Dunedin Evening Star, 14 February
1891
 Mr
William Isaac Haberfield, a well-known and
highly-respected settler, whose home is in that
picturesque remnant of bush between the Hillgrove railway
station and the Moeraki lighthouse, may, we think, claim
to have had a longer residence in Otago than anyone now
living in the colony. We have pleasure in introducing him
to our readers as one of the Joshuas of the settlement,
and gladly find space to let him tell his own story. The
only preface necessary is the assurance, which can be
given without qualification, that the gentleman of whom we
are speaking is in every respect worthy of credence. He is
physically and intellectually as young as most men are at
forty years of age, a real old 'heart of oak,' with a
memory like a vice and an unclouded, well-informed mind,
being in all respects fully competent to speak with
certainty and authority on a great variety of subjects.
Early Life
"I was born in Bristol on the 3rd June, 1815, about a
fortnight before Waterloo was fought. There is the entry
in the Bible, in my father's handwriting. He was a captain
in the navy—this is his portrait in his uniform—and owing
to his position, I was placed as a youngster in the upper
school at Greenwich, a school for the sons of naval
officers.
As soon as I was old enough I went to sea, joining a
brigantine that was trading to the Mediterranean for
fruit, and the first work I ever did was to handle a
ballast shovel. In this ship we made trips not only to the
Mediterranean, but also to Portugal and Spain and we were
for some time running to Newfoundland.
I next joined His Majesty's brig, the Snake, as a middy,
and went away in her to the Brazilian coast, where she was
employed by Admiral Seymour in chasing pirates and
slavers. The Admiral was there in the Patriate, his
headquarters being Rio.
To New Zealand, 1836
"My next experience was a voyage to the Colonies. I
joined a ship that was bringing a batch of male convicts,
shipped at Sheerness, and bound for Tasmania, or Van
Diemen's Land, as it was then called. Since then I have
never left the Colonies. I got clear of the vessel in
Sydney, and came from that port to New Zealand. This is as
much as you need to know of my early life, which was a
lively one, as you may guess; but of course what you want
to know is what took place after I came to New Zealand.
Well! I'll tell you.
(Haberfield would have been about 21 years old then.)
"I came to Otago in a brig named the Micmac, and landed at
Otago on the 17th March, 1836 (St. Patrick's Day). The
very day after we landed, they killed a couple of fair
sized whales right up in the harbour. They were the first
whales I ever saw killed. The boats were not away more
than twenty minutes before they had them both, and they
were killed in a twinkling.
White Women
"And I want to say here that we had two white women on
board. Make mention of that please. I'll tell you why. I
had a regular laugh to myself when I read in one of the
papers a little while ago that Mrs. Tom Jones was the
first white woman to come to Otago. It shows what a
precious lot they knew about it. Why, there was Mrs.
Brinn. She came from Sydney with her husband in the brig
Bee long before Mrs. Jones, and was here in Otago for some
three years, eventually going back to Sydney with her
husband, who was whaling at Waikouaiti and Otago's Brinn
Point was named after her, from the circumstance that she
frequented the spot to look out for the boats when they
were after whales.
And the women we brought in the Micmac were here before
Mrs. Brinn was. One of them was Mrs. Flood and the other
was Mrs. Garrett. They came with their husbands Garrett
was a sawyer by trade, and went away in the brig the same
trip, taking his wife with him. Flood was the storekeeper
of the vessel, and left New Zealand again in the October
or the November following our arrival. He had been a
sergeant in the army, and a nice fellow he was. Neither
the Garretts nor the Floods had any children. The owners
wouldn't bring anyone that had any children, or
encumbrances as they were called.
Bringing supplies for the Weller brothers
"But I am getting off my course. I was going to tell
you how I came here. This brig that I came in, her captain
was a Welshman—I forget her name. I think he owned the
vessel: he did so far as we knew. A whaler? No, she wasn't
a whaler; she was a merchant vessel, loaded up with a
general cargo for the Wellers' place. No, I don't suppose
you do much about the Wellers; but they were big people in
those days, as you may believe when 1 tell you that they
had then twelve vessels whaling for them.
