Gillespies Beach Beginnings/Part 4
PART 4 - THE MOVE INLAND
There has been speculation as to the date at which the move inland to take up land was made by both the Sullivans and Williams families. Henry Williams, writing to his grand-niece in the late 1930s declared it was 1891 but I believe it was 1889 for several reasons. When the huge double-paged article “Sullivan’s Kingdom” appeared in the Weekly News in 1959, Mick Sullivan (1st generation) gave the date as 1889. He gave the same date in 1940 as reported in Tales of Pioneer Women when talking about his sister, Julia. The following newspaper article quoted below supports this view and also the often-repeated ages of the two boys when they headed inland, 16 for Pat Sullivan and 19 for Fred Williams. Taking their birth dates into account, makes 1889 the more likely date. Fred was born in 1870. Patrick was the third child in the Sullivan clan with his parents marrying in June, 1870, so I have guessed his birth date as mid 1873.
West Coast Times, 19.9.1889 - Westland Land Board report covered an application by Laurence Sullivan through his agent, W. Duncan, to purchase 100 acres second-class rural land at Cook’s River for a price of 15/- (fifteen shillings) per acre with deposit of one-fifth paid.
It seems unlikely that Laurence Sullivan would have waited two years from the summer of 1889 until 1891 to start land clearance. The earliest record I can find of a land purchase in the name of Henry Williams was:
West Coast Times 18.9.1890 appln 924 Henry Williams thru agent W Duncan to purchase 20 acres of second-class rural land at Cook’s river being section 804, Block XVI Gillespie’s Survey District, purchase money of 15 pounds and Crown grant fee being paid - licence to occupy was ordered to be issued.
There is one whole year between these purchases. My guess would be that young Fred followed his brother to Gillespie’s, because other kin were also there. His half-brothers were much younger so when the name, Chesterman, appears in records as mining there presumably it would either have been his step-father or step-uncles. With the marriage of Henry Williams to Mary Sullivan strong bonds were formed between the two families, and my hypothesis is that when the two boys went inland young Fred helped Patrick on the Sullivan land until Henry had saved enough to buy his first twenty acres. Having said that, the date is unimportant compared to later achievements. All the land purchases by both families were reported in West Coast papers when the Westland Land Board had its meetings.
These first purchases were of bush-covered land near Lake Matheson, which would later become well-known throughout New Zealand for the magnificence of the reflected snow-capped Southern Alps which dominate the area and which, decades later, would influence the formation of the Westland National Park.
The Cook river flats situated at the foot of Mt Tasman, provide spectacular scenic attractions, although these early pioneers didn’t have scenery on their minds at the time. The river of ice tumbling down from its alpine setting - originally called the Albert Glacier, after Queen Victoria’s Prince Consort, later to become the Fox Glacier, after Sir William Fox, a former Premier of New Zealand, today attracts tourists from all parts of the world, as does the Franz Josef Glacier area further north, then called Waiho. South Westland knows two climatic extremes - heavy rainfall at certain times of the year and pristine crisp sunny days at other times. In the background, the peak of Mt Cook soars into the sky on cloud-free days.
In both The Weekly News and Tales of Pioneer Women articles mentioned previously, Mick Sullivan described how his brother Pat and Fred Williams left Gillespie’s with a pack-horse, tent and fly, food, cooking utensils, and some tools, to make their way on foot through dense bush thirteen miles inland to the newly acquired land.
They set up camp by a stream and apparently it teemed with rain the first night. Living in a tent in an area prone to heavy rain would have been uncomfortable to say the least. It is recorded that the pair soon built a rough two-roomed hut with a roof built of bark, which, when peeled off the trunk of totara trees, could be flattened out like a thin sheet of wood and that this endured the storms of many years. The area where this first shelter was erected later became known as the Bark Hut paddock. It is known that a couple of years later Julia came to keep house for Fred and her brother Pat.
The two young men set about clearing the land by cutting down the scrub and clearing it of forest except for the tallest trees. This was left to dry out over the following months and eventually burned. Because of regrowth, a second burning was often necessary before grass for grazing could be sown. The old adage about earning your bread by the sweat of your brow applied. Their tools were minimal - axe, adze and cross-cut saw. The clearing of land would continue throughout the following decades as also did the acquisition of more land, both freehold and leasehold.
