New Zealand - Johnsonville - Johnsonville is one of the oldest settlements in the Province, being founded by a sawmiller named Johnstone who left England in 1839. #602999 - Johnsonville was originally the site of a Maori track from Wellington to Porirua (the Old Porirua Road), and had no native inhabitants before European settlement. Vegetation was dense native forest, dominated by totara, mixed podocarp trees (notably totara and Rimu), Rata and hinau. Johnsonville was settled in 1841 by, among others, Frank Johnson who had purchased a certificate of selection and had drawn the 100 acre 'Section 11 Kinapora (Kenepuru) District'. Initially called 'Johnson's clearing', Frank Johnson built a house by the Johnsonville stream and a timber mill near the center of modern Johnsonville.[3] He quickly denuded the entire Johnsonville area of virgin native forest, with timber sold to help build the nearby town of Wellington. He soon sold his land at a substantial profit, and returned to England by 1858 leaving the environment massively changed, and on which site a farming industry to support nearby Wellington City grew. The Daisy Hill Farm House was built about 1860, and is still standing. - Over the 20th century, farmland slowly gave way to Suburbia, with the first tiny township of Johnsonville steadily growing to become populated principally by a "mid-level" socio-economic strata. Johnsonville was a town by 1896. - The opening of the railway to Wellington by the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company in 1886 (see Johnsonville Branch and Johnsonville Station) enabled people to commute to Wellington, and the line was electrified with more frequent and faster trains in 1938. - About 1894 stockyards were built in Broderick Road adjacent to the station sidings by Freeman R. Jackson. Stock (cattle and sheep) railed from the Manawatu and elsewhere were driven through the streets and down Fraser Avenue to the Ngauranga abbatoir. The suburb got the name "Cowtown", and residents complained about hygiene and noise. So a new siding and stockyard was opened near Raroa station in 1958. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnsonville,_New_Zealand) - Whites Pictorial Reference has been produced to tell a new story - a modern story. Aerial photography has been utilised to show where New Zealanders live and the countryside from which comes their wealth. Most important, it also illustrates most vividly the Dominion's growing cities and towns, but perhaps more to the point it shows that there is still plenty of room for further development... Author: White Leo (compiled) Click the link provided at the top to purchase the book through the MAD on New Zealand Shop - Supporting New Zealand Authors and Artists