PIONEER’S MEMORIES

Taranaki Daily News, 14 February 1933, Page 3

PIONEER’S MEMORIES

ONE OF FIRST WHITE TWINS. EARLY DAYS IN WELLINGTON. Stated to be one of the first pair of white twins born, in Wellington, if not ini New Zealand, Mrs. Sarah Bell celebrated her 90th birthday recently. This bright-eyed mentally alert pioneer has lived in Wellington during the whole of her life, and is encyclopaedic .in her knowledge of early Wellington. “My parents were Mr. and- Mrs. Joseph Dixon,” said Mrs. Bull “They came .to Wellington in the fAij London, which arrived here on Maj- 2, 1842. My sister Martha and I were bom on February 3 following, but she died 20 years ago. _ “We were said to be the first white twins bom in New Zealand,” continued Mrs. Bull. “It was so unusual that my mother was visited by many of the Maoris then living in Wellington. They were immensely interested in the 'white piccaninnies,’ and some of them brought my mother all sorts of presents to show their regard and good feeling for her and her babies.

“We were living on Thomdon flat at that time. Most of the people lived there tiien, and as. there were no convenient methods of transport the Te Aro district, a good part of which was then a swamp, was a good step away. Then, again, you could not always get round Clay Point, now Stewart Dawson’s corner, in stormy weather without getting a wetting. “When my twin sister and myself were four years of age we /were taken. to the residence, of the Governor, Sir George Grey, and Lady Grey took us by the hand and walked us across the lawn to show us the lovely pair of black swans on the little lake. I cannot remember much else, except that we were each given a cup of milk and a bun. My, parents afterward moved to Karori, which was then all beautiful bush, and our cottage was set in a little clearing surrounded by forest trees. “I can remember the great earthquake of 1848,” said Mrs. Bull, “though I was only five years of age." 1 My parents had come in from Karori and were living in a lath and plaster cottage in Cuba Street, just above the present site of the Royal Oak Hotel, and beside a stream. Our house was so shaken by . the earthquakes that it was not considered safe, to sleep in, so every night , my father'used to lock us up in a cellar of a brewery near by.” ?