A TRAGEDY RECALLED

Taranaki Daily News, 26 March 1932, Page 10

A TRAGEDY RECALLED

KILLING OF “JOHNNIE” BRADY. A PUNGAREHU INCIDENT.

(By

“J.H.,” Westown.)

Some little time ago there appeared in the News from a Pungarehu correspondent a reference to. the grave of a one-time British soldier of the 65th Regiment. It is a mistake to assume that Brady was in the army at the time of his unfortunate end. , He had obtained his discharge, as many more of his comrades had done, on the withdrawal of his regiment a couple of years previously. The statement that he’’had been in the 43rd and was on leave, and then had deliberately walked out while, still a soldier into. enemy country is very wide of the mark, indeed. _ This writer, though only a boy at the time, remembers Brady, and also has a fairly, good recollection of .the circumstances, so far as could be gathered at the time, concerning his death. In the year 1867, just after the close of the war in the northern part of the province, conditions, especially for working people, were in a very low state. .Many of the single men who could raise their passage' money rushed off to the newly-discovered goldfield at the Thames. Half' the population of the town at that time consisted of discharged Imperial soldiers, who had just received preliminary titles, to land grants for local War service. The majority of these men, who were unmarried, never saw their, land, and parted with their titles for a few pounds in order to get away. To them the land appeared to be somewhere out in a never-ending wilderness, without roads, and these conditions they, believed would last a lifetime, Brady, who, with his regiment, had been on service in Wanganui some years previously, got the idea that if he could reach that town he would be more likely to find work. Just at this time a young half-caste named Jackson happened to be loitering about, town, and became very friendly with the boys of the town. By some means he had also made the acquaintance of Brady, and learning from him of his hankering for the southern town, offered to guide him. through the Hau Hau territory. These particulars had been ascertained by the few persons met with up to the passing of Okato, after which nothing was known until the discovery of Brady’s body, probably by some of Mace’s troopers while on scouting duty from Warea camp. A theory in explanation of the tragedy was that the two had agreed as a safeguard against meeting hostile natives to follow the coast-line .at night, and lie in hiding during daylight, and that Brady had been killed while asleep. Suspicion fell on Jackson, but he had vanished into the little known depths of wild country stretching from Warea to the southern end of the Waimate Plains. The authorities believed that the object of the killing was robbery. It was also supposed that, like many of his comrades, Brady had parted with his right to a land grant before setting out on his Anal march. ; Even if the unlucky Brady had not met his death in the manner suspected, he had not the slightest chance of running the gauntlet of the fanatical hordes that lay between him and Wanganui. Many warnings had been issued from time to time by the military authorities against people venturing near hostile country, and just at this time Imperial troops were being rapidly withdrawn from the Colony so that there was little hope, or even inclination, to try to search out the slayer or slayers of the unfortunate victim who lies buried at Pungarehu for the past 65 years, and who was known to his associates both in, and later, out of his regiment, as “Johnnie Brady.” In conclusion, those well-meaning people of the coast may perhaps gather from these notes that as that particular grave is not the direct result of war service, the authorities have not, and probably may in future/not accept any responsibility in regard to it.