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The original publication details are as follows:
Title: The story of Hawera
Author: W. A. Q. (William Alphonsus Quin)
Published: C.O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works, Hawera, N.Z., 1904
i Presented to
the National library OF NEW ZEALAND by
DONATED BY THE FAMILY OP *MS LATE
me. A.C. yqjngm.an
For a Good Supper <;<> i'o r rm<: “SILVER GRID,”
Luncheon & Supper Rooms,
High Street, Hawera.
(>PK\ TIM> >III >TVI<; I IT.
H. K. HARTY,
PROPRIETOR.
When you are Visiting Hawera
CALL AT
C J\\e J2»ec\\
w B5
111< »II STREET, HAWEH A.
Mrs. W. QRAMAM - Proprietress.
THE BEST PLACE
For a First Class Luncheon.
Refreshments at all hours.
Civility and Attention to Patrons, combined with
Promptness and Cleanliness.
Cash Purchaser of Poultry, Eggs, Etc.
FOOTHALL, crk k i:r, i.aw> r i:> \i s.
And other Sporting Requisites at the establishment of
F. H. BOASE, T?< XIKBELLER, SPAT I < » Eli.
Boase’s is the right Shop for presents to your friends, and for Tennis and Cricketing Requisites.
Visitors will find Boase’s fully stocked with all the Latest Magazines, Novels, and Newspapers.
The Very Latest Novelties in Post Cards and Playing Cards, If you lose your Purse, BOASE can replace it.
A C'sill Respectfully {"Solicit**<l.
F. H. BOASE (next Egrnont Hotel), * Bookseller & Stationer, High Street, Hawera.
EGMONT Steam Saw, Moulding, Sash & Door Factory,
PRINCES STKEET, lIANMMJA
G. SYME = Proprietor.
Manufacturer of all kinds of Sashes, Doors, Mouldings, and General Joinery.
Builders’ Material Supplied on the Shortest Notice.
Band-Saw Cutting of every description done, including Eave, Verandah, and Mantel Brackets to any Design.
Turnery of Every Description.
Factory Churns of Latest Designs and Improvements.
Wood Pulleys for Factories made to any size
Cooperage of all Descriptions.
Large Stock of well-seasoned Timber and Manufactured Goods in stock.
Bush Mills —Midhirst, Ngaire, and Toko.
Stratford Timber Yards —Juliet Street.
H. MORRIS,
PRACTICAL WATCHMAKER & JEWELLER,
High Street, Hawera.
Next to Cowell & Kneebone
WATCHES AND CLOCKS
Repaired and Cleaned in First Class Style at Moderate Prices.
All Work is Guaranteed No Make-shifts.
Wedding Rings, Keepers, Engagement Rings, and Every Description of Jewellery Made to Order.
Clocks from ss. to £5. Standard Makes of Watches.
Spectacles to suit all Sights.
YOUR SIGHT TESTED FREE.
HAWERA EXHIBITION, HM)4.
\o \\\e a\)o9e are mi?\\ed \o
\x\sbpec\ Show of Furniture \n We Se>xbub\b\on fPjmbAingj.
exbenAeA bo V\s\\ m>(
Furniture Warehouse,
High Street, Hawera
v)\\ere vs\W J\xvd \\\e Wges\ and mos\ =U ip-\o-da\e
Household Furniture
\o \>e on We " combine A vJWVi vs xn\ TC^oWo.
\\ve premises Workmen.
“THE PEOPLE’S FURNISHING WAREHOUSE,”
J. E. WILSON Proprietor,
HIGH STREET, HAWEHA.
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
By (W. A. Q.) C} Oikk old*. clw> Adc/|a
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE
HAWERA INDUSTRIAL EXHIBITION.
190 A, C O. EKDAHL, CAXTON PRINTING WORKS. HAWERA.
[ALL IOHTS RESERVED.]
INTRODUCTION.
/ hare little erni.se to offer foe the production of the immature ■sheteh that follows. K rittm at short notice, awl ayainst time, as it were, it will he found, no doubt, bristlim/ with faults in ereri/department oj narration. Bat it is an initial effort, and. as such, will, I trust, be less harshly criticised than if it claimed to he. the finished product of a professional story teller.
And now, this page being nearly filled, I muse on all the ink I’ve spilled And hope to add not to the list of killed, My Readers!
Index to Advertisements.
FRONT:
R. W. Sargent, Watchmaker and Jeweller.
T. Gourlay, Gentlemen’s Tailor.
G. H. Gibson’s Livery Stables.
J. W. Vearbury, Boot and Shoemaker.
John Henderson. Saddler and Harness Maker.
Moore and FitzGerald. Family Butchers.
H. K. Harty, “Silver Grid.”
J. Brunette, "The People’s Jeweller.”
B. C. Robbins. Grocer, etc.
Price & Hodgetts, Fruit and Fish Merchants.
Mrs. W. Graham. “Cecil Dining Rooms.”
F. H. Boase, Bookseller and Stationer.
Geo. Syme, Egmont Sash and Door Factory.
Hawera Bacon Company, (L. H. McAlpine, Mgr.)
H. Morris, Watchmaker and Jeweller.
J. E. Wilson. “ People’s Furnishing Warehouse.
BACK:
W. K. Twigg, “Allan” Oil Engine.
A. Paterson, Draper and Clothier.
Cowell & Kneebone, Plumbers and Tinsmiths,
Onehunga Boot Factory. (W. S. Moore, Propr.)
Purser Bros, Hairdressers and Tobacconists.
W. Spence, “The Economic.”
Hawera Gas Company.
A. H. Duxfield, Saddle and Harness Maker.
W. Taylor, Egmont Engineering Works.
H. A. Jenkins, House Furnisher, etc.
J. Macklam, Bookseller, Stationer, Tobacconist.
Colman’s Private Hotel.
F. W. Carpenter, Fruiterer and Confectioner.
Pratt & Co., Cabinetmaker, Upholsterer, etc.
C. O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works.
f. McGuire.
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
I O ATTEMPT to describe Hawera and its vicinity as it lay under the glittering constellations of the South, in the weird and solemn quiet before the advent of the Moriori and the Maori to these shores, would be the part of the romancist only; for there was no one then on these fertile plains to mark their later change from forest to scrub and from scrub to fern and bracken; none then with a poet’s eye to gaze:
Out on the orb-studded nii/kt,
Ami the mellow eti'uhjenee of Dian,
Out on the far gleaming star dust
Which marks where the anijeh have trod
Out on the i/em -pointed cr
And the glittering pomp of Orion,
Glowing in measureless azure,
The coronal jewels of (rod.
Little or no sound broke then the heavy stillness of Nature, save perchance the cry of the giant moa as he roamed over the site of our little town, or the nocturnal call of the kiwi boring, perchance, on the spot where the Exhibition buildings now stand, or the occasional whistle of the weka and the wild duck. And ever the restless sea boomed against the papa cliffs by the Zig-zag, and mingled its unceasing diapason with the hiss of the sweeping sand.
Presumably this fair land of ours, dowered eternally with the sweeping coastal outline of a kingdom, lay in a tranquil
» (By W.A.Q.I 9
6
THE STORY OF HAWERA
natural state, undisturbed by man, until the fourteenth or fifteenth century of our era. Navigation from afar had probably reached our coasts ere this, and there is a strong belief that the Chinese and the Portuguese did so at a remote date, but there is no trace of the landing of any of these daring Vikings.
And the land, clad in its primeval forests, was left to await its destiny, which appears to the writer to be its setting apart as a drafting ground on the outskirts of the world, wherein the contending nations of the old world may mix and blend their rival races in the foundation of a common weal and a cosmopolitan people.
It is probable that the giant dinomix (moa) was plentiful in these parts in that remote age, for as late as 1839 the Maoris asserted that this hughest of birds was present in the vast forests around the base of that peerless snow-clad dome of Taranaki, which it would be an insult to ignore in any account of Hawera district, and which is at once our land-mark and our pride. Then she was in an excited active state and ever and anon Telched forth on the wooded plains beneath showers of scoria and lava. Anon the troubled volcano sobbed itself to rest, and kindly Nature placed cooling snows on her hot forehead, and soothed her feverish throbbings for aye.
We have substantial proof that the rich land around us was at one time heavily wooded, in the frequent occurrence of partially decayed pine stumps, which are still encountered by the ploughman on the open plains. But the fierce saltladen breezes which came up from the Antarctic wastes, and swept along the western coast of the South Island, gathering impetus as they came, until they tell in a furious saline shower on the Taranaki coast, withered the majestic forest before them for miles inland. Before that deadly visitation the mahoe and the tawa bleached and died, and the smaller trees drooped and faded, and the giant rimu, kahikatea, and matai bleached, and perished, and fell with thundering crash on
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
7
the smitten undergrowth beneath, and the glory of the forest was blighted for ever. And afterwards, in a later day, the stray embers from a ‘kopa maori’ or ‘hangi’ ignited the dry and fallen kings of the forest—and they were cremated. So it is now that we have a stretch of land from Opunake in the North, to Manawatu in the South, bereft of native bush along a strip a few miles wide from the seashore inland, save in the sheltered valleys, where the blasting blizzard had no power to blight. And along this belt, in the place of the stricken forest, sprang up a wilderness of fern and scrub and tutu.
Another interval in the history of this spot, and the empire of the fowl and the beast is rudely invaded by the coming of their master —the advent of man to these generous plains. It is the Moriori, a light copper-coloured race, presumably from the Asiatic mainland. How this brown race of daring voyageurs reached this haven in their frail canoes can only be conjectured, but a glance at the map of Polynesia affords a dim clue to the method of their coming, and indeed to that of their conquerors —the Maori. Down that marvellous succession of stepping-stone islands which reach awav from the end of the Malayan peninsula, ‘the Golden Chersonese,’ we may safely presume they came, pausing awhile at each— Sumatra, Java, Lombok, Sumbawa, Sumba, Timor, Arrou, and Papua—as they lie in direct gradation one beyond the other; then down the wild-duck flight of numberless isles that dot the Coral Sea until, mayhap, some furious storm drives their primitive barques beyond the shelter of the last lone isle, and after uncounted privations they see the shadowy shore of this antipodean land rise to their eager gaze, and, offering their human sacrifices of gratitude, they land thereon in safety. It is fair to assume that this race, being an industrious and peaceable one, cultivated the land throughout during their term of occupation and that the fertile district around us did not escape their notice.
8
THE STORY OE HAWERA.
Again a pause of uncertain duration, and the hills and dales aiound our present town resound with echoes in a strange tongue. It is the call of the Maori —noblest of the children of Ham—that remarkable race blended of Bantu, Arab, and Japanese, with a strange dash of Egyptian, Celt, and Hebrew; whose origin is a mystery, and whose destiny, alas, seems measurably finite. At sound of those strident Doric voices the gentle Moriori paled, and shuddered, and fled; leaving their habitations and their plantations to the conquerors. Launching their long canoes in the quiet reaches of the Tongahoe and the Waingongoro, and the tidal streams of the coast, they ply out to open sea, and, propelled alike by paddle, wind and tide, they speed down the funnel of Cook’s Strait, pausing not in their wild flight until the sheltering strand of Wharekauri (the Chathams) appears over the waste of waters; and that asylum, to this day, receives the remnant of their race.
The fierce war-loving new-comers had journeyed in their staunch canoe, the Aotea, from mystical Hawaiki; and, under the leadership of their chieftain, Turi, had rounded the northernmost headland of Aotearoa, as they named the land, and coasting along the land, drew up their now unseaworthy wherry on the sands of the Aotea harbour. Then they continue their journey on foot, passing the Waitara at its fordable entrance and rounding the seaward side of the ‘puke haupapa’ or ‘snowy hill’ of Taranaki, they presently come to the fertile scrub-covered plains of Waimate, and the neighbourhood of Hawera. “Ha! The land, it is good!” they cry, “‘a whenua momona,’ a fat land, indeed! Here will we reside, and our people, Ngati Ruanui, will hold the land for ever!” Then Turi journeyed on, they say, as far as the Patea river, but repelled by the sandy wastes then in that vicinity, he returned to this neighbourhood, naming the landmarks and rivers as he came. And lo! the spring near the mouth of the Patea River, on its Southern side, whereat he drank at the terminus of his wanderings, is known as Wai-turi to this day. This
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
9
brown explorer called the yellow stream to the South of us the Tongahoe, or ‘the Southern voyage,’ and the little burns on either side of our town Tawhiti, ‘the distant stream,’ and Waihi, ‘hissing water.’ And away across the Waingongoro (snoring water), near to the beach, he built his great pa, Te Waimate, which was in existence in late European times. And here, and around about, they dwelt, and cultivated the ‘teeming soil’ and thrived.
The Maori race is the one of all the .Ethiopian division of mankind to which the Caucasian has affinity of sentiment and reciprocal feeling. Perhaps this arises in great measure from the appreciation of the Pakeha for the gallant stand the natives made for the land they had made their own; but certain it is that no other country aftords the spectacle of a dark and a white race living side by side in perfect amity. In America, it is well known, the tension between white and black is extreme; in India, the submerged Aryan may arise at any time and blot out the now dominant European, as a wilful child crushes the sandfly on the pane; on the African draughtboard it appears as though black had but to move and win at any time: But here there is concord between the races, each animated by a mutual appreciation of each.
The origin of the Maori is a matter of intense interest to the ethnologist, but it is not proposed to discuss the matter here. It may be merely mentioned, however, that with the certain evidences of Arab and Negroid descent, the similarity of customs and language points strongly to early Egyptian and even Celtic influence. Thus the Maori term for the sun, Ra, is precisely the title given by the ancient Egyptians to their glittering God of the Sky. There are also evidences (as at Te Awaroa, near Kawhia) of the mummified form of embalment having been practised at one time by the natives. And who, seeing the Maori women standing in a row facing'the declining sun (again that invocation of the sun) mourning their dead at a tangi, has not recalled Siangan’s translation of an old Erse ballad:—
10
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
(f iromi'ii of thr nir/rim/ trail!
II ho woimK'st o'er f/on mound of rlaij
With sif/h and t/roan , —
I( onld (rod, t/nni icrrt aimou/st thr duel!
Thou irauli Ist not thru from da;/ to da;/
Weep thus alone!