There were two brothers: one was George, and the other was
named Edward, or it may have been Edwin, I am not sure
which. They had the only store in the place anywhere about
these parts, and a pretty big store it was. It was in the
harbour— Otago Harbour it was called; what you call the
Lower Harbour now. No! the store was not exactly on the
Heads. It was on the point next to what is now
known as
Harrington's Point, close to what you know as the Kaik (Kaika
=Kainga = village)
Edward Weller
 Edward,
or Edwin, Weller was there himself. He and his brother
were among the oldest colonists in New South Wales. The
Mr. Weller I am speaking of had been a prisoner amongst
the Maoris at Hokianga in his young days, and while there
had got to understand the Maoris and speak their language.
He never owned any land, either in the North Island or the
South, though he might have had as much as he could see
almost for the asking. He was just a trader, and he stuck
to his business. He is, I believe, alive now in New South
Wales—a very old man he must be. The store that he had was
always well stocked with all kinds of slops and other
things, and they used to sell as cheap, or cheaper, than
you can got things now You could buy a splendid blanket
for ten shillings, and I don't suppose you'd get it for
much less now.
Early whaling stations
"The station at Otago was not the only whaling station
on this part of the coast, Afterwards there were stations
at Waikouaiti and at the mouth of the Taieri, and to the
north there were stations at Timaru and Banks Peninsula,
which used to be a famous place for whales in those days
But those stations were all planted after my time. If you
want to know which was the first whaling station in this
part of the country, I should it was the one at
Preservation Inlet. I have heard so. That was a very old
one. The next one was at Otago, where I came to. Then came
our place at Moeraki, and the season after we started they
set up a station at Waikouaiti.
Johnny Jones
Johnny Jones? No. No one had even heard of Johnny Jones
then. The people that started whaling at Waikouaiti were
Long, Wright, and Richards. They were Sydney merchants.
They whaled one season and then they pitched it up—
failed, I believe—and it was then that Johnny Jones came
on the scene; he bought them out in Sydney, taking their
boats, huts, slops, other stores, gear, try pots, and
everything they had. Jones sent down the barque Magnet,
under Captain James Bruce, to take possession. Bruce
dropped his anchor in Waikouaiti Bay in the middle of the
night, and before daylight had padlocked the storehouse
and taken charge of everything moveable.
The men, who at this time had not been paid, were inclined
to rebel, and John Miller, who was away in charge of a
boat at the time of the seizure, refused on his return to
give up the boat. Eventually, I believe the men got a
passage to Sydney, and obtained the money due to them from
Messrs. Long, Wright, and Richards.
Working for the Wellers, 1836
"But we must hold on. I am going on a bit too fast. I
came down, as I was going to say, under engagement to the
Wellers. I and the others were under agreement to the firm
for the whaling season, which, for bay whaling, reckoned
from the middle of March to the middle of October. They
kept me for shore work mostly, giving us all sorts of jobs
in summer time, when, as I have said, there was no
whaling. One of the things we did was to go to Purakaunui
to blast stones and put up a fishing station there. (Purakaunui
was an important Ngai Tahu settlement near what was
later called Dunedin)
One of our head men was a Sydney native named Hughes, a
really smart fellow either at shore work or in the boats,
especially about whales. He had a fancy to leave the
Wellers, and did so in the June or July after we arrived.
Two American vessels called in, and he went with them. One
of these was named the Merrimac, and the other was the
Martha. Captain Potter was master of the Martha. They were
bound for Banks Peninsula after fish, and a rare good time
of it they had. As I was told afterwards, they filled up
in Piraki Bay just about as fast as the men could work.
Signing up with Hughes
When they were full they came our way again, bringing
Hughes with them. He was all a go to have a try on his own
hook. He had brought two boats with him and a complete fit
out for starting a station, these things having been got
from the Yankee ships, and he at once set about getting
together a party from those of us who were willing to
join. Our time with Mr. Weller was up in October as I have
told you, and six of us agreed to go in with Hughes.
