A fateful slip

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Sinden was on the high bank of the Waipā River, Alexandra West, intending to cross in a punt to Alexandra East on the other side.

It was about 5.45pm when Angelina Helps saw her and offered to go with her but Catherine, cheerful and obliging as ever, declined saying “never mind, the track is rough”. She offered to bring Angelina back a loaf of bread which Angelina gave her a kit for. Catherine ran down to the river merrily calling “goodbye.” She was going over to collect her father James, a blacksmith, and shut his shop up if he was not at the settlement.

About 15 minutes later James returned to Alexandra East. He let his horse go and headed to the river to go home. But there was no punt, or Catherine. James called across the river to his daughter Bella, asking where the punt was. She replied that Catherine had taken it over. He presumed somebody else must have borrowed it. James made enquiries around the township before coming across Tawhia who told him he had found a punt adrift while setting his eel basket at the mouth of the Mangapiko Creek. He showed James a hat which had been floating near the punt. It was Catherine’s.

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James ran to the punt and searched from there up to the landing place where it was usually kept. He saw tracks where Catherine had started to step into the boat, traces of her boot heel where she had slipped and signs that the ground had given way. He searched as long as daylight lasted. Over the next few days others scoured the river, with several men diving and some dragging it as far down as the Mangapiko. Just over a week later Catherine was found by her father, eight kilometres from where she fell in, caught in the branches of a willow tree. The inquest found that Catherine had slipped off the west bank of the river while endeavouring to get into the punt. She could not swim. Three months earlier, in January 1893, a serious flood had washed away the bridge at Alexandra and out of necessity James had built the punt. No attempt had been made to rebuild the bridge despite its urgent requirement being brought to the Waipā County Council’s attention long before the accident. The jury found that Catherine accidently drowned. They also added the rider that steps should immediately be taken by the Waipā County Council to provide safe means of crossing the river until the bridge was repaired.

Catherine was buried in Pirongia cemetery. There was a very large attendance at her funeral where tearful school children sang the hymn ‘Shall we gather at the River.’ After the service, many of those present visited the accident scene and inspected the bridge. Two County Council members present were subjected to irate public opinion.

Catherine was the Sindens eldest daughter. She ran the public library with efficiency and good humour which made her a favourite at Alexandra. She had a cherished ambition of being a school teacher which would never be realised.

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