Early history of the site:
Prior to European colonisation, much of the Kauaeranga Valley was occupied by Ngati Maru. Ngati Maru had obtained control of the Thames area following their conquest of Ngati Huarere and Ngati Hako, probably by the late seventeenth century. Recorded archaeological sites in the valley indicate activity along the lower banks of the Kauaeranga (or Waiwhakauranga) River, perhaps associated with unidentified gardening settlements. Pa and pit, or terrace, sites have also been noted on higher ground on the southern side of the valley. Burial sites of ancestors are also known.
Ngati Maru briefly abandoned the area in the 1820s following incursions by Ngapuhi during the so-called Musket Wars. They returned to witness significant Pakeha settlement after formal colonisation in 1840. The settler population expanded rapidly after gold was discovered in the Coromandel in the late 1860s, and although Maori cultivation in the Kauaeranga Valley continued into the 1870s it was superseded by the introduction of activities such as large-scale timber exploitation. For the next 50 years, the valley was an important source of kauri for Auckland’s timber trade, a major contributor to the national and regional economies. In 1878-79, two contracts alone allowed for the combined felling of 60 million feet of timber in the Kauaeranga over a period of 14 years.
Sale of Maori land in the valley occurred as demand for logging and European-style farming grew. In 1873, the site on which the Devcich Farm was later created was registered by the Native Land Court as the 620 acre Kahe Block. Located in the upper part of the valley, the block encompassed flat ground beside the river as well as more hilly terrain to the east. In 1877, a court case ruled that the block should be shared between claimants descended from both Taiparoro and Hei, children of Matau.
In the following year, the land was sold to commission agent Gerald O’Halloran, before being transferred to surgeon James Kilgour (1812-1897) in early 1879. Scottish-born Kilgour had leased a large station in Victoria before moving to New Zealand and ultimately Thames in 1869, where he held the positions of mayor (1877-8), coroner, justice of the peace and chairman of quarter sessions. He was also the first president of the Thames School of Mines. In March 1879, Kilgour offered the Kahe Block to let.
Creation of a farm:
The block may have been advertised for sale as an ‘unimproved farm of 620 acres’ in late 1901. In 1903, the land was transferred to Joze Machado, described as being ‘of Kauaeranga Creek, Farmer’. Machado may have struggled to make a living on the land, as he was subsequently granted an extension to the mortgage that he took out at the time of his purchase. He either inherited or created buildings, and was evidently engaged in sheep farming. Plantings included a fig tree, a lemon tree and a vine. These were grown on a rise overlooking the river, now occupied by the Devcich Farm.
In 1912, Machado was the subject of a separation order from his wife and family, after which he was committed by government authorities to a mental institution. His stock was sold by the Public Trustee at the farm in May 1913 when it consisted of approximately 190 ewes and lambs, a cow and calf, two pigs, three horses, a spring cart and harness, and farmers’ implements. In October 1913, a sale notice for the 620-acre Kahe Block described it as being ‘mostly in grass and undulating’. The property also contained a four-roomed house and a woolshed.
Purchase by the Devcich Brothers (1915):
In 1915, the farm was bought by three brothers from Podgora on the Dalmatian coast: Marian Anton, Nikola and Simun Devcich. Dalmatians formed a significant non-British immigrant community in New Zealand from the late nineteenth century onwards, and by the later twentieth century - together with others from the former Yugoslavia - made up the second largest group of settlers in the country originating from mainland Europe. During the early twentieth century, there was a shift in emphasis in Dalmatian migration from temporary residence to more permanent settlement based predominantly on farming and other agricultural employment. The purchase and subsequent use of the Kauaeranga property by the Devcich brothers was connected to this development, and was also to reflect notable attitudes and preferences linked to Dalmatian cultural origin, including an engagement in mixed agriculture, winemaking, the gum trade, family-based production, and broader cooperative networks.
