FROM his beginnings in Rhode
Island, New York, in the US, a sense of adventure may well have inspired a
middle-class American to settle on a tiny Pacific Island coastal community on the other side of the world.
Whatever his
ambitions and aspirations at the time were, it was clear there was no
returning home for Moses Ezra Work once he arrived in Fiji.
MUASARA in Sigatoka, is the resting place for many of the foreign settlers who made Nadroga’s charming surroundings their home. Tombstones bear surnames such as Work, Hill, Steele, Ah Tong, King and Knowles, giving credence to the closeness of this community through general relations and intermarriage.
They retain historical significance for families of those buried there, including the descendants of Moses Ezra Work.
“He was also known as Ezra Walker Work,” noted Robert Work, a descendant who has busily co-organised a family reunion of this large clan this week.
Robert resides in Calgary, Canada, but like many other relatives, has made a point of getting this gathering off the ground, not the least of which is to rekindle relations as the first reunion of Ezra’s descendants.
The son of Joshua Hills Work and Martha Blanding Walker, historical accounts note that Ezra was born on September 8, 1833 in Attleboro, Massachusetts in the US.
He was one of nine children born to the couple between 1832 and 1850, with the family address noted as 124 Somerset St in Providence, Rhode Island.
Joshua was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1808 and aside from Ezra’s mother Martha, he had also taken another wife in Emily Davis.
“Joshua was a businessman who owned his own tailoring business and like many of his ancestors who were also businessmen,” Robert related.
“By the age of 17, he had taken up surveying.”
Ezra’s siblings were Elizabeth, William, Joshua, Caroline, Harriet, Martha, Willis and Emma, whose names continue being passed down in traditional posterity.
“He never got to see his siblings again after leaving the US. However, to keep them always in his memory, he named his children after them and now over a hundred plus years later, these names are readily found in the Work family,” Robert added.
Historical accounts may very well explain the family’s migratory pattern, with Robert noting documentation of the family over 12 generations, spanning back to before the Works’ initial arrival in the US in 1690.
“They were of Viking extract and were responsible for the construction of forts. Exploring and conquering new lands was in their blood,” he added, referring to a documented account of their origins.
“Confirmation of the surname Work as meaning makers and keepers of fortifications is in the history of the Work family in the Orkney islands, that clusters 67 islands lying six miles off the northern of Scotland,” the account stated.
It also noted that their settlement in Scotland was catapulted by food shortage and a yearning for the riches of other lands.
They thus left Norway in the 8th century and captured the Orkneys from the Picts (the pained men), and established the islands as headquarters for the Vikings fleets and their expeditions against the coast of Scotland.
The islands remained under Norse rule until 1468 and later passed to King James the third, although it was only until 1590 when Norway renounced sovereignty claims over the islands.
“The inhabitants of these northern islands have always prided themselves on their Scandinavian origin, stoutly refusing to call themselves Scots, speaking a dialect of English with an infusion of Norse, and to this date, retaining many manners and customs alien to Scotland.”
The island of Pomona was considered the “mainland” of the Orkneys and was home to a headland where Viking defences were built — as a family tradition — by the Works.
Even after spreading out to the US, it seems the Works’ disdain for the British never subsided.
Five Work brothers arrived in America in1860 and delved into acquiring land and setting up businesses.
“They first settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,” Robert recounted of their history.
“The early Works were revolutionary soldiers having a dislike for England and Scotland, who were responsible for conquering them in the Orkney Islands. They also moved about quite rapidly throughout the US, acquiring properties and setting up business.”
This migratory streak passed to Ezra, who was estimated to have arrived in Fiji around 1850.
“Ezra came down to Fiji most likely in a whaling ship with the intentions to do business and go back and forth to the US. Being a surveyor, he was definitely equipped for navigating.”
Ezra never returned to the US, permanently settling in the colony. He eventually married Adi Vani Wainiqiyama, a noblewoman from Yavitu in Kadavu.
“After arriving in Fiji, he acquired his own ship and started trading within Fiji. His crew were said to be from Yavitu, his wife’s village.
“He most likely began this about 1850 to 1860. Being a person with entrepreneurism skills, it appears that he was a good negotiator and acquired pockets of land from Naqara Island just outside Suva, to Sigatoka,” Robert added.
The ship was used as a ferry and other services, and after leaving Yavitu, he acquired land on Naqara Island, where he settled his young family and raised cattle as additional business.
“He was mainly interested in trading. He definitely had a few workers there to look after his interests while he sailed the islands trading.”
Robert noted that it was while trading that Ezra acquired further land at Sovi Bay (no longer in the Work family) and at Muasara and Kulukulu, a village bordering the sand dunes. Sadly, Adi Vani died at Naqara, and Ezra relocated his family to Kulukulu.
“His wife and a daughter are buried on Naqara Island,” Robert added.
It was in Kulukulu where his children, Ezra Walker (also known as Moses Junior), Christopher Blunding Work, Willis Waterman Work, Caroline Knowles (nee Work), and Joshua Hills Work became the five original estate owners of the family’s property there.
Robert noted that the family of a sixth child died in 1910, during the influenza outbreak.
“These were the first generation of kids there,” Robert highlighted.
“All the sons also had boats and did similar things as their dad. And his only daughter, Caroline, also married a boat captain named Charles Knowles.”
“The generation after this married into the Steele, King, Chongsue, Rounds, Dudley, Ram, Morrell families, to just name a few. They still reside in Kulukulu.”
The American businessman’s offspring include great-grandsons, the soccer legends, Charles and Sam Work, prolific surfer, Paul Chongsue, who is a great, greatgrandson, and pioneering Fijian supermodel Phillipa Steele, who is a great, great granddaughter, whose paternal great-grandmother was a Work.
Though European settlement in Nadroga was not as extensive as those in Levuka, Suva and Savusavu, their lineage remains intact through a plethora of descendants, as evident by Ezra’s community of descendants in Kulukulu.
The scenic province was home to rich farmlands and fertile plains, and had already begun to draw the attention and settlement of foreigners before Ezra made a home there in the second half of the 1800s.
A historical and commercial review of Fiji in the 1907-published Cyclopedia of Fiji noted that long-time settlers in Nadroga included James Byrne. Born in Newark, New Jersey in the US, he made the voyage to Fiji in 1861.
“He was trading for 25 years after his arrival, planting cotton at the same time,”
He failed, as others did, on account of the fall in prices. Mr Byrne has spent 44-years on the Sigatoka River,” the review noted.
The review also noted that upon his first visit there, he found natives cooking and eating human flesh.
The American also supplied cattle to Suva and Lautoka and was known to be one of the oldest of the group of colonists in Nadroga.
Henry Joseph Stuart was another foreigner, and worked as a farmer and storekeeper in the province.
The Australian native was born in Goulburn, New South Wales in 1866 and educated in Suva.
The largest merchant in the province, however, was John Robertson, a Welsh-born planter and storekeeper from Glasgow who was known to import most of his own stock.
