Street theatre performers re-enact New Zealand's first duel on the beach at Kororāreka between Joel Polack and Ben Turner. Photo / Denis Orme
To start off a new year, we look back...
The Far North, Hokianga and the Bay of Islands collectively represent the cradle of nationhood for both Māori and Pākeha, and in this week's Bay News we look at some of the rich tales this region is blessed with.
Stories are plentiful and there is so much to see. The new interactive museum in Opononi that traces the footprints of the master mariner and settler Kupe, has been open for just a month. The oldest store and house in Kerikeri - Kemp House and the Stone Store – have been open for years.
The Russell (Kororāreka) museum has a large model of Cook's Endeavour and a model of Dumont d'Urville's ship, originally called La Coquille and later Astrolabe. Along the foreshore there are whaling bits and pieces and Pompallier House. Then there's the steam train Gabriel at the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway at Kawakawa.
That's just for starters and you don't have to go far to find other intrinsic and intriguing sites and tales. Sincere thanks to Bill Edwards and John O'Hare of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga for invaluable expertise and knowledge.
New Zealand's first duel
The beach in Russell wasn't always a picture of tranquillity. Like the town itself it has a history, and it was here that New Zealand's first duel was fought.
The protagonists were Kororāreka businessmen Joel Polack and Ben Turner. Both had a mutual disdain for the other that was bordering on loathing, according to Pompallier Mission Property Lead, Scott Eliffe.
The first duel took place in 1837. Turner was wounded but not fatally, and as boneheaded as it may sound, the pair met again to duel in 1842. This time Polack, who admitted to owning a "rascally bad temper" was shot in the elbow as Turner received a bullet in the cheek.
It was a criminal offence to challenge or provoke another person to fight a duel, with the possibility of the survivor being found guilty of murder. As it turned out, both were lousy shots and both walked away, albeit not entirely unharmed.
Three years after that second duel, during the battle of Kororāreka in 1845, the magazine at Polack's Stockade in the centre of town exploded. It was caused by a careless pipe smoker according to some reports and Polack's house, which the stockade encircled, went up in smoke as the resulting fire destroyed much of the rest of Kororāreka.
The duels on the beach have been re-enacted every year since 2011 in street theatre performances depicting Russell/Kororāreka's past as the "Hellhole of the Pacific", and are always the most popular segment of all the performances.
George Clarke - a man with a mission
One of the earliest missionaries to arrive in the Bay of Islands was George Clarke, known as a man with a mission who did not hold back.
When he arrived in the Bay of Islands in 1824 his parting words to the crew of the French ship Coquille, which had transported him and his family from Sydney, were intended to inspire:
"If only you could be here in 10 years' time you would find, I hope, by the grace of God, that great changes have been made," he said.
The ship's doctor, Rene Lesson, cynically responded with the gloomy prediction that Clarke "will have managed to gather up a few tattooed heads or will have been eaten by his catechumens".
Heritage New Zealand Northland manager Bill Edwards has been examining Clarke's history.
"He had been fascinated by New Zealand as a boy after reading a serialised account of Cook's voyages. Some years later he bumped into his boyhood friend, James Kemp, who told Clarke he was about to leave for New Zealand as a missionary blacksmith."
It motivated Clarke to apply to the Church Missionary Society to become a mission representative and he married Martha Blomfield so they could start life in New Zealand together.
The small matter that they wouldn't have been acceptable had they not been in wedded bliss came into it and they got a passage on the Heroine bound for New South Wales.
The sailing was delayed and became a six-month journey to Port Jackson with a month in Hobart. A further 15 months was spent at Rev Samuel Marsden's Parramatta mission headquarters before George and Martha finally set foot in the Bay of Islands.
Ngāpuhi rangatira Hongi Hika was there when they arrived and very keen to meet the new missionary - most likely for his gun-smithing skills rather than his missionary zeal.
George and Martha were reunited with James and Charlotte Kemp who had been stationed at Kerikeri since 1819, and who had been good friends with the Clarkes back in Norfolk. The couple moved into the Kerikeri Mission House soon after.
As Edwards notes, the Clarkes and Kemps left an extraordinary legacy in the Bay of Islands by establishing one of the earliest educational endeavours in New Zealand at Kemp House - and all from a chance meeting many years before.
In 1830-31, George and Martha helped establish Te Waimate Mission at Waimate North. The house was designed and built by George Clarke and a team of Māori labourers.
In 2000, one of the writing slates used by the children was found there. It had "Na Rongo Hongi a(ged) 16" written on it. Rongo was the daughter of Hongi Hika and two years ago the slates were added to the United Nations register of the world's most historic documents.
Both Kemp House and Te Waimate Mission predate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi and are cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and open to the public.
Conservation at Māngungu
Conservation of one of the oldest buildings cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is currently under way – and visitors are invited to experience the project this summer.
The 181-year-old house is made from kauri and sits on a harbour whose hills were once flanked with kauri forests. Work on Hokianga's Māngungu Mission has begun with a focus on the building's historic wallpapers, reflecting different periods in its past.
