EARLY WAIKATO DAYS.

Waikato Times, Volume 106, Issue 17803, 30 August 1929, Page 9

EARLY WAIKATO DAYS.

“TREASURES OF MEMORY.” MISS A. D. BRIGHT’S ADDRESS. AT EARLY SETTLERS’ DINNER. “I belong to a generation who would think it ‘not quite nice’ for a woman to talk at the top of her voice in a meeting such as this. But if I speak too loud you may remember that I learned to shout in the big school classes in Waikato and elsewhere many years ago,, and perhaps now I cannot help it." In these words Miss A. D. Bright prefaced her remarks at the Old Settlers’ dinner the other day when she unfolded some of the treasures of memory which she claims are very real rewards to set against the strenuous life led when the district of Waikato was first opened. In the 'fifties and early ’sixties, her hearers were reminded, Waikato was a treeless plain. From any little rising ground uninterrupted vistas lay open to Pirongia, to Kakepuku, to Maungatautari, to the Te Aroha and Taupiri hills. Stretches of manuka and fern existed, and near some of the swamps a few forest trees rose, while light bush clung to the lower ranges. But the plain itself was bare, and the ’sixties and ’seventies were a period of planting. Everywhere young trees began to shoot—chiefly pines to break the wind —but English trees were planted as well. .“My people,” said the speaker, “came in this period which saw the growth of all those avenues and plantations that now enrich the country • side. The now-forgotten oaks on the Newstead boundary dated from this time, and out beyond Monavale, that glorious Spanish chestnut, second to none in New Zealand, and only rivalled by that in which Mr Newton King, in New Plymouth, set such store ( was planted for either Mr E. B. Walker or Mr Richard Reynolds. The latter gentleman, before Mr Wells became the father of Cambridge, was certainly the father of tree-planting along the country roads. There were no factories in the ’sixties and ’seventies, but on many hills stood pas or redoubts, and the settlements had their barracks, which housed the Armed Constabulary. The roads were threaded by the blue-, coated mounted members of this force, and Government waggons rumbled where now’ cream carts and lorries would be found. Much of the coun- , try w’as opened up by these fine J soldier-citizens. Roads were laid out and bridges built—very cheaply, 100 —one over the Karapiro, built by the j Armed Constabulary, lasted many j years. The telegraph line had been carried through from Drury by the Militia during the years of the war. Breeders of the day considered the type for working bullocks, but later came Fantham’s Shorthorns, and at Fcncourt some fine little red Devons. Rail, River and Road.

When the railway was building, in I the early ’seventies, Ngaruawaliia bid fair to be the seat of progress; and indeed it was a quite charming little township when some of us first visited it. As a schoolgirl I passed through it i by coach and steamer. The coach crossed the Razor-back even in those days, and when the load was light the passengers suffered more pains of travel than are dreamed of now. The trip by small steamer on the river was less tiring, though it took longer than the through coach drive, and manj who are here to-day took that route to Hamilton and Cambridge even after the line as far as Mercer was opened. In the days before motor-cars travel was not lightly undertaken, though 1 have enjoyed trips by bullock dray. But journeying had one amelioration. When “our Inns” offered the welcome given by the ladies presiding at Gwynne’s Hotel in Hamilton, I*inch s Hotel in Pirongia, and indeed at most of these houses, travelling was not without some real delights. “A meeting such as this,” said the speaker, “suggests a family gathering, where members are sharing souvenirs of the past —old china ancl lace brought by our grandmothers, a punch ! bowl belonging to some earlier forbear Mill. All have gained value by age, and as one is brought out for inspection someone present goes off to find another. So here to-day these memories I touch have less point unless they arc capped by others. “Most of you can tell of the war, and possibly some remember a citizen Ltrol of Auckland streets in the early days of alarums. But after the war again some hero may possibly have memories of that night patreo from Cambridge to Pukerimu after Sullivan’s murder on the borders of the King Country. The lady who served liot coffee, etc., to the riders on those frosty nights is still alive in Pukerimu and I wish you could hear the talcs’ she could tell of the life in which she took sucli an acthe and kind part. The ’seventies were still young when the flood swept away the big Cambridge bridge. A Parson’s Courage. “One of the parsons of those days, on his way to a dying parishioner, before the punt was working, swam the river at the bend where the booms swung afterwards He was of stature much smaller than his heart, and he rode away from the river bank in clothes borrowed from a friend whose inches soared above the six-foot meaSU “The punts at Ngaruawaliia, Hamilton and Cambridge belong to the same period, and the bridges succeeding them came closely alter. “These are the pratllings of an onlooker only. I cannot, alas! claim to be either a pioneer or early settler honoured names that I should prize quite as much as that of Dame of the British Empire. But I doubt whethei I have even planted a rose bush to mark my passage through the district, and except in the early pleasuring at dances—at balls in the towns and the ‘hops’ in country schoolhouses—l took no part other than to jom in choruses as we rode home in the moonlight or gathered at Hamilton or elsewhere to swell the choral festivals of St Peter’s anil other choirs, iou must,'some of you, have joined in that First Volunteer Review in .lolly s paudock when the punt was so overworked that it almost succumbed m front of Rie crow’ds waiting to get home to the milking. r lhen think -1 Hie reviews and races at Te Awamutu, ’ of the soldiers who figured there—ol Colonel Lyon and Captains Macprierson and Runciman, of the men ol peace with representatives here lodav. Think of those sports at Ngaruawahia at which you—young athletes then —made records. Remember those youthful feats of yours and oi the brothers Hunt and Pilling, ‘descendants arc not among us. “The opening of the shooting season

I has seen a hag of twenty brace of : pheasants, and some of you probably iin your voung days have fished with : tint notables of gun and rod for river ; trout which now is never heard of. Dog Trials. “And dog trials! You will hear me out when I say there were sheep dogs iin those days! I remember a pointer —Ponto (a name joined with that of his master by the school children) ! whose work was known the length i and breadth of Waikato. | “Modern Hamilton has recent memories of Royal visits. Dukes and princes have been entertained in the passing of the train time, but old Hamilton had for five days a king within its gates—King Tawhaio of happy memory! Nowadays we do not I often sec a war dance such as took j place in the ’seventies in front of i Gwynne’s Hotel. "There were cherry groves at 1 Whatawhata and Rangiahia frequented by riding and rowing parties from all tiie district in the days when articles indispensable to the wellbeing of the settler could be summed up as the camp-oven, the lantern, the bellows, the cow-bells and the gun. Even the slab cottage could he dispensed with, for there were always tents and whares, but existence itself might depend on these modest furnishings. For tiie food supplies depended on the one set, and without the cow-hell and tiie lantern where would our dairying have been —in early winter mornings, for instance, or on the dark evenings? “Before the appreciation of music was taught in our schools we heard the real thing oftener perhaps than we do now, for tiie houses for excellent musical companies were guaranteed by enthusiastic citizens who were music-lovers. The Carandinis and members of the very fine opera companies, who visited New Zealand oftener then than now, were frequently heard by many here; and the lew survivors of the thirty who listened to the greatest violinist of that period remember that great treat as comparable only with the delight experienced again in Hamilton when Packmann played to us. “These treasures of memory might keep us a full hour, or even two, but the time limit is already urging that Ihey should now he supplemented by the reminiscences I am sure you are longing to give.”