The years between 1849 and 1860 had been years of intense industry by the European population, which had continued to grow with the constant arrival of immigrant ships. The land areas originally sold by the Maoris were insufficient to support all the new arrivals and additional purchases were made continuously.
A section of the Maoris became concerned about their displacement from their land and the destruction of their communities by the rapidly spreading surge of settlers. In an effort to establish a political and social defence of their communities they moved to establish a Maori King. The organisation known as the “kingite movement” came into being. But settler-Maori relations worsened, and the first Taranaki war commenced on 17 March 1860. Citizens of Auckland felt that the City and Province were under threat, and therefore decided that a Volunteer Cavalry Corps should be raised. Over a hundred men offered to provide themselves with horse and uniform at a meeting in Otahuhu on 3 April 1860, provided Major Maraduke Nixon, a retired soldier and local farmer, would lead them. The Governor had other ideas and informed Nixon that a Militia would be formed in three battalions and that he would be given command of one of these with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Many former Fencibles joined this Militia and were later to assist with training men enrolled in Volunteer Rifle Companies.
A military road was constructed from Auckland as far south as Drury during 1862. The existing road, prior to that date, ceased at Papakura and was not in particularly good condition. The upgraded road meant that supplies could be transported more rapidly to the Redoubts and camps constructed at Papakura and in the nearby rural localities.
The second so-called Maori War commenced 4 May 1863 in Taranaki. In Auckland and the surrounding districts, relations between individual settlers and Maoris deteriorated. It was not uncommon in the country for lone families to have their kitchens invaded and gardens pillaged. Ben Smith was one who suffered in this respect and he could see that at some time there was bound to be local confrontation between Maori and settler. He and his sons began sawing more timber and it was not long before planks were ready for timbering in his wide-open verandah. Rumours became rampant. The Militia – a voluntary corps – was called to assist the regular soliders, and so it came about that the Wairoa Rifle Volunteers was formed. Quite suddenly friends, neighbours and their sons seemed to achieve military designations of one kind or another. William Steele became Lieutenant-in-Command of the local corps. He had been the Postmaster at Wairoa South from the time of the opening of the local Post Office in 1857.
A number of redoubts were constructed by the Rifle Volunteers and the Militia between Papakura and Wairoa South (Clevedon) – a distance of about sixteen miles. First a trench was dug around a square 50 yards by 50 yards. Ramparts were built of earth with bastions at the four corners and the fort enclosed with wooden palisades. Wells were dug inside the square and tents erected. At Papakura there was a redoubt near Great South Road and Wairoa Road; about two miles from this, Ring’s Redoubt on Kirikiri Hill; one at Henderson’s farm known as the Upper Wairoa; another at Wairoa South known as Galloway Redoubt; and on the other side of the river, the Settler’s Stockade. Near the river mouth, three miles further down he river, the Lower Wairoa Redoubt was placed on Captain Salmon’s farm and commanded a bird’s eye view of the Wairoa ranges: it was placed there immediately after disasters in the Howick district. Approximately 1200 men manned these redoubts, but the men were later moved south to the Waikato River.
The vicarage of All Soul’s Church, Clevedon, now stands on the site of the Galloway Redoubt which is marked by a memorial notice near the boundary. In addition, St Peter’s Church, Wairoa Road, and All Soul’s Church, Clevedon, were both fortified, as was the Presbyterian Kirk at Papakura and Ben Smith’s The Travellers’ Rest at Wairoa Road. St Peter’s Church burned down and another, now known as St James’ was erected a short distance away from the original site. Ring’s Redoubt received its name because Captain James Ring commanded a detachment of the Royal Irish Regiment at that post; it was also known as the Kirkiri Redoubt. (Captain Ring later list his life at Orakau on 30 March 1864.) The Galloway Redoubt was named after Major-General Galloway, a former Colonel of the 70th Regiment, who instead of returning to England on his retirement accepted command of the Militia and Volunteer Forces in the Auckland district. The Galloway Redoubt and district was commanded by Major William Lyon.
It was in this atmosphere that a locally recruited corps of ‘forest rangers’ was poposed. Governor Grey, both during his term as governor and afterwards as a not infrequent visitor to The Travellers’ Rest, and he was remembered well by Ben’s youngest daughter Jane. In fact, Ben and Governor Grey had a fair amount in common. Both had been residents in the embryo city of Adelaide, and their experiences in South Australia had played no small part in moulding the characters of each, and it had shaped their widely differing destinies. Each of them had been young and full of enthusiasm. On an occasion when Grey was staying privately at the Inn for pheasant shooting – a pastime looked upon with disfavour by some of the local residents – William Jackson, in the presence of local settlers put his proposal for the Forest Rangers to Grey. Many of the listeners had worked and lived in the bush of the Hunua Ranges and they were enthusiastic about the formation of such a Corps. William Jackson was appointed Lieutenant, later Major; W M Hay, as Ensign assisted him. Ensign Hay was the son of another Papakura farmer whose home stood near the Great South Road between Papakura and Drury.
