THE RISE OF KUMARA.

New Zealand Graphic, 27 June 1906, Page 28

THE RISE OF KUMARA.

But in thus anticipating the course of Mr. Seddon’s public career, we have passed over an event which indirectly had a great and enduring effect upon his prospects. In 1874 the diggings broke out, by accident, at Kumara. “A gang of undesirables ” —we quote from the “ New Zealand Times ” —“ran an illicit still at a spot in the bush about half-way between Preston’s Hotel in Seddon-street and Teremakau River. Digging down for the still, they came across gold. Naturally they said nothing, but they remained quietly in the bush working. A miner who happened to get bushed between Dillmanstown and Kumara saw the smoke of their fires, and made for it. Discovering the secret of the illicit still, he went to Kumara and reported the find. Mr. Seddon at once formed a party, and proceeded into the bush, and soon the ground was pegged off all round.” On the goldfields towns spring up like mushrooms, in a single night, and Kumara was no exception to the rule. But the new settlement had the exceptional advantage of being watched over from its foundation by Mr. Seddon. “ The earlier diggings of Westland,” says a writer in the “ Christchurch Press,” “ like those everywhere else, gave rise to indiscriminate squatting, with the result that the streets in the towns that grew up were a lot of ' dogs’ hind legs,’ meandering in and out wherever it was easiest for traffic to find its way amongst the houses. Stafford, Goldsborough, and Dillmanstown are all like this. Mr. Seddon had soon bo mueh of this that he was determined Kumara should be laid out properly. He was a member of the Road Board and County Council at the time, and he asked the Warden to come down and lay off a proper township under the Mining Act. Kumara was accordingly laid off in squares, like Melbourne, the principal street being called after Mr. Seddon.”