglas Muter was only in New Zealand for a short time in the early 'fifties. Besides taking up runs, he bought a good deal of land on the Pensinsula. He rejoined his regiment in India where he did well in the Mutiny and afterwards edited a paper. He came back to Canterbury for a short time in 1862 to settle his affairs. He was afterwards a military Knight of Windsor where he died in 1909, aged 85. While on his first visit he fought one of the only four duels ever fought in New Zealand. It was with Charles Barrington Robinson, the first magistrate at Akaroa, and came of a dispute about land. There is an account of it in Tales of Banks Peninsula, and Ebenezer Hay, whose grandfather was present, added some interesting details in the Press in July, 1924. No one was hurt.
In 1857 and '58 Francis had a run near Waimate which he sold to the Studholmes. I don't know what became of him then.
Muter and Francis sold the Desert, almost as soon as they got the lease, to Archdeacon Mathias, who bought it for his friend the Rev. J. Owen, who never came to New Zealand.
In July 1856 a swagger was found dead on the Desert Station. He had perished during a storm. He was supposed to be a bad character called 'Cranky Bill,' but there was 'some doubt about his identity.'
Owen's brand, one of the first registered in Canterbury, was a plain circle, or a round O. His first manager was an Australian called Matson whom Muter and Francis had brought over. Owen afterwards sent his son out to manage the station, but the young man's talents were not for sheep farming. He was drowned in the Rakaia in 1857 and his was the first body buried in Riccarton Churchyard. When young Owen was deposed, Archdeacon Mathias, who looked after Owen's New Zealand affairs, sent his own son Herbert J. Mathias to manage the Desert. There were 6000 sheep there in 1867. Archdeacon Mathias died at Akaroa in 1864 aged 59.
Herbert Mathias bought the station in 1875. He sold it two or three years afterwards to Richard Northy Hopkins and Thomas H. Anson. (Anson and Hopkins, and Anson and Karslake, had had several other stations in this district in partnership.)
Anson bought Hopkins out and gradually sold off the land and so reduced the flock. In 1878 there were still 3000 sheep, and in 1880 they were down to 1500.
He sold the homestead and the land he had left to H. Feutz in 1887, and retired.
The land remaining is still known as the Desert Farm.
Ledard
(
Run 50)
The next station up the Waimakariri was Ledard. Dugald Macfarlane took it up and settled on it in 1851, though some of the Provincial Run Lists give the date of the lease wrongly as 1852. Macfarlane had retired from the British Army as a lieutenant after the Battle of Waterloo. He not only fought at Waterloo but was at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball the night before, and like the the rest of the soldiers who were there, was called away hurriedly to march with his regiment. In his haste at his lodging he could only find one boot and he fought through the battle with a boot on one foot and a dancing shoe on the other.
The first shearing was done out of doors on a drawing-room carpet which the Macfarlanes had brought to New Zealand with them. They turned it upside down to shear on; their shepherd James Jeffrey shore the sheep, and their most active shed hand was the strapping Scotch maid who had come out with them. Macfarlane named the station after a sheep farm near Loch Ard where his father had lived after losing the rest of his land.
Macfarlane worked the station (which was of ten thousand acres) until 1860 when he was ruined by scab and sold out to his neighbour Richard Alfred Creyke, and thenceforward Ledard was worked as part of Racecourse Hill.
After trying farming for a time in the Kowai Forks, Macfarlane began life again as a wine merchant in Christchurch. He built the brick house at the corner of Armagh Street and Cranmer Square, where his cellars remain to this day. He died in 1881. Both his sons managed stations in Canterbury afterwards. One of them, Norman Macfarlane who is still flourishing,He died in Christchurch, and was buried on his 87th birthday, Feb. 25, 1931.
has been one of my greatest helpers in writing these notes. A grandson was killed in the Great War.
Racecourse Hill
(
Runs 49, 65, and later 50)
Above Ledard came Racecourse Hill, twenty thousand acres of which were taken up in September, 1852, in the name of the Hon. Joseph Denman, by either J. C. Watts Russell or R. A. Creyke. Creyke took up fifteen thousand acres adjoining in his own name in January, 1853. The two runs were worked as one station by Watts Russell and Creyke from the beginning, and I do not think Denman ever came to New Zealand. He soon sold his interest to his partners. The country ran back to the Hawkins River. Creyke was the managing partner and his first homestead was on the Waimakariri, and in those days it was called Bleak House. The road leading to where it was is still called the Bleak House Road.
By 1855 Russell and Creyke had 2524 sheep on their country and these had increased to 6300 by 1858. For a time the station was known as Wantwood, probably because of the treelessness of the country. About 1859 Creyke moved the homestead to the present site, and ever since the station has been called Racecourse Hill. Vigors was his overseer at Bleak House, and a man named Jeffrey his head shepherd. I shall give some further account of Russell and Creyke when I come to Dalethorpe.
In 1860 or 1861, soon after he had added Ledard to the station, Creyke sold it to Edwin Fereday. Fereday also owned Oakleigh station on the Rakaia, and he broke down under the strain of riding to and fro over the dreary plains between the two stations. Racecourse Hill was sold some time before 1863 to Francis Edward Stewart, a bank manager, who had come down to Christchurch to open the first branch of the Bank of New Zealand there. (It stood in Cashel Street, opposite Ballantynes'.) He did not live on the station; a man named Jackson managed it for him; I think he was Adam Jackson who afterwards had Benmore Station in partnership with Elliot.
Rhodes and Wilkin, the mortgagees, took Racecourse Hill over from Stewart in September, 1865. Stewart was the son of Captain Thomas Stewart, R.N., of Clifton in England, one of the heads of the Stewart clan and formerly of Newdosk and Birkenhead. F. E. Stewart arrived in Canterbury in August 1857. He was a member of the Provincial Council, becoming Provincial Secretary in 1866 and Deputy-Superintendent in 1867. He left Canterbury for Victoria in 1869 and for a time managed Goldsborough Mort there. He died in Victoria in 1904 aged 71.
J. H. Davison managed Racecourse Hill for Rhodes and Wilkin. He also managed another of their stations, Carleton, across the Waimakariri. He afterwards managed St. Leonard's Station in the Amuri for them, and when that was sub-divided bought the homestead block, or modern St. Leonard's Station, where he died in March, 1927.
Rhodes and Wilkin sold Racecourse Hill in 1868 to Edward Constable Maxwell (known as 'Buster'), Wilfred Constable Maxwell, and Benjamin Booth. Booth sold his share to the Maxwell Brothers in 1871.
The Maxwells kept a racehorse together. Whenever either of them passed its box the horse would neigh to him and he would give it a feed, so it was always too fat to win races.
After Wilfred Maxwell's death, H. J. Mathias from the Desert joined Edward Maxwell in the station, and they began buying up the freehold of the run in earnest. They bought eleven thousand acres. The rest of the country was bought up by outsiders.
Edward Maxwell died in England early in 1885, and H. A. Knight, bought his share in conjunction with H. J. Mathias. Mathias died in September, 1885, and Knight bought his share also. The station then consisted of seven thousand three hundred acres of freehold. It is now reduced to eleven hundred and fifty acres. Knight died after this note was first written, but the property still belongs to his daughter, Mrs Woodhouse. It was out of Racecourse Hill and Waireka that Hamilton and Crosbie Ward bought the well known Bangor Estate.
The Maxwells came from Dumfriesshire where their father had an estate. They were somewhat easy-going men, but Racecourse Hill was a very good station and pulled them through, so that latterly both lived chiefly in England.
In recent years Balymena and Limerick have shown that Racecourse Hill can turn out better racehorses than the one the Maxwells used to stuff.
Homebush
(
Run 41)
Homebush, the station above Racecourse Hill, ran from the Waimakariri to the Selwyn, the Racecourse Hill and Waireka boundaries being on the plain a mile or so in front of the downs. It took in Gorge Hill and ran back to Russell's Flat and the Pig Saddle, and contained thirty-three thousand acres. It is one of the few stations in Canterbury—there are only about a dozen—which have never left the original owner's family.
It was taken up in October, 1851, by the Deans Brothers, William who had come to New Zealand in 1840, and John who landed in 1842. They settled at Riccarton in 1843, and from that day to this the Deans family have been known from one end of Canterbury to the other as sound colonists, successful farmers and good sportsmen.
In 1839 and 1842, before leaving England, the Deans had bought land orders from the New Zealand Company for four hundred acres at Nelson and the Manawatu, but owing to native troubles they could not get possession of their land, and after long negotiations, they were allowed to select their four hundred acres at Riccarton. They also rented from the Maoris all the country which lay within six miles to the south and east of their freehold. This run covered the ground that was selected in 1848 for the site of Christchurch. The Deans were willing to surrender it in exchange for another run which Godley was unwilling to allow them. It was granted to them, however, after an appeal to Sir George Grey, the Governor. It was the first run allotted by the Canterbury Association on the hills, the reason being that during the scramble for country which began in 1851, the Association reserved the plains as far as possible for their own settlers and the Deanses had to be content with the first pick on the hills.So people used to say, but having now read the relevant documents, I think the Deanses chose Homebush because, by the time their dispute with Godley was settled, it was the nearest unoccupied country to Riccarton.
In those days accessibility was a great consideration, and Homebush is the nearest point on the hills to Christchurch. Cattle stations were supposed to be good business, and the valuable farming land which the run contained has proved it to be a wise selection, but in its native state it cannot have looked a promising place to run merino sheep.
When William and John Deans came to New Zealand, a third, James Young Deans, remained at Kirkstyle, the family property in Scotland. In 1851 William Deans was drowned near Wellington on his way to Australia to buy stock, and the run afterwards belonged to John Deans and the brother in Scotland. John Deans worked his part of the run from the present homestead as a cattle station, and his brother had a sheep station where Mrs Alister Deans lives now. James Deans's part was started for him in 1856 by Mrs John Deans's brothers, James and Hugh McIllwraith. They stocked it with 1000 ewes from the Levels. Later on they took the run and sheep on terms, and made enough money there to buy Culverden Station in 1863, when the trustees of the second John Deans bought their interest and united the whole of Homebush in one.
John Deans (I) died in 1854 leaving a son John Deans (II) born in 1853. The first Mrs. Deans was a remarkable woman who devoted herself during her son's minority to the care of his future properties. When he came of age he found Riccarton and Homebush ready for him, and in good order. The coal mines and pottery works at Homebush were opened up during Mrs. Deans's regency. Robinson Clough was in charge of the station and cattle at Homebush from October 1851 until the end of 1853. The Deans family still have his diary and have published it in Pioneers of Canterbury. His annoyance with the many visitors who came and ate him out of house and home is amusing to read. In 1852 there were 280 cattle of all ages on the station. The diary ends in October, 1853, when I suppose Clough left and John Cordy, afterwards of Hororata, took charge. Anyhow Cordy managed Homebush on shares from 1854 till 1859. He ran a dairy there for his own profit, but had to rear the calves for the station. In 1859 James McIllwraith took over the management.
During the 'seventies Homebush, which had carried 3000 head of cattle, was gradually changed over to sheep, and nearly twenty thousand acres of the run were made freehold. In the sheep returns of 1878 John Deans is shown as carrying 12,000 sheep at Homebush, two-thirds of which were carried on freehold, and the rest of the land was bought from the Midland Railway Company in 1889.
John Deans (II) died in 1902, and for some years the station was again managed by trustees. Owing to sales of land and letting of country the flock was reduced to about 10,000 sheep.
In 1910 the place was divided amongst the family, and the station with about 3000 sheep now belongs to James Deans, third son of John Deans (II) while John Deans (III) and several other brothers have adjoining properties which were all part of the old run.
Waireka
(
Run 16, re-numbered 581)
Waireka, which lies on the plain below Homebush, between the Hawkins and the Selwyn, was taken up in May, 1852, by William Kenneth Macdonald for himself and his brothers Allen R. and Angus Macdonald. It contained eight thousand acres.
The Macdonalds were experienced squatters from Australia who brought both money and sheep to New Zealand. As I said before, they also owned Tresillian.
In 1853 they took up country on the Orari River in South Canterbury and decided to devote themselves to developing that. They sold Waireka, which they called Ivanhoe during the short time they had it, to George Arthur Emelius Ross on 10th September, 1854. Ross had been a cadet with Henry Tancred at Malvern Hills. Ross had 1300 sheep at Waireka in 1856, which had increased by 1858 to 2000. He took Charles Harper, a son of the first Bishop of Christchurch, into partnership. Ross became the first Clerk of the Canterbury Provincial Council, of which he was afterwards a member. He left Harper to manage the station. Ross and Harper sold Waireka about 1862 to Karslake and Anson. Ross and Harper afterwards had Lake Coleridge in partnership, and then Mt. Fourpeaks and Clay-tonClayton on lease from Walker and Clogstoun, where the 1867 snowstorm ruined them.
Ross died in Christchurch in 1876, aged 47. Harper afterwards had the Hackthorne and Upper Hackthorne estates near Ashburton and died during the Great War.
Karslake and Anson sold Waireka in 1867 to two brothers of the Rt. Honourable Joseph Chamberlain, who I do not think ever came to New Zealand—at least they did not live here.
Karslake and Anson bought Mt. Torlesse soon after they sold Waireka.
Reginald Wade managed for the Chamberlains, and at one time had no fewer than ten cadets on the station, which was a record until it was broken in the late 'nineties at Waimate where they had twelve. One of the Wade's cadets was J. H. C. Bond of Manuka Point and Mt. Hutt who died in the winter of 1924.
After Wade's time the Chamberlains let the station to various tenants. The Bangor people bought the freehold of some of the run and secured some of the leasehold, but the Chamberlains made four or five thousand acres freehold. Cardale and Berry, the tenants in 1879, ran only about 300 of their sheep on leasehold. The Chamberlains worked the station again themselves from 1882 to 1886, when it carried about 5000 sheep. They then let it to Wade in partnership with Fletcher. From them the lease passed to Cresswell, the Hororata butcher. Cresswell transferred it to William Broughton in 1901. Broughton went home to England later on and bought the freehold from the Chamberlains. This fine property carried 3000 sheep but in the late 1920's Broughton subdivided it and transferred it to his sons.
Bray Down
(
Run 22, afterwards re-numbered 181 and 182, Class II)
In the fork of the Hawkins and Selwyn rivers below Waireka, lay another run of about ten thousand acres. I learnt from an early Sheep Return that the owners called it Bray Down, but I never heard old hands speak of it except as Hill and Bray's Station.
It was taken up by William Bailey Bray in December, 1851. Bray had 1400 sheep there in 1856 and 2500 by 1858. Bray's manager was Joseph Hill, who had begun life as a London hatter but must have been a born judge of country. He selected this run, and Springfield on the Ashburton—two of the best natural runs in Canterbury—for Bray, also Avonhead and some land just north of Christchurch, two of the best bits of land near town.
I always thought that Bray took Hill into partnership, as old people always spoke of them as partners and they registered HB (conjoined) as their brand in 1855, but Bray's grandson assures me they were not. I suppose Hill managed the stations for Bray 'on thirds' —quite a usual arrangement in those days.
Bray returned to England in 1859 and sold both stations to Hill for £18,000.
Bray was the first civil engineer to the Provincial Council. He lived at Avonhead. He always prophesied that the Waimakariri would one day break its banks and run through Christchurch:
'At Avonhead lived one Mr Bray
Who every morning used to say
I shouldn't be much surprised to-day
If Christchurch City were swept away.'
pas the Canterbury Rhyme says.
Nothing happened for years, but in February, 1868, Bray returned from England on the very morning of the great flood, when the Waimakariri sent a stream down the Avon and flooded the town. Afterwards Bray went on with his profession in Christchurch and died there in 1885, aged 73.
Hill had to sell his stations in 1866. Edward Reece, the founder of the ironmongery, bought this one. The run included the district now known as Greendale.
After Hill lost his stations he became a butcher in Christchurch, and afterwards bought Avonhead from Bray.
Being good agricultural land, easily prepared for ploughing, and within thirty miles of town, the free-holdfreehold of Bray Down was bought up early. By 1868 Reece had only eleven hundred acres of leasehold left. He sold the station in the 'seventies, and after several changs of ownership, most of the old freehold is now in the hands of the Rudd family. The homestead was on the bend of the Waireka River, where it turns into the Selwyn.
Milton
(Run 51)
Next below Hill and Bray's run on the Selwyn, came Milton, ten thousand acres. It joined Racecourse Hill just at the junction of the Hawkins and Selwyn. It was taken up in September, 1852, by A. Lake who did not work the place long himself. He let the run with the sheep to a man named King, who took one of the Staces into partnership. Letting runs with the sheep either at a definite rent or 'on thirds' (a third of the money for wool and surplus stock) was a common custom during the first twenty-five years of the settlement.
After Lake's death J. T. Ford took the station on lease from his widow. The rent for the whole station, run and sheep, was £900 a year. Ford bought Mrs Lake out altogether in 1876, and in 1880 sold the freehold and pre-emptive rights to William Strange, the draper, but without the sheep.
The land here is light, and the farmers did not begin buying it until 1874, but when they did begin they bought it quickly. In eighteen months nearly all the run except the pre-emptives had gone.
Strange sold Milton to a syndicate in 1898 or 1899. It was, I think, the first of the large freeholds to be bought by speculators for sub-division. The homestead was where the old Main South Road crossed the Selwyn, and Lake was compelled by the conditions of his lease to put up travellers. He delegated this duty to one Parleby who built there, and a year or two later got a license for his accommodation house, which he sold to Giggs. 'Giggs's' was a famous stopping place for travellers in the old days. Sir Charles Bowen told me they often used to leave Christchurch very late at night, and ride to Giggs's for a few hours' sleep, so as to get a good start down the South Road next morning.
It was at Milton that Mackenzie the notorious sheep stealer was re-captured after his second escape from Lyttelton Gaol. In the 'eighties sheep sales were held at Milton for the convenience of neighbouring stations.
Broadlands
(
Runs 40, 74, 85 and 95)
This station lay on the Selwyn next below Milton, and contained nearly twenty-five thousand acres altogether. Run 40, the western part, which took in the present Norwood district, was taken up on 17th October, 1851, by John Studholme and transferred to James Balfour Wemyss. Run 95 was taken up by Paul Studholme on 1st August, 1853, and transferred to Wemyss on the 5th November the same year. Wemyss sold both runs to J. C. (afterwards Sir Cracroft) Wilson on 8th August, 1854.
Run 74 was taken up on 8th February, 1853, by Humphrey Hanmer, and Run 85 by John Hughes on 18th May, 1853. Hughes transferred it to John Ross in 1854. Later in 1854 William Browning Toswill bought Hanmer's run, and H. F. Worsley bought Ross's. Toswill and Worsley worked their runs together as a dairy station, which they called Waihora. About 1862 Wilson bought Waihora and it became part of Broadlands. W. B. Toswill was born in Devon in 1829 and came to New Zealand in 1853. He had been an officer in Green's Line of ships. After selling his run, he had several properties near Christchurch in 1879, retired, and went to live at Akaroa. In 1894 he went to Manaroa, Pelorus Sound, to live with his daughter and died there in December 1899.
There is a good account of Sir Cracroft Wilson in Alfred Cox's Recollections. Wilson had been an Indian Civil Servant until middle life, and, after a reconnoitring trip to Canterbury when he bought several stations, he finished a distinguished career by serving with great courage and ability during the Mutiny. He retired after the Mutiny and settled in Canterbury with the avowed intention of creating an estate worthy of being entailed on his descendants, and he succeeded very well. Besides Cashmere, where he lived, he owned at one time the Culverden, Broadlands, Highpeak and Cracroft Stations. He was a member of the House of Representatives and of the Provincial Council. He died in May 1881.
During the 'fifties and 'sixties, Broadlands was worked as "a cattle station, but in the late 'sixties it was changed over to sheep. In 1878 it carried 10,000, of which a quarter were run on freehold. From about 1864 Charles Hunt McAlpine managed the station, and shortly afterwards became Wilson's partner. In 1868 he bought Wilson out altogether. He had formerly managed Cracroft for Wilson, and was the father of the late, and grandfather of the present owner of Craigieburn and Spye.
McAlpine died in 1872. During his illness, Dr. Moorhouse, of Shepherd's Bush, sent Wiggins, his manager, to look after Brooklands. After McAlpine's death the trustees, Leonard Harper and John Studholme, appointed Hugh (now Doctor) Knyvett manager. Knyvett stayed until the place was cut up and sold about 1879, and then went Home and became a doctor of medicine.
Herbert Alington bought the homestead and some hundreds of acres, which was afterwards bought by Henry Boyle, to whose daughter, Mrs Williams, it still belongs.
Other blocks were bought by R. Bethell, Joseph Palmer, F. Brittan, and William Strange of Milton.
The Springs Station
(
Runs 18, 134, and later, 111. Runs
18 and 134 were afterwards united and numbered 120 Class II, 111 became 143 Class II)
The Springs Station ran from Broadlands to the mouth of the Selwyn, from there through the present Ladbrooks Railway Station, and across the Main South Road beyond which it joined Coringa and other stations on the Waimakariri. It took in what are now Rolleston and Weedons. The cattle used to stray right across to the Waimakariri.
The old homestead, still called The Springs Farm, is just behind Lincoln College.
Run 18, of five thousand acres, was taken up in 1852 by Charles Robert Blakiston, who stocked it with 6 rams and 250 ewes.
FitzGerald, Harman and Davie took up Run 134 of nine thousand acres, also in 1852. At least as early as 1854 FitzGerald bought out his two partners and also bought Run 18 from Blakiston.
Field Brothers, Strickland and James Field, took up Run 111 in August, 1853. During their tenure, the Fields did not have any regular station on the run, but worked it from Christchurch or from a section they had near Templeton, sometimes buying sheep or cattle to run on it, and at other times stocking it with sheep on terms. Theirs was the country round Rolleston and Weedons. They sold it to FitzGerald about 1858.
After selling Run 18 Blakiston took up a run on the Orari, which he never stocked. Blakiston was a younger son of a baronet in England and was born in 1825. He went out to the Australian goldfields as a young man and came on to Canterbury in 1851 with the Macdonalds of Orari, with whom he had made friends in Melbourne. He brought a mare and foal over with him and exchanged them for a section in Hereford Street beginning at Colombo Street and taking in the land where the Bank of New South Wales is now. It would be worth a lot of money today, but Blakiston wanted ready money when he married so he sold it for a hundred pounds. He managed the Trust and Agency Company in Christchurch for many years and was a member of the old Provincial Council and an early M.L.C. He died in 1898. One of his sons managed Orari Gorge for many years.
Harman and Davie afterwards had a run on the other side of the Selwyn, and I shall give an account of them when I come to it.
I have never been able to find out where the Fields came from or what happened to them after they sold their run, except that one of them afterwards had a farm at Oxford and died in Christchurch, and that the other died in Australia early in this century.
FitzGerald [1818—1896] who was a brilliant speaker and writer, had been a clerk in the British Museum before he came to New Zealand. He was the first of the Canterbury Pilgrims actually to land in Lyttelton, the first Superintendent of the Province, and the first Premier of New Zealand, though he failed to form a Government. There is a memoir of him written by Sir Robert Stout in the first edition of Who's Who in New Zealand, and one by W. P. Reeves in the Dictionary of National Biography.
FitzGerald worked the Springs as a cattle and dairy station. In 1857 he took Percy Cox, who had been a cadet at Double Corner, into partnership. The firm also owned Longbeach Station where they ran their young cattle. Cox took up the management of the stations, but while he was in England in 1861-1862, FitzGerald again took charge. While he lived at the Springs FitzGerald used to drive himself in a strange looking dog-cart with extremely high wheels, known to all and sundry as 'the circulating medium,' usually with a tandem, sometimes with two leaders, and it was always considered fortunate if he got from Christchurch to the Springs without an accident. George Draper, FitzGerald's brother-in-law, lived at the Springs as overseer and had a small interest in both stations.
Their head stockman was a man named White who had been a navvy in the Crimean War. He afterwards became a warder at Sunnyside and was killed by a lunatic. Their head dairyman was G. A. Smith, afterwards a well known farmer at Lincoln, and known as 'Gully' Smith. He and Pearson, the agricultural foreman, both stayed until the station was sold.
They milked between 50 and 60 cows. Old-time prices are always interesting. In the 'fifties and early 'sixties they got 2/-a pound for their butter, 10d for cheese, and 1/6 for stilton cheese.
In 1859 Hunter Brown, who had recently sold Double Corner, joined the firm, which was thenceforward known as Brown, Cox and Co., though FitzGerald still kept his interest in it. FitzGerald had just been commissioned by Robert Campbell to buy or take up a group of runs, and he took Brown into partnership because he wanted to get the benefit of Brown's great ability and experience in squatting. I do not know whether FitzGerald and Brown did eventually select Robert Campbell and Sons' stations, but except Station Peak, they were all in Otago or Southland.
Brown, Cox and Co. imported several pedigree shorthorn bulls from England, but had bad luck with them. One died the day he reached Lyttelton, one drowned himself in a swamp, and one killed a dairy hand.
Some of the Springs country was very light and some was quaking bog, so until about the beginning of 1862 not much land was bought out of the run by settlers. When settlers did begin to come, however, they came very fast, and so by the beginning of 1863 nearly all the run had gone except the pre-emptives, so Brown, Cox and Co. decided to sell out. The town of Lincoln, by the way, had been part of their freehold and was laid out and sold in sections by FitzGerald.
They sold off the cattle first, then sold the freehold— about three thousand acres, of which Lincoln College farm is a part—to J. Roberts, for £5 an acre with about two thousand acres of pre-emptive rights given in.
Charles Percy Cox was born in 1835 and came of a military family. His father was a captain in the 1st Life Guards and fought at Waterloo. Percy Cox came to New Zealand in 1853 and was a cadet with Hunter Brown at Double Corner for two years. After he left the Springs he bought the Mt. Somers Station which he sold in 1877. He afterwards lived in Christchurch until his death in 1925, aged ninety years and ten months. He had a wonderful memory, and wrote a very readable pamphlet of reminiscences. I have given an account of Hunter Brown's career under Double Corner.
Roberts did not keep the Springs long, but he still had fifteen hundred acres of pre-emptive rights attached to his freehold in 1865.
C. Newton bought the Fields' old run which had become 143 Class II.
Named by Brittan after the place near Bath where Beckford the author of Vathek lived.
Lansdown and the Halswell Station
(
Runs 4, 4a and 104)
These two stations were worked together for some years. Run 4 which at first included Run 4a, was of fifteen thousand acres on the Halswell river, originally taking in the country between Cooper's Knobs and Mt. Pleasant, Major Hornbrook's station on the Port Hills. The Cashmere and Hoon Hay estates were part of it. It was taken up by William Guise Brittan in September, 1851.
Brittan was Commissioner of Crown Lands to the Provincial Government, so he took Michael John Burke into partnership to work the station on thirds. Burke took up Run 104, of five thousand acres across the Halswell, in August, 1853. Run 104 followed the Halswell and then Lake Ellesmere to the mouth of the Selwyn where it joined the Springs Station. Both partners bought freehold on the runs independently.
While the whole place was worked as one it was known as the Halswell Station, and Burke's homestead was at what is now Vale Royal, lately owned by J. L. Turnbull; Charles Tripp, Frank Guinness and Charles Dudley were cadets, and W. B. Bray and Marsake had sheep there on terms.
Brittan and Burke dissolved partnership in 1860. They divided Run 4 by a line running up the valley opposite Lansdown House, through Kennedy's Bush, and on to the ridge looking into Governor's Bay, just clearing Cass's Peak. When Brittan went to live on the station he built his homestead opposite the present Lansdown House just across the river. When this was burnt he re-built where the present house is. He first stocked the run with 400 ewes, and had a bad storm at lambing time, losing all but about 50 lambs. The next year the same ewes produced over 100 per cent, and the flock was afterwards worked up to over 3000. At shearing time the sheep were washed twice, at two days' interval. They were shorn in a makeshift thatched whare. In those days the butchers from Christchurch used to come and kill sheep for themselves in the station yards, and buy the mutton at sixpence a pound, leaving the skins for the owner. The run had been reduced by purchases to three thousand five hundred and ninety-three acres in 1865, and was re-numbered 100, Class II.
Brittan sold Lansdown to Sir Edward Stafford in 1870. Since then it has changed hands several times and is now only a small farm. Brittan died in Christchurch in 1876, aged 66.
Burke sold Run 104 to Thomas Hodgson Parkinson in 1868, but went on with Run 4a (his part of Brittan's) until some time after 1870.
Burke also took up Raincliff in South Canterbury. He was the first man to take a bullock dray through Burke's Pass, which is named after him. His sons afterwards had Waitohi Peaks in North Canterbury.
Guinness's Run
(
Run 138, afterwards re-numbered 110, Class II)
This run was on the Halswell above Burke's. It was of six thousand acres, and roughly speaking ran from Tai Tapu to Ladbrooks. Colonel Guinness and Burke took it up in February, 1854, for Frank Guinness. Frank Guinness, who died in 1892, was the father of Sir Arthur and of E. R. Guinness, now the owner of Glentanner in the Mackenzie Country. The homestead was where the Braithwaites used to live, on the land afterwards bought by Sir Heaton Rhodes and given to given to the people of Tai Tapu for a park.
Guinness lived there from 1855 untl 1860 when he transferred it to Thomas Barrett. Guinness called his run the Halswell Station, but early settlers usually applied that name to Burke's, and called his 'Guinness's' simply.
Barrett was, according to the Cyclopædia of New Zealand, one of four brothers who had had runs in Western Australia in the 'forties and early 'fifties. They came to New Zealand about 1858 and two of them, Charles and Thomas, settled on this station. There were three hundred and forty acres of freehold when they bought it and the run was almost intact, but settlers came very fast in the next few years. The Barretts had only a thousand acres of leasehold left in 1865, fifty-four acres in 1866, and a year later the run disappeared from the lists altogether. The Barretts called the place Reeds, and are said by the Cyclopædia to have bought it from Stewart, the manager of the Union Bank. He was perhaps Guinness's agent.
Charles Barrett was still farming two hundred acres of the freehold when the Cyclopædia of New Zealand was written, about 1900.
Prebble's Run
(
Run 10)
This was five thousand acres of country round about Prebbleton. It lay on the Halswell and joined the Springs and Coringa. William Prebble, after whom Prebbleton is named, took it up on 1st January, 1852.
Prebble and his family arrived in New Zealand in 1840, and coming down to Canterbury in 1845, were employed by the Greenwoods at Motunau and by the Rhodes Brothers at Purau and Ahuriri. It was probably while working at Ahuriri that Prebble realised that this piece of country was vacant. He did not settle on it until 1854.
By 1856 there was less than half the run left and it was re-numbered 112 Class II.
Practically the whole run was bought up before 1865, but the Prebbles themselves secured several hundred acres of it and part of this is still in the Prebble family's hands.
Mt. Pleasant
Mt. Pleasant was not taken up in one or two large pastoral runs as the other Canterbury stations were, but was made up of a number of small Class I and Class II runs, which were bought and united by Major Alfred Hornbrook in the first few years of the Settlement, so if I had been consistent, I should not have included it. The country took in the whole of the Port Hills between the Heathcote, Sumner, Godley Head, and Lyttelton, and included the Ruapaki Native Reserve. Mt. Pleasant joined Lansdown near Cashmere and Dyer's Pass.
The original homestead and woolshed were on the top of the hill overlooking Sumner, and Hornbrook used to signal from there to Christchurch when ships were coming into Lyttelton Harbour.
Major Hornbrook had served in the British Legion in Spain in 1837. He came to Wellington in the early 'forties, and in 1849 when he heard that the Canterbury Settlers were about to arrive, he moved down to Lyttelton and started the Mitre Hotel. He was also one of the first men to start a station in South Canterbury, where he took up Arowhenua, but like many another enterprising pioneer, he lost most of his money in the end. Mt. Pleasant was a bad station for scab; I suppose it was continually re-infected by sheep landed from Australia.
During his prosperous days, Hornbrook bought Risingholme from the Hon. William Reeves, but sold it back to him in 1870. At the same time he sold Mt. Pleasant to R. M. Morten and W. White, but lived the rest of his life at Opawa. Mrs. Hornbrook had the distinction of being the last woman in Canterbury to wear a crinoline.
Morten and White dissolved partnership in 1879. They put Mt. Pleasant up to auction and both bid for it. Morten bought it at £6 an acre.
As long as the partnership lasted, the sheep were shorn at the old homestead, but when he had bought out his partner, Morten moved the station buildings to where they stand now, just at the Christchurch end of the Lyttelton tunnel.
White was William White who built the bridges over the Waimakariri and Rakaia rivers. His son was Leonard White, the very successful sheep and cattle breeder. There is an account of Morten in my note on Ahuriri.
John Weir managed Mt. Pleasant for Morten and his executors until it was sold.
Until 1909 the station consisted of six thousand five hundred acres of freehold, but from 1910 onwards the trustees sold off the land in blocks. One would imagine that managing a station carrying 7000 sheep within ten minutes of Cathedral Square would be as nice a job as a sheepfarmer could want, but Weir told me that fires, worrying dogs, and picnic parties disturbing the lambing ewes made his life a misery, and that he would sooner look after a place in the back country.
Mt. Pleasant has now been divided up into a number of grazing farms, orchards, market gardens, and residential sites. The suburbs Clifton, Scarborough, and that under Mt. Pleasant itself were all parts of it.
The homestead now belongs to J. E. Scott who still shears about 3000 sheep there.
Smart And Turner's Run
(
Run 103, later re-numbered 110 Class II)
This run was taken up about the end of 1851 by Charles Turner and William Smart. The country ran from the Styx River to the Waimakariri, and joined Coringa just below Templer's Island. Turner was a butcher who had a shop on the river between Hereford and Cashel Streets, and was the owner of several horses in the earliest days of racing in Canterbury.
Smart was a builder. After various enterprises, such as prospecting for gold in Otago, where Mt. Smart at the head of the Greenstone is named after him, in 1872 he opened the White Rock quarries in partnership with William Wilson. He died in Christchurch about the end of the last century, leaving a widow but no children.
In the late 'sixties Smart sold his interest to his partner and Turner took Matthew Lee Joyce, another butcher, into partnership for a time.
Their manager was Thomas Butcher, and the run was worked as a cattle station. The homestead was on the bend of the Styx near Chaney's Corner, and Turner bought a good deal of freehold on that part of the run. It was for many years leased to T. and J. Flack, and was cut up and sold by Turner's executors in 1909.
The Sand Hills Run
(Runs 9, 72 and 239)
This station took in the country on the coast between the Styx River and the Estuary. William Derisley Wood took up Run 9 on 31st January, 1852, and he and his partner and brother-in-law, William Chisnall, took up Run 72 on 14th January, 1853.
In September, 1853, Wood and Chisnall sold the station to Dr. Moore and Peter Kerr, though the leases were not transferred officially until 4th June, 1854.
Wood and Chisnall then took up Snowdon Station. After they sold Snowdon, Wood founded the flour milling business which still belongs to his sons, and in later life he bought Swyncombe Station near Kaikoura. He was born in England in 1826 and died in Christchurch in 1906. Chisnall was the first owner of Russley, afterwards Dr. Prins's stud farm, and also rented an island in the Waimakariri which he worked with it. He was drowned while crossing from one to the other. His descendants are now landowners in the Hinds district.
Wood and Chisnall worked the Sand Hills Run as a dairy station, and supplied Christchurch with milk. Their manager was Peter Kerr who bought the station from them in partnership with Dr. Moore.
In February, 1858, Moore and Kerr took up Run 239, which was all sand hills and probably not thought worth bothering with before.
Most of the Sand Hills Station lay within six miles of Christchurch and the land worth buying on it was selected very quickly from 1863 onwards. Dr. Moore sold his share of the station to Kerr in 1864. In 1865 Kerr had something over six thousand acres of the leasehold left. He had also several hundred acres of freehold, part of which still belongs to his descendants who are the Kerrs now well known as the owners and trainers of trotting horses. When the Kerrs threw up the leasehold country, C. T. Dudley rented it for some years up to 1901.
Dr. Moore was one of the first doctors in practice in Christchurch. There is an account of him in Tales of Banks Peninsula. His father was Mayor of Salisbury. Dr. Moore came to New Zealand in 1851 and settled in Charteris Bay, but did not succeed at farming and had to go back to his profession, though he imported some very good dairy cattle, and strains of their blood were valued for many years on the Peninsula. He died in Christchurch about 1870.
Fooks's Run
(Run 131)
There was another run of five thousand acres which lay between Kerr's Run and the Papanui Road. It was taken up by C. E. Fooks, the architect who built the old Avonside Church. Being so near Christchurch the sound land on it was bought up by speculators and settlers almost at once. Fooks bought several hundred acres of it himself and as late as 1863 had six hundred acres of the leasehold left. This leasehold was in such an impracticable swamp that the freeholders were afraid to tackle it.
I do not think Fooks's run was ever worked as a regular station, but simply as a place to turn out stock temporarily.
I have given an account of Fooks in my note on Lochinvar.
Chapter 3
Plains Stations North Of The
Waimakariri
Day's Run
(
Run 133, afterwards re-numbered 99, Class II)
North of the Waimakariri the nearest run to the sea was a small one of five thousand acres on Kaiapoi Island. It was taken up on 15th February, 1854, by William Smith who transferred it in the same year to George Day. I am unable to identify William Smith. Day was a brother of Joseph Day, who was Harbour Master at Sumner for many years. For some years after he parted from Turner, William Smart was a partner in this run, either with Day or with one of his successors.
This run was close to Kaiapoi and contained some of the best agricultural land in New Zealand, so all the land on it except river bed and swamp was soon bought up by farmers.
By 1863 the run had been reduced to six hundred acres, and re-numbered 99, Class II. It had been transferred to W. H. Mein, an early Christchurch butcher whose shop was in Colombo Street near Cookham House, and had a boiling down and fellmongering works at Kaiapoi.
In 1865 the run had been transferred to William Coup. He transferred it in 1867 to Belcher and Fairweather who still had it in 1870 when it contained four hundred and eighty-two acres, and that is the last trace I can find of it. Belcher and Fairweather were carriers of wool and stores between Saltwater Creek and the stations in North Canterbury in the 'sixties. There are several of Belcher's descendants still living in the district. Fairweather was for many years a farmer at Kaiapoi, and his widow died in 1929 in Brown's Road. Coup arrived in New Zealand in 1855 and bought land on Kaiapoi Island where Coup's Road is named after him. He was lost in the Matoaka in 1869.
Wai-Iti
(
Runs 31 and 32)
Wai-iti lies on the north bank of the Waimakariri above Day's run. It originally contained eleven thousand acres altogether, and ran to the present Kaiapoi-Oxford railway.
Runs 31 and 32 were both taken up in 1852, Run 31, the country north of the Eyre, by H. C. Young and Run 32, the country between the Eyre and Waimakariri, by Captain James Row, a Cornishman. Young transferred his run to Row in the same year. When Row united the two runs, a new pasturage license was issued for both and numbered 32, and the number 31 was afterwards used for Blue Cliffs in South Canterbury. The country across the Eyre was all bought up very early.
About 1860 Row sold the station to Charles Hillyard, but kept the homestead and a few hundred acres, where he continued to live, Hillyard building a new homestead a little further up the Eyre.
In 1867 Hillyard took Horatio James Wood, who had just arrived in New Zealand from Melbourne, into partnership. In 1868 the station was taken over by the mortgagees, Francis James Garrick and the Hon. J. T. Peacock. Peacock bought Garrick's share of it in 1870.
Hillyard went to Fiji and did not return to New Zealand. Wood afterwards edited a paper called the North Canterbury Independent at Kaiapoi, and later on went to Southland where he edited another paper. He died in 1901, aged fifty-eight.
Charles Overton (afterwards of Swannanoa and of Winerslow Station), managed Wai-iti for about ten years from 1871 onwards, and in his time the flock was changed from merinos to halfbreds. When the Cyclopædia of New Zealand was written Peacock had 3000 sheep running on two thousand three hundred acres of freehold. His manager at that time was Alfred Daniel Low.
After Peacock's death, his step-son J. A. McRae Peacock managed the station for the trustees until it was sold in 1907 or 1908. Peacock had been a merchant and shipowner in Sydney. He came to Canterbury about 1856, and among other activities built one of the first wharves at Lyttelton. He became one of the leading commercial men of Christchurch.
I forget who bought Wai-iti from Peacock's trustees, but Richard Dixon bought it in the winter of 1927, and according to the Pastoral Review gave £17,600 for the two thousand three hundred and thirty acres.
Run 84, between Wai-iti and Eyrewell, seems to have been part of Wai-iti for a time, but to have been sold by Hillyard to Dixon of Eyrewell, about 1866.
Eyrewell
(
Runs 83 and 93, and later 84)
Eyrewell has never changed hands except by inheritance. It lies next above Wai-iti on the Waimakariri and at one time took in the whole country between the Waimakariri and the Eyre for about nine miles. Marmaduke Dixon took up Run 83 of six thousand acres on 17th May, 1853, and Run 93 in the following July.
There was very little water on these runs before the water races were made, and Eyrewell is named after a well eighty feet deep which Dixon dug single-handed when he first settled there. I have heard that when Dixon was digging this well, he had to climb down and fill the bucket, climb the ladder again and pull up the bucket with a hand winch, empty it, and so down again. Apparently he called the station the Hermitage for the first year or two; at least that is the name given to it in a Sheep Return of 1854 when he had 3000 sheep there.
Most of Eyrewell was light manuka country, so that very little freehold was bought on the run by farmers. In 1889, when the Midland Railway Company were given land as a progress payment for the railway they were building, the Eyrewell leasehold and a great deal of other government country near it, was included in their area. The Company sold the land for what it would fetch, giving the sitting tenants the first offer of it. Dixon bought his own run for 15/-an acre, and also the leasehold parts of Burnt Hill and Dagnam— runs above him on the river, whose owners did not care to make them freehold. In 1904 and 1907 his son, also called Marmaduke Dixon, bought most of the Worlingham Station and also added the Waimakariri country of that to Eyrewell. After these increases Eyrewell carried about 15,000 sheep.
The Dixons are the only people, except Moore of Glenmark, who have tried the experiment of sowing tussock seed, which they did on bare, burnt, manuka country to give shelter to finer grasses. They were great pioneers in the improvement of manuka country in various ways and spent a lot of money in cutting the scrub, crushing it down with rollers, and ploughing it in with swamp ploughs.
Marmaduke Dixon (II) died in 1918 and the station is now worked by trustees. Sales of land have brought it down in size, but it still carries about 5000 sheep.
Run 83 became Run 429, Class II, on 1st May, 1879. Run 84 was taken up by Robert Chapman on 18th May, 1853, and stocked with 250 ewes. He apparently sold it to Hillyard, and as I said in my note on Wai-iti, Hillyard transferred it to Dixon about 1866.
The first Marmaduke Dixon firmly believed that sun spots influence the weather. I have read lately that scientists have now come to the same conclusion. Dixon was a member of the Provincial Council and an enlightened worker on local bodies, and was the originator of the long straight roads in his district. Before settling in Canterbury he had been at sea. He came to New Zealand in 1849, and was so pleased with the country that he decided to come and live here, although he was just due to command a ship. He finally arrived in Canterbury in 1851. He died in 1897, aged 67.
Worlingham
(
Run 119, and later 78)
Worlingham was the next station on the Waimakariri above Eyrewell. Run 119, fourteen thousand five hundred acres of country on the Waimakariri, was taken up in August, 1853, by Thomas Kesteven, who kept it until 1867 when he sold it to Thomas James Curtis.
Kesteven was born in London in 1808. Before he came to New Zealand he had had a cloth warehouse in London in partnership with two of his brothers. After he sold Worlingham, which he named after the village near Beccles where his mother was born, he retired and lived at Fendalton where he died in 1873.
Run 78, the country on the Eyre, was taken by Robert Higgins for J. T. Murphy on 23rd February, 1852. Murphy worked this from his station on the other side of the Eyre until some time in the late 'sixties when he sold it to Curtis and it became part of Worlingham.
Curtis sold Worlingham to Joseph Pearson of Burnt Hill in 1873. I do not know anything about Curtis except that he was an American from Massachusetts and was naturalised a British subject on 1st January, 1861, and that in 1862 he was Superintendent of the Lyttelton Fire Brigade, and someone, I forget who, told me that he went to Australia after he sold his station. He seems to have always lived in Lyttelton.
Pearson did not keep Worlingham long. He made it over to his son William Fisher Pearson and Harry Brettagh. They shore about 6500 sheep there. The old homestead had been on the Waimakariri, but Brettagh and Pearson moved it over to the Eyre.
The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company took the station over from Brettagh and Pearson in 1890. The company sold it to Major P. Johnson, now of Raincliff, in 1894.
In 1904 Johnson sold the country on the Waimakariri to the second Marmaduke Dixon, and the homestead and country on the Eyre to J. T. Tipping. In 1907 Tipping sold most of the country he had bought, to Dixon, but sold the homestead and a small part of the land to Thomas Izard who transferred it a year or two afterwards to G. L. le Vee.
Dagnam
(
Run 135)
This run of five thousand acres next above Worlingham was taken up in 1852, or early in 1853, by Crackenthorp John Wentworth Cookson. The run lists give 1854 as the rate of the original license, but Cookson told me himself that he was living there in 1853. Cookson was related to the Neave family at Home, and named his station after their place in Essex.
Dagnam was very light country and only carried about 1000 sheep. Cookson bought no freehold there. He sold the run to Joseph Pearson of Burnt Hill in 1857, and it continued to be part of Burnt Hill until Dixon bought the freehold of it in 1890.
After selling the run, Cookson went in for farming for a time. He died shortly before the 1914-18 War, in Lyttelton, where he had lived for many years in retirement.
In the run lists of the 'sixties, Miles and Co. are given as the tenants of Dagnam. They were Pearson's mortgagees. The area of the run is given as being over nine thousand acres. The smaller area given in the older lists was probably Cookson's estimate before the country was surveyed.
Burnt Hill
(
Run 1, and afterwards 135)
Burnt Hill ran from the Waimakariri to the Eyre and was bounded on the east by Dagnam and the Warren. It was taken up by Joseph Pearson in October, 1851. Although some twenty runs had been taken up before it, it was numbered 1 in the old run lists, because the original Run 1, which J. C. Boys had taken up near Mt. Thomas, had just been forfeited, and the number 1 was used again. Run 1 contained seven thousand four hundred acres.
Pearson had been one of Joseph Hawdon's managers in Australia, and he came over early in 1851 in charge of sheep of Hawdon's, Aitken's, and the Macdonalds', and to report on the new Golony. Besides taking up Burnt Hill for himself he took up several runs for Hawdon, and was the first man to explore the upper Waimakariri, where Lake Pearson is named after him.
In 1857 he bought Dagnam from Cookson. He did not buy the freehold of the whole of his runs when the Midland Railway Company offered it to him, but he made six or seven thousand acres freehold. This was cut up and sold by his executors about 1904, when one of the Bassetts bought the homestead block. This still belongs to Bassett. It is a nice piece of country and includes the actual hill after which the station is named. It now carries between 1500 and 2000 sheep.
View Hill
(
Run 6)
View Hill, the station above Burnt Hill on the Waimakariri, brings us to the foot of the hills. It was twenty thousand and odd acres, and was taken by John Cristie Aitken in September, 1852. Pearson of Burnt Hill managed the run on shares for Aitken from 1854 till 1858. The sheep increased from 2700 in 1854 to 6000 in 1858.
Some time about 1860 Aitken sold View Hill to Captain Millton, an account of whom will be found in my notes on Birch Hill. Millton sold to Edwin Barnes Walker in 1865, and Walker sold to John Richard Gorton in 1873. In those days View Hill carried 13,000 sheep.
Gorton was born in Suffolk and educated at Marlborough. Before he came to New Zealand he had spent twenty years managing and owning stations in Victoria and New South Wales.
In 1889 Gorton lost the leasehold country, but he had enough freehold left with the station to carry nearly 5000 sheep. He died in 1900 and since his death much of the land has been sold, but his son still has the homestead and land adjoining, and also the lease of the Mt. Oxford country which was originally part of Snowdale.
Aitken, who with his brother J. H. R. Aitken owned several other Canterbury runs in the early days, arrived here at the beginning of 1851 with a ship-load of cattle which he brought in partnership with Hawdon. He sold all his station property in the 'sixties and invested in town land. About 1870 he went home to England with a fortune. General F. Aitken is his son.
Before coming to New Zealand the Aitkens had had stations on the Murrumbidgee in Australia.
The Warren
(
Run 35)
The Warren lay on the south bank of the Eyre, between Burnt Hill and Worlingham. It contained nearly twelve thousand acres and was taken up on 1st June, 1852, by Cookson and Bowler, who did not occupy it but sold it within about a year to Sanderson and Brayshaw. Sanderson, the managing partner, worked the Warren country from Carleton, his station on the other side of the Eyre.
In 1855 Sanderson and Brayshaw sold the Warren to Major Thomas Woolaston White who named it, and started it as a station, with his brother, Taylor White.
White had 700 sheep in 1856, and 1800 by 1858. He got into difficulties during the 'sixties, and about 1866 his agents, the Trust and Agency Company of Australasia, sold the Warren to George William Lee, though the run was not transferred to Lee's name until 1873. Lee died in 1883. His executors carried on the station for his legatee, Bennet Rothes Langton of Spilsby Hall, Lincoln, England (I suppose a descendent of Dr. Samuel Johnson's friend), until May, 1912, when Robert W. Chapman bought it from them. Chapman cut it up and sold it shortly afterwards.
Cookson and Bowler, the first owners of the Warren, were speculators who took up one or two other runs in the 'fifties, always selling them after a year or two. William Bowler was a Wellington merchant to whose business Levin and Company are the successors. When the Pilgrims arrived he sent Isaac Cookson down to open a branch in Canterbury, and Cookson and Bowler became the chief merchants here during the 'fifties.
Cookson lived in the Heathcote Valley. He entertained Bishop Harper and his family at dinner there when they walked over the Bridle Path on their first arrival in Canterbury. His wife was a daughter of Sir Mathew Ridley, the famous Yorkshire sportsman.
I shall give accounts of Thomas Sanderson and George Brayshaw when I come to Greta Peaks and Waimate.
Major White had been in the 48th Bengal Native Infantry Regiment, and afterwards on the Australian gold diggings. He commanded the Militia or Volunteers in Canterbury from 1861 till 1867. He also owned the Mt. White and Sherwood Stations. He was before my time but I have been told that he had a very bad temper. After losing his money he went to live in Fiji, but was deported for raising a riot. He then became Stock Inspector in the North Island, but quarrelled with his superiors and ended his days at Lake Wakatipu.
His brother, Taylor White, left the Warren to start Mt. White Station, and after that he took up Mt. Nicholas on Lake Wakatipu. When he sold Mt. Nicholas he went to live in Hawke's Bay, where he died not long before the 1914-18 War. He was a keen field naturalist, and many papers by him are published in the Transactions of the N.Z. Institute.
As well as the Warren, Lee had Wharfedale Station up the Ashley. Lee's Valley there is named after him. He was known as 'Jockey' Lee, and was a well known owner and amateur rider in the early days of racing in Canterbury.
Carleton
(
Run 34)
Carleton was between the Eyre and Cust rivers, and went back to the foot of the Harewood Forest. It contained eight thousand acres and was taken up by Cookson and Bowler when they took up the Warren, on 1st June, 1852.
Cookson and Bowler sold both runs to Sanderson and Brayshaw about 1853.
Sanderson and Brayshaw seem to have sometimes called the station Mt. Plenty and sometimes Tumukai. The current name now-a-days is Starvation Hill.
Sanderson, who soon took over Brayshaw's interest, started with 257 sheep in 1854. He had 1800 in 1855. Carleton was a poor run in its native state, and I suppose it must have been fully stocked by 1857. In 1861 Sanderson sold it to Major H. J. Coote, of whom I have no particulars, except that he came out to New Zealand in 1853 as brigade-major to the troops in Wellington. In 1866 R. H. Rhodes and Robert Wilkin, the mortgagees, took the station over from Coote. Wilkin was a leading stock and station agent in Christchurch. He and Rhodes were partners in several other stations. J. H. Davison, their manager at Racecourse Hill looked after Carleton for them.
I think Rhodes and Wilkin sold the station to somebody about 1871, but had to take it back. In 1880 they sold it again to James Thomson, one of the brothers who had owned Otaio.
Thomson left the Carleton in 1885 and the station was sub-divided and sold in farms. The Homestead block belongs to P. H. Thomson; the old house was about two hundred yards behind the present one.
Murphy's Run
(
Run 14)
I learn from an old stock return that this station was called Pukeriki for a time in the 'fifties. The two homesteads on it were afterwards known as Tara and the Downs, but the station as a whole was generally known as Murphy's Run.
It was about fourteen thousand acres and ran from the Eyre to the Cust below the Carleton Run. It was taken up on 17th October, 1851, by Robert Luke Higgins for John T. Murphy. Murphy was a large squatter in Australia. He sent Higgins over to Canterbury with stock to take up country as a managing partner. Murphy continued to live in Australia but came over once or twice in the 'fifties to see the station.
Higgins built his original hut on the site of the old house at Tara, which I believe is still standing. He continued as managing partner as long as Murphy lived, and after his death became his executor. In 1853 Higgins took up another run, No. 78, for Murphy. It lay south of the Eyre but was sold to T. J. Curtis in the late 'sixties and became part of Worlingham.
In the early 'sixties Murphy sent his son over to the run. When the younger Murphy married he built a separate homestead on the downs where A. R. Blunden lives. He was killed about 1870 while riding home from a mounted paper chase. His widow, who was a daughter of Dr. Moore, one of the earliest Christchurch doctors and Canterbury runholders, afterwards married R. Blunden and lived at the Downs until her death in 1918. The old house was burnt down in 1922 but has been rebuilt, and Mrs. Blunden's son still lives there.
The Murphys bought the freehold of a great deal of good land on the run. In the late 'eighties when the partnership with Higgins ended, most of the land was leased to farmers, and in 1921 it was all cut up and sold except the Downs homestead farm.
Springbank
(
Run 3)
This run lay between the Eyre and Cust. On the west it joined Murphy's run and on the east it was bounded by the Manderville and Rangiora Swamp. It was taken up in October, 1851, by William Kaye, a squatter from Castlemain in Australia.
Kaye's manager was Robert Chapman, who had been with him on one of his stations in Australia, and whom he took into partnership. In October, 1853, not long after Chapman arrived, Kaye sold out to him altogether and returned to Australia where he did well with several stations, and in a few years went home to England with a fortune.
Springbank was originally about twenty-three thousand acres, of which Chapman succeeded in making about fifteen thousand freehold. On his death in 1882 the station was divided among his sons, the homestead and three thousand five hundred acres going to Edward Chapman. Edward Chapman died in 1893 as the result of a shooting accident at Lochinvar. The property was carried on by his executors until 1912 when it was cut up and sold in farms. George Rutherford, who had just sold Dalethorpe, bought the homestead and thirteen hundred acres.
Although the homestead of Springbank, with most of the land, has now passed into other hands, Dennis and Robert Chapman—grandsons of the original owner —still own two thousand acres of the old freehold.
Ashley Gorge
(
Runs 29 and 302)
Run 29, of ten thousand acres, below the Harewood Forest between the Cust and the Ashley, was taken up on 29th May, 1852, by Thomas Ellis and Gustav Gartner (sometimes called Gustav von Gartner). They also kept the Golden Fleece Hotel in Christchurch in partnership. Ellis was the son of a doctor at Birmingham where he was born. He arrived in Canterbury in 1851. In my first edition I confused him with a different Ellis, but these particulars were apparently supplied to the Cyclopædia of New Zealand by his sons so are probably correct.
Ashley Gorge seems to have been called Pukaukau in 1855, when Ellis, who bought Gartner's share that year, had 1035 sheep running on it. In May, 1859, Ellis took up Run 302 of five thousand acres between his original run and the bush. The station afterwards carried 6,000 sheep.
In 1881 Ellis let the run and sheep to Alexander Henderson, who had been his manager, and McBeath, and the Government cut up the leasehold in 1896. A few years later Ellis's executors sold the freehold (near East Oxford) to the Government who made a deferred payment settlement of it.
When Ellis let the station he went home to Birmingham where he died about 1890.
Fernside
(
Run 2)
Fernside Station, after which the Fernside district is named, lay between the Ashley and Gust and ran from the eastern boundary of Ashley Gorge to within two or three miles of Rangiora. It was taken up on 28th August, 1851, by Charles Obins Torlesse. Torlesse was born in 1825 at Stoke, where his father was the parson. He first came to New Zealand in 1841 as a surveyor for the New Zealand Company under Wakefield. He returned to England in 1843, but came out again in 1848 with Captain Thomas to survey Canterbury. He was the first white man to climb Mt. Torlesse which is named after him. Besides Fernside, Torlesse owned Birch Hill Station, and a farm at Rangiora where he lived. He stocked Fernside in the first year with 1400 ewes, 500 dry sheep, 20 steers and 3 horses. By 1857 he had 9000 sheep there. From 1856 till 1859, when he sold all his land and runs, Torlesse's brother Henry had a share in them. Henry Torlesse [1833-1870] was afterwards a parson in Canterbury. For a year or two in the middle 'fifties the Hon. William Reeves managed Fernside for the Torlesses and had a share in it.
Torlesse sold Fernside and Birch Hill in 1859 to Mannering and Cunningham, and went home to England. He came back to Christchurch in 1862, and started as a stock and station agent in partnership with Henry Matson. His health failed a year or two later and he again went home to England where he died in 1866.
Besides Fernside and Birch Hill, Mannering and Cunningham owned Snowdale, in my account of which I have described their careers. Cunningham was the partner who lived at Fernside. In 1866 they were ruined by scab and bad times, and George Hart of Winchmore, who was their mortgagee, took over their runs.
Fernside contained good land and lay near the settlement at Rangiora, so the land was bought up quickly in the 'sixties. It was originally of twenty thousand acres, but by 1863 had been reduced to under twelve thousand; in 1865 to under seven thousand, and in 1866 almost all the run had been bought. To give Mannering another start Hart let him have the free-hold and homestead at a low rent. Later Mannering sub-let the land to Captain Parsons and the house to C. L. Wiggins, who had been his cadet at Snowdale. Wiggins started a school there. After over sixty years of teaching, this good old man died at the age of eighty-four in 1927.
The land was gradually sold off, and what remains with the homestead now belongs to F. W. Carpenter.
Glentui
(
Run 145)
Glentui lay on the foothills between the gorge of the Ashley and the Tui creek, and ran back to the Harewood Forest Reserve. It was originally a small run of five thousand acres carrying about 1400 sheep. It was taken up by H. C. H. Knowles in December. 1854.
In the 'seventies the Hon. Edward Richardson had a flax mill near the Ashley Gorge Bridge and began buying flax land out of the run. On the flax becoming unprofitable he converted the mill into a sawmill and Richardson and Company began buying up the bush land as well and stocked their cleared land with sheep, making Glentui untenable, so that in 1875 Knowles sold the station to Richardson and Company. Richardson and Company then obtained Wharfedale from G. W. H. Lee by a similar process.
In the late 'eighties Glentui and Wharfedale with 25,000 sheep passed from Richardson and Company to the Bank of New Zealand, and became the property of the Bank of New Zealand Assets Realisation Company in 1891. John O'Halloran was the company's manager. On the realisation of these properties in 1899 Glentui again became separated from Wharfedale and O'Halloran bought it. It still belongs to his family. The hills on the north side of the Tui Creek which belong to the present Glentui Station originally belonged to Birch Hill. Richardson selected this country when he was paid in land for building the first Ashley Gorge Bridge.
I have no particulars of Knowles. I learn from Who's Who in N.Z. that the Hon. Edward Richardson, C.M.G., was born in London in 1831, and arrived in New Zealand in 1861 with George Holmes. They came from Australia where they had been partners, and came over to build the Christchurch-Lyttelton tunnel. Richardson became a Member of the Provincial Council of Canterbury in 1870, Member of the House of Representatives in 1871, and Minister of Public Works in 1872. He held this portfolio in several Governments. He died in 1915.
Birch Hill
(
Run 66)
We were told as children that what we call birch trees are really beech trees, and the scientific people are still trying to bring this knowledge home to us, but I like the old name best, and still hear most people use it up country. This incorrect classification should be perpetuated by a number of well established local names. There are three Birch Hill Stations in the Island, a Birchgrove, two Birchwoods, two Birchdales, and a Birch Hollow.
This particular Birch Hill, sometimes spoken of as Birch Hill North to distinguish it from Birch Hill in the Mackenzie Country (the third Birch Hill is in Marlborough), lay on the foot-hills between the Tui Creek and the Garry, and was of seven thousand acres. It was first applied for by John Thomas Brown on 1st January, 1853, but apparently he sold it at once to Charles Obins Torlesse, as there is no record or tradition of Brown having stocked it. Torlesse was the first man to stock it and the station woolbrand is still C. O. T. In 1858 or 1859 Torlesse sold Birch Hill to Mannering and Cunningham, at the same time as Fernside, and, with Fernside and Snowdale, Birch Hill was taken over by George Hart in 1866. In 1874 Hart sold Birch Hill and Snowdale, with 40,000 sheep, to Captain W. N. Millton who had taken up the Okuku country early in the 'fifties, and wanted Birch Hill as a shearing place for it.
Before settling on shore, Millton had commanded the Zingaree, almost the earliest steamer to trade into Lyttelton. His first recorded arrival in New Zealand was in 1842 when he brought a shipload of cattle to Wellington from Australia, and in 1845 he was engaged in transporting troops from Tasmania and Norfolk Island to North Auckland for the Hone Heke War. His first land venture was at Nelson where he bought what is now Anzac Park, but long known as Million's Acre.
The Birch Hill run was included in the Midland Railway area, and was made freehold in 1890. When Captain Million died in 1889 his stations were divided amongst his sons. The homestead part o£ Birch Hill belonged to Lieut-Colonel E. B. Millton, but part of Birch Hill was cut off for J. D. Millton and is now known as the Rakahuri Estate. Colonel Millton died in March, 1942, but the station is still worked by his executors. Birch Hill, besides being used as a stud sheep farm, still fulfills the purpose fills the purpose for which Captain Millton bought it— a shearing place for what is left of the Okuku country. Robert Lawrie was Million's first manager at Birch Hill, and afterwards a man named Gordon. Henry Elderton,Died in April, 1930.
who is still flourishing and a mine of information on the runs in these parts, was Millton's first head shepherd. Reginald Foster and C. L. Wiggins were both cadets with Mannering and Cunningham at Birch Hill.
Mt. Thomas
(
Runs 73, 75 and 234)
Mt. Thomas took in the country in the fork of the Okuku and Ashley. The first man to take up a run on what afterwards became Mt. Thomas Station was John Cowell Boys who was one of Captain Thomas's surveyors, and his pasturage license was the first to be issued by the Provincial Government, and the original Run 1. This was early in 1851. But Boys did not fulfil the conditions of his lease, so the Waste Lands Board cancelled it after a year and used the Number 1 again for Pearson's run, Burnt Hill. John Thomas Brown took up another part of the Mt. Thomas country as Run 75 on 3rd September, 1851, and in January, 1852, Captain W. T. Hervey took up Run 73. Hervey transferred Run 73 to Roderick McKay who transferred it to J. T. Brown on 15th May, 1854. Brown took up Run 234, five thousand acres at the back of Mt. Thomas in January, 1858. Brown was born in Norwich in 1816. He was a surveyor in England and came to New Zealand in the Midlothian in 1851.
Brown started Mt. Thomas as a cattle station in 1852, but in 1855 let it on terms to the Maude Brothers for five years.
In the 'seventies the station carried 13,000 sheep, but afterwards Walter Nicholls bought four thousand acres of the run and started the Haylands Estate, and when the Midland Railway Company offered the run for sale in 1890, the Browns would not buy it, so Nicholls did. After this Mt. Thomas carried 9000 sheep on freehold.
Herbert Brown, son of the first occupier, lived at Mt. Thomas until his death in 1928, but in 1910 sold the sheep and let nearly all the land in farms for a term of years and later on sold it. The homestead still belongs to his estate and is one of the few in Canterbury which still belong to the original family. Miss Julia Brown also owns about eight hundred acres of the original homestead block.
