Immigrants and Settlers
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Immigration has helped make Taranaki what it is – a vibrant place filled with people of different cultures and viewpoints. The journey here for the early settlers was a long, tough and overwhelming one but their accounts show little regret. As people from all over the world came together under the mountain, prejudice, language barriers and isolation from their homeland had to be overcome. But from this melting pot of humanity came a society of many dimensions where the human dramas of love and life were played out. And the tradition of immigration to Taranaki continues today – ensuring that thread of vibrancy continues.
There's a cairn down at Ngamotu Beach that tells a tragic tale. It marks the final resting place of settler William Marshall, who arrived on the William Bryan in March 1841 and was dead by October. Though few facts survive about him, some of his story can be told from what has been left behind.
Emigration Fever
They called it emigration fever and William Marshall came...
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Every Friday morning over a cuppa and cakes, the Friends of the Opunake Library make a wee toast to Charlie Yep.
"We always say, 'This is for Charlie'," says long-time resident Molly Harvey (88).
The library is built on the site of the former Wai Yep & Co General Store, on the corner of Tasman and Havelock streets.
The store was closed in 1977, when Harry Yep sold up. He...
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A ‘stranger in a strange land’ and a tiny woman who once had bound feet were made to feel like locals in the small Taranaki farming community of Opunake.
About 1904, when the Wai Yep & Co General Store opened its doors in the coastal Taranaki town, Chinese goldminers in Dunedin were despised, shunned and attacked.
But in Opunake, the immigrants from the village of Sun-gai in...
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When Garth Gilmour sits down to write, he feels a ghostly presence at his back.
The long-time journalist, who had lasting stints at the now-defunct Taranaki Herald, is forever mindful of lessons learnt from former editor, the late Brian Scanlan.
"I constantly think of Brian and of the effect that he had on me about being meticulous about writing," says Gilmour (77), who lives in Auckland and...
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