Page:Hokitika NZ Evans 1921.pdf/8

6 way in which the task was performed, and the complete thought given for all purposes tending to meet the common weal. The Canterbury official was of the right stock, and to-day and for all time the splendid service performed by those gentlemen stands as their lasting monument.

In the naming of the streets of Hokitika a very happy system was followed, and the town is honored indeed by having in the names of its streets the closest association with many splendid men who in their day and generation were outstanding citizens in the young colony, and whose work in the various walks of official life in which they practiced was of special prominence. There were statesmen, high officials, medical men, and other high professions from which names were chosen for the various thoroughfares. Also there were squares etc., named after notable explorers, so that the town has reason indeed to be proud of the names which grace its streets. It must be remembered that when the town was laid off by the surveyors, the streets were all forest-clad. As Mr Buller said, “the forest reached to the waters’ edge.” The importance of each particular street could then only be guessed at, but the choice throughout has been always a happy one, and the selection is in every way complimentary to the town. “What is in a name”? is often asked, and we know Shakespeare’s rejoinder in “Romeo and Juliet” is to the effect; “that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” But the happy choice of names for our streets gives them a pleasing distinction, and associated with deeds of the men who bore those names, a marked importance, quite befitting the capital town Hokitika was destined to be.

There are some thirty streets in all in Hokitika, or one less in number to be correct, because Haast Street is now officially closed. Also we have three large squares, averaging some ten acres each. These public places all bear the names of men who in some way more or less important, and nearly always official, were identified with the birth of the town, and the making of Hokitika as a municipality.

Our main or principal thoroughfare, Revell St. was named after William Horton Revell, who came to Hokitika in its earliest days as agent for the Provincial Government of Canterbury. At the time of the “rush” here Mr Revell, assisted by Sergeant Broham, marked off business sections which were taken up with great eagerness, and thus in the Christmas time of 1864, Hokitika was created and blossomed forth as a town. The somewhat winding nature of Revell Street is explained by the fact that neither Mr Revell nor Sergeant Broham were surveyors, and in the demand for sections the work had to be very hurriedly performed, hence the lack of perfect alignment which is noticeable in the other streets of the town, subsequently laid off with due form. On the proclamation of the goldfield in March 1865, Mr Revell was gazetted Warden and Resident Magistrate. It was on the 21st March of that year he issued the first miner’s right on the Coast to his brother, Mr Henry Revell. After a long and useful life, Mr Revell passed away at Timaru where he died on the 22nd September 1898.

The short street off Revell St. known as Camp Street was so called because in the earliest days before the forest was cleared, the police camp was adjacent thereto. There is a well-known photograph on record which shows the police camp and “logs” (as the watch