PURPLE PATCHES IN NOKOMAI HISTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3687, 11 November 1924, Page 66

PURPLE PATCHES IN NOKOMAI HISTORY.

By

HARRY A. GILBERT.

In the hectic heyday of life on the goldfields of Otago and Southland townships sprang up in the gullies and along the hillsides, like mushrooms, in a single night. Stretches of silver tussock became in 24 hours dotted with tents and strewn with all the junk and paraphernalia of the gold-seekers. These tented communities moved on with the gold lure, but where the “ Whero,” as the Maori called it, remained for a time canvas made way for wood, and a scattered township had its span for a year or two. But in all the literature dealing with the goldfields in Otago and Southland scarcely more than mention is made of Nokomai—nothing has been chronicled of what was one of the largest and most abiding communities of the days when men in the south talked little else but gold. Away back in 1859 the late Donald Angus Cameron trekked into the Nokomai Valley, in Southland, near the OtagoSouthland boundary, with his sheep, and settled on the run which his family holds to this day. Cameron named the place Glenfalloch (hidden glen) after a glen in Inverness-shire, his homeland. And it is a hidden glen in very truth, eight miles distant from the Gore-Kingston railway, winding in behind lofty hills and peaks, with the mountainous Nevis country out beyond. The visitor to the “ hidden glen ” in these days finds the conventional sheep station, homestead, and plantation of poplars and pines, with the flat land of the valley, well grassed and fertile. There is no sign of other habitations on the valley flats, yet this was once the site of a township of over 2000 persons, with all the amenities of a Klondike. There were two rushes to the Nokomai. One was in 1860, and centred at Victoria Gully, in the upper reaches of the prattling Nokomai Creek. The other rush took place in the vicinity of the homestead, after one of Cameron’s brothers had discovered gold in the roots of a birch tree dislodged on the hillside. So between the lower and upper diggings of a township of tents and whares sprung up. And here comes appropriately a story about two well-known figures of the district at that time. Sam Butson and Ben Jones shared a tent and a claim. One very dark night the two men were preparing to retire. They had won a considerable quantity of gold, and Butson was in the habit of placing it in his hip pocket, rolling his trousers up and using them as a pillow. But outside among the matakowri hushes someone watched the shadows of Butson and Jones on the side of the tent. The candle was extinguished, and the occupants were soon dreaming of El Dorado. Presently a strong hand was thrust under the tent, and clutched fiercely at Butson’s trousers. Butson wakened, in a hurry, and was in time to grab one leg of the garment. The thief and Butson engaged in a tug-of-war of short duration—the trousers parted, and the thief got away with the leg containing the gold. Out into the dark, cold night ran Butson and Jones in their underclothes, but the thief had disappeared—lost among the spear-pointed matakowri, which dealt rather harshly with the legs of the infuriated diggers. Jones, by the way, survives, close on 90 years of age, and is now at Lome Farm for the Aged, in Southland. He went there about four years ago —the last of the old brigade to surrender his miner’s right on thp Nokomai. About 1865 there was a big influx of miners to the valley. A wide main street ran the full length of the settlement, and on each side were erected wooden building of the more substantial kind. Three hotels became features of the landscape. A certain T. Aiton conducted the Myall Hotel and store; T. Whitaker had the Provincial Hotel and store “with accommodation excellent and bedrooms unsurpassed. and bakery celebrated for turning out plain and fancy bread.” The famous Job Coulam boasted proprietorship of the United States Hotel and store, “with the only billiards table on the Nokomai.” At one shilling a nip the hotelkeepers made small fortunes. Every Saturday night Nokomai was en fete. Diggers from gully and ridge came down to make gay, replenish stores, and slake healthy thirsts. Dancing saloons were added to heighten the gaiety, the music was barbaric, and nothing mattered to men who made money easily, and spent it freely—men who displayed rolls of notes, regarded life as a jest, and came back in after years grateful for a fill of tobacco! These Saturday evenings were lively times—an odd shot or two at no definite target, fighting, singing, drinking, dancing, laughter, devil-may-care, and the barking of dogs provided the ingredients. Talk of fights and a near lynching aroused the authorities to send a policeman among the diggers. The official lockup was a two by four affair, little larger than a sentry-box. Into this a hapless drunk would be thrust, and when the accommodation was over-taxed, a huge log outside was brought into use. To this an obstreperous drunk would be attached by a chain and a pair of handcuffs. A story is told of an outsize Irishman who was so secured one balmy summer evening—and it can be sultry in this sheltered valley where grapes grow in the open. The Irishman nonplussed the constable and astonished the rest of the township by placing the “gaol” on his shoulder and transporting it to the door of Job Coulam’s hotel. He slaked his thirst with Job’s help, and took the “gaol” back again ! The presence of the constable spoiled many a healthy fistic encounter; this

