By the turn of the century all the Sullivan boys had moved inland, verified by an interview with the youngest, Mick, in the Weekly News article of 1959 when he stated that he helped his father with the claim at the beach while he was attending school but at the beginning of the century, aged about 16, he too went into the valley. The birth date for Mick in my mother’s autograph book is 1881 which would make him 19 at the turn of the century, and being the youngest son, naturally his three brothers were older.
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.
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