Dalgety's Dalgety's had a very few influential clients in the area' so, in 1905, they purchased a site , also in Queen Street, and, joined a year or two later by the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Coy.,Ltd, started a fortnightly sale on Wednesdays Very soon Abraham and Williams changed their day to Tuesday probably to get in ahead of the opposition and the clash with Feilding. The other two followed suit, but started their sale at 10 o'clock in the morning instead of the usual noon There were quite a few stories of dealers buying at the morning sale and selling at a profit in the afternoon. One of the difficulties faced by the Loan Coy., and Dalgety's with their morning sale was the time of the arrival of the passenger trains. The 8.30am from Palmerston North was all right, but the train from Wellington did not arrive until 11 o'clock and all the butchers were on that train.The motor- car was not in general use until the late 20s, everyone travelled In the train, and it was often said that a good auctioneer had all his stock sold before his clients even saw the stock. This was almost a true word with Mr. Porritt the doyen of auctioneers in his day and still spoken of with bated breath by those old enough to remember him.

Deputation The Farmers Union took a strong hand in the war over selling times. The Levin Chronicle of July 28, 1919 reports a meeting of 100 farmers who sent a delegation to all three auctioneers ( Hudson had apparently ceased operating ) asking them to sell in one saleyard on the same day. The names of the delegates are of interest - Messers Gorringe, Bevan, Higginson, Dunn, and Kircaldie. It took two more meetings, but success was then reported with an additional reward too! The commission rate had been reduced from 4 per cent t0 31/4 per cent. All this took some time and it was not until 1920 that all three firms were advertising their sales for the same yards day and hour.

Other noted auctioneers of the first quarter of the century were Charlie Wallace and Wynne Bond of Dalgety's. Bond had been a parson at one stage of his career and is supposed to be the only man in New Zealand who was both a parson and a racing club president at the same time. Arthur Ward and Harry George were the Loan Coy.. Men., whilst first D.K. Wilson then the famous Mr. Porritt ( he he was never called by his Christian name) and later Ritchie Abraham were the Abraham and Williams men.Most of the Horowhenua was held in big blocks up until the First World War and many folk will remember the names of J. R. MacDonald and John Davies. Between them these two owned practically all the land from the ranges to the sea and from the Manawatu to the Ohau rivers.Then there was Tom Bevan, John Taylor, Skerman and Podevin, Hugh Gillies and the Simcox run - big places, grand men and well bred stock. Romney and Lincoln sheep and shorthorn cattle.

Ryder

The dealers of note were Walter Ryder - who also owned a butchery and a race horse named Long- time. So- called because his customers took such a period to pay ; Rod McKenzie, probably the biggest cattle dealer of all time in New Zealand, Jack Pukelowski , noted for his immaculate boots and leggings ; Dave Munro and Albert Narby. All stock were driven to the yards, even the pigs, and it was the usual thing for the drover who took the fat pigs to the rail after the sale, to have a dray following to pick up the pigs which were too fat to make the trip. On a hot day the Levin Street water races would be clogged with pigs. The first double decker sheep lorry was watched with anxiety on its initial trip - most would be sure it would tip over going around the first corner. This was about 1930 and was owned by Mat Wills. In 1925 consternation reigned in Levin township - the trades folk and especially the proprietor of the Levin Hotel ( situated a few hundred yards from the sale yards) were being moved to their present site near the railway yards and Tararua Road. The hotel proprietor, Mat Suhan, actually sold his pub and got out. The business would be ruined ! But is still going and looks reasonably prosperous.

Moved

When the yards were shifted a good deal of material from them was used again on the new site. The Te Horo yards were demolished at the same time and some of the posts and timber were incorporated in the Levin rebuilding job.

When the cattle yards were rebuilt once more in 1960 some of the totara posts, second hand in 1925, were still sound ( 35 years later).

Dalgety's first man was Travers who arrived in Levin in 1906 while Leslie Skerman was stationed at Otaki from about 1910.

In later years Porter and Tubman were at Levin, but the firm ceased operations when the Associated Live Stock Company was formed in the depression. Harry George, of the Loan Company, and Sid Seivers, of Abraham and Williams were the outstanding men in the business. George was a little man who worked up a big business in dairy cattle and pigs, Seivers was a big fellow, the best all-round sportsman in Horowheua's history - he could play any game superlatively - and he held the bulk of the sheep and beef cattle business.

George sold with a noise and rattle of a machine gun: Seivers had a heavy voice with clear diction. George's sales clerks often had to interpret the bids to onlookers, but Seivers could be understood from a furlong distance.

George retired about 1937 to be followed by Horace Mungavin, who incidentally had filled a gap for Abraham and Williams at Johnsonville during World War1. Rod Weir took over the hammer when Mungavin retired.

Seivers had joined Abraham and Williams at the time when Frank Nicolson was manager of the Levin branch. He was stationed at Otaki from 1916, having taken over from Sandy McCallum the first stock agent resident in Otaki, was transferred to Levin in 1927, and to Palmerston North in 1932.

Guy Evans, a senior agent for the firm , was in Levin from the late 20s until the 1940s.

When the big depression of 1931 - 1933 and all the stock companies handed their livestock business over to an amalgamation, all the gents except Evans, lost their jobs.

Evans had an impossible job - he was instructed to cease all paddock sales and to inform farmers that all stock must come to auction. Prices were so bad and cash so scarce that nobody went to a sale and the " pocket book agents " gained practically all the business.So associated livestock was wound up after two years and John McCaw joined Abraham and Williams soon to be known as Wright Stephenson and co. Here he worked with Evans, until 1939 when on his transfer to Waikato. Dunbar Sloane was appointed auctioneer.

