Thomas Paterson 1845-

One of the lessons I have been taught is to read and re read documents; and here is the result!

The memorial plaque pictured in the previous post with the initials "M.T." at the top has confused me for some time with a pencilled note that a Margaret Hunt is buried in the Hunt plot.
I believe someone had assumed that the Daniel Hunt buried there is Daniel Hunt , policeman and nephew of Richard Hunt , and husband of Margaret Bray.But it isn't. The burial is of Daniel John Hunt , Richard's bachelor son.

I had another "reread" of Janet Barry nee Paterson's death certificate. She died 10 September 1957 in Sydney where she had lived for 48 years, which has her arriving about 1910.
Janet was Richard Hunt's grand daughter and daughter of his daughter Catherine Hunt who had died when Janet was only 4 years old.
On her marriage certificate Janet lists her father as Thomas Paterson, schoolmaster. On her death certificate he has gained a "t" and was a schoolteacher.
On Catherine and Thomas's marriage certificate, 5 August 1869,  Thomas is a labourer and had 2 "t"s.
Their "Intention to Marry" certificate also says Thomas had only lived at  Hampden Town (Tikokino) for 12 months prior to the marriage.

Sally Butler and Judy Mathews' book "Tikokino A History 1855-1990" records that a Thomas Paterson was employed as Master between 1866 and 1867. His successor  arrived at the school and reported to the Inspector of Schools saying " I beg to inform you that I find that all the land belonging to this school, except about one sixteenth, is planted with potatoes and barley, which crop has been sold by the late Master Mr Paterson to Dr Todd of Waipawa for the sum of 5 pounds."

Except  Excerpt "snipped" from Janet's death certificate

I believe that the "M.T." is for Mary Catherine  and Thomas Paterson, Richard Hunt's son in law installing the old man's memorial plaque after his death, his having survived all his children except Winifred who was living in Wellington with her husband Henry Collins. 

"M.T.

I cannot lift your hand father dear

Your face I cannot see

But let a friend's token tell

That two still remember thee

Tom"

But where are you Thomas Pat(t)erson? There is a lot of information about a school teacher of the same name in Invercargill and Dunedin but the marriage dates dont allow for "our" Thomas's marriage to Catherine. Did you go to Australia with your daughter Janet and her children Desmond and Denzil ?

Old Napier Cemetery. Mary Catherine Bird 1874 ,John Reginald Bird 1880-1881,and Richard Hunt Bird 1875-1887

Last week I went to the Wharerangi Cemetery Sexton’s office in Napier and met a lovely  lady who helped me sort the plethora of reference numbers attached to plots in the Old Napier Cemetery.

The Napier Earthquake has been blamed for the lack of records, despite the fact that many burials appear to be unrecorded. By accessing the data bases compiled by the Cemetery Staff and Genealogy Society members who produced a record from the Napier Court’s registrations, and with publicly available family history records from headstones, I have been able to locate the last resting places of many of the Bird family’s forebears

The highlighted area on the map

shows the position of the Hunt/Bird family plot.

The burials that I have recorded start with the burial of the infant daughter of John Thomas Bird and Johanna Hunt, little Mary Catherine who was born prematurely in Napier and died at two weeks on  March 10 1874.

The next year, Johanna’s sister, 26 year old Catherine Paterson died and was also buried here.

Sadly, five years later Johanna and Catherine’s mother Catherine Hunt (nee Lahart) died at 65 having been predeceased by her namesake daughter and grand daughter.

This was the year,1880, that Richard Hunt paid for a triple plot two days before his daughter Johanna, wife of John Bird, died aged 28 at Wallingford two weeks after giving birth to her son John Reginald.

A headstone was placed on the grave reading:

                                                  “Sacred to the Memory of

Catherine beloved wife of Richard Hunt who died January 13^th 1880 aged 65 years

Also Johan[n]a daughter of the above and beloved wife of John Bird died September 19^th 1880 aged 28 years

Also Catherine daughter of the above Richard and Catherine Hunt aged 25 years

May their souls rest in peace

Amen”

Johanna’s son John Reginald Bird died at 5 months from 

diarrhoea on February 2nd 1881 at the home of his

grandfather Richard Hunt . He was buried 2 days later in the Old Napier Cemetery probably near his mother. Little John’s Godparents were his Aunt Ellen Hunt and his father’s nephew Daniel Hunt who, having taken his discharge in New Zealand from the British Army, was employed as a Policeman.

