The Cyclopedia of New Zealand [Auckland Provincial District]
[introduction]
For a good many years before any attempt at settlement was made in the other parts of New Zealand, the northern portion of the Auckland province, though not then known by that name, was steadily growing into importance. Whalers, mostly Americans, found the Bay of Islands convenient as a whaling station, and the missionaries—Episcopalians, Wesleyans, and Catholics—all decided that the northern extremity of New Zealand was preferable to all other parts as a basis of operations.
As early as 1814 the agents of the Church Mission Society selected the Bay of Islands for their headquarters, and in 1823, the first Wesleyan mission station was located at Whangaroa. The Roman Catholic missionaries chose Hokianga, and settled there in 1838, Bishop Pompallier arriving on the 10th of January in that year.
Thus colonisation really began at the North, though little remains to-day in the appearance of the country to support the assertion. How and why Governor Hobson selected the present site of the City of Auckland for the seat of Government and subsequent capital of the country, is all shortly but interestingly told in the early pages of Volume 1, and is alluded to further on in the section devoted to “Old Auckland.”