Sarah Macqueen

The young helper who slept in the loft at The Levels

c.1841–1907
Domestic labour and young workers
Farming

Sarah Macqueen (probably Marion Sarah McQueen, later Hart) was probably only twelve or thirteen when she travelled south from Purau with George and Elizabeth Rhodes in 1854.

The party first stayed near the Timaru shoreline before moving inland to The Levels. Sarah had been brought to help Elizabeth establish the household.

At the early Levels Cottage, George and Elizabeth slept in the bedroom. Sarah climbed a short set of steps each night to a sleeping platform in the loft above them.

That small architectural detail provides rare evidence of her presence.

The surviving records do not explain exactly what work Sarah performed. She may have helped with cooking, cleaning, washing, carrying water or other household tasks, but no wage book, employment agreement or account written in Sarah’s own words has yet been found.

A later account attributed to Elizabeth simply said: “I brought a girl to help me.”

Sarah’s probable identity emerged by following the name back to Purau. An early history of Canterbury recorded Archibald and Catherine McQueen living there with their children Sarah, Hugh and Mary during the 1840s.

Archibald was a shepherd who worked within the same farming network as the Rhodes family. Catherine had travelled from Scotland aboard the Blenheim in 1840 and was recorded on the passenger list as a housemaid.

Their eldest daughter appears to have been Marion McQueen, usually known as Sarah, born in New Zealand around 1841. If this identification is correct, she later married John William Hart and died in Christchurch in 1907.

However, no record has yet been found that directly confirms that Marion Sarah McQueen was the same Sarah who lived at The Levels. Her later identity should therefore remain described as probable rather than certain.

Sarah’s contribution was practical rather than publicly recognised. She helped sustain one of South Canterbury’s earliest European pastoral households at a time when food preparation, washing, heating and cleaning required considerable physical work.

Her story also changes how we look at Levels Cottage.

The building is usually associated with the pastoralist George Rhodes and his wife Elizabeth. Yet the loft reminds us that the household relied on another young worker whose name was easily reduced to “the girl” or “the help”.

Sarah was not a landowner. She did not control the station or benefit equally from its growth. She appears to have been a young person from a working immigrant family who contributed her labour within someone else’s home.

Her journey also took place through landscapes already known, named and cared for by Ngāi Tahu. Purau was close to the important Ngāi Tahu settlement at Koukourarata, while The Levels stood within the takiwā of Kāti Huirapa. The country was not empty or unexplored before European pastoral settlement.

We do not yet know how long Sarah stayed at The Levels, what she was paid or what she thought about the journey.

What survives is a name, a remembered sentence and a sleeping place above a bedroom.

Together, they are enough to bring Sarah back into the story.

 

Read the WuHoo history hunt so far: Who climbed the ladder at The Levels? The search for Sarah Macqueen

 

Sources

Research note Sarah’s full identity has not been conclusively confirmed. The most likely match is Marion Sarah McQueen, daughter of Archibald McQueen and Catherine Cameron of Purau. Official marriage and death records should be checked before her later life is stated without qualification.

 

 

Farming families Early settlement