History – Origins of The Grange 2

Rev. McKinney told a strange story from the past regarding Captain Grange at a soiree held at the Mahurangi Heads schoolroom on 2 January 1882. He explained to his audience that 25 years previously, when he first came to Mahurangi and before there were roads or horses, he had walked to Auckland nine times using for the most part old Maori tracks. The alternative was to take passage on one of the small cutters used to transport firewood. On one occasion, he sailed on as wild a night as he ever remembered in New Zealand. In the pitch darkness, the vessel was about to strike Rangitoto reef when, according to the master of the cutter, a man stood on the prow pointing for him to go in another direction and calling “Come this way”. The man, whose instructions Captain Grange obeyed, was the man he had seen drown 20 years earlier in the St Lawrence River. As his listeners all knew, said Rev. McKinney, Captain Grange was a man of strong intelligence yet he affirmed until his dying day that had he not changed direction as the figure advised, the ship would have foundered and lives would have been lost.

The three Grange brothers – Alexander, Hugh and William – were originally from Ayr, Scotland. All were sea captains trading out of the port of Auckland making so it is difficult to be sure as to which brother the story referred. Captain Hugh Grange bought 200 acres of land on the east bank of the Mahurangi River, next door to Michael Munro’s Craigeburn property, in 1854. His house named Harbour View had a clear view down the river.

A neighbour, Joseph Rowe Gard, mentioned in his diary his frequent visits to the Grange home. He married Jane Stuart (Jeanie), the only daughter of Captain H. Grange on 31 March 1858, with Rev. McKinney officiating. Another house was built for Jeanie but when Joseph Gard was appointed Postmaster and Collector of Customs at Picton in 1861 other family members used the house.

A third house was nearing completion when the Hamilton family bought the property in 1893. By request of Mrs Grange, it was named The Grange. The Hamilton family and their descendants have now owned the house for more than 120 years. The original Harbour View house was dismantled and rebuilt in Lilburn Street Warkworth. Mrs Grange lived there as a widow.

Captain Hugh Grange was at one time master of the mission schooner Southern Cross. He brought stone from Rangitoto to build the Melanesian Mission Hall at Mission Bay. Norfolk Island was a regular port of call and he is said to have brought back Norfolk pine seedlings and distributed them to friends including John Southgate, at the Warkworth Hotel. A Norfolk pine planted by Mrs Grange in the 1850’s can still be found at the Hamilton Landing Scenic Reserve. It is listed on the New Zealand Register of Notable Trees.

Sometime in the 1940’s, a housemaid employed by Mrs Hamilton was dared to climb to the top of the tree. To prove she had indeed reached the top, she broke off the growing tip causing the tree to die back and lose some eight metres in height. For that reason, it is not the tallest Norfolk pine in the country but it has the largest girth of any that have been measured.

In Warkworth’s McKinney Road cemetery, there was once an imposing tombstone commemorating the lives of all three of the Grange brothers. The ravages of time has taken its toll and it now lies broken and moss covered within a rusty iron fence, its lettering indecipherable. It seems regrettable that these three brave sea captains are all but forgotten. If their name endures in a new commercial development on State Highway 1, perhaps Norfolk pine trees could be included in the landscape.

Sources – Down Memory Lane 100 years of Hamilton residence at the Grange Warkworth, Joseph Gard Diaries and Papers Past.