EARLY WELLINGTON

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4978, 30 May 1903, Page 4 (Supplement)

EARLY WELLINGTON

SOME REMINISCENCES. (From a Correspondent.) Considering tho popularity which the eastern- side of Wellington harbour is attaining as a pleasure resort and residential quarter, there may be some amongst the city's inhabitants who would be interested to learn something of its early history, which so far is, more or less unrecorded. What follows is not a romance written for the purpose of making startling fiction, but reminiscences which have come down to the writer mainlv from the lips of those who were actively engaged in tho events narrated, or who were intimately acquainted with them. Before the advent of the white man, tho Ngatikahungunu tribe held possession of this part of the country, but like all the tribes of the native race, they were constantly at war with their neighbours, who. in this instance, were the Ngatiawa, who had come down from Taranaki with the great Ngatitoa chief Te Rauparaha, and over-rau the country as tar as the Wairarapa. As the result of several battles, the Ngatikahungunu were driven before the powerful Ngatiawa until they were forced as far uothward and eastward as the "Glistening River” (now Ruamahunga). Just before the white man came, one of these battles took place on the eastern side of the harbour, as the result of which the Ngatikaliuugunu were defeated with great loss, and driven from their strongholds at the Hntt and Waiwetu, or Heretonga, as it was called in those days. The course of their flight led them round the eastern side of the harbour on the flat beyond Okiwi, and there they were surrounded in the gully close to tho spot where tho European residences are now being rapidly erected, and which has long since ceased to be the haunt of wild goats and wilder pigs. Here every man, woman and child who was captured was remorselessly slaughtered, and for many years after the pakelia came to Port Nicholson the bones of these victims of tribal hate were to be seen lying in bleaching jiiles. About this time there were more than one thousand able-bodied fighting men at Petoue, and the monument erected to tho memory of Te Pnai now marks the spot where this thickly populated kainga once stood. Besides these, there were a large number of Ngatiawa natives living at Waiwetu, their pa being situated on the sandy peninsula at the bend of the Waiwetu river, just behind where the grandstand on the racecourse is now situated. The head man of the Waiwetu pa was an influenial chief named Pnakawi. lie had been one of the principal actors in the defeat inflicted upon the Ngatikahungunu • on the southern side of Okiwi, and as such he was the subject of the deepest hatred oar tho part of the humiliated tribe. To wipe out the disgrace of their defeat and obtain utu for their slain tribesmen was now tho one object of their lives, and they were constantly on the watch for some favourable moment in which a general attack might be made. As tho result of this vigilance, they were one day rewarded with the sight of the brave Pua-ka-wi hoeing his potatoes, alone and unprotected. An onslaught was immediately made upon him, with the result, of course, that as ono man was no match for many, he was instantly killed; and as a mark of especial hatred his head was severed from .his body and carried away by bis murderers. This event oo ourred after the arrival of tho Europeans, and the time and place are therefore well ascertained. Tho Ngatiawa in those days had their potato cultivations at Waiwetu, on the overlooking the harbour, and it was on the top of the spur leading, up from Point Howard, between tire Waiwetu and Lowry Bay, that Puakawi was tending his garden when the red-handed spoiler came upon him. He being in a hopeless minority, ran for the protection of a large birch tree, but the swift-wielded tomahawk caught him on tho sido of tho head between the eye and the ear, and the chief of the Waiwetu. natives fell, a victim to the revenge of the Ngatikahungunu. As already stated, the head was severed from the body and carried by the slayers over the top of the hill to a, place afterwards called by the surveyors "Rest and be thankful.” Tho head was thrown down a gully, and found some years later by the first settlers while making the road over the Waiimi-o-mata, and they handed it to the natives, by whom it was readily identified, and who buried it in the same ground as the body had been interred some, years before. The birch tree under which Puakawi fell was a prominent land-mark for many a day, andLwas known to all the European settlers as the scene of tho tragedy just related. Under its branches a great tangi was held by the tribe, whose cry was for "Puakawi. Puakawi !” their much lamented chief. The man who struck the fatal blow was well known'in the Wairarapa, as years afterwards, when the idea of revenge had passed out of tho native mind, he openly made it his boast that ho was the' man who killed Puakawi. '

