The dead tell tales
Historian Lyn Williams looks at who’s buried in our local cemeteries. Readers will be aware of Isaac Coates’ contribution to the construction of the Main Trunk Line, but this entrepreneur had his fingers in many other pies.
Coates came to Hamilton in 1868 from a tenant farm in Yorkshire. In the book On Record, reminiscences he dictated in 1923, he looked about for suitable land while walking from Ngaruawahia to Hamilton, then to Ohaupo, Cambridge and Whatawhata. He bought land in and around Hamilton cheaply from disgruntled militiamen. His farm later became Ruakura Agricultural Research Station.
Coates was on the Hamilton Borough Council off and on from 1878 to 1907 and was mayor from 1888 to 1892. He was also a member of the Waikato County Council and the prime mover in the establishment of the Waikato A&P show at Claudelands. He was at times a harvesting contractor (he imported some of the first threshing machines and combined reaping and mowing machines); a drainage contractor employing over 20 men in the Piako swamp; and owner (or part owner) of a store, a timber yard and a brickworks, and of four flax mills, one at Hamilton East situated in what is now Memorial Park, the others at Morrinsville, Te Aroha and Maketu.
The Hamilton East mill was a considerable undertaking. It started production in October 1889 and initially put through seven tons of green flax daily. Coates bought all the flax around Morrinsville and between Ohaupo and Te Awamutu, then planted flax on his farm.
But the mills weren’t always so successful – his traction engine went off the road between Pokeno and Mercer; in 1890, 70 men were laid off during strikes; the Te Aroha mill was flooded just a month after purchase; there were several fires at the mills; he was taken to court after a worker lost his arm in a workplace accident; and the price of flax fell. Many of his business ventures were not very successful.
After his house burnt down for want of someone to tend the fire, Coates decided he needed a wife. His first courtship didn’t work out: she was a Catholic (he was not) and had to reject him. But just two weeks later he met Alice Coleman and, in his words, ‘‘A feeling I can scarce describe came over me.’’
They courted, but Coates went off to Britain for several months. Finally they married at Thames in 1874. Their liaison was fruitful: nine children. The youngest, Violet, died in 1897 after being pushed out the kitchen window by a playmate. She is buried somewhere in Hamilton East Cemetery. Alice died in October 1932 and Isaac exactly one week later to the hour; his granddaughter believes it was from a broken heart. They are buried in Hillsborough Cemetery in Auckland.