LIFE AT ONEHUNGA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19612, 14 April 1927, Page 10

LIFE AT ONEHUNGA.

long-lived citizens. WELL-KNOWN IDENTITIES. BOROUGH'S EARLY DAYS. REMINISCENCES OF PIONEERS. Residence in Onehunga seems to have teen conducive to longevity, and to hale old age at that. Among those who have taken part in the public life of the community there are still alive to-day, and taking a real interest in affairs—though they have long passed even the four score years which the psalmist named as an exceptional record—a number of venerable citizens. Mr. James Mclntyre, who comes from the Highlands of Scotland—born within a Tnila of the home of Burns' Highland Mary—has been a colonist for 65 years, and is now 93 years of age. Mr. Mclntyre landed in Auckland in 1862, and worked for some time at his trade as a blacksmith at the forges of Mr. David Davidson, a pioneer smith, in Vulcan Lane. Queen Street, of which Auckland is now bo proud, was little more than a bog -as he first knew it, and he often saw horses dug out of its clay. He is proud of the recollection that he forged the ironwork for the windows of the present Union Bank in the city. Among his possessions is a buggy, made by Messrs. Cousint' and Atkin more than 45 years ago, which he still uses, and to which he points as an example of the sound handiwork of the tradesmen of the early times. He was engaged on the manufacture of the first ambulance waggons used in the Waikato War. On Mr. Mclhtyre's first trip to Onehunga he was driven out by "Jack" Reed, of Epsom, and the trip cost hi® 2s 6d each way. Such was the condition of the road that in the neighbour- j hood now known as Royal Oak it was j necessary for the passengers to alight and assist in cutting tea-tree fascines, in order to get through the swamp. The business portion of the town was then confined to the vicinity of the beach, the only store of consequence being that of Mr. Samuel Fleming, but there were two or three public-houses, The settlement was scattered, and chiefly confined to the military pensioners. Mr. Mclntyre can recollect only half-a-idozen houses that bordered upon the present main street. Early in 1863 he established himself as a smith in Onehunga, in a business which he still owns, and which is carried on on his account bv a kinsman. When the Thames goldfield was opened, Mr. Mclntyre started _ a branch of his business there, on a site now included in the big Price ironworks, and he claims to have installed the boiler of the first steam crushing battery of the district. Ingenious Pioneer Engineers.

Some interesting old mechanical relics are to be seen at. Mr. Mclntyre's home in Mclntyre's Road, Mangere. One is the boiler of the first, sawmill erected in the vicinity of Waikato Heads, by Mr. James Gibbons. This he bought, and floated round the coast, and to-day it does duty as a wa'»r tank. "Give any of the Gibbons brothers a few bits of scrap iron." says Mr. Mclntyre, in admiration of that noted family of old-time engineers and sawmillers, "and thev would make a sawmill out of them." Other of his possessions are the boilers of the old steamers Go-ahead and Bluenose—the latter an adaptable craft that used to run her head into coastal creeks in the bush districts, when a belt rigged round a shaft of her machinery served as tha motive power of a circular saw. In public life, Mr. Mclntyre was one ©f the members of Onehunga's first Borough Council. It was he who donated to the public the two ancient moulded cannon that are mounted in Jellicoe Park. One was part of the armament of a warship wrecked at Mercury Bay about 100 years ago. The other came from a French settlement in the South Island, but Mr. Mclntyre does not think that that settlement was Akaroa. Oldest Surviving Mayor. Mr. J. W. Waller, now of Egremont Street, Takapuria, the second Mayor of the borough, has been associated with Onehunga since 1860. Mr. Waller, who is in his 90th year, is a native of Yorkshire, and came out to Christchurch in 1856." After engaging in the timber trade of Canterbury, he went to the West Coast diggings, and from there came to Auckland, settling almost at- once in Onehunga. One of his first acts there was the promotion of the Onehunga Building Society, which was eagerly taken up by the members of the pensioners' settlement and others, and has been a successful institution ever since, largely instrumental in the substitution of modern dwellings for the primitive structures of the original village. "There was," Mr. Waller said the other day, "really no Onehunga until I formed that building society/' Entering into the timber business, Mr. Waller purchased two sawmills at the Manukau Heads, and also erected a small finishing mill near Onehunga Wharf. He had offices in the city, in Lower Queen Street, • and owned steamers and sailing vessels trading from both the Manukau and the Waitemata, some carrying timber as far as Australia. His steamers competed with the Union Steam Ship Company in the passenger traffic to New Plymouth. When he became Mayor of the borough, one of Mr. Waller's first acts was to guarantee personally an overdraft of £SOO from the Bank of New Zealand, the security of the infant municipality not being considered by the bank authorities a sufficient security for an advance. The money was utilised in metalling the main road, from the wharf to the borough boundary. Mr. Waller also built the original public hall of the town, as his private venture, after others who had agreed to join in it with him had withdrawn. Besides being the second Mayor of Onehunga, Mr. Waller was also the second chairman of the Waitemata County Council. Mr. Oliver Mays held the office for the first year of county government, holding also the position of county clerk, but when legislation was passed making the holder of a salaried office ineligible for membership of the council, he retired, and was appointed to the clerkship, 'Mr. Waller succeeding him in the chair. Veteran Coastal Mariner. Captain Edward Wing, whose age is 85, can remember Onehunga from the year 1859, about which time his father, Captain Thomas Wing, became harbourmaster there, after having surveyed the coasts of the North Island on behalf of the Government, and been harbourmaster at Melbourne. Captain Edward sailed for many years on the New Zealand coast, as commander of some of the early steamers, nrttablv between Nelson and Hokitika when 'the West Coast diggings were in their heyday. Then he was manager of the steam service on Lake Wakatipu until it was bought bv the Railway Department as an essential part of the tourist traffic of the Dominion. Mrs. Isabella Hutchison, aged 82, whose husband was the first town clerk of Onehunga, was the first white woman born in the town. She first saw the light in a raupo-built house on the beach, ivhich her mother (Mrs. Forbes) used to declare was the most comfortable dwelling she ever knew. Mrs. Hutchison has long been one of the leaders in social work in the town, and on her last birthday she was honoured. by an official visit from the municipal heads of the borough. Another highly revered citizen of Onehunga is the Rev, George Brown, the veteran Presbyterian minister, who has known the town for 68 years, and whose parish at one time, with Onehunga as tfca «efttre, extended from Avondale to Ota«ohu and Fanmure. In November last Mr, Brown celebrated his 96th birthday, as active as most men tn Xr lr v,S l *th decades. In the early days hieh wwi Was teacher °* classics in tlia Marrafi i« <a CoD^u , cted by Mr. Farquhar St. Andrei a r% , Street > next door to •till earlier r^S lu s. c , > an< * at Onehunga ticn witfe I?!. t B ?k°°l * n conneceince he first, now 68 years Jown. W *** aviations with the ' '• ■ .