Mary J Lane

Biography contributed by Joyce Hislop (great-great neice)

Mary Jane ATKINS was born in Lower Hutt in 1860 the fourth and last child of William Eli and Martha (nee Dew) ATKINS. It appears her birth was not registered. The Atkins family lived in Ohariu Valley prior to moving up to the Port of Foxton in the late 1860s where William and David Miller undertook the arduous task of transporting goods up the Manawatu River by canoe to the bush settlement that was then Palmerston. 

The family later moved to Palmerston North and later again to Birmingham (now Kimbolton) where William had obtained land in a ballot in 1886. He claimed payment there for the cost of felling the road line in the Birmingham Small Farm Block in 1889.

Mary Jane married Samuel Collins Lane a butcher at Marton on 18 April 1881. They had three children William John (1882-1951), Francis Samuel Atkins (1883-1953) and Amy Louisa Selina (1885-1965). In her father’s Will Mary Jane and Samuel (occupation carter) were directed to provide for Mary Jane’s mother and were left his property and assets accordingly. Mary Jane died before her mother at Birmingham (now Kimbolton) on 21 January 1899 aged 38 years. She is buried with her parents’ William Eli and Martha Atkins in the Terrace End Cemetery, Palmerston North.

Samuel moved to Greymouth after Mary Jane’s death and died there on 5 December 1913 aged 56 years. His funeral left from his son William’s home and he is buried in the Greymouth Cemetery.

Sources

BDM’s

Papers Past

Will of William Eli Atkins

Cemetery Records

NB: Mary Jane Lane is the sister of Selina McCarty also on page 311