Toward the end of 1849 Martha Smith was expecting her sixth child. Walter was born on 30 October 1845 and Mary Anne on 11 November 1847. One would have thought that she and Ben would have been content to remain in Auckland; but no, once again they were packing for a new venture. This time they had to plan with care, for William Benjamin, the eldest son, was only ten years old and Mary Anne had just celebrated her second birthday. The dream now was not for land but for lovely gold nuggets. Foolish perhaps, but reports from California were good and if a greater independence was eventually to be gained, then any effort was worthwhile.
Nothing interesting had happened since the Court hearings except that earlier in the year they had attended the first Agricultural and Horticultural Society’s exhibition at Mechanics Bay, Auckland. Ben had won first prize with his carthorse and his friend Mr Crummer had a win with his thoro’bred mare. The day had been enjoyable with Governor Grey in attendance and the Band of the 58th Regiment enlivening the scene with “choice” music.
The news of the finding of gold in California reached Auckland in December 1848; it reached Sydney in December 1848 when The Sydney Morning Herald reprinted stories of the strike earlier reported in a Honolulu newspaper. The first of the “forty-niners” were soon on their way. The Eleanor Lancaster sailed from Sydney for San Francisco on 21 January 1849.
Aucklanders were excited when The New Zealander mentioned that James Wilson Marshall had found gold at Sutters’s Mill on the banks of the Sacramento River, and so a shipload of eager seekers set sail in the schooner Deborah, and they arrived at their destination on 21 June 1849. Many ships were to follow with passengers embarking both on ships leaving direct for San Francisco and others, from Australian ports, calling for water and supplies at Auckland. Few ships sailed from Wellington.
The business community of Auckland was alive to the opportunities for the disposal of their produce and many a ship’s manifest reveals cargoes of potatoes, onions, maize, oats, pickles and cheeses, these goods to be sold on the San Francisco market. When there was little deterioration, the goods sold well; but more often than not, these comestibles were rotten on arrival. The best cargo was considered to be timber and housing materials.
Early in 1850 three ships, the Shamrock, the Fanny, and the Gloucester (ex Sydney), sailed from Auckland with substantial cargoes of sawn timber, housing timber, houses in frame, nails and bricks. The Shamrock, a schooner of 80 tons and carrying three passengers, Messrs Own, Monk and Sherancke, apparently did not arrive at her destination. The Fanny arrived safely. The Gloucester had departed Sydney with 71 male and 22 female adults and 13 male and 13 female children. She departed from Auckland on 30 January 1850 and her safe arrival was reported in The New Zealander on Saturday 3 August 1850:
Arrival in San Francisco.
28 May Colonist, 28 Gloucester, 2 June Johnson, 5 June Reaper, 22 June Two Friends, 27 June Commodore also Hamlet, Josephine, Sir John Frances, Lallah Rookh, and Spec arrived previously to the sailing of the Daniel Webster on 28 June for Auckland.
It was just as well for our story that the Gloucester did arrive safely. On board were Benjamin Smith, Martha and their six children. On 23 March 1850, 52 days out from Auckland, Martha had been delivered of her second daughter, Priscilla. One cannot help admire Martha’s indomitable courage and fortitude. Her trials were just beginning.
Apart from the Smiths, there were only two named passengers on the Gloucester from the Port of Auckland , Dr Cook and Captain Nagle. It would appear that Ben was accompanying the timber shipment, some of which would have been carried on his account for he was a prudent and enterprising man. According to The New Zealander, an Auckland newspaper:
The ship, listed A1 at Lloyds, was of 297 tons and her Commander was Captain D Tardiff. She had sailed from Sydney on 23 December 1849; but when about 90 miles from land it was discovered that she was leaking, the pumps being choked or otherwise defective, were unfit to reduce the water she was taking in. It was deemed advisable to return to Sydney where she arrived on the 25th and after examination and repairs she sailed again on the 28th December. She had called at the port for water and other provisions, and will it is said ship some timber also – J Macky, Agent.
