Page 17 - rigneymaster

One Man’s Goldfield: the story of the Horseshoe Bend Diggings, William Rigney and Somebody’s Darling

Amongst the memories passed down from Bella Stevenson is one of climbing Billy
Goat Hill (above the lonely graves) and watching hen houses being swept down the
flooding Clutha River (presumably the 1873 flood).

Wises Directory of 1880 records that there were one hundred Chinese miners at
Horseshoe Bend at the time. No names are recorded. The newspapers of the time
paint a picture of the Chinese miners working either alone or in small groups to mine
the river bank with cradle and pan. Some must have been more ambitious as it is also
recorded that one party made attempts during four successive years to divert the river
with a wing wall so that they could mine its bed. Each time they were defeated by the
river and they gave up after the fourth attempt.

Stewart’s Island Block Accommodation House and

the Horseshoe Bend Post Office

Stewart’s Horseshoe Bend Accommodation House was also the location of the
Horseshoe Bend Post Office.

Figure 8 Horseshoe Bend Post Office

The following extract comes from the book “Pure Gold and Rough Diamonds”
published by the author, J B Hislop in 1943. The book tells of the author’s
experiences as a travelling (motorcycle) representative for his family’s Dunedin
jewellery business in the days before the First World War. The section dealing with the
“Horseshoe Bend Hotel” goes as follows:

“I was returning home through the great Teviot fruit district, by motorcycle this time, on
a 7hp Bat, the first heavy machine to go through the Central….It was with this heavy

© Jeff Robertson 17