THE KERMADECS. A PROPOSED SETTLEMENT.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 390, 3 August 1889, Page 5

THE KERMADECS. A PROPOSED SETTLEMENT.

Thk topsail schooner Dunedin, now in Auckland harbour, has just been sold by the owners, Messrs G. E. J. Bichardson and Co., of Napier, to the "'Kermadec Islands Association, "' a number of Hawke's Bay residents who have leased a portion of Sunday Island, in the Kerraadec Group, from the New Zealand Govern ment, and intend to settle there with their families. Mr Hovell, of Wairoa (Hawke's Bay), is the principal member of the party ot settlers who intend making a new home in the little-known group, whose fertile soil and capability for growing all kinds of sub - tropical fruit and produce has proved a strong attraction for them. Mr J. M. Gelling and his family, well-known Hamilton (Waikato) residents, also form part of the intending emigrants to Sunday Island, and proceed from Auckland to Napier to ioin the rest, some do/en families in all. The men in the party will leave for the Kermadeus inosL likely next month in the Dunedin, with stores, building materials, etc., and will afterward? be followed by their families on the next trip of the schooner. They will find neighbours on Sunday Island in the persons of Mr Bell and family. The Dunedin is to be employed by them in transporting stores etc., from Auckland to the island, and shipping their produce to the Auckland market, filling up the rest of her time in resuming her running on the New Zealand coast. She is a stout little vessel, built of English oak, and although over thirty yeais old, promises to be all that the settlers will require. ShewasbuiltatPerth, Scotland, over thirty yeais ago, came out to her namo port, Dunedin, in 1859, and has ever since been engaged in New Zealand and intercolonial trading.