THAMES REMINISCENCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18334, 26 February 1923, Page 9

THAMES REMINISCENCES

MINER'S UPS-AND-DOWNS. GREAT CHANCE MISSED. TANTALISING FIGURES.. ' BY F.W.W. ?■■•"'; Though . Mr. Isaac Hopkins, of Owen's Road, Epsom, is known throughout New Zealand as the apiculturist who, while acting as bee expert to the Department of Agriculture for five years, built up the bee-keeping industry from small beginnings to its present export trade—which amounted in 11 months of 1922 to a value in honey of £47,331 — people are aware that he was also a goldflelds pioneer ot , both the West Coast and the Thames. In earlier life Mr. Hopkins had been at sea- ] had, indeed, been apprenticed to naviga- ; tion, and had served in the mercantile l marine in connection with the Crimean War. After having been on th© New Zea- ■ land coast as early as 1858, he came finj ally to the colony in 1865, landed in Aucki land, and went to the West Coast with I the "sixty-fivers." He came back in 1867, and was at the Thames about a 'month after its proclamation as a goldI field. " \ First he was one of a party of six who I took up a claim on the Shellback Creek i the* next gully to the north of the Shot- | over, where the prospectors' claim was. ' The creek received its name, by the way, from the fact that some of the early miners in the vicinity had been seafaring men and named a claim alter their calling. A party of Welshmen had a good claim next to Hopkins and party, who, however, never had any luck in theirs. They did strike a reef, in which, with the optimism of the new-chum miner, they I thought they discovered precious metal. Elated at the supposed find, they carried specimens of the quartz into the towni ship, and submitted them to the examination of "Dan" Tookey, who was camped [ in the canvas-town, but only to get their : hopes dashed to the ground by having | their prize pronounced to be iron or copper j pyrites—known as "new-chums' gold"— not uncommon experience with the newlyi arrived prospectors of those days. Mr. Hopkins remembers that the manager of an early battery on Shellback Creek was Mr. W. H. Percival, afterwards for many years secretary of the Auckland Racing Club. After weeks of hard work, the party had to accept the verdict that their claim was a "duffer," and every man of them was, in the langu- : age of the period, "fly-blown"—i.e., empty !of pocket. Mr. Hopkins and one mate i held out after the other four had left, 1 still hoping to find gold—worked on until one dav they found themselves utterly j famished, and had to quit the workings in the middle of the afternoon, desperate from hunger and exhaustion. A Change In Fortune. It was then that a sudden change in 1 their fortune occurred. On returning, weak, to their tent, they spied on the opposite side of the road a donkey, with panniers containing bread usual way of hawking the staff of life in early Thames days. Hailing the driver, and accosting him with the unconcerned air of men who could boast their own banking accounts!, they asked him if he would serve their tent regularly with bread, and wait for. payment till the end of the week. To their immense relief, he agreed to give them credit, and dropped four loaves. "With one of those loaves, and a billy of water fetched from the Moanataiari creek, then a sweet running stream," says Mr. Hopkins, "we made one of the most delicious meals I ever had in my life." But there was further luck in store. That night they were knocked up at midnight by a cutter-skipper who knew them. He reported that he had a cargo of machinery for "Jimmy Horn," and must get it unshipped by 4 a.m., when the tide would be making. They showed the way to the tent of Mr. Horn, who was as eager as the skipper to get the machinery ashore. But how about getting labour at that hour of the morning Well, the tentmates were open to engagement. So they were engaged for the job, and when Satur day came," had three days' wapes out of which to settle with the trustful -breadman. -.■•'-

Jlfd.ll. ... This shipment of machinery was, as a matter of fact, that imported from Australia through Auckland for the first battery of the Golden Crown mine circular one, which was erected under the supervision of the late Mr. John Gibbons, who had alreadv built his own battery, the Una, on the Karaka creek The party of "fly-blown" miners had employment on the job until its completion. • Gold Trodden Underfoot. For some time Mr. Hopkins worked in Tookey's claim at foot of the Moanataiari Creek, which was getting good returns from working reefs on the lower south slope of Kuranui Hill. He remembers that this gold was discovered in the first instance in a boulder that lay in the creek, and had long been used as a step-ping-stone by passing prospectors, until one day a man had the curiosity to cleave it in twain, when it was found to contain rich gold, and the reef from which it had dropped was' traced. While working in Tookey's Mr.. Hopkins was jammed in a fall of earth from the hangingwall of the reef, and when extricated was found to have fractured his collarbone—the first mining accident of such gravity, he believes, that occurred on the new field. Mr. Hopkins is able to trace the history of the great Caledonian mine to an earlier stage than any old miner the writer has yet met. He says that the first party to hold the ground was one that included a German, and before they had discovered anything they reached to the end of their means. On© day the German came to Mr. Hopkins, and informed them that the party was going to abandon the claim next day, advising him that here was a chance "co peg out the ground if he wished to. As it happened, however, Mr. Hopkins • and his mace, in thejr " fly-blown" condition, were unable to take advantage of the opportunity. Anyhow, nobody had any conception at that stage that millions of pounds' worth of gold lay within the pegs. The next owners of the _ Caledonian were an old man-o'-warsman and two carpenters,, father, and son, from Onehung«3., who found a small gold-bearing leader in trenching on the corner of the spur. These men were bought out by the people who held the mine when the rich gold came.

Some Sharp Contrasts. - In illustration of the uncertainties in gold mining, Mr. Hopkins mentions that one of the shareholders of the original Golden Crown mine, before it became the property of a company, sold his interest for £10. and this within a few weeks of the finding of the gold that made "the shares worth thousands of pounds each. Tn his chagrin at having so nearly missed fortune the unlucky seller became for a time demented. There were many reports of this kind current at the Thames. For ininstance, 24th shares in Hunt's claim were, said to have been sold in one case at ,£IOO, and another at £250, and one of them was afterwards bought back by Mr. Hunt himself at £2500, while as much as £12,000 was paid for a similar interest later on. Again Captain -Butt was reported to have bought a share in Barry's claim, at the back of Hunt's, for £4, and sold it in two months for £600. Mr. C. Curtis was credited with having sold 1J original shares in the Long Drive for £10.000. The rest of Mr. Hopkins' mining career -was mostly devoted to contracting for the driving of tunnels and sinking shafts. One big job that he carried out was the timbering of the great pass in the Alburma mine, on the Sons of Freedom reef, from the Whau level to the Sons of Freedom tunnel. For one spell, also, he acted as underground boss in the rich Nonpareil mine. Waiotahi Creek. After forsaking mining, be was engaged in tent-making, and the cultivation of the honey -producing industry as a Pominioft-wido business.