MEDICAL PRACTICE IN OTAGO AND SOUTHLAND IN THE EARLY DAYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3467, 24 August 1920, Page 52

MEDICAL PRACTICE IN OTAGO AND SOUTHLAND IN THE EARLY DAYS.

By Robert Valpy Fulton, M.D

XXIL—EBENEZER HALLEY, OF TUAPEKA AND THE GOLDFIELDS.

References to books, newspapers, and first hand talks with pioneers make it fairly evident to us that Lawrence as a town has not existed for much more than half a century—to be sure even before that time the country contained, here a small farm residence, there a shepherd's hut (for there were sheep runs even in those early days), and of the pioneers of Tuapeka, Peter Robertson was one of the very first. A hard headed Scotsman, fired by the eloquence of that grand old Otago "barracker," James Adam, of Bon Accord, ho came to Otago in 1860, and settled as a shepherd on John Cargill's Tuapeka Run. Here he later became intimate with Gabriel Read, the man who brought prosperity to the district by his discovery of gold in the gully, which ever since has born his name. In 1360 Robertson went from Dunedin to Tuapeka, and the journey proved one to be remembered for many years thereafter. Roads there were none, and with heavy rain, turbulent creeks, big holes, and nigger heads, it took him nine days to get his wife, family, and impedimenta as far as the Taieri Ferryhere endeavouring to charter Maori canoes to "fetch" Waihola, he found the Maoris obstinate and too frightened to venture out upon the lake while the storm was in progress, it was consequently four of five more days before they could make a start; getting to Grey's at the head of the lake, and thence into bullock waggons, they finally ended up at. the Tuapeka more dead than alive. Robertson entered upon his duties as shepherd with no light heart, and for a man who had spent a number of years in the grocery business, he must have found the work trying and a considerable change to him, but he was no shirker or quitter when up against obstacles ; if anything they only stiffened his back and his determination to stick. Ho attended to his flocks, and added to his cottage as occasion required and time permitted. He was not worried about an eight hours' day, 16 hours was more like his day's work, and when Gabriel Read came that way bringing a letter from Mr J. L. Gillies, he hospitably entertained him, and gave him what help, advice, and directions he could. Gabriel Read was no ordinary individual, but a gentleman of good education and of great experience; the account of his discovery as described in the Jubilee Reminiscences of the Gabriel's Gully Pioneers (Otago Daily Times and Witness, 1911) is an epic* and well worthy of perusal. He followed the directions given to him by Robertson as to where Black Peter had reported a prospect of gold some months before, wended his way up Munroe's Gully, crossed the spur at the top, and came down the next gully, following the creek and looking for a likely place to try for the colour. He had tramped the Australian and Calif ornian goldfields, knew exactlv what he was looking for, and how to look for it, and he specdilv made the discovery that was to startle the inhabitants of both islands, and lay the train for a series of explosions, outbreaks, or rushes from end to end of New Zealand. His words have come down to ua: ''At a place where a kind of road crossed, on a shallow bar, 1 shovelled

