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BEGINNINGS
Tony Harris, 2011
Above Te Ngaru on the ridge that runs down from Mihiwaka to the west head of Otago Harbour, Heyward Point, there is a small hill.
It is not identified on most maps, but on the 1952 hydrographic map issued by the Lands and Survey Department for Otago Harbour, it is labelled Harris Hill. From whichever point of the compass it is viewed it is pretty insignificant, but from the standpoint of the Harris family it is a notable peak because it forms the main topographical feature in the vicinity of the original holding of pioneer waterman and farmer Dominic Harris and his wife, Winifred.
To the south, sheltered by belts of macrocarpas from the prevailing south-westerlies, once stood an old, solidly constructed, square stone house, built for Dominic and Winifred Harris and occupied by them and their family of five children for many years. It stood alone, but in about 2001 Mr and Mrs Robert (Bob) Melville) incorporated it in a new dwelling, to be used as their home and a bed and breakfast business.
The house and its associated buildings are on the south-western corner of the original Harris holding of 52 acres, 3 roods and 20 poles which comprised sections 21 and 39, Block 5 of the North Harbour and Blueskin Survey District. The age of the original house is indeterminate, but evidence of older, dry stone buildings around about indicates it may not have been the first house on the property. At a guess one would put its origins as far back as the 1880`s, but records to show when it was built, or who built it, do not seem to exist.
This land was a Crown grant to Alexander McKenzie and Dominic Harris on July 1, 1868, under the Otago Waste Lands Act, 1866. They were lightermen or watermen on Otago Harbour and originally used at least part of the property adjoining the harbour near Te Ngaru to obtain rock to ballast ships.
Not that there is any shortage of rocks in other parts of the district. Land along the ridge is strewn with them and only small areas have been completely cleared by the early settlers seeking a decent piece of cultivable land on their small holdings to grow crops. But the rocks were also put to a more practical use. In several places dry stone walls built in the early days of settlement still stand and in others their remains are scattered where they once stood.
The ridge on which the house nestles is windswept and subject to heavy fogs at certain times of the year, but it provides a superb view of the Lower Harbour to the east and the northern beaches of Otago Peninsula to the north-west. On a clear day the coastline is visible as far north as Waikouaiti.
From the earliest days a track wound up the hill from the Otago Harbour and over to Murdering Beach and Kaikai`s Beach. In the days before the first European settlement and for some years afterwards it wound through luxuriant bush -predominantly broadleaf at that end of the ridge - but with some large trees, according to reports by adventurous characters who traversed it. It appears that the track was, at least in part, on the Harris property, although there was another following the coast from Aramoana up over Heyward Point. On the title at the Lands and Deeds office an unformed road is marked leading up the hill to the Heyward Point road through the Harris farm.
Many of the disappointed gold miners, having failed to make their fortunes in Central Otago, turned to the old Maori sites at Murdering Beach and Kaikai`s Beach to dig for saleable artefacts, traversed the track in earlier days. There is even a record by one early writer that the old Maori chief Kaikai carried his wife’s body over it to Otakou for burial after she died at the beach which bears his name.
The Heyward Point district has always been somewhat isolated and in the early days the easiest access was by boat down the harbour, followed by a walk up the hill. It was some years after settlement before a road was formed around the harbourside from Port Chalmers to Aramoana and it was customary for the Harrises to row up or down the harbour and walk the steepish track up the hillside for access and egress.
Like most settlers the family probably cleared their land over a period of years, while building up a herd of dairy cattle and gradually coming to rely more on the income from farming than from lightering. In 1899 they sold a section, fronting the Heyward Point road, near the junction with the Murdering Beach road, to the Taieri and Peninsula Milk Company to enable a creamery to be built.
Today there is nothing to indicate where the creamery stood, but Bob Melville, whose grandfather, also a Robert Melville, bought the property from the Harrises in 1912, says it was on the site of his cattle yards, just to the north-east of an old stone wall across the paddock from the Harris house. Bob Melville farms the old Harris property as part of a considerably larger holding stretching along the Heyward Point road in both directions.
In the late 1970`s when Fletcher Aluminium had ideas of building a smelter at Aramoana there was some doubt about whether the land could continue to be farmed because of resultant chemical pollution. Fortunately the smelter scheme was shelved because of the world glut of aluminium and the dubious economics of such an operation at that time, not to mention the vocal protests against its construction.
Fletchers also bought a property on the Purakanui side of the ridge once farmed by the Pinney family. It was farmed for the company by Bob Melville, but I believe he resumed ownership when Fletchers lost interest in building a plant at Aramoana. Bob told me the land in the district is quite productive despite its rocky nature and can support four sheep to the acre. Today, of course, there is hardly a vestige of the luxuriant bush that once covered it, apart from a few ngaios, a gnarled broadleaf log or two, and a few old fence posts probably of the same hard timber. Instead, the hills are a carpet of green pasture, farmed in the modern all grass system, and running mostly sheep instead of the dairy cattle which predominated in the past.
It is still an out-of-the-way place, reached by the no-exit road from the Purakanui turnoff leading towards Heyward Point. But from the number of old and often abandoned houses along the road it is obvious that in the early days when farms were a lot smaller the population of the area was reasonably substantial, and that the community centred on the creamery on the old Harris property was anything but a lonely group.
