MAORI WAR EPISODE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 249, 18 September 1933, Page 6

MAORI WAR EPISODE.

FIGHT AT PUKEKOHE. Thursday, September 14, was the 70th anniversary of the attack on the Pukekohe East church, one of the famous episodes of the "Waikato Maori War, when from behind a stockade a party of 19 men repelled an attack by 300 natives.

The Auckland. Star states that an Auckland resident, in commenting upon the anniversary, recalled that he was a child at the time, and his people lived at Pukekohe. The women and children were removed from the district when the shadow of war came. The small party of men stayed behind, and were forming a stockade at the church when the attack came. It started at ten in the morning, and lasted for seven hours. Two men had been sent towards Auckland to' get help and more ammunition. They were on the way back when the fighting began. They summoned help, which came from Ramarama and Drury. None of the defenders was killed in the fighting, but the Maori losses were heavy. It was the most sustained attack made by the natives in the war, and had it sucoeeded it is believed that attacks on settlements further to the north, and even Auckland, would have followed. In 1929 the Governor-General, Sir Charles Fergusson, unveiled a memorial tablet to the garrison, also a monument marking the site where a number of the Maoris were buried.

The late Mr D. M. Skinner, of Palmerston North, who recently passed away, participated in the affray and of that original band of defenders only one is still alive, Captain J. CorbettScott, of Epsom, Auckland, who is now in his 9Gth year.