A HUNDRED YEARS IN THE COLONIES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 131, 12 January 1916, Page 3

A HUNDRED YEARS IN THE COLONIES.

A Waiuku Centenarian. To have tnies'd the battle of Wateiloo by a little more than six months, and to be alive and activeminded Htter witnessing more than a year and a-half of the Great War, is an experience given to few reaple, and no doubt many of our readeis will be surprised to learn that we have in our district a lady who has attained the ege of one hundred years. Yesterday, however, at he? residence, " Colling woad," about a mile and a-half from Waiuku, Mrs King celebrated hsr one hundredth birthday, and when a representative of the "Times" called to offer his felicitations he fuund the oli hdy, untired by the crowd of callers s'.ie bad entertained earlier in the atfernoon, quite willing to chat cheerfully and brightly about events past and present. The daughter of Captain Fiske, of the East India Company's service, she was born in Tasmania on January 11th, 1816. When she was ten years old her parents removed to New South Wales, and early in the year 1840, before New Zealand had become a British colony, Hiss Fiske arrived at the Bay of Islands in the brig Falcon. As they were cl aring Sydney Harbo-ir, H.M.S. Herald passed them, bearing Captain Hobson, who called at Sydney on his way to take possession of these islands in the name of Queen Victoria. Six months after arriving at Russell Miss Fiske married Mr Phillip King, a still earlier colonist, for in 1814, when only sixteen months old, hj? bal landed with his father, Mr Juhn King, of the staff of Mr Marsden, of the Church Mission Society. His jounger brother, born a few months after his parents' arrival, was the first white child born in New Zealand. Until Heke'a war in 1845 set the whole Eorth in a flam?, Mrs King and bar (unbind livel at the Bay, but then they had to take refuge in the imfant city of Auckland, returning to their home the following yea', when matters bad quieted down. la 1854 Mr King sold out bis property at the Bay and took up his residence at Farnell, but when the Waikato campaign broke out he accepted an appointment as Native Interpreter. At the end of the war he settled in Waiuku with bis wife and family, and there Mrs King has remained for th? last fifty-two years. Mrs King's mind is a treasurehouse of reril, incident and amusement of thi early New Zealand days. Her hubsand's parents' washerwoman was tomahawked at the wash-tub at their back door, because a young chief eha had nurßed had died, ard a servant was needed to minister to his spi.-it in the land ol the departed. Her nother-in law bad one needle, one thimble and a turkey. She dropped the thimble while sewing in the garden, and the bird pounced uron and swallowed it. Ih3 thimble could not b? replaced nearer than at Sydney, but to kill the turkey, which it was hoped would become the mother ot countless generations if turkeys, was out of tue question. Sn its crop was cautiously slit, the precious thimble extracted and the wound sown up with the invaluable needle. Mrs King hie six surviving children, twenty - seven grandchiMren, to:ty-one great-grana children and two great-great-grandchildren. Filis of congratulatoiy telegrams reached her yesterday from all parts of the Dominion, hut exuected cable' from Australia did not arnv?, prorjably being delayed in passing the cantor. To the numbers ot thesa well-wishers "The limes" desires to add itself, and in offering its hearty congratulations hopes that Mrs King may live to celebrate many more birthdays.