“WILD” WESTLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 30 July 1932, Page 6

“WILD” WESTLAND

SOM®. SIXTY YEA.ES AGO. . NARRATIVE OF WRECKS AND' ; - • / ; ' GRIME. (Continued from the files of 1865-1866). In. March 1865 matters were very lively in Okarito and further south. The rush at th© rear of the workings on the- Three Milo, turned out a failure, the majority of the miners having given up their claims. The holders of claims oil the Five Mile still continued to get gold by the pound weight. Mr ■Mace, a storekeeper on the Five Mile, being washed off his horse by the sea, dropped a bag containing 190 ounces of gold. Diligent search was made without ('success, and £IOO reward was offered. It .was reported that payable gold had been struck seventeen miles south of Okarito, and, as soon as .the rumour got about, hundreds of miners started for the south. A newspaper was begun in Okarito and new hotels were put up. A regular horse ferry was .started at the Waiho at fi.'e shilling! a passenger.

Mr Albert Hunt, of Greenstone fame, went to Okarito from Bruce Bay, and spoke, of applying for a prospecting »laim. Immediately afterwards, the whole beach was lined with men 1 going south. A claim was granted seven 'miles south of Bruce Bay, and nine miles inland. They got four to six grains to the dish, and two feet of wash. Dozens of business men started on horseback to take up frontages at

Bruce Bay. Captain Turnbull, the Hokitika harbourmaster, going up the coast in a steamer, reported that the beaches were black with men making south. From 1500 to 2000 men were camped in Bruce Bay waiting' for Hiiri to come and show the golden ground. They were, all baking bread for the journey and hundreds more, were pouring in. All the business sites were taken up by storekeepers from Okarito, and the Five Mile. .Some miners received £3o’ for shifting their -tents. There was only on© store before the rush, with several tons of Hour and other commodities. In one day they

were sold out- and only a bag of rice

was left. Sixpenc e a ilt> was charged for (flour, which was considered very moderate. The miners were in such a hurry that they dashed through the rivers in crowds. At the second river north of Bruce Bay, a Maori ferried over several hundreds in a canoe, which owing to being rushed several times upset to the amusement of several hundreds on the. bank. ,

They were all up at daylight the next day, waiting for Hunt. He was delayed at Jacobs river, as the miners .with him, would not -let him cross ahead of them. About two o’clock Hunt arrived. /He wa® immediately surrounded by, the crowd and it was decided, in spite of the remonstrances of sour-' shanty keepers, ’to .start at once. The entire population started for the bluff south of Bruce Bay.’ The passage roifiicf the rocks was very difficult, owing to the great number pressing to get first; and every rock had a digger.' After crossing a river five miles south of the IfrTuff, they camped for the night, and tliree hundred fir<jß lit up the breaking waves The next .morning, as it was evident that the foremost would have the best chance, the .majority left everything behind in the care of one of their mates. Most of them imagined that the way led up the river, but on Hunt turning suddenly aside into the bush, there ’ensued a scene that baffles all description.

A rush wa® at once made toward!' Hunt’s track,, but, owing to the scrub and supplejacks, hundreds came to gri if. Nothing could be seen but boots sticking up out of a net of supplejacks, their owners struggling helplessly to extricate themselves, whilst yells, shout® and execrations on the supplejacks rent the air. The entire track through thbush' for five miles was of the same character and the pace was so tremendous that many a stalwart man felj down exhausted. . 1

After three or four miles’ travel! ng, the miners came on the track of the well known prospector, Rid Fox, uho tva® out looking for Hunt’s rush. After a short fcalt, the multitude started again and heavy rain commenced. After two miles everyone was exhausted, and when a creek of granite boulders was readied they came to the conclusion that Hunt had bolted.

They camped for the night in the heavy rain, and in the morning as they had no “tucker,” they sent some of their mates back for provisions They ’ then realised that the nt h was a hoax. The next day Hunt fell in with a number of miners who brought him back to the camp on Granite Greek.

For half a day, he again fod the miners through the bush but nothing was found. He then said he would have to climb a tree to look round, while the men were packing up. They could hot find him, and after searching, returned to Bruce Bay. There were nearly three thousand men camped In Bruce Bay, and it seems strange at the present date to read that it was as. hard to get .through the crowd as Paddy’s Market on a Saturday night in Melbourne.

The next morning Warden Price arrived, but without a single policeman. One of- the boats capsized when landing (passengers from the Bruce, and all .hands were in a moment struggiliug for their lives. The miners rushed down ,i,nd launched two boats and saved a]l hands.

The next day some of the crowd rushed the store and looted grog. One storekeeper from Okarito, who had ■previously charged £3 ,10s for a fifty

pound bag of flour, had his store gutted. A large number of stores and shanties 'were afterwards plundered and rowdyism reigned triumphant. Bottles and billyfulla of liquor were offered indiscriminately. The business people expected further outrages, and Mr Warden Price swore in a number of special constables,. The damage done was estimated at £6OO. Hunt was supposed to have got away in a boat from the Black River. The miners soon drifted away northwards.