We went round in boats to have a look at the place which
he had selected, Moeraki Point, as the site for the
station, and everyone could see at once that a better spot
could not be wished for. There was good shelter, sound
anchorage, a nobby landing, and plenty of wood, besides
which Moeraki was a very pretty place, and above all there
were plenty of fish about. So we thought it a good spec to
join Hughes.
The cooper
 "There
were three partners in the affair: Hughes, a man named
Thompson, and Sivatt, a cooper. The cooper was a very
important man in all whaling parties, for d'ye see, we
always get the staves down in 'shooks.' You know what
shooks are? Yes, bundles of staves, and he had to rattle
them together, and this took him all his time. I've seen
any amount of those chaps that would put together their
twenty tuns a day single handed.
On a 'Lay'
Well, as I was going to say, we were all on a 'lay.' You
know what a lay is, I suppose? If you are on a 100th, when
a hundred tons are got, you get one, and when you are on a
lay they find you (provide you
with food and accommodation) that's the
difference between a lay and going shares. If you are on
shares you find yourself, but of course you get a bigger
chance than in a lay. The men get different interests
according to agreement. A pulling hand will get, say, one
share, a steerer one and a half, and a headsman two
shares—just as is agreed on.
As I said, there were three partners in the spec, and the
rest of us were on a lay—six of us white men and six
Maoris that we brought with us from Otago; they were fine
strapping fellows. We had our eyes open in getting them to
join the party, You see, we got on very well with the
Maoris, but there was just a chance that that state of
things wouldn't last forever, and it seemed to us that we
had a double chance of securing a peaceful and quiet time
by having these chaps with us. They were sons of chiefs,
and if the worst did come we had them with us, don't you
see?
"Everything was quiet and untouched by anyone; and I doubt
whether men had ever landed, for the pigeons would come
and light on your heads, and the kakas weren't frightened
when they saw us. The only thing that was short was water.
There was but one pool on the peninsula, and there is only
one now, strange to say. You can't get water anywhere
else, and all we get now is from the roofs of the houses.
The water in the pool isn't fit to use excepting for
cattle. It took us two days to land our things from the
brig. There were a good many things to get ashore, and the
trypots were heavy. At last we got everything out of the
Magnet, and she went away.
Refugees from Kaiapoi
"There were very few Maoris here in Moeraki. A small
party - some nine, all told - under Tongatahara, lived at
the point, but none of the present tribe were here.
Tongatahara's people went to Akaroa soon after we came,
and during our second season the tribe now living at
Moeraki came from Kaiapoi: I mean, of course, the fathers
and grandfathers of these Natives, only two or three of
the old ones are left. Rauparaha had driven them from
their original holdings. It is scarcely correct to call
them a tribe, either; they were the remnants of five
tribes or hapus—all that were left after Rauparaha's
repeated massacres – and came down here to keep out of his
road; since, although he had been badly beaten in Cloudy
Bay, they lived in constant dread of his reappearance.
It was about 1838 that those Maoris first came to Moeraki.
They made the trip in canoes and one whaleboat, which they
had picked up somewhere—a worn out old thing that some of
the whalers had very likely cast off or given to them.
When we saw the fleet coming we hadn't the least idea what
the purpose of the expedition was and you may guess that
we were pleased to find out later on that the uninvited
settlers were peaceably inclined. Of course we soon got to
see a good deal of the Maoris, and we always got on very
well with them.
My first season of shore whaling, 1837
"We started the first season with two boats,
six oars in each, and our venture turned out very well.
Whales were plentiful and not hard to take. They used to
come right into the bay, and there were so many of them
that we could most always pick the ones we wanted. As I
said, we landed at Moeraki the day after Christmas, and
commenced in March, and by the end of the season for bay
whaling (the middle of August) we had taken twenty-three
whales. That was not at all bad.
They came to somewhere about eighty or ninety tons of oil.
