Little Port Cooper was first European village

Press, 29 November 1986, Page 24

Little Port Cooper was first European village

By

GORDON OGILVIE

A number of New Zealand towns and communities founded in the 1840 s, some of them in Canterbury, will soon be celebrating their 150th birthdays. Peraki, the largest bay on the south side of Banks Peninsula, has been occupied by Europeans continuously since 1837 and could have its party next year. Other former whaling stations at Oashore and Ikoraki could celebrate in 1989. Akaroa is entitled to in 1990. But Canterbury’s front runner is Little Port Cooper, the small bay just inside Lyttelton Harbour’s Adderley Head.

Little Port Cooper, (“Little,” to distinguish it from Port Cooper, once the name for the whole of Lyttelton Harbour), was the first spot in Canterbury to attract regular European visitors. It was also the first where Europeans in any numbers tried to live ashore.

A few Europeans, mostly ships’ deserters or runaways, had lived with the Maoris in Akaroa since about 1830; but at Little Port Cooper, whole whaleship crews camped ashore from 1836. For the following decade, this historic little bay was in regular use by whalers, 1836 to 1838 being the busiest years. Little Port Cooper is a natural refuge for sailing vessels. No other anchorage on the Canterbury coastline offers such quick protection from the prevailing easterly and north-easterly winds. Its early European name, Whalers Retreat, is some proof of this.

The first whaleships appeared in Lyttelton Harbour in 1835, the Weller brothers’ Lucy Ann and Joseph Weller. The former took 90 tons of oil back to Sydney and the news was out. For the next three to four years Little Port Cooper was to be second only to Cloudy Bay in Marlborough as a whalers’ rendezvous. Between July and September, 1836, occurred the initial rush and nine whaleships are known to have used Little Port Cooper as an anchorage — Bee, Nile, Friendship, Harriet, Elizabeth, Sisters, Caroline, Warren and Australian. If Little Port Cooper saw the genesis of European settlement in Canterbury, Captain George Hempelman was its Adam. Hempelman, a German-born whaling master, anchored his Bee in the bay on February 17, 1836, after a dismal 11-week voyage from Sydney. There had been a lot of squally weather and the Bee leaked so badly that for most of the voyage she needed to be pumped every two hours. Once at Little Port Cooper, Hempelman landed 100 casks and a load of shooks (staves) to lighten the brig, then beached the Bee so that repairs could be made. He also sent out boats to reconnoitre the harbour. Spars were cut, probably at Purau

where the nearest good bush lay, and repairs were made to the Bee and her whale boats. (This is the first record of boat repair or construction work in Canterbury, work that was later to become a major industry on Banks Peninsula.)

“Mowries” were employed filling water casks. There was a small Maori settlement called Waitata at the head of the bay. Maoris from Waitata and other parts of the Peninsula were from now regularly called on to help supply wood and water, as well as help man the boats when European crewmen absconded or fell ill.

Hempelman’s whaleboats twice made trips round to “Wangaloo” (Akaroa) and the captain himself went on the second of these. It was then that Hempelman probably made his decision to set up a shore station at Peraki. Boats also went "up the bay for

potatoes,” most likely to Rapaki where the main Maori settlement in Lyttelton Harbour was situated. Hempelman will have learnt from this. He later grew potatoes by the ton at Peraki, and traded in them.

After two months at Little Port Cooper, Hempelman decided to build a “house” ashore for his men who were to winter over. It was constructed by a Maori and pakeha work team out of timber brought from Pigeon Bay, and roofed with a flax thatch.

The first “right” whale was sighted on April 18, 1936, and soon the season was under way. Whales, harpooned outside the heads, were towed back to the bay and flensed either on the beach or alongside the Bee, which was now back at anchor and had its own tryworks on deck. The whales were spotted by lookouts posted on Adderley Head.

On July 24 Hempelman sailed to Sydney, leaving a shore party at Little Port Cooper. The Bee returned on September 2 and took off the shore party along with its oil and baleen (whalebone). Hempelman next appeared in Canterbury in March, 1837, when he set up a permanent shore base at Peraki. The four months and a half that Bee crewmen had spent ashore at Little Port Cooper in 1836 is the first lengthy occupation on record by any European party in Canterbury. Other shore parties landed at Little Port Cooper while Hempelman was there. The Friendship from Fairhaven, under Captain Isaiah West, arrived on April 27, 1836, the same day that the Nile from New Bedford anchored in the bay. The log of the Friendship records the following day: “Employed in building a shed on shore and sending on shore casks and shooks, filling water and cutting wood.” Again, local Maoris probably helped, being paid in kind. The log of the Mary Mitchell gives the going rate on some parts of New Zealand coastline: 100 heads of tobacco to rent a

base site from the Maoris; and two muskets for water and wood. Of the other whaleship visits to Little Port Cooper in 1836, the most significant was that of the Australian, under Captain W. B. Rhodes, which arrived at the bay on July 16. William Rhodes, an experienced merchant captain but untried as a whaling master, was having trouble with his crew. They believed Rhodes worked them too hard, treated them too harshly and should have led them to more whales. Rhodes, for his part, thought his crew to be a bunch of insubordinate, coarse-mouthed malingerers.

