Thomas Inger was one of many wanting to emigrate to New Zealand. William Brame, the Albertland movement founder, was keen to have him. In his letters, Brame wrote that he considered Inger exactly the sort of man the Albertlanders needed. Each...... Read More

The first Wharehine settlers were cut off from direct access to Port Albert by the large Paraheke Maori Reserve, next to Wharehine Creek, and indeed by the creek itself. Travel from Wharehine to Port Albert meant either a long, rough trip along the Tauhoa...... Read More

Shopping for meat in a supermarket is a dull chore, but during my childhood, accompanying my mother to Stubbs Butchery was an adventure. After running the gauntlet of the disembodied cow’s head, horns aloft, on the shop frontage, a bell tinkled...... Read More

Benedict Remiger is another interesting early Puhoi settler. He was less than 12 years old when news came to his village in Bohemia that land was being given away in New Zealand. Families were daring to dream that they could become farmers on their own...... Read More

Today’s column is a compilation of notes made by an early settler girl on her arrival to Mangawhai in 1862. Her father had already been granted land, which he named Boyce Farm. He was Charles Haselden Snr and played an integral part in the formation...... Read More

In March 1924, Ted Widdup travelled from Te Kopuru to Wharehine with his sister Alice, her husband Will Wordsworth, and their family to visit friends. Ted later wrote to Harold Marsh apologising for not being able to see him after dining with the Withefords. It...... Read More

The site on which the modern Bridgehouse hotel stands in Warkworth is significant because it marks the spot of the earliest European habitation in the area. A police census in 1845 found 30 males and five females residing at Mahurangi Sawing Station (Brown’s...... Read More

The summer of 1871-72 was extremely dry. During the fine weather, the settlers of Puhoi, by working together, had amassed an enormous quantity of shingles, blocks, palings, planks and spars in all the tributaries of the Puhoi River. They had, as usual,...... Read More

A popular topic of discussion at the moment is last year’s appearance of the schooner Daring on the sands at Muriwai. High tides and some rough weather caused a large area of sand to fall away into the sea, leaving the hull of the ship exposed. The...... Read More

On May 27, 2004, the citizens of Leigh were saddened to hear of the death of a much-loved neighbour, 94-year-old Mavis Davidson. Mavis was a pioneer in the fields of mountaineering, exploration and zoological research. She, together with Warkworth’s...... Read More