The Petersens: From Norway to Croydon Bush

By Justin Cahill

This is a memoir of the Petersens, one of the first families to settle at Croydon Bush, a farming district near Gore in Southland. Full of tales of Sydney convicts, Māori princesses and Norwegian whalers who jumped ship, their story is typical of the many thousands of settlers who came to New Zealand.

Caught up in the settlement of Auckland, the New Zealand Land Wars, Otago and Port Preservation gold rushes, the Petersens were among those involved in the closer settlement of the Waimea Plains.

This account tells how ordinary people built a new community – and a new nation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Justin Cahill
• Release date: Apr 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311142245

Justin Cahill

Welcome to my Smashwords profile. I am a New Zealand-born writer, based in Sydney. My main interests are nature and history. My thesis was on the negotiations between the British and Chinese governments over the return of Hong Kong to China in 1997. It was used as a source in Dr John Wong's Deadly Dreams: Opium, Imperialism and the Arrow War (1856-1860) in China, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998, the standard work on that conflict. I wrote a column on the natural history of the Wolli Creek Valley for the Earlwood News (sadly, now defunct) between 1992 and 1998. My short biography of the leading Australian ornithologist, Alfred North (1855-1917), was published in 1998. I write regular reviews on books about history for my blog,' Justin Cahill Reviews' and Booktopia. I'm also a regular contributor to the Sydney Morning Herald's 'Heckler' column. My current projects include completing the first history of European settlement in Australia and New Zealand told from the perspective of ordinary people and a study of the extinction of Sydney's native birds. After much thought, I decided to make my work available on Smashwords. Australia and New Zealand both have reasonably healthy print publishing industries. But, like it or not, the future lies with digital publishing. So I'm grateful to Mark Coker for having the vision to establish Smashwords and for the opportunity to distribute my work on it.

Book preview

Introduction

This is a memoir of Peter and Annie Petersen, the parents of Annie Laura Nicholson, my great-grandmother. They were among the first settlers of Croydon Bush, a farming district near Gore in Southland. But settling there was only the last in a series of episodes their families had gone through before arriving in that remote and beautiful place.

The Petersens are the most interesting branch of our family tree, but also the most enigmatic. The family history is full of tales of Sydney convicts, Māori princesses and Norwegian whalers who jumped ship, based on half-remembered stories and a few supporting documents. They are all told more fully in my book, A New Life in Our History.

As there were women named ‘Annie’ in four generations of the family, sometimes it’s hard to follow who’s who. There was Annie Laurie, who became Annie Edwards. Then there was her daughter, who became Annie Petersen. Then came her daughter, who became Annie Laura Nicholson. Lastly there was her daughter, who became Annie Dickey. To avoid confusion, when it is not clear which Annie is mentioned I have included her maiden name in brackets. I have referred to my great-grandmother, Annie Nicholson, as ‘Laura’, as that is how she was known. I have also provided a family tree so that you can keep track of everyone.

I am grateful to those who kindly helped me along the way by sharing their memories and lending me family photographs and papers. They include my grandmother, the late Doris Biggar (Nicholson), my great-aunt, the late Annie Dickey, my great-uncle Lewis Nicholson, my great-aunt Isabel Cunningham and their cousins the late Peter Alexander Petersen, Mary Palmer, the late Violet and Bessie Lynch, Rose Hawke, Gordon Hewlett and Terence and Dennis Casey. I am indebted to Jill Mitchell for her paper about the Edwards family, Where did she come from ???’, the ‘she’ being Annie Edwards (Laurie). I am also indebted to John Williams for his paper on Annie Edwards (Laurie), Who are Annie Laurie’s Parents ? I am also grateful to Nancy Nicholson, Russell Biggar, Graeme Biggar, my mother Kathleen Cahill (Biggar), the late Margaret van Sprang, April Fisher, Brenda Donovan, Auriette Gilmour, Ann Cooper, Maria Aiau, Anne Golding, Lynette Graham and Dale Nicholson for information and material.

