Land Purchase

During 1853 the Government’s agent Donald McLean negotiates with Wairarapa chiefs to buy land. The huge Castlepoint block of 250,000 acres (100,000 hectares) is the first of many sales this year. Later known as ‘Ahiaruhe’ this block was purchased for £2500 (approx $1 for 30 acres) and was the basis for some of the largest stations in the north eastern Wairarapa. In total about 1.5 million acres (600,000 hectares) were purchased within six months.

1856 Map

1853
Working class settlers feel cheated by the New Zealand Company and demand land for farming. With Governor George Grey’s support, Joseph Masters, Charles Carter and William Allen form the Small Farms Association in 1853, which buys land through local rangitira Retimana Te Korou. Masterton and Greytown become New Zealand’s first planned inland towns; Carterton and Featherston follow in 1857.

1855
A huge earthquake changes the landscape throughout the Wellington region, raising parts of the coast and creating the western shore access between Wellington and the Hutt Valley, and the distinctive faultline terraces from Palliser Bay northwards along the western foothills of the Wairarapa.

1851
The first race meeting is held on New Year’s Day at a bend in the Ruamahanga River “with some degree of spirit and éclat”.

1853
Six years of work begins to improve the hazardous Rimutaka hill track.

1856
Samuel Oates and a colleague manhandle a huge wheelbarrow laden with goods over the Rimutaka hill from Wellington. The goods are destined for Charles Carter’s property. While the two men are recuperating at the Rising Sun Hotel in Greytown (demolished in 2007) some gum tree seedlings go missing from the wheelbarrow and are later planted around the town. The only survivor is the enormous Eucalyptus regnans beside St Luke’s Church.

Sam Oates' Gum Tree

Land Wars

Tensions spread throughout New Zealand and the region as war ignites between Maori and Europeans over land in Taranaki and Waikato. Some land sales are disputed and the Kingitanga movement (Maori King movement) gains supporters. Against official caution and editorial scoffing a stockade is constructed across the road from where Aratoi sits today and Maori fortify a pa in the Ruamahanga valley. Calm leadership on both sides allows peace to prevail and the Wairarapa is the only North Island district to avoid armed conflict during a period which saw a large loss of life in other parts of New Zealand.

Masterton Stockade

1867 January 5th – Greytown brothers Edward and Charles Grigg publish the first newspaper in the district, the Wairarapa Mercury, printing three issues a week. Journalist and editor Richard Wakelin takes over the business, and in August 1872 it becomes the Wairarapa Standard.

By 1860, three quarters of New Zealand’s exports are wool. With land licences ending wild competition for freehold land often involves dubious methods. Fifty people buy most of the 750,000 acres of ‘five shilling’ Crown land available in the Wairarapa.

1859
Tamahau Mahupuku begins writing down his tribal history while on a shearing run. This written history became a crucial and important part of New Zealand’s recorded Maori history. It is still used as a reference by Maori scholars today.

1859-61
Gold discoveries in Buller and Central Otago draw massive numbers of speculators. The first Cobb and Co coach service runs from Dunedin to the Gabriel’s Gully goldfield and the first gold shipment leaves for London in 1862. Large numbers of Wairarapa stock are sent south to feed the miners. Meanwhile in the Wairarapa people seek leisure, roads are slowly improving and the first cricket matches are organised.

1862
The s.s. White Swan, carrying a number of the country’s leading politicians and civil servants, is holed on a rock off the Wairarapa coastline. Miraculously, no lives are lost.

White Swan Disaster

1860s
The Ngati Kahungunu tohunga Te Matorohanga passes on his knowledge of history and traditions. Hoani Te Whatahoro Jury will later transcribe these stories, and Tamahau Mahupuku and others will help the ethnologist S. Percy Smith to translate them into English. The transcripts and translations are to become an important record of early Maori history.