THE DAYS THAT WERE

Southland Times, Issue 23392, 27 December 1937, Page 7 (Supplement)

THE DAYS THAT WERE

Reminiscences Of Western Southland

By

H. BEATTIE

THE days are rapidly going by when there is any chance of rescuing oral pioneer records from oblivion. We are now at a time when the eighties are looked on as ancient history, the seventies as still further in the background, while the fifties and sixties are almost regarded as prehistoric by the average citizen. Yet here and there lingers one who remembers days, scenes and events connected with that distant period, and from whose lips we can hear the tales of the days of old—the days that were. In various talks the writer has had with Mr Charles Arthur Port, of Timaru, the old days of Southland have come in for considerable recognition, particularly the Western Districts, and some of the information will be recounted here. Mr Charles Port was born at Sudbury in Derbyshire in September 1848. His father, Henry Port, had been born in 1810 at Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire, and came out to Australia in the Red Jacket in 1858 and over to Otago in the Girl Blas in March 1860. The father worked on the new courthouse that was being built at Dunedin while the son secured a job on the farm of Mr William Heckler at Waikouaiti. T paving Dunedin the father went to Bluff and took charge of 600 maiden ewes which had been landed there by the Pirate from Melbourne, consigned to Mr William Rogers, the runholder up at Glenquoich. (This man, it may be said in passing, was drowned in Lake Wakatipu on August 9, 1862, being so far as is known the first white man drowned in that lake.) The .sheep were placed on what was known as Quarantine run because it was used to accommodate flocks fresh off shipboard. It lay on the sea-shore between the mouths of the New river and the Waimatuku so it must have been in the vicinity of what is now called Oreti Sands. People may think this was a bare, bleak locality to put sheep on and that the poor animals would starve among the sandhills, but ’t must be borne in mind that before the advent of rabbits there was quite good feed there. Rescuing A Maori One day during the three months he was shepherding on the Quarantine run Mr Port was the means of saving a Maori’s life. 1 This old man was on his way from the Maori Kiak at Riverton to the Native Reserve at Mokomoko and was going to ford a stream when his horse took fright, swerved and t-Ui'A'tir Turn irttn +IIA wafnr. THp W3V

fell knocked him unconscious and his head was under water. Fortunately Mr Port was an eye witness of the mishap and rushed in and dragged him ashore .then brought him to the shepherd’s thatched tent where he revived. This Maori, whose name was Ahuru, was a chief of sufficient importance to have a tombstone erected over his grave when he died and was buried in the old cemetery at the Riverton Kiak. After rescuing the old warrior from a watery grave Mr Port was in high estimation among the Maoris, and his son narrates that they called him “Te Hipi-i-te-pahau” (the shepherd with the beard). At that time the Maoris had a fishing whare on the Waimatuku. It was usually called the Maori Hut and was near the upper ford where a bridge was later erected. There was also a Maori canoe on the Waimatuku. It was a log canoe with gunwales attached in the ancient Maori style—lashed with flax through holes. When water collected in the canoe it could be baled in the old Maori fashion by scooping out with a paddle. The canoe was near Whymark’s place and he seemed to own it or exercise supervision over it. It was quite frequently used by foot passengers who wanted a dry crossing. As it was genuine Maori workmanship it was a pity that no one thought to preserve it for the benefit of generations who know not the Maori in his primitiveness. Above the place where the canoe was (and that was a few miles from the sea) the Maoris

’ would occasionally come and reside, the name of their chief man being ! Pararo. The early settlers fouhd evi- > dences of Maori residence at many i places, but these were soon obliterated and for many years no trace has existed showing that former occupation. Road Making When William Rogers’s sheep were ’ taken up-country by men employed on ! his run, Mr Port’s shepherding ended [ for the time being and he got work . building a chimney for Mr J P. Taylor at Waldeck (pronounced Valdeck m ’ the early days). At this time his son > left Waikouaiti and rejoined him, the date of his arrival at Riverton being r February 1, 1861, and this centre remained his headquarters for 53 years. . After the reunion of father and son they went to work cutting ditches i alongside the main road running between Riverton cemetery and the spot on the Aparima where the bridge was , later built. This road was later called . Palmerston street, the principal ’ thoroughfare of the borough of River- . ton. After this road was attended to . a start was made to ditch the track up ’ to Gummies Bush, but tlus work was , interrupted by the separation of SouthZ land from Otago on April 1, 1861. Before this date the Otago Provincial Council i was paying for the road making and drainage in Southland but now that they were separated Southland would 1 have to pay for all work within her ' borders. While this matter awaited the i election of a Provincial Council for r Southland, the work, which was under » the supervision of two head men, ” Frisken and Ben Bain, was stopped j for a time. i 5 Fairfax Station \ With the cessation offroad making the Z Ports returned to do further work at a Waldeck (in Riverton), and while there i Dr Hodgkinson came and arranged for i them to go up to his projected home at a Mount Pleasant, later known as Fair--1 fax. They became acquainted with e Albert Cassels who had a bullock team e and was carting bricks up to the site t of the house, while pit sawyers were 3 busy getting timber ready for.it. A man named Boniface was driving a bullock team up, so the Ports journeyed up with him. Night fell as they reached Groper’s Bush and they put up at e Biddy McCoy’s accommodation house, e where the man-of-all-work was one g Heavily. Arrived at the site of Dr n Hodgkinson’s home Mr Port, sen. did - some ploughing with a wooden plough, o the first ploughing done in that locality n if not in the Western District generally, d This plough was borrowed from John ,e Ward, a one-armed m-in settled at

