John Cunnard was one of the first to operate a canvas constructed drinking establishment at Cardrona. He’d originally been at the Arrow diggings and in April 1863 had submitted the lowest price of £6 a cairn for the first trail markers to be erected in the district. He disposed of his share in his Arrow Claim in January 1864. Richard Norman repeats the tale he was told by John Kerin of how the enterprise was nearly lost.
Cunnard left the district for a few days leaving a barmaid in charge. Said barmaid being a rather enterprising individual, decided to raffle the business. Cunnard arrived back before the draw was made. He salvaged the situation by offering to shout for all the participants. After Cunnard left Cardrona he spent some time at The Gentle Annie before moving north to Arrowheuna in South Canterbury where he spent his remaining days as the local storekeeper. Cardrona businesses initially got a lot of passing trade because the route over the Crown Range was favoured over tough slog up the Kawarau Gorge as a means to reach the Wakatipu from Central Otago.
The prominent early storekeeper of Cardrona was Thomas Pringle. Pringle’s store was the main geographical feature for Cardrona used as a reference point for mining leases. Warden Broad from Arrowtown rated him highly and stayed with him when visiting the area. Thomas sold out to Peter Aitchison in July 1864 and later established himself as a storekeeper on the West Coast. Thomas Pringle became well known for his photographic depiction of South Westland.
The early enthusiasm of the December 1862 discoveries attracted the entrepreneur but with the boom short lived the number of stores exceeded what the population warranted. This competition ensured prices at Cardrona were considered low by comparison with other remote areas. This wasn’t to last. The number of stores and hotels quickly reached a sustainable level. Cardrona was an expensive place to operate a business from as cartage for goods from Dunedin was quoted at £22 per ton in 1866. The storeowner or hotelier could augment their business by acting as a defacto gold buyer and then on-selling to the bank agent when he came to town. The Warden at Arrowtown in 1864 complained that he had the difficult job of administrating the gold field but an agent of the Bank of NSW from Cromwell was buying the gold and the value of the gold was being credited to the Cromwell area.
Another early settler on the scene was Henry Maidman who made his home in the Cardrona and operated a haulage operation in the district. In late 1864 he married, secured a residents area in Cardrona in February 1865; he later built a hotel and store at Luggate and settled there. Two others who operated a store at Cardrona in those early days were John Ferguson and Samuel Harwood, but in September of 1864 they dissolved the partnership and went their separate ways. Englishman, John Pearce, came from the Victorian goldfields in the early days leaving his wife and family in Australia. He began doing well in Cardrona and in 1866 his wife Rebecca and three children were brought to Cardrona to live. Unfortunately John succumbed to a fever in 1875. The widow Pearce took out a mining right in her own name then opened a store to provide a living for the family. In 1882 she moved the family to Mount Barker where the family established a farm.
The commencement of the gold rush to the West Coast in 1865 led to a decline in the mining population of the Otago goldfields. Men left both families and payable claims to chase the new bonanza. Of course, many did not succeed and had to return, capital and spirit depleted, to Otago. The abandoned workings were taken over by others including Chinese who were working on their own account throughout the Otago goldfields. Cardrona and Nevis were particularly favoured, but Chinese miners did not like underground workings. Initially they had congregated very much in the upper Cardrona Valley but later tended to operate further down the valley near Branch Creek. They favoured panning and surface sluicing operations, were considered very industrious and would make wages by reworking old claims.
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First published in “Cardrona – 150 Years in the Valley of Gold” by Ray O’Callaghan.