OMAHA – A Place of Plenty

OMAHA – A PLACE OF PLENTY

(Extracts from a book

‘The Rock & the Sky – The Story of Rodney County’ – H Mabitt 1977)

“A PLACE OF PLENTY” seems a fair description of the many Maori meanings given for “Omaha”. The district sustained the name. Its tidal flats abounded with shellfish. The Tawharanui Peninsular separating Kawau Bay from Omaha Bay and Little Omaha Bay made little difference to the incoming hordes of that traditional staple muri (the sun-dried dogfish which provided a ready reserve of food) with Whangateau Harbour and Waikokopu Inlet providing sheltered fishing bases. The forests of Pakiri and Tamuhunga were full of birds. Add to those resources the flats of Dacre’s Claim, the Leigh Pa, and “inside” Pakiri Beach , which were fertile then as now. Later there were wild pigs galore.

When the first Europeans arrived in the Omaha district, the Maori under paramount chief Te Kiri had already lapsed into the position of a relatively minor tribe. The Ngapuhi-related Te Kiri still held sway from about the Whangaparoa Peninsular to Mangawhai Harbour, but the former power of Ngati-Wai was broken. It was the mighty Hongi himself, a Ngapuhi of the Bay of Islands, who in his 1820 raids dealt his fellow Ngapuhi a devastating blow from which the Ngati-Wai never recovered. The history of that time tells of raid and counter-raid with Ngapuhi sweeping south on a trail of bloodshed pursuing Hongi’s lust for “utu”. As the tide of war turned, Arawa and Waikato and the four strong Hauraki tribes struck back, sweeping almost to the shores of Hongi’s stronghold in the bay. The unfortunate Ngati-Wai were caught both ways and ground down by both opposing forces. In the end, the proud Ngati-Wai, who once lived in their thousands along the Omaha coast, were reduced to a tiny force which barely populated their tribal lands and scattered inland to the safety of the forests at the first sign of a hapu on the warpath.

Thus tribal war broke down the power of the Ngati-Wai, not the inroads of the European. An ageing Te Kiri still held his ancestral position and exercised considerable “mana” in the councils of all the tribes of the area, still dominating the lesser Mahurangi tribes of Te Kawerau (Ngati-Rongi), who lived to the south of the stronghold of Pa-Kiri, even claiming a certain hegemony over all the tribes as far south as Pautahi and Mangakura at the Hoteo mouth, but as European settlement extended rapidly in Omaha from 1863 onward, the old chieftain had settled down to a quiet old age, occasionally flaring up in bursts of his old fire as he ordered Pakeha fishing parties away from his ancestral fishing grounds. C S Clarke recalls in his diary of one of these outbursts. He was fishing with the Wyattts, at Maori Point. “You no fish here! From here to Takatu Point is the Maori fishing ground,” cried old Te Kiri in a rage. “This was reserved to them by the Treaty of Waitangi. Very good, you fish the other side of Point Rodney.” But the old chief was in general quite friendly. On his death Rahui-te- Kiri, his daughter, who had married Tenetahi Pohuehue, extended the friendship further. There was no conflict. Today, the Brown’s of Pakiri are Te Kiri’s lineal descendants.

The provincial surveyors Heaphy and Baber completed the survey of the village and suburbs of Leigh in 1858, using the name of Samuel Leigh a Wesleyan missionary of the Hokianga who had visited the cove on at least one occasion. In January 1855, John Longmore secured three sections, totaling 970 acres at the cost of 432 pounds.

Some of this Longmore land was later bought by John Meiklejohn when he arrived with his wife Cordelia from Nova Scotia, a year after the rest of the family. It was not part of the original Unionville but was on the boundary. The second sale of March 1855 was to the Matthew bothers, 387 acres for 174 pounds.

Although the Meiklejohn and Matheson families arrived in the Omaha district little over a year apart (with the Meiklejohns arriving in Big Omaha on 18 May 1858), the two settlements with the Meiklejohns at Big Omaha – “the Big Creek” – and the Mathesons at Hillside (now Mathesons Bay) were in practice two distinct settlements. They were a mere two miles apart by water but there was no road link. Indeed, there was no road link either between Matthew’s Matakana holding and Big Omaha.

