Hartley and Reilly

Look across the lake from here and you'll see Brewery Creek. 

Horatio Harley and Christopher Reilly first discovered gold near Brewery Creek in 1862, triggering the major gold rush that created the Dunstan Gold Field.

It is winter 1862. Imagine a fast-flowing river. Te Wairere, Lake Dunstan, was once used as a highway into the interior, an important trading and staging post for journeys inland and down river.

It had been a hard and bitter winter. As a result, the river level was low, exposing gold-bearing black sands and shingle bars.

American Horatio Hartley and Irish-American Christopher Reilly had paired up to seek gold. They worked quietly and secretly on the Clutha River, but it was not until they got to this spot where the Clutha and the Kawarau Rivers meet, that they stuck significant amounts of gold.

While the rest of Otago was sadly contemplating the passing of the gold era, they began to wash about 6oz of gold daily. At 2020 prices, this would have been worth almost NZ$14,000 per day.

(Dunstan Times, Issue 2640, 24 June 1912)

"By the time we arrived here our provisions were exhausted, and our tin dish broken by a fall on the hillside, so that we could only wash a few handfuls of dirt at a time.

We bought a little flour and borrowed a tin dish...and panned out forty ounces in a week."

Worried about being discovered and 'rushed', the pair continued accumulating gold in secret. One day, they were surprised by an old digger checking up on them. They put him off by telling tales of hardship and woe, but took his visit as a warning. They gathered up their hoard of gold, and travelled to the office of the Chief Gold Receiver in Dunedin. To his great shock and surprise, they lodged 1,000 oz of gold, claimed their reward of £2,000 and divulged the source of their gold. 

The Dunstan Gold Field was born.