Author(s): Lawrence B. I.

Rotorua Books

Wheat was one of the earliest crops to be grown after Samuel Marsden had established the first of the Missionary SocietyâÂÂs inland stations in New Zealand at Te Waimate (know known as Waimate North) in the Bay of Islands in 1831. (The land was purchased in 1830) This was the fourth mission station established in New Zealand. When Marsden established the inland station at Te Waimate, with Reverend William Yate in charge, (and lay missionaries George Clarke, Richard Davis and James Hamlin). He proposed that the station would become a place to teach the Maori people the skills and crafts of the European, in additions to spreading the Christian gospel. The missionaries immediately set about to build a cart road from Te Waimate to Kerikeri, where the Stone Store was erected to house the anticipated grain and flour from Te Waimate. The station became a sizeable village stretching east and west from the Church at one end to the Water-mill at the other. Besides these two buildings it comprised three large houses, all resembling the surviving mission house, numerous small cottages and whares, a blacksmiths shop, a carpenterâÂÂs shop, printing works, and the barns and sheds belonging to the farm that extended all around it.