Page:Charleston • Irwin Faris • (1941).pdf/112



O story of Charleston would be complete without reference to the sister settlements of Addison’s Flat and Croninville.

This field was of about nine months later birth than Charleston, and in its childhood looked upon the earlier town as, in a manner, a foster-parent. It was a part, or maybe the boundary, of Waite’s Pakihi, the Kara-o-matea Plains; an area of about 6,000 acres held under Government lease by Reuben Waite.

Until it attained independence by the provision of the Westport-Charleston coach-road in 1873-1874 Addison’s Flat relied upon such supplies as could be packed from Packers’ Point, or from Thiel’s landing, at the Buller. From Packers’ Point (see another chapter) the mails to Addison’s were carried by Joseph Mills on horseback, over a rough unformed track. Upon one occasion he was bailed up by a robber, near to McPaddon’s Hill—the robber was captured and imprisoned.

During the “rush” period, the paddle steamer Woodpecker ran a service to Thiel’s landing, near to Snag Falls, now known as Victoria Falls. The passenger fare was 5/-. On 17th September, 1867, the Provincial Engineer reported: “From the landing-place on south side of Buller, opposite Westport, a good horse-road has been made and metalled to Addison’s Flat, otherwise called Waite’s Pakihi or Skibbereen; four miles of which is the old track up the Buller, and the