Lu.
Re your reply #23, Mr “B” = Mr BATKIN, Annie’s brother in law.
Below a continuation of the quote in that thread. At that time Mr BATKIN, was felling bush, like his neighbours, in an endeavour to establish pastures of English grasses. Note Messes B., will probably be POTTS, or RONALDS, from the published passenger lists. B, P & R can be similar from a hand writing perspective. Must say I'm a little surprised that Annie's account of the passengers she spent 100 [?] days with, don't necessarily marry up that well. Another reason I struggled to identify the Simlah, as the vessel they travelled on.
“One day we were astonished to hear that Mr B. had taken three young men as cadets, and to my surprise they were our fellow passengers, the Messrs B. We had not liked them much on board, but not wishing to discourage my sister, I said nothing, but felt glad that my husband thought of staying in Auckland and fetching me soon. "It was heavy work bush-falling; my sister and I, with the children, used to go out and see Mr B. and the brothers B. logging up, I think they called it, and they made such enormous fires, it was a pretty sight at night. Though such heavy work they seemed to like it.……….. There was one paddock that had been cut down at first and was now sown in grass. No need of a plough, the seed was roughly cast, and came up most abundantly. My brother-in-law said he would rather have one hundred acres of bush land, after it had been cleared, than have five hundred acres of fern land. They worked like labouring men from early morning until dark, and in the evening we used to light fires round the house to keep the mosquitos off. They were terrible, but having curtains round the beds, we were safe from their bites, and I rather liked to hear them singing outside.”
Thank you once again. Can only spend a little time on it tonight, and hope to visit the Waiuku Museum on Sunday afternoon when they open to the public; my farm willing.
Alan.