When recruits for military service were solicited through the Auckland newspapers in August 1863, some of the local men from the valley offered their services. Peter and Ezra Smith both served with the Forest Rangers, Peter in the capacity of guide; a neighbour’s son Richard Bell also served as a guide over a longer period. The brothers were both in action at Lusk’s farm, Mauku, in October 1863. According to their Official Maori War files held in National Archives, their immediate Commanding Officers during their service were Captain Jackson (later a major), Major von Tempsky, and Ensign Hay, and each of the Smith sons gained the New Zealand War Medal for their service in action. The requirements for enlistment in the Forest Ranges were rigorous and were the subject of much comment in the Daily Southern Cross. The men had to be healthy and know how to survive in the bush. It was necessary to have endurance and above all common sense because the safety of one’s fellows was at stake in terrain in which the enemy had all the advantages. Pay was 8 shillings per day.
With Peter and Ezra in the Forest Rangers and Colonel Nixon’s Flying Column near The Traveller’s Rest, and with Captain Ring’s detachment of the 18th Royal Irish Regiment stationed just two miles away, life was full of excitement for the younger Smith children. Priscilla, John and Jane were still at St Peter’s Church school, an Anglican Church on Sundays and school on weekdays. Their teacher was Miss Amelia Stanton, a daughter of Mr H T Stanton, and she boarded with Mr and Mrs Cooper in accommodation found for her by the Rev. Lush. Jane Smith was the youngest child in the school and would frequently stay after school to “help” by folding up the girls’ sewing and putting the books away. Miss Stanton would take her home and sometimes remain at the Inn for tea. Romance was beginning to flower. Nest year Miss Stanton became the wife of William Benjamin Smith and Jane’s sister-in-law. Amelia Stanton and William Benjamin married at St Matthew’s Church, Auckland on 13 July 1864.
The War period was worrying for Ben Smith but he was determined not to leave the property and flee to Auckland, as the government required. He was prepared to “face all comers” and these included Governor Grey as well as Maori combatants. Official notices and proclamations were not meant for him! Neither was Martha going to leave her home when, for the first time since leaving Woolwich as a young woman, she was surrounded by the panoply of the military forces. There were soldiers, horses, guns and ammunition, together with heavier ordinance, all probably manufactured in the great Royal Arsenal where her brother Thomas Neavy was an employee. She truly felt at home. Priscilla enjoyed herself. She was an impressionable thirteen-year-old and would carry out jugs of grog each morning to the Officers who had marched their men from Papakura as training for future campaigns. The grog was distributed by the Officers to the soldiers who would then have to march the return journey. Mary Anne, at sixteen, now had much more work to do as her mother’s assistant in the house and helping with the care of John and Jane. The outside chores were carried out by Walter, a useful eighteen year old, and hired help was obtained for the farm work and to assist the eldest son, William Benjamin, who bore responsibility for the farm operations.
In 1863, Major von Tempsky was a frequent visitor to the Inn particularly after he had joined the Forest Rangers and taken command of No. 2 Company. He, like Ben, had been a “Forty-Niner” in the Californian goldfields and had travelled overland to Panama. It was known that he had spent about 18 years guerilla fighting, mining and in a variety of occupations on the North and Central American Continent. He had been trained in the Prussian Army. After his arrival in New Zealand, he went gold prospecting in Coromandel, and then joined the staff of The Daily Southern Cross as a war correspondent. Von Tempsky had more in common with Ben than his writings would indicate. He wrote in his Journal:
When all other settlers long before this had left their homes in that neighbourhood, old Smith had made his house bullet-proof and loop-holed it, and with a garrison of three sons, three blooming daughters, and last, but not least, Mrs Smith, had defied the Maori marauders to drive him from his comfortable profession. Smith had been in California, and somehow or other that school always seems to have developed to the fullest extent a sturdy self-reliance in all men who have breathed its air. Besides, he had seen the rough side of the world in more places than one, and with a square-built seabred figure and bushy flow of beard, seemed quite the man to make a good fight for his right.
After the establishment of the Forest Rangers Corps, Lieutenant Jackson chose Smith’s place as his headquarters on account of its contiguity to the Hunua and its extensive outhouse accommodation for his men. Smith was certainly not loath to receive this jolly lot under his roof. He now reaped the benefit of his self-reliance in the shape of protection and profit.
