David Dackers

David Dackers was born at Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, Scotland, in about 1833. He arrived in Otago on the Robert Henderson in 1862. In 1874 he married Jessie Murdoch at Andersons Bay.David was a miller, living then at Green Island, which was an industrial suburbof Dunedin noted for its flour mills. By 1882 the Dackers were living at Woodside on the Taieri, where David owned 12 acres of freehold land and operated a flour mill. Woodside had been an important saw milling site in the 1850s, processing timber from the northern slopes of the Maungatua to meet the growing demand for building material. During the gold rush it was a key stopping-off point on the main road to the Dunstan goldfield, and shops and businesses sprang up along the roadside.

The Dackers’ time at Woodside coincided with the settlement’s gradual decline from this heyday and with a new township arising closer to the river at Outram. Business conditions would have been increasingly difficult and David was bankrupted when a fire burnt down the mill in 1884. The Dackers eventually recovered from this setback and in 1896 took over a flour mill at Tapanui in West Otago. David modernised the plant, importing new German roller machinery to replace the old stone grinding process. Unfortunately the investment never paid off; David’s business failed to prosper and he defaulted on his loans.

The Dackers continued to live in the old mill house at Tapanui. In his later years, as he became increasingly senile, David would often wander into his old mill and think he was still working it. One of his grandsons had the job of keeping the old man safe while he acted out his memories. David and Jessie Dackers had four sons and a daughter. The photo inset is of one of their sons, Alexander Murdoch Dackers, who like most of the family was a keen hunter and fisherman.

David died in 1926. Jessie then went to live with her daughter in Clyde. She died there in 1928, aged 88.