Pegleg McNeish
One of the best known Kuaotunu characters
was a self-educated Maori named Charlie
‘Pegleg’ McNeish. This “massive man of
outstanding appearance” had lost his lower
leg from an accident in the bush, and
he was outfitted with a stout wooden
replacement.
He found an occupation that did not need
much agility, that of barber and the billiard
parlour proprietor, both located a few
doors from the Royal Hotel. R.A. Simpson
remembers, “His hand hair-clippers became
very worn and neglected, and when run
over the head, his victim was almost lifted
out of the chair. However, what was not cut
was pulled out, and Charlie received his
sixpence.”
In later years, Charlie acquired a 13-foot rowboat and caught fish to sup-
plement his income. He would also row ten miles to Great Mercury Island
to deliver goods and mail to the island’s owner. One day, Charlie rowed
with great difficulty to the island, as a storm was brewing. He made his
delivery and immediately set back, hoping to land before a real storm
whipped up. The story as told in
This Is Kuaotunu
:
“This decision nearly cost Charlie his life, for the wind had changed
direction, and was gradually increasing in violence as he battled across
the ten miles of open sea in his rowing boat. What a grueling test he
was subjected to on this attempt to get back to Kuaotunu!
“But this was only a foretaste of what was to follow, for on arriving
round the reef a little distance off the beach he found the seas were
mountain high, and an attempt at landing would be suicide. Charlie had
to make a decision quickly – attempt a landing which meant almost
certain death, or return once more to Mercury Island in the teeth of
the storm with a remote chance of success. He chose the latter, fully
conscious of the magnitude of the effort. What a heart! What a test
of endurance. He battled on for hours, finally achieving the almost
impossible, arriving in the harbour with one oar broken, completely
exhausted. But he lived to tell the tale.”
Author Simpson notes that this tale might have been just a legend, had
not several residents been on the hills observing the storm. They watched
in horror as Charlie battled to row ashore, only to head back to sea.
– Carol Wright
Some like it
Hot!
ORE ROASTING
AT THE
KAPAI-VERMONT
I
f you’ve ever been around a well established
campfire, you might have noticed that heat
cause the rocks to crack. It was discovered
that if heat was applied to ore-bearing rock
it could be ground into finer particles, that is,
more ‘friable’. This enables a better percentage
of gold and silver to be extracted from the finer
dust.
Heating gold ore has been used for two
thousand years. And it was used in Kuaotunu at
one mine, and eight companies on the Hauraki
Goldfield also adopted the practice. Areas near
the mining batteries were clearcut of trees to
feed these voracious roasters.
Alastair Brickell, owner of Stargazers B&B on
the former School of Mines property, told us
of shafts still accessible on his land
(see next
page
), and on the adjoining properties of the old
Try Fluke and Kapai-Vermont mines. “There is
even an ore oven in one of the shafts”, he said.
An ore oven? Within a shaft? How can that be
good for a miner’s lungs? Indeed, Rebecca
Simpson tells us her grandfather died at an
early age of silicosis – the miners’ coughing
disease – from these dusty toxins.
Not every battery used this process, but we
found an extensive report on the kilns of the
Kapai-Vermont. These are not your usual pizza
ovens, but “major conical pits dug down 26 feet
into the cliffs, 16-foot diameter open above,
narrowing at the bottom”. Ventilation shafts
and access tunnels were dug in at the bottom,
and the unfortunate miners would open the
doors and dig out hot ashes and softened ore
from the chute. The friable ore would then be
tracked to the smashing batteries.
The battery eventually had five
of these kilns, each having the
capacity to burn 80 tons. For
every ton of ore dried, a half
ton of firewood was needed.
The wood and wet ore would
be layered and burn for days,
with the finished ore making its
way to the bottom funnel to be
shoveled out. More wood and
ore were layered from above
for continuous ore roasting.
So, not only were all the mines running their
pounding batteries and engines 24/7, the
valley would be filled with smoke from five
enormous kilns.
At the Kapai-Vermont, these kilns were retired
beginning in1896. (See area on diagram where
two ventilation tunnels are covered, replaced
by a revolving furnace rotary ore drier). Many
mines replaced ‘dry ore’ stamping with a ‘wet
ore’ stamping process, as the cost of timber
firewood was prohibitive. The old pits are filled
in now, but often one can find an access tunnel
and see the rusty chute doors.
- CW
__________________________________________
Diagram and research from “In-ground Ore-Roasting
Kilns on the Hauraki Goldfield, Coromandel Peninsula,
New Zealand” from Australian Historical Archeology 16,
1998, by Phillip Moore and Neville Ritchie. (Entire report
available online.) They later wrote the book
Coromandel
Gold
, source of the photo above. Also search online
for “Union Hill In-Ground Ore-Roasting Kilns” from the
Waihi Arts Centre.
Right: Photo of David Gaebler
taken for
Coromandel Gold
over
20 years ago. He stands near a
Kapai-Vermont ore chute with
its control gate still intact, even
after over 100 years of no use.
These enabled ‘roasted’ ore to be
transferred from access tunnels to
the battery for further processing.
Below: Diagram of ore-roasting
kilns at the Kapai-Vermont Battery.
There were five kilns originally, but
two were filled in and replaced by a
rotary furnace.
Ore
Access tunnel
Ventilation
shaft
Ore
Ore
Ore
Ore
23