As the other Sullivan boys, John, Lawrence Jnr and Mick became older, they too treked inland to assist in the clearing of the bush and the cultivation of grassland suitable for the grazing of stock. The school teacher, Henry Williams, also assisted at weekends whenever he could during the time he lived at Gillespie’s.
Over the years the Ryan family had gradually acquired considerable land holdings in the area, but these were eventually advertised for sale by auctioneers, Mark Sprott & Company, on 4th November 1903 in the Grey River Argus probably because of the death of Ryan Senior.
On 17.9.1903, the same newspaper advised the transfer of LIP land from Patrick Sullivan of 40 acres and LIP over 90 acres to his brother, Michael Sullivan. Patrick had died at only 29 years of age ending the remarkable adventurous pioneering saga of his short life.
John Sullivan was told by his father that Patrick developed flu which he neglected. Neglect culminated in a serious lung infection from which he died. He is buried in Hokitika cemetery along with his parents.
The photograph of Fred and Julia Williams nee Sullivan standing outside their first home, the totara bark hut at Weheka, Fox Glacier, has appeared in many publications. Fred and Julia were married at Gillespie’s Beach on 4 August, 1895. Julia had been brought up in a relatively comfortable cottage at Gillespie’s Beach but, being of pioneering stock obviously accepted that she would spend her early married life living in what can only be described as a shack. The increasing family, according to the 1940 article, necessitated the enlarging of the original hut by two extra rooms.
The date when their first cottage or second home was ready for occupation is unknown but it was probably a gradual affair because the timber would have had to be felled and sawn. It is not known how many children Julia had while still living in the bark hut but her oldest daughter, May, commented in later years of the difficulties her mother had catering for a growing family. This second home was certainly in existence in 1906 when Maud Moreland wrote about her visit but more of this later. Visitors to the area were never turned away when they needed accommodation. This is the house to which four extra rooms were added in 1919 by my father, Bob Clarke and Bert Weenink. Bob Clarke and Bert Weenink had both served their carpentry apprenticeships in Greymouth and came south, as young men, to work at Weheka which is how they met their future wives, Margaret (Mag) and Elizabeth (Liz) Williams, daughters of Fred and Julia.
When Tom Seddon, son of the Premier, Richard John Seddon, travelled by horseback in South Westland in 1906, the Otago Daily Times quoted him on 19 January as saying "that Mrs Williams gave us a hearty greeting followed by a hearty dinner. Bush fires were ablaze and the rising smoke lent to the surrounding mountains a lovely blue tint."
Their presence inland early on is also verified by a sentence in Dr Maurice Otley’s comprehensive and well-researched genealogy of the Otley clan using data supplied by both my father, Bob Clarke, who worked at Weheka from about 1919 onwards and also letters from Sister Mary Lawrence. Writing of Weheka in the early days, one sentence reads: Apart from the three batchelor brothers, their (Julia & Fred’s) nearest neighbours were thirteen miles away.
Sarah Otley, incidentally, is the daughter of Cecilia Clarke, hence the link to the Williams family and why her ancestors are included in the very comprehensive family genealogy published privately by Dr Otley.
There is nothing in print as to how or where these Sullivan brothers were housed before and just after the turn of the century. It has long been thought that the cottage built by Fred and Julia replacing the Totara bark hut was the first dwelling in Weheka. John Sullivan, now in his late seventies, said that the Sullivan brothers lived in a house of four rooms built adjacent but slightly further west of Mick Sullivan’s existing historic residence, that the original building is still in existence but added to and altered over the years and that their sister Annie Sullivan (later McGavin), kept house for her brothers until she married.
Both John and Mick Sullivan built substantial homes for themselves when they married but this was many years later. It becomes obvious that there are some things we will never know for certain.
My guess is that the first Sullivan house was built about the same time or after the Williams cottage and that in the intervening years the boys, like the roadmen of the time, may have lived in more simple abodes while they began to get their land into shape.
In any case once the first Sullivan dwelling was built it would have been unseemly at the time for unmarried men to offer accommodation to female visitors even if there had been room which is why visitors to the area stayed with the only married couple, namely Fred and Julia Williams. However when Mick Sullivan’s house was built following his marriage, he and Agnes also provided accommodation when the need arose.