DOMINIC HARRIS, AN OLD COLONIST
Dominic Harris was born in Lubec, Washington County, Maine, U.S.A. on September 20, 1830, younger son of John and Betsey Harris and the youngest of four children. His name appears on his birth certificate as Dominicas, but in later life it was always written Dominic or Dominick. The spelling is unusual, and it was probably meant to have been written in the Latin form, Dominicus.
The Lubec town records show that Dominic had an elder brother, John, born on July 4, 1821, and two older sisters, Maria, born October 10, 1819, and Jane, born August 31, 1826. The death of his father, John Harris, is recorded in the town records in 1845. A transcript of the headstones in the “öld cemetery” at Lubec, taken some time before 1888 shows that John died on September 25, 1845, aged 65 and that his wife Elizabeth (Betsy) died on March 25, 1854, aged 70.
According to official records, both John and Betsy were born in Ireland and were described in the 1820 US Census as “foreigners, naturalised”. Further research is needed to find out just where in Ireland they originated. It is possible that they emigrated first to Maritime Canada, and then moved to Maine. The Canadian Encyclopedia (Hurtig Publishers), 1985, gives some idea of what was happening at about the time they would have crossed the Atlantic: “In the 19th century, the growing population and deteriorating economy of Ireland forced a growing number of Irish to emigrate, particularly after 1815. Simultaneously, the mainland colonies of British North America expanded, offering better opportunities for immigrants. However, because they were relatively poor immigrants with little money for moving across Canada, the Irish tended to settle in the Maritimes…”.
Lubec is in the extreme north-eastern corner of the United States, and is a small seaport town with a once thriving, but now struggling local fishing industry. It is close to West Quoddy Head, the most easterly point in the United States, and almost on the Canadian border, which runs through the Lubec Channel between the town and Campobello Island, New Brunswick.
Just how Dominic left this remote town in the northern hemisphere and travelled half-way around the world to the South Pacific is uncertain. There are two possibilities that seem most likely. One is that he headed out for the Californian gold rush, which began in 1849, and simply followed the lure of gold from there, travelling to Australia in the early 1850's and then on to New Zealand for the Otago rushes of the early 1860's. This idea is a bit tenuous, however, as the first really detailed US census, in 1850, shows Dominicus Harris aged 19, a seaman, still residing in Lubec, Washington County Maine, with his mother Elizabeth, aged 65 and his sister, Jane, aged 22.
A John Harris, aged 50, presumably Dominic’s brother, is listed in the same location in the 1870 census. The town records show that he was born on July 4, 1821, married a woman called Olive (born Nova Scotia 1822, died Lubec 5.5.1911 and that the couple had three children: Lydia Uranda (born 22.4.1849, died 14.10.1917, single), Samuel William (born 1.3.1851) and Henry Edwin (born June 1857). Further research is needed to try to track the lives of the latter two men and to discover where they spent their lives and whether they left any family.
Maria Harris, Dominic’s eldest sister, married William Hearne, and, according to information supplied by one of their descendants, Karen Gomez, of California, William was born in Donoughmore, Ireland, in 1812, and arrived in North America, possibly Nova Scotia, in April 1832. He arrived in Eastport, Maine, near Lubec, on November 15, 1834, worked as a cooper, and became a naturalised US citizen in September 1842. He and Maria had 12 children and left a host of descendants. Maria died in 1894 and her husband, William, died in 1895. Their family tree has been drawn up, and has been posted on the web, as the Hearne-Harris family tree. The existence of this extensive branch of the family – many of whom live in California – came to our notice only at Christmas, 2007, when my daughter Lee and I put out a Google search on the name Dominicus Harris.
The resulting contact with distant cousin Karen Gomez engendered great excitement both in New Zealand and in California, as two branches of the Harris family, long separated, made contact again. Clearly, there is a host of information to be exchanged as time goes on, but Karen has begun to fill us in on details of some of her family. Among other things she was able to tell us that Dominic Harris’s parents were both born in Ireland; and she provided some interesting detail on her great-great grandfather, William Hearne, a son of Maria Harris and William Hearne. The younger William was discharged from the First New York Mounted Rifles in Varina, Virginia, in Nov. 1864 and showed up in San Francisco in 1867. He married there in 1868 then went to the gold fields of Nevada and worked in the mining industry.
The detailed history of the Hearne-Harris clan in the United States and elsewhere is beyond the ambit of this account, but will certainly be of interest to the New Zealand-based descendants of Dominic, who now know that the details can be accessed through Google and Ancestry.com .
Whether Dominic began his journey from the 45th parallel North, to 45 South and beyond by heading to California, we do not know, but it is a distinct possibility. There are many records of Eastern seaboard Americans trekking across the continent or travelling by sea down the eastern coast, walking across the Isthmus of Panama and resuming their sea journeys up the western coast from the time of the 1849 Californian gold rush. Several sailing ships from Maine and Massachusetts also made the long voyage around the Horn and up to San Francisco.
Another possibility for a seaman from a coastal town is that he headed for one of the other, more populous "down eastern" ports in New England and joined a whaler or trading vessel bound for the Pacific. Many records are available in the form of early whaling logs of U.S. vessels, but without a clue as to which ship he might have been on or which year he might have left, the task of tracing his movements on such a vessel, so long ago, is enormous.
The only evidence that Dominic might have been a whaler came from his grandson, Mr David Le Fevre of Christchurch, who recalled being warned as a child not to play with the harpoons stored in the shed of the Harris's retirement house in Hampden. We do know from the 1850 US Census that Dominicus was a seaman at age 19. Also, his main occupation in Otago was that of a waterman.
