History – Mystery of the missing child

Terence Kennedy left Ireland, aged 24, in 1844. He came to New Zealand via America and Australia and purchased 300 acres of bush where Schollum’s Access Road, off SH 1, now is. He arrived five years before the Bohemian settlers of Puhoi.

As soon as Terence heard that he had neighbours, he rode into the small township and was the first stranger they had seen. He spoke to the settlers, but they couldn’t understand him, nor he they, so he remounted and soon disappeared over the hills. The settlers named him ‘the man from nowhere’. His next visit coincided with that of Father d’Ackermann who could translate.

Terence was a Catholic, like the Bohemian settlers, and asked to be informed each time Father d’Ackermann was visiting the settlement. From then on, Martin Schedewy ran up the hill to Terence Kennedy’s two-roomed shanty to let him know when Mass was being celebrated in Puhoi. He received a sixpence in return, so was well paid. The country that lay between where Terrence lived and Puhoi was so densely covered with bush that the whereabouts of Terrence’s dwelling remained a mystery to most Puhoi people. They renamed him ‘Mountain Chief’.

Terence was a big man, industrious, hardworking, broad-minded and honest. He became well known, loved and trusted by the Bohemian people. One day, a little girl aged seven, was sent by her mother to Terrence’s house for some flour. When she had not returned by evening, neighbours were called and several search parties scoured the bush. For three days and nights they, along with the police, searched, but the child was not found.

On the day of the disappearance, Mr Kennedy had killed a cow and there was blood on his clothes. Could Terence have killed the child? An inquest was held. The board was made up of his Bohemian neighbours who pronounced him ‘above suspicion’. Although all proclaimed him guiltless, he became sad and was never seen to smile after that day.

Five years before he died, Terrence visited the church in Puhoi and vowed to bequeath all his estate to the church if the mystery of the disappearance of the little girl was solved before his death. Four years later, a hunter found the skull of a child and some buttons, which the mother identified as being on the little girl’s coat. The discovery was made about three miles from Terrence’s home. Grateful to have his name cleared, Terrence left his estate to the Sisters of St Mary to be used forever for educational purposes.

He is buried in Puhoi Cemetery with a two-sided headstone. The reverse reads: ‘Remember man when you pass by, what you are now, so once was I; And as I am now so you will be. Remember death and pray for me.’

Jenny Schollum, Puhoi Historical Society
www.puhoihistoricalsociety.org.nz