MYSTERY SOLVED

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 29, 21 January 1929, Page 6

MYSTERY SOLVED

LOST FORTUNE RECOVERED AUCKLAND FAMILY'S LUCK CLAIRVOYANT’S SUCCESSFUL AID A visit paid “just for a joke’’ to a travelling clairvoyant, who was then in Dominion road, Auckland, will mean the recovery of a fortune by an Auckland family, states the "Star.’’ For years a diligent search had been prosecuted for a missing document, which would enable the family to inherit a valuable Australian property. Then a member of the family visited a clairvoyant. He answered her question before it was asked. One short sentence from him was worth many thousands of pounds, for the mystery of the lost inheritance was solved.

The earliest record of the propeity is found in the diary of Mr. Thomas Kendall, the first New Zealand missionary. After his disastrous experiment in taking Hongi Heke to England, Mr. Kendall settled in New South Wales on a Government grant, still known as “Kendalldale.” There his second daughter married a young surveyor named Fh-i -ee. one of the earliest explorers to penetrate the hinterland of Australia. For her wedding present the New South Wales Government presented the bride with a square mile of land of her own choosing, and the young couplo settled down on a fertile district about fifty miles from Sydney

THE HEART OF THE “NEVER NEVER.’’

At that time they were in the heart of the “Never Never." The first night in their new home was spent in holding off a party of hostile aborigines. For some years the Florences held their own against the raiding blacks, and fickle Nature, but in the end the husband, worn out by the ceaseless struggle, collapsed and died. Left with a young family, Mrs. Florence decided to emigrate to New Zealand. She lensed the land, the conditions being that if it were not claimed by her eldest child at the age of twenty-one, the lease won hl hold for 100 years. In 1834 she quit Australia for her own home, taking with her the rental which had been paid in advance. A few years after landing in New Zealand the eldest child died, and the mother did not long survive her. The second daughter married Captain Williams, a well-known whaler on the coast. Mr. Williams went to Sydney to ascertain his wife’s position in regard to the estate. In the Sydney Lands Office he was informed that the deed essential to his claim was missing. , CHILDREN OF CAPTAIN WILLIAMS

The present claimants are the children of Captain Williams, '’"hen Mr. J. K. Williams inherited from his parents the papers bearing on the property, ho decided he would restore to his family their lost herit-

age. Sixty years passed, but no clue to the missing deed was discovered.

To Mrs. Williams must go the honour of first conceiving the idea that resulted in a solution of the mystery, but her scheme was executed by her daughter, Mrs. C. Hodder, of Hamilton.

Urged by her mother. Mrs. Hodder consented to undertake the forlorn hope. Of that eventful day she still speaks with awe. “When I entered the clairvoyant’s consulting room,’’ she says," he looked into my eyes and said; ‘You have come about some property.’ I nodded. ‘You wish to find an essential document which is missing. There has been some very underhand work done, but the -paper is now in the Lands Office in Sydney; if you write to them now you will get it.’ He said no more and I withdrew, doubting very much the value of his information.” APPEAL TO SYDNEY When Mrs. Hodder reported the result of her interview, her brothers and sisters were inclined to i.off. Th Sydney office had been applied to again and again, lawyers had searched its records, and its pigeon-holes had been ransacked without any trace of the missing document being reevaled. Eventually it was decided to take the clairvoyant’s advice, but no one expected the sequel. By return mail came an impressively taped and sealed envelope, containing the missing deed.

With the new-found deed to support their claims, Mr. Williams and his brother went to Sydney and their ownership of the land was at once admitted by the New South Wales Government. They then visited their inheritance, where once their grandparents had held their cabin against besieging blacks. The Williamses found one of the most prosperous farming areas in Australia, watered by a creek that never dries. The soil has proved immensely fertile, and nearby there has soiling on the town of Orange, now an important railway junction. LOATH TO MOVE Naturally the families that have held the land so long are loath to move. The original square mile has been several tunes subdivided, and the occupants, paying no rent and knowing no landlord, have come to regard tiie property as their own. Tiie property is estimated to be worth, at the least. £60,000, for under the terms of the lease the owners do not pay for improvements when the land reverts to them.

There are still a number of legal formalities to go through, and these, states Mr. Williams, will probably keep him busy for some time. Tiie lease expires in 1934, but as five members of the family have a joint claim on the property, it will probably he renewed. In the meantime Mr, Williams anticipates the • euni flock of queries from non-existent relatives. “That part of the business will look after itself,” says Mr. Williams, “but it seems to me that we have cleared up one mystery and found two more. First, of course, is the problem of the lost deed ; where was it hidden for two generations? And, second, what occult power or mental cunning dictated the clairvoyant’s answer?”