By whatever means he might have arrived in Australasia, he was certainly around for the early gold rushes in Victoria, as his wedding certificate and the birth certificates for John and Alfred Harris, his sons, show he was married at St Francis Church, Melbourne, on July 27, 1852. Both he and his wife, Miss Winifred Connor (the wedding certificate actually says O'Connor, but that may have been a slip by the recording cleric) are described as holding communion with the Roman Catholic Church. They were married by Father Maurice Stack in the presence of "James Jonson and Elizabeth O'Connor" (again, presumably, meant to be Connor).
The birth certificate of his elder son, John Thomas Harris, who was born "off King Street, Melbourne" on June 10,1858, gives Dominic's occupation as "carter" and his wife's maiden name as Connor, which seems to be correct, as her brother was the early Otago printer, John Joseph Connor, who was co-founder and for many years manager of the N.Z. Tablet. When John Harris was born, the other children of Dominic and Winifred were listed as Mary E., then aged 3 and a quarter years and "one dead".
Alfred (Dominic) Harris - the younger son and my grandfather - was born in Rosedale, Gippsland, on November 7, 1862. On his birth certificate, as on John's, the spelling of their father's name is given as "Dominick". Alfred's birth certificate describes "Dominick" as a "carrier". It sheds further light on the other children, who are recorded as Mary Elizabeth aged eight years - slightly at variance in age with John's certificate; John Thomas five years, Catherine Frances two years, and under "dead" Mary Jane, 10 weeks.
From the marriage and birth records we know that Dominic and his family spent 10 years in Australia, presumably all in Victoria, first in Mlebourne and later in Gippsland, where they resided somewhere in the Rosedale area. Then, according to his wife's obituary in the N.Z.Tablet, Dominic was "attracted by the reports of the discovery of gold in New Zealand in 1863 and joined the rush to Central Otago".
The shipping column of the Otago Daily Times for August 7, 1863 records the Harris family's arrival at Port Chalmers on August 6 in the barque, Oregon, 396 tons, under the command of J. Wilson. This was no passenger ship, but a cattle boat bringing stock from Gippsland to the expanding Otago colony. The cargo was 193 cattle, but the passenger list included only nine people, among them "Mr Harris and four children and Mrs Morris". Obviously typographical or reporting errors are nothing new, as the lady concerned was definitely Mrs Harris. The capital letters M and H could be easily confused in some forms of handwriting.
The Daily Telegraph of August 7, 1863, gives this account of the voyage: "The barque Oregon from Welchpool with cattle arrived (at Port Chalmers) in the tow of the Favourite about midday. She left Welchpool on the 26th ult and experienced strong gales from SW to NW, till making Stewarts Island on the 1st instant. Since then she has had light airs and calms with thick weather. Spoke to no vessels during the passage".
"She has been exceedingly fortunate with her stock only having lost four out of 197 originally shipped. Captain Wilson has made the passage hence short-handed, only having four able seamen on board, the crew having deserted at Welchpool after the vessel was loaded; he started with what hands could be got and luckily has made a prosperous trip".
Just a few days before the ship sailed from Welchpool in Gippsland, on July 15th, 1863, Mrs Harris registered her second son, Alfred's (my grandfather), birth at Port Albert, so it is possible the family boarded the Oregon there. Where the Harrises went initially in Otago is not certain. Mrs Harris’s obituary says: "(Dominic) joined the rush to Central Otago, but met with little success. He then ran a lighter from Port Chalmers to Dunedin wharf, conveying merchandise from the overseas vessels".
The first record of their presence is in the baptismal register of St Joseph's church, Dunedin, where their son "Dominic Alfred Harris" my grandfather, was baptised by Fr Moreau on March 15, 1864. His father’s occupation is given as "lightner", so it is obvious Dominic senior did not spend long at the goldfields.
Where the family lived initially is uncertain. They may have stayed with Mrs Winifred Harris's brother, John Joseph Connor, who came to Otago in January, 1862 for the Gabriel's Gully gold rush and was probably back living in Dunedin working at his trade as a printer. By late 1865, however, the Harris family was living at Lower Harbour, as the birth certificate for the youngest daughter, Helena Maria, gives this address on August 10 of that year. Initially they must have rented or squatted on a property in the district, presumably near the harbour, to enable Dominic to follow his occupation as a waterman.
An electoral roll entry for August 1867 to September 1868, lists Dominic Harris with a leasehold qualification for Section 43 (presumably Block V) Lower Harbour. This is at Te Ngaru, near Aramoana. A similar entry is included in the 1869 electoral roll. Mrs Brenda Whelan (nee Marlow), a grand-daughter, said there was some doubt in the early days about Dominic's eligibility to own land or to vote, because he was an American by birth, but the records do not exactly bear this out. She said he was never naturalised and remained an American citizen throughout his life.
The first record in the Otago Land Registry relating to Dominic Harris lists the Crown grant to him and Alexander McKenzie on July 1, 1868, of the property later farmed by Dominic and Winifred Harris at Heyward Point. This bordered the south-east side of the Heyward Point road, almost opposite the turnoff to Murdering Beach and extended down the hill towards Otago Harbour.
Dominic Harris’s life history indicates that he was energetic and enterprising. He would certainly have been fit to engage in the hard physical work associated with his occupation. Merely climbing the hill from the harbour to the house on the ridge at the end of a day’s work, must have taken a fair amount of energy.
