DEATH OF GREAT PIONEER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 243, 14 October 1938, Page 6

DEATH OF GREAT PIONEER

MRS. JAMES MACDONALD MANGAMAHU IN THE EARLY EIGHTIES THE STORY OF “GLENALADALE" The death of Mrs. James Macdonald. of “Glenaladale,” Mangamahu, which occurred on Tuesday, closed a life of Scottish pluck and determination when the Wangaehu Valley was a wilderness of forest and rough tracks. A spirit as indomitable as the hills and the river itself abided in Mrs. Macdonald’s heart, and if ever a person deserved the recognition due to a pioneer she did. Ninety years ago, when she was a vear old, her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Grant, of “Tullocn Gorum.” Turakina. made their entry into the Wanganui district. They came on foot, with packhorses to carry their belongings. Mrs. Macdonald slept, and no doubt cried occasionally, as any good baby was expected to, from one side of a pack saddle, the most comfortable place that type of rude transport could af- > ford. There was bush, dense and penetrable along the valley and it gave challenge to the men and women who came with plodding footsteps from Port Nicholson. That challenge was accepted and the spirit of “Tulloch Gorum’’ conquered. School Days In Turakina. Mary Grant, as she was then, lived her youth in the Turakina Valley, went to school there and inherited from her parents the spirit of selfreliance characteristic of the race. Meanwhile, Mr. Macdonald went further back into the bush, away up the Wangaehu Valley to Mangamahu. He squatted on the land there, took his axe and spade with him and applied the courage needed to make a home in a fastness far from the beaten track. He applied to the then Government for a title to his block of country and got it. Without any fear for the rigours of life in the back country, Mrs. Macdonald, as a bride, accompanied her husband into that wild region. She was the first white woman to live there. There w*as no road, just a track, and with the same plodding spirit as had characterised the entry of the Grants to Turakina so did the Macdonalds come to Mangamahu. And behind them, being poled in canoes up the swiftly-flowing Wangaehu, came their furniture and \ household belongings. It was the same blue-watered river of to-day, swift, perhaps a bit deeper, but preferable for heavy transport to the pack horse along the rough bush tracks. The Price of Pioneering. So was established the name of “Glenaladale” at Mangamahu. Bit by bit the bush, still offering serious challenge, was cleared back from the homestead. But that clearing demanded its price. It is now fifty years since Mr. Macdonald left the homestead one day to fire portion of the felled timber. The wind changed with cruel swiftness while he was at. work and fanned flames to trap him. He met his death fighting the battle which gave the cleared hills of Mangamahu, with their wealth in wool and meat, to Wanganui. What of the widow who was left to carry on? Did she shirk the task life had imposed on her? Not for a minute. Her Scottish ancestry and pioneering experience gave her a determination to carry on and keep the name of “Macdonald of Glenaladale'’ true to its purpose in that rugged region. The bush may have won one round in the fight, but it would not win them all. That was in 1889 and .' her family was all comparatively \ young. As they grew to manhooc and womanhood, one son and six | daughters, they, too, kept the spirit of tlx> past alive and with the mothei continued the task the father had set himself to accomplish. There wa> every bit as much pluck and endu.ance in that life as there was in the fighting of a Scottish clan to establish Itself in the heatherclad highlands far over the sea. There was more spectacle to the fight of clan.perhaps, buc it lacked nothing in its requirement of strength of will in comparison with the establishment of clan Macdonald in the blue fastness of Mangamahu. When Wekas Called in the Night. “Glenaladale’! was a homestead ol open-handed hospitality. No wayfarei passed it, many stayed for weeks, not days. It retained that characteristic down through the years to the present time. Mrs. Macdonald took s full interest in the welfare of Mangamahu and its district until her strength began to fail. She worked hard for the Presbyterian Church, knowing the faith it had inspirec when humans were few and far between and wekas and moreporks called from the bush affording companionship, in a rough and ready way, to those who had dared comp/ beyond the accepted boundaries of*] civilisation. There were seven in the family Mr. W. A. Macdonald, who is on the property to-day, Mrs. T. Simpson Paraparaumu, Mrs. Leslie McFarlane, North the lale Mrs. Arthur Collins. Mangamahu Misses Margaret, Elizabeth and Jessie Macdonald, of “Glenaladale.”Sons of Settlers Pay Homage. Six sons of settlers who came after and took up land in the -area Mrs. Macdonald and her husband had first entered were pall-bearers from the homestead to the hearse yesterday Messrs. Acton Kellick. Alan Campbell. Cecil Addenbrooke, Richard Lilburn, Leo Campion and Harold Collins. From hearse to graveside grandtons and a nephew carried the casket on the last stages of its journey—Messrs. Trevor Collins, John and Hamish Macdonald. Ivan Simpson. John Polson and Ewen Grant. And in the quietness of the Matarawa cemetery, so near to civilisation and yet so definitely linked with the highroad of packhorse days, Mrs. Macdonald was laid to rest. Those standing round the grave could see the blue hills of Mangamahu and thought of a brtt« who came to that fastness sixty years ago, and of a spirit that refused Uo die. To her they rightly gave tn* homage due to a Great Pioneer