More Info →page 3 50th Jubilee commemoration supplement

1) Levin honours founders at turn of half century of progress and prosperity

It would be nice to start this brief summary of a town's beginning with a romantic story of a pioneer emerging from heavy bush into a perfect clearing with water bubbling up from hidden springs to make lush pastures, and to record him as having pitched his tent and saying: "Here I will live to see a city grow".

Such a scene may have been enacted - but not in Levin. There was little of the dramatic or romantic about the establishment of our town. The first axes that bit into the trunks of the magnificent matai trees were not wielded to provide timber for homes and farm buildings, but for the less spectacular purpose of supplying fuel for the firing of the engines of the Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company. For it was the carving of the railway that brought Levin into prominence followed by the sawmills.

2) Beginnings of Levin were centred in Bartholomew's Mill near Roslyn Road.

In the earliest days Bartholomew's mill was Levin. The late Mr Peter Bartholomew was born in Stirlingshire and came out to Queensland in 1842. Later he came to New Zealand and entered the timber industry. He had mills in a number of centres in the North Island and his name figures largely in early Manawatu history.

3) The 'thirds' system for road finance.

To properly improve the new farmlands which had been developed from the bush, proper access was vital. There was no finance available so a ‘thirds' system was introduced. This constituted of a third of the purchase price which was paid in by individual settlers to go towards roading costs.

4) Bought from Maoris for 30/- an acre

The purchase by the Government of the 4000 acres which comprised the original block on which Levin was built was not effected without considerable trouble and litigation, as it was Maori land and title was difficult to secure.