Pioneers Who Defended an Early Church

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 27

Pioneers Who Defended an Early Church

Governor-General to Unveil New Memorial STORY OK PUKEKOHE BATTLE Before an assembly of Pukekohe settlers, including two of the j ..original pioneers, who passed through stirring hours of battle, the Governor-General, Sir Charles i Fergusson, will unveil a memorial and tablet, commemorating the ' historic church siege, when a little s garrison withstood Maori attacks. The (ablet in the church will bear j UK- names of the garrison who held nut against the Maoris, and a short distance from the church building is a memorial to the natives who fell in (he attack. -■-The ceremony will take place on Sunday afternoon at 2.110 o'clock. An unpretentious little building, perhaps 30 feet by 16 feet, with a tiny porch, but neither tower nor steeple—such is Pukeltohe Kast Church. The ordinary traveller would pass it by without a second glance. Yet, this is a place rich with historical memory, and one of the very few buildings still standing in New Zealand that can show the bullet-holes ! of actual warfare. Seventy years old, i*s upright boards still seem as sound as ever, and look as if they may re- ! main another seven decades. When, in the late fifties, the settlers of Kast Pukekohe trekked into the wilderness, and with bill-hook and axe, carved homesteads out of the solid bush, one of their first community endeavours was the building of a church. Singularly enough, the outcome of their pious thought was soon to prove for them a veritable ark of salvation. GARRISON FORMED When, in the middle of 1863 the Waikato War broke out, the settlors, unwilling to abandon their holdings, which represented to them all they bad on earth, banded themselves together as a volunteer rifle corps, and became a detachment of the Mauku Forest Rifles, similarly composed of settlers. The Government armed the Pukekohe men, and sent an Imperial soldier, Sergeant Lancelot Perry, to take charge of them, and strengthened their slender numbers by nine men of the Auckland Labour Battalion. On the eventful September 14, 1863, the little garrison numbered 26 men. Like a bolt from the blue that Monday morning came their baptism - yf firo.. About 10 o’clock, while the men were lounging about, some cleaning their rifles, others preparing the dinner in the cook-house outside the stockade, came a scattering volley from the edge of the bush, then no more than a couple of chains away. There was an instant rush for the shelter of the stockade’ by those outside it/and the men managed to cross the open space without a man being hit. Instead of building their defences of high upright, palisades, the settlers had erected only a low breast-work of horizontal logs, over which any schoolboy could have vaulted. A single, determined rush at the-outset, and the long-handled tomahawk would have ended things, but luckily the rush was never made. The natives advanced with extreme caution, keeping cover behind the logs, hut by some miracle not one ground. This gave the garrison time to arm, load, and fix bayonets. ’’LED BY WOMAN For two hours the pakehas were subjected to a hot fire, which they returned whenever they could. Some of the enemy came so close as to throw sticks over the breastwork, and they were urged on by a woman warrior, who perhaps relied on the chivalry of the enemy not to shoot her. Some of the natives climbed into the branches of puriri trees standing on what is now the road, and tired down on the rifle-men behind the logs, but by some miracle not one of them was hit. Soon, however, the defenders were in desperate straits, for their stock of ammunition was almost exhausted, and they contemplated having to take the desperate step of charging 12 times their number with bayonets, in the hope that in the ensuing melee a few might be fortunate enough to reach the bush and escape—a forlorn hope, but the only one that seemed left to them. But the men of Pukekohe East settlement were not destined to be wiped out that day. About noon a cheer was heard, and about 25 men of the First Waikato Militia dashed across the clearing and into the stockade. Never were visitors more welcome than those. More than a score of fresh rifles put a very different complexion on affairs, and it was felt that the stockade could be held easily till reinforcements arrived in suflieient numbers to raise the siege. But there were still some hours of fighting to be gone through before that moment came. RELIEF AT HAND It was not till about 4 o'clock that the welcome notes of a bugle sounding the “Charge” were heard, and 150 men of the 65th and 18th came up at the double. The game was up, so far as the Maoris v ere concerned, and they took to the bush. The Bengal Tigers had spent 18 years at the game, and the Royal Irish, though only landed a few mo:aths previously, were learning it rapidly, and went after them, but with only moderate results, for the bush then

was a tangie of supple-jacks and kiekie. - The unfortunate fellows in the trees could not take to the bush. Ralph 1 oung, a militia-man, who was chopped on the head and on the knee simultaneously by two long-handled tomahawks while crossing the clearing, but was dragged to safety by his companions, says: “I lay on my back and watched the soldiers walking round the trees till they could spot the Maoris, who had taken shelter in the great bunches of tussocks (wharawharai filling the forks of the branches. It was like rook-shooting.” REUNION OF SETTLERS For many years a reunion of settlers w'as held on the anniversary of the battle,' but the custom had long got into disuse, when it was revived last year to mark the sixty-fifth return of the day. As a result of that meeting it was resolved to place a tablet in the church, bearing the names of the garrison, and to erect a memorial to the natives who fell, and who are buried in one grave about forty yards from the church.

At last year’s meeting, two members of garrison were present, Captain Joseph Scott, of Epsom, and Mr. James McDonald, of Takapuna, and it was hoped that both would have been present at the unveiling. Unfortunately, Mr. McDonald died about six weeks ago. Another of the garrison is Mr. David Mitchell Skinner, of Palmerston North, and it is understood that both Captain Scott and he will be able to attend.