If you have a few spare months a book called ‘Reminiscences of the Early Settlement of Dunedin and South Otago’ is worth a read. A google search will bring up an electronic copy of the book and parts of it - depending on what you are interested in - are very interesting.
It covers all sorts of topics including (early pig hunting, gold discoveries etc etc) and is a combination of memories of the early folk that were written down before they became lost. Some one did a good job here. It is several hundred pages long and it would take a lot of time to read. Thankfully there is an index.
3 Likes
An absolutely fantastic book - compiled and edited by John Wilson - Published 1912. Good one Oldrimu - your obviously a person who is interested in his otago History.
There are quite a few similar books - amongst other things I am a collector of Antiquarian books and LOVE reading them.
1 Like
The chapter on wild dogs and pig hunting is quite entertaining as well as being an eye opener. Some of the sheep farmers were plagued by packs of wild dogs and sheep died of blood poisoning even if they only received a small bite.
It also says that Power Hill and Powder Creek were originally called Powder Keg Hill and Creek because of the wild pig hunting there. In recent times there have been views that it was named after the gold there which is as fine as powder.Not so, apparently.
1 Like
The history of Otago is really fascinating and there are many snippets and facts long since forgotten to history - well I guess that goes for other parts of the country as well.
That is interesting about Powder Hill and Powder Creek but worthy to note that many books on early Otago mention things that have been censored out of modern books in Cotton Wool land - like the gunfight, if you could call it that, in Gabriels Gully, the Shop keeper being shot from his horse at Switzers, Colt revolvers carried by the Otago Police including 12 Ivory Handled ones and the Otago Police armed with nothing less than .56 calibre Colt Revolving Rifles - very scarce guns indeed, A cinnabar mine owned by the Nobels Explosive Company of Glasgow near Waipori, and so the list goes on. History is every where - but largely forgotten except in deeply buried archives and long forgotten books.