SIXTY YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1434, 28 November 1885, Page 3

SIXTY YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND.

The Scotland Times states that there died on Sunday morning an aged man, vho was probably the longest resident European in the colony, in the person of John Farrell. He was a native of Yorkshire, and a shipwright by trade, and, as a carpenter of a whaler, first came to the coast of New Zealand in 1824. In 1828 he arrived, at Hawke’s Bay with a vessel, and there, in company with another of the crew, he ran away from the ship because it was dangerously leaky. He made his way across the North Island among Native tribes who had never seen a white man before, and was kindly treated by them ; in fact, he said that hospitality and good feeling were traits of Maori character until they were pervaded with the contending creeds of Christianity. As was customary with the Pakehas of those days, he married a Native woman, and became domiciled with her tribe. His knowledge of mechanics made him quite an acquisition to his hapu, and his services were frequently availed of to repair the firearms used by the Natives in their tribal wars. He settled in Wellington for some time, where he carried on an extensive trade in pork-curing. Prom there he migrated to Port Cooper (Lyttelton) 1 between forty and fifty years ago, and was engaged in shipbuilding, and there he built the first boat that won a race. Farrell settled for some years at Koputai (Port Chalmers), where he went into business at a time when Custom House officials were unknown, His wife having died, and his daughter having married a resident of Invercargill, he returned north, and was lost to sight for some time. He turned up at Invercargill about twenty years ago, and was then close on seventy years of age, but has been at work until within a few weeks ago. He was eigh(y-six years of age at the time of his death, and hud been sixty-one years on the coast of the colony.

Like many Pakeha-Maoris, he could tell of lauded possessions lightly valued aud readily parted with that have since became immensely valuable. In addition to land elsewhere, a portion of the site of the town of Napier once belonged to him, and he parted with a picturesque island in the North to a Native woman who had nursed'him through a sickness, in return for her kindness. The deceased leaves an offspring of nine grandchildren and seventeen great-grandchildren. His daughter, Mrs Small, died several years ago.