WHANGAREI IN 1860

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1081, 19 September 1930, Page 16

WHANGAREI IN 1860

RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY RESIDENT LONG-LIVED FAMILY Travelling north from Auckland with. his family in 1860, Mr. Harry Mawken, who is celebrating his 79th birthday today, has varied recollections of early Whangarei. Mr. Hawken arrived on the vessel Excelsior, which reached Auckland on May 16. 1859. Apart from the three Hawken brothers, only one_ of the passengers is still alive —Mr. Tidy, or Pakuranga, who is 90 years of age. The voyage to Whangarei on the schooner Raven, commanded by Captain Madson, took a week, and there was disappointment in store for the new settlers when they arrived there. The land taken up under the land grant system was poor, and Mr. Hawken. sen., had a hard struggle to farm the country. “You‘could count the houses on your fingers,” Mr. Hawken said. 'There were more Maoris than there are white inhabitants today and they were not altogether peaceable either. E have had an axe shaken over my head by an infuriated native, but I was lucky. I was petrified with fear and made no attempt to flee. The Maori mistook my attitude for unusual courage and befriended me.” Mr. Hawken, who came to Auckland 19 years ago, and now' lives in Epsom, is a member of a family remarkable Cor the longevity of its members- His eldest brother, Mr. Charles Hawken, who still lives at Whangarei, is 90. His other brothers, William, who is also in Whangarei, and Gilbert, who Jives in Ilanfurly Road, Epsom, are 81 and 83 respectively. liis father died at the age of 84 and his mother at 81. Mr. Hawken had an aunt who attained the great age of 99. His maternal grandmother was 94 when she died and the majority of liis relatives have lived until they were well over 80.