A useful social history of the Valley and its' settlers may be found in Arthur Bates' (2003) The Bridge to Nowhere and in individual publications of Friends of the Whanganui River. The follow is based on Bates (2003) and file notes held at the Wanganui Conservancy office, Department of Conservation.
The Mangapurua Valley was not surveyed for settlement purposes until the early years of the second decade of the twentieth century. Prior to this Māori utilised the Valley for the purposes of obtaining supplementary resources, such as eel, birds and totara for canoes. Aside from the rare 'spot find' the Valley does not appear, for a variety of possible reasons, to have been subject to prehistoric settlement activity. In 1895, the Waimarino B Block, which included the Mangapurua Valley, was allocated to 194 owners of the Ngati Hinekura, Ngati Matakaha, and the Ngati Ngaarero hapu. The block was partitioned into three sections, Waimarino B1, B2, and B3 in 1909. Waimarino B1, sold in 1913, would not form part of what became known as the Mangapurua Valley settlement. Waimarino B2, which consisted of 502 acres, remained in Maori ownership, although Turakina farmer Wilfred Atkins was granted full lease rights to the land after 1911. The largest block Waimarino 3B, which consisted of 8184 acres, also remained in Maori ownership, but by 1911 had been subdivided into four different sections.
In 1911, the government made an unsuccessful offer of £5794 for ownership of the three Waimarino B blocks. Made prior to the need for 'soldier settlements', the offer may have been part of a larger plan to open up 'back-country' for settlement purposes, as early reports on the agricultural potential of the Waimarino B were 'encouraging'. In December 1912, the Department of Lands began lobbying the Native Department to purchase the Waimarino B block, on the grounds that the acquisition of the block would allow the construction of more practical fence-lines for proposed settlements in the Mangapurua Valley. A second, unsuccessful attempt to purchase the land was made in 1913. In 1915, however, the government obtained ownership of three of the four sections that had made up the original Waimarino 3B block. All attempts to purchase the last section, the 201 acres in Waimarino B3A, were unsuccessful, and the section remains in Maori hands today. The government purchased the largest remaining section, Waimarino B2B3B (6915 acres), on 4 March 1915. Although the land was then owned by 178 owners, the agreement to purchase consented to by just 6 of those owners, a practice made legal under the provisions of the Native Land Act 1909. Peter Clayworth notes that, although no objections to the sale were made in later months, it is unclear how well informed the remaining owners were about the sale of the block. The government obtained ownership of Waimarino B3B1 (393 acres), from its Maori landowners in May that same year, and by November, it had also acquired Waimarino B3B2A (675 acres).
In September 1915, two months prior to the purchase of Waimarino B3B2A, the Right Hon. Mr Massey (Minister of Lands) introduced the Discharged Soldier's Settlement Bill into Parliament. Following an amending Bill introduced in June 1916, provision was made available for the government of the day to compulsory purchase under the Lands for Settlement Act or otherwise acquire land, including Crown lands, for the purposes of the settlement of return servicemen from the British Empire's forces at that time. A substantial fund for improvements of those lands was also provided.
Such settlement schemes were characteristic of the manner in which the rural areas of New Zealand were opened up in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These schemes not only provided land for settlement but helped support a growing economy. In his summary of the Discharged Soldier's Settlement Amendment Bill (1916) the Right Hon. Mr Massey stated;
That when the war comes to an end, we shall find we are carrying on the war; there will be interest and sinking funds on the loans we have raised; there will be pensions to be paid ... we should do all we possibly can to increase the number of our producers, to increase the quantity of our exports, to, if possible, increase their value, and at the same time increase the wealth of the country.
(quoted in Bates 2003:12)
The districts in which these land grants were to be made were not specified in the Discharged Soldier's Settlement Act 1915 and subsequent amendment. However parliamentary debates during 1915 and 1916 referred to fruit growing in Nelson and Central Otago and poultry farming in the Auckland district. The roughed areas of the Whanganui River Valley were never referred to in these debates. However by June 1916 Massey was stating;
Unfortunately, we have reached this position, as far as our Crown lands are concerned; that there is practically no first-class land left. There is considerable area of second-class land; but even in the case of the second-class land it is often remote and difficult of access either by road or railway ... Even in the case of privately owned land, large blocks of good agricultural land are much scarcer and not so easily obtainable as many people imagine them to be.
I have heard it repeated over and over again during the course of this debate that none of these settlers must be asked to go out in the bush country ... but I do say this: That, taking a man who is sound, strong, and young, and possessed of sufficient energy and ability - I honestly believe that the average of such men will do very much better both for themselves and the country if they go out into the backblocks ... A man who goes out into the bush ... and makes a home for himself, and produces stock, and brings up a family is doing more for the country than the man who takes up improved land ...
