Tuhi Harvey (1908-1990)

Tuhi David Harvey was a giant of a man, not necessarily in stature but in strength and achievement. He was named by and for a Maori Chief and after his father David Harvey an English immigrant carpenter.* According to his eldest daughter Pat, “He was a soft touch for any genuine cause or misfortune, he drove luxury cars and lived in the fast lane.”

The youngest of at least twelve children he, like all his brothers, trained in carpentry and later became a master builder. Married to Maisie, a very young redhead from Taumaranui, they spent a few years in Australia and came home on ten pound tickets with two small children in 1932. Excelling at swimming and rowing he had done a stint as a Bondi Lifesaver.

Tuhi aged 20 as a Bondi Beach Lifesaver in 1930. Harvey Family Image

Sport and shows of his immense strength were a major part of his leisure time: rugby, rowing, golf tennis, and hunting to hounds. He cycled from their home in First Avenue to Mount Maunganui, via the Matapihi rail bridge, to work as a builder during those depression years for 10 ‘bob’ a day ($1). At night he made rowing skiffs and Maisie did lead-lighting to supplement their income.  

In 1938, by the time their third daughter Gaye was aged one, they had moved to a double-storey home in 11th Ave (where the Plaza shopping centre is now located.)  Then in ’42 he joined Harry Smith, a Dunedin bricklayer, in buying Pemberton Bros joinery factory on the Devonport Rd / First Ave Corner. (Tuhi had joined the Hauraki Regiment and trained as a gunner, but men with 4 children did not have to serve overseas, and son David was ‘on the way’ when his call-up came.) By 1949 they had over 100 men on the payroll, one of the Bay’s largest employers.

Smith Harvey Construction Ltd. BOP Year book, 1958
Courtesy of Tauranga Library Heritage & Research

Smith Harvey Construction Ltd. produced prefabricated houses as well as joinery and retail timber supplies. In 1945 they began to source their own timber and mill it themselves, including purchase of all the necessary milling gear and some blocks of bush in Oropi and Pyes Pa. Apparently Tuhi was quite conservative in his milling operations only taking some of the available rimu and tawa from each block. The sawmill was on Anglican church land next to the Mission Cemetery (where the Trinity Wharf Hotel is now) and this business was known as Tuhi Timbers.

They were one of the first local businesses to both export and import timber to and from South America. They were also one of the first three logging operations to export radiata pine to Japan from the Tauranga Wharf on Dive Crescent. All the timber was donated for the Dive Crescent Rowing club building which was built with volunteer labour by the members.

Vessel loading New Zealand pine for export to Australia, Tauranga Wharf, c1956

Around 1950 due to very limited yard space, a large tract of land in Chapel Street was used for the processing and storage of the sawn timber. There it was planed, stacked and dried, and in 1953 a treatment plant was added. Tuhi had pioneered what was known as boron treatment of tawa, thereby making it a durable product, and they churned out mainly weatherboard, tongue and groove flooring and tool handles. His daughter Gaye remembers going with him late in the evenings to change the hoses over as two consignments could be put through the gas treatment chambers in 24 hours. The Devonport Road site housed the office, joinery factory and timber sales.

Treatment plant and yard at Chapel Street

Gaye also informed me that during the 1950s her father owned and ran, in addition to all his other operations, a mill near Barkes Corner named Craven Wood. This fitted in rather neatly with his other business of breeding and racing horses, which in the end became his abiding passion.

Tuhi (on right) and friend hunting. Harvey Family image

Unfortunately due to sheer size Smith Harvey was forced into receivership in 1960, and in 1962 Charlie and Alf Odlin bought them out. In 1986 it was sold to Winstones Ltd who in turn allowed it to go to Fletchers and the mills and yards ceased trading in 1988, due to the government stopping indigenous logging operations.

* Tuhi’s mother Elizabeth Susan Harvey owned several tracts of land including Moturiki Island, next to the main Mount beach, which she sold to ‘the railways’ for the rock to construct the East Coast line.

