A early settling family is recalled in Bennington Street. This is a small street that runs from College Street to Masters Crescent, but the name was originally used for part of what is now Cornwall Street. The Benningtons came to Masterton in 1855, taking up a bush-clad section of land, which stretched from Pownall Street to Ngaumutawa Road in the Cornwall Street area. Mr Bennington worked on Donald’s Manaia Station, where he was killed while bushfelling in 1858. The family retained their land and subdivided some of it for residential properties in 1885. The name of the street through the sub-division (Bennington Street) was changed when the rest of Cornwall Street was constructed in 1908. When the streets in the Cornwall/College Streets area were being named, the name of one of Masterton’s oldest settling families was revived.
Pic: The Bennington children, circa 1900.