Tales of the Barrier Copper Mine

A Picnic That Nearly Had a Tragic Sequel

The account of the Great Barrier copper-mines in last week’s “Observer” has revived warm memories in at least one person who lived in the old mining village at Otea Bay. This old lady, now, unhappily seriously ill, sends the following personal reminiscences.

            Seventy-five years is a long time to look back, but that is the period that has passed since I arrived as a child of five in this country. George Wright - my father - was a blacksmith and worked for about six years as a blacksmith in various parts of Auckland before he was offered a job with the copper mine workings on the Great Barrier Island by Captain Sharp. He left my mother and we children in Union Street, Freeman’s Bay, then a suburb of Auckland, while he went to his new position.

            Not long after my father went over there he built a small two-roomed batch with a floor and a chimney. So I went over there to cook and look after the housework for him. Girls in my day were more self-reliant than they are now: we were bred to housework, strict parental control, and early marriage.

            I was eleven when I went to the Barrier, and it was a spot I have not forgotten. Even the passing of 60 or more years - I am over 80 - has not failed to dim the memory of those wooded haunts, the birds singing in the bush, the gentle wash of the waves on those glorious beaches. Would that I could go back there now and see the same spots where we used to hunt for the honey in the flax flowers, see the spots where I and my companions - Captain Sharp’s children - used to find the nests of the ducks and fowls that ran wild about the hillsides. But at my age it is a impossible to go gallivanting about, as we used to in those glorious days.

            Life was not without its adventures even then. Captain Sharp, who managed the copper mines, arranged a picnic in a secluded spot on the island. Just as we were settling down to have the time of our lives a native came running in and told Captain Sharp (who for some reason was greatly disliked by some of the Maories) that hostile natives were coming to kill him. We happened to be on their ground actually, and just managed to get away before them.

            Later the Maori scare became worse, although those living near us were friendly, especially with my father, who often helped them by putting iron on needy parts of their boats. But one day, to me at any rate, this Maori scare reached its height. I was alone in the house when I saw a Maori on the beach dragging something that looked like a body, out of the water. He came up to our batch, dragging the body behind him. I was so frightened that I locked the doors and barred the windows. He came to the house and banged on the door, shouting “Hori” - my father’s Maori name. But by  this time I was under the bed. At last he went away, and through a window I saw him burying the body under a flax bush near the shack. When my father came home he was surprised to find the door bolted. He was still more surprised when I fell crying into his arms. I told him the story. He took a spade and uncovered the body. But it was only a huge hapuka which the Maori had brought as a present, and which he had buried to keep fresh.

            Then on another occasion I and some of Captain Sharp’s little girls decided, as it was a beautiful summer’s morning, to go swimming. We raced down to the beach, threw off our clothes. I was the first in and swam straight out to a rock not far out. While I was swimming  the girls screamed and a miner passing by shouted to me to go to the rock. I got to it and then looked to see what was wrong. It was a huge 16-foot white shark swimming slowly round and regarding me hungrily. The miner flew like the wind to get help while I stayed on the rock, scared almost out of my wits. After a while the shark cruised along to the end of the bay. I jumped in, got to the shore, and was dressed before the help arrived. The miner and company went out in a boat and harpooned the fish, but after a tremendous struggle it got away, though the water was red with blood before it did.

            Then my final recollection of the mines. We children often used to wander into the long dark drives and spend many a happy hour watching the ships come taking the copper ore away. I can still see those heaps, blue and green, streaked, and the long steep climb to the mines.

Source: The New Zealand Observer,  Thursday, September 8^th, 1932.