VETERAN BUSH WORKER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 December 1938, Page 7

VETERAN BUSH WORKER

PRESENTATION TO MR H. GOLDER ENTERPRISE IN THE EARLY DAYS RECALLED. Members of the staff of C. E. Daniell, Ltd., last night made a presentation to Mr H. Golder to ipark his long association with the firm, covering a period of 45 to 50 years. Mr G. J. Norris made a presentation on behalf of the staff of a fireside easy chair to Mr Golder, and said that his fellow workers hoped that he spend many hanpy hours in the chair. Mr Golder, who has retired from the service of the firm,' in thanking the staff for their thoughtful action, gave some interesting incidents of the days when he was engaged in cutting timber from the bush in the Masterton district. In the early days the price of timber Was lOd per 100 ft and he

found his own laces and files. Later he supplied the best of building timber at 2s 3d per 100 ft, and the pick of the heart of totara at 2s 9d per 100 ft, carted out on to the road at Taueru.

Mr Harry Golder, who is the son of a former Police. Superintendent in Dunedin, had his first sawmilling experience in Southland, coming from there in the early 80’s to a mill at Dalefield. He went from there to Morison’s Bush to join “Davy” Henderson, a railway contractor, who had bought Chew’s milling plant from Porirua. The engine and breakingdown bench were built by Robertson’s, of Wellington. The concrete engine bed is still in place opposite the Morison’s Bush School, the timber being grown on the flats of the Ruamabanga River just across from where the logs from Martin’s were hauled via Martinborough this year. From Morison’s Bush the plant was moved to Dalefield, about a mile west from lhe station, connected to the railway with a steel tram and as much bridge limber was' handled, the crane now in the Queen Street yard was erected near the mill. Somewhere about 1890 tne plant was moved to Werajti about four hundred yards from Mr J. McKenzie’s property at Puke Te. This cut the bush down on to Bennett’s Flat, from which point logs were again hauled (by motor truck) in 1932 to the Lincoln Road plant.

Messrs Harry Golder and Bill Thomas, an ex-naval seaman with the proverbial handiness and heartiness of the sea, were contract sawyers for this plant for many years, the timber being hauled by five horse tram teams over the hill to the Te Ore Ore Road four miles out, thence oy wagon to Masterton. The tram timber from tne mill to To Ore Ore Road was actually carted up from Dalefield by wagon. The mill was burnt out in 1892 and was re-erected on the banks of the Taueru 11 miles away, about ninety feet above the river. From this point it worked bush from Mr Wardell’s mow Mr J. McKenzie’s) and Mr Buchanan’s (now Mr P. J. Borthwick’s), reaching to the edge of the bush which is about to be hauled to Masterton. This was in 1896, when a phenomenal flood in the Taueru carried away Buchanan’s Bridge along with the bridge now standing near Mrs Dean’s property (a rise of 42 feet).

Later Messrs Golder and Thomas cut much of the timber from Beemam’s Bush across the Taueru and when the plant was dismantled in' 1907, the engine was used to drive the Lincoln Road factory plant and the oreaking-down rollers, now the only part of the original Morison’s Bush plant was erected in the mill where it now stands. Mr Harry Golder left at this time to look for the distant hills that are always green and worked for a period in the Ohakune district, returning later to Masterton to finish his active milling career nere. Mr Bill Golder was born while the plant was at Dalefield. A diary of 18yi kept by Mr Frank West, then manager of Weraiti, records various tribulations relating to an automatic steam pump that pumped water up the 90ft bank at Weraiti for saw dust and boiler and contains the entry:—“Pump working r.i c «iv • everything going pretty well, but Mr Golder isn’t satisfied. It would taici a saint to please him sometimes.” That is'a good summing up of a hard-work-ing. hard-driving benchman who always commanded /’ic respect of his mates and associates.