On Saturday, 26 January 1850, Mr Macky placed the following advertisement in the same paper.
First Vessel for California.
The A1 Barque, Gloucester, D Tardiff, Commander, will sail for the above port immediately; has room for 50 tons of freight, four cabin and eight steerage passengers. For freight and passage apply James Macky, Queen Street.
The cargo list appeared in the newspaper on 30 January and read as follows:
Original cargo from Sydney but shipped Auckland – 100 cases Potatoes (5 tons), 30 cases Onions (1 ½ tons), 1066 pieces of timber, 15000 feet ditto, 15000 shingles, 81 bundles of housing timber, 3300 feet sawn timber, 74 bags of oats, 44 packages of housing timber, 375 pieces of timber, 4500 pieces of timber, 130 bushels maize, 43 bushels oats, 700 lb onions, 8 cases pickles and 48 cheeses.
Auckland’s business community was certainly endeavouring to make the most of the opportunity offered!
We have no evidence from the Smiths about the conditions obtaining in San Francisco at the time of their arrival in May, except that the city had, a few days earlier, been subjected to fire damage and that further outbreaks occurred at intervals. One of the passengers, who arrived at San Francisco in the Fanny on 30 August 1850, was to write a letter, which was reprinted in The New Zealander on 1 December 1850. This letter would surely have been of more than passing interest to families contemplating the voyage, had it been possible to receive the information it contained at an earlier date.
He wrote:
We dropped anchor on 30 August in this port … The town of San Francisco is on the beach, and may contain about 30,000 population of all shades and nations – but such a town! Why there are not as many houses here as in Auckland; the richest merchants’ warehouses, banks, hotels and offices being no more than tents or sheds made of unburnt bricks, and roofed with canvas or calico. Property is a mere drug on the market – there are as many goods lying in the sheds as would furnish a large city for years to come; indeed, there are many ships lying in the harbour now not discharged, as their cargoes would scarcely pay the expenses of landing. But to turn to the sunny side of the picture. All the accounts we have heard of this place fall short of the reality – money is looked upon here as dirt; the commonest labourer, if he has good health, is about t the best off … Timber is exceedingly scarce and likely to be so for some years to come; the timber that belonged to the passengers per Fanny sold by auction at from £60 to £70 per thousand. There is plenty of timber in this country – but although sawing would yield a high price, yet the great majority of people prefer going to the mines and to take their chance. Town land is rather dear. My intention is to get used to the climate before I go to the mines.
Now of the mines: there are vessels leaving here every day for the settlements on the rivers; these are always full of passengers. The fare is an “ounce” or sixteen dollars; they land you about hundred and fifty miles up. Then there are wagons to convey luggage from the landing place in various directions to the mines 30 or 40 miles off. At these places the diggings commence and each person pitches his tent; they may amount in all to 300 or 400 tents at one of these encampments. The owners – for the greater part scatter themselves all over the country looking for gold – coming back to the encampment occasionally for a supply of provision. There are but a few instances of theft known, as the Lynch Law is summary. The Americans and English here appear to be of one nation from the similarity of language and they look upon all others as foreigners nor will they allow the Mexicans, Peruvians, etc, to dig at some of the rivers.
Now I would not advise you not to come here by any means; the people who come here should be of strong constitution, used to hard work and have no encumbrance in the way of family, they should likewise be strictly temperate. The chief complaints are diarrhoea, cold with rheumatism, fever and ague”
Ben, Martha and family travelled all the way to the diggings and made their headquarters in a covered bullock wagon – the kind we frequently see in movies of the old Wild West. While Ben went prospecting, Martha taught her children their lessons and cared for them; however, after Mary Ann had the misfortune to fall down a well, and the luck to be rescued, Martha decided that she had had enough of prospecting, and that the family had better move on once more while there were still funds available from their trading ventures. Ben had not been a successful miner. San Francisco had little to offer as a place for permanent residence; it was a town of lawlessness and crime and no place for families. The Smiths decided to return to England, and this they did, but not to stay. In England they embarked again for the antipodes on the Euphrates, 557 tons, sailing from Plymouth on 10 February 1852 for Sydney, arriving on 25 May 1852. Once more Ben succumbed to the lure of goldfields. It was a small success at last, and so there was a visit to Adelaide. They decided not to settle there and sailed from Sydney to New Zealand in the Raven with sufficient money not only to buy land and livestock but also to cushion the family through periods of difficulty. The passenger list of the Raven reported in The New Zealander of Saturday 26 March 1853, confirms their arrival date at Auckland.
