Ettrick , which is also known as Benger Burn, is an agricultural and mining township, lying between the Mount Benger Range and the Molyneux river. It is thirty miles north-west from Lawrence, and ninety from Dunedin, and is on the main road of the Lawrence-Roxburgh daily coach service. Gold dredging is carried on in the Molyneux river near the township. There is a post and telegraph office at Ettrick, and a public school at Moa Flat. Wesleyan services are held in a private building. The township also has a flour mill, store, and hotel.

Ettrick Gold Dredging Company (Limited). Head Office, Roxburgh. Mr. J. Burton, secretary. The dredge owned by this company was built in 1890 at a cost of £2000. There is a ten horse-power steam engine, a ladder of 52 feet, and during the time the dredge has been working it has won a good deal of gold; the shareholders having been paid 12s 6d in dividends, on 4,500 shares paid up to 15s 6d per share.

Mr. James Bartholomew Crowley formerly Manager of the Ettrick Dredge, was born in 1873 at Waipori, where he was educated, and has been much engaged in dredging since he began to work. He was first employed on the Waipori No. 1, and afterwards on the No. 2 dredge, as driver and winchman for three years. Subsequently he had the Moa Flat Hotel, which he sold fourteen months later, and became manager of the Ettrick dredge in 1898. Mr. Crowley was married in July, 1896, to a daughter of Mr. M. Lonergan, of Limerick, Ireland, and has two daughters and one son. After leaving Ettrick he was at Round Hill, near Riverton, and is now (1904) at East Gore, Southland.

Mr. And Mrs J. B. Crowley.

Nicholson, Charles , Miner, Ettrick, Mr. Nicholson was born in 1828, in the Isle of Skye, where he was brought up as a medical student. He went to India in 1848, attached to the Bengal Infantry, but left for Australia after a year's service, and arrived in New South Wales in 1850. For several years he was attached to the Civil Service, was for three years in charge of the native police, and was second in command of the expedition sent out in search of Dr. Leichardt. After a few years in Victoria, during which he was engaged in mining, Mr. Nicholson came to Otago in 1862, and has been settled in the Mount Benger district for most of the time, with the exception of a few years spent in Dunedin. He established Nicholson's Hotel at Ettrick, and conducted it for twenty-four years; in Dunedin he conducted the Baldwin (now Central) Hotel for fourteen months, and afterwards the Universal Hotel for two years. Since retiring from hotel life, he has been engaged in mining, and was one of the promoters of the Fraser River Hydraulic Company in 1899. Nicholson's River, in the northern territory of Australia, one of the tributaries of the Gilbert River, was discovered and named by Mr. Nicholson. In 1852, Mr. Nicholson was placed in charge of a gold escort, which conveyed 65,000 ounces of gold from the Ovens and other districts, overland to Sydney. He was married, in 1864, to a daughter of the late Mr. D. K. Koch, Burgomaster of Hanover, Germany, and niece of the celebrated Dr. Koch; and has four sons and four daughters.