ONE FAMILY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 432, 3 October 1947, Page 17

ONE FAMILY

SUTHERLANDS Ba a ae By Alex Sutherland. A. H. & A. W. Reed, Wellington. T is one of the most interesting stories in the world, the story of our ancestors and how they lived. When it is the story of men who dwelt where we now dwell, who knew those hills when they were dark with bush, who hunted in the swamp where those houses now stand, it is more vivid, more real. New Zealand history appeals because of its nearness. It is so easy to conjure up a vision of a hundred years ago, and behold, the small storm-tossed ships are anchoring in the bay and men and women are gazing anxiousty out at the new land. On one of those small ships, the Oriental, came Alexander. and Elizabeth Sutherland to New Zealand. (continued on next page)

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(continued from previous page) The Sutherlands came from Scotland to Lyall Bay, Wellington. There they held, freehold, land that stretched round to Houghton Bay and up to Constable Street and there they established a sheep farm. Alexander Sutherland wanted more land elsewhere which he could work in conjunction with Lyall Bay and, in 1856, he bought at Pahaua land that later amounted to some 14,000 acres. As the town spread, the Lyall Bay station dwindled and ,Pahaua was developed, carrying more and more stock. Finally, in 1878, Alexander Sutherland’s sons, Willie and David, sold the property and the Sutherland family transferred its headquarters to the Pahaua station, called Ngaipti. And there the Sutherlands still live. Alex. Sutherland has kept very strictly to the detailed history of his family. For the general reader, however, the interest lies not in the chronological record of the Sutherland family, but in the background against which they lived. We are interested in them because their individual dramas trace out the development of a colony and the building of a sheep station. There were drama and hardship and endeavour in the lives of all of them. There was

the driving of the sheep from Lyall Bay, right round the harbour to the Wairerapa, across the Lake Ferry, and then on through swamp and bush. There was the occasion when two men were crossing the Lake Ferry and the lake broke away at the mouth. There was the trip on horseback to collect the doctor, 20 miles to Martinborough, 20 miles back, and 20 there and 20 back again in the afternoon to collect the medicine. There was the journey of Willie Sutherland’s coffin across the hills, when "being a big man, it took 30 men acting in relays." _ One complaint: surely maps should and could have been included. As it is, the reader is forced to have his own — map of Wellington and Wellington pro vince beside him as he.reads. *

D.

R.