Garrett and Ann Clearwater (née Stevenson)

Garrett Clearwater was an American carpenter who arrived in Otago at the tail end of the whaling period, probably in 1838, and made his living as a skilled handyman at the Wellers’ whaling station. Born in Paramus, New Jersey, in 1816, Garrett was of Dutch descent and his family name was adapted from the original Klaarwater. This is significant, for the oldest surviving piece of locally made furniture in the Museum collection is a church seat that Garrett made for Harwood’s store when Wesleyan services began there in 1840. The bench is made in the Dutch style of the churches of Garrett’s native New Jersey. It is on display in the ‘Encounters’ section of the Museum.

When the first Scottish settlers arrived on the Philip Laing in 1848, Garrett and his friend Jim Cullen were on hand to greet the new arrivals, hoping to find themselves wives. When the two Stevenson girls came down the gangplank (daughters of the ship’s matron), they each claimed one. Garrett’s choice was Ann Stevenson and they were married later in 1848 in her mother’s house in Dunedin. In January 1850 Ann gave birth to twins, the first pair of twins born in the settlement. Altogether the Clearwaters were to produce six sons and a daughter. They remained on the Otago peninsula, where Garrett combined farming with work as a sawyer and carpenter.

John McLay, who came to Otago as a child later described Garrett Clearwater in his memoirs as he remembered him in about 1849: ‘he is a splendid bush man, a Great Man with an axe – and at the same time he don’t forget to let us know of it.’His powerful physique stood him in good stead in the heavy toil of pioneering and bushwork.

Ann died in 1875 and was buried at Broad Bay. Soon afterwards Garrett and some of his sons began farming at Titipua in Southland. The venture was not successful, however, and their land was subject to a mortgagee sale in 1881. Garrett Clearwater died in Invercargill hospital later that year, aged 65. He is buried in Invercargill.