The Archaeology and European History of the Wangaloa Block

Page 1 THE ARCHAEOLOGY AND EUROPEAN HISTORY OF THE WANGALOA BLOCK Dr Jill Hamel, 42 Ann Street, Dunedin. March 1984 Contents Introduction Topography, vegetation and climate Maori occupation European occupation: the landowners the crofters roads and road making users of the road Conclusions Recommendations References Site record forms Introduction Wangaloa is off the main traffic routes and relatively little of its history has been recorded. Consequently local informants were asked for information about early land use and any Maori sites that they knew of. I have searched archives such as land titles in the Dunedin Land Registry Office, the files of the New Zealand Archaeological Association, Bruce County Council minutes (1870s), and the Wangaloa Road Board minutes (1870s). To find Maori sites I have searched all unploughed flatter ground with open vegetation (with the assistance of Rick Wilson). The fire which started from the Coast Road in October 1982 has usefully opened up ground for searching. I am grateful for information on sites and early history from Mr John McCrostie, Lakeside, Mr Jim Dangerfield, Dunedin, and Mr Bruce Tourell, Wangaloa. I am particularly indebted to Alma Rutherford for much general information about early settlers and farming in the district and for access to a typescript of William Smaill's Recollections. Topography, vegetation and climate This section of the Wangaloa-Kaitangata hills rises to 130m (460 feet) at the north-west end but most of the south-eastern area rises to no more than 30 m (100 feet). The ground is divided into four systems of spurs by three major creeks running due east, Wangaloa Creek in the centre being the major waterway (Fig.1). Access from the coast into the block was easiest along the flat ridge tops, which in the early European period were covered with flax, bracken, and manuka shrubland, especially towards the sea (Otago News 1849). Though the Wangaloa flats were grassy and "immediately ready to receive the plough", there were also "clumps of bush in all directions, sufficient for fencing and building purposes" (Kettle 1846). The gullies in Page 2 particular were, and still are in places, occupied by a dense hardwood/kamahi forest. Since rainfall is reported by the local farmers to be over the amount usually considered essential to native forest regeneration, i.e. over 750 mm (30 inches), it is likely that forest was relatively dense on this south-east facing land during the earlier part of Maori occupation. It may have been only after the period of major Maori fires around AD 1300 that the spurs become more open under hard tussock and Cassinia shrubland. Maori occupation No physical traces of Maori occupation were found on the Wangaloa Block during this survey. The only known reasons why Maoris might have moved through the Block would have been en route from the coast to Tuakitoto or to dig up and cook cabbage tree roots. Two knolls at the back of the block carry most of the cabbage trees seen during this survey, but no definite ovens were found on them. Hollows with fine black soil in them are probably tree dimples where bracken has grown thickly. The northern knoll was covered with tall grass and would be worth searching again in winter or after a burn. No ovens were found on the other spurs or down on the valley floors where cabbage trees might also have occurred. It is also unlikely that there was a regularly used Maori track across the block because there is a much easier route, better supplied with food resources, via the Clutha River and Lake Kaitangata. The suggestion (Blackburn 1969) that an early European road south from Moneymore (see below) followed the line of an earlier Maori track should be treated with caution. Moderate sized middens of shells and fish and bird bones occur at the mouth of the Akatore and Tokomairiro Creeks, and there are numerous small middens along the coast in the vicinity of Bull Creek and Crystalls Beach (N Z A A Site Recording Scheme). There is a wind- deflated midden of shell and bone at Measly Creek. This is the site which is traditionally associated with the loss of two war canoes of Maoris who came ashore in 1838. They made temporary shelters, but some of the party had caught measles from the pakehas and it is said that every man died. The remains of the canoes and bones were seen as late as 1850 by European settlers (Wilson 1912:109). To the south of Wangaloa the mouth of the Clutha has a long history of settlement from moa hunting middens at Kaka Point to traditionally known sites such as the paramount chief Tuhawaiki's birthplace on Inchclutha, the 1830 village at Kaka Point seen by the American whaler Morrell and the traces of Maori cultivations of the