Something of his character is revealed in a court report from The Otago Witness (p 15, March 19, 1870). He appeared as a principal witness in a case in the Port Chalmers Resident Magistrate's Court on March 16, 1870, when four policemen were charged with unlawfully assaulting a new arrival in the port, one Walter Scott.
The case obviously aroused considerable indignation among the populace over the actions of police sergeant Frederick Mallard and three of his constables in severely beating Scott, who was drunk. Dominic Harris intervened to stop the beating and persuaded the policemen that he would get Scott to go quietly to the lock-up, if they would stop beating the unfortunate fellow.
Witnesses testified that he had stepped from the crowd of spectators at the incident near the corner of George and Mount streets, to break up the affair--an action that seems to indicate that he had a keen sense of fair play and considerable courage. [An abridged version of the court report from The Witness is included as Appendix I.]
Although Dominic and his family obviously spent most of their lives in the Port Chalmers-Heyward Point area, he and his wife retired to Hampden, presumably to be near his eldest daughter, Elizabeth, who had married John Marston Le Fevre and lived in the town. Dominic died there on December 19, 1906, aged 76 years. This adventurous old colonist, who had lived in three different countries during his lifetime, is buried in the south-eastern corner of the Hampden cemetery, a few yards from the sea that gave him his main livelihood. He was survived by his wife of 54 years, Winifred, and by his two sons and three of his four daughters, as well as by several grandchildren.
WINIFRED HARRIS
It is somewhat harder to find out about the role played by the women of pioneering days than it is to trace the activities of the men, who tend to appear more in public records in connection with their employment, ownership of land and so on. Even obituaries tended to dwell on the activities of women's husbands rather than on the lives of the women themselves.
However, there are a number of references in land and other records to Winifred Harris, Dominic's wife, and these show that they operated very much as a partnership in the ownership of their and operation of their farm.
Winifred Harris was born Winifred Connor in Hobart, Tasmania, in 1834. Her birth certificate is not available, but a copy of her baptismal certificate from the Roman Catholic Church, Hobart, shows she was baptised on September 28, 1834. Her parents were John Joseph Connor and Catherine Connor(nee Kavanagh), and, according to her death certificate, her father was a builder. It is probable that he was a convict from Ireland, as there were two or three convicts of that name in Tasmania at the time, but further research would be needed to establish this.
The movements of the Connor/Kavanagh clan over the next 15 years are not clearly documented, but it is known that they shifted to Sydney, where Winifred’s father died at his residence in Pitt Street, on April 9, 1839, after a fall from scaffolding. Her mother married for a second time, to a William Clewes or Clues. Then, sometime in the 1840s they shifted to Melbourne, where Winifred’s grandfather (Catherine’s father), James Kavanagh, became the proprietor of the Brian Boru Hotel, said to be one of the earliest in the city. Its former location in central Melbourne is marked by an historical plaque. [Note: The spelling of Kavanagh’s name differs in newspaper reports and public records, but his descendants appear to have settled on K as the first letter of the name].
However, the family was not in Melbourne long before James Kavanagh died. His death notice in the Port Phillip Gazette on June 28, 1849 reads: “At his residence in Elizabeth Street at 6 a.m. yesterday morning, Mr James Cavanagh, landlord of the Brian Boru Inn.” The Melbourne Daily News of July 2, 1849 said: “The funeral of the late Mr Cavanagh of the Brian Boru was attended by a large concourse of friends on last Thursday. So great was the desire to show respect towards the deceased that it was proposed to convey the corpse all the way from his residence to the grave on the shoulders of the mourners, but a hearse was also provided. The widow and bereaved children followed in the deepest state of grief in a mourning coach.”
Winifred married Dominic Harris at St Francis Church Melbourne, on July 27, 1852. She was 18 and he was 21. Their first child, Mary Jane, was born on November 27, 1853, but lived for exactly two months, dying on January 27, 1854, according to the family bible, later held by grand daughter Mrs Brenda Whelan (nee Marlow).
Another death was to mar the lives of the extended family within a short time. Winifred’s mother, Catherine Clues, formerly Connor, nee Kavanagh, died in Melbourne, and was buried on March 31, 1853. She was only 41.
The bible also records the births of Winifred’s other children: Mary Elizabeth, born April 10, 1855; John Thomas, born June 10, 1858; Catherine Frances, born November 16, 1860, Alfred Dominic, born November 7, 1862, and Helena Maria born August 10, 1865. All except Helena were born in Australia, the first two and possibly three in Melbourne and Alfred at Rosedale in North Gippsland. The birth certificates of John and Alfred were signed by Winifred, who registered the births.
Two of her grandchildren, Mrs Brenda Whelan, later of Walter Street, Mornington, and Mr David Le Fevre of 53 Nicholls Street, Christchurch, recalled that Winifred was an energetic person. Mrs Whelan, who lived with Dominic and Winifred from the age of eight months until she was seven, recalls that Winifred used to walk down the steep hill to the Lower Harbour and have her sons row her to Port Chalmers for Sunday Mass or to get supplies, sitting up like Queen Victoria in the stern of her husband's boat. She apparently thought little of the hike back up the steep track to get home again. David Le Fevre recalls that he would challenge her to a toe-touching contest and she seemed to be able to beat him all the time, although he was never sure whether she was not cheating by bending her knees under her long dresses.
