MAORI WAR RECALLED.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19815, 31 December 1929, Page 10

MAORI WAR RECALLED.

AN EARLY RESIDENT PASSES.

MRS H. ALLPORT'S MEMORIES

[THS PBESS SpsciAl Scrvict.]

AUCKLAND, December 30-

One of the oldest surviving Europeans born in the South Island, Mr» Hi Allport, died at Mount Eden witliin a fortnight of completing her eightyseventh year. Her death severs another link with the stirring incidents of the days of early colonisation in New Zealand, the fortunes of her early childhood being closely interwoven with the fateful tragedy of the Wairau massacre.

Mrs Allport's parents, Mr and Mrs Isaac Smith, arrived at Nelson in August, 1842. Mrs Allport was born on January 14th, 1843. In June of that year Mr Smith wag a member of the unfortunate party organised by the Nelson police magistrate, Mr H. A. Thompson, to proceed to Wairau with the object of arresting the jMaori Chiefs, Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata, on a charge of arson arising out of the burning of a hut erected by the members of the New Zealand Company's survey party. Mr Smith was one of the special constables massacred.

Mrs Allport Was only five months eld at the time of the tragedy, and ber widowed mother had not reached womanhood's full estate, being only 20 years of age. The residence of herselF and her husband where her daughter was born was a primitive structure on what afterwards became known as Church Hill, and on which Nelson Cathedral now stands. After the massacre, when the residents of Nelson lived in dailv dread of an incursion of Maoris from Wairau rude fortifications were haatilv thrown up on the hill, and Mrs Smith's abode was within an entrenched area The anticipated attack by the Natives never came.

Mrs Smith afterwards married Mr Benjamin Lusty, an early Nelson settler, and four generations of their descendants are now residing in various parts of New Zealand. Mrs AHport's husband died ten years ago, at the a?e of 86. Of. a .fumilr of twelve !«j re *u aTe F f Ve ". ""rrivofs—four sons t } iTmj daughters. There are « ffrnndch.ldron and 36 jzreat-grandenU-:ren, maW a total of 86 SHtrmnß descendants. "