On his taking over his father's furniture auction business in Wellington. Alan Seivers ( a son of Sid ) followed Sloane. The senior agent and auctioneer Bruce Booth was appointed in 1960 to follow Frank Corbett who had been in charge for some six or seven years.

Dalgety and Coy, did not operate in the district after Associated Live Stock era, but returned with the Dalgety - Loan Coy, amalgamation with Albert Lissette in charge . Rod Wier resigned from the firm to commence business on his own account.

The saleyards have seen good times and bad, including some disastrous prices such as those in 1931.

Ewes in wool with lambs at foot , 3 shillings and thee pence, 4 - year old bullocks, 3 pounds, 2 - years steers ' 30 shillings; yearlings 12 shillings and six pence, cull dairy cows 15 shillings ; and cull lambs 1 shilling a dozen.

Properous years when 1200 to 1400 cattle would be yarded and sold in one day at prices up to 50 pounds for bullocks.

Tragedy when farmer ( Drysdale ) dropped dead in the sheep pens. Comedy when Arthur Gadsby, a very rotund butcher , was blown off the rails into a pen of cattle. He was so stout that he rolled on the backs of the tightly packed cattle until he was hauled back on the rails by bystanders; when a similar stout fellow was bitten in the posterior by a dog excited by the back firing of a Model T Ford which the said gentleman was cranking.

Drama when a local bookmaker was chased round and round the sheep yards by an irate farmer client who accused him of welshing.

Abraham and Williams sale yards on the corner

of Queen Street and Salisbury Street. Built in 1893.

The yards were built with the existing trees and branches that had been cut down to clear the land.

Abraham and Williams

sale yards on the corner of Queen Street and Salisbury Street, Levin.The year was 1917

Cattle sale underway Abraham and Williams saleyards

at Queen Street and Salisbury Street corner, Levin 1917

During the early nineteen hundreds Levin was growing and becoming a shopping centre for the district. Many shops where built and light industrial factories set up to support farming and farming industries. Farmers and their wives came to town on sale day. Farmers would spend the day at sale yards while their wives and family members would spend the day buying their supplies and household requirements. Shopkeepers just loved sale days, trading was good. Drovers on horse back with their dogs drove cattle and sheep from the outlaying farms and villages like Ohau, Manakau, Shannon, Waitarere etc. to the sale yards.The trucking industry took over this work in the 1950s.

The sale yards being close to town centre, housing, shops and schools left a lot to be desired, the smell of the dung, cattle, frightened cattle in the streets upset the public. The borough council enforced the use of stock routes to help solving some of the problems. In 1927 pressure from the health department led to new sale yards being built on Tararua Road.Conveniently close to the railway station and main road.

This was the start of The Levin Sale yards as we know it now 2018.

Abraham and Williams, report about Levin Sale held in Levin 30 April 1936 in the Evening post

SALE AT LEVIN.

Abraham and Williams, Ltd., report that there was an exceptionally good attendance of buyers to. good yardings of all stock at the Levin sale on Tuesday, and a total clearance of all lines was effected. The heavier lines of stock, particularly pork, were in good demand. There were large yardings in pigs, medium yardings in sheep, and a large yarding in cattle. Prices for pork were slightly higher than in the previous week, while other lines showed little change.

Quotations: — Pigs.—Weaners, 6s 6d, 7s 6d, 8s 6d; slips, 10s 6d to 12s 6d; light stores, 12s 6d to 17s 6d; heavier stores, 17s 6d to 255; porkers, light, 25s to 30s; medium, 30s to 355; heavy, 35s to 40s; prime extra heavy, £2 5s to £2 10s ; baconers, £2 15s to £3; choppers, 30s to £2 10s.

Sheep.—Fat lambs, 20s to 21s 6d; prime lambs, 21s 6d to 235; store lambs, 12s 6d, 15s, 17s 6d, 18s, 18s 6d; ewe lambs, 22s to 24s 6d.

Cattle—Fat cows, £3. 5s to • ' £4; medium fat, £4 to £4 15s; extra heavy, £5 to £5 15s; prime extra heavy, to £6 10s; vealers, lighter sorts, 30s to £2 ss; heavier types, £2 12s 6d to £3 ss; runners, £3 5s to £3 17s 6d; forward P.A. heifers, £5 10s to £5 16s; forward P.A. cows, £4 15s to £5; steers, £4 15s to £5; store cows, 255, £2, £2 7s 6d, to £3.

•Dairy Stock.—Springing heifers, £5, £6, to £7 ss; cows in milk, £2, £3, £3 10s, to £4.

Snow at Levin Sale yards Cambridge Street 1969

1969 Heavy snow covered all the hills and around all the ground

around Levin and the sale yards.

Levin Sale Yards at Cambridge St. and Tararua Road 2012

Buyers under cover viewing cattle at Levin sale yards 2013

David Howarth from Elders and Calum Stewart from Wrightson PGG at Levin Sale yards 2013

George Jarvis from Whirokino ( left ) and John Baird from Foxton at Levin sale yards 2011

David Howarth from Elders checks a pen of ewes at Levin sale

yards 2011

Levin sales yard Stockman Mr. John Saulisbury

2011

Levin Sale yards from Cambridge St. looking east 28-4-2018

This is the entrance to the yards and the cafteria rooms

Levin Sale Yards from Cambridge St. looking east 103