This is the place

Wesleydale, Kaeo Mission Station.

1823-1827

For those who attended Kaeo School during the years of the fifties to seventies, the names of the school houses, Leigh, Turner and Hobbs, were nothing more than that. The fact that they were early missionaries to the district was vaguely known, but the students neither knew nor cared who these men might have been.

 

In 1815 Samuel Leigh arrived in Australia. He was a young man who had gone there to assist Samuel Marsden, the preacher of Paramatta Sydney. Marsden had just returned from his first visit to New Zealand and the establishment of the new mission there and was full of this project, talking much about it to anyone who would listen.

After a few years, Samuel Leigh, who was not a strong man, had a nervous breakdown and was sent back to England in 1820.

After he recovered, he had the idea that he wanted to start Methodism in New Zealand. The Mission wasn’t very keen, but he wore them down and the new Mission was officially launched. By this time he was married and he and his wife went back to Australia in 1821. They met up with Samuel Marsden again, who had been once more to the Bay of Islands in July 1819. The Mission there was under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society (an Anglican mission) while Leigh was being financed by the Wesleyans under the South Sea Missions.

There were other young men training back in England….. William White, aged thirty and still single, Nathaniel Turner aged twenty seven, and John Hobbs aged twenty. William White was a carpenter and a very practical man who could turn his hand to anything. Nathaniel Turner was a Home Missionary and lay preacher. Then John Hobbs also decided to join them. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade, as well as having blacksmith experience. So these were the men who would start the mission of "Wesleydale" in the valley of Kaeo.

Two more young men joined this group, James Stack and Luke Wade who was appointed by the mission to be a handyman for day to day problems . Mr. and Mrs. James Shepherd of the C.M.S. said they would also support them and help them to get started.

They weren’t sure where the best place to establish the mission would be and stopped first at Whangarei…..the date was the 26th of May 1823. When they got there, they found no people around, so after spending a day exploring the countryside, they felt that perhaps they should carry on north after all.

So on the evening of June 6th, they dropped anchor just after dark inside the Whangaroa Heads. The next morning, the missionaries rowed up to the head of the harbour, going past the wreck of the Boyd which could still be seen sticking out of the water.

The tall bush trees were growing right to the water’s edge in many places as they carried on up the river wondering what sort of reception they would get. As they got closer to the village area the valley opened out more widely, and there rising up in the middle of the valley floor was a conical hill, with it’s terraced sides. This was Pohue-nui, the pah of the Ngati-uru , and the people they had come to see.

After talking to the local people an arrangement was agreed on to build on some land on the edge of the river across the valley from the local village and pah. The river flowed on the other side of the valley then to where it is today, and this is why the Mission Station site is so far from the present river. It was also much deeper then, and more navigable with the tide reaching right up to the village site. They made a start, with William White and Luke Wade doing most of the heavy work. The first building was erected and was a solid log house, 30 feet long, by 15 feet wide. with two storeys. By the end of the month it was mostly covered in, and they were able to move in to live.

However, Samuel Leigh’s health got bad again and he seemed to be heading for another breakdown. James Shepherd travelled around among the Maori villages commencing a preaching programme, while James Stack concentrated on learning the language and wrote down the sounds so he could reduce the language to writing and start teaching these people to read and write. Leigh continued to mess around, complaining of his eyes, his cough, and his general lethargy.

It wasn’t long before Chief George became a problem, demanding more goods for the land they were occupying. Soon after that, the Shepherd family sailed back to the Bay of Islands.

John Hobbs and Nathaniel Turner had now arrived and couldn’t wait to be shown their new sphere of service. When they arrived at the station, they were appalled at the accommodation. It was nothing like they expected ! "A most humble and uncomfortable place", was Turner’s comment ! John Hobbs was a man of action; he wasted no time getting out to where the logs were being felled, and got to work hours within arriving. William White was delighted with John Hobb’s energy and help; "he appears to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and full of missionary zeal, and we hope he swill be very useful", he wrote !

