Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1928 EARLY MARLBOROUGH

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 7 January 1928, Page 6

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, JANUARY 7, 1928 EARLY MARLBOROUGH

AFTER (lm Wnirau Massacre, 1843, the futile valley became taboo to the white man for some little time. Until the dispute between Ranparuha and the N.Z. Company was settled, and it was not settled till Sir George Grey captured the savage, old Maori chief at Porirua, in in 1846, it- v/as not safe for a white man to set fool in the Wnirau. But the adventurous spirit and the land-hunger prompted certain Nelson settlers to direct, their steps to tin) forbidden valley, though they went at their own personal risk, and with the prayers of those they left behind. There is a story told of a ventursoms young man of Nelson who decided to make one of a party of pioneers, who had made up their minds to undertake, the hazardous journey. Do did not consult his father, as he knew "the old man" would forbid him, so he. got his swag packed, and was going to move off without more ado, when his father said, "Where, ho gooing, Gorge?” "I he gooing down to the Wairau, father.” "But thee mustn’t go theer, lad.” "But Ibe gooing, father.” "Then go, my hoy, and God bo wi’ thee!” exclaimed the old man, who imagined that his son was going into the jaws of death.

In spite of the risks rtin, the Nelson people, firm in their claim that the valley belonged to the Company, and through the Company to them, gradually and effectually Explored its wide expanse and the country to the east and south of it. This penetration took place bv two routes —by sea, per medium of the Wairau bar and river, and by way of Tophouse. Five years after the massacre there wore 194 .Europeans in the Wairau district. Then when, in 1850, Governor Grey, by a further payment of £3OOO liquidated all the Natives’ claims to the Wairau, a second survey of the district was made, and some 35,000 acres were allotted to purchasers, whom the N.Z. Company could not satisfy with land in the Nelson district. All the title which those settlers reef ived was a license, fixed for a term of fourteen years. The result of such an unsatisfactory tenure was, of course, that few improvements were made on the lands so allotted, and it was not until under Sir George Grey’s Land Regulations of 1055 that the Wairau settlers obtained the freehold of their lands. Here are the names of some of the firstmen to take up land in the Wairau and district Morse, Duppa, Wilson, Jenkins, Adams, Sweet, Watts, Schroder, Munro, - Ward, Goultev, Wither, Dashwood, Alison. Witherby, Shepherd, Vickerman, Ncwcombe, Fearon, Richmond, Bed borough, Tinline, Mcßae, Renwick, Atkinson, Stephens, Stafford, Green, Cant ley, Kelling, Dillon, Godfrey, Ellictt, Bolton, Otterson, Trolove, Mow,at, Cat on, Clifford and Weld, Tetley, Shaw, Fyffe, and Clara McSlinne.

These early squatters lor the most part lived in huts or hastily-built wlmres, for as yet there was no cut timber with which to build houses. The first proper house was built by E. I). Sweet, who it. U'AB brought a party of workmen from Nelson for the purpose of sawing timber with which to build a house at Hillersden. As yet tli3 various properties taken up were not fenced, and boundaryddders were employed to keep the stock on their respective properties. When these first' settlers arrived, the only other inhabitants of the, Wairait were Maoris, who lived in three kaingas, at Tua Marina, and what are now known as Grovetown ( md Gibsontown. Though these Natives sometimes assumed a threatening attitude, they never did any real harm to the new arrivals, and, upon Governor Giev making with them a final settlement, they become quite friendly. Among the first who discovered short cuts from Nelson to Wairau were Brunner, the explorer, and Le Grand Campbell, who with “Jacky” the Maori, were the first to force a way through the Kaituna Valley. Other early pioneers were John Tinline and John Sharp, who are credited with being the first white men to find their way through the Rai Valley. At that time there was much game in Marlborough. Wild pigs were plentiful, whose chief haunt was in the neighbourhood of what afterwards became Marlbnrouglitown. In the open swamps the wild clucks swarmed in thousands, and are said to have been so plentiful that, “by merely clapping the hands and then firing a gun in the air, the sportsman was certain to bag two or three.” In the bush the native, quail were numerous. Kakas and pigeons “seemed to he in eevry tree, and were so tame. that, they could be caught with the greatest ease.” There was also running at large a herd of wild cattle, the progeny of some beasts brought from Australia in 1840 by Mr Unwin (who laid claim to the Wairau), and turned cut on the plains. While these beasts were useful in supplying the pioneers wi'tli beef, they were so ferocious and daring as to be an actual pest, and the shooting of them was a public service. The same may be. said of the wild <iog‘ which were so great a nuisance that, one of the first, squatters abandoned his land in them, and returned to Nelson, driving wlnt remained of his flock before him.

In those early days the usual way of getting stores tnto the district was by landing them in small craft on the boulder bank inside the bar ol the Wairan river, whence they were conveyed by pack-horse and bullock-waggon to their destination. All such communication with the Awatcre was done by way of tln beach and round the cape—often a dangerous business. Hut in January, lf<ss, there occurred a. severe earthquake which produced some extraordinary ctIVrts. The first shock of this earthquake niciirred at one o'clock in the. morning, and was so violent that if shook down all the mud whares in tlm district, and for three weeks afterwards the ground was in a constant state ol movement. When it was finished, it was discovered that- certain features of the district, were

changed. For instance, Mr Budge, one of the Company’s surveyors, who had arrived in the Wairau in 1848, had taken up liis abode at what was known as Budge’s Island at the Opawa river, where, he kept a flock of sheep. The earthquake caused such subsidence that, if the island did not actually disappear, it became so sodden and waterlogged that its owner abandoned it and took up land elsewhere. It would seem that the greater part of the lower Wairau was affected in a somewhat similar manner, for whereas the Opawa river had been impossible of navigation, after the earthquake it was found that craft, which could formerly float only the lower reaches of the river, were able to reach with ease and safety the place where Blenheim now stands. That, infleeti, was how Blenheim (or the Beaver, as it was first called) came to he founded. It was a convenient point where the settlers of the Awatere and Upper Wairau Valleys could deliver their wool and obtain their stores, and so the town grow, in. spite of the fact that it was subject to periodical floods. These, as the scrub was burnt off the plain, tended to become worse, since' the denudation of the vegetation allowed rain-waters to'flow freely into the rivers, with the if suit that their shallow beds were quickly filled with the rising waters, and disastrous floods resulted. . Ono .short anecdote is illustrative of early life in Blenheim. In a place of so many rivers there, must naturally bo a demand for bridges, or some such means for crossing rivers. The first method of crossing the Ornaka River was peculiar. A species of wooden box. was attached by chains to either bank, and the wayfarer was supposed to •' pull himself across; hut this awkward arrangement led—as might, have been expected—to a man being drowned, and tlio contrivance was christened “Execution dock,” and was subsequently abandoned. Its place was taken by what was known as the "Crinoline Bridge,” because it was so narrow that it was difficult for womenfolk, wearing the, then, fashionable hoop and voluminous skirts, to negotiate it without lifting their crinolines high enough to clear tho hand-rails of the bridge—a thing which in these days of abbreviated skirts would be thought nothing of, but which in the days of the Victorian era was shocking to the proper and a source of amusement to the unregenerate.