Puriri, New Zealand

Puriri
Map
Coordinates: 37°13′47″S 175°38′14″E / 37.22972°S 175.63722°E / -37.22972; 175.63722
CountryNew Zealand
RegionWaikato
DistrictThames-Coromandel District
WardThames ward
Community BoardThames Community
Electorates
Government
 • CouncilThames-Coromandel District Council
Area
 • Total1.00 km2 (0.39 sq mi)
Population
 (June 2024)[2]
 • Total260
 • Density260/km2 (670/sq mi)

Puriri is a small locality on the Hauraki Plains of New Zealand.[3] It lies approximately 14 km south-east of Thames, New Zealand.

Puriri was originally a Ngāti Maru settlement, which the Rev. Henry Williams visited in October 1833, when the Church Missionary Society (CMS) missionaries, William Thomas Fairburn, John Alexander Wilson, John Morgan and James Preece established a mission station in the settlement,[4] In 1835 James Stack was appointed to Puriri. However, the missionaries withdrew from the mission that same year as the result of fighting in the Waikato. Fairburn returned to the Puriri Mission at the end of the fighting.[4] Preece took over the mission in 1834 with the assistance of the Rev. James Hamlin.[5] In 1838 the station was transferred to Parawai (part of the present town of Thames).

In 1868 Puriri was the location for an official goldfield during the Thames-Coromandel gold rush.[6]

Hauraki Trail information board about Puriri railway station

Puriri railway station was to the west of the village[7] 59.54 km (37.00 mi) from Morrinsville and was open from 1898 to 1951.[8] The former railway is now used by the Hauraki Trail.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Area was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ "Aotearoa Data Explorer". Statistics New Zealand. Retrieved 26 October 2024.
  3. ^ "Place name detail: Puriri". New Zealand Gazetteer. New Zealand Geographic Board. Retrieved 25 January 2009.
  4. ^ a b Rogers, Lawrence M. (1973). Te Wiremu: A Biography of Henry Williams. Pegasus Press. pp. 113, 115, 122, 129–130.
  5. ^ James Hamlin, Diary 1830-1832. MS 0560, Hocken Library.
  6. ^ KaeLewis.com, Goldminers of Thames, New Zealand 1868, accessed 28 May 2007
  7. ^ "Sheet: SAK10". www.mapspast.org.nz. 1934. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  8. ^ "Stations". NZR Rolling Stock Lists. Retrieved 31 May 2020.