Ewen McGregor slowed down in his car as he came upon Joseph Hodgson who was driving three restive horses attached to a chaff cutting machine on the Ngāhinapōuri Road at Harapepe.
It was a Saturday evening in late December 1919 and Joseph was returning home after a busy day operating the cutter – a mechanical device which chopped hay into small pieces to be mixed together with other forage and fed to horses or cattle. Ewen stopped and spoke with Joseph for a time then drove on.
The Hodgson family lived at Homewood in Te Rore and Joseph was one of several now adult children. At 53 he was a bachelor, a prominent member of the Alexandra Racing Club, and one of the trustees of the Pirongia sale yards committee. He was also a popular Master of Ceremonies at local dances.
His father, Isaac, had arrived in New Zealand aged 21 from Cumbria, England, in 1857 on the ship Heroes of Alma. He went south, and along with Mr Cooper and Mr Wilson, bought the first section of 50 acres at Duvauchelle, Banks Peninsula, purchased under the Canterbury Provincial Land Laws. In 1860 he married Margaret Donnett. Isaac started a prosperous saw milling business with Mr Piper which he ran for 18 years until 1874 when Mr Piper bought him out. The Hodgson family came to reside in Te Rore where Isaac became a prominent farmer, known for his pedigree horses and cattle. He was one of the earliest members of the Raglan County Council, and an earnest member of the Presbyterian Church. In 1905 Margaret died aged 66 which was a great blow to the family, but especially Isaac, who it was said, never really recovered from it.
As Joseph brought the chaff cutting machine home the family were again in mourning, this time for his brother, 43-year-old William, who had died just weeks before at Birkdale, Auckland.
There was more tragedy to come for the family.
Ewen McGregor, coming back along the Ngāhinapōuri Road, was alarmed to see the chaff cutter upturned in a ditch. Further up the road he found Joseph lying in a semiconscious condition. The machine, which had passed over his body, had come to a standstill a little distance away in a ditch. It appeared the horses had bolted and thrown Joseph to the road into the path of the machine. Ewen rushed Joseph to Waikato Hospital where Dr Douglas performed surgery but Joseph died around 7pm.
At the inquest the verdict was given that death was due to hemorrhage and shock, the result of an accident. Chaff cutters were very dangerous – many people lost hands and arms in them; others fell under them, including children playing around them, but mainly men falling from the tractors or horses towing them, usually with fatal results.
Joseph was widely and popularly known throughout the district, and had a large circle of friends. He was an ardent worker in every public effort and his untimely death left a place that was extremely difficult to fill. Te Rore and the whole district lost a good settler by his death.
For Isaac Hodgson the loss of two sons on top of health problems proved too much and he died five months after Joseph, aged 83.
Margaret, William, Joseph and Isaac are all buried at Paterangi cemetery.
Preparing feed for the winter – cutting and bagging chaff on a farm in the Waikato district.
