The Conquerors

Southland Times, Issue 22215, 6 January 1934, Page 16

The Conquerors

g ' 1 I Saga of the Stations i i ! I I

BY

the Wanderer.)

BELMONT. CAPTAIN AND LADY BROWN. (1870-1878.) He who digs a well, constructs, a stone fountain, plants a grove of trees by the roadside, plants an orchard, builds a durable house, reclaims a swamp, or as much as puts a stone seat by the wayside, makes the land so far lovely and desirable, makes a fortune which he cannot carry away with him. but which is useful to his country long afterwards. (From R. W. Emerson.) It was a strange chain of events that eventually brought much land in Southland into the possession of Captain Brown and his sons. All over the Western district for a few years had raged the dreaded sheep disease called “The Doze,” followed by another evil called “The Scab” brought to New Zealand from Tasmania by infected sheep. Mr Gillanders had sent away his sheep to the Aparima run under the charge of Archie Cameron. When these diseases had died down and the worst of the scare was over, Mr Cameron returned with the sheep and Mr Gillanders and Cameron arranged to cut a track through to the magnificent alpine pastures that lay above Lake Monowai, around Green Lake, and on the fertile ridges of the Clueghern Mountains. It was a great feat cutting this track about nine to ten miles long and it is still to be seen on the Survey Map, for it has been used until quite recently for droving stock up to the heights to obtain summer pasture. In the old days, before the rabbits took charge of both waste and wanted land, the runholders were utilizing, according to the Hundreds system, all available unused land around their runs until Mr J. T. Thompson brought in another system, whereby any squatter using without special permission from the Government any Crown Lands, was liable to a fine of five hundred pounds. Shortly after this Act was put into force a public auction sale of Crown Lands was held in Invercargill and this alpine pasture, which included Clueghern Mountains and Green Lake, fell into the hands of the partners of the chief store in Invercargill. However, Mr J. T. Thompson declared that they had not observed the new regulations and the sale was declared null and void. So again the Crown Lands were submitted to auction and this time it fell into the possession of Captain Browm, a Naval Officer. Captain Brown and his family travelled up in a bullock dray to take possession of his new property. They had brought a lady’s maid and a cook with them and much silver, china and furniture. Most of the roads in Southland were fairly soft, and it was not their length that troubled the travellers as much as their depth. Sometimes the settlers would lay logs lengthwise to keep the wheels of the waggon from sinking. The consequence was that while the wheels were kept fairly high and dry, the bullocks were ploughing along up to their bellies in mud. When two teams met the one that got off the track was up to the axles in mud. The method of deciding who was to get ofi the track was for both teamsters to strip ■ off their coats, The battle was gained by the strongest man for “Might is Right” was the law laid down by these bullock waggoners of old and the man who won kept to the track. When these new chums reached their destination they found no place of residence, and found that their magnificent alpine run no use whatever without Sunnyside so this they brought from Mr Gillanders for £3OOO. However, there was only a wattle and daub cottage. This had sufficed for Mr and Mrs Gillanders, but was far too small for the Browns and their staff. Captain Brown seems to have left his son James at Sunnyside, with a married shepherd called Borwick, and for a while the Browns seem to have stayed at Blackmount with Mr John Stuart. It is reported that for a while Captain Brown was partner with Mr Stewart in Blackmount. Shortly afterwards Captain Brown brought 10,000 acres from the Wairaki estate, and called his run by the name of Belmont. On this place he built what was considered a mansion. He planted a flower garden and an orchard, put in splendid plantations of English trees and shrubs and built a most beautiful home in the midst of the wilderness. There he and his wife and eldest son Alek went, and the two maidservants and the lady’s maid had to turn housekeeper, for Lady Brown was a delicate woman quite unused to colonial or primitive conditions. Captain Brown is described as a big stout tall military looking man who walked and dressed like a naval officer. • He was most kind and fatherly to all who worked for him. He would go around them all and enquire after their health, and if anyone was ill would doctor them from a vast medicine chest he had brought up t» Belmont. Lady Brown was also very handsome and a most distinguished-looking lady, and she would put on wonderfully fashionable clothes in the afternoon and walk around the garden and orchard. She took a great interest in the six gray rabbits that Captain Brown, in the interests of sport, had imported from Home. One fine day when the bullock waggons had come up for the wool, they all planned a great excursion to see the surrounding country and they drew lots as to who would have to remain at the homestead to feed the rabbits, for these rodents had to be. fed three times a day, and the gardener used to grori* lettuce and cabbage for their consumption. Afterwards, when the rabbits had increased at such a rate that the men on the land were being eaten out of house and home, and the fertile native grasses were being destroyed and almost entirely exterminated, Captain Brown often expressed the wish that they had let his six Scotch rabbits starve to death before they increased and overwhelmed the land. Captain Brown and his son, Alek, were splendid horsemen, and excelled at all sorts of sport, and were wonderful shots. He spent money freely and engaged John Reid to cut and cart stakes out of the Belmont bush to erect a boundary fence between Belmont and Mount Linton. Both Captain Brown and his son worked hard to improve the land, and they also employed a great deal of labour. They brought in a prosperous time, when gold was being found both in Otago and Southland and all along the Waiau banks. When sheep and wool began to go down in price and hardly paid for carting down to Invercargill, Captain Brown, like the rest of the squatters, went in for agriculture, but he had poor land to contend with, and mountain country, and many rabbits, and he spent much more money than he ever made in trying to put Belmont •under the plough. Then came the fearful Old Man Flood and snow of 1878, when Captain Brown lost almost all his stock. The deep snowdrifts from the mountains smothered many sheep, and the remaining sheep, cattle and horses, which had been taken, down, to the valley for safety were carried away in the raging sea of water. What with the flood and the rabbits, Captain Brown and his family were completely ruined and all their land in Southland passed into the possession of the Loan Company. It was managed by Ronald

