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 page 258running 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 page 259the 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 page 260Flaxbourne 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 page 261Stonyhurst 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 page 262ran 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 page 263beginning 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.

page 264

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-page 265woods 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 page 266and 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 page 267from 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 page 268W. 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.

page 269

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 page 270wharf 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 page 271the 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, page 272and 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 page 273could 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. page 274Moore 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, page 275and 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-page 276ber 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.

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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.

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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 page 279there 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 page 280never 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 page 281Taylor. 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-page 282Millan 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.