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Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10392, 9 May 1927, Page 3 (Supplement)

The first volunteer corps in Poverty Bay was the Mounted Rifle Volunteers and it was formed in 1867. Major Westrupp was in control till 1869 and. then Capt. Hardy till 1877, when it disbanded. The election of Capt. Read to Parliament in 1876 was an unexpected event, but it seems that, on that day, there were plenty of PDFs about for ‘2/6, 5/- and 10/-, ‘‘cashable anywhere,” according to the late Capt. A. F. Hardy. In the early days Mir. J. W. Johnston ran 15,000 sheep on his property and Gisborne and district received most of its butter from Maraetaha. At the time of the Massacre, Mrs. Bloomfield—her husband died the previous year—was, with her family, driven terror stricken from 'their Home at Waerenga-a-hika by the Ilauliaus. Tlieir lives depended on the rapidity of their flight. Almost naked and. frnntio with excitement, they w.cre met on the* bench at the Waikanae, by the Ven. Archdeacon Williams and soon found a safe retreat. On January 81, 1884, a school of 100 sperm whales made their appearance at Mabia. It again appeared the following month. The whalers made fair liauls. -