Sawdon Station, (30,000 acres) was taken up by Edward Glave Stericker in 1857, associated with two members of the Hall family. John (afterwards Sir John) and George.
Edward Stericker, the three Halls, two Purnells, Joseph Beswick, W.H. Ostler, all came from Yorkshire, and were among the first to select over the ranges. Stericker was in a working partnership with George Hall in a station in the Ashburton Forks, when news of the great new sheep country in the South Island was noticed abroad. He was urged to select by John Hayhurst and the Purnells, and the upshot of it was the taking up of Sawdon in the spring of 1857, but stock was not put on to the new run until March of the following year. Sawdon is named after a village some miles out of Scarborough where the Sterickers settled centuries ago.
Mount Edward, a prominent peak of the Two Thumbs range, is named after the original applicant of Sawdon, as is also Edward's Creek.
The Halls and the Stericker dissolved partnership in 1862, the year following the great snowstorm. The Parkinson Brothers held it for about six or seven years, then came George Gray Russell, with Charles Delamin as a good manager.
After the Russell regime came Lachie MacDonald, Next a Trust and Loan Company, followed by William Sibbald, who came from the Lilybank gorges. He joined the great majority in 1896, and then came Rittson Thomas, who sold to his brother-in-law, George Murray, in 1899. Murray took in hand the wind-swept plains, and in 1903 on the eve of a big snow, sold to David Burnett. The latter sold on March 1904, to Simon Mackenzie and Johinne Ross, took a trip Home, came back and bought Sawdon again, decided that there was worse places than the old Mackenzie in the world. In 1911, subdivision year, the run was cut into three--a small grazing run, ("Paddy's Market"), the homestead (auction run) and the ballot run. Colin Mackenzie drew the latter and Donald Burnett bought the auction run, while Hart of Timaru, got the small grazing run. After considerable changing of hands, Donald Burnett held the ballot run for nine years, Frank Dickson the auction run for six years, and today Charles Parker holds the auction run, and O.Don. the ballot run.
So little was know of the front ranges in 1858, that when Stericker and his men reached Albury, or where Albury now stands, they were told they could not get sheep though Burke's Pass but would have to go through by MacKenzie's Pass. John Hayhurst and Tom Teschemaker were the first to make some attempt at forming a track for drays over Burke's Pass, in1858. It is also of historic interest that the first attempt at public life and spirit in the Mackenzie County was shown in 1864 by setting up the Mount Cook Road Board; that its first chairman was Teschemaker and that it held its first meeting at old Sawdon Station, now marked only by a grove of willow trees. And Sir Walter Kennaway was the first to take a bullock dray and team over Burke's Pass.