WAIUKU.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 193, 21 July 1916, Page 3

WAIUKU.

THE LATE MK FLEX MAN. 'ihe death, at Waiuku, last Monday, of Mr Charles Ware Flexman, at the advanced age of ninety-three, removes another of the rapidly thinnirg pinnerrs of settlement in this district. With the exception of Mr Kalph Gracir, who is about the sime ; ;r, nore of Mr Fl?\mn's contemf irnnes eu'vive. Horn in North Middlesex in 15.22, Mr Flexman engaged for fome years in scholastic pursuitp. 'lhc discovery of gold in Victoria, however, and the wonderful stories of fortunes picked up in a few days indued !nm and thousands nf Ihe most enterprising of his countrymen to undertake the then formid-

able voyage to the Antipodes. A few months sufficed to tire him of a life, and he made his way over to New Zealand, acd the beginning of the ve.r 1554 saw him established in Waiuku in charge of a business lor Messis Owen and Graham.

There was at that time no Great South road, and, of course, no railway, and all communication with the Waikato district was via Waiuku, where a short portage ot a mile and a-half over the route on which it is hoped that some day a barge-canal will Be constructed, linked the Manukau with tbe Awatoa creek, and thus with the Waikato river. i'he numerous native inhabitants of the fertile Waikato plains, who, thanks to tie endeavours of tbe early missionaries, had becoinj enthusiastic farmers, did a considcratle Lusiness with the young city of Auckland in pigs, potatoes, wheat, maize and dressed flax, ai-d Waiuku speedily grew into a trace emporium of considerable relative impor ai.ee. lhe Waikato war, however, al'eied all that. The agricultural pursjits ot the natives were naturally interrupted by hostilities, and by tt.e tixe things had settled down the railway hed reached Mercer, and Waiuku had to depend upon the efforts ot htr own sturdy settlers, mostly of the English yeoman clas9, who so'-n won farms from the wilderness.

The Maori War, with all its dangers and citficul ties lor ouilying settlements, was not without its humours. A descent on Waiuku by way cf the river wss constantly expected, and the blockhouse on the hill overlooking the village was never without ns garrison. Une night twentj-five raw nnlitia-mtn emptied their rifles at a grindstone which they imagined was an enemy stealthily creepirg up to the redoubt, and another right a landbox, blown about by the wind, received a volley trom the guard. Mr Flexoian married tbe second daughter of the late Captain Ninnis who survives him, and he also leaves a family of three sons and three daughters, all but oae of whom ate married, and several grandchildren.