PORT NICHOLSON IN 1839

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12822, 17 August 1939, Page 7

PORT NICHOLSON IN 1839

In 1839 Port Nicholson had a European population of one. A Scots sailor, Joe Robinson, lived near the mouth of the Hutt River. His lot was not a happy one. When the Wesleyan missionaries, Hobbs and Mumby, met him, he wag' so disconsolate that he was building himself a boat to get away to the whaling settlements at 'Akaroa, where he would at least have the pleasure of seeing some white, or near-white, faces. Joe had only a hand saw and some iron barrel hoops for putting his craft together. He, was laboriously melting down the hoops in an attempt to make nails for the boat. He was still engaged in this task when the white settlers reached Petone Beach. When it was finished he now had. a better use for the craft. He engaged himself ferrying passengers to Wellington or up the Hutt River for half-a-crown a trip. This must be what Jerningham Wakefield meant when he related his meeting with Joe Robinson, who, he says, had a Maori wife, and recounted that “the boat earned many a pound in later times by trading round the coast.”