Mrs. L. C. Goffe, Of Martini Falls, Has Rich Associations With Bay History

Northern Advocate, 16 March 1944, Page 2

Mrs. L. C. Goffe, Of Martini Falls, Has Rich Associations With Bay History

(Special) KAIKOHE, This Day Living the proverbial—but by no means literal —stone’s throw from the lovely Heruru Falls, Bay of Islands, in an arboured cottage that in itself is a relic of New Zealand history, is a living link with the early settlement days in the person .of Mrs Louts Goffe. Her 73 years—she worries no longer as to who knows her age—cover a period which is full of history, but perhaps the richer association with the past is her fund of firsthand knowledge gleaned from her late husband and his pioneering father, Mr Louis Clifford Goffe. Mrs Goffe’s own family is one whose name —Neumann—helped tq make the history of Waimate North. That was her birthplace, and Mrs Goffe will tell you that it was as beautiful as the English countrysides on which its parklike farms were modelled, f As district surveyor for the Bay of Islands area Mrs Goffe’s father, Mr C. F. R. Neumann, signed a great many surveys of the Far North. In An Old-World Arbour Not only is Mrs Goffe a storehouse of history but her possessions include many treasures that could well grace important museums. Her very house is unique. Set in a quiet little gully which she and her husband cleared by hand shortly after her marriage, it is bowered in old fruit trees, flowering shrubs and creepers. Within, you are whisked back half a century or more. Forget the allwave radio and the strangely primitive manual telephone which seems to be the only instrument our Post and Telegraph Department can ever provide for country folk —and marvel at those lcw-ceiled, heavily-furnished, family-album-pictured rooms. Remark that steep, narrow stairway climbing into the dormitory attic. And remember that, from the outside, you would never dream the house could have two storeys. Of course, you think of antimacassars and lavender lace curtains, and home-grown peaches with farmrich clotted cream, and a big halfPersian golden cat ornamenting the summer sunshine —and you would not be wrong in any respect. A Barracks At Kororareka

That house is older than the Goffe occupation of the 2000-acre “run” on which it is the focal point. Originally a barracks at Kororareka, it was shipped across the Bay in sections and erected at Haruru Falls. Behind it stands the ancient corn crib which nevermore in ay overflow with golden husks. Besides the crib —both backing on to a little stream that meanders through a grove of tall manukas —is the buggy-shed. Near at hand is the wool-shed, where Mrs Goffe and her sole helper, Mr O. A. Sutton, still shear and press and bind the highgrade wool that comes from their danthonia-fed sheep. Across the road, in a great parklike area that abuts the falls themselves and the wide lake-cum-estu-ary into which they leap, the wanderer may pick out the ruins of the famous Dewdrop Inn, New Zealand’s first licensed hotel. At The Sign Of The Dewdrop Inn Built more than 80 years ago, its first licensee was Mrs Goffe's father-in-law, who planted one of the two magnificent Norfolk pines that rise

nearly 150 feet to the blue sky behind the iron-rusty site of the old hotel The other pine was planted by Sir Julius Vogel, when he was Premiei of the colony, during one of his periodic visits to Dewdrop Inn. , Iron litters the site of the quondam travellers’ rest. Between the twisted loof-sheets you will find broken locks that measure 14 inches across, heavy pots and cooking utensils of a kind not known today, pieces of the huge stove that never grew cold until it was destroyed by its own servantfire.

For.it was fire that ended the story of the Dewdrop Inn. Not more than a dozen years ago, flames from a burning motor car swept through the summer-dry grass in front of the inn and set the tinder building ablaze. An earnest of that conflagration is seen yet in the withered branches of the nearer Norfolk pine, scorched to a height of 50ft. Where “Bullockles” Drove

Behind the two pines, you may trace out the concrete flooring of the old stables—for the inn was a stop-ping-place for-- all bullock-drays from Paihia and Waitangi to Waimate North, Kaikohe, Hokianga, Kawakawa. Whangarei and even Auckland. Today Mrs Goffe will show her visitor old photographs of the inn in its heyday, with sideburned gentlemen and hour-glass ladies in picture hats parading its entrance and its upperstorey balcony. The, old site has recently added another creditable chapter to its mottled history for, during the “invasion crisis,” it sheltei’ed a camp of men whose raison d’etre was defence of this New Zealand. Today that pleasant demesne is ruled by a pair of young Jersey bulls and their dutiful dozen of bovine attendants. Flood Brought Disaster

As if fire were not disaster enough, a great flood some years ago swept away all but a few broken piles of the substantial jetty that had for 60 years received the goods that came from the Bay by cutter and steamef for the inland.

Mr Goffe, senior, brought to this trade its first vessel, the cutter Waitangi. He followed it with two steamers, Settler and Blanche, and plied each successfully for many years. Latterly, launches displaced the Blanche—but now the flood, combined with overland road and rail competition, has removed the connection altogether.

Where Was Treaty Signed?

Mrs Goffe has a very definite word to say on the matter of that same Treaty of Waitangi. Popular conception is now —and probably ever will bf —that the Treaty was first signed on the great square in front of Mr Busby’s residence, where rises the tall naval yardarm of today. She will tell you that her brother-in-law’s father, “Clarke the missionary,” was signatory to the famous pact and that he insisted it was signed on the little flat of land at the Waitangi’s mouth where a grove of karakas now stands, to the immediate left of the bridge as you cross it from the southern side. It’s only half a mile from the recognised site—but half, a mile has ere now decided the fate of empires. Treasured Relics Of Past Needless to. say, in such aq establishment as Mrs Goffe’s old-world arbour, there are treasured relics of a bygone past. Whetting your interest with old photographs and tales of another day, she will bring out for your inspection a pigeon-snare cane that the old-time Maori used to hang, filled with saccharine juices and covered with snaring loops, in the high tree crotches; or a single-shot anti-footpad gun. disguised as a walk-ing-stick ;,or rusty remnants of incredibly heavy muzzleldading rifles;