And in physique, in breadth of shoulder and weight of frame, and in the brachy-cephalic form of head as well as in the spontaneous gaiety of their temperament and in ready wit, they strongly resemble the Celt. And now and again one sees, especially in the mixed race in this vicinity, a profile of Maori face which is absolutely Semitic in outline, not to mention the existence of customs among them exactly in accord with those laid down in the Old Testament for the guidance of the chosen people, all going far to prove the origin of all humanity from one common centre, and that spot the valley of the Euphrates.
The Ngati Ruanui dwelling in this quarter appear to have kept up a continual strife with the other tribes of the island ; for fresh migrations speedily followed after the despatch of the first colony to these shores. These appear to have sought the mouths of the rivers and to have colonized the land around them. Thus we have the chief Kupe in his canoe, Matatua, landing in the Whanganui, and claiming all the country from there up to the Patea; and Manaia, with his boat load of wild Ngatiawa, landing the Tokomaru on the shelving banks of the Waitara, and spreading with his descendants on to the Waimate Plains and up to the confines of Ngati Ruanui, with whom they engaged in ceaseless strife until, in later years, the mutual dread of the ferocious Waikatos (Ngati Maniapoto) impelled them to jointly confront the foe.
About the end of the year 1642, the watchman on the pa at Waimate might have noticed away off the mouth of the Waiongongoro a couple of strange specks upon the heaving seas. They are larger than any he has seen before, larger even, by far, than the giant canoe, Aotea, which brought his
THE STORY OK HAWEKA.
11
ancestors thither. With excited cries he calls up the tribesmen from the taro and the kumara patches around, but they are unable to make out the ‘ waka roa’ (big canoe), and merely wave their patiti (tomahawks) in defiance at the intruder on their fishing grounds, where they, till now, have exclusively hooked the hapuka, kahawai, and tamuri. The strangers ignore the savages’ demonstrations and stand to the northward. It is Captain Abel Tasman with his boats, the Heemskirk and the Sea Hen, and to him is generally attributed the (European) discovery of Taranaki. The next recorded visit of the white man is that of James Cook, who rounded Taranaki early in 1770 but did not land in this Quarter. Then came Marion du Fresne, who bore up to the coast in his ship, Mascarine, in 1772, and named the Taranaki mountain “Le Pic de Mascarine,” a term which is certainly more sonorous, and has not the sycophantic origin of “ Egmont,” the name given to it by Cook in honour of a patron Earl. However, Taranaki being the original native name has the prior claim and the more enduring title.
CHAPTER II.
r PHE fate of Du Fresne and other navigators who touched A at these islands warned off subsequent attempts to commucate and trade with the natives for many years. A few solitary Europeans, mostly escapees from whaling ships that exploited the seas around, however, from time to time, settled among the Maoris, and were, generally speaking, made much of by the chiefs, who were quick to see their usefulness. Among the first Europeans to live in Taranaki was John Rutherford, who reached Ngamotu in 1817, and found already there one James Mowry, an Englishman who had been resident in the country some eight years, and had been made a chief. To the north of Auckland, European settlement progressed much more rapidly, and by 1820. almost every leading native chief had his pet pakeha as ‘guide, philosopher and friend.’
In this year, the celebrated Waikato chief, Hongi, paid a visit to England, ostensibly for curiosity, but really to collect arms, with which to revenge himself on a neighbouring fractious tribe. Returning to Tauranga with a cargo of arms, he at once revolutionized the method of Maori warfare by his use of the new modern weapon, and almost exterminated the fated tribe against wdrich he bore the grudge.
The introduction of firearms marks a gloomy page in the history of the Maori. The fearless tribes, accustomed to the stand-up fight with the mere and the patiti, melted away before the blasting stroke of murderous guns, fired by unseen hands at unknown distances; and it is computed that within a decade after Hongi’s arrival, sixty thousand natives perished in the inter-tribal wars.
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
13
In 1831, the ferocious Te Wherowhero, the Maniapoto Napoleon, came down like a whirlwind on the Ngatiawa tribe and almost obliterated them from North Taranaki, the few survivors fleeing down to this neighbourhood, and to Waikanae, and even over to ‘Te Wahi Pounamu’ (the greenstone land, /.(!., the South Island), so great was their dread of the northern tribe, who returned after their raid, laden with spoil, and hampered by captive Taranakis.
Mr. Skevington, a Wesleyan missionary, appears to have been the first to introduce Christianity among the local natives. He established himself, about 1837, on a bend of the Inaha stream, midway between the present Riverdale factory and the sea, and there he laboured for many years. The native mind, generally speaking, is not of a spiritual cast, and it is therefore not to be wondered at that the early missionaries made little lasting impression on the sensual tribes.
In the meantime trading vessels had continued to arrive off the Taranaki coasts, principally to obtain flax (phormium) for the Australian market. Occasionally also, whalers appeared off the coast, hunting the leviathians which then swarmed in the tepid seas around.
The whaling barque, Harriet, en mute from Sydney to Cloudy Bay, was wrecked off Rahotu in 1834, and a dispute occurring between the crew and the local natives (caused, it is said, by the sailors giving the Maoris soap to cook for food, and the subsequent effect on its partakers), many of the seamen were killed, and the Captain’s wife (Mrs. Guard), with her children, carried off into captivity at Te Waimate. She was detained there, being honourably treated the while, some five months, when on the arrival of a warship, H.M.S. Alligator, in Opunake Bay, she was given up to European custody A fracas arose between the marines and the natives on this occasion also, one of the former, it is alleged, in liberating one of the children who was bound by flax to a slave’s back, cutting also, in cold blood, the throat of the native who carried him. For this foul murder, the wretch, according to Marmon,
31
THE STORY OF HAWEKA.
merely received a reprimand from the Lieutenant. Then, according to Dr. Marshall, the marines commenced firing on the natives huddled together on the beach, strewing the ironsand shore with the bodies of the aboriginals. Thus was enacted the climax of this punitive expedition, a method of savage revenge which is still followed by some of the enlightened nations of the world in their doings with ‘ Indians.’ Thus also was sown that mutual distrust between the races which was afterwards to bear such bloody fruit.
After dispersing the people on the beach, a few settlements in the vicinity were stormed, and the British flag hoisted south of Te Waimate, and all the pas in the neighbourhood rendered to the flames. Then the commander of the Alligator withdrew his red-coated assassins, and beat up and down the coast from Ohawe to Otumatua, bombarding the seaward settlements as he went, and blasting the homes of the poor people within the reach of his destroying guns. Only a few years back, Mr. J. H. Siggs picked up, on his farm at Hauwhenua, one of these !.cannon balls, and brought it into town for exhibition. It is still to be seen, I believe, at the Public Library,—a monument of the Christian method of retaliation, and an undying lesson to the heathen.
In 1839, a number of people in England, attracted by the accounts of the exceeding fertility of this land, joined together and formed the 1 New Zealand Land Company.’ In the same year an expedition was despatched to these distant islands to purchase land from the natives, and to found a colony. Colonel Wakefield, who was in charge, landed from the barque Tory, at Pitone, afterwards called Wellington, where a settlement was founded, and after a short delay he sailed for Taranaki, and anchored off Moturoa in December, 1839. Some difficulty was experienced in purchasing the land in the vicinity, owing to the stand taken by a missionary, Mr. H Williams, who counselled the natives not to sell the land Afterwards, however, 72 natives, who were supposed to represent all the owners, disposed of all the land between the
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
i 5
Mokau and the Patea to the Company. On the occasion of this vessel’s visit, also, Dr. Dieffenbach, a German naturalist, climbed Mount Taranaki, being the first European (and probably the first man, for the summit was tapu to the Maoris) who had ever set foot upon its snowy crest. From that exalted outlook he had such a view of the scarred face of the Islands as well repaid him for the exhaustion of the climb. He followed, with gladdened eye, the curving outline of the coast to the Northwards as far as Gannet Island, and to the South ‘the flashing line which marked the boundary of the deep’ even to distant Kapiti. Away to the South the broken outline of the Nelson hills stretched along the horizon, and far inland the gleaming crests of Ruapehu and her sister domes showed dazzling white above their settings of dark green forest. Beneath his feet, it almost seemed, the wooded tableland lay untenanted save by legions of birds, out to the scrubcovered belt which marked the plains of Waimate and Hawera, and the thin columns of smoke arising therefrom proclaimed again the presence of man. And he followed with straining vision, the sinuous courses of the hundred streams brawling out to their foaming bourne from their fountains in the snows beneath him. Then a cloud, as if anxious to conceal the mysteries of the virgin land from strangers’ eyes, settled down upon the Mount, and screened his further view.
To stop private speculation in native lands, and to forestall the French, who were already colonizing the neighbourhood of Akaroa in the South Island, the Home Government sent out Captain Hobson in the beginning of 1840 to formally annex the country to the British Crown. This was done in two proclamations issued from the Bay of Islands, and a few days afterwards the celebrated Treaty of Waitangi was signed by five hundred and twelve Northern natives as proxy for the whole Maori people.
After this date, emigrant vessels commenced to arrive in quick succession at Port Nicholson, and on August 27th, 1840, an overland exploring expedition left there for Taranaki.
i 6
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
The party comprised:—Messrs. Stokes and Parker, surveyors; Mr. Heaphy, draughtsman; Mr. Dean, and six labourers. The journey occupied about a month, and Mr. Stokes records in his report that he found it extremely difficult to procure provisions between Patea and Ngamotu (the Sugarloaves). The period being early spring, it is probable that the local-dwelling natives were somewhat short of provisions, on account of the potato-planting absorbing the bulk of their store of tubers, and to the uncertainty of the weather for sea fishing at that time. This is our first record of a European party, save perhaps a solitary missionary or pakeha-maori, passing through our district. These men returned shortly afterwards, taking six days to get from the Sugar Loaves to Patea.
Next year an expedition left Wellington, as it now became to be called, to spy out a site for settlement in the neighbourhood of Ngamotu. After some delay and vacillation between the sites of Waitara and New Plymouth, the latter was chosen, and in March, 1841, the first emigrant ship, the William Bryan, with about one hundred and fifty souls on board, arrived off those remarkable islets, once the stronghold of the remnant of the Ngatiawa tribe, and now the landmark of the Taranaki harbour.
These ‘pilgrim fathers’ do not appear to have held quite the strict Puritanical ideas of their compeers of the ‘Mayflower,’ for Mr. Chilman recounts that the notorious ‘Dicky Barrett, seeing a whale off the coast one day, could only persuade one white man to accompany him in the chase after it, ‘ all the rest of the Europeans,’ with remarkable unanimity, ‘being intoxicated.’ However, this little circumstance does not detract, except to the ultra-Prohibitionist eye, from the merits of the sturdy pioneers who had passed thousands of miles of angry seas to found homes for themselves and their families in a fairer, brighter, and better land.
THE STORY Ol- HAWERA.
1 7
Still the bounteous soil in our vicinity was untickled by the ploughman’s share; still the fern-clad fields around us knew nought of the presence of the grazier’s flocks, nor the restraining barrier of the boundary hedge; and the pig-rooted plateau which was known to the natives as Hawera (that is 1 burnt clearing ’) gave no indication that it would one day bear the weight of hundreds of dwellings, and its surface resound to the snort of the locomotive and the screech of the factory-whistle.
CHAPTER III.
THE origin of the word ‘Hawera,’ signifying a burnt space m the undergrowth, is said to have been the fact of twc neighbouring hapus of natives dwelling near Robertson’s Lakes (whereon, they say, no wild-duck rests, for fear of the number and size and rapacity of the eels that frequent their waters) having quarreled owing to some intrigue, and one party thereupon setting fire to the kianga of the other, the flames spread over the rolling plains even to the banks of the Tawhiti; wherefore, the fire-scorched area has been called ‘ Hawera’ ever since.
The new arrivals had not long been resident at New Plymouth when that series of bickerings with the natives about the ownership of the land began, which afterwards developed into open war, and drenched the province in blood. These difficulties increased year by year owing to the freeing of the Taranaki slaves by their Waikato masters, at the instance of the missionaries, and the consequent shutting out of these landless natives from their former holdings.
However, the settlers there held on to their territory with grim British determination, and each succeeding effort of Maori and ‘ Mihaneri ’ (missionary) to oust them seemed only to have the effect of anchoring them the faster to their holdings. One of these gentlemen, a Mr. Charles Brown, must have felt his change of environment somewhat, for he had been an intimate friend of Keats, the‘songster of the stables,’and of Byron, ‘the King of British poesy’ (despite the temporary regency of a Tennyson or a Kipling). This amiable gentleman died shortly after his arrival in the Colony. In 1842, the resident agent of the Land Company decided to cut a track through the forest on the Eastern side of Mount Taranaki, in order "to
THE STORY OF HAWESA.
J 9
obtain more speedy communication with Wellington than the roundabout coastal route which had been followed till then. For this purpose two of the Messrs. Nairn, of Patea, with a gang of twelve Maoris, were set to work on the inland road. Mr. Skevington, the local missionary, however, made every effort to overthrow the scheme, fearing that the work would be merely the thin edge of the wedge that would eventually press the natives off their lands. Urged by his example, the local Maoris refused to allow the track to debouch on their lands either at Okaiawa, Meremere, or Patea. Finally, negotiations were entered into with a chief named Pakeke, who had plantations near Ketemarae, for the egress of the road there. ‘Thereupon,’ says Mr. Wakefield, ‘the missionary raised such a hornet’s nest about his (Pakeke’s) ears, that, though he had formerly lived at the Waimate Pa, and had been one of the most zealous attendants on Mr. Skevington’s religious instruction, he removed his own family and retinue to a new village which he built at the mouth of the river (Ohawe), and suddenly and resolutely abjured his profession of Methodism, and called himself a ‘Churchman.’ His following did the same, and the most ‘ beautiful ’ feud imaginable resulted, the sound of musketry rolling frequently over the Inaha from morn till night. Mr. Wakefield adds: ‘The road, however, was finished, and we met a party of workmen at Manawapou (now Mokoia) who were on their way to show the guns, in which they had insisted on receiving the principal part of the payment, to their friends at an inland settlement, between the rivers Manawapou and Patea’ (presumably Manutahi).
In the beginning of 1843, the first herd of cattle that had ever pressed hoof on these plains passed through by way of the new inland track, bound for New Plymouth settlement. They were in charge of Captain Cooke (not the original navigator of that name), and Mr. Richard Barrett. Mr. Wakefield also accompanied the party on horseback, and his quadruped, being the first of its kind that the coastal Maoris had seen, excited considerable consternation among them.
20
THE STORY OF HAWEKA.
