The Conquerors

Southland Times, Issue 21825, 30 September 1932, Page 3

The Conquerors

! ! • Saga of the Stations ; i j

‘ (By the Wanderer.) ‘

OTAHU. CUTHBERTSON BROTHERS. 1860—1883. The word of remembrance that lightens as fire from the steeps of the stormBids l only'the faith of our Father's endure in us firm as they held it fast: That the glory which was from the fl.st upon Southland alone may endure to the last. , , _ , . (From Swinburne’s Ode to England. ) Between 1860 and 1870, before the great slump and the rabbit pest set m, Otahu was prosperous, Cuthbertson Brothers enlarged the small hut ana built a more comfortable house, and constructed what Mrs John thought wonderful home-made furniture— she now had a wooden floor, a J>rjck chimney and a colonial oven, quite ti large sitting room and several bedroomJShe learned to make her own bread and was proud of her skill in bread and butter-making. A garden and orchard were made and they planted belts of trees to protect themselves and their garden from the cold winds of winter that stormed over the Otahu Flats. Otahu homestead now became quite a social centre and when we hear of great gatherings of other station people, who perhaps came for a day and were storm-bound for a week, it seems as if the old Otahu homestead must have been a most elastic abode to let them all in. When the Aitken family at Clifden were burnt out at four in the morning, and a frosty morning at that, and only escaped in their nightclothes, Mrs John came over for the family and took them to her home and heart —fed and clothed them all and kept the younger children till the new home at Clifden was built. Mrs John came from a great Highland family, famed in song, story and legend. The Montcreiff Clan were great fighters, loyal to their own clan, and in past generations had laid clown their lives for their country, their faith and their friends, and Mrs John was a worthy daughter of the clan. She was a Highlander with all the virtures and faults of her race—passionate, impulsive, generous to a fault, hospitable to a fault, charming and gracious and a loyal friend, but she never forgot a kindness, nor forgave a wrong. She had to work very hard and endure much hardship, but she kept a brave front and never failed in her courage and faith in the future. In 1872 Mr and Mrs John Cuthbertson left Otahu in charge of their brother, Robert Ferguson Cuthbertson, and went on a trip to the Old Country. In after years, vzhen, after Mr John Cuthbertson’s death, Mrs John retired to Nelson, it was her great joy to meet Southlanders and talk about the early days. “Everything and everybody was so real and so simple then,” she was wont to say. “We worked and suffered with the men, and the greatest friends I have ever made in my life were the people of all classes and breeds around us in the country.” “Oh yes!” she would say, “I have a most comfortable and convenient home in one of the best parts of the town, but I often feel as if I would like to be down south. After we returned from Home, my husband went into business and our children went to school in Invercargill, and maybe it was a bit cold in the winter and the summers were short, but what did that matter for the Southland people are the warmest-hearted people in the world.” Mrs John Cuthbertson passed away at Nelson, after having reached a great age, and outlived nearly all her family. She had endeared herself to many Nelson friends, but after her death they said, “In her old age she lived again in- Invercargill and at Otahu, and always felt that Southland was her real home. Perhaps she missed in Nelson the Scotch element, and the Scotch atmosphere of Southland, for everything and everybody that came after never held her affections nor appealed like the old days at Otahu and Invercargill. To continue Otahu and the Cuthbertson family—Mr R. F. and his wife went up there in 1872—Mr Cuthbertson meanwhile having married into a very well-known family who have helped a great deal to make the history of Southland what it is, and is going to be. Miss Denniston was the daughter of the late Mr Denniston, one of our leading literary lights in those times. She and her husband took the long journey to Otahu using Otautau as a stopping qlacc—for now this little township had begun to grow like the proverbial mushroom. There is no account of Otautau or many early townships in Southland being properly laid out and surveyed. Like Topsy in Uncle Tom’s Cabin they “just growed” from a blacksmith on one side of the river, where it could be safely forded, and a hotel or accommodation house on the opposite or same side. Otautau now boasted Mr Price’s accommodation house, Mr Dan Lynch’s smithy, Mr Campbell’s store and Mr Wm. Walker’s butcher’s shop, and became a half-way house for station people, and drovers, and at this time was completing the railway and here the upcountry people came overnight to catch the morning train. They left Otautau and took the long rough road to Otahu. Shortly after their arrival at the station they shifted the house to another site further along the terrace and nearer to the main track and Clifden, and this house became a great landmark, for station people from Blackmount, Redcliffe, and Wairaki used to make the hospitable Otahu home a stopping place. Mrs R. F. Cuthbertson had a small family to work for, besides many other tasks, but nevertheless if any of her neighbours were ill or in trouble, they always sent for Mrs Cuthbertson, and whether it was a squatter’s or a shepherd’s wife or family—no matter the distance, whether it was night or day, Mrs Cuthbertson rode over, for she was a wonderful nurse, and a most capable woman. Mr R. F. Cuthbertson had been brought up by the Scotch dominies of the old school, who teach their pupils with a tawer in one hand and the Bible in the other—no pandering to the personality and tastes of the child in the Victorian era—and Mr R. F. was a worthy pupil of the period when Calvin’s theories ruled in Scotland, and Otahu became a great religious centre in the district, where squatters, shepherds and strangers came to monthly services conducted by Presbyterian ministers—notably Mr Ewan of Calcium, Limestone Plains, who was a great friend of both Mr and Mrs Cuthbertson and much liked by the children. People came from far and wide to these simple little services, and oftimes as many as fifty or seventy people were welcomed on a Sunday at Otahu. To show a sidelight on Mr R. F. Cuthbertson’s character and the high esteem in which he was held, the following story is quoted. Friends of the Cuthbertson family arrived by train from Dunedin and were waiting at Otautau for Mr Cuthbertson to come down from up country and take them up to Otahu where they were going to stay. There had been much rain and rivers were in high flood and the low-lying lands were covered with water. The visitors became worried and meeting the Rev. Mr Ewan remarked that they did not think that Mr Cuthbertson would ven- , ture out in such weather to drive over

