PIONEER’S DEATH

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 185, 26 October 1927, Page 13

PIONEER’S DEATH

FIRST ON MANGERE BRIDGE LATE MRS. JOHN MILLER Mrs. John Miller, who claimed to be the first woman to cross the Mangere Bridge, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Barnes, at One Tree Hill, last night. The late Mr. Peter Lonergan, the contractor for the bridge in the 70’s, laid a plank across the structure so that Mrs. Miller might cross, which she did with Mrs. Barnes, then an infant, in her arms.

A Requiem Mass will be said at Onehunga Catholic Church at 9 o’clock to-morrow morning. The burial will take place at Otahuhu later in the day.

Mrs. Miller was born at Armagh, Ireland, in 1844. She came to New Zealand in the ship John Temperley in 1865, and married the late Mr. John Miller, at Otahuhu, the following year'. With her husband, who died in ISSB, Mrs. Miller farmed in the Mangere district for some years.

After Mr. Miller’s death, however, she resided at Onehunga with members of her family. Of the seven -children of the marriage only two now survive, Mrs. Barnes, of One Tree Hill, and Mr. P. Miller, of Onehunga. Mrs. Miller made the Roman Catholic Church the gift of a section at Otahuhu for a church.