Rogan Street

When Frederic Alonzo Carrington laid out the new settlement of New Plymouth for the Plymouth Company, he had a second assistant surveyor named John Rogan. Rogan was a licensed surveyor who had emigrated from Ireland and arrived with Carrington in February 1841 on the Brougham.

The surveying work was relatively short lived, so he became a judge of the Native Land Court. In this role he travelled much of New Zealand, although he had a preference for the Kaipara region, where it was reported that he was well respected by both Māori and Pākehā. Eventually he settled in Helensville where he was the resident magistrate until 1875, when he shifted into Auckland, living in Mt Albert.

In 1881, Rogan married Lucy Reynolds, a young woman in her early twenties from Cambridge in the Waikato. Over the next decade they produced seven children.

Tragedy struck with the death of Lucy in 1897, a son John in 1898, who was thrown from a horse on a farm near Whanganui, and a daughter Annie five months later. Rogan was devastated.

Rogan is remembered for the house he built in Helensville called "Te Makiri" which is a heritage listed building and still standing.

Rogan himself died in 1899, aged 76, and is buried in Waikumete cemetery in a grave with Lucy and others of his family.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.