Mr. Wakefield thus describes the scene at the old pa, Tihoe, that existed near the mouth of the Whenuakura, and seaward off which lie the shallow reefs whereon is the best tamuri fishingground along our coasts: “I was not seen by the inhabitants of the pa till close to the river Whenuakura. They then ran down to the beach. By this time I had plunged into the river, which here flows over soft and shining sands.” The w-riter knows this spot well, for he has often ‘ laid his hand upon the ocean’s mane’in that vicinity. “My horse’s body was nearly hidden,” Mr. Wakefield resumes, “and though many of my old friends here had recognized me, and shouted, ‘ I iraweka! Haeremai! ’ they evidently thought that a native was carrying me on his shoulders. There were now nearly a hundred natives collected, many of whom had never seen a horse before, crowding over each other to give me the first greeting. With two or three vigorous plunges, the horse suddenly emerged from the water, and bore me into the middle of them. Such a complete panic as ensued can hardly be imagined. I hey fled yelling, in all directions, without looking behind them; and as fast as I galloped past those who were running across the sandy flat and up the steep path leading to-the Tihoe pa, they fairly laid down on their faces, and gave themselves up for lost. Halfway up the hill I dismounted, and they plucked up courage to come and look at the‘kuri nui’(or large dog).” One can hardly imagine this scene occurring only fifty years ago, remarking the extreme fondness of the Maori of to-day for the noblest of quadrupeds.
Mr. Wakefield, as may well be imagined, was extremely struck by the appearance of the country between here and Ketemarae, where the road entered the forest. In his journal, he thus enlarges on the theme: “After all the beautiful spots and districts which I had already seen in New Zealand, I was struck with the surpassing beauty and luxuriant productiveness of the country hereabouts. Just after entering the wood,” (then encroaching on the plain to near Turuturumokai) “which is at first like an immense shrubbery, with occasional
JAMES DAVIDSON.
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
21
large trees, the abundance of the crops in the existing native gardens, the rankness, and yet softness, of the grass which had sprung up in the old deserted patches, surrounded with flowering shrubs, amongst which singing birds were chasing each other, all combined with the genial weather, although it was approaching to the middle of winter, to remind me touchingly of Shakespeare's sweet picture of the perfection of agriculture :
Earth's increase and foyson plenty,
Barns and yarners never empty,
I ines, with clusteriuy branches, growing,
Plants, with yoodly burdens, bowing
Sprint/ come to you at the farthest,
In the eery end of the harvest.
Scarcity and want shall shun you,
(feres’ blessing so is on you.
To this gentleman’s eloquent testimony, the writer would like to add his own childish impressions of the country when coming through by waggon route many years later. It was then late spring, and after the inclement clime of Southern Otago, it seemed like full and radiant summer. The rays of the fervent sun hung suspended, as it were, in glittering corkscrews curls and interrogation notes in the tremulous air, and shimmered on the few ‘ thin, tin, tinted roofs ’ like passing swarms of bees - The air was filled with the sent of the ti palm, then in full bloom, and mingled with it the beautiful aroma of the flowering rangiora. Convolvolus spangled the shrubs and hedges with its pure white bloom, and the heathlike flower of the manuka beautified the few barren ridges where it grew. The tawny plumes of the toe-toe waved from every hill and dale, and the orange glory of the gorse checkered the landscape with saffron. Radiant clematis formed bridal wreaths on many a shrub and bramble, and the whole land, lit with the blazonry of the sun, appeared to us children, made grave by the leaden skies of the South, and accustomed to little of interest save the daily passage of kakas
B
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
22
from the Spar Bush to the Longwoods, or the flight of seagulls hastening home at eventide from the ploughed lands to the Riverton Beach, a wondrous and a fairy land, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ Often indeed, has it occurred to me later, as to Maeldhune in his ‘ voyage’:
And we came to the Island of flowers:
Their breath met us out on the seas,
for the Spring and the middle Summer
Sat each on the lap of the breeze;
And the red passion-flower to the cliffs,
And the dark blue clematis, clung,
And starred with a myriad blossom
The long convolvolus hung.
And the topmost spire of the mountain
H as lilies, in lieu of snow,
And the lilies, like glaciers,
Winded down to the depths below
Thro' the fire of the tulip and poppy.
The blaze of gone, and the blush
Of millions of roses that sprang
Without leaf or thorn from the hush :
And the whole isle-side flashing down
From the peak without ever a tree
Swept like a torrent of gems
From the ski/ to the blue of the sea;”
Well might the good and resolute Bishop Selwyn, who passed through on foot in 1842, have exclaimed on reaching this spot; ‘My lot has fallen unto me in a fair ground; yea, I have a goodly heritage!’
At this period the local natives were industrious and peaceable. They tilled their lands with more zeal than formerly, and sent away large consignments of wheat from the neighbourhood of Taiporohenui and Hawera. With the extreme imitativeness and ingenuity which then animated them, but which in later times seems to have become clouded in ale-froth and tobacco-smoke, they erected rude but serviceable
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
42
flour mills on the Waingongoro near Hokorima, on the Tawhiti, and at Mokoia, using carefully selected stones from the unlimited collection on the beach, for the grinding of the corn. Mr. Parris relates that, some years later, he saw growing at Taiporohenui, one of the finest crops- of wheat he had ever seen. This was transported by lumbering bullock-cart away round the coast to New Plymouth, a distance of nearly eighty miles.
The differences between the natives and settlers still increasing in North Taranaki, the Home Government decided on sending out Mr. Spain, a barrister of high standing, to adjust the Maori claims against the Land Company. He arrived in Wellington in 1844, and proceeded to walk overland to Taranaki. His companion rn route, Colonel Wakefield, relates; “The journey from Wanganui occupied us ten days, in consequence of some bad weather, and the swollen state of the streams. The Waimate Plain, which I have before described, was covered with a thick coat of fine grass. The Commissioner (Mr. Spain) and his party expressed their admiration of its qualities as the finest field for flocks and herds they had seen in New Zealand.” Mr. Spain, decided, practically, that the Company were to have possession of some sixty thousand acres of land around New Plymouth, excepting only some native pas, plantations, and burial grounds, upon tne payment of a small sum of money {£2oo). This decision was of course satisfactory to the settlers, but the Maoris raised such a clamour that Governor Fitzroy immediately annuled the Comissioner’s award, and left both Maori and settler on the horns of a dilemma as to which decision was to be adhered to. In consequence of this over-riding of the law, and through the agitation of the colonists throughout the country, Fitzroy, who seems to have been, despite his judicial incapacity, an able and a scientific man, was recalled, and Governor Grey, the ‘Grand Old Man’ of the South, appointed in his stead.
CHAPTER IV.
IN the latter end of 1840, this Colony, which, in the first stages of its settlement had been administered from New South Wales, and in 1835 handed over to a confederacy of native chiefs, was proclaimed an independent Colony, and the first Legislative Council met in Auckland on May 24th, 1841. In 1846, a Provincial Council’s Ordinance was passed, giving to the provinces of ‘ New Ulster’ and ‘New Munster’ an Executive and Legislative Council, and in 1852 an Act passed through both Houses of the Imperial Parliament giving lo the Islands a Representative Constitution. The Government was to be administered by a General Assembly composed, as now, of a Governor appointed by the Crown, a Legislative Council, and a House of Representatives. The Colony was then divided into six Provinces, viz:—Auckland, Wellington, New Plymouth, Nelson, Otago, and Canterbury. The Provincial Council for New Plymouth first assembled at that settlement on September 16th, 1853, and consisted of Messrs. Cutfield, Chilman, Parris, Burton, Good, Vickers, and Watt.
Governor Grey’s first act on his arrival was to suppress the rebellion of the Ngapuhi tribe in the North, who had arisen under the famous Hone Heke, and had destroyed the emblem of British authority, in the shape of the flagstaff at Kororareka, on three separate occasions. With the assistance of some friendly tribes, the turbulent natives were speedily crushed, and the first war with the Maoris satisfactorily ended. Some two years before, in June, 1843, a desperate affray with the natives under Te Rauparaha and Rangihaeata, had occurred in the Wairau district of the South Island. An expedition, under Captain Wakefield, had ventured, despite
THE STORY OK HAWERA.
44
repeated and timely warnings from friendly Maoris, to enter the native settlement, for the purpose of arresting the two chiefs. The seizure having been made, it is said, in the roughest and rudest manner, the angry tribe fell on the European party of twenty-two and massacred them to a man.
Early in 1847, the first steamship which had ever disturbed the waters in the neighbourhood of the Sugar Loaves came smoking up from the the Southward. It was H.M.S. Inflexible, with the Governor, Sir George Grey, on board. He had come to meet the Ngatiawa natives there, with the object of endeavouring to purchase more land 7 from them. This tribe had returned in hundreds from of late, their fear of the Waikatos having been <vtfercome by the assurance of protection from the Government. They proved to be a veritable thorn in the side 5f European progress. Their spokesman, one Wiremu/ Kingi, a blustering giant of near six and a half feet in height, claimed, on their behalf, all the land from the Wa/tara to the Mokau and objected to part with one rood of W Failing to come to a satisfactory understanding with w; Kingi, the Governor left for the South. /
Meanwhile, this coast s»/l) remained practically a terra incognita save to the few travellers who occasionally passed through. A small settlemt/ n t, called Petre, had indeed started at the mouth of the Wh a nganui river, and the site where Patea now stands was beginning to be looked upon as an eligible one for a town > but the whole coast was practically populated by natives, an( j the white man was a very small power indeed in tf /| s quarter. The Rev. Mr. Skevington having died suddenly ? was succeeded by the Rev. William Woon, a man r ,■ gig an tic stature, who after some years residence amon ‘the very cowardly and ungrateful people,’ as he called th £ ] oca i natives, and having had his house burnt down upon gave up his charge in despair. Father Pezant, a F / enc h clergyman, had from time to time trudged through frc/ m Wanganui to New Plymouth, attending to his
THE STORY OF HAVVERA.
45
scattered flock; and we have seen that the Anglican Bishop Selwyn had come through in ’42. Later on, in the end of 1861, after the war in North Taranaki had begun, he endeavoured to pass through again Southwards, but the Hawera natives being in sympathy with Kingi’s party, he was warned not to proceed, and his baggage was taken from him. Nevertheless, he advanced as far as the Mission Station at Ohangai, near Meremere, when, seeing that the Maoris were CAermined to prevent his passage, he returned to New Pl/mouth, where his baggage was restored to him.
The Taranaki Herald, the first paper to see the light in the province, was issued on the 4th August, 1852, by Mr. Wm. Collins. N JTere had been several papers printed previously in other parts oPihe Colony, of which the AVic Zealand Gazette, the official organ\was the first.
\ With the passing of time, it became more and more evident to the Taranaki settlers that the natives were determined on making \a bold bid for the land which had once been theirs. In the Taranaki ‘Land’ League was formed among them, and t&e ‘fiery cross’ of the tribes was borne around the coast by oni’ Tamati Reina. Reaching the neighbourhood of Hawera, aVgreat meeting of the Ngati Ruanui was called on its outskirts, at the instance of Matene te Whiwhi, who had lately visi ted the Waikato, and was cognizant of the coming King .Vovement there. A great building, the largest ever erected b> Maoris, was put up about a mile and a half to the Eastward of V ur town, and after much ceremony by way of burying a therein, and passing around a tomahawk, which was anythin," but symbolic of the pipe of peace, was called Taiporo Henui, v or ‘the termination of strife.' The ‘wharepuni’ was 120 feet 1 ong by 35 feet wide, and the meeting was attended by over a thousand natives from all the country between the Waitara ancl the Manawatu. Taiporohenui has seen some big meetings sincdr> to our knowledge, but not one, I ween, animated with such gm m determination to hold the land of their forefathers as that ont\- There, in
THE STOHV OF HAWERA.
27
council, they solemnly agreed that no more land should be sold to the Europeans without the express consent of the ‘ Runanga’ (or council); that no European magistrate should have jurisdiction within native boundaries; and that no pakeha should be allowed to settle between Kai Iwi and Ngamotu. The prospects of Hawera, from a European standpoint, were thus, to put it mildly, somewhat dark at that hour.
Immediately after the great meeting, a reign of strife began in North Taranaki, between the Land Leaguers and those natives disposed to deal with the Europeans for the land. With the object of ending this strife, Governor Brown, who had succeeded Grey, called a meeting of the turbulent natives at New Plymouth. One Te Teira, offering to dispose of his land at Waitara, brought the bounceable Wiremu Kingi to his feet. “Listen, O Kawana!” he said, “notwithstanding Te Teira’s offer, I will not sell Waitara, which is mine! I will not give it up! E kore! E kore! E kore! (I will not! I will not! 1 will not!)” Then insuitinglyremarking to the Governor, “ I have spoken, upoko kohua! (Thou boiled-head!)” he left the assembly with his people.
The Maori is very happy in phraseology, and Wi Kingi was not denied the racial gift. On Mr. Parris going to see him at Waitara in ’59, he inquired of the Ngatiawa chief, in the presence of the Rev. John Whiteley (the poor old man who was afterwards to come to such a bloody end), why he opposed the selling of land by natives who owned it. “ Because,” he replied, “ I do not wish the land to be disturbed, and although they have floated it, I will not let it go out to sea!” “Show me the justice of this!” said Mr. Parris. “Enough, Parris!” replied the haughty rangitira, “their bellies are full with the sight of the money promised, but I will not let you have the land! I will hold it, and till it myself!” A few months afterwards, a survey party having been assaulted by Kingi’s party, troops which had arrived at New Plymouth from Auckland were marched out to the neighbourhood of Waitara, and martial law was proclaimed
47
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
on February 22nd, iB6O. In the meantime, the Maoris had erected many strong pas in the neighbourhood, and next month the first collision occurred between the two races in this province, and the first shot fired proclaiming the commencement of that mournful decade of horror, the Taranaki War.
Thenceforward for ten years, with little cessation, the ‘rattle of arms and the ring of the ride’ might have been heard in some part of the ‘Garden of New Zealand,’ and during that long period no white man dared go far afield from the sheltering block-house or the confines of the redoubt. The fields and the plantations remained for the most part untilled, and the land lay desolate in the presence of the blasting demon of War: It was indeed, for that term, as seemed the prospect of annihilation to the holy man of Hus; “A land that was dark, and covered with the mist of Death; a land of misery and darkness, where the shadow of Death, and no order, but everlasting horror, dwelt!”
CHAPTER V.