By this time, Leigh’s health had deteriorated to the point of being advised to leave Kaeo and to go back to Sydney on the next ship.

William White was now the leader of the mission but none of the others were very happy about it. "He was not a man fit to govern, not having power over his own spirit", Turner wrote later. Hobbs too, didn’t think much of White as a leader. He was always changing his mind over trivial matters and then getting annoyed when reminded of it. It was very unsatisfactory.

Much of the missionaries’ efforts during the next few months went into building a permanent homestead for themselves. If White was going to be successful in finding a wife for himself, they were going to need bigger accommodation anyway. So John Hobbs and Luke Wade put in long hours in the bush, felling the trees and preparing the timber to be hauled to the new site. Turner concentrated on getting the garden going, planting crops of potatoes and kumara, as well as wheat for flour and feeding the hens.

It was a difficult life for the women folk with the tensions building up between the menfolk, the dirty washing mounting up as they continued their hard manual work and the worry of when the next upset with the Maori people might come. They never knew when one of the locals would run off with some of their belongings either.

For a while the school was open and flourishing. But disappointment was in store for James Stack. He found his pupils very quickly tired of learning such things, and there didn’t have to be much of an excuse before they played truant from classes.

George (the local Maori chief) became quite ill, and the missionaries were quite apprehensive as to what would happen when he died. They had heard that George had requested that the missionaries be sacked because "utu" had never been exacted when the "Boyd" blew up ! So it was a worrying time .

By this time the future of the station was in serious doubt. Should they stay, or should they leave? The attitude of the locals had changed considerably and they were in no mood to listen to the missionaries now. George too, was getting worse, and was wasting away. He was almost skin and bone by now.

Mrs. Turner and the children went back to Kerikeri and the rest had to decide whether to go or to stay. They felt that to go would be a waste of all their time and effort, to say nothing of all their dreams. So they decided to wait and see how things worked out.

There were reports that the Hokianga people were coming over to carry out George’s wishes of "utu", but when they did come, it was a peaceful visit. The missionaries decided that it would be safe for Ann and the children to return, and that they would build a separate cooking and accommodation area for the single men, leaving the existing house for the Turner family and visitors. This work was done fairly quickly, as there wasn’t any visiting being done among the other villages at this stage.

The station was really quite a civilised place in the midst of a real wilderness. The compound consisted of two houses now (both with two storeys), a store house, barn and blacksmith shop, and a cow-shed with a lean-to carpenter’s work shop. There was a garden and orchard inside the inner fence, and they had eight cows and calves grazing in the paddocks within the boundary fence. A dog or two and hens made up the total tally. It was situated up on a rise above the river, and the view was quite pleasant looking out onto the bush clad hills on the other side of the valley.

The valley was totally surrounded by steep hills, and a small stream ran down beside their boundary to meet the river below. Only for the continually noise of the pah and village, it would have been a very idyllic and peaceful spot!

Then the locals got some sort of epidemic. It seemed as though it may have been whooping cough as they had high temperatures and were nearly choking with coughing. Then more marauding tribes came again, and there was more pilfering. There was much fighting and scrapping among themselves too, which didn’t help the general atmosphere. There was always an uproar of some sort or other going on across the valley, and the odd ones were being killed and even eaten.

December 1926 was rather a black month for the people at Wesleydale. The epidemic was not getting any less, and rumours were running rife. There was no protection for the mission station since George had died.... everyone did what they wanted to. Stories were running rife about Hongi and his marauding Nothing was known of his plans. One night they were particularly edgy. They decided to try to rest, and at midnight they went to bed.

