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Mangatoki
1894 Jan 20	"Our Correspondent" report
1931 Nov 6	Mangatoki's Jubilee


Hawera and Normanby Star Saturday 20 Jan 1894
I have often thought, when reading your correspondence from
the different centres in which your paper circulates, that
Mangatoki should have one also to chronicle the views, voice
the opinions, and agitate for reform in matters pertaining to
its interests, and though I have doubts about my capabilities
to do so, still, rather than let the thought fail for want of
action, I am troubling you for space, leaving the matter in
your hands to encourage me or no.

Needless to say the dairy industry is our chief concern, and
private and other factories are busily engaged in producing
an article that it is their hope will eventually command the
English market.

The Loan and Mercantile Company have fitted up heaters on their
separators, and now raise the temperature of the milk before it
passes into the separators. The cream is then rapidly cooled.
This, I believe, adds to the keeping qualities of the butter.
So far this concern is working smoothly under the capable
management of Mr W. WILLIAMS.

Re the supplying of milk to factories, it is a noticeable
fact that milk carts are seen waiting to discharge the milk.
This should be remedied by having vats capable of holding all
or nearly all the milk supplied, so that suppliers can discharge
their milk at once. A great deal of the good derived by the
use of coolers must be counteracted by the exposure to the sun.

Another reform we as settlers must have is the absolute
necessity of forcing the Railway Commissioners, or whosoever
eventually holds power, of running night trains with cool cars
and otherwise attending to the butter, so that it is kept from
the destructive heat of the sun. Under our present system the
butter has to be loaded and taken to the trains in the day time,
and though we try and minimise the influence of the heat by
canopies over the carts this is insufficient protection. We
want the time of night or evening to cart, and on its arrival
at the railway cool cars to place it in. This need must be
forced on the authorities, and if we will organise we will
succeed. But herein lies our weakness. We cannot show a compact
front to the powers that be, and so they calmly put our demands
to one side. We farmers are almost politically disenfranchised
by our want on union, and most certainly must awake to the fact
if we are to have our rights respected. Our butter industry,
the farming interest in general, and our political well-being
depend on the energy and promptness in which we deal with this
need.

We are again beginning to think that another winter of mud lies
before us, owing to the apathy shown by the council to this
Eltham road, for though they have succeeded in putting the
stone down, some is yet unbroken, and work seems to have 
stopped. Even when broken it will be almost useless unless
blinded [sic] with finer metal, for experience shows that
traffic cuts through it in no time; in point of fact, the metal
that was put down last season is cut through in many places, and
one or two winters will bury the whole of it unless blinded. I
remember viewing a scene that occurred in the Old Country, which
appears to me analagous to the position occupied by council and
settlers. A costermonger's donkey had taken up a position on
the road and refused to budge, so his owner was using his
shoulder to the donkey's behind, his whip to his ribs, and his
tongue in language unmentionable. A bystander looking on
evidently acquainted with the ass's master, exclaimed, "Hi
Bill! what'er hincorrigible hass you 'ave there! But stick to
'im!" This advice appears to me to be peculiarly applicable to
settlers in their dealings with the H.C.C.

[We hope to hear from our correspondent often - ED.]

Eltham Argus 6 Nov 1931
Mangatoki's Jubilee: A Dip into the Past

When the block was cut up - a settler's reminiscences
A fact which in the hurry and skurry of these stressful times appears
to have escaped general notice is that October of this year was the
jubilee of the opening of the Mangatoki district for settlement. Fifty
years ago Mangatoki and the surrounding country was dense virgin bush;
today it is a smiling landscape of rich pastures and well tilled 
fields, interspersed with live hedges, and in point of productivity it
is right in the forefront.

As one who has lived in the Mangatoki district for practically fifty
years and one whose family were among the original selectors, Mr Tom
Linn is well informed on the subject of pioneer days in Mangatoki, and
to an 'Argus' representative last week he imparted some of his
reminiscences, which are the subject of this article.

2 pounds per acre.
When the block was thrown open fifty years ago the price put upon the
land by the Government was 2 pounds per acre. There were no roads;
Eltham was not on the map, and a precarious 6ft track from what is now
known as the Hunter Road and Matapu, which with the advent of the 
first settlers was extended to Normanby, was the sole negotiable 
outlet to civilisation. Normanby was the "big town" in those days, and
all the trade from the new settlement went to this then prosperous
township.

