Many Thamesites turned to farming after the mining finished, especially as the land on the Hauraki Plains was drained and developed. Some men returning from war were lucky enough to get a land ballot, that would set them up as farmers for generations to come. Places like the libraries around Thames have books that cover many of these stories, as well as The Treasury. Information can be found in book, maps and oral history format. The electoral rolls also give information on early farmers around the district.
Books such as "The Hauraki Plains Story" by R E Tye and history books covering the Hauraki Plains by Ken Clover - have been indexed at The Treasury.
The photo below is labelled as the first cattle sale on the Hauraki Plains in 1912. It was labelled as A SURE SIGN OF PROGRESS. Bert Dunlop conducted the sale on behalf of the Farmers Auctioneering Company. Until the late 1900s there were numerous sale-yards all over the Coromandel Peninsula/Hauraki area. They were busy days. Places like the Kopu Sale-yards full of stock. Times have changed and while some still exist, their role has changed.
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| ' Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, AWNS-19120502-13-1 Auckland Weekly News 2/05/1912 |
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| Thames Star 22 April 1912 |
In 1910 large blocks of land had gone on sale at Pipiroa. Click on the link to view the full details of the sales. If you right click and save the image, you can enlarge it and view in detail the farming blocks that were for sale.
A small snippet of the map is below.
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| Source: 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZ Map 4337' |
