AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 21012, 24 October 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

AFTER FIFTY YEARS.

BY J. F. MCDONALD.

PATEA AND ITS PIONEERS.

Patea, a rather drab little town with many old buildings and situated on the western bank of a small tidal river near the southern boundary of the Taranaki Province, has been celebrating the jubilee of its constitution as a borough. The average city motorist on holiday tour would probably never recall passing through Patea at all but for a very bad turn on to a narrow bridge at the southern entrance of the town, a distinctive water tower, and the surprise of seeing an excellent post office, an imposing courthouse, a large brick municipal building, and a pleasing pillared and tiled construction all in close proximity, after lie had resigned hmself to a succession of shops which looked as though they had seen better days. The pretty tiled building he finds to be the Hunter Shaw Memorial Library and Plunket rooms—and vaguely remembers that his paper of 1929 enumerated a list of handsome bequests. But Patea is more than a dying township. The centre of a largo dairying land, it boasts two growing industries. Of the first the average tourist is unaware unless connected with some branch of the dairying business; with the second, and a south wind, every traveller, whether by rail or car, is acquainted. It is in the transport of produce handled by these two concerns that the port and its shipping facilities are chiefly employed. Then again, the town is the administrative centre of a county which extends from the Manawapou River in the north to the Waitotara in the south. Toward the Sunset.

Although only fifty years old as a borough, Patea dates its history back to the beginning of the fourteenth century, and it is noted among the Maori people as being the place in Aotearoa where these people first settled. Tradition has it that the great navigator Kupe, who visited New Zealand early in the fourteenth century, spoke enthusiastically on his return to Hawaiki of on 6 place he had visited in the new land; a place " where the earth smelt sweet and the river flowed toward * the setting sun." His story greatly impressed Turi, another navigator, and the latter left Rangiatea, an island about 125 miles from Tahiti, and set out to visit the land Kupe had described. As far as can be ascertained, Turi landed at Aotea Harbour, near Kawhia, and set out with his tribes people to find the river Kupe had mentioned. When Patea was reached he knelt down, smelt the soil and said: Ka patea tatoru," which, literally translated, meant that he was relieved of his burdens—Kupe's river had been found. Patea thus became the home of the first Maori settlers in New Zealand. A strongly fortified pa was erected on the headlands where the pilot station now stands and cultivation was begun. With quarrels which split up Turi's family and finally caused one portion to move its habitation to the, north bank of tlio river Maori legend is rife, but for five hundred years after that details of their life are scanty. The Present Site.

When the white people came to New Zealand there was a small Maori settlement at Turi's old stronghold on the Patea River, and it was not long before the pioneers were attracted'to that portion of the country by the fertile soil and good climate. Gradually the hutments of the pakeha appeared on a green flat near tho month of the river. General (afterwards Sir Duncan) Cameron encamped there and used the settlement of Patea, as it was called, as a base for military operations during the Maori wars of the 'sixties. Many engagements and skirmishes ensued in tho surrounding district, and at one time tho town was completely evacuated, as an attack was expected from a largo body of hostile natives. Finding tho township deserted, the Maoris, under Titokowarn, marched on to Waitotara without doing any damage, and tho settlers returned to their holdings. About 1870 the present town was surveyed and the houses at tho old site were removed and re-erected in the present locality, the name being changed to Carlyle. Steady progress in the development of tho rich land in the surrounding district was made by the settlers, and tho (own itself grew until, on October 13, 1881, it. was proclaimed a borough under its present name, with a population of 863 persons. During the 'eighties it was tho railway terminus, and when tho lino passed on tho population dwindled considerably. Shipping activity was much greater than th-day, there often being as many as ten and twelve coastal vessels in the port In the early 'nineties the town was caught by the general depression and many people left, things remaining at a standstill for some years. Vicissitudes. Like all other New Zealand towns it has suffered its depressions and its booms, but, to anyone conversant with the steady growth of the dairy industry, the extension into the back country of sheepruns, and the increased quantities of produce handled by tho freezing-works and the grading store, there is no doubt that Patea has established itself as an important sea-gateway. In many ways it has kept itself abreast of tho times. it. has been singularly fortunate in its benefactors. From them have come a public library and reading room, a town clock, a children's ward at the hospital, Plunket rooms, and a playground at the Domain for children. There are still living in Patea and other parts of Taranaki a few grand old men and women who played as children on the green flat at the river-head when such settlement as was then in evidence comprised a collection of mud-huts, soldiers' barracks and temporary iron structures. So, although Patea may appear to bo an ordinary, old-looking little town to the casual passer-by, its history savours moro of romance and action than those of many that are larger and more important. its municipal jubileo recalls something of worth in our island story.