STORY OF AUCKLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 281, 27 November 1928, Page 6

STORY OF AUCKLAND.

WHEN THE TOWN WAS AN ARMED CAMP, (By JAMES COWAN.) No. XIX As to the provision for the expected conflict, a significant little item appears in the diary of the late Mr. S. Percy Smith, lent to me many years ago by that pioneer of the surveying profession: "September 10, 1863—The Rev. John Morgan (the missionary who formerly lived at TeAwamutu) told me yesterday that the Waikatos had been preparing for this war for more than two years, by making cultivations at Pukekawa and Pa para ta (in the bend of the Waikato River below Mercer) so as to have provisions handy to our out-settlements." There was also a great secret camp established as a base in the forest between Papakura and the Wairoa settlements; this was not known to the pakeha until after war began. This bush encampment in the Hunua hills was discovered several weeks after the first skirmishes; it was believed to have been prepared for a large war party essaying an attack on Auckland. The place was about twenty-five miles from the town. It was a small scouting party, mostly settler-volunteers, that unearthed this big camp. Lieutenant Steele (later Captain) of the Wairoa Rifle Volunteers, reported from the stockade, Wairoa, under date August 11, 1863, that he had taken a party of men through into the Hunua Ranges and through to Drury on the previous day. in order to ascertain whether there were any Maoris about, and whether any supplies were being carried up into the bush from the Wairoa River. At " Buckland's Clearing," a tract of open fern land in the bush, they found Mr. Hill's house burnt down. Resuming the march to Drury the scouts came to another opening of fern in the bush, and advanced in skirmishing order up to a large unoccupied encampment, apparently a base prepared for a Maori army. The nikauthatched township consisted of thirty-one whares from twenty to a hundred feet long (one was 110 feet long), and capable of containing, in Lieut. Steele's opinion, about 1500 people. This camp was in an open space where the bush road from Drury emerged from the forest. The force set fire to the houses, but they were too wet to burn. On the road, and about a mile nearer Drury, they found a few small whares, and again some huts three-quarters of a mile further on, which appeared to have been used as advanced posts. Still nearer to Drury, and close to the road, was Captain Clare's house, which the Maoris had plundered.

Lieut. Steele took his men right through to Drury, and the Wairoa settlers returned to the stockade the same evening. It was a plucky and useful scouting expedition, and Steele praised the steadiness and gallantry displayed by the men at the moment when it was uncertain whether the Maoris had gone or were still in the whares, and when the force advanced on the clearing in skirmishing order. The party which executed this daring scout work numbered 36, of whom 26 were Wairoa Rifle Volunteers and the rest volunteers from No. 4 Company, Auckland Militia, stationed at the Wairoa. The march was very wet and rough, and was particularly severe on the Auckland militia men.

The Plight of the Settlers. War, when it came, was as unwelcome to the Maoris living in the settlements near Auckland as it was to the out-settlers. Both sides, except the natives who took the oath of allegiance, were forced to leave their homes and take to the warpath. The Maoris left their villages and cultivations, and joined their compatriots. The NgatiWhatua, of Orakei, remained consistently friendly to the British side; they had too much to lose by joining the Kingites. In some cases tribes were divided, and even families, as at Mangere, where some men went off to fight for the Maori king and others took the oath and remained peacefully farming and fishing, though their real sympathies, naturally, were with their tribesfolk in the Waikato.

Most of the settlers from the Tamaki up to Pukekohe East, Mauku and the Wairoa sent their wives and families into the town or its outskirts until such time as the frontier was relieved from the fear of shooting and tomahawking raids. Even so near the town as East Tamaki families packed their household goods in boxes and buried them in their gardens before removing to town with what they needed until it was considered safe to return. The news of the raid on a farm at Mangemangeroa, near Howick (where the Trust boys were killed), was sufficient proof of the perils attendant on farm life within striking distance of the Wairoa Ranges. Auckland town, now an armed camp, became a town of refugees from the country. Some families saw it right through, preferring even the uncertainty of life on an isolated farm to the miseries of an overcrowded town where living was dear. The settlers and their sons joined the local defence corps, such as the cavalry under that most popular veteran officer, Colonel Marmaduke Nixon, and the Forest Rifles of Mauku and Pukekohe East. Soon after the war began, the formation of the Forest Rangers under William Jackson, with a second company later under Von Tempsky, gave an opportunity for adventurous service without the distasteful duty of building redoubts and escorting bullock drays which fell to the Auckland militia. Troops for the Front. The call of the bugle, the spirit-quickening sound of drum and fife, were familiar music to Auckland townsfolk that winter of 1863 and the martial months that followed. Troopships came sailing into the Waitemata. Many of them were clipper ships, euch as the Owen Glendower, the Light Brigade; two were already famous steam and sail transports, the Himalaya and the Lady Jocelyn. They came from London, Liverpool, Calcutta, Bombay; they landed in turn their hundreds of redcoats, soldiers of the Queen who had come to fight the Maoris in a cause of which they knew nothing. There was continual marching to and from the Albert Barracks; there were daily departures of infantry detachments for the large base camp at Otahuhu. Presently came artillery, and Aucklanders saw the first breech-loading cannon to reach the colony, the handy battery of Armstrong field guns under Captain Mercer—soon to fall in a forlorn hope at Rangiriri. The redcoats became bluecoats; it was in serviceable campaigning dress that they marched away for the unknown country, to push the frontier southward and win for white settlement the mystery land of the Waikato. The Citizen Soldiers. Practically every man of Auckland town between the ages of sixteen and fifty-five was on active service in the latter part of 1863, bearing arms and doing duty as a soldier, either in the militia and the volunteer rifles in the field, or in patrol and sentry duty about the town. Gradually the four regiments of military settlers, mostly raised in Australia, relieved most of the Auckland citizens of their duties on the Great South Road; by that time the war had been carried well into the Maori country. From Flintlock to Breech-loader. "In the militia in the early 'sixties," says an old settler, "we drilled at first with the old 'Brown Bess' flintlocks—big heavy weapons. They were sent out to us for drill purposes only; a little later, when the war came, we were served with the long Enfield rifle. The old Maoris preferred the flintlocks to the percussion-cap guns because of the difficulty of getting caps. Many flintlocks were converted into percussion-cap guns. Our whole equipment was clumsy. I had at first a home-made cartridge-box of wood in Maori fashion, curved to fit the back, with a leather strap nailed on at either end for buckling round the waist. This wooden box was bored with holes for the cartridges. Some of the Maoris used flintlocks as lately as the Hauhau wars of the later 'sixties, whilst others had the latest rifles and carbines, usually captured from the troops. The favourite Maori weapon, however, was the reliable old tupara, the double-barrelled j muzzle-loading percussion-cap gun." 1 J&tafiMtffawsM