# Charleston: Its Rise and Decline/Preface

PREFACE
THE history of Charleston, with its romance of gold-seeking and finding; the story of its pioneers and its later community life; its rise, decline and final desolation, has never been told; but told it should have been long since.
To-day the picture is lost, and the tale cannot be set out in full, for its first-day personalities have passed, and few records have been kept during the seventy-four years that have fled since its birth.
These chapters are but a collection of such facts as a careful search has discovered among the few available sources of information. From these and old photographs, deductions have been drawn, while oral statements of old residents, or their children, have been pieced together. Of the very earliest days none can speak from personal knowledge, but must rely upon hearsay, or even the memory of hearsay, both of which are extremely liable to err, for Memory is a fickle jade who plays many tricks.
If, despite careful sifting, inaccuracies have crept in, indulgence is craved. An honest endeavour has been made to picture and reconstruct the life of this once thriving town which is now hardly more than a name and a dot upon the map of the Nelson Province.
The life of an early goldfield township is entirely different from that of an individual. In man’s life, childhood is the period of innocence, and youth the period of learning—learning of things commanded and of things forbidden, with maybe some consideration as to which of the latter he will do when he grows up. With manhood comes the doing of things; and with age, memories, moralising and endeavours to rescue from ​forgetfulness some of the past. “Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers”—with a tinge of regret for the years that have fled, and the many things that have fled with them.
A goldfield’s childhood and youth were not periods of innocence and learning, but the most hectic of its life; not verdant but rainbow-hued; not waiting to do the things that ought not to be done, but leaving undone many that should be done. So it was with Charleston’s life, but with its manhood came the striving for things lawful and right—it succeeded, and saved its soul alive.
Grateful acknowledgment is made of information derived from the publications mentioned below or in the pages, and to those whose names appear below—and to others too numerous to list.
Copies of Charleston Argus; Westport Times and its Historical Supplement; Charleston Herald; Weekly News, Auckland; New Zealand Free Lance; Diamond Jubilee Souvenir of St. John's Church, Westport; The Church in New Zealand, by J. J. Taylor; Shipwrecks, New Zealand Disasters, by Ingram and Wheatley; Te Ika a Maui by Rev. Richard Taylor; Pioneering in New Zealand, by Bank of New South Wales; History of Nelson, by Lowther Broad; The Cyclopedia of New Zealand, 1906; Lucas’s Nelson Almanacs and Handbooks; New Zealand Directory, 1867, by Stevens and Bartholomew; The Diggers’ Story, by Pfaff; Tourist Guide, by Baeyertz; Reminiscences by Arthur Dudley Dobson; The History of Addison’s Flat Goldfields, by D. Moloney; Manual of New Zealand History, by J. H. Wallace; The History of Methodism by Rev. Wm. Morley, D.D.
The Heads of Government Departments, Church Authorities, and Head Offices of Banks; Governing Bodies of Lodges and Friendly Societies; The Chief Librarians of The General Assembly Library, Alexander Turnbull Library, Otago University Library, and Public Libraries.
Secretary of National Historical Research, Department of Internal Affairs; Secretary of Education Board, Nelson; Diocesan Secretary, Church of England, Nelson; Commissioner of Crown Lands, Nelson; District Land Registrar, Nelson.
PREFACE
Messrs. Dan. Moloney, Westport (particularly for loan of old newspapers); G. M. Powell, Westport; Miss Jessie Robertson, Charleston; Mrs. J. Sutherland (née Craddock), Westport; Mrs. J. Hartill (née Ballard), Wellington; Messrs. J. H. Powell, Charleston; L. Powell, Charleston; John Hardley, Auckland; Frank Dennehy, Barrytown; John Mouat, Wellington; The Hon. Mr. Justice O’Regan, Wellington; H. H. G. Ralfe, Nelson; Dr. F. A. Bett, Nelson (sketches of 1870); Mrs. Larsen (née Poole), Westport; Mrs. Henderson (née Poole), New Plymouth; Rev. M. A. Rugby Pratt, Christchurch; Mrs. Lindop (née Marris), Westport; Miss Nora Elliott, Wanganui; Mrs. Alfred Peters, Papanui; Messrs. A. P. Burke, Wellington; Ben Parsons, Wellington; R. K. Brown, Nelson; Percy Craddock, Wellington; Richard Allan, Charleston; J. A. Gallagher, Hastings; J. Lander, ex-Inspector of Police, Wanganui; E. Broad, Waipukurau; G. O. Fair, Richmond.
I.F.
Inglewood, Taranaki, N.Z., 1940.