Irish potato seen on Inchclutha by William Smaill in 1858. Over the hills at Tuakitoto Kettle in 1849 saw several small settlements along its eastern shores where the Maoris "reside during periodical visits which they make for the purposes of catching the large eels which abound in this lake" (Kettle 1846: 7 April). The Maori settlement pattern at Wangaloa gives the same impression that modern European settlement does, that of a relatively isolated area bypassed by major traffic routes and lacking any strong drawcard of its own. Page 3 European occupation: the land owners Wangaloa was settled shortly after the Inchclutha area in the mid 1860s. The school opened in 1869 and the cemetery reserve was set aside in 1871. The densest cluster of housing was just south of the junction of the Kaitangata-Wangaloa Road with the Coast Road - about 3.5 kilometres south of the Forest Service Wangaloa Block (Fig.1). Land on this Block was not taken up until about 1869, when three of the settlers owning sections down on the flats took up sections around the southern edge of the block. According to the title deeds the land owners of the Wangaloa Block were: Main title Kaitangata Survey District, Block 7, Secs 2,3,4,5,6.8. Block 6, Secs 2,3,7,8 (Fig.2). Crown Grants taken up by Adam Landels, gentleman, 1871. He died 1887, and the land was held by the Public Trust. Leased to James William Thomson for 6 years. Transferred - to Geoffrey Edward Royds of Lakeside, sheep farmer 1911 - to Hugh John and Alice Jane McCrostie, 1912 - (Royds retained a half share in the coals, ironstone, sand, clay and gravels.) - to various members of the McCrostie family. Block 7, Sec 1 (Homestead and woolshed section) Crown Grant to William Kelly 1869. (This section went with 1.5 acres (Fig.3) which was part of Section 19, Block 6.) Transferred to Adam Landels 1871 (for £80). The 1.5 acres was transferred - to Ralph Ewing 1871 - to William Anderson Ewing, 1878 - to Edward Bremner Taylor of Kaitangata, settler, 1878 - to Adam Landels, 1885, and ran with the main title thereafter. Block 6, Section 20 (east of McCrostie Road). Crown Grant to Daniel Haggart 1868 Daniel Haggart died 1880. Transferred – to Mitchell 1880 (?executor) to John Haggart 1880 - to Peter Haggart 1883 - to the McCrostie family 1916 and ran with the main title thereafter. Block 7, Sec 1 of 19 Crown Grant to David Mcintyre, settler, Kaitangata, Nov 1865. Transferred to Adam Landels, 1874 (£110 for 63 acres). Block 7, Section 7 (north-west corner of block, Fig.2) Crown Grant, 1872, to the Superintendent of Otago to be held in trust for the establishment and maintenance of a University in the City of Dunedin and of public schools in different parts of the province and for the general advancement of education in the province. Renewable lease to McCrostie family 1955 Deferred payment licence to McCrostie family 1980. Page 4 According to the title deeds, Adam Landels, the major early landowner of the Block, lived first at Stoney Creek, just north of Benhar, and later at Bellfield near Balclutha. From Landels' letterbook (J. Dangerfield: pers.comm.), it appears that he sold the Stoney Creek property in 1874 and "removed to Lakeside" about September 1874. He acquired a "town" house, Bellfield, in Balclutha in 1880, but it is not known when he built the impressive homestead at Lakeside. (In 1883 he instructed a builder at Fairfax, just south of Milton, to build him a house which in those days of horse and dray transport must have been nearby.) Though we cannot be sure of which house Landels lived in while farming the Wangaloa Block between 1871 and his death in 1887, there is certainly no indication that he ever lived on the Wangaloa side of is property. In terms of the legal landowner, the Wangaloa Block has always been "at the back of the farm", and one would expect a lack of early European activities. This does not seem to have the case, however, and there are some very puzzling aspects about occupation in the late 1800s. There was a house near the woolshed of the Wangaloa Block prior to the present one. This house was built by the Poultons (John McCrostie : pers. comm.), who with the Royds are said to have owned the Wangaloa side of the McCrostie holdings at the turn of the century (Bruce McCrostie: pers. comm.) Poulton was a nephew of Royds, whose family were merchants in Christchurch. A search of the legal owners of the Coombe Hay Estate to the north of the Wangaloa Block showed that it was originally owned by the Chapmans, Robert and then Ernest Arthur. It was sold in 1881 to John Thomas Wright and John Stephenson, the founders of the stock firm Wright Stephenson, who in turn sold to The Fortification Railway and Coal Company in 1900.

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