Daniel Laurence Moloney

“ In 1864, the Hokitika gold rush broke out, and after the alluvial gold was got rid of, and other small gold rushes was visited, a large number of the miners came to Addison’s in 1867. A large majority of them settled down there and lived the greater part of their lives there. To-day very few of the gallant six thousand pioneers of Addison’s remain on this side of the Great Divide. Some of them travelled to the four corners of the globe. Others who made and saved good sums of money, went to the four large cities of N.Z. and most of them got on well in life, in different speculation. ”

“ There must have been about 3000 men lined up for action on the banks of the Buller river, with guns, pistols, spears and clubs, sworn by their commander to kill every Irishman they met. At the same time the Irishmen mobilised under the command of an ex-English officer, and he had a noble band of about the same number as the King Williamites at Westport. The Addisons army was lined up along the main road, the long rank reaching from the Shamrock Hotel to Dick Harley’s Hill. ”

“ In the dark ages of the Flat, when the population was about 4000, there was no provision in the place for a hospital for accidents. Hospitals were erected at Charleston and Westport. Charleston at that time was the principal town in the Buller district. Four resident doctors were at Charleston and two at Westport. If an Addisons miner broke his leg he was carried 8 miles to the Westport Hospital to be treated by Dr. Gruhn or Dr Thorpe, or he was caried on a stretcher shoulder high by gangs of his fellow miners, to Charleston to the doctors down in that township. ”

“ A tactful magistrate by the name of Mr Kinerley, rode out to Addisons on horse back, met the Addisons army, and told them that if they dared to advance a mile towards Westport that not a man of them would return alive, as the Orangemen at the Buller were 10,000 strong and were coming with guns and cannon, and half of them were mounted. This put the fear of God into the Irishmen and the order from the commander was given to dismiss. ”

“ All the rich patches of cement have been worked out. There is plenty of gold still in the remainder of this red cement, but a cheaper method of working it must be put into operation.
In 1896, Addison’s was again in bloom. I was in that year that the great German Exploration Company started their claim at Addisons, near the Bald Hill and named the place “The Bendigo.” When the great foreign company was buying out claims at Charleston, Addison’s, and Fairdown, and giving the prices asked for by the sellers a fair amount of speculating was going on. ”

“ Some miners also worked the gold deposits in the sides of the hills by the tunnelling process, and some were lucky enough to make good money at the game. Four ounces of gold were got to each set of timber; that would mean £16 to every four feet of earth dug out of the hill, and good men made £15 for each day they toiled.
The rig system of removing the stones, boulders and gravel from the face of the paddocks was operated in each claim.
O’Toole’s party was the first to experiment with this system and the first man to put it in working order was a man by the name of John McTaggart. ”

“ Phil sold his Brighton business out and came to Addison’s and bought the hotel from Hayes, and here Phil met his future bride and got joined in the Holy Bonds of Wedlock.
FORTUNES MADE.
When the surface gold was plentiful some fortunes were made and spent. Some men (one especially known as Black Sand Joe) made £100 a day and when pound notes were plentiful, miners were seen sitting in hotels and lighting their pipes with pound notes. Five Scotchmen who didn’t smoke or drink worked together in a rich claim on the Shamrock Lead, at Virgin Flat. ”

“ When the said Club had won honors for themselves, I wrote several verses in their praise, and in looking through my old scrap book I find I have my poetry still in safe keeping, and the verses were written under the title of “The Addisons Cricket Team,” and the first and last verses ran as follows:—
For they come from over yonder, just across the Buller River,
It’s a team that can lick creation, they are miners from the Flat.
When the other fellows meet them, why they fairly shake and shiver,
For some champions are amongst them with the ball and with the bat. ”

“ When the find was made known, then miners from the Hokitika, Grey, Otago, Nelson, and Australian gold fields came long in hundreds to try their luck in the new fields for fortunes. The place was immediately named Addison’s Flat, after the discoverer, although the Maori name for that township was Whenua-Pakura, which means red earth. The reason for the Maor’s calling it by that name is because of the red cement that is so plentiful out there. ”

