EARLY DAYS IN INCH CLUTHA.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19066, 11 January 1924, Page 14

EARLY DAYS IN INCH CLUTHA.

EXPERIENCES OF THE MOSLEY FAMILY.

Mr W. S. Mosley, one of the earliest settlers at Inch Clutha, appears to have made up his mind to emigrate to New Zealand in 1847, as he made a selection of 50 acres at South Molyneux on November 16 of that year. Eight days later he sailed from Gravesend in the. John Wickliffe, being one of 97 passengers for Otago. On arrival in Dunedin Mr Mosley took up his residence at Halfway Bush. His home contained two rooms, the sides of which were made of slabs, and the roof of saplings, covered with a thatch made of grass and rushes. On Sundays the family frequently walked a mile and a-half to a place of worship along the beach. In those days the people thought nothing of traversing extensive districts on foot.

During a very cold winter a man named Lewis was lost in the bush while searching for some cows. At the request of Mrs Lew’s, Mr Mosley went to look for him, but ho also got lost, and found his way back; only through hearing his wife calling out for him. Mr Lewis’s bod}’ was found in the snow three days later.

“My father, who was the first constable in Dunedin,” said Mr John Mosley, of Inch Clutha, in the course of a conversation recently, “arrived at Inch Clutha in 1852 or 1853, but he was at Port Molyneux before that. Mr brother William was born at Halfway Bush in 1851, and my sister, afterwards Mrs Dabinett. was born at Port Molyneux in 1852. I was the first white male child born at Inch Clutha, but Miss Shepherd, the first white female child, was born before me. I think she was bom in 1852.

“When the land was first taken np Inch Clutha was composed mainly of swamp, in which there was an abundance of Maori heads, rushes, and flax, while the higher ground was covered with splendid native hush, principally totara. Practically all Die bush has been cut down, however/Thc only reminder of the early days being a few totara trees on my property. They are now about 80 years old. and were mere saplings, about, the thickness of a man’s arm, when I was a boy.”

Mr Mosley said he had a very distinct recollection of the flood in 1878, which caused the people a great deal of anxiety. He had a memorable journey down the flooded river in the dark for several miles to his sister’s residence, which he reached about 10 o’clock at night after narrowly avoiding a collision with the roots of a big tree, which would have sunk his boat immediately if they had come in contact. He rowed right up to the dcor of his sister’s house, and the boat was moored to the leg of a table inside. H’s sister, who had given birth to a child three days previously, was removed to a place of safety, her bed and she being carried nut of the house and placed in the stern of the boat.

“As a result of that flood,’’ said Mr Mosley, “anything from a few inches to two feet of ground was added to some of the low-lying land at Inch Clutha. “In my opinion there was no comparison between the flood in 1878 and that in 1919. I believe that six times ns much water came down the river during the former flood ns during the inundation in 1919. Splendid weather prevailed at the time, and the flood was caused by the sudden melting of an enormous quantity of snow that had fallen during the while In some of the gullies on the adjacent high country there were snowdrifts 50ft cfeep—a state of affairs that has probably never been known since. At Pukepito the water was Bft higher in 1878 than it was in 1919.”