the Catlins River, itself named for whaling captain Edward Cattlin (sometimes spelt Catlin). He purchased an extensive block of land along Catlins River on 15 February 1840 from Kāi Tahu chief Hone Tūhawaiki (also known as "Bloody Jack") for muskets and £30 (roughly NZ$3000 in 2005 dollars). New Zealand's land commissioners declined to endorse the purchase, however, and the Māori received much of the land back after long negotiations ending more than a decade after Cattlin's death. During the mid-19th century the area developed into a major saw-milling region, supplying the newly developing town of Dunedin with timber shipped from the ports of Waikawa and Fortrose. A -long jetty was built at Fortrose in 1875, although this has long since disappeared. Several shipwrecks occurred along the treacherous coastline during this period. Most notably, one of New Zealand's worst shipping disasters occurred here: the wreck of the passenger-steamer Tararua, en route from Bluff to Port Chalmers, which foundered off Waipapa Point on 29 April 1881 with the loss of all but 20 of the 151 people aboard. Another noted shipwreck, that of the Surat, occurred on New Year's Day in 1874. This ship, holed on rocks near Chasland's Mistake eight kilometres southeast of Tautuku Peninsula, limped as far as the mouth of the Catlins River before its 271 immigrants abandoned ship. A beach at the mouth of the Catlins River is named Surat Bay in commemoration of this wreck. The schooner Wallace and steamer Otago were also both wrecked at or near Chasland's Mistake, in 1866 and 1876 respectively,<ref>A. Asbjørn Jøn, Shipwreck Artifacts from the S.S. Otago and the S.S. Tairoa as Symbols of Dominant Maritime Regional Identity Narratives in Southeastern New Zealand, Field Notes: A Journal of Collegiate Anthropology| volume=8 (2016): pp. 28–49.</ref> and a 4534-ton steamer, the Manuka, ran aground at Long Point north of Tautuku in 1929. In all there were eight shipwrecks of note between 1839 and 1892. After a decline in the 1890s, the logging of native timber expanded into new areas made accessible by an extension of the railway, before petering out in the mid-20th century. A series of bushfires destroyed several mills in 1935. The cleared land was used primarily for pastoral sheep and dairy farming, which continues to be a mainstay of the Catlins' economy. Much of the remaining forest is now protected by the Department of Conservation as part of the Catlins