OBITUARY.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1922, Page 8

OBITUARY.

MR. R. ROWE, CENTENARIAN. Masterton, Nov. 28. The death occurred yesterday of the Gladstone centenarian, Mr. Robert Rowe. Born on February 19, 1818, in Somersetshire, Mr. Rowe was one of eight .whose father lived to the age of All.-years. In 185'6, Mr. Rowe joined a crowd of people who were listening to an emigration agent relating the special attractions of New Zealand as the El Dorado of the nineteenth century, with ft consequence that ho and his wife arived in this country in 1857 in the sailing vessel Alina. Amongst Mr. Rowe’s earliest contracts in New Zealand w’ere the making of portion of the Makara road, the laying of Moles worth street, Wellington, and bridge-building near Te Ante and Waipukurau. Mr. Rowe was next employed in carrying out contracts for the shipping of cattle at the nresent site of the patent elip, Evans Bay, Wellington, on behalf of a firm of which Captain Smith and Messrs. Tuliev, Luxford, and others were the capitalists. This was during the time of the Otago gold digging rush, and many of the cattle went south, others going to Auckland. Afterwards Mr. Rowe had charge of the Evans Bay dairy for a few years, the dairy being owned, at that time, by Mr. Vai la nee. leaving Wellington, Mr. Rowe was proprietor of the Tauherenikau Hotel for seven years, and often recalled the fact that there was a Tauherenikau military camp during the Maori wars, but that it was nearer the lake than the present one. On leaving the hotel. Mr. Rowe successfully carried out bridge-building contracts in tne Gladstone district.

Of Mr. Rowe’s nine children, firie are x still living, namely. Mrs. R. Rennall (of Kokotau). Mrs. P. Crewe (of Gladstone), Mrs. J. Henderson (of (Radstone). Mr. F. E. Rowe (of Waipukurau), and Mrs. E. Logan (of Timaru).