PERSONAL NOTES

Greymouth Evening Star, 27 January 1914, Page 5

PERSONAL NOTES

Mr. G. McFarlane, Clerk of Courts. Reefton, returned there' yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. Bray and family were passengers by the ».s. Arahura last night for Wellington. Mrs. J. Jack and family have returned to Kotuku from the seaside alter an enjoyable holiday. Mr. T. E, Y. Scddon. M.P., left this morning for the Kopara district, where he spends a week. Mr. and Mrs. L. Brewer, who have been visiting Christchurch, will return to town this evening.

Mr. and Mrs. Painton, who recently paid a visit to friends in Christchurch, are back at Kotuku much refreshed from thcr sojourn in the "City of the Plains." Thomas Egan, cadet at the Grcymouth Post Office, has been transferred to the Telegraph Department at the Head Office. He left last evening for Wellington by the s.s. Arahura. Mr. F. W. Schramm, son of Mr. J. K. Schramm, of Hokitika, assistant clerk of the Court at Wanganui. has been transferred to Te Kuiti as clerk of the Court

Mr. A. W. G, Burnes. of the Government Insurance Department, formerly of Grevmouth, who was transferred to head office on the 3rd September in consequence of the closing of the Oamaru Branch, received a well-filled purse of sovereigns from his many Oamaru friends oil the cVe of lis departure. Mr. and Mrs Burnes will be much missed in the social life of Oamaru.

A large and representative gathering of citizens assembled at the Borough Council Chambers yesterday. The Mayor who presided, said" that he had convened the meeting in response to a very general desire that steps should be taken to suitably mark the high respect and esteem in which Mr. Benjamin Harper, Clerk of Court, who has been promoted to Dunedin, is held by a host of friends. It was unanimously agreed to arrange a presentation to Mr. Harper prior to his departure, and to this end th e initial steps were taken.

There was an old settlers' reunion in Wellington last week, and a Wellington paper says that Mr. Denis Hogan, a mining pioneer, who has just returned from the West Coast celebrations, was amongst the oldest of the settlers. He is a most interesting personage, and claims to be the first European who walked pound the South Island. Mr. Hogan has attended three gold mining jubilees, viz., Victoria, Gabriel's Gully, and West Coast. Ho is now hale and hearty, and on his return to Gisborne expects to go back to work 'on"railway construction there, which he left before he went for his well-earned holiday to the West Coast a month ago. Extreme regret was occasioned in town when it became known that William ' George, the eldest and beloved son of Mrs. Geo. Morris, of Shakespeare St., had been, drowned at New Brighton, Christchurch, yesterday afternoon. The deceased, who was well and favourably known in this district, where he followed the occupation of a sawmiller., had been visiting Auckland in company with ! his widowed mother and was returning to Grevmouth at the time the fatality cccured. The greatest sympathy is expressed for Mrs Morris in her great trial, it being only a short time ago since she lost her husband. The death is announced of Mrs Mary Martin, widow of the late Captain Martin, and a very old and much respected resident of Greymouth. who passed away at her residence this morning. Mrs Martin was bom in Highgate, London, in 1841, and arrived in Greymouth in 1855 with her !u.sband, who predeceased her by 24 years. She was thus one of the early pioneers and remember Greymouth as a "calico settlement." Later she kept an hotel known as the "Cave of Cork" at the corner of A me}' Street and Richmond Quay, but the big flood of 1872 carried the' betel and all its contents over the bar, leaving the occupants with nothing but what they stood up in—only their night attire. After passing through the trying ups and downs of the early days she lost her husband at' sea and her son in the Boer war. She leaves three sons and one daughter to mourn the loss of a loving and devoted mother, and with them profound sympathy will be felt.