Page:Charleston • Irwin Faris • (1941).pdf/36

 Brunner in 1845-1846, when they walked over hoards of gold without suspecting that any was there.

Charleston was at first a “poor man’s diggings,” no expensive machinery or preparation being necessary, but only a pick, shovel, a few planks and some sacking; though later came the great batteries calling for much capital. In the early days only three things were essential—health, industry and luck—and of these the greatest was luck. One man turned a stone and found fortune, others wasted their substance in unprofitable undertakings. It would be idle to contend that all the firstcomers were worthy settlers, willing to give of their best to the making of a new land. They included the unworthy and the shiftless.

There is a tendency to regard the South-West Coast of early days as comparable with Kororareka before Marsden and Pompallier lit the torch of Christianity there—a land of grog-shanties, dancing girls, and dissipation. This is certainly untrue of Charleston. It had a brief period of wildness, which disappeared under the influences of Law and Church, and the place settled down into an orderly and law-abiding community. Law was early represented by the mounted police, a number of whom set up their tents on a vacant space at the eastern side of the settlement, which became known as The Camp. On the survey plan this space is shown as the Camp Reserve. There a flagpole was erected and the ensign flown, there the first Courts were held, in tents, and there the first gaol or lock-up was erected. Before this prisoners were, it is said, handcuffed to a heavy log within a tent. The first lock-up was a rough affair built of logs; the contractor being Andrew Crawford. Report says that one of his staff unwisely celebrated the completion of the building and as a result was its first inmate.

The Courthouse was built in 1867 and first used on the 15th March of that year, replacing, states the Charleston Argus, “a 10 x 12 tent.” The new Courthouse (the present building now used as a garage) was erected in 1869 by Messrs. Bull and Bond at a cost of £389/8/-. It has a frontage of forty feet to Camp Street and a depth of eighteen feet. In March of 1867 the Superintendent of the Province proclaimed