IT soon became evident, on the commencement of the struggle in the North, that the South Taranaki natives were not going to remain passive while the conflict raged. The fact of one hundred Ngata Ruanuis appearing on the scene at one of the first engagements, (Waireka) ‘having barely time,’ Mr. Carrington relates, ‘to take off their ‘pikaus’ (slings for carrying burdens) before the action commenced,” speedily convinced the Europeans that the Kingite War was likely to develope into a general Maori War. Mr. Wells, in his excellent ‘History of Taranaki,’ further relates that at this time there were four hundred and fifty other Waimate Plains natives coming up along the Coast to assist their Northern friends, hut, meeting a broken ‘taua’ (war party) of their allies, they halted for the time at Warea. It was computed that, at this period, there were at least one thousand fighting men among the tribes between Ngamotu and Wanganui.
The idea of the establishment of a Maori Kingdom had now taken a strong hold of the native mind. The famous Northern warrior, Te Wherowhero, had been crowned King, in native fashion, in the Waikato, and had assumed the title of Pototau I. Thereafter, his emissaries went through all the tribes of the Island, developing the monarchial movement, and cementing the general alliance of the hitherto warring tribes against the common foe. The idea of the formation of an exclusive Maori realm, was a distinctly laudable one, if the objects of the preservation of the race, and their lands, were those in view, and we can only regard with mixed feelings the conduct of such tribes as Arawa and Ngati Porou, who stood out of the confederacy from the first, and, later on, imbrued their hands in the blood of their own people. At least, all
30
THK STORY OF HAWERA.
those high souls who have burst the bonds of nationality will be inclined to look upon their renegade action in this light. With the exception of a few tribes, the Maoris generally, now for the first time recognised the need of standing together in the interests of their race and territory. In addition to the method of transmitting messages, generally scratched on green flax-leaves, among each other by bearer, they established a printing-press at Te Awamutu, and issued a publication called ‘Te Pihoihoi Mokemoke’ (The lonely sparrow) in furtherance of the national movement.
At the beginning of the strife, Mr. F. Standish (afterwards Lieutenant Standish) was sent by Governor Brown with despatches from Taranaki to Wellington. The journey was a dangerous and adventurous one, as the natives in this vicinity were all ‘pouri’ (evilly-disposed). He, however, rode through in three days, but not without molestation, as a party of natives met him at the Waihi stream, and endeavoured to stop his further passage. After a long ‘korero’ (talk), he was permitted to proceed, And camped for the night among a large band of armed natives in the vicinity of Manutahi, boldly deciding that it was better to risk peril among a throng, than incur the treacherous pursuit of two or three. Before noon the next day he reached Wanganui, and thence pursued his arduous journey, of eighty miles a day, to Wellington.
The war raged with varying fortune to the belligerents in the North, and did not sweep down to this quarter until the appearance of General Cameron at Patea, five years later. The ‘rebels’ there were captained by Revvi, of the Maniapoto tribe, Hapurona, Kingi’s fighting lieutenant, and Epiha, a Kawhia chief. Of the latter, Mr. Wells relates an interesting incident, affording a remarkable parallel to Roderick Dhu’s safeguard of Fitzjames through the defiles of the Trossachs, and at the same time showing up, in amiable light, the onetime chivalry of the Maori. The chief, Rewi, having invited Mr. Parris, the acting Native Commissioner, to a conference at Mokau, the latter, in spite of the great danger of the
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
50
passage through hostile country, decided to go. At Urenui he was stopped by a war-party under Epiha, who gravely informed him that his people had decided to murder him, and that he might consider himself a dead man. ‘Nevertheless,’ he added, ‘ I did not come from Waikato to do murder, and, if you determine on proceeding, 1 must escort you.’ And for the rest of the way, in spite of hustling natives anxious to destroy the temerious European, and regardless of the fact that he was censured by his own people for his conduct, the chivalrous chieftain, interposing his own person at times to protect him, conducted his charge safely through the dangerous locality, leading him safe
Through watch ami ward,
Far past Atiawa’s outmost guard!
Then, turning to Parris, he exclaimed: ‘' I will yet meet you, O Pakeha, in open conflict, by the light of day; but you have seen that I have not consented to your murder!” And he kept his word, like Highland chieftain of old. For at the desperate attack on Huirangi, in January, 1861, the dark, tatooed features of this noble savage were discerned in the van of the rushing Waikatos.
In March, 1861, Hapurona, having experienced several reverses, hoisted the flag of truce, and accepted the terms offered him by the Governor, and the war ceased for a time. But the natives in our district had not relinquished the idea of expelling the pakeha, and it was at this time that Bishop Selwyn, essaying to pass through them, was turned aside at Meremere, and ordered back. In the meantime, Wanganui had grown to quite an important village, and Patea was also in a thriving state. But the long lands intervening were still in the possession of the Pakakohe, Nga Rauru, and Ngati Ruanui.
In May, 1863, hostilities again began in the North, owing to a dispute about the posession of Tataraimaka. On this occasion, Hapurona indited a message to the Governor, challenging him toTight ‘by the light of the sun.’ This bold
51
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
piece of bravado was soon followed by the attack on Captain Lloyd at Ahuahu, and the complete defeat of the European force. This engagement is remarkable for the fact of the origin thereat of a new expression of religious fervour on the part of the Maoris, and the first occasion of the practice of the fanatical Hauhau rites. The heads of the decapitated slain were fixed on to poles, and carried from settlement to settlement throughout the island, and a bold attempt made to consolidate the national feeling by the declaration of a national belief.
Up to this time the Maoris of this province were nominally Christians, the results of the labours of such men as Messrs. Skevington and Woon and Father Pezant in the South and the Reverend Wilson and Father Garavel in the North. It was not until 1858 that the first Presbyterian minister came along this coast, and neither this body nor the Anglican appears at that time to have worked the native field to any extent. The Maoris now, however, threw off all pretensions to Christianity, and the sinister Hauhau faith spread like a flame through the land. Thenceforward, the war assumed an aspect of ferocity it had not known before, the fierce Hauhaus often rushing on the soldiers’ bayonets ‘barking like dogs,’ as one historian states.
Kowhai Ngutu Kaka, in his extremely interesting ‘Maori History,’ thus explains this remarkable religion: “A man named Te Ua determined to search the foundation stone of all the creeds, and extract a religion for himself and the race. He did so, and the result was this new religion, which was named ‘Hau,’ and his desciples were called ‘ Hau Haus.’ We worshipped before a pole placed firmly in the ground, and rigged as the topmast of a ship. It had been manifested to us that we were the ten lost tribes of Izrael. We chanted our prayers in an unknown tongue, as we marched and danced around, trusting, with all faith, that, sooner or later, we would all be able to comprehend the meaning of the apparent gibberish we gave utterance to. A spike nail was driven into
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
52
the pole, or ‘niu, upon which we used to hang the head of one of our killed enemies. ‘Pai marire’ was our watchword, and ‘ Riki was our God of War, and the Spirit of Joshua was our guiding general. Our form of prayer was a chant after the following: ‘God the Father, Hau; God the Son. Hau, Hau; God, the Holy Ghost, Hau, Hau, Hau! Jehovah, attend, save us, Hau! Instruct us, Hau! Avenge us, Hau! Pai marire, Hau! Great rivers, mountains and seas, attention, Hau, Hau, Hau!’ We were then sanctified. Each person now touched the head hanging on the spike nail in the niu, as it revolved round the pole, and the prayers were over for that time. I hen, if about to start on an expedition to seek the enemy, Joshua’s Spirit led us forth, and he who had told the moon and sun to stand still, led us forth with power to smite the Gentile, and our spirits assisted him.”
Under the influence of this strange hodge-podge of Old Testament History and native savagery, the most revolting excesses were afterwards committed, and from this point onwards we see the Maori at his worst, maddened by the acquisition of the new inflamatory rites, and wavering between the frank heathenism of olden times and the mild precepts of Christianity -which he never thoroughly acquired, nor wholly understood.
CHAPTER VI.
IN November, 1864, General Cameron took over the command of all the forces in New Zealand, and decided to attack the ‘rebels’ on this coast. He commenced operations at Wanganui in the early part of ’65, while his second in command, Colonel Warre, worked down from the New Plymouth side. The Colonel made good his progress as far as Opunake, which he occupied, and there awaited his superior. The commandant, however, as will be seen, advanced no further than the Waingongoro River, and from thence, whether from timidity or through dislike of the war (always distasteful to Imperial veterans), despatched letters to the Ministry, charging them with disregard of the lives of British officers and men. A few months later he resigned his command.
He had arrived at Patea, then a considerable place, with the whole of his available force on the 13th March, 1865, and at once advanced on the native village of Kakaramea. The Maoris showed fight, and the 57th Regiment under Major Butler, supported by detachments of the 50th and 58th Regiments, rushed the pa, and carried it after a brief but bitter struggle. The casualties on the native side were over thirty, while, on the part of the troops, only one man was killed and but a few wounded. The palisaded pa was dismantled, and a strong redoubt erected in its place.
Then the General operated up to our vicinity, building block-houses as he advanced. The remains of some of these were visible in recent years at Manutahi, Manawapou, Hawera, and Waihi. The local one stood on the site which is now known as 1 Robbins’ Park,’ and it is an example of the utilitarian tendency of the time that our local Borough
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
35
Council should have decided, without a dissenting voice, on dismantlingjioe.old flagstaff mound of the fort, thus obliterating for ever an historic link with the past.
General Cameron, while in occupation of South Taranaki, endeavoured to inaugurate a surf-boat service to communicate with the supply steamers riding off our inhospitable coast. In the end of March, a boat was launched at the mouth of the Manawapou for this duty, but was dashed to pieces against the papa cliffs, the crew fortunately escaping with their lives. On April 2nd, another boat put out from the same spot, but was overturned by a rolling beam-sea, and seven lives were lost, including the two oarsmen, McGuire and Graul, and five soldiers. Undeterred by this calamity, another boat essayed do reach the steamer tTinulayi which lay in the offing, and three more men, whose names will be discovered
When the first Heaven and the first Earth shall
hare passed away,
Ami the Sea shall be no more
perished in the savage breakers that foam and boil between the mouths of the Tongahoe and the Manawapou, which debouch close together on a sandy strand so thickly impregnated with iron, that inverted stalactites, as it were, of the consistency of pig-iron, may be seen in all directions projecting like spikes, from the surface. The reason why Hawera people do not frequent this interesting spot more, is probably from the fact that the way thither lies, literally, through the gates of Death.
In the meantime, Colonel Warre had not been idle at Opunake. Advancing therefrom in mid-winter, he destroyed the Hauhau village of Te Puru, the natives being placed somewhat at a disadvantage, as they were running around their ‘ Pai Mariri ’ pole at the time of his coming. On the 2nd of August a severe engagement took place at Warea, and five of six of the troops were killed. The Colonel in command then confined himself to holding Opunake and its immediate vicinity.
3 6
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
Owing to the extreme reluctance with which military help was granted New Zealand by the Imperial Government (an object lesson for future times), the Colonial Parliament decided to adopt their own measures to pacify the country. Governor Grey issued a Peace Proclamation to the West Coast Hauhaus in 1865, which they refused to receive. In delivering a pacific message to the Otautu hapu at Patea, the envoy, Mr. Charles Broughton, was foully murdered, and his body thrown over the cliff into the river. On October 4th of the same year, five troopers of the military train fell into an ambush on the Manawapou Hill, about two miles from Hawera, and Trooper Smith, unable to disengage himself from his fallen horse, was tomahawked. His companions safely reached the shelter of the Hawera block-house.
The Government now decided on confiscating to the Crown the lands of all the natives who refused to hearken to the peace overtures. By a proclamation dated 30th January, 1865, Governor Grey formally intimated that all the land South of the Waingongoro River was escheated to the Queen, and, on the 2nd of September following, 50,000 acres in this vicinity was proclaimed an eligible site for colonization. The idea in the Ministerial mind was to establish a series of outposts in the unsettled districts, garrisoned by military settlers, who were to serve under arms if required, and were each to be granted a tract of land, together with pay and rations, until the country around was thoroughly subdued. Under this arrangement the towns of Kakaramea, Mokoia, and Ohawe were surveyed off for settlement, but did not have the success that was anticipated for them, until some years later, when genuine settlers took the place of the roving military.
Then came, in the wake of the troops, hardy men from Cornwall and Wales; crofters from the ‘noble Northern Land;’ men who had delved with bare feet on the bleak hillsides of far Tyrone; and with their advent to these ambrosial skies and their mutual interchange of ideas, were dispelled in great part the prejudices, the exclusivism, the religious bias, and the
C. E. MAJOR, "
c
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world-hatred, which distinguishes many in their fog-wrapped isles. An amusing account was given the writer of an incident that happened at the Manutahi block-house in those days. A meeting of the Catholics of the settlement had been held in the local block-house, and the wrath of Bob A , a member of a Society which believes the Bishop of Rome to be identical with the Beast described by St. John in the 13th Chapter of the Apocalypse, was extreme at the desecration. Selecting a stout stick, he stationed himself unseen in the gloaming at a corner of the road by which the attenders of the meeting would return. As they came along in single file, the fiery Robert felled them to earth in succession, exclaiming as he did so: “Recant! Ye squirming divils! Recant!” Then, when he had a pile of ‘Papists’ shoulder high on the path in front of him, and as signs of returning consciousness appeared in members of the struggling heap, he retreated in good order, whistling softly as he went, ‘ How can they tell Pm Irish.’”
About this time, acting on the suggestion of several military settlers that Hawera would prove a suitable spot for settlement, a grant of ten acres of land was offered by the Government to any who would consent to hold their positions in this locality. Strange as it may appear to-day, there was no rush for the gifts, only a few daring pioneers, among the first of whom were the Messrs. Middlemas, accepting the proffered gift. About the same time, the settlement of Manutahi was formed, which, being in somewhat safer country, progressed more rapidly for the time. However, Hawera bore no semblance of a town for years afterwards, and it was not until the first coach passed through from Wanganui to Taranaki, on January nth, 1871, with the Premier, Sir Wm. Fox, on board, that the spot was recognised officially as being a more suitable site for a township than either Ohawe or Mokoia. But we are anticipating the sequence of events.
