Early History
St Mary’s Church (Anglican) is located in the alluvial plains of the Kaihū Valley, near Te Taita marae and south of Mamaranui. The valley was rich in resources including kauri and many tributary waterways fed the Kaihū River which connected the lake system of Taharoa, Waikere, and Kai Iwi to the upper Wairoa River. The Northern Wairoa was a contested landscape occupied by interconnected iwi and hapū, including Ngāpuhi and Te Roroa, who have been described as the northern-most hapū of Ngāti Whatua although they also had strong links with Ngāpuhi in the north. By the 1870s the principal papakāinga around the valley included Ōpanake, north of the valley near present day Kaihū, which was headed by leading Te Roroa rangatira Te Rore Taoho (c.1810-1906); and Kaihū, south of the valley including the land where the Pākehā settlement of Dargaville was later established, which was the primary settlement of another influential rangatira, Parore Te Āwhā (?-1887) of Ngāpuhi and Te Roroa. Te Taita, in the Kaihū valley was a recently established papakāinga occupied by Netana Patuawa (1833-1898, Ngāpuhi) and his wife Tarati Puru (Ngāti Torehina) with their children. Patuawa relocated to the valley from the Bay of Islands for business purposes including gum digging and later hotel proprietorship, and the family were some of the first residents of the area which became known as Mamaranui.
Christianity in Northern Wairoa
Netana Patuawa is said to have brought Christianity to the Kaihū Valley when he travelled to the area from the Bay of Islands with Henry Williams of the Church Missionary Society (CMS). Patuawa became a member of the clergy, reportedly learning from a Māori Christian teacher named Tiopira at Kaihū as well as earlier interactions with CMS missionaries further north. From the 1860s on Rev. F. Gould began making regular visits to the area and Te Rore Taoho converted to Anglicanism as well. In the southern part of the Northern Wairoa, the Wesleyan Missionary Society, initially based at Tangiterōria from 1836 before moving to Mt Wesley in 1854, held more influence and Parore Te Āwhā had converted to Wesleyan Methodism in 1839.
The passing of the Native Schools Act 1872 saw the Māori community around the Kaihū Valley petition for schools and during his 1872 tour of the area Bishop Cowie, the first Bishop of Auckland, arranged to meet with Te Rore Taoho to discuss the proposal. After flooding prevented Cowie from travelling as far north as Ōpanake, he met Te Rore Taoho at Te Taita marae where it was not only agreed that the government would build a school but Te Rore Taoho also pledged to build an Anglican church as well. He showed the bishop a large section on a plateau south of the marae, beside Taita stream and immediately below a rocky outcrop on top of which a pā had been formerly located, where the church and school would be built. Te Rore Taoho and Parore Te Āwhā pledged £80 and £57 respectively towards the church’s construction and the remainder of the £350 cost was paid in full from the collection at the opening service in 1875, conducted by Bishop Cowie. The timber church was built in the Gothic Revival style with a t-shaped plan and blue glazed windows. The opening was attended by many Māori from the surrounding area including Hokianga and Waimamaku, and Pākehā settlers from settlements around the Wairoa River. The church may have been the earliest Anglican Church in the Northern Wairoa and was built during a period when many Māori communities were building churches and raising funds for the Diocese. The church quickly became an important focal centre for the community even as population movement towards Mamaranui and further north saw the new school, which opened in 1876, close by 1896 from low attendance.
Pressure on Māori
In the later nineteenth century Māori came under increasing pressure from the growing Pākehā population and Crown led land-purchasing programme. By the end of the century the recorded Māori population nationwide reached its lowest point. In the Northern Wairoa the Crown efforts to acquire land as well as competing historical claims saw much of the land in and around the Kaihū Valley be considered by the Native Land Court after 1870 to determine ownership and land sales. The land sales brought a degree of prosperity to some local iwi and hapū who benefitted not only from the payments but also through associated increased employment in the timber industry and gumdigging. Throughout the land sales the Kaihu Block, particularly the land around Te Taita marae remained in collective Māori ownership. In 1888 a title for Kaihu 1A was issued to multiple Māori owners including Te Rore Taoho and Netana Patuawa and their children. Despite being Māori land, in 1883 the Crown had built a road through Kaihu No.1A immediately in front of the church. Also in the early 1880s a group of Pākehā businessmen from Dargaville formed a scheme to build a railway through the block to improve transport from the remaining kauri timber stands north of the valley and the timber mills to Dargaville for shipping. The Māori landowners had initially opposed its construction before permission was negotiated and the line opened at the end of the decade. The railway closely followed the road for much of its length including running immediately in front of the church although it diverted before reaching Te Taita. The businessmen were heavily impacted by the Long Depression and after they were unable to sell the railway line privately to pay back their loans from the Crown for its construction, the Crown took over ownership in 1890. On December 20 1897 a spark from a passing train set alight the church burning it and all its furnishings to the ground.
Creation of St Mary’s Church (Anglican) (1897-1900)
The loss of their church was a source of mamae (hurt) in the community. Unwilling to be without their church for long the community quickly rallied to build another church on a new site further away from the railway. In February and April 1898 Netana Patuawa and Te Rore Taoho wrote on behalf of the hapū to the Government asking if any assistance would be available for the rebuilding effort. With no government funds forthcoming the rebuild was funded by a small number of individuals and began in April 1898 and completed later that year. The site chosen for St Mary’s Church (Anglican) was further upstream on Taita Stream, north of the marae and closer to the settlement at Mamaranui reflecting the increased settlement in the north of the valley. The church was built on a stretch of land between the road and railway and would be visible to travellers on both routes.
