Sloans Flat, Skippers, Queenstown-Lakes District, Otago Region, New Zealandi

Regional Level Types
Sloans Flat	Flat
Skippers	- not defined -
Queenstown-Lakes District	District
Otago Region	Region
New Zealand	Country

Alluvial gold in gravels.

Patrick (Paddy) Sloan was active as a miner in the upper Shotover area from 1874 to 1891. He is noted for a number of court cases.

Sloans Flat is 7 kilometres north of Skippers, on The Branches pastoral station road. The flat is between Ashworths Flat, and the Sandhill cut to the south. His place of residence is noted as Sandhills, which was often the general term for any placed 2 kilometres up or downstream from the Sandhill Cut. He is noted as mining in several locations in the area, possibly also on the flat itself.

In 1875, Redpath and Anderson took Sloan to the warden's court claiming Sloan had flooded their mining claim. In a case that took the whole day, Redpath stated Sloan had done earthworks for the Deep Level Company, of which Sloan was a shareholder, causing water to flow down Redpath's tail race and across his claim. He was suing Sloan for damages. After much legal argument it was discovered Anderson did not hold a miner's right. Sloan's lawyer argued that Redpath should have sued by himself, and the fact Anderson was included invalided the claim. This has been seen to happen in other warden courts elsewhere around the globe, but in this case the warden ruled against Sloan regardless, and was ordered to pay Redpath 5 pounds damages.

In 1883, Sloan made himself unpopular with other miners in the area who were opposing J. Aspinalls freehold lease application for pastoral purposes. They were fearful it would block any applications for mining claims. Sloan stated he had found no gold on the land in question, and Aspinall had always been generous in allowing him to prospect on his land. This was later used in the Warden's Court case against the miners.

In 1891, Sloan is declared bankrupt. This was a time when store owners accepted promises to pay by miners at a later date. The theory was they would pay when gold was found. This was assuming any gold would be found, and money from it not spent elsewhere. Also Sloan owed wages to three employees. His total debt was 239 pounds, the merchants as far away as Bendigo (N.Z.) and Mount Ida, indicating possibly he needed to go outside the district to make purchases due to a bad name.

His assets were 2 acres at Sandhills, possibly on Sloans Flat, with a water race and dam, valued at 100 pounds, and mining plant valued at 20 pounds, leaving a deficit of 139 pounds. It is noted in the court case he had received very little employment the last three years, had sold his horse and bridle gear to pay debts, and was getting 10 ounces a year out of his claim.

In 1894, he applied for a timber cutters licence in the area.

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References