Ellen and Daniel were also Mary Catherine’s Godparents.

Two years later on June 22 1883 at his home in Paradise Road Napier, where he lived with his father Richard Hunt , Daniel John Hunt  26 year old brother of Catherine and Johanna  died of Tb from which he had been ill for some time.

Daniel had been born in Wellington within months of his family arriving on the Lancashire Witch with the 65^th Regiment.

He was baptised at St Mary of the Angels on July 1 1857.

It was through this record that I was able to confirm that “our” Richard Hunt was Private Richard Hunt 2855 of the 65^th Regiment 

Record of Daniel's 1857 Baptism St Mary of the Angels, Wellington where Elizabeth was married 2005.

The year after Daniel's death, 1884,  Richard Hunt purchased another plot, this time 9'x3' (the previous purchase had been for a triple plot 9'x9')

Ellen Hunt married Joseph Coe in 1874,  but sadly died in 1886 at Tomoana leaving 6 children. She was buried in the family plot at the Old Napier Cemetery .

Her husband Joseph remarried  Mary Elizabeth Powley , but Ellen is still remembered by her family on the Headstone on her husbands grave in Hastings.

“In loving memory of Joseph dearly loved husband of Mary E Coe

Died 17/9/1935 aged 83 years

Also Mary

 Elizabeth beloved wife of above died 9 August 1959 aged 82 years”

Chronologically the next event marked by a  burial in the Old Napier Cemetery was the sudden death of Joseph William Nelson.

After Johanna died leaving four little children , her husband John needed help with keeping the children. In those pre social welfare days the quickest way get help was to remarry.

Joseph Nelson, a retired Royal Navy Artillery man was employed as the Sergeant major of the Hawkes Bay Volunteers (interestingly because his predecessor had been “shot on the range”).

It isn’t unreasonable to presume that Joseph was known to Richard Hunt a fellow Irishman and Catholic. Joseph lived at the Gore Brown Barracks and there was a track from Richard’s home in Paradise Road up what was known as Hunt’s Gully to the barracks.

It also lends credence to Grandpa Noel’s story that his grandfather John’s second marriage was an arranged marriage.

Mary Nelson married John Bird and Joseph was his brother in law. But not for long.

Joseph died suddenly in 1887 falling face forwards “grounding arms forever” as reported in the Newspaper of the day.

Joseph William  Nelson 1844-1887

Three months later  September 3 1887 Richard Hunt’s namesake Richard Hunt Bird aged only 12, succumbed to erysipalas (an over whelming traumatic skin infection ) and died at Wallingford.

Family legend has it that he was killed by a ram.

It was the 7^th anniversary of little John’s birth.

He was buried in a plot beside the Hunt plots and paid for by his father John Bird 8 years later….?!

The headstone inscription reads:

“Of your charity pray for the repose of the soul of Richard Hunt Bird

Second son of John and Johanna Bird

Died 7^th September 1887 aged 12 years”

Richard Hunt lived to be an old man.

His grand daughter Janet Paterson, daughter of Catherine Paterson, lived with him in Napier until she married William Bernard Barry in 1896.

Richard’s sole surviving child, Winafred  lived at home until she married Henry Collins in 1890.

She is the only one of Richard’s children not to be buried in the Old Napier Cemetery.

She died on ANZAC Day 1924 and is buried in the Karori Cemetery in Wellington.

Having out lived his wife and four of his children, Richard died aged 95 on May 14 1904

The inscription on his Headstone reads:

“Of your charity pray for the soul of Richard Hunt died May 14^th 1904 aged 95 years.

Daniel John son of above died June 22^nd 1883 aged 26 years

Also his daughter Ellen Coe died November 9^th 1886 aged 29 years

May their souls rest in Peace”

This headstone has been damaged not only by the ravages of time but also by  the 1931 earthquake that took its toll on all of Hawkes Bay.

