Notes provided by Helen Edwards, who has carried out extensive research on the women who signed Sheet 156, including mapping where they lived. Download pdf of this research here.
Jeannie Forsyth Duncan, nee Mollison [J. F. Duncan, Roslyn] (No. 29)
Land description: Part Allotment 4, Block 5, Roslyn. Address: (21) Ross Street, 24 Ross Street.
Age in 1893: 37
in 1856 with her parents, Alexander Mollison and Elizabeth, nee Forsyth. The voyage to Dunedin on the Julia Ann took another eleven days. Alexander purchased land at the corner of George and Frederick Streets, where Mollison’s Drapery became a landmark for many years, and the building still stands. After time spent on the goldfields and at Waihola, he bought land in Roslyn and lived at ‘Egmont Villa’, in Leven Street. He was elected to the Provincial Council, and imported the first stage coach for the Dunedin to Clutha run.
In 1878 their daughter Jeannie married a solicitor, Peter Duncan. Peter was the New Zealand-born son of George and Elspeth Duncan, who arrived on the Mooltan in 1849; George Duncan was an energetic and entrepreneurial pioneer who helped to build early Dunedin and died in California following an accident. Peter purchased property in Ross Street in 1880 and he and Jeannie lived there until 1899. They moved to spacious Tolcarne, in Maori Hill, with its bush walks, where for several years the Otago Early Settlers Association held an annual garden party. The Duncans had two sons who joined the family firm of Duncan and MacGregor. Edmund Alexander Duncan served overseas in World War One. Peter Duncan was on the Maori Hill Borough Council from 1906 to 1911. Jeannie died in 1922, aged 66, and Peter in 1927, aged 74 years. They are buried in the Northern Cemetery.
Peter Duncan, 1854-1927. www.northerncemetery.org.nz