The next matter of interest in connection with the eastern side of the harbour is the history of a man who died some years ago, and who was known to the early settlers' as Okiwi Brown. Those wno are now settling down in suburban, residencse near this man’s old home have doubtless little knowledge of what manner of man he was—indeed, his early history was never known to those with whom he came into daily contact, and as is invariably the case with men about whom there is a “mystery j” the worst construction was put upon his case. Many of the settlers went so far as to declare that he was the notorious Hare wlm was associated with Burke in the Edinburgh murders, and who by turning King’s evidence escaped the hangman’s rope. This, however, was only the wild fancy of suspicion, for there were several people in Wellington who had seen Hare in Court, and who wore perfectly satisfied that their identity was not the same. In his younger day Brown had been a squarely-built,-strongly-made man but with a repulsivelooking countenance. His, face was more like a grotesque mask than anything else, .the chin dropping for an unusual length below the mouth, and generally his appearance was very much against him. Whether he had been a sailor or a convict no one knew; all that was known of him being that he had resided at Okiwi with his wife-Nan, a® far back as European recollection went. Nan was not a‘Maori, but a native of the Chatham Islands, and did not identify herself in any way with the Maoris round about. Brown was also a man of violent temper, and when enraged he would work himself up into such a frenzy that children would rush away from him in terror, and older people thought it wise to let him severely alone. An event happened in the earliest days of the settlement which considerably added to Brown’s unenviable reputation although tlrere was no direct proof that ho was in any way responsible for it. At the period mentioned. Brown had amongst tho members of his household a white boy and a Maori. One day the boy was missed, and after a search had been made the body,was found under a log in a small creek which ran down into the sea, close to Brown’s house. As there was, however, not so keen a regard for human life in those days as there is in these, and as the evidence was weak and inconclusive, very little seems to have been said about the matter, so that the tragedy or accident, whichever it was, remains one of the unrevealed, mysteries of Okiwi.

In the early days travellers round the coast often had of necessity to take shelter in Brown's whare, and one or two instances will suffice to show what sort of accommodation they received. A gentleman whose experience is worth recording was the late Sir Julius Von_ Haast, who was benighted ot Okiwi while on a journey from the Hutt to the Wairarapa. end this is his own account of how he fared. “Being tired. I went to bed. such as it was, in a small room off the room occupied by Srrwu and his wife. There was no door to the bedroom I was 1 in, and about midnight Brown came into the room with a lighted candle, walked over to my bed, looked at me, and when he saw that I was not asleep he quietly

walked out of the room, thinking, perhaps, that I had not noticed him. X did not pay mucli attention to the incident, as I thought be may have wanted something out of the room. I then went _to sleep, but about 3 o’clock in the morning L was disturbed by the light of the candle, and when I opened my eyes Brown was standing near mo sharpening his razor. When he saw that I was again disturbed, and was not asleep, he took up the light and walked out of tho room. Sleep left my' eyes, and I need hardly' say thait I longed for daylight, when I up and away, not even waiting for breakfast. This was the first and last time I stayed at Okiwi Brown’s. Never again!” Some years afterwards Brown obtained what was known iu those days as a bush license to sell liquor, and one of the indirect causes of this was that lie way tried for murder. A traveller put up at his place one night, and over theglasses they became argumentative, and then quarrelsome. Later on the man changed his mind, and instead of staying at Brown’s, decided to go on his journey. Brown went out with him, presumably to show him the way, and on returning was overheard by some other travellers iu the house saying to his wife Nan, “I have done for him now.” Next morning tho body of tile man was found on the beach, and Brown was arrested and tried for murder, but the evidence against him was not considered sufficiently strong to justify a conviction, and ha wa® discharged. The bush license was, however, taken from him, but Brown continued at the old place at Okiwi as long as he lived. Some years before his death the land was also taken from him, and after a while he and his.wife had to be supported by the Hutt County- council. When he did pass away hi® death was unknown to anyone but his wife, who shot the old cream pony- and the two dogs that used to hang about fife place, and having no object in life she lay down beside the corpse of her dead husband, wishing to die with him. She wa® removed by' the authorities, and Brown’s body wa® taken to the grave. So ends a chapter in tho history of the eastern shore of the harbour, where the now peaceful homes of well-tosdo people are fast superseding the old order of things.