"NINETY-THREE"

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3012, 24 February 1917, Page 10

"NINETY-THREE"

MR. RICHARD B. HAYBITTLE'S TALKS OF OTHER DAYS

EARLY HISTORY REVIVED

Ninety-three years! It is a great span of years for anyone to live and stiil retain in a marked degree all his ■ faculties. Yet such is tho lino record I of Mr. Richard B. Haybittlo, of Woolcombe Street,, who will celebrate- his ninoty-third birthday to-morrow. For the past 64 years, Mr. Haybittlo has been resident in Wellington, living an industrious, yet settled life, as though to compensate himself for the restless roVing days wliich preceded his advent in these parts. For Mr. Haybittlo, though Loudon horn and bred, was a sailor man in the days when a man had to be a sailor, and the steamboat was an innovation that was scoffed at as of limited use and dangerous withal. Even Charles Dickens, on his first voyage to America, was aghast at the danger of fire through the flames from the funnels belching out and sweeping over the cabins. The nonagenarian was only a small boy of fifteen years when he shipped aboard the schooner Earl Bathurst, trading from London to Rotterdam, After a trying time before the mast it was hammered into his comprehension that thoso behind-the mast had a better time than those before. They had better accommodation, but that did not count so much with him as ,tho faot that {hey had "much better tucker." So ho set himself the task of loarning navigation, not perhaps as they do now, and in time qualified for a mate's position. There were no examinations in those days, the skipper being left to fossick out his own mates as best he could. In one of the earlier vessels he sailed in, ho shipped as third mate, but owing to the Becond mate's "love of tho liquor," he .was promoted to those duties, and then the chief mate went missiug, and he became chief. That was in tho Charlotte, which left her bones on the Truxilo beach in Honduras. She had loaded mahogany at Belize, but owing to the polution of the river by tho mahogany logs, it was decided to run to Burnacca Island to water. A_Carribean native was taken aboard to act as a kind of pilot, but a cyclonic storm was encountered that tore every shred of canvas i off the ship, and in a helpless condition she drifted on to the reef and finally-on to the beach. That was in 1816. At Belize tho crew, who declined to stand by the ship, which was not seriously damaged, sued the captain, and were awarded their pay, half in cash and half in orders on tho owners in London, but Mr. Haybittle hung on, superintended the stripping of tho vessel and sale of after getting tho whole of his money (for which he had to exert tho law) ho shipped on board a schooner for New Orleans. There, finding good berths few and farbetween he took to "cotton-screwing" (stowing the bales of cotton in the 1 holds of vessels). After sixteen months' at New Orleans he went back to Loudon. Times wero not too good, how-, ever, and his daily search for aberth yielded nothing, until one day he was wandering through tho docks! when he-saw an advertisement stating! that the good brig Charlotte Chisholm was about to sail for Port Phillip, and had accommodation for pessepgers. That was when the air was full of rumours of the fabulous mountains of gold that Victoria was made of, so he paid tho flat'rato (all one class) of. £20 for his wife, and £10 each for his i two children, whilst he himself shipped! as an A.B. at Is. a month. The brigwas one of 0n1y.600 tons, and she carried 200 passengers quite comfortably l ' to the newest-El Dorado of the South. On to New Zealand. Mr. Haybittle soon found but the strength of Victoria as a get-rich-quick proposition, and after four months in Melbourne, shipped as mate on the: schooner Shepherdess for New Zealand, in whoso waters he had a brother engaged, in the whaling/industry. And so he came to Wellington towards the end, of 1853. He stuck to the Shepherdess, working the coast between Wellington and Lyttelton, lifting the wool from tho stations and carrying stores back, for there were then no, trunk roads or railways to make a velvet path for tho man on the land, who, in those days, .earned all that was coming to him. Then, with the sailor's longing for the shore, he went into the lightering business in Wellington Harbour. In Wharness Days. "There were no wharves then," said Mr. Haybittle, "and the vessels used to lie close inshore somewhere about where, the Public Library and Town Hall aro now, just off Bethune and Hunter's place. Wo started with a little boat called the Ocean Eagle, but afterwards we got thrco or four bigger boats built by Allen! of Pipitea Point, big boats that would carry seven tons or more. Work was fairly steady, and at times there would be a rush of seven or eight vessels, all of which had to have their cargoes lightered. Wellington was a queer little place then—just a single row of old-fashioned houses in tho shape of a B. along Lambton Quay, with a sandy beach on one side—where Stewart Dawson's is now was Clav Point, and at spring tides you could not get round. But ordinarily the water was very shallow there. I have seen a man in a cart go out ever so far from Clay Point. It was just round the point that Mr. John' Plimmer beached the old Inconstant and built a warehouse over it that was called "Noah's Ark," because it looked like the Bible pictures of the Ark. Thei used to hold the political meetings there speaking from the fo'csle to the people on the road. The Walrarapa Boats. ! "Then Swinburne's wharf was built,' near the Empire Hotel, and later there was Plimmer's_wharf. _ That put an end '• to the lightering business, and forced the lightermen to look for other work. Then Barron's wharf was built, down opposite Woodward Street, which was then the Kumutoto stream. That's where tho Wairarapa boats used to pull into. In thoso days there was no road over the Rirautakas. The stores for the settlers used to be taken in stout whalehoats round Barinc: Head, into Palliser Bay, and so into tho Wairarapa Lake. Nick the Greek used to work tho lake, and my I brother the sea. By jove, I've often i seen them leaving: th« harbour piled | up, with only a foot ot freeboard show- i ing, and only depe.cdii;p; on a pair of oars and a lug-saii- _ They used to | bring the wool back '"n bales from the I stations in tho Wairnrapa, and as often as not it got wet. When that happened they used to pull into Scorching Bay, and dump the bales on the beach —that is why it is called Scorching Bay—it was so warm and sheltered there. Then camo the road and tho wagons, and as tho settlers were able ! to get their stuff up for £7 a ton without insurance, the sea business was knocked on tho head." I

Joins Captain W. R. Williams's Staff, Old Mr. Gannaway was then stevedore for the Panama Steamship Company, and I joined him, and was given charge of tho Sandfly, a littlo yacht the company owned. I remember the then Earl of Pembroke, with his doctor anil valet, visiting Wellington. Tho Earl was very fond of yachting, and the rougher it was the better ho liked it. Ho would never let me take a reef in.

One of his polnsuros was to invite people to go out, and got them well soaked. He nover minded a scrap how wet he cot. Ho ;\vas fond, too, of trolling for kahuwai with' a Maori hook, made of bone and pahuwai shell. I was still with Gannaway, when Captain W. R. Williams offered me a billet to tako chargo of his'' coal yard, just where tho Union Steam Ship Company's building is now. He afterwards sold out to the Union Steam Ship Company, but they soon wont out of the coal business, and after acting as paymaster for them for a time, I thought it was time for me to retire altogether, and hero lam still. I don't feel my ago a bit, and find it hard to bolievo that I havo lived nearly a century." Mr. Haybittle is really a wonder. He is physically energetic, his eyes are bright, his cheeks pink with health, andhis memory is as clear as.crystal. The living members of the family are, in the order of their agc6, Mrs. Edward Rcid, of Napier; Messrs. W. G. Haybittle, and Richard F. Haybittle, of Foilding; Mrs.- David Scott, of "Wellington (with whom, the nonagenarian resides); Messrs. Henry W. Haybittle, of Taihape; Mr. F. W. Haybittle, of Geo. Thomas and Co., Wellington (now driving a motor in Franco); and Mrs. Alf. Sutcliffe, of Marton.