were engaged in 1872 in building a fine new hotel building at the corner of Captain and Selwyn Streets – was Mr John Lundon. He was ale, by virtue of his standing with the government, to thwart the aims and objects of the “Kelly Gang”. This group was busily engaged in putting pressure on the government to establish the Onehunga Railway Station in Selwyn Street, close to their hotel, which was to be called the Railway. But John Lundon spiked the guns of his opponents by securing the approval of the Licensing Committee to the name Railway Terminus being conferred on his hotel.

“The well-laid schemes of the White Bluff syndicate were set to naught when the government refused to allow the railway to by-pass the Onehunga Wharf. Thewith Onehunga as the next option. In 1858, Col. Mould is said to have put in a report:

“I cannot hesitate for a moment in recommending the White Bluff as the proper place for the construction of the Jetty , for the simple reason that that is the farthest point to which vessels of a burthen of say 200 or 250 tons can safely come up the Harbour, in consequence of the Shallow Water.”

White Bluff was an anchorage and cattle landing place by the early 1860s, timber was loaded there, and it was an embarkation point for troops heading for the Waikato during the land wars that decade. Extending the planned Auckland to Onehunga railway line to White Bluff was something the Provincial Council treated seriously in 1867.

Even after