Early the next morning, Luke Wade woke Turner up with the news that there was a party of Maori approaching the station. John Hobbs was already outside talking to them. The others hastily rose and dressed, and stuffed a few things for the children in a bag. They were none too soon . The Maori made their intentions clear, and told them to get out or else ! Within fifteen minutes, they started plundering the Wades’ cottage, smashing things right and left. The missionaries waited no longer. As they were fleeing out the front door, the Maori were pouring in through the back. In fact, one man had his tomahawk ready to come down on Ann’s head, when, with all the vibrations of the many feet, a pail of nails tipped over from the landing above and spilling it’s contents at their feet. He forgot about Ann in his haste to grab as many of them as he could before the others got them !

As they ran across the valley, they could hear the yells of the Maoris, and the sounds of breaking glass and smashing timber. It was a heart breaking sound, but they kept going. In their party were the Turner family, Luke Wade and his wife, John Hobbs and Mary Ann Davis, as well as a couple of mission Maoris to help carry the few things that they had salvaged.

They managed to get safely to Kerikeri, and once there collapsed onto the nearest seat, and tried to decide what to do for the best. It was finally decided that that they should carry on the next day to Paihia, and then board the next ship to Sydney.

The whole of the Kaeo contingent eventually sailed from Korarareko on the 27th January 1827, and the chapter of European settlement in the Kaeo area was closed for a few more years.

As for the missionaries Turner and Hobbs, they later returned to New Zealand, and set up a mission station on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour at Mangungu, where they had a successful and thriving mission for many years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wesleydale, Kaeo Mission Station.

1823-1827

For those who attended Kaeo School during the years of the fifties to seventies, the names of the school houses, Leigh, Turner and Hobbs, were nothing more than that. The fact that they were early missionaries to the district was vaguely known, but the students neither knew nor cared who these men might have been.

 

In 1815 Samuel Leigh arrived in Australia. He was a young man who had gone there to assist Samuel Marsden, the preacher of Paramatta Sydney. Marsden had just returned from his first visit to New Zealand and the establishment of the new mission there and was full of this project, talking much about it to anyone who would listen.

After a few years, Samuel Leigh, who was not a strong man, had a nervous breakdown and was sent back to England in 1820.

After he recovered, he had the idea that he wanted to start Methodism in New Zealand. The Mission wasn’t very keen, but he wore them down and the new Mission was officially launched. By this time he was married and he and his wife went back to Australia in 1821. They met up with Samuel Marsden again, who had been once more to the Bay of Islands in July 1819. The Mission there was under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society (an Anglican mission) while Leigh was being financed by the Wesleyans under the South Sea Missions.

There were other young men training back in England….. William White, aged thirty and still single, Nathaniel Turner aged twenty seven, and John Hobbs aged twenty. William White was a carpenter and a very practical man who could turn his hand to anything. Nathaniel Turner was a Home Missionary and lay preacher. Then John Hobbs also decided to join them. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade, as well as having blacksmith experience. So these were the men who would start the mission of "Wesleydale" in the valley of Kaeo.

Two more young men joined this group, James Stack and Luke Wade who was appointed by the mission to be a handyman for day to day problems . Mr. and Mrs. James Shepherd of the C.M.S. said they would also support them and help them to get started.

They weren’t sure where the best place to establish the mission would be and stopped first at Whangarei…..the date was the 26th of May 1823. When they got there, they found no people around, so after spending a day exploring the countryside, they felt that perhaps they should carry on north after all.

So on the evening of June 6th, they dropped anchor just after dark inside the Whangaroa Heads. The next morning, the missionaries rowed up to the head of the harbour, going past the wreck of the Boyd which could still be seen sticking out of the water.

The tall bush trees were growing right to the water’s edge in many places as they carried on up the river wondering what sort of reception they would get. As they got closer to the village area the valley opened out more widely, and there rising up in the middle of the valley floor was a conical hill, with it’s terraced sides. This was Pohue-nui, the pah of the Ngati-uru , and the people they had come to see.

