Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]

Mackaytown

page break

Mackaytown.

Mackaytown is in the county of Ohinemuri, so noted for its mines, which have given an impetus to settlement in localities where the land gives fair promise of paying returns. The township has a population of about fifty persons.

The Mackaytown Hotel (Harry Priston, proprietor), Mackaytown. This well known hostelry is situated at the junction of the old road to Waihi and the present main road. It is now the only hotel in its locality, where there were once fifteen licensed houses. The old original building was constructed almost entirely of packing cases, and the present wooden building, which is of two stories, and has a verandah, was erected in 1898. It contains eighteen rooms, of which eight are bedrooms, and there are three sitting rooms, a commercial room, and a dining room with accommodation for sixty guests. Behind the hotel there is stabling accommodation for fifteen horses.

Mackaytown Hotel.

Mackaytown Hotel.

Mr. Harry Priston, the Proprietor, was born in 1869, in Christchurch. He became a pupil teacher at Ashburton Public School, and took a certificate, but abandoned teaching, and was for about a year with the D.I.C. in Christchurch at the time of the opening of that branch. After travelling the colony for about a year, Mr. Priston took the Star and Garter Hotel, Christchurch, and was subsequently landlord successively of the Caledonian, Gladstone, and Foresters' Arms Hotels, till 1897. In that year he went to Rotorua as manager of “Lake House,” and in May, 1898, removed to Mackaytown, where he took his present hotel. Mr. Priston is a Freemason, and is attached to Lodge Conyers, E.C., Sydenham, Christchurch. He is a steward of the Ohinemuri Jockey Club, and was at one time secretary of the Rotorua Jockey Club. Mr. Priston was married, in 1893, to a daughter of Mr J. Whiteford, of Torquay, Devonshire, England, and has one son.