By 1911 all the Sullivans had left Gillespie’s Beach including the parents who retired to Hokitika to live and the girls who by then had married.
On 26 January 1912 the Grey River Argus reported six transfers by the Westland Land Board of big blocks of land from Mrs Ryan & Sons, Gillespie’s Beach, through the agent, W. Duncan, to Fred Williams, Henry Williams, Michael Sullivan, John Sullivan and a Sullivan Jnr. Also the transfer of a pastoral license to Lawrence Sullivan Jnr and others. Although the Ryan holdings had first been advertised in 1903 presumably they had not been readily sold. These purchases resulted in the criss-crossed pattern of ownership at Fox Glacier by the Williams and Sullivan families which continues to this day and which has probably made farming more difficult than when holdings abut each other to form one large area.
When interviewed in 1959, Mick Sullivan (1st generation) said that that the Sullivan boys and Fred Williams decided, when Mr Edward Ryan died, to approach his son, Morris, to buy the land which they eventually did using borrowed money. Fred was reported, in Dr Otley’s account, as borrowing money from the owner of Mandall’s brewery in Hokitika. If this is correct it is noteworthy that purveyors of liquor including the Ryan ownership of one of the Gillespie’s hotels played a significant part in the financing of land for development in South Westland. Borrowing in these times was often done privately in the absence of bank lending.
Development of the land from bush-covered to land suitable for grazing cattle involved many years of hard manual work by the Sullivans and Williams’s. Sacks of grass seed were purchased in great quantities, as were turnip seed. Forward planning was necessary to ensure these were on hand when needed, ordered well in advance with no doubt prayers being uttered that the weather would remain fine so the sacks could be transported, be it by ship or dray, without damage.
It is on record that Fred Williams sons grown to manhood cut about 300 acres a year, some being virgin bush and some second growth. Virgin bush was still being felled until the mid 1930s.
Over the decades the first small herds were gradually increased with income from sales being ploughed back into further land development and eventually better housing. Michael Sullivan and his brother John, would, on marriage, eventually build themselves substantial houses. Both were no longer young men when they married. They had worked hard to carve out a living for themselves so had little time for courtship in their twenties and early thirties.
Cattle brought in from down south or up north in the early years were simply put over the side of vessels and left to swim ashore. At Okarito, vessels entered the inland lagoon across a tidal bar making entry tricky with the result that a harbourmaster was appointed early on to assist incoming vessels. For areas lacking a port, heavy seas often made it difficult to securely anchor a vessel off-shore. Landing stores at Bruce Bay was difficult and it wasn’t until 1923 that a landing jetty was constructed there. Winches were used to bring heavy items ashore. A few years later settlers would form their own small shipping Company using the Gael to service the communities south of Hokitika in an attempt to get a better service.
Cattle destined for market were at first driven along the track from Weheka back to Gillespie’s Beach and then along the coast to just north of Okarito at the Forks where there was a rough inland narrow gravel track used as a horse track. From there the cattle headed for Arahura just beyond Hokitika where the first cattle sales were held. I can remember Uncle Fred Williams arriving at our house at Whataroa clad in oilskins on his way north with a mob. Access to holding paddocks for the cattle along the way enabled drover, dogs and cattle to break the journey at various places overnight depending on the length of the cattle drive.
Before he died, Lawn Williams, told of store cattle purchased from the Nolans down at Okuru which he’d driven up to Weheka along the coast - a distance of over 100 miles. In his prime, Lawn became a champion axe-man competing at local sports meetings.
Before the first train went through the Otira tunnel in 1923, cattle destined for Canterbury were railed from Ross (extended from Hokitika in 1909) to Otira, driven over the Pass, and put aboard the rail again at Arthur’s Pass. At the time of its opening, the tunnel was the longest in the then British Empire. The tunnel opening by Prime Minister Massey also heralded the end of the coaching era over the Pass.
As stated earlier, the Coast papers always reported local events, including cattle sales, of considerable interest to farming communities. Not only did it give an idea of how others were doing but it also became a matter of pride as to who got the best prices for their stock. Crops of turnips were used to fatten up cattle before they made the long trek up north for sale. It was the usual practice to sell bullocks in Spring when they were 3 years of age.
