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164 are made. Travelling by the beach route with the greatest difficulty and danger, the Taramakau and other rivers were successfully crossed and two days later the Grey was reached. Fortunately the steamer Nelson was there and the sufferer was placed on board and taken to Nelson where he entered the hospital and made a slow but steady recovery.

“Not satisfied with all they had done the diggers passed the hat round, collecting a large sum of money. With part of this they paid their mate’s fare, handing him the balance to pay his way, and so be under compliment to none. Were the old timers not real men?”

As previously stated John Hudson resumed charge of his store at Hokitika early in 1865. Here he carried on until the following year, when he purchased the Albion Hotel, a thriving hostelry in that then wonder city. Two years later he sold out and became proprietor of the Cleveland which he conducted for thirty years, until 1897, when he retired from the licensing trade, and joined the Government service as a road and bridge inspector.

“Honest John” Hudson, pioneer prospector, storekeeper, licensee and Government servant, was a man of many parts, who died in 1919, aged 78 years, and rests in the burial ground of Hokitika, the town he founded seventy-five years ago.