HIS HOME SITE

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVI, Issue 10473, 31 December 1927, Page 11 (Supplement)

HIS HOME SITE

ME. EZRA SMITH’S PROBLEM IX

SEARCH FOR GLADSTONE ROAD SECTiON.

FOSSICKING FOR THE PEGS AMONGST THE Tl-TREE.

When buying a section of land in Gisborne these days or pampering civilisation, it is merely a question of getting the address from the land agent, starting up a car, and you are deposited at the spot within a few minutes. Fifty-five years ago, however, when Mr.' Ezra Smith first landed in Gisborne, land buying was a very different proposition. Mr. Smith applied to the right and proper official whose duty it was to allot sections to would-be residents and was informed: “leu 11 see the pegs with numbers so and so on them in the manuka away up there,” and he jms directed up'Gladstone Road. Mr. Smith waded through several inches of mud for nearly a mile and then hunted through manuka as tall as himself for signs of the surveyors. After nearly an hour’s search he located one peg with one oi the required numbers on it and a further twenty' minutes were required before he had learned the definite boundaries or his new home. And to-day Mr. Smith still occupies that same piece of land winch he settled on when Gisborne town consisted of a small group of houses and shops at the “Point, with manuka and ti-tree stretching in all directions, broken very occasionally bv the roof of a small home alongside'the then rough, unmetalled stretch of cut-up mud now occupied by the bitumemzed thoroughfare of Gladstone Road.

SIMPLE METHOD OF FILLING A SECTION.

On the section adjoining Mr. Smith's, there settled, a little later, a painter named Mr Ereyor. At the back of Mr. Frever’s homo was a patch of raupo, growing in a pool of swampy water. Heavy ram 101 l one night and, in the morning. Mr. Fryer got up, picked up his kettle, intending to fill it at a. well in his hack yard, and opened his hack door. A stretch of water, a loot doe], and extending to the standing manuka behind his section, met his gaze. Had the water risen half an inch higher it would have flowed into the house. That morning. Air. fryer filled his kettle at his back door without stepping a pace outside. In order to fill in the swampv ground about this raupo clump, tins Air. Fryer helped himself to parts of Gisborne's thoroughfares, going round the streets and roads with a wheel-barrow and scraping up all the loose surface*. Possible, in these days, such a course of action might not he tolerated! Fortunately for Air. Smith, Ins section was on slightly higher ground than that of Air. Fryer and he was never flooded out.

FORAIATION OF GLADSTONE lU>.

“Gladstone Ron 1 was hugely a tangle of ti-tree and fern,” related Air. Smith to a “Times” representative, “and the first real move for its iniproveitlent was made when the Road Board let a contract, to form it properly, to a Air. Owen Kelly. Mr. Kelly's tools consisted of nothing so elaborate as a bitumen plant—nor even a simple roller —let alone a steam one. lie went to work with axes, slashers and shovels solely, and really made a very good job indeed. His men were set first to cut clown all the 1 standing scrub and this was thrown into the centre of the road. Then the shovels came into the operation and the earth was thrown from the sides of the road on to tiie pile of scrub in the centre. That was all the work required to he doile as lar as Air. Kelly was concerned and the traffic and rains did all the yolling-m of the surface inquired. “Act, I can tell you,” he said, “that road was then* perfect c- mpared with what it had been before.

THE. PERILS OF OPEN DRAINS

Mr Smith re: fills sonic of the earlv ‘iki rough Council work with a great deal of amusement. ‘'Soon after being formed ji* lie remarked, ‘him Council set to work to improve Gladstone Hoacl. Tile first requirement appeared to bo efficient drainage and •so the Council had a deep drain dug alonf the roads.de from Roebuck Road to Carnarvon Street. This certainly helped to draw off a great part of the surface water, but, in those davs, we bad nothing in the nature or street lights. In con sequence peop e using the road were continually stumbling into the drain and even the cushion of water at the bottom for them to fall on did not alleviate their indignation at all. Finally, tu nianv protests came into the Council that these authorities were compelled to take the only possible course and have the drain filled up. Later still another big drain was dug m Stanley Hoad and with a like result. Jt had to he filled in again owing to protests from pedestrians and others who had tested its depth “Even in the' good old days, .\Li. Smith concluded with a smile, : 'we used to have our little jokes over local public works.”