ADVENTUROUS DAYS

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1932, Page 3

ADVENTUROUS DAYS

PIONEER’S 101ST BIRTHDAY. KAIPARA SETTLEMENT. Mr. Thomas Inger, one of the pioneers of Port Albert, to-day attained the great age of 101 years. ‘ When he reached his century Mr. Inger had a large gathering of friends and relations at Port Albert to celebrate the occasion, the cake being surrounded by 100 candles. Mr. Inger was born in Nottingham, and was one of the Albertland Nonconformist settlers who came to Auckland in 1862 to found a settlement on the shores of Kaipara. Mr. Inger was then 31 years of age, and was put in charge of an 85ft boat which used to run between Helensville and the new settlement. On one occasion the boat was swamped, and the family that was on board was marooned for about a fortnight before they were rescued. Mr. Inger had gone for more stores, but the bewildering number of arms in Kaipara Harbour caused him as a new-chum to lose his way. Eventually he found a white man at the mouth of the Hoteo River, who took him to Helensville, and a search party was sent out to find the marooned passengers. Those were the days when new settlers had to turn their hand to anything, and Mr. Inger built his own hut of kauri, which he split himself. Later he was mailman, and also district constable. When he first took the contract to carry the mail he had to swim his horse over the Hoteo River. On one occasion, when a cutter bringing supplies to the settlement was wrecked, the Albertland settlers had. to live on schrtapper and pipis for a whole month. Mr. Inger’s /amily lived on sago.