We had no difficulty in getting rid of it. There were any
number of traders ready to make a deal and go anywhere for
it. The first vessel that came to our station was a
brigantine about ninety tons, called the Sydney Packet.
She came in July, bringing us provisions and shooks to
carry on with, and prepared to trade for our oil and bone.
Shipwreck
"While she was laying at anchor in the bay there a gale
got up and she came ashore. There was no life lost;
indeed, there was no one hurt. First the stock of her
anchor gave way, and then she got another one down, and
the chain parted, and she came, quiet and comfortable
like, on to the beach. They took care to put her on a soft
place, and all hands got ashore without any flurry.
We tried to get her off. but could not do so, and we
gradually broke her up. We got our oil out of her—she had
six or seven tons in her hold at the time; and we also got
her boats and cut away the rigging, and in fact all the
moveable things about her. The beach was a steep one then,
and she lay pretty close in. All the things that we saved
were taken away by the Magnet when she next called.
A jolly life
"The life we led there was a jolly one. There was plenty
of work, and fair pay for it, though we thought it rather
hard that the vessels would give us no more than £14 a ton
for the oil and one shilling a pound for the whalebone.
These were carefully measured and weighed out on the beach
before any of the stuff left us, and I can tell you we
looked sharply after our own interests. The only thing
that bothered us was that we hadn't too much of a change
in tucker. We had a bit of beef at first—all salt, mind
you—but that soon ran out, and then we lived on fish and
kakas and pigeons, and for vegetables we had to fall back
on fern root, with a few potatoes now and then, which we
had to go down to Otago for.
We also brought some pigs up, and they were the first ever
seen in Moeraki. We built sties for them, and kept them as
long as we could; but we couldn't go on finding food for
them as we wanted all our tucker for ourselves, so we had
to let them go, and they were the first of the pigs that
afterwards spread all over this part of the country. As
soon as we could spare the time we made gardens, and then
we were all right. We had heaps of fish and spuds, and if
that kind of food will make a man a Maori, I must be as
much a Maori as anyone in the country.
"After the first season Hughes went over to Sydney for a
trip. If I haven't told you before, you may as well write
down here that Hughes died in Hampden somewhere about
seven years ago, upwards of eighty years of age, and he
was buried there. He was just the sort of man for early
colonial life. He could do anything, and had seen
everything there was to see this side of the world. His
father had been a soldier, and came out as one of the
guard over a batch of prisoners in one of the first
convict ships that sailed for Sydney. Well, as I was
saying, Hughes went for a trip to Sydney, and he brought
back a couple of new boats with him, so that we had four
to commence our second season with.
A lively second season, 1838
That was a lively season. Whales were numerous again,
and we got on very well. In the middle of our busiest time
we had the back luck to have one of our new boats
smashed—knocked to pieces without ever being fast to a
whale. We were out one day, and hard at it, the boat in
which I was being fast to a big fellow. He was properly
handled, and was nigh about done, when another boat came
up to put an iron into him. We could see that the whale
was just dying—he was all of a tremble, and shooting about
here and there—and we sang out to the other fellows to
stand off; but I suppose they didn't hear us; at any rate
they came up in a roundabout way, and were pretty close,
when he suddenly made a rush right in their direction, and
went clean over her, turning her over by sheer weight, and
in a minute or two our brand new boat was floating about
the bay in shingles. We cut our line sharp, and the whale
sank dead after his last effort; but we picked him up two
days afterwards, and got him in all right. He was a good
one too, though not the largest I have seen. The best one
for oil I ever helped to try out was a cow in calf that
yielded about eleven tons.
"There was nobody hurt. We picked up the men in the water,
and they didn't think anything of the little affair. We
didn't make such a precious fuss about a thing of that
sort as people would nowadays. If they get a wet shirt
they must go and see the doctor, or else die of fright. We
had no doctors, and if we had we shouldn't have bothered
them. I suppose you won't believe, but I give you my word
that I've never tasted physic all my life, and never
wanted it. But I must say that we were pretty lucky. We
didn't have any serious accidents; losing our boat was the
worst one, and none of our party were ever hurt. No, sir,
we did not fall out and knock each other about. We had no
rows at all.