After talking to the local people an arrangement was agreed on to build on some land on the edge of the river across the valley from the local village and pah. The river flowed on the other side of the valley then to where it is today, and this is why the Mission Station site is so far from the present river. It was also much deeper then, and more navigable with the tide reaching right up to the village site. They made a start, with William White and Luke Wade doing most of the heavy work. The first building was erected and was a solid log house, 30 feet long, by 15 feet wide. with two storeys. By the end of the month it was mostly covered in, and they were able to move in to live.

However, Samuel Leigh’s health got bad again and he seemed to be heading for another breakdown. James Shepherd travelled around among the Maori villages commencing a preaching programme, while James Stack concentrated on learning the language and wrote down the sounds so he could reduce the language to writing and start teaching these people to read and write. Leigh continued to mess around, complaining of his eyes, his cough, and his general lethargy.

It wasn’t long before Chief George became a problem, demanding more goods for the land they were occupying. Soon after that, the Shepherd family sailed back to the Bay of Islands.

John Hobbs and Nathaniel Turner had now arrived and couldn’t wait to be shown their new sphere of service. When they arrived at the station, they were appalled at the accommodation. It was nothing like they expected ! "A most humble and uncomfortable place", was Turner’s comment ! John Hobbs was a man of action; he wasted no time getting out to where the logs were being felled, and got to work hours within arriving. William White was delighted with John Hobb’s energy and help; "he appears to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and full of missionary zeal, and we hope he swill be very useful", he wrote !

By this time, Leigh’s health had deteriorated to the point of being advised to leave Kaeo and to go back to Sydney on the next ship.

William White was now the leader of the mission but none of the others were very happy about it. "He was not a man fit to govern, not having power over his own spirit", Turner wrote later. Hobbs too, didn’t think much of White as a leader. He was always changing his mind over trivial matters and then getting annoyed when reminded of it. It was very unsatisfactory.

Much of the missionaries’ efforts during the next few months went into building a permanent homestead for themselves. If White was going to be successful in finding a wife for himself, they were going to need bigger accommodation anyway. So John Hobbs and Luke Wade put in long hours in the bush, felling the trees and preparing the timber to be hauled to the new site. Turner concentrated on getting the garden going, planting crops of potatoes and kumara, as well as wheat for flour and feeding the hens.

It was a difficult life for the women folk with the tensions building up between the menfolk, the dirty washing mounting up as they continued their hard manual work and the worry of when the next upset with the Maori people might come. They never knew when one of the locals would run off with some of their belongings either.

For a while the school was open and flourishing. But disappointment was in store for James Stack. He found his pupils very quickly tired of learning such things, and there didn’t have to be much of an excuse before they played truant from classes.

George (the local Maori chief) became quite ill, and the missionaries were quite apprehensive as to what would happen when he died. They had heard that George had requested that the missionaries be sacked because "utu" had never been exacted when the "Boyd" blew up ! So it was a worrying time .

By this time the future of the station was in serious doubt. Should they stay, or should they leave? The attitude of the locals had changed considerably and they were in no mood to listen to the missionaries now. George too, was getting worse, and was wasting away. He was almost skin and bone by now.

Mrs. Turner and the children went back to Kerikeri and the rest had to decide whether to go or to stay. They felt that to go would be a waste of all their time and effort, to say nothing of all their dreams. So they decided to wait and see how things worked out.

There were reports that the Hokianga people were coming over to carry out George’s wishes of "utu", but when they did come, it was a peaceful visit. The missionaries decided that it would be safe for Ann and the children to return, and that they would build a separate cooking and accommodation area for the single men, leaving the existing house for the Turner family and visitors. This work was done fairly quickly, as there wasn’t any visiting being done among the other villages at this stage.

The station was really quite a civilised place in the midst of a real wilderness. The compound consisted of two houses now (both with two storeys), a store house, barn and blacksmith shop, and a cow-shed with a lean-to carpenter’s work shop. There was a garden and orchard inside the inner fence, and they had eight cows and calves grazing in the paddocks within the boundary fence. A dog or two and hens made up the total tally. It was situated up on a rise above the river, and the view was quite pleasant looking out onto the bush clad hills on the other side of the valley.

