Rodney Mariners

Angus & Duncan Matheson

Refer Matheson family write up.

 

George & David Darroch

Refer Darroch family write up.

 

Captain George Spencer

The below is extracted from the website ‘Early History of Auckland’ and the post ‘Captain George Spencer – What’s in a Stamp’ – author Get Financial Freedom – a blog by his great great grandson

Spencer had a quarter share in the ‘Lake Erie’ along with a half share held by Septimus Meiklejohn and a quarter share by a Will Palmer.

It was Spencer, a shipmaster, from North America, and a resident of Matakana that introduced the scow to New Zealand.

Captain George Spencer, was born on 6 July 1837 at Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. He married Esther Elizabeth Dyer on 24 April 1878 at Pakiri. They had one son and five daughters.

Spencer was master of a number of ships, both sail and steam, including the scow ‘Lake Superior’ built by George Palmer at Pakiri and the ‘Lake Michigan’ another Meiklejohn built boat.

Towards the end of the 1800s he retired from his life at sea and turned to farming on family land at Pakiri.

He died at his residence at Archill, Auckland on 16 December 1914 aged 77 years.

 

John Darrach

John arrive from Prince Edward Island in 1864 onboard a ship he had built the previous year – the 173 ton brig ‘Paheka’ – carrying also a number of settler families. The Darrach’s settled at Matakana Heads and a year or so later moved to Mahurangi.

Soon after arrival he built the 44 ton ‘Black Hawk’ and then at Mahurangi between the years 1867–80 John Darrach & Sons built eighteen brigantines and schooners besides smaller vessels.

Darrach took from six to twelve months to build a schooner. Timber would be cut in winter and the decking and outer planking prepared for at least four months before being used.

Source – C W Hawkins

 

George Sharp

Men Who Made Northern Wairoa

by Brian Eastwood

(Appeared in the Kaipara Lifestyler – issue of 25 May 2011)

An advertisement appearing in the Aratapu newspaper Wairoa Bell on November 2nd 1909 read, ‘A. H. (Harry) Sharp. Joiner, cabinetmaker, pattern maker, undertaker, Norton Street, Te Kopuru’.

Apparently a man of many skills, Harry was youngest son of an American, George Callan Sharp, a shipbuilder who had arrived in Te Kopuru in 1880. The huge forests of straight-grained kauri trees had attracted skilled shipbuilders and carpenters to Northern Wairoa from all over the world. George Sharp was one of those immigrants.

Originally named Scharpe, George was born in Chicago about 1824, later moving north to work for a ship builder in Nova Scotia where ships were being built to take some of the followers of Rev Norman McLeod to Waipu, New Zealand.

When the time came in 1851 for the first of those ships, ‘Margaret’, to set sail, George signed on as ship’s carpenter. Classed as a ‘stranger’ he was the only one on board who was not a member of McLeod’s congregation.

Sharp came over to Northern Wairoa from Northland’s East Coast near Pakiri, where between 1866 and 1870, he had built more than eight scows and ships in his yards.

He married Susan Harriet Mayne, also an immigrant born in Poona, India, where her father was serving in the British Army. Together with Susan Harriet, George brought to Kaipara four sons and a daughter all born around the Mahurangi-Pakiri area. In his Te Kopuru yards he specialised in ship repairs, rigging and maintenance.

Perhaps George’s greatest contribution as one of the men who made Northern Wairoa came through his family. George Sharp jnr and youngest son Harry worked for the Kauri Timber Company, George jnr becoming chief engineer. And very much a local, his daughter Millicent was the first baby christened in the new Te Kopuru Anglican Church on dedication day September 5 1902.

Harry built several villas around Te Kopuru, at least one still standing in Norton Street. When George jnr died in 1935 Harry sold his joinery shop to the Rope family to take over the chief engineer’s job at Kauri Timber Company. Eldest brother Ted went down to Auckland as building foreman for the Auckland Gas Company.

Second son Tom married Aratapu girl Alice Johnson and the only daughter Madeleine married Dick Bradley, both staying in the district and raising large families. Many of them were involved in the building trade with some descendants from both families still working and living in Northern Wairoa.

George died after a fall into a ship’s hold in 1891. He is buried in Mt Wesley together with Susan Sharp who died in Mangawhare in 1927, aged 91.

George Callan Sharp was no fly-by-night immigrant but one who planned to stay and work to become one of the men who made Northern Wairoa.