away about two and a-half feet of gravel, arrived at a beautifully soft slate, and saw the gold shining like the stars in Orion on a dark frosty night." That day, the 20th May, 1851, he washed out in his tin dish nearly ten pounds worth of the precious metal, and realising the position, he did what many would not have done, made up his mind to declare the district a payable goldfield, instead of selfishly keeping his find to himslf. Within a fortnight he reported the matter to the Superintendent, Major R. Richardson, and the result upon the social life of Otago was marvellous. Every able bodied man in town or village threw down his tools and was off to the diggings. A tremendus rush from Australia took place; ship after ship sailed in at the Heads crowded with old "forty niners" ; in a few months Otago jumped from comparative obscurity to being the best known and leading province of the colony ; vessels incoming, 69 in number in 1860, increased within 12 months to 256; the population of the province leaped from 12 to 30 thousand odd; the revenue from £83,000 immediately trebled itself. Such was the scramble for the yellow metal, that thousands of people tramped through the country on the way to the diggings; "streams" passed out over Waikari, along and across Silverstream, over the Taieri, and up the spurs of Maungatua, over the Lammerlaws, through Waipori, and so to Tuapeka. As a youngster the writer well remembers the nurse's lullabys to the smaller children: "Bright fine gold, bright fine gold, one a pecker, Tuapeka, bright fine gold," and whenever a cry of derision or anything to annoy another boy or girl was needed, it was always "Joe, Joe," though we had not the slightest idea why we said it, and it must have been nigh 40 years before the explanation came to one. It appears that whenever anyone unusual arrived on the field, a cry would go up of "Joe, Joe," be it woman or man, "Joe, Joe." Apparently any out of the way attire particularly of head-dress, whether a woman's bonnet or a man's bell topper, up would pop heads from the shafts and drives, and the shout of Joe, Joe, would echo along the field. Why "Joe" and not "Bill" or "Bob" has never been explained. After all who was Joe? It is strange what a "down" upon bell toppers the miners had j it was possibly because they thought it was an evidence' of better days or perchance a slight attempt at "putting on frill," for the story goes that one night a well dressed man, wearing a tall hat, stepped into a canvas pub in Weatherstones, a number of miners were sitting around the fire, and a big Canadian went up behind the stranger, and bonnetted him, crashing his tall hat right down over his eyes, so that he could only get it off with difficulty. The hat was completely destroyed, but the stranger took it in such good part that the miners followed up the joke by throwing into the battered tile sufficient gold, notes, and nuggets to buy him half a dozen new ones. Although the road to the field was crowded with eager travellers, all bent on reaching this new El Dorado as quickly as possible, those who were already there began to send out the gold, and down came the escort, the first one under the direct control of the Superintendent, several sergeants, and a number of troopers; that they brought with them over 5000 ounces opened the eyes of many to the immensity of the discovery, and when private individuals who had struck it rich began to straggle back with well filled pouches a <rreater frenzy seized those who had not yet ventured, tore them from their homes, and speedily carried them to the three gullies, which now held more people than the whole of Dunedin in the previous year. Poor old Gabriel Read was not the man to retain what he won from the ground, "easy come, easy go" was his motto. He received a thousand pounds from the Government for his discovery, but instead of investing it in freehold land, which at that time was leaping in values, he spent his gold as fast as he made it, continued to' toil away at his prospecting and sluicing, won and spent several fortunes, and finally drifting back to Tasmania, died there in 1894 a poor man.

The immediate result of Read's announcement was a tremendous rush of people from Dunedin to Tuapeka, and Robertson's house, being in the direct line of transit (one could not call it a road or even a track), became immediately a place of accommodation for travellers, as many as 20 or 30 miners often making their bunks on his clay floor, thankful for a roof over their heads, and a well- filled kite (Mrs Robertson's cooking of excellent bread being the talk of the district), well boiled mutton and -plenty of tea making a splendid repast. The rush took place in tlio worst of heavy winter, and Robertson's house was seldom without a packed floor. With it all he was a most- obliging and kind hearted individual, charitable in the extreme; manv a miner who had ill luck and had come to the end of his tether had reason to be grateful to him ; many was the good deed done in silence and secrecv by the old Stirlingshire emigrant. The influx of the diggers to the district, and the immediate erection of scores of tents at the junction and up the two gullies, the endless procession of heavy-booted, mud-stained, thirstv wayfarers, tramp, tramp past Robertson's house, tin cans banging, pannakins clattering, waggons and drays lumbering along; strange contraptions of wood and rope, termed band barrows, piled hich with swags and tin dishes; wide straggling rows of men of all nations and languages, each man "liumpinrr his bluey" or shouting strange oaths at his horse or bullock, which toiled on laden with bags of flour, blankets, shovels, and spades; flash, flash, showed the glint of the occasional sun upon tin dish or billy, as the wanderer strayed from the highway (so called) and stumbled amongst the snow-grass and tussocks, all this made a spectacle strange and unique in a previously quiet and deserted district. Tents sprang up as_ if by magic; wood and calico accommodation houses, stables and huts, and "canvas