Loburn
(
Run 1a)
Loburn is the spelling which has long been used for the name of this station and for the district which is named after it, but the older spelling was Lowburn, and Macfarlane, who named it, said it was undoubtedly the right one.
Loburn lay on the north side of the Ashley and took in the downs at the back of Mt. Grey. At one time it took in most of Whiterock as well. Run 1a, of about thirteen thousand acres, was taken up by John Macfarlane in September, 1851. Macfarlane sold Loburn to Cunningham Brothers (Arthur and Charles, sons of Cunningham of Fernside) in 1862, and built a new homestead at Whiterock, in my note on which I have placed an account of him. John O'Halloran, afterwards of Glentui, was his head shepherd at Loburn.
Loburn was very scrubby, and a bad place to get a clean muster, and the Cunninghams had a very bad time with scab. It was a poor run altogether, but there was some heavy land in the valleys, a good deal of which was bought in small blocks by navvies with the money they had been paid for digging the Lyttelton tunnel.
Dalgety & Co. took the station over from the Cunninghams in 1884. At that time it carried 6000 sheep, but Dalgety & Co. sold off the land bit by bit, and since their time the homestead and land with it has been through many hands. Among others, I had it myself in partnership with Hugh Reeves for a few months and we did well by further sub-dividing it. The homestead afterwards belonged to James Wotherston and then to Thomas Gibson of A. H. Turnbull & Co. I do not know what became of A. Cunningham after he left Loburn, but Charles Cunningham was afterwards a stock inspector. He died at Rangiora in the 1920's and was kind enough to tell me a good deal of the run history of the Ashley district.
Mt. Grey
(
Runs 11 and 194)
This station covered all the country from the Ashley to the south branch of the Kowai, and from the sea to the foot of Mt. Grey. It is one of the oldest stations in Canterbury and was held under the New Zealand regulations before the Canterbury Settlement. It was taken up by Captain Mitchell, probably about the middle of 1850. Mitchell arrived in New Zealand in 1848. In 1850 he and Dashwood travelled overland from the Wairau to Canterbury. He started Mt. Grey as a cattle station, and went back to India in October, 1850. Ward in his diary published in the Press of 14th February, 1925, speaks of Mitchell having a house and cows at Mt. Grey in January, 1851. Mitchell died about the.end of 1851 and his representatives sold his station in April, 1852, to Major Edward Maurice O'Connell for £400 without the cattle, which were taken at valuation and brought the total price for the station and cattle up to about £2000. O'Connell belonged to the 99th Regiment and had been Brigade-major to the Commander of the troops in Wellington. He came to Lyttelton in the schooner Twins in April, 1852, so did not waste much time in buying a station. At the time of Governors FitzRoy and Hobson, a Lieut.-General Sir Maurice O'Connell was in command of the troops in New South Wales and I take it Major O'Connell was his son.
On 1st January, 1852, Pasturage License 11, for ten thousand acres, was issued to O'Connell under the Canterbury Land Regulations. O'Connell died about the year 1855, but his widow went on with the station. She was a great dairy farmer and milked 50 cows there in 1856. Thomas Dodd and his wife worked her dairy for her. They afterwards lived at Saltwater Creek and later at Waikari where they were famous for their cheeses. In June, 1857, Mrs O'Connell took up Run 194, of five thousand acres. Her first manager was George Douglas of Broomfield Station, who had come out with Captain Mitchell. After him her son Maurice managed the station till it was sold.
Mrs O'Connell died in October, 1870, and in 1871 her executors sold Mt. Grey to Archdeacon Matthias and Charles Ensor. Ensor bought the Archdeacon's share in 1881. Before buying Mt. Grey they had owned Rollesby Station at Burke's Pass together.
When Ensor first went to Mt. Grey the land on the plain was being bought out of the run every day, but he secured what he could. In 1890 he bought the freehold of the balance from the Midland Railway Company. He was in his time a great merino breeder. He died in 1900 and Mt. Grey was divided amongst his sons. C. H. Ensor got the homestead block of five thousand acres which he afterwards sold to H. A. Knight and Henry Cotterill. Since Knight and Cotterill's time the land has been sold piece by piece, so that the homestead is now only a farm carrying less than 1000 sheep. It belongs to J. Fleming.
Broomfield
(
Runs 28, 71 and 257)
Broomfield is another station which has never changed hands except by inheritance. It originally took in all the country between the north and south branches of the Kowai and included the actual mountain called Mt. Grey. Mt. Grey, Mt. Hutt and Mt. Cook stations were all named after mountains which lay outside their own boundaries.
George Douglas first applied for a run on 5th May, 1851. He described it as 'in the neighbourhood of Mr Dean's run and the Waipara River.' This is rather indefinite even for those days, but may possibly have been meant for part of Broomfield. I cannot find any trace of it being allotted to him. The first country he took up on Broomfield was Run 71, of six or seven thousand acres some distance up the Kowai. He took this up in January, 1852. Earlier in the same month Donald Hankinson took up Run 28, of ten thousand acres in the actual fork of the Kowai. This he sold to Douglas after a year or so. Douglas took up the rest of Broomfield, Run 257, in May, 1858.
I have not been able to find out much about Hankinson. He was a brother-in-law of the Knights of Tekau and Steventon and afterwards had a run at Lake Te Anau. He represented Riverton in Parliament from 1866 to 1870.
Douglas, who as I said, managed Mt. Grey as well as Broomfield, registered his brand G.D. on the 25th January, 1854. It was the second brand ever registered in Canterbury, the first was registered for 'Lowburn' by John Macfarlane on 14th January. In a Stock Inspector's report for November, 1858, Douglas is stated to have had 4600 sheep on his twenty-two thousand acres. The sheep were clean (of scab) but some sheep from Glenmark had joined them five days before the inspection. Douglas came of an Irish family of Scotch descent, his ancestor having been a soldier in Cromwell's Army whom Cromwell rewarded with a grant of land in Ireland. George Douglas was born in Baltinglas, County Wicklow, about 1825 and was brought up as a farmer. In 1849 Captain Mitchell persuaded him to come to New Zealand with him to take up land and settle, and they arrived in Sydney later in the year in the ship Raymond. They came on to New Zealand in the Lady Nugent and made an exploring trip overland with Dashwood from Nelson to Canterbury, where they arrived about the middle of 1850. On Mitchell's return to India, Douglas managed Mt. Grey and on Mitchell's death he took up Broomfield for himself. His first camp was at what is now Dalbeg on the south bank of the Kowai at the foot of Mt. Grey. Here he built his first house but it was burned down in 1857, when he moved to the present homestead site of Broomfield. At first he worked both Broomfield and Mt. Grey as cattle stations.
Douglas died in March, 1873, and since then Broomfield has been carried on by his trustees. They lost the leasehold country in 1889. For some years, about the time of the South African War, the station and sheep were leased to William Buss of Rangiora.
Double Corner And Mt. Brown
(
Runs 8, 76 and 107)
Double Corner took in the whole low country between the North Kowai and the Waipara, and included what was afterwards Mt. Brown Station. Like the Mt. Grey Station, Double Corner was named after a natural feature outside its own boundaries. The cape called the Double Corner is on Teviotdale, across the Waipara.
Double Corner is another station that was taken up before the Canterbury settlement. I cannot find the exact date, but Charles Hunter Brown took up the first part of it early in 1850, under license from the New Zealand Government. He was settled there in January, 1851, when Ward's diary was written.
Hunter Brown was one of the ablest and most successful of the early runholders. He contributed a very good chapter on 'Starting a station' to Archdeacon Paul's book. He was educated as a civil engineer and arrived in Dunedin 1849 in the Mariner. He took up Double Corner on the advice of Caverhill of Motunau. He brought with him the seeds of the she-oaks growing at Teviotdale and Seadown and of the white gum, which is the oldest gum tree in Canterbury, at the site of the old Double Corner homestead. Hunter Brown was one of those who met Godley when he arrived in Canterbury and showed him over part of the plains.
After Hunter Brown sold Double Corner he joined FitzGerald and Percy Cox in the firm called Brown, Cox and Company which owned the Springs and Longbeach stations. When these were sold he did very well by investing his money in Christchurch property. He travelled extensively in Palestine and elsewhere, and represented Cheviot in one Parliament but was afterwards defeated by Weld. He lived for many years in Nelson where he died in 1908. His choice of Double Corner as a run was a wise one. Waitt in his Progress of Canterbury says that 'Brown's run is not to be equalled in the whole Canterbury Block for its compactness and also superior herbage.'
Hunter Brown took out a license from the Canterbury Association for Run 8 in September, 1851, and took up two more runs, Numbers 76 and 107 in March and August, 1853, respectively.
Percy Cox who was afterwards a partner in the Springs and Longbeach, and owner of Mt. Somers, was a cadet with Hunter Brown from 1854 till 1856, and George Draper, a brother of Mrs J. E. FitzGerald, was also a cadet there. They had a certain amount of scab at Double Corner but it did not get very bad. Hunter Brown sold Double Corner to Marchant and Polhill (known as Marchant and Co.) at the end of 1856 for £4500.
Marchant, the managing partner for the new owners, was an Australian, and went back to Australia when he sold Double Corner. Polhill afterwards had Lake Heron on the Upper Rakaia, from which he also supervised Double Hill for Joseph Palmer. There is an account of him under Upper Lake Heron. Samuel Coleman, afterwards at Wharfedale, was manager at Double Corner under Marchant.
Marchant and Co. transferred Double Corner to Thomas Hood Hood in 1863. I can find nothing about Hood but I think he was only a banker or agent for the station as he seems to have transferred Runs 76 and 167 to Bosville Place and John Innes at once, and these two runs became the Mt. Brown Station. John Innes became sole owner of Mt. Brown in 1877, and took his brother James Innes into partnership. They bought the freehold of the whole run from the Midland Railway Company in 1890. Soon afterwards John Innes returned to Scotland where he inherited a baronetcy, and dying unmarried, was succeeded by James Innes, who sold Mt. Brown about 1898 to William Buss of Rangiora and also returned to Scotland where he died in 1919. Buss sold Mt. Brown to A. W. Byrch (his family are the present owners of Motunau) and Byrch sold it to William Nicholls of Belfast. Since James Innes's time the station has been much subdivided. The homestead and two thousand acres belonged to I. Croft in 1924, when this note was written.
To return to Double Corner itself (Run 8), Hood seems to have sold it almost at once to Levin Alexander Graeme Walker (nicknamed 'Lag' Walker from his initials), but kept the lease in his own name until 1866, when it was transferred to Frank Courage. The run at that time included the present Glasnevin and Stockgrove estates. The homestead was on the south bank of the Waipara close to the sea.
Frank Courage (father of the present owner of (Sea-down)Seadown arrived in New Zealand with his wife in the City of Paris in 1861, and seems to have bought an interest in Double Corner soon afterwards, but bought freehold on the run independently. He afterwards bought out Hood and Walker's interest and lived at Double Corner until 1872, when he bought Seadown (which itself had been part of Double Corner) from Mrs Carter and went to live there, and he and his son have always called the place Seadown. The old name Double Corner dropped out of use, but E. L. Wyles, who now owns the old Double Corner site, has revived the name for his farm.
Mrs Courage wrote a very amusing book on her early colonial experiences. It is now difficult to get a copy of it.
The Maori name for Double Corner seems to have been Mimimoto or Mimiomoko, at least that is what it is called in a stock return of 1854 when Brown had 1500 sheep there.
Chapter 4
Plains Stations Between the
Selwyn and
Rakaia Rivers
Note.— Chapters IV and V were originally published in August and September, 1924, and the accounts of runs and people in them are only brought down to that date except where otherwise stated.
Malvern Hills
(
Run 24)
Between the Selwyn and Rakaia lay some of the earliest runs selected by the Canterbury Pilgrims. On the foothills south of the Selwyn, opposite Homebush, Sir Thomas Tancred and his brother, Henry John Tancred, took up ten thousand acres in Henry Tancred's name in January, 1852. The eastern boundary ran along the present road from the Coalgate Bridge to the Hororata Church. This run was known as the Malvern Hills Station. Nearly half of it was poor scrubby country and it included the Wairiri swamp of a thousand acres. It was rather a poor run altogether.
Henry Tancred, who lived at the station and managed it, had been an officer in the Austrian Army before he came to NewZealand. He was a keen politician and during his first year as head of the Provincial Executive Government (1853-4) John Hayhurst, who had been his shepherd and afterwards rented the Ashburton Station from Sir Thomas Tancred, managed Malvern Hills. During Henry Tancred's second term as head of the executive (1855-7) his next shepherd, a man named Laing, was manager. G. A. E. Ross of Waireka was Tancred's cadet when he first started the station, and J. B. Acland of Mt. Peel was a cadet in 1855. Acland was long remembered there for his fond-nessfondness for digging into mounds which he thought might be Maori graves. He told me he remembered Tancred giving him two pieces of advice. The first was about choosing a site for a station homestead on a new run. The three most important points, Tancred said, were first, handiness to water, second, handiness to firewood, and thirdly to be sure to make your garden where the cabbage trees were thick, because cabbage trees only grow thick on good land. Tancred's other piece of advice was that no gentleman should ever do hard work with one of his men, because either the man went slow so as not to shame his employer, or the employer knocked himself up trying to get full work out of the man.
About 1858 Henry Tancred sold his share of the station to Bishop Harper, who like many parsons in those days of small stipends, had to invest in station property to live, though when there was more money for stipends I believe he put a stop to parsons farming.
Sir Thomas and the Bishop appointed Charles Harper, the Bishop's son, manager, and he was soon afterwards succeeded by his brother, George (after wards Sir George) Harper, who a year or two later, took the run and the sheep on lease in partnership with another brother, the Archdeacon. Their rent to the owners was £700 a year. At that time the Archdeacon was vicar of a parish known as the Southern Stations which included all the stations between the Waimakariri and the Rakaia, and he made Malvern Hills his headquarters. He told me an amusing story of his returning to the station one afternoon to find neither man nor dog at home nor any mutton. He had to run down a sheep and kill it before he could have anything but dry bread to eat for supper. I daresay killing the sheep gave him more trouble than running it down, as he had been head of the school at Eton and was a good athlete. J. S. Monck was a cadet with George Harper for a year or two in the early 'sixties. He afterwards had a run at Lake Coleridge.
In 1865 the first wire fence on the hills in this part of Canterbury was put up as a boundary between Malvern Hills and Rockwood.
Harper Brothers' lease ended in April, 1866, and the owners sold the station to John Hamilton Ward, for the Canterbury Investment Co., the owners of Bangor. George Harper and his head shepherd Robert Munro drove the balance of the wethers over Browning's Pass to the West Coast where they sold them to the butchers. Munro then took charge of Ward's sheep on both Bangor and Malvern Hills, living at Malvern Hills until 1871. In August, 1866, Harper went home to prepare for his long and honurable career at the law.
I shall give fuller accounts of Sir Thomas Tancred and Charles Harper when I write of Raukapuka and Lake Coleridge. Henry Tancred was in the Legislative Council and was a minister in the Governments of Sir Edward Stafford and Domett. He was also Chancellor of the New Zealand University until his death in 1884. The Bishop's life has been written by the Rev. H. Purchas, and the Archdeacon's Letters have been published.
Robert Munro gave up sheep and became a grocer in Christchurch, and lived until 1926. He had a splendid memory and was invaluable to me when I collected notes on the Selwyn Runs.
Ward sold Malvern Hills early in the 'seventies to Charles Barker, a man who earned himself an unkind nickname by his habit of buying freehold on his friends' runs. From Barker, Malvern Hills passed into the hands of Charles Clark who after working the station for about a year, subdivided it and sold the homestead with twelve hundred acres to Walter Black, and the front part to J. H. R. Aitken, who built the homestead on the Hororata-Coalgate Road, and named it Glendore. Tancred and Harper's homestead was on the property which belonged to Mrs. Dunlop, but further up the gully than the present house. It is a pretty place surrounded by birch trees and bush and for its associations Mrs Dunlop always hoped to make it a reserve in memory of Bishop Harper.
The Terrace Station
(
Runs 17 and 20)
The two runs which were included in the Terrace Station both ran from the Hororata to the Rakaia; the western boundary lay roughly along the foot of the hills and the eastern boundary ran along the road from Hororata to Te Pirita, still known as Boundary Road.
Run 17, of ten thousand acres, was taken up in November, 1852, by Sanderson and Brayshaw. There is a large single gum tree on the river bed of W. J. Inche's present property which marks the site of their original hut. Run 20, of twenty thousand acres, was taken up in August, 1851, by Mark Pringle Stoddart. His homestead was below the river terrace, opposite Highbank, hence the present name of the station, which was originally the Rakaia Terrace Station. Stoddart was a 'shagroon' who came over from Australia with sheep in 1851 and was one of the first party to explore Lake Coleridge. He also wrote some of the Canterbury Rhymes. The place he chose for his homestead is still about the windiest place in Canterbury, and Stoddart's spirited verses describe the winds there in his day. He was the father of Miss Stoddart, the artist.
In 1853 Sanderson and Brayshaw sold their run to the Studholme brothers, afterwards of Waimate (under which I give a fuller account of their enterprises). The Studholmes had already taken up the Point Station nearby. They built a new homestead where it is now, at the other end of the run near Hororata. John Studholme was the brother who managed this run, which they called Hororata in their time.
In April 1853 Stoddart sold his run, which he called the Rakaia Terrace, to John (afterwards Sir John) Hall, for £2750 which included 1870 sheep and lambs, and the horses, improvements, stores and sundries. Hall worked the run in partnership with his brothers T. W. and J. W. Hall.
I have read their diary for the first year the Halls were at the station and give rather a long summary of it, as accounts of station management in the 'fifties are rare. Before he sold the run Stoddart had built a hut and temporary woolshed near the Rakaia, but the Halls put up new more permanent buildings, of slabs tatched with toe toe. The huts were plastered inside with clay.
Scab having lately shewn itself in the neighbourhood, they kept the sheep in hand and penned them at night in the hurdle yards which often blew down. Except for the shepherds, the men's chief work was cutting and carting in timber, firewood and toe toe. Until it became scarce they used driftwood from the riverbed for firewood.
Unlike most early runholders the Halls used horses in their drays when they first went up to their station, but they brought up a team of bullocks before very long. They always washed the bullocks' necks in brine before and after work. The bullocks were grazed before work and until dark after it, but at night were kept in a small paddock from which they often broke out and were a bother to find again, as in all station diaries of the 'fifties, there is continual mention in this of hunting for lost stock and of neighbours coming in search of theirs. There was also continual borrowing and lending of tea, sugar and flour between stations.
The Halls made a garden as soon as they came, they even grew tomatoes. They also grew a little wheat and barley for home use.
There were many wild pigs near the hills, and like all runholders in the 'fifties the Halls were much bothered by wild dogs. I don't know whether these dogs were descended from Maori dogs or from pre-Adamite settlers' dogs gone wild. The Halls had a lot of bother from a dog they often saw near Woolshed Hill but could never shoot or run down. One of their men had a lurcher or pig dog called Emperor. He suggested setting Emperor on to the wild dog, so the Halls took him out. They could not find the wild dog for some time, however Emperor picked up the scent and gave chase. When he caught up to the wild dog, however, instead of tackling it he made friends and the two trotted off together and Emperor didn't come home till next morning, so they concluded that the wild dog must be a bitch, as she proved to be some weeks afterwards when they got her with poison.
Their first lambing began in June and a very poor lambing it proved, but another mob which began lambing in March did much better. In old days many people preferred an autumn or winter lambing to a spring one. They said the lamb lived on its mother's milk while it was young and was ready to wean in the spring when there was plenty of grass. Other people used to lamb all the year round, and the best hill sheepman I ever knew told me he would do it again if he were starting to breed up a flock on a new run from a small mob of ewes.
The Halls started with about 1100 ewes and 500 dry sheep and by the next winter the flock had increased to 2000. They washed the sheep before shearing in a pool in the river, and dipped them twice during the year in water in which tobacco had been boiled. Of course the sheep were all merinos. They only cut 10 bales to the thousand, but in those days of spade pressing a bale might weigh anything up to 700 lbs. I daresay the sheep cut about 4 lbs. of washed wool a head.
John Hall, the owner, lived in Christchurch, and his brothers Thomas and George looked after the station, but he came up often and when he came worked as hard as anyone, and was always the effective manager.
In June 1855 Hall let the run for 7 years to Henry Phillips of Rockwood and T. H. Potts. The rent was £100 a year, without the sheep; he put the sheep out on terms with Dixon at Eyrewell and Sanderson at Carleton. I think Hall took back the station before the lease was up and soon afterwards bought the Studholmes' country and joined it to his own. He moved over to their homestead, but used the name by which his old run had been known, and Hororata became the name of an adjoining station.
Hall's first manager was John W. Buller, who remained with him until November 1869 when J. E. Fountain, who had been his overseer for some years, succeeded him. Buller then went to Wanganui where he fell off his horse and broke his neck. He often had accidents as he was a stout man and used to go to sleep on horseback.
Fountain was manager until his death in 1901. After Fountain came W. Pitt and then Duncan Frazer, the well known pigeon shot. Three bullock teams were employed on the station until 1868, when two of them were sent to Hall's Mackenzie Country station. The last time a bullock team is mentioned in the diary is in December 1870, when it was carting firewood. They first used longwool rams in 1874.
The first mention of destroying rabbits is on 15th September, 1881, when they poisoned them with wheat. In December 1882 they had a nor'-west storm while shearing and afterwards counted 992 sheep killed off shears by the cold. In 1898 A. D. Dobson laid out the races which still water the station.
Joseph Lorette, a Spaniard and an old whaler, deserves mention as a most versatile station hand. He worked for many years at the Terrace both for wages and by contract, and before he came to the Terrace had driven bullocks for the Halls at their Mackenzie Country stations in the 'fifties. The diary speaks of him being employed at shepherding, mustering, driving sheep and cattle, bullock driving, wagoning (with a six-horse team), ploughing, working drills and tilters, building stocks, killing pigs, fencing, and indeed every skilled job about the station, including cooking. Thomas Ward came to the station as a boy in June 1873 and stayed there until October 1932, which must surely be a record for length of continuous employment on one station.
Sir John Hall is remembered for his ability in local, provincial and New Zealand politics and administra-tion;administration; he was also a successful squatter and is erroneously supposed to have invented the 'grid-iron' system of land buying. He secured the whole freehold of his run and as early as 1878 only 8,000 of his 23,000 sheep are entered in the return as depasturing on leasehold. He was the pioneer of tree planting on a large scale in Mid-Canterbury. In 1907, a few months before his death, in his eighty-third year, he sold twenty thousand acres of his land to a syndicate for sub-division, but left his sons, Wilfred and Godfrey, fine freehold properties there. Godfrey Hall has the old homestead.
The Hororata Station
(
Runs 67 and 96)
This station of seventeen thousand acres ran from the Hororata to the Rakaia and was bounded on the west by the Terrace Station. Sanderson and Brayshaw took up Run 67 (the Rakaia end), I think at the same time as they took up their part of the Terrace Station. Justin Aylmer and Spencer Perceval took up Run 96 (the Hororata end) in August, 1853, and bought Run 96 from Sanderson and Brayshaw shortly afterwards. Perceval had interests in other stations and it was Aylmer who looked after Hororata. In 1859 John Cordy, an ex-farmer from Suffolk, bought Hororata from Aylmer and Perceval. I have written an account of Perceval in my note on Easedale Nook. Aylmer became warden of the Goldfields in Otago and was afterwards for many years magistrate at Akaroa where he died in the 'eighties.
Cordy was a well known character in the old days, and known as 'Honest John.' He was born in 1805 and arrived in Canterbury with his wife and two children in the Travancore early in 1851. His first venture was a small run near the Bridle Path (it afterwards became part of Mt. Pleasant) where he grazed newly landed sheep for their owners, and bought and sold stock on commission. He afterwards managed Homebush cattle station for a time and ran a dairy farm there. Old hands said that when he first came over the Bridle Path he met a Maori, and neither knew what to make of the other, but Cordy tried to put things right by shouting 'I'm honest John Cordy from Suffolk. Is it peace or war? Is it peace or war?'
Cordy made several thousand acres of his run freehold. He died in 1886. His executors carried on the station until 1898, when they sold it to F. J. Savill with 6000 sheep for £13,000, some two thousand acres on the Rakaia having been previously sold to Wason of Corwar. Savill made most of the remainder of the run freehold and sold the station to William Cunningham for £26,000 in 1904. Two well known sheepmen of last century managed Hororata for Savill at different times while he was in England—'Baltic Jack' Allen and Peter Grant.
Savill afterwards had many other stations, including Mt. Possession, Craigieburn, and Mt. White. He still [1945] has St. Helens, and is the biggest owner of sheep in Canterbury, but lives mostly in England.
Cunningham did not keep Hororata long, and since his time it has changed hands several times, each owner selling off some of the land.
In 1919 H. M. Reeves bought the homestead and, besides fattening sheep and growing wheat, did well there with a thoroughbred stud. He died in 1934, but the farm still belongs to his family. There are only about three hundred and fifty acres of it left, but a combination of shade, shelter, and strong sound land, makes it one of the nicest farms in Canterbury.
It was at Hororata that I wrote most of this book, and I had the bad luck to be working at it there in 1924 when the house was burnt to the ground and notes which I had been thirty years collecting went up in smoke.
Haldon
(
Runs 19, 43, 60-1-2-3-4 and 137)
This station which remained in the hands of the Bealey family for something like 60 years was taken up in seven runs of forty thousand acres in all, by John and Samuel Bealey. They took up Run 19 in May, 1852, and the other runs before the end of August, 1854. John Cordy seems to have discovered unlicensed country between the Hororata and Selwyn, and was allotted Run 137 of five thousand acres there on 1st April, 1854, but the Bealeys bought him out almost at once and Run 137 was merged in their other runs. On a survey, one of Westenra's Camla runs was found to intersect the Bealeys' country but an exchange made both stations continuous. Haldon took in all the country between the Selwyn and Hororata below a line from Coalgate Bridge to Hororata Church. On the south side of the Hororata it marched with Aylmer and Perceval's run and followed the Rakaia down to the present railway bridge. The Mead settlement and Ardlui and Newstead Estates were all part of Haldon.
In February, 1878, John Bealey sold his interest to Samuel Bealey.
Samuel Bealey came to Canterbury in 1851, just after having taken his degree at Cambridge. He was the third superintendent of the Province. Like all the other superintendents he was a fine type of scholarly gentleman, but he was less of an idealist and politician than the others and succeeded better than any of them in his private affairs, to which he paid more attention. He died in England in May, 1909. John Bealey also was a member of the Provincial Council.
Samuel Bealey did not live much at Haldon and after his term as superintendent returned to England and afterwards paid only occasional visits to New Zealand.
From 1864 to 1869 he let the station to John Tucker Ford. At that time the run was divided into three large paddocks, one on the Rakaia, one on the Hororata, and one between the Hororata and the Selwyn. It was Ford who named the station Haldon.
In 1862 when the Plains began to be broken up, Dr. Knyvett and Williams, his partner, rented three hundred acres of Bealey's run for cropping. Dr. Knyvett, who gave up station life for medicine in 1875, was out here in 1923 as a ship's surgeon and told me that when ploughing along the Selwyn he constantly ploughed up moa bones and moa stones. From the end of Ford's lease in 1869 until Nowell Bealey (Samuel's son) took charge, sometime in the 'nineties, Alick McIlraith was the manager.
Andrew Beattie, now of Hororata, was head shepherd and afterwards manager for about 30 years until the place was sold. In the early days the agricultural work was done by contract by a man named Sandrey and in later times by L. Derrett.
The Bealey brothers (sons of Samuel) cut up Haldon and sold it in 1910. At the end the station consisted of about seven thousand acres of freehold and carried 6000 sheep. The outstation and freehold on the Rakaia had been sold to the Government in 1902. It is called the Mead Settlement.
James Clucas bought the homestead block and lived there until 1928, when he sold it to his brother, the present owner.
The boundary gateway where the South Road passed from Camla to Haldon was just below the present Bankside Railway Station. Middle-aged country people can remember the days when dogs were chained at gateways on the roads to keep the sheep from passing through. The dog at this one reared a lamb. During a howling sou'-wester a motherless lamb took shelter by the dog's kennel and the dog, for reasons of his own, let him stay there and made friends with him. Merino sheep naturally keep well away from a dog's kennel, so there was always plenty of grass for the lamb, who thrived and stayed with the dog till he was a fourtooth, when the dog turned savage and had to be destroyed.
Camla
(
Runs 46, 47 and 94)
Camla lay on the Selwyn below Haldon, which also bounded it towards the Rakaia. It ran down the Selwyn to about the present main south railway and contained nearly thirty thousand acres. Runs 46 and 47 which were the lower or eastern part of Camla were allotted to Rowland Campion on 11th June, 1852. While he worked these runs he called his station Kensal or Kensal Green. Parker Westenra applied for a run west of Campion's which was allotted to him as Run 94 on 29th July, 1853. He was acting for his father, Captain Richard Westenra, who also had a run called Kakahu in South Canterbury and he disliked his sons crossing the rivers when travelling up and down to it, so he exchanged it with Campion for Kensal Green about the end of 1854. For a few years he called the whole place Kensal Green, but eventually called it Camla after a property in Ireland belonging to his kinsman Lord Rossmore. He had only 670 sheep there in 1855, but the sheep from the Kakahu had not yet arrived.
On the 23rd February, 1852, Henry Phillips and the Rev. Joseph Twigger were allotted a run on the Selwyn which they stocked with 630 ewes, 170 wethers and 2 brood mares. Unfortunately in the Waste Lands Board's manuscript record no number is shown for this run, but Phillips or one of his sons was still living there in the autumn of 1856. I imagine that Westenra bought it from Phillips in 1858 and that on the resurvey of Haldon and Camla which I spoke of, the area was distributed among Runs 46, 47 and 94. Anyhow it disappears from the maps about that time.
On Captain Westenra's death Camla passed to his sons Richard, Parker and Warner, known as Westenra Brothers. The present brand Z was registered in 1854. The original homestead was right on the Selwyn riverbed, which was then a beautiful flat with creeks running through it and full of native game, but all this was washed away in the 'sixty-eight flood, which also drowned 3000 Camla sheep, some of them stud sheep just imported from Australia. The house was then re-built on the site of the present one, but the old woolshed remains where it was, and must be one of the oldest standing in Canterbury.
Camla has never changed hands. It now belongs to Derrick Warner Westenra, a grandson of the original owner. It is only a farm now, but until about 1910, when Derrick Westenra bought out the other beneficiaries, it was a station carrying nearly 7000 sheep on eight thousand five hundred acres of freehold and fifteen hundred of leasehold. The Fyvie settlement was part of the freehold. I have given an account of Campion in my description of Kakahu, and of Phillips in my description of the Point. I do not know anything about the Rev. Joseph Twigger, except that he gave the Twigger estate at Addington to the Church.
Heslerton
(
Run 108)
Heslerton was below the Bealey's country on the Rakaia and joined Camla on the plain about halfway across to the Selwyn. It contained nearly twenty thousand acres and was taken up in August, 1853, by Richard Hilton, a brother-in-law of the Westenras. In 1857 Hilton sold it for £1,200 without the stock to a man named Brown, and in 1858, Brown sold it to Benjamin Dowling with 1450 sheep (a mixed lot, including lambs) for £4,500. In 1855 and 1856 Thomas Kinnersley Adams had the station on terms from Hilton. Dowling resold to C. F. Knyvett very soon after he bought the station. Hilton's homestead was on the Rakaia two or three miles below the present railway bridge where one or two large blue-gums still mark the spot, but when Knyvett bought the place he was afraid of the homestead being flooded out so built a new one on the present site. He also changed the old name of it, Jellalabad, to Heslerton, after his father's place in England. Knyvett was drowned, and about 1870 Edward Lee, his executor, sold Heslerton to Cecil Augustus FitzRoy (who had been a cadet at Mesopotamia) and Thomas Dyke Acland (who had been a cadet at Mt. Peel). FitzRoy and Acland's head shepherd was John Mackenzie, who lived at Halswell until sometime in the 1920's. Until his retirement some years ago he was one of the best known sheep drivers in Canterbury.
FitzRoy and Acland had not had the station more than seven years before John Johnstone Loe bought two thousand acres of freehold in the middle of the run which made it unworkable, so they sold the station to him altogether. After Loe's death Heslerton passed into the hands of the Bank of New South Wales who sold it to a syndicate by whom it was cut up and sold in 1908. At that time it consisted of eleven thousand four hundred acres of freehold. For a time from 1887 onwards the Bank leased the station to Phineas Roberts who ran a flock of Silesian merinos there. After Roberts left, James Balfour managed it for some years. The homestead block now belongs to James Spence.
Richard Hilton settled near Geraldine when he left Heslerton. The village of Hilton there is named after him. I know nothing of Brown except that I learnt from a letter written at the time that he bought and sold the place. Dowling was an Australian who afterwards had Buccleugh Station near Mt. Somers. Adams had originally intended to go into the Army but came to New Zealand in 1853 instead. He left Heslerton to start the Opawa Station near Albury which he and the Rev. J. Raven had taken up in partnership. After he left Opawa, he succeeded Sir William Congreve as stock inspector. He died in Christchurch in 1863, aged 32. Congreve, by the way, left New Zealand for Fiji soon after he lost his job and no one seems to have heard of him again, so that to this day it is uncertain whether his baronetcy is extinct or not. FitzRoy was in the House of Representatives for some years. He was also starter for the Canterbury Jockey Club. He died in Hawke's Bay not many years ago. Acland was my father, but I remember nothing about him as a squatter, as he sold Heslerton before I was a year old. I think he was fonder of farming than of sheep and he had a great prejudice against deep ploughing. I remember he used to say that if God Almighty had meant the sub-soil to be on the top, He would have put it there. After he gave up farming he became a land agent in Christchurch where he died in 1892, aged 45. Dr. Knyvett was shepherd to his brother at Heslerton.
Oakleigh
(
Run 101)
Oakleigh, the next run on the Rakaia below Heslerton, was taken up in August, 1853, by the Rev. J. Raven, a relation of Hilton's. The run was of twenty thousand acres and went back to the great swamp. About 1855 Raven leased Oakleigh with the sheep to Edward Chapman who also owned Acton Station on the other side of the Rakaia, and about 1858 he sold it with about 2500 sheep to Edwin H. Fereday. Raven afterwards bought Ravenswood, a freehold of eleven hundred acres near Woodend.
Raven was born at Croydon in 1821. His father was a stock broker. J. Raven was educated at Shrewsbury School and Caius College, Cambridge. He rowed for Cambridge against Oxford in 1844—the lightest man (8st. 13lbs.) who ever rowed in either boat. He was ordained and was vicar of Broughton Ashly for four years before coming to Canterbury in 1851. I believe he came out understanding he was to be a Canon of the Cathedral, but finding that the Cathedral only existed on paper, took his own line of combining farming with part-time duty. He took to colonial life at once. He became competent to do all the practical work with stock and was soon considered as a man whose opinion on farming and station property was worth having. He imported his own sheep from Aus-traliaAustralia and he and T. K. Adams, his manager, started off one day with a shepherd, John Walker, from Lyttelton to take a newly landed mob to Oakleigh. They left Walker to watch them a night on the Bridle Path and went back to sleep at Lyttelton. It came on to rain so Walker moved the sheep down the hill to shelter and got 70 of them tooted.
Early in 1864 Raven returned with his family to England where he held livings until 1872 when his wife having died, he and six daughters came to New Zealand again. During this visit he bought more land here. He stayed a year and a-half then went back to England, being wrecked in the S.S. Tartar on the way. He died at Worthing in Sussex in August, 1886. His first wife, a sister of Dean Hole, wrote several of the Canterbury Rhymes.
Fereday also had Racecourse Hill Station on the Waimakariri, and as I said when writing of Racecourse Hill, the strain of riding backwards and forwards over the dreary plain between the two stations was too much for him. He, or his executors, sold Oakleigh to Charles Hurst in 1866. Hurst was a Yorkshire man who had managed a station in Victoria from 1849 till 1857, when he came to New Zealand. He also owned Valetta on the Ashburton.
In 1871 Hurst began to change the flock from merino to halfbred, and for a few years he let Oakleigh with the sheep to Thomas Dowling, a relation of his.
In 1900 Hurst sold the station with 4000 sheep to Dowling, and Dowling sold it early in 1910 to E. A. Broughton who began selling the land in 1927. In 1929 he sold the homestead and about two thousand two hundred acres, carrying 2000 ewes, to the Canterbury Seed Company. In January 1945 the company sold about eight hundred acres of their land, and in April 1945 A. Nimmo, of Dunedin, bought the rest of it.
At one time Fereday tried rabbit breeding on a small island in the Rakaia, without much success financially.
Homebrook
(
Run 100)
This run of ten thousand acres was taken up on 1st August, 1853, by Thomas Rowley, who transferred it almost at once to a man named Twiggs, of whom I cannot find out anything except that he was drowned in the Rakaia in the very early days and that his representatives sold the station to Charles Joseph Bridge in 1854.
Homebrook ran from the Rakaia back to the great swamp and was bounded on the west by Oakleigh. It ran to the sea at a point a mile or two from the mouth of Lake Ellesmere.
Bridge came from Liverpool where he had been on the stock exchange. Charles Hastings Bridge, the surveyor, is his son.
The freehold was bought early and quickly. By 1863 half the run had gone and by 1865 there were only sixty acres left. Bridge, however, secured a fine freehold property of fourteen or fifteen hundred acres himself. The town of Southbridge was part of it which he cut up and sold.
Bridge, who lived at Opawa until 1862, took Gladstone Baines as manager and partner. At first they worked Homebrook as a cattle station, but later on carried sheep as well. Baines did not stay very long in New Zealand but sold his share back to Bridge and returned to England. Bridge lived at the station himself from 1862 until his death in 1876, but in 1871 he let all the land, except fifty acres round the homestead, to Charles Bourn.
Bourn built himself a second homestead but used Bridge's station buildings. In 1881 his lease passed to J. R. Campbell, a one time part owner of Mesopotamia, who continued as tenant until 1900. Then the property was sub-divided and let in four farms until 1917, when it was sold to the Government for soldier settlement; thus the property was sixty-three years in the Bridge family.
The original homestead is near Jollie's Road, Trig 8 being on a little hillock in the garden.
While on his only visit to New Zealand (in 1868) Lord Lyttelton, chief of the founders of Canterbury, stayed with Bridge at Homebrook. He spoke very feelingly of the hardships and discomforts of station life in the pamphlet he wrote when he got home describing the progress of Canterbury.
Waterford
(
Run 105)
This was a small cattle station of five thousand acres in the corner formed by the north bank of the Rakaia and the sea. It was bounded on the other two sides by Homebrook. For a short time the Rakaia Island belonged to it. I have not been able to find the early records of it. It was taken up by a man named Brittin, whom I cannot identify. He was probably D. A. or J. D. Brittin, who registered a brand between them in 1854. Anyhow he sold the run to Moses Cryer in 1854. Cryer came to Nelson from Gloucestershire in the 'forties and was afterwards a butcher in Lyttelton. He died at Waterford in 1895, aged 90.
The freehold was bought up early, so that in 1862 it became Run 94, Class II., and by 1866 there were only eight hundred and sixty acres of the run left. Cryer however secured a nice little freehold property out of it himself, most of which still belongs to Miss Sarah Cryer, his daughter.
Cryer was about the first squatter in these parts to make himself a comfortable homestead and his kindness and hospitality were long remembered by his neighbours.
Price's Station
(
Runs 79 and 432)
Run 79, of five thousand acres, lay along the sea coast between the lake mouth and Homebrook. It was taken up by Joseph Price in May, 1853. Price started a dairy station and by March, 1855, he was milking thirty cows and making sixty pounds of cheese a day. In March, 1862, Price took up Run 432, another five thousand acres of the lake floor in front of him.
In 1866 he sold his station to his neighbour, Richard Taylor of Birdling's Brook. Taylor abandoned what was left of the leasehold in 1870.
I cannot find out where the homestead was. Price was chief mate of a whaler called the Harriet in the 'thirties and in the 'forties was a shore whaler at Ikoraki. I shall say more about him when I come to the Peninsula runs.
Birdling's Brook
(
Runs 80 and 427)
Run 80, originally of seven thousand five hundred acres, was taken up by William Birdling in May, 1853. It lay between Lake Ellesmere and Washbourn's run which it joined at Boggy Creek, which runs through Doyleston. On the south-west it joined Price's and Oakleigh. In February, 1862, Birdling took up another five thousand acres of lake flats, Run 427. He sold the station to Richard Taylor about 1863 and in 1866 Taylor also bought Price's station. Taylor made a fair amount of the run freehold and sometime in the 'seventies he cut up his land and sold it. In 1865 Run 80 became Run 142, Class II.
McLaughlin bought the homestead and his son J. McLaughlin has it still.
I shall give an account of Birdling when I come to his other station at Birdling's Flat. I cannot find out much about Taylor. He lived in Christchurch and had a brewery where the Normal School is now. In Tales of Banks Peninsula it is said that the notorious Caton had a share in this station with him.
Taylor's manager was 'Old Tom' Millet. His real designation was E. W. Millet, but he was always called 'Old Tom' because of his favourite beverage. He was a fine looking man who had seen better days, and after leaving Birdling's Brook he kept the livery stable in the old market place, afterwards called the Rink Stables.
Harman And Davie's Station
(
Runs 53, 82 and 426)
Harman and Davie's station lay in the angle between Lake Ellesmere and the south bank of the Selwyn. The homestead was in the bend of the river a couple of miles below Washbourn's.
Run 53 was taken by the Hon. James Stewart Wortley in October, 1852, and stocked with 500 breeding ewes. He sold it to Harman and Davie in June, 1853. Harman and Davie had taken up Run 82 a month before. Their stock on Run 82 was 41 head of breeding cattle.
In 1862 they took up Run 426 on the lake foreshore.
Harman and Davie made several thousand acres of their run freehold, most of which they cut up and sold at the end of the 'seventies. Davie, however, retained a thousand or more acres which his executors sold not long before the 1914-1918 War.
James Stewart Wortley was afterwards one of the partners who started Hawkeswood Station north of the Waiau. He did not stay very long in New Zealand. R. J. S. Harman was one of the leading early settlers. He went to England and was Immigration Agent for the Canterbury Association from 1853 to 1857. He was one of the original partners in the firm of Harman and Stevens and died in Christchurch on 27th November, 1902.
Cyrus Davie came out as a surveyor and succeeded Cass as chief surveyor of the province for a short time. In 1850 he booked his passage in the Randolph (one of the first four ships) and sent his luggage on board but missed her, so was given a passage on the Sir George Seymour which sailed the next day. On the voyage out the Randolph and Sir George Seymour met in mid-ocean and Davie was transferred to his proper ship. In the second half of the voyage the Randolph beat Sir George Seymour by nearly a day, so that Davie made the passage from England to New Zealand two days faster than anyone else in the fleet, and I believe his record was unbeaten for several years. He died in June 1871, aged 50.
Washbourn's Station
(
Run 122. It afterwards became Run 132, Class II)
In the early days this had no name and was known as Washbourn's Station, but the homestead and remaining freehold, about nine hundred acres, have been named the Bungalow in later years. The run was originally of over five thousand acres. It lay on the south side of the Selwyn above Harman and Davie's.
It was taken up in 1853 by Henry John Washbourn, a Gloucester man. His wife had died in England and he came to Canterbury by the Sir George Seymour with a family of young children. He bought a fifty acre section from the Canterbury Association before he left England, and when he got here he selected it on the west side of Hagley Park between the old Plough Inn and the present Addington Workshops. He took the two hundred and fifty acre pre-emptive right, to which this section entitled him, on the pastoral run on the Selwyn.
Washbourn lived on his Riccarton farm and his son managed the station for him. The country on his run was mostly flax-covered dry swamp in those days, rideable but with very boggy creeks. The whole leasehold had been bought up before 1878. In the early days it was worked as a cattle station. Washbourn died in 1898 or 1899 and left the property in trust for his grandchildren to whom it still belongs. So this is another original station which has never changed hands. I think most of the family now spell their name Washbourne but the original owner, and, I am told, his forefathers, spelt it without the e.
Dunsandel
(
Run 81. Afterwards re-numbered 168, Class II)
This run, originally of between six and seven thousand acres, lay on the Selwyn between Washbourn's country and Camla. It was taken up in May, 1853, by the Rev. O. Mathias and R. J. S. Harman. They stocked it with 50 head of breeding cattle. Mathias and Harman had probably been authorised to invest money in Canterbury for the Hon. Robert Daly, or else they sold it to him within a year or two. Daly never came to New Zealand and as long as the station lasted Harman and Stevens were his agents, but he named it himself and so gave the name to a large district. The first manager was J. Madison who had been a sailor. He married a daughter of Washbourn. After him came E. Johnston. W. D. Lawrence, who died in 1933, aged 94, was a cadet there in 1864 and afterwards managed the station for many years until it was sold.
In 1877 Harman and Stevens cut up and sold the four thousand acres of freehold which they bought on behalf of Daly. J. Sowden bought the homestead and about six hundred acres, to which he added more land from time to time. He held it for many years. It was afterwards the property of David Jones, the chairman of the Meat Producers' Board and Member of Parliament.
Robert Daly (1818-1892) was the son of the first, and father of the last, Lord Daly of Dunsandel. He held important offices under the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland and his son was private secretary to Lord Beaconsfield. J. R. Godley's mother was a Miss Daly which probably accounts for the family investing in Canterbury.
Chapter 5
Plains Stations Between The
Rakaia And
Rangitata Rivers
Acton
(
Runs 87 to 91, and 128, 129 and 132)
The Rakaia river delayed occupation of the country to the south of it for a year or more. A few runs were applied for in 1852 but most of them were abandoned again, and generally speaking, the runs there were not allotted until 1853. I do not think any station between the Rakaia and Rangitata was started before 1854. I have not been able to find the original papers relating to many of them.
Beginning at the sea, Acton was the first station on the south bank of the Rakaia. It ran along the sea coast for about twelve miles and up the river to a point about a mile west of the present railway, and it included the river islands adjoining it. It was made up of eight runs of nearly eighty thousand acres altogether. Runs 90 and 91 (the country on the Rakaia nearest the railway) were taken up by Edward Chapman in July, 1853. Runs 87 and 88 were taken up by Rhodes Brothers, the great pioneers of Canterbury squatting, in May, 1853, and Run 89 by Joseph Hawdon in May, 1853. Run 128 was taken up by Leach, and Run 129 by Edward Merson Templer in November and December respectively, 1853. In 1854 and the following years Chapman bought all these runs from the men who had taken them up, I have been told, before any of them were stocked, except the Rhodes.' Runn 132, an island in the river, was taken up by Chapman in January, 1857.
Chapman called the station Acton after the place where his father, a banker in Middlesex, lived. A Canterbury Gazette gives Chapman as having 4500 sheep on fifty-five thousand acres in 1858, which was probably just before he bought the Rhodes' Runs.
William Dunford was Chapman's head shepherd or overseer. He also kept an accommodation house on the Rakaia in the early 'fifties. After he left Acton, Dunford went to Lavington.
Early in 1864 the Hon. Mathew Holmes bought two thousand acres of freehold on the run and soon afterwards Chapman sold him the whole station. Holmes made these purchases for Hankey and Company, who were afterwards called the Canterbury and Otago Land Association, which was afterwards merged in the N.Z. and Australian Land Company.
The original homestead was near the riverbank about a mile and a-half below the railway. One or two gums and some broom still mark the place. When Holmes bought the station and began employing a lot of hands, he had to move it to the present site because, he said, 'the men found it too near the pub.'
Hassell was the company's first manager. He was succeeded by Donald McLean then Neal McLean. Next came W. L. Allan, a most enterprising and able man who grew wheat at Acton on a very large scale and developed water races. The Land Company's last manager was Thomas Blakely.
By 1878 the Company had bought enough freehold on the run to carry 30,000 sheep, but before the station was finally cut up and sold in 1904-5, sales of land had reduced its capacity to 6000 or 7000. The homestead now belongs to the Estate of Thomas Langley, who died in 1923.
After selling Acton, Chapman bought Drayton on the Ashburton where he died. It is unnecessary to give particulars of the other early owners as they are all more closely associated with other stations; the Rhodes brothers with the Levels, Templer with Coringa, and Hawdon with Craigieburn. I suppose Leach was Leach of Snowdon but am not sure.
Rokeby
(
Run 118)
Rokeby, the next station above Acton on the Rakaia, was taken up in September, 1853, by James B. Wemyss. Wemyss registered his brand in August, 1854, when he had 1500 sheep there on twenty thousand acres. Alfred Porter was his manager. In 1856 Porter took the run and sheep on terms and was still renting it in 1858, but Wemyss must have sold it soon afterwards, as in 1861 Kermode and Co. bought it from Cogle Brothers.
Kermode and Co. were Kermode and Moore of Glenmark, Captain W. McN. Lyttleton, and Quale. Frank Pitt may also have had a small share. Their first manager was Thomas Tayspill Dowling and after him Frank Pitt. For some years Rokeby was worked with Wakanui, another station in which Kermode was the principal partner.
After a time Kermode bought Moore's share of Rokeby, and in 1878 or 1879 Captain Lyttleton bought out Kermode's and all the other interests. At that time the station carried 8000 sheep, about half of them on freehold. When Captain Lyttleton died he left the station to his sons, Dr Lyttleton of Australia, and Westcott Lyttleton. After Westcott's death in 1898 Dr Lyttleton came over to see the station during a drought and sold his share to his brother's heirs. It was looking very bad and he sold it cheap. The freehold remained in the Lyttleton family for many years, the last twelve hundred acres or so being sold with the homestead about 1908. For some years after Westcott Lyttleton's death Louis Wood managed the station for his sister, Mrs Lyttleton.
The homestead is now the property of Gordon Campbell and is a farm carrying 500 or 600 sheep. I learn from an old sheep return that Wemyss called the station Bamstead Down. Wemyss is described under Lake Sumner (the Lakes). The Cogles were Charles and James, one of whom afterwards bought part of Morven Hills from the McLeans, and the other died near Oxford where he was farming. I have written about Moore and Kermode in my note on Glenmark. Captain Lyttleton was a kinsman of Lord Lyttelton who did so much for Canterbury. I do not know why this branch of the family spell their name differently. One of Westcott Lyttleton's daughters writes good stories under the name of G. B. Lancaster, and his eldest son is technical director of a great English glass manufacturing company.
Lavington
(
Run 117)
Lavington was the station above Rokeby on the Rakaia. It contained twenty thousand acres and was taken up by Mackie and Beard in September, 1853. Their manager for some time was William Dunford, who had been shepherd at Acton. About the middle of the 'sixties they leased him the station which then carried 11,000 sheep.
Some years later, C. N. and C. S. Mackie, sons of the first owner, took the station into their own hands again and in 1879 divided it between them. By that time the whole of the run seems to have been bought up, part of it by a dealer named Hartnell who had been a Devonshire butcher. Hartnell bought the Mackies out altogether in the middle 'eighties and died some years later. Hartnell's executors carried the place on through the bad times and eventually saved some fifteen hundred acres of land with the homestead. One of the sons, George Hartnell, bought out the others and kept Lavington until a year or two before the 1914-18 War, when he sold out and went to Australia. The homestead now belongs to James Lockhead.
I do not know who G. C. Beard was; Mackie, the first vicar of Avonside, was another of the parson squatters who were not uncommon in the days when land and station property were almost the only invest-mentsinvestments for capital. The parson squatters always remind one of an old story which has nothing to do with the Canterbury runs. The farmers in an English parish complained to the squire because 'As soon as ever Parson have got in his own hay, he do clap on the prayers for rain.'
Lendon,
afterwards calledCorwar
(
Run 116)
This run as well as part of Lavington and the whole of Highbank and other country was first taken up by Sir John Hall and his brothers, I think about the end of 1852. The difficulty of getting sheep across the Rakaia, and the general inaccessibility of the place, however, made them decide to buy country on the north side of the river, so they sold or abandoned most of these runs without ever stocking them.
Lendon, of twenty thousand acres, was taken up again by Alexander Lean, better known as the owner of Mt. Hutt, in September, 1853. G. C. Beard seems to have looked after it for him. About 1864 the run was transferred to F. W. Delamain, and from him to William Dunford, a son of Dunford of Lavington, in January, 1867. These transfers are taken from the official run lists published every year by order of the Provincial Council, but when I asked Delamain about Lendon he said he had never had anything to do with the place in his life, and I certainly never heard anyone speak of his owning it. In those days Delamain was a rich man and he may have lent Dunford money on the station. A man might forget what land he had lent money on but could hardly forget that a station had belonged to him, and Delamain had a very good memory. In the old days runs were often held in the names of the mortgagee. When the mortgagor paid off his debt the run was transferred to his name. In 1869 this run stands in the name of G. Gould, another mortgagee.
In April, 1870, John Cathcart Wason bought Lendon from Dunford and changed its name to Corwar after his family property in South Ayrshire, where his father had turned moorland into arable land much as Wason himself did with the tussock land at Lendon. Wason eventually made five or six thousand acres of his run freehold. He also bought the Craig Estate on Cordy's run across the river.
The whole Corwar leasehold had been bought by Wason himself and by settlers by 1878.
Wason was for many years in the House of Representatives here, and about 1901 went home and was elected M.P. for Orkney and Shetland as a Unionist. In 1902 he had a disagreement with his party and resigned his seat and stood again as a Liberal. His constituents elected him again and continued to do so until his death in 1921.
Wason was a very strong man, and, in his younger days, high spirited. Once when a gentleman was making himself a nuisance at one of the old Assembly Balls in Christchurch, Wason picked him up and stood him on his head in an enormous dish of trifle which was on the table.
Wason cut up and sold Corwar in 1900 when the homestead and the greater part of the land was bought by Peter Drummond. Since Drummond's time much of the land has been sold off. The homestead now belongs to R. McLean.
Highbank
(
Runs 112, 113 and 199)
Highbank came next above Corwar on the Rakaia. Runs 112 and 113 of about twenty thousand acres altogether, were taken up by George Williamson Hall (1819-1896) and T. W. Hall, brothers of Sir John, in October and December, 1852. They must have put enough sheep, or more probably cattle, on to the country to hold these runs when they abandoned or sold their other runs in the neighbourhood, for they held them until 1859 when they sold them to Browne and Allen.
Run 199 of nine thousand acres was taken up by Alexander Lean in July, 1857. This run lay away from the river and was supposed, until the country was surveyed, to be included in the neighbouring runs, which accounts for it being taken up so late. In 1864 Browne and Allen bought it also.
Browne was a squatter in Australia. He sent Allen over to buy a station in New Zealand and only came over himself once or twice to see it. Allen sold his interest to his partner in 1881 and retired. He lived in Christchurch until his death in 1908.
In 1882 Browne sent his son, Mathew Ingle Browne, over to take charge. Before that, Thomas Tayspill Dowling had managed the station for many years, after leaving Rokeby. M. I. Browne became sole owner on the death of his father. Browne and Allen had made nine thousand eight hundred acres of the run freehold and the younger Browne kept this until 1896, when he sold it to the Government for closer settlement.
George Bonner was Browne's overseer for twelve years until the station was sold.
Browne had an unpleasant experience soon after he came to New Zealand. He went to shoot at a neighbouring station and the host invited the party to have a nip before they started out, but gave them 'Rough-on-Rats' by mistake for whisky. Six of them were badly poisoned, one of whom died, and Browne was shaky for several years afterwards.
Mt. Hutt
(
Runs 115, 148 and 152)
Mt. Hutt, the run above Highbank, takes us to the hills. The western boundary ran along the foot of the actual mountain.
John Hall took up Run 115 in August, 1853, and Run 148 in January, 1855. Hall did not stock them but let them (with Runs 15 and 16, which afterwards became part of Spaxton) to Joseph Beswick in March, 1856. He cancelled the lease soon afterwards as Bes-wickBeswick was unable to find stock for the country.
In August, 1855, Alexander Lean took up Run 152 and Run 199 (which afterwards became part of High bank), in July, 1857.
In February, 1857, Lean bought Runs 115 and 148 from Hall, unstocked and unimproved, for £1400. On all these runs the sheep returns of 1857-1858 Lean is shewn as having 2800 sheep on forty thousand acres. Lean was the first man to start the Mt. Hutt Station and probably settled there early in 1857.
Lean built his homestead on a rather inaccessible flat a little up the river from the present Rakaia Gorge Bridge, it being the only place handy to water on the run which had been burnt and was clear enough of scrub and fern to build on. From a very early period, however, the station buildings from which the sheep were worked were at the present homestead. Lean sold Mt. Hutt and also Riverlaw, his town house, to H. P. Murray-Aynsley in 1862, but the leases remained in Lean's name until 1865. Hugh Percy Murray-Aynsley was the son of John Murray-Aynsley of Little Harle Tower, Northumberland, and was born in 1828. He came to New Zealand in 1858 from Trinidad where he had been in charge of a sugar plantation belonging to his cousin Sir William Miles. Murray-Aynsley was manager and a principal partner in the firm of Miles and Co., stock and station agents. He was a member of the old Provincial Council. He died in Christchurch in 1917.
John Carter, afterwards part owner of Maronan, was one of the earliest managers of Mt. Hutt. He was succeeded by W. Allen, and then came a man named Dobson. W. Dunford, the younger, was manager for Lean in 1862 and Julian Jackson was a later manager for Murray-Aynsley.
In 1898, the station, which was then managed by the owner's son, C. P. Murray-Aynsley, was cut up and sold. It then consisted of nine to ten thousand acres of freehold. C. P. Murray-Aynsley retained a block of a thousand acres.
Donald and Hamish McLean bought the two home-steadhomestead blocks, Donald taking the homestead on the Rakaia and two thousand five hundred acres along the river, and Hamish the working homestead and two thousand acres on the open plain. The McLeans also bought Blackford Station which lies above Mt. Hutt in the Rakaia Gorge. Donald took the Blackford freehold and Hamish the leasehold which includes the actual hill called Mt. Hutt.
Donald McLean went in for dairying on a very large scale on his property. At one time he milked over 500 cows there. He gradually sold off the land however, and finally the homestead, which until his death in 1924 was the residence of J. H. C. Bond, of Manuka Point Station.
Hamish McLean kept his part of the Mt. Hutt freehold, together with the Blackford leasehold, until soon after the 1914-18 War, when he sold it to the present owners, S. E. and L. R. Richards. Their property is what is now spoken of as Mt. Hutt Station.
Mt. Hutt was the last station in Canterbury to discontinue the ancient practice of sheep washing; sheep were hot-water washed there before shearing until about 1887. The washed wool used to fetch a higher price than even scoured wool on the London market.
Alexander Lean was a friend of Samuel Butler; some of his letters aee published in Festing Jones's Life. I have given a full account of him in my article on Double Hill.
H. P. Murray-Aynsley originally came to New Zealand for his health. He did not live much at Mt. Hutt. C. P. Murray-Aynsley now lives near Dannevirke. George Murray-Aynsley, distinguished on the New Zealand turf, and interested in Bayfields and Mt. Algidus, is another brother.
The McLeans of Mt.' Hutt are not to be confused with the Lagmhor McLeans. They were sons of Captain McLean of Buccleugh.
Spaxton or Drayton
(
Runs 15, 42 and 56 and for a time 329)
Spaxton took in the plains between Mt. Hutt Station and the south branch of the Ashburton. For a time it included the education reserve known as Pudding Hill. This was then Run 329 and afterwards became part of Blackford. The three runs which made up Spaxton proper were all taken up in 1852, Run 15, the most easterly, by Joseph Hawdon in September, Run 42 by Joseph Pearson in September, and Run 56, next to the hills, by C. Wright in October.
Hawdon, Pearson and Wright all either abandoned their runs or sold them unstocked. Anyhow John Hall sold Hawdon's and Pearson's runs unstocked to Captain Harding for £350 in December, 1858, and Harding already had 2000 sheep there earlier in the year so I think he may have bought Wright's run about 1857. Run 329 was taken up in December 1859, probably by Harding. Harding called the station Scarness. He had 4000 sheep there in 1863, and carried a lot of cattle.
In 1864 or 1865 Harding sold the station to H. J. Cridland of Hoon Hay. Cridland changed the name to Spaxton. His manager was David Thomas who had been Harding's stockman. He was afterwards the auctioneer at Ashburton; Dr Knyvett was Cridland's overseer.
Cridland had a partner, his brother-in-law Richard Walton, whose name does not appear in the records. Walton lived at Papanui. In 1867 they had 11,000 sheep at Spaxton but they lost almost all of them in the 1867 snowstorm—one of the worst recorded in Canterbury. Cridland sold Run 329 to the owners of Blackford in 1868. In the early 'seventies Cridland's executors and Walton sold Spaxton to James Stuckey and William Allen, who did not keep it long, selling it to Edward Chapman, formerly of Acton, in 1876.
Stuckey was afterwards a well known breeder of Herefords in the North Island. Allen was a brother of Allen of Highbank.
Chapman gave the station a new name, Drayton, so it has had three names altogether. He held it until his death and his executors sold it to Frederick. J. Millton in 1897. Millton sold it in 1904 to H. J. Harrison, the father of T. S. Harrison, the present owner. The property now consists of two or three thousand acres of freehold.
I know nothing more about Harding except that he had been Moorhouse's overseer at Shepherd's Bush and that he was drowned in Lyttelton Harbour. Cridland was a land agent and surveyor in Wellington in the late 'forties. He helped Captain Thomas to survey Canterbury in 1850, and died in June, 1867, aged 44.
Springfield
(
Runs 54 and 106)
These runs, each of ten thousand acres, were taken up by John and George Williamson Hall in 1852, but they abandoned them. Joseph Beswick appears to have taken up part of the country again and abandoned it. New licenses were given to William Bailey Bray in August, 1853. Joseph Hill managed Springfield on shares as he did Bray's other run on the Selwyn, under which I have given some account of them. In 1859 Hill bought Bray's interest in both stations.
In 1869, George Gould, who was a leading financial agent of those days, took the station over from Hill and advertised for a manager. The successful candidate was Duncan Cameron, who had formerly been manager of Winchmore. Gould intended to sell Springfield as soon as he could, but Cameron persuaded him to keep it and offered to go into partnership. Gould agreed to this and Cameron put in all his savings, £1700, and so laid the foundation of one of the largest fortunes ever made out of land in Canterbury.
Gould and Cameron made practically the whole run freehold. The original homestead was on the Ashburton, but they moved it to where it is now.
Gould died in 1889 and after his death his executors and Cameron each tendered for the other's half share. The executors tendered £60,000 and Cameron £65,000, so he got the station.
Until 1908 Cameron had about eighteen thousand acres of freehold but he sold five thousand acres of it that year. In February, 1909, the whole station was offered at auction in farms. About a third of it was sold at auction at an average of £19 an acre, and the rest was sold privately during the year. Thomas Dowling, formerly the manager of Lowcliffe, bought the homestead and two thousand acres.
Cameron was one of the first people to solve the water problem on the plains. The very first water races were made by Reed at Westerfield, but Cameron began making them soon afterwards. In the early 'seventies when Cameron began experimenting with them, people thought the water would sink into the ground unless it was carried in pipes. He was able to show the Ashburton County Council that it was not so, and by the end of 1876 he had thirteen miles of water races on Springfield. He also did very well with crops, and on a scale second only to Longbeach. In 1894 he grew five thousand five hundred acres of wheat there, which was said to be a record for any property in Australasia. It was also his boast that he would find work on the station for anyone who asked him for it. He did not of course pay the casuals very big wages, but it was the habit of many swaggers in those days to turn up at Springfield whenever they wanted enough money to buy a suit of clothes or a pair of boots. He always addressed them as 'Jack.' One of them told me he asked for a job and Cameron asked him what he could do. 'Anything,' said the swagger. 'That's grand,' said Cameron, 'I have a clock that wants mending.' 'But I'm not a watchmaker,' said the swagger, Cameron then told him he wanted an extra stacker, but the swagger couldn't stack either. 'Well you're not the clever fellow I thought you were, Jack,' said Cameron, and put him on to fork sheaves.
Winchmore
(
Run 124)
Winchmore was the next station below Springfield on the north bank of the Ashburton. It was of twenty thousand acres and was taken up by George Hart in October, 1853. Hart came to New Zealand in 1843, and sat in the Wellington Provincial Council and was also a member of the House of Representatives. He named the station after Winchmore Hill (now known as Golder's Hill), his father's place near London. He did very well in New Zealand. At one time he owned Fernside and several other stations in North Canterbury.
