The Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry

 

Two maps of Mōtiti.  Neither is contemporaneous with Brain’s work on the island, but the coloured image shows the settlement pattern of the island’s residents in 1929; the black and white sketch map shows the route (dashed line) of the tramline that once led to Orangatea Bay.  Images: (left) Western Bay of Plenty District Libraries, SAK 34A, digital only; and (right) Te Ara, An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, ed. A. H. McLintock, 1966

I first began researching the people who lived in the Brain Watkins House back in the early 2000s  when I was working for NZ Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand).  Among the listed achievements of Joseph Brain was “a tramway on Mōtiti Island to transfer cattle to a ship waiting off shore”.

George Alexander Douglas, An Irishman, originally from Derry, moved down from Auckland to Tauranga and received a Crown Grant of a piece of land in 1867. He became a successful storekeeper when he arrived in Tauranga.

He had begun working in Auckland as a commissariat contractor supplying the military forces in the country and was elected a member of the Auckland Provincial Council from 1869 to 1873. G A Douglas leased a portion of Mōtiti Island from a local chief Tupaea, probably commencing in 1867 but he did not move there to live until 1870. He improved the breeding of cattle and Clydesdale horses on Mōtiti. He was also responsible for the introduction of the Bumble Bees that were essential for the fertilization of the Red Clover flowers. The clover had been introduced to boost the quality of the stock food but could not flourish without the bees. The soil on Mōtiti was fertile, water was abundant from numerous springs, but it lacked a natural harbour. 

S.S.Staffa   Image: Te Ao Māramā – Tauranga City Libraries Photo 04-593

To ensure transporting stock and goods, Douglas bought a small coastal steamer S.S. Tauranga in 1870. From 1876 to 1881 he had the S.S.Rowena and S.S.Staffa. The difficulty created by the lack of a harbour was loading the stock onto his ship before he could send the cargo to Tauranga.

In Orangatea Bay Douglas built a system of stock yards, and tramline. The late local historian Alister Matheson, in his book Motiti[1], tongue in cheek, named the project “The Motiti Road Rail Ferry”. The stock yards held the stock until they were loaded on a punt that could hold twenty cattle. The punt sat on a cradle or bogie that ran down the tramline, gaining speed, and was attached by a rope on a winch on land. When the punt reached the steamer it was secured and the rope wound back by the winch. The cattle were individually lifted by slings on to the steamer, which then sailed to Tauranga.  Douglas was helped in the construction of the tramline system by Joseph Brain, the experienced ship and bridge builder of Tauranga.

Hoisting fat cattle from the wharf to a steamer for shipping from Auckland to Sydney, Australia, 1902. 

Image: Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 14 August 1902, p. 10

In an interview with Mrs Elva Brain Watkins, the youngest daughter of Joseph, Matheson learned that Brain’s practice was to row across the harbour to Mount Maunganui then walk along the ocean beach until he was opposite Mōtiti Island where he would signal his arrival.  A boat from Mōtiti would then pick him up from the beach. In his boatyard on The Strand Brain employed Māori men from Mōtiti who would stay at the Mōtiti Hostel across the street.

J. D. Brain, Brain Watkins House Collection.  Image: Shirley Arabin

At the time that Matheson wrote the book the only remnants of the Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry were decaying puriri posts at the site, so it is unlikely that there will be any evidence left of this project today.

When George Douglas visited Napier in 1892 to purchase sheep he fell ill and died there.  He had not married and in his will the beneficiaries of his estate were his nieces and nephews.

 [1] Matheson A.H.,Motiti,pub. Whakatane & District Historical Society P O Box 203, Whakatane 1979.

 

Editorial note: Readers may be interested in finding an extended photo-essay on Mōtiti Island life in the 1960’s by Tony Ahern, editor of Tauranga Photo News, Issue No. 34, April 3 1965:

https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/101354 

The White House in Ōtūmoetai

 

The 75-year old home today.  Image: Julie Green

Last year I was privileged to meet the occupants of this wonderful home, constructed in 1950 and sited a little back from the road, near Ōtūmoetai Primary School. They had a diesel-powered central heating system which no longer functioned well.  After considering their options they offered their vintage technology to the Tauranga Heritage Collection. This was not a suitable home for such an item so help was instead sought from Tauranga’s Vintage Farm Machinery Club. Through the kind efforts of one of their members the problems with the heater were overcome and it fired up once again.

 The family was very grateful to be able to use the heater last winter and is preparing to light it again as the cold weather closes in this year. I have enjoyed several visits to their lovely home and have permission to share with you this recent picture and a few older images in their possession.

William Barnard’s home and orchard in 1954. Photographer unknown

The home was built for Labour MP for Napier William( Bill ) Barnard after he retired from politics and moved to Tauranga to join his son-in-law in legal practice in 1948. He was Mayor here from 1950-52 and very involved in community affairs. One of the rooms upstairs was designated as a library and even though the shelving is long gone there are obvious lines on the walls where the shelves were attached.  Bill and his family had less than a decade of living there before he passed away in Auckland in 1958 at the age of 72.

