The Church in New Zealand

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LII, Issue 50, 16 December 1925, Page 19

The Church in New Zealand

(By One 111 Kiwi.)

MILTON MEMORIES

VERY REV. FATHER JAMES O'.NEILL,PASTOR OF WAIKIWI ■ " Who was appointed to the charge of the Milton Parish in 1884.

When asked to contribute some pages in reference to the Milton parish, I asked myself .is it worth while ? Then I remembered that there are all through the Dominion Catholics who hail from Milton parish to .whom a glance at old times would be interesting. .; Besides there is the certainty that the matter would be taken up by persons to whom imagination would supply the facts, which .only one person can know adequately. Of -.this I saw an instance in a recent issue of the yl Tablet, r in which a far-back resident of "tfie Taieri portion of Milton parish/treated the" readers to a half truth, called in some p\irts of Ireland a "Ballylanders", the equivalent of ■ Which, in Australia is a "Rouge-

mont", and in the rest of the world a "Munchausen." I will refer to this matter in its proper place. If I am charged with adding to the dictionary by this use of the word "Ballylanders" I might justify myself by pointing to the addition made by Father Edmund Lynch, a Dunedin priest, who in Palmerston North recently exposed the pretentions of a State professor of history named Manders, and added the word "Manderise" to the dictionary. . -. Many people regard the writers of reminescences as giving thereby proof of incipient or developed dotage. 1 With this view all do not agree, many preferring to refer to this stage of man's career as anec-dotage, where we may leave it. ;r ;, ; ,'.-..,..., 7 ; .v..."..'/;... ':■'. .-.•-..

The Milton parish, in 1884,extended from Green Island in the suburbs of Dunedin to the farthest outpost of the Catlins Raver bush country, thus taking in the whole of Bruce county, the whole of Taieri county, and a portion of Clutha county. Two large Tokomairiro and Taieri —were included in this territory. The earliest settlers found these plains waterlogged, undrained, and unhealthy, and some of the wisest took to the hills. By degrees the cultivation of the swamps was undertaken, the Maori heads grubbed out and an attempt at drainage made, and thus a grudging living drawn from the unhospitable soil. As the years rolled by improvements continued but the malaria was never entirely banished. The consequence of this damp and fog was visible in the characteristics of the inhabitants. From the days of ancient Greece's glory down through the ages the denizens of swamps and marshes bore unmistakeable signs of the physical, mental, and social peculiarities of this environment. Baeotia, one of Greece's divisions, was enclosed by mountains m a huge basin, and though the land was fertile the climate left its mark upon the cultivators of the soil. They were different from the alert, keen, go-ahead Grecians of the other parts of the most cultured of ancient nations. When we add that an excessive dose of Calvinistic gloom was brought by the early settlers of Otago when they came we can form an idea of the unsociability and dourness that met the first Catholic settlers who made their abode in these plains. To some extent-Irish good humor dispelled the fog, but as long as bogs and marshes retain their saddening effects there will always be a notable difference between their inhabitants and those in more elevated surroundings. In 1873 the first resident priest took up his abode on a property purchased by Bishop Moran with money received from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. The house was small, but those who remembered the condition of things in 1873 state that the grounds were amongst the most neatly kept in the district. Soon the health of the priest became affected, and though of a most genial, humorous disposition, he gradually lost interest in his surroundings,, and when in 1884 he resigned the presbytery and grounds were in a condition that beggars all description. Father Jas. O'Neill,, who had been ordained in old St. Joseph's Church, Dunedin, in 1882, and spent part of a year on the Cathedral staff, going subsequently to Queenstown, was appointed to the charge of the Milton parish in July, 1884. One of the first matters that engaged the attention of the young parish priest---who.. was then jin his twenty-fourth yearwas the improvement of the presbytery grounds. _ ? Willing workers came in relays to help clear the wilderness that surrounded the house and let in the sun and fresh air. Giant gum trees had to be cut down and cut up.: Broom. and gorse and wild thorn bushes had to be grubbed up. v Old silk hats, boots, old clothes had to be reverently disinterred and placed on a temporary funeral pyre. Dock weeds ■ ■• that had been shedding their seeds

