LIFE IN TARANAKI IN 1870

Taranaki Daily News, 16 July 1932, Page 5

LIFE IN TARANAKI IN 1870

OLD LADY LOOKS BACKWARD MEMORIES OF OKATO DISTRICT, . x NINETIETH BIRTHDAY PASSED, Ninety years old last week, Mrs. Elizabeth Taft, who is in the New Plymouth hospital, looks back across the years at a life striking in comparison with modern days in Taranaki. For ’ many years Mrs 'Taft lived in the Okato district. Born at Sheffield, Mrs. Taft came to New Zealand as a young woman in the sailing ship “The Golden Sea.” During the voyage she lost a son who fell down * ship’s ladder. . The ship had no sooner arrived at Wellington than her daughter became ill and died a day or two later in quarantine at Somes Island. From Somes Island Mrs. Taft went to Wanganui, where she lived for a time in a log hut on Chenybank farm. While there •he lost another child. She later went to Wellington in the vessel “Stormbird.” Nearly 60 years ago Mrs. Taft left Wellington and went to live in the Okato district.- At first she lived in a schoolhouse, which had no fireplace, and later in a place where fowls had roosted. At Okato the Tafts bought 50 acres, covered with-old and strong-rooted trees. There she helped her husband to clear the supplejacks before the felling of the bush was begun. “There was no shop, no church, no school at Okato then,” said Mrs. Taft, ‘■’nothing at all. Sometimes a man came from New Plymouth with a cart drawn hy two horses and brought us things from town. Sometimes his cart was too heavily laden and he could not bring the things to our whare in the bush. ■ Then we had to- live on pig - potatoes bought from the Maoris. She bdked her first loaf in a bush oven by the road, said Mrs. Taft, and not being used to the bush oven, burned the loaf black, but they had to eat it as they were so poor. ’ MAORI HAKAS AT WHARE. While they were living in the whare, trouble at Okato broke out with the Maoris. There was a blockhouse at the settlement, and Armed Constabulary men w’ere camped in tents about the blockhouse. Mrs. Taft was warned that the Maoris would come through her property, but she decided to stay at the whare with her children. “The Maoris came through our place,” said Mrs. Taft, “and did their hakas. They were frightfully tattooed and wore feathers in their hair. I stayed outside among them, thinking that if I ■ was coming to grief, I would come to grief in. the open. Yet the Maoris did not attempt'to molest me and the old women sat by my feet while the men stayed apart.” Then came the chopping of the trees and the . logging up afterwards, which took years. Sparks from a neighbouring property fired the bush on the place. The green wood burned with dense volumes of smoke and Mrs. Taft could not see her way down the bush road for the smoke. One of the neighbours, Mr. Roebuck, offered money to anyone who would bring them out of the fire but no-one would venture. The whare caught alight, and although she was scorched and burned Mrs. Taft put it out with water from the nearby creek. They added another 50 acres to their property and by degrees cleared the land and put it down in grass. Fungus grew on the logs and the Maoris came to steal and were taken prisoners. For a time Mrs. Taft let the property and lived at Wellington for four and ahalf years. Then she returned to the farm at Okato an 4 suffered an injury to her back from which she has never recovered. “There was a wild cow we were trying to catch,” said Mirs. Taft, “and; I was at a gate to try to stop it coming out. It chased me and I ran until I fell and cracked my back against some boulders which had been brought down by the river from Mount Egmont.” Mrs. Taft had nine children and now only one, Mrs. Hope, Pe’lorous Sound, is still living. She has two grand-sons, a grand-daughter and three great-grand-sons. On her birthday last week she had a small celebration at the hospital with her friends.