THE LATE CAPTAIN GOOD.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LIII, Issue 9348, 24 May 1907, Page 5

THE LATE CAPTAIN GOOD.

The late Captain Thomas Good <eanie to New Zealand with his uncle, Mr Wheeler, in 1844 or 1845. .He was small, but> strongly knit, wiry and of great physical activity and endurance. He was a genuine sportsman, and his riding in the good ol<T days of the Taranaki Anniversary Races as a gentleman jockey is remembered to this day by the then younger g&neration. He was a great pedestrian in his day, and on one occasion, about 1850, walked or ran the distxonce' from Mokau to New Plymouth and back— something over one hundred miles— to try to lower the Tecord then held by a certain gentleman called "Skinny Jim." Whether he won. his wager I cannot say. He was veTy keen on athletic sports, running, jumping, boxing, in all of which he was an expert. I well remember when down at Oeo- in 1880 show he need- to put ■his boys through their course, and how one of the elder ones told me with gTeat glee that he had' at last beaten 'his father in the high junipj fhe Captain must have been verging on sixty years at the time. The result of aOl this was the splendid family of athletes — the Good family, so well iknown in the football and other circles throughout Taianaki a few years back. In the .coasting days of thirty" years ago, the Captain, dispensed open-handed hospitality to all who were in need of it, and' the writer is one of .those who looks back' with great pleasure to niany' happy evenings 'spent ' in the social circle of that interesting home. Captain Good took a very active part in the Maori War, first as officer in the. Bush-ranging Company and afterwards as Commander of the Native Contingent, which was stationed at Urenui. Here it was that he received his- grant of land £ot. mili-fcary service. Mr and Mrs Good resided' at 'Urenui for many yeans, their home being at the pa — a most interesting and historic spot, commanding a lovely panorama over the 'North Taranaki Bight. About 1875 they removed to -Oeo, and remained there up ,to a few years ago, eventually settling in Hawera. Captain Good's fund of 'anecdote of early Taranaki was semairkable, 1 and it was always a pleasure to spend 4b hour or two in his genial company.— W.H.S. in Taranaki Herald.