EARLY HOKIANGA

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2864, 17 November 1939, Page 8

EARLY HOKIANGA

BEFORE BRITISH RULE

RESORT FOR WHALERS ECONOMICALLY IMPORTANT The Bay of Islands is so well known as a resort of. whaling and other ships in the roaring days before the establishment of British rule in New Zealand in 1840' that the economically important settlement of the banks of the Hokianga River is sometimes overlooked. This settlement was certainly scattered, but every few miles there was a flourishing group of white sawyers, living under the protection of a Maori chief and exporting the magnificent timber to' which the deep river gave them access. Unlike the Kororareka settlers, who lived chiefly on European ships, they maintained themselves by bard and regular work. 'Characters like Lieutenant McDonnell, who exported timber for the British Admiralty from his home at Te Horeke, and F. E. Maning, wellknown in later years as the author -of “Old New Zealand,” stand out among the white settlers. It was on the Hokianga River that Baron de Thierry had hoped to found his little kingdom. The Maori population under those two worthy chiefs, Patuone and Waaka Nene, was far less spoiled than that of the Bay of Islands by European contacts, because the difficult bar at the mouth of the river made it unsuitable as a port of call simply for refreshment. A pilot, Bob Martin, lived near the heads. He had published a set of warning flags which he would fly to show shipping whether or not the bar was in a fit state to take. Southern Whalers In 184® when Edward Shortland visited Waikouaiti on official business, he found that whaling settlement in flourishing condition. It had been bought in 18'38 by that celebrated self-made man, Johnny Jones, who had begun life as a hand in the South Island sealing trade and had worked himself up to a position of such importance that he could enjoy the luxury of going bankrupt. He failed in his considerable Sydney ventures, and thereafter concentrated on his New Zealand whaling station. But he was still able to live in some style—“on my arrival at this, the then ‘ultima thule’ of the colony, my ears were astonished at the sounds of a piano, and my eyes at the black ‘cutaway’ and riding-whip of a young gentleman, lately of Emmanuel College, Cantab., but now acting tutor to Mr J—’s son and heir.”

Shortland did not think many of the employees at Waikouaiti would rise in the world. They were mostly content to receive the payment for their dangerous work in rum and over-valued goods. But one man, Stephen Smith, had saving habits. He had a fenced garden of two or three acres, and possessed seven cattle, as well as a Maori wife. He was an example of the new spirit of colonisation.

In contrast to Smith’s habits of industry was the hand-to-mouth but contented life of a solitary whaler, living at Purakanui, whom Shortland called up. “ This man welcomed me with the hospitality of his class, although he possessed little but the mud and sticks of his hut, an old musket, and the clothes which covered him. He set himself to work to shoot some pigeons for my dinner; but as he used small stones for shot, I was obliged to be very careful in eating*, to avoid breaking my teeth. My bed was made from the slendei' branches of ‘manuka.’ which are both soft and fragrant. I never had a better.” Next morning Shortland was awakened by a deafening chorus of bellbirds.