Initially on the Coast the gold being found in rivers and streams could be described as coarse with the result that diggers displayed no interest in the sea beaches along which they travelled. However three miners had arrived in Hokitika in August, 1865, with 1 cwt of gold and mercury amalgam yielding 100 lb of pure gold obtained at South Beach near Greymouth. The use of mercury to save fine gold had been used on Californian beaches. Many miners had honed their skills prospecting in California and Australia before reaching New Zealand. Because of this find attention shifted to the black sands on Westland beaches. Large numbers of miners promptly moved south. Not all were well-equipped so rough and ready alternatives by diggers on the move to separate the gold from the sand were utilised, using coarse cloth or totara bark in lieu of mercury to separate the fine gold from the sand.
With news of strikes travelling fast, miners returning north from the gold-rush hoaxes down south at Hunt’s Beach and Bruce Bay began to focus attention on the sandy beaches along which they travelled. One of these returning horsemen was named James Edwin Gillespie. Investigation by him at one particular beach revealed good leads above the high tide mark. From then on the area became known as Gillespie’s Beach.
I quote from my book, Westland Heritage. “Within a few weeks over 650 men were working in the area. Okarito, further north, had become the service centre for other gold strikes on the nearby beaches at the Three Mile and the Five Mile, the description denoting the distance from Okarito. Gold exploration also extended inland to the Forks, Lake Mapourika, McDonalds Creek, the Waiho Gorge and along many other creek beds as well as south into the Haast region.”
In his book, West Coast Gold Rushes, Philip Ross May stated that by June of 1865 Gillespie’s had reached its greatest production and continued to prosper through the summer and winter of 1866, with 650 diggers there and another 1500 up north at the not-too-distant
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