town" became bigger and bigger, but the actual village or even foundation of a permanent settlement did not show itself for several years. With all this heterogeneous mass of persons flocking into the district; with shortage of provisions every now and then; lack of firewood, for this locality, except in a few birch gullies, was strangely woodless: constant exposure to extreme cold, for the first winter was a very severe one; with this surging multitude sicknees began to play havoc; accidents were frequent, claim jumping leading to fights with knives or heavy pummelling with fists; indiscriminate letting off of firearms after dark by persons entirely ignorant of the mechanism or dangers of the weapons they handled; frost bite of fingers and toes, as common as it now is rare; dysenterv from ice-cold, and often bad water; scurvy and similar blood disorders, due to wrongful and irregular feeding. Needless to say a doctor was eagerly looked for, and although no doubt many a one of the actual diggers was possessed of a diploma, Ebenezer Haliey alone thought fit to put up his brass plate, and to start practice in the district. At this time the miners and the persons busily engaged in providing for them, carrying to and fro clothing, timber, ironmongery, food, tents, etc., saw clearly that there was neither a place wherein the hundred and one slight accidents could be treated, nor the fairly frequent severe ones satisfactorily accommodated. Transport to Dunedin was out of the question over an impassable bridle track; the few permanent shanties were manifestly unsuitable; many of the tents were constantly on the move; and in spite of the earnestness and ability of the doctor who had had experience at Arrowtown among a somewhat similar class of people, numbers of lives were lost which might have been saved. With the innumerable demands upon his services from all parts of the field; the miserable accommodation for the sick or injured that was available in the tents and shanties around, Dr Haliey began to agitate for some means of providing greater comfort and a better chance of recovery for his (surgical cases, by the establishment of what to-day we should call a cottage hospital. He no doubt felt that the constant travel in all directions, to this one with a broken leg, to that one with a bad frost bite, to the third, perhaps a woman who required, say three or four visits a day, caused a large amount of his time to be wasted. He, therefore, set vigorously to work, got together a live committee of earnest workers, organised a systematic canvass of the town, and eventually succeeded in establishing the first Tuapeka Hospital. To this he was appointed house surgeon, with the right of private practice. Here he did good work, and many operations, and carried on for several years, but as the population rapidly increased, and his name became known through the wide district which he served, he found the hospital work too much for him, and handed it over to his successor, Dr Alexander Stewart. When one realises that his charge stretched from Mount Benger, Switzers, Tapanui, and Tuapeka Mouth on the one side, to Tokomairiro, Waipori, and the Lammerlaws on the other, as • wild and as wide a piece of territory as any man in the colony ever galloped over, it can be seen that he was indeed a true country doctor of the old school. The miles he had to travel by night and by day ; the journeys in brightest sunshine or in blinding snowstorm ; the tedious ascent of precipitous mountains on horseback or on foot; the rivers to be forded, or if in spate to be swum across; the nights he had to camp with no place to lay his head in shepherds' huts or small shanties, awaiting the arrival of the long looked for "son and heir": these were but a few of the trials that Ebenezer Haliey had to face. Now a land slide or avalanche would precipitate several men into an ifcy stream and half a dozen inanimate bodies would be brought along to him, perhaps two or three already dead ; on more than one occasion a number thus perished in a single night; near Fox's, another of the goldfields not far from Frankton where Haliey had been a locum tenen3, some 13 men, tents and all, slipped into the river one stormy night and were swept out of existence in a few moments. Foreigners from all parts of the world flashed their knives, and stabbed where thev chose; bullies and prize fighters battered their victims into insensibility; sluice boxes suddenly overloaded by a freshet gave way, pinning the worker at an awkward moment, smashing wrist or ankle; bullocks kicked_ out unexpectedly, one perchance catching some poor new" chum in the ribs, staving in his side; poisonous liquor, yclept whisky, poured down thirsty throats, at one and sixpence a shot, soon brouoht blue devils in its train, and Dr Haliey found his hands full at every turn. Although Weatherstone's, the most easterly sjully of" the three, included less of the actual gold producing area than either of the other two, it became a place of vast importance in "less than no time." Here the miners congregated ■when their clay's work was over; here were their banks their hotels, their boarding houses —so called; their drinking saloons," gambling dens, billiard rooms, and the hundred and one places of amusement for people of all ages, and of either sex: dancing halls, resorts where monte, poker, euchre, faro, and other games of chance and skill were plaved; shooting galleries, fighting and wrestling establishments. Here were held tournaments and sports of all kinds—running, jumping, quoits, pole jumping, tossing the caber, sword dancing. Occasionally would work be put off for the whole day, and the gully packed with a heaving, pushing mob, surging here and there, as excitement and "curiosity took them hither and thither; cheap jacks, thimble riggers, skittle alleys, side shows of all sorts and conditions, everything would be put on one side while the sports meeting was in progress. At night time the gully was a blaze of candles, flares, and ' lamps; uproarious