“ Jim Dee captained the Addisons team and amongst the 15 of the best players from Addisons in that team were Pat McEnroe, Jim Haden, Jimmy O’Riley, and Hughie Moran (the present caretaker of the Westport Domain) . The publicans took hundreds of pounds at the drinking booths at 1/- a nobbler. In the evening a grand ball was held at Charleston to finish up the day’s sport. For many years after that great event football went dead, but about the year 1893 it came to light again when a club was formed, and amongst the crack players were Jim Hepburn and Billy Armstrong. ”

“ Mrs Barker, of Westport, would preside at the piano, with Mr Rosenberg, of Charleston, cornet, and Tom McNeight and Jim McQuinn at the fiddles.
The McEnroe’s built a public hall in the heart of the township and all socials and dances were carried out in the new hall. Paddy Galvin would be the M.C. and Miss Katie McEnroe would preside at the piano. I must also mention that on a fine Sunday evening in the latter years of Addisons just after church services, all the aged men would go up and squat on the Shamrock Hotel verandah. ”

“ Its timbers are solid. In the church is a lovely organ, and the church is well cared for and kept clean by one of the residents of the Flat. Mass is very seldom celebrated out there owing to the population decreasing.
The remains of the first few who died at Addisons were laid to rest in a cemetery reserve on the pahikis just above McPadden’s Hill. For several years some wooden fences enclosed their resting places, but they have long since been broken down. To-day the manuka tree and weeds grow on the graves of the few miners buried over there. ”

“ Occasionally a wag will tell the stranger, who, mistaking the grave for an artificial formation, asks what it is for, that it is the grave of the first two teams of the Addisons and Charleston footballers who met. ”

“ About half as much weight of water would be in the tank as what was in the truck of stones and when the tank got to the bottom of the rig, it would mechanically empty itself and the empty stone truck would then be filled with water, and by this means it would bring the empty tank back to repeat the operation of filling again to raise the truck of stones. When this method proved successful, then all the other parties in the other different claims erected the water balance. The party system of working the claims was a success all through the long years of the mining existence. ”

“ The McEnroe family left Addisons some 20 years ago to take over the Britannia Hotel at Wellington, and it was in the Capital City that Phil, like Dick Seddon and other notable men, was laid to rest.
THE DANCE HOUSES.
Addisons, like other mining towns in the early days, ran what are known as the dance houses. Some of the publicans would erect a large dancing room at their hotels and would employ from four to 10 girls as dance girls, and every night in the week a dance would be held. Crowds of miners would gather every evening at the dance rooms, as that was the only enjoyment they had. ”

“ The old women would all gather at the crossroads by Maurice Foley’s place, and while the old men were talking about the week’s work done in the claims, and the women telling each other the latest scandal, and the bad color of the washing put out on washing day on Mrs So and So’s clothes line, then the young lads and lassies would go helter skelter down to Dirty Mary’s Creek bridge. ”

“ The chief died while the vast tribe of Maoris were waiting to cross the Totara, so they carried their dead chief well inland and buried him about a couple of miles on the high land to the north of the Totara river, and so to mark the last resting place of the dead warrior, the Maoris spent some weeks at making a long and high mound. ”

“ An old army man by the name of Cochrane, used to play the Irish pipes, and Cochrane, when in England, was presented by the late Queen Victoria with pipes to the value of £100, and according to old identities he could rattle great music out of them. ”

“ When the Westport Orangemen found out how they were had, they appealed to the State for an army to be sent down to the Buller to make the Irishmen behave themselves, and the Defence Department, working on what they thought good advice, sent volunteers from Auckland. An army of about 500 trained men was shipped at Auckland for Westport, and when the ship got outside the Auckland Heads, the lads started singing “Garry Owen” “St. ”