0t unmolested for a decade had to be grappled with, and fence* whose many gaps invited straying cattle and all mischievous larrivy Kins to come in and have a good time, had V to be repaired or renewed. When the house, ,-.-. which had hitherto been concealed from view H ipy iL» wild growth around was seen (for the I -first time by some of the parishioners), it g?. •became painfully evident that to "house" a .'. priest in such a wretched shack was not in |: accordance with the respect the people owed ,f themselves. So after a few months plans for g a presbytery, drawn up by the late F. W. Petre were procured, and 1885 saw the ' building in the hands of a Dunedin firm of contractors— and Clarke. The contractors brought the bricks from Wingatui; perhaps not being aware that Jones' Milton ; bricks were already acquiring a reputation that has since been steadily maintained. ( The building is still fresh and firm after standing the storms of forty years. From its upper windows views of the surrounding . plain and hills greet the eye, and from the first it was voted one of cosiest parish resid- , ences in the diocese. The financing of the building was much helped by the generous action of three prominent parishioners—viz., Michael Kett (a Waterford man), James Scanlan (a Limerick man), and Thos. Halpin (a Tipperary man) —who combined to lend, free of interest, a sum of £l5O, which sum was not long owing as the parishioners soon wiped it out. The ladies of the congregation busied themselves to good effect in furnishing the house. Foremost of this band of enthusiastic church f workers was Mrs. Jas. Scanlan, who alone all the original committee survives, and who still, with her family, takes an earnest interest in everything affecting Church matters. Mrs. Thos. Halpin was another generous and devoted helper. Her benefactions to the Church were so many that we may piously hope they have merited for her a high place in the Kingdom of Heaven. Mrs. Pat Walsh, Mrs. Tom Lynch, Mrs. McLachlan, and members of the Poppelwell family were conspicuous by their zeal in this and every work undertaken in the parish. A Retrospect. Before continuing the account of the progress made in the parish, it might be well to gather up the scattered memories of the parish as they were found amongst the people ;. in 1884. , " The earliest Catholic settler .arrived in Tokomairiro in the early 'fifties, in the person of Mr. Wm. Poppelwell. His home at Sunwick, was for years the gathering place of the Catholics as they arrived in varying numbers as the years went by. Memories of French Missionaries were kindly prized by the first Catholics. Amongst the first to : visit the district we find the names of Father Seon, Father Petitjean, Father Moreau, r-. Father Martin, Father Ecuyer, who took in *| the T Tokomairiro flock on the journeys to and fr-om Dunedin and Invercargill. In those lip days travelling was slow and tedious— H roads, no bridges, no trains, no motors. Patiently plodding along with their knapWM sacks on their backs and glad to get a I .night's lodging at any settler's place along

th« road, they helped by their ministrations to keep alive the Faith brought from a land of abounding Faith. When gold was discovered at Gabriel's in the early 'sixties a priest was stationed in Tuapeka. Milton was included in the Tuapeka district and monthly visits were paid by the priest to the Tokomairiro portion of the flock. Father Ecuyer occupied this post up to the time of formation of the Dunedin diocese, but was removed by his religious superiors to the West Coast on the arrival of the new Bishop in Dunedin. The first attempt at securing a place of worship in Milton was made during Father Ecuyer's time. At the eastern end of High Street an old store, which had belonged to Smith and Hebbard, was secured. Mr. Smith was long known by his subsequent connection with the Greenfield estate. For some years this building did duty for a church till, in 1869, a Gothic building of Baltic timber was erected for the congregation, the contractor being Mr. McCormick, of Dunedin, whom many old Dunedinites will still remember and whose descendants are scattered over the Dominion at the present day. A mortgage over the property was taken out by Mr. Neil Bruce McGregor ,of the Taieri, who lent £3OO to the congregation. Both principal and compound interest were owing in 1884 when Milton's first resident priest resigned, but the McGregor family did not press for payment. A school was conducted in the church, which was attended by a large number of children and conducted by a succession of efficient lay teachers. Old Miltonians will remember the names of Desmond, Murphy, McMonagle, Griffin, and the Misses Brownlow, Keogh, Poppelwell, McLachlan, and Anglin, who were connected with the school before the Dominican Nuns took charge. After the departure of Father Ecuyer, Milton was visted by priests from Dunedin, amongst whom were Father Coleman, Father Mackay, and Father Crowley, who is still living in Ireland, being parish priest of Meelin, in the diocese of Cloyne. The bulk of the congregation came from the West of Ireland. Gaelic was the language in which they had learned their Christian Doctrine, and some of the old ones knew no other language. They rented small holdings from the borough council and worked around amongst the established farmers and in the construction of roads and railways. There seemed a dispensation of Providence in gathering the people of the Gaethact into the diocese of Dunedin, for with their national pride and unfaltering loyalty to the faith of their fathers they opposed a wall of brass to the conceited and supercilious bigotry of the unco guid. (To be continued.)