A LINK WITH THE PAST.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 27, 1 February 1907, Page 7

A LINK WITH THE PAST.

WELLINGTON'S -OLDEST BUSINESS FIRM. ■ EARLY MEMORIES REVIVED. It has been the habitat for three scor*' years and more of the Empire City's oldest business firm. An old firm in an .old structure, whose very timbersjoined together m weatherboard style— and small square-paned windows bear testimony to the architecture of a past day. Slates have replaced the onco shingled roof; here and there a new board has taken the place of a wormpierced brother from a forest long sinco vanished, Otherwise, the building is substantially the same as when in tho early forties it was erected by tho pioneers, for public hall purposes, on tha road leading along the sea front to laranaki pah, in the then most thickly populated part of Wellington— at that time an area covered with timber, shrub, fern, and flax. On the slopes now occupied by Wellington-terrace were large trees, while the northern end of the vflft g<3 i?,? bea^y, "mbered with, pine. The hills, with their dark and tangled vegetation, made a picturesque background, and the valleys between contained shrubs and trees so dense that it was difficult to penetrate them. Tho scene has changed. The road to the pahs has for years past been known as Old •Customhoust-street. The old Customhouse is no more. In the meantime the visitor of to-day has -entered the front doer of thia oldest business" house— that of Messre Befchune and Hunter, merchants and stal tion agents. The interior is in keeping with the exterior, even to the heads w£ the firm— Messrs. Robert Bcthnne and J "Punfl— two grey-haired men of business! still alert and keen, who, like their building, have well withstood Times' ravages and have by no means reached the end of their sphere of active use'fulnessi" What a fund of information concerning early Wellington is theirs. Though diffident, they were prevailed upon to tell a little of the firm's his-, tory, which is, of course, closely as* 6ociated with the history of our city. ' It was in April in the colomally,." memorable year of 1840 that Mr. Georra Hunter, who had come out as one o£ the Advisory Council to Colonel Wake.field; the repr^entative of the New Zealand Land Company, started in business in Petone. There was a landing stage on the beach, with sheds and stores. Mr. Hunter s*,5 *, son, and also Mr. Kenneth Buthune, who had come to th« colony as supercargo ol the storeshin Cuba, joined tho firm, whose business ' included auctioneering. In the move from Petone to Wellington— caused by the unsuitability of the harbour anchorage aid the danger of flood— Messrs Hunter and Bethune took part, bringing their stores and goods on andin the form^ 'of rafts across the harbour. Thus their place of business came to be at Clay Point^-wherc the Bank of NewZealand's fine building now towers skyward. Out from that point ran their wharf. The fire of '42, which destroyed pi'actically the whole of the raupo and other .whares along the Lambton beacu, swept away Hunter and Bethune'a buildings, so the firm sought refuge in the building on Te Aro Flat which had been erected as a public TialL the main portion of which comprises to-day tho big open lobby or corridor immediately inside the main entrance. That part of the town was then the business centre, with the sea immediately ia front, and was only a short distance from the first •acre selected fsnm the New Zealand Land Company's HOD acves into which tho city' had .been divided. Here the firm built,another wharf, of which there "wera several in- the Jpcality. The Town Hall now stands about where ihe ena of thia wharf extended to. *i, So 2 n -i^ terwar j S , the - fi ™n purchased the braiding and the adjoining acres, which were bounded by thoroughfares with .the dignified titles of Lombard and Oornhill streets, whose dignity has noli been enhanced by the passage of time. Part of this property was the present Opera House site, since sold by the firm.bnfc for many years previously used a* a stockyard in conjunction with the auctioneering department— a departed department lor ,many years. The New Zealander Hotel stands on part of tho same property. Near by, in Lombardstreet, stood the military barracks where two companies abcut 200 strong were quartered: The whole of too surrounumg area was arranged in the nature o< a fort, so that in tha event of any possible trouble with the Maoris the solJers could take shelter there. The old barracks are gone In their place are Mr. Fielder's buildings. On another corner of the same street was the structure from which Old Customhousestreet takes its name. That building, las already indicated, has vanished, fa | its place stand some shed-like buildines owned by Mr. H. M. Hayward. X J.ne nrst reclamation that started to completely change the configuration of Wellington's, sea-front was at Willisstrcet. fhe reclamation that deprived Uld Customhouse-street of its sea front, age is of comparatively recent datesome 25 years ago. The large modern buildings that sprung up on the reclaimed land— including the Town Hall —seemed to push Bethune and Hunter* once' well-known headquarters further back and out of sight except to actual passers by. To-day it stands, proud ot its antiquity and its associations and viewing with calmness the erection, only %kvS fu GCt *? fronfc ' of a solid b "ck £8000 three-story structure— a calmness, however, that may conceal a twinge of wounded feeling at cognisance of tbo tact that this new-bom edifice is tha venture of the descendants of its own loyally-served masters. The fireproof safe in Bethuae an 4 Hunter's is another noteworthy item. It »was once the general storage vault • m^£9 r of tbe va^ables of the whole city. The two massive iron doors which give access were made by a local blacksmith many years ago with comparatively ' primitive tools, and fine solid specimens of work they are, too. At v? r * ai " stan^ !? rick Bt °res, chieiiy not. able for containing several cracks in tho walls and for the presence of wide iron bolted bands running round the building. The cracks were caused by tho earthquake of "55, and the bracins bands wero put up afterwards. A simN lar building, formerly one of Rhodes'* stores, braced in the same way may bo seen in this locality by passera-by down Cubarstreet Extension. Between this shed and the road, at the rear of tho. Opera H6use, used to be stored varying : quantities of whale oil. There, too ' ;were the headquarters of a whale boa* which was always kept ready in case ol 'I*.' whale 'being .sighted in the harbour, when a crew would promptly pull o g .A chase after a whale in the harbouv would outrival the water chut© nowa-> • days. • ! At, a corner of one of the old buildl.tngs tinder notice— one at present beine -used as a • piano store— may he seen a i can m o i 1 , °/ - a pasfc a S e w »& its muzzlo i embedded in the ground pointing to » reputedly warmer clime, while the bar-; .rel, and, -breech act as some protection'for the wooden comer. This relic, likomany a human relic, "has seen better days." It formerly reposed at the cad oi Bethune and Hunter's wharf, and was used a,s the starting gun for racw amongst tho- Maori war canoes in tho harbour. . ' " ' /Taming to th« inside once, mgain, on» finds -amongst -the dust-laden shelves ' many a_\!§luahLj b Qa k 2 iccoj^ or does*

meat that speaks of man and deeds of v a long-past yesterday. A copy of the original charter of the colony; original letter books dating back to 1840; an unique trade pamgWet— probably the oldest in tho colony ; Lioyd s Registers, •ranging from 1841, the size of an ordinary cloth novel, to 1906-7, when the dimensions of a greafcy bulky tome have been reached. Snce 1844 Bethune and Hunter have been the agents for that great British institution — "Lloyd's." For the last 26 years the firm whose history we htwe traced has consisted of Messrs. Bobert Hunter — the last sur•viving member of the family of te*i which landed at Fetone beach in 1840 — and J. Dunn. Material for many columns of interesting matter could be fßrmsbed by them and the racank in {heir possession, but we can go no further to-day. Many an old colonist who remembers the once conspicuous building will probably wish to make a pSgrhnage to one of the few spots left to revive memories of the past.