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

It took the settlers of Puhoi just a year to build the original Puhoi Catholic church. In 1877, Puhoi was named as the centre of a parish that extended from Auckland’s North Shore to Whangarei. Father Adelaar travelled to all corners of the parish...... Read More

Recent news of the latest royal baby brought to mind an interesting second-generation Albertlander. Archibald Edwin Brookes was born in 1878 in Taranaki, where his father, Edwin Stanley Brookes Jnr, was working as government surveyor. When Archie’s...... Read More

Successive bishops and priests of Puhoi parish attempted to establish a convent school. They were met with resistance, probably because in Bohemia, the Chotieschau Convent had been the feudal overlord of the region where Puhoi residents once lived. This...... Read More

By the 1850s, native tree felling was taking place all over the north of New Zealand. The prime target was giant kauri. No matter how remote the tree location, man sought it out, cut it down and shaped it ready for transportation to the nearest port....... Read More