ORIGINAL FOOTPATHS

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 306, 25 November 1937, Page 13

ORIGINAL FOOTPATHS

A PIONEER’S MEMORIES. CITY’S EARLIEST DAYS. Now living in retirement at 60 Bourke Street, Air A. Nielsen, who resided for a long period on Robert’s. Line, Kelvin Grove, assisted in forming some of the original footpaths in the present business quarter of Palmerston North. “Of course they were gravel footpaths, and somo of them did not have too much gravel either,” he told the “Standard” yesterday. “Others had no gravel at all.” Coining to New Zealand from Denmark in the German ship Gottenburg, the voyage occupying 110 days, in Ins early twenties, Air Nielsen landed at AVellington nnd came to Palmerston by way of the Wairarapa and the Alanawatu Gorge to join a partner. There was a coach road over the Rimutakas and up through the Wairarapa and the Alanawatu Gorge, said Air Neilson, who indicated, however, that coaches wore dependent on the rivers not being flooded, there being few bridges. He liad had to ride on horseback for some distance, swimming his horse across rivers. At the Woodville end of tlie Alanawatu Gorge there had been a bridge, but at the lower end, near Ashhurst, a punt. Actually a coach could not lie used in the Gorge when Air Nielsen arrived at this centro for the roadway was blocked by a slip.. At that time, in 1873, said Air Nansen ho had first found employment on roadwork in the town forming footpaths. The gravel was secured from a small pit near the Terrace End railway station, hut in Air Nielsen’s association with works which demanded gravel thousands and, thousands of yards were removed from it. Later Mr Nielsen undertook buslifelling, his first work of that kind being on a holding of 23 acres he and his partner, Air A. Berthelsen, had at Kelvin Grove. Dairy farming was undertaken there, butter being made and sold to local storekeepers for 4<l and -5d a pound, while later the milk was delivered to the New Zealand Farmers’ Dairy Union creamery at Whakarongo, where it was skimmed. With the passage of time Air Nielsen acquired further land, but a great deal of his activities were connected with agricultural contracting, ploughing, haymaking, and so on. Selling out his interests at Kelvin Grove, Air Nielsen took another property at Pukepapa Road, Alarton, but soon afterwards removed to the Waterworks Reserve, also at Alarton, where' lie continued farming on a holding of 70 acres for four . or five years. For the last ten years Air Nielson has been living in retirement in Palmerston North.

Now in liis 86th year, Air Nielsen enjoys . rorimrkably good health and told the reporter that lie had not required the services of a doctor for over 30 years. He tends a largo garden which shows the result of constant attention. Although ho is reticent on the point, Air Nielsen said enough to indicate that in former years he was able to more than hold his own with tho average workman, and he believes that in former tinies there was evident a greater pride in workmanshin than now. Amusements were much fewer, he said, hut people then derived far greater pleasure from their work.