Burke Manuscript

Burke Manuscript: Page 174

Transcript

The old Ferry Road Wharf in the fifties was a busy place. Numbers of small craft always about. Small craft men, towline men, carters, all kept the concern alive. Alexander Webb, the wharf owner, was a fine, intelligent Englishman, then middle aged, who had been in early life gardener in a Nobleman’s Estate. But he was not a strict business man. Things got into confusion. He went under. The writer afterwards saw him, with his then “mate”, as diggers, poor old Joseph Fuchs, on the Otago gold fields rush. Webb, true to his wharf instincts, for years worked the “Waihola” Lake, about Tokomairiro on the gold fields road as Ferryman and Wharfinger. Again he got into litigation. Probably he is dead and gone.

One of the Tow men, with horses and a line bringing up the small craft from the Heathcote ferry to Webb’s was Hugh Stace, a brother of John. He had a tongue, a Bargee tongue – “My Noble”, that was his peculiar familiarity. But, his language was, well, ornamental. Then there were the Lingards, Johnny Scorings and others I forget. John C. Aikman, also had a wharf in the curl of the River; Jones had one; he and his party left for Figi [sic] and were never heard of.

Mr Langdowne had to do with the River Trade with a schooner called the Mary Lucy Taylor owned by Capt. Taylor. She lay under embargo at Webb’s wharf for six long months. Mr Barracky Smith knows that. Once there was a “gay old time” at the wharves about ’59, when John Colin Aikman, a nice fellow, and at that time apparently a prosperous one took unto wife one of the daughters of Mrs Williams – It was lively – Poor Aikman, like more, he went down.