Maronan
(Run 26 N.Z.R., re-numbered 531 about 1865)

Maronan took in the country between the Hinds and Rangitata below Cracroft. It ran down to about page 128the present railway and contained thirty-one thousand acres.

It was taken up by George J. and James D. Rogers in October, 1854. G. J. Rogers was J. D. Rogers's father. He was Crown Solicitor in Sydney and I do not think he ever came to New Zealand. He went home to Ireland where he died before 1859.

He made the run over to his son after a year or two and for several years J. D. Rogers managed Maronan from Anama, where he lived with his friend Russell, another Australian. He originally called the station Parramatta, but soon changed its name to Marouan, but he wrote his n's and u's alike and people thought the name was Maronan and that name crept into general use so he adopted it. He had 3,000 sheep there by 1857. When fully stocked it carried over 10,000.

Rogers came to grief during the bad times, the last straw to break him being a game of loo at which he is said to have lost £1200. He died in 1866, aged 35. After his death the lease was held in the names of several financial firms, and was taken over finally about 1868 by Robert Wilkin and Archibold Thomson. Thomson was the managing partner until his death when John Carter bought his share. Wilkin and Carter sold Maronan to John Raine in 1882 and in 1885 Raine sold it to Richard Strachey. I do not know how long Strachey kept it, but in 1895 it belonged to W. P. Kellock, a son-in-law of the first John Grigg of Longbeach. He had been a tea planter in Ceylon before he came to New Zealand. Maronan then consisted of about six thousand acres of freehold on the Hinds, the leasehold having been all bought or taken for reserves, and the freehold on the Rangitata sold by Strachey.

In 1906 Kellock sold Maronan to Nicholl Brothers of Ashburton, and went home to England where he eventually died. The Nicholls sold the station at a large profit almost at once to Friedlander Brothers, who cut it up and sold it, and also did very well out of it. The homestead was bought by the present owner, page 129John Williams.

I have described Wilkin elsewhere and know nothing more about Thomson. Carter was a Yorkshire-man, born in 1838. Before coming to Maronan he had managed Mt. Mutt for Aynsley and the Wanaka Station in Otago. He died in 1884.