Mr Tom Linn was just a boy when his father, the late Mr James Linn
took up his bush selection at Mangatoki. The late Mr Linn's section
cornered the Eltham and Hastings Roads, and his was the first 
homestead built on the Eltham Road. Typical of the sturdy stock in
evidence in those days, Mr Tom Linn's people carried all the timber
for the old homestead across the Mangatoki river on their backs and
then sledged it to the section. As soon as the homestead was built,
young Tom arrived with the rest of the family from Normanby.

Those were the days.
Building was cheap in those days - and it had to be, for goodness only
knows, the early settlers had a severe struggle during the first few
years of their career in the bush. Indeed, the Linns built a four
roomed house for 60 pounds, the best of heart timber costing only 8/-
per 100 feet, delivered at the Mangatoki River, at the factory. 
Living, too, was cheap, and the wants of the settlers were simple and
few. Wild cattle and wild pigs figured largely on the menu, and for a
time there was naturally very little coming in which could be 
converted into cash. A few pounds of butter and Taranaki wool (fungus)
plus casual work on road formation work constituted the sole means of
revenue.

When the settlement was first opened up the railway only ran as far as
Normanby, but before long it was extended, and Eltham sprang into
being, and this became the trading centre for Mangatoki, and has
remained ever since. The opening of Chew Chong's store at Eltham
proved a great boon to the settlers. By a circuitous route and per
horseback, the settlers used to transport a few pounds of butter to
Chew Chong's establishment and take payment out in goods, the butter
being rated at 4d per lb. The only way the settlers could get to the
Eltham Road from the Mountain Road (the store was on Eltham Road) was
to make for the old sawmill which was located near the Army Boys Home
and then traverse the tram line to the Eltham Station. Incidentally
town sites were selling in Eltham at the time at 8 pounds per acre,
which was the rate actually paid for Morton's corner, but wages in
those days were only about 5/- or 6/- a day!

Dear Cows
Dairy cows were dear and hard to procure in the early days of the
settlement. Cows commanded 20 pounds per head and there were not many
of them in Taranaki. There were lots of run cows with calves at foot
- calves almost as big as their mothers - and they were so wild that
the settlers had to let the calf suck one teat whilst they milked the
other!

It was the invention of refrigeration that gave Mangatoki in common
with other dairying districts a big boost and changed prosperity. The
late Mr Chew Chong, whose work in building up the dairying industry
in Taranaki is too well known to recount here, was early in the field
with his creameries. Indeed Mr Linn has in his possession a copy of
Chew Chong's original memorandum of agreement made between Hunter Road
and himself with respect to the Hunter Road creamery. The agreement
ran for three years, as from 1st September 1898, the price for milk
delivered at the factory during the first year being 2 & 3/4d per
gallon and a butterfat test of 3.6 per cent. Chew Chong had only one
agreement, and there being no copies, it was passed from one settler
to another, each signing it in turn and taking a copy of the same
before passing it on to his neighbour.

Never changed hands
When the Mangatoki district was thrown open for selection fifty years
ago it was included in what was officially designated the Ngaere and
Kaupokonui Survey District and it is interesting to note, as Mr Linn
points out, that no fewer than fourteen of the original sections have
remained continuously in the hands of the original selectors and their
descendants. The names of the sections in question are as under: on
the Hunter Road:- Parks, Carlson, Cleaver, Brisco and Bullock; 
Hastings Road:- O'Sullivan, McEldowie, White, Pease; Duthie Road:-
Wilson, Abbott; Skeet Road:- Downey.

As far as Mr Linn can recollect Mr T. Abbott of Kaponga is the only
man living who bought at the original sale whilst Mrs Wilson, of
Eltham, is the widow of another original selector. Mr Chambers, who is
now resident at Opunake, was the first schoolmaster at Mangatoki.

Mr James Linn passed away some thirty years ago. Prior to his taking
up farming, the late Mr Linn had a very adventurous career. The holder
of five war medals, he served with the Royal Horse Artillery for 22
years finally taking his discharge at the age of forty. He was with
Captain Mercer when the latter was killed at Rangariri, and prior to
that he served in the Indian Mutiny, the Crimean War and through other
campaigns.

Although the old Linn homestead has passed into other hands, Mr Tom
Linn has farmed in the Mangatoki district ever since childhood and for
the past 27 years he has lived on the same farm on Hastings Road. 
Prior to that Mr Linn lived on two other farms which he owned. In his
younger days Mr Linn took a very active part in district affairs and
served for 12 years as a director of the Mangatoki Dairy Co.