Meantime news of Hunt’s discovery had reached the Buller, where it will be remembered John Rochfort had discovered gold in 1859; and here many parties were working with varying success. About this time the prospectors Smart and French also located payable ground in the Grey District, and the former wrote to Reuben Waite, storekeeper (who it has been shown had established himself at the Buller), stating, inter alia: “I consider the Grey field far before the Buller, for we get gold everywhere we try . . . . In a paddock on the bank of the Grey River a party got seven ounces for eight days’ work. . . .” As a result of this communication many diggers set out for the new field, most of them proceeding direct to the Greenstone. On July 22nd, the S.S. Nelson arrived at the Grey, and consequently was the first steamer to enter that port. This little vessel, just out from England, had been chartered by Waite and carried seventy diggers and a maximum cargo of stores and provisions of every kind. Waite was thus the pioneer storekeeper of Old Westland and the founder of the town of Greymouth. The story of his arrival and of what followed is best given in his own words. Here they are:
“We started from Nelson in the good steamship Nelson in the middle of June, 1864, with a cargo of provisions and every requisite necessary for the diggers, who took no tools or provisions with them as the venture was regarded
