In October 1862, James Hair Young said goodbye to his family on the farm at 'Cleughhead' in the parish of Lesmahagow in Lanarkshire, Scotland. He was never to see his father, his sisters, his stepmother , half-sisters and half-brothers, or his homeland again.
He took passage on the 'Ben Lomond' out of Glasgow, bound for New Zealand, with his good friend Matthew Fallow and Matthew's brother-in-law, John B. McLean. They were three of the thirteen cabin passengers on that voyage.
James received a thorough grounding in good farming practice from his father, but for some reason, in 1862, decided to seek his fortune on the other side of the world, and so it was that he came to be aboard the 'Ben Lomond', bound for New Zealand.
An account of the voyage, taken from the Otago Daily Times 20 January 1863, follows, the vessel having arrived in port the previous day:
"The ship 'Ben Lomond', which arrived at the Heads on Sunday afternoon, was towed up in the morning by the 'Sampson', Preceded by the ship 'Bruce', which had also arrived during the night with a large freight of passengers from Melbourne.
The total number of passengers who shipped by the 'Ben Lomond', was 338, and with one birth having occurred during the passage, the number of arrivals is the same."
With his travelling companions, James headed straight for the Dunstan diggings in search of gold, and for the next eight or nine years he was an energetic and successful digger on the Otago, Picton and West Coast goldfields.
According to his obituary, he came from the West Coast to Southland early in 1870 or 71 via Martin's Bay and Queenstown.
In August 1874 he bought his first farm at Flints Bush. What he did in the intervening three or four years, we do not know. Maybe it was later than 1871 when he finished with gold digging.
It is also possible that he leased the land at Flints Bush for a few years before actually buying it, because this was the pattern he followed later.
In July 1876, he sold this first farm and moved to Heddon Bush - or as it was then called - Oreti Plains, where he leased another farm. He proceeded to plough, fence and improve it, and also build a home there. Having completed the home he married Harriet Lillias Aitken, second daughter of James Aitken of Liddell Street, Invercargill.
By this time, James was a mature man of 40 years and his bride was only 19. Seemingly James thought the age gap was too great, and so he chopped 6 years off his age. He never told his wife what he had done, so that when he died his age was given as 54. This white lie must have caused him some problems at times because his age varies on the children's birth registrations.
After spending most of his lifetime working on the land, first on his father's farm at 'Cleughhead' in Scotland and finally at Waihoaka, apart from a period 1863-1871, when he was gold mining, James Hair Young died on 24 February 1899 and was buried at the Orepuki cemetery leaving his widow Harriet and ten children (seven boys and three girls).191

After the death of her husband James on 24 February 1899, Harriet continued running the farm with the help of her family. In 1903, she married David Alderson, who had come out from County Durham, England, in 1877 on the 'Western Monarch'. The family farm was dissolved in 1919, when the Aldersons moved to retirement in Orepuki. She is remembered by many of her grandchildren as a kind old lady in her many petticoats and long skirts. Her grandson James Owen Young can well remember her playing the piano and concertina when he stayed with her, in his early school years at Orepuki. She also enjoyed a game of cards particulars Euchre or Crib. Her granddaughter Jesse Harriet Young has fond memories of her kindness. An example of this was her taking to the Orepuki Railway Station each Friday evening a steaming jug of hot tea to warm Jessie and sister Agnes Mary Young on their way home from secondary school in Invercargill.190