For many years during the 'sixties and 'seventies Hart let Winchmore with the sheep to his brother-in-law, Robert Park. Park had been chief surveyor for the Wellington Provincial Government, but left their service because of a disagreement he had with Dr Featherston about the price to be charged for waste land. It was then that he took Winchmore. He used to go surveying for the Canterbury Provincial Government in winter, and in summer looked after Winchmore, where he died.
Hart made nearly ten thousand acres of the Winchmore run freehold. He died in 1895, but his family kept most of the station until 1905, when the remaining seven thousand acres were cut up and sold by his executors. The land brought a good price, £15/10/-an acre.
Hart's first overseer was a man named Bland; after him Duncan Cameron was appointed manager, and from 1864 until 1905 the manager was Matthew Stitt. Stitt first came to Winchmore as a shearer, and Park made him head shepherd. When Cameron left, Park made him manager, and when Park's lease expired Hart kept him on.
The Ashburton Station
(
Runs 98 and 99)
These two runs, about twenty-seven thousand acres altogether, were taken up in August, 1853, by Sir Thomas Tancred. They lay next below Winchmore on the north bank of the Ashburton river, and came a mile or two below the present town of Ashburton. They ran out across the plain to somewhere about the present Fairfield Freezing Works. The homestead was opposite the junction of the two branches of the river, about a mile above the railway bridge. The Misses Wright of Windermere live there now.
From 1855 to about 1860 Sir Thomas leased the run and sheep on terms to John Hayhurst, who had been his shepherd at Malvern Hills. Hayhurst increased the sheep from 2000 in 1855 to 5000 in 1858. After Hayhurst left, Thomas Moorhouse, a brother of the superintendent, managed the station for a time and then took it on terms. Sir Thomas took the Rev. J. C. Allen into partnership and Run 98 was held in his name. Allen never came out to New Zealand. I have been told that Henry Tancred also had a share in the station.
During the 'seventies, H. T. Winter, afterwards station superintendent for the Loan and Mercantile, managed the Ashburton for Tancred and Allen. About 1875 the owners told him to value the station and he valued the run with the sheep and about two thousand acres of freehold at £14,000.
Two years afterwards Winter went to Tasmania for a holiday, leaving the run almost intact. He came back to find that land buying had begun and that almost all the run except the pre-emptives had gone. He advised the owners to sell the freehold in sections which they did with such excellent results that the land and sheep between them fetched £80,000. Both the owners were in England during most of the time Winter was manager, and William Wilson and George Allen Reade held their power of attorney; afterwards Reade alone. Reade had been a cadet at Malvern Hills and was afterwards Receiver of Land Revenue for the Canterbury Provincial Government. Wilson was the first Mayor of Christchurch and a member of the Provincial Council. He was always known as 'Cabbage' Wilson, because he kept a nursery garden. He used to run a flock of turkeys on the Ashburton which seemed to annoy Winter.
Wakanui
(
Runs 139, 140 and 150)
I do not know who took up the Wakanui runs. Runs 139 and 140 were taken up in May, 1854, and Run 150 was taken up in July, 1855. They contained about sixty thousand acres altogether, and in 1856 they belonged to Moore and Kermode, who I daresay were the first owners.
Wakanui took in the country between the Ashburton Station and the sea, and to the north it joined Acton and Rokeby.
The first manager was Jonathan Brown; he was succeeded by W. J. Moffatt, who stayed until Moore and Kermode sold the station. Wakanui was a cattle station until 1861, when it was stocked with 3000 sheep from Glenmark. The first head shepherd was Malcolm Miller, whose wife came down from Christchurch in a bullock dray to live with him as soon as his sod hut was ready.
Moore and Kermode transferred the station to Joseph Palmer in 1874 and Palmer transferred it on the same day to Joseph Archer, William Valentine and James Mercer. Palmer was the manager of the Union Bank in Christchurch and the transfer to him I suppose was a legal formality. I cannot find out the later history of Wakanui except that it was cut up some time in the 'eighties when Sandry and Blackler bought the homestead and sold it a few years later to Giles Keeley. In 1903 Keeley sold the place to John Cairns, the father of the present owners. The homestead was on the Wakanui Creek about a mile above the sea. W. J. Moffat afterwards managed Mt. Parnassus, and still later owned the Lakes Station at the head of the Hurunui.
Ringwood
(
Run 97)
Ringwood was a run of under ten thousand acres lying in the fork of the Ashburton. It came down almost to the present railway bridge. It was taken up by George Williamson Hall in August, 1853. Hall sold it, I think in 1863, to Charles H. Greenstreet, who carried 6500 sheep there in 1867. In the old days the station had no name, but Greenstreet did not like people calling it 'Greenstreet's,' so in later years he named it Ringwood, after an old circular manuka yard which had been put up to camp the sheep in at night. The name of the district however is Greenstreet.
Greenstreet died in November, 1872, but in 1878 Mrs Greenstreet was still carrying 4000 sheep, over half of them being returned as running on freehold. Afterwards she sold her sheep and let her land. I do not know when it was cut up and sold.
For some years George McRae, a former owner of Stronchrubie and Barford, had the old homestead and farm attached to it. It now belongs to James Gill.
Alford
(
Run 126)
Alford lay in the Ashburton forks above Ringwood, between the North Branch and Taylor's Stream. It was taken up by F. W. Delamain for himself and the Kennaway brothers, Walter, Laurence and John. Delamain owned a half share and the Kennaways the other half between them.
Delamain and Laurence Kennaway squatted there in 1854, but there was much dispute about the country until it was surveyed, and they did not get their license for it until July, 1856. The run contained twenty thousand acres, but at one time Kennaway and Co., as the firm was called, claimed over seventy thousand, including Mt. Alford which was afterwards allotted to Winterslow Station.
When Kennaway and Co. dissolved partnership about 1860, Delamain took Alford and the Kennaways took the firm's southern stations, Opawa and Rollesby. Delamain did not keep Alford long. He sold it to Thomas Rowley and Frederick Tooth. Rowley was the owner of Sandy Knolls. In 1864 or 1865 Rowley sold his share of the station to Tooth and went home to England. They went in very extensively for light horse breeding, keeping about thirty mares. Rowley was the manager until the family went home.
Frederick Tooth made some ten thousand acres of the run freehold during the late 'sixties and the 'seventies. He had over 8000 sheep there in 1877. His manager was Foster Nixon, a son of the Bishop of Tasmania. Foster Nixon was succeeded by his brother George. Eventually Tooth fell on bad times and his brother Robert, who financed him, had to take over the station. Robert Tooth lived in Sydney and appointed L. E. Corsbie to manage Alford for him. Corsbie managed it until Tooth sold it about 1883 to the Alford Estate Company. Herring, one of the chief proprietors, managed for the Company until they sold Alford to a syndicate for sub-division in 1902. When the station was cut up,It now (1945) belongs to Melville Turton.
Horsley Brothers, the present owners, bought the homestead and a great deal of the land. According to the sheep returns Alford Station still carries over 3000 sheep.
The Kennaways were younger sons of the Devonshire Kennaways. They had a farm on the Heathcote where John Kennaway lived. They went home to England fairly early. One of them lived in Exeter and another was for a long time in the N.Z. Agent-General's office in London.
Laurence Kennaway Wrote Crusts, a Settler's Fare Due South. It gives a good description of early station life in Canterbury, but Kennaway spoilt much of its usefulness by disguising the names of almost every person that he mentioned.
Delamain was a great racing man in his day. Like so many other good colonists he lost most of his money. He was born at Heavitree near Exeter and died in Christchurch in 1910, aged 75. He was the son of Colonel Delamain, C.B.
Buccleugh
(
Run 125)
Buccleugh lies in the Ashburton forks between Alford Station and the South Branch. It originally took in the downs at the foot of Mt. Somers up to about where the Mt. Somers township is now, and contained twenty thousand acres.
It was taken up in May, 1855, by Brittan and Stace, who sold it to Benjamin Dowling about 1860. Dowling had just sold Heslerton.
About the end of 1862 Dowling sold Buccleugh to Captain J. McLean. Captain McLean was Dalgety and Co.'s first manager in Christchurch, and was the father of the McLeans who bought Mt. Hutt from Aynsley. He was thrown out of his buggy and killed at Winchmore. The N.Z. Loan and Mercantile took over Buccleugh from his executors about 1870 and sold it to Chamberlain and Aitken in 1871. J. H. R. Aitken was the managing partner and lived on the station until it was sold to J. E. Taylor in 1876.
Taylor kept it until 1883 when it again fell into the Loan Company's hands. In 1899 the Company sold Buccleugh to J. M. Furze, the well known English Leicester breeder, who died there in 1900. At that time it consisted of six thousand five hundred acres of freehold and carried 6000 sheep. After Furze's death the station was leased to Edward Gates of Grove Farm, who bought it in 1909. For some years Buccleugh has belonged to Alan Lockhead, whose father bought it from Gates about 1910.
Longbeach
(
Run 45 N.Z.R., afterwards re-numbered Run 247 under the Canterbury Regulations; and 51 N.Z.R.)
The country south of the Ashburton was outside the Canterbury Block and for a few years the General Government administered it under a Commissioner of Crown Lands of their own in Christchurch. The Government let and sold land under different conditions and at different prices from the Canterbury Association, and, of course, had their own sequence of run numbers. When writing of runs held under the Government regulations I have put N.Z.R. against the run numbers.
Longbeach, which at one time took in all the country between the Ashburton and Hinds rivers, ran from the sea up to within a couple of miles or so of the present railway line, where it joined Lagmhor.
Run 51 N.Z.R. lay along the sea and up the Ashburton river, skirting the great swamp formed by the Hinds delta. James Field first applied for it on 1st November, 1854, and Charles Seal applied for 'an island near the coast in the fork of the Hinds,' on the same day. Field was allotted Run 51 N.Z.R., and Seal, Run 45 N.Z.R., which was re-numbered 247 under the Canterbury Regulations in February, 1858.
Field sold his run to C. E. Fooks after a year or two, and in 1857 Fooks sold it to FitzGerald and Cox, the owners of the Springs Station, near Lincoln. FitzGerald, the chief partner, named the run Longbeach, and they used it to carry young cattle from the Springs. Cox came down and started the station. The firm was called Brown, Cox and Co. after Hunter Brown joined it in 1859.
Seal sold the other run (247), which took in the Hinds delta, to Moore and Kermode about 1856. In the maze of swamps and creeks which were there in those days, the boundary between these runs was illdefined, and Moore and Kermode claimed most of Brown, Cox and Co.'s run. In 1862 they went to law, and Brown, Cox and Co. won the case, whereupon Moore and Kermode bought a great part of Brown, Cox and Co.'s run freehold. Brown, Cox were left with only three or four thousand acres and decided that such a small run was not worth bothering with, so they sold it to Ford and Newton in 1862. Joseph Haydon, who years afterwards made such a fortune out of the Virginia country, was manager for Ford and Newton.
In 1862 Moore and Kermode sold their station (Run 247) to Michael Campbell and Edward Merson Templer. The homestead of it was where James Stoddart lives now.
In 1864 John Grigg came down from the North Island and bought the whole of both runs freehold, and bought the lessees' interests as well, which was considered very liberal of him, as by holding off he could have had everything except the stock for next to nothing. The story of the conversion of this howling wilderness of toe toe and raupo, nigger head and flax, into what Canterbury people proudly called ' the best farm in the world ' is too well known to be repeated. When Grigg went there the greater part of the country was shown on a map in the Land Office as a ' valueless bog.'
Both the stations which Grigg bought had been worked entirely as cattle stations, and for some time he continued to run cattle only. In those days more fat cattle went to the diggings on the Coast from Longbeach than from any other two stations in Canterbury. When the country was stocked with sheep the sheep were brought from the North. Grigg in those days was more of a general farmer and cattle man than a sheep man, but was open to advice. Someone told him that sheep should never be put across a river after three o'clock in the afternoon, so he gave orders to his shep-herdsshepherds to that effect. When they crossed the Rakaia it was in several streams and at three o'clock the sheep were on an island. The shepherds carried out their orders literally and left them where they were. They took a risk as it was blowing nor'-west up country, and the river rose a good deal in the night. However, they got them over the last stream in the morning and everything was well. At first Grigg only ran sheep on a belt of dry land along the coast, north of the homestead, and this part of the station is still called the ' sheep paddocks.'
When the drains were working, Longbech was a wonderful place. In the 'seventies they shore 30,000 sheep, fed 3000 pigs, 1000 or more head of cattle, and worked 150 draught horses. There were nearly 200 permanent hands on the station and in one year Grigg had five thousand acres in wheat and three thousand in oats.
For some years Grigg had a partner, Thomas Russell, and until they dissolved partnership the station consisted of thirty-two thousand acres of freehold. On the dissolution, however, fifteen thousand acres of land were sold, and the surplus stock realised £35,000.
John Grigg died in November, 1901, and was succeeded by his son J. C. N. Grigg, who after buying out the other beneficiaries had some ten thousand acres left with the station. J. C. N. Grigg died in 1926 and was succeeded by the present owner, a third John Grigg. Since 1907 a good deal of the land has been sold, but it remains one of the finest agricultural and pastoral properties in New Zealand.
Grigg's first manager was his brother, Joseph Grigg, and Edgar Jones, afterwards of Mt. Nessing and several other stations, came with the sheep and was a cadet for a year or so afterwards. William Massey, the Prime Minister, was a station hand at Longbeach for a time. Thomas Black was foreman and head shepherd under Joseph Grigg, who was succeeded as manager by a man named Hocking. Standish, who was stock manager, had charge of John Grigg's dealings in fat cattle, and with about eight stockmen under him used to deliver them to the West Coast butchers. Thomas Dove was on the station for over forty years, first as head stockman and afterwards as book-keeper. Tout was agricultural manager under the first and second John Grigg for many years. He died while manager of Bangor since the 1914-18 War. R. Biddock was manager while J. C. N. Grigg was in England during the War. John Smith was head shepherd at Longbeach for thirty years. Of the early owners, Field was one of the brothers who took part of the Springs Station. I know nothing about Seal, except that in 1853 and 1854 he was a cadet with Phillips at Rockwood, and that in 1878 he was still living somewhere near Ashburton. Fooks had a run at Papanui and an interest in Lochinvar, under which I have given an account of him. The other early owners come into the stories of their other stations.
LagmhorThis spelling has been questioned but the McLeans and their men spelt it so.
(
Run 38 N.Z.R.)
Lagmhor ran from the Ashburton to the Hinds, and from Longbeach to Westerfield. It originally contained forty-six thousand acres. It was first taken up by C. C. Haslewood of Coringa in 1854, but he did not fulfil the conditions of his lease and the McLean brothers contested his rights and were given a new license for the country early in 1855. The McLean brothers were Allan, John and Robertson, the owners of Ashfield. As time went on they made thirty thousand acres of the run freehold.
In the 'fifties the manager was T. McLean and for a time the station was apparently called Glenfawin. There were 1050 sheep there at the beginning of 1855 and they had increased to 4500 by 1858. In 1898 there were just under 20,000.
Robertson McLean retired from the firm after a few years. When John and Allan dissolved partnership in 1880 the Hon. John McLean took Lagmhor and Waitaki Plains, and Allan, Waikakahi.
In the 'fifties a man employed at shearing told John McLean about some beautiful country he had seen in the south, so McLean went exploring as soon as shearing was finished and took up the country the man had told him about. This was Morven Hills. McLean wasn't sure whether it was in Canterbury or Otago, so he applied for it in both provinces.
Laghmor was very much intersected by roads, and there was a good deal of settlement about it and a lot of travelling sheep. A good many station sheep used to disappear. The McLeans were the last men in the world to lose sheep if they could prevent it. They erected all their fences with nine wires four inches apart from top to bottom, so that when kept tight a woodhen could hardly get through them. You can see these fences on all their old stations, at least at Lagmhor, Waikakahi, and Waitaki Plains. I do not remember noticing them at Morven Hills, but that was sold earlier. There were three hundred and fifty miles of wire fences on Lagmhor besides a hundred and fifty of gorse and hawthorn.
Only one of the shepherds at Lagmhor lived at the homestead. The others were in cottages dotted about the run, one near Hinds, one at Tinwald, one opposite Maronan, and so on.
In his later years John McLean lived at Redcastle, near Oamaru, and Donald McLean, a relation of his and one of the early patrons of trotting, managed Lagmhor. Donald McLean was a great athlete. One of his feats was to turn a newly shorn merino wether loose and run him down on the open plain. He could put two barrels side by side and take a standing jump out of one into the other. At ' smoke-oh ' he used to take a standing jump over a bale of wool and then Brucksaw, the 'pannikin boss' (head general hand), used to carry it out of the shed single-handed. McLean would then challenge the shearers to find any two men who could do the same. He never had any difficulty in getting shearers and shed hands. As many as 150 would turn up on the chance of a job when Lagmhor was an open shed.
In 1899, some years before his death, John McLean made the station over to his nephew, George A. M. Buckley. After a year or two Buckley began selling off the land; he sold the homestead and the last four or five thousand acres in 1913. In its last days it carried 11,000 sheep and Harry Ford, a brother to J. T. Ford, was the manager.
Buckley now lives in England. He commanded a battalion of infantry with distinction during the 1914-18 War. He also went down to the Antarctic with one of the expeditions, and nearly lost his life in a horrible way. He was being sent from one ship to another and it was too rough to use a boat, so they decided to haul him across on a rope. Luckily they sent a live sheep across to see that the tackle would work properly, for when the sheep was half way across it was torn to pieces by the sea birds.
When the last of Lagmhor was sold James Low bought the homestead. It belongs now to V. W. Wright.
Westerfield
(
Runs 59 and 451)
These runs, of over forty thousand acres altogether, were taken up in October, 1854, by Sir John Hall. The country lay above Lagmhor, between the Hinds and Ashburton. The McLeans contested Hall's right to the run in April, 1855, but Hall managed to hold it, and soon afterwards sold it unstocked to Charles Reed for £2000.
For many years in the 'fifties and 'sixties J. T. Ford managed both Westerfield and Tresillian for Reed, with a man named Bovey as overseer at Westerfield. Afterwards Reed lived at Westerfield himself with L. E. Corsbie as manager under him. In 1875 Corsbie left and went to Alford, and D. Oliver, the head shepherd, became manager. He was a very good sheepman from Australia and in those days one of the best judges of merino sheep in Canterbury. Archibald Clark was head shepherd before Oliver.
Reed made about a third of the run freehold. He died in 1880. His executors then sold the station with 20,000 sheep to Cyril Hawdon (son of Joseph Hawdon) for £62,000. Hawdon bought it for himself and Alexander and Richard Strachey.
Mrs Reed sailed for England but died on the journey home. Her son, Charles Reed junior, who went home with her, came out again in 1892 to try to buy Westerfield back, but could not finance it so returned to England where he died soon afterwards.
Hawdon and the Stracheys sold Maranui, a block of the freehold next Lagmhor, and Hackthorne, which Charles Harper bought, and other parts of the freehold soon after they bought the station. When they dissolved partnership the arbitrators gave each a share of the land, what were afterwards the Clarewell and Bar-ford Estates going to the Stracheys, and Hawdon getting the Westerfield homestead. Oliver stayed with him as manager until 1886. Hawdon sold Westerfield with two thousand five hundred acres to C. H. Dowding and Charles Franklyn Todhunter in 1890.
Todhunter bought Dowding's share and kept Westerfield until 1900, when he sold it to A. F. Roberts who added land to it until the station again consisted of five thousand acres of freehold.
Roberts cut up Westerfield and sold it in 1908. The homestead, now a farm, belongs to J. and L. J. Fechney, whose father bought it from Roberts.
Reed was an old Victorian squatter. The following is an account of him sent me by one who worked for him at Westerfield. 'When Mr Reed worked in the yards he used to wear a pair of wide white moleskin trousers, a blue woollen smock (it used to be called in Victoria a " blue shirt ") and a cabbage tree hat. The blue shirt and cabbage tree hat were the last I ever saw—the only ones I ever saw in New Zealand—though they were both common in Victoria in the early days. Mr Reed's favourite expletives were "By Heavens!" and " You damnable savages! " On one occasion Mr Reed in his moleskins, blue shirt and cabbage tree hat was taking a mob of sheep out to one of the paddocks when he met two " commercials " [swaggers]. One of them said to him " Good day, mate, is old Scabby at home?" (He went by the name of " Scabby.") Mr Reed said " Oh yes, he's at home." The man said " I wonder if the old———will give us a feed." Mr Reed said " Most likely he will." Mr Reed, coming back another way arrived home before the men and was waiting for them. " Oh yes," he said, " the old——will give you a feed this time, but by Heavens, you damnable savages, don't let me ever see you at Westerfield again."
' Mrs Reed would never live on the station. I believe she had never seen it until 1878 when she went there and stayed for a very short time.'
All this makes Reed seem eccentric, but he was a very practical stock owner and efficient manager. He was the first man to start water races in Canterbury, and thirteen miles of his old station races are still used by the Ashburton County Council. His ambition was ultimately to work Westerfield like an English country estate and let the land in farms. In 1873 he built a well-equipped flour mill which was worked until it was burnt down, and by 1874 had laid out a township with sites reserved for church and village inn, and had established four tenants on the freehold. When sheep-washing was thought necessary, Reed had a very superior plant for it. In the 'seventies the station carried about 23,000 sheep, two-thirds of them half-and three-quarterbreds by 1874. Reed had a stud flock of merinos and for a short time one of Dartmoor sheep. In 1874 he spent £1000 on bringing a Lincoln stud flock out from England.
Reed was, as my correspondent says, sometimes known as ' Scabby Reed ' because he brought scabby sheep down from Nelson to Tresillian and infested his neighbours, but the real ' Scabby Reed ' was another old Victorian squatter who went broke there in 1850 and came and drove a cab in Christchurch. He suffered from barber's itch.
Hawdon went Home for good when he sold Westerfield and so did one of the Stracheys. The other owners are too well remembered to require description. Tod-hunter was the father of R. Todhunter of Blackford and Lake Heron. Dowding managed Coldstream for many years. He was the clerk of the course for the first New Zealand Grand National.
In 1874 a man working in the yards of Westerfield was badly butted in the stomach by a sheep and died a day or two afterwards. Not long afterwards Henry Davey, the station carpenter, was drowned when a dray upset in the Ashburton river, and two days after that a shepherd broke his leg when a horse fell with him.
Valetta
(
Run 58)
Valetta lay between the Ashburton and Hinds rivers above Westerfield, and contained fourteen thousand five hundred acres of which nearly ten thousand were eventually made freehold.
It was taken up by George Duncan Lockhart in October, 1854. At one time C. C. Haslewood and a man named Oakley seem to have claimed the run, but J. T. Ford told me that the original pasturage license was granted to Lockhart. I have not come across the manuscript record.
Lockhart sold the station with ' fifty good cows in calf to Charles Hurst, afterwards of Oakleigh, in 1857 for £1000. Hurst sold to J. C. Aitken, I think, in the early 'sixties, and J. C. Aitken sold to W. C. Walker about 1870, but I am not very sure of these dates. In 1882 Walker's father-in-law, Archdeacon Wilson, took the station over from him. One of the Dunfords was Walker's manager in 1878.
After the Archdeacon's death Valetta was carried on by his executors until 1914, when they cut it up and sold it. T. B. Richards was their manager for many years and until they sold it.
The homestead was bought from them by the present owner, H. S. Richards, a cousin of the last manager.
Valetta was the last of the old plains stations to remain anything like its original size. When it was cut up in 1914 it still contained over fourteen thousand acres of freehold and leasehold land. All the early owners of Valetta, except Oakley, whom I know nothing about, are mentioned under other runs, and the later ones are too well remembered to require description. Walker was, of course, the Hon. W. C. Walker, M.L.C., at one time Minister of Education.
Cracroft
(
Run 42 N.Z.R., re-numbered 499 in May, 1864)
Cracroft took in the country between the Hinds and Rangitata above Maronan. On the west it was bounded by Shepherd's Bush. Shepherd's Bush, Valetta, Anama and Cracroft all met at a point near Mayfield.
Run 499 contained fifty-four thousand acres and was the second largest single run in Canterbury. It was taken up by St. G. M. Nugent, who applied for it before 1st November, 1854. Nugent selected the run for himself and J. C. (afterwards Sir Cracroft) Wilson.
At first Nugent managed Rosebank as the station was then called. He had only a small share in it. In 1856 Wilson bought out Nugent and a son of Wilson took over the management. Young Wilson was drowned in the Rakaia with several of his stockmen a year or two later. Other early managers were Bethune, who was drowned in the Rangitata, then G. Wright, and then W. J. Moffat. Later, McAlpine, afterwards owner of Broadfields, and lastly a man named McColl.
Sir Cracroft died in 1881 and in 1886 his executors sold the station to E. M. Goodwin. During Goodwin's time the last of the leasehold was bought up. He sold off some of the freehold in large farms, and finally in 1896 sold the homestead and five thousand four hundred acres to George McMillan of Mesopotamia for £12/7/6 an acre. In 1897 McMillan offered it to me— I had been his cadet—for £16,000 with 4000 sheep as a going concern. In 1904, after McMillan's death, his executors cut the station up into farms, and with the stock it realised £50,000.
In 1896 most of the land was still in tussock, but McMillan ploughed almost all of it and raised the carrying capacity from 4000 sheep to 8000, besides turning off all the surplus sheep and lambs fat.
When Cracroft was cut up in 1904, the homestead with twelve or fifteen hundred acres was bought by John Grigg of Longbeach, whose son sold it about 1927 to Donaldson Brothers, the present owners.
I have given an account of Sir Cracroft Wilson in my note on Broadlands. I know nothing about Nugent, Wright or McColl except their names and their connection with Cracroft.
In Goodwin's time, in the early 'nineties before the roads through Cracroft were fenced, a funny thing happened to a friend of mine there. He was bringing a mob of sheep from the south for a Christchurch dealer. He paddocked the sheep one night at the Rangitata Bridge, but went himself to spend the night with some friends who lived ten or twelve miles off. The weather was very hot so he got up at daylight next morning to get an early start, meaning to have breakfast at the hotel where his sheep were paddocked. When he got to the hotel everyone was still in bed and there was no chance of breakfast for hours, but the publican offered to make him some ' Russion tea' and bread and butter in no time. ' Russian tea' turned out to be ordinary tea well laced with rum, and my friend and the publican had several cups of it together and then my friend crossed the bridge with his sheep. It was already hot when the sheep were across and my friend sat on a tussock in the shade of his horse to watch them graze up the terrace. He said it only seemed a minute or two before he woke up to find his horse and dogs by him, but not a sheep in sight. He galloped a mile across the open plain before he came on any of them. Then he found they had made themselves at home with the Cracroft sheep—they were thoroughly 'boxed' (mixed together), and his employer had to pay for them to be mustered and drafted, besides grazing charges.
George Allan McMillan
1832-1903
George Allan McMillan was a fine old-fashioned squatter of a kind common enough forty years ago, but now extinct, and as he was a sort of godfather of mine in sheep management (my others were O. Scott Thomson of Mt. Peel, and John Carmichael, my head shepherd at Glentanner), I may perhaps, as an act of piety, give a longer description of him than would otherwise be suitable to these notes.
McMillan began life as a shepherd in Ross-shire, and, as he was proud to tell, arrived in New Zealand in 1859 with less than £10 in his pocket. He engaged himself as a boundary keeper with the Hon. William Robinson at Cheviot Hills, and by his ability and merit worked up to be head shepherd and then manager there. When his savings were large enough he bought the Lakes, a small station at the head of the Hurunui, and when he had made a success of the Lakes he sold it and bought Mesopotamia with 18,000 sheep. He bought Mesopotamia some time before the bad times had got to their worst, and though deeply involved, by good management he weathered the storm much better than most people. When he died he left three unencumbered stations, which his executors sold for over £80,000, and this was before station property had reached the high value it afterwards did.
On all occasions and at all times he wore clothes of exactly the same colour and pattern. He wore the newest in town, the next when travelling and country visiting, and so by successive gradations to the oldest which he kept for work in the woolshed and sheep yards, but all apparently cut from the same piece of cloth.
When I first knew him he had given up doing much actual shepherding and his only dog was a half broken one kept for companionship rather than work, but with ' Chevy ' I have seen him take a mob of 1200 merino ewes and lambs away from Mesopotamia yards in a way that was a pleasure to watch.
In several years' close intimacy I rarely heard him begin a conversation except on the subject of sheep, stations and the people connected with them, but when occasion demanded, he talked of men and things in general with great shrewdness. He had an apt way of expressing his conclusions. For instance he said that only three kinds of men should go on the turf, those with a thousand a year more than they can spend, experienced trainers and jockeys, and infernal rascals. When I asked his advice about selling Glentanner Station at a good profit, he said, ' I think the Glentanner hills will be standing long after your pile of money has melted away.'
He was not the least purse-proud or pompous, but always modest and unassuming—a staunch and generous friend to rich and poor alike.
When he died he arranged that his executors should bury him in the home paddocks at Cracroft.
Maronan
(
Run 26 N.Z.R., re-numbered 531 about 1865)
Maronan took in the country between the Hinds and Rangitata below Cracroft. It ran down to about the present railway and contained thirty-one thousand acres.
It was taken up by George J. and James D. Rogers in October, 1854. G. J. Rogers was J. D. Rogers's father. He was Crown Solicitor in Sydney and I do not think he ever came to New Zealand. He went home to Ireland where he died before 1859.
He made the run over to his son after a year or two and for several years J. D. Rogers managed Maronan from Anama, where he lived with his friend Russell, another Australian. He originally called the station Parramatta, but soon changed its name to Marouan, but he wrote his n's and u's alike and people thought the name was Maronan and that name crept into general use so he adopted it. He had 3,000 sheep there by 1857. When fully stocked it carried over 10,000.
Rogers came to grief during the bad times, the last straw to break him being a game of loo at which he is said to have lost £1200. He died in 1866, aged 35. After his death the lease was held in the names of several financial firms, and was taken over finally about 1868 by Robert Wilkin and Archibold Thomson. Thomson was the managing partner until his death when John Carter bought his share. Wilkin and Carter sold Maronan to John Raine in 1882 and in 1885 Raine sold it to Richard Strachey. I do not know how long Strachey kept it, but in 1895 it belonged to W. P. Kellock, a son-in-law of the first John Grigg of Longbeach. He had been a tea planter in Ceylon before he came to New Zealand. Maronan then consisted of about six thousand acres of freehold on the Hinds, the leasehold having been all bought or taken for reserves, and the freehold on the Rangitata sold by Strachey.
In 1906 Kellock sold Maronan to Nicholl Brothers of Ashburton, and went home to England where he eventually died. The Nicholls sold the station at a large profit almost at once to Friedlander Brothers, who cut it up and sold it, and also did very well out of it. The homestead was bought by the present owner, John Williams.
I have described Wilkin elsewhere and know nothing more about Thomson. Carter was a Yorkshire-man, born in 1838. Before coming to Maronan he had managed Mt. Mutt for Aynsley and the Wanaka Station in Otago. He died in 1884.
Coldstream
(
Runs 453 and 454)
Coldstream took in the country between the Hinds and Rangitata below Maronan, which it joined about the present railway line. It ran to the sea and contained over fifty thousand acres. In the Lyttelton Times of 17th January, 1852, A. S. Collins gave notice of applying for the Rangitata side of the country, but he either abandoned it or could not stock it as we hear no more about him.
Ernest Gray applied for this country again on the 1st November, 1854, and on the same day Sefton Moorhouse applied for the country on the Hinds. Sefton Moorhouse could not stock his country and either forfeited it or sold it to Henry Gray, Ernest Gray's brother and partner, before the Grays had started their station. William Scott joined the Grays and bought Henry Gray's share within a few months. Scott and Gray named Coldstream in punning allusion to their names, Scots Greys—Coldstream Guards.
Sir Charles Bowen told me that he happened to cross the Rangitata on his way from the south on the very day that Ernest Gray arrived to start his station. He said he found him sitting amongst bags of cases beside his half-unloaded bullock dray, looking for all the world as if he had been shipwrecked.
In 1867 Scott and Gray (as the firm was called) sold Coldstream to John and Michael Studholme. When the Studholmes dissolved partnership in 1878, Coldstream fell to John Studholme's share. John Studholme made it over to his son, Lieut.-Colonel John Studholme, the father of the present owner, in 1880.
The Studholmes made eighteen thousand acres of the run freehold. They drained two thousand acres, and few places in Canterbury are better planted. The Lowcliffe estate (in which the Studholmes also had a share) was bought out of the Coldstream run by R. H. Rhodes, William Reeves, Hassell and others.
Most of the Coldstream land has been sold from the 'nineties onwards. The property now carries less than 3000 sheep.
Of the early owners, I know nothing about Collins; Moorhouse and the Grays are well remembered in Canterbury; I have given an account of Scott and the Studholmes under Snowdon and Waimate.
C. H. Dowding managed Coldstream from 1867, when the Studholmes bought it, until 1890 when the present owner took charge.
Chapter 6
Some South Canterbury Stations
Except where it is specially noted, the accounts of stations in this chapter have not been brought past September, 1925, when they were originally published in The Press.
Johannes Andersen has skilfully disentangled the earliest history of most of the South Canterbury stations in his Jubilee History of South Canterbury, a book which everyone interested in the subject should read. He has kindly allowed me to borrow freely from it.
The front-country runs south of the Rangitata were, with very few exceptions, taken up before those between the Rangitata and Rakaia. I think this was because the country between the Rangitata and Waitaki was accessible from the old shore whaling station which had been established near Timaru in the 'thirties, where there was a practicable landing place from schooners.
As I should have said in the last chapter, Sir George Grey, the Governor, in October, 1851, appointed Lieut.-Colonel James Campbell, Commissioner of Crown Lands for Canterbury outside the Block. There is a written list of runs in the Canterbury Public Library which shows that Campbell allotted over fifty runs outside the Block to various persons, on 27th September, 1853. These persons had applied for the runs from June, 1851, onwards. Some thirty of the runs lay south of the Block. Several applicants had felt confident enough to start stations before Campbell allotted the runs.
In 1854 Campbell was superseded, and William Guise Brittan, the Provincial Government's Commis-CrownCommisCrown sioner ofLands, was given authority over the whole waste lands of the province, both in the Block, and beyond it. Brittan was much stricter than Campbell in making the tenants carry out the conditions of lease. He found that many runs in South Canterbury were still unstocked, and issued fresh licenses with different numbers, but gave back most of the runs to the old tenants.
The Provincial Government tried to persuade the runholders outside the Block to exchange their licenses under the New Zealand regulations for licenses under the Canterbury regulations, but the rents were slightly lower and conditions easier under the New Zealand regulations and several runs were held under them until 1870.
OrariandPakihi
(
Runs 17, 20, 32 and 33 all N.Z.R., afterwards numbered 440, 452 and 470; also 238)
South of the Rangitata and beginning at the sea the first station was Pakihi, but as Pakihi was for many years a part of Orari, the station above it, it is convenient to take the two together.
Before it was subdvided, Orari covered all the country between the Rangitata and Orari rivers from the sea to the line of the present road running from the Upper Orari bridge to Proudfoot's Corner.
Colonel Campbell originally allotted this country on 27th September, 1853, in four runs which he numbered 16, 24, 25 and 26. He allotted C. R. Blakiston twenty-five thousand acres from the sea inland. West of Blakiston he allotted twenty thousand acres to W. K. Macdonald. G. W. H. Lee came next with twenty thousand acres, and above Lee came R. J. S. Harman with twenty-five thousand acres. In those days the Orari river was called the ' Cocks.'
Blakiston, Lee and Harman are all mentioned in the accounts of other stations. None of them ever occupied his Orari run, which he either forfeited, aban-doned,doned, or sold to the Macdonald brothers. One of the runs, probably Harman's, was taken up again or purchased by Dr. Barker who could not find stock for it, so sold it to the Macdonalds for £50.
When Brittan took over the administration in 1854, he re-numbered these runs 17, 20, 32 and 33 N.Z.R., and issued them to William Kenneth Macdonald and his brothers (Doctor) Allan Ranald and Angus. In February, 1858, they took up the Rangitata Island (Run 238) under the Canterbury regulations.
The Macdonalds, whom I mentioned as owners of Ashfield and Waireka Stations near Christchurch in the earliest days of the settlement, had owned stations in Victoria before that. A. R. and W. K. Macdonald had landed in New South Wales in 1842 and Angus joined them later.
Just after the arrival of the First Four Ships, W. K. Macdonald brought a ship-load of sheep from Australia to Canterbury in partnership with Joseph Hawdon and J. C. Aitken. There was great risk in shipping sheep in those days. In November, 1852, the Macdonalds shipped 2200 sheep in the Tory from Portland, and only 900 of them reached Lyttelton after a bad passage lasting thirty days. The previous lot, however, got on better, as the Tory only took fifteen days on the voyage.
Orari was one of the first of the South Canterbury stations to be anything like stocked up. The Macdonalds brought sheep there from their northern stations in 1853, and by 1856 had 4000 head on the country and 8000 by 1857.
Both William and Angus Macdonald were on their Canterbury stations from the early 'fifties, but the Doctor did not come down to New Zealand until 1855, and in 1858 he went out of the partnership and returned to Australia, letting his run and sheep to his brothers.
In 1862-3 the Orari runs were brought under the Canterbury regulations, 20 N.Z.R. becoming 452; 32 N.Z.R., 440; and 33 N.Z.R., 470, about sixty thousand acres altogether besides Run 238 of five thousand. Run 17 N.Z.R. disappeared. The reason that thirty thousand acres vanished seems to have been that the runs were originally plotted on an old map which shows the Orari running into the Opihi; and as the valuable piece of country running from the present Orari racecourse to the sea and to the Opihi was almost the only coastal land in South Canterbury which had not been applied for by 1852, it seems most probable that it was reckoned in the area of the Orari runs.
In 1864 W. K. and Angus Macdonald dissolved partnership. Angus took Run 452 which came from the sea up to Badham's road, on which he built his new woolshed and shepherd's hut. He had already built his homestead, Waitui, on the Geraldine downs.
W. K. Macdonald took the other two runs—Run 440 which was in his own name and came to within about half a mile of the Great South Road, and Run 470 which stood in the Doctor's name. In the early days, the Doctor's run, which had been an out-station (on R.S. 3604 B.) on the north bank of Cooper's Creek, was sometimes called the Rangitata Terraces Station. The Orari homestead is on R.S. 3604 A., on the present railway line.
The Macdonalds divided the eight hundred acres of freehold and the sheep equally. There were at the time 25,000 sheep running on the Orari Station, besides 3000 which were running with Jollie at Peel Forest on terms.
W. K. Macdonald died in 1879, after which trustees worked the station for Mrs Macdonald for many years. In 1881-82 they sold nine hundred and fifty acres of the freehold at £12 an acre, which was a very good price for those days.
Mrs Macdonald died in 1901, and the station—which consisted of about eight thousand acres of freehold— was divided among her four sons. The youngest, G. A. M. Macdonald, got the old homestead which his family still owns, and they still use part of the original house built in 1854. The rafters are of split totara and some of the walls are built on split slabs.
W. K. Macdonald managed Orari himself in the early days. A. R. B. Thomson, known as ' Bob '—an old Australian friend—was the first overseer. He afterwards had a run in Otago. E. R. Guinness, who worked on the station as a boy, was a later overseer. He was mixed up with station business in Canterbury until his death, and his son still owns Glentanner in the Mackenzie Country.
Among the early station hands were Tommy Pearce, who helped plant the first trees at Orari and who died in 1928 in the Orari township; ' Billy Gooseberry,' whose real name, William Smith, was never used, was the first bullock driver. ' Billy Gooseberry ' afterwards became fordman at Coppin's Ford on the Rangitata, and was drowned while carrying out his duties. He had piloted some diggers across and when returning he dropped his coat into the water. He galloped along a shingle spit to try and recover it, but fell from his horse and disappeared.
' Old Brown ' did the first ploughing with a wooden plough and bullocks. He got on so badly with the other men that he had to live by himself in a little hut out in the flax. ' Little Irving,' an early teamster, was killed on the station by falling under his dray. William Gartner, a brother of Ellis's partner at Ashley Gorge, was for many years cook. Other early station hands were Boothroyd, sometime overseer, Robert Eaglesome, and Fred Austin, whose son is the present shepherd at Orari.
Charles Steven Totton managed Orari for some years for W. K. Macdonald's executors, as did William Gunn, who left in 1883, but the best known of the later managers was J. M. Murray, who managed from 1883 until 1899, when the management was taken over by W. K. Macdonald junior, son of the first owner. Murray had been managing Glenwye for the Count de Lapasture before he came to Orari.
The Macdonald's country on the Rangitata river-bed was originally separated from the plain by what was called the Rangitata Creek, which generally made a good boundary, and in 1859 was spanned by a 36-foot bridge. Sometimes the creek ran low and the Mac-donaldsMacdonalds made a channel to run more water into it from the river, and the old diaries frequently speak of the men being employed to run water in, or turn it off, but in the end the river took charge, and the Rangitata Island was formed. The Macdonalds had to build a woolshed on the island and shear 6000 or 7000 of their sheep there. One of the Macdonalds told John Barton Acland that he only regretted the forming of the Rangitata Island once—and that was always.
Pakihi
(
Run 452)
Angus Macdonald, who had held the lower run since he and his brother dissolved partnership in 1865, died in 1890, after which his son named the station Pakihi. Angus Macdonald did not live there, but drove down day by day in an old Abbot buggy from Waitui.
After his death Mrs Macdonald kept on the station, which then consisted of about five thousand acres of freehold. The farm where the Hon. William Rolleston lived for many years was also a part of Angus Macdonald's original freehold.
Harry Ford, a well known owner and manager of stations in the old days, and afterwards the last manager of Lagmhor, managed Pakihi for several years until about 1896, when the greater part of it was sold. After Ford, B. R. Macdonald lived at Pakihi and managed what was left of the place. The family sold the last of it in 1916, and the homestead block now belongs to Bolderstone.
The first race meeting ever held in South Canterbury was arranged by the Macdonalds and the Studholmes of Waimate. It was held on April 1st, 1859, and the course was made among the tussocks almost exactly where the Geraldine racecourse is now. It was put there to be close to Stranks's accommodation house which stood close to the south end of the present railway bridge.
The first race of the day, a match for £50 a side, was won by W. K. Macdonald's Niger, who beat M. Studholme's Sir Charles. Niger had Arab blood in him and must have had great stamina. He would carry Macdonald (who rode fourteen stone) from Orari to Christchurch, or even Lyttelton, in a day—a very good performance for a man and horse in the days when there were neither roads nor bridges.
Peel Forest
(
Run 13 N.Z.R., subsequently Runs 388 and 411)
This station originally covered all the country between the Rangitata and Orari rivers, and ran from the cross road just below the Upper Orari Bridge, up to Peel Forest itself, and took in the low spurs running from Little Mt. Peel towards the Orari. At one time the tenants claimed the country as far as Mt. Peel Creek, but this was never stocked until it became part of Mt. Peel.
Peel Forest was allotted to Francis Jollie on 1st November, 1853, and is described in the license, which was issued by Colonel Campbell, as Run 12, comprising twenty-five thousand acres. When the runs outside the Block were placed under the Provincial Government's administration, W. G. Brittan, the Commissioner of Lands, issued a new license for twenty-seven thousand three hundred acres, the new license being numbered 13, N.Z.R. On 30th May, 1861, this license was exchanged for Runs 388 and 411 under the Canterbury Regulations, Run 388 being surrendered and given to Tripp and Acland of Mt. Peel a few years later.
By 1854 Jollie was carrying 1382 sheep, and his manager was Bayley Pike. Jollie built the homestead where it still stands on the edge of the Forest, but his manager appears to have lived at first on the Orari flat below Silverton—Mrs J. M. H. Tripp's present house. In 1856 Gibson, the then manager, lived there, but in the 'sixties the run was worked from the Creek Station, where Jollie's next manager—his step-son Edward Cooper—lived. The Creek Station, with a few acres about it, was leased to T. P. Bartrum from 1879 onwards, and he established a wool scour there. It was on the eastern boundary of the run, below where the Geraldine road crosses Cooper's Creek.
Jollie, a brother of Edward Jollie, the Chief Surveyor, had settled at Nelson in the forties. When the Canterbury Association began operations, a run as near the Block as possible was the ambition of many of the ' pre-Adamite ' settlers.
Jollie is said to have built his homestead as far as possible from his working station because the bleating of sheep annoyed his wife, and if any came near her house she used to send the cowboy to drive them away with a stockwhip.
Jollie died in 1870 and his wife about the same time, after which the station devolved upon Edward Cooper. Cooper lived on at the Creek Station, but built a new working station on the land afterwards sold to R. Marshall, where lived E. R. Guinness, who became Cooper's manager in July, 1877, and remained until July, 1879, after the station had been sold. Cooper let the homestead to Sir Thomas Tancred, and afterwards to Arthur Hawdon—both retired squatters.
In September, 1878, Cooper sold the station, which then comprised about seven thousand acres of freehold, twelve thousand acres of leasehold, and about 13,000 sheep, and retired to Melbourne. The purchasers were Smith, Dennistoun and Co., and the partners in this firm were George Grey Russell (partner in Ritchie and Russell, of Dunedin, and owner of Otipua Station, near Timaru), H. J. le Cren (Timaru), W. Cunningham-Smith, and George James Dennistoun (who had been a midshipman in the Navy). Russell and le Cren were originally the senior partners. Cunningham-Smith and Dennistoun had recently owned Haldon Station, in the Mackenzie Country, in partnership with Wallace. Dennistoun was the managing partner and the only one of them who lived on the station. His overseers were William Turton, and from 1883 to 1913 Thomas Frazer, who now farms part of the old freehold. Frazer was succeeded by Jack Turton, who had been head shepherd at Mt. Peel, and came to Peel Forest in 1899.
Dennistoun went to England in 1914, leaving Turton in charge, and he is still there.Turton retired in 1931 and now lives in Geraldine. He was succeeded by Ynyr Robinson who stayed till 1938. Eighteen months later Paul Acland Thomson, the present manager, took over.
He takes a very great pride in the station and his long connection with it.
When the old leases expired in 1889, the Government knocked down the pastoral runs to the highest bidders. Postlethwaite of Raukapuka out-bid Smith, Dennistoun and Co., for their run country, which, however, did not make his fortune. This hill country was some years ago subdivided into three grazing runs.
Jollie, Cooper, and Smith, Dennistoun and Co., at various times had made freehold some eight thousand five hundred acres of that part of the run which lay on the plains, and the partners went on with this.
In January, 1894, Cunningham-Smith left the firm, and a year or so later, le Cren having died, Russell and Dennistoun bought his interest also.
In September, 1903, Russell, wishing to wind up his New Zealand affairs, sold his share to Dennistoun, who then became the sole owner of the station, which at that time consisted roughly of eight thousand acres of freehold and carried 8500 sheep. During the following eighteen months much land was sold and the area reduced to five thousand four hundred acres. By a second sale in 1913, which included the woolshed block (now Marshall's farm), the property was brought down to its present size, i.e. about two thousand three hundred acres with 2300 sheep, and a new woolshed was built near the old homestead at the edge of the Forest.
The several owners of Peel Forest have all been men of taste, and great tree planters, and the glorious view, native bush and trim gardens make it one of the most beautiful homesteads in Canterbury.
Dennistoun died in England during the 1914-18 War (at which his elder son died of wounds in the hands of the enemy), and Peel Forest is now occupied by his younger son, Commander Dennistoun, who manages the station for his father's executors.
Mount Peel
(
Runs 268, 281, 308, 340 to 343, 369, 410, and later 388)
Before the Government resumed more than half the country for closer settlement this station occupied all the country between the Rangitata and Orari rivers above Peel Forest, and as far up as Forest Creek and the Phantom Creek, and contained about five thousand acres of freehold and a hundred odd thousand acres of leasehold.
The first of it was applied for on 30th July, 1855, by John Barton Arundel Acland and Charles George Tripp, who had arrived together in Canterbury in the January of that year. They were the first people enterprising enough to risk stock on the higher hills. By 1855 the plains and low hills were occupied, and the partners preferred making the experiment of taking up country then supposed to be fit only for wild pigs, to expending the greater part of their capital (which was only £2000 a piece) in buying the lease of a run.
The attitude of experienced squatters in those days is summed up in a letter written by Acland at the time: 'Russell' [who had lived for a year or more at Gawlor Downs a few miles off] ' laughed at our exploring, and said that the banks of the Rangitata were perpendicular; he would not attempt to take a horse down for fifty pounds, and the opposite country impassable. We replied that it was very likely, but we had a fancy for looking at it. In the Colonies you always like to see for yourself, and the worse account you hear of unoccupied country, the greater the reason for going to look at it.'
Their first application for the country had been made before they had been on it. In the following-spring (1855) and summer (1856), the partners made explorations of the upper waters of the Rangitata, Orari and Ashburton, which they were the first white men to visit. They burnt as much of the country as they could and their fires were seen eighty miles off. They then made new applications for their runs, which they described more accurately, and were allotted what afterwards became the Mt. Somers, Mt. Possession, Mt. Peel and Orari Gorge stations, besides parts of the Mesopotamia and Hakatere. The license, which at that time they believed entitled them to Mt. Peel, was in Tripp's name, but after a survey this run (No. 53 N.Z.R.) was placed at Mt. Possession, and, as Johannes Andersen points out, the actual Mt. Peel country was selected again in various blocks, the licenses all being taken out in Acland's name. Run 268 (twenty thousand acres), on which the homestead stood, was selected on 9th August, 1858, and from that date at successive intervals they took up Runs 281, 308, and 340 to 343.
Run 369, of thirteen thousand acres, which included the Little Forks, part of the Big Forks, and the back of Ben McLeod, was taken up by C. Bulmer in 1860, and transferred to Tripp and Acland in 1861. I do not know who Bulmer was, but he also took up country at Mesopotamia. He may have been a brother of Benjamin Bulmer, an early bullock driver at Mt. Peel.
Tripp and Acland took up the last six thousand acres of Mt. Peel (Run 410) in May, 1861.
Mt. Peel was the first of their stations they started (in May, 1856), and while they were organising this, they ran their sheep on terms for some months with Dr. Moorhouse at Shepherd's Bush across the Rangitata. By 1857 they had 1100 sheep on the station and a year later 2700 sheep. Of course the station was not fully stocked for years, and sheep were not put out on the back of Mt. Peel until some time after the 1867 winter.
Tripp and Acland dissolved partnership in June, 1862, when Mt. Peel became Acland's property and Tripp took Orari Gorge and Mt. Somers, Mt. Possession having been sold the year before.
Tripp and Acland's first overseer was Henry Dumoulin, a brother of Cox's manager at Raukapuka. He was succeeded in 1861 by Alexander Macpherson, a brother-in-law of the Macdonalds at Orari. Just before Acland became sole owner of Mt. Peel, Adam Irvine was made overseer or manager. Irvine was succeeded in 1873 by Michael Mitton, who managed the station until his death in 1888 when, as those who remember him may be surprised to learn, he was only forty-seven.
The owner's eldest son, John Dyke Acland, followed Mitton. John Acland was succeeded by O. Scott Thomson in 1893.
Chudleigh (who afterwards went to the Chathams), C. A. FitzRoy, T. D. Acland, and A. Boyle were early cadets there.
J. B. Acland was one of the last of the life members of the Upper House, to which he was appointed in 1865. He died in 1904, and since then the station has been carried on by his family.
In 1912 the Government took over more than half the country for closer settlement, reducing the carrying capacity from 45,000 sheep to under 20,000.
It was at Mt. Peel that I saw the largest mob of sheep I ever saw handled in one. It used to be the custom to bring 22,000 together at Stew Point. They once had a bad smother there. A man who was new to the country was following part of the mob down what looks from above a perfectly good spur, but really ends in two bluff gullies. The sheep turned back, but he hunted them on, and 1100 went over before they could be stopped. Mt. Peel was unlucky with smothers. They once smothered 5000 in the gully this side of Rawle's Yards, and there was a small smother of about 80 sheep in 1895. Merino sheep seemed wilder in the old days than they are now, I suppose because they were run over larger areas in those days, and they were not. handled so often for eye-clipping and so on.
Thomson managed Mt. Peel until 1905, when he was followed by D. Livingstone, who was succeeded by G. Dickson in 1913. D. Pringle was appointed in 1919 and managed for many years. The present manager is John Acland, a grandson of the first owner. Among well-known men who have been head shepherds there may be mentioned Alexander McLeod and his son John, Jack Turton (later manager at Peel Forest), William Henney, and Murdoch McDonald (afterwards manager of Teviotdale and finally of Glenbourne, Waiau).
Note [1945]: In April, 1938, the owners sold all the Mt. Peel leasehold country except the small run on Little Mt. Peel facing the Rangitata. The Mackenzie brothers bought the country between the Hewson and the Phantom and added it to Clayton. John Waddell bought all the rest, which included Big Mt. Peel itself. He built a homestead at the junction of the Hewson with the Orari and named the new station Orari Hills. Early in 1942 he appointed Haldon Beattie manager and at the end of 1943 Beattie bought the station from him. Beattie has renamed it Lochaber after the birthplace of his father, Andrew Beattie, long the manager of Haldon Station on the Selwyn.
Mesopotamia
(
Runs 214, 242, 338, 348, 353, 367, 375, 376, 387, and 402)
Mesopotamia occupies the country between the Rangitata River and the top of the Two Thumb Range, from Forest Creek upwards, and for many years included the Cloudy Peak forks of the Rangitata, which is now part of Stronechrubie.
Nine people out of ten will tell you that it was first taken up by Samuel Butler, but as a matter of fact a great part of it had been allotted two or three years before Butler came to New Zealand. Run 214 (five thousand acres) in the angle of Forest Creek and the Rangitata was taken up by Henry Phillips, jun., in October, 1857, but it does not seem to have been stocked until 1860, when John Henry Caton bought or leased it from Phillips.
In March, 1858, Owen and Carter took up five thousand acres (Run 242) on the downs near Phillips, as did John James King and Stace (Run 387—some islands in the river), in 1859.
Runs further up the river were taken up during, and prior to, 1860 by J. H. Caton, and by Caton and C. Bulmer; while Tripp and Acland took up Run 375 in the Rangitata Forks in 1860, and above them on the Havelock, Stace and Phillips took up a run shortly afterwards. (This last, however, did not become part of Mesopotamia until the 'seventies).
Samuel Butler, who was perhaps the most distinguished man that ever owned a station in New Zealand, arrived in Lyttelton in January, 1860, having left Cambridge about a year before. Almost at once, he set about making exploring expeditions into the back ranges in the hope of finding unoccupied country, but the whole of Canterbury, except a few odd corners, had been taken up by the end of 1858. However, after journeys up the Rakaia and Waimakariri, Butler tried the Rangitata, and discovered that some likely looking country was not included in any of the runs already allotted. He therefore applied for a run (No. 367), which was granted to him in February, 1860. The part of Mesopotamia actually taken up by Butler at this time seems to have been what is now known on the station as the Valley. Shortly afterwards he took up the country between Bush Creek and Black Birch Creek.
Butler of course had no experience of sheep farming whatever, but he had firmly resolved to double his capital (about £4000) as soon as possible; and he had a great deal of practical commonsense, which is shown in his books. Though they are often whimsically written, they are full of logical thought and their main object is to dissipate shams of all kinds.
He built a hut on his run, some miles up Forest Creek, and spent a winter there without stock, in order to see whether the country was safe for sheep. He came to the conclusion that it wasn't, so in September, 1860, he bought Run 242 from Owen and Carter, who had not yet started their station.
Then began Butler's well-known quarrel with Caton, whom he calls G— in his book, and I should have done the same, but that Caton's whole career has been published in Tales of Banks Peninsula. Caton had just taken over Phillips's run and sent sheep there, but made the mistake of building his hut on Butler's country. After some dispute—and Caton refusing to come to any terms—Butler and Caton raced to Christchurch as hard as their horses could carry them, in order to buy the freehold of the section in dispute. The whole business is graphically described by Butler himself in his First Year, and by Festing Jones in his excellent memoir of Butler. Caton and Butler both arrived in Christchurch before the Land Office was supposed to be open, but Butler found that Caton had got at the application book, and put his name in above Butler's which had been entered the day before by his solicitor on a matter of some other business. The dispute was referred to the Land Board, who allowed Butler to buy the section; he afterwards made an allowance to Caton for his improvements, and bought his run and his sheep. Butler after his hundred mile ride, and a consultation with W. H. Wynn Williams, his solicitor, dashed into Wynn Williams's sitting-room behind the office, sat down at a piano which was there, and worked off his excitement by playing Bach's Fugues for the next two hours.
It would be tedious to give details of numbers, dates, and acreages, but, within the next few months Butler bought up the leases of all the other runs which made up the Mesopotamia Station. He also took up parts of Lake Heron and Stronechrubie, but never occupied any of these.
Butler then started his station, which he named Mesopotamia, and devoted himself to learning the details of his business; he occupied his leisure in writing articles for The Press, composing music, and playing a piano which took up half the room in his hut.
John Brabazon (after whom Mt. Brabazon is named) was Butler's cadet, and had a quarter share in the station. Their overseer was a man named Cook. It was while in New Zealand that Butler wrote the letters that were published as a First Year in the Canterbury Settlement— a book which Butler in later life professed to find ' so bad that he could never bring himself to open a second time.' It remains, however, about the best account we have of early pastoral life in Canter -bury, and may be read here as history when his greater books are forgotten.
When I was at Mesopotamia in 1896, I tried to find any lingering traditions of him on the station. One seems worth preserving: When he was first thatching the cob house, which is still standing,It was standing in 1925, but when I was last at Mesopotamia in 1927, it had just fallen down.
he put the top of each bundle of snow-grass outside the bottom of the one above so that all the rain ran inwards; this, as George McMillan said, seemed ' extraordinary for so clever a man.'
We get a glimpse of Butler at Mesopotamia in his Notebooks:
'In New Zealand for a long time I had to do the washing up after each meal. I used to do the knives first, for it might please God to take me before I came to the forks, and then what a sell it would have been, to have done the forks rather than the knives.'
Also in Alps and Sanctuaries:
' Many years ago, in New Zealand, I used sometimes to accompany a dray and team of bullocks who would have to be turned loose at night that they might feed. There were no hedges or fences then, so sometimes I could not find my team in the morning, and had no clue to the direction in which they had gone. At first I used to try and throw my soul into the bullocks' souls, so as to divine if possible what they would be likely to have done, and would then ride off ten miles in the wrong direction. People used in those days to lose their bullocks sometimes for a week or fortnight— when they perhaps were all the time hiding in a gully hard by the place where they were turned out. After some time I changed my tactics. On losing my bullocks I would go to the nearest accommodation house and stand occasional drinks to travellers. Someone would ere long, as a general rule, turn up who had seen the bullocks.'
Now for John Henry Caton, whom Butler in his book calls G—. Sir Joshua Williams described him in a letter quoted in Festing Jones's Memoir of Butler.
' He was by trade a cattle dealer and drover. I knew him well enough. In fact he did me the honour to consult me on one or two occasions when I was in practice. He was a well-built, fairly powerful man and a rough customer. It was towards the end of 1875, or in 1876 after I had ceased to live in Christchurch, that he was engaged by a well-known Christchurch man [William Wilson] to drive cattle from Canterbury to Otago and sell them there. G— drove them there and sold them. The Waitaki, a broad and dangerous unbridged river, separated Otago and Canterbury; crossing this, coming back, the notes, the proceeds of the sale, G— said, were washed out of his pocket. They were discovered in his boots. He was tried and convicted, and got, I think, five years.' According to Tales of Banks Peninsula, he went to New South Wales after his release and was drowned in the McLachlan river.
If I had space and authority, I should like to quote several pages of Festing Jones's interesting chapters on Butler's life in New Zealand. Caton, by the way, kept the Canterbury Hotel in Lyttelton in 1859.
About the end of 1863 Butler sold Mesopotamia to William Parkerson. He had turned his capital of £4400 into £8000 and he went Home. The leases, for financial reasons, however, remained in his name for some years.
Brabazon, of course, had done equally well with a thousand which he had put into the station, and he and his brother bought Tresillian Station near Ayles-bury.
Parkerson paid £10,000 for Mesopotamia, and after keeping it only a year or two sold it for £13,500. He afterwards had a run at Lake Sumner. The purchasers were William Cator and Michael Scott Campbell, the whole freehold of Campbell's previous run, Longbeach, having lately been bought up by John Grigg. Cator was a splendid looking man and a great athlete. He came from Northbastwick Hall, in Norfolk, and I believe had played cricket for Cambridge University. In 1868 he sold his share of the run to his partner's brothers, General Campbell and J. R. Campbell and returned to England, shortly afterwards entering Holy Orders. About the same time J. R. Campbell took over the management of the station from his brother Michael, whose head shepherd had been George Mcrae, afterwards well known as the owner of Stronechrubie, Barford, and other properties in Canterbury.
While Michael Campbell lived at Mesopotamia Mrs Campbell, who had come there from Australia as a bride, and Cecil FitzRoy, who was a cadet or permanent visitor on the station, had an adventure which I give in Mrs Campbell's own words. In those days (and I believe to this day) the mails for Mesopotamia came by Hakatere across the Rangitata:
'One morning Mr FitzRoy and I rode across the Rangitata to try to collect our mail from Mr Potts's station on the other side. We got across all safely with the good luck that attends ignorance, for we did not know the river had been in flood not long before, and all the fords were changed. On our way back Mr FitzRoy was leading, crossing a most innocent-looking little stream, when his horse suddenly went down in a quicksand. He lost his seat, struggled out to one side, and his horse on the other. I rode on, choosing, as I thought, a safer route, when the same thing happened to me, and I found myself on a dry spit of sand separated from my companion and my horse. The two animals we could see making, tearing wildly, up the river-flat to the homestead, reins and stirrups flying. We could only wait on our shingle banks, too far from each other to exchange condolences, but I had the English mail safe. My companion in misfortune had not even his pipe. It seemed a long time before we saw the rescue party flying to our succour, my husband leading the van, all thinking, naturally, that some terrible accident must have occurred, and their relief when they saw us sitting quietly on our sunny shingle banks, very wet, but very cheerful, instead of having to fish our dead bodies out of the treacherous little streams, can hardly be realised. Of course we ought never to have tried to ford the river at all, but it looked so harmless, and we were both new chums.'
Dugald Macfarlane managed Mesopotamia for a few months when he was succeeded by his brother, Norman Macfarlane, who managed for the Campbells from 1879 until the sale of the station in 1885.
Sometime in the 'eighties Michael Campbell sold out altogether to his brothers, who sold the station to George Allan McMillan in 1885. McMillan was a past master in the art of back country management, and in his time Mesopotamia carried 20,000 as good merino sheep as you could find in the province. I gave a description of him when I was writing of Cracroft. He bought Stronechrubie about 1898, and until his death in 1903 the two stations were worked together. His managers, or rather head shepherds, were Robert Campbell, always known as ' Billy ' because he never went on the hill without one, John Mackenzie, who afterwards had Castle Hill, and John Morgan, now manager of Mt. Somers.
In 1896 the Government handed over forty thousand acres of the best of the run to the Canterbury Agricultural College as an endowment, so that now the rent goes to Lincoln College.
On McMillan's death, Mesopotamia and Stronechrubie were bought by George Gerard, who sold the place to the Hon. William Nosworthy, the present owner, in 1917.
Orari Gorge
N.Z.R. 52, afterwards Run 546)
Before the sale of what is known as the Tripp Settlement to the Government, Orari Gorge took in the whole country between the Orari and Hae Hae te Moana Rivers, from Woodbury road up to Mickleburn, and it included the Blue Mountain and Mt. Fourpeaks. At that time, it consisted of twenty thousand acres of freehold and fifty thousand acres of leasehold, and carried over 40,000 sheep.
A run in the neighbourhood was first applied for by Charles George Tripp, who at that time had never been on the country, and described it in very vague terms in his application. He was granted a run there in July, 1855, but in August, 1856, after their exploration of the country, a new lease of Orari Gorge was granted to Tripp and Acland, in Acland's name.
