1859: Northport
November 7, 2019
By AHNZ
Saltwater Creek, nought but a ‘locality’ now. It was to be Northport, the main town and port for North Canterbury. But among other things, the flood 150 years ago simply ruined the place. Nothing much going on there now but a stretch of beauty at high tide.
The initial opening was 22 October, 1859. However, as the idea did not fly it got a publicity reboot on 7 November, 1860.
Northport, along with other contenders, lost the Game of Thrones battle to Amberley in the end. It was undermined by the Provincial Government playing games with where the railway would go, and by their creating of paper towns like Sefton. Thus after only about a decade, Northport was allowed to silt up to become the stranded backwater we bypass on our rush to the Picton Ferry.
The founder was Christopher Edward Dampier, the Solicitor for the Canterbury Association and then the Provincial Council. Northport was to be his retirement plan- market, shipping, trading centre for the whole province north of Ashley! But Dampier would need all his political influence and legal expertise to have established his town. I think a new generation of ticket-clippers and pull-peddlers ousted the Old Wolf and thwarted his hopes.
The Old Guard CP Council supported Dampier and needed him. Named a street and even a bay in Lyttleton for him. Possibly even New Zealand’s third highest mountain (is that so?) They needed a man of his talents- a professional London lawyer- to establish the colony. Dampier and his folios of vital legal swindle sheets arrived shortly after Godley himself and prior to First Fleet in 1850. Yet by 1870 it was in ruins and Dampier, now 70, had gone home to England where he died the following year.
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Images: AHNZ Archives, May 2018
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