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The Moonlight Legacy

(August 24th 2013)
Report by Coralie Smith

GEORGE FAIRWEATHER MOONLIGHT
By Arch Barclay, Bests Island

Arch Barclay got interested in Moonlight after befriending the Borcovsky family who mined a gold claim in the area Moonlight worked in. The stories they told spurred Arch to find out more about the man and although one booklet had been written by Paton-Boyd most articles just repeated the errors that the first article made. Arch's book endeavours to correct those errors.

The surname Moonlight has often been made out to be a made up name and was often used by Moonlight himself to poke fun or tell a good story about himself but it is a Scots name. John and Jean were George's parents and they were tenant farmers. George left the grim life on the farm at aged 15 years for a more exciting life at sea and on the Californian goldfields. This led him to the Otago goldfields, New Zealand when gold was found there. He was successful enough to be able to buy a ship which brought in exotic goods from Batavia(Jakarta).

Moonlight returned to New Zealand, first to the Collingwood gold fields then he followed a former Maori path through the Mangles, Matakitaki, Warwick and Maruia valleys to the upper Grey valley and on to the West Coast gold fields. He returned to Foxhill to marry Elizabeth Gaukrodger the publicans daughter but was soon away again to an area near present day Blackball which is named for him- Moonlight Creek. Here he struck big and was able to purchase 100 acres in the Warwick Valley. He did a two year stint at the White Hart Hotel in Richmond and it was here his two children Elizabeth and John were born.

The Maruia lured him however and this is where he set up his enterprise of accommodation house, pack teams, stables to cater for the miners flooding to the West Coast from Nelson. He didn't stop there however and built a store in Hampden (present day Murchison although lower down near the river) and a store at the Matkitaki. He was the unofficial mayor of Hampden building a hotel, stores, and a hall.

He had a soft spot for miners and tramps and this may have been his undoing as he was declared bankrupt in 1884 his wife having died in 1882.Arch suspects it was she who was the business brain of the family. The new owner of E Buxtons Ltd, Nelson, Frank Hamilton was the only creditor who called in his debt of four and half thousand pounds, other creditors perhaps repaying earlier debts to Moonlight.

Moonlight went goldmining but never returned, his body being found near Kawatiri. A subscription was called to help his orphaned children now 18yrs and 16yrs and to place a very large headstone on his grave at Wakapuaka cemetery, Nelson. Arch's book "The Moonlight Legacy" is available at bookshops and it is here that you will learn more about the man and his fellow miners who made our early history so colourfu.-the colour of gold.

 
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