Manson. Captain and Lady Brown, with their son Jimmy, went back to England, sadder and wiser for their unfortunate colonial experience. Alek Brown stayed in New Zealand and married a Miss Burnely, a sister of Mr Burnely, once a cadet at Blackmount. Mr and Mrs Brown lived in the Timaru district, where Alek went into business, and he passed away in the great influenza epidemic after the Great War. No doubt the Brown family failed to make money. Perhaps they were extremely unpractical and their ideas and style of living were not suited to the early conditions, but who can deny the great truth that it is because we made our start with men and women from Britain of such a splendid type that Southland has to-day a certain prestige all her own, especially in the country. Most of our farmers realize and give credit to, the offi pioneers who spent themselves and their money so freely for Southland. On many a farm which once formed part of a big station long ago are wellkept little graves dating back from the sixties, there are old trees and' shrubs held sacred because they were planted by the pioneers. “It would break our hearts,” they say “if we lost those trees, for the pioneers brought the gum-tree seeds from Tasmania or Australia and the oaks, Wellingtonias and hollies they imported as small plants from Britain.” Sometimes high up in an old tree are initials of men and women who have long ago passed on over the Great Divide. Many men, who were afterwards well known in different parts of Southland, were associated with Captain Brown during his tenure of Belmont. There were the McLean s of Wairaki. Mr McLean was both a British-Australian and an author of some repute for in their day his, two novels “Lindago” and the “Woodhen were quite famous. Then there was another McLean family, and this shrewd practical Celt was always known by the title of “Grassy McLean to distinguish him from the manager of Wairaki station. Then came Mr Roderick Mclvor, who could talk the Gaelic with the best of them, wear the kilts and play the pipes. He took charge of the stock and was a general favourite wherever he went, in country or township, to sell or to buy stock for Captain Brown for Mr Mclvor was a shrewd man. While at Belmont station Mr Mclvor met and married, on one of his trips, a Miss Campbell, also from a well-known Highland family. The bride and bridegroom rode up all the way to their new home, a cottage on the property, and the Highland friends of Mr Mclvor from far and wide gave the young couple a great reception. There they remained for many years and afterwards Mr and Mrs Mclvor and their young family came down to Otautau, where they resided till they died. Mr Mclvor went in for shoemaking and mending, and was a very loyal and live member of every Highland or Gaelic gathering in Otautau or within coo-ee of the township. Mrs Mclvor was a very kind and capable woman, and was very well-known and respected in the township where, as well as bringing up a large family, she was never too busy to answer to the call of neighbours, township or country, in sickness or distress—many Otautauites and country men and women first saw the light of day under Mrs Mclvor’s motherly care. Most of the Mclvor family are now married and scattered far away from Belmont or Otautau; but Mr Murdoch Mclvor is a very well-known resident in Otautau, and Mr Alek Mclvor is known to all the country men in Southland, and beyond, as a racing authority.

After the Mclvor’s left Belmont came the Beck family, and many a year after Captain and Lady Brown departed, did the Becks stay on at Belmont. There was a large family and when they departed from Belmont the sons took up land in different parts of Southland, and became most successful farmers for they inherited much wisdom concerning the handling of stock from their father, and were skilled in agriculture and good judges of land. The daughters married and mostly settled in Wallace, and are very well known as great housewives, housekeepers, and gardeners, and are all famed for their great hospitality to both neighbours and strangers. The early pioneers possessed romance, sentiment and imagination and loved the land, and no doubt have left their immortal impress on the stations where they lived and suffered. The city man will never quite understand why the country men are willing to work and keep on pegging away when times are so hard and there is so little money to be made from the land; but the true farmer realizes that if he left his own spot he would be leaving part of himself and his own soul behind.

For we are the same our Fathers have been; We see the same sights our Fathers have

seen— We drink the same stream and view the

same sun— And run the same course our Fathers have

run. The thoughts we are thinking our Fathers would think; From the slump we are shrinking our Fathers would shrink. (Adapted from William Knox). (To be Continued.)