Winifred was obviously imbued with a strong sense of religion from her Irish parents. Nightly rosaries were the norm for the family, all of whom were brought up in the same strong Catholic tradition. Her obituary in the N.Z. Tablet mentions that the family recital of the rosary was a daily and life-long custom in her home “and all visitors were expected to conform thereto”.
“The late Mrs Harris was always a staunch supporter of the Tablet from the day it was first published; her brother, the late Mr J. J. Connor and her son, the late Mr A. Harris, were both for many years employed in its management and production… She was at all times a devout Catholic, taking intense interest in all that made for the advancement of the Church in the land of her adoption. Generally she enjoyed good health, but latterly her health failed.
“Left to mourn her loss are one son, Mr J. T. Harris (North-east Valley, Dunedin), and three daughters – Mrs J. Le Fevre (Hampden), Mrs J. J. Marlow (Musselburgh, Dunedin) and Mrs D. Le Fevre (Christchurch); also fourteen grand-children and nine great grand-children. Amongst the grand-children of the late Mrs Harris are numbered three priests, a Christian brother and two Sisters of Mercy.
Winifred died in Hampden on September 28, 1928, at the age of 94. The cause of death is given on her death certificate as arteriosclerosis and heart failure. She is buried beside her husband in the Hampden cemetery. Her obituary mentions that the Rev Father Kavanagh administered the last rites of the church - perhaps he was a relative, as her mother's maiden name was Kavanagh. Two of her grandsons, the Rev Fathers S.C. and O.R. Marlow, assisted Fr Kavanagh at the funeral.
LIGHTERING
Dominic Harris and his partner Alexander McKenzie were members of a profession which flourished in the early days of Otago Harbour - before wharves were large enough or channels reliable enough for the larger sailing vessels to make their way comfortably without being towed, into the upper harbour.
They were watermen or lightermen, operating small craft to load and unload passengers and freight from the numerous vessels arriving and departing from Otago during the heady years following the gold rushes.
The Otago Witness of February 27, 1864 records: "From 60 to 70 vessels arrive at Port Chalmers every month and nearly half are steamers. For few or none of these is there wharf accommodation, though the erection of a jetty is an undertaking which had been part and parcel of the activities on the harbour from before the time of the official settlement.
Mrs D.G. Elliott of Dunedin, a descendent of David Carey, after whom Carey's Bay is named, says in an essay on her ancestor: "David Carey was the first lighterman and stevedore on the Otago Harbour and the first man to pilot a ship from Port Chalmers to Dunedin. He was also a farmer in later life beyond Carey's Bay. His sons George and John were also in the lightering trade."
She says that David was a man of many parts, supplying ships with water, sawing timber on the slopes around Sawyers Bay and Port Chalmers, supplying firewood to residents and ships and burning lime for Captain Cargill and Dr Burns.
"Before the official settlement he and Charles Ladbrook are believed to have distilled whisky from cabbage tree stems, in an old try-pot and musket barrel. It was coloured and used as a means of barter with whalers and sailors."
Mrs Elliott quotes from an Evening Star article of September, 1933:
"The finest whisky in New Zealand was distilled on the Lower Harbour in the early days. Every creek had its still - one might say its factory: at the mouth of the creek was anchored a whaleboat for carrying the output to the retail trade. The modern milk cans were probably invented to carry the product up the harbour where every hotel received its weekly can, sometimes one, sometimes more."
"In a busy harbour full of shipping, whisky distilling was a very profitable business. David Carey was involved with the distilling of whisky in one of the stills situated on the harbour side and on the hills overlooking the Lower Harbour. All went well until the authorities took action and it was necessary for those involved to take precautions. Kegs were used instead of milk cans and in due course delivery had to be made under cover of darkness." Mrs Elliott records that Customs pressure closed down the trade.
There is no evidence today that Dominic Harris and his partner McKenzie were engaged in such trade as whisky distilling – as McKenzie was a supporter of the temperance movement, but they certainly lived in the right area and were in the right business to be involved. Dominic and his sons later had interests in hotels, so he was obviously not against liquor.
Dominic and Alexander had their own sideline, or perhaps their main business – quarrying rock and ballasting ships. Records of the Port Chalmers town board show that in August 1864 the Commissioner of Crown Lands had granted quarry rights at Carey's Bay to lightermen Harris and Simon and that a dispute arose over whether the board or the commissioner should have the right to let the quarry ground. Further town board records show that Dominic Harris did operate a quarry at Carey's Bay and at Taylers Point, while another lighterman, Griffiths Jones, quarried at Kilgour’s Point. Other records indicate that the Tayler’s Point operation was carried out with Alexander McKenzie, and that the business was based on ballasting ships. But they may well have been involved also in watering them and providing firewood, as was David Carey. Certainly the raw material for firewood was there. Several early reports describe the Lower Harbour as a series of bays fringed with thickly wooded slopes and bubbling streams of pure water.
Ian Church’s 1993 book “Port Chalmers and Its People” sheds a little light on Dominic Harris’s partner, Alexander McKenzie. It says:
“Älexander McKenzie was a lighterman who worked with Dominic Harris at the Tayler’s Point quarries. From 1873 to 1879 he leased the large quarry and the council had quite a problem to get him to surrender the ground to new lessees, even though he was a councillor at the time. He served three terms on the council (1873-75, 1879-83 and 1885-90), was an office-bearer in the Congregational Church and a strong supporter of temperance. It is believed he built the house known as “Stonehenge” in Harrington St.”