The new building was also of Gothic Revival design and incorporated blue glazed windows similar to their 1875 church. Possibly in an effort to not delay the project, the plan of the church mirrored that of the Anglican Church of Bethlehem located south of Kaihū at Repia. The church was laid out with an L-shaped plan with the nave orientated east-west and a chancel was located at the eastern end. The porch with a small vestry extended from the west end of the nave on the south side. The kauri timber building was clad with rusticated weatherboards and internally timber lined. Gothic Revival elements of the design included trefoil ventilators with triangular frames and pointed arch doorways and windows, the largest of which, located in the chancel and west end of the nave, incorporated tracery. The pointed arch motif was further echoed in the carved pulpit. Early use of Gothic Revival style architecture had been encouraged by CMS missionaries and Bishop Selwyn for churches in New Zealand from the mid-nineteenth century and was appropriated by Māori Anglican church builders. As noted by architectural historian Deidre Brown this appropriation ‘may have been just one method that Māori used to move closer to the Anglican God without Pakeha intermediaries’.
Although construction had finished by the end of 1898 the opening of the new church was delayed by 12 months following the death of Netana Patuawa on September 28 that year. The opening and dedication took place on 28 February 1900 and was led by Rev A.J. Beck with assistance from two Māori ministers, Revs Wiki Te Paa and Hōne Tana Pāpāhia. The opening was well attended by Māori, who came from as far away as Rotorua for the celebrations, and local Pākehā. The church was dedicated as St Mary’s Church which continued the use of a name which had first been used for the 1875 church. Following the church opening a memorial to Netana Patuawa was unveiled in the urupā at the former church site. In 1907 the Native Land Court partitioned a number of sections within the Kaihu 1A block including the Church land.
Early use and Creation of Memorial
With the opening of St Mary’s Church the community continued to hold their regular services and the place was used for milestone events such as baptisms, weddings, and was incorporated into tangi rituals. While the church was closely associated with Te Taita marae through physical proximity, its community came from multiple marae in the valley with links to Netana Patuawa, and was also attended by Pākehā settlers also came to worship at the church.
In August 1928 a monument was erected on the south side of the church by the Netana family as a memorial to Rev. Penewhare Wī Netana (1897 – 1926). Following the lead of Netana Patuawa as a member of the clergy, Netana was one of the first of a dozen ordained Anglican ministers from the valley along with Wiremu Nētana Pānapa (1898-1970) from Ahikiwi, who became the second Bishop of Aotearoa in 1951. The two men graduated from St John’s Theological College in Auckland and were ordained minsters in 1923 having been among the first Māori students to attend the college following the closure of the Māori seminary Te Rau College in Gisborne. The memorial traced Netana’s whakapapa including his descent from Te Pahi and Ruatara, two Ngāpuhi rangatira who were closely associated with the arrival of Anglicanism in New Zealand.
The unveiling took place in December 1928. The memorial was a concrete obelisk on a square stepped plinth with a cross at the top. As well as detailing Netana’s whakapapa and important life events such as his ordination as a priest, the memorial contained the inscription: HE TAMAITI I AROHAINA E NGA/IWI E RUA MĀORI PAKEHA MO TE / MAHAKI METE ATAHANGA KITE
which reflected that Netana represented the coming together of Te Ao Māori and the Pākehā world and that he embodied the Christian values of his community.
Ongoing use of place (1930s – present)
As well as its regular use for services, celebrations and commemorations, the church was used for a period by the Taita Mother’s Union, and even had its own choir. In 1940 the realignment the main road saw part of the eastern half of the church land taken for the road dividing the property into two parcels. The property was formally gazetted in 1963 as a ‘church site for the common use and benefit of the Māori and descendants of Māori of the Church of the Province of New Zealand commonly called Church of England’.
Regular maintenance of the church was undertaken including an interior renovation in 1947 and a further repainting in the 1970s. In 1975 the centenary of St Mary’s Church was celebrated and the church was rededicated. Six of the community’s ordained ministers were in attendance on the day. In the 1990s more work was needed to maintain the church and the community, led by Samuel Thompson Waipoua Taoho – ‘the last remaining mokopuna of Netana and Tarati Patuawa’ – raised $5,000 which was used to reblock the church as well as the removal of the interior paint in the nave, chancel, and porch with a sandblaster and angle grinder. A local businessman donated a kauri sign for the church which was erected in the front of the church. In the early twenty-first century Veronica Nathan-Patuawa, the wife of the vicar, led a local group to create a set of pegboard tukutuku panels which were installed in the church incorporating traditional tukutuku patterns with Christian iconography including an image of Mary. These panels, which were created by the ‘inspiration and commitment to the Christian beliefs of the people involved’ and convey the strength of the Māori history and community association with the place, form part of a revival of Māori arts as an expression of Māori identity which began in the mid twentieth century and have continued importance in Māori communities .
Over many years the church has been visited and photographed by passing tourists, many of whom left koha. Robin Morrison, a noted New Zealand landscape photographer, took photographs of the church in the early 1990s including two of the interior showing the east and west windows, font, and pews, in his last publication. In 2021 the church continues to be in regular use by the local community.