Grey River Argus - 4.9.1912 - advised on the fortnightly stock sale at Arahura yards with a nice even line of cattle from Messrs Sullivan Bros, Weheka, well sought after and readily sold.
Grey River Argus 4.12.1917 - reported on a line of bullocks of exceptional quality sent from here yesterday reared by Mr F. Williams of Weheka and will be sold at Addington tomorrow. They were in both size and quality well above the ordinary prime bullocks.
Grey River Argus - 15.7.1919 report that a fine draft of fat cattle were railed through from Ross yesterday morning, approximately 60 head from the property of F.G. Williams at Weheka, mostly heifers 3 to 4 years old, in excellent condition after their long drive.
Grey River Argus 14.9.20 reported on a Mr Williams of Weheka passing through Hokitika yesterday morning with a line of 440 head of fat cattle for Christchurch.
Cattle droving from further south would shorten with the establishment of stock sales at Whataroa. Eventually they would cease altogether once lorries were used to transport stock to point of sale.
In the 1930s, one large room off the verandah of the homestead of Julia Williams at Weheka was used solely for the storage of household supplies - sacks of flour, sugar and other basic household necessities, all landed down at Bruce Bay. Children were tempted to thieve luxuries such as dates but God help us if we were discovered. Stealing was a mortal sin, and if you died in that state, without confessing, you went, as we were so often reminded by adults, straight to hell. At the far end of the outside rooms along the verandah, one large room had been added to house a full-sized billiard table, and a much-prized grammophone. On the walls of this room were the mounted heads of deer and chamois, valued trophies from hunting forays in the nearby hills. Grandfather Fred Williams, of Welsh descent, may have started with nothing but he was, in his more mature years, a man of style.
Household schools were the norm in isolated areas in the early days until the population in an area grew sufficiently to warrant a school being built. It was 1929 before the school at Weheka was established. In the interim a household school existed in both the Williams and later the Sullivan households with the teacher, usually a local girl, staying with the family.
As the only married couple at Weheka, Julia and Fred Williams had become well-known as the place to stay. Of her five daughters, not all were available to assist her as they were sent off, one by one, in their teens to boarding school at St Columbkille’s Convent in Hokitika, “to be finished off.” Three of the five Williams girls would later enter the Mercy Order as teaching nuns. The day and boarding schools of this Convent, staffed by nuns from Ireland, had first opened in 1879.
In the early 1920s, only five rivers on the 90 mile journey from Hokitika were bridged which left seven major river crossings to present a challenge for the first motorcars to come south. Mick Sullivan had the honour of owning the first car, an Overland Ford, to make it as far as Weheka in May, 1921. At this time, the road beween Waiho (Franz Josef) and Weheka (Fox Glacier) was little better than a track. When Fred Williams returned from a trip to England in 1924, he brought back a Crossley motorcar, replaced by a stately Morris Isis 6 in 1929.
My mother, Julia’s daughter, related that when the weather was wet for weeks on end it was impossible to get the washing dry. When this occurred, the only remedy was to remove the bed linen after use by guests, sprinkle the sheets with lavender water, iron them with hot irons heated on top of the wood-burning stove, and recycle them onto guest’s beds. The old adage, “necessity is the mother of invention” applied.
Julia’s hospitality was commented on in 1906 when Maud Moreland wrote about her visit to the area in her book, Through South Westland. Maud reached the homestead after a coach journey to Ross from Hokitika, followed by an 80 mile trek by horse or cart over a clearing that was little better than a track. She was full of praise for the welcome given to her party by Julia. In the absence of a hotel it would have been unthinkable for travellers to be denied accommodation in remote areas and residents learned to cope as best they could. Guests were given the best of what was available.
When the road was put through as far as Waiho, (Franz Josef), stores could also be packed through from there by horse. This applied also to mail. Fred Pamment used a spring cart to hold his precious cargo when the road petered out at Franz. In 1927, once motor traffic could get through to Weheka, supply problems eased somewhat, particularly once the Waikukupa and Omoeroa rivers were bridged.
Just as ferrymen were appointed to assist travellers across the main rivers in the early years, so also, when later bridges were destroyed or made impassable due to extreme floods, cars and vans were taken across on a pontoon with a thick wire cable strung across the water to keep it on course.
