214 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



clothing the remains were considered to be those of some naval 

 officer who had been brought ashore for burial, but no record 

 seems to exist of any such incident. From apparent age of the 

 coffin it was judged that the interment took place long previous 

 to the advent of the earliest settlers, or probably even to that 

 of the desultory residence of the few whalers who occasionally 

 frequented the district. 



After the erection of the barracks they were first occupied in 

 1856 by a detachment of the 65th Regiment. A copy of the 

 Herald, published on 22nd March, 1856, says : " The whole of 

 the troops in New Plymouth now occupy the barracks on Mars- 

 land Hill, where the magazine has also been removed. A strong 

 stockade, which is intended to surround the barracks, is in 

 course of erection, and will add materially to the defensive capa- 

 bilities of the position, although it is to be regretted that the 

 view of the building from the surrounding neighbourhood will 

 be in a great measure destroyed by it." An extract from the 

 same paper published on the 12th January, 1856, says : " On 

 Friday evening, the 28th December, the sergeants of the 65th 

 gave a farewell ball to their brothers of the 58th in the barracks 

 on Marsland Hill. The room was gaily decorated with militarv 

 trophies, the colours of Britain and France waving amicably 

 side by side. Several inhabitants of New Plymouth were pre- 

 sent, and the evident cordiality existing between them and the 

 military gave a zest to the entertainment of the evening." 



The 65th occupied the barracks until the outbreak of the war 

 between the colonists and the Maoris in March, 1860. From that 

 date to January, 1870, they were occupied by detachments of 

 the following regiments : Royal Artillery, Roval Engineers, 

 40th, 12th, 14th, 43rd, 57th, 50th, 68th, 70th, and 18th Line 

 Regiments and Land Transport Corps. The Royal Marine L.I. 

 were stationed at Fort Niger and Mount Eliot. 



During this time, in the event of a threatened attack on the 

 town or its neighbourhood, it was arranged that warning should 

 be given by the firing of two rounds from the 32-pounders in a 

 position on Marsland Hill ; at this signal, like a hen gathering her 

 chickens, so all the non-combatants, women, and children were 

 to take refuge in the barracks, whilst the Militia and Volunteers 

 within a circle of two miles were to rush into town and hold 

 themselves in readiness to meet any such attack. Many of the 

 now middle-aged residents relate how, when little children, and 

 the alarm was thus sounded, they, with a gathering of the most 

 valuable and portable of the Lares and Penates of their parent s" 

 homes, were bodily carried to their refuge. In a little work pub- 

 lished in 1861, called " Settlers and Soldiers," the author thus 

 describes such a scene : ' Immediately after the dreadful boom- 