Island Bush. The Macris called this bush Moutere meaning island because it was detached and had a track all round it—it was near Gropers. The wooden plough turned up some good soil at Fairfax and a very creditable garden resulted. Dr Hodgkinson was in the habit of keeping a very full diary of events so it will be very interesting if it is ever published and it will probably establish dates and give details of many things now known but vaguely. After two years in Hodgkinson’s employment Mr Port shifted to. Otaitai Bush near Riverton in 1863 taking up a piece of ground there. While he was at Mount Pleasant his brother died m England and he walked to Invercargill to send a money order Home. The narrator thinks he is correct in saying that though Riverton was the older town Invercargill was the only place in Southland where you could get money orders for Britain and that £5 was the minimum amount they could be made out for. A fifty mile walk to transact a little official business was not thought out-of-the-way then. At Otaitai he intended to start a brick kiln, but he was forestalled by Robert Clark and a foreigner called John Luckney who started one on Captain Howell’s ground there, so he began a market garden instead. Latei R. Foster and William H. Smith started another brick kiln on the same block on land belonging to James Surman Mr Port, sen., next went up to Rennekei and Hunter’s station at Beaumont Pad-

docks where he built a chimney, and also erected one for Matthew. Scott s station at Otautau. Most stations in those days had wide slab or sod chim- , neys so the erection of brick chimneys marks a decided forward step in ad- ; vancing civilization. • Jack-of-all-Trades In 1867 a shift was made from Otaitai to Riverton and thereafter father ana son took on any work they could get. “I finished my schooling in 1858 the year we left Home for Australia when I was ten years old. After that my father taught me a little but mostly I had to struggle on as best I could, picking up here and there what knowledge I could,” says the narrator. Not having much education I took on any work I could get to earn a penny. Nothing was too menial as long as it was honest. I walked from Riverton to Invercargill and back again on several occasions and for various reasons. I remember driving a wagonette with two horses in tandem fashion for Seehott the hawker. I drove and tended the team while he went into the backblock stations selling drapery and clothing. I continued driving for him for two seasons and during that time I got a good idea of the extent and capabilities of Southland.” Varied Activities In Riverton Mr Port, sen., took a contract from the Southland Provincial Government to cut down thistles m tne Maori Kiak. These thistles were introduced by a ship called the Wanderer which was bringing bailed hay as sheep feed. This ill-fated vessel went ashore at Riverton and was later set on fire to bum the bolts out “Some sheep were drowned off the Wanderer,” says the narrator, and my father skinned them and tied the skins into bundles and soaked them in the lagoons. Then he felled the wool off and pressed it and sent Home a bale of it Next he tried to dress flax for export. The Maoris call the dressed flax whitau (pronounced Feetau) and father with Mr Edward Simpson made some samples and sent it Home. It was very good and brought a fair price but ' it was not a lucrative effort. Then father started a brewery in the seventies and ran it for ten years. Densham (a brother of Dr Densham) and Scollay had started a malthouse and brewery at Scollay’s Bush before this time, but father started at Riverton. There was no gasworks coke available then so he burnt charcoal to dry the malt. I assisted him in the brewery off and on for years with spells at other work as jobs offered.” Mr Port, sen., was a skilled plumber and metal worker as well as brick layer and artisan. When in Dunedin in 1860 he gilded a ball for the Knox Church spire, and it was excellent workmanship. Mr Port, jun., happened to be in Dunedin years later when it was taken down and he secured possession, and took it back to Riverton. On one of his absences the ball disappeared

