A slew of new street names
A new street in Bell Block is to be named after a frontier post set up by Ma¯ ori in the 19th century.
Customhouse St will come off Wills Rd and form part of a new subdivision near an area that was an old reserve, the New Plymouth District Council’s Te Huinga Taumatua committee heard on Thursday afternoon.
Back in the day Ra¯ wiri’s Reserve called Haweta¯one, or Half Town, was midway between New Plymouth and Waitara and located on what is now the northern corner of Wills and Devon roads.
A report to the committee quoted an undated letter to the editor of the Taranaki Herald which tells the story of a frontier custom house ‘‘at the Half Town’’ that no European was able to pass without being searched.
‘‘The circumstance most worthy of record, and which the settlers should bear in mind, occurred on Monday evening last, when the Natives made seizure of 500 lbs of flour upon the road between my house and the Chapel. They received information, by some means, that it was supplied for the Ikamoana and it has afforded them many substantial meals at the Half Town,’’ the letter said.
Puketapu hapu¯ put the name forward and it was agreed on by the committee. The subdivision also includes the new Roka St and Papawhero Dr.
Mayor Neil Holdom said it was a cool story. Two right of ways were also named - one after a World War I soldier and the other a saint. A right of way off Brooklands Rd near St Pius X School was named MacKillop Way after the late Sister Mary MacKillop who was recently elevated to sainthood.
The school is one of many in Australasia founded by an order of Catholic Sisters called the Josephites, which was created by MacKillop. And Harkness Rice Way is part of a subdivision at 437 Plymouth Rd in Oakura.
Private Harkness Henry Rice was killed in action on October 12, 1917 at the Battle of Passchendaele and is buried at Tyne Cot Cemetery near Zonnebeke, very near to the battle in which he died and where the centenary commemorations have recently taken place, the report said.