A track of sorts joined the Matthew’s properties to Matakana, and this probably prompted J E Matthew, a forward looking man of considerable education, to lay off a track from his property towards Big Omaha. It was an unformed, but cleared, track through high teatree. As C S Clarke said in his notes: “People who wanted to go from Matakana to Leigh in those days had to go around the head of Ruxtons Creek and back over the falls and then follow the range through private land to the lower shipyard by the (present) Big Omaha wharf and across when the tide was out or get a boat across Youngs Creek and wander round the harbour’s edge – one can imagine that not much travelling was done in those days.”

When the first low-level bridge was built over Ruxtons Creek (near what is now the Quintal Road junction) it was a vast improvement. A second bridge was later built on a higher level above the old bridge. The second two-lane concrete bridge built by Rodney County in recent times was either the third or fourth.

So the track which became a road and finally a sealed highway gradually developed to the Meiklejohn boundary, where it met a stumbling block in the person of Captain Meiklejohn himself who would not allow it to cross his property. As L D Meiklejohn wrote: “He did not want anyone walking through his property that he did not have the right to throw off.” A fierce and somewhat unreasoning stubbornness was one of this fine old pioneer’s characteristics. The grandson describes, too, how the captain, who had been deeply moved by the deaths of three of his sons, Robert, Lemuel and Alexander – the first two in tragic circumstances – could not bear living in the family home, Unionville. He moved into one of the other family homes and some time later to Auckland where he died on 3 July 1876. In the meantime his son John had allowed the road to go through, following the boundary between the Meiklejohn and Williams properties.

Some years passed before this road was continued to Leigh. This small settlement became known locally as Little Omaha, although its official name had been Village of Leigh since the first survey. In 1886, when Mr Ballance was Premier, the land that comprised Dacre’s Claim was surveyed. H Vickerman found Ti Point also unoccupied so included it in the survey. To provide employment, the surveyed land was offered at 1 pound an acre, the purchaser being offered either a cash sale or a 99 years’ lease, with an advance of 20 pound to build a house. An advance in cash for clearing the land and a number of fruit trees were thrown in.

One of the would-be selectors of a section at either Dacre’s Claim or Ti Point was a young man who walked from Auckland to view the land open to ballot. This was William Torkington, a builder, who secured a section and found plenty of work in the district. Others who came to the sections included William Lloyd. The Lloyds and Gravatts, of Pakiri, intermarried and made another chain of relatives in Rodney.

A road had to be provided round the Whangateau Harbour to link Big Omaha and Leigh. These were hard times and both the Government and council provided 600 pound to make the road. The work was let out in various sections, many with imposing side cuttings still known by the names of the contractors, such as Bruntons and Viponds. The work also entailed building trestle bridges over Birdsalls Creek and Youngs Creek and at least four more. The contractors might have averaged 5 shillings a day.

The completion of this route by about 1890 provided a through road of sorts from Warkworth to Matakana, to Big Omaha, Leigh and Pakiri.

About 1890 a post office was opened in Mr Millar’s Leigh store. This did away with the long tramp up to William Greenwood’s on the Pakiri Hill. Even that walk was better than the seven- mile slog to Pakiri to the post office at Mr Dyer’s, a trip taken in rotation by the earlier Leigh folk.

The Meiklejohn family bought 1000 acres of land at Big Omaha at 10 shillings an acre. Their later claims were allowed, so that, not including later purchases, they soon held over 1400 acres in Omaha and Matakana.

The 18th of May 1858 was a good day for them, and for pioneering in New Zealand, when the family landed at Whangateau, bringing to their new home the determination and industry of their Scottish forebears and their own expertise as seamen, shipbuilders and farmers.

With almost incredible drive, even allowing for the manpower of the family, in one short year they had completed their first vessel, Pioneer, built their first new homestead, Unionville, and began development of the land which was to repay their efforts a thousandfold. Unionville was a tall Canadian-style homestead with attic windows and steep-pitched roof to shed the snow that never came.

On 26 February 1861, the brother John who had remained behind in Prince Edward Island to wed Cordelia Alley (“Aunty John” to the Omaha children who could not manage “Cordelia”) arrived at Unionville. They had with them their two small daughters, Bertha and Vida. They built on the slope of a prominent hill and named their home Hillside. A little later still, James Meiklejohn built his home midway between the two – Roseville, later the site of Mr and Mrs Barrie Meiklejohn’s modern home.