and the last he heard of it was when it was seen “in the possession of a cranky fellow who called it his football.” Mr Port, sen., died in 1892, aged 82. SIXTIES RECALLED DAYS OF CHARLES PORT When Charles Port first saw Riverton on February 1, 1861, it was a primitive settlement enough, but not so primitive in appearance as Invercargill. Riverton had 25 years of history to look back on. Invercargill but five. The cottages and huts in Riverton had an older and more weatherbeaten appearance than was common in “colonial cities of that day. The really old part of “Jacob’s river,” of course, was that round the whaling station, but as the whaling declined the leading whalers went in for pastoralism and built homes where the main part of the town now is. The Maori village behind the sandhills was marked by shrubbery with a line of tall white pines stretching away parallel to the coast. The homes of the white folk were dotted about

’ here and there where the main portion of the town is, while over the Aparima ' River a few more huts nestled at in--1 tervals in the dense bush. This latter side known as South Riverton was often ' described as “over in the bush” and ; presented a scene of sylvan beauty that is hard to imagine nowadays. On its J well-forested slopes and in its shady gullies the native birds congregated in i abundance. The residents daily heard ; bird concerts that birdlovers of the past ' thirty years have sighed in vain to hear, ' and the dwellers across the river heard the ringing notes subdued and softened J into an even sweeter- cadence by the I water between. Not only did the dwellers in Riverton hear the carolling and , warbling of the sweet songsters of the 1 bush, but they often enjoyed fragrant i stews of kakas, pigeons and other birds that are but a name to this gene- ’ ration. r Mr Port was familiar with the bush - from 1861 to 1910.

Riverton Maoris ’ The Maoris were a never-failing source of delight and interest to the juveniles of the district and ''\ er ® scarcely of less interest to the a dult white populace. Some of the older Maoris were tatooed and this in itself could not fail to attract people whose countenances were never adorned with “face carving.” The chiet Maori seemed to be about the oldest man and was called Tom Paitu by the pakehas. He possessed an additional attraction to the boys, for it was whispered round that he was a “man-eater.” Another old Maori was Solomon Patu and Mr Port reckoned he was a younger brother of Paitu, but the genealogies do not support this idea. Another celebrity was Hapai Moko usually called. Happy Moko. He had acquired a certain veneration among the Maoris and celebrity among the whites as a man who had come back from the dead. A tangi was being held over him and Moko, who had been in a trance apparently startled the company by sitting up. He lived for years after. Paroro, the chief personage about Waimatuku, seemed to be about 60 years old when Mr Port first knew him. The number of Maoris had been greatly reduced in Riverton by the great epidemic of measles in 1858, but there was still a fair number at the Kaik in 1861. It has been recorded that Mr Port when a lad, drove the drapery van of Seehoff the hawker. One night when he had pulled into Otautau he met two Maoris and fell into conversation with them. They had come from the east and said they were going to see friends west of Lake Te Anau. Next morning they discarded their boots and they left Otautau wearing pararas (sandals). This was some time in the second half of the sixties and Mr Port has sometimes thought that their trip had something to do with the “lost tribe”, which received such newspaper publicity during recent years. Be this as it may the meeting has always lingered in his mind as a strange and inexplicable event. (It may be inserted here that the Maoris made pilgrimages to Te Anau right up into the eighties, but the white men who saw them could never find out any reason for these journeyings. Early in life Mr Port spent his spare time prospecting for gold. In this connection he narrates: —“James Kirkton, the alleged, or I should rather say accredited, discoverer of gold in the Longwood Range in 1864 and also at Orepuki, was preceded by others in the discovery of the yellow metal. William Cameron was able to show fine gold that Horornanu Patu had found in the Longwoods years before that, but he said that he had never wanted a rush ■ as it was not beneficial to the runs judging by Australian experience and also the case of Mr Rees at Queens- : town. W. H. Pearson, the Commissioner ■ of Crown Lands, wrote a comprehensive report on Southland’s gold fields ; and gave many details. I have not got . my first miner’s right. It was for South-