Marian Anton had been the first of the Devcich brothers to migrate from Dalmatia, where economic problems beset a society that was traditionally engaged in subsistence agriculture. In the late nineteenth century, hardships in the region were exacerbated by a fragmentation of land tenure that had its origins in the inheritance laws of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, of which Dalmatia formed a part. Vine disease also affected the winemaking industry - a major feature of Dalmatian life - and an increasing breakdown in a system of extended family cooperation known as the zadruga additionally fuelled a desire in many peasant families for self-sufficiency and independent landholder status, for which income from overseas or the overseas purchase of land offered a solution. Between 1880 and 1920, large-scale emigration to New Zealand and other New World countries occurred.
Most Dalmatian migrants to New Zealand initially obtained work in the northern part of the country. In 1921, more than 90 percent of 1585 recorded immigrants of Dalmatian or other Yugoslav origin lived north of the Bay of Plenty. Of this percentage, approximately half resided in Northland, and the other half in Auckland and areas further south, including the Thames district. In 1901, Thames County contained the second highest number of Dalmatians in the colony.
A notable feature of initial Dalmatian translocation to New Zealand was its emphasis on temporary migration by single young men. After arriving in New Zealand, Marian Anton found work digging for kauri gum in the Thames area, together with many other migrants of similar background. Gumdigging was a major source of employment for temporary Dalmatian immigrants, who were considered to be particularly successful at this activity due to a capacity for hard work and cooperation with each other. Kauri gum was used as a high grade varnish and for the manufacture of linoleum, and was - like timber - one of Auckland’s main export commodities. In 1903 Marian Anton was joined by his brother Simun, at a time when more than a hundred Dalmatian gumdiggers were working in Coroglen (then known as Gumtown), and approximately fifty Dalmatians and Maori were similarly operating in the Kauaeranga Valley. After the arrival of Nikola Devcich, all three brothers opened a store at Puriri in circa 1907, running packhorses to the digging camps to provide supplies and purchase gum.
The brothers bought their property at Kauaeranga after obtaining two smaller farms at Puriri (33 acres) and Hikutaia (105 acres), where they kept cattle and dairy cows. The purchase of land by the brothers reflected a new pattern of settlement within elements of the Dalmatian community, whereby ‘small, relatively stable clusters of farms were established in the midst of mobile temporary immigrants (engaged in gumdigging) who still formed the bulk of the Dalmatian population.’ This process has been linked with a move to increasing permanent settlement within the community.
As Trlin has noted:
‘an increasing number of temporary migrants gradually opted for permanent settlement. Some found their way into jobs and businesses in the towns but the majority (until the late 1920s) turned to the land as scrub cutters, drainage contractors and rural labourers or used traditional skills in viticulture, fruit-growing or general farming... Savings accumulated on the gumfields were used to purchase cheap, marginal land which could be transformed by the owner’s tireless devotion. But sometimes the ruthless sacrifice of muscle, intellect and leisure time was insufficient. Additional income, either until the land was productive or to improve the holding was necessary…Settlement was seen as a gradual process by men possessing little or no capital who were prepared to invest the fruits of their gumfield labour in their holdings, eventually becoming independent.’
In 1916, some sixteen percent of Dalmatians - or just under three hundred individuals - recorded in a Register of Aliens were involved in agriculture, suggesting a still relatively small number of Dalmatian farms at this time. The purchase of land requiring considerable improvement, as at Kauaeranga, required ongoing involvement with alternative forms of income beside agriculture, such as gumdigging or trading.