aroused the resentment of the diggers. One evening two men, evenly matched in liquor, size, and pugilistic skill, started the dogs in Main Street by some weighty exchanges, and more or less scientific footwork. The usual crowd collected, and the constable was there, too. Four huskies grabbed him, and he was forced to stand as a spectator of one of the best of many knock-out contests staged on the Nokomai. There were two police stationed there after that. The near-lynching mentioned above had as its central figure the one and only Job Coulam. Coulam, it is said, came to the conclusion that if he could bring the miners down from the hills to the southern end of the township, business would brisken in his hotel and store. So he spread the glad, but fictitious sounding tidings of another rieh streak. It was soon found to be a “duffer" rush, and though he didn’t reach the stage at which the sheriff charges in and slashes the noosed rope, Job all but paid dearly for liis indiscretion. In time, children were to be found in the settlement. A school committee was set up, and on October 31, 1870, a school was erected after there had been a dispute over the site, and several committee members had resigned. Henry Clapham was the first teacher, and Tom Aiton the first chairman. Somebody stole all the schoolbooks and requisites on one occasion. Even the school bell had a history. A bell had been ordered from Melbourne, but the order was cancelled in favour of one recovered from a wrecked vessel. That bell is now in use at the Athol schoolhouse. There were over 50 children at the school at one time. And the valley had its newspaper, a wonderful journal, a copy of which the writer found in the Hoeken Collection at the Otago Museum. Henry Thurston Evans was the enterprising journalist who produced, edited, sub-edited, and set up the Nokomai Weekly Herald. Published on Saturdays, it was a four-page sheet with the title printed, and the advertisements and letterpress ruled off and written in easily read manuscript. In the issue of Jauuary 1, 1872, the following advertisement appeared: Should this meet the eye of any gentlemanly person capable of performing the combined artistic duties of hair-cutter, shaver, and tailor, he could make a good living on the Nokomai—absolute fashionableness not being a sine qua non. The hint may perhaps be taken by some handy artiste -who has not much occupation in his present location. “ The Rambler ” was the nom de plume of a writer in the sheet. In 1872 he wrote as follows : A rumour is current of the addition ol new rooms to some of the hotels—l suppose for meeting or dance rooms or billiards—wonder if the company (Nokomai Flat Gold Mining Company) is a success —if barmaids, dance girls, and apple and gingerbread nut stalls will follow? Lord knows, we may even yet have a theatre, gaol, oyster saloons, mechanics’ institute, Nokomai Volunteer Rifle Club, regimental band, pleasure boats on the Mataura, tea gardens, Freemasons’ Hall, Hall of Commerce, shareholders’ association, hospital, merchant tailors, and the Nokomai Herald enlarged to the size of the London Times. But the only new building I have at present to notice is Mr Coulam’s blacksmith’s shop. Then among the notes of the day was the following: Owing to the great influx of lawyers to the goldfields, Judge Gray is now kept busily engaged, though when first appointed there were no lawyers, and his time was not nearly occupied! On the last page of this wonderful production were 13 hotel advertisements from the Nokomai and surrounding country ! Without a doubt the big man—at least the most picturesque and interesting—of the Nokomai in its day was the redoubtable Job Coulam, a shrewd, bluff, Yorkshireman, who, every July 4, staged an annual ball and supper at his United States Hotel to celebrate the anniversary of American Independence. Job was gold-buyer for one of the banks, and it was his duty to take the winnings of the diggers to Invercargill, 80 miles away, by trap over rushing streams and unformed roads. Only once did he fall down on his job. One day, accompanied by his wife, the gold convoy set off. Job, at the reins, had a leather valise aboard, containing 300 oz of gold. But crossing the last ford of the Mataura ■ —still known as Job’s Ford—the trap was struck by the flood waters. Job was washed out, but clambered ashore by grasping a flax clump. His wife clung to a wheel as the water surged over; she clung long enough for Job to haul her to safety by means of a flax rope. The valise, with the gold, was lost in the river. Now, Job offered £SO reward for the recovery of the gold, and Renata (Leonard) Paiwai, a Maori youth, who, it is said, eventually became fb chief in the North Island, undertook to fjet it. Leonard searched long and often, and the ugly rumour got abroad that he had found the gold, but would not disclose its whereabouts. Chided by the diggers, Leonard subsequently produced the gold, and received the £SO. Leonard made a great night of it with his friends, and then stayed at Job Coulam’s hotel until the astute Yorkshireman had taken the reward into his till again. Nothing very material did the Nokomai township lack. On the southern bank of the Mataura River, where it is joined by the Dome Creek, a racecourse was formed and used for a long period. For years after the township ceased to be, a huge pile of bottles stood on the site of the race track —a reminder of less dry days. Mention of bottles prompts the remark that thousands of them, strewn along the valley, were the last remnants of the township to disappear. It is interesting to note that each of the three hotels was burned to the ground. Alton’s hotel was controlled by Sam Instone when it went up in flames, and the bailiff, who had made his appearance, was a spectator of the fire.

