BIRTH AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT
and a House of Representatives elected by the people. This system still exists. From 1876, Counties replaced Provinces in matters of local administration.
The seat of the Buller County Council, which included Charleston, was at Westport. The first meeting was held on 4th January, 1877, the Charleston representatives being Messrs. Walker and Moore. Mr. J. H. Powell, of Westport, also was a Councillor. In 1880 an agitation was started to have the Council’s Headquarters and Office removed to Charleston, the latter having about double the population of Westport; but the appeal was not entertained.
On 26th September, 1907, New Zealand received the status of a Dominion. Of the provinces of the South Island under the system of 1853, Nelson was the most populous, having 5,000 inhabitants.
Charleston and Westport were, and still are, in the Nelson Province, the coast to the south being at first a part of the Province of Canterbury and later, in 1873, constituting the Province of Westland. The dividing line between the Nelson and Westland Provinces is from the sea to the Southern Alps, passing close to the little town of Ikamatua. The Buller district, and south of it, was the South-West Goldfield.
The birth of Charleston was, it is believed, at Candlelight, a flat immediately south of the Broomielaw Creek, about a mile and three-quarters south of where the town of Charleston was finally established, and where more lasting supplies of gold were found.
Linahan and his mate or mates had pitched their tent beside a small creek and, while one drew water, another held aloft a “digger's lantern,” a clear glass bottle with its bottom removed and a piece of candle set in the neck. By this flickering light the creek-bed showed yellow, not with yellow mica, the “new-chum’s gold” which has raised so many false hopes and broken so many hearts, but with what their experienced eyes told them was gold—much gold. So was Charleston born in 1866.
The birth of this new goldfield was a romance, not the first of its kind upon the Coast, but such as it never will see
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