Sources: Personal interview with Gaye Craig — Tuhi’s daughter
               Notes written by her late older sister Pat
               Article by Ron Lipinski on Tauranga Sawmills in BOP Times 1st Nov, 2006
               Bay of Plenty Yearbooks published by Astra Publicity, Auckland c 1956,1958
               Harvey family images

Powhiri at Te Ranga, by Win Lunt

Powhiri at Te Ranga, by Win Lunt

On 1 November 2018 one hundred and twenty of the descendants of Patrick Freeburn Keenan gathered to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of his arrival in Tauranga. Patrick, with his wife and four children, had come from the West Coast of New Zealand to take up the life of a farmer on Pyes Pa Road. His father had left the troubled Ireland of the 1850s and had come first to Australia and later to the West Coast of New Zealand where Patrick and his eight siblings were born. A legacy from an uncle in Australia enabled Patrick and his wife to purchase the Pyes Pa farm.

That farm on Pyes Pa Road was situated about half a kilometre down the road from the battle site of Te Ranga. Patrick's children and grandchildren growing up there were barely aware of the significance of the site where the last major battle of the Land Wars was fought with the loss of over one hundred Maori lives.

As part of the family reunion celebrations Councillor Terry Molloy, a grandson of Patrick Keenan, organized, in conjunction with some of the descendants of those Maori who fought and died at Te Ranga, a powhiri. The powhiri was held as a gesture of healing and reconciliation. It was attended by many of Patrick Keenans descendants and by representatives of the Kennedy family whose family farm was directly opposite the battle site.  Mayor  of the Western Bay of Plenty Gary Webber, and Father Mark Fields were there. Representing the Maori tribes on whose land the battle had been fought were  among others, Tamiti Tata, Puhiraka Ihaka and Peri Kohu. After the ceremony there was an informal gathering and a morning tea at the home of Norman and Patricia Brooks.  Patricia is a grand daughter of Patrick Keenan and their home is situated on the farm that Patrick Keenan had farmed.

Terry Molloy with the recently planted Puriri tree at Te Ranga

Subsequently a puriri tree has been planted on the site of the battle ground  and it is intended that a memorial plaque will be placed near the tree some time in August  this year.

The Crabbe Store

Crabbe Store in Cameron Road
Courtesy of Helen Borell, Hardy Collection, Tauranga Heritage Collection

George Alfred Crabbe established a grocery and drapery store in Cameron Road near the corner of Sixth Avenue in 1867 and replaced it in 1877 with the building that survives today at the Boys’ College. He built a house next door in the 1890s that has since be relocated to Pyes Pa. Crabbe had arrived in Tauranga in 1864 as a soldier in the 1st Waikato Militia and lived at The Camp, the area around today’s cricket pitch in the Domain and Brown Street. He was born in London and his gravestone in the Tauranga Presbyterian cemetery includes the words “Edgeware Road, London”. His position during the Battle of Gate Pa or Pukehinahina was at the rear but he took an active role in the Battle of Te Ranga making him eligible for the New Zealand Medal. His land allocation for his service included a quarter acre in the town of Opotiki and 50 acres near McLaren Falls. He obtained half an acre in Cameron Road from an officer who wished to dispose of his section and sold his country acres. When George Crabbe died in 1905 his coffin was covered by the Union Flag that flew at the Battle of Gate Pa and is now in the Tauranga Heritage Collection.

George A Crabbe, founder of the store (1840 - 1905)
Courtesy of N. Wilson, Crabbe Collection, Tauranga Heritage Collection

John Conway, a well-known builder in Tauranga constructed the two storey shop for £600. The room at the front included the retail area while there were two rooms upstairs and living accommodation at the back.  Conway later built the adjacent house. The shop and outside beneath the verandah was a popular meeting place for the people in the neighbourhood. A man on horseback delivered the daily newspapers for distribution from the offices of the Bay of Plenty Times in town and posters were shown in the shop windows when war broke out in 1914.