It is difficult to find specific information on the watermen and lightermen of Otago Harbour, particularly who they were and the names of types of boats they operated.
However, H. Bowman, in the Otago Centennial Historical Publications book "Port Chalmers - Gateway to Otago", gives a good general description of their activities:
"The Watermen's Licensing Ordinance of 1863 had required watermen to be licensed...their boats were also registered and, according to measurement, their passenger quota would run from ten to sixteen. The skiffs all had registered names such as Breeze, Game Cock, Volante and Alice...some imported from Melbourne about 1863, one or two such as the Alice from England and some built locally."
"During the sixties what was called the grid, upon which the boats were drawn up, was located on the breastwork about where the post office now stands, and the boats used to lie around it: but during the seventies it was shifted over to a new area near where the Watersiders’ Hall is today. On a fine day the grid became something of a social centre for watermen, who used to sit in the sun waiting for fares and often swapping yarns about their passengers, especially those who had escaped from justice."
"The watermen were liable to be called upon in any weather, sometimes being required to go outside the heads with shipping reporters and this was difficult work. Carrying the mails was another task which often became very strenuous, involving heavy manual labour in carrying a large number of bags."
"On the whole they were a hardy, robust, good lot of fellows, never afraid of the weather, always on for a job, and, as a rule, thoroughly honest. Many of them came to occupy places of honour in the general life of the community."
"Many of the watermen were also at different times lightermen, working on the small vessels used for the purpose of transferring cargo from the ships to Port Chalmers or Dunedin ... Many of the lightermen later belonged to Dunedin, coming down to the Port for their cargo and returning with it to Dunedin, but some notable Port Chalmers citizens developed an extensive lightering trade."
"The first lighters were sailing craft (with a tonnage of up to 20) and the carriage of cargo from the vessels to Dunedin was often a long business."
"During the first couple of decades before the export trade began, ships were ballasted for their return voyage with stone quarried from various points around the harbour. One quarry at Tayler's Point was owned by two lightermen, Alexander McKenzie and Dominic Harris, and later by John McLachlan, for supplying ballast to ships."
"Ballasting became a flourishing industry in itself and many lighters were built especially for the work through the sixties and into the seventies, while many men were employed in quarrying stone and delivering it to the ships. By the eighties the wool and frozen mutton trades were developing and outgoing ships did not require ballast."
John McLachlan jun. a son of the man who took over the Tayler’s Point quarry from Dominic Harris and Alexander McKenzie, recalls that when the family shifted to Dowling Bay to be near the quarry, they travelled from Dunedin in the ballast lighter “Monitor”. It is not clear whether they bought that vessel with the quarry, but it seems likely that it was the lighter operated by Harris and McKenzie.
John McLachlan went on “In those says we had little villages in all the bays, and Dowling Bay was the busiest of them all, owing to the number of lighters which were always there loading ballast. The ships used to anchor in the stream from Pulling Point to Port Chalmers and many times I have seen them drop anchor off Tayler’s Point to facilitate the quicker loading of ballast.
Once the wharves were built at Port Chalmers in 1872, cargo handling methods were revolutionised, as ships began to discharge and land cargo at the wharves, obviating the need to put it all onto lighters for carriage to Dunedin. Bowman records that this was the beginning of the waterfront workers' industry.
Lightering was a hard life and, according to a report in the Otago Witness on July 9, 1864, a competitive one. The report outlines a meeting at the Provincial Hotel where masters and owners of lighters agreed to form an association to protect themselves against price cutting by lighter agents, some of whom had broken down the rates of pay from ten shillings to 4/9 a ton. They decided to form an association to protect the current rates of 10/- a ton from Port Chalmers and 5/- a ton from Dunedin Bay and to hold a further meeting to draw up rules and regulations and appoint a manager and committee.
It is not clear when Dominic Harris left the lightering trade. Mrs Harris' obituary says that he took up farming when the railway opened between Port Chalmers and Dunedin in 1872. If so, he was wise, as the lightermen sent a deputation to the Otago Harbour Board in August, 1875, complaining at newly introduced berthage dues for ballast lighters. Mr A. Thomson, one of the lightermen, told the board the greatest hardship the lightermen had to contend with was the opposition of the railway, especially in carrying stone. But, in the end, it was clear that, even without the berthage rates, the lightermen would have difficulty in competing.
Land records show that Dominic’s partner, Alexander McKenzie, sold his interest in the Heyward Point property to Dominic Harris on May 8, 1875 for 70 pounds, so it appears likely that this was the beginning of the Harris's farming operations, on a serious scale at least.
THE FARMING OPERATION
Like many of the early settlers, Dominic and Winifred Harris probably went in for a form of subsistence farming from the time they first took up land at Lower Harbour.
In those days ownership of a cow and a few hens meant the difference between poverty and a reasonable standard of living with a balanced diet. Their own vegetables, fish from the harbour and ocean beaches, and the income gained from Dominic's lightering trade must have made the Harrises, if not wealthy, at least reasonably comfortable by the standards of the day. Certainly their environment must have been a healthy and beautiful one, as the hills of the Lower Harbour and the site of their old stone house offer some breathtaking views of the surrounding area.
