TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 9, 12 March 1952, Page 1

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

(By

R.H.W.)

In the year 1869 Te Kooti was in the Urewera Country, where his forces had been harassed for some time by those of Colonel Whitmore. Toward mid-year it was thought that he would shortly leave the Urewera mountains and cross the Kaingaroa Plains to Taupo and the King Country, and Whitmore ordered Lt. Col. St. John to move his Headquarters Camp from Fort Galatea (near Murupara) to the Opepe area. It was a strategic spot, where the Napier-Taupo track met the track from Rangitaiki and the Urewera to Taupo, and an inland depot there could be supplied with stores brought from Napier by pack-horse. Unfortunately, the move was too late to hinder Te Kooti from entering the King Country to obtain help from the Ngati-Maniapoto and Waikato people. On June 4, Col. St. John, with several officers, and an escort of Bay of Plenty Cavalry, left Fort Galatea for Haupuae-haruru, intending to select positions for military posts and to meet the chiefs to the Taupo district, Poihipi Tukairahgi of Nukuhau and Hohena Tamamutu of Oruanui, the majority of whose people were friendly to the Government. A two days march brought the party on Saturday evening, June 5 to Opepe, where there was a deserted Maori settlement of four or five huts, and here Col. St. John left the escort under Cornet Angus Smith and proceeded with his staff to Taupae-haruru. The troops spent the next day, Sunday, in the vicinity of the huts, and killed three sheep, which they hung up in the camp. About four o'clock in the afternoon of Monday, a wet day, a Maori came into the camp, and the troopers came out of the various huts to talk to him. Several other Maoris appeared, and it was suddenly apparent that they were enemies. The troopers were in a hopeless position, separated into groups and all unarmed, for their gear was in the huts. With one accord they dashed for the shelter of the bush, and for a moment as they ran the Maoris held their fire, unable to shoot without endangering their own men. Then fire was opened on the luckless men. Some fifty odd years later one of the survivors, Mr George Crosswell, then on a visit to Taupo, gave the writer a vivid account of his escape. As he ran he saw bullets knocking up the ground about him, but reached the bush with only a graze on his left arm. In the bush he made contact with another trooper, George Stephenson, and at dark they emerged from the northern side of the bush. Crosswell had been drying his rain-soaked clothes before a fire when the Maoris appeared, and had escaped in a naked condition. Through that bitter winter's night he and Stephenson pushed across the plains toward Fort Galatea, forty miles away, continuing their flight all next day and reaching the Fort that night with news of the attack. Three other survivors reached Galatea later. Sergt. Dette and Trooper Lockwood spent three nights and two days on the plains, while Cornet Smith was found wandering near the Fort ten days later. The news of the tragedy reached Col. St. John at Nukuhau on Mon-

day, June 8. Mr Thomas Hallett and his brother, with Mr Henry Mitchell, had been surveying near Taupo, and were riding to Napier via Runanga. Approaching Opepe they decided to visit the troopers, of whom they had heard from Col. St. John. As they rode up the track, they saw the bodies of two men, naked, and smoke rising from the huts, which had been burnt. Other bodies were seen and the party at once returned to Nukuhau to report the disaster. Te Kooti and his force had proceeded to Tokaanu, and it was not until September that further action against him was resumed. Later, the Armed Constabularly established a post and built the Redoubt overlooking the Waikato River near the present Taupo Police Station, and it was this post that became the nucleus of the present town of Taupo.