The Portland daily press., 1897-06-24
Death Of Portland Man Who Owned
Landl Ia New Zealand.
WAS ROBBED OF PROPERTY BY
BRITISH GOVERNMENT.
All Efforts to Obtain Redress Failed
Though Secretaries of Stale From Ar.
Webster's Down Made Attemps-Ap-
pointment of Son of Major Dickey of
Fort Rent to Callao Consulsnip.
ESPECIAL TO THE PREss.l

Fort Rent to Callao Consulsnip.
ESPECIAL TO THE PREss.1
Washington, June 23.-News has been
received here from Baltimore of the death
OF William Webster in that city on June
10. Mr.. Webster was rs years of age,
and was native of Portland, Maine.
He is well-known in Washington as the
possessor of one Of the oldest and most
interesting claims before the United
States government. This claim has had
the earnest attention of American Secre-
taries of State from Daniel Webster to
Blaine, and although apparently we'll
grounded, Mr.. Webster has died without
realizing anything from it. In the year
1895, Mr.. Webster went to the island of
New Zealand and engaged in shipbuild-
ing and the mercantile trade. OF course
those were wild and woody days of New
Zealand, before the English had taken
possession and when the tattooed chief
tain exhibited in the biographies Of the
fathers was in full glory. Mr.. Webster
was very successful in his trade with the
natives, acquired their confidence, and
then considerable of their real estate.
In all he got about 500, 600 acres of land,
which cost him, Improvements and all,
about $4,000. These purchases were
made between 1887 and 1889. No foreign
government had at that acquired any
sovereignty over New Zealand and the
titles which Mr.. Webster had were from
the native chiefs and tribes, in the
usual forms known to their institutions.
But about this time there was trouble
brewing for Mr.. Webster in London. Ed
ward Gibbon Wakefield, man who had
served a term in Jail for abduction, but
whose intellectual abilities were so great
that he succeeded in impressing his
ideas upon the people of his time, was
agitating the subject of New Zealand
colonization. In 1889 he organized in
London the New Zealand company, of
which Lord Durham was chairman
They had not acquired title to single
acre of land which they were going to
colonize, yet sold the lands which they
expected to take. They arrived in New
Zealand in 1889 on the ship Tory. In
1910 a British consul came, and then
came trouble for those who held land
under the native titles.
The final result was that there were
commissions to settle such cases, and Mr..
Webster's claim was cut down from
100000 acres to about 1000 acres. How
ever. he succeeded in getting partial jus
tice on this by second commission
which allowed that he had Ii, 900 acres.
Meanwhile, in defending his property,
Mr.. Webster had incurred debts for
which he was thrown into Jail in Austria
lila when he was on his way to America,
and the 1900 acres which the British
commissioners awarded to him were
swallowed up by those debts,a and the land
went to British subjects. Thus, Mr.
Webster, who had been one of the most
enterprising men there, building ships,
establishing whaling stations, erecting
water mills, etc., was RUNE d. 1t is
claimed that there are official records of
the New Zealand government which show
that the titles to over 10000 acres of the
webster lands were allowed, but that MIR.
Webster was defrauded out of the advan-
tage of them.
& Mr.. Webster made a claim against the
British government, and our government
began to press it upon the attention of
that government as early as when Daniel
Webster was Secretary of State. But all
efforts were unayailing and Mr.. Webster
has died without getting the recompense
for which he worked SO hard in New
Zealand, in London and in the United
States.
Mr.. Webster's widow, who survives
him, is a sister of Mr. G. Fl. Evans, of
Washington the statistician who has been
employed in the drafting of the Dingley
bill.