FLOOD OF 1868 WAS CAUSED BY ASHLEY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18015, 27 November 1926, Page 20

FLOOD OF 1868 WAS CAUSED BY ASHLEY.

MR W. W. SMART CONFIRMS EARLIER WRITER. Mr W. W. Smart, of Richlands, Havelock North. supplies the answer to a query by "L.M.” in her interesting story of November 13 on the great flood of 1868. He has no doubt that the Ashley was the culprit. lie writes: Re the flood in 1868. and the concluding par in the “Star” of November 13— the Ashley River was the culprit, not the Waimakariri. The flood referred to took place in February, 1868. when nearly all the low-lying lands from Leithfield to Ashburton were under water, all rivers and creeks overflowing their banks. At Saltwater Creek the water was four feet in the hotel, then kept by a Mr Cameron. At Woodend there was a sheet of water for miles, many persons losing acres of stooked grain. One settler. Cleaver by name, only saved four stooks of wheat on a 40-acre paddock (so his son informs me). Many hundreds of sheep were drowned. The water was so high in the Waimakariri at Kaiapoi that it carried away thousands of feet of timber off the wharves down the river, and this timber was subsequently piled up on the Woodend beach to such an extent that one settler collected sufficient to build a four-roomed cottage. The Selwyn River overflowed its banks in many directions, the flood drowning many hundreds of sheep and carrying away many acres of stooked grain. The flood was caused by a very heavy downpour of rain all over the Canterbury Plains. I believe the floods were the worst in the Ashley, Waimakariri and Selwyn Rivers. I have gained some of the above information from Mr G. Cleaver, of Hastings, who was born at Woodend in 1853. He was fifteen years old when the flood occurred and remembers it quite well.