ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 4452, 30 January 1940, Page 4

ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO

HISTORIC LANDING ON PETONE BEACH Ono hundred years ago on 22nd January, 1840 the “Aurora" arrived at Port Nicholson, and the first of the settlers brought out by the New Zealand Company landed on Petone beach. The Company’s advance ship, the “Tory/’ had called in September to buy land; the “Cuba” with the Company’s surveyors had arrived only on 3rd January, having endured an exceptionally long voyage; but the “Aurora’’ contained the first authentic emigrants come out to farm in the first of the organised settlements. The voyage of the “Aurora" was eventful only at the end. The “Aurora’’ was a barque of 550 tons, and she carried about 160 passengers. She crossed the Lino on sth November, 1839, with appropriate ceremony The South Island was sighted thankfully on 16th January. The next day the barque anchored at Port Hardy, D’Urville Island, the pre-arranged rendezvous for all the emigrant ships with Colonel William Wakefield, the Company's agent, who had sailed for New Zealand some months before on board the “Tory.’’ CONTRARY. WINDS It was with mixed feelings that the emigrants saw that the steep-sided cirque of the Port was empty of any other ship. Maori canoes approached, another source of apprehension, soon dispersed. For even if Colonel Wakefield was not at Port Hardy, ho had arranged with Maclaren, a whaler, who spent the summer with his Maori wife’s tribe in Hint neighbourhood, to tell each emigrant ship as it arrived to make for Port Nicholson, ffrie “Aurora’* had missed Colonel Wakefield by only a few days. He had been qt Port Hardy on 11th, and on 17th January was, rowed across Cook

Strait from Tory Channel in an open whale-boat. The big sailing ship could not make so light of windy Cook Strait as that. She was reported outside the Wellington heads on 20th, Colonel Wakafleld rowed out and went on board, only to find himself and the whole ship’s' company tantalisingly frustrated from entering the harbour by a strong north-west wind. This was 1 too much for Colonel Wakafield’s energetic habits. He left a pilot on board the anchored ship, and returned himself to Petone, It was not till the 22nd January, 1840, that the first ship of the "first colony/’ as it was called', reached the Petone roadstead. FIRST HOMES ASHORE.

If the emigrants had felt troubled by the emptiness of Port Hardy, they had plenty of company off Petone Beach. The “Cuba” was already at anchor, and the trading barque “Helena" from Sydney came into the harbour on the same day. The “Cuba’s" surveyors were ashore. They and their helpers ran out a small jetty to facilitate the disem-

barkation. The first task of the emigrants was to get shelter bf some sort. A few had tents; others swapped shirts or blankets for the services of To Puni's Ngatiawa tribesmen in putting up raupo whares “Some wooden houses in frame Bent) out by the Company for the ■ reception of the labouring emigrants, * were also set up.'* Things were hardly com fortable. But the people (were now in the land of their choice, and they could admire the vegetable (garden planted by Smith, whom Colonel Wakefield Lad left behind in October, 1839, to act as caretaker to the immense purchase he had (made on behalf of the Company. They felt they had only to work to succeed. Among them were such men las William Deants, afterwards a pioneer in Canterbury, and thr surgeon, Stokes, twho became a Wellington settler. Everyone enjoyed the picnic conditions!, (proud to be the first of [the ships to land its settlers. LOST PROPERTY AT PORT , HARDiY. It was not long before the other ships were beating into I Wellington harbour. On the 22nd January, the day of the arrival of the “Aurora” at Petone, the “Oriental’’ slipped Unto Port Hardy. There was Jnobody there to welcome them, not leven Maclaren and his Maori relations. .But everybody swarmed ashore eagerly. flFrancis Molesworth and Dudley (Sinclair reached the top of a high hill overlooking Port Hardy, and there found a pocket book lost by a member ofi the party of surveyors on board the “Cuba/ This was indubitable (evidence that some of the Company's servants had reached Hew Zealand, hut it iwasj some days before a message came to move on to Port Nicholson. The "Oriental’’ reached her anchorage there on Ist February,’ 1840, When the "Aurora’’ and the “Cuba,"* (said the Honourable Henry Pefcre, who Was on, board, “gave us a salute !of more(, I believe, than the usual in umber of guns, which we returned With interest.’' I There were many difficulties (ahead of the settlers—first and foremost siq dispute as to whether Thorndon on Petone was the best site for the still unnamed capital. There was an interim sharing out of about iau acre each of Hutt and Petone land -ion immediate cropping while this decision was being debated. But in the firsti bustle and joy of arrival after \tho weary months at sea, (nobody had much heart for arguments ,■ about anything, t