Charlie Hovell, who was born in 1857, gives a long and detailed account of his colourful life since his arrival in Auckland aged six, in 1862. At the time of the interview he had 40 grandchildren and 60-70 great-grandchildren.
This oral history interview includes many tales of childhood escapades and subsequent punishments, his schooling, discipline and expulsions, experiences in the New Zealand Land Wars with his father who was a surgeon for the British military; stowing away on a ship to America and Britain, meeting Bully Hayes and his treatment of indentured Pacific labourers.
Mr Hovell moved to Coromandel in 1872 at the age of 16 and retells stories of gold-mining in Coromandel and his interactions with local iwi. [He married Mere Te Aurere
Aperaniko from Kennedy Bay and uses te reo Māori several times during the interview.] He retells stories of Hauraki Māori and their past encounters with Ngāpuhi raids [1820s], accounts of his personal experience of mākutu, and early elections in Coromandel.
Charlie Hovell arrived in Auckland in 1862 on board the sailing ship "Lady Kinnaird" which berthed at Wynyard Pier. He tells a story about boys from Parnell racing boys from Freeman’s Bay in homemade carts pulled by a billy goat. He was smallest so was chosen as driver. The goat got loose and chaos ensued, as it upset Māori women selling produce in the street, including pigs which also got loose. He describes the goat and boys racing through what is now downtown Auckland, Victoria Street (which was all bush) Customs Street and Queen Street.
His family shifted next to Panmure, where his little sister became ill and died and they next moved to Howick where they lived until 1872 when they moved to Coromandel. Before then he was sent to Melrose’s School, where he saw a magic lantern show. He used to skip school and sell tickets to the lantern show in Otara, for which they would be allowed to see the show for free. His mother was injured in a horse-rising accident and confined to bed for two years and he says for the next few years he ‘ran wild’ -tells a story about being expelled from school several times.
When the Land Wars started, he recalls a stockade was built at Howick. His mother died and his father took him to Rangiriri where there was fighting. His father (a doctor) was treating wounded men but Charlie managed to get in front of the lines and was shot in the leg. Further anecdotes about stealing apples, tipping a hive of bees onto a couple who owned an orchard and setting fire to a fence while hunting a rabbit.
He tells a story about Māori from Waiheke coming to Maraetai and shooting two children from the Truss family, with Ambrose Truss and Sam Lord. The troops galloped out to Truss's property and he wanted to join them but was sent back. Further anecdotes about childhood misdemeanours.
His father was then stationed at Galloway’s Redoubt at Southern Wairoa and took him with him to keep Charlie out of mischief. More stories of misdemeanors including a prize bull named the Duke of Newcastle, working at Bleak House as a rouseabout for Mrs MacLean [Howick], a horse race with another boy at Pigeon Mountain, biting a teacher on the leg while being caned and getting expelled again
After this he was sent to boarding school in Auckland but got into a fist fight with the teacher on his first day and was locked up, but escaped and ran down to the wharf and stowed away on a ship,the Ida Zeigler. The mate found him when they were 600 miles out from New Zealand and Captain Reynolds said they would not turn back, so he stayed on board to New York and then London. They sailed north to Scotland and the Orkney Islands and then back to London and New Zealand. He went back to his family at Howick and talks about playing cricket against Otahuhu boys.
He then returns to the Waikato War and tells a story about a clash between Major Mair’s men and Māori shooting from a trench. He says he saw Mair stop his men from shooting a Māori who was injured in the shoulder but still leapt out to attack them with a tomahawk, and his father stitched up the man’s shoulder.
His uncle was sailing a schooner, the “Clyde” to Fiji, so he went with him for about six months, where he met Bully Hayes who was blackbirding there, buying indentured workers from the islands and selling them to planters. He then explains how Bully Hayes took 500 men from the island of Tana, paying the chief for them to work for a year, but then forcing them to say they would work for two or three years instead. At Levuka they were taken ashore and sold as workers for three years, when they had only paid the chief for one year’s labour. He says Bully Hayes has a bad name but was “very straight” with women and children and thrashed a man who had assaulted a ‘half-caste’ girl. He gives details of the thrashing.
He then returned to Howick with his uncle and then came to Coromandel in 1872 and has been there ever since. He returns to further discussion about the land wars and lists the British officers he knew personally, including Majors Heaphy, Whitmore and Captain Kripner. His father was in charge of Coromandel Hospital and when he travelled with his father to Tokotea he found gold on the side of the road, and pegged out a claim. He was 16 at the time. But he came down with measles and a man named Peters stole his claim. He then mined at Trig Hill and talks about the conditions and accidents there. He tells a story about a man named Bailey dying on the road and in order to bury him with only a broken shovel to dig the grave, the body had to be chopped into pieces first.
He talks about the Green Harp swindle, which involved a gold claim of that name and more about other finds including the Tokotea, where miners George McLeod, Edmund Fraser, Harry Whelan, John Kerr and Sam Hobbs struck it rich. He gives details of how they spent their money. He talks about other miners including Sandy, Billy and Angus McNeil who had the Three Brothers mine. He talks about his own mine at Preece’s Point.
He then talks about his relationship with Coromandel Māori. His first wife was Māori and her family owned Kennedy Bay. He remembers Harry Kuri, who shot half his hand off while hunting and insisted on it being amputated by Hovell’s father without anaesthetic.
He tells stories about another man named "Old Friday" who he says was ‘an old mākutuer” - he was known as Nakenake by the Māori. He tells some stories about him using mākutu or putting a curse on people, including telling a woman all her children were going to die, which they did, and trying to mākutu Mr Hovell. He tells a story about mākutu in Paeroa, where Billy Nichol his father and grandfather all believed they were makutued by a man named Harata Taranui. A man was cursed and soon after fell off a coach and broke his neck. Mr Hovell says he believes there is "something" in mākutu.
He talks about his sons finding a carved piece of tangiwai greenstone in a cave, which is now at Auckland Museum. They later found a lot of skeletons buried in the cave which they sold to Dunedin [Otago] University.
Mr Hovell then tells stories about tribal fighting which were told to him by Adam Clarke, an elderly tatooed Māori, when Mr Hovell was aged about 20. Story about Hongi Hika and Ngāpuhi coming down from the Bay of Islands, fighting at Port Jackson and Stony Bay, Goat Bay with Hauraki Māori, where many were slaughtered.
He talks about a visit to New Zealand by the Duke of Edinburgh [in 1870] and going hunting pheasant with him in Howick. He stayed with the Robert Macleans at Bleak House and gave Mr Hovell a photo. The Duke also brough an elephant out with him and kept it at Pigeon Mountain. He tells a story about the elephant getting loose and later being given beer to drink and sitting down in Kyber Pass Road and grabbing a Cobb and Co coach by the wheel.
He recounts some memories of his swimming prowess and then returns to his mining career and disputes over gold claims, his work bush clearing in Whangapoua. Then some further memories of early Auckland