LIMESTONE ISLAND.

Northern Advocate, 22 January 1915, Page 4

LIMESTONE ISLAND.

INTERESTING RETROSPECT.

Mr Ro-bt. Mail* furnishes the following account of the early history of Matakohe (Limestone Island): —

About, the year 1835 or 1536 a Mr Gordon Browne erected a plant for pressing (lax, made by the Maoris, th_ j raw material being obtained principally on Mair's Grant, where it was q£ good quality. Mr Browne exported 40 tons to Sydney, then the only po»*: for New Zealand. About, the year ISHO Mr Robert Carrutii occupied the island and sent away several cargoes of limestone, obtained near the reservoir, to Auckland. The stone was burned in open kilns. I think the lime, was used iv the construction of a tall building at the bottom of Shortland and Queen streets. Mr Browne then built a mill for sawing kauri trees at Mercury Bay. A iiood carried the plant away. He lost his reason, and died not long after in the Bay of Islands. The first European drowned in Whangarei harbour was one of Mr Browne's employees. There were Maoris at Tamaterau, Parua, Mangapai, and Otaika, but none of them occupied the island. About 1543 or 1844 Makefli, a cousin of Tirarau, with his wife, had also a hut and plantation at Onerahi. This *vas probably i'or the purpose of establshing a claim to both places. Tirarau's claim to Onerahi was the resting of his dead sister one night on Onerahi, for which he claimed (when it was sold by the owners) all the land on the south of a line from iPukurahi bluff to the watering place on the eastern face of the peninsula.