In 1907 Michael Nelson died in the Old People’s Home in Napier. He was only 65 years old. He had remained single all his life and is buried in the Old Napier Cemetery, in a plot yet to be discovered.

He was mourned by his sister Mary, second wife of John Bird. Joe Bird, Michael’s nephew mentions his parents going to visit “Uncle Michael” in his diaries.

Mary had lost both of her brothers who had emigrated from their native Ireland

This is the headstone in another part of the cemetery of Janet Paterson’s in laws

William Barry died July 30 1903 aged 86 years and his wife Susan Molloy died April 15 1918 aged 95 years

Janet’s estranged husband William Bernard Barry died July 4 1956 aged 81 years and is interred with his parents.

The inscription reads:

“ILMO William Barry who died 20^th July 1903 aged 86 year

Also Mother died 15^th April 1918 aged 95 years

RIP

 William Barry died 4 July 1956 aged 89 years”

 “M.T.

I CANNOT LIFT YOUR HAND FATHER DEAR

YOUR FACE I CANNOT SEE

BUT LET A FRIENDS TOKEN TELL

TWO STILL REMEMBER THEE

TOM”

Richard Hunt is the only father in the plot, and his only surviving child was Winifred so was it Thomas Paterson , Richard’s son in law  who installed the Memorial?

Richard Bird's Grave in the foreground with prominent Hawke's Bay Settlers' Monuments as a backdrop to the Hunt family plots.

Earthquakes

Yesterday was 22nd February and the fifth anniversary of the Christchurch February earthquake.

It was also Lily's eighth birthday!

On Sunday I went to Palmerston with the Red Cross Disaster Welfare and Support Team to do a training on Psychological First Aid. The trainers were from Christchurch and  it was obvious the 5.7 earthquake Sunday week ago (14th Feb 2016) had re-traumatized them.

Some time ago I wrote about earthquakes in the context of  William and Betsy's history and I have reproduced it below. Unless it is a blog it will never see the light of day!  

These Shaky Isles

Did William and Betsy have any idea what they were going to as they left “this green and pleasant land?”

Or was what they were leaving worth running away from?

What was the Wellington of the 1840s like?

Wellington’s foreshore was very different from today. There were the Pas at Te Aro, Maori potato gardens on the Thorndon Hills, bush to the waters edge and bird life that held the immigrants enthralled.

The New Zealand Company had rudimentary accommodation for their assisted passengers and others had canvas tents or slab cottages with thatched roofs. The more well- to- do had substantial homes, some of which had been brought from England on the sailing ships in a prefabricated form.

“Sometimes it does us a power of good to remind ourselves that we live on two volcanic rocks where two tectonic plates meet, in a somewhat lonely stretch of windswept ocean just above the Roaring Forties.  If you want drama- you have come to the right place.”[1]

Within six years of arriving, William and Betsy and their family of eight comprising Mary, John, Amelia, Mark (6) Margaret (1) and Elizabeth Eliza (4 months) , experienced their first BIG earthquake…the Marlborough 7.5 quake that happened at 1.40 in the morning of 16^th April 1848 in a gale and torrential rain. Imagine the frightening experience with no electricity, radios or emergency bucket!

All the brick buildings in Wellington suffered damage and the chimneys in the wooden houses fell down so the family would have had to cook outside until they were rebuilt.

The same thing happened in the 1931 Napier earthquake fortunately in February so cooking outside would have been like having barbecues every day! But the fires that were going in the cooking ranges in Hawkes Bay when the Napier earthquake struck  were the cause of lots of the fires that devastated Napier and Hastings. The water mains were  disrupted so there was no water to fight the fires.

Most of Wellington was rebuilt in wood. The Government Building which is  now the Victoria University Law School was the largest wooden building in the southern hemisphere at one stage. Elizabeth had law lectures in that beautiful building.  The timber was totara from Nireaha where we lived from 1977-1985 . Nireaha was the bottom end of the Seventy Mile Bush and the Scandinavian settlers practised their native skills milling timber from the dense native bush. Old timers recounted to us how when they were children you could walk from the school to the Nireaha Bridge by leaping from stump to stump never stepping onto the earth!

