OLD FLOUR MILL

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29380, 6 December 1960, Page 18

OLD FLOUR MILL

Relics Found At Otipa

‘The Press” Special Service AUCKLAND, December 5.

The remains of a flour mill which was the scene' of a surrender during the Maori Wars have been unearthed at Otipa, on the Rangitaiki river, near Whakatane.

Contractors working on a hydro-electric project last week found a variety of relics, including parts of a millstone and what appears to have been an iron tray in which the stone rested.

The relics were under several feet of sand and rubble, giving rise to the theory that the river changed its course after the mill was built in the early 1860’s.

Last recorded account of the mill is one by Captain Gilbert Mair, who visited it in December, 1866, to receive the surrender of some of the Urewera sub-tribes.

The mill was then operated by a Frenchman named Jean Guerrin, who two years later was killed at Te Poronu after a gallant fight against a detachment of Te Kooti’s tribesmen on their way to sack Whakatane. Earlier writings record that in 1865 the Otipa mill was the scene of an “incident” involving Kereopa, the Taranaki apostle, who committed atrocities in the Bay of Plenty while propagating the Hau Hau "religion.” At Otipa, Kereopa asked the local Maoris to hand over to him the miller, a man named Aubrey. They refused and Kereopa moved on to Opotiki, where he murdered a missionary.