NINE-MILE BEACH
lotte, William, Elizabeth, Wilhelmina, Margaret, Jemima, Gilbert and Ann; also John Mouat, aged 20. All of them went from Nelson to Charleston, where a great re-union of Shetlanders was held, of the Mouats, Harpers, Hendersons, Sutherlands, Laurensons and Johnsons.
Mr. William Harper revisited the Shetland Isles in 1887, there married Miss Joanna Sutherland, and returned to the Nine-mile, where they lived until 1916, when they moved to Wellington, where he died on 14th December, 1939, at the age of 80, and was buried at Karori. W. Sutherland was the last of the pioneer Shetlanders to leave the Nine-mile Beach.
In 1871, Dr. Joseph Giles, Warden, reported, “a number of claims have been taken upon the beach between Charleston and Westport”; evidently referring to the Nine-mile, as no other beach was then worked; also that “several races are in course of construction for bringing water to the beach. It is supposed that these claims will pay from twenty to thirty shillings per day. In every case double areas of ground have been given to the beach.”
In 1873 his report stated: “On the beach between Charleston and the Totara a good many claims are occupied. The working of them is rendered possible by the races which have at considerable cost of money and labour been brought down to the beach.”
In 1874 he again refers to the beach claims: “A large number are held near Charleston, but the working of them is uncertain and intermittent. They sometimes become covered with grey sand and then will not pay to work. They are well adapted to men who have something else to employ themselves with in the intervals so created, and to holders of residence areas in the vicinity who are thus able to cultivate a little ground while they cannot work their claims.”
The Nine-mile being on the coach-route, a hotel soon followed settlement at this end of the beach—the Racecourse Hotel and Store, on the site later occupied by William Mouat’s residence. This hotel deserves more than passing reference, being better than the usual wayside public-house. On 4th March, 1868, Frederick Hall, its proprietor, was granted the right “to construct a track from Hall’s Store on the beach
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