PAST AND PRESENT

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 260, 1 April 1914, Page 2

PAST AND PRESENT

THE aiEETIXG-C!ROUND. SOME TYPICAL PIONEERS. The celebration of the anniversary of the Province of Taranaki provided an .opportunity for the meeting of pubi, and present generations, a meeting from which to-day's youtli may learn irmeli, while it all'ords the grand old pioneers of onr province a chance to meet once ■more, each year with the feeling that it may be for the last time, and discuss the trials which they shared and which young Taranaki can know only froA hearsay.

The most casual observer of the cat, ering at Moturoa yesterday could han ly fail to be impressed with tin; pathc ,oi the scene, but its 'humor would toni to his rescue in the sprightly talk am cheery anecdote of these hardy veteran and pioneers. Though not a few weri bent, just a few were wheeled in chairs and all were watching the sands of lift run with ithe speed of a long life's gath ering, yet all were merry and animated eager to be grateful for wJl.lt was beinj done for them; happy to meet one mora and talk of "the good old days. 1 Move amongst them and wateh their Eighty-eight years of age, and spright ly, Mr Henry Putt has many an inter esting story of the happenings since Ji landed with his family on the coast o New Plymouth in the William Brvan, 7 years ago, in a land where no whit man was. He was a lad of 14 year then. A bald statement, but it mean much. He has seen Tnranaki grow fo 73 years, and while the years hav •brought advan«emenfe, he is not sur that the old ways were not in some re spects the best. Life then was les complex. "You could go where yoi liked and say what yon liked then," h said. He landed, by the way, in ; whaleboat through the surf. Even pro per surf-boats were unknown then. Th whole of Moturoa was composed o Maori whares, which, were the onl; shelter for some of the pioneers. Sanr of them began life here in tents, am others built rough houses of blieir own "Do you Temember when I used ti call yon Billy?" What a remmiseenci that chance remarks onens up! A smil ing and sprightly old lady, who has mothered more than one fine younf settler, sees in the graded old pioneel the b»y who came out] with her on the William Bryan or the Amelia Thompson, and with whom sha played until circumstances separated them. Now she sees him again, and remembers him as "Billy." Here is the oldest person present, this sprightly old lady with the keen twinkling eyes and still clear memory for events of 70 years ago—Mrs Pep'perell, 89 years of age, an arrival hy the ship Essex. She was 18 when she came\to New Plymouth, and words fail her 'to describe the state of the country. There were no roads and no houses onl'- some Maori whares. Her f'.milv lived, at what is now Fitzroy. and her father built the first house to V furnished with doors and windows. The family's first home wax a raupo wharf, ami she says her mother used to sweep the floor so frequency that it was nearly all swept away. Her husband came nut before 'her, in the William Brvan, and ithcy were married throe months niter she landed in New ftcnland. Sie Jms n son of 70 years of Mrs Howe, of Bell Block, was a sltirumite of this lady, f and fs the same rise to a month.

A uprightly old pioneer hails the Mayor of New Plymouth as i.it« man in whose otdw he worked when the railway to New Plymouth was laid and bhrWaitara wharf lmilt. ''We chopped chins togotlicT." he says. JTe also liolp.-d to put wheels on an endue for Mr Henrv Brown's sawmill, which enrrine was sn!>■tfcrpicntly hairlod to the mill hv a team of ?A hiillocks.

Mr -Samuel Marshall is 77 veavs of arrc, and was three venrs old when he came out in the William P.rvau. "Mv father was killed in Taranaki." lie says, "and is buried down there below the petroleum works." The fa-mil" wn for some time after landin.cr hos" : btblv entertained bv a Maori named Poharamii, and later built, a small iiouM" in Devon-, port, a nart of New Plvmo''tt now little known under that name. The land was tVn ywa-my,, im-yi, iv-iiV W>. :\mnr>i» Vik shipmate-- on the William ISrv.an were Messrs. Naii'n and Vfickstoad.' 'T/nril." hj" coii-luded. "we had our ims and downs!''

Another type of pioneer concludes the Ri'rmii. An earlier pioneer this, not ■-• enlightened, but pcrh'ins no wnr-e f»v that. Hone Pun;, a 'Maori who "\tended the hand of fn'oiidshin to tin- in--sen.wrs of the William Tirven. He is. -In believes, 102 years of ii"e, a mM of ictturesnue speeeli in l,i s own laip'uaiv,. but of few words. A frrotessine Oi;iir ( , perhaiis. but still a little diffiiuled. "