About midnight, November 9th, 1868, Mr. Firmin, a policeman, who resided near the Patutahi ford of the Waipawa river, which he and the male adults of three neighbouring families were accustomed to watch, heard shots in the direction of Matewhero, two miles from Firmin’s house. He woke his wife, but as it was not unusual to hear the sound of shots by night, they considered the sounds heard on this occasion as proceeding from friendly natives, yet they were not entirely free from apprehension, and slept no more that night. At dawn of day, Mr. Firmin went out to reconnoitre. At the Patutahi ford, he saw a Maori, who appeared desirous of avoiding Mr. Firmin, who hailed him to know the meaning of more shots just then heard at Matewhero. The native stopped, and appeared excited. He said the Hauhaus were killing the white men. Nothing more definite could be extracted from him, Firmin being ignorant of the Maori language, so Mr. Firmin hastened to warn his neighbours, Wyllie, Stevenson, and Benson, all married men with very young children. These men and their wives, snatching up their children, fled along the bank of the Waipaua, making for Turanganui, but the firing before them became so heavy they feared they would be intercepted, so they decided to cross the Waipaua, and escape to Murewai, on the coast, by the right bank of the river. The Waipaua, except at the few fords, is generally deep, but although some of the women were nigh drowned, they got to the other side, and made for the village of Tutari, a good man and faithful chief. He received them kindly, and shewed them best how to escape. He was urged to fly with them, but, being very ill, declined. He afterwards lost his life and those of two children for assisting the Europeans. Messrs. Wyllie, Firmin, and the rest pursued their way, overtaking other families as they advanced. Finally, they overtook Major Westrupp. Under his guidance, the survivors south of the Waipaua retreated by a fearful bush country to Mahia, where most of them shipped for Napier, the capital of Hawke’s Bay province, at which place they safely arrived.
About an hour after Firmin and his neighbours left the village where the chief Tutari lived, Te Kooti and 12 Hauhaus arrived, and demanded where the Europeans had gone. Tutari declined to tell, though Te Kooti promised to save his life if he would say which route they had taken. Finding threats and entreaties of no avail, Tutari and his two children were taken a few yards away from the house, and killed by Te Kooti’s orders. Tutari’s wife sat near with her uncle, compelled to witness the murders. When her husband and children were dead, she was asked to reveal by what road the white men went. She, too, was faithful. She pointed out a track which the fugitives had not taken. One of the Europeans, Mr. Wyllie, was especially obnoxious to Te Kooti, for it was Mr. Wyllie who helped to capture Te Kooti in 1865. After being mis-directed, Te Kooti rode off laughing, saying he would cut slices of flesh off Mr. Wyllie until the latter died. Tutari’s wife, Miriama, was spared, and afterwards escaped to Turanganui.
About half-a-mile from Firmin’s house, Messrs. Hawthorne and Strong resided. They, too, were warned on Tuesday morning, first by Mr. Benson, and directly after by Sergeant-Major Butter. Mr. Butter had been to Taureka, a station owned by Messrs. Dodd and Peppard, where he intended to assist in shearing. Arrived at the wool-shed, which stood about 400 yards from the dwelling-house, he was attracted by a furious barking from the chained-up sheep dogs, and wondered to see no one about. So he walked up to the house, and round it. At the back door he found Dodd and Peppard lying dead in their shirts on the threshold. Throwing down his shears, he rode away to the Mission premises at Waerenga-ahika, where he and other people usually resided. After warning the inmates of Waerenga-ahika, he made for Hawthorne and Strong’s, who with one friend and a servant lad escaped. It was afterwards ascertained that one of Dodd and Peppard’s men got away three miles on his road to alarm Major Biggs, but was overtaken in his night-clothes by the murderers of his employers and killed. Sergeant Butter pursued the road to Matewhero, and had a narrow escape. As he neared the residence of Major Biggs, where he was bound, he found the Hauhaus were inside the premises, and their horses fastened to the garden fence to the number of 12 or 14. He found all the habitations between Matewhero and Turanganui deserted; every one, Europeans and natives, who escaped, were flying for life, and several houses were already in flames. About two miles from Matewhero, he passed Mr. Mann’s house. Mann was lying dead, shot and tomahawked; his wife was mutilated and partly burnt; and their baby stabbed in several places. Mr. Mann’s family resided nearer Turanganui than other victims, and his place marked the limit of the massacre in that direction.
Captain Wilson’s house was the first attacked at Matewhero. It stood in a garden, and was nearly equi-distant from most of the other residences at that place. The Wilsons’ premises, indeed, were centrally situated, being surrounded on all sides by those of their neighbours, at distances varying from a quarter to less than half-a-mile.
