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Westport - History
The madman from
Victoria
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When a group of
Maori from the Coast paid in gold for goods at Nelson, the storekeeper
Reuben Waite resolved to investigate the prospects. To the scorn of
Nelsonians he chartered the ketch Jane in 1861, to drop diggers off at 'the
Buller' (as the area of Westport was known) and to sell provisions to local
Maori, again for gold. His second trip passed without criticism; Waite
recalled; 'Nothing was then said of the madman from Victoria.' The small
number of prospectors justified the opening of a store on the mouth of the
Buller River, on a spot now covered by the river's waters.
For two years Waite enjoyed a monopoly. Indeed, the Orowaiti River is
sometimes said to have been named after him as Maori would herald his
arrival with a joyous, 'Kia ora, Waite' (Welcome, Waite). Without
spectacular finds (the country was then gripped by the riches unfolding on
the Otago goldfields) the settlement grew only gradually to service the
slowly swelling number of diggers. Before the first of the West Coast
rushes, to the Greenstone, had induced Waite to move on to help found the
second settlement of Greymouth, the 'mad Victorian' was apprehended by
Westport's sole constable, not only with customers in his billiards room on
Good Friday, but drunk as well. |
Black gold
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The real wealth of
Westport lay in its coal. To ship it out the harbour was developed along
lines conceived by Sir John Coode, who advocated the construction of
breakwaters which would confine the river to a definite channel and procure
by natural scour a depth of some 4 metres at low water. Westport became the
largest coalport in the country, and by the end of 1903 over 5 million
tonnes of coal had been shipped out from deposits noted by the explorers
Heaphy and Brunner, and subsequently by Rochfort and Haast.
First hopes for the coal trade were unduly optimistic, as mines were
developed and coal exported direct to Melbourne. When HMS Calliope in 1889
steamed out of the tropical storm that wrecked warships of other navies
anchored at Apia (Samoa), an official report gave credit to the good
steaming qualities of Westport coal. In 1876-77 a railway was built to
Ngakawau, solely to rail to the port coal brought down from the ranges above
- from Denniston, Millerton and Stockton. Production reached a peak from
1909-18, with an annual output in some years of over 820,000 tonnes. With a
marked reduction in demand, output decreased.
Gold brought an initial prosperity that coal maintained for nearly a
century. Local coal resources are considerable, and their future life would
seem to be governed less by their size than by the combined economics of
production and utilisation. |
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