A report in the Otago Witness of February 13, 1864 describes the area: "On opening out the harbour, the panorama on a fine day is most enchanting. A background of lofty hills, tumbled into every variety of shape and altitude and clothed with dense evergreen forest to their summits; here and there the land shelves gradually from the base of the dark background of mountains to the margin of the harbour and the aspect of the scene is varied by the clearings and cultivated farms of the enterprising settlers who have made themselves homes."
An Evening Star report on June 20, 1864 of the address to the Port Chalmers Old Identities Association by Mr J. McLachlan (as quoted previously, a son of the man who took over the quarry at Tayler’s Point from Dominic Harris) mentions a bush track to Murdering Beach "over the hill from Dingwells" and describes the beach as a lovely place with plenty of fruit and vegetables, sheep and cattle, in the early days of settlement.
"In the winter time plenty of frostfish were salted and smoked and kaka, pigeons and tuis provided a change of fare. That was how the pioneers lived in those days – happy as the day is long, no desire to be among the busy throng - the visit of a neighbour from over the hill making a red letter day."
Both of these descriptions are written about the general area of the Harris farm, which was also on a track up over the hill - perhaps the same track as mentioned here. They serve to show what the district was like and it takes little imagination to conjure up the work that faced Dominic and Winifred and their young family in clearing the bush – mostly broadleaf at that end of the ridge - sowing grass, building fences, with posts cut from the hard broadleaf itself, and erecting the stone farmhouse and sheds
It is unlikely that there would be much of a sale for milk or cream in those early days, but it is possible that butter and cheese was made and sold in Port Chalmers or around about. The advent of the Taieri and Peninsula Milk Supply Company Ltd, which was established for the delivery of milk in Dunedin, and began operations in September, 1884, must have given the small farmers a significant boost.
The company expanded quickly and moved into butter and cheese making, setting up creameries for the collection of the raw material in many districts during the later years of the century. Mihiwaka had one from 1892, but it was not until 1899, a year of great expansion, that the Heyward Point creamery was set up, on a 39 pole section subdivided from the Harris property just north of the stone house. The sale price was 5 pounds.
Having the creamery on the doorstep must have helped the Harrises considerably, in terms of convenience, as they would have had to travel to Mihiwaka prior to that time to take their produce to the creamery.
The Taieri and Peninsula Milk Supply Company was a large concern, and eventually had 58 creameries as far away as Morven and Waimate in South Canterbury. However, in 1916, after the advent of home separation, the company started to close or dispose of its creameries and cheese factories and by 1923 had concentrated its production in Dunedin and Oamaru.
The minute books of the company held in the Hocken Library show that Dominic Harris was a shareholder, and attended an extraordinary general meeting on April 14, 1898 at the Oddfellows Hall in Dunedin, an ordinary meeting on October 10, 1899 and the annual general meeting on October 24, 1901 and October 24, 1904.
His shareholding appears to have been substantial by comparison with most farmers, as an issue of shares to existing shareholders made in 1904 shows he was allocated 15, whereas most others received two, three, or up to six. This would seem to indicate that he had a larger than normal herd, which would have been likely, as by that time the Harris farm had expanded to about 130 acres.
Early records of the Purakanui Road Board, also held in the Hocken Library, list McKenzie and Harris as ratepayers in 1872-73, 1874 and 1876, paying 10/- each year. In 1877 D. Harris paid 12/-, but he did not pay in 1878 and had to catch up in 1879 by paying one pound ten shillings, including 15/- in arrears. In 1880 he paid 15/- and in 1881 Mrs D. Harris paid 13/-.
Whatever their situation may have been in the early days, Dominic and Winifred Harris's financial circumstances appear to have improved from 1875 on. The Otago Land Registry records held in the Lands and Deeds Office, Dunedin, give some indication of their progress.
It appears that the original 52 acre holding was worth about one hundred and forty pounds in 1875, as Alexander McKenzie sold his share in it to Dominic Harris for 70 pounds. But McKenzie may have had only a minor share in the land, as Dominic was able to obtain a mortgage of two hundred pounds the following year, on October 26, 1876 from the Hibernian Benefit Society. The fact that his brother-in-law, J. J. Connor, was president may have had something to do with it.
On February 23, 1878, equity of one hundred pounds in the land was sold to J.J. Connor for part repayment of the loan to the Hibernian Society, but Connor transferred his interest to his sister Winifred Harris, wife of Dominic, on August 16, 1880. From then on the property was jointly owned by Dominic and Winifred.
By this time Dominic is described as a farmer "late of Dunedin" and intriguingly "the holder of a protection order made by Isaac Newton Wall Esq. under the Married Women's Property Protection Act." What that meant will require some further investigation.
Part of the mortgage to the Hibernian Society was repaid on May 14, 1891 and the remainder on October 17, 1899. Meanwhile, on December 24, 1898, Dominic and Winifred offered the property as security for a loan from the National Bank to John Joseph Connor, compositor, John Thomas Harris, hotelkeeper, and Alfred Harris, compositor, carrying on business in Dunedin as hotelkeepers under the name of Connor and Harris. This mortgage was repaid on July 1, 1901, and on July 22 replaced with another to secure a loan for Messrs J.T. and A. Harris, hotelkeepers of Dunedin, known as Harris Bros.
These were, of course, Dominic and Winifred's sons, John and Alfred and I believe, Winifred’s nephew, John Joseph Connor, son of the Tablet manager. The witness to the document for the Harris Bros.' mortgage was one James John Marlow, their brother-in-law, who had married Catherine Frances Harris in 1889.