Arrival – March 23, Raven ex Sydney, brig 170 tons, James Thompson.
Passengers, Mr and Mrs Watson, Mr and Mrs Rivale, Mr and Mrs B Smith and six children, Mr and Mrs Harrison and four children, Messrs Dougherty, Inglis, Rice, Janes, John Dod, Bloxland, Roberts, Robinson, William Cork, E Cook William Shael, Michael Rice, T Gordon. The brig Raven did not leave Sydney till Saturday twelfth instant. She arrived on Wednesday last only one day after the H B M Fantome although the latter sailed on the fifth. The Raven has brought 100 sheep and six horses which have been landed safely and in good condition.
The family moved into a house in Durham Street, Auckland, and Ben Smith recommenced work as a carpenter. He had arrived in Auckland just early enough to be able to read a Proclamation made by Sir George Grey in April 1853: that under the new Constitution granted by Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, to the people of New Zealand, the Provinces would be created of Auckland, New Plymouth, Wellington, Nelson, Canterbury and Otago and that town lots and rural lands would be sold under conditions as set out in the Constitution. Clause 7 of Section 3 made provision for the sale of rural lands outside the hundreds. This land was to be sold by Auction or at a fixed price of 10 shillings per acre in certain circumstances. Accordingly, /Ben was able to purchase 222 acres in the Papakura Rural District for the sum of £99.18.0 – the property he named “The Travellers’ Rest”. The Deed of Grant was issued on 25 July 1854 and the purchase recorded on page 78 Auckland Gazette 1854 “Schedule of Rural Lands sold at Auction 1 – 28.2.1854 for Lands sold under the New Regulations of 4 March, 1853”.
The schedule set out the following:
| Locality | quantity soldacres, roods | purchasers | amount£. s. d. |
| Karaka | 197 | William Buckland | 88.13.0 |
| Ramarama | 200 | J. Reid | 100.0.0 |
| Papakura | 222 | B. Smith | 99.18.0 |
| ditto | 111 | G. Groucher | 49.19.0 |
| Maraitai | 83 | Mary Campbell | 39.8.6 |
| Mahurangi | 9 | M. Angrove | 4.3.6 |
| Waiwauwau | 87 | William Swanson | 39.3.0 |
| Waitemata | 139 | Rice Owen Clark | 62.11.0 |
| Whangaroa | 100 | Joseph Graham | 47.10.0 |
| ditto | 608 | J. C. Johnstone | 276.12.9 |
| ditto | 83 | ditto | 37.7.0 |
| ditto | 237 | ditto | 106.13.0 |
| Karaka | 600 | James Burtt | 237.0.0 |
| ditto | 293 | J. Williamson | 131.17.0 |
| Ramarama | 316 | ditto | 142.4.0 |
| Waikato | 332 | J. C. Johnstone | 149.8.0 |
| Karaka | 227 | G. Simpkins | 102.3.0 |
| ditto | 100 | J. Green | 45.0.0 |
| ditto | 192 | T. S. Forsaith | 86.8.0 |
| ditto | 147 | Rev J. Hobbs | 66.5.0 |
| ditto | 112, 2 | Rev J. Buller | 56.5.0 |
| ditto | 182 | J. Green | 81.18.0 |
| ditto | 161 | J. Williamson | 72.9.0 |
| ditto | 169 | Rev. Thomas Williams | 76.1.0 |
The Auckland Provincial Government Gazette, issued Friday 31 August 1855, listed Benjamin Smith of Papakura, Settler of Freehold Estate, eligible as an elector for the Southern Division of the Auckland District.