A Northland Pioneer Passes

Northern Advocate, 19 December 1938, Page 8

A Northland Pioneer Passes

[Special to “Northern Advocate ”] AUCKLAND, This Day.

Mrs Agnes Fyfe, one of the pioneers of Northland, and until recently, Whangarei', has died at Auckland at the age of 90 years.

Mrs Fyfe was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, and was married to the late Mr Thomas Fyfe in 1860. In 1874 the young couple, with six children, left Deal in the barque Dilharrie for New Zealand. They had made application to sail on the Cospatrick, but the complement cf passengers was already made up. Shortly after the Dilharrie passed the Equator, those on board saw the floating wreckage of the Cospatrick, which was burned at sea.

The Dilharrie, with 500 immigrants, arrived in Now Zealand after a passage of 110 days. Shortly after reaching Auckland Mr and Mrs Fyfe went in a small cutter from Onehunga to the settlement at Pollok, and later went to the Thames goldfields, where Mr Fyfe was a contractor at the Queen of Beauty mine. They next went to Kawakawa, where Mr Fyfe was employed at Moody’s mine. Subsequently Mr Fyfe took over a boardinghouse at Waipapa, near Kerikeri, which was well known to travellers.

After a period they went to Coromandel, and then returned to the North, living in Kiripaka, where Mr Fyfe was engaged in coal-mining. Mr Fyfe died in 1906 at Kiripaka, and since then Mrs Fyfe has resided with members of her family, in recent years being with .a daughter, Mrs A. Ferguson, of Whangarei. Mrs Fyfe was the mother of 17 children, of whom 13 are still living. There are over 190 descendants, including several great-great-grand-children.