HOW CARTERTON WAS NAMED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 984, 26 November 1910, Page 16

HOW CARTERTON WAS NAMED.

THE PETITION OF 1859. AN INTERESTING DOCUMENT. Like other bush towns in New Zealand, Carterton-owed a Great deal to its early settlers. These people.came over the rough Rimutaka mountain, road or track, and walking through tho unbridged rivers, built their bark .whares with.. calico windows, and tho solid earth for floors. Their troubles were many, but they "won out" in the finish. And an interesting relic of those,early times is preserved in the shape of tlio memorial presented by them to the superintendent of the Province, of Wellington in June, 1859, in which they asked that tho "Three Milo Bush," as tho place was called, should bo lifted out of the bush stage and called "Cartervale" or "Carterville." The superintendent improved on tho suggestion by naming tho embryo town "Carterton." Appended.is a copy of the original petition forwarded, to the superintendent. It ■ was written on three- sheets of blue foolscap paper, and now hangs, dingy with age, in an unobtnisivo cheap frame in tho Borough Council Chambers, Carterton. There were fifty-three names to the petition, ■but three were afterwards crossed ous. Of tho signatories, tho major-, ity. earned estimable records as farming pioneers, . and _in a great number of their descendants are still in the Wairarapa. Of tho band-of fifty odd, who, in 1559, wanted to seo their settlement raised to the dignity of a township, only a few now survive. To tho best of tho writer's.