THE LONG HAUL: Ewen Grant holds his forebear Alexander Grant's sword and crowbar, and is farming the same land. PHOTO/STUARTMUNRO100415WCSMDESCENDANT1
A silver samovar buried to avoid theft, bagpipes played on board a sailing ship and a sword used in the Land Wars revive memories of colonial times for a group of Scottish settlers.
The descendants of nearly 200 Scots who migrated to New Zealand in 1840 are still celebrating their links 175 years later.
Several of them settled in Wanganui and Turakina - Grants, Campbells, Camerons, McGregors. All descendants are invited to two celebratory dinners and a picnic lunch this year.
The dinners, in Auckland and Wanganui on August 22 and 25 respectively, mark the departure of the barque Blenheim from Greenock in Scotland on August 25, 1840. The picnic, at Kaiwharawhara in Wellington on December 27, marks the ship's arrival there 175 years ago.
The Blenheim left Scotland in 1840 for a four-month voyage to New Zealand. She had 197 passengers, most from Inverness-shire in the mid northwest of Scotland.
They arrived at Kaiwharawhara on December 27, and were welcomed and supported by the Ngati Tama iwi.
They spread out after that, waiting until they could get land. Many took it up in the Wanganui and Wairarapa areas and became farmers.
Ewen and Roz Grant are still on land taken up by Ewen's forebear Alexander Grant in 1850.
His occupation was listed in ship records as stone mason. He was the second child in a family of nine children from Glen Morisston. A month after he arrived in New Zealand he married another Blenheim passenger, Mary Cameron.
Alexander's first 10 years in New Zealand were full of adventure. He and Mary went first to Taranaki, where they helped with surveying and were some of the first Europeans. Then, in 1842, he was one of a party of six who explored the Wairarapa.
They started by taking a whaleboat up the Manawatu Gorge in June. Then they walked south toward Wellington, during a cold wet winter, meeting hostile Maori on the way. They were given up for lost, but found their way back over the Rimutakas weeks later, half naked and nearly dead.
After that Alexander took a job superintending the making of roads, mainly for military use, in the Wellington area. He had to carry and distribute pay to the workers. Sometimes he had a military escort and was armed with a sword and pistol to fend off Maori attackers.
For that service a Wellington road was named after him, Grant Rd, in Thorndon.
In 1849 Donald McLean bought land for European settlement in the Rangitikei. Alexander and Mary and their four children walked the coast from Wellington to Turakina to take it up. A crowbar he took on that journey was displayed at Te Papa, during its The Scots in New Zealand exhibition.
Alexander Grant went on to be active in Turakina's Presbyterian Church, and was the first chairman of its school. Descendants are still on the land he took up, which he called Tullochgorum.
Another Blenheim couple with descendants in Wanganui were Captain Moses Campbell and his wife Jessie (nee Cameron). In Scotland Moses had been a tacksman, a middleman intermediary between crofters and a laird.
When that middle class was wiped out by the Highland clearances Moses bought property in New Zealand through the New Zealand Company and emigrated.
He and Jessie made their way to Wanganui in 1843. They cleared land and built a little house by Lake Wiritoa. They also had a section in Wanganui, where they stayed when in town.
Jessie was younger than her husband, and outlived him by 20 years. She turned out to be the driving force behind their success in the new land.
Most of their fellow settlers had arrived without many possessions. In the early years Moses used to hire out the Campbell silver for dinner parties in the area.
They soon lost that silver. When the threat of Maori attack escalated they took refuge in the Rutland Stockade in Wanganui, burying the silver in a silver samovar for the duration.
On their return the samovar was still there - and is still in the family - but the silver was gone.
Moses and Jessie's descendants - John and Neil Campbell and families - are still farming the original land at Wiritoa and Marangai.
-There are three events planned to mark 175 years for the Blenheim settlers in New Zealand. To find out about the Auckland dinner on August 22, ring Norman Cameron on 09 33728442 or email norman.cameron37@gmail.com. For information about the Wanganui dinner, ring Ewen and Roz Grant on 06 3273861or email tullochgorum@xtra.co.nz. For the picnic at Kaiwharawhara in Wellington, ring Hugh McPhail on 04 479 0951 or email blenheim175@gmail.com.