One Hundred and Fifty years

History of The Pines



The Pines was the first house to be built in the town. This was in 1857 and it is the oldest inland town in North Island so we believe that this house must be one of the oldest houses in Central North Island.
There is a picture hanging in the Council showing Waipawa as it was in 1870 and this house and the Anglican church are the only recognisable buildings.

I would like to tell you briefly about the first owners of The Pines
–--Thomas Fitzgerald built The Pines in 1857. The Kauri was shipped to Napier and brought to here by bullock wagon.
---Charles Weber a German Civil Engineer arrived with his wife and baby daughter in 1860 from the USA where he had been surveying a railway line through the Rocky Mountains. His son George was the first child to be born in the town in 1861. Charles Weber was appointed Hawke’s Bay Provincial Engineer and Chief Surveyor in 1864. He surveyed the railway line south from Napier. In 1886 he disappeared and his body was found three years later by bush cutters. The town of Weber is named after him.
The Pines therefore had two highly skilled owners. They diverted the creek running down behind the house and they constructed a drinking pond for their horses.

--Dr Todd was the next owner and he planted the great Redwood trees which now form the skyline.
--Dr Todd built substantial dove cotes for the homing pigeons which he used to communicate with his country patients. We have a macrocarpa replica of one of his dove cotes on the hill behind the house. It is said that he would leave a pigeon with a sick patient or pregnant woman to enable them to send for help or even just send a pigeon home to tell his wife he would not be home for dinner !
Our neighbour Frank White tells how his father had his tonsils out on the kitchen table. As Dr Todd grew older he enjoyed walking down to the pub for a drink and the story goes that one evening he was weaving his way home down the middle of Ruataniwa Street. Dr Reed the new doctor passed him in his horse drawn trap and suggested he walk on the pavement. He retorted, ‘What do you think I am, a bloody tight rope walker!’ Another night a fellow drinker took Dr Todd to his nearby house as the doctor was not in a fit state to walk home. When he awoke next morning the Dr could not remember why he was at this man’s home so just to be on the safe side he sent him a consultation fee!

Dr Todd and Mrs Todd lived in The Pines for 45 years.

Terry and I came out to New Zealand nine years ago and looked around to find a suitable place to live and set up our little nursery. We were delighted to find this lovely little home in a beautiful setting. And we are still in the process of making it a home. We brought two nursery tunnels with us from South Africa and these are my big playrooms where I spend most of my days pottering around.

The Pines circa 1890

The pond was constructed by Charles Weber. It has remained empty for many years, but this year with the help of two Mormon boys who volunteered their help for a few hours, repaired the concrete spillway. Over the years the house has been altered to make it more liveable but the original structure still stands.

The dear doctor who lived here at the 'The Pines'in the nineteenth century,long before there were automobiles or proper roads, used pigeon post . On his journeys into the countryside the doctor would take pigeons to leave with his patients so they could let him know of their progress. The pigeon house eventually disintrigated and has been replaced by a replica. Some of the present pigeons may even be decendants. Well they are part of this artificial ecology surrounding my pond and can often be
seen sunbathing and drinking.

I have always been very fond of pigeons as when I was a boy of ten I constructed a pigeon coup and hoped one day to race them. This never happened,because later when at about sixteen my father was transferred. I was at boarding school and it was a very sad situation having to get rid of all my homing pigeons. On returning my school Kearsney College after the holidays I hid a baby squeeker under my jersey and boarded the train for the overnight journey.I fed it by chewing the grain and then feeding the bird from my mouth until it was able to fend for itself. I made a box for it and put it on top of the book cupboard in the house commonroom.This was its refuge for the next few months till the end of the year. I settled for the name 'choccy' because of its colour. Well as the weeks went by Choccy became stronger and was able to fly and spent most of the time outside returning at night to its box. I though nothing strange about it at the time but no matter where I was outside he was able to find me and would swoop down and come and sit on my shoulder, picking me out from the other boys. His antics amused every one, sometimes disrupting assembly by making pigeon noises while perched high up on the hall cinema screen or flying down onto the table during exams,and strutting around on one of the tables examining the pencils.

Well eventually the year ended and I travelled with the family to a holiday resort at Isipingo near the sea. His box was nailed to a beam under the eave near my room and that became his home for the next few weeks, flying around and returning at night. All good things come to an end and I was forced to leave the pigeon there as we were to go to live for a while in a city hotel.

The Pines Pigeons were fed every evening in their house but one evening I forgot and several of them came and sat on the roof all facing and staring at me until I got the message. They had never sat on the roof before as their house is very much higher up on a hill.

Pigeons have an intelligence and concienceness that we will never know. they know things we can never understand and it is arrogant of us to think humans are the only ones with intelligence and that animals only have instincts.

The Pines as it is today