songs, chanties, scraping of fiddles, -wheezing of concertinas, droning of bagpipes were heard, also rattling of kettle (Jrums and cymbals and castanets or bones, the tinkle of the piano, thrumming, of banjos and guitars, and the rythmical clatter of heavy-booted feet. Money was plentiful, liquor ran free, blood was often spilt, and, every now and again word would come in that Halley was wanted, or more unfortunates overpowered with their heavy burden of "red eye" having been found frozen to death in some creek or gully. The amount of gold that was being wrung from the soil attracted many bad charade ters, and among them, one Garrett, watched with eager, furtive eye the wellfilled bags that some of the more industrious and saving were preparing to take out. Collecting around him some half a-dozen or more scoundrels, he one day made his way over the mountains and camped in a little birch gully on the side of Maungatua, about a mile above James Fulton's homestead, of Ravensboume. Next morning a party of diggers, over a dozen in number, crossed the Lammerlaws, and on the top of Maungatua stopped for a smoke, and to decide which was the best track to get down to the plain, and along to the Silverstream, thence to Dunedin; the township of Outram, of course, did not at that time exist. One of the party asserted that the better plan was to stick to the ranges, skirt right along them, and coming out at Silverstream have an easy way to Dunedin. This was agreed to by four who went with him, but the rest elected to clamber down the side of the mountain. This is one story,, but another, which seems more probable, is that the party were accosted by two diggers who, sitting on their swags, were resting by the roadside having a smoke, and that these two aHvised their going down the hill, as the shorter road (they, of course' were in reality two of Garrett's gang). The string of men wended their way down the side of the hill, which was covered with very thick manuka, or kilmog, as it was then called, and they were suddenly bailed up by Garrett, who ordered them to "put up their hands," and marched them at the pistol's muzzle into the little birch gully, where his crowd quickly relieved them of their hard earned gold dust, and with ropes and flax, which grew in profusion hardby, tied them up safely to the birch trees, which in this gully grew to a good size. The men found other unfortunates already in this evil plight, as Garrett had managed to intercept an earlier party, and all of these poor fellows were left tied tightly, being told by the gang that they would be liberated at night, but that they were on no account to endeavour to escape, as a picket or guard of two was to be left in the vicinity and would shoot _ instantly anyone attempting to untie his bonds. Late that night one of them found that he could get his wrists free, and _ setting vigorously to work soon had his companions liberated, and they hastened down the hill to the nearest homestead. They were half frozen and very hungry, and some of their number, terrified by Garrett's threats, were almost paralysed with the fear of meeting a volley of bullets or a charge of gun shot at every step. Finally emerging from the manuka they crossed Fulton's upper paddock, and seeing a light in the house knocked hard at the door. We have in our possession an autobiography of Mrs James Fulton which has not yet been published, and we here quote from it her account of those stirring times. It was written in 1915 when she was 85 years of age.

