BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 154, 2 July 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

BOYS' OWN COLUMN.

" THREE " . TREE HILL. A GREAT MAN'S MOVEMENT.

Dear Boys,— "One Tree Hill," we call it, but everybody know* that there are really three trees on it* summit—a dump which from a distance appears no more than one. From the harbour, from the city, this green knoll is to be seen, crowned with its three giant trees. Originally there was only one tree growing there, but this disappeared many years ago, to be replaced by the three lusty trunks we admire to-day. More than a mere hill, it is a deathless monument to the name of a great gentleman. "The Father of Auckland," he was called—surely a fitting title for Sir John Logan Campbell. It was many, many years ago, when first he landed here, that he had a vision of Auckland's future greatness. In 1840, some time after his arrival here, he pitched his tent in the city, whose benefactor he was to be. By seizing the opportunities so numerous then, he became a wealthy man. In 1855 he entered the field of politics, and in the same year was Superintendent of Auckland and a member of the House of Representatives. It was he who anticipated the great Volunteer Movement of the United Kingdom by his formation of a Rifle Corps here in the following year. From this time, by honest worth, he attained a position among Auckland's most prominent and honoured citizens. Upon the occasion of the Royal visit in 1902, when the city lacked a Mayor, he was, to the satisfaction of everyone, chosen to assume the duties. That he acquitted himself well is evident from the fact that he received his knighthood a few months later. We, of course, are alt too young to remember Sir John himself, for he die a in 1912. But what we shall never forget are his noMe and magnificent gifts to us. Many public institutions are the richer for his bequests, while Cornwall Park is ours to-day, a magnificent public possession to remind us of his generosity. One Tree Hill, at once his monument and his grave, is fitting resting place for this great man. It is, we feel, a right and proper thing that he should be now in the place which during life he loved so well. Here he planned to build his home; here in the end he £fl f found h; and here , -^J^ij^-^^ he rests at last on J* + **^J^^ the heights, even as k^TT QAfr~^^ he reached the Vy*^-*'^^ heights in his daily life.