The Devcich Farm and construction of the Kauri Timber Company tramline (1915-1920):
Although the Kauaeranga property was obtained by the brothers as the gum business went into decline during the First World War (1914-18), its purchase coincided with opportunities for income from other sources. After being granted rights to log an area containing an estimated 50 million feet of timber in 1912, the Kauri Timber Company (KTC) sought to improve the efficiency of tree-felling operations in the Kauaeranga by constructing a tramline between the valley mouth and large stands of kauri at the head of the valley. Logs had previously been transported for milling in Thames by being washed down the Kauaeranga River, resulting in damage to farms in the lower valley. The KTC had been founded in 1888 as the largest timber concern in New Zealand, and by the early twentieth century was involved in exploiting what was a dwindling economic resource. Planned construction of the tramway reflected the shifting balance from logging to farming in the valley, and potentially greater care over the harvesting of kauri as it became scarcer.
The tramline was projected to run through the Devcich property, which was located approximately midway between booms in the upper valley - where logs were to be loaded - and the mouth of the Kauaeranga River, from where they were to be rafted to Auckland for milling at the KTC factory in Fanshawe Street. The brothers received a mortgage from the KTC at the time of their purchase, and simultaneously granted the company certain timber rights and the ability to construct and use a tramline. Work on the line had been started by W.J. McCormick in 1914, but was suspended during the First World War. It was not completed until 1920. A network of sidelines was also built, including the Mangakirikiri (1918), Billygoat (1921), Hihi (1922) and Piraunui (1923). The Kauaeranga was one of the last major sources of exploitable kauri in the country, and many aspects of industry in the valley - including the lives of bush workers - were recorded in some detail by contemporary photographers such as Tudor Collins.
During the period until the tramline’s completion, the Devcich brothers ran shorthorn steers on the farm. In November 1918, approximately 100 cattle were present. Letters refer to one of the brothers being at the farm shortly before the 1918 influenza pandemic, when many family members were taken ill. Full-time occupation of the farm appears to have occurred at the same time as the main KTC tramline was completed, which may have offered opportunities for additional income through trading or other means. One of the contracts issued by the KTC was for felling one and a half million feet of timber in the Shag Stream Valley. Shag Stream marked the northern boundary of the Devcich property.
Development of the Devcich Farm (1920-1939):
According to family tradition, Simun and his wife Matija Devcich (nee Mercep) moved to the farm in 1920 with six children, aged six and under. Matija had arrived from Dalmatia for an arranged betrothal but, not liking her intended husband, married Simun in 1913.
Female migration from Dalmatia at this time was unusual. Before 1920, most Dalmatian immigrants were young men, intending their stay in New Zealand to be temporary as they sought economic improvement. A decision to settle abroad was often accompanied by marriage. Out of 1332 estimated permanent arrivals from the former Yugoslavia in 1910-14, only 82 were female. Over the broader period to 1920, just three percent of Dalmatian migrants were women. Establishment of the Devcich Farm pre-dates a change in immigration policy in 1926, after which ‘many Croatian gumdiggers used their savings to buy a small farm, bring a wife over from Dalmatia and make a new beginning.’ The Devcich property therefore appears likely to have been an early example of a family farm incorporating a Dalmatian-born wife, and children.
After moving to the farm, the couple initially lived in a small cottage (since demolished) where the children slept in bunks made out of chaff sacks. This was superseded by a larger timber house with a gabled roof, which contained a front room, three bedrooms, a large rear kitchen, a scullery and basement. Footings for the central fireplace were erected out of boulders from the nearby river. After Marian Devcich relinquished his share of the farm in 1922, Nikola and his wife are said to have joined the family, occupying a separate dwelling. A reliance on family labour and family-based production formed a feature of most early Dalmatian farms in New Zealand.
Work on expanding the potential for farming involved felling trees on the hills, clearing and burning bush, and sowing grass seed by hand. Timber was employed for constructing farm buildings, or sold. A dairy herd was built up, amounting to 63 cows by the late 1920s. Family members, including the children, took it in turns to separate milk by hand. Domestic activity was focused on the kitchen, which had a cooking range. Initially, washing was taken down to the river’s edge to be carried out.