Orari Gorge was not stocked until some time after Mt. Peel, the sheep on Mt. Peel being sufficient to hold the leases of all the firm's runs in the neighbourhood. In 1856, when the first sheep for these runs were bought, ewes cost £1 a head, wethers 15/-and lambs 10/-. In February, 1860, 2160 sheep were brought to Orari Gorge from Mt. Peel, the country only then having been made ready for them by burning. Tripp and Acland bought their first freehold in South Canterbury—240 acres at 10/-an acre—at the present Orari Gorge homestead site, on the 7th December, 1855.
Orari Gorge, as originally constituted, was much smaller than it afterwards became. Cox, of Raukapuka, held the low hills next the plain, but he sold the goodwill of nine thousand acres of country to Tripp and Acland for £1500, to give them frontage. In later years Tripp bought the lease of several thousand more acres on the plain in front of his station, from Tancred, who then owned Raukapuka. In those days, next to sheep-stealing or introducing scab, the most unneighbourly thing a squatter could do was to buy freehold on his neighbour's run, so Tripp bought the lease first, then freeholded it. Again in 1881, he bought the high Fourpeaks country from Walker and Clogstoun for £600.
It will be remembered that in the later 'fifties Tripp and Acland owned five or six stations, none of which was either a quarter stocked or properly ' started' (i.e. organised). For that reason, I suppose, they let Orari Gorge on terms to Robert Smith, who had been their head man at Mt. Peel since 1856. Smith held the run from 28th July, 1859, until 1862. He built the house which still stands as part of the present men's hut.
Tripp lived at Mt. Peel until 1861, shortly before he and Acland dissolved partnership (which they did in October, 1862), and then he moved to his other station. Mt. Somers. At the end of 1862 he sold Mt. Somers and went Home for several years. On his arrival in England, his father would not believe Tripp had succeeded in the colony, so, to convince him, Tripp wrote to his agents in New Zealand, instructing them to sell Orari Gorge, too, and send the money home to England. The purchaser was his cousin, John Enys, for many years the owner of Castle Hill.
On Tripp's return to New Zealand, he bought back Orari Gorge, and, judging that Enys had not improved the reputation of the flock, he changed the wool-brand ' Tripp ' to the present one ' Howard.'
He did not go to live at Orari Gorge until September, 1866, but he was there in time for the terrible snowstorm of the following August, and the great flood of February, 1868, which nearly washed the homestead away. By the way, it was not until Tripp went to live there in '66 that the station was named.
Among his early managers were a man named Hudson, and then Andrew Grant, with his brother William as shepherd under him. The Grants afterwards became the greatest of all South Canterbury sheep dealers and William also a large squatter.
After Grant, Tripp managed the place himself for a time, having Thomson McKay, and then Hugh McQuinn as his overseers. McKay afterwards became a large farmer at Willoughby, near Ashburton.
A. J. Blakiston, who was manager until 1935, went to Orari Gorge in 1883, but he left in 1893 and did not return until 1908. During the interval the place was managed by the owner's son, B. E. H. Tripp. J. M. Polhill, the present manager, has been there since 1935.
Later head shepherds were: Murdoch McLeod, John Norton (afterwards manager of Dilworth Fox's station in North Canterbury), Simon Rae and James Boa. A curious thing happened while McLeod was head shepherd. After a long and wet day's mustering, all hands camped at a hut (I think McIntosh's), and McLeod hung his socks to dry before the fire. Presently one was missing. After everyone had been accused of hiding it, they finished their tea with considerable enjoyment, when the sock was found to have dropped into the billy and sunk to the bottom.
Orari Gorge has always been a great place for cadets, and quite a number of them have since made names for themselves in pastoral and other affairs—as witness the names amongst others of Lewis Mathias, J. Randall, V. Musgrave, W. Somerville, Fred. Anson and Snow—his partner, A. Hope, C. Swaby, G. Pinckney, C. Eyre, A. Pinckney, Thurston, Miskin, C. A. Dunn, B. Empson, W. Acland Hood, A. Hutchison and his brother Willy, W. F. Heron, F. J. Savill, Selby Palmer, Lt.-Col. R. Williams, C. Kingsley, M. Ormsby, N. Hope, L. Bartrop, and C. Cazalet. Bartrop and Cazalet were killed during the fighting on Gallipoli.
Charles Tripp died in July, 1897—just too early to see the return of good times and reap the reward of his enterprise. Since then the property has been carried on in partnership by his sons, C. H., L. O. H., B. E. H., and J. M. H. Tripp.
In 1910 the Government bought a large part of the freehold and resumed the greater part of the leasehold for closer settlement, but according to the last sheep returns, the station still carries some 23,000 sheep.
Charles George Tripp
(1826-1897)
Charles Tripp deserves special notice as the first man to think of putting stock on the high country of Canterbury. Until he and his partner, John Barton Acland, tried it, anything higher than the downs was believed to be valueless for sheep. The idea that the higher hills were worth stocking entered Tripp's fertile brain while he was river-bound during a journey to Burke's run at Raincliff in 1855.
Tripp was a curious mixture of simplicity and shrewdness, and these qualities showed themselves very clearly in his face, as did his other chief characteristic— his benevolence. He was so full of energy that he could hardly sit through his meals, and often said grace as he ran from the door to the dining table. He had a quick, excitable way of speaking. More stories were told of him in shearers' huts and mustering camps than of any other runholder in Canterbury. When Orari Gorge was an open shed it was worth riding twenty miles to see the shearers and shed hands being drafted, counted, re-sorted and counted again.
Once, while they were crossing the Rangitata, Mrs Tripp was washed down the river in a boat, and Tripp found himself unable to get to her assistance. He is said to have shouted from the bank: 'Goodbye, Ellen, goodbye, meet you in Heaven you know, meet you in Heaven.' He had not a good memory for faces, but once when a cowboy of his brought a disastrous career to an end by raiding the pantry, and applied again for work within a week or two, under the impression that Tripp would not recognise him, Tripp asked him what he could do. The boy replied, 'Oh, anything about the station.' 'Anything about the station?' said Tripp, 'anything about the station? Yes, you shot the mule, you killed a bullock, you broke the pole of the dray, and you ate all the tarts; anything? You just run off the place as fast, as ever you can! As fast as ever you can! '
He had no natural eye for stock. He could hardly tell his own buggy horses if he saw them in a strange stable, and would never take the drafting gate; but he was a very good judge of men, and had the invaluable gift of getting them to do their best for him. He had a fine eye for country, and bought the freehold of his run with very great judgment. He was the first runholder in South Canterbury to realise the danger of rabbits, and to take steps to destroy them. He had good sense and the most extraordinary energy. Almost to the end of his life he was out and about his station by seven in the morning.
He was extremely temperate in all his ways. He never smoked, seldom drank alcohol, and never sat in any but a straight-backed chair. He always rode his horse at one pace—a steady trot. He had a very liberal mind, and was always full of faith in the future of the country in general and of his own station in particular. He was always progressive, and eager to adopt new ideas and try experiments. It is a bold statement to make, but I believe he was the most hospitable man that ever lived in Canterbury. No one could meet him without being struck by his kindliness, and children and dogs seemed to take to him instinctively. I do not think he had an enemy in the world.
Raukapuka
(
Runs 18 N.Z.R., 31 N.Z.R. and 43 N.Z.R.; afterwards
Runs 280, 457 and 551)
Ruakapuka ran from the Orari to the Hae Hae te Moana, and from the sea to the foot of the hills. In the earliest days it ran up the Orari to a point above Andrew's Creek and up the Hae Hae te Moana to Mackintosh's hut, a little above Fourpeaks Station, but when Tripp and Acland took up Orari Gorge the owner of Raukapuka sold them the hill frontage. Some years later Tripp bought the lease of four or five thousand acres below this again, and made it freehold, this last block roughly corresponding to the cultivated part of the Tripp settlement.
Colonel Campbell granted Runs 18 and 31, of twenty thousand acres each, to Muter and Francis on 1st November, 1853. Muter and Francis sold them to Alfred Cox, an Australian squatter, in 1854. Cox describes this purchase, made in Australia, in his Recollections, in which he also gives a lively account of his adventures in Canterbury and elsewhere.
Cox subsequently bought Run 43, of twenty-six thousand acres, from George Duppa, who took it up, but I cannot find in what year.
Cox came to New Zealand on a reconnoitring visit in 1854, but did not come to live here until 1857. In the meantime William Dumoulin managed his runs.
As with most of the earlier southern runs, the leases of Raukapuka were re-granted and amended, but it does not seem necessary to go into details.
Cox bought fifteen hundred acres of the freehold of his run for 10/-an acre, it being outside the Block, and also two thousand acres at 12/6 an acre, from the Studholmes, which they had bought on his run before it was taken up. I do not know how much freehold he bought altogether. It is said that one of his stockmen found a way into some beautiful sound country, which was surrounded by what had been supposed to be an impenetrable swamp, and recommended putting 2000 merino wethers in there after shearing. They all became fat, and in the autumn were sold to go to the diggings, and the money they brought enabled Cox to buy the freehold of the piece of country which had fattened them.
In 1861 Cox bought the Kakahu Station from Campion and worked it with Raukapuka until he sold it to Major Hornbrook—I think in 1870.
After Cox settled permanently in New Zealand, his first manager was his brother-in-law, Grant McPherson, and his last was his half-brother, J. A. Gammick, who was also his partner in Braemar and other stations.
Cox sold Raukapuka in 1870. He sold it either to Sir Thomas Tancred or to Selby Tancred, his son, I am not sure which. I have not been able to find the transfer, and some people who ought to know have told me it was one, some the other. Without searching the title deeds, it is impossible to make sure.
Anyhow the station was divided between them. Selby lived at the Raukapuka homestead, and Sir Thomas lived near Woodbury and worked the western side of the country. In the sheep returns of 1878 he had 2000 sheep running on the freehold there and 4000 on leasehold. In 1879 he transferred it to his younger son, Clements Tancred, who sold it a year or so later to Jack Barker, the father of the present owner. It is known as the Waihi Estate.
Mrs Tripp, in her account of the early days, describes Sir Thomas at this time, as a charming but eccentric old man of apostolic appearance, with snow-white hair and beard, rather deaf, and very short-sighted. One evening, he took a sunflower for a man looking in at his window, and fired his gun at it.
Selby Tancred was a civil engineer. He eventually succeeded to his father's baronetcy. He soon got into deep water at Raukapuka, and took a man into partnership who could not carry out his engagements, which made the position still worse. He finally sold the station to W. Postlethwaite in 1875. A man named Ferguson, who had been for many years overseer for Robinson at Cheviot Hills, managed for Tancred and stayed on for some time with Postlethwaite.
Until 1882, Cox still retained part of his freehold which became the Riversleigh Estate. Afterwards he was unlucky enough to transfer his operations to the North Island, and this grand old pioneer lost most of his ample fortune in trying to drain some swamp up there. He eventually returned to Christchurch where he died.
Postlethwaite shore 12,000 sheep (8,000 carried on freehold) in 1878; and continued to shear over 10,000 until 1887; but about that time he began selling off the land, and in 1891 let the remainder, fourteen hundred acres, to M. C. Orbell, for 14 years. In 1901, before the lease had expired, Postlethwaite sold the place to J. Campbell. Later on Raukapuka was further subdivided, and sold by auction, when J. Connelly, the well-known sheep dealer, bought the homestead. Since then the land has been sold bit by bit, and most of the home paddocks are now covered by a suburb of Geraldine. The homestead, now a farm of six hundred acres, belongs to J. Macdonald.
The first owners, Muter and Francis, were the same people who took up the Desert Station on the Waimakariri. George Duppa was a younger brother of Bryan Duppa, of Hollingbourne in Kent, the man who originally suggested the formation of the Nelson Company. George Duppa came to New Zealand in 1840 and spent some time in Nelson. He came south in the late 'forties, and took up St. Leonards Station in the Amuri, which he sold to Rhodes and Wilkin. He was one of the first New Zealanders to return to England with a fortune.
Kakahu
(
Runs 27 N.Z.R. and 28 N.Z.R.; afterwards 495 and 496)
This was originally taken up on 1st November, 1853, by Captain Richard Westenra, and was described in Lieut.-Col. Campbell's list as ' Number 44, twenty-five thousand acres, between the Hare [Hae Hae te Moana] and Opihi [the Opuha branch] Rivers west of, and adjoining Hornbrook's run.'
When W. G. Brittan, the Canterbury Commissioner of Crown Lands, issued new licenses for the South Canterbury Runs, Westenra was granted two licenses, Numbers 27 and 28, of fifteen thousand acres each. They were re-numbered 495 and 496 under the Canterbury Regulations in February, 1870.
The station was worked on thirds by Michael John Burke, of Raincliffe, until 1855, when Westenra, not liking the idea of his sons continually crossing the rivers, exchanged this run for one Roland Campion had next Camla, his station on the Selwyn. He removed his share of the sheep there.
Campion's homestead was close to the present Hilton School, where a few big gum trees still mark the spot.
In 1861 Campion sold or leased the run to Alfred Cox, who worked it as an out-station of Raukapuka. Campion went to England intending to return, but was drowned at Fermoy, in Ireland, while showing them how people crossed New Zealand rivers on horseback. He should have been riding Doctor, his grand old grey, on whom he won a famous match from Timaru to Christchurch against another pioneer, with the freehold of Kakahu Bush as the stake. The other intending purchaser, knowing the Rangitata and Rakaia were in high flood, took the steamer from Timaru, and on his arrival in Christchurch from Lyttelton, was met by Campion, with the title deeds of the Bush in his pocket.
In 1870 Alfred Cox sold Kakahu to Hornbrook Brothers (The Major and William), who owned Arowhenua and Opuha Gorge, and a year later the Hornbrooks sold Kakahu and Opuha Gorge with 26,000 sheep to Studholme, Banks and Wigley. The story of Studholme, Banks and Wigley will come in better with Opuha Gorge, from which they worked the runs, using Kakahu as an out-station.
When the surviving partners, John Studholme and Wigley, divided, about 1892, Kakahu, with about twelve thousand acres, fell to John Studholme's share. He made the station over to his second son, William Paul Studholme.
W. P. Studholme carried 14,000 or 15,000 sheep there until about the time of the South African War, when he began selling off the land, finally selling the homestead and about two thousand acres in 1905, when he retired to live in England.
The homestead, after passing through one or two hands, was bought by Dr. Hargreaves for his sons. It now carries about 2000 sheep.
Opuha Gorge
(
Run 30, N.Z.R., later 548)
This run of twenty-two thousand acres, between the Kakahu and Fourpeaks Stations, was first allotted as Run 47 by Colonel Campbell to William Hornbrook, on 1st November, 1853. William Hornbrook was a brother of Major Hornbrook, and like him had served in the Foreign Legion in the Spanish Civil War. He started the Opuha Gorge Station in 1854. He lived chiefly at Arowhenua, which he managed for his brother. About 1869 Opuha Gorge passed into the hands of Major Hornbrook, who sold it to Studholme Brothers and F. Banks, in 1871. In those days it and the Kakahu, which was worked with it, carried 26,000 sheep. At that time the Hon. T. H. Wigley, an old South Australian squatter, who had come down to New Zealand in 1860, had just left Balmoral, in the Amuri. He joined Studholme and Banks, each having a third share. The firm was known as Studholme, Banks and Wigley. Wigley was the managing partner and took delivery of the stations from William Hornbrook, who was managing them for his brother. Leishman was his overseer. John and Michael Studholme divided their runs in 1878 when their interest in Opuha Gorge fell to John's share. In 1885 Banks sold his interest in the stations to his partners.
In 1889 they lost the leasehold country which the Government cut up into grazing runs, but the owners had bought something like twenty thousand acres of freehold. The partnership was dissolved in 1890, Studholme taking the Kakahu homestead and Beautiful Valley country, and Wigley the Opuha Gorge homestead and freehold round it, which carried six or seven thousand sheep.
Wigley died in 1895, but Mrs Wigley carried on the station with Robert Mackay, a trustee, as supervisor, and Robert Aitken as overseer, until 1898, when it was put up for auction, and Mrs Wigley's father, James Lysaght of Hawera, bought it. He died a few months afterwards and his executor sold off the land by degrees.
Mrs Wigley kept the homestead with eight hundred acres until November, 1907, when she sold it to John Talbot, who bought it for his son, W. H. Talbot, the present owner.
Leishman, Wigley's overseer, was a man of artistic tastes. At one time he kept a boundary at what is now called Leishman's Creek, and he planted all the wild flowers he could get round his hut. The fox-gloves got out of hand and were a great nuisance. The hills there are covered with them.
Arowhenua
(
Run 7 N.Z.R.)
This run of thirty thousand acres, on the west side of the Arowhenua Forest and along the north bank of the Opihi, was allotted to Major Hornbrook (whom I mentioned as owning Mt. Pleasant) by Colonel Campbell on 1st November, 1853. It was the first station after the Levels to be taken up in South Canterbury, and one of the first to be organised and stocked. William Hornbrook, who went there to manage it for his brother in 1853, had 3000 sheep there the following year, and 5500 in 1857.
I cannot find out to whom, or when Hornbrook sold the station. Chudleigh says in his diary that it belonged to Alfred Cox in May, 1863. Anyhow some time in the '70's J. T. Ford and Co. bought the station, which by then was all freehold.
William Hornbrook bought a farm at Seadown, where he died in 1882.
In 1878 Ford and Co. cut up and sold more than half the land in sections, but during the bad times which came in the three or four following years, most of it fell back on their hands, and in 1883 the Bank of New Zealand took over the place with 10,000 sheep.
For some years from about 1885 the Bank ran the station in the name of A. M. Clark, who was their station supervisor. At that time Clark had the following stations and estates under his control (the managers' names are in brackets):—Arowhenua (John McColl), Riverslea (Mackintosh Murray), Albury (Edward Richardson), Eskbank (David Sutherland), Waihorounga (K. B. Bain), also the Clarence Reserve near Kaikoura. Clark lived at Arowhenua but worked the stations from an office in Temuka.
In the 'nineties Arowhenua was transferred to the Bank of New Zealand Estates Co., who cut up and sold what remained of it in 1899.
One of the people who lived at Arowhenua in the early days was an inveterate practical joker. A man had been drowned in the river there, and during the inquest at the Accommodation House, while the Coroner and a jury were having lunch, the practical joker removed the corpse and got into its place, and when they lifted the sheet to view the body, he greeted them with loud guffaws.
Chapter 7
Some South Canterbury Stations
(
Continued)
Except where otherwise noted, this chapter has not been brought past September, 1925.
Mt. Fourpeaks
(
Runs 240 and 255)
In its later days Fourpeaks, as it is usually called, took in the country between the two branches of the Hae Hae te Moana and ran back to the Devil's Creek, where it joined Clayton, but at one time it ran right to the Opuha. It was taken up by J. C. and C. C. Aikman in J. C. Aikman's name before 1857, and was numbered under the Canterbury Regulations in February and May, 1858.
The Aikman brothers sold the station to J. D. Lance, afterwards of Horsley Down, in October, 1860. The Aikmans had a wharf on the Heathcote before the railway was made, when goods came by craft from Lyttelton over the Sumner bar. J. C. Aikman afterwards became an auctioneer, his place of business being on the site of what is now Ballantyne's buildings. He was one of the earliest lieutenants of the C.Y.C. After selling Fourpeaks, he lived up to the time of his death at the end of Aikman's Road, which was named after him.
Lance sold Mt. Fourpeaks about 1861 to the Walker brothers, Lancelot and Sherbroke, with whom Captain Edward Louis Clogstoun entered into partnership. The Walkers had been in partnership with Dr Mallock at Horsley Down, and I think Lance took their share of Horsley Down in payment for Fourpeaks.
In 1863 Walker and Clogstoun bought Clayton from Kennaway, Lee and Acton, who had had a knock in the '62 winter, and for years the two places were worked together and carried 40,000 sheep. For a time in the 'sixties they let the station and sheep to Charles Harper and G. A. E. Ross, who also had Waireka and Lake Coleridge, but the 1867 winter ruined them, and Walker and Clogstoun had to take it back. Their overseer at Clayton until 1864 was E. G. Griffiths. Griffiths was afterwards a great breeder and owner of thoroughbreds. He had Betrayer, with whom he won the Canterbury Cup, and other good horses, and was an early steward of the Canterbury Jockey Club. After he lost his money he became editor of the N.Z. Referee.
Sherbrooke Walker died in 1873, and Captain Clogstoun in 1881. Lancelot Walker then sold Clayton to Hugh Hamilton, an old New South Wales pioneer squatter, whose family kept it until 1919. At the same time Walker sold the high country (the actual hills called Mt. Fourpeaks) to Tripp, of Orari Gorge.
Lancelot Walker was one of the last life members of the Legislative Council, and also sat in the old Provincial Council. He had been a subaltern in the Hon. East India Company's Army and left in disgust at not seeing service, a few years before the Indian Mutiny broke out. He was famed for his caustic speeches and haughty appearance. He was a keen sportsman, and during the good times ran several horses, some of his own and some in partnership with G. G. Stead under the name of ' Mr Frazer.' I suppose Trump Card and Le Loup were about the best he owned. He also deserves the credit of importing Traducer, whom he placed on board a ship in wr hich he was returning from England, but, the weather being very bad and the horse not feeding, Walker thought he would die, and proposed to land him at the Cape. Innes, of Waikakahi Station, who was on board, however, offered to buy him for himself and his partner Harris, and in the Stud Book they are shown as his importers. The deal also included another horse called Leotard, a draught stallion called King Fergus, besides Mermaid and several other brood mares.
A good story of one of the Walkers is told by Laurence Kennaway in Crusts. The Walkers had a hut at the back of their run on the Clayton flat. Clayton at the time belonged to the Kennaways. From their station the Clayton people saw that this hut was on fire, and galloped over to give what help they could. When they arrived, at first they could see no one about, but presently Walker emerged from behind the smoke and offered them breakfast. He had been camping by himself, and on the fire breaking out, had saved what he could, and then calmly sat down to cook his breakfast on the smouldering ruins.
Lancelot Walker died at Mt. Fourpeaks in 1906, and his executors went on with the station until 1912, when they sold it to the Government for closer settlement. In its last days it carried 8,000 sheep.
Walker had more managers probably than anyone else in Canterbury. Thomas Bellett was the first. He left in 1868 and was succeeded by Talbot Scott who did not like the hills and left in a few weeks, and afterwards went to manage a coffee plantation in India. Lachlan Macpherson came next and was there for many years. Afterwards came Geoffrey Potts, who was there in 1877 and was succeeded by W. R. O'Connell in 1879, William Polhill, Arthur Reeves (now Law Librarian in Ghristchurch), A. Preston, A. Campbell, J. Maling (now of Pyne, Gould, Guinness), and L. R. Corsbie, afterwards auctioneer for the Loan and Mercantile.
After Walker's death his executors appointed R. T. Richards, who managed the place until it was sold.
Mention must also be made of Alexander Frazer, who was head shepherd at Fourpeaks for over forty years.
The old station diary is preserved in the Museum, It covers the years from 1868 to 1875, and was written by whichever partner happened to be on the station, or by Lachie Macpherson when none of them were there.
It is not so interesting as it should be. In those days musterers were paid six shillings a day and harvesters ten, the bullock driver twenty-five shillings a week and general hands and the cook a pound. The cook had to kill and work in the garden. In 1869 the shepherds had their wages reduced from £75 to £65 a year. Fat wethers only fetched six or seven shillings a head in those days.
They sold the ten working bullocks for £140 to John Grigg for the Coast in 1869, and afterwards used horses. In 1868 Strawberry, one of the pole-bullocks, died after working ten years and seven months on the station.
Clayto
(
Runs 331 and 370)
Clayton lay next behind (that is, west of) Mt. Fourpeaks. It took in the country from the Clayton Flat, up the north branch of the Opuha to Butler's Saddle, and from a point on the range near there the boundary ran down the Phantom and on down the Orari to join Orari Gorge. I think Meikleburn was originally part of the run.
Run 331 of thirty thousand acres was allotted to Kennaway, Lee and Acton on 1st June, 1861, but they had apparently applied for the country sometime in 1859.
Sometime in 1859 or 1860 Aikman and Le Cren applied for Run 370 of eight thousand five hundred acres. In the printed run lists their license is dated February, 1861, but the manuscript records shew that they paid rent for it in 1860, and on the 1st October, 1860, transferred the license to the Kennaways. The Aikman's were the first owners of Mt. Fourpeaks, and I think Le Cren financed them. I doubt if they ever stocked this Clayton run.
The Kennaways were three brothers—Laurence, Walter and John—who came from Devonshire. They owned several stations in partnership with F. W. Delamain in the 'fifties, and I gave some account of them when I wrote about Alford. I do not know who Lee was. Edward Action was the son of an Exeter parson. He came out to the Kennaways in 1855 and was a cadet or overseer with them in Delamain's time. When he left Clayton, he lived at Fordlands, a fine property near Pleasant Point which he bought in partnership with Walter Kennaway.
In his book Crusts, Laurence Kennaway describes the exploration and stocking of Clayton, under the name ' Bracken Hills,' but purposely confuses his account, so that it is impossible to make much of it except that they had rather a rough time there. Apparently they stocked the run in the summer of 1861-62, but the 1862 winter was one of the worst ever known and they lost most of their sheep, so, believing the run to be only fit for summer country, they sold it the following summer to Walker and Clogstoun who had lately bought Fourpeaks.
Walker and Clogstoun soon let both Clayton and Mt. Fourpeaks, with the sheep, to G, A. E. Ross and Charles Harper, but Ross and Harper were ruined by the great snow of 1867, and Walker and Clogstoun had to take the run back. While they belonged to Walker and Clogstoun, the Fourpeaks manager looked after both stations, but worked Clayton more or less as a separate place, with its overseer or head shepherd, and its own flock which was always shorn at home. During the Walkers' ownership of Clayton their managers were T. H. Bellett, Talbot Scott, Geoffrey Potts, and W. R. O'Connell. Their first overseer at Clayton was E. G. Griffiths. In June 1881, Hugh Hamilton, a pioneer Australian squatter, bought Clayton. He left his sons George and Dundas in charge of it. He died in 1900, but the station remained in the family's hands until 1919, when George Hamilton sold it to a syndicate: W. J. and John Dore, George Morris, George Moran and James Lynch. Some members of the syndicate bought others out and in June, 1925, the remaining partners sold the station to Simon Mackenzie, formerly of Raincliff, and part owner of several stations in the Mackenzie Country and in Queensland. Mackenzie bought it for his sons, the present owners. In April, 1938, the Mackenzie brothers bought the Big Forks and Little Forks, across the Phan-tomPhantom and Orari rivers, from the Aclands of Mt. Peel.
Almost all the station diaries from 1877 to 1918 are still at Clayton and the Mackenzies have been good enough to let me read them. They are the longest and most interesting series of station diaries I have ever seen, except perhaps the diaries of Robinson's managers at Cheviot Hills; it is hard to summarise them all but I will give some notes from them.
As early as 1877 a good deal of freehold had been bought out of the run, including Meikleburn; and the owners already had trouble at Clayton with footrot. Fourpeaks was always a bad place for footrot in merino days, and the Clayton sheep probably got it from there.
In those days the wool was carted to Albury by bullock wagon at 5/6 a bale—back loading 25/-a ton. Clayton was an ' open shed,' that is, the shearers were not engaged beforehand, but turned up and took their chance of a pen on the advertised starting day. The cook fed the men by contract at 10/6 a man a week. Shepherds' wages were £60 a year, and the other hands got less.
When the Hamiltons bought the station in 1881 they took delivery of about 19,000 sheep, including 7,600 ewes. (They afterwards carried up to 30,000 sheep.) They took over Walker's head shepherd, a man named Davidson, who stayed till 1884 when he left to manage Meikleburn.
From their earliest time at Clayton the Hamiltons shore the dry sheep in early summer and left the ewes until they weaned the lambs in February, a practice unknown on the other stations in those parts for years afterwards. They were anxious about rabbits from the first, though there were not many at Clayton then. There is a prescription for poisoning them with arsenic and carrots in the 1881 diary. Hares were first seen on Clayton in July, 1883, though John Rutherford had a pack of harriers at Opawa, and Melville Gray one of beagles at Ashwick, before this. Wild pigs and keas were a great nuisance for many years.
In June, 1884, John Farquhar came as head shepherd at £80 a year. He afterwards became manager and stayed with the Hamiltons until they sold the station in 1919. In 1884 they began using Border-Leicester rams on some of the ewes, and from the first they did a great deal of tree-planting and fencing, and grew turnips. In those days the contract price for erecting wire fences was £8 a mile. Breaking up tussock land cost 6/6 an acre, and harrowing l0d. As late as the spring of 1885 there seem to have been as many pigs at Clayton as rabbits. The rabbiter had killed 100 rabbits, 60 pigs and 3 keas during the winter.
By 1886 the run was pretty well fenced and the diary no longer records the large mobs of strangers brought into the yards at every muster. In 1886 there is mention of ' raddling ' (and not paying for) badly shorn sheep. I think by the 'nineties the shearers had managed to get this custom abolished. 1886 was also the last year that Clayton used bullocks for wool carting. By the way, in 1883 one of the wagons stuck in the Opuha river and it took 18 bullocks to pull it out.
The winter of the year 1887 was a bad one for snow, and remarkable because it was followed by another winter as bad or worse. The '87 snow fell late and caught the ewes lambing. Near two feet fell on October 1st. At Clayton the men were snow-raking for a fortnight, and skinning and plucking dead sheep until November. The diary does not say how many sheep they lost, but the sheep cut a pound less wool a head than the year before, and there were only 30 per cent, of lambs.
The 1888 snow began on July 26th and lasted well into September. This was a particularly bad snow year in the Mackenzie Country, but the loss at Clayton was chiefly in the wethers. The ewes lambed 70 per cent, after it, and the Hamiltons managed to fatten several hundred cull merino wethers for the freezing works in the summer. The keas gave more trouble this year than usual.
In 1889 nearly a third of the ewes were put to Border-Leicester rams. The Hamiltons had only tried the experiment in a small way before. There is also mention in the diary this year of ' smearing ' the hoggets. Smearing was an old Scotch practice and was done by parting the wool and rubbing a mixture (of grease and tar, I think) into the skin. It was said to make the fleece soft and weatherproof, but the practice died out even in Scotland when dipping became general, and this is the only time I have heard of smearing in New Zealand.
During the spring and winter of 1889 the rabbiter killed 140 rabbits, 27 pigs and 12 keas. He also let his gun off accidentally and blew the top off his little finger. During the late 'eighties and onwards most stations kept large rabbit packs—lurchers, spaniels, terriers, and sometimes a retriever. The 1903 diary remarks ' feeding 19 rabbit dogs. It takes a sheep and a half to go round. Feeding them three times a week requires, say, five sheep.'
All through the 'nineties the Hamiltons bred more and more halfbred lambs, and during the late 'nineties tried inbred halfbred rams for a year or two but gave them up, and until about 1914 about two-thirds of the flock were still merinos. After 1914 they gave up breeding merinos altogether and went in for Corriedales.
The 1895 winter was the worst we ever had in Canterbury. Snow fell in the middle of April but did not last long, but afterwards fell or lay continuously from the middle of May till the end of August. It was deepest on July 10th, when there were two feet four, inches on the Clayton lawn. On July 27th the men were given ' a few days' spell after 28 days' incessant work.' There were eight shepherds out on the hills and six men making tracks and feeding sheep with hay at the station. Skinning and plucking dead wool went on till the end of October and it took months to put the fences in order. Snow fell on twelve days, and altogether to six feet six and a half inches. The Hamiltons lost half their flock. After this year they always bought turnips and wintered their hoggets down country.
The 1903 winter was another bad one. July 11th ' woke to find it snowing; 12 inches at 8 o'clock, 15 atc 10 o'clock, 20 inches at 12 o'clock, 24 inches at 2 o'clock, after which it did not increase.' On the 12th it snowed ' more or less all day but did not lie much. Greatest depth 2 feet 2 inches. Hear there was 2 feet at Fairlie and…. 4 or 5 inches at Timaru.' They put on six extra shepherds at once and had twenty men out snow-raking. It took six draught horses to pull the snow plough. However this winter only cost them about 2000 sheep.
The next bad winter was in 1908. Snow fell on July 7th, and two feet five inches fell on the 10th, when there was a good thaw, but there was another fall of seven inches on the 15th. The Hamiltons had twenty-eight men snow-raking, and the sheep were pretty safe by the end of the month. They sent a great many down country to feed.
In 1917 some of the best of Clayton was taken for closer settlement and the Hamiltons sold over 14,000 sheep by auction at the station, keeping 15,000 for the country that was left.
There was a bad snowstorm in 1918. Near three feet fell on July 1st. The sunny faces were clear by the end of the month, but the men were snow-raking until the middle of August.
I have described the snowstorms at Clayton in some detail, not because they have been any worse there than at the other hill stations in Canterbury, but because it is difficult to get reliable accounts of past storms, and the record may be useful. Clayton is probably safer than most country which is equally high.
All the same, until the Hamiltons bought it, Clayton was an unlucky station. In 1862 winter knocked out the Kennaways; the 1867 winter ruined Ross and Harper; and Walker and Clogstoun did no good with the station. But the Hamiltons were exceptionally competent people with money behind them, and did very well, as have the owners ever since their time. I remember Clayton well in the 'nineties and it seemed better cared for than most stations in those days—a neat homestead, well planted, good fences and good sheep. The Hamiltons were said to be strict masters but their station hands must have liked their ways. On few stations did the men stay so long. Besides Farquhar, who was there for thirty-five years, the diaries show that the same men, both permanent and seasonal hands, were there year after year. Rowe, the gardener, came in the 'eighties and stayed till the end. Other old hands were W. Wood, the Davidsons, the Bains, Hornblow, Lilly, Archie McPhee (' the boar slayer ' as he liked to be called)—he was a famous pig hunter—Pigott, a cadet at first and afterwards the handiest of men at all difficult jobs, Dopping who classed the wool, Crea sometimes a classer but more often a general hand, Hammond, and Acland (or Akland or Ackland—the diary spells his name all three ways), and many others, came back or stayed on, year after year.
I gave some account of Walker and Clogstoun when I wrote about Fourpeaks, and of Ross and Harper when I wrote of Waireka. Dundas Hamilton died many years ago in Africa. George Hamilton, who managed Clayton most of the time it belonged to his family, still lives at Rozelle, his house near Orari.
I think there is no doubt that the Kennaways named Clayton, but never heard what they named it after, and never thought of asking while anyone was still living who was likely to know.
Raincliff
(
Run 29 N.Z.R.; in March 1857 re-numbered 157 and 157A)
Raincliff, in the fork of the Opihi and Opuha, is stated in Col. Campbell's list to have been allotted to Michael John Burke (also of Halswell Station, near Christchurch), on 27th September, 1853, and was then supposed to contain twenty-five thousand acres.
At the re-numbering of the South Canterbury runs, which occurred when the Canterbury Government took over their administration in 1854, Burke's run was said to be thirty-four thousand five hundred acres. By that time he had already got stock on it, and also worked Captain Westenra's adjoining run '(afterwards Campion's Kakahu Station) on thirds.
Burke sold Raindiff, which he knew as South Downs, for £5500, on 9th January, 1858, with 2000 sheep, to William Kirk Purnell and Aurelius Purnell. By that time the area was supposed to be fifty thousand acres, and there was for a time a doubt whether it did not include Ashwick, the station above it. Burke had bought six hundred acres of freehold on the run at 10/-an acre. The Purnells named their run after a place near Scarborough, which had belonged to their father. One of them lost his life in snow at Sherwood Downs.
The Purnells sold out to Packe Brothers in May, 1868. Packe Brothers bought most of the run freehold, so that by 1878 only 2000 sheep out of 16,000 were run on leasehold.
In 1881 the Packes sold the station to Henry Hoare (one of the London bankers) who, by ploughing, had raised the carrying capacity to over 30,000 sheep in 1890. He also did some of the finest planting in South Canterbury. Sometime during the 'nineties the place passed into possession of his brothers, A. and C. Hoare, by whom it was sold to the New Zealand Trust and Loan Company in 1898.
The company cut it up and sold it in 1901, when the homestead and 2000 acres were bought by Arthur Hope, better known as the owner of Richmond. It afterwards belonged to another old Mackenzie Country squatter—Simon Mackenzie, and now belongs to Major Johnson, formerly of Worlingham and Mt. Torlesse.
Several people well known in the pastoral world managed the place at various times: E. G. Stericker (a great explorer of runs in the early days, and part owner of Sawdon) for the Purnells and Packes; Robert Mac-kay (Double Hill and Opuha Gorge), for the Hoares; William Frederick Allen (' Baltic Jack '), and W. T. Richards (Fourpeaks), for the Trust and Loan; and J. M. H. Tripp for Arthur Hope.
Of the early owners, Burke was the same who owned Halswell Station. I know nothing further about the Purnells. One of the Packes was Lieut.-Colonel George Packe, late of H.M. 23rd Fusiliers, who commanded the Canterbury Forces from 1868 until his death at Riccarton in October, 1882. He and his brother were also land agents in Christchurch during the 'seventies. The station diary for 1868 is still at Raincliff. Robb, after whom Robb's Hut on the Opuha is named, was a shepherd there then, and the diary mentions that he and another shepherd ' found the snow-plough to answer very well ' that winter. It is much the earliest record of a snow-plough that I have come across.
The Levels
(
Runs 1, 2, and S N.Z.B.; afterwards re-numbered 519, 520, 521, 522 under the Canterbury Regulations)
The Levels was the first station to be taken up in South Canterbury. It was first applied for by Rhodes Brothers, in three runs, of a hundred and fifty-nine thousand acres altogether, on 24th December, 1850. Colonel Campbell subsequently granted them a license to occupy the country. The Rhodes's made several early applications for country in the neighbourhood. In the Lyttelton Times of 30th August, 1851, they applied for all the country between the Opihi and the Makikihi and 15 miles inland.
William Barnard Rhodes, the eldest of these brothers, had come down to Port Cooper (Lyttelton) from Sydney in charge of a whaling ship in 1834, when his shrewd sense made him realise the possibilities of Canterbury. In 1839 he brought cattle down which he turned out at Akaroa. He bought whaling rights on Banks Peninsula, and took up several runs there. Before the arrival of the First Four Ships, W. B. Rhodes had been joined by his two brothers, George and Robert Heaton. There had been a whaling station at Timaru during the 'thirties, and it was from whalinghands who had been employed there that Rhodes had heard of the beautiful open plains in those parts. Owing apparently to confusion as to the localities of the runs in South Canterbury, further application had to be made for the same country on 30th June, 1851. In a letter of 4th June, 1851, John Robert Godley says that Rhodes Brothers had lately taken a mob of sheep to the country south of the Canterbury Block, and in January, 1852, a mob of 7000 sheep from Purau, Ahuriri and Kaituna (the Rhodes's Peninsula stations), was started for their new runs at Timaru. The Rhodes Brothers named the station after the place near Doncaster, where their father lived, but in the earliest days they seem to have called their four Timaru runs by separate names, Mt. Elwyn (which afterwards became the Otipua station), Three Brothers, Tenawai, and Timaru.
The Levels was originally supposed to cover all the country from the Opihi to the Pareora River, and to run back from the sea to the Mackenzie Pass, but a preliminary survey showed that the Rhodes brothers had far more country than they should, so they made over a run of twenty-two thousand five hundred acres to J. King, a relation by marriage of W. B. Rhodes. This became the Otipua Station. The new southern boundary of the Levels ran from the sea at Saltwater Creek in a straight line to the back of Mt. Horrible at Claremont. A subsequent survey further reduced the area of the Levels—the Albury and the Opawa Runs being cut off it.
The Rhodes brothers had 30,000 sheep there as early as 1858. They finally worked the flock up to over 100,000.
George Rhodes looked after the station for himself and his brothers, until his death in 1864. In 1865 it was sold to the Honourable Mathew Holmes, as agent for the Canterbury and Otago Land Association, which was soon afterwards merged in the New Zealand and Australian Land Company.
J. H. C. Sidebottom, who was there in 1855, E. H. Lough, F. W. Stubbs, and Stephen Nosworthy (the father of the former Minister of Agriculture) were among the Rhodes brothers' managers, and J. H. Davison —afterwards at St. Leonard's—was their overseer at the Cave out-station. When the Levels was sold Nos-worthyNosworthy went to manage St. Leonard's where J. H. Davison succeeded him. As everyone knows it was from the Levels that the notorious Mackenzie took the sheep to the country he discovered and which bears his name. He was traced and run to earth by Sidebottom.
The Rhodes's sent J. Caverhill down from the north " to represent them at the delivery, during which the Wash-dyke race-day happened to fall. Caverhill was very fond of racing, and his excuse that the mustering had unfortunately been delayed, enabled everyone to enjoy the day's sport and go on with the work next day.
The company changed the old brand, a diamond, to HL conjoined (standing for Holmes Levels), which is still the brand of the owner of the homestead.
The Rhodes's had freeholded ten thousand acres of their run, nine thousand of which they retained when they sold. This land lay north of Timaru and was known as the Seadown blocks. The station, as the company took it over, consisted of 1000 acres of freehold and 120,000 acres of leasehold and carried 105,000 sheep. The company afterwards freeholded 86,000 acres, mostly before 1876. From the 'eighties onwards, however, they sold a good deal of land to settlers, so that when the Government bought the property for closer settlement in 1904, it carried only about 75,000 sheep.
W. S. Davison (who died since the 1914-18 War in England, as general manager of the Land Company) was at that time general manager of their Canterbury properties and lived at the Levels, where he was one of the originators of the Corriedale breed of sheep. Donald McLean, afterwards of Strathconnan, was his manager at the Levels until 1876.
From 1876 until the sale in 1904, Charles Newman Orbell managed the station, and then bought the homestead block, which he owned until his death. It has now passed to his son. It carries some 2000 sheep, a large part of which are stud Corriedales and Romneys.
In the old days, after all the runs were fully stocked, but before freezing or even boiling down had been invented, old sheep off the shears were not worth feed-ing,feeding, or skinning for their pelts. Cutting their throats took time and the disposal of their carcases was a trouble. An easy way was found at the Levels—5000 of them were said to have been driven over the cliff at Washdyke and drowned in the sea.
The first Levels homestead was on the beach at Timaru just north of where George Street is now. There was also a V-hut at the present homestead by 1851—perhaps earlier. Mrs George Rhodes came as a bride to a wattle and slab hut on the beach in 1854, and soon afterwards moved to the slab and cob hut which is still standing in the Levels garden. George Rhodes built the present Levels house in 1862.
Otipua
(
Run 25 N.Z.R., afterwards 424)
This run of twenty-five thousand acres, between the Pareora River and the Levels, was, as I mentioned in the previous note, originally taken up by the Rhodes brothers with the Levels, but when they were found to be holding more country than their licenses entitled them to occupy, they transferred the country which lay betwen Saltwater Creek and the Pareora and back to Mt. Horrible, to J. King, and it became the Otipua Station. It was not called Otipua for some years, however.
The Rhodes's owned the sheep on it until 1854, and knew it as Mt. Elwyn, and King at first seems to have called it Mt. Horrible.
While King was at Otipua, Thomas King, who, though of the same name, was no relation to the owner, arrived on foot disguised as a swagger. He had walked all the way from South Otago. He was not very hospitably treated at the station, and in the morning resumed his walk to Christchurch. On his arrival in town he bought the freehold of ten thousand acres of the best of his namesake's run, paid his £20,000 for the land, and sailed for England, whence he never returned, but he sent out S. A. Bristol, who managed the property until the last of it was cut up and sold in the late 'nine-ties.'nineties. It was well known as the Kingsdown Estate.
James King died in the early 'sixties, and after his death his widow went on with Otipua until about 1868, when George Gray Russell, the mortgagee, took it over. It then consisted of about twelve thousand acres of leasehold.
Russell freeholded several thousand acres of the land, and made a fine property of it, and lived there for many years. It was, however, sold about 25 years ago. The homestead now belongs to J. W. Withell. Russell was the founder of the National Mortgage Company. About 1869 Russell appointed his cousin, Melville Gray, to manage Otipua. Gray stayed about two years and then bought Ashwick Station at Burke's Pass in partnership with a man called Brown. While Gray was at Otipua the land rush set in and the whole run had been bought before he left. After selling Ashwick, he lived in Timaru for many years, but eventually inherited his brother's property near Perth, in Scotland, where he lately celebrated his 97th birthday. He sent me an account of his station life in New Zealand less than six months ago (March, 1945). Later, for many years Russell's manager was his brother, P. H. Russell, who had formerly owned Oakbourne Station in Hawke's Bay in partnership with Canning.
Holme Station and Pareora
(
Run 10 N.Z.R.)
These stations, which were originally one, were first taken up by David Innes, to whom Colonel Campbell allotted twenty-five thousand acres, south of the Pareora River, from the sea inland, on the 1st November, 1853. This was Run 9 in Campbell's list. When Brittan took over the administration of the runs outside the Canterbury Block it was re-numbered 10 and the area increased to thirty-four thousand five hundred acres.
Innes joined William Harris, who had taken up the Waikakahi Station, and they worked their two runs in partnership. They built the homestead from which they worked Pareora on the river at the place where the Main South road now crosses it. Old willows and gums mark the site. This homestead, which was afterwards abandoned, became an accommodation house, a new homestead being built at Holme Station. F. W. Stubbs, who afterwards managed the Levels and later hved at Geraldine, was for some time the manager, and was succeeded by James Macdonald, who was managing in 1863 when there were 20,000 sheep on the station.
In November, 1853, Captain George Clapcott applied for twenty-five thousand acres to the west of Harris and Innes, but he appears to have forfeited it and it was allotted to Harris and Innes (in Harris's name) on 1st February, 1855. The run then took in all the country between the Pareora and Otaio rivers from the sea to the Hunters Range.
In 1864 Harris and Innes dissolved partnership, Harris taking Waikakahi, and Innes, Pareora. Edward Elworthy then entered into partnership with Innes, but it was not very long before they divided again, Innes taking what became the Lower Pareora and Elworthy the upper country, which was afterwards named Holme Station. The upper country being considered less valuable, Elworthy took two acres for Innes's one.
I do not think Innes had been a year at Pareora before the freehold of his run was bought by the firm which afterwards became the New Zealand and Australian Land Company. The company sold six hundred acres to the Government in 1893. This was the first land the Government bought for settlement after Cheviot. The company afterwards sold several sections privately, and sold the whole station to the Government in 1899. It then consisted of eight thousand and seventy-eight acres of freehold. C. N. Orbell, of the Levels, managed it at one time. He had been a cadet with Harris and Innes. Melville Gray was a cadet and book-keeper there for two years before he went to manage Otipua. In his time the manager was Andrew Turnbull, promoted from head shepherd. After sell-ingselling his station, Innes lived at Springfield in the Papanui Road, where Innes' Road is named after him.
Edward Elworthy was born at Wellington, in England, in 1836 and came to Queensland (where he owned the land on which the town of Toowoomba now stands) in 1862. He came down to Canterbury in 1864.
About 1869 he bought the Mt. Nimrod country from Teschemaker and Le Cren, of Otaio. Elworthy made Holme Station one of the finest in Canterbury. There were fifty-two thousand acres of freehold and fourteen thousand acres of leasehold and it carried 60,000 sheep. His managers were Henry Ford, from 1865 till 1877, Gunion 1877-79, and W. W. Cartwright from 1879 until 1898, when the owner's eldest son, A. S. Elworthy, took over the management. Holme Station in the early days was known as Pareora, but owing to the Land Company using the same name for their Lower Pareora Estate, there was a great confusion of letters, and during Elworthy's absence in England, Ford altered the name to the old Devonshire one, Holme, he and Elworthy being both Devonshire men.
Soon after Elworthy's death the trustees began selling the land, and in 1906 his second son, H. Elworthy, took over his share, Craigmore, which, though originally part of the run, had been bought out of it and only re-purchased by Edward Elworthy many years later.
The rest of the place was worked in partnership by Arthur and Percy Elworthy until 1910, when they divided, Percy Elworthy taking over his property at Gordon's Valley, and Arthur Elworthy the station which now carries about 4000 sheep and includes successful studs of English Leicester sheep and Holstein cattle.
The old house at Holme Station, which was burnt not long before the 1914-18 War, was the only one in Canterbury, so far as I know, to have the distinction of being supposed to be haunted.
Blue Cliffs
(
Run 31)
Blue Cliffs, originally supposed to be of thirty-five thousand acres, ran up the south side of the Otaio River from a point just below Hendry's Road, and was bounded on the east by a line from there to a point on the Black Line Road near the present site of the Teschemaker School. The Findlay Downs Settlement is a part of the freehold. At first Blue Cliffs only went to the summit of the Hunters Hills, but in the 'sixties the country "behind (running into the Hakataramea Valley, which had been part of Otaio, was added to the run.
It was taken up, under the Canterbury Regulations, on 1st July, 1856, by H. Poigndestre and George Buchanan, in Poigndestre's name. Buchanan was the manager and they had 1191 sheep there in 1857. Poigndestre bought Buchanan out about 1860 and appointed a friend of his named Richard Groome as his manager.
Poigndestre was something of a ' character,' and almost as many stories are told of him as of Tripp, of Orari Gorge. He was short and very stout, and had an immense bushy beard and bushy eyebrows, and very bright twinkling eyes. Children found him fascinating, and if they lent him a stick or a stock-whip handle, he would return it half an hour afterwards covered with beautiful or grotesque carvings. He had a home-made gig—a packing case on wheels—in which he drove tandem an old white mare and a mule. He drove them to the first race meeting held in Timaru, on 7th March, 1860, and ran the mule in a half-mile Scurry. He was beaten in the first heat (£10 a-side) by McPherson's pony and foal.
Everyone knows that in the old days hospitality was a point of honour. A number of friends once arrived at dark to stay a day or two at Blue Cliffs, when Poigndestre had very little to drink on the station. He ordered his bullock driver to yoke up immediately and go post haste to Timaru and back for more. The bullocky got back with a case of gin by dinner-time the next day, before they had finished what they had, and honour was saved.
Poigndestre sold Blue Cliffs to John Hayhurst (an early tenant of the Ashburton Station) in May, 1866. He then rented an island in the Waihao to breed rabbits for the Timaru and Oamaru markets, but a flood came and washed away the island, rabbits and all.
I do not tell these old yarns in derision, but because I think every word about the early pioneers is worth preserving. As Joseph Conrad puts it: some of us had better wipe the milk off our lips before we laugh at the stragglers of a generation which ' has done and suffered not a little in its time.'
Poigndestre was a man of judgment and standing, and gave Francis Jollie a close run in the first South Canterbury election for a member of the General Assembly.
Hayhurst moved the homestead from its old position, opposite the actual blue cliffs of the Otaio (where W. J. Beattie lives now), to the present site, but he did not keep the place long. He sold it to Charles Meyer in 1871.
Meyer built and endowed the beautiful little Upper Otaio church in memory of his wife, who died in 1878. It is so placed as to be always visible from the homestead at Blue Cliffs. He then went on a visit to England where he died.
Four months later his executors sold the station at the end of 1879 to Robert Heaton Rhodes, the ' eldest son of George Rhodes of the Levels. The station then consisted of eight thousand acres of freehold and twenty-eight thousand acres of leasehold, and carried 23,000 sheep. The price was £64,500, which was considered a good one at the time as there had been a fall in the value of stations.
The best known of the managers under Rhodes were Alfred Cox (a son of Alfred Cox, of Raukapuka), Charles Hendry, who was there from 1890 till 1906, and L. Calder, who was at Blue Cliffs from 1908 until 1923.
In February, 1891, the front part of the hill lease-holdleasehold was cut up into grazing runs, but Rhodes was allowed to buy the freehold of five thousand acres of it; the title for it, however, was not issued until 1895.
In 1904 the lease of the back part of the run was put up for auction, but Rhodes did not bid for it (having lost 4000 sheep there in the 1903 winter), so that his lease terminated in 1905 and since then Blue Cliffs has been all freehold.
Robert Heaton Rhodes died in 1918, since when Blue Cliffs has been carried on by his daughter, Mrs Woodhouse and her husband Dr P. R. Woodhouse who now manages the station. In 1930 Woodhouse took over the five thousand acres of hill country and parts of the land have been sold at various times since 1908. Blue Cliffs proper now consists of three thousand eight hundred acres of freehold.
It may seem strange that a run taken up so late as 1856 should have so early a number as 31. The original No. 31 was on the north bank of the Waimakariri, and was amalgamated with the run next it, No. 32, just before Blue Cliffs was taken up, and the number used again.
The Blue Cliffs' brand, the Prince of Wales's Feathers, is a very old one. It was registered in 1858.
Otaio
(
Runs N.Z.R. 35 and 36 —
In May, 1862, they became 449 and 450)
This station at one time took in all the country from the Otaio River to the Hook Creek, where it joined Studholme Brothers' Waimate Station. The boundary fence, however, was put up about a mile north of the Hook, and crossed the road at Carter's, which was named after Andrew Carter, who lived at the gate, and looked after the boundary. Otaio ran from the sea, over into the Hakataramea Valley, and included Mt. Nimrod, where it joined Cannington.
The runs were first allotted to Miss Jean Collier, the original licenses being dated 1st February, 1855.
About the same time, G. Elwin applied for some country in the same locality, but his application was refused, and the country included in Miss Collier's runs.
Miss Collier arrived in New Zealand in 1854 with her three nephews, Leslie, James, and Andrew Thomson, who were only lads at the time. She transferred her country to them almost at once, but lived with them at their station and died there in 1862.
The Thomsons started their station in April, 1855, as a cattle station. I have been told that for a time they let George Matson, who afterwards had Mt. Nessing, graze his sheep on the Hunters Hills. These were the first sheep on the run. Sam. Rogers brought them from North Canterbury and they were eighteen months on the road, and were shorn before beingcrossed over the Rakaia. Matson built a homestead at the foot of the Hunters Hills. I do not think he remained there long, and afterwards James Thomson built a homestead at the same place, just above the present Teschemaker School. Later on (when James moved to Alexander's Crossing, where Robert Gray lives now), Leslie Thomson built a fine house and laid out large gardens there, but nothing is left of them now but a few large gums. The Thomsons put 1100 sheep of their own on the run in 1857.
The Thomsons' first manager was a man named Denbeigh, and he was followed for a short time by C. N. Orbell, who was afterwards so long at the Levels. Orbell was succeeded by Martelli, the leading amateur rider of those days. The Thomsons were themselves great horsemen and ' stickers ' to bucking horses.
E. R. Guinness and H. H. Pitman were cadets at Otaio in the Thomsons' time.
Like so many of the old squatters, the Thomsons were hit by hard times and high rates of interest in the 'sixties. About 1867, they sold eighteen thousand five hundred acres of their country with 10,000 sheep for £10,000, to Colonel T. W. White and James Selfe. This country, which was afterwards known as the Sherwood Station, ran from the Studholmes' boundary to the Makikihi, and from the sea to the foot of the hills.
White and Selfe did not remain long at Sherwood, selling to Charles Perring and Harry Parker, for whom H. H. Pitman managed. Perring and Parker had been at Cambridge together. Pitman's shepherd for some years was Alexander Elliot, who died some years ago the owner of Elfin Bay Station on Lake Wakatipu.
Perring and Parker made some seven thousand acres of their run freehold, and sold it in 1878 to R. H. Rhodes, senior, who cut it up and re-sold it the same year. There was a great deal of dispute over the commission on the sale to Rhodes, as the firm that acted as Perring and Parker's agents was found to have an interest in the purchase.
The Sherwood homestead now belongs to James Meehan, of Timaru, and is let to John Linton.
Otaio Station was bought in May, 1868, by Teschemaker Brothers and Le Cren.
Leslie Thomson had died of yellow fever at Panama on his way to England, and Andrew went Home in 1866, only paying a short visit to New Zealand afterwards. For about thirty years he ran the Cowes Regatta, and some years after the 1914-18 War he was still living in London. Andrew Thomson wrote some amusing verses on an adventure he had in the 'fifties. He was taking a sledge and bullock team to Timaru, but found Saltwater Creek in high flood. He didn't want to get his town clothes wet, so he took them off and put them on top of the load and started the bullocks into the water. The bullocks plunged in and got across, and then bolted towards Timaru. Thomson had to swim across carrying his whip, and then sprint across the plain after the bullocks. He just managed to stop them and rescue his shirt and trousers before they reached the town.
James Elliot Thomson, the remaining brother, began life again with Benmore Station, on the West Coast Road, and afterwards had Akitio, on the East Coast of the North Island, and the Carleton, near Oxford. He died after the 1914-18 War in Timaru.
The Teschemaker brothers had just sold Haldon, in the Mackenzie Country, which they had taken up in 1857. Frederick Teschemaker was for many years a member of the House of Representatives.
The Teschemakers bought Le Cren's interest in the station in 1878. At that time it consisted of seventeen thousand acres of freehold, twenty-two thousand acres of leasehold, and carried 21,000 sheep. The price was £191,000. On Frederick Teschemaker's death at the end of the session in 1879, Thomas Teschemaker became sole owner. Some years after buying the run, Teschemaker and Le Cren had sold the Mt. Nimrod country to Elworthy, of Pareora. The country had never been stocked. Orbell, Pitman, and some neighbouring shepherds had once mustered it, however, and got 300 wild sheep off it, and some wild cattle.
T. Teschemaker managed the station himself for many years, eventually handing the management over to his nephew, John C. Thierens, who was with him from 1876 to 1898. Thierens is now one of the representatives of the New Zealand and Australian Land Company at Home. The last manager was George Young, aftewards manager of Wilden, in Otago.
About the beginning of the century, Teschemaker began selling off some of the land (he sold 3664 acres to the Government in 1901—the Government called it the Kohika Settlement), and in 1908 he sold the leashold run to Carlisle Studholme, since when it has been worked with Kaiwarua and Pentland Hills. It was transferred to the present owner, J. H. Meehan, in 1917. Teschemaker had paid rent to the Government from 1857 to 1908, over fifty years, which is, I believe, a record.
After the sale of the leasehold country he went on with the freehold station until 1916, when he sold five thousand acres—the whole place except the homestead and five hundred acres—to the Government. He sold the homestead a year afterwards. He died in 1919, almost the last of the old squatters, and, though none had had greater struggles, he was luckier than most of them, in that he lived to see his pluck, enterprise, and hard work well rewarded.
Several important freehold properties were origi-nallyoriginally part of the Otaio run. The Martins and Quinns are perhaps the oldest settlers. Spring Bank, which has been so long the property of the Johnstone family, and Bankfield, were formed out of it, and Bournedale was bought by Charles Bourne when Sherwood was cut up.
John Macfarlane is the present owner of the Otaio Homestead.
Waimate
(
Runs 39 N.Z.R., 69, 204 and 406)
Waimate took in the country between the Hook and Waihao rivers, and ran from the sea back to Station Peak and the Hakataramea Downs. Sandford's map, published in London in 1856, shows the seaward part of it as included in Miss Collier's Otaio run, but this is incorrect.
Waimate was taken up early in 1854 by John, Paul, and Michael Studholme, three brothers who arrived in Lyttelton by the Labuan in 1851, John had just left Oxford, Paul was barely twenty, and Michael had just left school and was only seventeen. They came from Cumberland.
Before leaving England the Studholmes had bought a small block of land from the Canterbury Association, and on their arrival they selected this at Governor's Bay, but finding too little scope for their energies, they sold their land and went to the newly discovered gold diggings in Australia. The party consisted of the three brothers and their friend, George Brayshaw, who was also a North-countryman.
At the goldfields they had little luck but many adventures. The diggers were a very lawless lot, and two men always had to watch the camp. Notwithstanding this precaution, they twice had their horses stolen and their tent attacked—fortunately without injury to themselves. After a year of hard work they gave up and returned to Canterbury with just enough money to pay their way to Christchurch. Luckily, when they went to Australia they had left most of their money in the Union Bank.
On their return here they devoted themselves to squatting. They bought a run at Hororata and took up a cattle station at Riverton, in Southland, and a sheep run (which afterwards became Hawkdun Station) in Central Otago. On the journey to Otago they were struck by the country betwen the Makikihi and Waihao, and decided to take it up as well.
The brothers were all in partnership, but divided their labours: Paul managed the Hororata run, John was the business man of the firm, and spent most of the 'fifties in exploring and looking for country, while Michael went down to start the new station, Waimate.
He rode down beside his bullock dray, which carried a load of necessaries. His bullock driver was Saul Shrives. Shrives afterwards had a store in Waimate and managed his accounts very well though he could neither read nor write. Studholme arrived on the new run on 18th July, 1854, after a journey of six weeks. It was winter and the creeks were flooded and the track was not well defined, and ceased altogether at Timaru. The Rhodes's were already at the Levels, the Macdonalds at Orari, and the Hornbrooks at Arowhenua; but the only stations south of Timaru which had been started were Harris and Innes's Pareora, and possibly Waikakahi. Studholme first camped at the Point Bush; the Maori pa stood at a corner of the bush about half a mile away.
The morning after his arrival, Studholme paid a formal call on the Chief, Uru Uru, and they made a compact to respect each other's rights. This compact was faithfully kept, and the two, who seemed to understand each other, lived in harmony until Uru Uru's death in 1861.
The chief was a fine-looking old man. His whole face was deeply tattooed. He had a broad high brow, and bright piercing eyes; but his body below the chest was paralysed and he could move only his arms.
After some time John Studholme and Brayshaw came down to the station, and they all chose the pre-sentpresent site for the homestead. The brothers and Brayshaw built the slab hut and Shrives thatched it. It was all built out of one totara tree. This hut, known as ' The Cuddy,' is still standing in the garden at Waimate —Shrives's thatch still remains under many succeeding coatings.
A part of Waimate at one time seems to have been held by Philip Lloyd Francis, Colonel Muter's partner, who is given in an old stock return as having 2000 sheep there in 1857-58, but these sheep may have been run on terms with the Studholmes; anyhow he sold the sheep to the Studholmes very soon afterwards.
In 1856 George Brayshaw took up a small run near the Hook River, which he sold to the Studholmes in 1862. His hut stood where Nicholas's house is now.
In January, 1857, the Studholmes took up twentyfive thousand acres more country in the Waihao Forks under the Canterbury Regulations. By this time they had nearly 5000 sheep on the station. In 1858 Paul Studholme sold his interests to his brothers and went to live in King's County, in Ireland, where he died in 1900.
By 1860, the station was emerging from the pioneer stage. The first gums were planted in that year and Michael Studholme built the original part of the present house. This was built of the best heart of totara and remained sound and serviceable until it was burnt down with all its contents in 1928. Studholme also married, and he and his wife rode down from Christchurch. Mrs Studholme was one of those cultivated English women who were not afraid to face the hardships of colonial life. She has left a lively account of her experiences on the station, which is unfortunately difficult to get now; and she wrote very graceful poetry.
The Studholmes bought Retribution from Frank Brittan after he had won the first steeplechase held in Canterbury. ' Wayfarer,' in his notes about Early Grand Nationals (Press, 10th August, 1925) mentions Retribution as having won a steeplechase in the middle 'sixties, but Mrs Michael Studholme in her Reminis-cencesReminiscences speaks of his being used as a hack at Waimate when she went there in 1860, so, unless she is mistaken, it looks as if the race must have been run early in that year, or before. Retribution was a very ratty horse, but was never known to tire on a journey. Michael Studholme once rode him from Timaru to Waimate—30 miles—in two and a-half hours, a wonderful performance for a horse carrying 16 stone. Retribution's hoof is still preserved at Waimate in an inkstand and is about as perfect in shape as a hoof can be.
Until about 1864 the house was the post office for the surrounding district. Baines, the postman, brought a fortnightly mail from Christchurch on horseback, the mails being carried in leather bags on a led horse. Before this Baines had been a cook for the Studholmes in the Cuddy, and he was always welcome, being full of gossip and news. His daily stages were: Christchurch to Acton Station on the Rakaia, Acton to the Macdonald's Orari Station, Orari to the Royal Hotel at Timaru, thence to Waimate, and next day to the Waitaki, returning to Waimate the same day and then back to Christchurch in the same stages. He took a great pride in getting through up to time.
During the 'sixties, William Moorhouse, a younger brother of Sefton Moorhouse, the Superintendent who built the Lyttelton Tunnel, managed Waimate, and Edward Hume Cameron (who afterwards managed the station for so many years), worked under him as a boy. Before this, John Ledwick had been overseer and Hamish Mackintosh head shepherd. Michael Studholme went home to England in 1863; during his absence the John Studholmes lived at Waimate. The names of Knottingly Park at Waimate and the horse Knottingly, also Mount Ellen, are reminiscent of their stay, Knottingly being the name of Mrs John Studholme's old home in Yorkshire, and Ellen her Christian name.
