EARLY GISBORNE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19248, 13 February 1937, Page 4

EARLY GISBORNE

SETTLEMENT IN 1874 TE KOOTI MEMORY GREEN HARD TIME FOR FARMERS MR, W. HATTEN LOOKS BACK Memories of the Poverty Bay mas' sacrc of six years earlier were still green when as a young man of 20, a native of Stratford-on-Avon, in England, Mr. William Ford Hattcn first came to Poverty Bay in 1874. Times were hard for farmers in those days, and most of the work had to be done by hand where in these days horsedrawn or mechanically-propelled machines are employed. Qu the other hand, transport did not present the huge organisation which it does to day, there being no means of reaching a good market for the greater part of the produce of the district, and the farmers, therefore, being content to work for a little more than the actual cost of their sustenance.

Chatting with a ■ pressman. to-day, concerning' some of his experiences in Poverty Bay during the '7o's, Mr. Hattcn mentioned that he was born in 185-1' in England, and passed his boyhood there, among the incidents he recollected most vividly being the celebration of the .wedding of King Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, and Princess Alexandra, of Denmark, lit came to New Zealand in 1874, after having spent two and a half vears in business in Birmingham, the voyage out to the young colony of New Zealand being made in the ship Zealaudia, which 'made port at Auckland. A few weeks after landing in the country, Mr. Hattcn came down to Gisborne by, the ship Pretty Jane, a coaster then under command of Captain Fernandez, who survived until comparatively recent years, living in retirement during the latter part of his life in the suburb of Haiti. CONSTABULARY AT ORMOND

Anxious to become settled in the district, Mr. Hatteu went first to Ormond, where at that time there was an extensive military settlement and a post of the Armed Constabulary. Gisborne was still under the name of Turanga, and Ormond was the district centre of activity apart from business. The constabulary there, numbering at that time 56, included a number of young men full of life and enterprise, and their social hall was the scene of many functions, for which were gathered most of the settlers of the district. Sports, amateur .theatricals, and other forms of entertainment made Ormond the social centre of the scattered population, in fact, and the business residents of Turanga were not backward in their support of these functions. Mr. Hattcn spent lour months in Ormond and 'then returned 'to Gisborne, where he was employed for two years as manager of the Masonic stables. Next he took up a proper!y at Waerenga-a-hika on leasehold, and spent .18 months endeavouring to wring a livelihood from the soil;

At that time the old mission building was still standing, its walls and roof timbers full of bullets .recalling the battle, of Waerenga-a-hika in 1865, when the real Hauhau movement in this district was broken by a combination of European and friendly Maori forces. There were the graves of two Europeans in the immediate vicinity of Mr. Hatten's homestead, and many Maoris were also buried there. Later the Europeans' bones were dug up and transferred to the common grave of the massacre victims, at the Makaraka cemetery. TRAGEDY OF 1868 Among the early acquaintances of Mr. Hatteu was the son or Captain Wilson, who with his wife and baby were among the victims of the night raid by Te Kooti's forces. Young Wilson was Flightly younger than Mr. Hatten, and his experiences at the time of , the massacre had naturally made a deep impression upon him. He narrated his stoVy lor the newcomer's benefit in the course of their early friendship, recalling how on the night of the raid his father bad been called to the door by the rebels, and had only been forced to surrender when the house was fired, and he Had been promised a safe-conduct for bis wife and children. Young Wilson, frightened by the ominous behaviour of the Maoris, escaped through a side window of the house, and never saw hia father again, but two days after the massacre he found his mother in an outhouse suffering from a number of bayonet-wounds, from the effects of which she died after being rescued and brought to Turanga for transfer to a ship bound for Napier. j Six years had passed between the happenings related above, and the arrival of Mr. Hatten in the but though Te Kooti was then in hiding in the Urewera country, and everything was quiet once more, a terrible feeling of resentment against the rebel leader and his. band still smouldered in the settlement. This spirit flared up many years later when, some years after the passing of the Amnesty Act of 1883, Te Kooti endeavoured to return to Poverty Bay. It was proposed that men whose families had suffered in" the massacre should meet and destroy him, and a gathering of some 200 vigilantes at Makaraka was possibly the chief influence which brought about the sending j of a force of troops to Poverty Bay by the Government. The authorities apparently had more reason to fear the consequences of hostility on the part of the settlers towards Te Kooti, than to expect, disorder caused bv the rebel loader's followers. At this time the Hast Coast Hussars were dispatched to' assist in the capture of Te Kooti, on charges of threatening the peace, for which ha was sentenced at Opotiki a little later. FOR EMERGENCIES Quiet as things were in 1874, however, it was still necessary for all male- adults to attest for service in emergency', and to receive issues of rifle, bayonet, and ammunition, Half-yearly inspections of the weapons and ammunition were held in Gisborne, when each man received 4s fid, most of it going quickly over the bars of the hotels. The time came in later years when the Government reduced the constabulary establishment at Ormond by successive stages, until only two of the constables remained. The last survivor of the force remembered by Mr. Hatten was Mr. Farmer, who was pensioned off at last and lived for some time in Gisborne.

After being at Waerenga-a-hika for 113 mouths in partnership with Mr. George ("Fanner") Jones, Mr.. Hatten took up another leasehold at Patutahi, which he held for, three years. He then instituted a mail, freight and. passenger service