On the top of that it must be borne in mind, that a large number of stores were opened and in every store a bottle of grog was always kept behind the counter, and the price of a drink in those days was 1/- a nip. It was nothing to see the Warden and a couple of lawyers pulling up their horses in front of a store, going in, and having a nobbler of case spirits or a glass of porter.
THE FIRST BORN.
The first girl child born in Addison’s was Mary O’Riely, a daughter of the late Mr and Mrs James O’Riely, who, after leaving Adddison’s, kept a public house for many years in Hawera. The first boy born was Frank Dennehy, and Frank first saw the light in a calico tent at a place called the Red Hill, near Sullivan’s Hotel.
SNOBS.
Alex McRea, the last shoemaker to leave Addison’s to take up his residence in Reefton, informed me that he took a stroll about the flat one Sunday afternoon in 1898, and counted 22 snob shops, each cobbler hard at work repairing the souls of the people and making heavy boots for the miners.
THE CLAIMS.
After the surface gold was procured. the miners sank shafts for the black sand golds, which was from 20 to 40 feet in depth, and the bottom was on a blue reef pug, and the depth of sand on the reef was from 3 to 9 feet in thickness.
THE RACES.
When the miners realised the value of their mining claims, they began to bring in head races of water from Mountain Creek and the Totara river, to work the land. Parties of six and eight men then pegged out claims and worked them for many years. The old system of working was a slow one, as every stone or boulder had to be man-handled, with no machinery of any kind to help them. Dynamite was used to burst the very heavy stones that could not be shifted.
THE GOLD LEADS.
The miners that paddocked the gold at the Flat worked it in what they called “Leads,” that is to say, the seams of gold run along the flat at a depth of 15 to 30 feet and those leads of gold travelled for miles, running north-west to south-east, and there were four main leads, which, in the dark ages, were formed by marine action, and the leads were some hundreds of yards apart.
Each lead had a name, and were known as follows: Wilson’s, Gallagher’s, O’Toole’s, Virgin Flat, and the Addison’s lead. At present, all the deep sinking gold claims are worked out and the only claim working in the Flat is Mouatt and Party’s (formerly Paddy Kane’s) red cement claim near the Red Hill, at the western side of the Bald Hill.
THE GOLD CLAIMS
As far as I know, most of the gold was got out of O’Toole’s lead, and the party of miners who worked in this lead were known as O’Toole and party, and the claim must have worked for 40 years. It was on the Western side of the main road. In bygone days, when O’Toole’s men were working in