The road south of Ross would take several decades to complete. Road gangs were a common sight in these years as road access was gradually improved. Many worked in pairs and camped in huts or tents close to where they were working, not a comfortable way to make a living in an environment known for its wet weather. The work attracted single men, quite a number of whom had once been miners. They became identities in their own right, well-known in each district. Using pick and shovel and wheelbarrow plus their own sweat, they carved out routes through South Westland wherever the government made money available for this work.
Those who experienced the single gravel roads which lay between Ross and Fox Glacier in earlier times, remember also the difficulty encountered on trips up to town whenever a service car or public works vehicle or timber lorry or school bus was encountered. Tensions were high as vehicles tried to find enough room to pass, not always successfully. There were no theatres in South Westland, the drama and tensions being played out in daily living on mountain passes with foreign-sounding names such as Mt Hercules.
Drivers learned the hard way how to protect the engine when water was likely to reach the engine including the disconnection of the fan belt. Children, unaccustomed to vehicle travel, suffered badly from car sickness due not only to the noise and fumes from overheated engines but also the twists and turns of gravelled mountain routes. Time out had to be taken on these journeys not only to let the engine cool when the water in the radiator boiled as it always did, but also to give sickly children time to spew. God forbid that we did this inside the car. Warnings couldn’t always be given at suitable places to stop on the narrow road. The lakes, Ianthe, Wahapo, and Mapourika, could not be seen from the narrow road, the dense foliage hiding their scenic beauty. Being stuck in the middle of a stream with feet up on the seat because water was flowing through the car filled us with terror.
Service cars in 1930s were the Studebaker, Hudson and Cadillac. Hari Hari was the half- way lunch stop. Drivers were known by name to everybody in district and would carry parcels or drop off articles at isolated farmhouses passed along the way without charge. When it was known that a household had a sick adult or child, cooked food or a batch of pikelets would be dropped off as a gift from one household to another. Newman Motors, Harcourts Motors and West Coast Motors all became household names running varied services during their years of operation. New Zealand Road Services began in South Westland in 1936. The daily arrival of this bus, carrying mail, passengers, and supplies, was an exciting event in small communities. Drivers were assured of a warm welcome after negotiating the narrow gravel roads from Hokitika down. When the bus was late, there would usually be a story to tell - a wash-out, an accident, a mechanical breakdown or puncture, or a tree across the road, in which case passengers had to lend a hand.
Names remain important in identifying those descended from old families in South Westland, not because of blue blood but because of association. Names like Nolan, Gunn, Northcroft, Butler, McBride, Purcell, Thomson, Scott, Cron, Condon, Graham, and many others, were part of a great pioneering era. Because of intermarriage they appear in many family histories. At the time religion also played an important part in close social interaction, although in emergencies, neighbour helped neighbour regardless of religious affiliation.
My own memories of my grandparents, Fred and Julia’s homestead, in the 1930s, are of the concrete-encased swimming pool filled with crystal clear water from the nearby stream, and the water-wheel nearby which had originally been used as part of a mill established to cut timber for the first Williams cottage after the bark hut. A water race several feet off the ground, ran some considerable distance down to the cowshed and stock yards. This second water-wheel generated power for lighting the house making it, in 1910, one of the first homes on the Coast to have electricity. The experience gained in building fluming for carrying water at Gillespie’s to wash out black sand was utilised here for a different purpose. As children we loved to climb up into the water race and make our way between slats all the way down to the cowshed. A water-wheel also existed near the Sullivan abode in the early days, used to power the cutting of chaff for the horses. Camelia trees lined the fence in front of the Williams house and out the back a small glass-house housed geraniums. Her vegetable garden had catered for a large family over the years as had the orchard adjacent to the house.
Julia Williams died in 1935 and is buried in the cemetery at Fox Glacier next to the Catholic Church, Our Lady of the Snows. Julia was a devout Catholic. Visiting clergy were treated like Royalty. When about five years of age I remember Bishop Brodie, in full regalia, sitting in Julia’s small lounge. Perched on his knee, I complained that everybody called me Bobby after my father. Later that evening he instructed those present that I was to be called by my proper name. The use of Bobby ceased, but not the nick-names which later became stuck to everybody living in the district, children included.
