EARLY AUCKLAND

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21349, 25 November 1932, Page 8

EARLY AUCKLAND

PIONEER'S RECOLLECTIONS

man who knew bushranger

"CAPTAIN MOONLIGHT'S" YOUTH

"One of the passengers on the ship was 'Captain Moonlight,' the bushranger, who was afterwards hanged for the murder of a policeman in Australia, said Mr. Edward Allen, of 8 Owens Road, Epsom, in recalling yesterday the voyage from England of the ship Black Eagle, which brought him to New Zealand in 1861. Then 14 years of. age, he came out with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Edward Allen.

"The real name of the bushranger was Andrew George Scott and he would be about 17 or 18 years of age when he travelled out with us in the Black Eagle with his father and mother and brother," said Mr. Allen. "He commenced his career in this country by teaching in a school in Auckland. After that he went to Australia and became a bushranger." The name A. Scott is included in the list of the Black Eagle's passengers published in the New Zealander of November 22 1861, together with a testimonial, bearing among others the signature of A. G. Scott, presented by tbe Black Eagle's passengers to Captain William Smith, complimenting him on his "experience and ability as a commander and steady and unswerving conduct in the discharge of his necessarily very arduous and trying duties" in piloting the ship on her long and dangerous voyage from England. No one dreamed then that the young man who put his signature' to that courteous testimony would end his career on the gallows. He was known to the passengers as a very gentlemanly and high spirited fellow, fully bearing out the pseudonym, "gentleman bushranger, which "Captain Moonlight" afterwards earned for his conduct when engaged on bushranging exploits. A Present from Queen Victoria Mr. Allen recalled yesterday that the Black Eagle brought from England eight white swans, a present frqm Queen Victoria to the Governor of New Zealand; Sir George Grey. A special supply of fresh water was carried on board for them, but in spite of the great care atid attention bestowed upon-them six of them died on the voyage. The remaining two, fortunately a pair, were landed at Auckland and were liberated on Lake Pupuke, Takapuna, where they thrived and multiplied. "The descendants of the Black Eagle's swans were afterwards to be found all over the Auckland Province," said Mr. Allen, "and I distinctly remember seeing some of them at Rangiriri. Tbe Black Eagle left, Plymouth on August 17, 1861, and while crossing the Bay of Biscay encountered a storm, daring which a sailor fell from the rigging and was killed One of the passengers, Mr. J. H. Cobb, broke bis leg in the same storm. Land in Queen Street. "We arrived at Auckland on November 19," continued Mr-. Allen. "Our vessel, of 1400 tons, being the largest ship to have put into the port. In fact, we were too big to get up to the wharf, which at that time had just been completed and extended from Fort Street to about where the chief post office now stands. The passengers, 144 of us, were landed in cutters. "I well remember one of the passengers telling my father he had been ashore and bought some land in Queen Street. He was Mr. Joseph Newman, the first stock auctioneer in Auckland, who was returning from a trip Home. When he came back to the ship from a walk up Queen Street he said to my father, 'They tell me this is going to be the main street in the future, so I have just bought a 30ft. frontage for £IOO a foot.' " The section, added Mr. Allen, was that on which the Lewis Eady Building now stands. Mr. Newman and a Mr. Ewen built a shop on the property., and opened an ironmongery business under the name of Newman and Ewen.

"One of the things 1 remember," said Mr. Allen, "was a large pond, about an acre in extent, that used to be on the site, of the John Burns building in Customs Street. Many of our passengers, who had been without green food for three months, went there to pick watercress as soon as they got on shore. An Old Auction Sale "My brother, who had come out to New Zealand before us, had built a house in Newton, and there we stayed when we first arrived in Auckland," Mr. Allen continued. "Karangahape Road was then a wilderness of tea-tree' scrub and fern, and a block of land on the southern side, from George Court's property to the top of Upper Queen- Street, was auctioned the day after we landed. It averaged £l2 a foot. The site of George Court's present building was a brickyard, which was put up for auction arid sold for £lO a foot. The brickyard owner then transferred his business to AvondaLe."

Mr. Allen's father purchased a property at the present Mount Albert shopping centre. It was called Allendale, and was farmed for a number of years. Mr. Allen joined the Onehunga and Mount Albert militia when he was 16 years of age and was drafted to Otahuhu, where he helped to guard the convicts and the Maori prisoners captured at the Battle of Rangiriri.

In 1879 Mr. Allen went to Cambridge, where he was engaged in farming. He was a member of the Waipa County Council for 21 years, and for 30 years he was a director of the Cambridge dairy factory, of which he was one of the founders.