THE EARLY FRENCH EMIGRANTS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume LXX, Issue 4241, 4 October 1912, Page 2

THE EARLY FRENCH EMIGRANTS.

Tho death of Mrs F. Lelievre re?aUs forcibly the early days of the Peninsula,- and the mark which the French colonization has left on Aka•oa. It was in August, 1840, that he sixty-three French emigrants 'anded at Akaroa from the Combe de Parp. Tho story of the arrival of the English frigato Britomart some days , jefore the French is well known, and aas beoo amplified in the Tale 3of Biinks Peninsula. The sight of the French nnd English frigates lyiog in r -he harbour with the French emigrant <hip aior.giide must have been one

•■hat would appeal to the least ro nanlic. It is haicl to picture our lilld clothed with bu-sb, as in those days the photography craze was not Ireamt of. All we know of the Pen insula bills with thtir virgin bush has to bo gathered from the reports handed

Invn I y the early settlers. By the lime the first photograph was taken

Vkiroa was settled. Tne first photograph is allegpd to have been taken by an early se'tler in 18G7, and was

lately reproduced in the " Weekly

Press" by Mr James Hay It is a new from the hill close to Mr W Hew-

itt's hoase

Thero are some pictures

extant chiefly by the hand of Mr W. \Vatkins, which give an excellent idea jf the Feniusula in the sixties and

seventies, but of the Peninsula in

1840 we have no pictorial record. L'boro were English settlers at that late numbering 84 adults with their

children, and aa most of those about \karoa had settled at the south end

of tbe town, round about wbero Messrs U. E. Taylor & Go's, establishment now stands, the French took up the aorth part of the town, and for years the two ends of Akaroa were known is the French and English ends. \nyone interested in such matters sail go now and iind traces of the French settlements, especially in Grohan Valley. The Gmigranfcs wete mostly vino grower?, and brought out qc.ipe plants, etc , for their vineyards, nid the stumps of these grape vines ■my still be seen in some places. very thing was in a very rough coniition, and Mrs Lelievre's mother i \lme de Malinanche) shortly after arival had a son, Charles de Malinanche,

nd, as no house was procurable, the bild wa3 born in a tent pitched

•i the sile where Mr Jos. Ummond's now stands. It is hard > realize the difficulties these early ttlers had to combat in the cultiUion of the ground, erection of mses, etc. Commodore Lavaud, of ;e frigate JU'Aube, appears to have >ex\ a tower of strength to these irly pioneers. Hβ built them a :ore to bold their goods, he settled I disputes, and be acted as iuterediary between the French and oglish. Apart from the names of ie streets, Lavaud, Benoifc, Balguerie, 0., we have several traces of French Ulement of the town. The bulk of ir streets were laid out by the rpncb, and are of French raeasureent, 12 metres wide or 89.37 ft. notber peculiarity which our borough ijoys, owiDg to its having been .-• ttled by the French, is its control of the foreshore between low-water ,i id high water mark. This is the rel ilation existing in France, but in all pirts of the Dominion the Marine Djpartment controls the whole of the foreshore. The blending of the EngI3b and French has been as perfect as it could be, and the two peoples have ived together in unbroken amity. We 1 jok npon the descendants of those l>.'ave French pioneers as good Bri isb

subjects, and it is only when strangers ramark on the foreign names that we lailize that they are not of the same n itionality as ourselves.