Maybe it had been the tedious bumpy ROADLESS journey over the sea of tussock – from Hawkins (a stone’s throw from Darfield) to Rolleston – that made the farmhand lower the new plough down to harvesting position before he towed it back to Bangor in which he worked. He had been sent out hours before …
Ebenezer Hay upset an entire family when he fell in love with Agnes Orr. Anges lived just two miles away from the Deans and McIlraith’s families at Annadale Farm in Ayrshire, Scotland. No one suffered more from this union of Ebe and Agnes than her father who was alarmed to learn that his favourite daughter …
I can’t begin to fathom how surreal the afternoon/evening of the 16th December 1850 would have been for the Deans brothers. Especially as they may have stood in the doorway of the Deans Cottage while the shrieks and shouts of two stripped down male settlers splashed about in the Avon River – their echoes adding …
The Weeping Willows of Christchurch has such a lovely sound to it 😉 By the Avon in Victoria Square, the story of Canterbury’s Weeping Willows are told on this plaque, a nearby Willow it seems standing guard 🙂 François Lelievre was born in Les Parlierre, France around the year of 1811. He grew up on …
William Deans, Samuel Manson and Jimmy Robinson Clough had quite a journey to complete from the Sumner bar, down the Otakaro (the Avon River) and then on on to Putaringamotu (Riccarton) in 1841. When the party reached what is now the Barbadoes Street Bridge, by Oxford Terrace, they continued in a canoe as the Port …
It wasn’t love at first sight for either John or Jane Deans…unbelievable concerning the history they made together. Jane was born at Auchenflower Farm, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 21st April 1823. She was eldest child of farmer/gentleman James McIlraith and his first wife Agnes. When her mother died, Jane became the mother hen of her …
“William Deans stood all alone by the only dwelling on the vast plain, watching and waiting to welcome them. As the canoe with its contents could not be brought further up the river on account of the shallows, and the distance being too great for the children to walk, each father and boatman on landing …
I’m sure as the schooner ‘Ballet’ sailed down the east coast of the Middle (South) Island from Port Nicholson (Wellington), William Deans leaned against the deck railing and watched the passing coastline with great interest. He was aboard Captain Edward Daniell’s schooner as an approved stow-away and he held great hopes for what he might …
