Early Māori History
The Kaipara Harbour and it tributary rivers including the Wairoa provided an attractive environment for Māori settlement. Fish, eels, and water fowl were found in the river systems. The nearby forests provided more birds and plant resources. The well drained fertile flats with its warm climate and sandy soils provided the ideal conditions for growing kūmara. The natural resources of the region were sufficient to support a large number of Māori inhabitants. The number of recorded pā sites indicated that the district was long occupied and fought over. The harbour and its tributary rivers provided the main means of access. In the early nineteenth century the northern Wairoa region was disputed between Te Uri o Hau, Te Roroa and various groups affiliated more closely Ngāpuhi including Te Parawhau.
From 1836 onwards a small number of Pākeha traders and sawyers came into the Northern Wairoa river area. They made various arrangements with local chiefs to build homes and trading stores, and to cut timber. The principal rangatira, Tirarau, Parore and Paikea, co-operated in encouraging the Pākeha traders and signed the deeds providing them with land.
Establishment of Aratapu – ‘Sawdust City’
Thomas Forsaith established a trading store in 1839 at the confluence of the Kaihu and Wairoa Rivers, now the site of Dargaville. In 1842 the store suffered a destructive raid by local Maori by muru for the alleged plunder of a wāhi tapu. A human skull was found close by to the store and it was concluded by Māori that Forsaith had desecrated an urupā and removed human remains. Evidence was produced after the muru that the skull had been found after washing down the river but had been placed in the store with potatoes which was highly offensive to Māori. The Crown made Te Uri o Hau and Te Parawhau cede land for the plunder of the store which amounted to between 6000 to 8000 acres, and was known as the Te Kopuru Block. Lord Stanley, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, said land at Te Kopuru should be regarded as Crown property acquired in the course of penal infliction. The ceded land was disputed by Ngāti Whiu and Ngāti Kawa hapū of Te Roroa who said that they were the rightful owners of the land. In 1867 it went before the Native Land Court where it was found that the land had been surveyed twice and the second survey had taken substantially more land than the original survey. The hapū were awarded Crown payment of seventy pounds. Ngāti Whiu and Ngāti Kawa protested in 1878, petitioned government in 1881 and went to the Native Land Court in 1891 but their claims were dismissed. The site of the town of Aratapu was on the land that was disputed by Ngāti Whiu and Ngāti Kawa.
Aratapu was known as Sawdust City during the latter part of the nineteenth through to the early twentieth century because of the quantity of kauri sawdust produced from the sawmills that operating there. During the milling days Aratapu was the main centre of commerce on the Northern Wairoa.
Kauri, with its attributes of a straight grain, timber content and durability was a prime building and boat-building material, and there was growing demand for its timber throughout colonial New Zealand and beyond.
Māori in the north had utilised the timber, using it for carving, house building and waka. The early European explorers had seen the potential of kauri and it was first used by Europeans for mast and spar replacements. The kauri was cut in the bush by forest workers working in timber camps. It was either pit sawn on site, or transported by bullock train or water to be further processed. The exploitation of the vast timber resources of North America led to new milling technology, and new industrial technologies arrived in New Zealand in the mid-nineteenth century. The technology that was to have a profound effect on the exploitation of kauri was the steam-driven sawmill. Prior to 1864, the Northern Wairoa timber industry had been confined to the preparation of spars and small quantities of timber. The arrival of steam-driven sawmills and the growth of nearby Auckland meant that the timber industry changed from small sawyers’ camps to industrial centres with concentrations of equipment and personnel.
The first large sawmill was on the banks of the Northern Wairoa River and was built at Aratapu in 1865 by William Fairlie Bonar. The mill was capable of producing 50,000 super feet of timber per week. The mill then changed hands several times and in 1873 the Union Sash and Door Company took it over. In 1888 the Kauri Timber Company took over the Aratapu mill, and this company came to dominate the kauri industry. It acquired extensive bush holdings in Northland and the Coromandel and owned and operated 28 timber mills. Aratapu became the chief population centre of the Northern Wairoa. By 1891 the population had reached 1,000 people and the peak population was 1,610 in 1901. Hobson County Council had its offices at Aratapu, and the town had a Post Office, a public school, a hall, Anglican and Wesleyan Churches, a branch of the National Bank, a Masonic Lodge, a hotel, several boarding-houses, a skating rink and billiard saloon.
Expansion of Aratapu Township
During the 1870s there was a rapid period of expansion as the Union Sash and Door Co. constructed and developed two new mills. These mills could produce sawn timber and speciality mouldings, flooring and shelving. By 1878 the Aratapu complex had become the largest sawmill in New Zealand, employing about 300 men and with an annual capacity of 14 million feet (4,267 200 metres).
New buildings were constructed to accommodate the workers and their families and these included a hall and a school. Drinking was seen as the main cause of disorder in the district as many of the petty crimes and accidental deaths involved alcohol. People sought to develop family and community life; sober pursuits were encouraged and the Aratapu Public Library was part of that change. Aratapu also had a Mutual Improvement Society, the Band of Hope and Independent Order of Good Templars who were associated with the temperance movement.
New Zealand’s First Libraries
Libraries embodied the ideal of self-improvement through lifelong learning. In Britain, movements towards universal education and in particular adult self-improvement combined both these strands—the educational and the cultural—and these values were brought to New Zealand by 19th-century immigrants, who saw and used reading as a central part of their value system. Public libraries were set up soon after organised European settlement began in 1840. The Port Nicholson Exchange and Public Library is thought to be New Zealand’s first public library, and was established by a group of local settlers and opened in May 1841 in Wellington. The first libraries were generally run by organisations like mechanics’ institutes though, which promoted adult learning. Libraries opened in Auckland and Nelson in 1842 and whilst anyone could join, they had to pay a subscription fee. Provincial and then Central Government became involved in the funding of libraries from the early 1850s and Central Government later took control of some public libraries, such as the Auckland Mechanics’ Institute Library which was taken over by Auckland City Council in 1880.
