94 YEARS OLD

Hokitika Guardian, 26 June 1931, Page 5

94 YEARS OLD

MEMORIES OF GOLD RUSH.

STURDY WEST COASTER

“I know every inch of ground and every claim on the West Coast,” declared Mr Benjamin Lyons, who followed the gold-rushes in New Zealand from the first stampede to the Dunstan to those which occurred on the West Coast, to a Wellington “Dominion” reporter on Tuesday on the eve of his ninety-fourth birthday. Except for a slight defect in hearing, Mr Lyons 'seems as hale and hearty as the average man of sixty.

Bprn in London in 18.‘57 Mr Lyons served his apprenticeship to a firm of cigar manufacturers, and came out in the ship Champion of the Seas' to a brother, Mr Joseph Lyons, who some years previously had started a number of grocery stores in Melbourne. The spirit of independence burned fiercely in young Benjamin. After spending a few months with his brother,he told him one day that he- going to seek his fortune.

“Where are you going to?” asked Joseph. “I’ll have a buck in New Zealand,” replied Benjamin.

“You’re too young,” said the elder brother wa-rningly. “You made your fortune,” stoutly replied Ben, “and if you can do it I can do it.”

So to New Zealand he came, and lu Dunedin lie obtained a position with Mr Jones, a storekeeper. “Dunedin at that time,” he explained yesterday, “consisted of only a few huts, Ross and Glendining’s store in Manse Street was about the only decent building in the settlement.” GOLD DISCOVERED.

The day* passed (uneventfully in Dunedin until one day a sorry-look-ing horse was seen outside the Treasury with two pack saddles on its back. Word soon passed round that it “had brought 841 b of gold down, from the Dunstan.” “That was the end of town life for me,” said Mi - Lyons. “I was off tor the Dunstan as fast as my legs would take me. You must remember that there were no railways in those days, and -precious few roads. I had to tramp through snow and ford flooded rivers before I got to the goldfield; Here I entered into partnership with a Mr Raphael, and we started business as storekeepers. It used to cost' us about £IOO a ton to get flour up to the Dunstan, and we sold it to the miners at from 2s Od to 3s a pan-nikin-full. Transport was ■ the great difficulty, as there were no conveyances of any kind till the Cobb’s, of Melbourne, put coaches on.” The store did a roaring trade, and the partners flourished. “We couldn’t spend our money,” said Mr-Lyons, his face shining with the very memory of the “roaring days.”

, - liecpme wot'kikl out, Miesst’s Lyons and Raphael followed the miners in their pursuit of the yellow metal, first to Hinton and later to Hokitika, Kumara, and Stafford.

It was at Stafford that Mr Lyons’s wanderings ceased. His partner, desiring to settle in England, sold out his interest in the firm to him, and xor upward of 50 years Mr Lyons conducted his business there., only retiring upon t-lie death of his wife some eighteen months ago. He then came to Wellington to reside with mis daughter, Mrs Dorab- of 219 Upper Vivian Street.

WEALTH IN WEST COAST. Mr Lyons is convinced that there is still plenty of gold on the West Coast, also other sources of wealth which only require capital for development. Like most men who followed the diggings, lie was a great speculator. He still possesses extensive interests at Stafford, where he owns some thirty sections. He holds an interest in a

marble company at Caswell Sound, Hokitika, which has never been touched, and also holds a mining claim of 20 acres on the Taipa river. “Dick Seddon was a great friend of mine,” the veteran confided. <! W© saw that he had ability, and a small group of us got behind him, and got him on to the Land Board, then on to the County Council, and finally into the House.”

BUYING GOLD

Air Lyons bought gold for the Bank

of New Zealand for upward of thirty years, and often had as much as £2OOO worth of nuggets in his safe.

Three of his sons are now in the service of the Bank of New Zealand, j/ionel being at Stratford, Louis at Invercargill, and Clarence at'Timaru, while Reginald, the fourth son, is in the Defence Department at Auckland. “I am as fit as a fiddle” the nonogenarian declared. “I take a little drop of gin each night before retiring; I find it is good for the liver. If a oought dares to come along, I chase it away with a spoonful of lung preserver. The doctors get little out of me.” ■