Returning early in 1865, Michael Studholme brought out the first hares to South Canterbury, John Molloy, a fellow passenger, looking after them. Most of them died in the hot weather, but enough survived to stock the country. For some time they were kept in an enclosure at Waimate.
In 1867 outsiders began buying freehold on the run, and the Studholmes had an anxious time trying to protect it. It was in 1867, also, that they began to fence in anything but the smallest paddocks. About that time the Waimate township began to take shape. Dan Brown, the first butcher, once offered a novelty in the way of meat. A travelling showman had the bad luck to get his elephant tooted near Waitaki, and Brown cut off the trunk and displayed it in his shop. The rest of the elephant was buried in the riverbed and Tom Teschemaker, of Otaio, used to say that when the river, hundreds of years hence, exposes the bones, the geologists will prove that elephants once roamed over the Waitaki plains. I have since heard, however, that the bones were afterwards dug up and sold to a museum. By 1870 Waimate carried 36,500 sheep, and by 1874 the greater part of the freehold had been bought.
The year 1878-79 was a bad one for everyone in Canterbury, but especially for the Studholmes. There was a drought, and prices fell very suddenly. On 15th November a terrible nor'-wester came and the Waimate Bush caught fire in several places. The Point Bush was saved, the station employing something like a hundred men to keep back the fire. Ambrose Potts, the manager, was badly burned. The fire did an enormous amount of damage, millions of feet of valuable timber being destroyed as well as buildings and fences. Several fires had been burning near the bush when the nor'-wester came, and one of these had been lighted by some of the Studholmes' men. The Studholmes were the most substantial people concerned, so all those who had suffered loss proceeded against them for damages. The Studholmes proved that it was not their fire which had started the bush fire, but the expense of proving it was great, one firm of lawyers alone sending in a bill for £6000. The small part of the bush saved, known as the Point Bush, stood until recent times when it was cut down and sold for a song. It is a pity that the people of Waimate did not preserve it for the sake of their town.
At this time, though they had sold their Otago and Hororata runs, the Studholmes between them owned Coldstream and Waimate in Canterbury, and Owhaoko and Murimoto in the North Island, on which runs the combined shearing tally was for some years 115,000 sheep. In addition they held a large share of Opuha Gorge, Kakahu, Greta Peaks and Lowcliffe in Canterbury, and Raglan, a cattle run, in the North Island.
Most of these stations were in the back country, all wool from Owhaoko and Murimoto having to be sent to Napier on pack horses for 60 and 100 miles respectively. They were all being developed at the same time, and a huge sum of money was necessary to keep them all going, most of it coming out of Waimate and Coldstream. John and Michael Studholme dissolved partnership in 1879, Michael taking Waimate and John taking some of the other properties in part payment. Soon after the brothers divided, there was another sharp fall in prices—the 'eighties being lean years. The Waimate sheep were valued at 8/6 a head in 1886 and wool at £11 a bale. Things were so bad in the 'eighties that a third share in Raglan Station was offered by John Studholme for sale on these terms: any one would be given £7500 to take the third share provided he would take over the liability of that share, which was £14,000. Raglan at that time consisted of two thousand acres of freehold and ninety-six thousand acres of leasehold and carried 3500 head of cattle.
In 1880 Waimate consisted of forty-six thousand acres of freehold and just over twenty thousand acres of leasehold, and carried 82,000 sheep, including lambs, 2500 head of cattle, and 350 horses. About four thousand acres of land were under crop each year, and twenty station teams were employed, besides contractors. By 1886 two thousand acres of the freehold had been sold, and between 1886 and 1895, twelve thousand eight hundred and ninety-three acres were sold for £80,946, in order to reduce the debt. Most of, this land was thrown away, some of the best Willowbridge land being sacrificed at £15 and £16 an acre. It is now worth anything up to £70.
The outgoings on the station at that time were enormous. The yearly interest amounted to £15,000 and the working and other expenses came to £11,000, so that £26,000 a year had to be paid out before any profit could be taken.
Michael Studholme died in 1886. The manager for thirty years from about 1870, with a short interval, was Edward Hume Cameron. Since then the management has been in the hands of Michael Studholme's sons.
The Stud Holmes lost the leasehold country in 1889 and since then it has belonged to the Hayes family, of Centre wood. By 1895 the freehold was down to about 31,000 acres. Wool at that time was worth about £10 a bale, and the best hoggets fetched 8/6 a head. William Grant once bought 2000 fat withers, the pick of 4,000, for 6/-a head. The other 2000 were frozen and shipped on Studholme's account and netted just over 6/-a head. At one time they sold merino wether mutton at Waimate at 1/-a side. Since 1895 the property has been gradually reduced in size, until at present there are only two thousand five hundred acres left.
In its palmy days Waimate was noted for its cattle and horses, the Bell brand being known from one end of New Zealand to the other, and even in Melbourne and Sydney, where many of the horses were used in the trams.
The cattle were Shorthorns and latterly were culled for colour as well as constitution—no whites were bred from, as it was found that the light colours would not stand the hard winters as well as the deeper reds and roans. At three years old, the steers used to kill about 900 lb. off grass. Dealers came from all parts and bought, say, a pick of 350 steers out of 400, at prices varying from £6 to £20, according to the market. John Grigg, of Longbeach, was one of the chief buyers,. Standish, his manager, usually coming down for the cattle. Most of these were sent to the West Coast goldfields, where they fetched big prices. Another large buyer for the Coast was James McLeish.
The cattle at Waimate were as wild as any other station cattle at the time, which was saying a good deal, and the annual muster was one of the events of the year. All the neighbours for miles round came to lend a hand—even the sergeant of police joined in. The cattle yards were on the flat at the Hook River, opposite Nicholas's house. They were specially built for handling wild cattle and had man-holes by the gates, so that a man could slip out quickly when a beast charged. The old stockmen were very plucky and would go into a yard amongst the wildest cattle with a short stick, and it was wonderful how they could draft them and run them through the proper gate.
I wish I had more space for Waimate cattle draftingstories; how a cow caught old Jim, and threw him right over a six-foot fence, and went snorting round the yard with part of his trousers on her horn; how a newchum had a theory that if you turned your back on a beast and stooped down, and looked at him through your legs he wouldn't charge, and how a noted poley bullock completely exploded his theory.
There was a famous rider called George Hyde, who was a great hand with a stockwhip. He was supposed to be able to hold the stalk of a daisy in his mouth and cut the flower off with a fifteen-foot whip, without touching his face. Drawing half-driven corks out of bottles standing on the ground, with his whip, without knocking over the bottles, was child's play to Hyde.
For many years the cows were left in the yards at weaning and the calves driven away from them. This was a tremendous job, and many a good horse was ridden to a standstill in the process. It suddenly occurred to someone that it would be much easier to leave the calves in the yards, and drive the cows away first. This alteration saved a lot of hard work.
Harris, of Waikakahi, was a great lover of horses, and in his time the horses belonging to the two stations used to run together, their paddock being the whole front country between the Waitaki and Hook rivers. When found, the horses were run into the nearest yards. Horsemen were sent to various points beforehand to turn them.
The original mares were a well-bred lot from Australia, some of them having Arab blood.
A number of good stallions were used at Waimate. Amongst them were Sir Charles, Malton, Caledon, Knottingly, Guy Fawkes, Ilam, Kauri, Borderman, Cajolery, and Conqueror. Stormbird belonged to the Studholmes and Harris in partnership. To get size, a dash of Suffolk Punch blood was introduced, and the mares were then mated with thoroughbreds again. This produced horses like Bredonhill, big upstanding sorts and fine jumpers, with a fair amount of pace. Bredonhill jumped 32 feet 6 inches over the water jump at Kirwee, with George Rutherford on his back, and he ran second in the Grand National. Guy Fawkes sired Freeman, a National winner, and probably more first-class hunters and journey horses than any other horse we ever had in Canterbury. I had a Guy Fawkes mare myself on which I rode from Christchurch to Blenheim in five days, and from Christchurch to Mt Peel in eighteen hours. Curiously enough, she had been taken out of training because she could not stay six furlongs. Young horses were cheap enough in those days—£10 was about the average price for an unbroken three-year-old.
Some of the earliest steeplechases in Canterbury were on the Waimate run. For three years—from 1873 onwards—they were run at Willowbridge, and afterwards nearer the Homestead.
Charlie Bird used to tell a story of Michael Studholme trying to make up his mind how he should invest a thousand pounds he happened to have in Dunedin: whether he should buy five hundred acres near the town at £2 an acre, or a shipload of horses from Melbourne. He chose the horses, to get a quicker return. The land he did not take is now occupied by South Dunedin.
Once in the very early days, John and Michael Studholme went south of Dunedin to take delivery of a large mob of cattle that they had bought, but a big rise in prices had come suddenly, and to get out of the transaction the dealer said he would not take their cheque on a Christchurch bank. The brothers decided that the quickest way to get the money was to walk to Christchurch for it, as the track was very bad, and no steamer was due to leave for some time. John lost the toss and started straight off for Christchurch and got back in time for the delivery, and so saved the situation. This great walk was accomplished in something under three weeks, John Studholme being very much exhausted by the time he reached Dunedin again.
He was ferried across the Waitaki in flood by a Maori on a raft; the Maori was suspected of having drowned more than one traveller for the sake of his blankets. Just before starting the Maori began to tie the blankets on the raft, saying: ' If we capsize the blankets safe.' 'No,' said Studholme, 'if we capsize the blankets must go too! '
On his return journey he got to the Macdonald's Orari Station on the night of a dinner party, and, much to his disgust, fell asleep at the table.
When the Studholmes first took up what was known as the Waimate Swamp, people thought they were mad, and this country, near the sea, was certainly a great sink for money—some of it costing more to drain and clear than it was afterwards sold for. The main swamp started below Willowbridge and ran right to Makikihi, hundreds of acres being simply quaking bog covered with nigger-heads and rushes. There were thousand and thousands of pukaki in the swamp, and thousands of ducks on the open water of the creeks and lagoons. It was generally considered that about two hours was sufficient for two guns to fill a buggy with from seventy to a hundred birds.
There was another flax belt running from the Waimate Gorge to the sea, which was very wide in places. The sound country was closely covered with cabbage trees—always a sign of good land.
Waimate was a great place for wild pigs. A contract was let for pig-killers every year for anything up to a thousand. The price was 9d a tail for the first five hundred and 1/-a tail afterwards. Some of the pighunters became very expert at making artificial tails out of raw-hide and including them in their bundles of twenty.
Some of the early station hands may be mentioned. In the 'sixties most of the shepherds were Scotchmen, as the following names show—Angus McKinnon, Donald McKinnon, William McLeod, James Anderson, and Murdoch Elder. Other names appearing on the station books in the 'sixties are: John Jacobs, Richard Wellwood, John Horgan, William Morton, Gordon Gunn, John Molloy, and John Cochrane.
In those days shepherds were paid £60 to £65 a year, and ordinary station hands £1 to 25/-a week. In spite of the small wages they got, many of the above men afterwards had farms of their own and some of them became wealthy.
Length of time in the ownership of one family, the value of the land and the financial vicissitudes of its owners, traditions of boundless hospitality and un-limited sport, and the grand scale on which operations were carried on, all combine to make Waimate, to my mind, the most interesting station in the province. Its history is the history of squatting in Canterbury, in a nut-shell, and that is why I have written so much about it.
Waikakahi
(
Runs 11, 16, 22, N.Z.R., 11 & 16 were later 503 & 505)
Waikakahi originally covered all the country between the Waihao and Waitaki rivers and ran from the sea to Elephant Hill.
William Hyde Harris and Alphonso Clifford were granted runs by Colonel Campbell in November, 1853, Harris the country south of the Waihao from the sea inland, and Clifford in the angle formed by the Waitaki and the sea. Clifford was a younger brother of Sir Charles Clifford, of Stonyhurst. Next to Clifford, Samuel H. Pike took up a run for John Parkin Taylor, but this was moved to the westward when Brittan took over the administration of the South Canterbury waste lands in 1854, and the country next to Clifford given to Samuel Stephens, Pike's run becoming Elephant Hill. Harris built a station on the Waihao and seems to have bought out Stephens and Clifford very soon, and it was then probably that the homestead was moved to the present site. He entered partnership with David Innes, of Pareora, about 1855, and they worked their runs together, Harris living at Waikakahi, with C. H. Dowding as his manager, and James Macdonald, who lived at Pareora, was a supervisor of all the partners' runs. Harris freeholded four thousand acres of his run.
Harris and Innes dissolved partnership in 1864, Waikakahi reverting to Harris, who sold it in 1866 to John and Allan McLean, and retired to live in England. He was a great racing man and amateur rider, and one of the importers of Traducer. His horses were trained by Webb at Riccarton. Golden Cloud and Belle of the Isle were two of his that were famous in their day. He was superintendent manager for Clifford and Weld, and had to inspect Stonyhurst and Flaxbourne. On one of his trips north he and J. W. Mallock rode a match, winner to have both horses, from Christchurch to Horsley Down. Mallock won, being much the lighter man.
The McLeans took their brother-in-law, the Honourable George Buckley, into partnership, and the firm bought the freehold of the larger part of the run. Buckley sold out to his partners in 1875, and the McLeans dissolved partnership in 1880, when John, the senior partner, gave Allan his choice of Waikakahi or Waitaki Plains, Redcastle, and Lagmhor. Allan very wisely chose Waikakahi.
Allan McLean held the station until November, 1898, when he sold it to the Government for closer settlement, retaining for a time the house and garden. The price of the land and the sheep came to nearly half a million. At the time the Government bought it, Waikakahi was one of the finest stations in Canterbury. It consisted of about forty-eight thousand acres of freehold and carried over 50,000 sheep. They cut over twelve hundred bales of Lincoln wool. There were four hundred miles of fencing on the run.
The farming was also done on a very large scale. McLean let three or four thousand acres every year to croppers to get the country into grass. He also grew two thousand five hundred to three thousand acres of turnips every year. The croppers, or contractors, did the ploughing and top work on the blocks sown in turnips. Often thirty-five or forty four-horse teams would be at work on one block, divided into portions for the various contractors.
After a good season or two, many of the croppers accumulated capital, and have since done well farming in various parts of New Zealand.
In 1888 the three thousand-acre block between Glenavy and the homestead was in turnips; 26,000 hoggets and 9000 wethers were run there on one break, which must surely be a New Zealand record. To draft such a large mob they put up special hurdle yards on the road (which was then four chains wide) between Pike's Point and Whitney's Creek.
Whitney's Creek was named after B. Whitney, who used to camp there. He, first as station wagoner, and afterwards as contractor, carted wool to Timaru. Lintil some time in the 'sixties the wool was taken by bullock teams over the Waitaki to Oamaru.
In the early days there was an out-station at Harris's old homestead on the Waihao from which nearly 3000 head of cattle were worked, but in later days they did not keep many cattle at Waikakahi—under 200 head.
The managers and some of the station hands should be mentioned.
After Dowding, James Macdonald managed Waikakahi for Harris, and stayed for about a year after the sale to McLean and Buckley. He was a kinsman of the Macdonalds of Orari, and had previously managed Pareora. He was succeeded by Dan Macdonald, who stayed until Buckley sold out in 1875, when the Mc-LeansMcLeans appointed their cousin, Alexander McLean, better known as 'Big Alex,' as manager with James Mitchell as overseer and book-keeper. In 1880, when Allan McLean became the sole owner, he appointed George McLean, who managed the station until it was sold to the Government.
Roderick McKenzie, who afterwards owned Black Mount and other stations in Southland, was overseer and book-keeper from 1880 to 1887. In 1888, A. H. McNeill was appointed, and he remained until the station was sold.
There were two out-stations on the run. That at the Waihao Bridge was in charge of Alexander McPherson for many years. The Merino Downs, at the nor'-west end of the run, was in charge of J. M. McNeill, who was employed at Waikakahi from 1874 until the sale.
Alexander McDonald was with the McLeans for over twenty years, and Adam Borwick (who is now farming at the Waihao) was also shepherding at Waikakahi for a very long time.
No account of the McLeans' stations is complete without mention of Tan So, a most faithful and honest Chinaman. He had saved the McLeans' lives and gold from bushrangers when they were returning to Melbourne from their last gold-buying expedition to the Bendigo diggings. The McLeans took him into their service and he lived with them until his death at Redcastle, after the sale of Waikakahi. He worked for them in various capacities, and was always free of any of their stations or homes.
Chapter 8
Hills Stations Between the Rakaia and Waimakariri Rivers
Except where specially mentioned, the accounts of runs in this chapter have not been brought past September, 1927.
The Point
(
Run 33)
The Point, ten thousand acres, lay on the Rakaia River above the Terrace Station. It was taken up on 15th May, 1852, by John, Paul, and Michael Studholme, in John Studholme's name. Soon afterwards the Studholmes bought the Terrace Station at Hororata, and they worked the Point from there, with a man named Watts as their overseer. When they sold it about 1862 to Henry Phillips of Rockwood, the only improvements on it were a shepherd's hut and a set of sheep yards. The hut was half a mile nearer the Rakaia than the present homestead, and was near the swamp where the road turns up towards Lake Coleridge. T. A. Phillips had spent a year as a cadet on the Studholmes' Waimate Station, and when he returned in 1866 his father sent him to take charge of the Point. He slept one night in the old hut, but was driven out by rats, and pitched a tent on the present homestead site, and lived in it till he had built a hut for himself.
He and his people had not had time to do much in the way of making their new home comfortable before the 1867 winter came. The reader may remember that the snowstorm of July and August, 1867, was one of the worst recorded in Canterbury and ruined several good squatters. Happily it did not ruin the owner of the Point, but here is a description of the storm from their station diary (on 29th July there had been a wet sou'-wester): —
July 30th—'Heavy snow a fool to it. A foot deep at sundown …'
July 21st—'A fearful day, wind like an extra sharpened double-bladed superfine razor. Snow drifted six feet in places—average 18 inches. No wood to be got, or barely enough to cook with.'
August 1st—'Rain, sleet, hail, snow, etc., etc. No fire all day, go to bed at intervals. No tobacco, no water, limited supply of grub.'
August 2nd—'Same as yesterday, but more so …. There was more snow in the next few days, but the weather was clearing by degrees. On Sunday, 4th, 'An exhausted swagger came at midday, who says that he had been out since Monday with no tucker and most of the time in the snow.' They got out as far as the Rakaia terrace that afternoon and 'found the sheep in better plight than expected.'
However, through snowstorms and bad times, the Phillips family held on to the Point and Rockwood until after Henry Phillips's death, when his son, T. A. Phillips, sold Rockwood and concentrated on the Point.
When the Government leases were put up to auction in 1889, Phillips lost the lease of his run, but he was able to make it freehold before the new tenant had entered into possession.
In 1911, Phillips sold the greater part of his country to George Gerard, of Snowdon, who put a water-race through it, and sold it in blocks. The Point is now only about six hundred acres, and is let to Miss Richards. It was about the last of the country houses where the old-fashioned tradition of open-house hospitality was maintained.
Henry Phillips had a farm called St. Martins near Christchurch, which has given its name to a suburb, and Phillipstown is also named after the family.
Rockwood
(
Runs 57 and 57 A)
Rockwood lies next north of the Point, on the foothills above the Terrace Station. The first part of it (Run 57, of five thousand acres), was taken up by Henry Phillips on 15th July, 1852. On 8th August, 1855, he took up Run 57a, another seven thousand acres adjoining. The first year that I can find a record of the stock is 1854, when there were 300 sheep there. These had been increased by breeding and purchase to 4000 in 1858.
The life of Rockwood in the old days has been so well described by two of the best descriptive writers we ever had in New Zealand—Lady Barker and T. H. Potts—that it would be presumptuous to say any more about it, but Out in the Open is a hard book to pick up nowadays, so I may be allowed to quote a paragraph of it.
'One is reminded of the pleasure of a day's shooting in the old days, especially at Rockwood, in the Malvern Hills, where the homely hall door stood always open, and a hearty welcome awaited all comers. Nestling well up in a valley at the foot of a sombre beechwood that covered rocky mountain slopes, this favourite station was in the very heart of picturesque and romantic landscapes; mountain, valley, hill, and plain, woods, rocks, and rapid streams, were all within the compass of a health-giving walk. When on hospitable cares intent, it was thought by the mistress advisable to add to the contents of the larder by some slight plenishments in the way of savoury meat, one or two men would volunteer their services, and make preparations overnight for the morrow's expedition. Both of the old fowling pieces (one of them a Manton, I think) were taken down from over the chimney-piece and cleaned, ammunition sorted, wads punched out of a pack of cards, strong watertight boots well greased with weka oil, tinder for a smoke or a fire, as might be required, was made out of a condemned under-garment, and forcibly crammed, still hot and smouldering, into a little brass box (an implement which all up-country hands then carried about with them, when matches were not found in any great profusion at stations); a chip of quartz was also necessary, whilst the pocket knife did duty for a steel. By the by, these brass boxes to hold tinder were said to have been made originally for keeping the licenses of ticket-of-leave men across the water.' (Out in the Open, page 284.) But the reader should get the book and read it himself.
Henry Phillips bought the Point Station between Rockwood and the Rakaia, from the Studholmes, in 1862, and from then until his death the two stations were worked together.
After Henry Phillips's death in September, 1877, his son, T. A. Phillips, succeeded to his stations and kept the Point, but sold Rockwood in 1878, to G. R. Peacocke, who had been his cadet.
Peacocke, who was his own worst enemy, went out of Rockwood in 1882, when it was bought by McClatchie and McIntosh. Robert McIntosh bought out his partner two years later and sold the station to Peter Cunningham, jun., in 1886.
Cunningham went out of Rockwood about 1893. He sold the freehold and E. Goodwin took over the leasehold. Goodwin was the first man in these parts to own a motor-car, a Benz. He had to send to Sydney for the petrol. The leasehold went through seveial hands afterwards—C. O. B. Lamb, J. H. Wallace, and the Overtons, among them—and was cut up into several grazing runs before the 1914-18 War.
The freehold has also changed hands once or twice since Cunningham's time. It has belonged to S. Roseveare since 1905. It now carries 1200 or 1500 sheep, and the homestead is still as pretty as it was in Potts's time.
Snowdon
(
Runs 86, 86a, 123, 146, and 349)
Snowdon, on the north bank of the Rakaia, originally took in all the country from the Point to the Acheron River, and included the Black Hills, running back to the Thirteen Mile Bush and Big Ben. It also included the country between the Thirteen Mile Bush and the Selwyn River as far back as Dalethorpe. It was made up of five pasturage licenses of thirty-seven thousand acres altogether, and carried twenty thousand sheep.
Run 86 (in the angle of the Rakaia and Acheron), of ten thousand acres, was taken up by Aylmer and Perceval, the owners of the Hororata Station, on 19th May, 1853, and a month later Wood and Chisnall took up ten thousand acres next to them, number 86a. Wood and Chisnall took up another five thousand acres (Run 123) on 22nd October of the same year.
I do not know where Aylmer and Perceval's homestead was, but they called their station Norfolk.
Wood and Chisnall's homestead was at the foot of the range, between Big Ben (then called Mt. Snowdon), and Little Snowdon (now wrongly shown on the map as Scab Kill). They called their station Mt. Snowdon.
In November, 1854, John Dudley and F. J. P. Leach, who were partners in several stations at that time, bought the runs of both Aylmer and Perceval, and of Wood and Chisnall. Wood and Chisnall thought the place too far from town to bother with.
Dudley and Leach themselves took up Run 146 on 1st January, 1855, but Run 349, at the very back of the station, was not taken up until 1860. They moved the homestead from the foot of Big Ben to the present site, and Leach, a Welshman, called the station Snowdon.
Leach was the managing partner, and must have got to work quickly, as he had 4500 sheep and 200 head of cattle there by the middle of 1855. His sheep were declared scabby in October, 1856. He was a great planter of trees.
Leach was born at St. Petrox, in Pembrokeshire, in 1832, and was educated to be a doctor but was too deaf for the profession, so came to New Zealand in 1854. He had several runs in partnership with Dudley, who died while Leach was in England enjoying the fox hunting. They had no formal deed of partnership, and Mrs Dudley got their affairs in a mess, so Leach lost most of his money. He afterwards lived at Opawa and had a livery stable in Christchurch. He was a great sportsman and one of the founders of the Canterbury Jockey Club. He won the first steeplechase ever held here on a horse called War Eagle, and wrote some very interesting reminiscences in the Lyttelton Times.
Early in the 'sixties Mrs Dudley and Leach sold Snowdon to William Richard Scott, who had been a partner of the Greys at Coldstream.
Scott sold the station, which he had re-named the Oaks after Leach's trees, in 1866 (but the license was not transferred until June, 1873) to William Gerard. In those days John Grigg's cattle used to cross the Rakaia at the upper ferry, and pass through the run to Lake Lyndon where they joined the West Coast road on their way to the diggings. This disturbance to his stock annoyed Scott so much that he decided to sell. He retired, and afterwards lived in Fiji until his death.
Gerard changed the name of the station from the Oaks back to Snowdon. He had been Robinson's manager at Cheviot Hills and was one of the ablest of the old squatters. By the time of his death, in 1897, he had made freehold the greater part of Snowdon, besides owning Double Hill and Manuka Point Stations, altogether shearing over 60,000 sheep. He bought ten thousand five hundred acres of Snowdon from the Provincial Government at £2 an acre, and twelve thousand from the Midland Railway Company. Snowdon still belongs to his son, George Gerard., but is very much smaller now than it was. The Black Hills, Fighting Hill, and most of Bayfields were all originally part of it, also that part of High Peak which lies on the left bank of the Selwyn, and the station is still famous in Canterbury for the wool and stud sheep grown there.
Except for a year when he was in England, when George McMillan (afterwards of Mesopotamia), looked after all his stations, William Gerard usually managed Snowdon himself, but Alfred Comyns, long his manager at Double Hill, was there for a time. William Logan, who afterwards managed Snowdon for George Gerard, was on the station for 28 years under the Gerards, father and son.
Acheron Bank
(
Runs 121 and 155)
Acheron Bank lies on the south side of Lake Coleridge, and originally ran up the Rakaia from the Acheron to the Lake Stream.
Run 121 was taken up on 3rd October, 1853, by the McLean Brothers, Allan and Robertson. They had several other stations, and only kept the Acheron a year, and then sold it unstocked, I think, to William Thomas Norris. In May, 1857, Norris unexpectedly inherited £17,000. He straightaway sold the station to John Jackson Oakden and sailed for England, but on 6th September Potts noted in his diary that the ship he sailed in was reported lost. Anyhow he did not come back to New Zealand. Oakden had two thousand five hundred sheep on twenty thousand acres there in 1857.
Oakden's first manager was Richard Groome, who afterwards managed Blue Cliffs. Later on he had two cadets, both of whom afterwards became his managers —Rawlins, and Henry Slater. Rawlins after he left went to South America, and Slater became a lawyer, also commander of the volunteers in Christchurch. He wrote a book, Fifty Years of Volunteering, about them. He was managing the Acheron in 1863 and had C. F. Barker, afterwards of Malvern Hills, as his cadet.
In May, 1878, Oakden sold the station to John Murchison.
Old Johnny Oakden 'was a great ' character.' He came of good family in Staffordshire. He had managed a station in Australia for William Robinson, and Robinson sent him over to New Zealand in the early 'fifties to buy land for him. Oakden wisely chose Cheviot Hills, and I think he was Robinson's first manager. Anyhow he supervised the stud sheep there till the middle 'seventies.
A correspondent who remembers him when she was a child says: 'Old Johnny Oakden was rosy cheeked, white whiskered, hearty, hospitable—always kind to children, fond of his garden, proud of his peaches and hollyhocks. He used to go home to England to hunt and had hunted with the Empress of Austria in Ire-land.' Like many sportsmen in Victorian times, he always dressed in rough tweed of a sporting cut. Once in London he went to call on his friend Robinson who was living there at the time, trying to win the English Derby. The footman who opened the door said, 'I'm afraid it is no good, the place is filled.' Robinson was advertising for a gamekeeper and the man thought Oakden had come to apply for the job.
Once when some poetically minded people were enlarging on the delights of summer, Oakden said: 'Well I prefer winter. You can eat twice as much in cold weather.' Everyone liked him.
Old people at Hororata tell me that when he stopped there to feed his horses on his way to town, he would never let the horses drink out of the river, but always shouted for the ostler to bring them water in a bucket. I suppose he had seen the reins get caught up on the pole. After he sold the station he lived in Christ-church and died in his house in Barbadoes Street in March, 1884, aged sixty-six.
Murchison was the first man to introduce the double drafting gate to this part of Canterbury. He brought the idea from the Honourable Robert Campbell's stations in Otago, where he had been in charge of the stud sheep. For the first year or so at the Acheron he had a partner, W. S. Cartmill, who was to have found the greater part of the capital, but his money was in the hands of trustees, who would not consent to his investing it in a back country station, so Murchison had to carry the whole load himself. Cartmill, however, lived with him to the end of his life.
In 1912 the Government resumed the leasehold country of the Acheron and re-let it as two grazing runs, Peak Hill and Mt. Oakden. The Acheron run, however, had been part of the Midland railway area, and when it was offered for sale in 1889, Murchison bought seven or eight thousand acres of it. This freehold still belongs to his sons, who work it with Lake Coleridge.
Lake Coleridge
(
Runs 153 and 153A)
Lake Coleridge, which lies on the north side of the lake and runs up to the Harper River, was taken up in two runs of thirty-two and sixteen thousand acres on 20th August, 1855, by Barker, Harman, and Davie. Barker came out in one of the First Four Ships and was one of the first doctors to practise in Christchurch. Harman and Davie had another station in partnership near Lake Ellesmere, in my note on Which I have given some account of them.
Dr Barker seems to have bought out his partners very soon, and about 1860 sold Lake Coleridge to George Arthur Emileus Ross, who soon afterwards took Charles John Harper into partnership. Ross and Harper were partners in several stations in those days. Professor Sale was their manager at Lake Coleridge. Sometime, I think in 1864, they moved the homestead from the peninsula in the lake to where it is now. In 1866 Ross and Harper let the top end of their country to John Stanley Monck, who used it as a cattle station till 1869, after which he sold it back to Harper. This run was at the back of Mt. Ida, and the hut was at Lake Constance.
When Ross and Harper dissolved partnership in 1868, Harper who had been the managing partner took Lake Coleridge. He sold the station to Richard Marby Cotton about 1875. Harper afterwards had Hackthorne and Upper Hackthorne on the Ashburton Plains, and died in Ashburton in 1917.
Cotton died in 1886, but his executors carried on the station until 1890, when they sold it to John Murchison, of Acheron Bank, whose family still owns both stations.
I have already given accounts of Ross and Harper. George Samuel Sale was their first manager. According to Who's Who in N.Z., he was born in 1831 at Rugby and educated there and at Cambridge. He was afterwards on the goldfields, and was Professor of Classics at Otago from 1870 till 1897. Monck was born in Berkshire in 1845 and came to New Zealand in 1863. After he sold his run he bought the land which is called Monck's Bay near Sumner, and lived there until his death in September, 1929. He was a great athlete and was the 'Mr K. 'of Lady Barker's books.
Mt. Algidus
(
Runs 195, 278, 355 and 356)
Mt. Algidus lies in the fork of the Rakaia, Mathias, and Wilberforce rivers, and runs along the dividing range from the Mathias Pass to Browning's Pass. Run 195 (five thousand acres) was taken up in June, 1857, by James Phillips, and transferred for £300 to G. A. E. Ross in trust for William Rolleston on 8th July, 1859. Run 278 (five thousand acres) was taken up by J.J. Oakden in October, 1858. On 10th February Oakden sold it for £250 to Ross for Rolleston. In April, 1860, Rolleston took up Runs 355 and 356 in Ross's name. On March 25th, 1861, Ross transferred all four runs to Rolleston. In his diary Rolleston gives slightly earlier dates for the original licenses of 195 and 278, but I have followed the original lists.
Neither Phillips nor Oakden stocked his run except perhaps with a few head of cattle to hold the licenses. Rolleston had been a cadet or shepherd with Ross and Harper at Lake Coleridge. On February 18th, 1861, he and a man named Appleyard crossed the Wilberforce and pitched their tent to start the station. Appleyard finished building the house and yards and left onApril 26th, but came back from time to time and did most of the building and fencing in the station as long as Rolleston kept it.
In March, 1861, about 200 head of cattle belonging to Archdeacon Mathias arrived on the run, and on April 11th Rolleston took delivery of the sheep at Lake Coleridge, about 1550, 900 of them being Ross's to run on terms. Rolleston shore 1508 at the following shearing. Soon after Rolleston settled on the station Alured George Mathias joined him as manager and stayed till Rolleston sold the place. John James Thomson told me that when he went to Mt. Algidus in 1863 'Mathias was called manager but there was no one there to manage except Rolleston and himself.' But I have since read Rolleston's station diaries which show that Rolleston was away a great deal, and that several permanent hands were always employed. Mathias afterwards managed the Hamilton station near Mossburn for Hamilton and Rowley and bought the homestead block when the place was cut up. He died there in 1912. He was the Archdeacon's third son.
In May, 1865, Rolleston sold the station to F. D. S. Neave for about £5,000. Neave took delivery on June 3rd. The sale included, besides the leases and seventytwo acres of freehold which Rolleston had bought to protect the bush, 3,275 sheep, two bullocks and two horses. It was Neave who named the station Mt. Algidus. Rolleston named the actual hill after which it is called but he and Mathias always called the station the Rakaia Forks.
Rolleston was afterwards Superintendent of Canterbury. He was famous in New Zealand politics, and was a man of high classical attainments. Downie Stewart has now published an admirable biography of him. He was said to be prouder of being the best bullock driver in Canterbury than anything else. As a matter of fact, he told me once that his reputation was greater than he deserved. He said he was not in a class by himself as a bullock driver, but just 'a very good bullock driver indeed.' It is said of him that instead of swearing at his bullocks, he addressed them in Latin or Greek. What always struck me most about him was his simplicity and kindliness.
It is to him and Sale and Neave that we owe the fine classical names in those parts. The Hydra (the manyheaded serpent) is a very apt name for a winding creek which splits into a dozen branches on its way through the swamp 'before joining the river, as anyone will see who has to find his way across it for the first time.
Neave sold in 1884 to J. H. C. Bond and Charles Stewart Wood, who had been his cadets. Soon afterwards Wood sold his share to Bond, who took his brother W. N. C. Bond, into partnership about 1886. The Bonds sold to Pringle about 1892, but took the place back about 1895, and finally sold it in 1897 to Mrs George Murray-Aynsley, whose executors are still [1945] the owners. Mrs Murray-Aynsley's first manager was Roderick Urquhart, now at Mesopotamia. He was succeeded by his brother William, who managed it until 1934 when he was succeeded by R. A. Anderson, the present manager.
The runs of which Mt. Algidus originally consisted took in all the river facings and safe country, but there was a wedge-shaped block of ninety thousand acres of high tops, mostly bush-bound, in the middle, which was not included in the leases. David Stott, a gorge musterer, applied for this country, and was given a lease for £12 a year rent. He put out four thousand wethers on it, but finding he could not winter them there, sold his rights to Mrs Murray-Aynsley.
Alfred Comyns once took two thousand sheep through the Mathias Pass and stocked the open country on the West Coast side between the Pass and the bush, but he abandoned it after a year as impracticable.
Manuka Point
(
Runs 447 and 508)
This station lies between the Rakaia and Mathias rivers and runs back to the main range from the Mathias Pass to the Whitcombe Pass.
Run 447 of five thousand acres, the first of the country there to be taken up, was allotted to Joseph Palmer on 22nd June, 1863. Palmer was for many years the manager of the Union Bank in Lyttelton and Christchurch, and owned Double Hill on the other side of the Rakaia. He did not live on his station, and it was his manager at Double Hill who explored Manuka Point and got him to apply for the lease of it. In 1864 Palmer took up Run 508, of five thousand acres, one of the last allotments of new country in Canterbury. He continued to pay the rent, but never stocked Manuka Point.
At the end of May, 1874, Palmer sold both Double Hill and Manuka Point to William Gerard, of Snowdon, who was the first man to stock Manuka Point. When he first burnt the thousands of acres of scrub that were there, the fire was so great that the smoke clouds came down to Lyttelton.
In the old days, the musterers used to say that Manuka Point was the 'roughest shop in Canterbury.' There is a great deal of bush there, and there was a yarn that eight musterers started to bring a mob of four hundred wild sheep off the tops, and when they got down through the bush to the river-bed they only had one old ewe and a lamb.
Some time in the 'nineties, Manuka Point was transferred to Gerard's daughter, Mrs George MurrayAynsley, who had in the meantime bought Mt. Algidus, but she lost the lease of it about 1907, when the Scotts, of the Windwhistle, went there. After the Scotts, T. S. Johnston had Manuka Point for a time. He moved the homestead from the point itself to where it is now.
J. C. N. Bond and George Gerard bought it in 1920. Bond died in 1924, but Gerard went on with the station. C. G. Cran managed it for a long time in conjunction with the old Mt. Hutt homestead. Cran was succeeded by Lawrence Walker, who bought the station from Gerard in 1937 and has it still [1945].
The country above Manuka Point, between Totara Point and Whitcombe's Pass, was once taken up as a separate run by Duncan, who built a hut there and turned out two thousand sheep, but he lost most of them in the 'ninety-five winter and abandoned the run. He was snow-bound himself in his hut, and a party had to go up the river to rescue him.
Alfred Comyns, William Gerard, junior, and J. G. Richards discovered the Mathias Pass. They first noticed what looked like a pass from a high top when mustering at Manuka Point, and later on made an expedition to it.
Glenthorne
(
Runs 289, 345, 389 and 494)
Glenthorne lies in the fork of the Wilberforce and Harper rivers, and goes back to the main range.
It was taken up in two runs of fourteen thousand acres altogether in January, 1859, and May, 1860—I think by Major H. A. Scott, at least he was there in 1861, and I never heard of anyone being there before him.
About 1864 Dilnot Sladden rented the run and sheep from Scott for £400 a year. The 1867 winter was a bad one and in 1868 Scott had to take the place back. Sladden was born at Ash in Kent in 1842. He came to New Zealand from Tasmania and was for a time a cadet at Mt. Hutt. When he left Glenthorne he farmed at Oxford and in the North Island, but was eventually made secretary of the Meat Export Company in Wellington where he died in 1906.
Scott lived at a place he called Glenmore at the foot of the Port Hills. It was on the site of the Glenmore brick kilns. He had been in the 12th Lancers. He was a brother of W. R. Scott, of Snowdon, and was the father of Talbot Scott and H. A. Scott, the secretary of the Midland Railway Company. In 1860 he started the first volunteers in Canterbury. In the autumn of 1872 he sold Glenthorne to Captain Stephen Fisher for £4,000, and retired and went to live in Wales, where he died in 1908 at the age of ninety-three.
Fisher, the new owner, was born at St. Margaret's, in Kent, in 1818. He joined the Navy, and, after serving in various parts of the world, came to New Zealand in his ship in 1846. He liked the country so much that he left the Navy on his return to England, and in 1850 came back in the Randolph, one of the First Four Ships, to settle in Canterbury. He bought a farm near Christchurch, which he named Beckenham (at the Cashmere Hills end of Colombo Street). It has long since been cut up, and is all built over now and has given its name to a suburb of Christchurch.
Fisher was recalled to the Navy on the outbreak of the Crimean War, and served in the Baltic. When he finally retired in 1870 he was paymaster-in-chief of the Navy.
He brought his family out and settled at Beckenham in 1871. He only lived at Glenthorne for a part of every year. He had a tame Paradise duck there, which used to follow him everywhere when he went out riding. It once got into a bedroom at Mt. Algidus and mistook its reflection in the glass for another duck, and started to fight with it. It broke everything in the room before it was satisfied.
One of the Gibsons from the Waitaki was Fisher's first manager. Gibson went to New South Wales, and W. W. Morton succeeded him. When Morton left, one of Fisher's sons managed Glenthorne.
Fisher sold Glenthorne to John Finlayson, an old Scotch shepherd, in 1894, and died at Beckenham in June, 1897.
Finlayson sold Glenthorne to Mrs J. Murchison, of Lake Coleridge, in 1902, and it is still the property of her executors.
Cora Lynn
(
Run 333)
Cora Lynn lies on the Waimakariri and Bealey rivers, and goes back to the unoccupied country on the main range next north of Glenthorne. It was taken up by Goldney Brothers in February, 1860. They paid rent for twenty thousand acres.
The Goldneys had a farm in Christchurch as well, where they kept a stud flock of merinos until they were beaten by footrot. Their farm was where Brown's Road is now. Dr Acland lives in the house they built —Chippenham.
In 1867 the Goldneys sold Cora Lynn to John Macfarlane and Thomas Whillians Bruce, and went home to England. In those days Macfarlane sent many cattle to the Coast, and bought Cora Lynn as a convenient place for finishing them off before sending them over to Hokitika.
The Goldneys' homestead was on the Cass River about a mile and a-half above the present railway station. The remains of their paddock can still be seen, and their old track leads past Grasmere from the West Coast Road. Bruce moved the homestead to where it is now. For a time in the 'eighties Bruce had a partner named Irvine whom I cannot identify.
Macfarlane sold his interest in the station some time about 1870 to Bruce. Bruce had been Caverhill's manager at Motunau, and was known all over the province as the 'Little Angel.' Besides Cora Lynn he had Riversdale, across the Waimakariri, and the Inchbonnie estate (then known as the Paddock) on the West Coast Road beyond Arthur's Pass. The N.Z. Loan and Mercantile took over Bruce's stations about the end of the '80's, and kept Cora Lynn until 1902, when they sold it, together with Riversdale, Mt. White, and Lochinvar, to F. J. Savill.
The lease of Cora Lynn ran out the following year, and Savill, holding other Government runs, was not allowed to take it again. R. McKay got the Cora Lynn lease, and Savill sold him the freehold, sheep and improvements.
McKay kept the station until 1907, when he sold it to S. E. Rutherford, of Grasmere, who worked the two stations together until he lost the Grasmere leasehold during the 1914-18 War. Rutherford went on with Cora Lynn, which he worked from the Grasmere home-c stead until 1922, when he sold to the present owners, Taylor and Faulkner.But see the end of Grasmere notice.
I have given an account of Macfarlane in my note on Whiterock, and of Bruce in my note on Motunau. Their head shepherd at Cora Lynn was a man named Andrew Curie.
Grasmere
(
Run 216)
Grasmere lies between the Cass and Waimakariri rivers, and now consists of nine hundred and fifty acres of freehold, and fourteen thousand acres of College reserve leasehold.
It was taken up by Joseph Hawdon in October, 1857, at the same time as Craigieburn. For many years his son, Arthur Hawdon, managed Grasmere for him, and after his death, Arthur Hawdon became the owner. At one time a man named Williams was Arthur Hawdon's manager.
About 1876 Dalgety and Co. took the station over from Hawdon. Until 1882, they ran it in the name of H. H. Hennah, the manager of their Christchurch branch, but he had no financial interest in it.
When Dalgety and Co. took over Grasmere J. S. Caverhill, who had been a cadet at Grasmere, managed it for them for several years. He afterwards managed Hawkswood and some stations in the North Island. He was a son of the well known J. S. Caverhill and died at Otorohanga in 1939. After Caverhill Fortesque Dalgety, a nephew of the founder of the firm, managed Grasmere for many years until it was sold in 1898 to John S. Sim, who had previously managed the Clarence Reserve.
Sim sold the station in 1903 to S. E. Rutherford. Sim was very well known as an able sheepman. He came to New Zealand from Scotland about 1860, and was head shepherd at both Benmore (Otago) and Lag mhor. He afterwards managed Tarndale for Acton-Adams, and St. Helens for McArthur, and finally the Clarence Reserve, which he left to buy Grasmere. After he sold Grasmere, he did well with several good freehold properties in Canterbury. He died in 1918.
The leases of the Canterbury College runs were put up to auction in 1917 and Studholme and McAlpine, of Craigieburn, obtained the lease of Grasmere which they then worked with their Craigieburn and Mt. White country.
Rutherford kept the Grasmere freehold, from which he worked his other run—Cora Lynn. He sold this freehold with Cora Lynn to Taylor and Faulkner in 1922, and in 1927 Taylor and Faulkner bought the Grasmere leasehold and sheep back from Studholme and McAlpine.
Later Taylor and Faulkner sold both Grasmere and Cora Lynn to McLeod and Orbell, the present [1945] owners.
Craigieburn
(
Runs 200, 217 and 248)
This run, which originally covered the country between Broken River and Craigieburn Creek, was taken up by Joseph Hawdon. He took up Run 200 of twenty-two thousand acres between Sloven's and Winding Creek, on 16th July, 1857. He took up the other two runs, of nearly twenty thousand acres altogether, in the October and February following. He was an old Australian squatter and brought one of his managers, Joseph Pearson, afterwards of Burnt Hill, over with him. He sent Pearson up the Waimakariri to explore. According to the custom of those days, Pearson burnt the country as he went, and, though he was away longer than they expected, Hawdon could see from the plains the smoke of his fires in the Upper Waimakariri, and knew that he was at work. When he returned, Hawdon applied for the country on his recommendation. Besides Craigieburn, Hawdon took up Grasmere and Riversdale.
Hawdon, in his younger days in Australia, was a famous pioneer and explorer himself. Besides exploring and taking up a lot of country over there, he took the first mob of cattle from New South Wales to Adelaide by way of the Murray. Hawdon was born at Walkerfield, Durham, in 1813. He was in the Legislative Council here from 1866 till his death, but I believe never took his seat. He died in Christchurch in 1871.
J. S. Caverhill, another Australian who came to New Zealand, also claimed to have brought the first mob from Sydney to Adelaide. He was accompanied by one black, and landed all the cattle except one; but he may have travelled by a different way.
Craigieburn has had more than its share of tragedies. One gentleman who came out at the time of the Duke of Edinburgh's visit was staying there and accidentally shot himself in the dining room.
The West Coast Road ran for miles through the run, and when the diggers were streaming over to the goldfields, they gave a great deal of trouble by sheep and fowl-stealing, and demanding food at all times of the day. One of them ordered the Craigieburn cook to cook him some food at once, drawing a knive to enforce his order. The cook took up his gun and ordered him off, but the man rushed him and the cook shot him dead.
Another digger was murdered on his way back from the Coast, and buried in Buchanan's Creek, which is now called Murderer's, or Blackball Creek. There was a travelling stock reserve there, and it was in the hut belonging to it that the man was murdered. Enys, of Castle Hill, the nearest Justice of the Peace, dug him up, and held an inquest on him, but they never found the murderer, nor even the victim's name, except that he was known as Jem. Some Chinamen with whom he travelled were suspected.
A more cheerful story is that a digger fell between some rocks and broke his leg. He held it out and got his mate to chop it off with an axe, and then with a stick walked on nearly as well as ever, the amputated limb having been a wooden one.
Hawdon sold Craigieburn (together with Riversdale) to Michael Scot Campbell and Robert Hume Campbell in March, 1867.
Robert H. Campbell bought M. S. Campbell's share in 1871, and another cousin, Douglas Campbell, bought an interest in the station. Douglas Campbell's wife was one of the survivors of the Blue Jacket when she was burned at sea. In 1872 R. H. Campbell returned to Scotland and Reginald Foster of Avoca took over the management, but left in 1873 when he was appointed a stock inspector. While he was at Craigieburn the wool of all the neighbouring stations was scoured there by a man named Bewley. In 1881 the N.Z. Loan and Mercantile took Craigieburn over from the Campbells, and sold it two years later to Jones and Stronach. In the early 'nineties, Augustus Stronach went out of the firm and Jones took Edmund James into partnership, and in 1904 James bought Jones's share. For many years James managed Hakataramea Downs for the Loan and Mercantile Company. In 1906 James sold Craigieburn to F. J. Savill, the present owner of St. Helens. "Manson managed it for Savill the whole time he had it.
In Savill's time the West Coast railway was brought through the run, and he built a new homestead on the railway line. (The old homestead is at Lake Pearson on the West Coast Road.)
In 1917, when the leases of the Canterbury College reserves were put up to auction, Craigieburn was divided in three blocks. Studholme and McAlpine got the lease of the (new) homestead block, and James Milliken, who got the other two, lives at the old Craigieburn homestead on Lake Pearson, which is now called Flock Hill. In 1927 McAlpine bought Studholme's interest in the station.
Castle Hill
(
Runs 205, 205a, 294., 399, and Class II 153)
CastJe Hill, which lies on the West Coast Road behind Mt. Torlesse, and begins near Lake Lyndon, was taken up in two runs (205 and 205a), of twenty-five thousand acres in all, by Porter Brothers in June, 1858.
In February, 1859, Porter Brothers took up another five thousand acres—Run 294, and a final five thousand acres—Run 399, in March, 1861. The Porters named their station after the striking limestone rocks there. The three-Porters were sons of David Charles Porter, a London landowner. He came to New Zealand intending to stay if he liked the country. He stayed a short time and went up to the station, but being a man who liked his comforts and plenty of hunting and shooting, soon went back to England. One of the brothers was Alfred who managed and afterwards rented Rokeby from Wemyss in the 'fifties. His daughter married Dan O'Brien, the first owner of Carbine. Another was Joshua Charles, a lawyer who afterwards practised in Kaiapoi and Christchurch, and the third, when the station was sold returned to his profession of civil engineer and surveyor, in Wanganui. A grandson of David Charles lately managed the Bank of New Zealand in Christchurch but has now been promoted.
In October, 1864, the Porters sold Castle Hill to John and Charles Enys.
The Enys brothers were of the good old-fashioned type of squatters who spent a good deal of time away from the station, and one or the other was generally in England. Charles Enys, one of the best shots who ever came to New Zealand, died about 1890, not long before the station was sold.
John Davis Gilbert Enys was born in 1837 and came to New Zealand in 1861. For a short time he owned Orari Gorge in South Canterbury, but sold it back to Tripp in 1863 or 1864. He was a keen field naturalist and was the earliest authority on New Zealand moths and butterflies. He gave the font in the Cathedral. It is made of Castle Hill stone.
In 1890, having inherited Enys Place, his family property near Falmouth in Cornwall, he sold Castle Hill and went Home, where he died in 1912. They have a diary at Enys Place, kept by the Enys of Queen Elizabeth's time, with the entry: 'To-day we saw the Armada go up Channel.'
The new owner of Castle Hill was Augustus Stronach, who kept it until 1897, when it was bought by H. von Haast, a son of the geologist. Haast went out of Castle Hill in about two years, when it was sold by Enys's agents to Lewis Mathias. Mathias did very well with the place, and sold it in April, 1901, to John McKenzie, who had been head shepherd at Mesopotamia for some years.
McKenzie sold in 1908 to Millikin Brothers, who sold it to the present owners, W. B. Clarkson and Co., in 1920. Robert Blakeley managed it for them till his death in 1929 when his son Robert, the present manager, succeeded him.
The original homestead of Castle Hill was in the angle of the Porter River and Spring Creek. Enys built a new house (which he called Trelissick) on the site of William Izard's present country cottage, but had his woolshed on the Porter, and had a farming homestead where the present owners have now concern trated the whole of the station buildings. This farm was let by the Enyses, first to George O'Malley, and afterwards to John Milliken. O'Malley and Milliken used to grow oats there for Cassidy's coach horses, and also did the carting to the Coast in the old wagon days.
Castle Hill must have been on one of the old Maori tracks to the Coast. Lewis Mathias found a lot of pieces of greenstone, with traces of Maori working, at the foot of some rocks at the back of the present homestead.
Avoca
(
Runs 215, 241, and Class II 163)
The Avoca Station, which lies at the back of Mt. Torlesse, was taken up by Charles John Harper, a son of the Bishop, in October, 1857, and February, 1858. He called the place the West End.
It is rather an awkward place to get in or out of even now, and until a woolshed was built there a few years ago, the sheep were shorn at Craigieburn. But in Harper's time they were shorn on the place, and George Harper, who worked there for his brother, used to pack the wool out on bullocks, three sacks on each, then sledge it to the West Coast Road, where he yoked the bullocks up in a dray, and so to Christchurch.
Charles Harper sold the station in 1864 to Foster and Moore; who sold it in 1873 to Karslake and Anson, of Mt. Torlesse. It was afterwards worked with Mt. Torlesse for some years, and later with Craigieburn until 1907, when H. G. Heath started it again as a separate place.
Heath sold it in 1913 to John Carmichael, formerly of Birch Hill in the Mackenzie Country. Carmichael did not stay long, and since his time it has changed hands several times. The present owners, T. and E. Clarke, bought it in 1924.
I have given accounts of Harper, Karslake and Anson in the notes of other stations. Foster was Reginald Foster the stock inspector. He was born at Evesham, Worcestershire, in 1841, educated at Cheltenham College and Oxford, and came to Canterbury in 1861. Before he bought Avoca he worked as a cadet with Mannering at Birch Hill. In 1872 he took the management of Craigieburn, but went on with Avoca as well. He was chairman of the Upper Waimakariri Road Board and persuaded the Provincial Government to make the road over Porters Pass reasonably safe, for which services his neighbours presented him with a gold watch. When he and Moore sold Avoca he farmed near Waipara for a short time, but was appointed stock inspector for North Canterbury in 1876 and afterwards became chief inspector for the Canterbury— Kaikoura district. He died in Christchurch in June, 1910. I knew him towards the end of his life. As he had known every station and most of the squatters in Canterbury during near fifty years, he was a splen-didsplendid man for stories about the old days, and very well he told them. Unfortunately, since my notes were burnt, I can only recall one of them. Foster arrived one evening at Lyndon and old John Tinline, with his venerable white beard and his high chirrupy voice entertained him until very late indeed with observations and reflections. The more gin he drank, the more sententious he became. At last, before going to bed, Tinline said, 'Foster, I attribute the great success I have had in this colony almost entirely to my having made a rule, and always kept it. I never have a drink before the sun is over the yard-arm, before 12 o'clock in fact.' Next day it poured with rain so Foster couldn't make his inspection and had nothing to do but sit and watch Tinline writing letters for an English mail. By about 10.30, after his unwonted potations the night before, he began to wish Tinline's 12 o'clock rule to the devil, but then noticed that Tinline himself was taking surreptitious squints at the clock, and at about a quarter to eleven Tinline got up and said, 'Well Foster, this is one of those exceptions that prove the rule,' and unlocked the cupboard.
Moore was the Rev. Lorenzo Moore, many years Vicar of Papanui. Before taking orders he had been a major in the Indian Cavalry. He had two sons, Fred and Lorenzo, who worked as cadets with Foster. His daughter married Sir John Gorst.
Heath had been a cadet with Savill at Hororata and Craigieburn, and now lives in Palmerston North.
John Carmichael was for many years my overseer at Glentanner. He was one of the best shepherds that ever came to the country, and could walk through merino sheep on a hillside and disturb them as little as most men would disturb crossbreds. He was very superstitious. I happened to tell him that one year when I was at Mt. Peel, an unusual number of deformed lambs had been born—one with two heads, several with five legs, and half a dozen hermaphrodites. 'Oh, that's no' a good sign, there's no luck in the like o' that,' said John, and I was glad to be able to con-firmconfirm his opinion by telling him that the '95 winter which very nearly ruined John Barton Acland, the owner, had followed that lambing.
I thought no more about it until the following spring when we got the Glentanner lambs in for marking, and saw that there were far more black lambs among them than usual, so I asked John whether this also portended bad luck. 'No, no, black lambs is the sign of an increasing business,' said John, and sure enough I had one of the best years I ever had.
I also had an unusual number of black lambs at the beginning of a very good year indeed at the Lanercost in the Amuri. Nowadays at Cecil Peak I seem to have unusually few black sheep—not half a dozen black fleeces from a flock of 9,000, but on the other hand I do not remember ever seeing a badly deformed lamb there.
After he sold the Avoca, Carmichael retired and lived in Wellington where he died in 1927.
Steventon
(
Run 38)
This station, which lies on the south bank of the Selwyn, originally ran from Steventon Creek back to Highpeak. It contained nine thousand seven hundred acres, and was taken up on 7th September, 1852, by Arthur Charles and Richard C. Knight. Richard Knight was the managing partner and bought out his brother before very long. A. C. Knight afterwards owned Tekau and Island Bay on Banks Peninsula.
The Knights were nephews of Jane Austen and named the station after her father's vicarage in Hampshire.
The homestead was originally on the bank of the Selwyn about two miles above Whitecliffs. A few trees and bushes are all that is left of it.
In March, 1855, Knight let the run and sheep for one year to William Thomas Norris. For a short time in the 'fifties Norris had the Acheron Bank Station, under which I have described him.
During Norris's tenancy, Knight built a new homestead on the present site, but left the woolshed and working homestead where it had been, on the Selwyn.
On 8th February, 1866, Knight sold Steventon with eighty acres of freehold to Henry Phillip Hill and Frederick Napier Broome, both of whom had been his cadets. At that time Hill's father, Colonel Hill, of Prees Hall in Shropshire, was Resident of the Ionian Islands, and Broome's father, the Rev. F. Broome, was chaplain to one of the regiments of the Garrison. Broome told Colonel Hill how well his son expected to do in New Zealand, and Hill decided to send his own son out, so that they could go into partnership. Young Broome was to find the experience and Hill the capital. When they bought Steventon their manager was Benjamin Booth, the son of the inn-keeper and largest tenant on the Prees Hall estate.
After selling Steventon, R. C. Knight lived at Cour-tenay until his death.
After Broome's marriage to Lady Barker, Hill and Booth lived at the working homestead, and Broome and his wife rebuilt and lived at the new homestead, which they called Broomielaw while they lived there, and of which such a lively account is given in Lady Barker's books.
Broome was a remarkable man. He was a poet, and after he left New Zealand became a Times leaderwriter and then Governor of Western Australia from 1882 to 1890, and of Trinidad from 1891 till his death in 1896, aged 51. He was a keen sportsman and an excellent boxer, wrestler, and runner. He was not, however, a very practical sheep-farmer, dividing most of his time on the station between writing poetry, and pig-hunting. When pig-hunting he several times got so enthusiastic that he fired his ram-rod out of his rifle.
Hill and Broome had a bad time in the 1867 winter, losing 4000 sheep, including most of their hoggets, out of about 7000, and at the end of 1868, Broome sold out to his partner and left New Zealand in January, 1869.
Lady Barker's books on New Zealand have often been criticised as exaggerated, but they are extremely bright and interesting, and give the best picture we have of the station life of that period. She was a woman of great charm, which is reflected in her books. When I go to Steventon and see the 'Oriel Window,' the 'Gentleman's bathing pool,' and the verandah where they danced in gorgeous carpet slippers, and the swamps and creeks where they went eeling, J half ex-pect to see all those pleasant people of eighty years ago disporting themselves again. As a matter of fact, sev-eral of them were still alive in 1930, and there seems no harm in disclosing their identity.
Alice S. was Miss Scott, now Mrs H. P. Hill; Mrs M. — was Mrs Monro, of the lower Lincoln Road; her husband was head-shepherd at Malvern Hills for the Harpers. Mr. U. was of Course T. E. Upton, of Ashburton, who was a cadet with Hill and Broome at Steventon for several years, while Mr K., the young man from England who turned himself out so smartly up country, and lost all his capital in a very bad cattle station, was J. C. Monck.
In the early 'sixties Hill and Broome rented High-peak Station from Sir Cracroft Wilson, but after a year they sold their lease to their manager, Benjamin Booth.
After Broome went away, Hill moved the working homestead to the present site and lived in Broome's house which, with many additions and alterations, is still standing as sound as ever, as are some of the wire fences put up by Hill and Broome in the early 'sixties.
Hill kept Steventon until 1873, when he sold it, with eight hundred acres of freehold, to the Cordy brothers, sons of John Cordy, of Hororata. Hill afterwards farmed Sedgemere, at Leeston, for some years. In 1878 he imported the first Alderney cattle to Canter-bury from the Channel Islands. He died in Christ-church in 1923.
When the Midland Railway Company sold their land in 1889, the Steventon run was included in the Company's area and Cordy Brothers bought about five thousand acres of it. The rest of their leasehold was taken by the Government soon afterwards and let as two grazing runs.
Frederick W. Cordy, the last brother, died in 1911, and in March, 1912, the station was let with a purchasing clause to the present owner, George Starky. It seems to me one of the most delightful properties in Canterbury.
It now carries about 3500 sheep.
Highpeak
(
Run (94A)
T. E. Upton, who managed Highpeak in the late 60's, told me that Highpeak was taken up by Henry Phillips of Rockwood, and sold unstocked for £50 to Captain Westenra, who bought it for J. C. (afterwards Sir Cracroft) Wilson; T. A. Phillips, of the Point, told me that his father was going to take it up, but was forestalled by Leach, of Snowdon; but the Description Book of Runs in the Land Office, shows Highpeak as originally allotted to Richard Westenra, jun., on 29th July, 1853. It appears to me that there was more than the usual scramble for this run, and that Henry Phillips sold his chance to Westenra, who anyhow got the run and transferred it to J. C. Wilson on 5th May, 1854. Later in 1854 Wilson transferred the run to his son's name, Frederick Herbert Wilson, and stocked it, but let it to Hill and Broome about 1865. Hill and Broome built the first hut and woolshed there, but only kept the place a year or so, then transferred their lease to their manager, Benjamin Booth. When Wilson finally settled in New Zealand he took over Booth's sheep, and kept the place in his own hands, transferring the lease from his son's name to his own on 31st March, 1867. He sent T. E. Upton there to manage it in 1868, Booth then becoming a partner of the Maxwells at Racecourse Hill.
In June, 1881, Wilson or his executors sold Highpeak to Duncan Rutherford, who, in June, 1885, transferred it to his brother, George Rutherford, of Dalethorpe. He afterwards made it over to his daughter, Mrs J. F. Buchanan, to whose executors it still belongs. It now [1945] carries 8,600 sheep.
One of the Rutherford's managers at Highpeak was Frank Ryan, afterwards editor of the Christchurch Spectator. He was one of the best soldiers who left New Zealand for the South African War. He left as a corporal in the Third Contingent, and was killed as a lieutenant in the Sixth.
F. G. Hill managed the station for Mrs Buchanan for many years. In 1930 he was succeeded by R. A. White, who was there till 1936, when E. M. Relfe, the present manager, took over.
Dalethorpe
(
Runs 23 and 151)
Dalethorpe, which is one of the oldest stations in Mid-Canterbury, lies on the north bank of the Selwyn, behind Homebush, and originally ran back to the Thirteen Mile Bush and to the south branch of the Kowai, but did not take in the flat between the foot of the downs and the Waimakariri River. It contained nearly twenty-two thousand acres. It was originally stocked by the Deans brothers, of Riccarton, in 1850, or very early in 1851, before the runs were allotted. At that time, Godley, the Canterbury Association's New Zealand agent, was very much against letting the 'waste lands' in large areas, but the Deanses, seeing how slowly the Association was selling land in the province, felt sure that Godley would have to sanction squatting on the unsold lands before long, so they took the risk and sent sheep to the north end of the Malvern Hills. Soon afterwards they got into a law suit with the Association over their title to Riccarton, and to raise money to fight the case, they sold the station now called Dalethorpe to J. C. Watts Russell, the richest of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Lieut. Dugald Macfarlane acted for Watts Russell. The present John Deans still has the agreement for sale and purchase. The sale included 550 ewes at 25/-, 550 at 22/6, and 450 at £1, 600 lambs at 12/-, and 11 rams at £7 a head. The house and sheep-pen were sold for £80.
The Deanses' and Watts Russell's enterprise was justified, as Run 23, of sixteen thousand seven hundred acres, was allotted to Watts Russell in August, 1851. The Deanses had called the station Morven. It is by confusion with the Malvern Hills in England that our Malvern Hills got their name. For the first few years Watts Russell called it Birchwood, but some time before 1860 he named it Dalethorpe, after a family property at Home.
The Canterbury Pilgrims, unlike the 'Prophets' from Australia, were farmers rather than shepherds, and in an early letter to the Association, Godley speaks of Watts Russell as the only one of their settlers to have as yet got properly established in the business of sheep-farming. A return of 1854 shows that Birchwood, owned by Watts Russell and managed by A. R. Creyke, had already 2524 sheep on it, and three years later it was carrying 6630.
