Northland land mystery: Descendants of possibly vanished early European settler sought

A lawyer is seeking descendants of an early New Zealand farmer who could have a claim to a slice of land in Northland.

The narrow strip, landlocked by other properties at Mata, is just off Flyger Rd near State Highway 15, about 5km inland from Ruakākā.

In 1878 it was owned by Allan MacDonald, a Gisborne runholder, according to a newspaper advertisement appealing for descendants to come forward.

Anyone who knows the whereabouts any surviving successors of MacDonald was asked to contact Kristi Law, a lawyer for The Property Group. The land was laid out as a road on paper but never properly legalised.

An Allan MacDonald, whose name is also spelled as both MacDonald and McDonald in newspaper reports from the 1800s, was a farmer and politician in the Gisborne area at the time.

He represented the East Coast electorate as a Member of the House of Representatives from 1879 to 1884.

A deeds index for Ruakākā includes the land.

A Press Association telegraph reported in the Auckland Star on September 6, 1893, said Allan MacDonald went missing without a trace after leaving New Zealand from Dunedin on the steamship Rotomahana for Melbourne.

“On arrival at Melbourne on May 24th he put up at the Otago Hotel in Flinders St and after depositing his luggage in his bedroom, went out and has not since been heard of,” the report said.

“The Melbourne police have made a thorough and searching inquiry without finding trace of the missing man.

The narrow strip of land is south of Whangārei.

“His luggage was searched, and only revealed the fact that he was formerly a sheep farmer of Poverty Bay, and had friends in Gisborne.

“These are quite in the dark as to his whereabouts.”

Anyone with information about MacDonald’s descendants is asked to contact Kristi Law of The Property Group via klaw@propertygroup.co.nz