The valley was totally surrounded by steep hills, and a small stream ran down beside their boundary to meet the river below. Only for the continually noise of the pah and village, it would have been a very idyllic and peaceful spot!

Then the locals got some sort of epidemic. It seemed as though it may have been whooping cough as they had high temperatures and were nearly choking with coughing. Then more marauding tribes came again, and there was more pilfering. There was much fighting and scrapping among themselves too, which didn’t help the general atmosphere. There was always an uproar of some sort or other going on across the valley, and the odd ones were being killed and even eaten.

December 1926 was rather a black month for the people at Wesleydale. The epidemic was not getting any less, and rumours were running rife. There was no protection for the mission station since George had died.... everyone did what they wanted to. Stories were running rife about Hongi and his marauding Nothing was known of his plans. One night they were particularly edgy. They decided to try to rest, and at midnight they went to bed.

Early the next morning, Luke Wade woke Turner up with the news that there was a party of Maori approaching the station. John Hobbs was already outside talking to them. The others hastily rose and dressed, and stuffed a few things for the children in a bag. They were none too soon . The Maori made their intentions clear, and told them to get out or else ! Within fifteen minutes, they started plundering the Wades’ cottage, smashing things right and left. The missionaries waited no longer. As they were fleeing out the front door, the Maori were pouring in through the back. In fact, one man had his tomahawk ready to come down on Ann’s head, when, with all the vibrations of the many feet, a pail of nails tipped over from the landing above and spilling it’s contents at their feet. He forgot about Ann in his haste to grab as many of them as he could before the others got them !

As they ran across the valley, they could hear the yells of the Maoris, and the sounds of breaking glass and smashing timber. It was a heart breaking sound, but they kept going. In their party were the Turner family, Luke Wade and his wife, John Hobbs and Mary Ann Davis, as well as a couple of mission Maoris to help carry the few things that they had salvaged.

They managed to get safely to Kerikeri, and once there collapsed onto the nearest seat, and tried to decide what to do for the best. It was finally decided that that they should carry on the next day to Paihia, and then board the next ship to Sydney.

The whole of the Kaeo contingent eventually sailed from Korarareko on the 27th January 1827, and the chapter of European settlement in the Kaeo area was closed for a few more years.

As for the missionaries Turner and Hobbs, they later returned to New Zealand, and set up a mission station on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour at Mangungu, where they had a successful and thriving mission for many years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wesleydale, Kaeo Mission Station.

1823-1827

For those who attended Kaeo School during the years of the fifties to seventies, the names of the school houses, Leigh, Turner and Hobbs, were nothing more than that. The fact that they were early missionaries to the district was vaguely known, but the students neither knew nor cared who these men might have been.

 

In 1815 Samuel Leigh arrived in Australia. He was a young man who had gone there to assist Samuel Marsden, the preacher of Paramatta Sydney. Marsden had just returned from his first visit to New Zealand and the establishment of the new mission there and was full of this project, talking much about it to anyone who would listen.

After a few years, Samuel Leigh, who was not a strong man, had a nervous breakdown and was sent back to England in 1820.

After he recovered, he had the idea that he wanted to start Methodism in New Zealand. The Mission wasn’t very keen, but he wore them down and the new Mission was officially launched. By this time he was married and he and his wife went back to Australia in 1821. They met up with Samuel Marsden again, who had been once more to the Bay of Islands in July 1819. The Mission there was under the auspices of the Church Missionary Society (an Anglican mission) while Leigh was being financed by the Wesleyans under the South Sea Missions.