Eventually, on September 5, there was a mutiny. Seventeen of Rhodes’ men (including his third mate) refused to work any longer. The following day Rhodes had them examined by the captains of the Elizabeth and Nile, also anchored in the bay. Rhodes’ authority was upheld and the stroppy 17 were paid off and dumped ashore. Most of them probably found work, almost immediately, on other whaleships working from Little Port Cooper or Port Levy. Rhodes, like Hempelman, formed a favourable impression of Banks Peninsula and returned on November 10, 1839, to establish near Akaroa the first cattle station in the South Island. The most interesting whaleship

visit to Little Port Cooper in 1837 was that of the Bowditch from Rhode Island, which returned to the bay in 1838. In total, the Bowditch crew spent about as long in the bay as Hempelman’s party. Furthermore, the log kept by Captain Ramsdell is extremely informative. The Bowditch, working from its "snug little bay,” encountered plenty of whales, some of which were caught inside Lyttelton Harbour. Right whales, humpbacks, fin backs and black fin whales were all to be seen. The men cleaned whalebone (baleen), the decks were scraped, wood and water were taken aboard. Two of the crew were discharged for unnamed misdemeanours. For relaxation the men gathered mussels and “clams” (paua), or chased porpoises. The captain went on shooting expeditions to Pigeon Bay, returning each time with five to seven dozen pigeons. These were a happy change from the basic whaling diet of casked pork or beef, potatoes, pease, bread, biscuits and tea. Other whaleships working off the Peninsula during 1838 were Lucy Ann, Sisters, Friendship, Rajah and Shylock. The latter remained in or near Little Port Cooper for two months. The year 1838 was to be the year of the French. By the time the French corvette Heroine visited Little Port Cooper in June, 1838, the French whaling fleet off Banks Peninsula out-

numbered the Americans for the first time. The Asia, Cachalot, Souvenir and Dunkerquoise were all at anchor in Little Port Cooper, and there were six other French vessels at Akaroa and Peraki. As part of its job of protecting and policing the French fleet, the Heroine was constantly on the lookout for French deserters. The Bowditch log records on July 11: “She took six from us that we shipped at the Bay of Islands which left us six hands short. Damn all the French.” A week earlier the Bowditch and other American whaleships in Lyttelton Harbour had celebrated Independence Day with bunting and gunfire. On July 29, 1838, the French reciprocated by commemorating the July Revolution of 1830. Aboard the Heroine flags were flown and guns fired, and in the evening, the Bowditch log notes, “there was a theatrical performance on board the corvette” — surely the first theatre entertainment in Canterbury. Captain Cecille of the Heroine put his navigator, Lieutenant Joseph Fournier, to work mapping Port Cooper and Port Levy. He also set up an observatory in a quiet cove on the east side of Little Port Cooper. Fournier’s

map was the first detailed chart of these two harbours. Aboard the Asia, which spent some five months at Little Port Cooper, was a surgeon with both a keen eye and literary ability, Dr Felix Maynard. Maynard’s lively account of life in the bay among the whalers and Maoris was edited by Alexandre Dumas, and published in 1858 as “Les Baleiniers.” However, for Banks Peninsula’s future, even more significant than the visits of Hempelman, Rhodes, Maynard or Cecille was the arrival of the whaleship Cachalot, under Captain Jean Langlois. For it was Langlois who conceived the idea of buying the Peninsula from the Maoris so that a French settlement could be established there. Such a settlement eventuated two years later at Akaroa, the oldest township in Canterbury. A great deal else of interest was to happen at Little Port Cooper. James Ames ran a whaling station there from 1844 to 1845, with four boats and 30 men. From 1859 a pilot service, crewed originally by Deal boatmen and later by Maoris, operated from the bay. A lookout and signal station were built on Adderley Head and

in 1878 one of New Zealand’s first telephone connections was established between the lookout and the pilot station down in the bay. The pilots were removed to Lyttelton in 1885, but the signal station continued to operate until 1949. The only buildings which now remain at Little Port Cooper are the old school (now converted into a bach) and its lavatory. Today, Little Port Cooper is a popular anchorage for yachtsmen, and reasonably industrious hikers may reach the bay in an hour and a half, using walking tracks from either Port Levy or Camp Bay. Both routes take you through private farm land and permission should be obtained from either Philip Helps of Port Levy or Paul Stapylton-Smith of Camp Bay before taking the walk. The bay is privately owned and is part of the Stapylton-Smith farm. The sites of the pilot station, signalmen’s cottages and lookout buildings may still be seen; and if you are very lucky, you may come across, even now, fragments of whalebone from those robust and colourful days a century and a half ago when Little Port Cooper gave Europeans their first taste of life ashore in Canterbury.