A PIONEER’S BIRTHDAY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 67

A PIONEER’S BIRTHDAY.

MR T. W. McKENZIE. THE FIRST NIGHT ASHORE. The first white man who slept on the site of Wellington, Mr Thomas W. McKenzie, on the 6th inst. celebrated, in robust health, his seventy-ninth birthday- , . , , He was thirteen years and a day old when the Adelaide entered Wellington harbour, exactly sixty-six yea.ro ago to-day. It poured in torrents during the night, and when morning broke the emigrants who had settled at the town of Britannia, on the Pet one beach, had learned a valuable lesson. They had been flooded out, and realised that they would have to move to another site. Sunday was a quiet day. The Adelaide brought up under the lee of Somes Island and lay there. The Maoris, under the fiist influence of the missionaries, did not put off on the holy day, but next morning—a bright and beautiful Port'' Nicholson morning—three war canoes of Ngatiawa. put off from the beach. Women stood in the bow and stern keeping time for the paddles, and thrice they paddled round the ship. At last cheers were exchanged, and they left.

It was some few days before the decision to move to Larabton .harbour waa known. Then the Adelaide sailed up the harbour. Not far from the Pipitea pa, about half-way between the present site of St. Paul’s Church and Molesworth street, the chief Porutu had erected a hut for Dr Evans. A surveyor, Mr Turnbull, Mr E. Ticehurst, and young McKenzie came ashore to pass the night in it. The disquieting appearance of the Ngatiawa, however, told on the nervea of the surveyor, and he went off again to the ship, leaving the other two to undergo the terrors of a night among the Maoris. They had just gathered some native grass, and Aver© preparing-a bed in a corner of the wharo, when Porutu, with about thirty followers and two Avives, put in an apearanee. The chief threAV off his mat and commenced a luika. His wives sat at the feet of the pakeha, who Avere, needless to say, not a little anxious as to Avhat was going to happen. A mere hung threatening from tho mist of the chief as he Avorked himself up to fury, rolled his eyes and thrust out his tongue. At length the wives threw their mats over the pakeha in token of tapu, and began to Aveep. Porutu stopped his dance, and soon the whole party marched off to Pipitea pa. When day broke, McKenzie and Ticehurst wore still healthy, .and a good deal happier. The native ceremony by which the lives of the two pakeha were protected' against the fury of Porutu had tho effect of making Mr McKenzie a brother of E Piti (Harry Pitt), because it Avas Pitt’s mother (Porutu’s Avife) who threAV hor mat over him and "gave him life.”

A large gathering of old. personal friends assembled at Mr McKenzie’s house last night. During the evening Mr R. E. Bannister, in proposing the health of Mr McKenzie, “Father of Wellington,” referre 1 to that gentleman’s long association Avith the city, and to the great interest he had alAvays taken in all public affairs connected Avith the advancement of the city. Mr McKenzie, in reply, expressed the very great pleasure it gave him to have so many of his _ oldest and dearest friends with him. Music ovas by Minifie’s band and several bagpipers.