The Mystery of the Monmouth Cannons Part 3: The Return of Captain Black

From Tauranga City Library’s archives

A monthly blog about interesting items in our collections.

This post follows on from The Mystery of the Monmouth Cannons Part 1 and Part 2, so be sure to check them out for the full backstory.

Te Tapihana cannon, Monmouth Redoubt, 2024.
Private Collection, Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries.

While transcribing Private George Crabbe's manuscript (see August's blog post on George Crabbe) we uncovered a crucial missing puzzle piece concerning the history of the Te Tapihana cannon, and its connection to the early Danish trader Phillip (Hans) Tapsell. 

George A Crabbe, (1840 - 1905).
Image courtesy of N. Wilson, Crabbe Collection, Tauranga Heritage Collection.

According to Crabbe's account, in early January of 1868, a schooner named Fortune arrived in Ōpōtiki carrying one of the old cannons belonging to Hans Tapsell of Maketū. The militia promptly got their hands on the gun and brought it ashore, where it was used for many years. Later, the gun was taken to Tauranga by a Captain Turner, though Crabbe does not provide a date for this.

Excerpt from Scrapbook compiled by Crabbe family (p. 21). George Alfred Crabbe, date unknown.
Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, ref Ms 112/3.

This story accords with what we already know of Te Tapihana’s history, in which Captain Archibald Campbell Turner had acquired the cannon from a military officer in Ōpōtiki during the New Zealand Wars (BOPT, April 6th, 1914, p. 4). But Crabbe’s account provides us with more than just the connection to Captain Turner.

Captain A. C. Turner N.Z.M.. c. 1900.
Puke Ariki Heritage Collection, ref PHO2011-2311.

In Part 2 we talked about the sale of two Tapsell cannons by Retreat Tapsell to a ‘Mr. Black’ of Tauranga (likely early trader Thomas Black), in early May of 1864. As it happens, the name of Black’s vessel was the Fortune (DSC, 12 May 1864, p. 4).

Could this be the same Fortune that arrived in Ōpōtiki with the Tapsell gun nearly four years later? It certainly seems so, as shipping records place Captain Black onboard the schooner Fortune in Ōpōtiki at the time (NZ Herald, Jan 18th, 1868, p. 2). 

View, Waioeka River and Wharves, Ōpōtiki. Creator and date unknown.
Te Whare Taonga ō Taketake, Whakatāne Museum Collections and Research, ref 42434. 

Since Black had reportedly purchased the cannons as ballast for his vessel, it is very plausible that Te Tapihana had remained onboard the Fortune from the time of it's purchase in 1864, until it's reappearance in Ōpōtiki in 1868. If our theory is correct, it would support the long-held belief that Te Tapihana was part of Phillip Tapsell's battery of 'big guns' at Maketū Pā.

Maketū Pā, Bay of Plenty. Watercolour by Major General Horatio Robley, 1865.
Collection of Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, ref 1992-0035-826.

To learn more about Tapsell's battery of big guns, click here.

For more about George Crabbe and his first-hand account of the New Zealand Wars, click here.

Sources:   

 'Local and General'. (1914, 6 April). Bay of Plenty Times, 42(6097), p. 4.

'Maketū. (From our own Correspondent.) May 5'. (published 1864, 12 May). Daily Southern Cross, p. 4.

'Shipping Intelligence'. (1868, 18 January). New Zealand Herald, 5(1303), p. 2.

Crabbe, George Alfred. (n.d.). Scrapbook relating to Aotearoa land wars history, Māori culture, fauna/ flora/ reptiles, and sketch of Orākau pā. Collection of Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City Libraries, ref Ms 112/3, pp. 21-22.

A Season of Pain and Trial

Marsh Brown (1831-1845)
The Elms Collection, 1935.0128

The exact circumstances of Marsh Brown’s accident will never be known. In April 1844 Bishop Selwyn, founder of the College of St John, wrote to his father, Reverend Alfred Brown, that he had “received a blow” which in a few days “brought on swelling.”

Having been at St John’s, Te Waimate, for only a few weeks, Marsh was confined to bed unable to move his arms and legs. Despite consulting nine doctors over seventeen months, the cause of his confinement remained a mystery. Suggestions included erysipelas (a bacterial skin infection), remittent fever, rheumatic fever, disease of the spine and anasarca (a painful swelling of the skin caused by excess fluid).

To alleviate Marsh’s pain Bishop Selwyn constructed a waterbed from a large tin case and a stretched McIntosh cloth. While the bed was credited with extending his life, the true extend of his affliction was made known after his death: “All the processes of the spine were bare, and wounds, which had been hidden by the calico of the frame, were now for the first time brought to light. Severe as we knew his sufferings had been, we felt that their intensity could only have been fully known to himself and to that God who had promised (and who had fulfilled that promise) never to leave or forsake him.”

Bishop Selwyn
From Auckland Weekly News Supplement, 29 April 1909
Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections AWNS-19090429-6-1

Marsh needed constant care, and this was shared amongst family, friends and Hemi Warana, one of his most attentive nurses. “Marsh was never left night or day, it being necessary to change very frequently the position of some of the many pads which were placed under different parts of his body.” 

Due to unrest in the North, Marsh and his waterbed were transported by foot to Paihia and later, accompanied by his father, he travelled by ship to Auckland. It was there that Marsh "renewed a wish to return home – as he called Tauranga – forgetting, perhaps, that in his debilitated state, it could no longer be to him the happy home that he once so much enjoyed."

Returning to Te Papa on 21 August 1845, Marsh was placed in the sitting room of the raupo whare looking out to the garden. In the days before his death he was visited by many Maori, who according to Brown: “Entered the room, a few at a time – gazed affectionately for a minute or two on the wasted form of your brother, received his friendly smile – and then walked quietly out; the silent tear on many a cheek giving utterance to the feeling of the heart.”

The Burial Ground, Te Papa, Tauranga, (December) 1962
Copy print of photograph taken by John Kinder, The Elms Collection

Marsh died on 14 September 1845 was buried at the Mission Cemetery three days later surrounded by family and friends, including 200 Maori whose presence gave a great deal of comfort.

After his death Reverend Brown wrote a letter to Marsh’s ‘surviving sister’ Celia that later became a small publication titled "Brief Memorials of an Only Son." It outlined, in painful detail, Marsh’s illness and death. Brown hoped that the record would give Celia guidance: “May an occasional reference to these pages in your future pilgrimage bring back to its original freshness the remembrance of your brother … follow him as he followed Christ.”

An original manuscript of ‘Brief Memorials of an only son’
The Elms Collection, 2008.0063