Taieri Recreational Tramping Club

Donald Reid was ambitious, disciplined, far-sighted and a hard worker. He was born on a farm in Fifeshire, Scotland and it had always been his ambition to own his own farm.
With his two young brothers and his widowed mother, who had just remarried, he arrived at Port Chalmers in 1849. He was fifteen years old. In two years’ time he was grazing his own bullocks at Breadalbane, North Taieri. Before he took up 62,000 acres at ‘Salisbury’ in 1857, he had gained experience at the Valpy Farm at Forbury and had also operated his own farm at Caversham for two years, where he had succeeded in bringing swamp land into cultivation.
By 1857 there were clay-walled thatched roofed cottages sparsely dotted round the foothills of North Taieri well above the swamp of the central plain. Reid built a peesy (or pise [with e acute]) which was his highland name for the Australian named wattle and daub cottage. He brought the water supply right to the cottage with a tap on the verandah. He called his property ‘Salisbury’, as the hills reminded him of Arthur’s Seat and the Salisbury Crags, Edinburgh. Gradually the wilderness of high fern, manuka scrub and flax became a model farm: the flax and fern roots were broken up by ploughing with oxen; bricks were burnt on the property to build accommodation for the men; shelter belts of blue gums, macrocarpus, wattles and pinus insignis, ornamental trees such as poplars, weeping willows and hawthorn hedges were planted, and a plantation of gum trees were started with seed from Australia. ‘Salisbury’ was almost a self-contained community where most of their requirements were produced, including candles and soap. By 1865 the change from grain growing to sheep grazing had been made and it became one of the best grazing estates in Otago, splendidly watered and well sheltered with belts of trees.
When gold was discovered in 1861, Reid made a bargain with his men. They agreed not to abandon their farm duties for the goldfields until their important summer work was over. In return, Reid supplied transport, equipment and supplies for three months whilst they worked a claim together. This claim brought them more than their usual share of luck. Reid also ran a carting business to the diggings taking farm produce and stores, making a trip each way every week with a bullock dray.
… The first Mrs Donald Reid died in 1868 and he married Mrs Price in 1874.
… Donald Reid was one of the outstanding men on the Taieri and in Otago. His interests were wide including farming, transport, Harbour Board, politics and the development of industry and local affairs. He served continuously on road boards and school committees and donated the glebe of 10 acres on which the North Taieri Church and manse stand; he was instrumental in the passing of some early land Acts and in Sir H. Atkinson’s government, after the Abolition of the Provinces in 1876 he was Minister of Lands and Public Works. When he retired from public life in 1878 he commenced the business of auctioneer and stock and station agent which … developed into the … large concern.
His journey of 24 miles to Dunedin and back each day involved three to four hours’ travel in all weathers, part of it in an open buggy. in 1911 Reid made the decision to sell ‘Salisbury’ and the following year it was purchased by Mr L C Hazlett who retained the flat land for grazing his race horses and built the four cottages between ‘Salisbury’ and the North Taieri Church.
From 1945 to 1965 Mr E C S Falconer of Dunedin owned the property… The present owners are Mr and Mrs P O McDonnell. To maintain the ‘Salisbury property in its former condition would be costly and a great deal of work. Young Mr and Mrs J W Penno [who] now live in the house… – “Taieri Buildings” 1970 by Daphne Lemon

Starting from a whare of stones, built by Mr Birnie in 1857 at the junction of Whare Creek and the Silverstream, the settlement at Whare Flat consisted manly of Scots, nearly all of whom spoke Gaelic. The first school opened in 1868 in a ‘but’ and ‘ben’ with Mr Neil McLeod as the teacher. The earliest roll call has a strong highland flavour: Macmillans, McQuilkans, Camerons, Kays, McDoalds, McInnesses, McLachlans, Jollys, McKenies, Leishmans, Pages, McRaes, McIntyres, Andersons, Hays, Thomsons, Rollinsons, Lambs, Lennies, Dodds, Gilchrists.
Later, the present wooden schoolhouse and school were built and Mr Robert Leishman, who owned the only bullock dray in the valley carted all the timber. This one-class, sole-charge school had 42 pupils at one time before it closed in 1943 and the pupils came from as far as Strath-Taieri and boarded in the valley during the week. The building was the centre of social, educational and religious life of the community and on Sundays public worship was held there by preachers from Knox Church and later from North Taieri Church, with Dr Stuart presiding on special occasions.
The first southern exit from Dunedin was by Halfway Bush along the Silverstream to North Taieri so that this settlement, with its two flax-mills and rope works, was until about 1860 a busy highway. Travellers would be mainly on foot, carrying heavy loads as bullocks and horses were scarce. Stock for the farms was driven this way from Port Chalmers and Dunedin where it was landed from Australia and thousands of sheep passed each year at shearing time to and from the woolshed on Flagstaff. About 100 diggers set to work on the surrounding hills when gold was discovered at Darkie’s Gully and there was said to be an illicit still at Powder Creek. In the mid 1870s however, the Dunedin Corporation took over the whole area as a watershed and the settlers gradually moved out as the trees were planted. – “Taieri Buildings” 1970 by Daphne Lemon