Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/139

 where most of the members and descendants of the Sinclair, Gay, and Robinson families reside on their own fine properties.

Mr. Ellis, Mr. Turner, 1840-50. These two settlers are associated because they entered into partnership as storekeepers in Akaroa, and built a store behind Bruce’s Hotel. At length they quarrelled so effectually that they mutually agreed to dissolve partnership and live apart. To effect this, the store, being their joint possession, and neither of them being willing to abandon his share, they got a cross-cut saw and divided the building into two. Each disputant then boarded up his half of the bisection, and lived in it secure from obtrusion by the other. Subsequently Mr. Ellis became clerk to the Akaroa Magistrate’s Court, under Mr. John Watson. Eventually he lived in Christchurch, and had a run at Oxford.

Mr. Connell, 1840-50, had a baker’s shop in Akaroa in 1843. He afterwards went to Nelson. Peter Brown was his baker.

John Watson, Mrs. Watson, 1840-50. Mr. Watson was the Magistrate who, in Akaroa, succeeded Mr. C. B. Robinson in 1846, and who thus became the second (in