Gold Mining on the Shotover Early Maori knew the Shotover River as Kimi Akau, meaning ‘looking for the coast’, perhaps referring to their search for a route to the West Coast. Although iwi knew of Central Otago’s gold, they had no use for it. Their gold was pounamu (greenstone), used for weapons and adornment. The first Europeans to discover gold on the Shotover were Thomas Arthur and Harry Redfern in November 1862, who recovered four ounces of gold at the site of the present Edith Cavell Bridge. In less than two months they won £4,000 of gold. A thousand miners flooded to the Shotover within a month; the rush to the ‘fabulous Shotover’ had begun. Raniera Ellison and Hakaria Haeroa made one of the richest finds, swimming across the Shotover to prospect a river beach, and finding 300 ounces of gold before nightfall at what is now known as Maori Point. Stories associated with the goldrushes, are recognised as being of international and national significance reflecting ‘a search for opportunity.’ The goldrushes were a major event in shaping New Zealand.. The Shotover was known as the second richest goldfield internationally after the Yukon. The Shotover was known as the ‘Richest River in the World’ but the initial rush was short. Archaeologist Jill Hamel writes that the mining at the Shotover illustrates the personal commitment of the miners: ‘In Dunedin the building of First Church was a commitment of energy, skill and devotion to create a great structure, which has become an icon of Otago’s history. Similarly the development of the huge alluvial mines in the Shotover required energy, skill and a belief that the technology would work, which at times must have had to be as profound as a church builder’s belief in God….The mines might even be considered to be a greater achievement, given the extremes of climate at Skippers, the tenuous road link to the outer world, the sheer labour of working in such steep terrain and the strain on anything approaching normal family life. We should consider the patterns left by alluvial mining in the Skippers landscape to be just as important as icons of our past as First Church.’ After the main rush the population shrunk to a few hundred men who had productive claims and were content to work them in the hope of a bonanza tomorrow. Tunnelling claims on the river terraces produced some spectacular results. One of the most well-known was at Pleasant Terrace. By the 1890s mining had ‘settled to a steady pattern of terrace exploitation using California sluice monitors.’ Pleasant Terrace Pleasant Terrace was a rich mining area and the centre of a small settlement. The Otago Witness reported that Pleasant Terrace had been worked since the earliest days of the district ‘with truly sensational success.’ The Terrace was about 150 acres, bounded by Pleasant and Stony Creeks and by the Shotover River. The population was such that in 1874 residents called for a post office, and petitioned the Chief Postmaster to that effect, arguing that there were several stores on the Terrace that could be appointed a post office. The miners lived near their tunnelling and sluicing claims. Tunnelling involved digging shafts (which were supported with timbers). The gravel deposits were in places over 150 feet deep. Sluicing was the only way to shift the overburden. This brought the problem of water supply and resulted in the construction of water races, requiring considerable capital. A famous encroachment lawsuit tells the story of Pleasant Creek’s buried wealth. In 1872, Henry Eager discovered his neighbours had encroached on his tunnel claim. Grace and party had driven through from their claim and for the previous year had been mining Eager’s gold. Eager sued Grace in the Warden’s Court for £12,000 damages. Eager was awarded over £8,000 but judged this insufficient and took the case to the Supreme Court. Eager issued execution papers and a bailiff seized Grace’s claim. Grace and a dozen men threw out the bailiff and retook the claim. Further litigation followed. In the end Grace paid out £4,000 in full settlement, but the legal costs amounted to several thousand pounds. The returns on the claims were such that the men cheerfully paid the fees. In the following three years £38,000 of gold was taken out of Grace’s claim. The value of the claim made ‘the whole mining community of Otago open its eyes with amazement.’ Further evidence of its value came when Henderson and Boyle Bros took £4,000 worth of gold from a small claim granted in the early days. All these early claims were worked with imperfect appliances in sluicing work and gold-saving plant. Later mining required higher investment and companies were formed to finance mining. By the early 1870s the Shotover Gold Mining Company’s claim on Pleasant Terrace was in full operation. Three relays of men worked eight hour shifts. The workings were ‘well timbered’ and tramways were laid down. Nearly two hundred trucks (180 tons) were taken out daily. Robert Johnson Around 1877 Robert Johnson acquired the water rights to the Terrace and his name became ‘inseparably connected with Pleasant Terrace, much to his benefit.’ It is not known whether the house that stands of Pleasant Terrace (now known as Sainsbury’s Huts, after a later owner) was built for Johnson or for an earlier miner. Facing the Shotover ‘there was a shallow run of gold from which Johnson obtained a very handsome competence in a few years.’ Johnson prospected the north end of the terrace and found that the line of Grace’s lead of gold carried gold into the gravel and that the gold extended through the whole length of the terrace from Pleasant Creek to Stony Creek. At Stony Creek the mining was started to make the gold accessible from Stony Creek on the downstream side of the terrace, so as to make the natural fall of the ground available in working the lead where Johnson worked. In 1895 Robert Johnson offered his ‘celebrated’ Pleasant Terrace Claim for sale by tender, along with ‘one of the best Water-rights in the district.’ The race was a mile long to the terrace ground with only a little piping. The claim was about 40 acres, and was for sluicing ‘virgin ground.’ The claim did not sell and Johnson continued to work it. Johnson was mapping the extent of the runs preparatory to tapping them by a rock tunnel tailrace. Johnson died in September 1908 aged seventy five. His obituary described him as one of the district’s pioneers. Johnson had carried on ‘extensive mining’ on Pleasant Terrace at Skippers for many years. His funeral was ‘very largely attended.’ He was buried at Skippers. The Twentieth Century Egbert Sainsbury moved into Robert Johnson’s house. The Sainsbury family had a long association with Skippers. Sainsbury had mined in the Skippers since the early 1860s. Journalist and historian F.W.G. Miller writes that Sainsbury was one of the first to make his home at Skippers. Sainsbury arrived at the Wakatipu diggings in 1862. With his two pack horses he began packing between the Dunstan and the Upper Shotover. Sainsbury could at that time, Miller writes, ‘wash an ounce of gold on the point of his shovel on his claim simply by blind stabbing, but generally he lost half of it while taking it out of the water.’ In 1919, eighty one year old Egbert Sainsbury fell to his death at Skippers while trying to remove sheep from the edge of a precipice. The First World War brought mining at Shotover to an abrupt halt. Commodity prices soared while the price of gold remained static. The area was abandoned. Gold mining was revived during the 1930s Depression when the Government offered a subsidy to men who were prepared to go gold mining. Skippers Limited mined at Maori Point beach in the mid-1930s using dredges. Tourists on day trips from Queenstown became frequent visitors to Skippers after the road was opened to vehicles in 1927. Skippers was promoted as a ‘wild and romantic mining district.’ Tourism replaced gold. Local historian Danny Knudson writes that there ‘prevails an atmosphere of enchantment. In some strange but appropriate way the area has an aura all of its own’ recalling the gold rush days in this spectacular setting. Tourism and outdoor pursuits lured people to the Skippers area. These values were recognised in the 1980s when the Department of Conservation bought Mount Aurum station and in 1982 declared 9,100 acres a recreation reserve. Pleasant Terrace was included in the reserve. The improvements, such as Johnson’s house (now known as Sainsbury’s Huts) remained private property with a license to occupy. Pleasant Terrace remains a spectacular reminder of the toil and riches of nineteenth century and twentieth century gold miners.

Setting Pleasant Terrace is located on the true right bank of the Shotover River in the mountainous back country north of Queenstown in Otago. Along with Skippers, this area is now a significant recreation and tourism area, another significant story in New Zealand’s history. The gold bearing gravels were ‘deep terrace deposits.’ These deposits ran through Pleasant Terrace, Burkes, Londonderry and Davis Terraces. These terraces south of Skippers township were sluiced for more than two kilometres, leaving very high faces. These terraces, including Pleasant Terrace, are, according to archaeologist Kevin Jones, part of the ‘important historic landscape’ that is the Shotover. Jones writes that these gravels were ‘worked continuously for 40 years up until 1909.’ They were worked until the 1950s at varying degrees of intensity. Pleasant Terrace is relatively unmodified so the archaeological landscape is readable and intact, providing special insight into the mining systems used here. Further, Jones writes that the ‘middle and upper Shotover may be treated as a synchronic relict cultural landscape (World Heritage Operational Guidelines 2005).’ That is, ‘most significant cultural elements of the landscape are all from the one era—goldmining 1861-1914.’ Pleasant Terrace can be considered a landscape area – ‘a terrace unit that is large enough to include supply races, dams/reservoirs, head races, working faces and tail races; and to include their relationship with the Shotover River and surrounding mountains. Dams and water races (leats) generally survive quite well in the modern landscape and are a prominent feature of landscape views. They are a key feature integrating wide areas of goldmining activity. Generally, a landscape unit will be defined at either end by the well formed gullies of the side streams to the Shotover.’ Archaeologist Jill Hamel also writes that the ‘sites in the upper river are part of a very large and complex system making up the Skippers Goldfield community’, and are relatively undamaged compared with other river workings. Mining was carried out within integrated systems – social, technological and physical: leaving evidence of their communities and their work. Pleasant Terrace had its own distinct geographical identity defined by the river terrace, but was also part of the wider Skippers community. Pleasant Terrace represents the terrace workings of this area in an easily readable and intact landscape. Other similar terraces (Londonderry for example) have been compromised because of the invasion of wilding pines. Other mining areas such as Bullendale (Category 1, Register No. 5601) represent quartz mining, while Wong Gong’s Terrace (Historic Area, Register No. 7549) represents the lives of Chinese miners in this isolated area. Hamel writes that each sluicing site was its own system – water was brought to the site by a race, held in a reservoir, conveyed to a head race for ground sluicing or a monitor for hydraulic sluicing and run through a tail race into a river. Figure 1: Pleasant Terrace (reproduced from Kevin Jones ‘‘Goldmining and En-closure on the Middle and Upper Shotover River, Central Otago, New Zealand,’ in New Zealand Journal of Archaeology, 2008, 29(2007), p.132.) Residential areas Jones writes that areas of substantial alluvial mining were ‘associated with small settlements marked by sod house ruins and ditch and bank enclosures.’ The enclosures kept stock out of gardens and yards. Jones suggests that the size of the largest enclosures often related to the one acre miner’s right but most were small because of the nature of the land. Jones writes that this means that the ‘earliest’ miners brought horses and sheep. There is a hut site with a forge (NZAA E41/40) located on the east side of Pleasant Creek in a sluiced area among tailings. The remains indicate it was a square house with three walls 3 metres by 3 metres in area. In the south-east corner there is a raised stone bench which may have been a forge. There is a large length of pipe outside the house and debris scattered outside. The walls of the house stand 1 metre high. There is another hut site evidenced only by the scattering of artefacts. It is located on the west of the Terrace on the south side of the pipe outlet from the second dam below the Johnson’s residence (NZAA E41/42). A further residence is indicated by an oval depression 50 centimetres deep and 3 metres by 3 metres in area. This is thought to be Tom Henderson’s hut; Henderson was an early miner in the area (NZAA E41/43). Some of the ground shows evidence of ploughing. This may have been for fodder crops for sheep. The ploughing looks to predate one of the water races. Robert Johnson’s House This house is thought to date from the 1880s and was built by (or for) Robert Johnson. Following Johnston’s death in 1908 the house was occupied by miner Egbert Sainsbury from 1916. Out the back of the house, partially demolished in 1976, was formerly a gold field store operated by Dominic Leydon (NZAA E41/44). The house is weatherboard with corrugated iron additions at the back. The associated outbuildings include a shed and a lean-to, and behind this is a pen made out of corrugated iron. The area behind the house had a fully equipped forge until the 1970s. The forge was removed in the 1970s. There is also a section of ploughed land on the outlier (a terrace east of Sainsbury’s hut across Johnson’s deep sluicing gully). Jones writes that the ploughing was likely nineteenth century and perhaps provided a fodder crop for sheep or horses. Workings There is a sluiced area at the southern extremity of Pleasant Terrace on the bank of Stony Creek, almost at its confluence with the Shotover. The workings are 200 metres across and run down to the creek for 100 metres. This area is known to