The Maori population of Wellington declined rapidly after the New Zealand Company acquired Wellington from Te Puni and Te Wharepouri in 1839. Maori outnumbered Europeans but within a year when the first influx of ships arrived, ,”Tory”, “Cuba”, “Aurora”, “Oriental”, “Duke of Roxburgh”, “Adelaide”, “Bolton”, “Coromandel” (all in 1840)  the population was then 1200 Europeans living alongside 800 Maori around Port Nicholson.

The table below shows how the population of Maori declined within the next two years.

Census of the native population, Port Nicholson (Poneke), July 1, 1842

(Canterbury “Times,” on Old N.Z.):—

	Men.	Wm.	Boys.	Girls.
Kaiwharawhara	31	22	5	2	60
Kumutoto	10	4	1	—	15
Nga-Uranga	18	22	7	1	48
Pipitea	59	43	13	19	134
Pito-one	47	39	5	6	97
Te Aro (Taranaki)	50	30	13	—	93
Te Aro (Ngataruanui)	16	8	11	—	35
Waiwhetu	23	22	13	1	59
					Total: 541

 By 1857 only 63 Maori lived in the town of Wellington. Tribal skirmishes and dispossession of customary land led to the diaspora of the original occupants.

The purchase of the Maori land in Wellington was dubious with the New Zealand Company laying their plan of Town Acre sections over land that was inhabited by Maori who hadn’t relinquished their tenure, and  over their gardens and food gathering sites. A tenth of the area “acquired” was set aside for Maori and the area was ringed by what became known as “The Town Belt”

At the time of the 1848 earthquake there were 4,750 immigrants living in Wellington , a 25% increase  on the estimated 3701 living in Wellington when William arrived with his family[2]

Did the earthquakes cause the Maori population to disperse? The Christchurch earthquakes of 4 September 2010 and 22 Feb 2011 led to Statistics New Zealand reporting a net population loss of 8,900 or 2.4% to June 2011….but anecdotely the numbers of trademen coming to rebuild Christchurch will boost the population again.

Some of the early settlers to Wellington took refuge on ships in the harbour after the 1848 earthquake; and some even decided to keep going . On 26^th October 60 settlers set sail on the “Subraon” for Sydney. But they hit the rocks on the way out of the harbour and were shipwrecked (none died)…. Imagine how they must have felt to have gathered up what they had left of their belongings, hopped on a ship to get away from the earthquakes and the aftershocks only to be rescued from the tide with less than they had before!

And then believe it or not just when the township was booming the 1855 earthquake struck. This one is now known as the  8.2 Wairarapa Earthquake and it struck on the summer evening of 23^rd January at 9.17 pm. It was a windy evening after the Races that were run as part of a very long holiday weekend celebrating the 15^th anniversary of the new settlement.

The day before on the Monday there had been a whale boat race won by Bethune and Hunter’s “Waterwitch”

The races were held on a race track formed on the sand banks around Burnham Water on the Miramar Peninsula. Burnham Water and the Basin were two of the areas in Wellington which were changed irrevocably after the 1855 earthquake.[3]

Some reports recall the continuous shaking for three days and three nights.Before the earthquake the forest grew right to the waters edge and afterwards some parts of the foreshore were raised eight feet.

One consequence of this was the uplifting of the swampy (and oft flooded) Hutt River mouth and the area around the base of the hills between Thorndon and Petone. Before natures gift of  a rail and road route between these two cities, the travelling public had to sail or be rowed between the two points on the harbour. The little boats were often swamped and drownings weren’t infrequent.

  Once again the wooden buildings largely withstood the violent shaking of the earth. A tsunami was generated  with waves of up to 10 metres. The Commander of the “Pandora” that was anchored in the harbour recounted how for eight hours the tide approached and receded from the shore every 20 minutes , rising from 8 to 10 feet and then receding 4 feet lower than a spring tide.

Grandpa Noel remembers his grandfather (John Thomas Bird ; William's eldest son) telling of bullock teams on the foreshore in Wellington jumping up and down with the movement of the earth.

