the Ponsonby Boys' Brass Band could be a way to keep young people off the streets,” echoing what C Hoffman had said in a different society 68 years before.

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Railway Terminus Hotel at the right, c. 1871. From Manukau Progress, 1960.

Onehunga local historian GGM Mitchell, in a series of articles in the Manukau Progress, dated the hotels on the site at the corner of Princes and Queen Streets back to April 1865, when John Samuel Williams fronted up to the local licensing committee with plans and specifications for a building he was still constructing (since November 1864). The committee approved the license for the hotel, dubbed the Courthouse Hotel (it being so called, Mitchell said, as it was right next to the Onehunga Courthouse) andsaid Williams was allowed to sell beer once he had erected the bar.

The hotel became a centre for meetings of great importance to the future of Onehunga. In 1866, the Mangere Bridge Company formed there, aiming to impress upon the government the importance of a harbour crossing linking Onehunga with her southern neighbour.

By July 1867, the next publican was H Powning Stark, Auckland Provincial politician and land speculator. His time there was brief. Fire ended the Courthouse Hotel on 12 June 1868.

“Miss Stark, a daughter of the licensee, awoke at 3.30 am to find smoke seeping into her bedroom from under the door. She quickly aroused the other inmates – eight in all – who made good their escape wearing their night attire only, so advanced was the