The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, (1864–72)
JOHN WEBSTER, OF OPONONI
JOHN WEBSTER, OF OPONONI
Mr. John Webster, of Opononi, Hokianga, who accompanied the troops on the march to Waima (1898), had an uncommonly eventful career. Before coming to New Zealand in 1840 he had fought blacks on the overland trail in New South Wales. After Hone Heke's War, in which he served as a free lance, he went to San Francisco in the days of the “forty-nine” gold rush, and with the celebrated Benjamin Boyd he cruised in the schooner-yacht “Wanderer” through the South Sea islands. This cruise was tragically interrupted by the death of Mr. Boyd at the hands of Solomon Islands cannibals in a bay on Guadalcanar Island in 1851. John Webster helped to serve the schooner's guns against a horde of savages who attacked the vessel in their canoes. “The Cruise of the Wanderer,” written and illustrated by himself, gave an account of this Pacific islands voyage. Mr. Webster's beautiful home at Opononi, on Hokianga Harbour, was well known to visitors to the North Auckland country.
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From sketch-map by Captain Mair, 1923]
Scene of Captain Mair's Defeat of Te Kooti, Rotorua, 1870 (See Chapter 35, pages 387-400.)