On April 14th, The Lioness and the schooners, James Paxton and Lloyds Herald, were stranded. The Idoness was towing out three vessels at once.

In those days people, were imprisoned for debt, and were confined with the criminals, .and the creditors had to pay their ■maintenance foes. The old gaoi was. in the reserve near the present Bank of New Zealand. On April 26, 1866," there! were 55 males and 3 females in the gaol, and nine of these were debtors. A few days afterwards' they were moved to the new gaol in the Cemetery Reserve. On May Ist the mate of the Persevere was drowned in the river, with hundreds of people looking on, who were unable to save him.

On April 17th a novel performance •was advertised in Greymouth ‘That a Mr E. Leotard would cross tile Grey River in a washing tub drawn by four geese.

On April |2oth, the cook of an hotel in Revell Street .had a row with the boarders and six men nearly kicked the cook to death.

On May 4th the schooner Maria was wrecked'on the' bar, and the hull was sold for (£35. The booksellers advertised consignments of nqw novels by Wilkie, Collins, Charles Kingsley, Mi’ s Wood and Miss Braddon.

On May 13th a miner was garotted and robbed in Revell Street. One of the men was captured and turned out to be one of a gang that had been concerned in a (sticking up case at the Hiudon rush two years before. A ease of burglary was reported from (Ross town, as it was called in those days, where a jeweller lost £l2O.

In Hokitika the owner of the Duke of York Hotel had hi® till robbed of £lO.

On May 19th, 1866, th e following paragraph appeared :—“For some time past it ha® been well known to the police here that a number of the Sydney btishranging fraternity hav e be a resident in- our midst, quietly taking notes of the general mode of conducting business in the town and outlying districts, more especially those connected with the purchase of gold. Gossip isays so in; of the .strangers were seen more than once present in the dress circle of the Prince • of Wale® Opera House (later Duke of Edinburgh Theatre). On the 10th inst. four revolvers were stolen from the officers’ quarters in the police camp.”

May 24: Lari night Kelly, the mate of Burge&s who was examined and discharged yesterday on the charge of being concerned'in stealing the revolvers from the Camp was captured by (Sergeant Dyer. These .were two of the bushranging gang who were afterwards hung for murder. In going through the file® it is ■ remarkable to note what a number of people were brought before the Court for lunacy and sent to the 'Christchurch Lunatic Asylum. “ . !

Late in May a man was killed in a hotel, and the hotelkeeper, a prominent resident, was charged with manslaughter, and committed to the Supreme Court. Early in June the Bank of New Zealand at Okarito (still spelt Okarita) was robbed of H £2,500. The manager put ono bag and one bar of gold in the safe, and went out - :o breakfast. When -lie returned he missed the key of the safe. He sent to Hokitika for a duplicate key, and when it arrived and the safe was ppened, the gold was missing.

On June 6th, a paragraph appeared stating that Mr George Dobson had left the Grey eight days before and had not since been heard of. As will be seen later in our narrative he was murdered'* by the bushrangers. He was appointed Assistant District Engineer for Westland on February 14th, 1866, and came to Hokitika on Cobb’s coach on March 22, and had been surveying roads at the various gold 'rushes. (A stone is erected at the place where he was murdered on. tho hank of the Grey River at Dobson, and his name is one of the four on ’the'monument now in the Hokitika cemetery, that formerly stood at the junction of Weld and Sewell Streets.) On June 7th 'the steamer X arni > n had weather went out 'to tender the Rangitoto with 100 passengers for the coast. ’While coming in, the heavy seas washed a passenger overboard. Tho 'unfortunate man was en route for England, intending to do some business in Hokitika before leaving.

A case of “sticking up” occurred nealr the (Grey. A storekeeper left Greymouth Ito g0,,t0 his store at the Little Grey, having,-a parcel of sovereigns concealed in the bituist of his shirt. When crossing a,, creek, two men with faces blackened rushed out and rolled him in the mud to rifle his pockets, hut he managed 'to bury the sovereigns i)n the mud. They took him into the hush and tied him up, and threatened him with death if he did not tell him where the money Was. He stoutly refused to tell them, and they went back and found the money. He managed to cut himself loose and collected some men, who captured the robbers and proposed to summarily lynch them. They took the men to where tlie money was hidden and the storekeeper got his sovereigns hack. On the way to the police camp the robbers escaped.