It was about this time that John was working for George Hunter (son of the first Mayor of Wellington) on his farm at Island Bay. The farm stretched from there almost to the Basin reserve. George had bought a farm,  sight unseen at Porangahau and John made the journey north with Bill Storrah taking the first mob of cattle along the coast to Porangahau.

The journey would have been an adventure getting the animals along the coast past landfalls and uplifted coastline that had in parts lifted 2.7 metres (9 feet) especially along the route to Cape Palliser and then on up to CastlePoint.

Another story Grandpa Noel tells is of how John defended himself against an aggressive bull seal by throwing a tomahawk at it…"he never saw his axe again”!

Between 1913 and 1926 the New Zealand Official Yearbook included a comment that “earthquakes in New Zealand are rather a matter of scientific interest than a subject for alarm”

How memories do fade!

There followed the 17 June 1929 Murchison Earthquake of 7.8 when 17 people died. Then closer to home the 3^rd February 1931 7.8 Napier Earthquake when 256 people were killed and many more injured.

Grandpa Noel was at school at St Josephs, Waipukurau ,that morning and the school bell was rung late to go inside from playtime. If it had rung earlier the collapsing façade of the school would have squashed him and his playmates.

I went to stay with Aunty Margaret in Wellington for the May holidays in 1959. I can still remember getting on board the Hastings aircraft at Whenuapai. Two momentous things happened on that holiday. Aunty Margaret took me to the Wellington Show at the Show Buildings and I had my first encounter with nuns. I squeezed up to a viewing spot to look at dyed chickens hatching under lights and as I turned to come away these two black robed women grabbed me and forced me through the crowd back up the way I had come thinking they were helping no doubt. It was nearly as terrifying as the first earthquake I had felt, a magnitude 6 on 22 May.

The Wellington Show buildings are on the site of the home of Betsy and William on the Town Belt.

On 23^rd May 1960 (Gran Stewart and Josephines birthday) there was a humungous 9.5 earthquake in Chile and a resulting tsunami causing damage to the New Zealand coast. For many years Gran Stewart had  a barnacle that had been retrieved off the HMS Buffalo. As the tides receded unwary locals had raced their tractors down Buffalo Beach (Whitianga) in front of what was the Hospital and tried to drag up the remains of the wreck that foundered in a storm on 28 July 1840 in Mercury Bay while loaded with Kauri spars.

Uncle Bruce (Lynnes father) was reported in the paper as having flounder on his front lawn at Whitianga

Then there was the 24 May 1968 Inangahua  7.1 when 3 people lost their lives.

In 1990 Weber was the epicentre for a large earthquake. The local geology of the area magnified the effect making the earthquake seem worse than it was. It is known locally as the 'Mother's day' quake

News Item 13 May 1990 Weber II earthquake:

At 4:23 pm on Mother’s Day, 13 May 1990, a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck the southern Hawke’s Bay near Weber, east of Dannevirke. It was just 10 kilometres from the epicentre of a magnitude 6.1 Mw earthquake on 19 February, a few months earlier. Some houses were cracked, or knocked off their foundations. Many buildings in Dannevirke had broken windows and cracked chimneys. At Cape Kidnappers, a group of about ten people walking along the shore had a near miss when a large slip from the coastal cliffs fell near them. Within 24 hours of the main earthquake, there were 7 aftershocks of magnitude 5 Mw or greater

We owned  the farm at Porangahau at the time of the February 1990 quake (the epicentre was very close to the house), after which  the manager  moved out into a neighbouring house because his wife wouldn’t stay in the house... The house had shaken so much she couldn’t walk up the hall to get to her new baby. When the Mothers Day quake struck, the empty house (and woolshed and shearers quarters) were shaken off their piles and twisted to bits. It’s another tortuous story but eventually we replaced all the buildings with a new transportable home for the manager.

Front veranda suspended

Front of house suspended over fallen piles

The 2010 Christchurch earthquake did not result in loss of life but the relief from escaping tragedy was replaced by incredible grief when the 22 February 2011 6.3 Christchurch earthquake on the unknown Greendale Fault took 185 lives.

