Hardy settlers

Next time you worry about keeping children amused on a lengthy car trip, spare a thought for the early pioneers and how they travelled with their families. The Albertland and Districts Museum is fortunate to have diaries and letters describing life in those times.

Julia Nutting, with her husband Eli and their two little girls Emily (4) and Alice (2), emigrated from England with the Albertlanders, sailing on the Hanover in 1862. Eli was in the ribbon trade but business was bad so they decided to make a fresh start in New Zealand. On arrival they, like so many others, discovered there was no easy way to reach their land at Matakohe. They set sail on a Kaipara cutter, thinking it would take four days, but the journey took over a month. Eli Nutting cleared two or three acres of land, built their first whare, and grew crops. Supplies from Auckland were few and far between and very expensive. Julia wrote … Several times there was neither flour meat or sugar at all to be had for love or money. We were fortunate in having plenty of vegetables but one gets tired of living wholely on them.

They also suffered from painful boils. After twelve months they decided to move back to Auckland, not because their land didn’t provide, but because they couldn’t be happy in a place where there was no service on the Sabbath and no school for the children. There just weren’t enough settlers to make these practicable.

So the Nuttings sold their crops, potatoes, pumpkins, wheat and a little Indian maize. Julia sold her china, chamber service jugs and so on, to meet travelling expenses. On April 7, 1864, she gave birth to a son. The baby was only eight weeks old when the little family, accompanied by a neighbour, Mr Haines, set out in an open boat. They intended sailing to Te Hana, then walking overland to Mangawhai, where they could board a coastal vessel to Auckland. It rained all the way to Te Hana. By the time they reached a surveyors’ hut there, they were soaked through. Julia took off her dress and shawl, which were wrung out then put back on. She wrote …

My childrens’ jackets were very wet poor little things. We had a bottle of tea with some bread and cheese in the boat, fetched them and partook freely, felt a little refreshed. The sun began to shine, prepared to go on our walk. A rather long one, thirteen miles up hills so steep you could not walk straight down them through mud and water. Emily and Alice were barefooted. They walked all that weary way sometimes the rain fell in torrents and the wind blew. It was a time of trial, my baby how he screamed poor little darling. I sat down on the wet flax to give him the breast, my little girls weeping bitterly with fatigue and thirst, sometimes we caught a little water in the gullies as we passed. My husband with Mr Haines were loaded with just a change of clothes and blankets and so could not help. It began to get dark and still we were compelled to go plodding on down in the mud. We saw the lamp at Moore’s Hotel Mangawai, that encouraged us to come along. Oh when I write these things I can hardly believe how we ever got there.

But get there they did, and eventually reached Auckland, after a rough voyage from Mangawhai. Julia Nutting had a very deep Christian faith which helped her carry on despite all the obstacles thrown in her way. We can only admire her courage and fortitude.

An excerpt from Julia Nutting’s story, written for her children. Original is in the Albertland and Districts Museum, Wellsford.