Many of Masterton’s streets are named after the first European families in the area – their personal names, their surnames and the names of their farms. This process started almost with the arrival of the very first settlers. The first members of the Small Farms Association to settle Masterton arrived on the evening of 21 May, 1854. The members of the advance party are thought to have been Michael Dixon and his daughter Emma, the unrelated David Dixon, and John Cole.  There are streets in Masterton that commemorate all of these families.