There were other young men training back in England….. William White, aged thirty and still single, Nathaniel Turner aged twenty seven, and John Hobbs aged twenty. William White was a carpenter and a very practical man who could turn his hand to anything. Nathaniel Turner was a Home Missionary and lay preacher. Then John Hobbs also decided to join them. He was a carpenter and joiner by trade, as well as having blacksmith experience. So these were the men who would start the mission of "Wesleydale" in the valley of Kaeo.

Two more young men joined this group, James Stack and Luke Wade who was appointed by the mission to be a handyman for day to day problems . Mr. and Mrs. James Shepherd of the C.M.S. said they would also support them and help them to get started.

They weren’t sure where the best place to establish the mission would be and stopped first at Whangarei…..the date was the 26th of May 1823. When they got there, they found no people around, so after spending a day exploring the countryside, they felt that perhaps they should carry on north after all.

So on the evening of June 6th, they dropped anchor just after dark inside the Whangaroa Heads. The next morning, the missionaries rowed up to the head of the harbour, going past the wreck of the Boyd which could still be seen sticking out of the water.

The tall bush trees were growing right to the water’s edge in many places as they carried on up the river wondering what sort of reception they would get. As they got closer to the village area the valley opened out more widely, and there rising up in the middle of the valley floor was a conical hill, with it’s terraced sides. This was Pohue-nui, the pah of the Ngati-uru , and the people they had come to see.

After talking to the local people an arrangement was agreed on to build on some land on the edge of the river across the valley from the local village and pah. The river flowed on the other side of the valley then to where it is today, and this is why the Mission Station site is so far from the present river. It was also much deeper then, and more navigable with the tide reaching right up to the village site. They made a start, with William White and Luke Wade doing most of the heavy work. The first building was erected and was a solid log house, 30 feet long, by 15 feet wide. with two storeys. By the end of the month it was mostly covered in, and they were able to move in to live.

However, Samuel Leigh’s health got bad again and he seemed to be heading for another breakdown. James Shepherd travelled around among the Maori villages commencing a preaching programme, while James Stack concentrated on learning the language and wrote down the sounds so he could reduce the language to writing and start teaching these people to read and write. Leigh continued to mess around, complaining of his eyes, his cough, and his general lethargy.

It wasn’t long before Chief George became a problem, demanding more goods for the land they were occupying. Soon after that, the Shepherd family sailed back to the Bay of Islands.

John Hobbs and Nathaniel Turner had now arrived and couldn’t wait to be shown their new sphere of service. When they arrived at the station, they were appalled at the accommodation. It was nothing like they expected ! "A most humble and uncomfortable place", was Turner’s comment ! John Hobbs was a man of action; he wasted no time getting out to where the logs were being felled, and got to work hours within arriving. William White was delighted with John Hobb’s energy and help; "he appears to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ, and full of missionary zeal, and we hope he swill be very useful", he wrote !

By this time, Leigh’s health had deteriorated to the point of being advised to leave Kaeo and to go back to Sydney on the next ship.

William White was now the leader of the mission but none of the others were very happy about it. "He was not a man fit to govern, not having power over his own spirit", Turner wrote later. Hobbs too, didn’t think much of White as a leader. He was always changing his mind over trivial matters and then getting annoyed when reminded of it. It was very unsatisfactory.

Much of the missionaries’ efforts during the next few months went into building a permanent homestead for themselves. If White was going to be successful in finding a wife for himself, they were going to need bigger accommodation anyway. So John Hobbs and Luke Wade put in long hours in the bush, felling the trees and preparing the timber to be hauled to the new site. Turner concentrated on getting the garden going, planting crops of potatoes and kumara, as well as wheat for flour and feeding the hens.

It was a difficult life for the women folk with the tensions building up between the menfolk, the dirty washing mounting up as they continued their hard manual work and the worry of when the next upset with the Maori people might come. They never knew when one of the locals would run off with some of their belongings either.

For a while the school was open and flourishing. But disappointment was in store for James Stack. He found his pupils very quickly tired of learning such things, and there didn’t have to be much of an excuse before they played truant from classes.