Maria S Crabbe (1824- 1923)
Courtesy of N. Wilson, Crabbe Collection, Tauranga Heritage Collection

While living in a bell tent at The Camp, George Crabbe and wife Maria had a son Charles in 1866 and he was christened by Archdeacon Brown at the Mission Chapel. A daughter Annie Frances followed in 1870. In 1899 Charles married Rebecca Johnston a daughter of Noble Johnston of Katikati. Crabbe was a direct descendant of Sir Christopher Wren and was able to pass down some of his famous ancestor’s possessions to his son Charles. Charles and Rebecca were to have a daughter Rebecca Violet, later well-known by her married name Vi Simons. They also had three sons, Charles who died as a child and is buried with his grandparents, Reginald and Selwyn. Vi was a nurse and midwife in Tauranga and an active member of the Tauranga Historical Society.

Hillsdene Store
Courtesy of Tauranga Boys' College

While the property remained in the Crabbe family until 2002 the premises were used by other businesses for many years.  In that year Peter Cooney gifted the building to Tauranga Boys’ College and it was moved further down Cameron Road. At this stage the old stairs were replaced and the building relined. However, the original wide floor boards are visible on the ground floor and the exterior retains most of its original appearance with rusticated weatherboards, double hung sashes in the upper windows and the iron hip roof. The large front windows on the ground floor can be seen in the early photograph of the building.  Today the store functions as a school uniform shop on the ground floor and office space upstairs.  The building is on the Register of Heritage New Zealand in their Category 2 level and is included in the Tauranga City Council Heritage section of the District Plan.

Patrick Freeburn Keenan and His Family - Book Review

Patrick Freeburn Keenan and His Family by Patricia Brooks
Edited by Sophie Levestam, Design by Donella Jones
ISBN 978-0-473-45792-1, Kale Print, Tauranga
Softcover, 84 pages

Review by Lee Switzer

The author is clear. The book is about her grandfather, whose biography is only printed here in great detail because so many family members from the past collected stories, newspaper reports and photos.

The book is filled with family photos and multiple quotes from original letters describing family members and their activities. Patrick Freeburn Keenan (1872-1955) is the grandfather of author Patricia Brooks. She is named after him, and like Patrick, nicknamed ‘Paddy.’

The book is generally well referenced. However, no source is given for this statement: “By 1915 Tauranga was the first town in the world to have electric street lights and an all-electric home.” p41.

Keenan Road, Freeburn Rd and Molloy Rise are named after families who lived in the area off  Pyes Pa Rd.

The organisational layout of the book must have been a mind swirling jigsaw of placing families, individuals and events into a coherent whole. In large part, the author has succeeded well in providing lineages backward and forward within the contexts of distant relatives, their 1800s activities in Ireland, and voyages to Australia and New Zealand.

As expected, New Zealand history is an integral part of the family history. Patrick Keenan was born to Francis and Sarah Keenan in Greenstone, New Zealand, a town  across the river from Kumara, midway between Greymouth and Hokitika.

After working in several different gold dredging operations and marrying Mary Jane Walsh  (1872-1944) in 1904, Greymouth, they moved to North Island towns. The couple and 4 childrern; Thomas, Ellen Sarah (Nell), Pat, and Alice eventually landed, fully, and finally in Tauranga, 1918. With farms in Pyes Pa, various other family members worked the land, took children to school first in Greerton and later to other schools.

The authors’ parents, Ellen Sarah Keenan (1910-1970) and Brian Patrick Molloy (1911-1979) were married in 1936. Six siblings arrived from this union: Mary Elizabeth, Margaret Winifred  Patricia Alice, Marc, Terence Michael (currently a Tauranga City Councillor) and John Joseph.

Patricia Keenan married Norman Brooks in 1961. Brooks provides details about living on the farm, Greerton School history and other aspects of Grandfather and Grandmother Keenan and Mother Molloy’s life with animals, town and country organisations, friendships, kinships.

There are many anecdotes in the book and several little-mentioned events in New Zealand history such as the Battle of Addisons Flat, 1868 one of the first riots on the West Coast, and the “Douglas Movement” referring to the Douglas Credit Party in the 1930s.

The book is loaded with individual facts, dates of birth and death, often burial locations. On a final note, near the end of the biography there is an unsuspected puzzle piece with twists to finding relatives. It has to do with DNA, a photograph, an unwed mother who gave her twins up for adoption, and who would not tell the adult women who their father was. The answer is in the book. (Hint: their new brother was very happy to discover his sisters.)

Closing the Keenan saga are numerous pages with diagrammed genealogical branches.