.jpg)
The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Otago & Southland Provincial Districts]
Before The Settlement
Before The Settlement.
Before the end of the eighteenth century, and about the same time as the foundation of the convict settlement of New South Wales, whalers and sealers began to settle in scattered groups along the New Zealand coast. A whaling station was founded in Preservation Inlet so early as 1829, by Captain Peter Williams, who died in Dunedin in 1868. In 1832 and 1834, stations were started on Dusky Bay. Other stations were situated at various points along the coast, at Aparima (Jacob's River), Oreti (New River), Awarua (the Bluff), Toistoi (Mataura), Waikawa (Catlin's River), Matau (Molyneux), Moturta Island (Taieri Mouth), Otakou (Otago Heads), Purakanui, Waikouaiti, and Moeraki.
The station at the Otago Heads was owned by Geroge and Edward Weller, of Sydney, who also owned Moturata, off the Taieri, Between 1830 and 1840 they employed from seventy to eighty Europeans at a time; and this nucleus of a European settlement was constantly recruited from the American, French, and English whalers and sealers that worked the New Zealand coasts.
.jpg)
Protected.Head of Lake Te Anau, From Nurse Creek. Muir & Moodie, Dunedin, photo.
The Waikouaiti station belonged to Messrs Long, Wright, and Richards, of Sydney; but these were bought out by Mr. John Jones, who, by 1839, controlled most of the whaling stations from Riverton to Moeraki. Mr. Isaac Haberfield, who first came to Otago in 1836, says that on his arrival there were between 2000 and 3000 natives settled at Otago Heads. At Purakanui there were about 500 more, and Mr. Haberfield says that he had seen as many as twelve large double canoes in Otago Harbour at once. The old Maori settlements on the upper harbour, however, had already been deserted; for the remnants of the Ngaitahu and Ngatimamoe had long since been broken into scattered bands, attracted to various spots along the coast by the allurements of the whaling stations. The natives were then, as always, on good terms with the whites, and many of the best whalers on the coast were Maoris and half castes. But the vices of civilisation, along with measles and other imported disorders, soon decimated the Maoris who came in contact with the whalers.
A few of the white setters in those carly days were not whalers; while some were both whalers and merchants, like Messrs G. and E. Weller, of Sydney and Otakou, and Mr. Jones, of Waikouaiti. Perhaps the best known of all the early settlers, Mr. Jones was a man of great practical ability and natural shrewdness; and he soon grew wealthy on whaling. Oil was worth £40 a tun in the Australian market, but the whalers were paid only £12 a tun, and that chiefly in “trade.” They got clothes and porvisions, but, above all and most especially, rum, which was supplied on the spot; so that the employers profited far more than those who risked their lives at the work. With the wealth thus acquired Mr. John Jones bought large areas of land from the natives, at one time claming a huge block between the Waikouaiti and Pleasant rivers.
It was characteristic of Mr. Jones that he saw the material advantage to be gained by instilling some moral principles into his employees; and he applied to the Sydney Methodist Church to send over missionaries to preach to the Maoris and whalers. The Rev. J. Watkins was sent over in 1840, and was succeeded by the Rev. C. Creed. “Johnny” Jones found, however, that the missionaries did their work too well; for the first Otago settlers observed that even the most dissolute “beach-combers'' lifted their hats to Mr, Creed, and Mr, Jones complained that his best men would not work on Sundays. He was himself a man of great force of character, devoted to his own way of thinking and accustomed to take it; and his virtues and failings alike qualified him to play a prominent part among the men who surrounded him. He lived on till 1869, and his muscular figure, with tall silk hat and black coat, were well known to all the early settlers brought out under the auspices of the Otago Association.
Another name familiar in the early days was that of the Palmers, Edward and William. They were whalers, famous for their skill and courage all along the coast. In the early fifties, Edward Palmer often came into Dunedin from the Taieri, wearing the silk hat and the broadcloth of civilisation. His brother settled at Henley, and married, first, a Maori, and then a half-caste. His first wife bore nine, and his second, thirteen children. William Palmer died on the 27th of March, 1903, aged ninety years. Another whaling hero was Tommy Chasland, famed throughout every whaling station in the island for his marvellous exploits and adventures. The manager of one of the Weller's stations, Octavius Harwood, was said by Dr. Hocken to be living at Portobello in 1898.
When the “Deborah” came down from Wellington to Otakou in 1844 to settle the site for New Edinburgh, it brought along with Mr Tuckett, the surveyor, the Rev. Charles Creed, who came to replace Mr. Watkin at Waikouaiti, and the Rev. J. G. H. Wohlers, a Moravian missionary, who settled in Ruapuke, and laboured for forty-three years among the Maoris. Waikouaiti was by that time a flourishing settlement—possibly the most prosperous in New Zealand. The European population numbered about 100, the Maori somewhat more; all dependent in some way upon the inevitable Mr. John Jones. At the Molyneux Mr. John Jones had purchased another block of land and sent down George Willsher as his agent, the settler after whom Willsher Bay—incorrectly spelt Wiltshire—is named. Willsher and Russell, who puchased from “Johnny” Jones, were permanently settled at the Molyneux, and added to the small scattered band of white men who found a home in the colony before the advent of regular settlement.
Mr. Tuckett's mission, after various umpromising episodes, resulted in the purchase of the Otago Block from the natives in 1845. Meantime a few brave pioneers had already been drawn by fair prospects laid before them to risk the voyage from Scotland to a distant and unknown land. In December, 1844, Mr. James Anderson with his son John, and Mr. Alexander Mackay, with their wives, removed from Wellington and Nelson to Koputai (Port Chalmers). The Andersons settled in the little bay that still bears their name; Mackay opened a hotel that was long famous at the Port. In the Dunedin district at the time there were only two Europeans, who were sailors engaged in hunting wild pigs. In 1846 these lonely colonists were surprised by the arrival of the surveyors—Mr. Kettle and party, who were to begin work on behalf of the Otago Association. Mr. Kettle settled first at Koputai, and later in Dunedin, and his eldest daughter—the first female white child born in Dunedin—afterwards Mrs James Macassey—was born there on the 3rd of March, 1847. The work of surveying the block drew to Otago a number of labourers, and a few surveyors whose names—Park, Abbot, Davison, Wells, Jollie, Pelichet—are well known in early Otago history.
From this brief sketch it is evident that there was no regularly organised settlement in Otago before the arrival of the colonists led by Captain Cargill and the Rev. Thomas Burns. Yet there were of whalers, sealers, and casual settlers at Port Chalmers nearly 100 men, women, and children; and the pilot, Richard Driver, found his duties far from nominal, even before the arrival of the “John Wycliffe.” At Moeraki there seems to have been from twelve to fifteen Europeans, including Isaac Haberfield, the earliest settler of all; and at Waikouaiti, in addition to the Rev, Charles Creed and his family, and Mr. John Jones and his numerous household, page 5 there was a thriving population of Maoris, half-castes, and Europeans, numbering perhaps 200 souls. The land was still wild and unbroken but it was not absolutely unpeopled by Europeans, or untrodden by the foot of the whiteman, when the Otago pioneers arrived.