It was left to Job Coulam, however, to startle the natives, when the “magnificent” United States Hotel went up in flames. There was a big keg of powder in the hotel, and at the discovery of the outbreak everybody bolted, as there were no fire-fighting appliances. In the hotel and store were many tins of kerosene, which burst, and the whole valley was illuminated by the blaze. And then came the deafening roar as the powder sent everything into the air, completing, perhaps, the most spectacular event ever seen on the Nokomai. In the cliimnby of one of the burned hotels wa3 found a whisky still. Liquor was a necessity, it seemed, to the life of the diggers. Shortly before 1880 the stone walls of a proposed brewery were erected, but the dwindling of the population discouraged the promoters, and so a useful institution was never founded. Gradually, with the removal of the miners to other fields, the township, which had lived over a decade, began to lose caste, the school was closed, all evidences of settlement were obliterated, and now the first habitation in the valley—the stone homestead of Glenfalloch Stationstands alone among the pines, mute witness to the “glory” that once was Nokomai. High up the river from the former site of the settlement the Chinese workmen of the Nokomai Sluicing Company—started in 1896 —are yet working near Victoria Gully. Long before the advent of the diggers, Nokomai Valley became invested with the romance of Maori life and that of the moa. On Moa Hill, which looks down on the settlement -which once was, moa bones were found; the relics arc now in the Otago and Invercargill museums. In the valley, buried deep, have been found many Maori ovens and implements. At the entrance to the valley, near where the Nokomai River joins the Mataura, is the Milestone, a great pile of rock resembling the back and head of an elephant. On the river side of the rock is a cave where Maori eelers used to shelter. Many implements wrought by Maoris were found there. It is said that these Maoris were members of a tribe which sought refuge far up the sinuous, picturesque Mataura from the wrath of the bloody Te Rauparaha. ’ There is a legend now that when the mists settle down around the great bulk of Ardlussa and the Milestone, a big Maori canoe glides to the base of the rock, and the forms of warriors may be seen ascending to the cave above. It is the only legend of Glenfalloch—the hidden glen.—Christchurch Sun.