The descendants of one of the Papakaio Plains’ original settlers, Donald Borrie, Mrs Robertson’s great-grandfather, had talked for many years about what they believed was a clerical error.
Barrie Rd, a rural road off State Highway 83 near Papakaio, was surely misnamed.
Barrie Rd borders what was once Mr Borrie’s farm. And so Mrs Robertson took the opportunity presented by the council’s annual plan consultation to tick an item off her bucket list. When she did, she started on her own journey discovering North Otago history. This week Mrs Robertson said she no longer believed the road was incorrectly named and had withdrawn her request to the council.
She had learned about William Barrie, who lived in the small house in Barrie Rd for about two years before he bought a block of land at Otiake.
"I am more than happy to say that he [Mr Barrie] should be entitled to that [road name] honour," Mrs Robertson said.
"For me it’s been such an interesting journey ... And there are still so many of William Barrie’s descendants living in North Otago.
"There’s lots of ties that I think they deserve to be recognised for."
She was once made to take Sunday drives with her parents to check on the progress of the building of the Benmore dam in the late 1950s, she said.
Her father constantly told her the road should be renamed Borrie Rd.
But when her request for the name of the road to be changed was covered in the Otago Daily Times, she received a call from a friend in Wanaka who was "very interested" in the story.
As a child, he too travelled State Highway 83, and he was always told Barrie Rd was where his great-great-grandfather William Barrie had lived.
She had since put as much effort into learning about Mr Barrie as she had into learning about her forebear Mr Borrie. She learned that in 1886 Mr Borrie would have been living in his cottage at nearby Willow Park, while William Barrie lived in the cottage at the end of Barrie Rd.
Mr Barrie lived there while he was working on the Oamaru borough water race before he shifted to Otiake, where he lived for 30 years. Mrs Robertson’s own cousin Bronwyn McCone was married to a great-great-grandson of Mr Barrie, Martin McCone. And both Mrs Robertson and Mrs McCone had since become "fascinated and interested in researching this family".
In Mr Borrie’s obituary in the Oamaru Mail in 1921, it was said "for very many things that he did the public are indebted, and of him it may be said that he has left behind him a clean record and his name written large upon the history of North Otago".
But Mr Borrie was a member of the "old" Papakaio Road Board. And Mrs Robertson now believed Mr Borrie would have been aware of the name of the road and could have corrected it himself had it been incorrect. At the time of her request the council was in the process of formalising a policy for when requests to change the name of a road were made.
At the time requests were dealt with on an "ad hoc" basis, a council spokeswoman said.The council adopted its first road-naming policy at its May 10 meeting. The policy outlines the requirements for selecting names for new roads and previously unformed roads, and for renaming existing roads.
Mr Borrie’s portrait was now prominently on display at the recently opened Oamaru historic attraction Whitestone City, Mrs Robertson said. She was "perfectly happy with that".
