DROWNED IN FLOOD.

MR. G. F. WEBSTER, OF THAMES. EARLY PIONEERING FAMILY. One of the victims of the week-end storm at Thames, Mr. G. F. Webster, aged 78, came of a well-known pioneering family of North Auckland. While he was asleep in the house in which he lived alone on the bank of the Puhoi River, Thames, on Saturday night, (as already reported in the "Auckland Star") a slip that had dammed the river gave, way, and the house was overwhelmed. Mr. Webster's body' was found on Sunday about a mile downstream from the site of his home, which was completely destroyed. A single man, Mr. Webster was highly regarded by all who had known liim during his long life in New Zealand. Horn at Kohukohu in December, 1 S">7, he was the. eldest son of Mr. Joliu Webster, one of the earliest white settlers on the Hokianga River, and an intimate friend of Judge Mailing. He was a grandson of George Frederick Russell, who landed at Hokianga in the early 1830s. He first attended school on the North Shore, and completed his education in Sydney. Returning to New Zealand in 1874, he went farming on his father's property at Opononi. He was a keen student of natural science, his favourite ho-bby being geology. He was a member of the syndicate that first exploited the, cinnabar deposits at Puliipuhi for the production of quicksilver. Latterly ho had been interested in goldmining at the Thames.

In his younger clays Mr. Webster 1 was an enthusiastic criekcter, being associated while he was at school in Sydney with Snoft'ortli and the Gregory brothers. Mr. Webster, was for many years a Justice of the Peace, and was an early member of the Masonic Hokianga Lodue.