For five years from 1855 part of the run and sheep were let on thirds to a man named Thomas, 'an Exeter man a brother of the tallow chandler,'which is all I was ever able to hear about him. He may have been the same Thomas who afterwards managed Easedale Nook for Lieutenant Deane.
On 28th July, 1855, Henry John Tancred, of Malvern Hills Station (known as 'Herr' Tancred—he had been in the Austrian Army) took up Run 151, of five thousand acres, between Watts Russell and the Kowai. Watts Russell bought him out at once, before he had stocked it.
Watts Russell was one of those who introduced rabbits to Canterbury. He cleared and ploughed five acres and sowed it in buckwheat, to turn them out on.
Talbot Scott was a cadet of Watts Russell's at Dalethorpe.
In June, 1866, Watts Russell sold the station to Douglas, Parker, and Walker.
Watts Russell was an easy-going sort of man who had been in the Army. He was the first chairman of the Canterbury Jockey Club. He lived at Ham (which was a farm in those days), and left the management of his stations to his friend and partner, A. R. Creyke, who was anything but easy-going. Russell's Flat was on the run and is, of course, named after him. He died in March, 1875.
Of the new owners of Dalethorpe, Thomas Coleman Douglas was the principal and, at first, the managing partner. Edwin Barker Walker lived at View Hill, which also belonged to him. I do not know who Richard Parker was.
Douglas, Parker, and Walker sold the station to George Rutherford, jun., in March, 1874. Rutherford built the woolshed at Dalethorpe. Until his time the sheep had been shorn at Ayresdale, near Springfield, which was then known as Easedale Nook.
In 1889, when the Midland Railway Company sold the land granted to them, the Dalethorpe runs were part of their area, and Rutherford was able to make all his run country into freehold.
For many years he also owned Highpeak Station, and for some time Benmore, which he used as wether country for Dalethorpe. In 1911 he sold Dalethorpe with 12,000 sheep after having it nearly forty years, and retired to live at Springbank, near the Cust. A syndicate bought Dalethorpe and did very well by subdividing it. The homestead block, after passing through one or two hands, now belongs to Hubert Reed, of Darfield. The station now carries about 3000 sheep.
Easedale Nook
(
Runs 44, 130, 154, 190, 210, 211 and 287)
Since the 'seventies both the name Easedale Nook, and the station, have completely disappeared, and of all the stations in Canterbury, its history was the most difficult to trace.
Easedale Nook once included Grassdale, Brookdale, most of Mt. Torlesse, and a large piece of country on the plain round about Springfield. The homestead was on the site of the present Mt. Torlesse homestead, but the woolshed and shepherd's hut were at what is now called Ayresdale, about half a mile west of Springfield.
Run 44 was allotted to A. S. Jackson and Draper on 15th October, 1853, but Draper gave up his interest in it almost at once.
Run 130, of about seventeen thousand acres, lay in the angle of the Waimakariri and Kowai rivers, and came down to Annat. It also crossed the south branch of the Kowai and took in the lower part of the forks. It was taken up by Jackson and le Fleming on 15th October, 1851. They named the station Easedale Nook and had 1650 sheep there in 1854. On 27th August. 1855, they took up Run 154 (the Grassdale country) in William le Fleming's name.
At the end of 1855 Jackson and le Fleming sold the station to Perceval Brothers, but apparently without the cattle which they sold in November, 1856. They averaged about seven guineas a head, calves under a month old given in.
The firm of Jackson and le Fleming consisted of Alexander Sherwood Jackson (known as 'Russian' Jackson) and Sir Michael le Fleming and his brother William, grandfather and great-uncle of the present baronet of that name. I don't know anything about Jackson except that he was the father of a late vicar of Papanui and that he had a fifty-acre farm at Opawa The house is now known as the Oaks.
By 1857 people had begun to realise that high country was worth stocking, and in May the Percevals took up Run 190, of five thousand acres adjoining Run 130. In September, 1857, they took up Runs 210 (part of Mt. Torlesse) and 211 (part of Brookdale). In 1858 they had increased their flock to 3300 sheep, and in 1859 they took up Run 287, the rest of the Brookdale country.
In 1860 the Percevals sold Easedale Nook to Longden and Deane, who divided the station in two. Longden, who seems to have had sheep running on terms with the Percevals since 1858, took the homestead and the Mt. Torlesse country and called the station Mt. Torlesse, while Deane took Grassdale, Brookdale, and the country on the Waimakariri with the woolshed and shepherd's hut, which he continued to call Easedale Nook.
I have not been able to find the complete records of the Easedale Nook pasturage licenses, but Deane seems to have sold the Grassdale country very soon after he got it; at least it stands in the name of Edward Corker Minchin in 1864.
Deane sold the Brookdale country to Hopkins and Anson in March, 1872, who started a new station there. I do not know when Deane sold the homestead and the country round Springfield, but it was about the same time. There would be very little leasehold left there in 1872. I do not know who bought it, but in the 'eighties it was all freehold and belonged to William Atkinson, and its name had been changed to Ayres-dale. It now belongs to J. Millikin.
The Percevals were Augustus George [1829-1896], Charles John [1831-1894], and Spencer Arthur [1832-1910], who came to Canterbury soon after the First Four Ships. They took up several stations in the 'fifties, but they all came to grief in the end. Augustus went Home in 1863 and seems to have led a vagrant kind of life. Charles joined Baines in the Waitaki mail contract and used to drive passengers as far as Ashburton in a two-wheeled cart with a hood over it. From Ashburton Baines carried the mails on a horse. Charles Perceval finished his New Zealand career driv-ing the 'bus to Sumner, but his son eventually became Earl of Egmont. In 1929 Augustus's son contested the title.
Deane was Lieutenant Robert Deane, R.N. He lived at the Heathcote and only visited his station from time to time. He was very good to the West Coast drovers and allowed them to turn their spare horses out on his run. His manager was Robert Ford Thomas, known as 'Little' Thomas or 'Old' Thomas to distinguish him from 'Young' Thomas of Benmore. He was a fat little man with a round face and was rather eccentric. On the station he always, wore a smock frock and off it was never seen without an overcoat. He always rode a mule which he called Abraham Noo-lan, and would never accept hospitality from anyone. T. E. Upton writes: …I was coming from Ben-more to Springfield, and at the Kowai I found Thomas and three shepherds with a hurdle yard jamming the sheep through a big hole to wash them. He had one man about three chains up the river with a bag sprinkling soda, as Thomas said, to soften the water a bit.'
After he left Easedale Nook he bought a small piece of land near Oxford, built a whare on it and lived there till he died. He always stuck to his smock frock.
Mt. Torlesse
(
Runs 210 and 277)
Mt. Torlesse Station takes in the north and east sides of the mountain after which it is named. It was origi-nally in two stations: Run 210, nominally of six thou-sand acres, was, as I said, originally part of Easedale Nook, and was started as a separate station by Joseph Longden about the end of the 'fifties. Longden left England in 1850 in the Barbara Gordon. For a short time he had a store in Lyttelton, in partnership with his cousin, James Le Cren. He had sheep on terms at Easedale Nook in the middle 'fifties. He went home to England with his wife and family in 1859 and died there in 1864.
Run 277, nominally five thousand acres, lying beyond Paterson's Creek, was under different ownership.
Longden did not keep Mt. Torlesse very long, though the leases remained in his name for many years. He sold the station to E. Curry in 1862.
Curry had been a banker before coming to New Zealand, but he knew how to take care of his station.
Peter Grant, one of the old West Coast drovers and dealers, told me that one night he lost 500 wethers on Curry's run, and had to spend the next few weeks with his man mustering the wild country at the back of it. He got all his own sheep, together with some hundreds of Curry's stragglers and a good many wild sheep, and suggested that Curry should pay him something. 'Ah, but look at the tucker you've eaten here,' said Curry. For some years he kept the famous Traducer at the station.
Curry sold Mt. Torlesse in February, 1868, to John Karslake Karslake and Thomas Anson, who had just sold Waireka. Curry then retired and lived in Christchurch, where he died at a great age. He was the father of C. E. Curry, the stipendiary steward.
George Paterson, who had taken up Run 277 in October, 1858, sold it to Karslake and Anson about 1870, and the two places became one. Karslake and Anson sold some time in the middle 70's to J. and J. Brett (sons of Colonel Brett, of Kirwee). The Bretts sold to Duncan and Dugald Matheson.
Karslake was the brother or nephew of a distinguished English Q.C. who became Attorney-General. J. K. Karslake represented Coleridge, in Parliament here but resigned after a year. When he and Anson sold Mt. Torlesse he sailed for England, but was drowned on the voyage. Anson afterwards had the Desert Station at Courtenay.
The N.Z. Loan and Mercantile took Mt. Torlesse over from the Mathesons in 1883, and kept it until 1901, when G. L. Rutherford, a son of the owner of Dalethorpe, bought it. In the Loan Company's time the woolshed was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. During the whole time the company owned Mt. Torlesse, Thomas Douglas was the manager both of it and of Brookdale. When these stations were sold he went to manage Mt. White for the company.
In 1904 Rutherford sold Mt. Torlesse to Major P. H. Johnson, who made it over to his son, the present owner, in 1926.
In the early days Mt. Torlesse was a great place for hunting wild cattle and pigs; Lady Barker describes an expedition after wild cattle there in the 'sixties. The Kowai Bush (called Cambridge until about 1870) was also full of kakas and native pigeons. Mt. Torlesse (the actual mountain—not the station) was named after C. O. Torlesse, one of Captain Thomas's surveyors, who was the first man to climb it. Miss Torlesse in her Bygone Days says that the Maori name was Otarama, but other people say it was Tawera. I do not know which is right.
Paterson, who took up Run 270, had been Millton's first manager at View Hill. In 1929 Colonel E. B. Millton was kind enough to write the following account of him for me.
George Paterson
Paterson's was a small run on the Waimakariri opposite to Woodstock. It was not accessible to wheeled traffic, Paterson used to leave his cart at Woodstock, where the track from Oxford ended, drive his horse across the river, and cross himself in a punt. There were two punts, so that when Paterson went off for supplies, one remained for use in emergency by his staff—a cadet and a nephew; the other he moored on the Woodstock side of the river. On one occasion when Paterson went to town there was an abnormal flood and his punt was carried away. There was dismay in the camp when this was seen because there were no rowlocks in the emergency punt. Paterson arrived on the opposite bank and drove his horse into the flooded river at a moment when the staff was improvising rowlocks by boring the gunwale of the boat. On catching the horse, however, a new pair of rowlocks was found tied to the saddle. The incident, trifling as it may seem, was typical of Paterson's canny foresight and careful disposition. He was a devout, simple-minded, lovable man. The scene enacted each night in the slab-walled, earthen-floored hut, assuredly could not be reproduced in any Canterbury backblock homestead of to-day. George Paterson, seated at the head of the rough boarded table, reading aloud by the light of two tallow candles from his great family Bible. Around him his staff and schoolboy guests listening to the inevitable chapter before they went off to their bunks. The dim, primitive interior, the solemn voice of the old man, the deep note of the river left an indelible impression on the mind that to this day has not faded, though fifty years have passed.
Brookdale
(
Runs 190, 211 and 287)
When Deane of Easedale Nook sold the greater part of his country to Hopkins and Anson in 1872, they built a new homestead on the Kowai and named the station Brookdale.
Richard Northy Hopkins was the managing partner. Thomas Anson lived at Mt. Torlesse, his other station.
In April, 1874, Hopkins and Anson sold Brookdale to Dugald Matheson, from whom the Loan and Mercantile took it in 1882. The Loan and Mercantile sold it to John Milliken, the father of the present owners, in 1901.
John" Milliken was a farmer from Northern Ireland. He brought money out with him and did well carting wool for the stations on the West Coast Road. He died in 1920, since when his sons have managed Brookdale for the trustees.
While the company owned Brookdale they worked it from Mt. Torlesse.
The present owners of the station spell its name Brooksdale (with an 's') but I have used the older spelling.
Grassdale
(
Run 154)
This little run on the south branch of the Kowai was five thousand acres, and was taken up in the name of William le Fleming on 27th August, 1855. I think Jackson and Fleming sold it to Longden and Deane with the rest of Easedale Nook in 1860, and that Longden and Deane sold it to Edward Corker Minchin almost at once. Minchin had Grassdale at least as late as May, 1876, and in 1881 it belonged to William Atkinson, who lived at Ayresdale, near Springfield, during the 'eighties.
Minchin was the owner of Mt. White. He always lived in Christchurch, and his sons looked after his station interests.
Atkinson still had Grassdale in 1887, but D. G. Matheson had both Ayresdale and Grassdale in 1890, and about 1895 he bought Benmore to work with them. D. G. Matheson took his sons into partnership-later on, and in 1903 the firm was again changed to Matheson and Wright. Dalgety and Co. took over both stations in 1904. Their manager was F. J. Busch.
H. V. Murray bought Grassdale and Benmore from Dalgety and Co. about 1914, and sold them to J. D. Mathieson, an Otago man, in 1920. Mathieson sold them to the present owner, F. M. Robinson, a son of Gladstone Robinson, of Timaru, in January, 1927.
I have said that Minchin was the owner of Grassdale for many years, because the lease has held in his name, but I do not feel sure that he was more than a mortgagee. Unfortunately I have not met anyone since my notes were burned who remembers the place in the 'sixties and early 'seventies.
Benmore
(
Runs 230 and 258)
Benmore lies on the south side of Porter's Pass and runs back to Lake Lyndon. It joins both Highpeak and the Black Hills of Snowdon.
The homestead, of which almost all trace has disappeared now, was on the old Porter's Pass Road in the gully just below the ruins of the old hotel, near where the new road turns off to go up the spur.
It was taken up in two runs of about ten thousand acres altogether, Run 230 in December, 18.57, and Run 258 in May, 1858, by Archibald Macfarlane, son of Macfarlane of Ledard. His brother-in-law, Dr. Coward, may have had a share in it, but Macfarlane lived there and managed it.
Macfarlane sold it to Richard Dunn Thomas in the early 60's. Thomas was a nephew of Dr. Barker, who had taken up Lake Coleridge a year or two before. Thomas transferred Benmore to Robert Constable Maxwell in October, 1865. He then became a lawyer and practised for many years in Christchurch in partnership with T. I. Joynt.
The leases remained in Maxwell's name until 8th May, 1873, but he sold the station about 1866 (probably when he bought Racecourse Hill) to Elliot and Jackson, two very wild young men. Adam Jackson was a brother of Julian Jackson, Murray-Aynsley's manager at Mt. Hutt, and had, himself, been manager of Hakataramea for Lockhart. Elliot and Jackson sold to James Elliott Thomson in 1871. Elliot started for England, but was killed in a gambling row in 'Frisco on his way. He was one of those gentlemanly ne'er-dowells whom Lady Barker speaks of trying to reform. Jackson also left New Zealand, having disposed of the last wool clip in a manner very satisfactory to himself.
Thomson, who with his brothers had previously lost the Otaio Station, did well at Benmore and sold to Hommersham Brothers about 1873. He afterwards had the Carleton Station near Oxford, and Akiteo in the North Island. I cannot find anything about the Hom-mershamHommersham Brothers. They may have been James and Flacton Hommersham who had Deepdene near Leithfield in the early days. In their time the leases were held in the name of Orfeur George Parker, who found them money. Parker was an enterprising storekeeper at Springfield who financed miners, sawmillers and farmers in those days.
Matthew Weir bought Benmore in October, 1876. He was an old Scotch shepherd. He sold the station to George Rutherford, of Dalethorpe, in 1884. Pie was a brother of old James Weir who had the grazing of Hagley Park, where he lived in a hut on wheels.
Rutherford used Benmore as wether country for Dalethorpe, where he shore the sheep. He found that he used to lose hundreds of them when he drove them over Porter's Pass off the shears if he had bad weather. He adopted a plan which I never heard of being tried anywhere else, and he found it quite successful. Directly the Benmore sheep were shorn he swam them through the dip which was filled with plain water. After that he had no losses off the shears, so it seems as if a shorn sheep once wet through and dried again will stand anything.
When George Rutherford came down from Leslie Hills to take over Dalethorpe, he brought a Scotch shepherd called Alexander Kennedy with him. Kennedy managed Benmore all the time Rutherford had it. He was a brother to Angus Kennedy, long manager of Esk Head for Dampier-Crossley, and afterwards part-owner of it for his lifetime.
Alec. Kennedy had a property near Albury after leaving Benmore. These Kennedys were sons of an old Scotch shepherd of Hugh Buchanan's at Kinlock. Buchanan would not let his men use dogs near the yards, and one day when some sheep were hard to get in he told Kennedy to run. Kennedy replied, 'Na Na, I'll nae rin. Ye can rin yoursel'.'
About 1895, Rutherford sold Benmore to Dugald Matheson and Son, who at that time also had Grass-dale adjoining it, and since then the two have been worked as one, and the old Benmore homestead abandoned.
Benmore was not a good station by itself. Grassdale has been the making of it.
Chapter 9
Hill Stations Between the Waimakariri and Waipara Rivers
The accounts of stations in this chapter have not been brought past December, 1928, except where it is specially stated.
Lochinvar
(
Runs 288, 284, 309 and 310)
Lochinvar is bounded on the north by the Dampier Range, where it joins Esk Head; on the east by the Puketeraki Range, and on the west by a branch of the Poulter River.
It was taken up in 1858 and 1859 by William Thomson. His son, John James Thomson, who I may say has done more than any other man living to help me write these notes, was one of four who took the first cattle in to stock it in 1860. There was no known track up there in those days, so they followed the bed of the Esk River from the junction of the Esk and Waimakariri. They were two and a half days taking the cattle from the Avoca to the station. Richard Taylor afterwards bought these cattle. Taylor was a brewer who also owned Birdling's Brook Station on Lake Ellesmere. When the cattle were brought out J. J. Thomson delivered them on the station. This time they brought them over Puketeraki and one of the men was frost-bitten. Thomson's manager was a Canadian but I do not know his name.
Thomson was an auctioneer in the 'fifties and founder and proprietor of the Canterbury Standard, and was a member of the Provincial Council. He came to New Zealand in 1853 and died at Papanui in 1866, aged forty-nine.
While Thomson owned Lochinvar, Charles Edward Fooks had a share in it. Fooks also had a run near Papanui, and for a time held one of the Longbeach runs. He was the son of Charles Bergent Fooks and was born at Weymouth in Dorsetshire in 1829. He was a civil engineer and came to Lyttelton in the ship Steadfast in 1851. He was on the Canterbury Association's survey staff for a time, and also practised as an architect. After he lost most of his money at farming he returned to his profession and practised it until his death in Ashburton in 1907. It was he who laid out the first water-races in Canterbury for Reed at Westerfield. His son is now clerk and engineer to the Ashburton County Council.
Until the 'seventies the leases of Lochinvar were held in the name of the Bank of New Zealand, so that I cannot find the dates when the station changed hands. About 1861 Thomson sold to a man named Benley who resold it almost at once to W. S. Moorhouse and R. M. Morten. In October, 1863, Moorhouse sold his half to Sir Cracroft Wilson, and not long after that Morten and Wilson sold to a Frenchman named Mallet. Mallet did no good with it, but he sold it before long to James Cochran, a brother of John Cochran of Mt. White, and went back to France where his father owned a bank.
Moorhouse was, of course, the Superintendent of Canterbury. I have described Sir Cracroft and R. M. Morten when writing about their other stations. I know nothing about Benley except that John James Thomson told me his father sold him the run.
I think about 1880 Mt. White and Lochinvar were both taken over by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile from the Cochrans, and the two stations were worked together for many years.
The Loan and Mercantile sold them to F. J. Savill in 1902, and he sold to Studholme and McAlpine about 1910. The lease of Lochinvar ran out during the 1914 18 War, and Studholme and McAlpine held other pastoral runs, so could not renew it. After being unoccupied for some time, the country was taken up again by James O'Malley, who had the Bealey Hotel in the coaching days. O'Malley sold to the present owner, A. R. Turnbull, in 1920.
When Turnbull bought it there were no buildings on it, and only a pack track to it, so he resorted to the old way of pit-sawing timber from the bush to build his house. I should think this will be the last pit-saw to be used in Canterbury.
In Cochran's time some unoccupied country on a branch of the Poulter (now called Cox's Poulter) was taken up by J. W. M. Cox, a Dundee man, who built a hut and ran a few head of cattle there. He took his wife and children there to live, but as it is miles by pack-track from the nearest neighbour, and about as snowy as country can be, he soon gave it up. There are still wild cattle on this part of Lochinvar, which are supposed to be descended from Cox's cattle. It was while out after them that Edward Chapman was fatally shot.
Cox had formerly been with J. S. Caverhill on one of his stations, and also managed Broomfield and Teviotdale. He afterwards became a butcher at Waikari, and at one time kept the Weka Pass hotel.
About forty years ago a bush fire came over the Puketeraki Range from Lee's Valley, and crossing the Esk, burnt a lot of bush on Lochinvar. In those 'days the Lochinvar sheep were taken to Mt. White for shearing, and many of them had their hoofs burnt off by the hot ashes.
A great deal of the bush on the run has now been reserved by the Forestry Department.
Mt. White
(
Runs 219, 271, 303 and 30 4)
Mt. White takes in the country in the fork of the Esk and Poulter rivers. Run 219 was taken up by E. C. Minchin in October, 1857. He took up Run 271 in August, 1858, and he or one of his sons took up 303 and 304—five thousand acres on both sides of the Poulter-in May, 1859. Part of the run was taken up in 1857 by J. C. Aitken, whom the Minchins bought out. I think Minchin sold the station to Major Thomas Woolaston White in April, 1860. A new license was given then to White and immediately transferred by him back to Minchin, no doubt as security for the purchase money. The Minchins' homestead was up the Poulter about six miles above its junction with the Waimakariri. White built a new homestead at Lake Letitia, a beautiful mountain lake which White named after his wife. It is now a sanctuary for native birds and there are still black teal and crested grebes there, and it is about the only place in Canterbury, except one or two on Banks Peninsula, where woodhens are not yet (1930) extinct. They are always about the yards and buildings and come to the house for scraps.
White lived at his other station, the Warren. His brothers, Taylor and John, worked Mt. White which I am told was named after Major White.
Sometime during the late 'sixties White failed, and Minchin took the station back and resold it in May, 1870, with 18,000 sheep, to John Moore Cochran and Gray. I do not know who Gray was but he sold his interest to Cochran in 1875.
I have given accounts of the Whites in my note on the Warren. Minchin lived mostly in Christchurch. He built a large house near where St. Saviour's at Shirley is now. He and his wife returned to England during the 'eighties, and he died there. His sons William and John looked after his stations. William afterwards had a farm at Waddington which he named Westwood, and died in Christchurch in December, 1889. John left New Zealand in the 'seventies and I believe made a fortune.
Cochran died at the station, and in 1885 the Loan and Mercantile took over Mt. White from his executors.
J. M. Cochran came of an old Army family in the north of Ireland. He was the son of Major Cochran and was born about 1834. He came to New Zealand in the 'sixties. His brother James, of Lochinvar, was a cadet at Mt. White. The two Cochrans and Douglas Campbell of Craigieburn all married sisters.
At that time, or soon afterwards, the Loan Company took over from different owners all the runs at the head of the Waimakariri-Cora Lynn, Riversdale, Mt. White, and Lochinvar. They held them until 1902, when they sold them to F. J. Savill Savill sold Mt. White and Riversdale to Studholme and McAlpine about 1910. Studholme and McAlpine sold Mt. White and Riversdale to the present owners, D. C. and R. T. Turnbull, of Timaru, in 1924.
The Loan Company's manager was Thomas Douglas. He had previously managed Brookdale and Mt. Torlesse for them. Savill's managers were A. Dunbar and N. Carney. The present manager is J. G. Thompson.
For many years, in the Company's days, they went in extensively for horse breeding at Mt. White, and the old Tram Company used to buy an annual draft. Many of these horses were greys, and their old drivers still remember the Coronet (Mt. White) brand.
Riversdale
(
Runs 216Aand 218)
Riversdale, the top station on the north bank of the Waimakariri, lies between the north branch of the Poulter River and the Bealey. It runs back to the National Park and the unoccupied country on the main range. It was taken up in two runs of fifteen thousand acres altogether by Joseph Hawdon in October, 1857. Joseph Pearson explored the Upper Waimakariri for him, and he took up Riversdale at the same time as Grasmere and Craigieburn across the river.
Riversdale has very little history of its own. It has never been worked as a separate station. Until 1881 it was worked from Craigieburn, then for a time with Cora Lynn, and since then it has been worked with Mt. White.
Hawdon sold both Riversdale and Craigieburn to Michael Scott Campbell and Robert Hume Campbell on 16th March, 1867, and Robert Campbell very soon bought his cousin out. Another cousin, Douglas Campbell, joined him in Craigieburn and Riversdale, but his name does not appear in the records.
I wrote about Hawdon when I wrote about his other runs, but forgot one thing. He had been a great explorer and" squatter in Australia and a very successful squatter in New Zealand. He made a fortune. I once asked his son, Arthur Hawdon, whether his knowledge of stock was as great as his experience would lead one to expect. His son said he had not much knowledge but plenty of prejudices. When he came to the yards he used to insist on all the 'snipe-nosed' sheep being culled; by 'snipe-nosed' he meant what we now call 'clean-faced.'
In 1881 the N.Z. Loan and Mercantile Company took over Craigieburn and Riversdale from the Campbells and sold Riversdale to T. W. Bruce, of Cora Lynn. Both Bruce's stations fell back into the company's hands about 1890. At that time the company also owned Mt. White, and since then Riversdale has always been worked with it. The old woolshed has been pulled down, and the only building on the place now is a mustering hut.
There is some ploughable land on the run, and as it is close to the West Coast Road, at different times attempts have been made to farm it. A swamp was drained and a dairy started, and oats were grown for the coach horses, but both enterprises failed.
Snowdale
(
Runs 234A, 235 and 346)
Snowdale ran from the Whistler across the Kingsdown Range and back to Mt. White, and Lochinvar, and it took in Oxford Hill above the Harewood Forest. It joined Woodstock at the end of the Puketeraki Range.
Runs 234a and 235, of about twenty-five thousand acres altogether, were taken up in January and August, 1858, but I do not know by whom. In 1859 Mannering and Cunningham put the first stock on them, and as they built the first hut there and Mrs Mannering named the station, they were probably the original owners.
Run 346, next the Devil's Den, was taken up by Bartrum and Caton in March, 1860. I do not know who Bartrum was, but I suppose Caton was the same who took up part of Mesopotamia and quarrelled with Samuel Butler. Bartrum and Caton abandoned their country in 1866, and it was afterwards stocked by the Snowdale people.
I wrote about Mannering and Cunningham when I described their other stations, but since then I have seen a most interesting journal of Mannering's, which he left for his children. His ups and downs were typical of the struggles of the early settlers.
Mannering was born in London in 1836. As he was a very delicate boy he was partly educated in Switzerland, and when he was sixteen his father sent him out to South Australia with a friend called Young, who intended to settle there with his wife and family.
Young, after refusing to give £3000 for a cattle station in New South Wales, which was sold two years afterwards for £50,000, met Captain Dashwood, who had done a good deal of exploring in Nelson in the earliest days of the province, and bought a run in New Zealand from him. This run was of two hundred and fifty thousand acres and took in the whole country between the Waiau and Hurunui that lies above Cheviot; the better half of the Amuri.
Young and his party came across to Nelson in a ninety-ton schooner called the Comet. There were several other passengers and 28 horses, all packed like sardines, but they had fine weather and a good pas-sage,passage, which took twelve days. Only one of the horses died, and when they got to Nelson they slung the others overboard and let them swim ashore. The horses had cost three or four pounds a head in Australia, and were worth twenty-five to thirty a head at Nelson. Young had brought his money, 3000 sovereigns, in two boxes, which he and Mannering shouldered and carried up to the bank. The Nelson people were poor but hospitable, and were delighted to see so much money brought into their town.
Young bought 1500 sheep and sent Mannering overland with them to his run. He had two Scotch shepherds, a 'capital bushman,' three packhorses, and four or five dogs. Young went round to Lyttelton by sea.
It took Mannering and the sheep eight weeks to do their journey of two hundred and forty miles. They came by Jollie's Pass and the Hanmer Plains. The springs there had not yet been discovered. This was one of the first mobs to travel that way and one of the shepherds often had to go ahead to find openings in the scrub and crossings over rivers.
When they got to the run, the shepherds went back to Nelson, taking most of the tucker and two horses. Young did not meet Mannering and his mate with their stores, but Mannering found Mason living at Horsley Down looking after his own run and Sidey's, and Mason gave him enough to carry on with.
As Young did not turn up, after about a month Mannering made his way to Christchurch. There was no track for the first forty miles, but at last he struck Mt. Grey, where Mrs O'Connell treated him kindly and pointed out the Rangiora Bush to him. The only house at Rangiora in those days was Charles Torlesse's. He crossed the Waimakariri in a Maori canoe and swam his horse behind it. When he came to the Styx (then of course called the Sticks, from the sticks set up to mark the ford) he found a road to Christchurch formed, but not shingled.
This was in 1852 when a few wooden buildings (mostly in Colombo Street) were all there was of Christchurch, except survey pegs. There was still no sign of Young, so Mannering got another horse, a packsaddle, and what stores he wanted, on credit from Isaac Cookson, the leading Christchurch merchant of those days, and went back to his job. This was a good performance for a boy of seventeen.
Young did not get to the station till fifteen months afterwards, when he promptly let it with the sheep. He could not fulfil the stocking conditions of his lease, and had to surrender St. Leonard's to Duppa, and other parts of his run to other people.
In the meantime, Mannering went on looking after the station, learning as he went. He and his mate lived the first six months in a tent, where the Culverden homestead is now; then they built themselves a cob hut. They had a lot of trouble with wild dogs, and often lost their sheep altogether. 'Fortunately merinos are very gregarious. When you find one, you find the lot.' They lived on tea, mutton, and damper, and kept count of the time by using one tin plate a day and washing the whole six on Sunday. They only lost count once or twice during the fifteen months they stayed there. Their only visitors were neighbours looking for stray horses or cattle.
They had to dip the sheep in tobacco water for scab.
When Young let the run, Mannering spent a year or more in Nelson and then, at the age of nineteen, went home to England. He married and came back to New Zealand in 1857. Young had suggested his renting what was left of the run (which was afterwards called Culverden), but before Mannering got to New Zealand, decided to sell it altogether. After looking round for about a year, Mannering joined Cunningham, and they bought Birch Hill and Fernside stations and either bought or took up Snowdale. Cunningham looked after Fernside and Mannering lived at Birch Hill, from which he worked Snowdale as a wether station.
He cut a bush track on the line of an old Maori one, to take sheep in and out by. This track crossed Blow-hard,Blowhard, a hill which most people think was named after the winds there. It wasn't. It was named because an old shepherd pointed to it and said, 'My word, that hill makes you blow hard.'
There were some very bad bush fires and autumn tussock fires at Snowdale in the old days.
When the West Coast diggings started, Mannering took several drafts of fat wethers there from Snowdale, going by Browning's Pass. The first two or three drafts paid well, but the fourth got snowed in on the Pass, and those that reached the Coast were so poor when they got there that the owners lost a lot of money. On the journey, they used to leave their horses at the foot of the Pass and do the last two or three days on foot. Returning from his last trip, Mannering rode his horse from Browning's Pass to Birch Hill-eighty-four miles-in fourteen hours, swimming the Waimakariri on the way.
In 1866 Mannering and Cunningham were ruined by scab and other misfortunes, and George Hart, of Winchmore, who was their mortgagee, took over all their stations. Hart kept Snowdale and Birch Hill until 1874, when he sold them, with about 18,000 sheep to Captain Millton.
On Million's death his stations were divided amongst his sons, and Snowdale came to J. D. Millton, who sold it to Ensor Brothers, of Mt. Grey, in 1903. C. H. Ensor, who had bought his brother's interests in Snowdale, sold it in 1915 to R. O. Duncan. The lease ran out in 1917, but as times were uncertain, the Government as an act of grace, extended Duncan's lease till 1919, so that instead of selling his sheep in 1917 he lost a great many of them in the 1918 snowstorm—one of the worst on record.
In 1919 the Government, resumed Snowdale and subdivided it. The only homestead was a hut and yards.
The homestead block now belongs to A. C. Witty, a son of the Hon. George Witty. After losing his runs, I think Cunningham lived at his sons' station, Loburn. Hart let the homestead at Fernside back on easy terms to Mannering, who made another start, this time going in for mixed farming. Weathering the '68 flood (he happened to be in Christchurch and rowed a boat right into the Clarendon Hotel), hailstorms, droughts, and low prices, he did well, and bought a good deal of land very advantageously, and lived to be seventy-five.
I gave some account of Hart and Captain Millton when I wrote about Winchmore and Birch Hill.
The Okuku Country
(
Run 232)
The Okuku Country, twenty thousand acres, lay behind Whiterock, from which the Okuku River separated it. It took in Block Hill, and ran back to a wild piece of unoccupied bush country called the Devil's Den, which bounds Esk Head, the Virginia, Snowdale, Lochinvar, and Mt. White.
It included a piece of country (called Elderton's Downs) between that and the Okuku River.
It was taken up by Captain W. Millton in December, 1857. He and George Paterson, his manager at View Hill, explored it together, and showed very good judgment in taking it rather than Snowdale, which, perhaps, looks more attractive in summer. At that time Captain Millton owned View Hill, and tried to work the Okuku from there, but could find no practicable way to take sheep from one to the other, so he leased the Okuku Country to Mannering and Cunningham, the owners of Birch Hill and other stations.
In 1874 he bought Birch Hill as a shearing place for the Okuku sheep, and since then Okuku has been worked as a part of Birch Hill.
It was in the Midland Railway area and when the company sold their land in 1889 the whole of the Okuku Downs was made freehold. Since then about half the country has been sold, but what remains of it still belongs to Colonel E. B. Millton, a son of the original owner. It was one of the only twelve stations in Canterbury which has never changed hands except by inheritance.
Robert Laurie and James Gordon were early managers for Captain Millton, and Henry Elderton and Donald Fraser (after whom places on the run are named) were early shepherds there.
Mannering and Cunningham's overseer was John O'Halloran, afterwards manager and finally owner of Glentui.
Whiterock
(
Runs 127, 165, 166 and 168)
Whiterock was bounded on the north by the south branch of the Waipara and ran to the top of The Brothers. It was bounded by Mt. Grey on the east, the Okuku River on the west, and Loburn on the south.
Runs 165, 166 and 168 were taken up in August, 1957, by John Macfarlane. He had taken up Loburn in 1851 and worked Whiterock as part of it until he sold Loburn in 1862, when he built a homestead at Whiterock.
A man called Young took up Run 127 (Mt. Karetu, the part of Whiterock adjoining Mt. Brown), in November, 1853, and had 1200 sheep there in 1858. He sold his run and sheep to Macfarlane about 1860. I have not been able to find out who he was or anything about him.
John Macfarlane came out to New Zealand in the early 'forties, and soon afterwards went to the Wairarapa, but was driven out by the Maoris in 1850 and came down to Canterbury. He landed at the Heathcote from a whale boat about a fortnight before the arrival of the First Four Ships, which he saw from the top of Scarborough Hill.
Macfarlane lived at Coldstream near Rangiora. His first manager at Whiterock was John Robinson. Robinson had been a shepherd at Esk Head and was sup-posedsupposed to have walked from there to Lyttelton and back to Christchurch in twenty-four hours, making only one stop—at Saltwater Creek, where he drank a pint of whisky. Owing to the scrub there, scab was very bad at Loburn and Whiterock in the 'sixties. Macfarlane was fined £1000 on one occasion and £1500 on another. In June, 1868, Mallock and Lance of Horsley Down claimed £500 from him for contaminating 21,000 of their sheep, but Macfarlane got this reduced by arbitration to £275. Robinson dipped the sheep in arsenic, and besides killing several hundred of them with it, nearly killed the shepherds as well. He left in 1869, and fell off the pier at Dunedin and was drowned. He was succeeded as manager by Alexander McLean, who stayed about five years, during which he cleared the scab. He used to dress the infected sheep with spirits of tar and tobacco, and then dip the whole flock a month later with sulphur and tobacco.
After this time, Macfarlane used Whiterock as a wether station and took the wethers on to Coldstream where he fattened them for the Coast.
For a time, in the 'sixties, Macfarlane let the run and sheep to his brother Malcolm (who was afterwards drowned in the Rakaia), and John Mann, but owing to scab they did no good and John Macfarlane took the run back some time before 1867, when he had 18,000 sheep there.
In 1882 Walter Nicholls, who at that time owned Haylands, bought Whiterock from Macfarlane, and in 1889, when the Midland Railway Company sold their land, made the whole run freehold.
In 1904 or 1905, after Nicholls's death, his executors sold Whiterock to G. D. Greenwood of Teviotdale. Greenwood made a lot of money by cutting it up. He sold the homestead block to C. H. Ensor, who sold off the land in smaller blocks. The Whiterock house was burnt down during Ensor's time, but the old station woolshed is still used by the Whiterock Shearing Company.
Macfarlane's last manager was Miles Campbell, one of the compilers of the Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, who stayed on until about 1889 with Nicholls, when he was succeeded for a short time by W. B. Scott. William Macintosh, one of the best sheep men in Canterbury, succeeded Scott, and managed Whiterock until it was cut up by Greenwood.
Amongst the old station hands must be mentioned Henry Elderton, of Amberley,He died in April, 1930.
who, as I said before. was the best authority I know on the history of the hill stations between the Hurunui and the Waimakariri Rivers.
Wharfedale
(
Runs 21, 169 and 170)
Wharfedale took in all the flat country, about ten thousand acres, between the Ashley River and the Whistler; and all the hill country in Lees Valley facing north and west, from Oxford Hill to within two miles of the Okuku. The eastern boundary was the Harewood Forest Reserve. A small run, later known as 'O' Halloran's Country,' joined the northern end of Wharfdale and was for many years worked with it.
Run 21, of twenty-three thousand seven hundred acres, was taken up in May, 1856, by Lee Brothers, who named the station after Wharfedale in Yorkshire. In April, 1857, they took up Runs 169 and 170, each of five thousand acres.
George William Henry Lee was the chief partner and bought out his brother soon after the station was started. He lived on his other station, the Warren, and in his time the Wharfedale sheep were always shorn at the Warren. He was a keen racing man, and in his younger days a good horseman, and was generally known as 'Jockey' Lee. Samuel Coleman was his manager at Wharfedale. In those days the only way in was over Blowhard, and in bad winters all communication was cut off for two or three months. Nevertheless Coleman took his wife and young family in there to live, and some of his children were born there. Wharfedale was used as a cattle station until the late 'sixties.
Lee thought he had the whole of the Upper Ashley Valley to himself, but in 1876 or 1877 the Honourable Edward Richardson—possibly in partnership with H. de Bourbel, who lived up there as supervisor—began applying for small sections of the run, and crowding sheep on to them, so that Lee had either to starve his stock or go to the expense of fencing. I have already described Richardson's driving Knowles out of Glentui by attacking him in the same way. Lee sold Wharfedale to Richardson, and for many years afterwards the station was worked as part of Glentui.
When Richardson and Co. bought Wharfedale they extended the Glentui Forest Road by a pack track (Richardson's Track) to join the Blowhard, and so brought Wharfedale within easy reach of Glentui, where the sheep (fully 26,000) were shorn. The owners went in for a progressive policy and had a dray, plough and chaffcutter hauled by bullocks and horses and men to Blowhard, and lowered into the valley. They bought a great deal of freehold and grew oats and turnips there. One cultivated part is still called 'De Bourbel's,' but has been corrupted to 'Debobbles' in the course of years—at least that is how the present occupier brands his wool.
At some time in the late 'eighties, the Bank of New Zealand took both Wharfedale and Glentui over from Richardson. In 1891 the Bank handed them over with other stations to the Bank of New Zealand Assets Realisation Board. The Bank sold Wharfedale and Glentui in 1899, when John O'Halloran, their manager, bought Glentui. W. Vincent bought Wharfedale and held it until 1906, when he sold to Hugh Ensor, with about 6000 sheep.
De Bourbel, Richardson's supervisor, had been a subaltern in a Hussar Regiment and fought in the Crimea. He missed the Charge of the Light Brigade as he was in bed with a sprained ankle. After Richardson's collapse, he started as a stock agent in Christchurch but did no good, and went to Tauranga where he died in very poor circumstances sometime after 1900. In his Canterbury days he was always very smartly dressed and was sometimes called Count de Bourbel. It was probably a genuine title, as I see there is a noble French family of the name which was naturalized in England in 1797.
Ensor kept the station until the Crown leases expired in 1917, when the Government bought back the freehold sections, pooled them with the leasehold, and subdivided the whole amongst returned soldiers.
The old homestead, which during the past seventy years has given rest and shelter to many a weary traveller, now belongs to W. B. Starky.
Woodstock
(
Runs 109, 260 and 270, afterwards all joined and re-numbered 653)
I can only give a sketchy account of Woodstock as since my notes were burned I have never met anyone who knew it well in the early days.
Woodstock lay on the north bank of the Waimakariri above View Hill. It was bounded by the Waimakariri on the south and west, and by the Harewood Forest on the east and north. The homestead is close to the cliffs overlooking the gorge and was a wild, romantic-looking place in the early days. A good deal of the Harewood Forest was included in the run. The Puketeraki Range, at the western end of Woodstock, runs down in spurs to the Waimakariri. The leading spur drops to an open saddle at the source of the Townshend River, by which stray sheep passed be tween Woodstock and Snowdale.
Woodstock was originally three separate stations. Run 109 was allotted to George Matson on 1st August, 1853, and he transferred it to Captain James Row on 5th September, 1854. In June, 1855, Row transferred it to Robert Chapman. I do not know how long Chapman kept it. He still had it in September, 1856.
Run 260 was apparently allotted to John W. Smart in May, 1858. On 1st May, 1860, G. F. Day took over the leases of both Runs 109 and 260, after which they were always one station. The next record I can find of Woodstock is in 1865 when it belonged to Ekersley, Welsh and Wilson, known as Wilson and Company.
Run 270 was taken up by David Kinnebrook in August, 1858. His country began on the Waimakariri three miles above the gorge. Kinnebrook died about 1864 and his executors sold his run to W. Foster in 1866.
Also in 1866, Wilson and Co. sold their station to James Drummond Macpherson. In March, 1869, Matheson's Agency took it over from Macpherson, and Matheson's must have bought or taken over Foster's station soon afterwards, as in November, 1872, the licenses for all three runs were cancelled and a new one (No. 653) issued which included them all in one.
On 29th August, 1878, Matheson's Agency sold Woodstock to George, Henry and Francis Ffitch (Ffitch and Sons) from whom it passed to the National Mortgage and Agency Company in 1885. In the late 'eighties the National Mortgage sold it to R. and W. McKay (McKay and Co.). W. McKay died in 1901, and in 1902 the station was offered at auction when R. O. Dixon, the present owner, bought it.
After the 1914-18 War the Government resumed about half the Woodstock country and settled a returned soldier on it.
Of the early owners I cannot identify Matson or Smart. Row was the owner of Wai-iti and Chapman was the owner of Springbank. G. F. Day may have been the owner of the run on Kaiapoi Island. I know nothing of W. Foster. Ekersley is not a common name so this is probably the man who once had a brewery at Kaiapoi. Wilson was a shepherd at Broomfield after leaving Woodstock. He designed the yards there about 1866. I know nothing of their partner Welsh.
Chapter 10
Stations Between the Hurunui and Waipara Rivers
Note. —The accounts of stations in this chapter have not been brought past-December, 1928, except where it is specially stated.
From 1847 onwards there was a good deal of coast-wise traffic between Port Cooper (Lyttelton) and Port Nicholson (Wellington). This was carried on mostly by schooners and cutters which hugged the land in offshore weather, so that many traders and other travellers saw the coastal hills and flats between the Waipara and Hurunui rivers. This is some of the best sheep country in New Zealand, so naturally most of it was taken up before the arrival of the First Four Ships. It is safe, easy country, and it lay outside the Canterbury Block, so that until 1857 the occupiers could buy the freehold of their runs at 10/-or less an acre instead of paying. £3, which was the original price of land in the Block; that is why some of the finest and largest freehold properties in the country lay in this district, though they are all very much cut up now.
I have not been able to find the early official records of these runs. My accounts of them are from tradition, old station diaries, old newspapers, and from the pam-phlets written by Robert Waitt and Percy Cox.
Stonyhurst
(
Run 4 N.Z.R.; in October, 1864, it was brought under the Canterbury Regulations and numbered 448, and later renumbered 558)
Stonyhurst was originally fifty-eight thousand six hundred acres. It was a triangular piece of country running from the sea up the Hurunui to a point about five miles below the junction of the Pahau. The boundary came from there back to Davaar Homestead (where the old boundary-keeper's hut is still standing), over the hill, and down Boundary Gully to the sea again. The original lease included the whole of what was afterwards Greta Peaks, the whole of what is now Happy Valley, and a large part of Davaar.
Stonyhurst is another of the stations in Canterbury which still belongs to the descendants of an original owner. Charles (afterwards Sir Charles) Clifford and Frederick (afterwards Sir Frederick) Weld first applied for it on 26th December, 1850. At that time they were, with the possible exception of C. R. Bidwill, of the Wairarapa, the two most experienced sheepfarmers in New Zealand.
In 1843 they and Vavasour had taken sheep into the Wairarapa about a month after Bidwill took in the first mob; and in 1848 they brought sheep down to Flaxbourne. In 1851 Weld wrote a capital pamphlet, Hints to Intending Sheepfarmers in New Zealand, which went through four editions.
They did not get sheep on to Stonyhurst until 1852. At that time Clifford was attending to business and politics in Wellington, while Weld looked after Flax-bourne. Weld sent the first sheep to stock Stonyhurst late in 1851, but when the people in charge got them safely within two days' drive of the run, they abandoned them for the extraordinary reason that they had run out of tucker. Less than half the sheep were ever found again.
However, Weld sent Alphonso Clifford (Charles Clifford's younger brother) down with another mob which arrived safely, as the following extracts from the Lyttelton Times show:
'Mr A. Clifford has succeeded in driving about 1500 ewes from the Wairau district, only losing one on the road. Two other parties of " over-landers " are reported to be close on his heels.' (27th March, 1852). 'Mr A. Clifford drove his flock from Cape Campbell along the coast, until he had passed the Kaikora [sic] mountains …' (10th April, 1852.)
Alphonso Clifford afterwards had a rim on the Waitaki, but sold it in the middle 'fifties and returned to England where he died in 1898.
The first homestead at Stonyhurst was on the Blythe where the dip is now, but it was moved to the present site after three or four years. In those days, of course, there was no road in to the station, and all wool and stores were shipped and landed at the beach. There is no shelter at the mouth of the Blythe, and the new site was chosen for the quieter water there
In 1860 Charles Clifford went home to live in England, where he died in 1893.
Weld supervied the firm's stations, living chiefly at Brackenfield, North Canterbury, but in 1870 he sold out his interest in Stonyhurst to his partner and joined the Colonial Office, retaining his interest in Flaxbourne, however, until 1897. He became successively Governor of Western Australia and of the Federated Malay States. Both he and Clifford had been distinguished in New Zealand politics in the early days. Clifford was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1854 until he left the colony, and Weld was Prime Minister in 1864-5.
In 1863 Clifford and Weld sold the lease of all the country, roughly twenty-four thousand five hundred acres, which lay to the west of the Greta. Sanderson and Studholme bought it and formed the Greta Peaks Station.
After Weld left New Zealand, Clifford appointed William Hyde Harris, of Waikakahi, to supervise both Flaxbourne and Stonyhurst. Harris was a great horseman and somewhat reckless in other ways. A part of Stonyhurst is still called 'Harris's Fall,' because he fell off his horse there and was supposed to have been killed. He was brought home as dead, but was found to be pretty right next morning.
In 1871, when it became necessary to buy the freehold to protect the run, Sir Charles Clifford sent out his son, the late Sir George Clifford, to take charge of Flaxbourne and Stonyhurst. He secured twenty-five thousand acres of Stonyhurst which his father afterwards made over to him.
Since then the greater part of it has been sold, but what remains grows some of the best wool in Canterbury, and will always be interesting as the home of the Stonyhurst thoroughbred stud, and of what I believe is the only pure Tasmanian merino stud flock in the province.
Of the early managers, a man named Lovegrove was the first. He was there in 1854. Robert Boys was the next. He was there from 1859 to 1865. Boys was proud of an accomplishment he had. He used to put a shilling on the toe of his boot and then shoot it off with a pistol. After Boys came H. Westmacott, who died in Timaru about 1927. F. D. Dennis followed Westmacott, then H. Scrope, now of Danby, in Yorkshire, then Archibald McAdam managed for many years, until the owner's son, C. L. Clifford, took over the management after the 1914-18 War.
Stonyhurst has always been a great place for wild pigs. In 1878 P. Goldin', one of the shepherds, took a pig-killing contract, and from 1st January to 31st August was paid for 1202 snouts. In 1879 he killed 1322. That was at the beginning of the bad times, when work was hard to get, as the following entry in the station diary shows:—'30th October [the manager had been out mustering for shearing] …self to station. Found 72 swaggers waiting for work.' The shearers were engaged at 16/8 a hundred, but the diary does not say what the shed hands got, except that two of them engaged to work for their tucker.
They kept a station bullock team at Stonyhurst until 1885. Bullock teams gradually went out of general use after about 1870, though they kept one at Mt. Peel until 1892 for carting firewood, and George Murray had one at Glentanner as late as 1905. This was, I think, the last station bullock team in Canterbury.
The original owners named Stonyhurst after their school in Lancashire, on which Pendle Hill looks down, just as the New Zealand Pendle Hill looks down on Stonyhurst Station. Scargill, and the Greta, the Blythe, and the Chaldons are all named after places and rivers near the Yorkshire homes of the Clifford and Weld families.
Greta Peaks
(
Run 559)
Greta Peaks was originally part of Stonyhurst. It began as a separate station in 1863 when Clifford and Weld sold to Sanderson and Studholme all that part of their leasehold which lay to the west of the Greta Creek. It was originally about twenty-four thousand five hundred acres. The country was sold without stock, but there were a lot of wild cattle of good stamp running on it.
The Studholmes were John and Michael, of whom I gave some account when I wrote about Waimate. They never lived at Greta Peaks. Thomas Sanderson, the managing partner, like the Studholmes, was a Cumberland man. He came to Victoria about 1838 and spent twelve years there, for the last ten of which he managed a sheep and cattle station.
In 1850 he and G. Brayshaw bought 500 sheep, two horses, and other station outfit, and chartered a boat to bring them to Lyttelton. They had very rough weather, and the voyage took six. weeks. All their stock, except one horse and 120 sheep, died on the way over.
They grazed their stock near Christchurch for a time, and then took up part of the Terrace Station on the Rakaia. After they sold this and dissolved partnership, Sanderson bought the Carleton run near Oxford. He sold this in 1862 and in 1863 joined the Studholmes. He managed the Greta Peaks until his death in 1890.
In 1879 John Studholme bought his brother's quarter share of the Greta Peaks.
Sanderson and Studholme made over twelve thousand acres of the run freehold. The lease of the rest ran out in 1890, and the Government cut it up.
Sanderson having lately died, the freehold was put up to auction, when J. F. Studholme bought five thousand acres of it. This was afterwards bought by T. S. Mannering, a former owner of several runs near Oxford. He named it Greta Vale. C. E. Calcutt rented it from him for several years.
The Homestead block was bought in by Mrs John Studholme and the Sanderson family, who went on with it for some years, when Mrs Studholme bought out her partners. She cut up her freehold and sold it in 1904. Ben Coleman was her manager. The homestead was on a hill about a mile from Scargill. It now belongs to C. H. Coe.
Motunau
(
Run 12 N.Z.R., and numbered 471 when brought under the Canterbury Regulations)
Except Riccarton—though now a town house, it was for many years a farm, and in the 'forties a cattle station —and one or two on the Peninsula, Motunau is the oldest station in Canterbury. It was started in 1847 by Greenwood Brothers—Joseph, James and Edward—who had just sold Purau to Rhodes Brothers. George Greenwood, who remained in England, was also a partner.
Motunau ran from the sea to the Waikari River and Cabbage Tree Flat, and from Boundary Creek to the Slip Creek. It took in what are now Montserrat, Spye, Glendhu, Tipapa, and part of Davaar. I do not know what lease the Greenwoods had of it at first, whether from the Maoris or from the New Zealand Government, or whether they just squatted there. It was brought under the Canterbury Land Regulations in October, 1854, and in 1864 it contained forty-two thousand acres, but that was after ten thousand acres (the Motunau Black Hills) had been bought out of the run by Moore of Glenmark.
Most of the Motunau Station diary from 1847 to the beginning of 1850 is still preserved at Teviotdale.
When he delivered Purau to Rhodes, James Greenwood reserved some of the cattle and drove them to Motunau. On 9th September, 1847, he and a man named Edward Fisher started with them from Purau and took them over Gebbie's Pass on to the Plains, where they camped without water. Next morning the cattle had gone, but they found them again with the help of William Prebble, who was then working for Deans Brothers at Riccarton, and got them to the Waimakariri (which in those days was pronounced as Greenwood spelt it, 'Wye McReedie') and 'crossed pretty well.' They went on through the scrub and camped at the Eyre, Greenwood watching the cattle till 12.30, and Fisher from then till daylight.
On the 11th, Edward Prebble joined them, and they got as far as one of the branches of the 'Rakahooui' (Ashley), where Prebble went to sleep during his watch and the cattle got away again.
On the 12th, they found their cattle, but soon afterwards got them into a swamp where four of them stuck. It was dark by the time that they had hauled these out, so they left the cattle and went and camped at the next creek.
13th. 'Got the cattle out of the swamp with some difficulty, and across the Double Corner [Waipara] River.
14th. 'We had some rough driving among the hills and went further round than we had occasion. At places we had a deal of trouble in getting the cattle over. Stopped for the night about opposite the boat harbour.'
On the 15th they started in good spirits as it was the last day. They had trouble crossing the Motunau River, but reached the yard about 3 p.m. Traveller calved about an hour after they arrived and Greenwood 'took the calf from her, when she made a rush and tore my bed, which was hanging on the yard rails, to pieces.'
They did the journey on foot, and had no pack horse with them.
A yard and hut had already been built, a married couple were there, also a few hundred sheep, and a patch of potatoes. The chief station work in those days consisted of milking, keeping boundary on the sheep, and hunting for lost cattle. The sheep were kept on the flat and the front of the Limestone Range, and there was everlasting trouble with wild dogs. They milked all the cows, making 50 to 80 lb of butter a week. The dry cattle were run further out than the sheep, but had to be looked over every two or three days, and even then often strayed as far as Waikari and Kaiapoi. When horses were brought up, they went back several times to the Deans's at Riccarton.
Greenwood does not seem to have realised at first what tutu was, though he must have seen plenty before. On 17th March, 1849, the cutter Anne and Sarah landed ten rams which Greenwood had imported from England, and in the diary next day he notes that they were much better, 'none of them having had fits to-day.' However, it was not long before he found out all about tutu.
In 1849 they built a new house, a store, a boat-house, a wash-pen, and a temporary woolshed, and fenced in a small cultivation paddock. The ewes lambed all the year round, which was a common practice until the early 'sixties when the stations began to be fully stocked.
Maoris were always travelling up and down the coast between Akaroa, Port Cooper, Kaiapoi and Kaikoura. They had given up canoes by then, and used whaleboats.
On 9th April, 1849, some people came to Motunau who had landed from a steamer. This must surely have been about the first steamer to visit New Zealand. Johannes Andersen tells me she was the Acheron which was charting the coast.
Amongst the station hands employed at Motunau before 1850 was James Robinson Clough, who was in charge whenever Greenwood left the station. He was engaged at £20 a year, and to be paid £5 extra if he gave satisfaction. He was there all the time the Green-woodsGreenwoods had the station and finally got £30 a year—but this included his boy's services as well as his own. Squatters and station hands were hardy men in those days. 'Dreadful wet day and every stream over-flowing its banks, the whole flat almost covered with water. All hands employed cutting and dragging firewood from the gully.' (Diary, 6th July, 1849). Greenwood himself spent the day loading the wood and taking it down to the hut with the bullocks.
Other station hands at Motunau before 1850 were William and Edward Prebble, Edward Fisher, Samuel Taylor, and his wife (a Maori woman), Timothy Hurley (or Hearly), Francis Woodham, J. Pierpoint, George Charleton, and several more who are only called by their Christian or surnames. There is a full account of some of them, and of James Robinson Clough, and the Greenwoods themselves, in James Hay's Earliest Canterbury.
Andrew Dawson, who was working on a farm of the Greenwoods in Yorkshire, was one morning loading a muck-cart, when George Greenwood asked him if he would like a job in New Zealand. He replied: 'I should not mind,' and started for New Zealand the same day. He was at Motunau for many years. One morning he went out before breakfast for some horses and a mule, which had strayed, and followed and followed them till they got to Riccarton—then the only house between Motunau and Christchurch.
Maori lads were also employed occasionally, Coe Coe, Moko, and so on; they were paid from eight to twelve shillings a week.
Joseph Greenwood was drowned between Port Cooper and Motunau, and James absolutely disappeared when in Sydney buying stock for Motunau. He had a large sum of money about him, and is supposed to have been robbed and murdered. So, in January, 1850, Edward let the station with the stock to John Scott Caverhill, and went to England. He never came back to New Zealand.
The live stock he delivered were 981 sheep, 474 lambs, 141 head of cattle (each separately described and each with a name ), 40 pigs, 3 horses, and a mule.
Greenwood kept the year's wool clip and the fat wethers. He sent the wethers overland to Port Cooper, where I suppose Captain Thomas, who was then preparing the Canterbury Settlement, bought them to feed his workpeople.
On 3rd July, 1851, William Lyon applied for a run, part of Motunau, but his claim was disallowed. Lyon was a leading colonist in Wellington from 1840 onwards. Besides his business in the town, he had a farm at Petone.
Either by purchase or breeding, the sheep at Motunau began to increase very fast after 1850. Caverhill had 4184 on sixty thousand acres in 1854. In 1857 he had 8256 on fifty thousand acres, and in 1858 he had 12,000-8526 of them scabby.
Caverhill was one of the most remarkable of the 'Pre-Adamite' settlers (those who arrived before the First Four Ships) in Canterbury. He came from the Lowlands of Scotland, first to New South Wales, where he did well by cattle driving and exploring, and taking up runs which he sold to men with capital. He was a great hand with all stock. He never forgot a horse or a cattle beast, and had such a good eye for them that it was said that he could often identify particular animals further off than most other men could tell whether they were horses or cattle. He had an immense mane of very fair hair and was known to his friends and the general public as 'White-headed Bob,' or as 'Darby' He was a good neighbour and friend, and a most kind-hearted man, but had such a love for practical jokes and tall stories that he was always in some scrape.
He had only been a few months at Motunau before he explored and took up what is now Cheviot, across the Hurunui. This he named the Retreat, and stocked with cattle; Tom McDonald, afterwards manager of Horsley Down, looked after it for him. Caverhill had not had it many years, however, before the Honourable William Robinson came down from Australia and bought the freehold of most of the run from the Nelson Government, so Caverhill sold his interests in Cheviot to him.
In April, 1867, George Holmes, who had finished the Lyttelton Tunnel and been paid with a land order for £200,000, selected some of this land on Motunau, which spoilt the run for Caverhill, who gave up his lease. The station was then carrying 28,000 sheep. Edward Greenwood had died by that time, but his brother George came out from England and sold Holmes the rest of the station, afterwards putting the money into Teviotdale. Caverhill afterwards had Hawkeswood and Highfield Stations in the Nelson Province and was eventually tempted to the North Island, where, like several other Canterbury pioneers, he farmed on a very large scale and lost his money, but he never lost either his spirits or his eye for stock.
During 1855 Caverhill's manager at Motunau was E. M. Templer, of Coringa. After him came Thomas Whillians Bruce, known as 'the little Angel,' whom I mentioned as owning Cora Lynn. He was a polite, natty little man, but a terror when roused, and there is a spirited poem, a parody on 'The Snapping Turtle,' about a fight he had with a horse-breaker on top of Glendhu. Bruce left just before the station was sold, when G. King succeeded him. Templer and King were brothers-in-law of Caverhill's, and I have been told that they were not his managers, but guests at Motunau. However, they signed sheep-notices and returns as manager, so I have recorded them. Bruce came from Jedburgh in the south of Scotland. He died at Greymouth in 1908, aged 76.
George Holmes died and his brother John Holmes inherited his properties. John Holmes had come from Canada. He found he had large properties to develop at Pigeon Bay and Bangor as well as Motunau, and in the bad times, about 1879, it was impossible for him to go on with all three, so he handed Motunau over to the Bank of New Zealand and kept Pigeon Bay and Bangor. J. Russell managed Motunau for the bank.
In 1881 the bank sold Motunau to H. J. Hall. At that time it carried 18,000 sheep, but about 1888 W. Acton-Adams bought the top end of it, now known as Tipapa Station, so that in 1906, when J. H. Hall, who took over the remaining part of Motunau from his father's executors, sold it to A. W. Byrch, who had previously owned Mt. Brown, it only carried about 7000 sheep. After Byrch's death the station remained the property of the family until the end of 1940, when Mrs Byrch's executors sold Motunau to the Government for closer settlement. At the clearing sale in January, 1941, 7000 sheep were sold. The freehold on the coast was bought in the very early days, and Motunau is one of the few places in Canterbury that is freehold to high water mark.
Pawsey's Run
(
No. 34, N.Z.R.)
In the early days, if a man thought a runholder was using more country than his license entitled him to, he could, by paying certain charges, have the run surveyed and get a license for the extra country. In 1850 George Cooper Pawsey seems to have suspected that there was more country in the Motunau and Teviotdale runs than the owners paid rent for. On 18th February, 1851, he applied for a run between them and was given a license for three thousand acres at Bob's Flat, in January, 1852. He called his station the Boat Harbour, but it was generally known as Pawsey's Run. It was taken over in the early 'sixties by the owners of Teviotdale. Afterwards, until his death about 1900, Pawsey lived on a small farm that he had near Leithfield.
Bob's Flat is called after the first man who lived on it—the original boundary keeper between Motunau and Teviotdale. His surname was never used. Even his wife was 'Mrs Bob.' They were both said to have been ex-convicts from Tasmania.
Wattie, who kept the boundary between Pawsey's run and Teviotdale, was the father of James Wattie, a crack jockey of the 'seventies and early 'eighties.
After Wattie a man named Tom Leonard kept the boundary. He drew a cheque at the end of a year and went to Christchurch to cash it. When there he went to the Land Office and bought the pick of the land on which he had been keeping boundary. His employers had to give him a handsome profit to get the land back.
Pawsey's Run was the only Class III run of under five thousand acres in Canterbury. This was, because he applied under the N.Z. Regulations which only recognised Class III runs, and because there were only three thousand acres to give him.
Teviotdale
(
Run 5, N.Z.R., afterwards Run 469)
Teviotdale, of twenty-five thousand acres, took in the whole coastal range between the Waipara and Slip Creek, and ran from the sea back to the Omihi Valley, where it joined Glenmark. Originally the lease included the country right back to the Waikari, but in 1854 Moore bought the freehold of this part of the run. Teviotdale was first occupied in 1850 by Robert Waitt. His friend, John Caverhill, of Motunau, spotted it for him and he took it up on Caverhill's recommendation. Waitt applied for a lease on 20th February, 1851 (the same day that Caverhill applied for Cheviot). It was brought under Canterbury Regulations, I think, in 1854. Before 1855 Waitt had bought nine hundred acres of freehold on the run, I suppose to protect himself from Moore.
Waitt was my grandfather, but I know very little about him. I did not begin to take an interest in the North Canterbury runs until everyone who remembered much about him was dead. He came to Wellington from Scotland in the early 'forties and started as a merchant and auctioneer. He had a schooner, and a wharf and store somewhere near Manners Street in 1843, in partnership with a man named Tyser. He had sheep on terms with a man at Kaikoura at least as early as 1850. He was a member of the Wellington Provincial Council in 1854-54, and of the Canterbury Provincial Council in 1857-58.
