MAKERS OF AUCKLAND.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20338, 20 August 1929, Page 6

MAKERS OF AUCKLAND.

Et y.w.w..

OPENING OF GOLDFIELDS. COROMANDEL AND THAMES. JAMES MACKAY'S SERVICES. LEADING MINING PIONEERS,

No. XXXV.To day we know that the prosperity of Auckland is based upon the splendid areas of agricultural country in the outlying parts of t'no provincial district, vliirh pour their exportable wealth regularly through the Waitemata. But there was a time in the history of the city when ifc was not connected by rail with l hose producing districts, and when those districts themselves were not available to lite'settlement of the pakeha. For resuscitating it from the period of depression which succeeded the Maori War, and for holding it up until tho agricultural lands were extensively opened, Auckland city owed a great deal to its goldfields. fine man in particular laid it under a special debt both as to the opening of the goldfield and the acquisition of Maori land that cleared the way for settlement. His name, which ia hardly remembered to day, except by really old hands, wa3 James Mackay. Mr. Mackay was one of the most active native land purchase officers of the Government in the.Waikato in the 'sixties. It was also he who arranged with tho tribes of the Hauraki district for the opening of the Thames goldfield in 1867, and who was the Government Commissioner in the first days of the rush, and the early administration of the mining district. For this double reason, he must be reckoned as having been very substantially a "maker" of Auckland, both province and city, at a stage in their history when they stood badly in need of a stimulus. First Gold Find In New Zealand. On the assumption that the value of the contribution of the Hauraki goldfields to the upbuilding of Auckland will bo granted, the history of the discoverer of the first signs of that mineral wealth becomes important and interesting. The earliest find of gold on the Hauraki peninsula—indeed in New Zealand—was made by Mr. Charles Ring, in 1852. Mr. Ring, a native of Guernsey, Channel Islands, had come to Wellington in 1841, and immediately passed on to Auckland, which ab the time consisted of nr.erely a few ranpo whares and tents clustered around the neighbourhood of Shortland Street. First he tried sheep and cattle farming, on two properties at Onehunga and Mount Roskill, and showed considerable enterprise in the importation of stock from Australia, but becoming discouraged, he drove his flocks and herds into the city, and sold them at a sacrifice, and sailed away in one of the Saw Line vessels for California, then the Mecca of the goldseekers of the world. Thus it was that he acquired his first knowledge of mining/ and he met with good deal of success. When Sacramento was rushed, Mr. Ring set out for it, with the intention of storekeeping on the new field> but was shipwrecked on the way, and lost the whole of his stock of goods. Thereupon he forsook America, taking passage for Australia in a brig named the Ceres, but on the voyage wa3 again wrecked, this time on a Fijian coral reef. With others, ]\[r. Ring tried to reach Queensland in an open boat, but they were picked up by an American whaler, and brought on to Auckland. It has been stated that Mr. Ring's adventures on this voyage are the basis of the plot of Captain Mayne Reid's novel, " Lost Lenore." However, the net result was the landing in New Zealand of a number of men experienced in regard to alluvial gold, and this was all that was sought for in Auckland in the first instance. Haurakl's Earliest Prospectors. Back in his old surroundings, Mr. Ring put ifc to the heads of the community that search should be made for gold in the Auckland district. As a result of his agitation, a public meeting was held, at which a committee was formed, on which were such men as Mr. (afterwards Sir Frederick) Whitaker, Captain Daldy, Messrs. David Nathan, John Williamson, T. S. Forsaith, and other leading citizens. This committee offered a reward for the discovery of a goldfield within a given geographical definition. Messrs. Charles am] Fred Ring started prospecting on the ranges of the Hauraki Peninsula, and wejre successful iin finding gold in localities as far apart as Cabbage Bay, Coromandel, Ohinemuri and Te Aroha—all this in the year 1852—and demonstrating the bona fides of the Coromandel find on the spot i 6 Government officials and representatives of the Gold Reward Committee. For some reason not, easily fathomed after the lapse of time, no reward was ever paid to the Rings. Tho Government of the day recognised their claims to tho extent of paying £2OO in reimbursement of their actual expenses, and members of the Gold Reward Committee offered to pay the amounts of their individual proportions. This, however, the brothers refused to accept, arid ever afterwards they cherishod a grievance against what they considered the niggardliness of the Government. Charles Ring lived on in Auckland to the age of 90, passing away in 1906, in comfortable circumstances, but a man greatly disappointed by the non-recognition of his service to the country. Coromandel developed into a goldfield that produced some very rich patches, and it still seems capable of yielding others. Thames and Ohinemuri. Several people have claimed the credit of the discovery of payable gold at Thames, prior to the prospectors' find of Hunt's party, but the question has never been determined. Probably the district would have been opened much earlier but for the Maori War of the sixties, and the native difficulties it created. Ifc was through Mr. Mackay, and the information conveyed to him by natives, that the existence of gold became officially known, and it was through his influence that in 1867 the Maori opposition to prospecting by*' pakeha3 was overcome. Then came the. rush that led in after years to the unearthing of gold to the value of upwards of 7j millions sterling. In this connection spring to the mind the names of many of the stalwart, band of mining captains who were associated with the production .of that wealth—such men as " Long Drive " Walker, Captain Richards, Wm. Rowe, Robert, Comer, Thomas Radford. T. A. Dunlop, G. S. Clark, T. B. Hicks, James Coutts, J. E. Smith, S. Gribble and T. H. Crawford, to mention only a few of the most prominent, in the development of the field and its big patches. Not till 1875 was the Ohinemuri gold- , field opened, leading up to the rich finds of Wutokauri, anc ] j later still, when the cyanide process came into use, the many millions worth of gold produced by the mines of Karangahake and Waihi. Among the most conspicuous men in the early days of Ohinemuri was Mr. Adam Porter, who was later to come into the Auckland city story, as a m'ember of the firm of Cousins and Atkin, and chairman of the Auckland Harbour Board. Others of note were Messrs. E. M. Corbett, John McCombie and J. Barry, while Mr. E. H. /Adams' services were common to the whole goldfield group. (To be continued.)