James Farrow was born about 1800 died aged 80.
1,2,3 He and
Ann Phillips were married in 1861.
4 He died on 3 November 1880, at age ~80.
2 He was buried in Symonds St, AUCK, NZ.
4 Signed petition to King William IV 1837 JL
James Farrow, the first permanent trader in the Bay of Plenty, first came to Tauranga in 1829 to obtain flax fibre for Australian merchants in exchange for muskets and gunpowder.
He acquired half an acre of land at the western end of the Otumoetai pa from the chiefs Tupaea, Tangimoana and Te Omanu on 10 January 1838. This was the earliest authenticated land purchase in the Bay for which a Crown Grant was later issued.
Soon after Phillip Tapsell arrived at Maketu as flax trader for Te Arawa in late 1830 Farrow became his Tauranga agent. Tapsell, probably the best known of the flax traders, married Hine-i-turama of Te Arawa. War between Ngaiterangi and Te Arawa made conditions dangerous for him, but he survived, trading arms for flax in the 1830s, and as that trade declined turning to boat building. His reminiscences were published by James Cowan under the title 'A Trader in Cannibal Land'.
Farrow and his brother Daniel dealt mainly with the chief Te Waharoa of Matamata, whose tribe cut and scraped the flax. Although the trade was intermittent, it involved large quantities of flax fibre. It is known that loads of up to 70 tons were carried over the Kaimai range by the Wairere track for shipment from the Te Puna river mouth to Sydney merchant, Richard Jones.
By the late 1830s, when Farrow settled at Otumoetai, the flax export trade had declined, being largely replaced by that in pigs, salted pork, potatoes, maize and wheat. These locally produced commodities, transported in the cutters and schooners of traders such as Farrow and Faulkner, were sold to ships visiting New Zealand, especially whalers in the Bay of Islands. From 1840, the growing town of Auckland provided an expanding market for Maori produce. Tauranga Maori soon prospered sufficiently to buy their own sailing vessels, one of which, the schooner "George", was skippered by James Farrow
Farrow left Otumoetai before the Waikato land war spread to Tauranga in 1864. He retired to Auckland, where he died in 1880 at the age of 80. Although he had a Maori wife, there are no known descendants. James Farrow immigrated to To Tauranga in 1829 ESR has 1837 to Russell.
4 He was a trader in 1829.
4