Our Gin celebrates a beautiful woman who lived in the Kaimai’s at the turn of the 19th century. Eliza Earl was born in Greerton, Tauranga on the 24th of January 1868 and was the 7th child of Stephen and Eliza who had settled in the area in the early 1860’s.

Eliza attended the Greerton school until she turned 13 in 1881 and then moved with her family to a farm on the Whatakau River at Aongatete near Katikati.

Eliza lived with her parents until just before her 21st birthday when she married an Italian immigrant by the name of Joseph Squinobal in January 1889 in Katikati. Joseph was considerably older than Eliza and was a coachman in the New Zealand mail service. The couple moved to Te Aroha where Eliza gave birth to her first child, a son, named Albert George Squinobal, on the 23rd of March 1890. Shortly after Georges birth Joseph vanished and little is known about him until his death in the Waikato in January 1903 at the age of 75.

Following Josephs disappearance Eliza and young George moved back to the family farm near Katikati where she caught the fancy of a young man by the name of William Tilsley. William and his brother John had been mining in Waihi and moved south to prospect for gold deeper in the Kaimai ranges. They based their camp on the Earl family farm and certainly got deeply involved with the Earls. John was to marry Eliza’s sister Ada, while Eliza formed a relationship with William that lasted the rest of her life, although they would never marry.

In April 1896 William discovered a gold bearing vein and registered a claim over an area that he named the Eliza after the new love of his life. He then sold the claim to a local consortium and he an Eliza headed north towards Thames. They lived together as man and wife and were blessed with a son, William, on 1st April 1897.

Eliza fell pregnant again in 1899 and, on 27 January 1900, gave birth to a daughter called Violet. Unfortunately the baby only lived for 12 hours, Eliza passed away seven days later and she and the baby Violet are buried together in the Totara Cemetery, Thames.