(1) Population in March 1886

By collating information from many sources it has been established that the following are likely to have been residing in the District at the 1886 census:

Bachelors on DP sections: Robert & William Coxhead; W. Dingle; E.J., W.A. & L.C. Ellerm; J. Kearin & brother; Stephen Kissick; John Mackie; G. Sullivan; William & Frederick Swadling; Thomas Tapp; G. Wilson. (Total 15)

Bachelors on cash-sale sections: H.W. Davy; Daniel Fitzgerald; Harry & George Parkes; George Roots; F.W. Wilkie; Thomas Frethey Jnr; John & Frederick Frethey. (Total 9)

Married couples and families on DP sections: Maurice & Julia Fitzgerald; James & Catherine Hayes & family (7); George Hanna McKenzie, wife, two sons & a daughter (5); Charles Tait, wife & six children. (8); William Ure, wife & two children (4). (Total 26)

Married couples and families on cash-sale sections: George & Amelia Barton & two children (4); John & Sarah Emma Melville & clan (10); Joel Prestidge, wife & four children (6); Robert & Elizabeth Smith & two children (4). (Total 24)

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Folk not connected with land purchases. Alfred Muir; Harry Robinson, wife & two children; Oliver L. Robinson, wife & three children. (Total 10)

From a fairly conservative use of a fairly wide-meshed net, this gives a total of 84 people. No bridge-building contracts were under way at the time, nor was it either grass seed harvest or bushfelling season, so there would have been few itinerant workers about. But there could have been some, either house building for settlers, or on small specialised contracts for the Road Board (such as putting in culverts—less specialised work would have been taken by local settlers). Allowing for a few such itinerants and for such possibilities as that we have missed one or two settlers, that some cash buyers may have made arrangements that put men on their land, and that some settlers may have had relatives with them of whom we have no knowledge, it is probably safe to raise our population figure to, say, 95.