Orchards and vines were planted close to the house, reflecting a mixed type of farming that accorded with Dalmatian agricultural tradition. Timber farm buildings were erected to the rear of the initial cottage and subsequent house, around a yard beside the KTC tramline. The construction and variety of use of these structures reflected further aspects of self-reliance and economic diversity within the farm operations. Structures included a pentice-roofed structure of one-and-a-half storeys with an unusual cross-braced frame of unmilled tea tree or manuka. Of significantly different construction to the other buildings, it may have initially incorporated a loft. Other structures nearer the cottage included a small store, a killing shed, a workshop and smithy. Smithies were essential for shoeing horses, and for mending and producing tools.
Income from farming was evidently supplemented by engagement in trading. One account states that the store was initially used to supply men engaged in the kauri felling, who lived in bush camps further up the valley. In the early 1920s, mushrooms are recorded as having been picked up from the property by the assistant cook of the Whangaiterenga camp, who caught the KTC locomotive to and from the farm. Two trams ran immediately past the house and farmyard twice each day, transporting an estimated 77 million feet of kauri from the valley until operations ceased in 1927-8.
The KTC subsequently dismantled the tramline in spite of requests by local residents for its retention. In March 1928, two groups including one led by the Minister of Public Works and future Prime Minister Gordon Coates (1878-1943), passed through the farm while investigating the possibility of retaining the line and constructing a road through the valley to the eastern Coromandel. Guides for the Minister included the Devcich brothers.
After the end of KTC activities, the Devcich Brothers operated as ‘general storekeepers and gum buyers’. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, they regularly transported supplies by packhorse to up to 75 gum diggers, who replaced the timber workers in bush camps further up the valley. Many were fellow Dalmatians, and the Devcich Farm became a focal point for such individuals travelling to and from the camps. They would be accommodated in the main house or in adjoining cottages and provided with the necessary equipment and provisions. A credit system operated, whereby payment was made when gum was supplied from the workings. Dalmatian gumdigging was noted for its cooperative approach, which frequently relied on ties of friendship or common origin within Dalmatia for its efficiency.
Gum was sorted, bagged and weighed at the farmstead before being sent to Auckland. The farm was the main receiving centre and supply point for gum digging in the valley. Processing took place on raised sorting platforms in the one-and-a-half storey building. During the Great Depression of the early 1930s, kauri gum proved to be a mainstay for the farm and its operations.
Other activities undertaken in this period included timber milling and wine production. A sawpit is believed to have been in existence on the site by 1927-8, following the practice maintained by bush sawyers engaged in kauri felling. By 1936, and possibly earlier, a mechanical sawmill was erected by several family members. This was clad with palings packed from the bush and roofed using metal flumes from an 1870s water race in the valley, which had been used to supply the gold industry and domestic consumption in Thames. Milled kauri was sold to Thames Borough Council for maintaining the race. It was also sold to foundries in Thames for pattern-making. Many logs were washed downstream from the former KTC operations, and were hauled to the site using draught horses. Puriri and totara was cut for fencing.
Wine-production involved a similar self-sufficient approach, using grapes from the Devcich’s vineyard. In February 1927, Simun and Nikola Devcich held a license to produce 500 gallons, which could only be sold in quantities of not less than two gallons ‘from their premises at Kauaeranga’. Store receipts record sales of this amount, alongside foodstuffs such as butter, cabbage, bacon and steak. The wine is believed to have initially been produced in the basement of the main house, although a building used as a wine shed was erected by January 1931, as indicated by a date inscribed in its concrete floor.
Winemaking has been described as ‘the traditional expression of Dalmatian cultural identity’ and formed a notable feature of Dalmatian activity in New Zealand at a time when it was not generally in vogue within wider society. Dalmatian migrants were instrumental in the development of winemaking in New Zealand during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and subsequently fostered its survival in the face of opposition from prohibition groups and others.
