EARLYDAYS RECALLED

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 91, 18 April 1921, Page 8

EARLYDAYS RECALLED

INTERESTING GATHERING AT

PAHAUTANUI

The first days of European settlement in the Pahautanui district were recalled at a meeting of the Early Settlers' Association in that picturesque locality on Saturday. There were some sixty visitors from the city—members of the association and their friends—and local residents attended the meeting in large numbers. The reunion took place in the Pahautanui Hall. The proceedings were of an informal and thoroughly enjoyable nature. Reminiscences" of the trials and experiences of the first settlers ,were related, including some amusing stories. Refreshments were provided by the local residents, and a dance was indulged in by the younger folk. The President of the Association (Mr. J. E. Jenkinfcon), in the course of'a brief address, alluded to the infant days of the district, and sketched the progress of the country. The present generation, he said, should recognise the debt the Dominion owed to the courage and work of those who came from the Old Country in years gone by to make a home for themselves in the wilderness.

Mr. F. Stace related how his parents arrived at Pahautanui in 1853j and-re-sided in a building that had been the officers quarters in the days when a garrison was. considered necessary. The house was on a aite near the church, and was part of the area on which a Maori pa was built. His father conducted a school there for a time, and he was pleased to see amongst those present some of those who had attended as scholr.rs at that school.

A brief reference to the history of the Maori village was made by Mr. W. A. Edwards, who exhibited a plan of the pa drawn by two junior early settlersMessrs. W. Edwards and G. Jellie.

Mr. John Smith related some incidents of the early days, and spoke of Pahautanui as he remembered it in the fifties. Amongst the Pahautanui early settlers represented were : Mr. and Mrs. George Taylor,- Mr. and Mrs. N. Abbott, Mr. and Mrs". W. Harris, Mr. and Mrs. Bolton, and Messrs. Lytton, G. Jones, S. Jones, Bolton, A. and W. Brady, W N. Stace, Ward, Pearce, and Cook, whilst among those who journeyed from town, were Mr. J. E. Jenkinson (president) and Mts; Jenkinson, Mr. and Mrs. H. Cook, Mr. and Mrs. Thos. Campbell, Mr. and Mrs. Geo, Ashdown, Mr. and Mrs. W. A. Edwards, Mesdames Morris, Hankins, Tandy, Carter, Blackie, -the Misses Bell, Randel], Armstrong, and Smith, Messrs. I. Stace, D. Berry, E. G. Pilcher, H. Daysh, Burn, C. and W. Blackie, J. Smith, Robert Smith, H. Collier, R. Woodmand.

The day, which was one that will be, remembered well, closedj with the singing of "Auld Lang Syne." It was a happy party of early settlers which wended its way to Paremata' by 'bus and motor-car, round the picturesque shores of Porirua Harbour.