PERAKI SETTLEMENT

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22370, 6 April 1938, Page 6

PERAKI SETTLEMENT

TO I'BK EDITOR*' OF TUB ('BBSS, Sir, —The article appearing in your Saper is in some directions misleading, b new information or light has been thrown on this controversy, which is a pretty old one. Mr Andersen gave the gist of the statements from the Rhodes papers in “Place Names of Banks Peninsula’’ (1927). Port. Cooper and Akaroa were places definitely on the map in early days. The majority of folk in Christchurch to-day even have a hazy idea Peraki is somewhere on the Peninsula. The Messrs Rhodes were not by any means the only folk using Port Cooper and Port Levy in the thirties. The possessor of Weller brothers’ documents (who will not be drawn into controversy, either by Dunedin or Christchurch amateur historians, as he intends to publish in 1940) informed me that Weller brothers were operating from Port Cooper and its vicinity without any doubt in 1835 and 1836. He had reason to believe Weller brothers operated at Port Cooper in 1834. That brings out a point overlooked by your writer. Captain Price, who visited Banks Peninsula in 1831, was connected with the Weller brothers, was working the Peninsula in the years in question, and who died in 1901, saw the articles, no doubt, on Peraki first published in the “Akaroa Mail,” and did not see fit to make any contradiction then or in the subsequent issues of “Tales of Banks Peninsula,” of 1883 or 1893 (and he was in full enough possession .of his faculties at that time). The statements of Captain Stanley, of H.M.S. Britomart, of September 17, 1840 (on the visit of August. 1840) are to the effect that Hempleman had been established at Peraki for four years. That, to my mind, fixes the, date of Peraki as 1836. Your writer presupposes the spars cut were for house building. Why not for ship repairs? That is what appeal’s most reasonable to me, seeing the first houses, according to the records of 1836, were mostly of flags (raupo). The buildings at Peraki in 1837 were sawn timber. Tripping in whaleboats from Port Cooper as far as Akaroa so often is quite unreasonable. In 1836 these journeys, if from Peraki to Akaroa, where Maoris were living, would be quite reasonable from many points of view. Names of places such as Long Bay, Pigeon Bay, Green Point, Grassy Point, etc., give in themselves no indication of locality, and, taken individually from their common prevalence, are valueless historically. Andersen makes a great deal of the raupo at the head of Port Cooper, in his endeavour to help along the Port Cooper story. In this connexion, I would point out that abundance of raupo is growing on a part of Mr S. G. Robertson’s properly at Peraki, and only half a mile from the site of the whaling station at the present moment. Personally, I have little faith in what Rhodes papers may say. Colonel Godfrey, the investigator for the then Government, appears to have thought so, on their claims at least. As for the late Dr. McNab, his treatment of the late F. A. Anson, who helped him. is not creditable, so far as the whaling day history is concerned. From the foregoing and my already 'published contributions, I disagree with your writer only so far as the year 1836 is concerned. —Yours, etc,, W. A. TAYLOR. April 4, 1938. The contributor of the article, Mr C. R. Straubel, says: “Mr Taylor’s lack of faith in the Rhodes papers—the day to day log kept by Captain Rhodes as master of the Australian in 1836, of which I have seen the original—is the only opposition he offers to the point on which the article is based. His summary dismissal of first-hand contemporary evidence in this way does not do away with the fact that Hempleman, at an unnamed place, records the arriyal of Captain Rhodes, and that Captain Rhodes's log for the same day says he arrived at Port Cooper. If that is not clear evidence of where Hempleman was, what is it? Irrational refusal to accept such evidence can only be based on prejudice, which is unworthy of a historian. This evidence must override Captain Stanley’s report, which is not supported by exact dates. Neither Andersen nor anyone else has hitherto plainly stated that Captain Rhodes, according to the evidence of his own log, arrived at Port Cooper on July 16, 1836. “Mr Taylor apparently does not see that the failure of Captain Price to contradict the suggestion that Hempleman was at Port Cooper in 1836 is as good evidence of its truth as of its falsity. Perhaps Captain Price could not contradict it. “Mr Taylor has taken me up wrongly if he thinks I mean to claim that Captain Rhodes or other members of his firm did the lion's share of the whaling round the peninsula in the thirties. I am quite aware that they did not. The Weller Bros, papers, when published, should provide a great deal of new information; and if they contain exact evidence of where Captain Hempleman was in 1836 all true historians will welcome it. whether it is for Peraki or Port Cooper.”