APTLY NAMED

Waipukurau Press, Volume XXVIII, Issue 173, 19 July 1933, Page 3

APTLY NAMED

“DEADMAN’S POINT” The origin of the name of “Deadman’s Point,” the site of the sensational gold strike at Cromwell, is explained by a newspaper correspondent. “Deadman’s Point,” he says, “is well named, being a forbidding headland of shingle and outcropping black rock towering above the green waters of the Clutha at one of the- river’s most angry points, where two swift arms converge. It is so called because a man once fell from the suspension bridge which still spans the river there. He was found stiff and cold next morning, dead from heart failure. This grim story,’ and also the local legend that the bodies of the unfortunates who were drowned higher up the Clutha in the early days were invariably* washed up at this point, has not dampened the spirits of Lomax and party; whose light-hearted view of life is shown by their having attached an old car number-plate to the rear* trolley on which thousands of tons of shingle were removed from the cliff during the long cheerless months before colour gladdened theirs and a thousand other hearts. Their claim extends back through Crowell Flat over some 65 acres. Prospectors pegs extend'right up to the cemetery fence, and newcomers will be at a loss to know where to go for a claim.”