Thomas Cass (1817 – 1895) Died of old age Place of Death: Christchurch Chief Surveyor of Canterbury 1851 – 1867 Buried at Barbadoes Street Cemetery. The story of Thomas Cass: http://www.peelingbackhistory.co.nz/thomas-cass-1817-1895/ Photo taken by Annette Bulovic
Tommy Cass knew life’s ups and downs. By the time he was surveying the 33,000 acres that would become the Deans’ future rural station of ‘Homebush’ in 1851, Tommy had earned the respect and admiration of all those around him. You get the feeling that he walked along with a great confidence and self knowledge …
“I often smile when I think of the ideal Canterbury of which our imagination dreamt, yet I see nothing in that dream to regret or to be ashamed of, and I am quite sure that without the enthusiasm, the poetry, the unreality if you will, with which our scheme was overlaid, it would never have …
William Deans (1817 – 1851) Drowned Place of Death: Wellington Memorial at Barbadoes Street Cemetery * Christchurch’s First Justice of Peace. John Deans (1820 – 1854) Died of T.B. Place of Death: Riccarton Buried at Barbadoes Street Cemetery Jane Deans (1823 – 1911) Died of old …
Department of Agriculture stock inspector, John Munro and stock agent, Donald Ross emerged from the Rainbow Accommodation House (North of Hanmer Springs) around 9.30am on the 14th February 1904. The men had made planned to ride out to ‘Tarndale’ Station to meet the owner/manager, Mr. Gordon, to talk business and take care of whatever else …
William Flower Blatchford (pictured on the right)arrived in Canterbury on the 1st March 1851 aboard the ‘Isabella Hercus’, the Canterbury Association’s 6th emigrant ship. From all accounts and from where he put down his roots, he seemed very fond of Lyttelton Harbour. The bay of Te Rapu – named after a stream that flows through …
It always stops you in your tracks when you come across a grave of a child. It’s hard to comprehend a young life finished and when by accident, it’s even worse. William Dixon Jnr was only 8 years and 7 months when he accidentally drowned in the family home on the 23rd October 1869. He …
As the ‘Charlotte Jane’ sailed into Lyttelton Harbour that fine morning of the 16th December 1850, William and Jane McCormack were ready to leave their steerage voyage behind them and make a go at a new life in a new land. There is very little about the pair, I don’t know if they were married …
‘Excessive drinking—a vice which marred the pioneering community from the outset—growing lawlessness and larrikinism among the younger generation and widespread squalor and ignorance among the masses, aggravated by the arrival of poor immigrant types, called for urgent corrective action.’ – A Contest of Spirits – The Salvation Army. Had to smile to myself after the …
The naming of Taylor’s Mistake has and will continue to baffle Cantab’s historians. Unbelievably, three persons by the name Taylor passed through Vincent’s Bay (as it was called during the early 1850’s) in the small space of 9 years. The name of Vincent’s Bay came from Captain John Vincent who wrecked his schooner there sometime …
