EARLY CANTERBURY RUNS.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 20334, 5 September 1931, Page 14

EARLY CANTERBURY RUNS.

STRONECHRUBIE. (anus 374, 384, 805-8-7.) Stronechrubie, a small station at the head of the Bangitata, is ratlior a complicated one to trace. It originally consisted of Bun 396, of five thousand acres, between the Clyde and Lawrence rivers, and Bun 39/, of five thousand acres, On the west aide of the Clyde. These two runs were, I believe, originally taken up by B. M. Morten and Stace in February, 1861. Their manager was James Phillips, a son of the owner of Bockwood. They sold it to a man named Bell, who was afterwards clerk to the Wakanui Eoad Board. Bell called the place Forest Hill, and used it as a cattle station, but eventually threw it up. His brand—"a bell" —was lying about the old homestead, in the fork of the Clyde and Lawrence, in the early 'nineties, and, lor all I know, may be there still.

x About 1878, George Mcßae, who hac n been head shepherd and overseer fo: a the Campbells at Mesopotamia, took uj 3 Bell's country again. It took a greai 0 deal of mustering for the few hundrec r sheep it carried, and Mcßae founc e there was nothing in it, and had to ekt out his living by mustering for his neighbours. Ho told Norman Mac farlane, who was at that time manag ing Mesopotamia, that he couldn't make A living and pay his rent. Macfarlane advised him not to pay his rent, bul to be at the Laijd Office, in Christ church, every rent day, so that if any one else applied for the country, he could forestall him. One rent daj Mcßae learnt that Pott's agents bat] been foolish enough to abandon tht country which lay next to his across the Lawrence, so Mcßae applied for it and got it. This was Bun 884, of ten thou sand acres, above the Juraped-uj Downs, some of the best of Hakatere, > and was the making of Stronechrubie! s It had been taken up by the notorious 1 John Henry Caton, in July, 1860, and r sold by Caton, much to his neighbours' r relief, to Isaac Taylor, who had recently sold Winterslow. Caton's ear-marl t was a crop off both ears and from his I yards no straggler returned. Tayloi » afterwards sold this run to Pott! I of Hakatere. Catoa's homestead 3 has been long abandoned. It i was nearly opposite Mcßae's, and the flat it stood on has«now been waßhed away by the Lawrence. At the end of his lease in 1890, the Government took Bun 897, Moßae's country west oi the Clyde, and added it t*> Mesopo tamia, and compensated Mcßae bj giving him Bun 374, which had also been part of Hakatere. This brought bis boundary down to the lower end . of the Jumped-up Downs, and he moved _ his homestead to the present site there " in 1891. In the old days it was called Mt. Sunday. Bun 374 was one of the many runs ■. taken up by Tripp and AcJand between 1855 and 1860, It included the very best of the Jumped-up Downs. Tripp ■ and Acland took it up in May, 1860, > and, I think, sold it unßtocked to Taylor, though the lease was, . for a time, in the name of a . brother of Bell's. Taylor's homestead was on the bank of a small lagoon, , where the old foundation may still be seen. Murdoch McDonald tells me that one of his first jobs in New Zea--1 land was to level Taylor's old sod fences and plough the fiat for Mcßae. Taylor eventually sold his run to Potts, of Hakatere. The Name. Stronechrubie is the Gaelic for "crooked nose" or "crooked Bpur," and Mcßae named the station partly after his birthplace in Scotland, and partly after a crooked spur which runs down to the Clyde near the original homestead. Some later owner has changed the name of the station to Erewhon, which does not seem so suitable. Butler's Erewhon, after which, I suppose, it is named, was supposed to be across the Main Bange. In 1892, Mcßae sold Stronechrubie to Donald Knight, a son of A. C. Knight, one of the earliest Canterbury runholders. Knight sold it to George McMillan, of Mesopotamia, at the time of the Soutii African War, and McMillan worked tho two stations together until his death in 1902, after which bis executors sold both stations to George Gerard. , » When the leases pf the Upper Bangitata country ran out in 1911, the forks of the Clyde and Havclock were taken from Mesopotamia aid given to Stronechrubie, which was then put up to ballot and drawn by William Anderson, so that Erewhon as now constituted, contains the Forks taken from Mesopotamia, the original Stronechrubie, Caton's run on the Lawrence, and Taylor's run on the Jumped-up Downs., These make a very nice station; but expensive to muster. Since Anderson's time it has passed through the hands of F. Pawson and D. G. Wright, and T, S. Johnstone bought it for one of his family in 1929. I have already given accounts of Caton and the other early owners." George Mcßae was born at Stronechrubie, a sheep farm near Loejibroom in north-west Boss-shire, in 1836. After selling Stronechrubie he owned Barford and several other properties in Canterbury. He died in* Ashburton in 1911. An Interesting Letter. The following interesting extracts are from a letter about the old days at Stronechrubie and Mesopotamia which Murdoch McDonald, who was Mcßae's, .nephow and has sent me:— "I sometimes see in the phpers that Dr. Sinclair's &rave is lost, then that' it has been discovered again by some intrepid explorer or another. As you are aware, this ' was' never lost, but is well known to everyone who has worked on Mesopotamia, and has a good tombstone on top suitably inscribed. What is not generally known, however, is that alongside it is another grave which has no tombstone—that of a man named McKay who met hip death at Boss's Cutting in a. tragio manner. McKay worked on Anama station, and one Sunday-»-r do not know the- daterode up to Boss's Hut to see his sweetheart, who. was a daughter pf the boun-dary-keeper there. He tethered his horse at some distance from the house and on leaving for home, while saying good-bye to the girl, he pulled the tether up and the horse, t,aking fright at something, wheeled round and got the rope round McKay's body. McKay was dragged down the cutting and his brains dashed out at the roadside. "A man called Searle who .was building the Iron Stable at Mesopotamia for the Campbells, chopped his foot off with the adze and bled to death. "Jason's Creek is called after Jason Davis who got frost-bitten in the feet when cutting firewood' there, arid when

(SPEOIALIiT WBITTBN TOE "THE PBESS.")