Julia’s death-bed is etched in my memory and one of my earliest recollections as a five year old. All her adult children and offspring were crowded into the front bedroom which was filled with flowers. Following the recitation of the Rosary her grand-children were lined up and told to kiss the now dead Julia goodbye - not a happy experience for a young child.
Her husband, Fred, who died in 1938, is interred alongside in the same cemetery. Fred travelled quite extensively once his sons were old enough to manage the farm. When in his mid-fifties, he travelled solo to England in 1924 to attend the British Empire Exhibition in London. He also visited Australia and Fiji. Julia did not accompany him although he took his youngest daughter, Sheila to Sydney, to widen her horizons in the hope she, unlike two of her sisters, would not enter the convent. She did.
On reaching marriageable years, the other three Sullivan girls had found partners and with the exception of Julia, left South Westland, with many moving eventually to the North Island, severing the close contact which would continue into the third and fourth generations among those who claimed South Westland as their home. What is known about them will be recorded towards the end of this account.
My mother, Margaret Clarke nee Williams, often reminisced that when they were old enough in WWI years, all the Williams girls would travel by horseback down to Paringa for a ball, taking their best clothes in a saddle bag. When the dancing ended they slept across double beds in a friend’s house, before saddling up and returning home. Nita Schramm described a similar journey to Weheka in approximately 1914, when she rode by horse over the Weheka Saddle on a bridle track to attend the Cook’s races there, dancing until 4 a.m. afterwards and bedding down across double beds at what was described as William’s boarding house.
When most of her girls had left home and prior to the building of the hostel at Fox Glacier, Julia did employ household help from among other South Westland families to cope with the work load. Lizzie Mulvaney’s name is in my mother’s autograph book and remember also that live-in school teachers often helped with household tasks in return for free board. One girl, Clara Coulson, later O’Sullivan from Paroa near Greymouth worked for Julia Williams in the early 1920s, and became a life-long friend and adopted aunt of our family.
When Fred Williams died in 1938, most of the heavy bush clearance had been done although work such as the removal of stumps and general tidying-up remained a challenge. Fencing was an ongoing chore. It was reported that at that time the farm carried about 2,500 sheep and 700 to 800 head of cattle. In accordance with the tradition and thinking of the times, Fred’s four sons inherited his land holdings. Young Fred inherited the family homestead as well for by that time his three brothers had married and had their own residences. Houses for Harry, Lawn and Pat Williams had been built from timber sawn by family members at the mill established for that purpose and for the Catholic Church, Our Lady of the Snows, a project dear to the heart of Julia Williams but unfortunately she did not live to see it officially opened. However, the land alongside, thanks to Constable Ted Best, was hastily approved as a cemetery so that she could be buried there. Fred’s holdings were eventually subdivided by his sons into separate properties. Constable Ted Best, incidentally, was among the victims shot by Stanley Graham during the manhunt at Kowhitirangi in 1941 which has now become part of West Coast lore.
Nine years before Julia died, Michael and Jack Sullivan, decided to build a hostel to house travellers to the area - government men, surveyors, tourists and climbers among others - to relieve their sister of the heavy workload of accommodating visitors. They could see that Julia was growing older and most of her family had left home.
The brothers established a small saw-mill and engaged the Duncan brothers of Hokitika to build a hostel which was open for travellers by Christmas, 1928. The hostel, built of rimu wood, was capable of accommodating about 20 people with both brothers holding equal shares. The power station for the hostel was on Clearwater Creek, three-quarters of a mile below the bridge. Thus began an new era in this community, which would, over the years play its part in making tourism into a multi-million dollar industry. Lawrence Sullivan, Mick and Jack’s brother, helped work Sullivan land for a time. Uncle La as he was called by us children was a confirmed bachelor, and did not become a significant figure in the development of the area, perhaps because he did not have a particularly robust constitution. He is known to have spent some considerable time in Australia.
As mentioned previously, the alpine environment and glacier brought people to the area in increasing numbers as did the beauty of nearby Lake Matheson which, on clear days, reflected the snow-capped mountains at the head of the valley. Photographs of the bush-clad lake would appear on postage stamps and be used in 
When the second dredge at Gillespie’s operating from 1932 onwards ceased operation and went into liquidation in 1945 or thereabouts, the power station was offered for sale. A few years previously, in the early 1930s, a half mile tunnel for the Lake Gault power scheme had been built with tunnelers working three shifts each of eight hours at a cost of twelve thousand pounds. Supplies and equipment were brought in round the Oturekua Bluff to Gillespie’s by Lawn Williams, on his wide-wheeled wagon.