Soon after Captain Thomas came out to prepare for the settlement of Canterbury, Waitt started a branch of his business in Lyttelton. In 1850 he and Thomas rode over a good deal of the northern part of the province together and got as far as Motunau, where Caverhill tried to get them into a paddock with a rowdy bull, but they noticed just in time that he was not taking any chances himself. Waitt left Wellington and finally settled in Canterbury in 1854. By that time he had 4500 sheep at Teviotdale. These had increased to 8000 in 1858.
In 1858 Waitt wrote a pamphlet on the Progress of Canterbury in the form of a letter to Thomas.
He divided his time between his station and his business in town until his death at Opawa in 1866 at the age of 50. Most of the time he had Teviotdale his manager was James T. Meldrum, who afterwards owned Balmoral in the Amuri, where he was ruined by scab. Meldrum became a stock inspector at Gisborne, where he died. After him a man named Drury managed the station. Three or four years before Waitt's death he let Teviotdale with the sheep to Colonel Reader and Llewelyn Price Traherne (Tra-herne was Waitt's son-in-law). Reader and Traherne had not had the station a year before they were fined £400 for having the whole of their 12,000 sheep scabby. Neither of them had had much experience, and they were next to Glenmark, which was a notoriously scabby run. They did no good with the station, so after Waitt's death in 1866, Waitt's executor, John Tinline, took it back and let it to W. Dunford, of Rakaia, who did no good with it either. Soon after Dunford failed (in 1867), Tinline sold Teviotdale to George Greenwood, the grand-father of the present owner. He was a brother and sole surviving partner of the owners of Motunau. Tinline and Greenwood made their deal verbally, but both being clear-headed and honourable men, there was not a word of dispute at the time of the delivery. During the interval between Dunford and Greenwood, J. W. M. Cox managed Teviotdale for Waitt's executor.
Colonel Henry Elmhurst Reader was born in Naples in 1826. He served with the 14-th Light Dragoons (of which he was Adjutant) and the 12th Lancers, and saw a lot of service, including the latter part of the Crimean War, and the Mutiny. He sold out in 1862 and came to New Zealand. After he left Teviotdale he commanded the Militia and Volunteers in Canterbury, and afterwards held various military appointments in Wellington, where he died while Commissioner of the Armed Constabulary, in 1885.
Traherne went Home after he left Teviotdale and died there early in this century.
Greenwood went home to England immediately after buying Teviotdale, and died six weeks after landing. His son, Dr. H. Greenwood, a barrister at Home, appointed L. C. Williams manager. Williams stayed until G. D. Greenwood, the father of the present owner, came out to take charge in 1878, having spent six months there in 1875. Since that time the greater part of the land has been sold, but Teviotdale is still one of the best stations in Canterbury, and is notable for having one of the oldest Corriedale stud flocksoriginally Leicester-merino.
Later managers of Teviotdale were J. Pilbrow and Murdoch McDonald, afterwards of Glenborne, Waiau.
Glenmark
(
Runs 46, 47 and 61, N.Z.R., afterwards re-numbered Runs 525, 528 and 527; also Run 246)
Glenmark was probably the most valuable station in Canterbury. Roughly speaking it ran from the east side of the Omihi Valley to the west side of the Weka Pass, and included the Doctor's Hills and the Deans, and it ran from the Hurunui to the Waipara. The freehold and leasehold covered a hundred and fifty thousand acres. At one time it contained eighty-one thousand acres of freehold and carried 90,000 sheep.
Robert Waitt first applied for most of Glenmark when he took up Teviotdale, but he took D. M. Laurie, his partner and manager of his business in town, and Mark Pringle Stoddart into partnership to work the inland part of his country as a separate station. Their new homestead (on the present site) was called Glenmark, after Mark Stoddart, who was the managing partner. I gave some account of Stoddart in my notes on the Terrace Station.
In 1854, before they had started their new station, G. H. Moore came over from Tasmania and bought the freehold of 'all those fine plains which were in my squatting lease, as well as part of Sidey's and Caverhill's—altogether he bought 58,000 acres—and made his selection so well that many thousand acres on my run became useless to me and now form part of his extensive run.' (Letter from Waitt to Captain Thomas.)
The part he bought out of Sidey's run was, I suppose, the country between the Waikari and the Hurunui. That of Caverhill's was the Motunau Black Hills. (When Moore began selling land G. B. Starky bought the block and formed the Spye Estate of it.) Moore also bought some thousands of acres on Dr. Hodgkinson's run.
As this country lay outside the Canterbury Block, Moore was able to buy the land at the New Zealand Government's price—10/-an acre. He did not buy the land altogether on his own behalf. He had been a cadet on one of Kermode's stations in Tasmania and married Kermode's daughter, so Kermode sent him to Canterbury to buy land for them both in partnership. Kermode persuaded Dr Lillie, a retired Presbyterian minister, also from Tasmania, to join the firm, which was known as Kermode and Moore. Dr Lillie lived in Christchurch until his death in 1866. When Moore bought this land, people thought it could never be made to pay, even at 10/-an acre, as all waste lands could then be rented at from a farthing to three farthings an acre.
Time proved Moore to be right, however. I suppose when he died his was the largest fortune that had ever been made in New Zealand.
Glenmark was one of the last runs in Canterbury to be clean of scab. In 1864 alone the fines amounted to £2400.
Moore bought out both his partners' interests sometime early in the 'seventies. Malicious people said that he had kept his country scabby so that he could buy out his partners cheaply. I do not think there was any truth in the yarn.
Like most men who have made large fortunes up country, he has been accused of being frightfully mean, and many stories about him are current—mostly against him. Two people wrote books (anonymously) on purpose to run him down. He was careful to see that he got twenty shillings' worth of every pound he spent, but he could be extremely kind and his word was his bond, and on various occasions when parts of his run were resumed for settlement, he showed the new settlers great consideration and kindness as soon as he was sure of them. He once promised to supply a contractor with a certain amount of horse feed cheaply while the job lasted. When he was told that the contractor had bargained for more feed than necessary, and was selling what he didn't use at a profit, Moore said: 'Well, it was in the bargain. He has a perfect right to,' and went on supplying him with the full quantity.
Moore was a Manxman, and registered the three legs, which is the emblem of the Isle of Man, as his brand, and very neat it looked on the sheep.
The management of the station was old fashioned. I think single drafting gates came into general use in Canterbury about 1868 and double gates some eight or ten years later, but for many years after this all the sheep at Glenmark were hand-drafted. George McMillan, of Mesopotamia, told me that he once asked Moore why he didn't put race gates into his yards. Moore said, 'I don't like shepherds who are too lazy to lift sheep over a rail.' McMillan himself had a fondness for hand-drafting. He thought it knocked the sheep about less than putting them through a race, and to the day of his death thought nothing of hand-drafting a mob of three or four thousand.
Except Eyrewell, Glenmark is the only place in Canterbury I have heard of where they tried to get English grass paddocks back into native pasture by sowing tussock seed.
In later days, Moore went blind, and lived in Park Terrace in Christchurch, where he died in 1905 at the age of ninety-three.
Moore began selling off the land about 1900 and continued doing so until his death. After his death his daughter, Mrs Townend, kept the station until 1915, when she cut up and sold all her land except a few acres round the homestead. At that time the station carried 15,000 sheep. T. S. Johnson, afterwards owner of the Potts and Hossack stations, was her manager during her whole ownership. During Moore's lifetime the first manager I can hear of was Mills, an early manager of Purau and afterwards clerk of the Heathcote Road Board, who was there in 1865. Thomas Dowling also managed there for a time, but the best known was perhaps Martin, who was there for very many years. McLean, who was at Glenmark in 1890, was the son of the Auckland English-Leicester breeder, and another was Arthur Wachsman who afterwards joined Dalgety and Co., and is now in the North Island.
I take the liberty of quoting part of a letter which E. Speechly wrote to the Press after my note on Glenmark first appeared … whilst I was at Glenmark [1865] we had bales of tobacco leaf. The men had a two-bladed chaffcutter to cut it up small, and they sneezed their heads off from the dust of the tobacco. It was then boiled and used for sheep dip to eradicate scab. As to the number of sheep on the station at that date, it was 92,000, and I remember well the queer sight just before the sheep were turned out after shearing. They covered in a close mass a hill 500 feet high, and looked from a distance like a mass of maggots on a piece of rotten meat, continually on the move. It was the first, and I suppose the last, time that I shall see 92,000 sheep in one mob.'
Birch Hollow
(
Run 246)
This run was taken up by Doctor Samuel Hodgkinson some time in 1851. It included what are known as the Deans' Hills on the Waipara, and came down to the Weka Creek, taking in the present Waipara Downs Estate. In a Gazette of 1854 Hodgkinson is stated to have had 1500 sheep there on twenty-nine thousand acres, under the management of a man named Lawrence. The station had originally been called Mt. Deans, but Hodgkinson changed the name because the hut was in a deep hollow with some fine birch timber growing round it.
The homestead was on the Birch Hollow Creek, about a mile above its junction with the Waipara. Some of the old gum trees are still there.
Hodgkinson returned to England in 1854 and left the run and sheep in charge of Hunter Brown, of Double Corner, though Lawrence stayed on as overseer.
In 1855, G. H. Moore bought the freehold of the better part of the run, and Hunter Brown sold him Hodgkinson's remaining leasehold with the sheep soon afterwards, so that the whole place became part of Glenmark. While Hunter Brown worked it he and his men called it Doctor's Hills, a name which is often used for it now.
Dr. Hodgkinson was born at Batworth, Nottingham, in 1817. In 1842 he came to New Zealand as surgeon of the New Zealand Company's immigrant ship Bombay. He returned to England and took service with the Colonisation Commissioners of South Australia, and came from Australia to Canterbury in 1851. In 1861 he settled in Southland, where he became a mem-bermember of the Provincial Council, and afterwards M.H.R. for Riverton. He died in Invercargill in 1914. He wrote quite a good pamphlet on sheep-farming in Canterbury, and several others on political and religious subjects.
Moore never freeholded the actual hills called the Doctor's, and when they were sold by the Midland Railwav Company in 1889. Frank Courage, of Seadown, bought them.
Heathstock And Horsley Down
(
Runs 193, 405, 463, 464 and 465)
Except Glenmark—and possibly Waikakahi—Heath-stock and Horsley Down, which were for many years worked as one, made the finest station in Canterbury. The country ran from the Hurunui to the south branch of the Waipara, and from near Waikari back to the Seaward Creek. The runs contained a hundred and twenty thousand acres, of which a hundred thousand acres were finally made freehold. For so large a place there was very little poor country on it. It carried 75,000 sheep, and the woolshed was one of the biggest in the province.
As I have been unable to find the documents relating to the early leases, I do not know in what year the various runs were taken up, but George Edward Mason, described as of Horsley Down, applied for more country on November 1st, 1854.
Waitt, in his letter to Captain Thomas, speaks of Mallock being in the forks of the Waipara (Heathstock), and of Sidey and Mason on the Hurunui in 1855, and these were the original occupants. John Willoughby Mallock took up Heathstock, probably in 1851 or 1852. The Walkers—Sherbrook and Lancelot —whom I described when I wrote about Mt. Fourpeaks, joined him about 1855, and his brother, George Arden Mallock, also joined the firm. They bought Charles Sidey's Waitohi Station about 1860, with over 6000 sheep.
Sidey was a merchant in Lyttelton in the 'fifties, and made a business of importing sheep from Australia. He lived at Cam Cottage, near Kaiapoi, in the 'sixties, and was still living, I think in England, at the time of the Canterbury Jubilee (1900). George Mason managed his run. Mason's own run was further up the Hurunui, where Mason's Flat is named after him. This was a run of thirty-four thousand acres. He built his first hut on the present Horsley Down homestead site, but sold this country to James Lance after holding it a few years. He then took up thirty thousand acres called the Black Hill, and later took up the Mt. Mason country, and last of all the Virginia country, but he only held any of these runs about ten years when Malock and Walker, or Mallock and Lance, bought him out.
Mason was born in Gloucestershire in 1810. He had been a farmer at Home, and came to Canterbury in 1851. He had some sheep with him and intended settling in Otago, but his ship went no farther than Lyttelton, so he stayed there. He was a great explorer of the back country in the early days, and discovered Lake Sumner and several other lakes. (Most of my account of him is taken from the Cyclopedia of New Zealand. ) When he had the Virginia country his sheep were very scabby, but for a long time he managed to avoid a summons by keeping out of sight. The stock inspector served it on him in the end by stalking him at a hut from which he saw smoke rising at daylight one morning.
James Dupre Lance, who was in the East India Company's Army, came down to New Zealand on sick leave in 1856, and stayed at Heathstock. Lie was recalled to India when the Mutiny broke out, and fought in it with distinction. When the Mutiny was over he left the Army and came to Canterbury. He bought Fourpeaks, near Geraldine, but soon afterwards sold Fourpeaks to the Walkers, and bought Horsley Downs from them and Mason about 1861. He took his brother, Henry Lance, into partnership, but Henry Lance never lived at the station.
Henry Lance was a great racing man in the early days and was honorary secretary and handicapper to the Canterbury Jockey Club for many years, before Penfold's time. He died in 1886.
The two Mallocks and two Lances worked Heathstock and Horsley Down in partnership, the firm being called Mallock and Lance.
Mallock and Lance bought up Mason's various runs during the 'sixties. A return of 1867 states that at that time they had 60,000 sheep there.
The first manager was Thomas McDonald, who was appointed by Mallock in 1854. He stayed till 1872, when he went to Waikuku and started the wool works there. When he left, Mallock moved from Heathstock to Horsley Down (from which both the stations were worked as one), and took over the management himself. He died there in 1879. In 1881 E. D. Giles was appointed manager. George Mallock went Home about 1880 and died there in 1885. Before he came to New Zealand he had been a captain in the Indian Army.
Peter Grant, afterwards a well-known sheep dealer, was the first head shepherd; James McMorran was the next. Henry Elderton is another early shepherd whom I must mention. Tom Dennison, who shore for me at Glentanner, nearly fifty years afterwards, was employed at Heathstock when Lance was recalled for the Indian Mutiny, and told me about Lancelot Walker's jealousy and disgust at having left the army. 'There was no war when I was in the service,' etc., etc.
Lance lived at Heathstock until the house was burnt down in 1889, when he built the present house at Horsley Down, half of it with bricks carted from Heathstock. In revising my book for this edition I have read it right through and find it leaves an impression that station life in the old days was a dreary mixture of tussocks and sheep, overwhelming snowstorms and dangerous rivers; a life of tea, mutton and damper now and then relieved by whisky and square gin, but it wasn't as bad as that. There were many stations where people lived pleasanter, more civilized lives than most of us are likely to do in the future; stations where there was good cooking, good conversation, sound wine and pleasant company, and pretty drawing rooms where ladies played and sang. Anyone who doesn't realise this should read W. P. Reeves's verses about the old house at Heathstock and the earlier letters in Station Life in New Zealand, where Lady Barker describes staying there in 1866. Lance drove her about in a smart brake with four horses, and even found a pool in which to cool the champagne at a picnic. Heathstock was one of the most hospitable homesteads in New Zealand, and was run like an English country house. Many famous horses were kept there, notably Traducer and Blood Royal. In later years they had Anteros at Horsley Down.
Lance, the only surviving partner in the 'nineties, just missed making a large fortune, but owing to bad times, and the enormous liabilities he had contracted in buying so much land, he became embarrassed, and could not hold on quite long enough. Most of the land, including Heathstock homestead, was cut up and sold in 1896 and 1897. The Heathstock homestead now belongs to A. Reece, who has now divided part of the property among his sons. The old stable where Traducer was kept is still standing. The Government bought the Horsley Down homestead block of four thousand acres for settlement; Mrs Lance, however, retained the house and a hundred acres, which belonged to the family until a few years ago. Lance died in Christchurch in 1897, having lived just long enough to see the end of his hopes and fortune.
Esk Head
(
Runs 305 and 485)
Christopher Edward Dampier took up these two runs, of about thirty thousand acres altogether, in May, 1859, and November, 1863 respectively. The country lies between the south branch of the Hurunui and the Seaward Creek, and runs back to the dividing range. It is another Canterbury station which has never changed hands except by inheritance.
Dampier was solicitor to the Canterbury Association, and arrived in New Zealand with the documents of the Association just before the First Four Ships. During the early 'sixties he lived near Saltwater Creek. Money (the author of Knocking About ) stayed with him there and says he was the head of one of the oldest families in England, but was even more impressed by the wonderful cooking of his wife and daughter.
His son, Croslegh Dampier, who had been educated in England, came to New Zealand in 1858, and took over the management of Esk Head as soon as he had learned the business. C. E. Dampier made the station over to his son in 1870. The son took the name of a maternal uncle, John Crossley, of Scaitcliffe, Lancashire, in 1866. When C. D. Crossley died he left Esk Head to his son, Harry Dampier Crossley, the present owner, but left Angus Kennedy, who had been his manager for very many years, a half-share for life.
Until quite lately there was no road into Esk Head except a pack track, and for very many years the sheep were brought out and shorn at Stoneroyd, a freehold farm at the Waitohi Gorge.
For a time in the late 'sixties the leases were in the names of Dampier, Allen, and Atkinson. Allen and Atkinson were sons-in-law of the first owner, so I suppose he either took them into partnership for a time or left them a share which Dampier Crossley afterwards bought out. Anyhow Esk Head has never left the first owner's family.
The Lakes
(
Runs 202, 207 and 212)
Roughly speaking, the Lakes took in the whole country in the forks of the Hurunui and ran back to the main range on each side of the Taramakau Saddle.
The Lakes was originally two separate stations. Runs 202 and 207, of twenty-five thousand acres altogether, were taken up in July and August, 1857, by Henry Taylor. George Mason explored the country, and may have had a share in it for a short time. I cannot find when or to whom Taylor sold his run. Taylor, before taking up this country, was employed by Elliot, of Nelson. He brought a mob of Elliot's horses overland from Nelson for William Thomson to sell. He was afterwards drowned in a river on the West Coast and his body brought to Christchurch to be buried. He either sold or went out in 1867, for in 1868 and 1869 the leases were held in the names of the financial firms, the Trust and Agency Company of Australasia, and Matheson and Jardine.
Mathias Brothers (sons of the Archdeacon) bought the station about 1876 and sold it again in 1880 with 8000 sheep to William Parkerson, the man who bought Mesopotamia from Butler, for about half what they gave for it. Vincent Mathias managed it for himself and his brothers. He had been a cadet with Ensor at Rollesby and with his brother at the Desert. and afterwards managed Mt. Grey for Ensor for many years. Then he was valuator for Canterbury College for near thirty years and died in Christchurch in July, 1931.
Run 212, of twelve thousand acres, was taken up in September, 1857. The earliest occupier I can trace is J. B. Wemyss. He was probably the first, as in 1853 he took up Rokeby near Rakaia and let it to his manager shortly before Run 212 was taken up. He lived in Nelson, and represented the Nelson Suburbs in Parliament.
Wemyss and Taylor married sisters, but neither of them had families. Wemyss afterwards came into an estate called Wemyss Castle, in Scotland.
He transferred the run to M. E. O'Connell and John Russell on 2nd September, 1875. Russell was a brother of Mrs O'Connell of Mt. Grey and of G. G. Russell of Anama. He also came to New Zealand from Australia, not long after his brother. He had managed Mt. Grey for his sister. M. E. O'Connell was his nephew Maurice. They transferred to George McMillan (afterwards of Mesopotamia) on 30th June, 1879. Mc-MillanMcMillan thought the station (6000 sheep) too small to give scope for his talents, so he sold it to Parkerson in May, 1885, and the two stations became one. In 1886 the Lakes was transferred to Maitland Gardner and Francis Henry Pickering, and by 1890 the Bank of New South Wales had entered into possession of it. W. J. Moffatt bought it from the Bank some time about 1896 and sold it in 1899 to 'Rutherford Nephews,' Cuthbert, Leslie, and Sealy, three sons of Robert Rutherford—Mt. Nessing—who did very well with it.
Cuthbert Rutherford (now of Craiglockart near Blenheim) bought his brothers' shares from them in 1903.
In 1918 the Government resumed half the run, and Cuthbert Rutherford sold the rest of the station to Matson and Cunningham in 1920. They sold to the present owner, Leslie Macfarlane, of Kaiwara, in 1924.
In the old days the boundary between the two stations, Wemyss's and Taylor's, ran straight across from the north to the south branch of the Hurunui. When the Government resumed the country in 1918 they divided the run the opposite way, i.e., from the junction of the two branches of the Hurunui back to the Taramakau Saddle. It is not my business to comment on present stations, but on the map it looks as if they had cut it up so as to leave most of the sunny country on one run.
Up the Hurunui and over the Taramakau Saddle was the first route taken by fat stock to the West Coast diggings. Dampier Crossley took the first mob over. All the Rutherfords (of the second generation) took fat wethers that way. Later on, when the Arthur's Pass route was opened, the Taramakau route was given up.
Chapter 11
Hill Stations Between the Rakaia and Rangitata Rivers
(
Except where otherwise noted this chapter has not been brought past 1932)
Anama
(
Originally Run 8, N.Z.R., afterwards re-numbered 401 under Canterbury Regulations)
Anama lay partly on the plains. It ran from the south bank of the Ashburton to the south branch of the Hinds. The eastern boundary was near Mayfield, where Anama, Shepherd's Bush, Cracroft, and Valetta all met at a corner post. Anama took in the front range of hills, now known as Peter's Range, and ran back to the Blue Duck Creek, where it joined Mt. Possession. It was taken up by George Gawler Russell, to whom the Waste Lands Commission allotted the license on October 2nd, 1854.
Russell and his friend and neighbour, Rogers of Maronan, were 'prophets' —Australian squatters who came over to Canterbury soon after the settlement was started. Rogers lived with Russell for some time and they looked after their sheep and let comfort and appearance take care of themselves. John Barton Acland spent a night at Russell's station in September, 1855, and recorded in his diary: 'Russell and Rogers, with Seward and an Irish shepherd are living, and have been living for twelve months, in a large woolshed without doors, windows, or chimneys, built with manuka poles and thatched top and sides with ti-tree [cabbage tree leaves]. The fire is made in the middle of the floor, and at night a blanket is hung up to serve as a door. It is a wonder why some people will make themselves so needlessly uncomfortable.'
Russell named the station Gawler Downs. He had 2700 sheep there in 1855 and 4000 in 1858, having apparently sold a thousand or two in the meantime.
Russell was born near Mallow in Ireland in 1827. He died in Christchurch in 1860 and his sister, Mrs O'Connell of Mt. Grey who was his executress, sold the run and stock soon afterwards to George Alexander Anstey, to whom she transferred the lease on March 20th, 1861. Anstey was another old Australian squatter. He did not keep the run long. He sold it to W. S. Peter in 1862 at 30/-a head for the sheep. There were then about 17,000 on the country, and they were scabby at the time. Anstey's manager was a man named Slater, whose wife was thrown from her horse and dogcart and killed where the present Anama stockyard is.
Russell was a son of Major William Russell who had a station called the Cow Pastures in New South Wales. Besides G. Russell, and John of the Lakes Station, another brother came to New Zealand but did not stay long, though while he was here he succeeded in catching Mackenzie the sheep stealer at Ashburton after one of his escapes. He shot him through the leg.
About the time he sold Anama, Anstey bought Mt. Parnassus on the Waiau from Jollie and Lee. Slater was an uncle to Colonel H. Slater, and the father of Llewellyn Slater, afterwards a well known Christchurch surveyor.
William Spence Peter came out to New South Wales in 1838. He joined two others in a station, but they failed. Peter then joined a Government party which was exploring and surveying the coast of South Australia and, getting further funds from his father, took up a run where Port Lincoln is now. He went back to New South Wales and bought sheep which he drove overland to his new run. These must have been one of the first mobs brought overland to South Australia. Peter sold his first run and either took up or bought another about a hundred and twenty miles north of Adelaide. This he sold in the late 'fifties—only about six months before the rich Burra Burra copper mine was discovered on the run. After a visit to England, Peter came down to New Zealand (which he had previously visited) and bought Anstey's run which he named Anama after the Hawkers' Anama station in South Australia, where he had met and married his wife.
Peter was a member of the Legislative Council from 1868 until he died in 1891, aged 73. Anama originally contained over forty thousand acres, nineteen thousand of which Peter made freehold. The station carried over 20,000 sheep. In 1877 E. G. Wright was paid with land orders for some public work, and selected the Gawler Downs on Anama, about ten thousand acres of the run. Part of this is now Arthur Grigg's beautiful little property, Surrey Hills.
Peter's executors carried on the station from his death until 1898, but sold a certain amount of the land to the Government for closer settlement. In 1898 they divided the station up among the family, Charles Peter getting the homestead block. Charles Peter's executors sold this in 1929, but Frank Peter still owns the old leasehold countryHe sold his leasehold in 1931 to Leo Palmer Chapman, a grandson of the owner of Acton, and has since sold the freehold.
and his share of the freehold which makes a very nice station. The Anama homestead now belongs to J. Quantock and carries 2500 sheep.
Duncan McDonald was an early overseer of Peter's at Anama. He was afterwards ferryman at the Rakaia Gorge. After him came John Bonifant, who left to go and manage Wakaki Station on the Wairoa for Peter and Joseph Palmer. Bonifant afterwards came back to Canterbury and bought a farm on the Wakanui Creek. His son, the English Leicester breeder, still owns it.
The next overseer was Arthur Barton, a son of the man from whom Peter had bought the sheep which he overlanded to South Australia. While Barton was at Anama, there was a drought in New South Wales, and Barton's brother advised him to scrape up any money he could, come home, and buy a run. Barton did so, and made a fortune out of the station he bought, and afterwards became a director of several important companies in New South Wales.
Willie O'Connell, from Mt. Grey, was the next overseer, then one of the Pitts, then K. B. Bain (afterwards a well known lamb buyer), and after him Peter appointed his eldest son, E. H. J. Peter, as manager. E. H. J. Peter was accidentally killed in 1887, while going to inspect a property in Hawke's Bay, and from then Frank Peter managed the station until it was subdivided. William Rutherford was Peter's first shepherd, and stayed at Anama until he died nearly thirty years afterwards. He was only in three billets in his life—one in Scotland, a year with the Boags at Fendalton, and at Anama.
Another shepherd McAuley, could only speak Gaelic when he arrived, but he soon picked up enough English to get on with. He was a first-rate man. One morning before breakfast the manager was walking down to the stable to see the shepherds, and a friend of the Peters from Scotland who was staying at Anama happened to go with him. As soon as McAuley caught sight of the visitor he disappeared, and could not be found all day. The manager found him in the hut late that night, and asked him what in the world he had been doing. 'Iss he gone?' asked McAuley nervously. 'Who?' asked the manager. 'T'at shentleman, Mr Brown; he iss after me!' 'Nonsense, man; he's never heard of you. Why should he be after you? 'McAuley said that one night he had been poaching in Brown's loch in Scotland and that Brown and his water bailiff had chased him. McAuley had the faster boat, but it was getting near daylight, so he ran ashore, picked up a stone, and 'kilt ta water bailey,' as he said, and left for New Zealand. 'Now ta shentleman has come here after me.' The manager asked Brown about it. Brown roared with laughter. The water bailiff had only been stunned.
Allan Kennedy was with Frank Peter for eleven years —until he leased his land to Nosworthy, which he did for some years. One day Kennedy and another shepherd stuck up a boar on the run, and Kennedy offered to show the other how to kill wild boars. He picked up a rock, went up to the boar, and brought the rock down on his head. The boar charged between Kennedy's legs and ripped him badly in both thighs.
In 1858 a tussock fire lit at Anama travelled right to the sea at Coldstream.
Shepherd's Bush
(
Run 40, N.Z.R.)
Shepherd's Bush took in the country between the South Hinds and the Rangitata. It joined Cracroft on the plains, and ran back to Pudding Valley, where it joined Mt. Possession. Mt. Pukanui was on it. Shepherd's Bush contained over forty thousand acres, of which perhaps a third lay on the plains. It was taken up by Benjamin and Thomas Moorhouse, whose first application for it is notified in the Canterbury Gazette of November 1st, 1854. Thomas Moorhouse very soon sold his interest in the run to the brother. The application book for runs shows that as originally applied for, a narrow strip of Shepherd's Bush ran across behind Anama to the Ashburton River, but this piece of country was never stocked until the boundary was straightened, and it became part of Anama. I do not know when Moorhouse first got sheep on to the run, but he was living there 'in a tent with a chimney built at one end 'in February, 1856. Captain Harding, who afterwards had stations of his own in Mid-Canterbury, lived with him at the time as a cadet or overseer. The original homestead was on the riverbed flat, below the terrace where the present homestead is. The old homestead site was washed away about 1888. There was a small patch of bush near it, and when Mrs Moorhouse came to live on the station she named it Shepherd's Bush in allusion to the bush and their occupation as shepherds.
For a time in 1855 and 1856, Tripp and Acland ran the sheep they brought to stock Mt. Peel on terms with Moorhouse. Some years after that the Shepherd's Bush sheep became scabby for a time, which the Mt. Peel sheep never did. Sheep seldom crossed the Rangitata unless they were driven over. Acland told me that very early one morning he saw a dog chase a single sheep across the river on to the Mt. Peel side. The sheep ran up the river-bed towards the gorge. Acland hurried back to his homestead and got several shepherds, and they all rode up the run, rounding up every mob they met, to find the Shepherd's Bush sheep and kill it before it could infect the Mt. Peel sheep, which would of course have been a very serious thing indeed. After riding for several hours, and looking through many hundred sheep, they found the straggler, caught him, and killed him, and in half an hour he was cooking on the fire. Acland said that though mutton should be hung, he had never enjoyed better chops for breakfast in his life.
Dr Moorhouse had 5000 of his 6000 sheep declared scabby in 1861 and 1862. He was fined £200. The flock was declared clean in 1863.
The first sheep show ever held in South Canterbury was held at Shepherd's Bush in 1859. I believe it had been arranged to hold it at Mt. Peel, but the Rangitata was high and the exhibitors from the north did not care to risk their sheep crossing the river in bullock drays. I cannot find any account of this show, but I think I have been told that the only class of sheep shown were merino rams.
Dr Moorhouse died in Timaru in 1872, aged 42, and after his death his widow carried on the station until 1885, when it was taken over by the National Mortgage and Agency Company.
In the 'seventies Morrow had bought a block of seven or eight thousand acres on the plain in the middle of the run, and formed the Montalto estate, and about the same time some of the land, where Ruapuna is now, was sold to farmers. In 1889, when the runs were put up to auction, Morrow also out-bid the company for their leasehold country—the hill part of the run. This left the company with a freehold station of five or six thousand acres running up the Rangitata, across the foot of the hills, and down the South Hinds—shaped like a horse-shoe. It was, of course, the freehold frontage which Dr Moorhouse had bought to protect his run. This carried about 5000 sheep and the company went on with it until 1902, when they began selling off the land in blocks. A year or so later they sold the homestead and the last of their land to Donald Frazer, who had managed Shepherd's Bush for them for many years.
Dr Moorhouse's elder son, another Dr Ben Moorhouse, once told me a story to illustrate the gift horses have for finding their way. Ben was out mustering on the plain of Shepherd's Bush, when a fog came up so thick that he could not see past his horse's ears. He waited for a time, and saw that there could be no mustering that day, and tried to make for home, but after an hour or so found that he was lost. He did the wisest thing he could—dropped the reins on his horse's neck and gave him a dig in the ribs. The horse swung round and trotted off with Ben in a bee-line. At that time there were no fences at Shepherd's Bush, except a paddock or two at the homestead. I should explain that in the early days of fencing, when the sheep were all merinos, fences were usually made of standards and five wires, with very few posts except strainers, so that if you slewed a mob of strong merino wethers too hard against a fence the fence went flat. (I flattened one myself once at Cracroft, but managed to push it up again before McMillan or his overseer saw it.) To protect these fences people used to put posts and rails for half a chain on each side of the gates. Well, Ben's horse trotted straight through the fog for an hour or so, and then stopped short. Ben found that he had just missed the paddock gate, but had hit the rails a yard or so from it.
I may describe Ben Moorhouse (the younger), because he was the person who persuaded me to publish my notes on the early runs and because he was one of the best and kindest men I ever knew. He was a good friend, a jolly companion, and about as good a sportsman as ever walked—a good shot, a pastmaster at fly fishing, and a born judge of horses and dogs, and he had a natural gift for woodcraft and understanding wild life, so that in his later years when he couldn't walk much he could still get as many and as good deer as anyone in the Rakaia.
He was six feet four high, and broad in proportion, wore a beard, and had a great, hearty laugh; in fact, he was like the pictures of Sir John Falstaff. He was big all over, and had immense hands, but could tie flies beautifully with them and was a very deft surgeon. He was untidy in his dress and very unpunctual, but as no one could be in his company without feeling all the better and happier for it he was extremely popular with all kinds of people.
During the war he gave up his practice in Christ church and spent some years as a snip's surgeon. He also had a station called Fiery Creek in Southland. He died at Russell, in the Bay of Islands, in 1921.
To return to Dr Moorhouse (the elder). He had given up his profession before he came to Shepherd's Bush, but still did a great deal of doctoring for nothing and would travel any distance into the back country in any weather if there was an accident or a confinement and no other doctor could be got. He was a great friend of Sir Cracroft Wilson's, but his cattle used to wander down the Rangitata and break into Sir Cracroft's paddocks. I have already described Sir Cracroft —'The Nabob.' He had a violent Anglo-Indian temper and Moorhouse's cattle used to annoy him. He used to complain 'A man may try to shoot me, rob me, abuse me, or anything else, but by God, sir, a man who eats the very grass that makes my living is beyond all bearing.'
Joseph F. Foster, who had been overseer or clerk at Waimate, Mitchell, and Wigan were three of Moorhouse's managers at Shepherd's Bush.
Mt. Possession
(
Run 53 N.Z.R., afterwards re-numbered 543)
Mt. Possession took in the country between the Rangitata and Ashburton rivers from the western boundaries of Shepherd's Bush and Anama up to about the line of the present road which runs from Hakatere to Mesopotamia. It contained fifty-three thousand acres. It was taken up by Charles Tripp and John Barton Acland, in Tripp's name, on March 31st, 1856. I described Tripp and Acland's partnership when writing of Mt. Peel and Orari Gorge. Apparently the partners thought at first that Mt. Possession lay in a fork of the Rangitata, but on further exploration found that the supposed north branch of the river did not exist.
Tripp and Acland named the station Mt. Possession in February, 1859, when they sent 1579 sheep from Mt. Somers (another of their stations) to 'take possession,' that is, fulfil the stocking conditions of their lease. Their shepherd in charge was James Rawle, who had come to New Zealand from Acland's father's property in Somersetshire, where Rawle's father had been in charge of the wild ponies on Exmoor. James Rawle was afterwards a shepherd at Mt. Peel, where a hut, yards and gully are named after him. He was 'a large yellow man.' I do not know what became of him afterwards.
Acland was in England in 1861, and Tripp, finding himself short of money to carry on their other stations, sold Mt. Possession on June 1st to Robert Tooth for £4000. Tooth had just come down from Melbourne looking for investments, and Thomas Rowley acted as his agent. The Tooths and Rowleys were mixed up in business, and Rowley may have had an interest in Mt. Possession from the first. In a few years it became the property of Thomas and his brother, John Cotton Rowley, who sold it to 1864 to Walker Brothers (W. C. and A. J.), though the lease remained in Tooth's name until 1866, when it was brought under the Canterbury regulations and re-numbered. The Walkers had previously owned Lake Heron.
There was no homestead at Mt. Possession when the Walkers bought it—only a hut and sheep yards at Sandy's Knob, which is named after Sandy Boyd, the shepherd who lived there in Rowley's time. The Walkers built the present house and woolshed. After a time A. J. Walker sold his share of the station to his brother and went home to England, where he started business in London.
About 1890, Miles and Co. took over Mt. Possession from the Hon. W. C. Walker, as he had then become. Walker was better known as a politician than as a squatter. He sat in the old Provincial Council and represented Ashburton in Parliament. He was called to the Legislative Council in 1892 and was Minister for Education in Seddon's Government, and finally became Speaker of the Legislative Council.
I have already given accounts of Tripp and Acland. Thomas Rowley went Home in 1866 after selling his stations, and Cotton Rowley afterwards had Avondale Station in Southland, where he lived for many years. He also had a share in Hamilton Station in Otago. These were the same Rowleys who owned the Sandy Knolls and Alford stations in the 'fifties and 'sixties. I do not know much about Tooth, except that he, and afterwards his nephew, Frederick Tooth, who succeeded him, owned Alford Station, in the Ashburton Forks, and several stations in Australia. They did not live in New Zealand. They belonged, I am told, to the Australian family of brewers. They also owned Clent Hills in partnership with the Rowleys.
When Miles and Co. took over Mt. Possession they sent Donald Cameron, afterwards the owner of Winterslow, to manage it. They sold it in 1892 to the Loan and Mercantile Company, who at that time owned Hakatere, and the two stations were worked together for many years. T. S. Johnstone, the manager of Hakatere, moved down to Mt. Possession, but William Lambie, the head shepherd, lived at Hakatere, where the sheep of both stations were shorn and where most of the other sheep work was done. Johnstone left Mt. Possession in 1904 and went to manage Glenmark. He was succeeded by Lambie, originally his head shepherd, who had in the meantime managed Mt. Torlesse, and Birch Hill (in Marlborough).
In 1906 the company sold both stations to F. J. Savill, who kept Lambie on as manager. The lease of Hakatere ran out in 1911, but Savill went on with Mt. Possession until 1917, when that lease ran out also. The country was divided into several blocks, which were put up for auction. Savill did not bid for any of them, but Lambie took over the freehold and the nearest block of leasehold, which he worked for four or five years, and then sold to W. H. Orbell. Since then the various tenants and owners of the old Mt. Possession Station have combined with others interested to form the Mt. Possession Run Company, so that now the station is again under one management. It is a very good run, but, being mostly College leasehold, has always been over-rented.
Hakatere
(
Runs 181, 189, 256, 293, 350, 374, and 384)
Hakatere took in the country between the Rangitata and the Ashburton, above Mt. Possession. At one time it went up the Rangitata as far as the Lawrence, and up to the head of the Ashburton.
Part of the country on the Rangitata side was first explored by Tripp and Acland in March, 1856, as I shall explain when I come to Stronechrubie, or Erewhon, as it is now called. The Ashburton side of Hakatere, and the Lake Heron country, was first explored by Thomas Henry Potts, F. G. P. Leach, and Henry Phillips, jun., in April, 1857. I have already given an account of Leach. Phillips was a son of Henry Phillips, of Rockwood.
Potts was born at Brandon, in Suffolk, in 1824, and arrived in Lytlelton on April 24th, 1854. Before coming to New Zealand he had been a principal but sleeping partner in Brander and Potts, the London gunsmiths. He married a daughter of Henry Phillips, sen., of Rockwood, and bought an interest in his father-in-law's run, and lived for some time at Valehead, in the Hororata Valley, opposite the Rockwood homestead. He and Phillips ran their cattle independently. He was a born naturalist and observer, and besides Out in the Open left a very interesting diary, which I have been allowed to quote from. Unfortunately, only the part from April 6th, 1855, to March, 1858, and part of the year 1865, have survived, but what there is gives as graphic an account as I have seen of the life of the early settlers.
For example, a description of a nor'-wester, April 29th, 1855: 'A day not soon to be forgotten. Last night the wind increased with strong gusts, and towards midnight raged with a violence that was per-fectly astounding. Our roof soon felt the effects of the storm, the walls rocked, windows blown out, and we had to pass the whole night in barricading the doors, whilst the rain poured in torrents through the open roof, damaging most of our effects. At dawn we got ready for a start to Rockwood for shelter, as our own dilapidated cottage was untenable. Mr Phillips and Seal came as we were about to start, and we all re-turned with them. Great numbers of trees were up-rooted, our fences very much injured, some rails were blown from the posts to an almost incredible distance. The stable roof blown down, and much other damage we suffered from this terrible tempest. On our arrival at Rockwood, the ravages of the storm were most con-spicuous in the multitudes of fallen trees that were lying in heaps on every side.'
It took a week to make the house habitable. On May 8th: 'We all returned home again from Rockwood. The roof seems very strongly thatched, and the cottage altogether tolerably comfortable again.'
When Phillips decided to break up some land— (July 17th, 1855). 'To Rockwood to help plough. Tried two mares and a bullock, worked very badly.' Next day, 'To-day we used two bullocks and one mare, with much greater success than yesterday, although the team is in anything but good working order as yet.'
On October 15th he notes—'Saw …several quail, an unwonted sight now, and when we came they were quite common, but the great fires have probably diminished their numbers so rapidly.' However, he saw a covey of young ones on January 20th, 1856, and shot some on March 9th, 1858. On December 1st, 1856, he saw two rabbits.
By the beginning of 1857 Potts's cattle on Rockwood had increased to 250 head. He had already made several short expeditions up the Rakaia and to the back of Lake Coleridge to find a run to carry them. On April 6th, 1857, Potts and Henry Phillips, the younger, started on a longer expedition. On the 6th they went to Snowdon to pick up Leach. Next day, after calling at the Acheron Station, where Groome, the manager, lent them an extra tether rope and other gear, they followed the ridge between Lake Coleridge and the Rakaia until near sunset, when they came to the gully leading down to the present iron store. They came down to the riverbed and crossed the Wilberforce, and camped on an island in the shelter of some toe toe. They were disappointed to find no wild pigs, though there were plenty of tracks of them. They caught some young ducks, which they ate.
Next day they followed up the Rakaia till they came to the Lake Stream, then followed up the Lake Stream until they came to Lake Heron, and camped, I think, near the mouth of the Cameron, in the shelter of an Irishman. 'Harry went duck-shooting, Leach and T.H.P. cooking. Leach gave an alarm and T.H.P. ran to see what was the matter. The grass was on fire. We endeavoured to put it out, but in vain—the wind was too strong. We untied our horses, threw our swags on them, and ran into the riverbed, saving everything but a waistcoat. We camped in the riverbed but could get no wood to spread our blankets with. The weather looked bad—very bad, but we were so pleased at finding this plain and a new route home by the Ashburton that we were happy enough.'
Next day they explored the country they had seen on their right. They saw 'two or three lakes, one we called Clear Water, as we named the large one we passed yesterday, Heron Lake, from seeing so many white herons gently sailing over its surface, or standing motionless on its stony beach.'
Leach and Potts decided to apply for twenty or thirty thousand acres each. Leach preferred the country about Lake Heron, and Potts preferred the country round Clear Water and that south of the Ashburton.
Next day they went down the Ashburton and camped under Mt. Somers, and from there, passing Brittan's (Buccleugh) station, the first house they had seen, made Blackford, where the Tom Halls entertained them hospitably; and next morning got home. 'Many were the enquiries as to what we had seen and where we came from, to which we gave as judicious answers as we could…. We got home quite pleased with our trip, having been the first who have discovered a route from the Rakaia to the Ashburton by the Westward Hills, and most likely the plain we found will be a valuable discovery for ourselves.'
Leach and Potts both went straight to Christchurch to apply for their runs. Leach applied in his own name and that of his partner Dudley, and paid a deposit. Potts refused to pay a deposit, and in order to prevent anyone jumping his claim, came straight home and mustered all the cattle he could and started off next morning with Harry Phillips to stock his run. They crossed the Rakaia and drove the cattle up the slip below the present Gorge bridge and on to the plains. 'We kept on driving until it was too dark to see Mt. Somers, and then we were guided by the stars. Camped on the northern stream of the Ashburton about 10 p.m. and turned into some high tutu.' (Diary, April 23rd, 1857.)
On the 24th Potts turned the cattle on to his new country and started straight home, leaving Harry Phillips in a tent to look after them. On the 28th a note came from Miles, Potts's agent, to say he had been just in time to secure the run, 'so I have taken and stocked the most westerly run yet discovered in about the shortest time on record.' The runs Potts secured at this time were Nos. 181 and 189. He took up runs 256, 293, and 350 at intervals during the next three years. Runs 374 (the Jumped-up Downs) and 384, which afterwards became part of Hakatere, were taken up in 1860 by Tripp and Acland and by J. H. Caton respectively.
For many years Potts worked Hakatere as a cattle station, and his original homestead was on the Potts River, where the Mt. Potts homestead is now. He did not live on the station himself, though he was an expert cattle man, and, I have been told, the only man in the Gorge who could use a twenty-foot stockwhip. Harry Phillips was his first manager, and then for many years in the 'sixties and early 'seventies Ferdinand George Cradock was manager. He was the son of a solicitor who did not practise much but spent his time enjoying life at Loughborough and hunting with the Quorn. The Druid mentions him in Silk and Scarlet as a wonderful old sportsman. F. G. Cradock was born at Stamford, Lincolnshire, in 1841. He came to New Zealand in 1860 and went straight to Hakatere as a cadet, and stayed on as manager until he married and bought a farm at Ellesmere where he died in 1893. He was a cousin of the Major Cradock who commanded the second New Zealand contingent in South Africa.
Potts lived for many years at Governor's Bay, where he had a beautiful property and a very fine orchard and garden. He left this and Hakatere about 1883, and afterwards lived in Christchurch, where he died in July, 1885.
About 1870 Hakatere was changed over from cattle to sheep, and about the same time the homestead was moved from the Potts River to its present site on the Ashburton.
The New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company took Hakatere over from Potts. His last manager, T. S. Johnstone, stayed on with the company for many years, and was eventually succeeded by William Lambie, his head shepherd. The company bought Mt. Possession from Miles and Co. about 1894, and the two stations were worked together by the company, and afterwards by F. J. Savill, until 1911, when the Hakatere leases ran out. The country was then divided into two and put up to ballot.
The Ashburton side of the country to which the homestead and freehold are attached has passed through several hands. F. L. Donkin held it for a time. It is now occupied by the Mt. Possession Run Company.
The Rangitata side of Hakatere, now known as the Mt. Potts Station, belonged to various members of T. S. Johnstone's family from 1911 until 1924, when C. C. Burdon bought it. Burdon sold it to the present owner, Bruce Hay, in 1939.
Stronechrubie
(
Originally Forest Hill and now called Erewhon )
(
Runs 374, 384, 395-6-7)
The history of Stronechrubie, a small station at the head of the Rangitata, is rather difficult to follow. It originally consisted of Run 396, of five thousand acres, between the Clyde and Lawrence rivers, and Run 397, of five thousand acres, on the west side of the Clyde. These two runs were originally taken up by R. M. Morten and Stace in February, 1861. Their manager was James Phillips, a son of the owner of Rockwood. In 1864 Stace sold his half share to Charles James Bell. Bell named the place Forest Hill, after the beautiful bush which grew there. In those days the run was worked as a cattle station. The cattle-brand—' a bell' —was lying about the old homestead, in the fork of the Clyde and Lawrence, in the early 'nineties, and, for all I know, may be there still.
About 1872 Morton and Bell decided to abandon the station, and Bell drove the cattle over to the West Coast to sell. He had one or two bad trips and was nearly drowned in both the Rakaia and the Taramakau.
I do not know who Stace was, and I have given some account of Morten elsewhere. Bell was the elder son of Dr Charles Bell, of Clifton, Bristol. He was educated at Bishop's (now Clifton) College, and, refusing to take Holy Orders, came to New Zealand at the age of 21 in the ship Indian Empire in 1863 or 1864. After leaving Forest Hill he joined C. E. Fooks, the first engineer in Ashburton, and they carried out much of the early surveying of the country.
Bell held many public appointments. He was the first Clerk of the Anama Road Board and held the appointment until his death. He was also secretary of the Ashburton Racing Club. He was a great hand with horses, and a very good amateur vet. Though he had a motor-car, he preferred to drive a thoroughbred mare until the last year of his life. He died at Lismore in 1925.
It was while staying with Bell at Forest Hill that the curator of the Public Gardens in Christchurch collected the plants which formed the nucleus of the present native collection. Bell always said that the Clyde River was originally named the Clive, to correspond with the Lawrence and Havelock. (But surely Lord Clyde was nearer being contemporary with them than Clive was?)
About 1878, George McRae, who had been head shepherd and overseer for the Campbells at Mesopotamia, took up Bell's country again. It took a great deal of mustering for the few hundred sheep it carried, and McRae found there was nothing in it, and had to eke out his living by mustering for his neighbours. He told Norman Macfarlane, who was at that time managing Mesopotamia, that he couldn't make a living and pay his rent. Macfarlane advised him not to pay his rent, but to be at the Land Office in Christchurch, every rent day, so that if anyone else applied for the country, he could forestall him. One rent day McRae learnt that Potts's agents had been foolish enough to abandon the country which lay next to his across the Lawrence, so McRae applied for it and got it. This was Run 384, of ten thousand acres, above the Jumped-up Downs, some of the best of Hakatere, and was the making of Stronechrubie. It had been taken up by the notorious John Henry Caton, in July, 1860, and sold by Caton, much to his neighbours' relief, to Isaac Taylor, who had recently sold Winterslow. Caton's earmark was a crop off both ears and from his yards no straggler returned. Taylor afterwards sold this run to Potts of Hakatere. Caton's homestead had been long abandoned. It was nearly opposite McRae's, and the flat it stood on has now been washed away by the Lawrence. At the end of his lease in 1890, the Government took Run 397, McRae's country west of the Clyde, and added it to Mesopotamia, and compensated McRae by giving him Run 374, which had been part of Hakatere. This brought his boundary down to the lower end of the Jumped-up Downs, and he moved his homestead to the present site there in 1891. In the old days it was called Mt. Sunday.
Run 374 was one of the many runs taken up by Tripp and Acland between 1855 and 1860. It included the very best of the Jumped-up Downs. Tripp and Acland took it up in May, 1860, and, I think, sold it unstocked to Taylor, though the lease was for a time, in Bell's name. Taylor's homestead was on the bank of a small lagoon, where the old foundation may still be seen. Murdoch McDonald tells me that one of his first jobs in New Zealand was to level Taylor's old sod fences and plough the flat for McRae. Taylor eventually sold his run either to Bell or to Potts, of Hakatere.
The Name
Stronechrubie is the Gaelic for 'crooked nose' or 'crooked spur,' and McRae named the station partly after his birthplace in Scotland, and partly after a crooked spur which runs down to the Clyde near the original homestead. Some later owner has changed the name of the station to Erewhon, which does not seem so suitable. Butler's Erewhon, after which, I suppose, it is named, was supposed to be across the Main Range.
In 1892,-McRae sold Stronechrubie to Donald Knight, a son of A. C. Knight, one of the earliest Canterbury runholders. Knight sold it to George McMillan, of Mesopotamia, at the time of the South African War, and McMillan worked the two stations together until his death in 1903, after which his executors sold both stations to George Gerard.
When the leases of the Upper Rangitata country ran out in 1911, the forks of the Clyde and Havelock were taken from Mesopotamia and given to Stronechrubie, which was then put up to ballot and drawn by William Anderson, so that Erewhon as now constituted contains the forks taken from Mesopotamia, the original Stronechrubie, Caton's run on the Lawrence, and Taylor's run on the Jumped-up Downs. These make a very nice station, but expensive to muster. Since Anderson's time it has passed through the hands of F. Pawson and D. G. Wright, and T. S. Johnstone bought it for one of his family in 1929. His son Thomas is the present owner.
I have already given accounts of Caton and the other early owners. George McRae was born at Stronechrubie, a sheep farm near Lochbroom in northwest Ross-shire, in 1836. After selling Stronechrubie he owned Barford and several other properties in Canterbury. He died in Ashburton in 1911.
William Anderson came out from Scotland about 1881 under engagement to Low of St. Helens. When his engagement at St. Helens ended he became head shepherd to Robinson at Cheviot Hills. Later on he twice managed Teviotdale while Greenwood was in England. Later still he was head shepherd at the Fairfield Freezing Works near which he bought a farm. He left this to go to Stronechrubie. When he sold Stronechrubie he retired but could not settle down to do nothing, so he bought Eskdale, a small place near Waiau. He was a successful breeder of Border-Leicesters and Corriedales, and a great show judge. He was also a lover of Border collies and at one time almost unbeatable at the dog-trials. He died at Eskdale in July, 1944, aged 84.
An Interesting Letter
The following interesting extracts are from a letter about the old days at Stronechrubie and Mesopotamia which Murdoch McDonald, who was McRae's nephew and cadet, has sent me:
'I sometimes see in the papers that Dr Sinclair's grave is lost, then that it has been discovered again by some intrepid explorer or another. As you are aware, this grave was never lost, but is well known to everyone who has worked on Mesopotamia, and has a good tombstone on top suitably inscribed. What is not generally known, however, is that alongside it is another grave which has no tombstone—that of a man named McKay, who met his death at Ross's Cutting in a tragic manner. McKay worked on Anama Station, and one Sunday—I do not know the date—rode up to Ross's Hut to see his sweetheart, who was a daughter of the boundary-keeper there. He tethered his horse at some distance from the house and on leaving for home, while saying good-bye to the girl, he pulled the tether up and the horse, taking fright at something, wheeled round and got the rope round McKay's body. McKay was dragged down the cutting and his brains dashed out at the roadside.
'A man called Searle who was building the iron stable at Mesopotamia for the Campbells, chopped his foot half off with the adze and bled to death.
'Jason's Creek is called after Jason Davis, who got frost-bitten in the feet when cutting firewood there, and when they got him down country his legs had to be amputated at the knees. He walked on the stumps for many years, however, and on one occasion he was taken for the Devil by a nervous woman who met him in the dark on a lonely road near Darfield.
'Another shepherd called Gilman, whom I knew well, was killed at Growling Camp (on Mesopotamia) by a rock falling on his head from a precipice under which he was walking. Hugh Urquhart was killed on the Forks by going over a precipice, shortly afterwards.
'Although Stronechrubie is probably the roughest country in Canterbury, no one has ever met his death there.
'The Lands Department apparently never worried about McRae not paying his rent at the start of his career, as he was rather handy for the surveyors who used to go up there. They were always sure of a camp at his place, and plenty of mutton.
'In the big snow of 1889, McRae lost all his sheep. In the previous year he lost all his wool by his agents going bankrupt—one of the partners committing suicide and the other getting imprisonment.
'There were 60 head of cattle up near the glaciers, which McRae didn't bother to go and see about, but McClure, the surveyor, would come down each night with an account of the number of dead cattle he saw. McRae must have been keeping a mental note of the number, and one day McClure must have given him the full tally. McRae exclaimed with great satisfaction, 'Thank God, that is the last of them, I will now be able to make a fresh start.' The surveyor never forgot McRae's philosophy and used to amuse McMillan by telling him of it. Personally, I have never met a man of unmovable philosophy who was much of a manager—McRae certainly was not.
'McMillan always said that the person who really managed Stronechrubie for 20 years was Mrs McRae. Born and reared in the lonely glens of Ross-shire, she was probably more in her element than were most women on the back stations here. She seldom went down country, while McRae spent half his time away from home—the Lord only knows on what business. He usually had a boy or two on the place whom he trained to work the station and who afterwards became capable high-country shepherds. Among these were W. Turton, Jack Turton, E. R. Turton, W. Carney, N. Carney, C. Carney, etc. Working boys and dogs were McRae's main specialities, and while he trained the boys in their earthly duties, Mrs McRae concerned herself with their spiritual welfare.
'Every night the Bible was brought out and family worship gone through just as you described the scene in George Patterson's hut on the Waimakariri. I may say that McRae's youthful cadets did not relish these religious devotions very much, but they had to stand up to it—Catholic or Protestant. Thirty years afterwards one of them spoke to me about it in a different spirit, however, and referred to his religious instructor in terms of the deepest respect.
'McRae left his old homestead in 1890 and went to live at the Jumped-up Downs, six miles further down. Before doing so Mrs McRae broke down mentally and was taken away, never to return.
'Thus McRae lost his wool one year, his sheep and cattle the next, and lastly his wife, but never lost his philosophy, geniality, or hospitality—the last-named a quality (notwithstanding the disparagement of a certain school) possessed by all the station-owners of those days, and which, I trust, shall spread its influence beyond those to whom it was given, when all of that generation have passed away. McRae finished up 20 years afterwards a fairly wealthy man, and with his wife is buried alongside his friend and schoolmate, George McMillan, in the Cracroft Cemetery.'
First Explorations
Tripp and Acland first explored the head waters of the Rangitata. In March, 1892, Acland wrote an account of their explorations in the first number of the N.Z. Alpine Journal. Tripp and Acland went up as far as Forest Creek in September, 1855, and in March, 1856, explored the Ashburton and crossed over to the Rangitata, passing the lakes which are named after them. This time they got as far as the mouth of the Potts. After that the business of starting their stations, and visits to England, prevented any more exploration until 1860, except that Acland and his halfcaste henchman, Abner Clough, once went as far as Mesopotamia. While they were examining the bush there, a violent sou'-wester came and Abner built a V-hut to shelter them. Some years afterwards Edward Jollie came across it while surveying up there, and thought he had discovered Maori remains.
In 1860, Tripp heard from the Maoris that above Cloudy Peak the Rangitata opened out on to a large plain. They had probably confused the country there with the Mackenzie Country, but Tripp and Acland and Charles Harper went to see. They reached the mouth of the Lawrence and camped in some bush where McRae's homestead was afterwards built. Next day they went up the Lawrence as far as horses could go (seven or eight miles) and came in sight of some of the small glaciers. They realised they were on the wrong track for the 'open plain,' so turned back and went up the Clyde. They went up the Clyde until they found the river bed was nearly three thousand feet above sea level, in a narrow valley with high mountains on each side, and decided there could be no open plain. It was May 20th, the nights were getting very cold, they were running short of tucker, and had no chance of getting more of it nearer than Mt. Peel, fifty miles away, so they turned back.
In 1861, Samuel Butler settled at Mesopotamia. He was fond of climbing, but seems to have been keener on getting to the tops of the hills than to the sources of the rivers. Acland made several more expeditions during the early 'sixties, taking various people with him, but it was not until the autumn of 1865 that Chudleigh, Tom Acland, and Bell (who had by then settled at Stronechrubie) got to the head of both branches of the Clyde and they were probably the first people actually to get on to the ice there.
Upper Lake Heron
(
Runs 175, 314, 328, 386, and 398)
This station joins Clent Hills at the east side of Lake Heron and takes in the lower country between the lake and the Palmer Range. It also runs from the Cameron and the Lake Stream to the head of the Rakaia. It is usually called the Top Lake, or Big Lake Heron, to distinguish it from Dunbar's station at the eastern end of the lake, which is also called Lake Heron. It was originally worked in two or three separate stations by different owners.
Run 175, the low country round the present homestead and for some way down the Lake Stream, was taken up by Dudley and Leach, the owners of Snowdon, in April, 1857. I described Leach's, Potts's, and Phillips's exploration of it when I wrote about Hakatere. Leach stocked this run and Run 174, which afterwards became part of Clent Hills, with cattle from Snowdon.
I do not know who took up Run 314, which included the hills to the east of Run 175. The earliest owner I can find is Francis Polhill, who had it in 1865, but he was certainly not the first. Run 328 was taken up by Captain Harding on May 2nd, 1860. Run 386 was taken up by G. L. Mellish in August, 1860, and Run 398 by Samuel Butler on February 14th, 1861. Butler did not stock his run, but sold it very soon to H. J. Washbourn, whose homestead was at Washbourn's creek. The lease, however, was not officially transferred until January, 1867. Washbourn had another station on the Selwyn. I think his son lived at Lake Heron.
Dudley and Leach sold their run to Captain Harding in 1860, about the time he took up Run 328. In 1862 Harding also bought Mellish's run. I do not know how long Harding kept the runs, but they all belonged to F. Polhill in 1865, though Washbourn was still working his part of the country.
On May 4th, 1866, Polhill's runs were transferred to the Trust and Agency Company for security, but Polhill, as is shown by the sheep returns, owned the station until 1883, when he sold it to A. E. Merewether, who came from Otago. Merewether was a dentist, I believe, by profession. Polhill had bought out Washbourn some time in the late 'sixties or 'seventies.
Some time in the late 'eighties Dalgety 8c Company took over the station from Merewether (who afterwards lived in Wellington) and they sold it two or three years later to Vernon Musgrave, who had been a partner of Hope's at Richmond in the Mackenzie Country.
I have described most of the early owners elsewhere. G. L. Mellish was born in Jersey in 1834. He was educated at Pembroke College, Oxford, and rowed No. 7 in the University boat in 1854 when they beat Cambridge. He then joined the Army and had a commission in the old 44th Regiment in which he served in the trenches before Sebastopol. In 1857 he left the Army and came to Adelaide, where he spent a year, then came on to Canterbury. He had bad luck with his station and I suppose the great snowstorm of 1862 finished him. In 1863 he went to Auckland and joined the 4th Waikato Militia with the rank of captain. He commanded the camp at Onehunga and afterwards Galloway's Redoubt. In 1865 he was appointed resident Magistrate at Picton and in 1868 was transferred to Kaiapoi. On Bowen's resignation in 1874 he became Resident Magistrate in Christchurch, and held this appointment when he died, in December, 1881.
Polhill was born in 1834 and came out to Adelaide as quite a young man, and worked there in the office of his uncle, Henry Gilbert, a lawyer. The Gilberts were among the leading pioneers of South Australia. Polhill came to New Zealand in 1857 and joined Marchant at Double Corner as soon as he arrived. After he sold Lake Heron he rented the Ringwood freehold from Mrs Greenwood, then took another farm near Ashburton. From there he went to Loburn while he managed for Dalgety & Company for some years. When he left Lowburn he retired and lived in Christchurch, and died there in December, 1910.
About 1898 Musgrave sold the station to C. H. Lascelles and went to the Argentine, where he did very well. He died in England about 1928. All the time Musgrave had Lake Heron, William Douglas was his overseer or manager.
Lascelles died a few years after he bought Lake Heron, but his executors worked it until 1917, when they sold it to Montgomery and Todhunter. Louis Wood was manager for Lascelles' executors.
Montgomery and Todhunter dissolved partnership in 1921, when Robert Todhunter, the present owner, took over Lake Heron.
Lower Lake Heron
(
Runs 249 and 279)
I think this station should properly be called Lake Heron, and the Upper Lake Heron Station should be the Lake; that is the way their wool is branded. But for many years Lower Lake Heron was known as Dunbar's, and Lake Heron came to mean the Upper Station. Nowadays people speak of them as the Top Lake and Little Lake, or as Upper and Lower Lake Heron, so I have used those names to prevent confusion.
Lower Lake Heron joins Clent Hills at the lake flat, and from there takes in the country between the Ashburton River and the Cameron Creek. It runs back to Mt. Arrowsmith.
Run 249, of ten thousand acres, was taken up by Captain Harding on May 1st, 1858, but Harding transferred it unstocked to A. Olliver almost at once. Run 279 was taken up on November 1st, 1858, but whether by Harding or Olliver I do not know. Olliver built the homestead where it stands now, but sold the station, I believe, within a few years to a man named Seymour, from whom W. C. and A. J. Walker bought it about 1862, though the leases remained in Olliver's name until 1869, when they were reissued to Walker Brothers in W. C. Walker's name. The Walkers engaged Johnstone at Home to come out to New Zealand as their manager. He arrived in 1863 with his family—one of them was the present T. S. Johnstone, who probably knows the Ashburton Gorge better than any other man living.T. S. Johnstone died in 1936.
The Walkers sold Lake Heron to Captain George Scott, who was an Englishman, but had been a captain in the American Civil War. Scott's manager was Alexander Urquhart, the father of the present owner.
Scott came to grief in the 'seventies, and in 1878 Miles, Hassell and Co. took over the station. Scott went to Australia. Some time afterwards his brother, an admiral in the British service, died and left him money, but before he could be traced he had himself died in poverty.
Miles and Co. kept Lake Heron until 1884, when they sold it to Dunbar Brothers, and in 1886 Peter Dunbar bought out his brother. He sold the station about 1902 to James McGregor. After he left Lake Heron Peter Dunbar had a grazing run on the Highfield Estate at Waiau. His brother, I think, managed Woodstock in the late 'eighties. In 1905 McGregor sold out to A. R. C. Kilian. The lease ran out in 1911, and Kilian, who also owned Clent Hills at that time, could not go in for it again. It was put up to ballot, and H. Feary drew it, and bought Kilian's freehold and improvements.
