Mr. William Barnes
is one of the few remaining Canterbury pilgrims who landed in Lyttelton by the ship “Sir George Seymour,” in 1850. He was born at Therfield, Hereford-
shire, England, on the 3rd of November, 1832. Like most of the early settlers, Mr. Barnes had to turn his hand to anything that offered. He was not long in finding his way to South Canterbury, and his first employment was in the bush, at cutting timber for the old woolshed at Levels for Messrs R. and G. Rhodes. Afterwards he went north and found employment for a time at Lyttelton, and was subsequently engaged in sawing at Akaroa. Mr. Barnes was afterwards at Waipara, North Canterbury, and in 1863 assisted in driving a mob of sheep from that district to Lake Wanaka, in Otago. The trip occupied eight weeks and four days. Mr. Barnes also had a short experience on the diggings at Sandy Point. He first settled in the Hakataramea and Kurow district in June, 1863, and since that time has had various experiences in connection with country work of all kinds. Since 1895 Mr. Barnes has been settled on a freehold
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of eight acres, close to Hakataramea township, on which his cottage stands.
Mr. William Ogilvy Ross,
sometime of Hakatarames, was well known in the district as proprietor of the Ferry Hotel. He was born in Dundee, Scotland, on the 12th of August, 1836, and was teamed to engineering. In 1858 he came out to Lyttelton, by the ship “Cameo,” and for some time worked as a blacksmith in Christchurch, and afterwards drove, a bullock team on the Waitaki river. Mr. Ross had a blacksmithing business et Kurow for several years, before he crossed the river to the Hakataramea side, and erected the Ferry Hotel, which he conducted, in conjunction with a smithy, up to the time of his death in September, 1881. Mr. Ross was married, in 1863, to a daughter of the late Mr. William Forde, of the North of Ireland, and had two daughters and two sons, of whom one son has died. Mrs Ross survives her husband.
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