the very rough roads that lay between Otautau and Otahu. Mr Ewan replied “Did Mr Cuthbertson say that he would be in Otautau to meet you and after getting a reply in the affirmative replied, “If Mr Cuthbertson promised to be here, he will be, for I know him well, and have never known him to break his word or let a friend down, and sure enough Mr Cuthbertson arrived in his buggy that night, having had a rough passage which had causeu him to be delayed, and as soon as the waters subsided, and the weather cleared Mr Cuthbertson drove his guests back to Otahu. In spite of hard work, foresight and every economy, surely but slowly a slump was setting in, and the great depression that the pioneers suffered from between 1870 and 1881 had begun. Many brave souls lost their all in those years—many gave up sheep entirely and devoted themselves to agriculture, but even then it was rather a risk for it was then that the reign of the rabbits began. With no rabbit-proof wire fences, neither demand nor any market for rabbitskins the rabbits went on increasing as a great rate. Captain btaymond, who then lived at Avondale Station, proved a great benefactor and friend of the farmers by introducing the well-known rabbit remedy and exterminator—poisoned pollard. This kept them within bounds for a while, but it was not until years later, when both skins and rabbit carcasses became, in great demand and rose to a high price, that the rabbits really decreased. When rabbiters could make really big cheques, many men were making more money with their traps and ferrets and dogs than the fanner whose farm was being cleared of the rabbit pest. From the Southland Times of that period the following prices are quoted—Bullocks from two pounds, seven and six. Crossbred shee-' in prime condition, from thirteen shillings and Merinoes from eight shillings. Potatoes 3/- a cwt, butter eightpence a pound and cheese fivepence. Oats were from tenpence to one shilling and twopence a bushel, wheat was three and sixpence a bushel and flour £lO 10/- a ton and bread sixpence to sevenpence a quartern loaf of four pounds. Crossbred sheepskins realized from 1/5 to 5/- and Merino pelts from 5d to lOd. Bran, chaff, hay, turnips were all the same price—about three shillings a hundredweight. Wool was from 2|d to 5d and tallow 16/- a hundredweight, and meat was retailed by the local butchers at the rate of 2d to 3d a pound for both beef and mutton. When it was two or three day’s journey with a waggon down to Otautau and horses and men to be lodged and fed at the hotel whilst loading, the railway trucks there was very little profit for the farmers with wool and oats so low, but they still struggled on because, as in these dark days of the present slump, there was no demand for land and as they could not sell they had to remain. But oh, the place is very dear! I never knew while living here How it was fastened to my heart— l know it now, I must depart. What if its winter days were grey? How sweet it was in sunny May! What if the folks were sometimes gruff? Their hearts are of good wearing stuff. (From Isabelle Flyrie Mayo.) (To be Continued.)