Page:Gillespies Beach Beginnings • Alexander (2010).pdf/52

 back to New South Wales and later assumed responsibility for his mate’s dependants in 1874 by marrying his friend’s widow.

In 1873, when Henry Williams, Senior, was killed by Aboriginees, the Sullivan family was taking shape down at Gillespie’s Beach, producing children, two of whom, Mary and Julia, would later become the wives of the two Williams boys, Fred and Henry whose father was murdered by Aboriginees.

Settlers on the West Coast of New Zealand did not live in fear of murder by Maori. However, a few years earlier, in 1866, four Australian desperadoes, one of whom was named Sullivan who’d served time in the Port Arthur penal colony in Tasmania - no relative of our lot - had shot, stabbed and strangled four men from the Wakamarina gold diggings at the back of Canvastown in the Marlborough area.

There was a small settlement of Maori at Bruce Bay, further down the Coast from Gillespie’s and also at Jackson’s Bay. In My dear Bannie containing letters written by Gerhard Mueller to his wife, it was stated that by 1865 the Maori population from Hokitika down to Jackson’s Bay had dwindled to just over 100 persons. The 1926 census revealed that there were only 4203 people living in Westland, 131 of whom were Maori. Such a small population also explains why people in South Westland knew each other or at least knew of each other with closest connections based on religion or the inter-relatedness of large families through marriage.

I recall Uncle Lawn Williams remarking that in the years when the Weheka/Fox Glacier region was being settled, supplies brought by boat from Invercargill to Bruce Bay were often stored there in an unlocked shed near Flower Pot Rock, until they could all be taken by horse and dray along the coast. These supplies remained untouched by local Maori inhabitants, engendering mutual trust. Having said that, these early settlers were typical of the times in that they believed they were superior to those of a darker hue. I am