Series 17: 'The Hassall Family: Descendants of Rowland and Elizabeth Hassall', unpublished manuscript by Jean Stewart (1999); and 'James Samuel Hassall (1823-1904)', paper by Jean Stewart (1998), 1998-1999

[drawing - Map]

The Duff's journey in the South Pacific. From London Missionary Society, A Missionary Voyage to the Southern Pacific Ocean, 1796-1798.

The Duff left London with the blessing and hopes of those on shores whose voices combined with those on the ship to sing Jesus, at your command we launch into the deep. At once the new missionaries became acquainted with one another and organised themselves into a disciplined group with tasks and responsibilities. Food was distributed carefully by one member of the party which included one pound of tea a month to each man and one and a quarter pounds to each woman. A librarian was appointed to look after their books, and all began to work at acquiring a Tahitian vocabulary as well as having twice weekly Bible study session and daily prayers. The surgeon taught simple medical practices. They were busy preparing themselves for the task ahead by studying theology, geography and attempting to learn the Tahitian language. The Hassalls were fortunate that one of their fellow missionaries was a friend, Reverend James Fleet Cover, although it must have been sad when Cover's little child died just before the ship left England. They were also forging strong friendships with other missionaries, friendships which were to last all their lives especially as their children grew and intermarried. The journey in the Duff was relatively peaceful although immensely long because the captain had attempted to sail around Cape Horn but severe gales forced him to sail east round the Cape of Good Hope and then directly to Tahiti. It had been a journey of 13,280 miles without sighting land and took from 15 November 1796 to 5 March 1797. It was a relatively uneventful voyage although many of the missionaries, who had never been to sea before, or who had hardly even travelled very far from their native parishes, were very seasick initially. The ship stopped at Rio de Janeiro, then sailed south of Africa and Australia and north of New Zealand. Six months after they had started out they arrived in Matavai Bay. As they had travelled half way round the world their calendar was a day out, a discrepancy which they never put right and many of them continued to observe the Sabbath a day ahead of everyone else for at least fifty years.

[Drawing TAHITI 1767-78] Matavai and Point Venus, site of the first London Missionary Society mission.

After they arrived in Tahiti, things became difficult. The Tahitians welcomed the group and offered them presents of cloth, fruit and pigs which were rejected because the missionaries would not trade on the Sabbath which day it was. Instead they offered a Divine Service complete with hymns and a sermon which lasted an hour and a quarter on the text "God is love." The Tahitians were amazed and had to be brought to order for talking and laughing during the hymn singing - they had very little interest in the gospel. The Tahitians were a happy, carefree group whose behavior was at odds with the dour and cheerless behavior of the missionaries which was emphasised by their dress - black top hats, black frock coats, black boots and trousers for the men and dark sombre respectable dresses for the women which covered them from head to foot. Nevertheless relations were quite amicable as the two cultures tried to understand one another. The missionaries tried hard to establish a settlement on familiar lines. An orderly timetable for daily activity was devised and the artisan missionaries attempted to use their skills to grow familiar vegetables, build buildings and yards for their animals well as conduct regular devotions. The Tahitians plied the new arrivals with gifts and were very generous with provisions.⁴¹ The Tahitians saw the Europeans as a source of muskets to be used in tribal warfare and ridiculed all attempts to involve them in preaching or in prayers. Having to rely on the unreliable Swedish interpreters to get their message across was extremely irksome for the missionaries and it became obvious that they themselves would have to become fluent in Tahitian. Misunderstandings arose over exchange of gifts and meal times, which the Tahitians shared uninvited with the missionaries, became nightmares. The missionaries were appalled with some local customs namely infanticide, homosexual practices, immorality, human sacrifice and sorcery. Very little progress was made in getting the Tahitians to change their ways. The

⁴¹Ibid., p.162.

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Tahitians regarded the missionaries as very inept at the most basic survival skills - using boats, swimming, climbing trees and crossing rivers. The missionaries made no impression on the religious life of Tahitians and succeeded only in four things: the Tahitians had given up holding feats within the missionaries' hearing, they behaved decently around the mission house on the Sabbath, they adopted some modesty in their dress and had become less boisterous and cheerful - these pathetic achievements were all the missionaries could boast of after a year. 42

Some things they did managed to impress King Pomare and that was the demonstration by Rowland Hassall and Peter Hodges of blacksmithing. Pomare, perhaps because he could see the potential in this craft for making weapons in the future, was reputed to be so impressed that he embraced the blacksmith.

Matters came to a head when, after a year, the trading ship Nautilus arrived in urgent need of repairs. It was carrying furs from America for China, and hope to trade muskets with the Tahitians for food and water. The missionaries were horrified and tried to prevent this exchange. Some Hawaiians who had been pressed into service as crew deserted and joined the king, Pomare. The missionaries unsuccessfully tried to help get the deserters back on board. The ship sailed away only to return in a fortnight in a worse condition as she had run into storms. Pomare also found out that the missionaries were foiling his plans to aquire guns, so refused to sell them any food. A very unpleasant situation developed as more crewmen of the Nautilus deserted ship and Pomare prepared to attack the missionaries.

Rowland Hassall had been working in the forge and became alarmed when it became apparent that he would be expected to use his skills to make weapons. Pomare resisited all attempts at appeasemetn with the missionaries some of whom were beaten and barely escaped with their lives. Fearing for the safety of their wives and children many of the missionaries fled on the Nautilus, a very battered brig of 60 tons, for Sydney in March 1798. They contracted with Captain Bishop of the Nautilus to pay ''1,000 dollars'' payable by the London Missionary Society to take them to Port Jackson, a fee that the Society was not too pleased about later, especially as the Directors were very annoyed at the abandonment of the task by so many of the missionaries and were very critical of their behaviour. In fact they suggested that instead of going to the relative calm of New South Wales they should go to the Friendly Islands to help the missionaries there or to Norfolk Island because they owed an obligation to all those who had contributed to the expedition and supplied goods which they expected to be used in missionary activities. Later these same directors modified their criticisms a little and conceded that the missionaries could stay in Port Jackson and do all they could for the ''miserable objects around you'' and to work with Reverends Johnson and Marden.43 That however was in the future. The voyage was a nightmare - Bishop broke a blood vessel, the pumps had to be worked continually to stem the inflow of two feet of water every hour and the vessel nearly foundered on Ball's Pyramid and the

42 Ibid., p.172. 43 From Directors of London Missionary Society, Thomas Haweis, Joseph Hardcastle and John Eyre to Rowland Hassall, Hassall Papers, 3 September 1799, A859.

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next day on Lord Howe Island. They arrived in Port Jackson on 14 May 1798.44

Soon after his arrival Hassall was granted 100 acres in the Dundas district which he called Hoom Farm, grew with a later addition which he later called Kerby Corner. It was adjacent to Samuel Marsden's farm and also to the 100 acres given to Francis Oakes. It is now the site of the Pennant Hills Golf Club. At first the family lived on Reverend Samuel Marsden's farm at North Brush, Dundas. Marsden and his wife offered much kindness to the Hassalls and gave them good advice as well as allowing them to use the vegetable crops there. Later they moved to a house belonging to George Barrington, a former convict who had been born in Ireland and had become a notorious pickpocket and theif about whom many tales and legends were told and who was described as a ''prince of rogues''. After he had served his sentence he had been appointed Chief Constable and became a respectable land owner.45 The Hassalls rented his farm at the northern boundary of the settlement and there Rowland Hassall was robbed and ''...himself beaten and used very ill by some ruffians; but had his loss nearly made up to himself by a collection made amoung the officers and others of the colony''.46 A version of this attack has been left by Reverend James S. Hassall, Rowland's grandson:

''All went well for sometime when one night two of his assigned servants rushed in demanding his money. Rowland had £600 in a deed box which they took and, as he grabbed a sword from the wall to fight them, Mrs Hassall was gashed on the arm and he was knocked insensible to the ground and the men made off with everything. Mrs Hassall then took the baby, leaving the little son with the injured father and staggered the seven miles to Sydney to get help. Poor Rowland lay between life and death for six weeks and then had to make a fresh start with no money.''47

After this terrifying incident Hassall refused to prosecute the assigned servant who had caused such damage and injury.48 Undeterred Hassal almost immediately began to hold religious services there. Hassall began to extend his religious involvement by helping Reverend Cover and William Henry in their itinerent ministry which included Toongabbie, where, as he wrote ''most of the unruly prisoners are kept to hard labour. In this place we have a large Government hut for the worship of God. The congregation is unsettled, so that we have always new hearers of one kind or another, there being in general about 100''.49

Hassall also took services at Kissing Point where members of the Small family had

44 Roe, Michael, ''Charles Bishop, Pioneer of Pacific Commerce'', Tasmanian Historical Research Association, Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 10, No. 1, July 1962, pp.11-12. 45 ''Barrington, George (1755?-1804)'', Australian Dictionary of Biography 1788-1850, Vol.1, pp.62-3. 46 Historical Records of New South Wales, Vol III, p.714. 47 Hassall Family Bicentenary 1798-1998, Newsletter No.5, April 1997. 48 Oakes, Archdeacon Spencer, ''Rowland Hassall, A Pioneer Colonist'', Sydney Morning Herald, 4 February 1928. 49 Hassall to London Missionary Society as cited in Sargeant, Doris, The Toongabbit Story, Toongabbie Public School, Sydney, 1964, p.33.

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