Several neighbours felt the same way as did the Smith family and put prudence last; for some this was to cost them dearly. Mr and Mrs Cooper were very near neighbours and had been in the habit of sleeping each night at The Travellers’ Rest, then walking home in the mornings to milk the cows and carry out the farm chores. Mrs Cooper had a small dog she was very fond of which always slept at the foot of Cooper’s bed. Martha did not like this at all but tolerated the dog because it was a great companion for the Coopers, who were childless. On one particular morning, Mr Cooper left for home ahead of his wife and met a party of Maoris along the track. They killed him and attempted to burn his body with a then plentiful commodity, kauri gum. After the find of her husband’s body, Mrs Cooper ran screaming down the hill and sometime later asked that someone search for the dog. No one did and the poor animal was not found. Mr Cooper’s body was first taken to The Travellers; Rest, then to Papakura. Mrs Cooper, after a visit to Papakura and Auckland, returned to the Wairoa Road and stayed for a time with Mr and Mrs Golding.
Mr Job Hamlin, one of the original settlers, was killed at Henderson’s farm and a youth who was with him, Joseph Wallis, was tomahawked. They had collected goods from the Wallis farm and loaded them on a bullock-dray with the intention of talking them to Mrs Wallis at Papakura. They did not know that a strong party of NgatiMaru men were waiting in ambush for unwary pakehas behind large trees cleared of undergrowth, on the Henderson property bordering one side of the road, and also in the teatree scrub on the other side. The date was 13 October 1863, and the Hendersons were absent from home. Mr Hamlin, driving the bullock team, with Joe Wallis following riding his horse, were perfect targets for surprise. The body of Mr Hamlin, brother of Rev James Hamlin, was taken to The Travellers’ Rest by some of the neighbours after it had been found by Mr and Mrs Golding. Mr C W Vennell, in his book The Brown Frontier offers criticism of Martha Smith for not allowing the body in the house:
But while it might provide rest and perhaps protection for the living there was no rest for the dead; Mrs Smith would have no bodies in the Establishment, although her son did say they might leave Hamlin’s remains in a back shed.
The criticism seems to arise from a comment in the 1863 Journal of the Vicesimus Lush. The writer was perhaps predisposed to notice something uncivil and insensitive in the practical and dissenting Martha. In any case, the Smith household was under virtual siege: there were numerous children – their own and those of their neighbours – who were bedded down under the kitchen table and in any other available nook in the house, and there were the older members of the family as well. Fortunately the second victim of the Maori assault, Joseph Wallis, recovered from his ordeal and with a silver plate placed in his skull lived to a great age.
The third tragedy concerned the Claverts, father and son. One morning Walter Smith looked up the hillside toward the Calvert homestead and thought “What a lot of red calves the Calverts have!” He then realised that he was looking at Maori warriors and called his brother as shots were fired which killed Sylvester Calvert. His father, Captain Clavert was firing back, fighting for his life. In the stables of The Travellers’ Rest two horses were kept saddled at all times for emergency use in order that a quick ride could me made to the nearest military post. The two Smith boys were away. It was a still morning of hard frost and the drumming of the hooves on a small bridge, one horse behind the other, must have sounded like a whole troop. A shout: “Haere Mai te Soger”, and the Maoris disengaged and fled. These Maoris were from the Pukekiwiriki Pa, and Moses was their chief. Previously, on 22 July 1863, after an engagement with the Royal Irish Regiment under Captain Ring, during which one soldier had been killed and three wounded, Ring had driven them from the district. When the Maoris left the Pa, an old woman remained. A young man went to the Pa, was abusive to the woman and took some horse harness. When the Maoris returned to the Pa they believed the young man to be Captain Calvert’s son, and the next day they attacked and killed him. The older Maoris had a great regard for Ben Smith and dissuaded the young men of the tribe from also attacking The Travellers’ Rest. One is believed to have said: “No, Hemiti has been very good to us and we owe him for plenty of flour and sugar”. Most of the Wairoa settlers had always had good relationships with the Maori people, and once the militant tribesmen from other areas had left the district, good relations tended to return, though there was now reticence on both sides.