have been worked by Mick Dwan around 1880 (New Zealand Archaeological Association Site Recording Form (NZAA)E41/37). Egbert Sainsbury worked a small area at Pleasant Creek, on the true right bank of the Shotover River. His workings are on the cliff just north of his residence (Robert Johnson’s House). This is a small sluiced area stretching for 100 metres. No piping or artefacts are visible (NZAA E41/45). Water Supply and Races There was no gold mining without a water supply. Water supply was made up of water collection and transport (water races), storage (dams and their associated reservoirs), delivery to the working face and its use in mining. These elements often left surface remains that show the working of the system. There are races at the southern end of the terrace, at the east side and a few sections of race on the north side. According to Kevin Jones the races that originally went across the surface of the outlier and to the eastern work faces are pre-1908. He also writes that the races were built with ‘extreme economy of effort’, for easy access to water for head races, rather than long term survival (as is more likely with long supply races). There are several water races associated with the Pleasant Terrace Workings. On the outlier of the terrace due east of the residence across a deep sluiced gully are three races. The three races are pre-1908 in age and carried water across the terrace before the terrace itself was sluiced. The gradient of the races are steeper than was typical for supply races, reflecting the need for rapid draw down of water for a ground sluicing face. The Skippers Sluicing Company’s race (NZAA E41/65) can be traced from Sawyers Creek to the true left bank of Pleasant Creek, where it is joined by three other races, above the Skippers Sluicing Company’s workings. There is another race, 400 metres long and 12 metres below this previous race, also running to Pleasant Terrace. These races are part of the water system of Skippers Sluicing Co. The race was built by Moody and Davies in 1890. It came into the hands of the Skippers Sluicing Co. which was refloated as the New Skippers Sluicing Co. This Company ceased operating around 1917 (NZAA E41/46). The race original started as a pipeline from the Roaring Meg. It was carried on a trestle down Skippers Creek, then in alternate sections of siphon and race out of Skippers Creek, over Sawyers Creek and over Londonderry Creek to the workings below Pleasant Terrace. On the Shotover most dams were built on sloping terraces. There are three surviving dams on Pleasant Terrace. The smaller dams represent ‘earlier efforts by small teams of informally organised men’, while the medium sized dams were company dams built on the terraces below Skippers Creek. Johnson’s Dam (NZAA E41/41) is north of the New Skippers GM Co. Dam and south of the residence. Archaeologist Kevin Jones writes that it appears to have never been fully functional since the northern end never quite filled, or perhaps has been infilled by gravel from the race. The dam is rectangular in form, 160 metres long and 50 metres wide. The walls are 1.5 metres high. In the north-west corner of the dam a length of fluming connects two races (the higher one being Johnson’s Race) running above the dam. At the south-east corner is a guillotine style outlet control. 100m along the east wall is an upright pipe which is connected to a submerged piping system which appears to control the outlet flow to the sluicings (NZAA E41/41). Johnson’s No.2 Dam (NZAA E41/34), located at the south west end of the Terrace marked by willows growing along the top wall of the dam, is the oldest dam. It is adjacent to most of the pre-1908 workings. It is a semi-circular shaped dam with the hill forming the fourth wall. There is an outlet in the south east corner of the dam. The inlet is not clear but a water race runs along the terrace towards the dam. Two races run above the west wall of the dam, and converge in the south west corner. The dam is 90 metres from north to south and 55 metres east to west. The New Skippers GM Co. Dam (NZAA E41/39) has, according to Jones, had ‘multiple phases of use’ – initial supplying water for ground sluicing, and then later use to feed a sluice monitor or reworking ground. The dam was supplied by ‘a massive race’ arising from Skippers Creek. It is semi-circular in form, the natural slope of the hill forming the rear wall. It is 100 metres long and 50 metres wide. Twenty five metres from the end of the east wall there is an outlet with large pipes running down to the sluicings. There is a smaller vertical pipe connected to these outside the dam wall. There is another outlet with large pipes in the southern wall. There appear to be two inlets, one from the lower water race, and one from the higher race cutting through the lower.