THE OLD DIGGERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 152, 30 June 1938, Page 17

THE OLD DIGGERS

PEOPLE OF "KICK"

HOW GOLD MET A

CRISIS

CHARLESTON RALLY

"The .old diggers got a real kicK out of life," said the Minister of Mines (the Hon. P. C. Webb) when addressing the Charleston rally in, a more than filled hall last evening.; From the numbers and vivacity of this gather* ing of old Charlestonians it can be added with confidence that tha descendants- of the'.old diggers (who began their gold rush to Charleston, West, doast, in .1866) also,get a real kick out of life;, Beginning in the sixties, halting a bit in the seventies, and halting a bit more in the eighties and nineties, finally dwindling today to a township with a school of about fourteen. children who can writ*, Charleston is now best known not for the gold it exported sixty ,to seventy, years ago, but for the people it exported to other parte of New Zealand as the goldfleld decayed. ■ The people who, last evening, filled the Mokoia Hall to* overflowing came from various parts of New Zealand, and from almost all parts of the country came messages of good will from involuntary absentees. The people present were of all age? and, stages, and presented an interesting cross-section (up and down, east and west) of "the useful people" of the Dominion. There was present one veteran of 94 years of age, and there is another of 79 who has a standing offer, weight for age, to race anybody up Majoribanks Street. IMPORTANCE OF THE GOLD ; PERIOD. Mr. Webb drove home to his audi* ence that the old people of last century could get as good a kick out of life as the motoring, radio-informed people of today. There, were giants in the buggy days, and they performed wonders both in work and in play, and the present generation should feel tStat it could not do too much for those old ones who had been staunch pioneers and who were now aged. As a young man he himself remembers hearing, at the Dennistori coal centre, so much of the fame of Charleston that a party, including himself, set out in ; a horsedrawn vehicle to see. what was left of the old goldfleld south of Westport. Charleston was, typical of'a gold-mining energy.Hhat served«4tS /.purpose /and period—a period wheri agricultural exports had not developed, and when gold exports saved the country's life— and New Zealanders' therefore owed-a lasting debt to the goldminers, even though visible evidence of their immense activities had to a large extent passed away. Mr. Justice Fair, who was born in Charleston* and left there at the age of nine, stated that his mother, how nearly 78 years old, who resides in Auckland, greatly regretted her inability to attend this gathering of. Charlestonians;. and sent her best wishes. He entertained the gathering with talHl of in toe old home town. i r; 'W: ORIGIN OF NAME. Mr.-justice Q'Jtegan, also born in Charleston, was' unable to. attend, but sent a' «otrt<rtint;*n/'impression. that he (was. the .flrst.bfby born in Charleston; there was at least one born a year earlier.' He had failed to ascertain ' with - any definiteness who was Charleston's first gold-digger, but he..had gathered that Constant Bay was named after an early trading vessel, and that the name Charleston pror bably developed from "Charley's Town," Captain" Bonnier j (or Bonnor), of the coastal steamer: Woodpecker, which traded t6 Charleston," being known as Charley., "v£''HA'/ 1 • Mr. J.Hamptqn told how the coastal vessels flrst served, by calling at Constant fiay; .latera jetty was built on the Nile River, and some vessels entered and discharged there; then came the road from Westport (about competed successfully with both the. ports. Miss Kate Wflliamsr schoolmistress when Charleston had a much greater school roll, read a message of greeting from > fourteen scholars at the present Charleston School and from the present school committee; ' The Hon. F. E. O'Flynn, as a school teacher aged 21, struck; Charleston in the nineties, when the tfecay'.was fairly . well set in, and when the Nelson Education Board (which then favoured separate schools for this . sexes) had been.forced by the falling .attendance to bring all the Charleston, children together in! one combined school. Mr. O'Flynn's address was full of tlw humours of small-town life.' THE - SHETXANDEIIS. Other speakers were Mr. Bill Mouat and Mr. J. Moloney, whose- family names figure very largely in . the Charleston legend. The name Mouat stands, high'in what may be called the ' Islands saga, . for v the Shet. landers whd ; .beach-combed for gold, between tideson the Charleston foreshore wrote some of the most colourful pages in Charleston's history/ and have since carried to other districts and countries a great loyalty to the old town as well'as a, marked ability to make the best of new surroundings. Men of the sea in their island home, they got as near to the sea as they could in Charleston; these pioneers were men of great strength,/known as "the iron men." : The' old ■ Charleston had its horse races, and Mr. Moloney told how his father, owner of the local nag Whynot, rode it to victory" against all the competing outsiders.' On that day he rode Whynof 18 miles to Charleston, swam the horse across a river, and then won both "the big prizes" (£IOO and £50). Why not? The organising committee included Mesdames Torbit, Kotlowski, and Mills; Misses Moloney and Williams; Messrs. J. K. Jeffries, B. Parsons, J.'Hampton, J. Moloney, F. Simpson, "Tj.;Jeffries; I* Hartill, and J. MoUat.