With the cessation of hostilities, the inhabitants of the Wairoa Road took stock of their losses. On 2 November 1864 The New Zealander reported:
One by one nearly all the settlers in this district have returned to their homes and are labouring hard to replace the damages occasioned by their long absence. The Wairoa was, previously to the War, pre-eminently a dairy district. Most of the settlers had got tolerably extensive dairies and were possessed of very valuable cows. To leave cows unmilked like which would yield a large quantity of milk beyond what young calves would consume, was certain ruin to the cows; their owners were therefore compelled to sell them though by this sale they were depriving themselves of their principal source of income. Now that they are able safely to return to their homes, they find it impossible to replace the stock they were compelled to dispose of. In many cases the cost of maintaining their families in town has totally consumed the proceeds of these sales – prevented them from going to market and obtaining fresh stock. The young cattle they left on their runs have often become so wild as to be of little service.
But this is not the only difficulty the settlers have to contend with. Their houses and such of the contents of the houses as the owners were unable to remove, have suffered no less severely at the hands of their defenders, than at the hands of their enemies. Most that was portable was carried away; where carrying away was not so easy wanton and reckless breakage has been resorted to. Besides this gates have been left open and fences broken down until there is scarcely a garden in the district in which vegetables and fruit trees have not been totally destroyed. Meanwhile docks and thistles have been flourishing undisturbed and several of the settlers have had men employed for many weeks in eradicating these noxious pests. A meeting of the ratepayers of the district was held yesterday for the purpose of assessing rates of assessment under the Highways Act and electing trustees for the ensuing year. The rate of assessment was fixed at 6 pence per acre and the following gentlemen were appointed trustees: F H Browne, W H Thorpe, J Macdonald, J Walker, and E Roberts. This business being ended the draft of a petition to the House of Representatives for compensation to the settlers who had suffered by the War was considered and approved of. Four gentlemen were appointed a deputation to confer with the Papakura Agricultural Association on the subject of the petition.
Other meetings were held, and eventually John Williamson MP seeking some compensation for the settlers presented a petition to Parliament. A report in The New Zealander dated 28 November 1864 stated:
The solicitations for partial compensation put forward by these unfortunate settlers are all the more likely to be attended to from the manly and moderate tone in which their wants were made known. Everyone acquainted with the facts knows that there are many cases of grievous hardship. In some cases losses have been practically ruinous; in all cases they have been severely felt. The outsettlers, as a body, are not wealthy. They are industrious men who have reclaimed their portions of the wilderness by their won persevering toil and good conduct, and it is noteworthy too that of all classes of the colonists they are the least responsible for the war. It will be found that out settlers have maintained friendly relations with the Maori population in the neighbourhood and they most invariably express the most favourable estimate of the Maoris as good neighbours in the time of peace.
The amount of compensation awarded to individuals in the Wairoa Road area for losses by Native Rebellion is set out in the Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives 1865. The list includes the following names:
John Bell £124 0 0
James Bell £54 0 0
Augustus B Calvert £340 0 0
Robert Cooper £58 5 0
James Golding £ 52 0 0
James Henderson £743 10 0
Henry Hyde abandoned
Thomas Hyde £299 7 6
Benjamin Smith £37 10 0
Finally, in this chapter, we must mention a few of the many excellent books that have been written about the Waikato wars. The best is perhaps that of John Featon, himself a participant We can also turn to Vicesimus Lush, James Cowan, and to the reports in official dispatches. For a history of events as seen by the residents of the rural areas between Papakura and Clevedon, the most commendable and accurate account would seem to be that of Mrs Jean Bartlett in her book, The Emigrants , the story of John and Sarah Bell. The Bells were close neighbours of the Smiths and settled in the district about 1859, after having purchased 119 acres from Joseph Golding, part of Allotment 54, Parish of Papakura. Mr Golding had built the first house in the area.
It is quite exciting for those of us with a special interest interest in the families of the Wairoa Vallley to pick up a book like John Featon’s or James Cowan’s and read of Henderson’s farm, where there was a redoubt, or of Martin’s farm. These names recall Mary Anne’s husband, William Henderson, and Sarah, the wife of Peter Smith and sister of the owner of Martin’s farm, which was north of Pukewhau Hill, now Bombay. It was at Martin’s farm that the 18th Royal Irish Regiment had their first experience of Maori warfare, Captain Ring in Command. The descendants of Jane Smith (Mrs Edgar Bluck) find themselves refocussing Mr Thomas Hyde, of Clevedon and the Wairoa Rifle Volunteers into Uncle Time Hyde; and Sergeant Perry of the Pukekohe Stockade, later Lieutenant Perry of the 2nd Waikato Regiment, becomes Uncle Cranley Perry. Each was the husband of Ellen and Lucy Bluck respectively and, as such, the brothers-in-law of Jane Smith. And every family has a similar experience: suddenly in the narrative of formal history, the reader is surprised by the name of a long-since-dead and almost legendary relative, a figure remembered by the old as old, but in the action of public narrative glimpsed as real, active, effectively ordinary, unbelievably young!