Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/172

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

169

to French Farm, where he bought land, and commenced dairy farming. Out of his enormous family, only one died, and that was a child he lost coming out in the ship. An emigrant ship of that time was not well adapted either in food supply or hygiene for children of tender years, so that the passing of that one may be regarded somewhat in the light of an accident. Recently another member of the family, a son, was accidentally drowned, but at the time of Mr. Hunt’s death his twenty-seven children were all alive. The remaining twenty-six are, at the time of writing this 28th June, 1911, all well, so that Mr. Hunt’s offspring are remarkably alive, numerically and for health.

Thomas S. Duncan, December 16th, 1850, Mrs. Duncan and family. Mr. Duncan came out in one of the first four ships. He was a barrister in Scotland before he left the Old Country, but on his arrival here he decided on taking up land, and was the first to secure a block in Decanter Bay, where, for some six or seven years, he carried on dairy farming. At the end of that time he sold out, and taking up his professional work again in Christchurch, rose very rapidly to a high position, and, after a few years, became