Mick Sullivan’s tender for the power station was accepted, gaining a more efficient and modern plant for the hostel which would also provide more than enough power for the Weheka community. He truly deserved the M.B.E. bestowed on him before he died for his services to the development of the area.
The advent of the telephone eased the isolation in South Westland but in stormy weather, the line was often damaged. Early connections were party lines with households being alerted by their own allotted signal, for example, two long rings and one short. Party lines did not promise privacy. Eavesdroppers were sometimes inadvertently revealed when they spoke about matters discussed “on the wire”. The first telegraph line into what was then called Cooks was in 1906 but this may have been limited at the time to a Post Office connection.
Mick Sullivan reported in an interview in 1959 on the history of this time.
“With sufficient power in the valley to provide electricity to householders, the idea of establishing a permanent sawmill became a good idea. He discussed it with one or two settlers and a small company was formed. The Sullivans kept the bulk of the shares and gave others an opportunity to acquire an interest.”
After the hostel was opened Mick Sullivan did a deal with the Commissioner of Crown Lands exchanging an area of land he held in perpetual lease and which the government wanted as a Reserve for another area of about 11 acres to be freeholded to him as the site for a future village. He brought in surveyors to cut the land up into sections. He then set about developing an air strip close to the hostel which would prove to be an important facility whenever the road was closed due to bad weather. In time he sold off sections to those who wished to establish businesses paving the way for the future development of the commercial amenities the growing community would need.
Those who knew Mick remember him as autocratic and decidedly crusty but he was also kind to those who needed a helping hand and above all, honest and reliable. Despite limited schooling he proved to be an astute businessman, full of foresight. He, more than any others, was responsible for shaping and moulding the development of the Weheka Fox Glacier township from the late 1920s onwards. Although virtually the whole of the Cook valley land would end up in the ownership of Sullivan and Williams descendants, it was undoubtedly the development of the hotel and tourism which put the area on the map.
The first flight over the glaciers occurred in 1924 by Flight-Lieutenant Maurice Buckley in an Avro 504K which had been railed to Hokitika, then flown from there to land on the mudflats at Okarito. Buckley had attended the Hokitika Jubilee celebrations at the end of 1923 representing his own Arrow Aviation Company, the sole asset of which was his aircraft, the Blazing Arrow. Giving joy-rides helped fund his promotional work. Following the establishment of the hostel at Weheka, air taxi work began in 1933 with an airmail service starting New Zealand’s first unsubsidised airmail service in December of 1934 by which time the airstrip at Fox adjacent to Mick Sullivan’s residence had been prepared. Those wanting to travel further south down to Paringa or the Haast still had to resort to the old modes of travel, namely the horse, although Captain Bert Mercer’s postal service south also carried supplies and the odd passenger, using the beach as a landing area. His plane, ZK ADI would become a familiar sight and sound in the sky. Many stories have become legends, including the plane being attacked by a bull during takeoff at the Weheka landing strip which aborted the service temporarily. Bulls in these years tended to be much wilder than today’s species.
The air service developed slowly over time and was used by mountaineers, deer hunters and sightseers. Mt Cook Airlines began operating from Fox Glacier in the late 1950s and they introduced the development of ski-planes to land on the glacier. Later in 1970, Glacier Helicopters began flying in the region. In a chapter titled Alpine Aviators in my book Westland Heritage, I included a recollection by Mick Sullivan Jnr. With Harry Wigley at the helm of an Auster aircraft newly fitted with skis, they had landed on the Fox neve just below Pioneer Hut. At the high altitude the engine lacked power so with one on each side of the plane pushing like hell and with throttle wide open, Wigley yelled at him “for God’s sake get in fast when she starts to go.”
A considerable amount has been written about the development of aviation on the West Coast and these books are available in public libraries, or, if out of print, in the New Zealand room of libraries.