Feary sold Lake Heron to Maurice Harper in 1915, and Harper sold it to the present owner, Colin Urquhart, in 1926.
They used to keep a sailing boat on the lake, and once, when one of the owners had a friend from Christchurch staying with him, after a very good lunch indeed, he took him for a sail. The owner fell overboard, but the friend, though he couldn't handle a boat, managed to turn it round, and fish him out with the boat-hook. 'Are you wet? 'asked his friend kindly —which nearly led to his murder.
I have described all the early owners in other articles except A. Olliver and Seymour, whom I cannot identify.
Clent Hills
(
Runs 174, 262, 298, and 377)
The four runs which made up Clent Hills contained over fifty thousand acres altogether. The country lay on the north bank of the Ashburton, and ran from the Stour Creek to Lake Heron. It took in the Old Man Range.
In January, 1857, Tripp and Acland, who had Mt. Somers at that time 'discussed the propriety of securing the country above ours for our man Smith' (to whom they afterwards leased Orari Gorge), but they do not seem to have applied for it, and F. G. P. Leach took up Run 174 for himself and his partner, John Dudley, in the following April. Run 262 was taken up in May, 1858, Run 298 in May, 1859, and Run 377 in May, 1860.
Leach stocked the country with cattle. His stockman in charge was a man known as 'Gentleman Smith.' This 'Gentleman Smith 'was a noted practical joker. One night Dean Jacobs caught him ringing the St. Michael's bell and started to conduct him to the Police Station, but as they passed his house Smith asked him if he did not live there. The Dean said 'Yes,' so Smith pushed him in and fastened the door, and ran back to the Royal Hotel to tell his friends what fun he had had. Smith's friends advised him to get back to Clent Hills at once or he would get into trouble. He went, but the Dean obtained the arrest of one Packard who looked rather like Smith, and wore the same kind of Napoleon boots and cord breeches. Packard had no trouble in proving an alibi, and got the Dean into trouble for frivolous and unjustifiable arrest. Leach sold the runs to Thomas Rowley very soon after he got them—I think at least as early as 1859. Rowley was the first man I have heard of who put up wire fences in the back country. He began subdividing his flats with them in 1863.
It was about 1863 also that the runholders in the Ashburton Gorge arranged to bring the mails up from Ashburton once a week in turn, instead of sending them on from station to station by chance travellers. Booth's Five Years in New Zealand recounts an accident that happened to an old Irish station hand of Rowleys while he was carrying them. He was riding an old horse called Dan, a noted buckjumper in his day, and had the mail bags and odd parcels tied all round his saddle. His dog routed out a wild cat and chased it. The flat was quite bare, with no trees or scrub nearer than the riverbed, half a mile away, and the cat, finding the dog was catching her, doubled and ran up Dan's leg and held on to his rump by her claws, which started him bucking. First the man went off, then the mails and parcels, then the saddle, and lastly the cat. When he was free Dan bolted for his life, the cat after him, and the dog after the cat, and the man was left to watch them disappear.
'Pat had over ten miles to travel and carry the bags and parcels as best he could, and return next day for the saddle. The story of how the cat robbed Her Majesty's mail was long laughed over on the Ashburton, and Paddy was unmercifully chaffed for his part in the performance.'
As a matter of fact it was not rare for wild cats to run up horses' legs when dogs chased them on the open plains. John James Thomson saw the same thing happen to Benjamin Dowling when he was riding with him at Heslerton, and my father told me that it once happened to him also at Heslerton.
Rowley sold Clent Hills about 1865 to Robert Tooth, who also owned Alford Station in the Ashburton Forks, but the Tooths and Rowleys were mixed up together in business in those days, and Tooth may have been his partner before that. Tooth died and his nephew, Frederick Tooth, took over his stations. In 1879 Frederick Tooth sold Clent Hills for £10,000 to A. E. Peache, of Mt. Somers. It had cost his uncle £27,000. It carried over 16,000 sheep.
In April, 1885, Peache sold the station for £11,750 to Thomas Harrison, who took his brother James into partnership shortly afterwards.
In those days the homestead was on Rural Section 34,529 on the flat near Lake Heron, and there Thomas Harrison lived, but James Harrison built himself a new homestead at the Stour Creek. The sheep were still worked from the old homestead. In 1898 James Harrison bought his brother's share in the station.
Thomas Harrison had bought Hackthorne, on the Hinds, before selling out of Clent Hills. In 1905 he sold Hackthorne and in 1906 bought the Linton Downs Station near Kaikoura. He sold Linton Downs to the Government for closer settlement about 1912. He then retired.
In 1908 James Harrison sold Clent Hills to A. R. C. Kilian, of Lake Heron. Harrison retired and lived in Christchurch, where he died in March, 1917. He bought a small place near Amberley which his son, John Harrison, managed. Kilian kept the station until just before the 1914-18 war, when he sold it to the present owner, Lieutenant-Colonel R. B. Neill, who renamed it Barrosa. Neill moved the working buildings down to the Stour and the old homestead has been abandoned except as an outstation.
After the 1914-18 war the Government resumed the Old Man Range country (about half the run) and settled a returned soldier on it, and I think this is now known as Clent Hills.
I have already written accounts of all the early owners except Peache, who is more closely identified with Mt. Somers. Thomas D. Bellett was a cadet and afterwards managed Clent Hills until Rowley sold it. Bellett was the son of an English parson who was rector of Bridgenorth where he was born in April, 1839. He left England in 1857. He went to Clent Hills when he arrived, though I believe he bought land elsewhere. When he became manager he had a share in the station. When Rowley sold Clent Hills Bellett went to Hamilton Station which Rowley owned in partnership with Captain Hamilton, and Bellett had a share in that also. He also managed Mt. Fourpeaks for some years. From 1884 until 1889 he managed the Kyeburn Station in Central Otago for Scobie Mackenzie, and then went back to Hamilton and stayed there till it was cut up. About 1901 he joined the Land Transfer Office and was posted to Wellington. He was superannuated about 1910 and died at Karori in November, 1925.
Laurence Kennaway brings him into Crusts, but of course mixes up his name and appearance. I believe he was noticeably short.
Double Hill
(
Runs 272, 291, 352, 428, 435-6-7, 446, 459, 460)
Double Hill lay on the south bank of the Rakaia, and took in the country from Terrible Gully, where it joined Blackford, up to the Lake Stream, where it joined Upper Lake Heron.
Colonel Alexander Lean took up Runs 272 and 291, which lay round the homestead and also took in the front part of what is now Glenfalloch. The printed run lists give the dates as September, 1858, and February, 1859, but there is a manuscript memorandum in the Christchurch Public Library, which states that both runs were allotted to Lean on May 2nd, 1860. Run 352 was allotted to Archdeacon Mathias on May 3rd, 1860. The other Double Hill Runs were allotted at various times until February, 1863, when Run 460 was allotted, but I cannot find to whom.
About 1861 the Worsley brothers started a small station known as Redcliff I think this included Run 352 (which they must have bought from Archdeacon Mathias) and Run 459, which was not allotted until 1863.
I mentioned Lean as the first man to stock Mt. Hutt Station.
At the end of 1863 Joseph Palmer bought Lean's and the Worsleys' parts of Double Hill, and he appears to have bought up the other runs on it as soon as he could. In 1865 they were all in his name except Run 428, which belonged to W. Turton, and Runs 435-6-7, which belonged to W. D. Barnard. By 1866 Palmer had bought those four runs also. Turton and Barnard were probably the original owners of them.
Barnard was the owner of 'W. D. Barnard's Horse Repository' (afterwards Tattersalls), and a tavern next to it called 'The Blighted Cabbage.' Barnard eventually got in some money trouble and left the country. For a time Barnard and Turton worked their runs in a partnership which was soon dissolved. 'Barnard's Country' and 'Turton's Country 'are still names in use at Double Hill.
Turton was William Turton, who first kept the accommodation house at Ashburton. His three sons were afterwards well known station managers in Canterbury and Marlborough. One of them retired from the management of Peel Forest a few years ago. Melville Turton, of Alford Station, is William Turton's grandson. Palmer came down from Melbourne to manage the Union Bank in Lyttelton in January, 1856, and afterwards managed the Christchurch branch until he retired in December, 1890. He died in Christchurch in August, 1914, aged 84. He was one of the ablest bankers we ever had in New Zealand. In his time bank managers were not tied to their boards of directors so tightly as they are now, and he was never afraid to act on his own responsibility.
Nearly all the time Palmer owned Douglas Hill his manager was Robert Mackay, a well-known sheepman in Canterbury in his day. Mackay was born at Rogart in Sutherlandshire in 1839, and arrived at Lyttelton with his young wife in the ship Brother's Pride in December, 1863, just about the time Palmer was taking delivery of Double Hill. When he landed, Palmer engaged him for Double Hill as shepherd at Redcliff. the lower end of the run, and in 1869 made him manager of the whole station, and he moved to the main homestead. In those 'days Double Hill was still in the pioneering stage and worked partly as a cattle station.
It was Mackay who knocked the station into shape, and he had his full share of the rough work of those days. Besides the ordinary work of sheep and cattle mustering, before the days of huts, he ploughed the first paddocks at Double Hill, laid out and planted the first garden, and made most of his own furniture out of bush timber. There were not many women up country then, and Mrs Mackay was once two years without seeing one, and of course had to educate her young family herself. However, trust a Scotchman to supply books and education. Their daughter, Miss Jessie Mackay, the poetess and writer, had the first nine years of her education there.
Mackay explored the Manuka Point country across the Rakaia, and recommended it to Palmer, who got a pasturage license for it.
Palmer sold Double Hill to William Gerard in 1874 (though the license was not transferred until 1877). Mackay gave delivery of the station to Gerard, and being tired of the back country was some time afterwards appointed by Hoare Brothers, the London bankers, to manage their Raincliff Station in South Canterbury. Here he established a successful stud of merino sheep, selecting the foundation from Gibson's flock in Tasmania. He also carried out an enormous scheme of plantations, some of them now taken over by the Forestry Board. He managed and afterwards supervised Raincliff until the Hoares sold it in 1896, also supervised the Opuha Gorge Station, of which he was a trustee. Bad times in the late 'nineties lost him his own farm, Trentham, near Fairlie, so that in 1904 he started life again by taking over the management of William Aker's large properties at Linton, in the Manawatu. Here for ten years he lived a pioneer life again, fighting floods, starting a flax industry, and negotiating Maori leases. He spent the last ten years of a useful life at Palmerston North, none the worse for all his privations, except for a slight deafness caused by sleeping out in the snow in 1864. He died at Palmerston North in June, 1924. One of his sons still manages what the Akers have left of their estate.
William Gerard kept Double Hill until his death in 1897, when his son George Gerard took it over. In those days it carried, with Manuka Point, over 40,000 sheep.
Murdo McLeod came to Double Hill as a shepherd in 1875 and was soon afterwards made manager. He stayed until 1894 and afterwards went up for many years to manage the shed. He was succeeded by one McDonald who left after the 1895 winter. Next came Alfred Cummings who was also supervisor of all Gerard's stations. He left in 1899 and went farming, and died in the North Island about 1928. From 1899 to 1907 William Logan both managed Double Hill and supervised the other stations. George Taylor was manager in 1907 and 1908, and after him came G. Leslie Nell, who stayed until the station was cut up in 1912.
The leases ran out in 1911 and Double Hill was cut into four. George Gerard was allowed the run next Redcliff (now known as Glenrock) which he worked with the freehold. The other three were ballotted for. The top run, Glenfalloch, was drawn by C. T. Jessop and now belongs to James Todhunter. In 1916 Hugh Ensor bought the Double Hill homestead block, and J. D. McCracken, his brother-in-law, bought Glenarraffe. In 1917 P. McCracken bought the Glenrock leasehold and Hugh Ensor and J. D. McCracken bought the freehold in partnership, so that, except Glenfalloch, all Double Hill came under one en-mentmanagement again. Hugh Ensor died in July, 1943, and the station is again divided in three amongst the family.
I always try to enliven these accounts of stations with the story of something tragic or comic which has happened on almost all of them. The only story that I have heard connected with Double Hill is that a man was once in a very great hurry to get there from Methven. He rode so fast that he set fire to the country. It was a dry summer, and his horse struck a flint which started a serious fire in a paddock called the Irishman. The paddock is still called the Irishman, though there is hardly an Irishman scrub bush left in it now.
The original owner, Colonel Alexander Lean, was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1824. He came to Canterbury with his wife in the ship Fatima and brought some thousands of pounds capital with him. He was an architect, and among other good buildings in Christchurch, built the Supreme Court. In the early days he lived at Riverlaw at Opawa, which he sold to Murray Aynsley, as well as Mt. Hutt Station, which he also owned. Lean played many parts. After selling Mt. Hutt and Double Hill he had a large property near Methven which he called Lyndhurst (it gave its name to the district), and he was Steward of Government Reserves, Public Trustee, Sheriff, Commander of the Canterbury Volunteers, and founder and first honorary conductor of the Christchurch Orchestral Society. He died in Christchurch in 1893.
Blackford
(
Runs 201, 264, and later 329)
Blackford took in the country between the Rakaia and the north branch of the Ashburton. It ran from the foot of the hills back to Terrible Gully and the Swift Creek. It included the actual hill called Mt. Hutt.
Thomas Williamson Hall took it up. He obtained the license for Run 201 on July 20th, 1857, and Run 264 in June, 1858. He had 4000 sheep on the south bank of the Rakaia as early as 1856, so he must have occupied the country before he got the license. He sold the station to Henry and Albert Gray about 1859.
Hall was an elder brother of Sir John Hall. He had commanded a merchant ship before he came to New Zealand. He and another brother came to New Zealand in a ship, with Marmaduke Dixon, which I believe took fire on the voyage and they had to take to the boats for a time. The Hall brothers had several runs on the south side of the Rakaia in the early 'fifties. After T. W. Hall sold Blackford he farmed in various places until his death, not many years before the 1914-18 war, at Invercargill.
The Grays called the station Mt. Hutt, because Mt. Hutt was on the run, but that name was afterwards applied to Colonel Lean's station on the plain in front of it. They had a lot of trouble with tutu when they first went there, but the run was beautifully grassed with wild anise and other herbage, so that the mutton there was supposed to be particularly well-flavoured. Albert Gray, who was still living in England in 1931, was good enough to send me some notes on his early life in New Zealand. He writes: 'On the Mt. Hutt run five of us ate 1001b of meat a week, or about 87 sixtypound wethers per annum. At that time we had no potatoes or other vegetables. When these came our meat consumption went down to about 601b per week. One never saw at that time either milk, butter, or cheese at any up-country station. It was not that we had no cows, but no enclosure to keep them…
'On one of my journeys from the Rakaia Gorge I met near Hororata John Studholme, recently married. He asked me to lunch. Roast lamb was offered me. I had never before seen lamb eaten in New Zealand. I suppose my astonishment was written on my face. Studholme was apologetic and explained that his wife liked to have roast lamb occasionally. I could see that his conscience was uneasy about it, and well it might be. To eat a lamb which at that time without further expense would grow into a sheep and moreover give one or two fleeces of valuable wool, was to flout all correct ideas of economy. This came of matrimony. I cannot positively assert that lamb had never before been eaten in Canterbury (there was one other recently married squatter), but I can say that I had never seen it eaten, nor ever heard of such a thing.'
In the Grays' time, in 1862, Robert Park, surveyed the Upper Rakaia. Whilst in camp somewhere on Double Hill, Park sent a cadet he had with him to take letters back to Winchmore, his station on the plains near Ashburton. It was not a long journey, but after a week the boy had not returned and Park got anxious and sent a man down the river to see what had happened to him. The man found that he had never even reached Blackford, where he had been told to stay the first night, and so Gray sent men to look for him in every direction, but they could find no trace of him. About a week afterwards a shepherd of Gray's went down the almost perpendicular bank of the Rakaia after some sheep and found the boy's body. Near it was lying his pocket book in which he kept a diary almost up to the time he died. He had slipped and rolled down the bank and broken a leg. He was in a place where no one was likely to go once in six months, and the roar of the river prevented anyone hearing his calls. He had lived five days and tried to drag himself to the water, but died of thirst and exhaustion within a few yards of it. The last lines of the diary were very faint and illegible, but he had written something about 'thirsty' and ' water.' The boy's name was Charles Edward Stewart. It may be worth noting that Booth, who gave a graphic account of the accident in Five Years in New Zealand, wrongly gives his name as Parker.
Henry and Albert Gray were sons of a parson who lived near Castle Carey (Wheathill was his parish). They left England in 1855, at the ages of 17 and 16, in the barque Oriental, of 600 tons, Captain Macey, three mates, and about six men. They came to their brother, the Hon. Ernest Gray, who had arrived in 1851 or 1852, and had been a cadet with Michael John Burke at Halswell. Albert Gray writes: 'On the way down the Thames the second mate became violently drunk, was overpowered and put ashore. This left us with only the captain and one mate, as the third mate was not a sailor, but taken on board to comply with shipping regulations. His duty was to serve out stores to the emigrant passengers.'
They arrived in Auckland in February, 1856, and the crew promptly deserted and bolted to the Australian diggings. Trouble with wharf labourers and getting a new crew kept them six weeks in Auckland, and then the voyage from Auckland to Lyttelton took three weeks. At Smart's Hotel in Christchurch among other early Canterbury settlers, they met an inveterate punster who 'on the appointment of the first scab inspector …suggested that this unpleasant name should be changed to Acarite (accurate) Observer—not so bad if 'Acarite 'is the right name for the scab insect. We went on with bullock dray and stores to the Rangitata Run (Coldstream), where Edward Gray was already established, being delayed for a week by a big flood in the Rakaia.'
On the Rangitata they learnt the settler's various jobs, 'bullock driving, shepherding, stock riding, building stock and sheepyards, sod wall fencing, etc. Some of the sod walling of 74 years ago exists, I believe, to this day. The station cook on being paid his year's wages left without notice, and the lot fell to me to be cook for a few months. The cook was also baker, butcher, splitter, and chopper of wood for the fire, and generally handy-man in the sheepyards.'
After a year or two with their brother, Henry and Albert started a farm near Christchurch, but let this in small holdings not long afterwards, and bought Blackford. They sold Blackford in 1865 to John Lewis Coster and Edward Stafford Coster. The leases were held in J. L. Coster's name, but E. S. Coster was the brother who lived on the station and managed it. The other managed the Bank of New Zealand.
The Grays returned to mixed farming. They bought a large block of land in the Kowai Forks, where Grays Road is named after them, and went in mostly for cattle and long wool sheep. They grew rape and purple-topped mammoth turnips for feed, but while here Albert Gray accidentally discovered the benefit of what is now known as 'intensive grazing.'
He writes: 'A railway cut off twenty-two acres from a very large field of grass. Whenever the grass in this small piece grew to a few inches high, I put on 2000 sheep to eat it down, and then removed the stock until about two inches had grown again. In a short time I noticed a great improvement in the grass. In a year or two it was carrying more than double the stock it had carried before…. I sold the farm shortly after, and that twenty-two acres fetched at auction just double the price per acre of the land around it. This differed only from the new system of " intensive grazing " in the fact that no top-dressing or any artificial manures were used.'
Henry Gray also owned, at various times, Judge Gresson's property at Woodend, Avonhead, and Otahuna (then called Greycliffe). In 1899, being doubtful of the Government's attitude towards the landowners, he went to South Africa, which did not appeal to him, and then to the Argentine, where he bought an estancia of about twenty thousand acres, and sent for Wyndham, his youngest son, to take charge of it. They cleared out the sheep, and improved the cattle, and the investment turned out a most fortunate one. His elder son was in the South Wales Borderers, and was killed while leading an attack on Gallipoli.
Albert Gray left New Zealand in 1882, and though he has travelled extensively, has never been out here since.He died since this article was written, aged over 90.
To return to the Costers, about 1867 they bought Run 329 from Cridland, who then owned Spaxton, and joined it to Blackford, which they, by the way, named after a village in the west of England, if I remember rightly.
Coster Brothers sold the Blackford freehold to John Holmes in 1889, but transferred the leasehold country to their manager, Alexander McLennan, who took Cameron into partnership. Cameron afterwards sold his share to Syme. McLennan and Syme worked the run from the Glen, a farm near Pudding Hill. After selling Blackford, E. S. Coster lived at the Gums at Ashburton. I think his brother had died before the station was sold.
Alexander McLennan, the managing partner, was badly frost-bitten when working in the snow, and lost both his feet, but he carried on the station and used to ride all over the high country until about 1902, when Hamish McLean, of Mt. Hutt, took over the leasehold which has since then remained part of Mt. Hutt Station. His brother Donald bought the Blackford freehold (of over four thousand acres) from Holmes. This he cut up in 1908, when James Poff, of Methven, bought the homestead block. This passed through one or two hands before Montgomery and Todhunter bought it and another block about 1914. Todhunter bought out Montgomery in 1921, and now has about three thousand acres there which he uses as a stud sheep farm and as a wintering place for his Lake Heron sheep.
Hamish McLean bought the Blackford leasehold from McLennan about the same time that Donald McLean bought the freehold from Holmes. While Donald McLean owned the property, his manager was Augustus Stronach, whom I mentioned when writing of Craigieburn and Castle Hill.
Winterslow
(
Run 414)
The Winterslow country lies behind Alford Forest, among the northern branches of the Ashburton, be-tweenbetween Mt. Somers and Mt. Hutt. It runs back to the Old Man Range, part of which it takes in. It was originally supposed to contain twenty thousand acres, and was taken up in July, 1861. The earliest owner I can trace is Brian W. Taylor, after whom Taylor's Stream is named. He was there in 1863, so was most likely the original owner. Taylor took his brother Isaac into partnership at Winterslow. Another brother, Christopher, had a run in the Rangitata Forks, which he afterwards sold to the Campbells of Mesopotamia.
The Taylors sold Winterslow about the beginning of 1866 to Ivan Rankin Cunningham Colineast Graham (known as 'Alphabetical Graham' on account of his numerous initials). Brian Taylor then went to the Argentine and Isaac bought a small run in the Rangitata from Caton.
Graham was born at Jarbneck, in Dumfries, in 1833. He was educated at Peebles and at a German University, and entered the Commissariat Service in 1855, joining it at Scutari, in the Crimea. He afterwards served in Jamaica, and came to New Zealand for the Maori War. He was quartered chiefly at Wanganui where he let many contracts for supplies to John Grigg. Standish was Grigg's head stockman there, as afterwards at Longbeach. After the war Graham sold his commission and bought a two thousand acre farm near Longbeach, as well as Winterslow.
About 1890 Graham passed the station over to one of the finance companies and retired to live at Ashburton, where he died in 1903.
About 1891 the company sold Winterslow to a man named Dove, who had been managing Ben Ohau for Goldsborough Mort. Dove only lasted about two years and in 1893 or 1894 the company took the station back and resold it. Dove afterwards lived at Mosgiel, where he died, I think, in 1934.
The new owner was Donald Cameron, who was a cousin of Cameron of Springfield. He had been manager of Mt. Possession. Cameron's purchase was one of the best bargains ever made in station property. He bought the run and about 8000 sheep for £1100. The homestead and station buildings were on a detached piece of freehold in front of Alford Forest, and not being overburdened with cash Cameron bought only the house and a small piece of freehold, which he afterwards said was a great mistake. He built a new woolshed on the run, which is separated from the homestead by a bridle-track, so that the wool has to be packed out in hundred-pound bales, but it is only three or four miles, and when the wool is out it is practically at the railway.
Cameron sold Winterslow in 1903 or 1904 to Charles Overton, of Swannanoa, who appointed Frank Pawson to manage it. In 1906 Overton sold the station to H. W. Phillips, a grandson of the first owner of Rockwood, but took it back after three years. His manager from this time onwards was his son Guy. About 1910 he sold the station again, this time to Colin Urquhart and William Logan, who had both been with the Gerards at Snowdon and Double Hill. Urquhart managed Winterslow until 1920, when he and Logan dissolved partnership, and Logan bought this station, Urquhart buying their other place, Bagdad. Logan died a few years later, and Winterslow was carried on by his executors until 1940, when it was taken over by his sons, John, who manages it, and William.
Charles Cran, now of Bayfields, managed Winterslow for the executors from 1930 to 1932, and Rowland Hill from 1932 till 1937. Since 1937 the Logans have managed it themselves. Cran acted as supervisor for the executors from 1932 until the sons took the station over.
Note1945.—The Logans abandoned Winterslow after the autumn muster in 1944, and later in the year R. W. Whightmantook the country up again.
Mt. Somers
(
Runs 44, 182, 391 and 415)
Roughly speaking, Mt. Somers took in the mountain after which it is named, and the downs at the foot of it. It joined Buccleugh on the plain and ran up the Ashburton as far as the Stour, where it joined Clent Hills. It joined Winterslow at the back of the Alford Forest.
Run 44 was taken up by Tripp and Acland in July, 1856, Run 182 in April, 1857, Run 391 in December, 1860, and Run 415, I think, early in 1861. Tripp chose the site for the homestead in April, 1857, and in May Parlby, who afterwards kept the accommodation house at the Selwyn, arrived with the first sheep, which came from one of Charles Torlesse's stations in North Canterbury. A man named Hawkins took charge of the sheep on the station.
When Tripp and Acland dissolved partnership in 1861, Mt. Somers fell to Tripp's share, and he went to live there when he left Mt. Peel that November, but he sold it after a year to his brother-in-law, Charles Percy Cox.
Soon after he bought the station Cox abandoned Run 415 as it was then a wretched piece of country at the back of Mt. Somers, nearly all bush and scrub. This was taken up again on August 1st, 1867, by Edward Reece, who sent Robert Staveley there to manage it. Staveley named it 'The Tip Top Station,' but Reece abandoned it again after a year, so it is notable both as being the shortest-lived of all Canterbury stations, and for having the silliest name. While Staveley was there he destroyed a good part of Alford Forest by a summer fire he was suspected to have lighted on purpose, and he probably had, as he disappeared mysteriously soon afterwards. Staveley village is named after him. He had a farm there at one time. In 1865 he was Captain McLean's bullock-driver at Buccleugh. He was 'reported to be a good scholar and was of massive build and merry disposition,' and I have heard him called Captain Staveley, so he had probably been at sea. There was a Robert Staveley, third mate of the Mary Ann, an emigrant ship which came to Canterbury in 1859.
As a matter of fact Staveley's fire improved the country and it was taken up again in the 'seventies. T. E. McRae worked it for many years, and I believe he called it Staveley, though when the runs were advertised for lease in 1889 I remember that the Government called it McRae's Station.
It was re-numbered 103. In 1909 McRae sold it to William Sparks, of Halswell, who sold it in 1912 to one McLennan, from South Canterbury. McLennan's brother was grazing a mob of sheep there when the Bowyer came down in flood and drowned most of them. In 1913 Thomas Rutherford took it and worked it for a few years, then sold it to the present owner, J. M. Burgess.
Cox had a partner called Fielden for the first year or two at Mt. Somers but bought him out. He sold the station to Alfred Edward Peache in June, 1876.
Peache died in 1906 and since then the station has been carried on by his executors. Frank Pawson managed it from 1906 until 1912, when he was succeeded by the present manager, John Morgan, formerly manager of Mesopotamia and Lake Coleridge. Peache always managed Mt. Somers and Clent Hills, his other station, himself.
I have given accounts of Tripp, Acland, and Cox when writing of other stations. Peache was born at Downend in England in 1853. He was educated at Haileybury and at Lausanne in Switzerland, and afterwards studied farming at Cirencester and elsewhere in England. He arrived in New Zealand by way of Australia in November, 1875. He was businesslike and progressive and one of the first men to run halfbred sheep on high country. He did a good deal for the Mt. Somers township, and in 1888 opened the Mt. Somers' lime kilns, which did well under his management.
It may be noticed that the number 44 is an early number for a run so far away from Christchurch as Mt. Somers, but the original Run 44 was a part of Easedale Nook, and was either abandoned or united to another run in 1856, when the Land Office used the number again for Mt. Somers.
When I wrote about Holme Station, I said that the old house there was the only one in Canterbury that was supposed to be haunted. I should have excepted the house at Mt. Somers.
The ghost at Holme Station, I understand, was absolutely silent and very seldom seen. The few who saw it described it as a shapeless, clinging form—more like a cloud or a curtain than a man or a woman. It simply made its presence felt. When you were in the room by yourself you suddenly became quite sure that someone else was close behind you, watching you. You might look under the bed and into the cupboards, and find nothing, but could not shake off that feeling that someone was with you.
There was no humbug about the Mt. Somers ghost. You could hear its footsteps as it walked up and down passages. You could hear its solemn raps when it knocked at doors; though when you opened them it had vanished. It was never seen by human eyes. But dogs put up their bristles and growled at it, and nervous people were afraid to stay in the house. Once in the dead of night everyone was awakened in terror, frozen to their beds with horror. The pattering footsteps were more hurried than usual and accompanied by a ghastly clanking of chains. When they lit candles and braced themselves up to open their doors they found that one of the dogs had broken loose and was running up and down stairs dragging his chain after him. Except that time, however, the noises could never be accounted for. Some years ago they suddenly ceased altogether.
Chapter 12
Stations On Banks Peninsula
(
This chapter was written in 1945)
Johannes Andersen in Place Names of Banks Peninsula, and Mrs Woodhouse in George Rhodes of the Levels have so well described Banks Peninsula in general, and the Rhodes brothers' stations in particular, that it may seem unnecessary for me to write any more about them; but to complete my catalogue of the early Canterbury runs I am giving brief accounts of the runs there, largely drawn from Andersen and Mrs Woodhouse's books, both Andersen and Mrs Woodhouse having most kindly allowed me to borrow as much as I wanted. Hay's Earliest Canterbury, The Peraki Log, and Jacobson's Tales of Banks Peninsula and Canterbury, Old and New are also useful sources of Peninsula history.
The acreages I have given for some of Rhodes Brothers' runs differ from the acreages given for them by Mrs Woodhouse. The discrepancy is not due to carelessness but to variations from time to time in the official records. The first records give the areas estimated by the applicants for runs, later one are from 'flying surveys,' and finally they were continually altered by the purchase of freehold and the amalgamation of runs.
It is harder to make the history of the runs on the Peninsula clear than the history of the runs anywhere else in Canterbury. Excepting the barren part of the main range (which is unoccupied to this day), some ' large areas of bush, and the group of small freehold sections within a mile or two of Christchurch, all Canterbury, apart from the Peninsula, before it became settled, was completely occupied by runs adjoining one another. But Banks Peninsula, which was five-sixths covered in bush, was partly settled before the Provincial Government was even thought of, much less had let any runs. So that, on the Peninsula, settlement and the founding of freehold estates went on simultaneously with the first pastoral occupation. Some of the oldest and best-known freehold stations in Canterbury are there, but were never Class III pastoral runs at all, while several pastoral runs were let there after the bush had gone, in the middle 'sixties, long after the rest of Canterbury was occupied. These notes are concerned only with the stations which are derived from the large (Class III) runs.
Rhodes's Cattle Station at Akaroa
(
Part of Run 30, Block II)
This was the first cattle or sheep station in Canterbury —indeed, in the South Island. William Barnard Rhodes, a New South Wales landowner, master mariner and partner in Cooper, Holt and Rhodes, of Sydney, merchants and ship-owners, turned out cattle in November 1839 near where the town of Akaroa is now. Green's Point is named after William Green, whom he left in charge of them. There were in this first shipment about 40 head, mostly cows and heifers; also, I believe, some pigs. I do not think Rhodes at first had a lease from the Maoris, but believed he had bought the land, acreage unspecified, which probably included all the open country about Akaroa and the Kaik; and within the next two or three years Rhodes occupied the open country at Flea Bay, to which there was a natural clearing through the bush from the open country at Akaroa.
Like all early stations in Canterbury before the organised settlement, the station depended for its revenue on the sale of dairy produce and in a small way on beef, potatoes, salt-pork, and so on. Some of this produce was sold to visiting whaling ships and some sent to Wellington. Of course, in spite of low rent and low wages bills, none of these stations can have paid their way. The owners laid up for the future by the increase of their stock.
Green, though more intent on sly-grog selling than on his master's interests, made some success of the station, and in 1843, when Rhodes's brother George came to New Zealand to join him and take charge of the station, the cattle had increased a good deal. The Rhodes brothers soon brought over sheep and more cattle from Australia.
Green left, and started the first licensed hotel in Canterbury. It stood near Green's Point. Rhodes got Israel Rhodes (no relation to the brothers), and William Birdling down from Wellington to help him, and very good men they proved. Israel Rhodes was. married, and George Rhodes sent him and his wife over to start a new dairy station at Flea Bay, or rather at Long Bay, where the first homestead was, while he and Birdling stayed at the old homestead working the rest of the run until 1847, when the Rhodes brothers bought Purau, and George Rhodes and Birdling moved over there. While at Akaroa, George Rhodes lived at what is still known as Red House Bay.
After 1847 the old cattle station seems to have rather faded away, the lower part, I suppose, becoming settled, and the upper part of the run being worked from Flea Bay.
Flea Bay
(
Part of Run 30, Block II)
In January, 1852, the Rhodes brothers got pasturage licenses from the Provincial Government to replace their old leases from the Maoris. Kaituna, Ikoraki, Flea Bay, and the remainder of the old Akaroa Run were all included in Run 30, Kaituna and Ikoraki being called Block I, and Flea Bay and the Akaroa country Block II. The boundary of the Flea Bay and the Akaroa Run went from the head of Stony Bay to the top of Mount Berard, thence down to a point in Akaroa Harbour about a mile south of Onuku Bay, and so back along the seashore to the head of Stony Bay; where the first homestead was built. The whole of Block II contained seven thousand acres.
Israel Rhodes managed the station for Rhodes Brothers chiefly as a cattle and dairy station; but about 1855 he bought a section of his own and built a new homestead in Flea Bay itself, and Rhodes sold him the grazing rights of four thousand acres of the Flea Bay end of the run. A few years later Rhodes Brothers sublet the whole area to Israel Rhodes and Charles Haylock, and in 1866 the license was transferred to them altogether.
Although the lease was in their joint names, Israel and Haylock owned their stock separately. Until 1885 Haylock owned most of the sheep; but from then on they all belonged to Israel Rhodes's two sons, who had by that time succeeded him. In the 'nineties they carried 3500 sheep, and about 1905 divided the property between them. Part of the place remains in the hands of one of his grandsons to this day.
Purau
(
Runs 7, 183, and 330)
Purau station was started by the Greenwood brothers in 1843. I gave some account of the Greenwoods in my notice of Motunau. They were James Dent, Joseph, and Edward, and were farming people from Yorkshire who had come out to the North Island to settle under the old New Zealand Company. Like the Deanses, Hays, and Sinclairs, they did not care for the prospects of settling in the North, and came down to the South Island in 1843. Unlike the others, the Greenwoods did not bring any rights to buy freehold in this island but simply squatted at Purau. The Maoris objected to their squatting but eventually leased them all the land on the south side of Port Cooper and Gebbie's Valley, and back to a line from Kaituna to Port Levy. The yearly rent was 'seven blankets and some printed callico '(value £3 or £4), but was increased to £8 a year on October 1, 1846. Except the Rhodes brothers and perhaps the Deans brothers and the Hays, they were the first people to bring stock to Canterbury. By February, 1844, they had 50 head of cattle and 500 sheep at Purau.
While the Greenwoods were at Purau the station was 'stuck up' by Blue Cap and his gang, our first Canterbury bushrangers; but both Andersen and Hay have described the incident so fully that I need not go into it again.
The Greenwoods decided to move to Motunau, and in 1847 sold Purau to Rhodes Brothers. The deal included the station improvements and most of the stock; but the Greenwoods reserved some horses, cattle and sheep, and took them to Motunau. The price was £1710, which the neighbouring settlers thought cheap.
George Rhodes moved over to Purau from Akaroa and brought William Birdling, afterwards his overseer, with him. In 1850 his brother Robert Heaton Rhodes came to New Zealand and joined George Rhodes at Purau and soon afterwards took over the management of it, when George went to start the Levels station at Timaru. Robert Heaton had been a pioneer squatter in Australia and became the biggest runholder in Canterbury—
'He, the chief of all the squatters
Largest holder of runholders,'
as the Song of the Squatters says. By 1850, Rhodes Brothers had 6500 sheep, 100 head of cattle, and eight horses on their Peninsula runs.
While Captain Thomas, the association's agent, was in Lyttelton preparing for the Canterbury settlement, he employed a great many men, surveyors, carpenters, navvies, Maoris, and so on, and Rhodes Brothers supplied them with mutton from Purau—very poor mut-tonmutton some of it was, Captain Thomas said (according to Mrs Woodhouse's book). But old settlers have told me with admiration that while Rhodes was supplying the early settlement with mutton, he never once missed bringing it across the harbour in his boat, whatever the weather was; so, good or bad, they never had to go without it.
The first license under Provincial Government was issued in November, 1851, but it was cancelled; and in January, 1852, Rhodes Brothers got a new license for five thousand eight hundred acres of Purau (Run 7). The licenses for the higher country about Mount Herbert were not issued until May, 1857, and December, 1859 (Runs 183 and 330—nine thousand five hundred acres altogether). I cannot say why these runs were so long unlet. Perhaps Rhodes's lower country blocked the frontage, or perhaps a new survey showed that Run 7 did not extend as far as was supposed.
After R. H. Rhodes went to live in Christchurch in 1866, James Guild, the manager of Ahuriri, supervised Purau, Kaituna, and Ikoraki. Purau in those days carried 7000 or 8000 sheep; but the sheep from all the Rhodes's other Peninsula stations were shorn there for many years, so there were sometimes up to near 20,000 sheep on it. But anyone interested in Purau can read its full history in George Rhodes of the Levels. Besides the sheep and some cattle, there was a herd of alpacas at Purau. These never mixed with the sheep and always stuck to the part of the run where they had been first turned out. They would not work for a dog; so the shepherds mustered them with stockwhips, like cattle. They were brutes to shear. Their legs had to be tied to stop them kicking and their heads bagged to stop them spitting green slime. The shearers refused to shear them; so the shepherds (or probably more often the manager) had to do them. These alpacas had been imported in 1865 by the Wellington Provincial Government, who lost a good deal of money by them and sold them to Robert Rhodes in 1869. They never increased very much at Purau, though there were a few left until Rhodes Brothers sold the station.
George Rhodes had died in 1864, and in 1874, R. H. Rhodes was an old, sick man in England. W. B. Rhodes had always lived in the North Island. It was decided to wind up the Rhodes brothers' partnership, and W. B. Rhodes sold Purau to H. D. Gardiner for £20,000 as a going concern. I do not know how much freehold there was; but according to the 1879 sheep returns, the station carried 8000 sheep in those days. I believe there were about 1000 cattle and about a dozen or 20 alpacas, which Gardiner promptly sold. Most of the land at Purau is still in the hands of Gardiner's descendants.
Ahuriri
(
Runs 7A
and 206)
Run 7a ran from Cooper's Knobs to a point on the Halswell just east of Tai Tapu (where the Memorial Bridge is), then followed the left bank of the Halswell to the sharp bend about two miles from Lincoln, and on down the river for about seven miles, whence it struck back, to the east of the Gebbie's Pass road to Cooper's Knobs. Run 206 prolonged this triangle, in a strip about a mile wide, to the head of Governor's Bay, Each of these runs originally contained five thousand acres. I cannot say when the station was first started. It was included in the original license given to the Rhodes brothers in November, 1851. The final license for 7a was issued in January, 1852, and that for 206 in August, 1857. The Rhodes brothers probably had stock running on the country before 1850, as it was included in the old Maori lease for Purau. The station was named after the Ahuriri Lagoon.
The Rhodes's first manager at Ahuriri (and probably for Kaituna and Ikoraki as well) was James King, who was a relation by marriage of W. B. Rhodes and who afterwards owned the Otipua Station near Timaru. There were less than 5000 sheep on Ahuriri in 1855, but this was after the Rhodes's had stripped their Peninsula runs to stock the Levels.
After King, James Guild managed Ahuriri for many years and supervised the Rhodes's other Peninsula stations from it. Later a man named Littler, and then Edward Dobson, a brother of Sir Arthur, were managers. Dobson remained until the station was sold, and in the 'nineties I remember him managing Lowcliffe for R. H. Rhodes's executors.
The Rhodes's used the lower Ahuriri country for dairying. Besides the herd at the station, two other herds were run by share milkers on the Halswell. The dry hills on the run carried hoggets from Purau and Kaituna. The sheep were always shorn at Purau.
When the Rhodes's dissolved partnership in 1875, Ahuriri, which had all been made freehold, was sold in blocks, and most of the land, including the homestead, was bought by R. J. P. Fleming of Pigeon Bay, who sold it a year or two later to R. M. Morten. It then carried 7000 sheep. In 1904 Morten handed it over to his son Richard Morten.
In Richard Morten's time the station carried 4500 sheep and about 400 head of cattle, and was noted for the fat cattle it turned off. Richard Morten sold it in 1940 to P. Graham and Son, the present owners.
Of the early owners, I have described the Rhodes's elsewhere. Fleming was a well-known early settler at Port Levy. Morten was born in Buckinghamshire in 1824 and came to Canterbury in 1859. He was owner or part owner of Lochinvar, Mount Pleasant, and of several runs at the head of the Rangitata, and had large city interests, including the United Service block. He died in Christchurch in 1909.
Kaituna
(
Runs 30, Block 1; 324 and 429)
Kaituna, another of the Rhodes brothers' stations, was the largest and most valuable on the Peninsula. The boundary ran from the north-eastern corner of Lake Ellesmere straight to the top of Mount Herbert (where it joined Purau) and down from Mount Herbert almost in a straight line to meet Lake Forsyth a mile above the outlet; then (in theory) across the lake, where it took in several thousand acres on the coast opposite, including Ikoraki and Oashore. Altogether the run contained about twenty-five thousand acres.
Oashore, the country on the east side of the lake, had, Andersen says, more variants of its name than any other place in New Zealand. A stock return for 1885, quoted by Andersen, says that it contained ten thousand acres; but there must be a mistake in this. There is not room there for more than about six thousand acres at most. The Rhodes's got their first license for Run 30 in 1851, and the final license in January, 1852; but I think they had had stock on the country before this.
In November, 1859, Thomas Hodson Parkinson, the Rhodes's manager, took up five thousand acres (Run 329) adjoining Run 30 on the west side of Lake Forsyth, running up towards Little River; and in February, 1862, the Rhodes's took up Run 429—five thousand acres on the foreshore of Lake Ellesmere. This was a very late selection, of course, because the land in it was mostly undrainable swamp, or subject to flooding, and not considered worth paying for in the early days. In the Rhodes's time Kaituna carried 25,000 sheep, which were always taken to Purau to be shorn, and a very large herd of cattle. The Rhodes's made the better part of the land freehold.
In 1875, when Rhodes Brothers dissolved partnership, they sold Kaituna in blocks. A large block near Lake Forsyth was bought by Birdling; but Parkinson bought the homestead, with twelve thousand acres, and some of the leasehold, on which he carried about 9000 sheep. He died in 1883, and between 1883 and 1900 the station was subdivided amongst his sons. The old homestead went to his son Walter, who died in 1940; but the place belongs to his executors, and his widow and his daughter, Mrs L. Coop, still live there.
I do not know who bought the Oashore block; but in the late 'seventies Hugh Buchanan's executors bought it from someone and joined it to Kinloch.
Gebbie's Run
(
Runs 12 and 431)
This is another station started before the Canterbury settlement. It lay between the Purau, Kaituna, and Ahuriri stations and ran right back to Lake Ellesmere. The homestead was on the flat at the head of Lyttelton Harbour, where Teddington is now, and where Captain Thomas at one time proposed to lay out the town of Christchurch.
John Gebbie and Mary, his wife, came to Wellington in 1840 under engagement with William Deans, and moved down with the Deanses when they settled at Riccarton in 1843. By the time he came to Riccarton Gebbie had saved £90 from his wages, and in the summer of 1845, when his engagement expired, he and Samuel Manson, another hand who had come out with the Deanses each hired a 'bowen' of 14 cows from Deans Brothers and settled near the head of Port Cooper. They both rented land from the Maoris. The terms on which they had their cattle were 50/-a year for each cow, and all calves to be reared for the Deans brothers. Gebbie had enough savings also to buy two good cows and a mare outright, and enough money over for about a year's stores. He (and also Manson) did very well from the beginning and would have done better still if, in their first season, a large part of their produce had not gone down with Captain Sinclair in his cutter on the way to Wellington. From 13 cows in milk Gebbie had made 7001b of butter and near 24001b of cheese in the season. At that time butter sold at 1/1½ and cheese at 1/-, but butter soon rose to 1/3. In 1847 Gebbie began sheep-farming as well as dairying. On the arrival of the Canterbury settlers he bought a fifty-acre section of freehold with a small pre-emptive right grazing lease attached to it.
Unfortunately Gebbie died early in 1851, aged 28 or 29, leaving a wife and six children and £1000 worth of property; but with the help and advice of John Deans Mrs Gebbie carried on the station and continued to do well. In his Letters from Canterbury Archdeacon Paul speaks of the Gebbies' 'dairy station famous for producing the best Port Cooper cheese.'
In January, 1852, Mrs Gebbie got a pasturage license for Run 12 of five thousand acres, and in 1862 another for Run 431, on the lake shore, also five thousand acres, but owing to freehold buying, the area of both together had been reduced to seven thousand seven hundred acres in 1864. In the 'seventies and 'eighties the station was carrying some 6000 sheep, and about 1890 the land was divided among the family, some of whom are living on it still.
The name of the homestead is Burnt Hollow; but the station was always known as Gebbie's Run in the old days. My account of John Gebbie is taken from Canterbury Pioneers, edited by John Deans.
Waikoko And The Spit
(
Runs 143, 143A, and 433)
Waikoko did not develop from a Class III run but was a freehold property gradually built up in the old Kaituna Run by William Birdling, who bought his first section there in the early 'fifties and called it Lake View. But as the runs afterwards known as the Spit were worked from it for many years, I include it in my catalogue.
Runs 143, 143a, and 433, each of five thousand acres, were on the bank between Lake Ellesmere and the sea and ran from a line across the bank where Run 143 joined Kaituna, about three miles from the eastern end of the bank, to the outlet at the south-western corner of the lake. I think the Rhodes's Kaituna stock must have grazed it in the early 'fifties.
Who first took these runs up I cannot say, as I have not been able to find the early records of them; but either the Rhodes's or Birdling took up Run 143 in December, 1854. Run 143 was probably assumed to cover the whole spit; and in November, 1858, when there was danger of an outsider taking up the country beyond it, the owner took up another five thousand acres, Run 143a, in order to protect it. Run 433 lay on the lake bed on land often flooded, and was taken up by Birdling and his partner, Joseph Price, who then held the licenses for 143 and 143a, in March, 1862.
There was never any homestead on the Spit, so perhaps it should not be called a station. Both Birdling and Price, who held the licenses in the 'sixties, had large freeholds nearby, and either worked the sheep from Birdling's Station in partnership, or each ran his own sheep on the runs and drafted them when he wished to take them home.
Birdling and Price seem to have been great friends; at least they took up runs across the lake next each other in the early 'fifties.
I learn from Andersen's book that Birdling was engaged by George Rhodes in 1843, starting at £20 a year. He rose to be overseer at Purau and stayed 10 years with Rhodes Brothers. He then bought a small section, the homestead of Waikoko, on what is now called Birdling's Flat. He added to this property until it contained over five thousand acres of freehold, and fifteen thousand of leasehold (much of it bought from Rhodes Brothers when Kaituna was subdivided), and carried over 10,000 sheep at one time. In 1877 Birdling handed the management of his station over to his sons and, after farming in a smaller way for many years, bought the Lansdown homestead near Halswell in 1896 and died there in 1902.
Joseph Price was born at Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1810. When he was 13 he ran away to sea and in the 1830's came to New Zealand as mate of a whaling ship. During the 'forties he was shore-whaling from Ikoraki and elsewhere, and in 1852 he turned to farming. He bought himself a fine estate in Price's Valley, which he called Kelvin Grove, and died in 1901.
Wairewa (Joblin's Run)
(
Runs 518 and 522, afterwards re-numbered 336 and 337, Class II)
These two runs, each of five thousand acres, were among the last of the old Class III pastoral licenses issued in Canterbury. They were taken up by George Russell Joblin in March, 1865. They lay up the Western Valley above Run 324, which they joined on the hill somewhere above the present Lake Forsyth Hotel, or perhaps came down as far as Caton's Bay. Thus they would take in the country from the Kinloch boundary and run back to Mount Fitzgerald and Mount Herbert, and would include all the Western Valley. I suppose they were originally largely covered with bush.
G. R. Joblin, originally a brickmaker, came to New Zealand in 1861. He was a most enterprising and progressive man. He bought many sections in Little River and also started a sawmill in the Western Valley.
By 1865 it probably occurred to Joblin that there was unleased country in and about the bush; hence the late application. He called his run Wairewa after the swamp or perhaps the old Maori settlement there. His house was in the Okuku Valley and was called 'The Pilgrim's Hatch.' It was on the site of T. Lewthwaite's present house.
During the late 'sixties and early' seventies, a lot of land was bought out of his runs, both by Joblin himself and by settlers, sawmillers, and speculators, so that by 1875 the runs had shrunk to the status of small grazing runs, and were re-numbered 336 and 337, Class II. In 1880 Joblin shore over 4000 sheep, and by the end of the 'eighties the sheep had increased to 6000 (as the old bush became grassed, I suppose), but like many other good colonists he was too optimistic and about 1890 the Christchurch Finance Company took over the property.
The company kept the station only tbout two years, and they sold it to the Hon. William Montgomery in 1891. At that time the freehold and remaining leasehold carried 3000 sheep. William Montgomery's son, W. H. Montgomery, still lives at Wairewa, though most of the land has now been sold.
William Montgomery had led an adventurous life before he came to New Zealand. He had gone to sea when very young and at 17 risen to the command of a ship, which he afterwards bought. He went to Australia in 1851, and at one time owned a station on the Darling Downs. He came to New Zealand in 1860 and was engaged in the timber trade before he bought Wairewa. He bought about twelve hundred acres in the Terawera Valley in the 'eighties (now called 'Rocky Peak ') for the timber, which was cut by the Terawera Sawmill Company. Half of it is now sold, and the remainder is owned by his granddaughter, Mrs Latham. He was a very able man and had a distinguished political career in this country, first in the old Provincial Council, afterwards in the House of Representatives, and finally in the Legislative Council. There is an excellent notice of him in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, from which this account of him is largely taken. He died at Wairewa in December, 1914, aged 93.
Kinloch
(
Runs 5 and 110, afterwards re-numbered 549)
As finally constituted, Kinloch ran from the east side of Lake Forsyth to Peraki and Saddle Hill, and back to the Okuku river. For a short time Reid's Hill was worked with it as an outlying block.
Smith and Robinson started this station about the middle of 1850, but whether on a Maori lease or simply on a small freehold section I do not know. The Provincial Government issued their first licenses for it, Run 5 of seven thousand three hundred acres, and Run 110, five thousand acres, in January, 1852.
Henry Smith arrived at Akaroa in the Monarch in April, 1850, and I know nothing more about him except that he was the partner who lived on the station. Charles Barrington Robinson, the first magistrate at Akaroa, had come there in 1840, at the time when Captain Stanley hoisted the British flag and forestalled the French. Robinson bought a good deal of land in Akaroa and Pigeon Bay from 1840 onwards. There are accounts of him in Hay's Earliest Canterbury and the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, so I need say no more about him, except that he sold all his New Zealand property in 1865 and returned to England, where he died in 1899, aged 87.
Smith and Robinson were the first to import purebred shorthorns from England to Canterbury, but did not keep the station long. They sold it early in 1852 to Hugh Buchanan. A few horses and cattle were the only stock on it.
Buchanan named the station Kinloch after Kinloch Mhor, his birthplace in Argyleshire. It is a very suitable name, as, I understand, Kinloch means 'head of the lake 'in Gaelic. Smith's homestead was near the Okuti school (where Anson Hutchison lived afterwards); but Buchanan, who had stocked the run with merino sheep, found it very difficult to get his wool away from there, so in 1852 bought the land at Joseph Price's whaling station at Ikoraki and moved there. In 1864, when the roads had been improved, he moved again to the present site.
Buchanan had been a sheepfarmer in a large way in Scotland before he came (by way of Australia) to New Zealand. Before buying Kinloch he spent some time with Caverhill at Motunau to see something of the country. He was one of the ablest of the squatters of his day, as was afterwards his son Hugh. Before he died, he had made thirteen thousand acres of the best of the run freehold and erected about 65 miles of wire fencing. He was a member of the old Provincial Council from 1866 till 1870. He died in 1877, aged 65. Soon after his death his executors bought Oashore, Rhodes's old run east of Lake Forsyth. On this run, which includes the sites of two old whaling stations, the freehold ran down to low-water mark, which is very unusual in Canterbury.
Buchanan's sons, Hugh D. and John F., went on with Kinloch until 1906, when they sold nearly thirteen thousand acres to the Government for closer settlement. The price was something over £120,000. H. D. Buchanan rented back from the Government his own house and about a thousand acres, while John Buchanan reserved the homestead and several thousand acres of freehold. During his time Kinloch was famous as the home of one of the most valuable thoroughbred studs in New Zealand. Martian was perhaps the best sire he had. He died in England in 1927 but the station still belongs to his executors.
After he left Kinloch, H. D. Buchanan took a large Maori leasehold near Gisborne. His sons have a property at Taihape.
Peraki
(
Runs 52 and 55 —
afterwards united and re-numbered 550)
Taken simply as a place, Peraki has perhaps a more interesting history than any other station in Canterbury. Captain Hemplemann, a Danish whaling skipper, started a shore whaling station there in 1837; so I suppose Peraki has been continuously inhabited by white men longer than any other place in Canterbury. But my business is with sheep and cattle, not whaling. At least four good accounts of Hemplemann have been published—Andersen's perhaps the most judicious and accurate, Jacobson's the fullest, the Piraki Log (being mostly written by Hemplemann himself and his people) the most entertaining, and Hay's the shortest and simplest. Hemplemann did well for a few years, but he was a difficult, domineering man, always in trouble with his men and his agents, and besides, the whales were getting scarcer, and his business faded away.
However, he claimed a legal right to about half Banks Peninsula, which he had bought from the Maoris; but the Government would not recognise his title to it. They offered him two thousand six hundred and fifty acres as compensation, which he refused until it was too late. He went on dreaming of what he believed to be his rights until he died at Akaroa Hospital in 1880, aged 81. He left his claims to his granddaughter, who has not persevered with them, and his diary, or log books, to Justin Aylmer, who passed them on to F. A. Anson, who edited and printed them. The originals are now in the Christchurch Museum. They were all he had to leave.
He fenced in a garden and grew potatoes at Peraki, but otherwise made no use of the land except for cutting bush and for pig hunting and shooting pigeons and kakas. In 1843 his whaling gear and rights were sold, by order of the Court, to Joseph Price of Ikoraki for £52, but I think he stayed on in Peraki for some years, working, I supnose, for Price.
At the end of 1851, John Watson, who had succeeded Robinson as magistrate at Akaroa, bought Rural Section 253, fifty acres, at Peraki, with Hemple-mann's buildings 'at the end of it,' which may mean either that they were just on it or just off.
Watson's cousin, Walter Carew, from Co. Waterford, settled on the section and started a sheep station there. He was allotted Run 52 of five thousand acres in September, 1852. This did not cover all his country; so in September, 1856, he took another five thousand acres, Run 55. In 1865, after a survey, the runs were found to contain between them nine thousand four hundred acres, and were joined and re-numbered Run 550. Carew took his son, Ponsonby Carew, into partnership. They made some of the run freehold, but were improvident, got into low water, and about 1871 sold the station to Captain Hawtry, R.N., who also rented French Farm from the Dicken Trustees. Soon afterwards Hawtry was drowned with all hands while sailing his yacht from one property to the other.
In 1875, Snow and Anson, two young Englishmen, bought Peraki from Hawtry's widow. At that time the station carried only about 3000 sheep, two-thirds of them on freehold; but Snow and Anson tackled the bush in earnest. In 1880 they shore 5000, and by 1886 9000, but this may have been only while the sown bush ground was new. In 1891 Snow sold his share in the station to Anson, who shortly afterwards let or sold the upper part of the valley to a man called Pinckney. After that the flock was always a little over 4000, about a sheep to the acre on the land he had kept, which was all freehold by that time.
In 1905 Anson let the station to A. P. Robinson and went home to England, where he died a few years later. In 1910 the old homestead, a very large house, was burned with all its contents; it was built of timber all milled on the place. In 1912 Harold Piper, of Duvauchelle, bought the property. He died after living there a year or so, and in 1937 his executors sold it to Commander S. Hall, R.N.R., the present owner. It is now (1944) three thousand three hundred acres, and carries 3500 sheep and 400 head of cattle.
Of the early owners, the Carews were typical Irish landowners. They might have walked out of one of Lever's books. They were very fond of horses. Ponsonby Carew kept a stud of thoroughbreds at Peraki, and when the family left Peraki they lived in Christchurch, and one of them kept a livery stable in Oxford Terrace, where the Public Trustee's office is now. Anson once shewed me a hill on the run where he said there was a rock with a pool on it always full of cold, clear water. It was quite inaccessible to stock— even to dogs—but men could get at it easily. He said one of the Carews once had the bright idea of pouring a bottle of whisky into it, so as to have a nice cool drink when he passed it next, while mustering a few days later. But when he went for his drink three days afterwards, he found the pool full of dead birds; it was evidently their drinking place and they had got drunk and fallen in and drowned.
I know nothing of Captain Hawtry, except that the introduction to the Piraki Log says that his father was the Rev. John Hawtry, a famous headmaster of Lower School at Eton.
F. P. Snow was one of the Snows of Oare, a wellknown West Somerset family, as readers of Lorna Doone may remember. When he left Peraki he went to the North Island, where he bought a property.
Frederick A. Anson was a younger brother of Sir William Anson, the well-known M.P. for Oxford University and Warden of All Souls. Fred Anson was educated at Eton and Oxford and was a clever and amusing man. His son succeeded to Sir William Anson's title, but was unluckily drowned soon afterwards while skylarking in a boat on the Thames.
In 1939 a memorial was erected on the foreshore at Peraki, a stone groin surmounted by one of the try-pots used by Hemplemann. It commemorates the centenary of the first whaling station in New Zealand which was established there by Captain Hemplemann.
Wakamoa and Land's End
(
Run 13)
Run 13, of five thousand acres, was on the southwest end of Akaroa Harbour, the landward boundary running from Island Bay over Mount Bossu to a point about a mile south of Wainui. The only other boundary was the sea.
I think this was one of several runs on the peninsula which were taken up as an afterthought, the owners having first settled on smaller sections nearby. Elsewhere in Canterbury, I know of no run which the owner did not take up first as a run, afterwards choosing a place on it for his homestead.
Run 13 was allotted to James Wright and William Lucas on May 1, 1852. Wright, who had served in the Life Guards before he left England, was afterwards known as the Baron of Wakamoa. He had been whaling off the peninsula in the 'forties, and settled at Island Bay as a shore whaler about 1848. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand says that he soon afterwards bought a fifty-acre section at Wakamoa, but Andersen says he did not buy any land there until 1862. I think he probably rented, and afterwards bought, a section which Colonel Muter had bought there in 1850.
Wright and Lucas did not work their run as partners, but each took his own part and ran his own stock. Lucas took the end near the west head and Wright the northern end. They both went in for dairying at first, Wright forming one of the best milking shorthorn herds in the province; but later on both changed over to sheep.
In the middle 'seventies Wright bought Lucas out and Lucas retired and went to Christchurch where he died. Wright eventually made some sixteen hundred acres of his run freehold. On this he carried from 1500 to 2000 sheep. He went on with this property until he died, aged 78, in 1894, and most of the property still belongs to his descendants.
The name Wakamoa is, of course, taken from the bay on which the homestead is situated; Land's End is obvious. But whether Lucas gave the name to his station first or whether someone else had already named the head when he went there, I do not know. The earliest quotation for the name that Andersen gives is February, 1851.
Other Peninsula Runs
There were four more Class III runs on Banks Peninsula, all on the eastern side, which I have never been on, and have only seen from the sea, so I can say little about them. However, I give a list of them, with such particulars as I can.
Run 77, of five thousand acres 'at the south-eastern end of Banks Peninsula '(so I suppose it was the run next north of Flea Bay) was taken up in March, 1853, and in 1864 it belonged to Etienne de Malmanche. From 1865 until 1868 it stands in the names of Malrnanche and Francois le Lievre (who was Malmanche's son-in-law). By 1874 it had dropped out of the list of runs, so had either been all bought freehold or reduced to a small grazing run. Malmanche and le Lievre were two of the most successful French colonists. In the 'thirties le Lievre had spent some time in Akaroa in a French whaler and returned to France before he came out again with the other colonists in 1840. He worked for some time as a blacksmith at Akaroa before he went in for sheepfarming, at which he did very well. He died at Akaroa in 1902, in his ninety-third year, and left many descendants. Etienne le Lievre was his son.
Run 70, of five thousand acres, was taken up in January, 1857, by P. Pidgeon. and F. Narbey. I don't know where the country lay but it was probably near Long Bay, where Pidgeon was settled at least as early as 1857. About 1867 the run was transferred to H. Magee, and that is the last trace I have seen of it. By 1874 it had dropped out of the list, though the sheep returns show Hugh Magee as having 600 to 1000 sheep until 1881. I know nothing of Pidgeon or Magee. The Cyclopedia of New Zealand says that F. Narbey arrived at Akaroa in 1849 and settled at Long Bay in 1854, and eventually bought four thousand acres of freehold there. He was born at Rouen in 1829, and died at Akaroa in 1913.
Run 364, of seven thousand acres 'at Pigeon Bay' was allotted in May, 1860. In 1864 it belonged to Richard John Phillip Fleming, of Port Levy, and by 1874 had been merged with other country and renumbered 704. Fleming was a well-known pioneer on Banks Peninsula and afterwards bought Ahuriri from the Rhodes's. He was born in London in 1819 and came to Canterbury in the Randolph in 1850. He went straight to Port Levy in the ship's boat, having bought a freehold section and pre-emptive right there before leaving England. He eventually made a great deal of his runs into freehold. Two thousand six hundred and fifty acres of this still belongs to Miss G. M. Fleming, his granddaughter. A. E. Williams has managed it for over twenty years. No Fleming has lived there since 1920. E. W. Coop has Fernlea, their old homestead. R. J. P. Fleming died there in 1894.
Run 491, of five thousand acres at Le Bon's Bay, was first taken up by E. Rouse, in January, 1864. Rouse still held it in 1865, but by 1866 it had dropped out of the run list. I can find no trace of Rouse in the 1879 sheep returns, which are the earliest I have.
This completes all the Class III runs that I can trace on the Peninsula, except one which I once saw listed in an old manuscript book that used to be among the Land Office records, but cannot be found now. My notes of it were burnt many years ago, and I have forgotten its number, but it was of five thousand acres, lying at the head of Lyttelton Harbour and was taken up by Cotterill in 1851 or 1852. It was probably the same country that was afterwards occupied by Rhodes Brothers as Run 206. Cotterill is almost sure to have been the Rev. George, afterwards Canon Cotterill; and he probably either abandoned the run or sold it unstocked to the Rhodes brothers, though his son, Henry Cotterill, told me he could not remember hearing his father speak of ever having owned a run.
Andersen mentions a run at Godley Head, twentynine thousand acres, carrying 1000 sheep, in 1857, and belonging to Parkinson. I am quite sure there is a mistake about this. In 1857 there was no room for a run of half the size in any direction from Godley Head. Furthermore, there is no record of it in any of the lists of Class III runs. Andersen took the particulars from an old stock return, and I think either the stock inspector or his clerk must have written twentynine thousand for two thousand nine hundred. Parkinson was a butcher in Lyttelton, and may have had a small run somewhere between Gollans Bay and Godley Head at the time.
Andersen also mentions Craigforth, Run 167, at Holmes Bay, ten thousand acres. I cannot trace this either, though the run lists of 1864 onwards show Holmes as a holder of a small Class I run, numbered 167. Anyhow, it must have been part of the country on which Captain Francis Sinclair settled in 1843, and which his family afterwards sold to George Holmes, the maker of the Lyttleton tunnel.