So now we are all so much more aware of being prepared for a disaster, but do memories fade still?

William and Betsy would have had their cow and vege garden so they would have had their emergency supplies in the back yard.

Today I went to a Red cross Branch meeting and we were told that the Fiji Red Cross have shelter for 17,000 evacuees pre positioned around their country. The cyclone season is upon us and Cyclone Winston  that hit over the weekend is the strongest recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. An Air Force Hercules has been loaded with supplies from the New Zealand Red Cross's Warehouse in Auckland and will be on it's way. International Aid for disaster relief has changed recently after the Australian bush fires and floods , and the Christchurch earthquakes. National self sufficiency is hugely strong and international aid is more in the field of IT technology , water and sanitation and relief once national Teams are needing a break.

Emergency preparedness is a responsibility of all of us.
Do you keep the top half of your petrol tank full and have cash on hand?

---

[1] Sir Geoffrey Palmer NZ Prime Minister 1989-1990

[2] “Wellington the First Years of European Settlement 1840-1850” by Gavin McLean (very readable, well researched  and informative)

[3] “Magnitude Eight Plus, New Zealand’s Biggest Earthquake” Rodney Grapes

A little bit more about Bill, the Bullocky

This is the beauty of a Blog! I can add and edit at will.
I am sorting out last years Christmas cards to see who is on the list for next year, and found some notes I had written about Bill.
Nineteen year old Johanna had Bill in Napier and I surmised she had travelled there by coastal ship.
My research notes record that the road to Porangahau was reputedly the worst in the Province and the bridge on the road  between Wallingford and Waipukurau wasnt opened until the mid 1870s. In 1882, ten years after Bill was born,  the Courier newspaper's Waipawa correspondent asserted that Porangahau was one of the most inaccessible settlements in Hawkes Bay; the nearest Doctor was 28 miles away over "hitherto roadless country. Yet we are told that this valiant little place has provided itself with a library of 400 books".
 It was also reported in 1883 that it took a team of 12-15 bullocks to take a half laden dray through the Porangahau/Blackhead Road.
Bill's skills were extended to remembered feats with his Team; he was known to have delivered the mail from Dannevirke to Herbertville by bullock team.(Google tells me the current road is 66 km)
The Birds had a "bush" block at Eparaima to the east of "Woodland". In the early days Bill's father John cut and sold fencing material to  William and David Hunter, until their overseers (Bethune and Hunter) in Wellington, said he was too dear and  they had to source posts off their own block. (I have copies of the letters held in the Turnbull Library)
Latterly Bill sold firewood, and an old timer told me he had a trick of stacking it over a stump, so what you saw wasn't what you got!
Bill was 16 years older than his little sister Annie (Babs) and doted on his God daughter.
His stepmother Mary Nelson, who was a good mother to her ready made family, chose her brother Michael Nelson to be sponsor at the baptisms of her children Joe and Charlie, and  to stand proxy for Bill at Anne's baptism.
I have found the spot where Bill was buried in the Waipukurau Cemetery. Plot 8, Row 8A

RIP William Daniel Bird 1872-1953

William Daniel Bird 1872-1953

William, or Bill to some, or Will to his immediate family, was the son of John Thomas Bird and his wife Johanna Hunt, and Grandson of settlers William and Betsy Bird.

He was the eldest son of the eldest son of William and Betsy, who was in turn the eldest son of Edward  Bird (1781-1859) and Sarah Whitwell, and Edward was the eldest son of Edward Bird (1752-1808) and Elizabeth Wilson.
A straight line of five generations of eldest sons. But it ended with Will because he never married and died a bachelor with no children.

Will's parents John and Johanna married in 1871 at Papakihau, Porangahau where Johanna had been working as a housemaid for the Hunter family. She was only eighteen and John, who had been working for Hunters as a stockman for 13 years, was 33.
Will was born a year later, in Napier , where Johanna's parents Richard and Catherine Hunt were living, having settled in Paradise Road after soldier Richard took his discharge from the 65th Regiment in 1863.
It was Richard who registered his grandson's birth as Johanna had gone home to her parents to have her first baby.

