Almost midway between Papakura and Waiuku, Glenbrook Road dips down to cross a bridge over the upper reaches of the Taihiki River, a southern inlet of Auckland’s Manukau Harbour. On the Papakura side of the bridge, and just a few steps down from the roadside, a white picket fence surrounds a small cemetery. Of the handful of early settlers named on the memorial stone plaque, Private Jas (James) Dromgool, Mauku Forest Rifles, was the older brother of Charles Dromgool, my maternal grandfather’s father. (The plaque incorrectly gives James’s death as September 1863: it should be November 1863). Taihiki River bridge, on Glenbrook Road, about 15km east of Waiuku and about 2km west of the Kingseat-Patumahoe roundabout. November 2018. James Dromgool, born in Co Louth, Ireland in July 1843, was the eldest child of John and Susan Dromgool. When John and Susan and their eight children (Anne had died as an infant in 1852) arrived in Auckland on the SHALIMAR in December 1859, Su...