No grog, so no fights
Do you know what kept things so quiet with us? We had no
drink. It was an agreement that there should be none.
Vessels that came here for oil had it with them, but we
never allowed a drop to be put ashore. Now and again some
of the boys had a nip when they went down to Weller's
place at Otago; but that was a long way to go for a drink,
and, besides, our men were a steady lot, and didn't care
much about grog.
In 1839, 24-year-old
Haberfield married the highborn 38-year-old Mereana
Teitei.
A switch to providing food, 1843
"The third season we increased our party, and worked
five boats. One was a seven oared boat, she was too long.
That was a good season too, but whales were getting to be
not quite so plentiful, and, to cut a long yarn short,
they got scarcer and scarcer, until, after we had stuck
together for five seasons, the game was hardly paying us.
There was not enough to buy a suit of slops after a
season's work; so in 1843 I went out. The others kept on
for some time, but I had had enough of it. Another man and
me then started to run a whaleboat to Waikouaiti and
Moeraki, bringing pigs, potatoes and other things from
Otago. Weller's was still the only settlement there. There
was no such place as Dunedin; the name even was unknown.
All round where Dunedin was afterwards built there was
nothing but scrub, and it was a great place for pigs. Port
Chalmers was then called Koputai.
Otakou's Maori leaders
"You were asking just now about the Maoris, and I may as
well at this stage tell you something about them. In the
early days there were, as I have said, none about the
hills where Dunedin now stands, and not very many at
Weller's place. But there was an important settlement at
the Heads, where the Natives had a fortified pa, and
another at Purakaunui.
a. Taiaroa
Did I know Taiaroa? Yes sir! I did; very well.
Not the present Taiaroa, but his father, a regular
thorough going Maori, who couldn't speak a word of
English. He was much shorter than this Taiaroa, but a man
of enormous strength. But he wasn't the head man among the
Head Maoris then—not by a long chalk.
b.Tahatu
The principal man among them died soon after I got to
Otago; it must have been the first season I was there.
They called him Tattoo. (He
was Tahatu, the uncle of
Mereana Teitei, whom Haberfield married in 1839)
That wouldn't be his proper name, but it was what
we all called him. He was a man whose history ought to be
written by someone. He was a noble fellow, a real natural
chief. Though he had been to Sydney several times, he was
in all respects a pure Maori in his ways, as well as in
his appearance; but he was a superior stamp of a man,
liked by everyone, and respected by all.
He was always strangely quiet and dignified, and he had
the manners of a gentleman. One could see that as he went
about, he was always eager to understand everything he saw
among the white men; but he would seldom ask—he seemed to
be anxious to avoid bothering anyone with his questions;
and he was never known to ask for anything. Besides, he
never touched spirits, and he had a way of his own of
enforcing obedience without arguing the point, and without
using bad language.
Poor fellow! He did not live to see an old age. He was
still almost a young man when he sickened and died of
consumption. (Tuberculosis)
I went to see him when he was sick, and just as I would
have done for any decent man, I tried to find out what he
wanted, and it struck me that a comfortable pillow would
help him to lie a bit easier, so I fetched him a feather
pillow that I had brought with me from England —my mother
gave it to me when I was coming away. The Maoris looked on
this act as one of extraordinary kindness on my part, and
they never forgot it. They would do anything for me. I
must say that I have always found them mindful of any good
turn, and anxious to show their gratitude; but their
kindness to me for lending that pillow was far beyond what
might have been expected.
c. Karatai
"When Tattoo died, the next best man was Jacky
White—Karetai was his proper name. He was a more important
man than old Taiaroa, who, as I have said, or intended to
say, was only of third rate importance then. What sort of
people the Maoris were? Well! you may safely say that they
were an industrious, decent living lot. They used to be
great hands at fishing I have seen a dozen, and sometimes
as many as twenty canoes, go out of a morning fishing for
barracouta; and they would take the double canoes outside
the Heads without fear of being blown off. Sometimes, too,
they used to go in boats, when they could get them.
