SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22508, 16 September 1938, Page 3

SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO

SCHOOLING AT PIGEON BAY

REMINISCENCES OF MR J.

PETTIGREW

As a boy of 10 years of age, Mr John Pettigrew, J.P., who to-day celebrates his eighty-fifth birthday at his home at 48 Mayfield avenue, St. Albans, settled with his parents on Banks Peninsula. He became a prominent farmer at Pigeon Bay. Mr Pettigrew was born m the mining village of Drumgalloch, Airdrie. Lanarkshire, in 1853, being tbe first son of James and Jane Pettigrew. Because of indifferent health, his parents left Scotland in 1862, landing at Lyttelton by the Chariot of Fame in January, 1863. They came out under Mr John Marshman’s agency for “assisted emigrants.” Because work about Christchurch, was only of a casual nature, Mr Pettigrew took his wife and family to Pigeon . Bay, then a busy sawmilling district. Mr George Holmes had secured the contract for the building of the Lyttelton tunnel and for extending the main south railway to the Selwyn river. These works called lor large quantities of timber, and Mr Holmes bought out the bush interests in Sinclair’s (now Holmes) Bay. The Sinclairs were the first settlers, and after building their own ship, they sailed for Honolulu. Mr Pettigrew worked in the sawmill, and his son, John, attended the Pigeon Bay Academy, conducted by Mr (later Inspector) James Fitzgerald. The father bought, in 1865, a 20- ' acre section, s/v£tix a soc? ' Moses Barton’s Point (now Known as Holmes Point); in 1873 he bought a bush section on the Pigeon Bay-Duvau-chelle Saddle, and it is still owned by the family. In 1866, John Pettigrew left school to enter the employ of Mr Holmes on his sheep stations at Motunau and Holmes Bay, and for a time he worked on the Port Levy-Pigeon Bay survey. In 1871 he joined his father and his brother-in-law (Mr William Paton) in a sawmill, started by Mr Pavitt. It was on the Akaroa coach road, and operated on timber from Budua’s Bush. Seven years later he began farming on his own account, and later bought some bush land at Stratford. Taranaki.

For a number of years Mr Pettigrew was a member and chairman of the Pigeon Bay Road Board. He was chairman for a term of the Akaroa County Council, of which he was a member until he removed to Christchurch in 1921. His services were often obtained for valuing, for the Government and privately, and he was one of the valuers of Kinloch, the 13,500 acre estate of Mr J. D. Buchanan, at Little River, and Mr George Armstrong’s property at Flea Bay. As a staunch Presbyterian, Mr Pettigrew took a keen interest in the Banks Peninsula church charge in Akaroa and Pigeon Bay. where he was an elder and manager. Since living in Christchurch Mr Pettigrew has been a member of the St. Albans Presbyterian Church. He is also an active member of the Edgeware Road Bowling Club, and of the Canterbury Pilgrims’ and Early Settlers’ Association. Mr Pettigrew married, in 1878, Mary, daughter of Mr William Lyall, of “The Gums,” Pigeon Bay. Mrs Pettigrew died three years ago. A daughter (Mrs Andrew McKay) resides with her father,- and' the three surviving sons are well-known farmers. They are Mr Bert Pettigrew CHangataiki, Waitomo Caves), Mr Hector Pettigrew (“The Old Homestead,” Pigeon Bay), and Mr James Pettigrew (Pigeon Bay).