{"id":57,"date":"2014-02-08T20:20:30","date_gmt":"2014-02-08T20:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vern.falkor.gen.nz\/BenSmith\/?page_id=57"},"modified":"2014-02-10T20:39:20","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T20:39:20","slug":"after-the-war","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/?page_id=57","title":{"rendered":"After the war"},"content":{"rendered":"

The War period had tired Ben Smith greatly.\u00a0 The additional work at the Inn,\u00a0 with the Store,\u00a0 and on the farm,\u00a0 although very profitable,\u00a0 had brought worries.\u00a0 His older sons had married;\u00a0 Peter and Ezra had left Wairoa South with their wives.\u00a0 Peter had gone to Auckland where he set up a carrying business,\u00a0 eventually a most profitable venture.\u00a0 Ezra moved to Gisborne where he became well known as a carpenter and apiarist with an interest in politics.\u00a0 Walter opened a bakery in Wyndham Street,\u00a0 Auckland.\u00a0 Mary Anne too,\u00a0 had married.\u00a0 One evening in 1867 Ben\u2019s wife had to assist him up the stairs and,\u00a0 at the age of fifty-four,\u00a0 he died on 27 September 1867.\u00a0 Whaler,\u00a0 ship\u2019s carpenter \u201cForty-niner\u201d,\u00a0 and innkeeper,\u00a0 his friendly nature made him respected by all who knew him.\u00a0 He feared neither Governor,\u00a0 nor the great Rewi Maniapoto,\u00a0 whom he had once shown the door after Rewi had carved his name on the highly polished bar at The Travellers\u2019 Rest.\u00a0 He must have been an extraordinary,\u00a0 ordinary man.\u00a0 He was fortunate too,\u00a0 in that he married a woman of courage,\u00a0 industry and tenacity of purpose.<\/p>\n

By his Will Ben bequeathed to his wife all his household furniture,\u00a0 utensils,\u00a0 consumable stores,\u00a0 provisions,\u00a0 wines and liquids,\u00a0 linen,\u00a0 china and glass.\u00a0 The property at Wairoa South and his Real Estate holdings in Auckland were bequeathed to his friends,\u00a0 Mr Samuel Jackson of Auckland,\u00a0 and Mr John McDonald of Wairoa South;\u00a0 though from the conveyances we see that Mr McDonald apparently did not act as an Executor.\u00a0 Martha Smith was therefore enabled to continue in the management of The Travellers\u2019 Rest.\u00a0 And in due course the Licence to Sell Liquor was granted to her,\u00a0 the transfer of the license being confirmed in the Auckand Provincial Gazette <\/i>of Saturday 15 August 1868.<\/p>\n

The business remained in operation for some years and continued to prosper although the really good years had passed.\u00a0 Mr Samuel Jackson gradually sold off the property and the first conveyance was registered with a sale to Mr Burnside on 6 June 1882,\u00a0 followed by the sale of 57 acres to Mr Corbett on 10\u00a0April 1883.\u00a0 Ben\u2019s eldest son,\u00a0 William Benjamin Smith,\u00a0 carried on the farming opertions for some years,\u00a0 until the final disposal of the reduced acreage.\u00a0 He also farmed on his own account.\u00a0 Final interest in the property was severed in 1891.<\/p>\n

The Traveller\u2019s Rest eventually passed into the hands of Frederick Mullins,\u00a0 the son of J H Mullins and his wife,\u00a0 Mary,\u00a0 formerly of Bell.\u00a0 \"TravellersRestFire\"<\/a>The house itself came to an end when,\u00a0 in an altered form,\u00a0 it was destroyed by fire in April 1894.\u00a0 Frederick then built the present house about 1960.\u00a0 He named it Whinfell after his grandfather\u2019s home in Cumberland.\u00a0 He also cleared the rest of the land and drained the swampy area and so today a pleasant little stream flows through the property.\u00a0 The chimney of the old Inn stood alone for many years about 200 yards away from the new house.\u00a0 Spring bulbs bloom on the site and an ancient fig tree survives.\u00a0 Part of an outbuilding in which some of the Forest Rangers used to sleep is still in existence behind the present home.<\/p>\n

Martha Smith retired to Ponsonby Terrace,\u00a0 Ponsonby,\u00a0 Auckland.\u00a0 She died on 28 January 1891 after a full and adventurous life,\u00a0 \"MarthaSmithDeathNotice\"<\/a>having borne healthy children in primitive conditions on land and in ships at sea,\u00a0 accompanying her husband in all his ventures,\u00a0 yet maintaining the standards of her early upbringing.\u00a0 She remained to the end of her life \u201cLow Church\u201d,\u00a0 as behoved a descendant of Huguenots.\u00a0 Eventually she did find what could be called a Land of Promise in its true sense.\u00a0 Major von Tempsky called her \u201ca cheerful wife\u201d;\u00a0 perhaps she would not have wished for a better epitaph.<\/p>\n

Grafton Gully,\u00a0 near the centre of the sprawling city of Auckland is now never free from the noise of cars and pounding trucks.\u00a0 Motorways and motorway ramps run its length,\u00a0 and intersect it and bridge it,\u00a0 and busy urban roads rim it.\u00a0 It was formerly a peaceful and beautiful valley.\u00a0 There were graceful trees,\u00a0 ferns and a small stream.\u00a0 Nestling among the trees there were then the graves of those who founded the city and fought for the right to rest peacefully.\u00a0 But for William Benjamin Smith and for his daughters,\u00a0 Beatrice and Edith,\u00a0 as for many others,\u00a0 there was to be no permanent rest.\u00a0 Their remains were to be displaced,\u00a0 first to make way for the building of the Grafton Bridge,\u00a0 and then for the motorway.\u00a0 Their gravestones are now set into the wall along the Symonds Street boundary of Grafton cemetery,\u00a0 and their names are recorded on the black granite memorial erected to the memory of Auckland\u2019s earliest pioneers.\u00a0 Perhaps the fact of remembrance was to be their ultimate reward rather than that rest they had always sought but did not ever really find.<\/p>\n

The dedication to the memorial reads:<\/p>\n

This Consecrated ground marks the final resting place of many brave soldiers and sailors who gave their lives that\u00a0 OUR NATION may live and many faithful men women \u2013 who in divers walks of life \u2013 worthily upheld the standards of Civic Duty and the ideals of the Christian Faith.\u00a0 May their memory be forever honoured and cherished by us the Living.<\/em><\/p>\n

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The War period had tired Ben Smith greatly.\u00a0 The additional work at the Inn,\u00a0 with the Store,\u00a0 and on the farm,\u00a0 although very profitable,\u00a0 had brought worries.\u00a0 His older sons had married;\u00a0 Peter and Ezra had left Wairoa South with their wives.\u00a0 Peter had gone to Auckland where he set up a carrying business,\u00a0 eventually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86,"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions\/86"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensmith.falkor.gen.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}