Maori men did not get drunk
As to drink, they did not often take it. It is a lie to
say that they were a drinking crowd. Those engaged at
Weller's were entitled, as well as the whites, to a gill
of rum in the morning before going out; and d'ye you know
what the Maoris did? They carefully bottled it off as they
got it, and afterwards sold it to the white people at a
little less than the price at the store. That's a fact,
and I should like you to print it.
They never drank the rum themselves, but they were always
ready to make a bargain with the white men for it. Yes,
they were naturally business men rather than drinkers. You
folk who get your ideas of what the Maoris are like from
the poor specimens you see about towns have a wrong notion
altogether of what they are like when left to themselves
without contact with the white man.
Maori sexual morality
"Another good thing about the Maoris as I knew them was
that they were very particular about their women.
Infidelity on the part of either husband or wife was
punishable with death, and among unmarried people the
relationships were as decent, to say the least of it, as
you would find in communities of Europeans. The women had
to work, but only at what were looked on as their proper
tasks.
But it was considered the right thing for a chief to
several wives I am bound to admit that because it's a
fact. Jacky White had four or five, and most of them had
two or three: they were supposed to have as many as they
could keep, or they were allowed to, which comes to about
the same thing. These wives, however, no matter how many
there were, were always properly treated, and not regarded
as concubines, nor could they be put away at the will of
their chief.
Maori slaves
Perhaps you don't know it, but it's quite true that the
Maoris in those days had slaves. Each chief had some. I
never could quite make out how they got these slaves, or
what their position was, but we always concluded that they
had been prisoners taken in war. They did all the dirty
work, and might be bought or sold, and it was no offence
if a master killed one of them.
I don't know anything about cannibalism among them. I
never saw any, and they never would confess to having been
given to that ungodly practice. Still I know that a
slave's life was at his master's mercy, and goodness only
knows whether, in the olden days, they always buried one
that they knocked on the head.
I once knew one of these slaves very well. Hughes, who was
here before me, owned one. He was a big fellow, that we
used to call Rogers. The Maoris were going to kill him, so
the yarn went, and Hughes took pity on him and tried to
save his life The Maoris wouldn't listen to what he had to
say, so Hughes thought he would buy the man; and he went
to the store, drew a lot of slops against his credit, and
gave them to the Maoris for Rogers. The Natives did not
touch Rogers after that, but looked upon him as Hughes'
property. The poor fellow came with us afterwards, and
died while in our service.
A grog-fueled murder
"While I was going in and out among the Maoris an
incident occurred, which will give you an idea of life
among these people. Three American whalers were lying off
Weller's place, having put in to refresh with wood and
water before going further with their cruise. The
carpenter belonging to one of these ships was on shore,
staying at the house of a man named James Brown. There
were a good many fellows about, and they had been making
too free with the grog. One of the chaps there was a
Maori, son of one of the petty chiefs, and he too had been
drinking, just for once in a way—at any rate, what he had
taken had got into his head.
Well, this chief's son fell out with Brown, the master of
the house, because Brown would not give him any more grog,
upon which the Maori went away, loaded his gun, and came
and stood outside Brown's window, waiting to get a chance
to shoot Brown. While he was waiting there the carpenter
happened to go to the door, and the Maori seized the
chance to fire. I don't know whether he knew who it was at
the door, but any way it was the carpenter who got the
benefit of it, and he fell dead on the spot.
A problem of applying justice
"The Maori at once made a bolt for it, and could not be
found for two or three days. He was stowed away in the
bush. At last old Taiaroa went and hunted him out, and
brought him to the store. 'Here,' he said, is the man who
shot the white man; do as you like to him.' The Maoris
seemed to look on it as a matter of honour to find him.
