Port Underwood Settlement & Personal Tragedy
Born in London on 11 May 1807 to a Dutch father, James Wynen married Bethia Virtue in 1830 before departing for New Zealand in 1839 to purchase land for a Sydney syndicate.1 Settling at Kākāpō Bay in Port Underwood, he established a trading station exchanging blankets, tobacco, and ironware with local Māori and whalers.2 He lived alongside Rangiawa Kuika, a Ngāti Toa chieftainess related to Te Rauparaha.3 German naturalist Ernst Dieffenbach noted in 1839 that local Māori held Wynen in high regard, while Reverend Samuel Ironside conducted Port Underwood's first Christmas Day service at Wynen's residence in 1840.4
Tragedy struck in December 1842 when Kuika and their infant child were murdered at Port Underwood by settler Richard Cook.5 Cook escaped conviction because his wife, the primary witness, was legally disqualified from testifying against her husband.6 This failure of colonial justice severely damaged Māori trust in British legal authority, with Ngāti Toa chief Te Rangihaeata later citing Cook's unpunished crime as a key driver of hostility preceding the 1843 Wairau Affray.7
Wairau River & Omaka Shipping Monopoly
Around 1847, Wynen relocated to the Boulder Bank at the mouth of the Wairau River, operating a store, accommodation house, and shipping depot.8 Vessels arriving from Wellington and Nelson anchored off the river mouth, where cargo was discharged into Wynen's whaleboats and transported upriver to his raupō warehouse on the banks of the Omaka River.9
This arrangement gave Wynen a virtual monopoly over imports and exports for fledgling pastoral runs across the Wairau Plain.10 Beyond handling freight, he served as an informal postmaster, holding and distributing mail arriving on coastal vessels for isolated sheep stations.11 To serve overland travellers between Nelson and regional runs, he constructed the Wairau Accommodation House near the river ferry crossing, applying for a formal liquor licence in 1849 to bring order to local trade.12
Beavertown Commerce & Later Years
Following the 1848 Marlborough earthquake, seismic activity lowered lagoon bed levels and deepened river channels leading from the Wairau mouth into the interior plain.13 These physical changes enabled shallow-draft whaleboats to travel far up the Omaka and Ōpaoa rivers, transforming inland water transport.14 Recognising that trade was moving away from the coastal bar, Wynen positioned his commercial operations directly at the confluence of the rivers.15
He established a commercial base at the settlement colloquially known as "The Beaver" or Beavertown, named for the frequent floodwaters that submerged the surrounding flats and isolated local huts.16 To construct a store in the flood-prone area, Wynen improvised by assembling structure walls out of red wooden gin cases.17 The novel building, known locally as the "Gin Palace", provided dry housing for trade goods, spirits, and supplies serving early surveyors and pastoral runholders.18
As Beavertown developed into the primary trading centre of the Wairau, shipping traffic through the river mouth depot steadily declined.19 In 1855, Wynen sold his original Boulder Bank store and accommodation house to Samuel Bowler and George Jackson, fully consolidating his business interests inland.20 His store served as a commercial hub during the growth of Beavertown into the civic township of Blenheim.21
Wynen's later years were marked by private sorrow despite his commercial standing.22 His son, James Virtue Wynen, arrived from England in February 1861 after twenty-three years of separation, but contracted consumption and died eight months later in Wakefield on 10 October 1861, aged 28.23 James Wynen Snr passed away aged 60 at The Fleece Hotel in Nelson in 1866 and was buried at St Paul's Churchyard in Brightwater.24 Historical archives note that surviving photographic portraits long attributed to Wynen Snr actually portray his son, James Virtue Wynen, as no verified photograph of Wynen Snr is known to exist.25