Forgotten Days

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 75, 30 March 1936, Page 6

Forgotten Days

INCIDENT WHEN CITY WAS YOUNG. It has been recorded that prior to the coming of tho pakeha to tho district, tho site where Palmerston North now stands was a natural clearing in thousands of acres of heavy bush. That docs not mean, of course, that it was devoid of timber. Isolated trees were dotted here and there and there was also a great deal of manuka scrub and flax. According to Mr John Lane, who came to the city in 1874 as a lad of IS years of age, and is still hale and hearty for his SO years, the clearing lay between the two terraces—that which runs between Church and Ferguson streets and the other at the back of the Terrace End school towards the hospital. From Ferguson street to the river was all bush, which ran around by the railway station across Cuba street and then along Featherstone street to the terrace at tho hospital. Thus the clearing was somewhat bal-loon-shaped with a narrow neck which ran right down to the river at Fitzroy street. Thus when the first settlers came up by way of the Manawatu river, the easiest access was along the edge of the bush from a canoe, landing at the bottom of Fitzroy street. So dense was the forest that even the Maoris, when they desired to visit Awahuri, went down the Manawatu and up the Oroua river, and Mr Lane says he can recall the tracks that for years ran down the river bank and formed the main highway to the south. There was another smaller clearing where the Hokowhitu golf links now are and there the Maoris had cultivations. Even us late as 18S2 the then borough council was calling tenders for the clearing of the bush from such streets as College and Ferguson streets. On August 31, 1880, the council decided “that day men be employed in lowering a culvert in Cuba street, opposite the end of George street, and make the watertables deeper towards the bush so as to drain water which lay at the upper end of Cuba street.

The mention of Cuba street recalls that the city’s iirst, cemetery lay in that direction—some say about the showgrounds site. However, the bodies were later exhumed and reinterred at Terrace End. According to Mr Lane, a Mr Montague had t'ho contract for this particular job. Maoris who witnessed the proceedings stated that this interference with a sacred burial ground would bring good luck to nobody and probably, were they alive to-day and saw the number of days that were wet for the A. and P. show’s, would point a finger and say: “I told you so."