Mauku Re-visited After Eighty Years.

Franklin Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 117, 20 October 1937, Page 5

Mauku Re-visited After Eighty Years.

A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE. MR R. B. MARTIN’S VISIT. MANY INCIDENTS RECALLED. To re-visit for the first time .-the home of one’s early childhood after an absence of exactly eighty years is'not an experience that falls to the lot of many people, but Mr R. B. Martin,' of the Mt. Wellington district, -has %ust had the pleasure of doing so, and evidently thoroughly appreciated it. Eighty years ago Mr Martin’s father was in the employment of Major Speedy of the Grange farm at Mauku, and although Mr Martin was under five years old when he left the district, he still retains a clear recollection of many of the incidents of eight decades ago, and can recall the names of some of the early settlers of the neighbourhood.Back to Site of Early Home.

After, as he says, for forty years having felt a desire to come back and have a look at Mauku, Mr Martin managed to get into touch with Mr H. M. Crispe, the grandson of one of Maultu’s earliest settlers, and last Saturday he visited the district, and, in company with another fairly early resident was taken to various points of interest by Mr Crispe, finishing up with a visit to the site of the home of his early childhood. No vestige of the building now remains, but Mr Martin at length: satisfiedv himself as to the exact spot; and his judgment was confirmed by the discovery of rose-plants, with buds just ready to burst into flower, which through all these years had survived the struggle with the native scrub and the foreign blackberry brambles which now cover the spot. About seventy yards below the long bridge which now spans the head of the Tahiki branch of the Manukau harbour, on the left-hand, or western bank, a point runs out close to the deep-walker channel of the creek. Here eighty years ago, stood a small jetty, all traces of which have now disappeared, though it was still in evidence when the writer was a boy. Close to this stood two small cottages, in One of which the Martins lived in 1857, and the . other was occupied by the Mellsop family, relations of Major Speedy, who, a year or two later, took up land at “Knockmaroon,” colse to the present Glenbrook hall. Later on, when the war of 1863 began, a blockhouse was built and garrisoned by a detachment of the Waikato Militia, but no trace of that remains either, except shadowy remains of the ditch that once surrounded it, now almost obliterated by repeated loughings. •>-! •, A Shipwright by Trade. After ’ leaving Mauku Air Martin's parents ; settled at Kingsland, where, later, Mr Martin learned the trade of ship-wright. As ships-carpenter he visited a great many parts of the world, but always returned to Auck-, land, where he finally married; .and brriughU.up a family of nine. Strangely enough, he came into touch in later. life.; ■ with two early Mauku settlers, though they were several years behind him. In 1865 Messrs Mercer and Fraser, both . shipwrights ’by trade, settled in Patumahoe, arid were piaced in charge of the building ; of trie large bridge mentioned above. Finding farming most unremunerritive they left Patumahoe in trie early seventies, and resumed their trade in Auckland, in the course of which Mr Martin was frequently in close touch with them. Mr Martin,- who 1 is in his 85th year, is wriridepfully well 1 preserved, and his right hand has evidently not lost its cunning, for a, bedside tray, a cakedish stand and a couple of moneyboxes of the Chinese puzzle system he brought up to Mr Crispe, show a neatness of execution of which no craftsman in his prime need he ashamed.