EARLY MINING DAYS.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVII, Issue 4956, 26 March 1926, Page 4

EARLY MINING DAYS.

DISCOVERY OF 3LIRTHA REEF.

A PIONEER’S STORY. It is always, interesting to hear of the early days of' the Upper Thames goldfields, and more particularly Waihi, which boasts the most famous gold and silver mine ever discovered in .the Dominion, and one that some sixteen or seventeen years ago ranked as the third grea,tes,t producer of the precious metals in the world. There has been more than one claimant to the distinction of having been the first person to locate the Martha lode, the parent body of the reef system from which gold and silver to the value of some £15,000,000 has been won, but probably no pame has bean more frequently identified with the finding of payable values thaji th,at of Mr William Nichol, who is still fossicking about the Wai.tekauri district in quest of fresih bonanzas.

Mr T. H. (Herbert) Gordon, ,of Waihi, and one of the pioneers of the Ohinemuri field, is among those who support Mr Nichol’s claim to have been the discoverer of the Martha reef, which can still be seen in the “open cut” on .Martha Hill,,- where the outcrop of this, no,ted ore body wa,s first located, and he dwelt inters estingly on the early days of the field in a chat with a Waihi Telegraph representative on Monday.

“It’s, just on 51 yearsi since I first heard rumours of a mountain, of gold in the upper Thames or Ohinemuri district,” said Mr Gordon, “and'it was in 1875, when a lad, when I came through from Thames with two mates, Bryer and Bodkin, ostensibly on a Pighunting expedition.; The' natives in those times were not over- friendly, and • were inclined to regard the whites as trespassers, and to order them away. We were told to go back, and worked our way across' towards WatiekaUri, always on the lookout for reefs, and "gradually made home to Thames again. At tjhat time there was 1 talk of a big outcrop of quartz at Waihi, and in the course of our homeward journey, we noted other reefs, and indications that we were traversing a belt of auriferous country. A few months Jatpn with the proclamation df the Ohinemuri goldfield, I came back wi,th those who joined, in the rush ' to Karangahake, where in a very little while there were 1500 to 2000' men at work, with Mackayto.wn as the headquarters. Much prospecting was done, but nothing of importance was met with at the time, and gradually the crowd dwindled away.”