THE DEFENCE OF EAST PUKEKOHE CHURCH.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 2, Issue 129, 19 September 1913, Page 1

THE DEFENCE OF EAST PUKEKOHE CHURCH.

September 14th, 1863. The settlers of East Pukekohe fifty years ago were the most southerly of the pioneers who had found their way into the great Hunua forest, which then covered nearly all of what is now Franklin County, and during the winter and spring of 1863 they daily carried their lives in their hands. For the deplorable policy of the Defence Department had driven the Maoris from their villager near Auckland, Papakura end Clevedon, which was all right, but had suffered them to depart with their arms and ammunition, which was all wrong. Consequently the bush was full of armed bands of marauders, plundering, looting and murdering, and all that Captains Lusk and Jackson, with the two corps of riflemen they had respectively raised, the Forest Rifles and the Forest Rangers, could do was to keep them on the move, for in the trackless recesses of the great forest it was almost impossible to get to hand-grips with them. In these circumstances common prudence would have dictated the removal of the whole white population East Pukekohe, but the settlers, reluctant to abandon the holdings to recently won from the wilderness, sent their women and children to the city, procured rifles from the Government, and prepared to hold their little settlement against the whole forces of the united Waikatos, should evil fortune send them their way. Like most of the pioneers of that day they had built for themselves a place of worship, which still stands to show to the younger generation the unhealed bullet-wounds which attest the ordeal of fire it once passed through. With unlimited courage and but mall martial experience they turned the little church into an imitation stockade. Surrounded hy a few horozontal logs and a shallow ditch, instead of the high upright palisade that greater knowledge would have dictated, the gate-way innocent of a gate, and the logs and stumps of the clearing afford ing cover for an enemy right up to the defences, it did not make a very formidable fort. Perhaps for that very reason it provided one of tha most thrilling incidents of the Waikato war, and has still a strong interest as an example of thee stubborn courage with which the frontiersmen of our race, the true builders of our great and glorious Empire, have held, in every quarter of the globe, the out-posts of civilisation. Among the countless instances of hopelessly slender defences long held against overwhelming odds, it would be difficult to recall one in which absolute annihilation appeared mora imminent and was yet, at the eleventh hour, averted by the arrival of unexpected succour.

The morning of Monday, September 14th, dawned bright and clear, with a sharp frost. The settlers felt serenely comfortable just then, for all the news they had recently had conspired to lull them into confidence. They had fair reason for believing that there was not an enemy north of Mercer. The party that had engaged Swift at Te Ita a week before was known to have recrcssed the river; Captain Lusk and his Rifles had the following day chased another considerable body across the Waikato at Rangipokia; and to the east Jackson and Von Tempsky, with the Rangers, had been scouring the forest for weeks without seeing a sign of the enemy. And the evening before MajorGeneral Galloway had visited them and promised to send reinforcements in a few days. And one of the results of their cheerful confidence was that they allowed then waterbarrel to run almost dry. About ten o'clock the garrison, some inside the church and the rest lounging in the sun after their breakfast, were suddenly fired on from every side by a large force of natives, who had stolen up and invested the place. Had they held their fire and rushed the stockade the affair would have been over in half a minute, for the single sentry was the only man armed. But the aim of the Maoris was indifferent, as usual, and no one was touched by the first volley. To arm them selves and line the stockade was the work of a moment, and for a long time a steady fire was kept up by both sides, futile on the part of the natives, whose bullets whistled harmlessly over-head, or sank into the legs of the stockade, but more effective on the side of the garrison, who aimed at every bit of brown skin showing round the logs or stumps, behind which the natives sedulously kept cover. For three hours a steady fusilade was kept up. The natives had been gradually driven back to the edge of the bush, when it was discovered that the ammunition was nearly expended. The slackening fire of the garrison soon told its tale to the Maoris, who drew nearer, darting from stump to stump till they reached the stockade itself. The moment appeared to have arrived for a hand-to-hand conflict between tomahawk and bayonet, which, with only twentythree to three hundred, would have had but one ending. At this mement a shout was heard from the edge of the bush, and a score of figures in the red-striped trousers and blue jumpers of the Waikato Militia dashed for the gateway of the stockade, the Maoris giving back at the sight of the unexpected apparition. General Galloway's promised re-inforcement had arrived just in time to save the garrison. It was not long before the attack was renewed, but twenty fresh rifles in more practised hand's and a new supply of ammunition put a vary different complexion upon affairs. Still, they were not out of the wood yet, and the failure of the water-supply was a complication which would make the church untenable in a few more hours. For another hour the light continued, when the sound of a bugle not far away told of the approach of a relieving force, and presently a party of the 65th, the advance guard of 150 men of that regiment, emerged from the bush. One glance showed the officer at their head the whole situation, and he ordered the bugler at his heel to sound the charge, the man raised the instrument to his lips, but before a note of the call had sounded a bullet entered the open end and crashed through his back teeth and cheek, spoiling the unfortunate fellow as a bugler for many a day to come. "Charge," shouted the leader, and with a shout, the "Royal Bengal Tigers" swept across the clearing. For a brief period the Maoris strove to oppose the gleaming steel with tomahawk and clubbed musket, but they could not stand to the British bayonet, and there was soon a helter-skelter for the friendly forest, through which they were chased nearly as far as where Pukekohe town now stands. There is no record of how many fell in the fight, but from time to time since then skeletons have been found in the line of their run.

It is pleasant to be able to record that proper recognition of the settlers' gallant defence was not withheld by the authorities. For their conduct that day Sergeants Perry and Scott and Corporal James Easton were given commissions. The last-named is still living in the neighbourhood of his early exploits, but owing to an unfortunate accident has been an invalid for some years. Of the twenty-three who held the church so well fifty years ago only he, Joseph Scott, James McDonald and Elijah Roose remain alive.