The earliest party of Scandinavians reached Wellington in March 1872. Smallpox was suspected on the vessel and the voyagers were quarantined on Somes Island for some weeks. In April, thirteen men set out for the camp at Kopuaranga — several foot-slogging days away. They reached Kopuaranga to find the camp a crude line of rough huts and a few tents. Their first task was to extend and improve these facilities in expectation of the arrival of the rest of their party. Some huts were built in long barrack-line form, using split slabs of totara and shingles for the roofs. One-room huts were built of fern-tree trunks set upright in the ground and covered with canvas.

The camp had poor sanitation, leading to frequent outbreaks of disease. Typhoid took its toll and the burials of some settlers are recorded on a special marker near the campsite. While the camp was occupied, surveyors were marking off the sections that the families had purchased. By late 1873, the land was ready to be settled. The camp was officially closed on 31 December, though some did not leave until a few months later.

Just south of Mauriceville, the road branches. One road goes to the old settlement of Mauriceville — now known as Mauriceville West — and the other to Mauriceville (once known as Mauriceville South) and on to Hastwell and Eketahuna. The Mauriceville West road passes through the remains of an early limestone quarry. The landscape clearly shows the signs of quarrying, but there is nothing remaining of the kilns used to produce burnt lime. Past here, the road heads north through what was once a populous area. It is hard today to imagine the district full of small farms. Where there were sixteen farms in 1877 there are now four or five. Examples — though mostly in ruins — of turn-of-the-century homes are scattered between the quarry and the Mauriceville West School. Built in 1886 to a Turnbull design, this is now empty. On a rise opposite stands the Lutheran Church of 1957, replacing the original of 1884.

In its graveyard is the grave of Lars Anderson Schow, the Mauriceville Poet. The stone was raised by Schow himself, some years before he died, on a hillside overlooking the road. He enjoyed being photographed with the headstone, on which are inscribed poems in Danish. When asked why he had chosen the site, Schow always replied that he wished to keep an eye on the village after he had died. Down from the church, at the junction with North Road, is a cairn commemorating the early settlers contribution to the development of the area.

Nearby Mount Munro Road leads to the last remaining structure of the Scandinavian pioneers. Lars Anderson Schow built a barn and a hut, referred to locally as Schow’s barn and whare. The section and buildings (category 1) are now protected under an Historic Places Trust covenant and the local Scandinavian Society is co-operating with the Trust in restoration work. Schow had fought the Germans in his native Denmark in 1864 and received wounds from which he suffered all his days. He was able, nonetheless, to work hard in his adopted country. His first farm was further along North Road, but after a couple of years he built on the present site. After years of toil, he established a holding of more than 100 hectares. He lived a solitary, austere life — his hut is only a few paces around and unlined. A bed, wardrobe and table met his simple needs; most comfort must have come from his small fireplace, with its corrugated iron chimney. Perhaps it was around this fire that Schow wrote his poems. The first, published in Masterton in 1891, he called "En Ny Sang" (A New Song). Although now remembered as a poem, the verses were sung in the village and in the 1950s, folk could remember their parents singing the song at gatherings. Another poem, "Fremad Paany", published in Wellington in 1910, was a mixture of Danish and English.

Alongside the hut stands Schow's interesting barn. Built of solid rimu and split totara panelling from trees which grew on the site, the barn has some beams adzed and others pitsawn. The whole site has now been made secure and the large oak and beech trees planted by Schow have been trimmed to protect the buildings.

A short drive north is the Mauriceville North Church (category 1) built in 1881. This tiny church, about ten metres by six, built of pitsawn timber, was the first European-built church between Kopuaranga and the Manawatu Gorge. (At the prompting of the missionary Colenso, the Rangitane inhabitants had built chapels in the 1850s.) The church is, unusually, Methodist. It had its beginnings in the United States about 1849 when a young Norwegian sailor, Ole Peter Petersen, heard a sermon preached by a Methodist minister in New York. This inspired him to train as a minister and, in 1865, he established the first Methodist Church in Norway. From that church came Pastor Edward Nielsen to Auckland in 1874, then on to Palmerston North. From there he visited Scandinavian people in the Norsewood and Mauriceville areas. He soon persuaded his flock to build a church of their own. In 1880, Pastor Otto Christoffensen was appointed Methodist Home Minister to the Mauriceville North district. After building a mission house, he oversaw the erection of a church designed to hold seventy people. Although small, it contains a pulpit, communion rail and a choir gallery. Behind the gallery is a bell tower. The church has a striking situation on a small hill and its steep roof and pointed spire are in keeping with its ancestry. The cross on the spire is of distinctive Scandinavian style, with two upright points at the ends of the cross. Services are still held here and weddings and funerals bring together Scandinavian families now scattered far and wide. Descendants of the original Scandinavian families who settled in the Seventy Mile Bush continue to care for this church and the other buildings and historic sites which they have inherited from an inspiring past

By Gareth Winter - Wairarapa Archive

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