"One morning Mir Bremner, our boy's tutor, read out to us that Gabriel Read had discovered gold at Tuapeka, and he exclaimed: 'Why, that is the man who came over with me lately fxom Hobart. How exciting these times are getting. Tes, indeed, they were exciting, for there was a tremendous influx of diggers from Australia, who made their way up the cutting past our homestead, along the side of the mountain, and across our run to the Tuapeka. This proved a very rich goldfield, the gully being named after the discoverer, Gabriel Read. Robert Fulton went off to the diggings at once, but James was not stricken with the gold fever to the extent of following him. He, however, did very well by sending up bullock drays with stores to Tuapeka, and reaped a rich harvest at £IOO a load. He also sold our young colts at a high figure, £6O for young unbroken three-year-olds. We did not, however, relish the new order of things, for many undesirables came from Australia, who tore up our sheep fences for firewood and killed our sheep whenever short of food. The . gold escort, a four-horse Government wagonette, with four armed police in it and mounted troopers in front and behind, used to go down the cutting past the church, on one occasion bringing 32,000 ounces of gold. The postman. Jock Graham, in those early days took all letters up to the diggers, and returned with letters and parcels of gold to the diggers' wives. He wore a red coat and cocked hat, with a bunch of white feathers in it, and was mounted on a white horse. He blew his bugle or t&ftnpet loudly when coming down the cutting to call the attention of those who were looking out for the mail. After the arrival of bad characters from Australia he was not so noisy. He then took a longer - and more circuitous track, and avoided the' lonely cutting. He was quite a noted character himself in those days. On October 18, 1861, late at night, the nurse girl came to our bedroom door, and said she heard a crowd of men at the back. James and Robert thought they were the bushrangers come to stick up the house, and they went out to the back door j to see. During those dangerous times all i our doors and windows were kept heavily j barred, a loaded revolver hung at our bed- ; head, and James kept a pistol under his , pillow (we have that pistol In our possession. 'lt is a curious weapon, with two short rifled barrels, which can be twisted round by hand, not what one could by any stretch of the imagination call a hair trigger Colt). In the backward James and Robert found a number

