The early publican was Captain John Black Kerr who was born in Dumfries, Scotland, in 1830 and by the 1850s was in Australia where he played a role in calming the tensions caused by the anti-Chinese riot at Buckland, Victoria, in 1857.
He was in Kingston not long afterwards and, with the discovery of gold at the Arrow in 1862, Kingston became an important transport centre, its population increasing from four people in 1860 to 10,000 in 1863.
Kerr was "endowed with a robust constitution and a sound burly body" which made him the ideal man for the sometimes treacherous journeys on the lake. Kerr’s worst trip was a fatal one in 1868 when Solomon Ellis, an American who had been working for Kerr since 1866, was drowned when the Victoria keeled over near Queenstown.
As well as sailing boats, Kerr was also running the Ship Inn with 13 guest rooms at Kingston.
He was also the storekeeper, postmaster and shipping agent. In November 1864 he married Bridget Birmingham and over the next 22 years the couple would have 10 children. He also owned the local jetty, called Kerr’s Jetty, and still found time to run a small farm and in 1870 had "rather an awkward encounter with one of his cows. The animal caught him while he was stooping and gored him rather severely about the right temple. The wound is not a dangerous one."
Late in 1871, Kerr put Daniel Butler in charge of the Ship Inn and in 1873 James O’Brien became the licensee and upgraded the building, advertising that the "Old Ship Inn, Kingston offers superior accommodation for travellers. Private parlours and bedrooms for families, good stabling, paddock accommodation. Wine, spirits and ales of the best brands obtainable in the country."
O’Brien was a popular publican being commended for his hosting of the visiting Southland cricket team, providing "generous fare" to his guests. He also earned praise for his actions when coaches were stranded by the flooded Mataura River. He set off on horseback with blankets and food for the stranded passengers. He faced a charge of "supplying spirits to J. McDonald while in a state of intoxication" but in a submission worthy of Rumpole of the Bailey his lawyer Hugh Finn (later an MP) pointed out that the indictment failed to identify which of the two men was intoxicated and the charge was dismissed.
By 1874 Kingston’s liveliest days were over and a traveller noted, "the hotel-keepers number two. The Old Ship Inn has been quite renewed and is under the capital management of Mr and Mrs O’Brien and the Royal Mail Hotel is still under that of Mr Clapp, and also furnishes very comfortable quarters."
By 1877 the Ship Inn lessee Richard Daniel announced he would convert it into a temperance hotel but Kerr sold the building to Invercargill merchant James Hare who had extensive business interests around Queenstown and may have seen the old building as a suitable depot. That the sale price was £200 ($39,000 today) compared with the £750 it fetched earlier confirms Kingston’s future lay at the western side of the lake where the railway terminus would be built.
Kerr was farsighted enough to have bought land near the proposed railway station as early as 1871 and in 1877 built the two-storey Terminus Hotel near the existing Railway Hotel, but the town now had only a dozen or so inhabitants and a licence was refused as a new hotel was regarded as unnecessary.
The licence was later granted and Kerr was able to provide lunch "commendable in quality and quantity" when 1000 passengers arrived on an excursion train.
In May 1878, both the Terminus and the neighbouring Railway Hotel were destroyed in a fire which began in the Terminus where three men died. Kerr suffered burns in a rescue attempt and his loss was put at £1200, about four times the amount he was insured for.
By then, Kerr was no longer around. In March 1887, at the age of 56, he was killed when a strong wind pushed a railway wagon along the line and it ran over him.
The family, with eight children still of school age, was left in poor circumstances so it is not surprising his widow was remarried within a year to William Quinn.
So ends the story of Captain John Kerr, Wakatipu pioneer and publican, but he is remembered by his dozens of descendants spread over the country and for his monument, the old Ship Inn in Kingston.
— Jim Sullivan is a Patearoa writer.