land and later ones were for Otago and Southland inclusive, but I have got them going back into the seventies. As recorded in his account of Nature Lore, Mr Port went prospecting round in the West Coast Sounds but without success. In addition to prospecting Mr Port carried the mail on foot between Riverton and Orepuki. The distance was considered to be 22 miles and was mostly along bush tracks. As mailman he had occasionally the job of piloting strangers along the track and can claim to have been the first to take the Rev. C. S. Ross and also Nugent Wood, the mining magistrate, to Orepuki. On this track Mr Port and a well-known miner named John Wallace put up a recordbreaking performance. They ran, ambled, loped, trotted or walked, as the condition of the track and the state of their wind permitted, the distance in 3 hours 20 minutes. Some said it was impossible but they had taken the precaution to get the postmaster at Orepuki to seal a watch in the mailbag which the postmaster at . Riverton opened, so the time was officially verified. This speedy trip was taken at Christmas 1875. Some drowning fatalities occurred in the Western District and Mr Port would have been in one of the crews that was drowned if it had not so fallen out that he happened to

be providentially absent. A Prominent Family During the sixties Riverton enjoyed a great boom through trade with the Nokomai, Waikaia and the Shotover. In the last-named case the goods were wagoned to Kingston and thence boated to Queenstown. When this flush period ended Riverton underwent _ the usual depression that seems to follow all booms. Things were dull indeed and it was largely due to one family that Riverton remained on the map and did not sink into the definition of a decayed village. Mr Port can tell us a little about that period and that family:— “Mr James Reid, and his sister Miss Jane Reid, fine types of Scottish people, arrived in Riverton somewhere about 1863. He had three sons named John, James and George, one of whom in partnership with Peter Grant started, a flour mill at Gummies Bush, the first in the district. George was a blacksmith

and wheelwright and was a first-rate tradesman. The first blacksmith in Riverton that I know of was John Groombridge and he was from the whaling days when he coopered for Captain Howell. Later he settled in Riverton and had a smithy near the Eastbourne Arms Hotel, whose licensee in 1861 was John S. Aldred. This hotel was later renamed the Carriers Arms Hotel, its present title. “During the prosperity period when the diggings were at their height, George Reid started a smithy. Before his time wheels were imported- and if anything went wrong with a wheel the whole dray was out of commission, but George Reid introduced the making of wheels into our part of the colony. I remember passing one day and found a fire in readiness quite near the street and stopped to watch the heating of the tyre and the adjusting of felloes and spokes and hub. It was the first time I had ever seen such work and I admired the deft and capable manner in which it was done. “Later the flour mill at Gummies Bush 1 was shifted to Riverton. The stones ; were like great grindstones—they were ’ sometimes called French burr because 1 they were made of that stone. They ! . made splendid oatmeal and I wish I ■ had some of it now. A tall chimney was ■ erected and Riverton had a fine mill. I may say in passing that this chimney h was in later years pulled down, but a • photograph of Riverton was taken from ’ its summit before it was dismantled. i i Business Extension r “The Reid Bros, were enterprising t men and things began to go ahead. They = went into a larger shop and on the . same block built the mill and a saw 5 mill. They could do all kinds of wood- , work and had quite elaborate equip- ’ ment in some lines. They imported a , big wheel that had teeth different from » the ordinary cogs that we were familiar s with. They had a big threaded screw ; on a turning lathe, and. other more or j less complicated machinery. (So it i came about they had a smithy, a > wheelwright’s shop, a turnery, a flour j mill,and a saw mill and they could do iron work, wood work, carpentry, furniture making and house building. They 3 could saw the timber for a house, erect ' the house, equip it with furniture, put l ’ into it the flour to make the staff of life ' and if the occupant died they could do the undertaking for his funeral. I “I think I have said enough,” con--1 tinued Mr Port, “to let you see what I an important place the Reids occupied ~ in providing work for many men in e Riverton. In 1877 when the Express i went ashore on Riverton beach they s bought the wreck. They sent Rodriquez 4 down to see if the vessel could be sal- _ vaged. He had learnt diving under the r British Admiralty and later went to _ West Australia to do diving work. His s father was either an Italian or a Spanlt iard who had gone to Liverpool and married an Irish woman there. Rod-

riquez himself married an Irish woman in Australia and came to Riverton in the cutter Fly in 1860. In connection with the Express salvage operations a powerful explosive, either gelignite or dynamite, was put on an iron plate and burst with great effect. It was the first ever used in Riverton and I remember thinking what a ’terribly destructive thing it was. “I have two reminders of the Reids. At the first Caledonian sports at Riverton one of the items was ‘throwing the hammer,’ but they found they had no hammers so they applied to the Reids and James Kelman of that firm made them a good one at short notice. It came into my possession and I kept it for years but when I left Studholme Junction I gave it to Mr W. Lindsay of that place. The other reminder is that whatnot over in that comer. It was made by the Reids and made well as you can see. It was presented to the Rev. C. S. Ross but when he left Riverton many of his effects were sold and at the removal sale I bought the what-