The Honoured Dead.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 4364, 23 January 1909, Page 3

The Honoured Dead.

PATHETIC CEREMONY.

THE REMOVAL OF SOLDIERS’ REMAINS.

Last Friday afternoon (as already briefly telegraphed) the remains of soldiers and others who have lain so long in the Courtenay or Eliot-street Cemetery ut New Plymouih, were transferred to the Te Henui Cemetery. There was a large attendence of veterans, besides others.

The work of exhuming the bodies occupied several cays. The remains of twenty-one persons were recovered. Much care was exercised by the squad of workmen engaged. In several of the gravts the coffin plates, with the inscriptions more or less intact, were dis - covered. The identity of several of the soldiers who fell in the war or those who were massacred by the natives was made known by the disfigurement of the skulls. Several were exhumed, the identity of which could not be traced Old residents who were present at the funerals are divided in opinion as to the places in which the remains of particular persons w ire interred. The remains had long since fallen into decay. IDENTIFICATION. The remains were those of the following : Coffin No. I. E. Casey and three others unknown. Coffin No. 2.—Arthur Hassett, died May 22nd, 1859, aged 31 years ; Patrick Scully, died March 22nd, 1862, aged 26 years. Three others—no records. Coffin No. 3.—Surgeon M’Andrew, 57th Regiment, died September 21st, 1861, aged 38 ; Sergeant Peter Fahey, late 65th Regiment and Taranaki Militia, first man to fall in action (shot through the forehead) at battle of Waireka, March 2Stb, 1860 ; Private John Flynn, 57th Regiment, aged 45, killed at Wairau (Taranaki) massacre, May 4th, 1863; Private Patrick McCarthy, 57th Regiment aged 27, killei at Wairau massacre, May 4th, 1863; Private Edward Kelly, 57th Regiment, killed at Wairau massacre, May 4th, 1863. Coffin No. 4. —Private Connell, 57th Regiment, died March 6th, 1862, aged 25, death from natural causes ; Private John McQuire. died July 17th, 1861, aged 21 years; Private M’Laughlan, 65th Regiment, died May sth, 1862, aged 29 years ; W. Taylor, no records, and three others unknown. AT TE HENUf.

The coffins were placed on the hearse and the cortege proceeded to Te Henui Cemetery The veterans, under the command of Captain A. Standish, fell in behind the hearse in twos. Vehicles, horsemen, and pedestrians followed. Arrived at the cemetery, the veterans acted as bearers. They appeared to be deeply affected as they bowed their hoary heads over the remains of their fall* n comrades. Some of the veterans present had participated in the fights which had laid low their comrades, the remains of whom they were placing in their last resting place. There were these present who had seen active service in other Taranaki and New Zealand fights, while one « f them had seen active service in the Crimean War, the Indian Mutiny, and other history-making campaigns. Dean M’Kenna officiated at the graveside, the service being of an impressive nature. THE WAIRAU MASSACRE. It will no doubt be of interest (says the Taranaki Herald) to refer briefly to the Wairau massacre. The Herald of May 8, 1863 in its “ Journal of Events,” said Monday, May 4tb, 18(33 : This day will be as long remembered as Tuesday, March 27th, 1860, when five of our settlers were shot down and tomahawked while peaceably following their several occupations on the Omata Road. To-day we have to chronicle the murder of eight more of our fellow countrymen under circumstances as horrible as those which attended the death of Messrs Ford, Shaw, Passmore, and the two little boys. At about 10 o’clock this morning the inhabitants of New Plymouth were thrown into a state of great excitement by the arrival in town of Ropata Ngarongomate from Poutoko with the intelligence that the natives had attacked a party of the 57th Regiment on their way to town from Tataraimaka. The General, who was on his way to Poutoko with Colonel Warre, and who met Ropata, hastened on, and was soon after followed by the Governor, and His Excellency hnd not long left towD, when his A.D.C., Captain Buckley, galloped back to announce to the Colonial Secretary that several soldiers had been shot. . . . The excitement of the townspeople reached its height when confirmatory tidings came in town by more than one horseman on reeking horses that no fewer than six men ana two officers had been waylaid and shot down by an ambuscade of natives on ,the beach near Wairau, between the

Oakura River and the Tataraimaka Block. Some time elapsed before particulars of the murder reached town, and we gathered the following, which we believe to be reliable : —A party of the Commissariat Transport Corps with two drays and twelve bullocks with supplies were on their way to Tataraimaka, and having crossed tbe Oakura River, heard the report of a volley of small arms, and saw the smoke of the pieces some halfmile before them.-' They saw that a party of soldiers and two horsemen (who proved to be officers) were attacked, and saw some of them fill, when they immediately abandoned their carts and hastened hack to the Poutoko and gave information of what they had seen. Captain Short, jvith a party of 30 men only, from (he Redoubt at Poutoko, were the first to arrive at the spot, followed shortly afterwards by Colonel Warre, and it was (heir mournful task to gather the bodies of the following officers and men, savegly murdered Assistant Surgeon Hope, M.P., and Lieutenant T. H. Tragett. Colour-Sergeant Samuel Ellers, Serg.-ant Samuel Hill, PrivatesE. Kelly ; J Flynn, Bartholomew (Pa*rick), McCarthy, and W. Banks, all of the 57th Regiment. The party were eseorling a prisoner, the man named William Banks (already mentioned) for court-martial to New Plymonth, and knowing nothing of the warning w»^ ; h had been given to the Government' |#it the natives had laid ambuscades, they marched on regardless of danger. The officers passed the party and proceedel at a walking pace about two hundred yards in advance, halting at the Wairou Stream to allow the party to come up. As the party approached a shot was suddenly fired. It was at first thought that the party ha 1 discharged the shot by accident, but they were quickiy undeceived when a second shot laid low Colour-Sergeant Ellers, and immediately after Sergeant Hill fell. Simultaneously the whole party, with the exceptian of Private F. Kelly, were laid low. Private Kelly’s statement as telegraphed to the Herald from Tataraimaka was as follows:—-“I was on a of the escort that left Tataraimaka. When we got to Wairau Stream we were fired at from the scrub about 20 yards from us. Dr. Hope and Sergeant Ellers and Hill fell. Returned fire f/id extended. We were then surrounded by about thirty Maoris. At last only three of us left alive. Went to the sandhill with afl >g of truce; no notice was taken of it. Came back found Mr Tragett dead and Private Kelly badly wounded. Retired firing, followed s nne distance by the Maoris. Hid, was picked up,by the patty from Tataraimaka.”