WHEN MASTERTON HAD GOLD FEVER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3200, 28 May 1909, Page 5

WHEN MASTERTON HAD GOLD FEVER.

AN ECHO OF A GENERATION BACK. A SALTED CLAIM AT RANGITUMAU. At the Farmers' Union Conference at Eketahuna there represented the Levin branch of the Union, Mr J. Devonshire. This gentleman who is now a prosperous dairy-farmer at Levin, in the course of a : very interesting conversation about Masterton, with a Wairarapa Age reporter, mentioned that he knew the Wairarapa capital ver.v well about 26 years ago. "I had a livery stable in Masterton then," said Mr Devonshire, "and though it is many years since I resided there, I still remember Mas' terton as a town singularly notfid for matters w orthy of reminiscence. Not the least of these matters was the great gold fever which attacked the residents in the township in about 1883. It was a humorous affair — with, of course, its serious side —and one which I often recall to friends. It affected me in particular as I will show. "During the year mentioned two shrewd gentlemen came over from Australia, where they had been engaged in gold-mining on one of the 'rushes.' The proceeded to a sequestered glade at Rangitumau (after first taking up a sort of permanent residence in the town) and there they 'salted' a boulder. They came back to town with glowing reports of a great 'find' in a certain spot which they kept most secret pending the procuring of capital and other matters necessary to work the claim. "Then their iun commenced. The conspirators were assisted in their scheme by'a very pretty and clever woman, who posed as the wife of one. She used to stay at home and fill visitors with glowing accounts of the great find, always, of course, keeping very secret the locality of the bonanza. "That secrecy was where I came in," remarked Mr Devonshire. "I was nightly beseiged with patrons for horses. The town miners were wont to leave their home in Worksop road every night, ostensibly for the purpose of playing a clandestine visit to the claim. 'Cute' persons of all ages and in all stations came to me for horses with which to follow the discoverers surreptitiously. The situation was amusing in the extreme. Persons came to me disguised as far as they conveniently could be in old clothes and in other ways, armed with miners picks and all sorts of other implements with which they individually proposed to attack the innocent mine, when they had tracked the miners to their claim. But what a circus it must have been for the 'salters.' They knowing full well the artifices used to follow them, would take their'trackers to a six or seven hours' jaunt round the Upper Plain, Akura, Te Ore Ore, Te Whiti, and sundry other localities, and then return home, after stopping nowhere in particular. "The end was not very long in coming. The conspirators collected from local people what was said to be a very substantial sum, which was to be devoted to developing the 'mine.' A photograph was taken of the mine itself with some of the shareholders round it, and meanwhile the caterie of goldfinders were living in a very luxurious fashion, entertaining liberally and being reckoned very good sorts all round. One d<?y they were missing. So was the mining company's capital, and everything of value pertaining to the mine. The bubble burst, and Mhsterton's gold fever melted'like mist."