(quoted in Bates 2003:12-13)
It was in this political and social background that the Government's attention once again returned to the Whanganui River Valley in general and Mangapurua Valley specifically. Although not initially offered for sale due to the slow sales of surveyed lands in the neighbouring Mangatiti Valley, the land in the Mangapurua Valley had been recently surveyed and it was considered by the government to be land with encouraging possibilities for farming. The survey indicated that, at the time, the only settlement in the Valley was 'Mr Barn's camp' which, according to the notes of the supervising surveyor, W. Steward, was located 6½ miles down the Valley from Mangapurua Trig, that is, in the vicinity of Hellawell's or Ward's house sites.
On 8th November 1916, the Mangapurua Soldier's Settlement, comprising 44,839 acres in the Mangapurua and Kaiwhakauka Valleys, were advertised for selection. In the general description of Sale Plan 730 the area being offered is described as;
The block consists of undulating to steep hilly country, soil fair to good resting on sandstone and papa formation, and varying in altitude from 370 feet to about 1,850 feet above sea level, all in virgin bush which, when cleared and grassed, will make good grazing country suitable for sheep and cattle.
Roads are unformed at present, but horse tracks are being provided ... The horse tracks will be extended as required and widened to dray roads when labour is available.
Forty-one sections, the majority being in that area which can be delineated as the Mangapurua Valley watershed, were advertised for leasehold tenure selection. Road Reserves were established along the main access routes although these roads were not developed much beyond horse tracks for some years, if at all. Within the Mangapurua Valley, all sections had paper access to permanent streams, including the Mangapurua, and, in some cases, by the addition of small specially created adjunct sections to the primary property.
The terms and conditions of acquisition of sections by the discharged servicemen included;
· each applicant be satisfied, either personally or by proxy, that the land offered will suit their requirements,
· that the property, license or lease may not be transferred for a period of ten years of the date of the original agreement.
These sections were made available by;
· cash sale,
· deferred payment license requiring payment five percent of capital value and the balance payable by equal instalments over nineteen years with interest being charged at five percent, or
· renewable lease, with right of purchase, for 66 years with compulsory residence and improvements.
It appears, from appeals to government of the day during the Depression era about the difficulty in meeting both rental and interest payments, that many of the successful applicants obtained their sections under the third, that is renewable lease, option.
Opening of the Mangapurua Valley to discharged servicemen did not meet with universal approval. In a letter addressed to the Commissioner of Crown Lands, the Crown Land Ranger at Piriaka at that time commented;
I have the honour to inform you that when I was in the Kaitieke Valley yesterday, the settlers I met spoke very strongly against the action of the department in settling discharged soldiers on the Retaruke and other blocks in that vicinity. From my knowledge of the country, I am of the opinion that the land is too rough and too far back for men with shattered nerves.
(quoted in Bates 2003:16)
Upon inspecting the section being offered, potential settlers found that communication along the Valley was both undeveloped and hazardous, section boundaries did not follow natural features such as ridgelines and streams and that the majority of land contained within those sections was often rugged in nature, and access to streams was hindered by deep wall-sided gorges which
were often impracticable to cross to neighbouring land in the same section. Those settlers who persevered with these conditions were to find out that upon removal of bush cover that the greasy sandstone and papa based hillsides became susceptible to erosion and, once farmed for a few years, were lacking in sufficient nutrients for the farms to be considered productive.
By the early 1920's the majority of land made available in the Mangapurua Valley under the Mangapurua Soldier's Settlement scheme had been taken up. Despite the earlier assurances to the contrary by Massey, many of those ex-servicemen who settled these lands had been invalided out of the armed forces. Those sections that were unselected or surrendered at a later date were re-offered on occasion until the mid 1930's however re-selection of these blocks was poor.
The establishment of farms in the Valley generally followed a standard process. Having been successful in securing a section, the discharged soldier proceeded to establish a base camp on their section from where initial land clearance operations were carried out. In some instances, single men would often form a partnership with another discharged soldier to secure and farm a particular section and it was Land Board policy that larger sections were granted to such partnerships. These partnerships had the advantage of being eligible for double the farm establishment funding (₤750 each) and ensuring an adequate supply of labour to undertake land clearance. However such partnerships often were soon dissolved when it became apparent that the land could not support two incomes and one of the partners would 'sell up' or 'walk off the land'.
Married, or engaged, men would often enter the Valley alone and set about initial land clearance of their section. The remoteness and rugged nature of the Valley, along with the fact that all were soldier-settlers recently returned from active duty, quickly created a community where neighbourly assistance was always available, and often supplied without request, should a large or difficult job be planned. This culture of community assistance was to remain with the soldier-settlers and their families until the Valley's closure.
