OBITUARY.

Pelorus Guardian and Miners' Advocate., Volume 30, Issue 28, 12 April 1918, Page 3

OBITUARY.

JOHN HADFIELD SMITH. There passed away on Tuesday evening at the Cottage Hospital, Havelock, at the age of 74, John Hadh'cld Smith, one of the early pioneers of the town. With his father, after whom he was named, and two of his brothers he landed at Port Chalmers from Hobart, Tasmania, early in 1862. The Dunstan rush started about 4 months later and he, together with his father and brother (Mr W. H. Smith), got the gold fever, and leaving one brother (the late Jas. Hadfield Smith) in the office of a solicitor in Dunedin, made their way to the Dunstan, and from there to Conroy’s Cully. When Fox discovered the Arrow River they wended their way I thither, and from there to Moke Creek and Arthur’s Point, about 4 miles from I Queenstown, where they followed gold digging up to the time the Wakamarina rush started early in 1864. They, in conjunction with a young man (John Foy, also from Hobart) left Dunedin on the 13th May, 1864, for Havelock in I a small schooner called the ‘ ‘ Pioneer, ’ ’ bringing with them a boat, through the intemperate habits of the master of the schooner they had a somewhat erratic passage, only making the discovery of their whereabouts through pulling into Poverty Bay on the coast of the North Island for water, and it was. not till about the 2nd June, 1864, that they reached their goal at Havelock. Deceased for some years ran a mail service by boat to Picton in conjunction with Messrs Hector Hoarder and Robert Lacey, both of Picton, and the latter the founder of the well-known firm of Lacey and Co., of Wellington. Later on ho went up to Hobart and purchased a schooner called the “Star of the Sea,’’ which he ran between the various New Zealand ports, but mainly to Wellington, for about 7 years until she was lost in Cooks Strait through striking a rock entering Tory Channel at night. For nearly thirty years he has made Wellington his homo, running the business of a carrier and later that of a commission agent. “Jeff,’’ the name under which he was generally known, was well and favourably known in Wellington and throughout the Pelorus district, where he had many friends who will regret to learn of his death. The surviving members of the family are Messrs WH. Smith, (i. H. Smith, ( and C. H. Smith, of Havelock, and Mrs Webb, of Wellington. The funeral took place yesterday j afternoon, the large number of. friends who followed the remains to the Havelock cemetery testifying to the respect in which the deceased gentleman was held.