Class: cabin
PPA Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2073, 3 January 1920, Page 3
AN INTERESTING MEMOIR.
THE LATE MRS. THOMAS KEBBELL.
On January 2nd next it will he SO years since the pioneers of the New Zealand Company landed at Petone, and hud'the ŒŒfoundation of the settlement of New Zealand. Ship after ship followed -in -necc-shm .laden with immigrants and storey Œ and among them'was the .Blenheim, which cast -anchor in Port Nicholson on December 271 h, .1840, welcomed by bright sunshine. Among tier passengers was a girl twelve years of age accompanying her tatbcr, mother, brothers, and sister, who had left the home of their ancestors to found a new home in a' new land. McDonalds of Draimanorran, in Scotland, they sought a favourable turn of fortune's wheel in New Zealand. Tim people of today cannot really form any concep-. lion of travel is it was in tlio.-e days. The Blenheim w;b a ship of 378 tuns burthen, and on that voyage carried 107 passengers, besides officers and crew. Balt, meat and biscuits were the staple food, and the voyage lasted four months. The excitement of the child on waking one morning and (biding (lie ship at. anchor may bo imagined, and her joy at .seeing the beautiful harbour of Port Nicholson, surrounded hy hills, bush-clad to the water?s edge and alive with singing birds, created an impression-which lasted her liretime. Eor eight yeffl?s she saw forest disappear to give place to dwellings and pasture during the infancy of the city of Wellington. Towards the end of 1848 she married Mr Thomas Kebbell, who was then a pioneer settler on the banks of the Manawatu river, but in the meantime she had experienced the awful earthquake of that year. That convulsion so disturbed the pence of mind of some of the settlers that they chartered a schooner to take themselves and their goods and chatels to Sydney. ?They set mail at the earliest moment, and among them was, one of Hiree men prominent in the call for constitutional government, and who were known as ?The Three F?s.? The wreck" of the schooner at the heads put an end to the desire of Dr. ?William Fitzhorherl to cast the dust of; New Zealand from off his feet, and he subsequently did great Service to the colony in helping to adjust the differences between Downing Street and its distant protege, ending in the launching of the ?self-reliant ? policy which quickly brought an end to (he Native troubles that hitherto under the Imperial control, had seemed interminable.
The bride accompanied her husband to the Manawaiu, making the jonrnox on horseback, which at that lime was the only alternative to walking. Riding along the Old Forint a road, and passing the Porirua Harbour on the west: side they swam their horses across the entrance to [lie harbour at the ferry east of where Plimmerion now stands. Following the Maori track through the basil over the Pukcrua hill and down lo the seashore, (hey rode along the Œ ?oast, to the Manawatu River, and Œ;hence to their home.
Few nowadays know of the difficulties which then beset travellers on that coast ?high spring (ides, the rivers Waikunac, Otaki, Manakan, a ini Oiiau each liable to llood, and each with a deep channel running back into the sandhills. Many a traveller had been compelled to wait for hours or even days until (he (held had- subsided or the tide, had ebbed snlheienlly to allow of a passage in comparatively shallow water near the line of the breaking waves; ur in the ease of the Otaki the traveller might have. Aia.dc a laboured journey inland, and sought the assistance of a friendly Maori who would lake him, across the river in a canoe and low- the horse behind. In those days the beach was the main road northward from fhiekakariki as far as Scott?s Ferry on the Rangitikei river.
The earthquake of-1851 and unprecedented (loods in life river ended the Manawatu venture, and the bride of 'lB, with three children out of four (one leaving met the ?Mew Zealand death" ?drowned in the fiver) [and her remains are buried in ihe old and' neglected cemetery uexl to the local State school ?Ed. TI.J were brought 1o Wellington, where she saw further great? changes in the development of the eily. She had already seen forest removed for dwellings and pastures; later she saw shops and stores, replace dwellings, ami still later she saw dwellings displace horses and cows. Nurtured in times when ?woman?s rights?? were motherhood and home management, home life was the life of the late Mrs Kebbell. With all her faculties clear to within a few hours of death, she lived loved by children, grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren, "With her death. it Œmight almost bo said that the foundation of this Dominion lias?now passed from the- ken of the eyewitness into the domain of tradition. Flora McDonald immigrated to ENG to NZ on the Blenheim arriving NZ 27/12/1840 on 25 August 1840.
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