George (the local Maori chief) became quite ill, and the missionaries were quite apprehensive as to what would happen when he died. They had heard that George had requested that the missionaries be sacked because "utu" had never been exacted when the "Boyd" blew up ! So it was a worrying time .

By this time the future of the station was in serious doubt. Should they stay, or should they leave? The attitude of the locals had changed considerably and they were in no mood to listen to the missionaries now. George too, was getting worse, and was wasting away. He was almost skin and bone by now.

Mrs. Turner and the children went back to Kerikeri and the rest had to decide whether to go or to stay. They felt that to go would be a waste of all their time and effort, to say nothing of all their dreams. So they decided to wait and see how things worked out.

There were reports that the Hokianga people were coming over to carry out George’s wishes of "utu", but when they did come, it was a peaceful visit. The missionaries decided that it would be safe for Ann and the children to return, and that they would build a separate cooking and accommodation area for the single men, leaving the existing house for the Turner family and visitors. This work was done fairly quickly, as there wasn’t any visiting being done among the other villages at this stage.

The station was really quite a civilised place in the midst of a real wilderness. The compound consisted of two houses now (both with two storeys), a store house, barn and blacksmith shop, and a cow-shed with a lean-to carpenter’s work shop. There was a garden and orchard inside the inner fence, and they had eight cows and calves grazing in the paddocks within the boundary fence. A dog or two and hens made up the total tally. It was situated up on a rise above the river, and the view was quite pleasant looking out onto the bush clad hills on the other side of the valley.

The valley was totally surrounded by steep hills, and a small stream ran down beside their boundary to meet the river below. Only for the continually noise of the pah and village, it would have been a very idyllic and peaceful spot!

Then the locals got some sort of epidemic. It seemed as though it may have been whooping cough as they had high temperatures and were nearly choking with coughing. Then more marauding tribes came again, and there was more pilfering. There was much fighting and scrapping among themselves too, which didn’t help the general atmosphere. There was always an uproar of some sort or other going on across the valley, and the odd ones were being killed and even eaten.

December 1926 was rather a black month for the people at Wesleydale. The epidemic was not getting any less, and rumours were running rife. There was no protection for the mission station since George had died.... everyone did what they wanted to. Stories were running rife about Hongi and his marauding Nothing was known of his plans. One night they were particularly edgy. They decided to try to rest, and at midnight they went to bed.

Early the next morning, Luke Wade woke Turner up with the news that there was a party of Maori approaching the station. John Hobbs was already outside talking to them. The others hastily rose and dressed, and stuffed a few things for the children in a bag. They were none too soon . The Maori made their intentions clear, and told them to get out or else ! Within fifteen minutes, they started plundering the Wades’ cottage, smashing things right and left. The missionaries waited no longer. As they were fleeing out the front door, the Maori were pouring in through the back. In fact, one man had his tomahawk ready to come down on Ann’s head, when, with all the vibrations of the many feet, a pail of nails tipped over from the landing above and spilling it’s contents at their feet. He forgot about Ann in his haste to grab as many of them as he could before the others got them !

As they ran across the valley, they could hear the yells of the Maoris, and the sounds of breaking glass and smashing timber. It was a heart breaking sound, but they kept going. In their party were the Turner family, Luke Wade and his wife, John Hobbs and Mary Ann Davis, as well as a couple of mission Maoris to help carry the few things that they had salvaged.

They managed to get safely to Kerikeri, and once there collapsed onto the nearest seat, and tried to decide what to do for the best. It was finally decided that that they should carry on the next day to Paihia, and then board the next ship to Sydney.

The whole of the Kaeo contingent eventually sailed from Korarareko on the 27th January 1827, and the chapter of European settlement in the Kaeo area was closed for a few more years.

As for the missionaries Turner and Hobbs, they later returned to New Zealand, and set up a mission station on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour at Mangungu, where they had a successful and thriving mission for many years.