The Conquerors

Southland Times, Issue 21851, 31 October 1932, Page 11

The Conquerors

Saga of the Stations » (By the Wanderer.) ,

THE GAP. MATTHEW SCOTT. 1856—1872. They sailed away In the ships that sailed Ere science controlled the main When the strong brave heart oi a man prevailed As 'twill never prevail again; They know not whither, nor much they cared— Let Fate or the winds decide. The worst of the Great Unknown they dared In the days when the World was wide. —from Henry Lawson. Among the very first runholders in Southland were Matthew Scott, an Irish gentleman, and a Highlander named McKay, who figures as a generous Scotchman, and first owner of so many of the old stations. Rumour hath said that it was McKay who induced Scott to take up land in Southland, indeed McKay will always be remembered as one of the first land agents. The McKays, according to Scottish history, were always fierce fighters and wanderers of the earth. McKay, according to old reports, came of. a distinguished Scotch family—a fine figure of a man who was extremely sociable and liked giving his friends a really good time. He came out to Sydney in 1849, and whilst there met the late Mr Printz, and they chummed up over a friendly bottle or so. Mr McKay came down to the boat to see his new friend off and feeling a bit heavy in the head went down into the captain’s cabin to sleep off his headache. The boat started off and they were well away from the port when Captain Printz discovered that Mr McKay was still on the boat and the two friends arranged that Mr McKay should come over on a trip to New Zealand, and go back by the next boat. At length they reached the Port of Riverton, and Mr McKay, finding he had three months to put in before a boat returned to Sydney .thought it would be a very good plan to explore the backcountry and see the lakes they were talking about even then. He hired a pack-bullock and he with a Maori guide set out and seems to have gone up by Burwood and Nokomai and come back by a western route. He returned to Sydney and there seems to have purchased the lease of great parcels of land within radius of East and Western Southland. Mr McKay at length returned to Riverton, and though such a large landowner he seemed to depend almost entirely on his remittance from Scotland, and being of an extremely sociable nature he found that remittance quite inadequate so, to raise funds, began to dispose of his land. He sold Burwood to Mr Printz for £lO ten pounds—he in a burst of patriotic fervour at finding a fellow Highlander after his own heart gave Mr Donald Cameron a present of Nokomai. He at length disposed of all his land at bargain prices and young men with great hearts and courage were the purchasers. Mr Matthew Scott seems one of the first we hear of. He was a tall spare figure—an Irishman, wellbred, and well-educated. He took over the Gap—Bo9 acres freehold and 8,000 acres leasehold—his boundries being the Otautau river on the south and Aparima to the west, and Waicola run and beyond what is now known as Raymond’s Gap northwards. He was a great reader and student and lived in a little two-roomed thatched house lined with bark, and a sod chimney— In the old days when bullock transport was the order of the day the track from Riverton to the back country instead of being in the valley, used to run along the Longwood ridges, and Mr Scott had built his little home high up under the Longwoods where he had a wonderful view of the valley beneath and the mountains beyond. In those days, however, there seemed to be much worse and wetter weather than at the present day. Perhaps the dense bush and much marshy swampy land attracted more rain and snow and fog, but according to reports Mr Scott’s valley land seems to have been continually flooded—it was also full of bogs and crab-holes and both sheep and cattle were continually being bogged. Sheep and cattle were valuable then; at auction sales of sheep and cattle when Captains Howell and Stevens brought stock from Twofold Bay, New South Wales and Tasmania, the sheep realized £2 and cattle from £l2 to £2O and then there was the droving and crossing swamps, bogs and rivers. The early squatters paid much more for their stock than for their runs, and

