A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 113, 22 January 1940, Page 3

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO

HISTORIC LANDING ON PETONE BEACH LONG VOYAGE ENDS HAPPILY One hundred years ago on 22nd January 1840 the Aurora arrived at Port Nicholson, and the first of the settlers brought out by the New Zealalncl Company landed on l'etone beach. The company's advance ship, the Tory, had called in September to buy land: ; :he Cuba with the company's surveyors had arrived only iird January, having endured an exceptionally long voyage; but the Aurora contained the lirst authentic emigrants come out to l'arm in the lirst of the organised settlements The voyage of the Aurora was eventful only at the end. The Aurora was a barque of 550 tons, and she carried about 150 passengers. She crossed the line on sth November 1839 with appropriate ceremony. The South Island was sighted thankfully on lG'th January. The next day the barque anchored at Port Hardj', D'Urville Island, the pre-arranged rendezvous for all the emigrant ships with Colonel William Wakefield, the company's agent, who had sailed for New Zealand some months before on board the Tory.

Contrary "Winds. It was with mixed feelings that the emigrants saw that the steepsided cirque of the Port was empty of any other ship. Maori canoes approached, another source of apprehension, soon dispersed. For even if Colonel Wakefield was not at Port Hardy, he had arranged with Maclaren, a whaler who spent the summer with his Maori wife's tribe in that neighbourhood, to tell each cmi grant ship as it arrived to make for Port Nicholson. The Aurora had missed Colonel Waflefield by only a few days. He had been at Poit Hardy on 11th and on 17th January* Vvas rowed across Cook Strait from Tory Channel in an open whale-boat. The big sailing ship could not make so light of windy Cook Strait as that. She was reported outside the Wellington Heads on 20th. Colonel Wakefiel'd rowed out and went on board, only fo find himself and the whole ship's company tantalisingly frustrated from entering the haibour by a strong North-West wind. This was too much for Colonel Wake field's energetic habits. . He left a pilot on board the anchored ship, and returned himself to Petone. It was not till the 22nd January 1840 that the first ship of the '"first colony," as it was called, reached the Petone roadstead.

First Homes Ashore. If the emigrants had felt troubled by the emptiness of Port Hardy, they had plenty of company off Petone Beach. The Cuba was already at anchor, and the trading barque Helena from Sydney cam.' into the harbour on the same day. The Cuba's surveyors were ashore. They and their helpers ran out. a small jetty to facilitate the disembarkation. The first task of the emigrants Mas to get shelter of soru> sort. A few had tents; other swapped shirts or blankets for the services of Te Puni's Ngatiawn tribesmen in putting up raupo whares. "Some wooden houses in frame sent out by the company for the reception of tlie labouring emigrants, were also set up." Things were hardly comfortable. But the people were now in the land of their choice, and they could admire tlie vegetable garden planted by Smith, whom Colonel Wakefield had left behind in October 1839 to act as caretaker to the immense purchase he had made on behalf of the company. They felt they had only to work to succeed. Among them Avere such men as William Deans, afterwards a pioneer in Canterbury, and the surgeon, Stokes, who became a Wellington settler. Everyone enjoyed the picnic conditions, proud to be the first of the ships to land its settlers.

Lost Properly at Port Hardy. II was not long before the other company ships were -beating into Wellington harbour. On the 22nd January, the day of the arrival of the Aurora at Petone, the Oriental slipped into Port Hardy. There was nobody there to welcome them, not even Maclaren and his Maori relations. But everybody swarmed ashore eageriy. Francis Molcsworth and Dudley Sinclair reached the top of a high hill overlooking Port Hardy, and there found a pocket book lost by a member of the parSy of surveyors on board the Cuba. This was indubitable evidence that some of the company's servants had readied Yew Zealand, but it was some days before a message came to move on (Continued at foot of next eoliunn)

to Port Nicholson. The Oriental reached her anchorage there on Ist February 1840, Avhen the Aurora and the Cuba, said the Honourable Henry Pet re, who was on board, "gave us a salute of more, I believe, than 1 lie usual number of gun'r- which v»*e returned with interest." There Ave re many difficulties ahead of the settlers —first and foremost the dispute as to Avhether Thorndon or Petone was the best site for the still unnamed capital. There was an interim sharing out of about an acre each of Hutt and Petone land for immediate cropping while this decision ay as being de--:i'v rl. lint in the first bustle and joy of arrival after the weary months at sea, nobody had much heart for arguments about anything.