of men, trembling with cold and fright, they said they had been stuck up in the ranges by Garrett, the bushranger, and his gang ever since pine o'clock that morning. Towards evening one of the JUen had worked his hands loose, .and had then liberated the others, 1% was drizzling with rain and they had had nothing to 6at aU day long. Unfortunately we had no bread left in the house, so at'that late houx we boiled a large pot of potatoes for them and they then camped in our barn for the night. Robert Fulton took their names down and all particulars and rode off tQ town, and gave notice to the authorities. As one of the men said that Garrett was going to stick up the ferry, that is now where the township of Outram is, he went lower down near Rennie's farm and swam his horse over. Next day Major Keddell Sergeant Garvey, and some mounted troopers came to the house and stayed a few days. They had the boys' room, which soon became a veritable arsenal, with belts and firearms, etc. One of our shepherds was requisitioned as a guade, and a diligent search made of the mountainside, but with no av,ail, for Garrett had shrewdly made his way quickly right into Dunedin, and under the very noses of the police sailed for Australia in a small vessel, and got clear away. He was, however, later on arrested in Sydney, being caught while trying to rob a bank. He was sent over to Dunedin for trial, but when some of those who had had experience of his sticking up were asked to give evidence, they refused to do so, for fear he would murder them when he was released. After serving a term he was let out on account of exceptionally good conduct, and was received into the house of Mr Alfred Brunton, and served him and his family faithfully for some time. He could not, however, keep out of trouble, and was convicted of stealing seeds from a flower shop, and some poison from a chemist's, and was again imprisoned, and finally died in prison. He was a fine looking man, and told my husband, who was a magistrate and visited him in prison, that he had been taught to thieve when a little fellow nine years old. ' Some more of our shepherds were robbed at the-Post Office Creek hut by another gang, and among the notes stolen from them was the very last one issued by the Oriental Bank of Dunedin, and later on this note was found in the pocket of Burgess, when he was arrested on the ranges by Sergeant Garvey. Burgess Avas afterwards excuted for his complicity in the Nelson murders. Sergeant Garvey was often at our house and in the Camp at Outram, and we were deeply grieved when the tidings of his tragic death reached us a little later. He was overtaken by a blizzard on the top of Maungatua and perishd in the snow. A large monument was erected to him in the Southern Cemetery in Dunedin." Garrett's Bush was well known to the writer, who, as a boy in his "teens," often visited it with . his brothers and sisters, but what was more to his liking, with school friends from Dunedin, to whom the story could be told > with a certain amount of additional detail due to a vivid imagination. The place was a pretty little gorge of black birch, mingimingi, tarata, and grass trees; thick manuka, festooned with pure white clematis; feathery kowhais, lavenderflowered, and white koromiko, skirted_ the glen; and here and there was a partially grassed space, well dotted with spear grass and abounding in the white umbels of fragrant anise, and in sweet tasting snow berries. Kahu the harrier screamed and circled overhead across the airy blue, where fine fleecy clouds were racing,.green "locusts" zig-zigged amongst the bushes, grasshoppers leaped in hundreds through the tussocks, around the graceful purple orchids, and the golden heads of the Maori onions; green and yellow striped lizards glided past, and were easily captured, or escaped, leaving in our hands a curious wriggling" portion of tail, which was jointed like the bran chiefs of the she oak, and we firmly believed would restore itself by fresh budding in a week or two. In the gully a beautifully clear rocky stream of the purest cold water splashed and babbled among lovely mosses and filmy ferns. The place rang with the melodious notes of the mockers, the bubbling laugh and clanging bells of the tuis, the chattering of the parakeets, the continuous trilling of flocks of yellow-headed canaries and brown creepers, the staccato tweet tweet of the. black and pied fantails, the plaintive "See you, See you" of the vigorous little whiteye, the pipe of the weka, "kui .kui kui" in all directions. Bobins, tomtits, grey warblers, ancPground larks abounded everywhere, and an occasional kaka screamed at us from a bier birch, ablaze with scarlet mistletoe. Can it be wondered' that this was a place we loved to visit, and yet with it there was always a kind of haunting terror in us; we spoke in hushed voices, Ave kept close together, the sound of our talk was almost inaudible in the presence of the babble of the stream and the twittering of the birds. With shaking voices, and almost chattering teeth we pointed out the very trees to which the wretched prisoners had been tied, perhaps after dreadful torture; to impress our companions from the city we no doubt, "put on" our state of fear, but to this day we can recall our sensations like those of Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island, and the horriblp creepy feeling of we knew not what at this grim and perchance blood stained spot. We firmly believed that the most tragio events had taken place there, and that not one half of the frightful deeds of Garrett, the bushranger-r-r-r (we literally quivered over the name) had ever come to light or been made public, and that possibly one of the gang still lurked near his old haunts. This little gully is about a quarter of a milo down the mountainside from the old road, which ran from above HarveyS Flat up the main spur of the mountain, and which road has, we think, become disused and overgrown with gorse. The gully is there, the shady trees as they were, the stream babbles on over the

rocks and ferns and messes as of yore, but now a deeper silence whelms that haunted spot with gloom. All the old bright and moving life has changed; cultivation, fire, and the alien of fur and feather have done the work well; gone are the lovely birds, those noisy songsters of the grove, gone are the grasshoppers, the buzzing locusts, the silent creeping lizards, gone are the scared Mid whispering Children, "all, all are gone, the old familiar faces.

(To be Continued.)