Formation of the Aratapu Public Library
The Aratapu Public Library was established in 1874 and from 1875 it occupied one end of the newly constructed Aratapu School building on Monk Street, the main thoroughfare to the river and once the ‘liveliest portion of the settlement’. The Library was funded through a combination of private and government contributions, and is described in an 1876 newspaper article, which notes: ‘A free library of 400 books has been collected, principally through the interest of mill manager, Mr. Walker, who presented 200 books, which were followed by volumes from other friends, so that in conjunction with the government grant, a very creditable library has been formed.’ In August 1876 the library had acquired the use of an additional room – a lean-to attached to the school room which had been erected by the local lodge of the Good Templars as an anteroom. It appears that this room is the room at the frontage of the building (originally divided from the school building by an internal wall with double fireplace), given the neo-classical façade common to lodge buildings. This additional room was made available to the library on nights when it was not required for lodge purposes. As a result, the Public Library Committee ‘sent to Auckland for various games, which they purchased from Mr. Harris, via, complete lots of chessmen, draughtsmen, and dominoes.’ The 1876 newspaper article also notes that the library rooms were well illuminated, as Messrs E. Porter and Co. (well-known Auckland ironmongers) had gifted the library three suspension lamps.
In October 1878 tenders were called for the construction of a new school building for Aratapu. The new building was erected in 1879 and located on the intersection of the road to Pouto and Aratapu. The former school building which housed the library was then readapted by the library committee and refitted for the purpose.
The library’s collection continued to grow, and it had over 700 books by 1884. The library was in a good financial position at this time and had 100 pounds to spend on new books, which were ordered from Edinburgh. The library committee also had sufficient funds to undertake maintenance of the library building and invest in improved lighting. However, by the early 1890s the library was in a difficult financial position, and in October 1893 a decision was made to only open the library and reading room three evenings a week, to reduce overheads. The library had reduced to 13 members by March 1894 and the library committee made the difficult decision to close the library. The committee felt that the library was in the wrong location, and would benefit from relocation to the main street. By 1891 Monk Street was described as being ‘comparatively deserted’.
A Mr John Morgan was approach and offered a site fronting Aratapu Road (Heawa Road), and the library committee carried a motion to authorise the relocation of the library building into the main Aratapu Road. The Kauri Timber Company were approached about the relocation, but refused to give their approval to move the building to the site offered by Mr Morgan. As an alternative they offered a site ‘next to Mr Neild’s dwelling house on the main road’. Library Committee Chair Mr Samuel Webb considered it very unjust of ‘a wealthy company like the Kauri Company to refuse the public the right to remove the building which had been erected by public subscription for the special purposes of a library, and had been so used for the past 20 years’, and a motion was carried to decline to remove the building to any other site than a freehold.
Benefits were held in 1894 and 1895 to raise funds for the library’s relocation to the main road where it would be more ‘conveniently located for the great majority of passengers’ and in May 1895 tenders were called for its removal. By September 1895 contractor Mr Donaldson had nearly completed work to get the building into position on its new site on the main road and the library had opened at its new location by 26 September 1895. In June 1896 it was noted that the library appeared to be ‘better patronised now that it has been moved to its present position on the main thoroughfare’. It continued to operate through into the twentieth century.
A township in decline
In 1908 the Kauri Timber Company closed the mills in Aratapu and the Company Store was loaded onto a scow in 1909 to Kawhia. A small amount of milling occurred after the Kauri Timber Company left Aratapu, such as the timber and treatment mill owned by the Glamuzina family (operating from 1946 to 1972) but this was the final blow for the milling town. A newspaper article indicates that the Aratapu Public Library was still open in 1914, but it is unclear when it finally closed its doors. In 1943 however, the library building was moved to a more central site on the main Aratapu-Te Kopuru Road, and became the new Aratapu Post Office. The post office was threatened with closure in 1950 and again in 1965 due to low volumes of business. The Post Office, which by 1971 was in a very dilapidated condition, finally closed in 1972.
The abandoned library building was given to the Dargaville Museum in the early 1970s and relocated and moved to the then museum site in Normanby Street, Dargaville. In 1985 the Dargaville Museum moved to its present site at Harding Park and the former library building was seen as surplus to requirements and given to the Intellectually Handicapped Children Society (IHC). The building was used as part of a rural training unit at Awakino Point near Dargaville. The IHC sold the property in December 2005 to Steven Griffiths who put the library up for tender. The community called for the library building to be kept in the district so the Dargaville Museum with the help of a grant from the ASB Community Trust and donations from the Dargaville community raised the necessary money for the purchase price. Aratapu Public Library (Former) was re-acquired on 9 June 2006.
Relocation to Dargaville Museum, Harding Park
On 18 January 2007 the former Aratapu Public Library building was loaded onto a removal truck and transported to its present location at the Dargaville Museum in Harding Park. Harding Park had been gazetted as a public reserve (site for museum) under the Reserves Act in 1982 (NZ Gazette 1982 p 1566). The building was restored using voluntary labour and a small lean-to structure that was originally built by the IHC Society as their toilets was made into display space. Changes made to the building during the restoration included removal of the double fireplace and construction of new kauri double doors at the front entry. In October 2007 the restored library was opened as the music wing of the museum, housing the Kevin Friedrich accordion collection.
