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Acker's Cottage

Coordinates: 46°53′47.45″S 168°9′10.33″E / 46.8965139°S 168.1528694°E / -46.8965139; 168.1528694
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Acker's Cottage
Acker's Cottage is located in New Zealand
Acker's Cottage
Location within New Zealand
General information
Architectural styleVernacular
LocationLeask Bay Road, Harrold Bay, Stewart Island
CountryNew Zealand
Coordinates46°53′47.45″S 168°9′10.33″E / 46.8965139°S 168.1528694°E / -46.8965139; 168.1528694
Designated26 November 1987
Reference no.396

Acker's Cottage is one of the first stone houses on New Zealand's Stewart Island (officially Stewart Island / Rakiura). The cottage was placed on the Heritage New Zealand list of historic places (category I) and has been restored by Heritage New Zealand and the Department of Conservation as an example of an early vernacular building. Built by Lewis Acker, it is the oldest whaling cottage in New Zealand and one of the earliest stone buildings on Stewart Island.[1][2]

Lewis Acker

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Lewis Acker (c. 1817–11 July 1885) was a New Zealand whaler, boatbuilder, trader, farmer and saw miller. He was born in New York City, US.[3] Acker married a Kāi Tahu woman, Mary Pui, and together they had nine children.[2][4] After Acker retired from whaling, he built the cottage on Harrold Bay, Stewart Island. He quarried the stone at Oreti Beach and carried it across Foveaux Strait in his boat. He cleared the nearby land for cultivation in an area that is now called Acker's Point.[5] Acker and his wife lived in this cottage until the late 1850s. Since that time it has been used as a smithy, storeroom, brewery and workshop.[1]

References

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  1. ^ a b Insight Guides: New Zealand. APA Publications. 12 September 2013. p. 517. ISBN 978-1-78005-686-9.
  2. ^ a b Brookes, Barbara; Holland, Alison (25 May 2011). Rethinking the Racial Moment: Essays on the Colonial Encounter. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. p. 66. ISBN 978-1-4438-3036-2.
  3. ^ Acker, Clarence Louis. "Lewis Acker". Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Ministry for Culture and Heritage. Retrieved 23 April 2017.
  4. ^ Ross, Ben (6 March 2010). "Stewart Island: A lonely land of myth and wild wonders". The Independent. Archived from the original on 18 March 2010. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  5. ^ "Acker's Cottage, Heritage New Zealand". www.heritage.org.nz. Retrieved 2 June 2017.