The man from nowhere

Ruth Olsen

He appeared on a ridge above the settlement at Puhoi, riding a chestnut horse wearing a cowboy hat, a dark blue shirt and trousers tied at the knee and ankle – clothing quite different from that worn by the newly arrived settlers. He spoke to them in a language they did not understand  and then, evidently frustrated, he rode away. Who was he and what did he want? The Bohemian settlers had no idea and named the man later identified as Terrence Kennedy, ‘The man from nowhere’.

Terence Kennedy was born in County Clare, Ireland in 1824. In 1844 he and his elder brother worked their passage on a sailing ship to New York. The captain offered to take Terence on to Sydney and send him to his uncle’s farm in New South Wales, 300 miles from Sydney. Unfortunately he arrived just as the captain’s uncle was being buried. The officiating priest brought him back to Sydney and found work for him on another farm. Eventually in 1956 after working on farms and as a travelling shearer he arrived in Wellington. In 1958 (five years before the arrival of the Puhoi settlers) he bought 300 acres just north of Puhoi where he farmed sheep and cattle.

Somehow he learned of the arrival of the settlers and also that they were to have visits by a Catholic priest. He rode over to Puhoi to ask for the dates and times when the priest would hold services, but the settlers spoke no English. Some months later he tried again but this time Father d’Ackerman was in the village, his enquiries were understood and he received a courteous welcome. Over the years Terence Kennedy attended Church services in Puhoi and became well acquainted with the settlers.

One day a seven-year-old intellectually handicapped child, Bridget O’Sullivan, was sent by her mother to the Kennedy house, apparently to borrow some flour. She never returned home and although searchers looked for her in the thick bush for three days she was not found. An inquest was held and circumstantial evidence pointed to Terence Kennedy as guilty of her murder (his clothes that day were smeared with blood from a cow that he had killed). The Puhoi settlers proclaimed his innocence and he was eventually found not guilty.

Several years later, in January 1875, the child’s skull and buttons from her coat were found in the bush not far from her home and it appeared that she had become lost in the forest. Terence Kennedy had vowed to bequeath to God all his possessions if the mystery of the child’s disappearance was solved before his death. He died in 1891 and was buried in the Puhoi cemetery having left the whole of his property to the Church.

Published October 19, 2011