Skinnek. — Notes on Mars land Hill. 213 



" fighting " Maori stronghold. We are told that in or about the. 

 year 1805 scouts posted on Pu-kaka warned the people in Puke- 

 ariki of the approaching war-party of Taranaki, which resulted 

 in a sanguinary fight around the south-western base of this hill. 

 (See " Journal of Polynesian Society," vol. ii., p. 179.) The pa 

 was abandoned as a fortified spot by the Maoris about 1830. 

 This seems to cover its pre-European-occupation history. 



When the surveyors of the Plymouth Company, Messrs. 

 F. A. and G. Carrington, started the survey of the Town of New 

 Plymouth in 1841, Pu-kaka was covered with a beautiful growth 

 of karaka, rewarewa, rangiora, kohekohe, and similar native 

 trees ; and they state that at its northern base (where now 

 stands the church before mentioned) flourished one of the most 

 beautiful karaka groves it was possible to imagine. Such was 

 the condition of the hill up till the time the Imperial authorities 

 cleared its slopes, levelled its summit, and occupied it as a mili- 

 tary post. 



The present name of " Marsland Hill " has no historical 

 meaning or application. At the urgent request of Captain 

 Liardet, E.N., who was the first resident agent of the Plymouth 

 Company in New Plymouth, the then Chief Surveyor, Mr. F. A. 

 Carrington, gave it the name " Marsland " after a great personal 

 friend of Captain Liardet's. 



One of the earliest pioneers of this district, Mr. Charles 

 Brown, sen. (a friend and contemporary of Lord Byron and 

 Mr. Keats), was buried on the northern slope of the hill in June, 

 1842, a large slab of stone being placed over his grave. This 

 site was a favourite resort, but when the hill was escarped and 

 fortified this rude memorial was covered with earth, and its 

 exact locality is now lost. 



In September, 1854, owing to the unsettled state of the dis- 

 trict caused by the Puketapu feud and intertribal native war 

 raging at Bell Block, detachments of the 58th and 65th Line 

 Regiments were sent to New Plymouth from Auckland and 

 Wellington, and in the following year barracks of strong gal- 

 vanised iron were erected upon Marsland Hill. These barracks 

 were brought over from Melbourne, Victoria, in which colony 

 they had been used for the accommodation of the troops assisting 

 in the repressive measures taken at the time of the Ballarat 



riots. 



To provide the necessary room for erection of the barracks 

 and stockade round same the top and several other parts of the 

 hill were excavated and levelled, thus decreasing the altitude of 

 the hill some 40 ft. While these works were in progress a coffin 

 was found containing a human skeleton with portions of fair 

 hair adhering to the skull ; from the buttons and fragments of 