The framed photograph below hangs on the wall of the upstairs landing.  It gives us a great idea of the topography in Ōtūmoetai prior to the development of the whole Bellevue area. You can make out the entrance of the Wairoa River, the curve of the railway line around the perimeter of  Bethlehem and the Matua Saltmarsh, and the farms which became the college in 1965 and, in 1967, the intermediate school.

Bellevue and Bethlehem in their agricultural days. Photographer unknown

The primary school is nestled in behind the row of dark trees to the left of centre. The area across the road, that now includes a fuel station, housing and the telephone exchange, appears to have been just a rough field when this photograph was taken. 

There has been a succession of owners over the home’s 75-year history. Not much is presently known about them but there have been several extensions at the back and side, dormer windows have been added to the attic space and the kitchen/dining area has been refurbished. There is now another home built in what was the front yard and of course the old orchard has become covered in dwellings also. But the old homestead stands tall and proud and is much loved by its present owners.

Very recently a former occupant arrived on their doorstep with an unframed painting and asked if they would like it. Of course the present owners agreed - it was very welcome. They intend to frame and hang it as part of the growing record of the story of their home.

“THE WHITE HOUSE,  Otumoetai”. Artist unknown

All images in this post were taken by Julie Green, courtesy of the owners.

No Deed Goes Unpunished: Forging Title at Lot 202

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collection

Lot 202, Section 1, Town of Tauranga: a century-long ownership anomaly

Lot 202, Section 1, on the corner of Grey and Elizabeth Streets, originated as part of the Te Papa lands purchased in 1838–1839 from Ngāi Te Rangi by the Church Missionary Society to be held in trust, and was transferred to the Crown under post-war pressure in 1867 for the creation of the Tauranga township. At that time it was one of the sections that Governor Grey had promised to Crown aligned Arawa and Ngāi Te Rangi chiefs to receive in recognition of their service during the New Zealand Wars. Twenty-six sections were selected for this purpose, and Crown grants were eventually issued for twenty-five of them. Strangely, and despite later being occupied, Lot 202 was never officially granted, remaining on paper at least, in Crown ownership.

This went unnoticed for decades.

From 1871, it had been occupied and used by Anaru Haua and later by his descendants. Although the family lived primarily on the sections next door, Lot 202 was fenced, cultivated as a garden, and used as a horse paddock. After the road level was raised in 1920 the section was re-fenced, with a gated and padlocked entrance at the corner. Rates were paid on the land from at least 1910, and it was widely known locally as Haua’s paddock. In 1950 Charles William Haua, who had been operating at the Spring Street end of Grey Street, built a blacksmith’s shop on the section and continued to operate his business there.

Charlie Haua's blacksmith's shop, cnr Grey and Elizabeth Streets
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 02-156

By the 1920s, when the Crown reviewed lands that were “looked on as Crown lands subject to Native claims,” the mistake came to light.  Competing claims were raised by hapū who had originally been intended recipients of township sections in 1867, and in 1955 the Māori Land Court made an order vesting the land in Tamihana Tikitere of Ngāti Uenukukōpako. It looked like the Haua's might loose access to Lot 202 and the new blacksmith's shop would need to move.

Charlie Haua was not making his claim to the proprety through the Māori Land Court however, but under the Land Transfer Act, on the grounds that the land had been clearly and unambiguously in his family’s complete possession for several generations. In legal speak this is a principle known as adverse possession; and it meant that he could not make his case to the Māori Land Court, even though their decision directly affected the same land. Instead, he brought proceedings in the Supreme Court (A.122/59), heard in 1960 before Justice Hardie Boys. The Court examined the full history of the section and found as a matter of fact that Haua and his ancestors had occupied Lot 202 openly, continuously, exclusively, and notoriously (in the legal sense) from the nineteenth century onward. Lot 202’s ambiguous status, caused by administrative failure, was finally resolved by judicial decision after nearly a century.

Charlie Haua's blacksmith's shop, Grey Street, Tauranga c. 1940s.
Mollie Hardy, Charlie Haua, Pat Holloway.
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries Photo 99-1161

Charlie operated his blacksmith business from the corner of Grey and Elizabeth Streets until 1969 when we finally retired. His blacksmithing operation was transferred to the Tauranga Museum / Historic Village, where it was preserved as a working exhibit. There, he continued to demonstrate blacksmithing for school groups and visitors, keeping the craft alive as a public heritage activity for many years. 

The judgement is part of Ms 81, the Papers of Charlie Haua within the archives at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, which have been digitised at made available on Pae Korokī Tauranga Archives Online. 

Sources

Lot 202 Section 1 Town of Tauranga, Judgement of Hardie Boys, J. (Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society Number 57, page 11)

Lot 202 Part II (Journal of the Tauranga Historical Society Number 58, page 19)

Lot 202, Section 1 in Tile 4: Survey Office map 55557

Judgement of Hardie Boys, J. for Haua v Tamihana and the District Land Registrar (Ms 81/2/1)

Tile 4: Survey Office map 55557

Papers relating to post war land tenure in the Western Bay of Plenty and other related material (Ams 270/1)

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Written by Harley Couper, Heritage Specialist at Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries