1842 to 1970 Timeline

In 1842 trade with the local Maori was well established. The traders bought pigs and potatoes in exchange for blankets and tobacco.  It was noted that men, woman and children all smoked.

Beginning of European settlement. After Waikato War 1863-64 had finished land belonging to Maori people was confiscated and surveyed into 50 acre blocks for private soldiers and larger sections for officers.

1865 – September – Area surveyed by J.D.Browne. Area to the south of Horotiu was called Pukete after Pukete Pa which was situated on the river bank near Half Way Hill.

1866 – Road between Hamilton and Ngaruawahia opened

1875 – 50 men employed in cutting a drain six feet wide and three miles long through the Pukete swamp.

1877 – Railway line opened

1879 – Pukete station built

1879 – June -  First Pukete school opened  - Early families were Abbot, Alexander, Allen, Giffney, Hall, Walsh, Washer, Wood. 

1880 – Pukete punt now working, thanks to Waikato District Council who supplied the rope. About 13 children from the Kirikiroroa side (eastern side) use it to cross the river to Pukete School. If anyone wished to cross the river they called on Mrs Walsh (who loaned the punt) or Mr Alexander who were in charge of the wire worked ferry.

1880 – Pukete School house built – Mr Giffney teacher of 25 children.

1883 – August – Pukete school reserve established

1880’s – Kauri gum discovered in payable quantities. One Saturday night in 1880 a party of diggers from the Te Rapa and Pukete gumfields took about five hundred pounds worth of gum to Ngaruawahia.

1885 – January - Pukete Sunday School picnic at Harlow farm

1886 – Pukete school library established at a cost of 7 pounds. Mr McIntosh principal.

1886 – Tenders invited for the digging of 100,000 holes for planting trees on the Horotiu estate at Pukete.

1905 - Creamery established

1907 – Pukete (later called Horotiu as some confusion with Te Puke) post office built

1908 – Third annual Creamery picnic held

1909 –  July 29 - First Pukete school burnt down

1909 – Pukete( now to be called Horotiu)  hall opened

1915 – Pukete post office changes name to Horotiu (post office closed July 1988)

1960’s – 1970’s – Pukete suburbs developed