Major-General Trevor Chute having succeeded to the command vacated by the vacillating Cameron, started from
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Wanganui, on the last day of 1865, to sweep the coast clear ■of the militant Maoris. His force was largely composed of \ olunteers and native auxiliaries from the East Coast (mostly Ngati Porou), the bulk of the Imperial troops having been removed by this time, and the Colony left, in its most arduous hour of trial, to fight its own battle. Under General Chute was the famous Major von Tempsky, the son of a Polish officer in the Prussian service, and a man of many parts. He afterwards fell in the van of his company at the disastrous attack on Te Ngutu-o-te-manu.
On the 4th of January, Chute' attacked and took the pa of Okotuku, near Momahaki, and, a few days later, that of Putahi, on the Whenuakura River. Then he advanced on Ketemarae, which being one of the oldest settlements in the Island, and a popular place of resort for all the neighbouring tribes, was expected to make a strong resistance. However, only a slight skirmish took place there, in which Captain Ross, afterwards slain at Turuturumokai, was wounded. Here the General learnt that the bulk of the enemy’s force was encamped at Otapawa (now a part of Mr. J. Davidson’s estate), and, having concentrated his force, he proceeded to attack that stronghold. In the meantime, he destroyed the renowned meeting house at Taiporohenui, where the Land League had been established eleven years before.
On the 18th of January, the force of about seven hundred men with three guns, marched on the native entrenchments, which were defended by about three hundred Hauhaus. When within fifty yards of the palisades, the Maoris poured in a destructive volley, which caused great execution among the troops, the principal sufferers being the 57th Regiment. For a moment the storming party wavered, but, steadiedjby their officers, they again rushed on, and, entering the pa, destroyed all who had the temerity to linger. In the meantime, Major von Tempsky, making a detour to the right, cut off the retreat of numbers of the enemy. Their total casualties were about thirty, while the troops mourned the loss of eleven
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comrades, among whom was the gallant Colonel Hassard, who was the first man down. Over twenty were wounded in addition, and the General himself had a narrow escape, a. breast-button of his coat being shot away. It was at this action that the notorious deserter, Kimball Bent, first came into sinister prominence. A dark rumour, current in wartime, as to his antipathy for Colonel Hassard, and as to the latter being found shot through the back, before the Maori fire commenced, is probably but a camp-fire tale.
CHAPTER VII.
AFTER their defeat at Otapawa, scattered bodies of the Hauhaus collected at Ketemarae, Mawhitiwhiti, and Ahaipaipa, where they were successively dispersed by Chute’s force. Then the General commenced his famous march through the bush from Ketemarae to New Plymouth, which was successfully accomplished, although the force was obliged to subsist on half-rations, and to kill some of their horses for food. Several of the old settlers now in the neighbourhood of Hawera assisted in this expedition. On his return journey by way of the coast, General Chute reduced the natives in the vicinity of Warea, who had exhibited a bold front for years, to submission, and passed through Hawera on the sth of February, 1866, having temporarily subdued the natives of this coast.
Before the General undertook the march through the forest, he had stationed Colonel Butler at the mouth of the Waingongoro (Ohawe), with a flying column to harass the turbulent natives around. This active officer rendered great service by the destruction of the pa at Tiritirimoana, in the beautiful park-like clearing of that name. In those times, the natives had extensive cultivations in those beautiful glades, (now, alas, ruined, in the artistic sense, by the ruthless grazier) and there, t’was said, began the secret pathway (by which Titokowaru’s force escaped in ’69) to the ancient fastness of Pukerangiora, on the Waitara River. The Colonel also reduced the considerable fortress of Ahaipaipa, near Okaiawa, after a severe action, in which five of the defenders were killed.
Colonel McDonnell also operated successfully from the Waihi camp during the absence of the General. On the ist October, 1866, he led a night attack on the enemy in the
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vicinity of Okaiawa, and rushed the rebel encampment with the loss of one man. Farrier-Major Duff. On this occasion, Ensign Northcroft (afterwards Stipendiary Magistrate) distinguished himself by rescuing Duff's remains from mutilation. Next month, the Colonel started from the Ketemarae flat to disperse some natives who had collected again in their beloved groves of Tiritirimoana. On this occasion, the guide, Winiata* on arriving at the Mangimangi Gorge, refused to lead any further, saying that he had had an evil dream the night before* wherein it was vividly irr.'ressed upon him that the leading man of the force, or arriving at the summit of a steep hill, was shot through the body. In deference to the Maori’s objections, the lead up the hill-track was taken by a Greek private named Ikonomedes. On attaining the crown of the slope, Ensign Northcroft, who commanded the leading division, had barely time to call out ‘Take cover!’ when a volley rang out from a karaka grove in front, and Ikonomedes fell, shot through the body. This remarkable circumstance is related by Colonel McDonnell in ‘Heroes of New Zealand,’ a work of great interest, its worth, however being greatly discounted by the prominence given in its pages to the author, who would appear, therein, to have practically conducted the whole war himself.
In July, 1867, the last detachment of the Imperial force was removed from the Colony, and Taranaki was left without a semblance of help from Britain, notwithstanding the fact that no peace had been declared, and that the Maori hope of ultimate triumph had not been killed, but merely scotched. (Reflection on this episode may have a cooling effect on some of those ardent Imperialists who imagine that Britain is bound to help us whenever we are in trouble.) To keep up a semblance of our ability to resist Maori agression, the Government was compelled to raise an armed constabulary corps in the beginning of ’6B, and Major von Tempsky was sent to Patea to take command of the local forces.
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The few settlers living within rifle-shot of the Hawera blockhouse in the winter of 1868, received a rude shock to their trustful hopes that the natives were quite subdued, when a messenger on a foaming horse rode over from Waihi with the news that a pit-sawing party, consisting of Sergeant Cahill and Privates Squires and Clarke, had been found tomahawked on the edge of the bush, near Mr. Inkster’s present residence, on the evening of the 10th of June. Although there can be no excuse for the murder of unarmed men, yet the fact that the unfortunate fellows had been warned by natives to desist from their work on three separate occasions, affords some palliative for the dark deed. The mutilated remains of the poor fellows were brought into Waihi, and interred in the little cemetery there, and their names can still be traced on the rotting slab that lies across their hillocked grave.
Two days later, the ferny turf of that little burying-ground was again disturbed to receive the remains of Trooper Thomas Smith, shot while in the act of mounting his horse, quite close to the fort; and it was evident to all that the drear struggle tor the mastery of the Plains had commenced again.
The Government feverishly rushed troops into our district. Major von Tempsky, who had been ordered to Auckland, was sent for urgently; Captain Newland and his company shipped at New Plymouth for Patea; the mounted corps hurried overland from the same locality; and Colonel McDonnell, Captain Page, and other veterans were soon on the scene. Captain Frederick Ross was ordered to reconstruct and garrison an old fort in the neighbourhood of Hawera called Turuturumokai. All outlying settlers were called in to the neighbourhood of the forts, and all prepared for the impending storm.
And it burst in a thunderclap before very long. At grey dawn on Sunday morning, the 12th of July, the garrison of the Havvera blockhouse were aroused from their slumbers by the ominous roll of musketry to the Northward. Peering out in the semi-darkness, the sentry could plainly see flash
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after flash in the gloom in the direction of Captain Ross’ new fort, and presently Mr. P. Sweeney and one or two settlers rushed in with the dreadful tidings that the redoubt was surrounded by Hauhaus, and the bulk of the garrison exterminated.
On occupying the old redoubt, Captain Ross had found that the original enclosure was too small to accomodate his garrison of twenty-five. Consequently, he built some huts outside, and in one of these took up his own abode. T ieMaoris had traded peaceably with his men for two or thr e weeks since his occupation, and it is probable that the vigilance of the commander thus somewhat relaxed. On .he night mentioned, a band of three hundred Hauhaus under i w chief Titokowaru, who afterwards attained great celebrity as a guerilla leader, crept along the banks of the Tawhiti fr m the direction of Keteonetea. Silently they encircled tuc redoubt, and crept up through the flax, toe-toe, and lancewood, which then grew around the site of the fortification, towards the ditch of the stockade. The outside sentinel, Lacy, seeing the dark outline of a native worming his way along towards him, and, getting no answer to his repeated challenge, fin d. At once the hillside resounded with the answering volley of t..e natives, intermingled with cries of ‘ Kokiri! (‘Charge!')'; ‘ Whakawharia! (‘ Close in !).' Lemon, the keeper of the canteen outside the fort, was the first victim to fall. .-c lay outside his whare with his heart torn out, and his ..ody chopped to pieces.
Captain Ross, rushing out of his hut towards the planks that covered the ditch at the entrance to the fort, became a mark both for those natives out on the plain and those who had boldy jumped into the ditch itself. As he crossed the frail planks of the gangway, a light from within streamed out upon him as he boldly turned to confront the foe, and an old Hauhau from Matangarara, dwelling long and carefully on ms aim, shot him dead. Another native in the ditch hooked his body down with a long-handled tomahawk, ‘but the man who
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<lid this,’ says Ngutu Kaka, ‘fell dead.’ Afterwards, the savages cut out his heart in such a surgeon-like manner, as I have been told by one who was present there on that dreadful night, that no speck of blood was left on his white shirt. Beamish, the inner sentry, was shot dead at his post. Falling against the parapet in almost an upright position, the assailants, thinking him still alive, made a target of his prostrate form, and his body was found afterwards literally riddled with bullets. Private Holden, endeavouring to jump the parapet, was shot and tomahawked. Sergeant McFadden, with Corporal Blake and Private Shield, while endeavouring to hold an angle of the redoubt, were all destroyed. A few, principally settlers who had come in to the fort for company’s sake, jumped over the heads of the Maoris in the ditch, and made good their escape to the Hawera blockhouse. Constables Ross, Swords, and Gaynor, were massacred as they stumbled, heavy with sleep, out of their tent. Four determined men, one of whom was severely wounded, stood to bay in one of the cornerr, of the fort, and successfully warded off the fierce rushes of the Hauhaus until the approach of Von Tempsky’s men from the Waihi redoubt caused the natives to flee in disorder by the way they had came. These four men were Constables Lacey and J. Beamish, with Messrs. Johnston and Milmoe, two settlers from tffe neighbourhood. By common consent, Mr. Johnston, who is still resident within rifle-shot of the position he held so well, captained the little band, and their experience during the few hours that they were surrounded by barking fanatics thirsting for their blood until the first ray of light in the Orient came to them, like St. John’s Angel of the Revelations, ‘flying from the rising of the sun,’ and with it the distant halloo of Von Tempsky’s rescuing band, must have been sufficient to whiten the hair of each. That the stormers got clear away was due to the fact of Major Hunter, who had been left without orders by his senior officer, at Waihi, unsaddling the horses by which alone the retreat of the natives could have been cut off.
CHATTER VIII.
THE Taranaki natives evidently recognized that now, the Imperial troops being withdrawn, was the time to make a great effort to reclaim their land from the grasp of the pakeha. A new leader, and one of marked ability, had arisen among them, the celebrated Titokowaru, a man not entitled to the chieftain’s ‘taiaha’ by birth, but one, who, by mental acuteness alone, raised himself to the leadership of the insurrection of 1868. He was diminutive in person, and his dark bearded countenance was made more sinister by the loss of one eye. Driven from the Waitotara district through an intrigue in his earlier days, he soon occupied a position of respect and command in the hapu at Rua Ruru, where he took refuge, and which afterwards became his headquarters.
On the 2ist of August, Colonel McDonnell left the fort at Waihi with over two hundred men to reduce this stronghold. The natives were taken by surprise, being engaged in singing ‘karakias’ (chants),and kid not observe the approach of the colonial forces until too late to save their position. The forest Rangers and A.C’s. swept over the palisade, and the Maoris retreated in utter disorder, leaving nine dead behind them, and a large quantity of powder, guns, and ammunition. The Colonel’s force lost four killed (Privates Wallace, McKoy, Kerr, and Garey) and ten wounded. When retiring from the scene, the brothers Garey were shot by some lingering ambushed natives, who thus extracted ample ‘utu’ for their slain brethren. In this action, the Reverend Father Rolland, a peasant native of Alsace, coolly wandered about among the stricken men, administering the consolations of religion to all who sought them.
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But the dark-robed Angel Azrael had not yet quitted the vicinity of Okaiawa, for a fortnight later, his sombre wings again flapped over a harvest of death in the forest clearing of .Te Ngutu ote Manu. Colonel McDonnell had again, on the 7th of September, 18687 left the ramparts at Waihi with a fotce of three hundred and fifty men to destroy the ‘mana’ of Titokowaru for ever. How the doomed force was in part hurled upon the palisade of the enemy and how the balance of the troops failed to support them, has been told in many ways by many narrators. Only we know that in the disastrous attack, and still more disastrous retreat, nineteen Europeans passed into the Valley of the Shadow of Death on that day of Woe. Their names were: Gustavus Ferdinand von lempsky (Major of the Forest Rangers, and author of ‘Travels in Mexico and Central America’), Captains Buck and Palmer, Lieutenants Hastings and Hunter, Corporal Russell, Privates Elkin, Wells, Decks, Grant, Rumsden, Hughes, Farram, Davis, Gilgru, Hart, Fenessey, Darlington, and Downes. In the reserve at Kaupokonui, on the site of this disaster, a monument is erected to the memory of these men, but it is a cenotaph only, for their remains were collected and cremated by the ferocious natives, while they danced a triumphal war-dance around their funeral pyre. Among the wounded who escaped the tomahawk of the Maori ‘wahine’ (always most active in despatching the fallen) were Lieutenant Rowan and Dr. Best, with Constables Houston, O’Brien, O Connor, Burke, Hogan, Walton, Fulton, Shannaghan (now Inspector of Factories); Sergeant Twomey; Privates McGeneskin, Horns, Caldwell, McManus, Walden, Griffiths, Locker, Quinsey, Melvin, Hamblyn, Holloway, Hyland, Flynn, and Dore. So disorganized became the Forest Rangers after this terrible affair, and the loss of their brilliant chief, that they‘took their blankets and left the district,’as Mr. Wells relates.
The outlook for settlers on this coast was now exceedingly gloomy. The victorious natives, under Titokowaru,
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now took the iniative and marched on Wanganui, massacreing such pioneers on their way as still obstinately clung to their farms. One, McCulloch, going out to muster his sheep before the rebel advance at Kakaramea, was caught by their advance party, and sliced up with tomahawks.'
