Riverton, Township situated on the south-eastern shoreline of the Jacobs River Estuary, on the banks of the outflow channel into Foveaux Strait, Southland District, on state highway 99, 39 km north-west of InvercargillRiverton is the oldest permanent European settlement in Southland, in the late 18th century sealers and whalers from New South Wales, after working in the waters around Fiordland and Foveaux Strait called here to replenish their provisions. The Maori settlement here thought to have supported a considerable population, was called Aparima, but to the whalers it became known as Jacobs River after a local chief they dubbed “Old Jacob”. About 1836 the whaler and merchant Johnny Jones sent Captain John Howell to establish a whaling station there to replace the abandoned station at Preservation Inlet. Eventually buying out Jones share, Howell expanded the venture and begun ship-building. In 1838 he married the daughter of the Ngati Mamoe chief of Centre Island, and thereby acquired a large block of land which he subsequently built into a large holding, worked by former whalers. Riverton was constituted a borough on 9, June 1879. So named because the town was situated at the common estuary of the Aparima and Pourakino Rivers
