THE SOUTHERN RUNS

Southland Times, Issue 23332, 16 October 1937, Page 15

THE SOUTHERN RUNS

MOA FLAT AND BURWOOD

[SPECIALLY WRITTEN FOR THE SOUTHLAND TIMES]

(BY

H. BEATTIE)

(No. 38 continued).

The whole history of Mba Flat run is one of the most eventful and changeful in the annals of Otago squatterdom, and it is difficult to summarize it into the short space it can be allowed here. It is also difficult to reconcile the many and diverse accounts of this famous run and the persons concerned. Several accounts refer to the first owners as the Chambers family and one says:—“Moa Flat was taken up by Mr Chambers who made his home at Ettrick. Mr Chambers was a retired banker from Australia and he was a fine man of good upright character and methods.” There is no doubt that the name Chambers is wrongfully used for Chalmers.

Then as regards Clarke, the next owner, no two accounts agree. One merely says “Clarke, the Victorian capitalist.” Another calls him James Clarke, another Joseph Clarke, another W. I. Clarke, another Sir Wm. Clarke, another “Clarke of Tasmania,” another “Clarke the millionaire” and the last one “Clarke the Victorian millionaire.” He was usually called “Big Clarke” so in the absence of uniformity about his Christian name the collector will stick to the sobriquet. Taking a reflective survey through the numerous accounts, published in the Press many years ago, the collector would boil them down into the following summary. Suffering from poor health, Nathaniel Chalmers left Invercargill in 1864 and went to live at Moa Flat, joining his fortunes to those of his brothers Alex Chalmers and Dr C. B. Chalmers. In 1868 a depression existed in Otago and sheep owners had a very lean time, especially those whose flocks contracted scab, one such station being Moa Flat. The mortgagee, Big Clarke, foreclosed and ousted out the Chalmers, so it is said, without going legally about the business, so intent was he on getting hold of this big piece of beautiful grazing country. The Chalmers seemed down and out, but they were men of courage and resource. Dr Chalmers went back to his medical duties in India, Alex, returned to his former calling of a banker in Victoria, and Nathaniel went to Fiji. By 1878 they had amassed enough to go to law for the recovery of Moa Flat, but the matter was settled out of court by Big Clarke paying the brothers £75,000 in satisfaction of their claim. A large part of this money was expended in launching sugar mills in Fiji.

FURTHER VICISSITUDES Big Clarke took possession of Moa Flat run in 1868 but it still continued its variegated course. The Provincial Government was sadly in need of funds at this time and about 1870, at the instance of Mr W. J. M. Larnach, Big Clarke bought 60,000 acres of the run as freehold. Some time later he bought Cargill and Anderson’s Teviot station, and later when the Provincial Government required. a big sum ox money he paid cash for the Island Block, a fact which raised a howl of indignation from a large number of disappointed landseekers.

Big Clarke appointed J. F. Kitching (also written J. F. Kitchen), of Tasmania, to manage his estate and later leased it to him. Kitching was an enterprising man and spent money freely in promoting the development of the district, but misfortune dogged his footsteps, so that Moa Flat came back into the hands of Big Clarke, who appointed J. K. Cameron as his manager. Subsequently in 1885 Major Sprent came over from Victoria to look after the owner’s interest, and J. K. Cameron, dying in 1888 his assistant, J. Cunningham, succeeded him as manager.

In January 1895 Big Clarke died, and his cousin, Derham Clarke, who was appointed his executor, died next year and in 1897 the Colonial Bank of Australasia as mortgagees took over the run from the Clarke estate and continued to operate it with J. Cunningham as manager until they sold it to the Moa Flat Estate Co., Ltd., in January 1905. The run which was situated in the Benger, Greenvale, Wart Hill and Crookston districts, consisted of about 64,500 acres of freehold and 93,600 acres of leasehold land. The new company surveyed it and issued lithograph maps and soon had the satisfaction of selling most of it with a result that the veindors could jubilantly say: “Eighteen months ago, Moa Flat run was one of the largest pastoral holdings in the colony; today it is in the occupation of over 30 settlers, all of whom have good cause to be pleased with the holdings they have bought. In the history of land settlement in this colony it is questionable if there has ever been so rapid and successful a realization of a property of such magnitude as that now recorded.” It may be added -that Wilden, a part of the great Moa Flat run, continued as a run to 1930, when it too underwent closer settlement.

SHEARERS AND STATION HANDS In the extravagent period of the run history a huge shearing shed was built on Moa Flat and at the time it was said to be the biggest in Australasia. Old shearers maintain that a most unjust shearing agreement was enforced. If men were absent, cut sheep or did not shear to the boss’s satisfaction, they could be discharged instantly and lose all they had earned. In one or two cases shearers proceeded against the station, but they were defeated the magistrate ruling that they should not have signed such a grossly unfair document. After one defeat the shearers raised funds for an appeal to the supreme court. A shearer was appointed collector and the men contributed the required sum £9O. This shearer, an Australian, bolted to the Bluff and shipped to Australia taking the £9O with him and that was the last the incensed shearers saw or heard of their contributions.