In the meantime, Colonel McDonnell, having to submit to a court-martial at W anganui, resigned; and his place was filled by Colonel George Whitmore, who at once proceeded, with a force of three hundred and fifty, to meet the Hauhau chief and check his advance on Wanganui. He found the natives in great force at Okutuku, near Momahaki, and attacking them vigorously, was repulsed with considerable loss. The dreary list of killed included Major William Hunter, an Antrim man, and brother of Lieutenant Henry Hunter, who fell some weeks before at Te Ngutu o te Mann. He had long smarted under the stricture passed upon him for failing to relieve the beleagured garrison at Turuturumokai with his cavalry, and had often been heard to say that he would yet convince the force that he was no poltroon. He fairly threw away his life heading a hopeless charge at Okutuku.
Titokowaru now menaced Wanganui, and Colonel Whitmore being called away hurriedly to suppress the Poverty Bay rising, which was headed by the notorious Te Kooti, the town was left with little defence. The Colonel, having vanquished the Uriweras at Ngatipa, hurried back to this coast, and collecting every available man, marched out with extreme caution to confront the wily Hauhau. Seizing his position at Nukumaru, he bridged the Waitotara River, and pressed on to the now flying chieftain's headquarters at Otautu, on the Patea River. After a brisk engagement, this stronghold was also reduced, and Titokowaru, again turning to bay at Whakamara, was again ousted with much loss. At Taiporohenui, the fleeing Hauhaus v anished as if by magic before the avenging force, having taken to the numerous paths that intersect the bush at this point and converge on the Ngaire swamp. Here the Maori force was located after
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some delay, and the troops marched into the vicinity. While they were employed in making supple-jack hurdles to cross the quaking morass, the natives, warned by friendly allies, retreated along the secret track to Ngatimaru, on the Waitara River, and the Taranaki War thus virtually ended.
Settlement now began in earnest in South Taranaki. Vacant lands were speedily taken up, and soon all the open country between Patea and the Waingongoro River was occupied. But across that stream, although the Government employed natives to guard the fords so as to keep settlers’ stock from grazing on their lands, no European as yet dared to reside.
That the ‘Maori trouble’ was not yet over, was grimly evinced to the Hawera settlers in the early part of 1869. The warlike and restless Ngati Maniapoto, from the King Country, excited by the successes of Te Kooti and Titokowaru, moved a powerful‘taua’into North Taranaki. This party fell in broad daylight, on the 13th of February, on the Europeans stationed at Pukearuhe (White Cliffs), and destroyed the whole settlement. One whole family (the Gascoigne’s) was completely blotted out, the murderers actually supplementing the deed by tomahawking the house dog and the cat. To add to the horror of their guilt, their minister, the Rev. John Whitely, was barbarously slain as he rode up the hill towards the ruined settlement. The old man had ridden from New Plymouth that day, and spent with his long ride, jogged his weary pony up the hill towards his home, little thinking of the reception that awaited him. When half way up, a party of natives, headed, curiously enough, by one whom he had baptized, Wetere (Wesley), approached, calling out ‘Hoki! Hoki!’ (‘Turn back! Turn back!). While he was hesitating, a volley levelled his horse beneath him, and he saw instinctively that he was doomed. Disengaging himself from the dying animal, he knelt awhile in prayer. And there, on his knees, they slew him,— a clean death for a clean
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man > we H indeed for the peccant malignant dog who sped him, did he at length die a death as supplicatory and as clean!
There is no excuse for the White Cliffs massacre. The Maori apologist shrinks aside from the sound of the name, and long afterwards the term ‘ Pukearuhe,’ which really means ‘ a fern-clad hill,’ was used in substitution for the word ‘pakaru’ (to break) as a synonym for murder. The circumstance itself seemed to shut the gate on the Maori road to success, and from that hour, as if disgusted with the crime, they have never again essayed to meet the pakeha in shock of battle on the vibrating plain.
CHAPTER IX.
Sir Donald McLean taking the portfolio of Native Minister in the Fox-Vogel Ministry, which had replaced the Stafford administration, he introduced his famous ‘ Peace Policy’among the natives of this coast, and with a remarkably good effect in the resulting goodwill between the races, save that the bulk of the Maoris, save those in the settlement of Parihaka, where the prophet Te Whiti lived, intermingled sociably with the Europeans from that time.
The chief agent for peace on the Maori side was the wellknown rangatira, Hone Pihama, of Oeo, a chief who had been engaged farming in that district with Mr. Good, a gentleman still resident there. Pihama, after travelling among the turbulent hapus of the coast, called together a meeting of the fractious tribes at Manawapou, and counselled them to accept peace. I his chief, who had great influence among both Europeans and natives, and who was highly respected by all, died some ten years ago at the settlement which bears his name.
On the evening of January nth, 1871, the few settlers in the vicinity of Hawera were somewhat surprised to see rolling up in a cloud of dust from the Southward, the lumbering form of ‘Cobb’s’ coach, the first that had ever appeared in the precincts. It had left Wanganui early that morning with the intention of running through to New Plymouth, should the prophet of Parihaka graciously permit. There were on board Sir Wm. Fox (the Premier), Messrs. Hirst and Reimenschneider, Mr Andrew Young (proprietor of the coach), the chief Hone Pihama (who offered himself as hostage for the safety of the trip), and an orderly. The arrival of such a party caused considerable bustle in the little settlement, and
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there was great difficulty in housing the strangers for the night, until Mr. Middlemas offered them the hospitality of his home. At daylight, the next morning, the party started again, and reached the Waingongoro River before the sun rose. At Oeo, Hone Pihama provided a change of horses from his vast mobs of ‘weeds,’ when then ranged over the plains with the conjoined H-P brand on their goose rumps. At I muroa, another change of horses was required, and here the haughty I e Whiti ordered the pioneers off his territory, intimating that they could use such portion of his land as was washed by the sea, and no more. To the beach, then, they had perforce to take themselves, and arrived safely in New Plymouth at 9.15 p.m, on Friday, the 13th of January, 1871, and there a large concourse of people had assembled to greet the Ministerial party. From that time onward the coaching service, being subsidised by the Government, was maintained bi-weekly, and from that day, a steady influx of settlers and business men poured into Hawera from Patea (then known as Carlyle) and the Southern settlements. Mr. J. Flynn, now of Hawera, conducted the Northern portion of this coaching service for many years.
In June, 1871, the telegraph line was opened from New Plymouth to Opunake, but between the latter place and Hawera, the morose natives would nqt allow the poles to be placed. Communication was effected between these two points by mounted messenger, and the line from Hawera Southwards being completed, a fairly rapid service was thus instituted from 1 aranaki to Wellington. Later on, in ’76, when the ‘Mountain Track’ was opened, direct telegraphic communication was installed along that route.
Among the first permanent settlers who arrived here was Mr. James Davidson, a gentleman who has been intimately connected with the town and its progress from that hour. Removing from the Turakina district in 1871, he established a general store in the centre of the settlement, a business which he conducted till recent years. When the provincial
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form of Government was abolished in 1876, and a local Road Board established, the first meeting thereof was held in one of the back rooms of Mr. Davidson’s building, and on the Commissioners (Messrs. J. McMichael, F. Finiayson, and T. Middlemas) being elected, Mr. Davidson w r as appointed, in conjunction with Mr. J. Southby, as Auditor. The boundaries of the district, as then constituted, were: on the West, the Waingongoro Stream; on the North, the confiscated boundary line; on the East, the Manawapou (then known as the Ingahape) River; and on the South, the Tasman Sea.
From an old almanack, published in 1874, I gather that Messrs. F. McGuire, now of Mount Royal, Okaiawa, and Mr. H. S. Peacock, (deceased) represented the southern district in the Provincial Council of Taranaki at that time. The career of the former gentleman is too well known to require an extended notice here. Starting in business as a storekeeper in Carlyle about 1870, he acquired the contract to purvey for the troops stationed along the coast, and speedily rose to a position of affluence. Mr. McGuire, it will be seen, occupied the position of first mayor of Hawera, and has represented the district in Parliament for nine years. Mr. Peacock was a respected settler of Manutahi, and his widow still resides at Waverley.
At that period, Mr. J. Black was the local postmater and telegraphist, there being then only four telegraph stations in Taranaki, namely, Hawera, Opunake, New Plymouth, and Patea, although Mr. Peter Campbell, still resident in the neighbourhood, conducted a postal office in connection with his hotel at Manutahi. Messrs. Taplin and Muir conducted a store on the site of the present Empire Hotel, their only rivals in that line of business being Mr. Davidson aforesaid. Two hotels then served to assuage the thirst of the dustchoked traveller; the ‘Egmont’ Hotel, run by Mr. T. Quinlivan, and the ‘ Hawera’ Hotel, under the control of Mr. T. Espagne. Messrs. W. A’Court and W. Williams were the ‘ village blacksmiths’ who carried on the profession of Tubal
B. C. ROBBINS.
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Cain of old. The pioneers of the vast dairying industry which has since sprung up around us were Messrs. S. Larcom, W. Douglas, B. O'Riley, E. O'Sheii, C. Tail, and T. Middlemas. Messrs. John Winks and \\m. Treweek donned the banded apron of blue and white and dispensed ‘steak, chops, and sausage; to all carnivorous residents. The knights of the sa a and hammer were Messrs. T. Robinson, T. Fitzsimmons. T. Chetham and R. Lynch. Mr. G. Martin was the only disciple of St. Crispin ; and Messrs. Taplin and W inks baked, Mr. E. Williams saddled, and Messrs. J. Stevenson, Tait, O Riley, Redding, Treweek, Oakes, Dyer, Robinson, Sweeny, and McL’Dowie carried for all. Other residents then in the neighbourhood whose names are well known to-day, were Messrs. (t. Bamfnnl (who owned the ten-acre paddock through which W'i 1 son Street now runs, and which was long afterwards called Bamford's Paddock), Barrow, U. Bourke, Brett. Broadbent, E. Byrne, Cameron, Cowper, Dowdall, Dyce, Gillroy, Goodson. Gore, Hamilton, Heyward, lnkster, Jupp, Livingston, Malone, Mason, McKoy, Milne, Mitchell, Morgan, Moriarty, O’Donnell, Perry, Powell, Ramage, Reid, Riddiford, Siggs, Turnbull, and Worth. W' hen it is remembered that the whole European population of Taranaki at that time only totalled 4,599, it will be seen that Hawera already furnished the neuclus of a relatively considerable place.
The usual religious denominations, Anglican, Presbyterian Catholic, and later on, \\ esleyan, were soon represented by places of worship for each. The two first erected temples of a modest kind on the present sites occupied by them, and Father Pertuis had carted over from Waihi the little shed (now forming part of the condemned Presbytery), wherein Father Holland used to officiate. At the re-survey of the town, on its being proclaimed a borough, long afterwards, all these bodies were granted sites in the block adjacent to the present Drill Hall, but only one, the Fnglish Church, occupied theirs.
D
54
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
In August, 1873, the first sod of railway was turned over in 1 aranaki, it being the beginning of the New PlymouthWaitara line. It was not, however, until October 20th, 1881 that railway communication was opened up with Hawera, the occasion being one for a great local demonstration. In the meantime, the sum of ,£"20,000 had been voted for the formation of the Mountain Road from Sentry Hill to Ketemarae, and Major H. A. Atkinson was empowered to administer the grant. It required, however, another ,£"10,000 to complete the work. Mr. Chas. Chavannes, now of Wanganui, took the first coach through from Hawera to New Plymouth on the 4th of January, 1879, occupying about ten hours on a journey which now could be readily accomplished in four.
In 1875, the New Plymouth Harbour Board was constituted, and that levy of rates made on unwilling portions of the province which has been greeted by such an unbroken crescendo of curses from every victim between Whangamomona and the Stony River.
The feeling of the natives on the Northern side of the \\ aingongoro River was still somewhat strained against the usurping pakeha, for in March, 1874, a survey party was ordered off by the Maori occupants, and it was evident that the time was not yet ripe for taking over the possession of those rolling downs, now speckled with grazing stock, the opening up of which gave such a fillip to the progress of Hawera. Four years later, an uninterrupted survey began, and those fertile fields were ultimately opened to European occupation in 1880.
CHAPTER X.
\BOUT 1875, Captain Blake laid off his grant of land around the native kainga of Matariki (the Pleiades) in township sections, and gave the name of the existing Governor, Norman by, to the place. So quickly did it flourish that in a few years it threatened to become a serious thorn in the side of its neighbour, Hawera. The sale of the Normanby Extension by a private speculator, and the establishment of sawmills at Ketemarae, further boomed the rising township, and, up to about 1880, the rivalry between it and Hawera was acute. The Armed Constabulary, to the number of several hundred, were still stationed at Waihi, and as a rule patronised Normanby in preference to its rival neighbour.
The opening of sawmills at Ketemarae by the Messrs. Robson Bros, (natives of Newcastle-on-Tyne), deserves more than a passing notice, as it was the origin of the timber industry in South Taranaki. Around Ketemarae and Keteonetea, and even as far as Te Roti, flourished considerable belts of the noble matai ( I’liilocar/nis Spiiata) tree, a timber almost equal to totara for general building purposes. This was the chief kind milled at Ketemarae, and around Normanby and its vicinity may he seen still intact houses erected with timber from this mill nearly thirty years ago. The trials and difficulties that the above-named energetic gentlemen met with in the prosecution of their industry, can only be hinted at in thespace at my command.
It was evident that the struggle for premier position between the townships of Hawera and Normanhy could only end in the practical extinction of one, and it soon became manifest that Normanhy was doomed to become the Auburn of South Taranaki, where ‘desolation saddens all her green.'
THE STOKV OF HAWERA.
5°
Political wire-pulling hastened her decay, and the passing of the railway in ’BB did the rest.
In the meantime, many a wistful eye had been turned from Hawera in the direction of the Waimate Plains, which, though confiscated in ’63, still remained in the possession of the natives, whose right to it was tacitly acknowledged, although pressure was beginning to be applied to the Government to acquire the disputed territory. In 1879, a Royal Commission, with Sir Wm. Fox at its head, sat to determine the rights of propriety. After an exhaustive enquiry into Government rights and native ‘turuturu’ (titles), the Commission set apart a large area of the land for Maori use and benefit, and handed over the balance to the Government for disposition by auction sale to Europeans.