what with floods, bogs and bad weather shepherds were always in request. Mr Scott seems to have been the weary travellers’ friend and the Gap was the half-way house on the road to the backcountry runs. The Otautau stream and the Aparima river used to bank up when heavy rain came and washed the snow off the mountains, and where Otautau now lies and all the valley beneath would be one vast lake. Pioneers going through to take possession when they arrived at the Gap would look down on the face of the waters and decide that it was wiser to wait till the flood subsided before they continued on their journey and whole families would crowd into the small cottage and poor Mr Scott would be eaten out of house and home often getting so low and short of food that all. he could give his guests was mutton, potatoes and tea. However, he always made his guests very welcome and cheered them on their way. In the early sixties Mr Scott started to build a larger house and being down in Riverton met Mr and Mrs Dodds, Mr Dodds at that time was butchering in Riverton and Mr Scott promised to build them a house on the banks of the Otautau stream if they would start an accommodation house or hotel for the many travellers passing by, and Mr Scott arranged with them to come up as soon as the house was completed. Already Mrs Biddy McKay had started an accommodation house at Groper’s Bush and another was run by Mr and Mrs James of Aparima, later on Mr and Mrs Scobie started an accommodation house at Eastern Bush. Mr and Mrs Dodds were very popular with passing pilgrims and made them very comfortable. Mrs Dodds brought her brother and sister to Otautau with her—the brother, Mr Tilliard started a butcher’s shop and Miss Tilliard lived with Mrs Dodds and quite led the fashion in Otautau and the surrounding district. With her fashionable bonnets and up-to-date crinoline costumes and her neat figure and long curls she was quite the Belle of the Backblocks. Between the sixties and seventies the diggings broke out and diggers from Australia and Tasmania and all parts of the world were constantly landing at the Bluff and Riverton with all their tools and equipment. Working bullocks and carthorses were in great request also drays and waggons brought high prices, a £lOO was given for a dray or waggon and working bullocks or a carthorse attached. Great trains of waggons were wending their way inland, calling on the passing squatters and giving up to £l5 a ton for chaff, oats or hay and paying a big price for beef, mutton, and eggs. Men working on the runs as shepherds, ploughmen and ditchers left their jobs and joined in the much boomed gold rush. No doubt the great diggings days had much to do with the opening up of Southland and bringing people in. Land was so cheap and the untouched country all made a great appeal to the spirit of adventure which seemed to possess the pioneers of long ago. Money making seemed not their aim but a great love of nature and wide spaces. Mr Scott seems to have made quite a success of his land venture and seems to have bought and sold sheep and cultivated the higher lands at the Gap. He was most _ highly esteemed by all who knew him—the shepherds, drovers and labourers, the station people whom he housed, fed and befriended and the Invercargill people he had business dealings with. In 1872 Mr Scott leased “The Gap" propenty to Mr Aitkin for two years and retired from runholding for a while, and Mr Scott is heard of as acting deputy-superintendant whilst Dr. Menzies was away at a conference of the Provincial Council at Auckland. At that time there was no railway and many schemes to make Southland more easy of access were afloat. The leading citizens of Invercargill led by Calder of Calder and Blacklock had agitated and succeeded in building a wharf at the Moko Moko which cost £20,000. Mr Scott was never in favour of the scheme and when asked his opinion on the matter, said that he would advise them “to cut it adrift and let it float out with the tide.” It is quite hard to believe in these days of rapid transport that it took Dr. Menzies in 1873 nearly six weeks to travel to Auckland. Travel was a painful and precarious undertaking with the result that most people stayed at home, content to live and die where they were bom. In Invercargill the early settlers were woefully handicapped with bad roads, neither trams nor trains. People thought in terms of local politics and local interests. Their social and economic problems hardly extended beyond the country in which they lived. Bush and swamps extended to Bigger Street till 1862, and later and what is now known as South Invercargill, was called “The Swamp.” One time when the superintendant was away a man with a gun ran amock beyond Biggar Street and Sergeant Morton had to go all the way up to Knapdale to get the permission of Mr McNabb J. P. to shoot the offender. “Just let the puir body live” said McNabb and “watch out that he does no harm." “Oh,’’said “the sergeant,” he has a list of people he is going to shoot, and you are one of the first Mr McNabb” .“Go back quickly” said McNabb “and put a dangerous man like that out of the way,” which the sergeant did. Whiles glowering round wl prudent carei Lest bugles catch him unawares. —Robert Bums. (To be continued.)