This lovely portrait of the young James Hastie in Edinburgh gives no indication of a tragic accident that would befall him some twenty years later in Otago. He was born on 30 March 1840 to Alexander Hastie and Jane Kitchen (who are pictured separately on this wall of the gallery). He had a comfortable upbringing with the family prospering as a result of his father’s grocery business, wealth demonstrated by this portrait being commissioned as well as another one of his younger brothers, William and Thomas, to the left.
When James was eighteen in 1858, he emigrated to Dunedin with his parents and eight siblings on the Jura. Nine years later, his father retired, and James joined his brother Thomas to take over the family contracting and carting business. In January 1870 James heard of floods in West Taieri where his parents had moved to their rural property. Anxious about their safety, James left Dunedin on a coach, intending to go to his parents’ house. After arriving at West Taieri, he discovered the bridge across the swollen Taieri River had partially collapsed in the floods. The ferryman pointed out the safest course home and a small boat that could be used but he advised James not to cross. James crossed anyway and once over the river proceeded on foot through the flood water. Presumably the strength of the current washed him off his feet, for his body was found several days later just over a kilometre from where he had parted ways with the ferryman. He was 30 years old and had never married.
Master James Kitchen Hastie