A HISTORY OF BLACKBALL: GOLDFIELDS STOREKEEPERS AND HOTELKEEPERS, 1865-1869

One way to try coining cash on goldfields was by selling tools, food, drink, drugs and sex to the diggers. A ‘whole population’ always followed goldseekers to diggings, wrote Julius von Haast; ‘the demi-monde, sharpers and idlers of every kind, resembling marauders who follow an army.’[i] Tools were needed to dig for gold. Food was needed to stay alive while digging. Gin, rum and whisky were downed to keep the spirits up. Beer, on the other hand, was not drunk very freely; it cost too much to pack it in on the backs of horses or donkeys. Opium, ether and other drugs were mixed with alcohol and sold as patent medicine. Sex was sold by women keeping pubs or stores as ‘fronts’ for sex work. Although all these trades could be good earners, traders often went bust within a year or so.
     Two stores were set up not long after the rush to the diggings at Blackball.
     At some point in 1865 the first opened its doors on the wetlands where Blackball Creek and Ford Creek flowed into the Grey. Henry Hammett was the storekeeper. We know nothing about him other than that he and his wife had split up. Johanna Newenham, the wife, was dying on a goldfield in Victoria when the husband set up shop at Blackball.[ii] He sold, after a short while, to a man called Campbell. The new owner quickly flicked the store on to Mary Hewlitt and her husband Henry Mitchell. Mitchell had worked as a boatman on the Grey, ferrying goldseekers upriver from Cobden to Twelve Mile, before opening a store at Nelson Creek. Mary and Henry ‘carried it on for a short time’ but found themselves unable to make money. Campbell took back the ownership. Afterwards, he sold to Henry Hammett, who had ‘another try at it’ for a year or so before selling to a couple whose name would become legendary in Blackball: Georgina and William Kinsella.[iii]
     William Kinsella was an Irish school teacher, ‘very good at mathematics.’ Georgina Thompson married him in Hokitika in 1868 and they settled at the store not long after the wedding. They had a licence from the Nelson provincial government to run a ferry across the Grey. Also they had a licence to sell drink. Alexander Bowkett tells us that they built the store ‘early in 1870’ but since a store already had been on the site for five years the truth may be they simply rebuilt it more robustly. The new store sat on top of ‘very high piles because when the creek rose it flowed under the house.’ The Kinsella family were soon growing oats as well as running the store, pub and ferry. And they kept poultry: ‘turkeys, fowls, geese, ducks.’ They planted an orchard. They grazed and killed bullocks. William became a gold buyer, acting as an agent for the Bank of New Zealand.[iv] Georgina and William were soon bringing up a family.
     A second store was opened within a year or two of the rush to Blackball. William Williams opened his doors to trade in a rough clearing whose setting was the opposite of the other store in its swampy wetlands. A wooden building with two stone chimneys, it sat among the steep spurs and narrow gorges in the black beech forest of Upper Blackball, near where Clark Creek flowed into Blackball Creek.[v] Williams not only sold tools and food but also had a licence to sell drink.
     A third store was opened on the flats in the late 1860s by a man called Hughes, who had ‘come from the Coal Pits rush, and was some time also working in the locality.’[vi]
 


[i] Haast, H F von, The Life and Times of Sir Julius von Haast, Wellington 1948, p. 407.
[ii] Grey River Argus, 6 January 1866.
[iii] West Coast Times, 19 October 1870.
[iv] Bowkett, Alexander, Centennial of Blackball 1866-1966, Greymouth 1966, p. 7.
[v] Historic Site Records: Moonlight and Blackball Creeks (Westland) (heritage.org.nz), p 114.
[vi] West Coast Times, 19 October 1870.