Mick had met and married his wife, Agnes Boyle, in 1918 when 37 years of age. In time they became known to everyone both in the district and further afield as Uncle Mick and Auntie Ag. The distinctive style of the home he had built for his bride remains a landmark in the district. Of his three brothers, Patrick, as already stated, was deceased, Lawrence worked for his brothers on family land for a time and John (Jack) concentrated on running and extending the Sullivan land holdings. He suffered greatly as a result of leg injuries incurred during WWI. The wives and family members, as they grew old enough, also worked in the hostel, with other local relatives helping out when business was brisk.
Eventually in 1940 or thereabouts, Mick Sullivan Jnr and his sister, Mary took over the running of the establishment which gained hotel status in the 1950s upon obtaining a liquor licence. These were “hands-on” years rather than later years when staff would be employed to do much of the everyday work. The hotel used its own herds for meat menus, establishing a butchery for this purpose. In the absence of a ready supply of fish, fresh water eel given a French name appeared on the menu. The family’s farm and households also supplied eggs, butter, poultry and most of the vegetables. Female staff from outside the community attracted the attention of young local men with more than one eventually marrying the descendants of the first settlers. In 1951, the hotel was extended to increase the number of bedrooms and also modernised. Both the hotel, and Mick Sullivan’s home, later gained a ‘C’ classification under the Historic Places Trust.
Mary Sullivan, who’d married Doug Kerr, in turn became known as Auntie Mary to the general public after she’d been running the hotel for some years, and her fame spread far and wide. Doug Kerr established the garage at Fox Glacier. James McNeish wrote about Mary in his book, Tavern in the Town. Joint management of the hotel by two dominant personalities - brother and sister - wasn’t easy according to Mick Sullivan, particularly as he also had farming commitments. In an interview with me in 1993, Mick said his brother Jack’s share in the hotel was eventually taken over by Mary.
Mick Jnr, deciding it was time for a change, purchased the Westland Hotel in Hokitika in 1965, which he ran for ten years before moving back to Fox Glacier. In earlier times this historic hotel had been known as Keller’s, originally opened in 1867 and continuing into the early 1900s. Mick served as Chairman of the Westland County Council for ten years, like his father before him, and helped establish Fox Glacier’s independent water supply. He eventually retired to live in Hokitika. In his younger years he and his brother Jim worked as guides on the Fox Glacier. Mick had learned his skills under the tutelage of Franz Barta, a skilled Austrian guide.
Recreational mountaineering had begun in the early 1900s and from the time the hostel was established, increasing numbers of climbers came to the glacier region. Guiding climbers and tourists had its highlights but also its share of tragedies.
Mary (Sullivan) Kerr was killed in 1986 after being struck by a truck outside Christchurch Hospital while on the way to visit her sick husband, Doug. Those who knew Mary will remember her standing, with glass in hand, telling stories of famous people she’d hosted. She was a down-to-earth character, not impressed by airs and graces. As mine host at the hotel for many years, she became well-known for her practicality and humour.
Not too many mountaineers can boast that they climbed with Ed Hillary. When younger, Mick Jnr had often tramped and climbed in the Southern Alps where he made the first descent of the southern ridge of Mt Cook with the now famous mountaineer. Mick and his brother, Jim acted as guides on the Fox Glacier and alpine passes. It was common for these two, assisted by Lawn and Fred Williams and other locals to assist in rescues whenever climbers ran into difficulties or when bodies had to be retrieved. This meant giving up valuable time from their farming operations, also putting their own lives at risk when climbing in bad weather. Helicopter rescues lay in the future but at the time such rescue work was unpaid and simply regarded as a duty to help others in times of need.
The hotel passed out of family hands in 1995 ending an era in the development of the tourist industry in South Westland. The large wooden hotel is the first landmark encountered when motorists emerge from the bush-lined road to find themselves in the Fox Glacier township which is now a busy tourist centre. The foresight and hard work of these early pioneers is part of history, and like all human endeavours, their pioneering story is largely unknown to those who visit the area for a few days or who now staff the many accommodation places which exist there.
Because my mother was a Williams, I tended to hear more about Williams family matters of her generation rather than that of the Sullivans. Writers draw on the sources available to them, regretting that so much detail is lost with the demise of each succeeding generation.
The way our ancestors adapted to a new and often hostile physical environment provides a history which, while it may not loom large at a macro level, at a community level resulted in the development of a unique pioneering and egalitarian ethos, the like of which we will never see again.