Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/220

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Little Akaloa.
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and fled to the Maoris, with whom he lived for some time. Two settlers came to the pah and engaged him for work on their land, and as he was stepping aboard their boat he stepped on to a loaded gun, which shot him through the leg. He was always a cripple afterwards, though he did a great deal towards settling Little Akaloa. Mr. George Boleyn, father of Mr. James Boleyn, of Stony Bay, Mr. McHale, of Raupo Bay, and the Waghorns were also very early settlers.

As everywhere else on the Peninsula, the bush was very dense in Little Akaloa; indeed it was perhaps more thickly covered than any other Bay. Mr. G. Ashton possesses a photograph of the Bay in those early days. It is greatly different from the present appearance of the locality, showing the settlement on the beach, and the valley and hills covered with heavy timber. It was a hard day’s work to penetrate a mile into the bush, and find your way back again. It came thick down to the water’s edge. Akaloa abounded in very fine pines and totaras, and gave plenty of employment to the numbers of pit sawyers who flocked there. A saw-mill was built in about 1860 by Messrs. A. Waghorn, McIntosh and Turner. Mr. McIntosh afterwards became sole owner. A man named Fenly, who had had charge of the mill in Duvauchelle’s, then managed it. Messrs. Brown and Fraser afterwards took the mill from them. They started the public house in a building which had been intended for a dwelling house. The firm is still in existence in Christchurch. The saw-mill found work for many years, as valuable timber covered the whole surface of the valley. A tramway ran afterwards right up to the head of the Bay on nearly the same site on which the road now runs.

Messrs. W. Pawson, H. McIntosh and J. McIntosh cut the first track over to Duvauchelle’s Bay, commonly known as Shaw’s line. It ran on