A PIONEER REMEMBERS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 47, 14 August 1939, Page 6

A PIONEER REMEMBERS

BAY OF PLENTY CAVALCADE TANEATUA FOR FIFTY YEARS Bright and alert, with a good flow of conversation, a retentive memory and excellent knowledge of current affairs Mr C. Garlick, of Taneatua is a good example of the pioneers who laid the foundations of the couu try and the fruits of whose work we enjo3 r to-day. For a couple of liouis on Thursday a pressman sat with Mr Garlick and heard much of the early history of th e district, anecdotes -of old identities, comparison of farming methods, talcs of gold searches in, the TJrewera and a variety of other topics. Mr Garlick was listening to the Parliamentary broadcast when his visitor arrived. "Listen to these fellows 'skiting' what they have done'' he said. "By gosh, if they haven't [left the country in a mess. What amuses me today is to hear those fellows in Wellington say that this country has been, misgoverned for 50 yea,rs. lam a fair specimen of a man who has been misgoverned, and my old friend Harry Merriman is another isn't he? New Zealand Avas then a land of opportunity for honest hard-working men." CAME FROM WAIKATO.

Mr Garlick dismissed politics and told his visitor something of his early days. He came to the district in 1889—50 years ago to the day last week—and engaged i n contract ploughing. He h'ad been,* in partnership in the same business in tne Wailkato, but the business was getting rather unwieldly, so he took five teams and came to Taneatua, working on the Opouriao station. Tr, those days the only raads were between Otamarakau and Matnta and up the valley to Opouriao. There was also the old military rond horn Whakatane to Te Teko, but this was so rough that it was impossible to drive a uprjng cart on it. Mr Garljck remembered 1801 tne year of the big flood when the entire Rangitaiki was under water, and the natives from Kokohinnu paddled their canoes over the Ngati. pukeko lands while this tribe roosted in the hills. Save for the line of sandhills dividing the sea from the flooded plain, and the row-s of along the Orini and Whakatane, nothing could be seen put a huge lake 1 . The* flood stopped the survey work for six months. In those days from Otamarakau t?» Waiotahi there would not be !()'> Pakeha men, and there were only 14 white women, in the whole district. AH the work on the Opcuriao station was done by native labour. I always found the Maori a very good working man, loyal to the 1 boss. As long as you make an agreement at the start and keep to il they will treat you well. I have lived in th e district for 50 years and j I hav e never lost 5s worth of 'pro. jperty through Maoris" he said. LINK WITH TAPS^LL. Mr Garlick was married in 1890 to a grand-daughter of Tapsell, the celebrated Maketu trader, whose rr». mantic story is tolcl in Cowan's "Trader in Cannibal Land. *' His wife was a daughter of Tapsell's youngest girl Toti f who died when tli « chikl was only a few years old. Describing the Opouriao Station as it existed in the nineties, Mr Garlick said that altogether 8400 acres wer e freehold land and on the other side of the Whakatane 13,000 acres were leased from the Ngati. pukeko tribe for, he thought, £'400 a year. Dr Campbell, of Auckland, owned about four.fifths of the stsa tion and Mr C. the man. ager, about one-fifth. Much of the 1 freehold was acquired from the sol- J diers who were given farms on the confiscated land after the wa.r. Many never settled on their holdings." 'It was too near the Urewera and - they were afiaid the Maoris would 2Ut- their throats" he said. "Many 1 >f the farms were sold for £10 and 1 x bottle of ium. :w j

PLANS FOR ESTATE. The station was acquired by Gould 5 rot hers, of Christchiireh, about two r ears before it wits sold to the Govrnmcnt i.n • 1896 for £.f2, UQO. M jiarJick told how Mr Goul.l drew up n elaborate plan for subdivision of He estate into dairy farmr. and the rection of a. creamery. ll> sent Mr rarlick to Cambridge zo buy horses diich would have beer* nece.ssarv ji- extensive ploughing and cart, ig, but o.'i the way back .'o Tnnea, in, Mr Gnrlick received .thy ncwfT iat Mr Gould had shot hiniseU v.hilo |

