Back Issues: Ferry life and its many challenges on the Manawatū River

At least seven ferry services operated on the Manawatū River between 1841 and 1909. Most sites are now bridge crossings we still use.

A ‘‘ferry’’ was the designated crossing point, while the floating conveyance attached to a wire rope, was a ‘punt’.

Punts and ropes operated in conflict with the river, and many near disasters, and a few actual disasters occurred. Some punts went on voyages (with or without passengers) and/or played submarine.

The beach on the west coast of the lower North Island was the State Highway 1 of its day. The first ferry operator was 20-year-old former seaman Amos Burr.

He had been appointed by the New Zealand Company to run an accommodation house at Papangaio, a Ngāti Raukawa village on the southern side of the Manawatū River mouth. This was opposite Te Wharangi Pā (now the Foxton Beach area).

When interviewed in 1868 at a Native Land Court hearing, Burr stated that: “I commenced the ferry in 1841; I crossed every person the first year except those who were ferried by the natives; people could cross at Te Wharangi, where Porokoru kept the ferry, in fine weather…”

This would have been hard for the young double amputee. His lower arms had been blown off in a cannon-firing accident aboard the New Zealand Company ship ‘’Cuba’’ in Wellington Harbour in January 1840. He lived at Papangaio for four or five years.

In March 1846 two British officers who crossed the river recorded that the man who ferried them was named ‘’Wellington’,’ and that he was once a great warrior.

However, “he had now adopted a more civilised occupation of keeping a ferry, and extorting a price for crossing his river, that would shame even a Gravesend waterman”.

The Wellington Independent of March 24, 1847, also published an unflattering account: “A good trustworthy ferryman, and a respectable house of entertainment are very much wanted at Manawatū.”

The Independent of May 22, 1850 recorded that a settler had been granted a ferry licence for the river. This person was required to provide “a good boat” and a “suitable house” to accommodate travellers – thereby replacing the “ricketty canoe” and the whims of the previous operators.

It’s not clear what became of that operation, as the Nelson Examiner of September 14, 1850, reported that the Government did not have the right or legal power to establish ferries in the Wairarapa without consent from local Māori, due to not having purchased the land involved, and that the “same observations apply to the ferry at the Manawatū”.

The New Zealand Spectator of September 13, 1854, complained that the ferry was still “a crazy canoe” operated by local Māori, who were “quite willing to come to terms if the executive would only take the trouble to enter into some arrangement with them”.

Finally, in December 1855 – according to the Nelson Examiner of January 12, 1856 – came the happy announcement: “Mr. Commissioner McLean, thanks to the Governor having provided the requisite funds, has succeeded within the last few days in obtaining a lease from the natives for 10 years of the ferry at the Manawatū”.

This ferry was established in 1856-57. When advertised for sale in May 1959, it was described as the two-year-old Manawatū Ferry, Post Office, and Symons’ Hotel. Also described were the “large punt and canoe nearly new thoroughly adapted for the ferry at this, the most important post on the coast between Wellington, and Whanganui.”

The apparent first operators of this hotel then were Henry Morshead Symons and his wife Anne Maria (formerly Barnett/Best). They conducted a licenced hotel there, with Henry operating the ferry.

Aaron House took over the operation in March 1861 – before, in September 1862, being convicted of forgery and imprisoned for 18 months. Next came Messrs Trask and Barnett, respectively the son-in-law and son of former owners, Mr and Mrs Symons.

In May 1866, William Langley became the final owner of the ‘Manawatū Ferry House’ and ferry. His obituary, in the Manawatū Herald of April 25, 1895, recorded that in the old days, the Wellington and Whanganui coaches stopped for the night there and the house was frequently crowded.

The local settlers also visited “to get a little converse with the outside world”.

These happy days ended when Henry Bunny, the Wellington Provincial Government’s Provincial Secretary, decided to shift the ferry into Foxton from December 31, 1871, and to cancel the hotel’s licence. Horse riders and stock drovers were furious about having to travel six extra miles (9.6kms) over a “heavy road of continuously shifting sand”. But to no avail.

Foxton’s ferry service, established by storekeeper Thomas Upperdine Cook, was initially called “Cook’s Inland Ferry”. While its start date is unclear, Cook was active in business in Te Awahou/Foxton from the mid-1850s.

Ex-Navy man, John (‘’Harry’’) Hillary, began operating the Foxton Ferry in January 1868. He went on to also run, at various times, the ferries at Whirokino, Shannon and Ashhurst.

Ferrymen tendered for this work and some years he won the tender and some he didn’t, but he must have been the most regularly employed ferryman on the river. He carried the first Cobb & Co. coach to run between Whanganui and Wellington via Foxton, after the route changed from January 1, 1872.

In 1882/1883, Hillary erected a new ferry at Whirokino, which he ran in conjunction with the Foxton one. As things developed in the region, the opening of the Wellington-Manawatū Railway drew traffic away from the Foxton ferry, and it closed in 1888.

Its plant was shifted to Whirokino – and then the former Whirokino plant was shifted to a new site near Shannon that gave access to the new railway station.

The Whirokino ferry operated until the first Whirokino Bridge opened there in 1900. Similarly, the Shannon ferry operated until 1908 when the Shannon Bridge opened.

As well as Hillary, Thomas Bowe, also won operating tenders at different times for the Foxton, Whirokino and Shannon ferries.

The next potential crossing point gained the Fitzherbert Bridge in 1877 instead of a ferry. This reflected the initial lack of interest in farming the Fitzherbert area. The bridge resolved this.

Meanwhile, further upstream the Manawatū Gorge Road was developing – and three more ferries were established.

The Ashhurst Ferry became the longest-lasting ferry site. Established in February 1872, the opening of the first Ashhurst Bridge replaced it on November 8, 1886. However, this bridge was destroyed in April 1895, thus the ferry resumed and operated until June 1909 when the second Ashhurst Bridge opened.

The “Upper Ferry”, gazetted in mid-1872, passed between two very high banks. A flying fox was also used there. This ominous site came to receive the first bridge on the river – the Upper Gorge Bridge – which opened in 1875. One of its piers survives on the western bank.

Finally, another “Upper Ferry” preceded the Ngāwapūrua Bridge on State Highway 2 in the Tararua District. A bridge replaced it in July 1885. A ferry on the Mangatainoka River (a tributary to the Manawatū River) seemingly operated in unison.

These two ferries’ problems included operator issues, the river bed and – allegedly – Wairarapa County Council.

Val Burr is a local historian and heritage researcher.