Two talks on West Coast gold-mining by historian E.L. Kehoe.
The first is called "Earliest West Coast Gold" and recalls the first gold found on the West Coast by Day, Smart and French in January, 1863.
Māori on the Coast were aware of the value of gold, after hearing about the finds in Otago, but much of Westland had already been purchased from Māori owners by Mackay in 1860, for 300 sovereigns.
In 1864, reports in Nelson and Lyttelton newspapers prompted Nelson storekeeper Reuben Waite to come to the Coast. He met a party of Māori at Collingwood who brought gold from the Grey River. He sailed by steamer for the Grey with other prospectors and Matthew Batty who was hired by the Nelson government to search for coal.
The Māori men of Māwhera Pā were already out prospecting and the European prospectors followed them to the Taramakau River, 10 miles to the south. Māori miners soon returned with 50 ounces of gold but the pākēha miners were unsuccessful, after being diverted away from the profitable area by the Māori - however they blamed Waite, saying he had directed them to a 'duff' claim.
Matthew Batty meanwhile found coal at Brunner and a large coal fire was built, possibly the first coal fire on the Coast.
The Rapahoe Range behind Greymouth, also known as the Twelve Apostles Range, was a rich source of gold - the first find being made by a coloured man.
Kehoe describes the stand-off which ensued between the disgruntled pākēha miners and the Māori diggers and Waite. Some men who had remained behind on the Taramakau managed to follow tracks and find gold where the Māori men had been hunting greenstone. This turned out to be a very prosperous goldfield, Greenstone Creek, which was worked for 40 years.
Kehoe ends this talk by paying tribute to Reuben Waite, who is remembered by a street named after him in Greymouth today.
Kehoe's second talk, "The Golden Coast of Westland" begins by describing how the native forest is now reclaiming many of the abandoned goldfield boom towns on the Coast. At Brighton or Fox's River, now called Tiromoana, a gold rush took place in 1866. It was a port served by surf boats, as was Charleston further north. There is nothing left now of Fox's River township, once home to thousands of miners.
Kehoe reads a stanza from a poem "Other Days" by Connor Reagan, a Westland poet. He lists the poetic names of some of the ghost towns, claims and diggings within a short distance of Greymouth.
Newspapers of the gold rush era evoke the spirit of the times and Kehoe summarises advertisements for clothing, saloons and dancehalls. The exotic names of the proprietors give a hint of the cosmopolitan nature of the West Coast population. Many diggers had come from Australia and returned there once the rush was over.
The settlement of Ahaura, at the junction of Ahaura and Grey Rivers was a busy transportation hub, with boats coming up the river to supply the Grey goldfields. It had a courthouse and schools, as well as doctors and lawyers advertising in the local newspaper. An advertisement in French for the Golden Age Hotel in Greymouth is read.
Coaching opened up the Coast further. Kehoe describes a photo of a coach and its passengers at Jacksons on the Coast-Christchurch Road. He reads a verse of his own poem "Coaching Days."
He ends by saying there is still a carefree independent attitude towards life on the Coast, which is an inheritance from the days of gold. He explains the diggers 'dividing mates' agreements, by which a group of diggers would divide their earnings equally, when they met up once a year.