Burnt Hill
(Run 1, and afterwards 135)

Burnt Hill ran from the Waimakariri to the Eyre and was bounded on the east by Dagnam and the page 56Warren. It was taken up by Joseph Pearson in October, 1851. Although some twenty runs had been taken up before it, it was numbered 1 in the old run lists, because the original Run 1, which J. C. Boys had taken up near Mt. Thomas, had just been forfeited, and the number 1 was used again. Run 1 contained seven thousand four hundred acres.

Pearson had been one of Joseph Hawdon's managers in Australia, and he came over early in 1851 in charge of sheep of Hawdon's, Aitken's, and the Macdonalds', and to report on the new Golony. Besides taking up Burnt Hill for himself he took up several runs for Hawdon, and was the first man to explore the upper Waimakariri, where Lake Pearson is named after him.

In 1857 he bought Dagnam from Cookson. He did not buy the freehold of the whole of his runs when the Midland Railway Company offered it to him, but he made six or seven thousand acres freehold. This was cut up and sold by his executors about 1904, when one of the Bassetts bought the homestead block. This still belongs to Bassett. It is a nice piece of country and includes the actual hill after which the station is named. It now carries between 1500 and 2000 sheep.