The decision, as may be imagined, did not meet with the approval of the natives in general, more particularly that of the bellicose Te Whiti, who now commenced a kind of agrarian war by inciting his followers (who were distinguished, as now, by the wearing of a white feather) to plough up lands in possession of Europeans on the Southern side of the Waingongoro. Large bodies of natives, mostly well armed, came down from the Plains with teams and farming implements and proceeded to till lands that had been in the occupation of Europeans for a considerable time. The greatest alarm prevailed throughout the districts, and everything pointed to another ‘ brush ’ with the obstinate natives. Volunteers were raised in all the settlements along the coast, and Normanby, being the threatened point, made exceptional preparations for a stand against the fiery disciples of Te Wbiti. Large earthworks were thrown up on a site now enclosed by Victoria Park, and garrisoned by the local volunteers under Captain F. H. Brett. Many families fled to the shelter of the fort at Waihi, and the tension for a while was extreme. The sound of heavy firing in the direction of Mawhitiwhiti (‘The Grass-hopper’) one morning brought the Normanby garrison to instant arms, and all expected an im-
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80
mediate attack on the township, but later on it was ascertained that the fusilade was merely a parting volley over the remains of some chieftain who had looked his last on the shivering spears of the ti palm and the glittering green of the taupata.
Shortly afterwards, the natives had the effrontery to plough up the garden in front of Mr. J. Livingston’s house at Waipapa. A band of local settlers held a hurried meeting at Mr. Gibson’s store, and decided to take the law into their own hands, if the Government did not act immediately. The ‘powers that be’ failing to act, the settlers mustered in strength at Mr. Livingston’s, and after a brisk struggle, in which luckily no blood was shed, the invading Maoris were expelled across the Waingongoro with their carts and trappings. They appeared again shortly at Mr. F. Finlayson’s farm near Normanby, and recognizing the gravity of the action, a large body of armed A.C.’s, supported by Volunteers, went out to arrest them. Strange to say, however, the native ploughmen only offered a partial resistance to the arresting party, and did not use weapons at all. One stalwart Maori threw, in wrestling style, several of the Constabulary who endeavoured to arrest him, and only submitted when a number hurled themselves upon him. The prisoners, to the number of fifty or sixty, were brought into Waihi camp, surrounded by about six times their number of Constabulary with bayonets fixed—truly a martial show to us small boys who witnessed it. Occasionally a bayonet would slip down—by accident, of course—and prod a Maori, who had been unusually hard to arrest, in the back; or a native, failing to keep time w r ith the measured stride of the A.C.’s, would have his bare heels trod upon by a grinning captor. The captives were tried on the 23rd Septhmber, 1880; and banished, temporarily, to the South Island.
The survey and road formation on the Waimate Plains now began in earnest, and met with but little opposition from the now cowed natives. The road making was done principally by the Armed Constabulary under Colonel Roberts, as it
THE STORY OF HAVVERA.
5»
was still deemed necessary to employ an armed force. But the prophets Te Whiti and Tohu now confined themselves to maledictions on the aggresivepakehas, mingled with strange sayings and prophecies, in all of which his followers had remarkable faith. At this period the Maoris appeared to trust more to religious than to manual force. Many will remember how the chief Titokowaru, accompanied by a throng of one thousand two hundred natives, marched three times around Normanby, in imitation of the prophet Joshua’s circuit of the walls of Jericho, expecting to see the houses of the Europeans fall before him, as fell the walls of the City of the Plains before the fighting captain of Izrael : (‘And when the voice of the trumpet shall give a longer and more broken tune, and shall sound in your ears, all the people shall shout together with a very big shout; And the walls of the city shall fall to the ground; and they shall enter in every one at the place against which they shall stand.' Josue, VI., 3.) Such an assemblage of natives has not been since seen in the neighbourhood, and one cannot but wonder, seeing the strained state of feeling between the races at that time, how a conflict was then avoided. Many of the Maoris were most insulting in their manner, thrusting out their tongues at the A.C.’s and Volunteers, and Other wise acting defiantly. The writer well remembers worming his way in among the big assemblage of Titokowaru’s followers at the Matariki pa, on purpose to get a glimpse of the celebrated warrior, and has a distinct recollection of having observed many inches of tongue displayed in his honour. The personality of Titokow : aru himself was extremely unwarlike, he being of diminutive figure and minus one eye. 'Te Whiti, on the other hand, was, in those days, a decidedly fine looking man, of benevolent aspect, and commanding stature. Tohu, his brother prophet, was over six feet in height, and heavily built. He had also lost one eye, and both he and Te Whiti had one finger short.
About this time the disturbing news of the murder of a surveyor at Waitotara, by a Maori named Hiroki. reached
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82
Hawera. Later on it appeared that, owing to some trespass on the part of the surveyors, the Maoris decided to have ‘utu’ (payment) for the wrong, and two of their number, the youth Heroki and a big burly native who is still prominent about Waitotara, were appointed to draw lots as to who should be the avenger. Hiroki was chosen, end he lay in wait near the camp which was situated on the bank of the Momahaki stream a few chains from the present Creamery, and as the cook, McLean, came down to the spring to draw water, he was shot by the ambushed native. The murderer fled along the edge of the bush towards Parihaka) then the seat of all the turbulent and irreconcileable ones) and a local party, among whom was Mr. Wm. Minhinnick, endeavoured to intercept him on his passage through a clearing in Kaupokonui. On his appearance there, one of the party shot him through the thigh, but the Maori, plugging the wound with clay, actually made good his escape to Parihaka. At the fall of that settlement, on November. sth, 1881, he was arrested, and hanged at New Plymouth after a short trial.
The survey of the Plains having been completed, and the towns of Manaia and Opunake laid off, part of the land was opened for selection on the 27th of October, 1880, and eagerly competed for. The fact that most of the original selectors are still resident on their holdings, in spite of the high values and consequent alluring offers of recent years, is evidence of their approval of their happy choice of land in that favoured spot. Before Christmas, a second sale of the balance of the available land was held at the Court House, Hawera, and was largely attended by eager buyers from every part of New Zealand. The upset prices, which appeared somewhat high then, now seem ridiculously low by reason of the enormous increase in the value of dairying land of late, and the district is now perhaps the most prosperous in the Colony.
On October 2cth,' 1881, the official opening of the railway from New Plymouth to Hawera was made, and a large freight of excursionists came down the line on the trial
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THE STORY OF HAWERA
trip. Ihe Maoris gathered round in awe and wonder to view the iron horse, and many exclamations of ‘ Aue! te pakeha!’ expressed their admiration of the genius of the white race which had thus harnessed the mighty power of steam to the revolving wheels of the locomotive.
Among the Europeans on the platform at Hawera Station that day, the one topic of interested conversation was the recent manifesto issued by the Native Minister, John Bryce, calling upon Te Whiti and his adherents to peaceably surrender. The prophet had been continuing to formulate his prophecies and grievances, and many of his followers were ktill in a seething state of excitement. The ultimatum failing to draw any response from the Parihaka seer, Mr. Bryce decided on the bold measure of seizing his person and settlement and thus destroying his influence over his white-feathered clansmen.
Collecting one thousand five hundred Volunteers and A.C.’s at Rahotu. the mustering ground, the Native Minister, with Colonel Roberts in command of the forces, moved steadily on to Parihaka. As it was known that there were fully sixteen hundred able-bodied Maoris in the prophet’s pa at the time, there appeared to be every prospect of the vexed Maori question being finally decided in a pitched battle.
On the morning of the sth of November, the village was surrounded, and Major Tuke, with a body of Armed Constabulary, entered the prophet’s quarters, and called upon him to surrender in the name of the Queen. Te Whiti, who was surrounded by hundreds of young men lying on the ground around him, replied, “1 am here if you want me; walk over my young men’s bodies!” This bold piece of bluff was matched by as bold action on the put of the gallant Major, for, stepping over the forms of the muttering young men, he quietly arrested the prophet, and sent him out with an escort. Tohu gave himself up without any trouble, and then the Major proceeded to arrest the murderer, Hiroki, who had found refuge there. On his calling out the name - Hiroki!’ a
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THE STORY OF HAWERA.
young fellow lying near jumped up mechanically and was proceeding to settle down again as though unobserved, when he was pounced upon and handcuffed. The bloodless conquest of Parihaka was thus satisfactorily accomplished, and the turbulent prophets sent to the South Island to cool their fevered imaginations.
A few weeks later, the local paper, which had not yet been issued as a daily, contained the alarming news of the murder of a European lady (Miss Dobie) near Opunake by a native named Tuhi. But the crime was found to bear no political significance, the horrible deed having been apparently committed through homicidal mania on the part of the murderer, who was afterwards executed.
The time was now rapidly arriving for the recognition of Hawera among the Boroughs of the Colony. The opening up of the railway to the North had given the town a great impetus, and although the Hawera-Manutahi section, on account of the heavy cuttings encountered, was not opened for three years later, a heavy carrying trade was progressing between those points. The town itself was beginning to lose its rural aspect, and well-appointed shops and showy public buildings adorned its streets. Messrs. M. D. King, Dunne, A. H. Duff, Brown, and the New Zealand Clothing Factory ran large and select stocks of soft goods ; Messrs. Davidson, Gibspn, Ecclesfield, Kirk, and others catered for the supply of groceries; the Egmont Sash and Door Company had established a considerable business in Princes Street; the Commercial, the Egmont, the Hawera, the Royal, the Empire, and the Railway Hotels were already in existence.
Mr. Boyd carried on his old-established bakery in High Street, and Messrs. Adamson and Pease, Nicoll and Co., and others were in the butchery trade. Other well-known tradesmen at this time were: Messrs. Ferguson (tailor), Prichard (chemist), Duffill (cabinetmaker), Donnelly (tobacconist), Meuli (saddler), A’Court (blacksmith), and Pitcher (watchmaker. The business outlook was bright in the extreme, and
62
the story or hawera.
tbe recent opening up of adjacent bush lands (not without some misgiving at first as to their usefulnes) brought fresh trade into t e town. It was, then, regarded as an extremely prosperous and happy New Year when, on the 2nd of January, 1882, Hawera was officially proclaimed a Borough.
CHAPTER XI.
I N July, 1882, the elections for the positions of Mayor and Councillors for the Hawera Borough took place. A brisk contest for the leading civic seat resulted in Mr. Felix McGuire defeating Mr. James Davidson by twenty votes. The members of the Council elected were: Messrs. George Syme, M. D. King, H. R. Baker, D. McL’Uowie, A. S. Hobbs, W. Murray Thompson, F. Riddiford, Partridge, and L. E. Prichard. The first Council meeting was held in the large room of the old Institute, now serving as a dwelling in another part of the Borough. Mr. W. H. E. Wanklyn, now of Christchurch, was the first Clerk and Treasurer.
It is interesting to note that the water supply question was one of the first that occupied the minds of the ‘ City Fathers.’ It was suggested, in one of their first sittings, that an engineer be appointed to estimate the cost of conducting water from Lake Rotokare. Even had the project been considered not too costly, there remained the fear that the sedgy waters of that semi-stagnant, eel-haunted pool, would prove utterly unfit for human consumption. But the Council, happily, did not then take the suggestion in earnest, and the matter was shelved till a later day, when a more progressive Council decided on the present costly but efficient scheme.
In the summer of 1882, a great impetus was given to the progress of the Colony at large, and to this district in particular, by the export of frozen meat, which was now shipped across seas for the first time. Although this industry has now been deposed, in this quarter, by the more lucrative dairying trade, still the former occupation proved of great value to the graziers in the vicinity and consequently contributed largely to the progress of the town of Hawera.
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
b 4
1 he place was now sufficiently advanced to warrant a more effective method of illumination than by the dull light of kerosene lamps, or the flickering glimmer of candles. The matter of lighting the town by gas had been frequently discussed in the Borough Council (over whom Mr. G. V. Bate now presided as Mayor), but it w'as left to private enterprize to form a Gas Company, which was done in the latter part of ’B2, Mr. W. H. E. Wanklyn being the Company’s Secretary. Owing, however, to a fear that the recently introduced electric light would entirely supersede all other means of illumination, the Company decided to suspend operations temporarily, and the enterprise was aftenvards given up.
The first loan arranged for the carrying out of municipal works by the Borough Council (now facetiously known as the ‘ Borrow’ Council) was one of ,£”5,000, during Mr. McGuire’s presidency. The burgesses rolled up to the number of fiftyfive, forty-eight voting for the proposal and seven against, and this was an exceptionally heavy polling for the time. Some weighty matters appear to have been discussed, then, in the Council room. For instance, we find that Messrs. Robbins and Co.’s application for a hitching-post, is referred, with due solemnity, to the Engineer. Whether the Engineer worried over the matter sufficiently to authorise the erection of the structure in question, is not recorded in the romantic pages of the Council’s minute-book. Later on, we find the Council assembled in solemn conclave to discuss the matter of Mr. J. Davidson’s verandah posts occupying a prominent position on the crown of the road in High Street, and the consequent fact of many belated travellers being bumped off their horses and vehicles by contact wdth the obstructions. Finally, an ultimatum is sent to Mr. Davidson, commanding him to remove the obstructions from the Queen’s highway, which is ultimately done.
In March, ’B3, Te Whiti and Tohu were released from captivity, and returned to their faithful adherents at Parihaka. They had had a really good time, while nominally in ‘durance
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THE STORY OF HAWERA
vile,' and had been taken to see the Christchurch Exhibition, and around the West Coast Sounds in the Government steamer Hhieuwa. The method of navigation by means of the throbbing engine must have struck these representatives of a race who had had no other means of propelling their totara canoes than by the hoe (paddle) of kahikatea or of kauri, and no other directions for steering them than by the glittering lights of Matariki (the ‘Seven Sisters’), Tautoru (Orion), Meremere (Sirius), Puanga (Rigel), or Aumea (Aldebaran). Strange that such a clever and superstitious people should have forgotten the memory of Him ‘who made Arcturus, and Orion, and the Hyades, and the inner parts of the South!’ The brilliant Irishman who wrote ‘Old New Zealand’ has given us, in that able work, an intensely interesting account of the spiritualism of the ancient Maori, but that refinement seems now to have become, in the main, clouded by the veil of sensual animalism which has floated across the spirit eye of the race.
At the end of ’B4, Mr. W. J. Furlong occupied the Mayoral chair, and, during his term of presidency, the last link of the Taranaki-Wellington railway was welded by the completion of the railway line between Hawera and Manutahi. The official opening took place on March 23rd, 1885, and that day was a joyous one for the children of the Coast, for free tickets were granted to them for passage up and down the line on the auspicious occasion.