pulling a gun through a fence. Th threw affairs into confusion, and li plans M-ere not gone on with. J] George Grant followed Mr StatTor es manager. Mr Garlick first farmed the Whs katanc Domain which he held on seven year clearing the groun of the tall ti-tree and planting i in maize, and then grassing it Later he took up the Puketj farn: which is now farmed by his son This land was overgrown with scm] when Mr Garlick first went on t< it, but when the scrub Avas clearet the plough lands could be seen oi the ground testifying to the fact tha the country had on.ce been unde cultivation. This was 30 or 40 yeai earlier, when the Maoris grew mucl wheat which they shipped to Auck I and so the old hands say, mucl went ultimately to California wheiv it fed the Forty-niners on the *olt field. For years Mr Garlick farmed tfci? land and ran a carrying business later opening a livery stable. Thou, sands of times he made the trip between Whakatane "Sid Taneatun with his waggons, and to the old settlers he was as familiar a sight a* tne Whakatane river alongside the load. HIS EARLY LIFE. Recounting his early life in England Mr Garlick said that he was bom in, North Wiltshire in 1861 in the ancient Saxon town of Malmes. bury. There Garlicks had lived and farmed for hundreds of years, and the old abbey was full of lheir tombs, the earliest dating back to 1305. Mr Garlick was brought up by a bachelor uncle who had a 500 acre farm, but when the bachelor uncle achieved the matrimonial state Mr Garlick thought it was time for him to leave. England seemed to hold out little prospects, and he thought that he would try a land where farms were cheap. He wa s attracted to New Zealand by the glowing pictures painted by a rolling_stone friend, . one Harry Alexander. ''the most remarkable man I 9 Vcr met'' as he describes him. This Harry Alexander had been .evervwhere except the. North and South, Poles. He had been round the world some phenomenal number of times- - 12 or 13—he had worked as a clerk for the Hudson Bay Company in forts within the Arctic Circle, he lived with the Blackfeet Indians in f -hn Rockies Avher e he knew Buffalo Bill Cody and his father; he ' had worked in the Nevada silver mines; been in the Australian rushes: visited India; tramped alj over New Zealan,d: joined in the gold rushes on the West Coast and at Gabriel's Gul. ly in Otago. He corresponded with or visited Darwin, Lord Kelvin. In. versoll. Sir Hiram Maxim, Edison " and dozens of other scientists ant! philosophers. He had an expert knowledge of ma 113' branches of science.

A LONG VOyAGE. It was this rolling stone who advised Mr Garlick to So to New Zealand and so in 1882 he boarded the sailing ship Rakaia. It was six months before they landed in New Zealand t for at the Azores a sa-lor developed smallpox, and the doctor advised against taking the ship through the tropics. For seven weary weeks she lay a t anchor in PI v. mouth before she finally sailed for New Zealand, arriving at Lyttelton on September 2, 1882 after an S3 day passage. The master of the Ra_ kaia was Captain Boon who, after his retirement from the sea occu- " <-d the position of marine superintendent for one of the shipping companies. He visited AVhakatane v ' IPn the freezing works were established in order to investigate 'thvnehomge. but Mr Garlick m.ssed neeting him. ASTONISHING WALKER. < Reverting to his friend Harry Uexander Mr Garlick regretted that 'is life history had never been writ., en. Harry did make a start once. >ut his manuscript was destroyed n a fire at Duluth. United States. The old chap eventually died in 1920 at the age of 88 years. "He was only « little, wizened. up man, ■> safd Mr Ga. lick, ''but h'» was an walker. He would do 40 o r 50 miles i day and often left my place at to walk to Wellington, tramped all over New Zealand in !r., ,ri T eS - Hc U ' as ' fn Nevada mi tßfil when Gabriel Read, an old ■ r ieivl of his. made Ins famous st-iko m the spot known as Gab-iel's Gul v. Head wrotc to h . m telHn? h{ji that tnere w« s gold then* f or the amT haej- ° W He met ancthe--

1 cousin of mine in Christchurch and . \ took him down South,. They each cleaned up £3000 from their claim. "I took Harry with me once wheh v I found gold traces in a* creek in the/ is Urewera," continued Mr Garlick. •e ''About four miles up the vallpy wer found quartz with gold traces. We d Wer e investigating, and old Harry had his glass On the rock, when an ■" ofld Maori who had seen us go in to the hills followed us and asked what 3 we were doing. I said that we were looking for a and he said ■ "Funny place to look for a liorsc. • I hink I know what you want" and - he felt in a ledge and produced two 1 good gold specimens. 1 the chiefs summon him. t "A few days afterwards the chiefs' „ nt Ruatoki asked me to come and s see. them. They said ''Garlick, we > don't like you looking for gold. We nre not ready for a gold rush." i 'T said: 'Think of the revenue jou i would get and at any rate, if ts±? I gold is there the government will ' see that if is dug up sooner or later. "The old chief said: 'Yes that's enough, but I can the time when the Haurakis jcoißl put 500 fighting men in the field. How many can they put in today? If there is gold in the J land, let it remain. If you take it out it wilt spoil our country." "He was right enough too - ' added Mr Garlick. "They promised that If at any time there was a gold field , opened up I would be given, first, chance." EXPfiRT INVESTIGATES. *'I know where there are good" . traces of gold'" he continued, "but 0 it is all fine gold and hard to extract, nor is it in great quantities. Auckland Stock Exchange sent a mining engineer down and I sent - him into the hills with B'w Biddl'e as a guide. They were in for months, and when they came out the engineer told me that there was undoubtedly gold there, but that the country was too broken by volcanic action to make , mining anything but a chancy business. The engineer told me that ho know : where there was something mors valuable than gold, and t,Uat it would be exploited one day. What he meant I don't 'know.' He would |ell|me nothing more. ■ "One - day some one will find a A good pocket"' said Mr Gnrlk-k. "but T don't think a big reef will ever be worked.'' One could hav e talked to this sturdv oioneer for hours, but dusk was falling and it was time to reu turn to Whakatane, so regretfully the pressman took leave'of the kind. • ly and vigorous old-timer whose parting words; were: "Seven chiland 12 grandch-'ldren. done something for the country. I've had a hard life, but no fellow 4b ever enjoyed his life more." y