WHO FIRST FOUND GOLD?

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22521, 1 October 1938, Page 21

WHO FIRST FOUND GOLD?

ISPECXALLT WRITTEN FOR THE PRESS.) rßy KAUMATUA.J

WAITE’S store, established about June, 1860, marks, as we have seen, the beginning of

the town of Westport, though that > jjame was not adopted until some years later. It also marks the date when payable gold production beam on the West Coast. Thereafter vessel carrying supplies to Waite from Nelson invariably brought back a handsome parcel of

gold. Waite recorded that gold was first discovered at Lyell in 1862 by a Maori named Simon. His first finds were in Lyell Creek, but later excellent returns were reported from »> a n ew creek,” to this day called Jtew Creek. The gold found at was coarse and some splendid nuggets were not infrequently untarthed. After the publication of Haast’s report gold was obtained from the Mangles and Matakitaki, end the news published from here bt Nelson of the quantities brought for sale roused no little excitement. For years the only means of access to Lyell, situated in the wildest portion of the Buller Gorge, was by Canoe and later by cargo boats of ft type specially constructed. NowIdays we only pay the tribute of admiration to the nameless adventurers who penetrated into a region E0 forbidding. Such is the lure of fold!

Waite states that Maoris were the first to bring gold from Karamea, tore than 60 miles north of the fuller, and he adds that in 1863 a party of Maoris came from “the grey district” with a splendid parcel bf gold. They arrived at Buller “by the overland route,” meaning that they ascended the Grey and Little Brey by canoe, and crossed the Saddle into the Inangahua, where a tanpe was always kept for the purpose, by means of which they teached the coast by Inangahua and Puller.

j An Early Report The precise locality where the Maoris won the gold thus mentioned in Waite’s pamphlet cannot now be ascertained. Probably it came from Greenstone Creek. That there were other gold seekers in Westland at the same time who were not meeting such encouraging results is shown by the following extract from the letter of its Christchurch correspondent to a Dunedin newspaper in August, 1863, which gives information of general historic interest:—■ .

“Some further interesting particulars concerning the West Coast of the Canterbury Province have been communicated to the Canterbury papers by Mr Sherrin, who left Lyttelton in the schooner Emerald Isle, which, after calling at Port Chalmers, took the East Coist and Cook Strait route, calling in at Picton and Nelson. Writing from the river Grey on June 8, Mr Sherrin says: ‘Five men came with Captain Dixon to try the diggings on the ■ Teremakau. They propose staying the remainder of the winter there. Mr Freeth, who has a sheep station on the Grey on its northern side, was a passenger froip Nelson with us. He was accompanied by his wife and family and a married couple. He proposes making it his future home. Mr Mackley and his wife are also living on the Grey, some eight or 10 miles higher up the river than Mr Freeth. Mr Freeth’s station is composed of two blocks of land, both on the southern side of the Mawheraiti, the largest of which, and where his homestead will be, is on the eastern side of the Ahaura, the second river entering the Grey on its northern side. The natives have almost abandoned the small creek they were working, or rather attempting to work, when I last visited the Teremakau. They managed to obtain a small quantity of gold by their crude and imperfect manner of working, but, nothing to induce them to continue their labours. Captain Dixon’s goldfield remains in status quo and promises well to be abandoned to the end of time. A goldfield in the Canterbury portion of the

West Coast Beginnings

West Coast remains a thing yet to be found. . . .” The foregoing interesting but rather depressing paragraph is in marked contrast with Waite’s statement about the gold brought to him “from the Grey district” in the same year by the Maoris who came to the Buller “by the overland route,” but the contradiction is probably explicable by the fact that the Maoris often endeavoured to keep secret the exact locale of their discoveries.

