[1][2] The obelisk arrived with the Lizzie Coleson on 16 October 1867 and the first the public knew about the memorial was a notice in the West Coast Times on 24 October:[3][4] We understand that "The Dobson memorial", in the form of a very handsome monument, was landed the other day from the Lizzie Coleson.

[1] The memorial was placed in the centre of the intersection of Weld and Sewell streets; construction started on 29 February 1868.

[9] Completion of the memorial was reported on 2 April 1868 but there was no opening ceremony; Hokitika was at the height of the Fenian Uprising at the time and the town was under martial law.

[10][11] The committee had run out of funds, though, and a rough hoarding was left around the monument, which attracted much negative comment.

Surrounded by a broken hoarding which is plastered with placards, whatever beauty there may be in this tribute to the memory of brave men, is entirely lost—even the inscription cannot be read.

Surely some steps might be taken to remove the battered hoarding and replace it with a neat railing, if not of iron, at least of wood, so that the monument might be exposed to view, and not remain, as it is, a disgrace to those who erected it and the part of the town on which it stands.A fundraising concert was organised by the Caxton Dramatic Club.

A newer translation of his diary formed the basis of a book about the journey published in 2010: Pushing his Luck: Report of the expedition and death of Henry Whitcombe.

He had a contract with the Canterbury Provincial Council to open up a track to the West Coast via Harper Pass.

Howitt, together with two other members of his party, Robert Little and Henry Miller, drowned in Lake Brunner on 27 June 1863; their bodies were never found.

He was undertaking road construction in the Grey Valley and murdered in the Brunner Gorge by the Burgess Gang after being mistaken for a local gold buyer.