In spite of the general depression which now came down like a heavy cloud on the whole of New Zealand, Hawera still continued to progress. There was a Mercantile Union, of which Mr. Davidson was the Chairman, and Mr. C. H. McCutchan the Secretary; a Cricket Club, with Mr. Bate as President, and Mr. W. G. White as Secretary; a Football Club, with Mr. G. Bayly as Captain, and Mr. R. Hume as Secretary; a Lawn Tennis Club, an Acclimatisation Society, a Building Society, a Public H.dl Company, a Volunteer Fife Brigade, and a Town Band. Mr. W. R. King was Librarian
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THE STORY OF HAWERA.
at the Institute; the Hon. H. A. Atkinson was President of the Egmont Racing Club; Mr. \V. J. Chaney was Postmaster, and Mr. C. Lambert, Stationmaster; the Public ' School was presided over by Mr. A. Mair, with Mrs. Horneman as mistress; and Mr. Trimble was then, as now, Clerk of the Court. The Rev. Mr. Root had charge of the parish; the amiable Mr. Torry (since dead) occupied the pulpit in the Presbyterian Church; the Revs. Mather and Luxford conducted Wesleyan services; and Fathers Grogan (now' Dean of Wanganui) and Walsh, attended to the spiritual wants of the Catholic population. The usuql ‘friendly’ Societies—Masons, Hibernians, and Oddfellows—had also established a footing.
In mid-winter of ’B6, the sound of a bombardment like the roar of heavy guns at sea proclaimed to the awe-struck people of Havvera the outbreak of the great Tarawera eruption, and few living here to-day fail to recall the horrors of that fearful night, when the terrors of the Last Day seemed to have been ushered in, unwarned, on a shuddering world.
Mr. Furlong had resigned his position at the head of the head of the Municipality and his place was occupied by Mr. C. E. Major, a native of the Channel Islands, and a man of marked ability and energy. This gentleman now represents us in Parliament, and his name is indissolubly linked with the advancement of Havvera.
Up to this period Major H. A. Atkinson had represented the district in Parliament. Mr. McGuire, Mr. Hutchison, the late Mr. Fantham, and others had entered the lists against him, but without avail, and he occupied the position until his retirement from politics. The elections of those days were not fought out altogether on the open and quiet style of to-day, although the notification of one of the contestants for the local seat in those days, of ‘ L.O.L. to the fore!’ thus appealing to partizan support while at the same time the advertiser posed as the champion of the party against which the rancour of that Society is apparently directed, does
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not appear to be thoroughly substantiated. It is not to be supposed that any gentleman w’ould wittingly flaunt his following by the revival of an old party-cry in a maiden land —nor thus insult their Faith, —a Sacrosanct and a Holy Thing, beyond Criticism and bevond Nationality, beyond Life and beyond Death!
One last phase of the ‘ native trouble ’ in the district still remains to be recorded. The chief Titokowaru had returned from the Ngatimaru country, and reappeared at his old haunts at Kaupokonui, where he set his young men to fell the bush, his presence causing much alarm to the neighbouring Europeans. In obedience to instructions from the Parihaka Elijah, he now moved down on to Mr. Hastie’s farm on the Plains, and started turning up the sward with ploughs. The news of the invasion spread like wildfire, and in a few hours a body of settlers, armed with stakes and whip-handles, converged on the threatened point, and proceeded to eject the Maoris. As usual, they made merely a passive resistance, and were speedily bundled out, and all their horses impounded. Some of the natives were roughly used by the indignant settlers, but nothing serious was done. The chief Titokowaru was quietly arrested in his tent by Mr. F. McGovern, —somewhat to the disappointment of some of the rougher pakehas, who evidently wished to show their bravery by assaulting the feeble old man, once the terror of the coast.
Titokowaru has now passed from the midst of his clansmen, —from the barren country of Ngatimaru, and the fat lands of Waimate, to the ghoul-haunted regions of Po. On top of a dominant mound they placed his clay, and from thence, like another Themistocles;
‘ Uiyh o'er the la ml he xared in rain —
When shall such hern lire ayain /’
he watches in silence over the destinies of his people.
CHAPTER XII.
MR. MAJOR occupied the mayoral chair for three years and infused considerable life into municipal matters during his regency. Artesian water was tried for, unsuccessfully, and several abortive attempts made to light the town with gas or electricity. The artesian bore was sunk in an utterly hopeless position—on a level flat at the rear of the Shamrock hotel. Had the attempt been made in a more favourable spot, it would probably have been attended with success. The enterprise was abandoned on the failure of the single attempt.
Mr. Davidson became the chief magistrate of the town at the annual election in December, ’BB, which position he occupied during four successive terms. Mr. Barton received hispresent appointment of Borough Solicitor in September, iBqo, and Mr. Brett, that of Town Clerk and Treasurer about the same time, Mr. Wanklyn having resigned to take up a position in Christchurch. The present Council Chambers hajl been erected, and part of the premises let to the Egmont Racing Club, which is now one of the leading sporting bodies in New Zealand. Their race-course, on a beautiful flat one and a half miles from our town, is one of the most attractive and popularly attended in the North Island, and be,much more frequented if the club could but see fit to hold their meetings on some of the numerous holidays of the year.
Markets for the live stock of surrounding farmers had been long available through the agency of Messrs. Nolan, Tonks and Co., F. R. Jackson and Co., and, later on, the Egmont Farmers-Union. The first of these firms had confined their places of sale to Hawera and Normanby, but on the removal of Jackson and Co. from the field, branched out to the surrounding towns, and are now well-established throughout South Taranaki. The Farmers’ Union was capably managed throughout by the late Mr. Fantham, whose lamented deatli occurred quite recently.
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92
The first official visit of the Governor to Hawera occurred in December, 1890, Lord Onslow honouring the town with his presence for some days. Since then several Governors have visited our little city, and the effusive welcome to the present representative of the King will doubtless be remembered even longer than the time that transpired before some of the accounts in connection with it were finally settled.
Up till 1892, Hospital accommodation was represented by a cottage in Princes Street, rented from a private owner. The time was now ripe for an agitation for a local building that would at once be a home of comfort for the maimed or diseasestricken, and a credit to the town. To this end the local members of the Taranaki Hospital Board, among the most prominent of whom was Mr. J. W. Scott, of Whakamara, approached the controlling body at Taranaki, and secured their assent to further hospital accomodation for Hawera. But the question of funds obtruded itself, and the agitators were in a quandary until a timely gift of £lOO by a sister of the late Mr. James Mitchell gave them a hope of finally accomplishing their object. This generous present was soon supplemented by donations from the townspeople, and an Exhibition was got up which realised nearly £\oo. The Borough Council now did their share by donating a site, and soon the walls of the building arose at the command of the late Mr. Pacey. The Hospital was formally opened on the 28th of August, 1894, and since that time has been extended considerably, and endowed with all the latest and most modern appliances which will shortly include the establishment of the mechanism for the application of the Rontgen rays. A few years after the founding of the hospital, the local body “cut the painter” from the parent Board at New Plymouth and have paddled their own canoe ever since. By the deaths of Messrs. Milmoe, of Hawera, and Heywood, of Normanby, the institution benefited to the extent of nearly /2500, and is thus one of the most amply endowed hospitals in the colony.
THK STORY OF HAWERA.
yo
On the 6th of July, 1892, the assembled Borough Council passed a vote of condolence with the relatives of Sir Harry Atkinson, who had died on the 27th of June preceding. He had long represented the district in Parliament and had materially helped in the advancement of the town and the electorate, and his death removed one of the most prominent figures from the arena of Colonial politics.
Scarcely a year passed before the Council was again called upon to pass a similar resolution —the occasion this time being the passing of the Hon. John Ballance, a man of noble mould, and of whom were expected great things, but who died before his time, and died, as a worker should, in harness :
‘ The ilinther dead nn the hillside
Jlefore the height in mm
The workman dead on the buildinti,
Itefoie thr mirk is dime
He had risen from the vocation of pioneer and journalist to the foremost political position in the land, and was a fine type of that strong-loving and fierce-hating North of Ireland breed—a proud race and a clean-hating—the resultant issue of that fierce graft of Piet on Celt -which has given to the world so many of its most striking and manly characters.
On Mr. Major again attaining the Mayoral seat in '93, he again strove to have the town lit by gas or electricity but the Council were evidently fearful of the experiment, and it was not until some three years later that an agreement was come to with two private gentlemen, Messrs. Pitcher and Cullinan, for the erection of gasworks. These gentlemen transferred their rights to a Company, which was registered on October 26th, 1896, and the pale yellow gleam of the gas lamps first shone fitfully over the then miry thoroughfares of the town on the night of September 4th, 1897.
CHAPTER XIII.
I)EFORE the solemn hour of midnight—‘the climax of the * past day, the verge of that which is to come ’as Lytton says —on the wintry night of August 29th, 1895, the watchman going his nocturnal round in High Street noticed a bright gleam in a draper’s window adjoining the Egmont Hotel. The gleam brightened and broadened and soon it was evident to the gazer that it was no illuminant merely, but the dreaded presence of the destroying demon of Fire that was there. Hastily running to the firebell, he gave a few vigorous pulls on the rope. The clang had hardly died away in the cadence of the falling rain, when the red-coated figures of the roused firemen could be seen dashing in various directions to the Fire Brigade Station, which then stood near the Council Chambers. Soon the clatter of the hurrying feet of awakened citizens resounded from every adjacent street ; and ere long an excited, white-faced throng stood on the North side of the street and stared fixedly at the now leaping flames that licked the walls of the doomed hostelry. The fire engine was soon in position, and the reel rushed out to the nearest fire-well and shortly a steady stream of water played on the fast increasing billows of flame. Excited orders rang out at intervals; “This way with the hose!” “Up the ladder there, branchman!” But the efforts of man, however willing, could not avail against the power of fire, augmented by the fanning force of a mighty wind. Stronger and fiercer grew the glare of the flames, —faster and more desperate became the efforts of the firemen. But still the conflagration waxed in strength and roared its ferocious notes of triumph over the puny resistance of man. Anon the driving gale sent couriers ot flame across to the Commercial Hotel, and soon the whole
7 2
THE STORY Ol HAWERA.
side facing the original fire flared to heaven in one grand holocaust of flame. Now every citizen in the town was aroused by the cries of awe-struck people, and the roar of the burning and its glare on their window-panes, recalling to the minds of the morbid an image of those Eternal fires banked high for the reception of the unclean in the world to come. Now the Egmont Hotel is a seething oven of flame, and showers of sparks and blazing beams fall in every direction. Hark! Was that a human shriek mingled with the boom of the elements. Ha! there is the proprieter! Rush to him', and ask if all are out of the flaming hotel. He answers, with white lips: “All but Mr. Caverhill and Mr. Turner; Heaven grant that they be safe!” Look! Over there, surrounded by a little throng of sympathisers, is the fainting form of Miss Kowin, just carried out from that kiln of fire w rapped in a scanty rug. It was her first night in Haw-era, and such was her reception. But where is Mr. Caverhill? Where is Mr. Turner? one asks the other, and the other is dumb,or vaguely shakes his head. They had retired to rest some little time before, —and now they slept upon the heavens, and the folds of the clouds enwrapped, we trust, their disembodied spirits. It is now certain that they cannot have escaped from that fiery death-trap, and here and there among the throng, a pious w-atcher, signing the Sign of the Living God, prays for the startled souls reft so suddenly from the shrieking clay. But, On! On! Look! the fire has swept over the Commercial like a foaming billow over an impeding rock, and rushes in sheets of licking flame on the Post Office and the Courthouse, In a second, apparently, their roofs are in flame and a Blinding glare, brighter than noonday light, illumines the plains around. “The town is doomed!” people cry in anguish, and “It is all oyer with Hawera!” is the response from despairing throats. The brave firemen now cease their desperate and unavailing efforts to drench the flames, and confine their efforts to stop the spread of the conflagration by uprooting walls and dismantling houses in its devouring path.
THE STORY OF HAWERA,
96
Happily, their struggles are at length rewarded with success. The baulked element, finding nothing further to feed it, stops short at the belt of pines that then surrounded the Courthouse, and retires defeated from the vacant space that the firefighters have cleared around the Council Chambers. Soon the flames wane, and the ardour of the heat diminishes, and before dawn appears ‘ in the clouds and on the sea,’ nothing bpt the dense smoke and glowing embers to remind the night-long watchers of the horror that has passed by them. By and bye the continuous rain quenches even these, and ere long people move about among the still hot ashes, and muse upon the destruction done. Stop! Handle with reverence that shrivelled ball of calcined matter, for the soul that occupied it some short hours ago, even now knows more of the Arcana of the Almighty than thou shalt ever know during thy sojourn upon Earth.
A dreary vista of lonely chimneys standing in a pall of smoke marked the scene upon the following day. An invidious stranger might have thought that now, at last, the progress of Hawera was effectually stopped. But no! Phoenixlike, she arose from her ashes, and even ere the dawn of another day, the sound of hammer and saw was heard among the ashes, engaged in constructing temporary booths for the sale of merchandise and liquor, and make-shift public offices.
And she has continued to increase ever since, as long may she continue to do! The former wooden post office was speedily replaced by the ornate brick one which now supersedes it. The destroyed hostelries were rebuilt anew, and in place of the other buildings levelled, speedily arose substantial structures in brick. A new and a wise by-law came into play enforcing the construction of brick party-walls to all buildings erected within a certain radius. Had it not been for the substantial brick division between Mr. Sutton’s and the Egmont Hotel, there is little doubt that the greater part of the town would have been destroyed in the great fire.
97
THE STORY OF HAWERA.
The events of recent years are so fresh in the minds of all as not to require recounting here. With the introduction of water and drainage, and the establishment of a telephone bureau in August of ’97, all the conveniences of a city, without the objections thereto, have been enjoyed by this country town. With a few more improvements effected, and some necessary alterations made, the place would be an ideal one for the spending therein of one’s declining days.
Finis.
C. O. EKDAHL, CAXTON PRINTING WORKS, ELTHAM AND HAWERA.
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TELEPHONES--Ci as works, 69; Office, 82.
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Bibliographic details
APA: W. A. Q. (William Alphonsus Quin). (1904). The story of Hawera. C.O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works.
Chicago: W. A. Q. (William Alphonsus Quin). The story of Hawera. Hawera, N.Z.: C.O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works, 1904.
MLA: W. A. Q. (William Alphonsus Quin). The story of Hawera. C.O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works, 1904.
Word Count
23,221
The story of Hawera W. A. Q. (William Alphonsus Quin), C.O. Ekdahl, Caxton Printing Works, Hawera, N.Z., 1904
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