At any rate, as the result of what he had seen and heard, Waite wrote to the Superintendent of the Province of Canterbury, suggesting that an organised effort should be made to prospect for gold in the Grey, district. The Superintendent replied in rather a discouraging tone. Negotiations With Provinces Waite then entered into negotiations with the Provincial Government of Nelson, and in the result he was engaged to procure 40 tons of coal from the seam discovered by Brunner in January, 1848, on which Haast had just reported in terms of high praise. Waite then chartered the little steamer Nelson, and went to Grey with a Maori crew, and about 14 European gold-seekers and a quantity of stores, and on July 22, 1864, he crossed the Grey bar. Captain Leech, in later years harbourmaster at Westport, was in command. The stores were landed on the riverbank, which later became Mawhera quay, and thus began the town of Greymouth, though that name was not adopted until four years later, when the little township blossomed into a borough. Waite’s Maoris procured the coal which he had contracted to convey to Nelson, and before the little vessel left on the return journey the Europeans had found the Maoris gold-digging in Greenstone creek. Thereafter, discovery followed discovery, and Waite is careful to state that the honour of making -the first finds usually belonged to the Maoris.

I have often read that the discovery of gold on the West Coast was made first by Maoris in 1864, but that is palpably incorrect. It is beyond all question that the earliest find was made by the brothers Oakes in March or April, 1857, that gold was next found by Harper and Lockett later in the same year, and then by Rochfort in the Buller river in November, 1859. The first considerable parcel of gold was that obtained by the Maoris a few months later at the spot where Rochfort made his discovery, and the systematic search for gold dates from Waite’s arrival' at the Buller , in-the winter of 1860, as I have recorded. Their experience at Collingwood undoubtedly stirred the Maoris to prospect on the West Coast with which they were well acquainted in pre-European days, and Waite’s expedition, first to the Buller and four years later, to the .Grey, were prompted by what he learned from the Maoris.

Overshadowed by Otago Fields Though every vessel from the West Coast brought gold to Nelson, the importance of the new goldfields was lost sight of owing to the more extensive discoveries in Otago shortly afterwards, commencing with the “rush” to Gabriel’s Gully in 1861. The reputation of the Buller diggings continued to grow, however, and in January, 1862, the first steamer, the Tasmanian Maid, crossed the Buller bar with a full complement of diggers from Otago. The discoveries at Brighton, Charleston, and Addison’s Flat were not made until several years later. Such is a brief account of the discovery of gold on the West Coast. Now for some particulars about Reuben Waite. Unquestionably he was the pioneer of Westport and Greymouth, each of which began its existence with a store established by him. Like that of many pioneers, however, his work was not appreciated, at any rate during his lifetime. Greymouth has Waite street, and Marion street, named after his wife, while Blaketown, Greymouth, is named after his partner and brother-in-law;, Isaac Blake. Mrs Waite was a brave and highly respected woman, and I recollect an old-time argument whether she or Mrs Mackley was the first white woman to arrive on the West Coast. I was never able to settle the question, but it was admitted that there were only three weeks between them. Mrs Waite sailed from Nelson or Collingwood to

the Buller in 1860, accompanying her husband soon after his first expedition. Mrs Mackley rode on horseback with her husband from Nelson in the same year, following the pack-track made on Haast’s recommendation via the Matakitaki, Buller, and Maruia, and Grey Valleys. Mr Mackley was one of the party led by Mr James Mackay from Collingwcod to the Grey in 1857. The party ascended the Grey river by canoe some 50 miles, and he selected land at Waipuna in the Upper Grey, and there he remained until his death in 1911. Neither at Buller nor Grey was Waite’s storekeeping venture successful. I recollect thim many years later, when he and Mrs Waite kept a wayside accommodation house and store at Inangahua Junction,. where he settled in 1873. Several times he petitioned Parliament for some tangible recognition of his services as a pioneer, but without success. It remains a fact, however, that he had a substantial claim to recognition. Indeed, nowadays men receive titles for public services less meritorious than his.

It may be that he himself was somewhat at fault, however, inasmuch as he was one of the most flippant men in conversation that I can remember. He was always in jocular mood and never appeared to take anything seriously. Consequently he was not taken seriously by his contemporaries. Further, both he and his wife were hospitable and kindhearted, and their generosity was oftdn imposed upon. Waite died in the Public Hospital at Nelson in 1885, and his last resting place is in the Whakapuaka cemetery, but no stone marks the spot. Mrs Waite, died at Westport in reduced circumstances in' 1892. At least such pioneers have earned our reverence for their lowly graves. (Concluded.)