The railway line from Napier to Waipukurau wasnt completed till 1886, but there was a coach service from 1867. The usual way to travel was by coastal ship from Porangahau.

The baby was named William for his paternal Grandfather and Daniel for Johanna's only brother who was born soon after the Hunt family arrived in Wellington with the Regiment in 1856 (on the Lancashire Witch).
Will was only eight when his mother Johanna died soon after giving birth to her fifth child,John, at only 28 herself.
Neither baby John nor an older sister Catherine survived infancy, so Will was "big brother"  to his siblings Addie and Richard.

Johanna, Will and Rich

This photo is of "Will and Rich" with their mother Johanna , and as Richard was born 8th May 1875, Will is only three in his little velvet suit.
Addie (Adeline Elizabeth) was born less than two years later and was only three when her mother died.
Will's obituary says that he was born and educated in Napier, and though no records have been found, he could read and write, and indeed it was Will who signed the "informant" section of the registration certificate  of Richard's death, after he was killed by a ram at only 12. A big ask for a 15 year old.
Will farmed for his father John Bird on the Wallingford farm "Woodlands" until his step brothers Joe and Charlie came home from school and then he went to work for the Ormonds, spending the rest of his working life at Wallingford.
He trained and drove bullock teams carrying wool from Wallingford to Porangahau by bullock team and dray.  His skill was legendary and  I have been told that when asked how he got such a good crack out of his whip, he would pluck a trademark Bird eyebrow and pretend to attach it to his whip!
Speaking with Alec, from Marotane, he can remember Bill Bird coming to his father at Airlie, at Wanstead, for poles from the bush to use with his Teams

Will was also a wonderful dancer, in the days of woolsheds and Community Halls with sprung floors; and family rumour tells me that he once had a sweetheart called Miss Herbert.
Will was a keen sportsman and was a Life Member of the Wallingford Sports Club and also the Waipukurau Rifle Club. In the 1920s Will won the Tattersall's Lottery and bought a pair of Purdy  Purdey  rifles and a Chrysler car. He may have  bought his young half sister Annie a car too.

Alec told me today about a well known identity at Wanstead, Jessie Richards, who looked out and exclaimed: "there is a carriage coming down the road without a horse"....and  we are looking towards driverless cars!

This picture is of Will and his Chrysler car with  his nephew Sid Brown.

 He adored "Babs" as Anne was known, and when he died left his estate to her in its entirety.
Sadly Will succumbed to Altzheimers and was admitted to Waipukurau Hospital. The Matron couldnt cope with him in a General Ward and when Addy's family refused to sign the papers to have him committed to Porirua Mental Hospital, she managed to get him transferred against the family's wishes anyway.
His effects on admission included a spare suit of clothes and his Rosary beads.
There is a letter from Ethel, Babs's older sister, admonishing Charlie and Joe for not taking care of Bill "after he had been so good" to them. Ethel was trying to get Will into the care of the Island Bay Little Sisters of the Poor when he faded away and died at 81.

He was brought back to Waipukurau for his funeral and burial.

In the beginning......

Thursday 14 January 2016

Steph gave me two little books by Austin Kleon "Steal Like an Artist" and "Show Your Work!"
They are packed with  motivation for getting what is in my head "out there".
I love the :
"Dont wait till you know who you are to get started",
 "Write the book you want to read" and
 "Open up your cabinet of curiosities".

A kind knowledgeable genealogist  has helped kick start  this project....thank you Michelle.

New Zealand is a very young country and the history of European settlement is very short .While the stories are held within living memory I am going to record the tales I have been told for my descendants and any others descended from the "Birds of Brigstock";  and the  "just curious".

William and Betsy Bird arrived in New Zealand in 1842 on the "Clifton" as Ag Labs (agricultural labourers) under the auspices of the New Zealand Company.
They sailed with three children, Mary, John and Amelia. The children all arrived alive despite the odds at sea.

William had a chequered career in Brigstock, Northamptonshire,and was a product of the times.
Landing in New Zealand he raised a big healthy family and kept  on the right side of the law.

The task for myself is to produce individual Posts on  the settler patriarch and his wife , and each of their children

Watch this space!