John McELWAIN was born in 1822 in Ballymascanlan, County Louth, IRL, JGOC has age 80 in 1892 should be 70?
1 John McELWAIN J.P., Rocky Nook, Auckland, was born at Killan House, Ballymascanlan, County Louth, in 1822. He was educated in Dublin, and was in the Government service in the county of Louth until he was about the age of twenty-six years. Attracted by the accounts from New Zealand he left his native country by the ship ?Pekin,? and landed at Port Chalmers in 1848. Mr. McElwain went on to Auckland, where he joined the service of the Government, and remained in it for two years, and afterwards entered a merchant's office. After two years' experience there he turned his attention to farming, and purchased fifty-five acres of land at Kingsland. His brother, the late Mr. George McElwain, presented him with sixty acres, and so he entered on his new calling with every assurance of success. For over sixteen years he carried on farming with great prosperity. He then sold his land, and bought his present property at Mount Roskill where he has since led a life of ease and comfort. Mr McElwain has devoted both time and energy to the public affairs of the district, and was for ten years chairman of the Waitakerei Road Board, and one of the first members of the original Mount Albert Road Board, on which he served for twenty years. He has been a constant worker in the cause of education, and was chairman of the school committee during the years of his residence in the Mount Albert district; he presented the board with the acre of land on which the school now stands. Mr. McElwain has been a Justice of the Peace for over thirty years. Throughout the whole of his career he has been ably helped by Mrs McElwain, who is a daughter of the late Rev. John Whitley, whose murder at the White Cliffs by the Maoris, in the early days of colonisation, is a melancholy historical fact known to all pioneer colonists. Of Mr. and Mrs McElwain's family, three sons and two daughters are alive. Two of the sons are farming?one at Waiuku, and the other at Waitakerei, and the eldest daughter married Mr. H. H. Seabrook, the well-known manufacturer, of Grafton Road. Mr. McElwain's brother, Mr. G. McElwain, was the first Governor of Auckland Gaol, and was appointed to the position by Captain Hobson, the first Governor of New Zealand. John McELWAIN immigrated to arrived Auckland 5 dec 1849 on the Pekin in 1849 JGOC has arrived Auckland 1840 on the Herald!
1