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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 1 (April 2, 1934.)

The Vanished Bealey Township

The Vanished Bealey Township.

In the first excitement that followed the construction of the road over Arthur's Pass, a town of the mushroom variety sprang up on the flat in the fork between the Bealey and Waimakariri page 28 Rivers, and died just as quickly.

Von Haast, in “Geology of Canterbury and Westland,” says—“On 6th October, 1865, we reached the newly founded township of Bealey, situated in a large shingle fan which the tributary of the same name has advanced to a considerable distance into the bed of the river. Several houses had been built, either constructed of logs or covered with zinc or weatherboards which, together with a good array of tents, indicated that a number of people had already congregated there. In fact there were more than a hundred inhabitants who intended to settle in that locality, whilst a considerable number of diggers and navvies passing to and fro made it their usual resting place. At the same time several parties of surveyors were at work preparing timber for a number of buildings to be erected.” In June, 1865, Mr. Triphook surveyed the Town of Bealey, of 208 sections. Streets were named Albion, Caledonia, Erin, Cambria, running east and west; and running north and south were St. David, St. Patrick, St. Andrew and St. George.

Some of the sections were purchased, though the titles were not uplifted. Nor have they been uplifted since, so complete was the desertion of the township. When Von Haast revisited the site eighteen months later he found the place was “now almost deserted, everybody except the telegraphist and the sergeant of police having left.”

Nothing now remains to show where the township once existed except a few graves. The place now known as Bealey is on the other side of the Waimakariri, where the Bealey Hotel stands.

A Scene in the Southern Alps looking north-east from Mt. Oates, shewing (left) Mt. Franklin, (centre) Otehake Valley (and right) the Falling Mountain.

A Scene in the Southern Alps looking north-east from Mt. Oates, shewing (left) Mt. Franklin, (centre) Otehake Valley (and right) the Falling Mountain.

A scene from Mt. Rolleston, 7,453ft., shewing the peaks of Philistine and Alexander.

A scene from Mt. Rolleston, 7,453ft., shewing the peaks of Philistine and Alexander.