Des Mataga kindly provided me with copies of the letters of Annie Edwards (Laurie) and family photographs collected by the late Dulcie Booker. Information on the Edwards, Perry and Baggott families was kindly provided by Jill Karetai, Nola Edmonds, Nerida Been, Bruce Perry, the late Stewart Smith, Anna Gratton, Lorraine McDonald and Murray Kelly. The late Paula Dickie, author of A History of Croydon Bush provided me with material from her files. Bruce Cavanagh of the Gore Historical Museum provided material from the Museum’s collections. The staff at the New Zealand Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages and the Dunedin Regional Office of Archives New Zealand were unfailingly helpful and efficient.

I was fortunate to meet Mary Plank, Peter and Annie’s last surviving daughter, in February 2001. Mary was 97 then and passed on some of the oral history of the Edwards and Petersen families. I am also grateful to Bruce Mitchell, who lives next to the land once held by the Petersen family at Croydon Bush and gave me a guided tour in 2007.

I went to the Petersen family reunion at Bluff in 2007 and often still often think of the amazing Bluff oysters, mussels and paua patties served up for lunch ! As there is another reunion this year, I offer this memoir of our pioneering ancestors. It is a work in progress, a living document that can be added to and corrected. I’ve detailed the sources used in the endnotes. There are, inevitably, mistakes and omissions in any history and I would be very happy to hear from anyone who wishes to provide additional material or correct errors. If anyone wants further copies of this book or of the family photographs used in it, just contact me at the above addresses.

Justin Cahill, Lindfield

16 February 2015

Stop Press

Thanks to research by members of the Norway Heritage website (www.norwayheritage.com), I think we can now say the Peter Petersen mystery has been solved. I am especially grateful to Vivi Bekk for her research and providing me with copies of original Norwegian documents and her translations of them.

24 February 2015

I

Mothers are often anxious about their daughters. The worries of Mrs Bennett, mother of five daughters in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, reflect what they go through. "The business of her life Austen tells us was to get her daughters married…".

While Annie Edwards (Laurie) could relate to Mrs Bennet, being deeply religious she took a more philosophic attitude to life. Even so, Annie was starting to worry. By 1880 she was the proud mother of four daughters. Elizabeth, her eldest girl, was 17. Mary, the next eldest, was only a year behind. But what kind of husbands would they get ?

That November Annie wrote to her cousin, Polly Gibbons, confiding her worries. Annie weighed up her daughters’ strengths. Mary, she wrote, was "…a clever girl she can do all manner of wool work…and cook…" As for Elizabeth, "…[she] is more for the dairy."

Annie understood that some parents took it upon themselves to find their daughters a "…good match…. But Annie and her husband, William, preferred to ...let them choose for themselves…. Even so, any future husbands had to measure up to certain standards. …I think a girl should [find] a good working man…" Annie explained to Polly. "[I]f…a girl can get a true gentleman she is lucky but nine out of ten make very bad husbands for girls for when the cash runs short they…do not know where to turn themselves [or] what to do…".

Elizabeth and Mary had no trouble attracting suitors. Elizabeth was being courted by Edward Henry Gibbs and Mary by Archie Ingram Baggott. Annie and Edward observed both men closely before giving their daughters permission to marry. Annie told Polly that "…it took a little time for us to make up our minds; it took some time to see that the young [men] were good workers and honest boys; and they have proved themselves all that…".

Elizabeth and Edward Gibbs were married in about 1879 and moved to Big Bay, on the west coast of the South Island. Mary Edwards and Archie Baggott were married in 1880. Annie shared her relief when sending Polly a piece of Mary’s wedding cake. "I have been busy with getting my poor girl away" Annie wrote "… it is a great relief to get them married and off your mind; they both [Elizabeth and Mary] have good husbands; that is one good thing they are not rich but very respectable young men and good workers …".

Another, not-so-young man would soon come under Annie and William’s scrutiny.

II

Peter Herman Petersen is one of the more enigmatic figures in our family history. Originally from Norway, he was quite short, had thick blonde hair, fair skin, striking blue eyes and was of "…a retiring disposition…". He was born sometime between about 1851 and 1857 to Peter or Daniel Petersen and Jeannie Johnston. Where they lived and how