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Showing posts from October, 2019
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Land & Family history information from Otautau District: EARLY LANDOWNERS 1. William and Agnes Johnston farmed one of the largest sheep runs in the Otautau District - Wrey's Bush run 153 (approx. 30,000 acres), around 1869. They purchased the freehold land (around 10,000 acres) and signed up for the rest of the leasehold land (another 20,000 acres) and then named this run "Annandale", after the valley of the Annan, south of Moffat, where William and Agnes had lived in their early days in Scotland. In 1871, the records show that Annandale ran 10,500 sheep and that in 1875 this had increased to 15,000 sheep. The boundaries of this huge Annandale block were: on the north - the boundary between Wairio and Wairaki (an extension of Crampton Rd); on the west, run 143 (Birchwood Estate) and run 133 (Waicola Estate), including the Wairio stream in the north as part of that boundary; to the south - more or less a straight line from Wairio Hill to the Allenby