The Devcich Brothers stated that their winemaking business was established in 1903, which may reflect either the year that Simun Devcich arrived in New Zealand, or the date at which the first vines on their Kauaeranga property were believed to have been planted. They had half an acre under cultivation at Puriri in 1913, when they were one of 25 recorded groups or individuals of Dalmatian origin growing outdoor vines for winemaking in New Zealand. In 1915, they were selling ‘grape vines, ready to bear’. Their operations at Kauaeranga were underway at a time when winemaking was an unusual activity: in 1923, there were just 179 acres under vines in the country. In 1928, they were liaising with the Department of Agriculture in Wellington about the quality of their wine, describing the 300 gallons produced as ‘fairly good this season so far’. Other Dalmatian residents in the valley also produced wine.
During the 1930s, the size of the local Dalmatian community was such that children at the nearby Kauaeranga Valley School are said to have been mainly Yugoslavs. The Devcich family retained strong links with their cultural origins, including corresponding in their native language, and attended annual picnics for the Yugoslav community that were held in Auckland.
Following the end of the Depression and the election of the first Labour Government in 1935, most of the gumdiggers left to take up better-paid employment. During debates in the late 1930s about whether to create a state forest in the Kauaeranga Valley, Nikola and Simun Devcich argued for an extension of farming, stating that they had created pasture on which they ran 55 milking cows, 60 heifers, 5 steers, 7 bulls, 16 horses, 25 ewes, 210 hoggets and 20 pigs. The latter were housed in a large paddock, immediately to the east of the wine shed and house. Other structures erected in the farmyard included a stables building close to the workshop and smithy, and a large single-storey addition to the gum-sorting shed, projecting into the centre of the yard.
Subsequent development and use (1939 onwards):
In January 1939, Nikola’s share was transferred to Simun Devcich, after which the farm business appears to have become known as Devcich and Sons. The family contributed to the social life of the valley and beyond, with several of the children forming their own band known as Rippling Rhythms and playing at local dances such as a military ball at the Majestic Ballroom in Thames at the beginning of the Second World War (1939-45). Two of the sons, Ivan and Joe, were also accomplished athletes, competing at national events. Simun Devcich had a strong interest in horseracing, training winners that included Cricket Ball at an Auckland Racing Club meeting at Ellerslie in the 1940s. The horses were stabled and trained at the farm.
Within this period, the main focus of Dalmatian settlement in New Zealand shifted from rural activities such as agriculture to urban employment, so that by 1945 central Auckland contained half of the immigrant population, a percentage that was to further increase in subsequent years.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the focus of the farm shifted from dairy production to sheep. In March 1942, seventeen bales of wool were delivered to the Farmers Auctioneering Company. By the 1970s, the herd had grown to 2300 head and the property expanded in size. A woolshed was added at the northern end of the farmyard. Construction evidently pre-dated 1953. Shearers and rousers commonly added their names to the building interior. A sled house next to the woolshed held a double bunk, and may have provided temporary accommodation during the shearing season. Other structures, including a hen coop, fuel store and shelter for preparing dog food were in existence before the late 1950s. The sawmill was also evidently modified prior to this time.
Wine continued to be made at the farm for sale in Auckland and elsewhere until 1975. This was marketed as Golden Valley Wines, and included sherry, sherry brandy and port. Mains electricity was not provided to the homestead until the late 1950s or early 1960s. In 1964, the farm was passed on to Sam and Stan Devcich, the eldest and youngest sons of Simun and Matija, although the latter lived on the farm until their deaths in 1971 and 1977, respectively. The farm was occupied by Sam Devcich until his death in 2008.
Comparatively few modifications were made to the homestead and farm buildings in the late twentieth century. A rear extension was added to the main homestead in the 1980s, and a killing shed and early cottage were demolished. In 1997, Sam and Ivan Devcich repaired the small shelter in which food was prepared for the many farm dogs on the site. A family memorial containing the ashes of the two brothers has been erected to the north of the farmstead. A large number of the earlier family and farm chattels have been kept. The vineyard and orchard have also been retained.
The farm remains in private hands.
