Garrett and Ann Clearwater ca.1865.
Garrett Hopper Clearwater (from an American Dutch family, originally Klaarwater) was born in 1816, and joined the American whalers working in New Zealand waters. He settled on shore in the Otakou area in 1838. He was a big, powerful man, and worked as a carpenter, boatbuilder, sawyer, or labourer. He travelled to where the work was, and by 1848 he and a mate were at the Bluff when they heard of the ‘Philip Laing’ travelling to Dunedin. They arrived back in time to see the passengers disembark – including the two sisters Stevenson. They ‘shared’ the sisters, Garrett marrying Ann (born in Scotland in 1817) before the year was out (15th December). They took up land on the loop of the hill from Company Bay over into the top of Broad Bay. They were to have a family of six sons and a daughter.

Garrett frequently worked with his two lower neighbours, John Styles and James Gwyn, including on a saw mill in Company Bay, and the three followed the goldrush to Gabriel’s Gully in 1862, but were unsuccessful: if they had taken their tools with them, they would have made some money! After Ann’s death in 1875, Garrett decided to move south to farm, and he and most of the boys did so in 1877.