Dominic and Winifred lived at Heyward Point at least until 1904 and maybe up until a few months before his death in 1906 at Hampden, where Winifred owned a house. After Dominic died, Mrs Harris continued to farm the property, with the help of her daughter, Mary Elizabeth, and Mary's husband, Jack Le Fevre. She did not sell it until October 31, 1912, when she received the sum of 1,353/19/6 from Robert Melville for sections 20, 21 and 39, leaving 1,053/19/6 as a mortgage to Melville. On her death in 1928 the mortgage was taken over by her son, John Harris.
Section 20, Block V, North Harbour and Blueskin was a 39 acre block adjoining the original Harris holding and this piece was bought by John Thomas and Alfred Harris on September 26, 1893 from Richard Hudson. They paid L239/10/- for it. John sold his share to Alfred in December 1893, but not before they had mortgaged it a couple of times for L200. When Alfred died in 1912 the land went to his wife then back to Winifred to be included in the sale to Robert Melville.
In 1902 Mrs Harris bought two more sections of land adjoining their property at Heyward Point...section 29 from Richard Anthony Palarmountain on June 10,and section 30 from Archibald Purdie on December 17.These were sold to Robert Melville on November 14,1912, shortly after the transfer of the main farm property, but probably as part of the same deal. A discharge of mortgage is recorded on one section on July 17, 1936, after the mortgage had passed to John Harris under the terms of Winifred's will. Thus ended the Harris connection with the land that had helped sustain them for more than 50 years and which had provided a base from which to finance other enterprises in land and in the hotel trade over a number of years.
Their mark is still on the land. The old stone house which was built by them or for them is still standing, but is no longer recognisable, as it is incorporated in a new dwelling and bed and breakfast business operated by Mr and Mrs Bob Melville. Until the 1990s, the remains of two or three older stone buildings were evident near the house and there remain substantial stone fences some broadleaf fence posts; and, of course the name Harris Hill on the map.
Dominic and Winifred's land dealings did not begin and end with their Heyward Point property, as the Otago Land registry records show that both had an interest in other land at various times. The old deeds section shows Dominic bought allotments 137 and 138 Mansford Township in the Lower Harbour district from Henry Thomson, another lighterman, on November 13, 1874, and sold them again on November 23, 1875, to John R.Pearce. Henry Thomson’s name appears on the only copy of a lighterman's licence held by the Otago Early Settlers' Museum.
Early in 1877 Dominic Harris' solicitor, Noel See Buchanan, lodged a caveat against leases on part of sections 32 and 33, Block XI, town of Dunedin, at the corner of Russell and Arthur Streets. The leases were from Joshue Eccles to James Martyn. This action took place on January 24 and the lease was transferred from James Martyn to Dominic Harris on May 7 of the same year. Looking at the building on what I presume to be one of the sections behind what was later a church hall on the corner, it appears to have been the old Duke of York Hotel, now in flats.
The leases were transferred to George Nelson, on November 12, 1877, but whether the short tenure was a takeover of the property by Dominic in settlement of debt or for some other reason, it is not possible to prove at this stage. The names involved indicate there was something of a family transaction, as George Nelson was married to Winifred Harris’s half-sister, Katherine (Kate) Clues, or Clewes. Also, the name Joshue Eccles is that of another American living near the Harrises at Heyward Point.
Dominic’s name cropped up in the Otago Witness which reported on June 17, 1876: Dominic Harris, Stafford Street had been granted renewal of a bottle licence; then on September 12, 1876 that the Dunedin Licensing Court had granted a bottle licence transfer from him to his son, John Harris of Stafford Street. That licence was transferred from John Harris to John Cantwell in March, 1877 (O.Witness, 17.3.1897).
Dominic took over the lease of the Globe Hotel from Anne Diamond on February 17, 1877, for a term of eight years. This was on section 6, Block XLVI (46) town of Dunedin and was for some years a part of the head office of H.E.Shacklock and Co in Princes Street South. The building was later owned by Newtons Coachways. Part of the original stone wall of the stable building can be seen inside the modernised office. He operated the Globe for about a year, as the Otago Witness reported on March 13, 1878: “The Globe Hotel, Princes Street south has changed hands, Mr Dominic Harris having sold out to Mr Alex. Owen, formerly well-known in the Tuapeka District.
His next land deal on April 1, 1878 shows that he was still described as an hotelkeeper. This entry in the deeds section says that John Bathgate, having sold to Dominic Harris, but not delivered the deeds, was directed by Harris to sell to John Grindley, for the sum of 120 pounds, three roods at the Glen, being allotments 253, 254 and 283. There was obviously no coincidence in the fact the adjoining landowner was one J.J. Connor.
Winifred Harris is shown to have bought Section 4, Block VII, Town of Hampden from Edward H. Clark, a Palmerston builder, for 170 pounds in 1903, presumably with a house on it. When Winifred died, the land went, in 1929, to Mary Elizabeth Le Fevre, Winifred's eldest daughter.
Dominic's land dealings, especially the move into the hotel, are a little hard to fathom. It may be that he decided to go into another business when the lightering trade dwindled, but did not like it or did not succeed and then returned to farming. Presumably his family shifted to the city with him. Certainly the farm was retained and he was back on it again in 1878 or thereabouts according to the road board rate book. It may well be that the 200 pounds mortgage that he took out in 1876 was designed not to improve the farm, but to enable him to branch out into other ventures, or to assist family connections with a move into property. |
