HUNDRED YEARS OLD

Hokitika Guardian, 6 November 1929, Page 6

HUNDRED YEARS OLD

CAPTAIN C. WELCH’S CAREER

DUNEDIN, Nov. 4

To-morrow Captain C. Welch, who first entered Otago Harbour in 1862 with his own schooner and 488 diggers for the Gabriel’s Gully rush on board, will celebrate his century, haying been born in Great Yarmouth on November sth, 1829. Though his health is. slowly failing, Captain Welch retains bis faculties well and is still able to recall events in the early clays of Qiie'en Victoria’s reign.

Going' to sea Vvlieh a lad of fourteen, he obtained liis master’s certificate while still a young man and purchased the three-masted schooner, Elizabeth Pelther, at New York, sailing for Cape Town just after the first battle of the American Civil War in 1860. Returning' v to London in 1861 he subsequently sailed for Sydney; the passage occupying 96 days. His schooner' was chattered' to carry 488 gold miner's to' Otago, and she then passed out of his- hands. Captain Welch later became master of a barque engaged in carrying sugar from the Philippines to Sydney, and then had command of several vessels in the intercolonial trade.

Captain Welch 'settled in Port Chalmers with his family in 1874, and after retiring from the sea was in charge of the Harbour Board’s patent slip at Carey’s Bay until it fell into disuse. For the past three or four years he has lived with his daughter, Miss Rhode Welch, at Port Chalmers.