In 1860 the run employed two bullock drivers, Jack Cahill and Bill Cavanagh, who shortly before this had obtained employment with a patriotic Scot by representing themselves as Scotsmen, but who had been incontinently discharged when the deception was discovered. A man of a different type was John Rae who, except for a year with William Fraser on Earnscleugh, worked for Chalmers Bros, from 1860 to 1868. An employee who came from Tasmania when Clarke took over Moa Flat was Michael McCarthy who died at Gore on December 31, 1912 at the age of 101. The collector knew him well and found him a decent, honest man. Others who worked on the run were David Sheddan, - McPhail and A. S. Wallace, the latter doing extensive fencing round the run. James Steel built a fence between the Mount Benger and Moa Flat runs in 1874. Such an extensive run must have been worked in sections because there was an upper station as well as the home station and it must have been divided into sections, too, such as 215 A, 2158, 215 C and 215 D. The only one of these about which the collector has any note is the last one, 215 D, whose area in 1871 was 71,040 acres. RUN No. 254 The next run to be considered is No. 254 which was applied for by the Victoria Company in 1858. The collector

has very little information about this run and as it was outside the Southland provincial area he cannot present its geographical limits. Apparently it lay away north Pyramid and may have been the Wendon run which was a neighbouring run to Otama also owned by the Victoria Company. To save confusing it with Logan Burn run in Central Otago it was officially known as 2548, and in 1860 Edward Orbell is given as owning 1556 sheep on it. He was the manager for the Victoria Company who owned the Wendonside, Wendon and Otama runs. Mr R. Meldrum, who arrived in Invercargill in 1859 was appointed sub-manager for the company and proceeded to Wendonside. Mrs Meldrum was a capable cook and baker and it was not an unusual thing for McNab of Knapdale or McKellar Bros, of Waimea to ride over with flour and get her to make bread as it was so superior to the damper, they got every day. The Meldrums remained on the run for some years and then returned to Invercargill. In 1871 run 2548 was included within the area of the recently declared Southland Land District. It then belonged to C. L. Swanston and its area is state as 23,000 acres. On it and the adjoining run (No. 193) Swanston ran 30,000 sheep. Later it became an Otago School Commissioners’ Endowment

BURWOOD This run was No. 300 and not to clash with another run which had also been accidentally allotted the same number it was officially known as 3008. George Printz had been one of the unfortunate run holders who were turned off their runs on the Southland Plain when the land was required for sale in 2000 acre blocks in 1857. He thereupon sought out a run in the far interior and in 1858 applied for a run in the district he defined as Te Anau East.

The official record of this run proceeds:—“Run No. 3008. Applicant, George Printz, of New River, stock owner. Area, Mount Hamilton to Princhester Creek. Lease to be for 14 years from November 21, 1858, yearly fee £ll 10/-. Transferred to William Stevens, master mariner, on May 3, 1860. The boundaries were restated on February 10, 1865, and fee reduced to £5 yearly.” The introduction of the name of William Stevens is somewhat surprising for it is generally considered that G. Printz owned the run until he cold it to Low and McGregor. ( Probably Stevens was a sleeping partner while Printz continued the active management. The restatement of. the run boundaries in 1865 may have been with a view to selling, but exactly when Low and McGregor acquired Burwood the collector cannot say. In the obituary of Robert Cuppies, who died at Invercargill in February 1911, it is stated he broke horses for Printz in the mid-sixties and carted wool for him to Invercargill employing both bullocks and horses in his teams. Further, in the obituary of T. Church, who died at Invercargill in November 1932, it is recorded that he arrived at the Bluff in 1865 and secured employment with George Printz of Mokomoko and Burwood, but left the latter station when his employer sold out to Low and McGregor. Joseph Edwards, who died at Invercargill in 1925, aged 89, was another who was on Burwood in the sixties as a shepherd and wool classer, but his employers are not mentioned. William Arkley, as a lad of 16, went in 1869 to work on Burwood. He was a cousin of W. A. Low and continued at Burwood, and later at Galloway, for years. He retired to Gore where he died some years ago, but as the collector never met him this avenue of information was closed to him. OWNERS AND OTHERS Who named Burwood the collector cannot definitely say, but presumably it was the first owner, George Valentine Printz although there is also a possibility it was one of J. T. Thomson’s survey place-names. Printz had a most interesting career but space forbids anything but the barest reference to it. He was born in Sydney in 1823 and as a boy joined a whaling ship and had some stirring adventures whaling and sealing in southern New Zealand waters. When the whalers turned squatters he was in the fashion too, and losing his first run he took up Burwood. When this was disposed of he acquired a pastoral property near Drepuki where he died in the year 1897. Coming to the next owners of Burwood the first- of the Low family to get a foothold in Otago was William Anderson Low, who backed by Campbell, the Waitaki run holder, bought Shennan’s Galloway run in 1859-60 and later was taken into partnership by Campbell. He was joined on the run by his brothers Thomas and Andrew in 1862. His father and mother and sister came out from Home in the Cheviot in 1862 and shortly after Miss Low married McGregor who had owned the accommodation house at Taieri Ferry. Tom Low and McGregor went prospecting up the Arrow river and found a “regular gold mine.” It is said that it was the wealth from this lucky find that put the Low family into several southern runs. Andrew Low died in 1863 and is said to have been the first man buried in the Alexandra cemetary, so it was either Thomas or his father who was in Low and McGregor’s run-holding ventures. During the seventies the Campbells owned Burwood and in 1871 the Sheep Return says that R. Campbell, jun., of Burwood Station, had 32,900 sheep on run 3008. The run in one place is said to be a university lease of 100,000 acres and in another to be very much smaller. John Tait, who was bom at Berwick in 1844, arrived at the Bluff in 1863 and went shepherding. He became head shepherd and later manager at Burwood, and then was manager at Galloway and in 1905 was the manager at Otekaike. He thus put in over 40 years service for his employers, Campbell and Sons. Miss Campbell (of Taieri) was governess at Burwood in 1875-6, but whose children she had to teach is not stated. The collector has no further notes about Burwood.