Mr. Weller put the man in irons, and sent word all round
to muster as many whites as possible. He thought that this
outrage would start the Maoris into a general rising, and
that would have been a serious matter, as they were pretty
well armed.
I went up among the others, and I can tell you there was a
regular to-do. They clapped the murderer into a little
room, and planted men to go sentry—go, watch and watch,
until we came to a decision as to what we were to do with
him. Mr. Weller's idea was to send him to Sydney to be
tried. The Yankees wanted us to let them take him off to
one of their ships and hang him at the yard arm We would
not agree to that —it wouldn't be regular; and there we
were—didn't know how to get out of the fix.
Suicide
"The situation was a pretty serious one, or would have
been if the Maoris had been nasty, for there were a couple
of thousand of them about the Kaik at that time, and about
400 or 500 more at Purakaunui who could have come across
pretty quick, but they did not seem dangerous. They said
they would not trouble what we did with the man. Their
idea was that, as he had tried to kill Brown, Brown should
be allowed to shoot him, and they would have been
satisfied if the matter had ended that way. But we
wouldn't have that.
Well, I was standing outside the house where the Maori was
locked up, and whilst talking with others who were there,
we saw Tom Brown come out. This Tom Brown was one of our
men—the one whose turn it was to watch inside. He came out
just for a necessary purpose, leaving his gun behind.
Before he could get back we heard a report, and then I
knew what had happened. I knew the Maori was cooked.
We rushed in, and there was the Maori and his woman—both
shot. We could see how it was done. She had raised him up
to a sitting position, and then hugged him from behind,
while he got the gun and pointed it towards his chest. The
ball went right through him and lodged in the woman, and
they were both dead. Then we saw how foolish we had been
to let the woman be in the room with him, and of course
everybody blamed Tom Brown for going out without taking
his gun with him.
But perhaps it all ended in the best way. The Maoris made
no fuss; they said they were glad he had made away with
himself. The last part in the tragedy was played by old
Taiaroa, who rolled up the man's body in a bundle and
humped it away himself, saying that he was going to bury
it. What he did with it I can't tell you. No one ever saw
the grave. Pitched the body overboard, perhaps. The woman
was buried by her own people. And that was the finish of a
very anxious time for all of us.
The first white man here?
"As I have said, all the setters that I know of who
were in Otago before me are either away or dead. The two
eldest still alive that I know of are Dick Driver, who was
the first pilot in Otago, and now lives in Purakaunui, and
Mr. Apes, of Waikouaiti. The latter is coming down to see
me, and have a chat about old times I had a visit from
Captain Jackson Barry some time ago, and he wanted to to
know who was the first white man here.
I replied that I knew the first man here and that wasn't
Johnny Jones, and that I was here myself long before
Johnny Jones saw a flax bush; and that was enough for Mr.
Barry, or whatever you may call him. I can't abide those
men who let on to know what they don't anything about.
Mr. Haberfield's subsequent history has been full of
adventures. As modestly told by himself, he altogether
settled at Moeraki after he had been running a whaleboat
for some time; and then, feeling rather restless, he
shipped with Captain Cole on the schooner Rory O'More,
which called at Moeraki on her way to Akaroa for a stock
of pigs, to take up with other provisions to some American
whalers that were lying there.
This was a somewhat eventful trip. On arrival at Akaroa,
she was engaged to convey to Wellington a prisoner who had
been arrested for breaking into a store. The prisoner and
the policeman (named Barry) and the witnesses were all to
be taken up together. The schooner was owned by the
well-known Paddy Hood, and she had first to make a trip to
his settlement at the northern end of the Ninety-mile
beach, where the Little River empties itself, so as to get
some provisions. On getting these aboard, she returned to
Akaroa and picked up her party, which included an officer
from a French man of war, who wanted to go to Wellington
to make arrangements for victualing the vessel.
There were altogether twenty-three souls on board when the
Rory O'More sailed for Wellington—a port she was not
destined to reach, as she overran her reckoning in a fog,
and got jammed in Palliser Bay, where she was beached to
save life, it being found that she could not help going
ashore. The men stopped behind long enough to save the
cargo, and then set out to walk to Wellington, which they
reached in three days. Captain Cole was not in charge of
the schooner when she was wrecked, another master being
shipped in his place.
