Page:Reminiscences of Earliest Canterbury 1915.pdf/168

 spire being shaken down by the earthquake of 1st September, 1888, the cost of rebuilding it was borne by members of the Rhodes family. A memorial window of three lights, too, was presented to the memory of Robert Heaton Rhodes, and he, himself, presented the eight largest of the ten bells in the tower. Soon after these brothers had taken up the Levels, at Timaru, they chartered a schooner of light draught. She was taken into Lake Ellesmere to a point called McQueen’s Point, loaded with stores and timber. She sailed out and went to Timaru, and discharged her cargo for the Messrs. Rhodes for The Levels. Few people in Canterbury have had a better opportunity of judging the sterling qualities of these three brothers than I have had. Their word was their bond in all matters. My first acquaintance with Mr. George Rhodes was in 1846, when I was a small boy, and Mr. R. H. Rhodes four years later, and being almost close neighbours, the whole of their lives, I have had a good opportunity of judging their sterling qualities—just the right sort of men for starting a young colony.

Mr. Bennet, Mrs. Bennet (afterwards Mrs. G. Ashton), John, Henry (said to be the first boy born in Wellington), Susan, George,