Page:Tales-of-Banks-Peninsula Jacobson 2ed 1893 cropped.pdf/219

One would naturally think Akaloa was a corruption of Akaroa. Some of those who have been connected with the settlement of this Bay, state that it received its name from a resemblance to Akaroa, and also from its position, as it lies directly opposite the harbour. The oldest settlers declare, however, that Akaloa was the original Maori name.

No Maoris have actually dwelt in the Bay since it has been settled. A great many of them, however, lived at the Long Look-out, and during the raid of the North Island Maoris on the Peninsula tribes, Maoris came from all the Bays round to Little Akaloa for shelter. They hid in the bush, and on the ridges between the Bays. There was a great slaughter on the Long Look-out, in which the local natives were almost annihilated. Traces of this event can be found on slopes of the cape.

The first settlers to arrive were Messrs. Bennetts and Rix, fathers of the settlers of those names now in and about the Bay. Before they came there were sawyers in Little Akaloa, which, like the other Bays, was a refuge for runaway sailors and men of all descriptions. Seventeen or eighteen pit sawyers were once at work on the timber in the Bay. Messrs. Bennetts and Rix came from Wellington with Capt. Thomas. The latter was a Government surveyor, and came to lay out Lyttelton and Christchurch. This was in 1850. Messrs. Bennetts and Rix came to Little Akaloa to saw timber for Capt. Thomas. In September of the same year Mr. George Ashton arrived. Mr Jones came soon afterwards, and purchased the first section of land sold in the Bay from the Canterbury Association. Mr. G. Ashton now resides on part of it. Amos Green, commonly known as Toby Green, was an early settler. He was a cripple. It seems he escaped from a whaling ship,