The assassins, guided by three resident and professed “friendly natives” of Poverty Bay, came to Captain Wilson’s house on the night of Monday, November 9th. The family had retired to rest with the exception of Captain Wilson, who sat up late writing letters for the English mail, which was to leave next day. It was probably 12 or 1 o’clock when the Hauhaus knocked at his door and told him they had brought a letter from Hirini-te-Kani, the principal chief of Poverty Bay. Captain Wilson appears to have suspected mischief, and told them to put the letter under the door. Looking out, he saw a great many natives flitting about, and, calling to his servant, Edward Moran, who slept in an out-building, told him the Hauhaus were upon them, and desired him to come to his assistance, which Moran immediately did, though the Hauhaus tried to catch him as he ran across the open space between the two buildings. They appear to have been afraid to fire, lest they might rouse the sleeping neighbours. Finding they could not induce Captain Wilson to open the door, the Hauhaus proceeded to burst it in with a log of wood. After they had battered down the door, however, they feared to enter the house, knowing it would cost some of them their lives, as Captain Wilson bore a well-deserved reputation for resolute bravery. For some time Captain Wilson and Moran kept the murderers at bay, but at last the Hauhaus set fire to both ends of the house. Captain Wilson even then defended his home to the last extremity, and only left it when the flames had singed his wife’s hair and scorched his children’s feet. Captain Wilson headed his family in their retreat from the burning mansion, revolver in hand, and his undaunted carriage appears at that terrible crisis to have cowed his murderers. The family comprised Captain Wilson, Mrs. Wilson, four infant children, and the servant Moran. As the little party left the house, the Hauhaus assured Captain Wilson they had made up their minds not to kill him or his family. There was just a chance they might keep their word; the enemy were numerous, and it is probable considerations connected with the safety of his wife and little ones induced him to put faith in the asseverations of the cowardly wretches, who were all armed with rifles and bayonets. To prove their good intentions, one of the Hauhaus took up one of the children to carry. Captain Wilson, his wife, and Moran carried the others, and the party, Hauhaus included, proceeded towards Goldsmith’s house, about a quarter of a mile distant. After walking about 200 yards, a Hauhau rushed upon Moran and knocked him down. Another stabbed Captain Wilson with a bayonet in the back. He fell with his little son James (whom he carried) uttering a dying exclamation. The little boy extricated himself from his dying father, and got away in the dark to some scrub. Mrs. Wilson, hearing her husband’s death-cry, turned round and uttered an exclamation of horror. The same instant she was thrust through the body with a bayonet, her arm being likewise pierced whilst trying to defend her baby. She fell insensible, and received several other bayonet wounds, to the number of four or five, besides being beat on the breast with the butt end of a rifle. Yet she survived for several weeks, and related how, when she became conscious the following day, she saw all her family lying dead around her, with the exception of her boy James. All that day (Tuesday) she lay unable to rise, with the murderers in sight, busy at their awful work. Whilst she lay helpless, a “friendly” native came and robbed her of her shawl, leaving her attired only in her night-dress. On Wednesday she managed to crawl to what had been her home, and got some water. Still the Hauhaus were about, and many buildings were being fired, at or near Matewhero; but she contrived to reach a little outhouse left standing on her grounds, and hid herself.
In the interim, her little boy, eight years of age, after escaping from the murderers, wandered about for several days, unperceived by the Hauhaus, though one night he slept in a house to which they came. He appears to have confined his rambles to Matewhero and its vicinity, supporting himself by food found in those houses not then destroyed. He said he “did not think it would be exactly stealing,” as “everybody had run away.” He saw, he thought, “as many Hauhaus as would fill the Turanganui redoubt.” One day he went back to his old home, and found his “father, and brother, and sisters, with Moran, all dead,” and wondered “what the Hauhaus had done with his mother,” but “thought they must have eaten her.” After all the houses were burnt at Matewhero, he went “home,” and found his mother in the little out-house, to their mutual surprise and delight. Here he subsisted her for several days upon eggs and whatever he could forage. At last the poor lady got a card and pencil from her husband’s coat-pocket, and contrived, after four hours’ labour, and many failures, to write the following:—
Could some kind friend come to our help, for God’s sake. I am very much wounded, lying in a little house at our place. My poor son James is with me. Come quick.
Alice Wilson.
We have little or no clothing, and are in dreadful suffering.
This note, after several attempts to reach Turanganui, six miles distant, was delivered to Major Westrupp, at that place, by the little boy, who had been picked up not far from Turanganui by a party sent out on the 16th to rescue missing settlers, if alive. On the same day, Mrs. Wilson was brought to Turanganui on a litter. She was tended with the greatest solicitude, but though she rallied for a time, and was at one time thought to be out of danger, she ultimately succumbed to the terrible injuries she had sustained. She died in Napier in December, and her death is thought to have been hastened by the intelligence of the Pipiwhakau affair, which occurred whilst Mrs. Wilson was on board the Sturt steamer, in which vessel she had engaged a passage for Napier. Few ladies have lived through such afflictions as those witnessed and suffered by Mrs. Wilson.