AN INTERESTING PIONEER.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2144, 26 June 1920, Page 4

AN INTERESTING PIONEER.

74 YEARS IN NEW ZEALAND. MRS. ALEX. McMINN’S RECOLLECTIONS. (Wanganui Herald). In a sunny garden enrner of her peaceful little cottage homo in Devonport, within sound and sight of, and yet far apart from, the hurlyburly of the seedling Auckland streets, Mrs McMinn, relict of the late Mr Alexander McMinn, a pioneer Now Zealand journalist, and a prominent figure in the early stirring period of Wanganui's history,' received on dune Kith the warm congratulations of a few old friends an the afternoon of the 75th anniversary of her birth, and delighted her small hut interested audience veith a few reminiscences of an historic past. Time, in its relentless, course, has ploughed furrows-on her brow, and on Iter hair the snows of life’s winter have gathered. Yet, bale and hearty is she, and vividly she remembers the thrilling scenes of her early life in Wanganui, Turakina. and in the Manawatu, and. her record is unique, for although she is not a native of New Zealand, .Mrs McMinn has spent 74 of her 75 years in the Dominion. It is a long dav hack to the late -Ids, and die vears span a mcmbrahlc page in our country’s annals, and it was therefore significant (hat the story of that era should be told in a little sunlit garden far from the throbbing modern centre, for the dealold lady is now in the sheltered breakwater of her life, and her conversation was of a remote hut none the less stirring period. There are few people living to-day who can remember the incidents she recalls, but her recollections arc all the more interesting liccau.se of that. It wa- early in 181 (i when Mrs McMinnA father, the late Francis ■ Farrell O’Reilly, enlisted for service in the Maori War with the (lath Regiment—the famous lost regiment, as London Punch aptly termed it — and with his wife and three children arrived in the Bay of Islands on (he good ship Sir Robert Peel, having embarked at (Iravescnd at the end of duly, 1845. Mrs McMinn was then the baby ol the family, being born in Dublin, and was but a few weeks old when the journey was commenced. She learnt to toddle on the Sir Robert Peel, and, of course, was a favourite with the soldiers and sailors, the soldiers claiming her as “the daughter of the regiment.” The regiment remained in the Bay of Islands for about six weeks, and then proceeded to Wanganui, where the Maoris were 1 becoming particularly troublesome. With a few oilier oflicers, Mr O'Reilly bought his discharge from the Army and took up land at Turakina, and went ifi for contracting, and afterwards opened the firs! store a! the township, which was the stopping 1 place for the coaches in those days. Mrs McMinn was then five years old, and passed her early vouth in little Tnrakina, where she received her initial education. But they were troublous times, for (he second Maori War broke (,-nt, and the Taranaki natives were dangerous as were, but in a minor degree the Maoris around Wanganui and Tuva kina, “I remember distinctly,” said Mrs McMinn to her interviewer, “the formation of the Tnrakina volunteers for local defence purposes. My father waa captain of the volunteers, and lie gave his whole time to drilling and instructing the men in Ids charge, and organising the. defences in case of an at tack. Night after night tor months the outskirts of the township were patrolled by sentries, and many and many a night my father took my poor mother and all us children, with blankets and rugs around ns, into the hills, where we sat in the scrub till daylight, icainig that the natives would come in the night and murder us ail. Night alter night for a long lime we never had ti light in the house after dark, | while my father kept watch with the I others throughout the.-e nights, I while we children and mother were ! afraid to stir. Especially depressj ing was the lime' ol' the Poverty Bay ! massacre, for we lived in deadly | daily fear of a similar tragedy to ns. j ] remember a most amusing as it 1 turned out to be—but at the time a j most awful experience. Sentries I wove pushed rigid round the tmvn- ! ship, and my lather had gteeti instructions that if anything in the nature of an attack by Maoris was seen, the sentry must lire one shot, and the other sentries were to take up the firing. The men in the town had their assigned positions to go to, while the women and children were to gather at my father’s home. In the deathly silence of this night in particular the shot of a. sentry rang out in the darkness. The other sentries took up the firing, and the whole township was aroused from its sleep, and pandemonium was let loose. Men in scanty clothj ing, and some simply in their sleepI ing garments, rushed with their lire- | arms ,to their assigned positions, some went in other directions, and the women and children came screaming to our home, and poor mother was nearly as distracted as we j children. The tiring went on incessantly. and the chaos and confusion was awful. Some of the most Imm- | V.rous incidents I have ever witnessed, however, occurred, and although they passed unheeded in those awful hours, they were recited with much gusto subsequently. However, my father was quickly on duty, and ; commanded ‘Cease Fire,’ and the i volunteers, all in their positions, - and some only half-clad, awaited the onslaught of the attackers. It did not come, and then gradually it dawned on the populace ■ that - tjie

whole thing was a hoax!. A largereward was offered for information that would load to the conviction of the person who tired the first shot, but nobody ‘let bn* who it was. And then when it was discovered it was a hoax, the township laughed for days, and many were the stories told of the humorous happenings on that first false alarm.” The war with the natives ended in due course, and Mr O’Reilly and his wife and suns went to Sydney and bought an orange grove, where they did well. The heat, however, was too much for I horn, and they returned to New Zealand, and Mr O’Reilly look up farming at Silver--.tream, near Wellington, where he resided till his death, at the age of 9(1, in 19J0. His daughter, however. married Mr Alex. McMinn, who was then headmaster of the Wanganui Grammar School, and they redded in Wanganui, and remained there for many years. Mr McMinn taler entered journalism, and joined Mr .lolin Ballanco on the Wanganui Herald, “Those days in Wanganui.” said Mrs McMinn, “were the happiest days of my life, and 1 never hear the name mentioned without .riving a kindly thought to the dearold place.” Subsequently .Mr and Mrs McMinn went to Marton, where Mr McMinn edited the Rangilikei Alvocale. He then founded the Maa a watit Standard in 1880, in Palmerston North. Palmerston was' a very small place in those days, and Mrs McMinn has lively recollections of those days of 40 years ago. She -pent practically the remainder of her life there, leaving it in. 1915. to visit Australia, and finally to reside in Auckland with her husband, who was on the editorial staff of the Auckland Star until his death ,last October.

This, then, is (he period of her reminiscences covered, as recited b\ u'l- on her 75!1i birthday on .June Kith last. In the 74 years she has been in New Zealand the changes Mie has seen have been little short of wonderful, and the stirring incidents of the thrilling early day-- in Tnrakina and Wanganui through which she went are an historic page, in the Dominion’s annals. Her husband died last year in Auckland, and four sons and a daughter are still alive, one son, Mr Gordon It. S. McMinn! being a well-known journalist in Bendigo, Victoria.