The Mangamahu District is a hill-country farming and forestry community in the middle reaches of the Whangaehu River valley, 50km north-east of Wanganui, NZ. It is centred on the village of Mangamahu, which is situated on river flats where the Mangamahu stream flows into the Whangaehu river.

Mangamahu has a well-regarded primary school (25-30 children) which has been open since 1894 and a War Memorial hall built in 1952. The old hotel that was built in 1891, and the general store built in 1885 were both closed in 1974. With the decline in the wool and meat trades, many of the farms in the district are being converted to pine plantations.

The river flat on which Mangamahu School is situated is the site of an old Ngati Apa camp-site named 'Kohanga.' This was occupied in summer by bird-snaring and eel-trapping groups, and by those travelling the trail up the ridge between the Whangaehu river and Mangamahu stream, from the fortified pa at 'Manumanu' (near the mouth of the Mangawhero river) to Karioi, and then across the Rangipo Desert and Lake Taupo to the Waikato and Rotorua.

Kohanga and Manumanu were destroyed during the musket wars in 1840 and 1843, and most of the surviving inhabitants of the upper valley moved west to Parikino on the Wanganui River.

British colonists began buying the land in the 1870s. James MacDonald was the first white settler, introducing sheep to his clearing in the bush at 'Glenaladale' in 1872. His wife joined him there in 1875.

An old Maori trail followed the Whangehu river flats to the Mangamahu Stream, and then following the northern ridgeline of the Mangamahu Stream to Bald Hill then to on to Karioi. During the 1880s this was developed into a bench track (Hales Track)to enable settlers to get access to the nearer forest-covered hills in the area, and for packhorses to bring wool from sheep farms on the high backcountry Ngamatpouri and Waiouru tussock lands. From Karioi the trail went on to Moawhango and then to Napier.

Mangamahu village 1905 On the hillside are the carrier's wagon shed and Roads Board office. In the village square are the stables, hotel, housing and general store.

In 1879 Arthur Ellis and Allan Robinson bought 140 hectares on the site of the present Mangamahu village, and with many settlers and labourers moving up and down the valley, developed a supply store to which a post office was attached in 1889. Then in 1891 they built an accomodation house, and by 1894 this was a licenced 12-bedroom hotel. A blacksmith's shop and saddlery were added and served customers as far away as Taihape and Raetihi.

In 1891, work began on widening Hales Track into a wagon road (The Ridge Road) and Merv Addenbrooke told me of the clouds of dust he could see in 1905 as wool wagons moved down it in summer time. From 1894 to 1908, Mangamahu village was a busy district supply centre for farmers in the central high country as far away as Ngamatapouri and the Waimarino, and with travellers going across the island from Wanganui to Napier.

The tracks and roads in the hills behind the village were still very difficult to negotiate and Royal Mail contractor Annie Shaw (Barb Wire Annie) became a legend for her grit in getting her pack-horses delivering the mail across the hills in the winter mud from 1904 to 1910.

Then in 1908 the Main Tunk Railway line through the centre of the island was completed and Mangamahu's importance as a transport hub greatly shrunk.

I was a young child at Mangamahu in the 1940s. It was a caring, close-knit community. The dusty corrugated gravel road to Wanganui was a boneshaking one hour journey while the River road from Mangamahu to Mount View was narrow and winding with steep bluffs and many slips in winter. Not many people had cars, so going to meet Thompson's Bus each evening at 5pm was an important social gathering. The many sporting activities, especially rugby and golf, but also pony club, tennis, cricket and badminton were also other important social activities. The rifle shooting club that had flourished between WWI and WW2 had died out, but pig hunting was still popular.

In the post-war 1940s and early 1950s Mangamahu village had a school, general store/post office, a hotel, a bus and taxi service, a general carrier and a timber mill. In the surrounding district there were farmers, shepherds, scrub-cutters, fencers, roadmen and bridge builders.

The Tangiwai disaster greatly affected Mangamahu during the Christmas week of 1953. Local farmers recovered the bodies of about sixty victims from out of the river gorges near Mangamahu. Many were stored in my dad's lorry shed. See my ballad Pillows of the Dead.

The valley grew so wealthy
From the super-pilots' loads
The farmers all bought big new motor cars
And they tar-sealed our back-country roads.
The farmers' wives drove out every day
To the big bright shops in town -
And the Mangamahu store went bankrupt,
The Mangamahu pub closed down.

Soper-man, super-man
Raining riches from the sky
But we all went chasing the bright city lights
And we let our community die.
...................................................Super-Man John Archer, 1979

Then the price of oil skyrocketed, and this was followd by a Rogernomics govenment that abolished farm subsidies. Sheep farming became uneconomic on the more marginal dissected hills in the middle of the valley, and "Queen Street farmers," investors from Auckland, bought up thousands of hectares to plant pine plantations.

Those seeking further information should ask at their local NZ public library for the excellent 1985 history book, The Road to Mangamahu, written by three local Mangamahu women.

After the war I travelled all over the district helping my dad, the local carrier. I loved watching the topdressing planes he was carting superphosphate fertilizer for.

In 1959, I joined the Marist Brothers, a Catholic teaching order. After I left the Brothers in 1979, I joined the Palmerston North Folk Club and started writing personal/local-history ballads. I started this NZ Folksong website in 1998. Since 2003, I have lived in Waiouru with my wife and my teenage son. Here are some more of my ballads. I also take photos of various events in the Ruapehu District. Have a look at them at http.archerpix.com