As time slipped by, marriages and births followed. James married Ann Goldsworthy, whose family lived beside Kawau Bay. Septimus married a McGechie lass of Mahurangi Heads. So the family grew, the circle of cousins widened and added to the Williams’ children to make up a wider social life. There was plenty of fun as well as plenty of hard work. Then Mick Smith came to live there and work in the shipyards. Be bought a section from the Williams family, about opposite to “the upper shipyard” and not far from both the Williams’ house and the Meiklejohns’ by tracks through the teatree. The Smiths had six sons and two daughters, so with the Williams young folk and a small host of Meiklejohns, with Mick playing his accordion and Johnny Williams his violin, they all learned to dance. There was not even a piano but in an ever-widening circle the young folk made their own social life in their own way.

All the Williams and Meiklejohn families developed fine orchards, with apples and pears the staple lines to be sent as far as Auckland and Wellington. The younger members would pick the fruit, the elder would pack the 50-pound cases and get them down, sometimes by sledge, to the Big Omaha or Ti Point wharves. As roads improved and wheeled transport became possible, loads would often go to meet the ss Maori at Matakana, then a busy port. Sometimes, to make a steamer connection to Wellington, the carts would go to Warkworth and meet the Rose Carey.

Like the Smiths, more families filtered into Big Omaha. One of the first was the Bond family, Charles Bond having married John Meiklejohn’s daughter Annie. They farmed up the Omaha River from the first shipyard on a road which ran over Ra-iti (Little Sun) Pa road. Another daughter of John’s, Vida, born in Prince Edward Island, married David Mackey Darroch, the man who became famous for his scows. Mary Bond married Captain N Matheson of Seaside (Mathesons Bay).

On the Matakana side the neighbours were the Andersons, whose farm ran through the high teatree almost up to Meiklejohn’s boundary and included the picturesque pa

Puke-mate-keo often called the Sugar Loaf. The Whitakers, Nevilles and Warmans came and after the First World War the Birdsall family settled in over the range from Meiklejohns, about opposite the modern “Shipyard” bridge. They were highly competent farmers skilled with all types of stock, made a success of their farm, Rose Valley, and raised another Omaha family of eight children.

“In the 1860’s,” wrote L D Meiklejohn, “flour would be got in the ton. Sugar and rice were ordered in the quarter ton. Each family always had a keg of salt meat on hand and when a beast was killed word would be sent round the valley for fresh meat and the balance salted for future use. The bread was baked at home in hand-stoked stoves. I think Aunty John baked every day for her family of 10 children and the grown-ups as well, as they often had at least two men working for them. The smaller families baked at least twice a week and sometimes three times. Oatmeal porridge was the standby for breakfast – and no bacon and eggs after it either. Perhaps there was some bread and jam if the bread tin wasn’t empty. I know we often had only flour porridge for the evening meal and it wasn’t too bad either. There were generally plenty of vegetables with the midday meal, with salt meat. In winter we usually had salted butter as the cows were dry for some months. It was terrible stuff. We used to sprinkle sugar on to it to make it go down.”

“As we grew older we were allowed to go shooting pigeons, which were very plentiful, ducks and pheasants. These were a nice change from the salted meat. We also got plenty of wild pork – wild pigs were plentiful on Tamahu and we would go after them at least once a fortnight. Fruit was there in plenty and apple pies were a pleasant addition to the menu. Later, a dairy factory started in Matakana and that made a big difference to the district. We were able to milk more cows and had more money coming in, but the women still had to bake twice a week and there was no daily delivery of groceries or meat. However, things were improving all the time.”

“The hill through the Williams’ property to Ra-iti, or Pa Hill, was called Bogwater Hill, because an illicit whisky still was there, down on the little flat, somewhere between where Mr W Postlewaight now lives in Quintal Road, and people always seemed to get bogged getting over the hill. They either lost their way going over the hill or lost their way coming back from the still. (Mostly coming back I should think!)”

“The customs’ laws carried little weight in those days. Intercolonial vessels would come into Omaha Bay, just inside Takatu Point, and put up a signal. The local boys would go out in whaleboats, collect the cargo and bury it in the sand, till it could be picked up safely, and of course they took some home as well. On one occasion the ship had to slip her cable and anchor. The anchor lay on the beach for years. Hence the name Anchor Beach.”