The base camps of the soldier-settlers were rudimentary affairs. Jack Ward, who settled in the Valley in 1917, recalls;
Tents at that time, owing to the war, were scarcer than hen's teeth, but I was lucky to get hold of a good tarpaulin measuring 16 x 14 feet and I reckoned that, with pongas cut to fit the walls, this would make a good sort of camp cover. Included in the tools ... were axes with spare handles, slashers, a grindstone, two camp ovens, three billies, kerosene, a lamp and candles, plus a reasonable amount of stores, especially tinned meat, as wild pork was the only fresh meat available up there, and had to be caught ...
(Bates 2003:32)
The camp supplies were to be shared between Ward and, another soldier-settler, Ken Wilson.
The Valley was, generally, settled progressively from both ends, that from Mangapurua Landing and Mangapurua Trig. Horse tracks had not been formed within the Valley during the initial stages of settlement and, as a consequence, all materials landed by the riverboats at the Landing end were brought up the Valley by back-pack. Those soldier-settlers who arrived in the Valley by riverboat then had the difficulty of negotiating the Mangapurua Stream, the most convenient place being near the location of Morgan's Bridge. Initially this involved following a narrow, greasy, track down a 130 ft steep bank to the Stream, fording that stream, and then climbing back up the equally difficult other side. The difficulties and time involved in doing this saw the construction of a rather insecure and nerve-racking pulley cage system across the 114 ft gap in 1917 and, two years later, a narrow suspension span bridge which lasted until the completion of Morgan's Bridge in 1936. The remains of this suspension bridge may be still seen today upriver from Morgan's Bridge.
Following establishment of their base camp and clearance of land around that camp, which included burning of the cut bush, the next step was to establish a more permanent dwelling. This was usually in the form of a slab hut or similar structure. As well as initial land clearance and construction of a basic hut, the soldier-settlers helped the Public Works workers with the construction of a more traversable horse track into the Valley. It was at this time that the wives of any married soldier-settlers and horse or pack animals arrived. Some of the more progressively advanced settlers also brought in the odd cattle beast or two for the supply of fresh milk.
It was at this stage of Valley development that the first series of soldier-settlers left the land. With 6 - 18 months experience of conditions in the Valley it had become apparent to some that their land would either not support a farming income or was too rugged to 'break in' by hand. With no other family members to support, the majority of setters to leave the land were single men. Due to the temporary nature of the materials used in the establishing of these base camps or slab huts no evidence, aside from the occasional clearance in the bush, remains of this phase of Valley settlement.
An interesting visible remnant of the initial uptake of land allocations is Burman's farm. In 1920 Bill Burman went into the Valley to take up his allocated land. Upon viewing the lot Burman promptly abandoned his allocation and left the Valley (Bates 2003:63). This tract of land, located near the Mangapurua Trig, is the only substantial area of virgin bush remaining today in the Valley.
Once a basic farm operation was established the settlers began to construct more permanent dwellings. At the same time, a more accessible dray track had been formed into the Valley from Raetihi via Ruatiti. This permitted the settlers to bring in more robust building materials, such as glass, concrete and brick, and some elementary household furniture and fittings. The remains of these permanent structures include chimneys, water tanks and piping.
While the return servicemen concentrated on farming the land, the women set about creating a home for the family. As well as managing the home and looking after any children this often included looking after livestock kept in paddocks next to the farm buildings, which supplied fresh foods such as milk and eggs, and tending the garden. Today the posts and, in some cases, wiring of the fences of these smaller paddocks and enclosures remain and, while no trace is left of the vegetable gardens, evidence of ornamental gardens may be seen in the form of free-growing exotic species.
To support the growing Valley community effort was made to develop the access track from Ruatiti to the Mangapurua Valley. This track generally followed the true left bank of the Mangapurua Stream and was intended to form part of an east-west route between the Waimarino and Taranaki regions. Within the Valley construction of the road was to involve the bridging of a number of gorges including the Mangapurua Stream at Morgan's Bridge, widening of the pack track to accommodate motorised transport, culverting of small seasonal waterways and stepping of a series of high bluffs.
While constructed by the Public Works Department, or their contractors, many of the settlers in the Valley supplemented their farm incomes in the early years by assisting on the construction of the road. Today much of the line of the original road remains and is visible as metalled sections of the Mangapurua Valley Walking Track. Other remnants of the road include timber supports for the deeply gorged stream crossings, Morgan's Bridge (a Registered Historic Place), and concrete and wood culverts.
By 1926 there were sufficient children in the Valley to open a school. The school was run from the abandoned Tester house. For the next eight years the roll fluctuated between five and thirteen with some children riding up to 10 miles in each direction each school day. In 1933 the
Tester's building burnt down and, given that the school roll was then thirteen students, the Education Department decided to erect a portable building in its place. This new school was located on two acres of land, given by the McDonalds, closer to the centre of the Valley.
