Samuel Butler – I Thought It Very Beautiful

“I thought it [The Port Hills] very beautiful.  It is volcanic, brown and dry – intervals of crumbling soil, then wiry tussock of the very hardest grass.  Then perhaps a flax bush, more crumbly dry soil mixed with fine grass, then more tussock.  Volcanic Rock everywhere cropped out sometimes red and soft, sometimes black and …

The First Settler Spots

Over 700 settlers flooded into Lyttelton between the 16th and the 27th of December 1850 from our First Four Ships.  Although many public works had occurred to get the port as ready as it could be, the new immigration barracks would in no way be able to house everybody.  It was so bad, some took …

Jane Manson (1846 – 1901)

Jane Manson was the wife of John Manson, son of Samuel and Jean Manson who had accompanied William Deans to New Zealand from Scotland in 1840. After two years as employees of the Deans brothers at Riccarton (the first 3 years were in Wellington), the Mansons and another family named the Gebbies, moved onto their …