"Mr. Haberfield was three months in Wellington unable to
get work, and scarcely able to obtain sufficient food,
from which difficulty he was released by the opportune
arrival of one of Johnny Jones's vessels (the Magnet, then
under the charge of Captain McFarlane), the mate of which
(Mr. Lewis) took him on board and provided for him until
he got a passage by her to Akaroa, from which place he was
taken home by the schooner Mana (Captain Sweeney)—a vessel
that was to take a shipment of pigs from Moeraki to Mr.
Fraser's station on Mana Island.
He stayed at home for some years, afterwards shipping in
the cutter Levien (Captain Arnett) for Port Levy on the
Banks Peninsula, where lived a wealthy old bachelor named
Greenwood, who gave him a freight of wool, cheese and
butter, with thirty two sheep on deck, for Wellington.
This small vessel, much overloaded, left Port Levy on
Saturday afternoon, and the next (Sunday) afternoon
dropped anchor in Wellington, opposite the Custom House—a
feat that was, in those days, considered wonderful.
A week later they left Wellington for Pigeon Bay, having
on board a complete fit-out for a schooner then building
there; thence to Akaroa, where they took on board Mr.
Watson, the magistrate there, and brought him down to
Otago; thence she went to Ruapuke and on to Stewart
Island, where Mr. Haberfield left her, coming back to
Otago in a schooner called The Sisters, belonging to the
Akaroa Maoris.
About this time the survey of the Otago Block was going
on, and some six months afterwards, the survey being then
finished, Captain Arnett brought the Levien into Otago
Harbour under contract to take the men (chainmen, bushmen,
etc.) engaged on the survey party to Wellington. Captain
Arnett, who was no scholar, was very anxious to get Mr.
Haberfield to ship with him this trip, as the latter on
previous occasions had done all the ship's business for
him. Haberfield, however, obstinately refused to go, not
being pleased with the vessel, which was crank, or the
captain, who was reckless, and besides a bad paymaster.
Haberfield then went to Moeraki in his boat, and Arnett,
who left soon after him, dropped anchor in Moeraki Bay,
and made another attempt to get Haberfield on board. The
latter was not to be persuaded, and the cutter had to
leave without him. She was never heard of again; but a
vessel which came into Akaroa reported having seen a
cutter answering to her description founder in a squall
off the Kaikouras. She had eleven men on board, amongst
them the Brown mentioned previously as being concerned in
the shooting affair at Weller's.
The Levien, it may be noted, was bought by Bloody Jack
(Hone Tuhawaiki, Ngai Tahu paramount chief) and Toby, of
Ruapuke, from an Auckland man. Bloody Jack was drowned at
Timaru while in charge of an expedition got up amongst the
Southern Maoris to go north and fight Rauparaha, which
expedition got no further than Banks Peninsula, and was
then abandoned. The Levien then became the property of
Toby and Kehu (a son of Bloody Jack). This Kehu (who was
remarkable for having six toes on each foot) sailed with
Haberfield, and left the cutter with him, having no
confidence in Arnett. Kehu was afterwards drowned in
endeavouring to cross Foveaux Strait in a whaleboat during
a gale of wind.
He married into the Māori community. His first wife was
Meriana Teitei, daughter of the leading fighting chief
Pāhi and his wife Piki, sister of Te Maiharanui the last
acknowledged upoko ariki (paramount chief) of all Kāi
Tahu. Teitei was one of five children and probably born at
Pāhia in Southland where her father had his kāika
(settlement).
After her death in 1852, Haberfield married Kararaina Kiti
Hākiri, a sister of Taare Wetere Te Kahu. Haberfield died
in the Oamaru hospital in 1906 aged 91. He was one of the
last of those hard men who had pioneered a European
presence on the Otago coast in the 1830s.
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