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 name. At the first days of the rush, a lady by the Christian name of Mary, lived there. Mary was a very clean woman, I am told, and a Christian, morally. A terrible unknown murder must have taken place on the mountain side of the bridge, crossing Dirty Mary’s Creek, for it has been said that for years, at the dark hours of midnight, people who happened to be standing on the bridge at that hour, could always hear the pityfulpitiful [sic] cries of a woman, resembling the Bannshebanshee [sic] and the rattling of bones.

When the sly grog was selling in Addison’s in the early days, the police seem to let them have a free hand, but if any person kept a boarding house without paying a license, they were had up and fined for doing so.

The first branch of this society to open in New Zealand was opened at Addison’s on January 2nd, 1870, and it was opened in a store close to McEnroe’s Hotel. A very large membership were initiated that evening. A Mr Byrne from Melbourne came over to open the lodge and give it a start in Maoriland. Michael Carmody was elected as the first President, and Pat Moran (a cousin of Hugh Moran now in Westport), as the Secretary. Pat Moran after making his fortune in mining, left New Zealand and recently died at Waggawagga, in Australia, leaving £87,000 to his relations.

This hotel still stands by the roadside to provide a welcome glass to the thirsty souls who may pass that way. It was built in the early days and owned by a Mr J. Hayes. Mr Phil McEnroe at that time was a hotel-keeper at Brighton and also kept a baker’s shop in that part of the coast. Phil sold his Brighton business out and came to Addison’s and bought the hotel from Hayes, and here Phil met his future bride and got joined in the Holy Bonds of Wedlock.

When the surface gold was plentiful some fortunes were made and spent. Some men (one especially known as Black Sand Joe) made £100 a day and when pound notes were plentiful, miners were seen sitting in hotels and lighting their pipes with pound notes. Five Scotchmen who didn’t smoke or drink worked together in a rich claim on the Shamrock Lead, at Virgin Flat. They made a fortune and returned home to Aberdeen, Scotland. Very large amounts of gold were got near the service on the Shamrock claims. The deep black sand was unable to be worked on those days on account of the wet ground and never being able to get rid of the water. Years afterwards it was worked by the Shamrock Gold Mining Company with the blow up system.

Addison’s, from the start to the present day, bore the good name of having peaceful citizens. Only one notable scene occurred in the early stages, and that was a case of a couple of chaps who had a drop too much in at a hotel at Westport. One evening they got a bit rowdy and knocked over a kerosene lamp. The place caught fire and the hotel was burnt down. The men escaped and went out Addison's way and after a few days hiding out there with their friends, the police got word of their whereabouts and a squad of Westport police went out