the following was orignally taken from:
The ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST SURVEY SHIP - Lower Hutt Past and Present written in 1941

- the names in capitals are mine for easier earching -


THE ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST SURVEY SHIP


THE ARRIVAL OF THE SECOND SURVEY SHIP


THE ARRIVAL OF THE SETTLERS


ARRIVAL OF LOCAL GEOVERNMENT & the MOVE TO THORNDON


Another ship, the "Cuba," of 273 tons, was chartered, and commanded by Captain NEWCOMBE, arrived in Port Nicholson on the 3rd January 1840. She brought out the survey party consisting of Captain WILLIAM MEIN SMITH, Messrs. R. D. HANSON, W. F. A. CARRINGTON, R. PARK, R. STOKES and K. BETHUNE.

Colonel WAKEFIELD was absent at Taranaki when MEIN SMITH arrived and the attractions of the Hutt Valley were so great that MEIN SMITH set up the first trig station on rising ground at the mouth of the river.

But work of surveying was slow, difficulties were immense, cutting survey lines was almost insuperable owing to the size of the trees and density of the bush. DIEFFENBACH, the naturalist attached to the "Tory" party, tells of trees 70 feet in height, 40 feet clear of a limb, and with their branches interwoven, the whole a tangled mass of bramble vines and supplejacks.

The ground was carpeted with a great variety of ferns, some in clumps, some in vines, some short and dense, others tall enough to reach the lower branches of the shorter trees, the whole obstructing the view, and making the advance of the chainmen a work of art and endurance. Ever and anon the ground, always soft from the absence of sunlight, changed into a bottomless peaty swamp that had to be corduroyed before the theodolite could be placed to take the next shot.