"You get a sense of how different the house must have felt. There's the contrast of these exposed pit-sawn native timbers with some of the vibrant colours and designs of these 19th century wallpaper remnants," said Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Hokianga Properties Lead, Alex Bell.
Archaeological features relating to Māngungu – the site of the third and largest signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on February 12, 1840 – are also part of the project, which aims to preserve the original mission settlement underground.
Bell says though land on the site has been ploughed over the years, an incredible amount of archaeological features can still be preserved – especially with buildings or rubbish pits that have a deep footprint.
Destruction and bravery in Kororāreka
The printery building at the southern end of Russell/Kororāreka beach is the sole survivor of what once was a Catholic mission complex. Pompallier House is a 19th century building and once served as the headquarters of the French Catholic Mission to the Western Pacific.
It is named after Jean Baptiste Pompallier, the first vicar apostolic to visit New Zealand, who founded a number of missions in the North Island. Today it is cared for by Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga and is recognised as a Tohu Whenua (landmark).
Pompallier established his mission at Kororāreka in 1839. His printery, completed three years later, published religious texts in Te Reo that were highly sought after by Māori, whom Pompallier was keen to evangelise. One of those was Hoki, a niece of the rangatira Rewa. She became the first Māori nun, and was baptised Peata (from Beata, meaning Blessed).
Following the destruction of Kororāreka in 1845 and the fire that consumed most of the town, only around 15 houses, the Catholic mission establishment, and the house and church of the Church Missionary Society (CMS) remained standing.
Immediately following the fire, Peata, single-handedly and unarmed, intervened to halt a raiding party from attacking Pompallier's Marist Mission.
When raiding waka returned to avenge the rangatira who had been killed, 24-year-old Peata began striding up and down along the water's edge defying the men who halted their waka 45 metres away to discuss her challenge. According to Pompallier, she was "vaunting her mana, with its clear implication of reprisal, to stall their advance".
The waka turned away and landed further along the bay, where tensions were further defused. The threatened assault ended peacefully thanks to Peata's spirited intervention.
Only two buildings that survived the battle at Kororāreka still stand today – Christ Church and Pompallier Mission – and both are open to the public.
Historical pubs and destructive fires
On the road north of Whangārei there are two historical pubs, one at Hukerenui (known locally as the "happy Huke") and the other at Towai, further north. There are reasons why both pubs are sited in relatively sparsely populated areas.
The district was once dominated by the 7000ha Puhipuhi Forest of mature kauri trees and native bush. Both buildings were shifted there as part of a grand economic plan to harvest the kauri.
Bill Edwards, Northland Manager for Heritage New Zealand, said the pubs were shifted into the area in anticipation of hundreds of thirsty workers being drawn to the area seeking work in forestry and farming, along with a healthy stream of anticipated passengers from the planned railway infrastructure to accompany the development.
At Hukerenui, a "village homestead special settlement scheme" was to bring prosperity to approved settlers able to lease up to 50 acres under a perpetual lease scheme while receiving advances for buildings and improvements. The added incentive of earning short-term cash income by digging gum before clearing the land and making it "productive" made the deal all the more sweet.
It was promising Northland provincial growth (the phrase sounds familiar today) when disaster struck. In December 1887, a fire started and rapidly spread, fanned by dry weather and wind. A month later it was still raging and had destroyed much of the forest.
Forest Ranger Joshua Garsed informed police in early 1888 that before the fire broke out he had seen several men in the region with gum in their possession. Four men were promptly arrested on suspicion of deliberately setting fire to the forest to gain easier access to the gum.
That the gum diggers only had licences to dig for gum in the winter months and had illegally entered the forest in summer didn't help their cause. The law was largely untested, however, and three of the four escaped conviction.
The danger gum-diggers presented to the forest was recorded in the NZ Herald in January 1888:
"The travelling gum-digger…after boiling his solitary billy, leaves the embers alight to be fanned into flame and ignite the fern, when he has had his feed, and goes on his way with a light heart."
It was estimated a third of the total area of Puhipuhi Forest – an area representing 300 million square feet of mainly kauri – went up in flames.
On track:
The Kawakawa Food Train is hosted by the Gabriel Club which is part of the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway.
Cheese & Wine train departs from Kawakawa Railway Station on Tuesday January 12, 2021 at 6pm. Cost: $25 per adult - must be pre-booked and pre-paid.
The ticket includes the return train fare, assorted cheeses and one complimentary glass of wine - with a choice of red, white or rosé.
A limited number of seats is available. Email name, choice of wine, and use your name as reference when you pay per adult directly into the "Gabriel Club" Kiwibank account: 38-9005-0166852-00.
Closing time for bookings: 9pm Saturday January 9, 2021.
• Email Sandy Myhre at mywordmedia@yahoo.com if you have any news you'd like to see in Bay News.
We're celebrating the best of New Zealand as we head into the 2024-25 summer.