A PIONEER'S LIFE

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 March 1920, Page 2

A PIONEER'S LIFE

WELLINGTONS WHITW .- :^*

The .'distinction "-"of beingfirst white child ••ri; iv ton is claim v: oy -vlr E-odgers, now residing: at tikei Line. This week" " gers celebrated his eigK'tie-ih' ••'£ birthday, and to a Manawatu Standard reporter he gave some

interesting details of his life: In January 1840, his motfter and father who came from the :4 County of Essex, landed on the Petone l>each. They were sup*.

plied with a certain amount of' r! Canvas from the vessel in which, they had made the were able to erect a small shack , at the fringe of the bush,, thjat r - reached right down to the shore* In this his parents took "up their abode>and a monthiater the firlt white chilli to be born in the "' Wellington district' was : ushered * into life. ?Then a month later, great are the. ironies of life oil** occasions, his father lost his life by drowning. A party were re- ' turning from the other side of the harbour in an open boat with a stiff " south - easter " blowingj

when the craft capsized, and. nine of the occupants, including Mr Rodgers's father —and they were all men who had just completed the voyage from England, which in those days occupied about six months, and in a small sailing ship was a proceding fraught with a considerable element of peril. Mrs Rodgers married again later, .hut her~ second venture was'*as ili-fated as the first, for her second husband was killed by the Maoris

within tw r o or three years. Mr Rodgers was still quite a%chiid.

and has but vague memories of those very early days, .but up to the age of fifteen he lived .with his twice-widowed mother and looked after two or three cows and a garden. Affrays with the Natives were of frequent occur-

rence in the days of his childhood, and he can call to mind times when he and his mother crouched behind the pile of big stones that formed the chimney while the men fought to repulse sorties by parties of Natives. The obvious task was bush work, and at the age of fifteen he swung his axe in forests in the Hutt Valley now long since disappeared. In 1866 he married, and lived in the Hutt Valley and later in the Wairarana" Even- ,' tually he found h; !: v-i? to a tjny '*■ settlement v:h .-■••■- 'k'^ow^ : 0 Palmerston ]x•.■■>■ "> '.ow sturrets,' ~ and in 1888 p-..-.-v. .is. J froir tne ,* Government;:!)! •'■; ; .r 100 .i<mvV of land covered in standing that is now the fertile farm Prl" which Mr RSdgers resides -./:: .: Rangitikei Lino. Mrs■'Rod£o:£ died in August, 1918, -at the ;•■- ---of 78 years. Out of a eight children, four daughters - and two sons are living.