1) Mother and daughter were the first of the settlers in Levin block.
Other women who set example by tenacity and courage.

Into the unknown they came - the wives of the pioneers. Here was a strange land - rough, untamed, bush-clad country. But there was no time to ponder over the comforts they had left behind. There was work to be done. The land must be cleared and a home must be built to shelter them and their families. They worked alongside their husbands for they were a sturdy breed and were undaunted by the lack of home amenities, hospitals, medical services, places of entertainment and suchlike. Mostly it was a long track to the nearest neighbour.

1) "You will carry a swag if you stay here."
Some mill-hands thought town would be doomed when timber "cut out".

Many of the men who were among the first to trek into this new territory of virgin bush, not to establish farms or businesses, but as paid "hewers of wood and carriers of water," did not have the same faith in the future prosperity of Levin as did the pioneer settlers.

2) Mail boy.

"I was the mail boy in the old days. At that time the station was at Bartholomew's Mill and the mail was thrown off at the crossing. The engines were fired by matai cut into four-foot lengths and stacked in double rows on both sides of the track to a height of about four feet. Matai worked out at about 8/- a cord and it stretched from Weraroa for about a mile. It was a hard job finding mail bags among it when the driver misfired." Mr. R. S. Kent, now of Riccarton.