AN OLD ALBERTLANDER.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 261, 4 November 1929, Page 12

AN OLD ALBERTLANDER.

ONE OF THE ORIGINALS.

DEATH OF MR. G. NICHOLSON

EXCITING TIMES EECALLED

Original Albertlanders are getting scarcer every day, and now another has passed away—Mr. George C. Nicholson, who died at a private nursing home in Auckland on Saturday and is being buried to-day at Port Albert, where other members of the family are interred. He was a boy of eleven years of age when he arrived with his parents in the ship Hanover, in November, 1862. The Har.sver was one of the first three ships of the ill-starred Albertland settlement scheme. A man named Brarue launched the idea. He got non-conform-ist people all over England interested in the scheme to found a community in New Zealand on land given by the Colonial Government. Unfortunately, the folks did not realise that the site was away up on the shores of the Kaipara without a single road, no means of communication with the outside world except by the creeks and rivers, and tracks through the bush. No madder idea was ever floated, especially when it is remembered that most of the people were townsfolk and quite unused to roughing it. Hundreds of them never left Queen Street once they found out the true state of things when they landed in Auckland, but many did brave the wilds, and it says much for their courage that they "made good." The Nicholsons were among the determined few who stuck to Albertland. A Long Way Round. It was in December, 1862, that Mr. and Mrs. R. Nicholson, with their family and several other Albertlanders, left Auckland in the little cutter Tay for Mangawai. They had a most uncomfortable trip, and their troubles were added to by the fact that owing to the bad weather the cutter could not enter the river. Eventually, however, the passengers got ashore, and from the East Coast side they were taken overland to the West Coast side by bullock drav Such a conveyance was a luxury, as most of the settlers simply had to walk when they used this early route—and very often had to carry a bag or Hour on their backs as well. The end of the road was at Te Hana landing, on a branch of the Kaipara. There the settlers took boat. From the time the Nicholsons left Auckland until they arrived at their section it was 14 days, and when they arrived at their section they found that Albertland was merely a name on a map. First Sawmill. Mr. K. Nicholson was a sawmiller, and it was not long before he and his brother started a mill at the junction of the Topuni and Te Hana creeks, above what is now Port Albert. When steam was first raised it was duly chronicled in the "Albertland Gazette," for even at that early date the infant settlement boasted a journal. To a healthy lad and young man, life in the Albertland area had many compensations, even if it was hard and strenuous. Mr. Nicholson used to tell of an excursion the settlers made up the Otamatea at the invitation of _ the two great Maori chiefs of that time, Paikea and Arama Karaka. It meant pullin" 25 miles by boat, but the pakehas, •who were making their first acquaintance with the natives—the event took place not long after the parties from the first three ships arrived on the Kaipara—thoroughly enjoyed the lavish hospitality. Next day when the visitors departed their boats were loaded with kumaras and other welcome additions to their scanty larder. It must be remembered that the settlers had to grind their own wheat and maize in hand mills—work which not only hardened the muscles, but also the hearts of the boys who often had to turn the heavy wheel" One of the most exciting moments in the lives of the settlers happened in 1865, when the Maori prisoners who had escaped • from Kawau passed through the district. Thanks to the influence of the Rev. W. Gittos and such chiefs as Paikea and Karaka the braves did no damage, but they well scared the new chums all the same. Mr. Nicholson used to tell how a couple of large canoes full of the escapees went paddling past his father's mill, keeping time to the actions of the fugleman standing amidships, and singing blood-curdling songs. The party camped not far off, sang war chants, blew bugles (using many of. the British Army calls) and otherwise frightening the -wits out of the womenfolk of the white men. These unwelcome visitors were the men who had been captured at Eangiriri pa in November, 1864, were brought to Auckland and then taken to KawaU, whence they escaped—with the connivance of the Governor, so some people alleged. Beyond swaggering and blustering, the party did no harm in Albertland, but it ■was a great relief when the last of them went off, bound for his home in the Waikato. Timber Expert. Mr. Nicholson lived for a number of years at Port Albert. He was an acknowledged authority on timber wors in the bush, and was often engaged measuring up the capacity of a stand of timber suitable for milling. His knowledge, his integrity, and his indefatigability made him invaluable at this work, and he enjoyed a reputation second to none in the business. ■ In his latter years Mr. Nicholson lived in Auckland, and enjoyed good health up to the last year or two, when he began to fail, much to the regret_ of his many friends, who knew how trying it must" have been for a man who had been so active to rest under compulsion. He was an excellent type of the hardworking, upright pioneer, and unfortunately men of his stamp get fewer and fewer as the back country becomes more end more developed.