On June 9th the first exhibition in West,kind of wax-work figures took' place. Amongst the figures were a

murderer and his victim. The victim’s father-in-law, who resided m Hokitika, considered 'the exhibition unseemly, and destroyed the figures with a stick. He was arrested and taken to the lockup. Next day he was fined two 'pounds. At the port vof Hokitika, between

12th May and 11th June 29,968 ounces

of gold were cleared of ’which 9,434 ounces came from Okarito in one

week. (/ ' On June 14th the schooner, Maid of tlie Mist, was bejng towed in by the Lioness, when the vtow rope broke, and 'the schooner)’.was cast ashore behind the Shapespeare Hotel. She soon broke up, being an old lighter that ygs never intended for w sea boat. A man was sentenced to one month's hard labour for stealing a quadrant from the wreck. During the month 53 vessels arrived in Hokitika and«brought 897 passengers,, and 57 boats sailed with 442 passengers.

On June 18th a rush took place in Revell Street, in front of the Prince of Wales Hotel. Some packers leaving town noticed that one of theii horses, in. kicking up the sand bad unearthed some glittering specks which turned out to be gold dust. They collected about 40 ounces. The street whs soon filled with men, women and children gathering up sand, and taking’ it to the back of- the houses to'wash out, one man got five

ounces another three but the richest ■sand had been gathered into heap s to wash later. Some three months before, a bag of gold, some 230 ounces, was being brought into the Union

Bank . but never arrived. A hole was probably worn in the bag by the packsaddle and. the. gold leaked out. On June 20th a telegram was received from Nelson that four men on. their way to Nelson from the Wakamarino. known to have gold with them were missing. Four (suspicious looking men, ,’f\yo cf them armed, had been seen in the road. The police started in search.' A subsequent telegram stated that no news had been heard of the 'four missing men. Their names were Felix Mathews, John Kemptliorne, i Janies Dudley, and James Pontius, and it was feared that they bad been murdered. On June. 22nd a local appeared indicating the readiness of Great Britain to accept and imitate great social changes, which had been successfully carried ...through their' experimental stages- in, the cdfemes. It had been the law in the colonies fo some years ‘ that executions should take place within the prisons, but if was not until 1866 that English executions did not take place in public. On June 21st word came from Nelson that Kelly, Burgess, Sullivan and Levi were held' for suspected murder. Warrants had already been issued in Westland against three of ,thenl for conspiring tcLmurder E. B. I'ox in the Grey pearance of - the idea was .-held that hfj~ ; liari suffered in Government had offered a reward of £250 for information.

On the 23rd of June a storekeeper was arrested"for' buying gold believed to he that stolen from the Bank at Okarito. He had purchased 81 ounces from a man named Banner and. 140 ounces from a man, called Sullivan. He was remanded.

The warrant .appeared describing the murders as follows: Burgess 36 years 'of age, sft 41 in in height, fresh complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes, has ia. g nil's hot wound in the back; Ketlfe 39 years old, sft 5$ in high, sallq\if|complexion, brown hair, hazel eyes; face wrinkled, marked with a merpiaid and a Bailor on the right arm -.and a cross on tho breast; Sullivan, ; 4Q years of age, sft Din in height fvj.ir complllexion, stout build, short brown Lair inclined to grey, long face, square forehead, hide eyes, fii'm mouth,,;..smalt fair whiskers, no mou l -;- tache, broad, shoulders, has the appearance. \of an “old hand.’ The “Otago, DaLl| Times” reported that' these werebtl'rue during scrollndt<j’; well-known in Otaeo, being Richard Burgess, alias Hill; Thomas Kell.', alias Hannorf; and John Joseph Sullivan, who in the early days of Gabriel’s Gully,, stuck up some men near Wethevstones, and afterwards -fired on the police.. The Jpolice traced them 'to a tent, and Burgess and Kelly escaped but were, qfterwards' captured having two revolvers and two guns, they were sentenced,, to penal servitude for three years’; and a half. In 1863 Burgess caused great danger in Dunedin gaol. ’ He got in with the notorious GaiTett; find others 'to contrive a breaking out. Burgess was flogged. Burgess and Kelly were released from gaol on September lltli 1865. At the trial in 1861, Sullivan was found not guilty and sailed for Sydney,—his arrest in Neb: oil was the first intimation to the police that he had returned to New Zealand.

All three of tlie mop had undergone long periods of penal servitude in Victoria, and Burgess’ wound in the back i\-as received while he was attempting to escape from the liu'k in Hobson’s Bay; Burge s was formerly a mate of the notorious Captain Melville. and lie had the reputati'-n of bein'* nue of the most cool and daring criminals in the Australian eolonie--. On July 4thy a telegram via Christchurch was '(received to the effect that Sullivan,; had confessed to the murder of Mr Dobson, and also the murder of the-foui- men on the Maungatapu. One of the victims was strangled, and the other three were shot. One of the latter was stabbed to tlie heart. Tho murderers were remanded for a week. They had chinned to enter the Bank of New South Wales before, ~ closing, to murder the inmates, ~,ynrry- off the treasure, arid escape by steamer. (To be continued.)