OBITUARY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XXIII, Issue 171, 8 August 1889, Page 2

OBITUARY.

The mortality among olierly people ia, as might be expeoted, always greater 'lurkig the winter months than ai any other time of the year, and to-day we haye. to record the deaths of three old settlers within a few hours of eaoh other. Taking them in the order of their arrival ia Nelson, the first was Mr Joseph Simmonds, of Waimea West, who landed here in 1842, having come out in the ship Fifesbire. He at once adopted a .country life, and proved to be a hardworking and energetic colonist, and as years wore on he made a comfortable home for himself and family, where he has resided ever sinoe. Ha always displayed a keen interest in the politics of his adopted land, and at one time took an active part in publio life, having been elected to the Provincial Counoil, of which he proved himself a hard~working member. He had for some years past lived a retired life, and waa very greatly respeoted in the neighbourhood wijere he had for so long been resident. The next whose death we are called upon to notjoe is Mrs Matthew?, of Hardy street, where she died yesterday at the good old age of 84. Mrs Matthews came out with her husband and family in 1843 in the ship Olympus, and among the older settlers wsb so well known that to many of them " Granny Matthews " was familiar as a household word. Her husband and Bons were the ohampign sheared of their day. and all were industrious and persevering settlers, ond of them having by dint of hard work and thrift secured for himself a fine property in Marlborough. The old lady was fall of activity and energy up to a late period of bar life, bat for the last few years she has been bedridden and a great sufferer. The last name on the melancholy list is j that of Henry Lswis, whose kindly fao? was ho well known and will be so ereatly missed in Nelson, where, though of a quiet and retiring disposition, he had made a large number of Biucere frionde. Mt J^wis arrived here Irom Australia in 1855, and at once entered upon tbe work of his profession which was !«r a BUtveyor » He aoted ia fchia capacity for many yaara f O r tbt Provincial govern-

men*, and then went to reside at Takaka on a property he had purobased there, ond where, as in Nelson, he won tbe reepeofc of all around him. A few yeara a<?o he returned to the town whore be haa resided ever since, and yesterday cfter an illnesß of a few weeks, during which he suffered iot©a«e discomfort, he paeßfid aw»y at the advance d ago of 76.