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 page 235the 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.