[By L. G. D. Acland.]

they got him down countrv had to b© amputated at tli. i-rj < walked on the stumps f or man " however, and on one occatlß^'i- 7 **- e taken for. the Devil bv a * * . woman who met him in the* 0 lonely road near Darfiel<] 04 "Another shepherd called Giw. S) whom I knew well, was lilled .tT* j, ling Camp (on Mesopotamia-) hi. e falling on his head from a y under which he was walkin# . aP! a Urquhart was killed o» ih # WJ*" r r S g s.° Ver " PieCipiCC ' Bhw % ri "Although Stronechrubio is wL, 0 tho roughest country i a CantorW tl ©no has ever met his death a "Tho Lands Department t never worried about McßatfjjfHS g his rent at the start of his < he was rather handy for the infeL y who used to go up then, e always sure of a camp at hit tjlflWi plenty of mutton. >»* 1 "In the big snow of Igfio via r lost all his sheep. I n the '■££ p year he lost all his wool by Jjfi *2 t going bankrupt—one of tie.tfE i committing suicide and the 1 ting imprisonment. -fHIS a "There were 60 head of aft** s near the glaciers, which MoßftljEt i- bother to go and see about, - the surveyor, would come taimM a night with an account of a of dead cattle he saw* t have been keeping a mentaTjai! ;• the number, and one day - have given him the full tally-ifjSS 9 exclaim etd with great "tiffin f "Thank God, that is the lait i I will now be able to a start." The surveyor never ftwH® a Bae's philosophy and ujed^tfcPiS 1 McMillan by telling him ef-AitaS •' sonally, I have never met aauliii ? movable philosophy who > a manager—Mcßae eertainlysign| • "McMillan always said 8 person who really j chrubie for 20 years was Born and reared in the 'fenaflH r of Boss-shire, she was WMhiifißM 1 }n her element than were ob#*™ 3 on the back stations he«t, :&gSffl r went down country, while w fWjftflj| > half his time away, fromJ Lord only knows on, what /n£Si t He usually had a boy ! place whom he trained w^x9| \ station and who aftenritifflM| * capable high-country I these were W. Turton, r E. B. Tnrton, W. Carne&\!@i£SH| ' Carney, etc. Working r dogs were Mcßae's msiaaggiM ' and while he trained the.tmffifSjffi ? earthly duties, Mrs f herself wi«» their splriiriat-wll ; "Every night the I out and family worship 1 just as you described Imw|| Georg? hut *" makariri. I may say J youthful cadets did religious devotions hand to stand up to ' Protestant. Thirty one of them spoke to iMImHHj | different spirit, however, to his religions the deepest respect. -' ' "Mcßae left his t 1890 and went to live , up Downs, six miles [ foro doing so Mrs mentally ' and' was to return. * 1 , '-jM ' his sheep and cittle ifaft jaS last . his wife, but , geniality, or a quality ; paragement of a . possessed by. i(U ?the. e^ifcS^^ra^ra thosf days,, and which, 'i, ' spread its inflnfcnce beymU «B|pp ( whom it was given, when attj|H§ generation have' passed up SO years sftemardsJH wealthy man, and with bis wjfe«H alongside hisf friend and fM George' McMillan, in the ' ; Pirst Tripp and Acland jjrat eaM|H head waters of the March, 18p2,' Aclaod of their explorations in the <nMWi of the Alpine and Acland went up as Creek in September, JB§S, awPilSwl 1836, explored the crossed'over to the 'the lakes which are 1 This time they got of the Potts. After ttajgMaHH of starting their to England, prevented ploration until 1860, and his half-caste Clough, once went as nHH| , tamia. While they-were fJHiffIHH bush , there, a violent up and Abner built a V-M9-them.* Some years Jollie came across it there, and thought he Maori remains. . ij^aS9H In 1860, Tripp heard , froBt ; |WBMH that above Clbudy Peak the KJ|g|H opened out on to a large ,s|!§b£H| had probably confused there with the MacKensie-; ffIMH but »Tripp and Acland Harper went to see. They twHB month of the Lawrence some bush where Mcßae's was afterwards btfilt. went up the Lawrence as far JftSH could go {seven or eight wjmjSH came in sight of some of glaciers. They realised they tho wrong track for the so turned back and went up twM|M They went up the Clyde uawwal found the river bed was thousand feet above sea lev* l ; narrow valley with high each Bide, and decided there oWIS# no open plain. It was May 20t . nights were getting very cold, -WE were running short of tucker no chance of getting mpre of JtsSSg than Mt. Feel, fifty they turned back. In 1861, Samuel Butler sattwbj Mesopotamia. He was an mountaineer, but seems to hatß keener on getting to the Wi, hills than to the sources of the mnp Acland made several mora e*pM«"V during the early 'sixties, taking wjUJ people with him, but it was Jt the autumn of 1865 that ChufflW Tom Acland and Bell (who had by » settled at Stronechrubie) go* "aT? head of both branches of the ■Wr and they were probably the first actually to get on t<> the ice thert^ I BlwU.be grateful to. inyone me have any further informiHon »bonv runs or theic owners, or who will j*s any error ho may notice. Correctioa* b« acknowledsed in a letter at tht clow the Beries.-^Ii.GJ).A. . "f -