LINK WITH EARLY NELSON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 14 January 1942, Page 4

LINK WITH EARLY NELSON

THE BRYDON FAMILY I HOW HAPPY' VALLEY GOT ITS NAME An interesting link with earliest Nelson was disclosed in Saturday’s issue of “The Mail,” when mention was made of Dr Brydon, sole British survivor of the Khyber Pass Massacre, 13th January, 1842. At the almost certain risk of torture and death. Dr Brydon saved the life of a dying Afghan chief; in return, the latter ordered that Brydon and his Indian assistants should be safely conducted to Jellalabad. A few months before the famous massacre, Dr Brydon’s brother, William Erydon. arrived in Nelson in the expedition ship, Will Watch. In 1842. his wife, Johanna, and their children, joined him. Theirs was among the very earliest homes to be built by the pakeha in Nelson and Marlborough. Remains of this mud house, and the stone oven are still in existence, being now built into the homestead of the late Mr John Barnes, of Atawhai. After living here a while, the Brydons removed themselves and their possessions to Marlborough, by horseback and pack-horse. William Brydon was on the scene of the Wairau Massacre; he always declared himself on the side of the Maori patriots in the dispute which led to the massacre. He was among the surveying party which parleyed with the Wakapuaka chieftain Paramata, over the Maori Pa estate, now known as the Hemi Matenga Estate. The frequent fights which arose in the surveyors’ “pub” at Hira, opposite the St. John’s Church of to-day, gave the Hira district its former name— Happy Valley. The late Mrs William Flower, of Wakapuaka, was a granddaughter of the Brydon family.