Cross the bay from Paihia today and you’ll arrive at Russell, a tranquil waterfront village of heritage buildings, holiday homes, and million-dollar yachts. It’s hard to imagine that this peaceful spot was once the most notorious settlement in the South Pacific, a place where whalers, deserters, escaped convicts, and traders of every description came ashore to drink, fight, and carouse in what became known as “the hellhole of the Pacific.”
But Russell’s story is more than just tales of wild frontier days. This small town was briefly New Zealand’s first capital, the site of fierce battles that tested the newly signed Treaty of Waitangi, and home to the country’s oldest surviving church, still bearing musket ball holes in its walls. Russell’s history is visceral and dramatic, a story of extremes: from violence to peace, from chaos to order, from Kororāreka to Russell.
For visitors, Russell offers something rare: a place where you can still see and touch the evidence of conflict, where the turbulent birth of colonial New Zealand is written into the very fabric of the buildings.
Kororāreka: The Whaling Years
Long before it was called Russell, this sheltered harbour was known as Kororāreka. The name’s origin is debated; one tradition says it means “sweet penguin,” referring to a chief who tasted the flesh of a penguin and found it delicious. Whatever its true origin, by the 1820s, Kororāreka had become the most important European settlement in New Zealand.
The reason was simple: whales. Southern right whales migrated through New Zealand waters in great numbers, and the Bay of Islands became a major base for both American and European whaling ships. At its peak in the 1830s, dozens of whaling vessels would anchor in the bay, and their crews, after months at sea, came ashore hungry for everything they’d been denied: fresh food, alcohol, companionship, and entertainment.
Kororāreka obliged. Grog shops proliferated. So-called “accommodations houses” catered to other needs. Violence was common, murder not unknown. The Ngāpuhi communities in the area found themselves dealing with a rough, transient population that brought wealth through trade but also disease, disorder, and cultural disruption.
Yet it wasn’t all chaos. Māori entrepreneurs thrived in this environment, trading food, timber, and flax for European goods. Some became wealthy supplying the ships. Chiefly authority still held sway; this was Māori land, and Europeans were here on Māori terms, even if those terms were constantly being renegotiated.
By the late 1830s, Kororāreka had a permanent population of around 1,000 people, making it by far the largest European settlement in New Zealand. It had shops, warehouses, and the beginnings of civic life, albeit rowdy civic life. When New Zealand became a British colony in 1840, Kororāreka was briefly declared the capital, though the seat of government soon moved to the more manageable Auckland.
Christ Church: Faith Amid the Chaos
Standing today in the graveyard of Christ Church, surrounded by peaceful gardens and historic graves, it’s hard to imagine the turbulent world into which this church was born. Built in 1836, Christ Church is New Zealand’s oldest surviving church, and its story captures the contradictions of early Kororāreka.
The church was built by the Anglican mission at the height of the town’s wild years. Picture the scene: respectable missionaries attempting Sunday services while grog shops did brisk business just down the street. Yet the church was built not by missionaries alone, but with support from the very settlers and sailors it hoped to reform. Even in Kororāreka, people wanted a place of sanctuary.
The church’s design is simple but elegant, a Georgian preaching box adapted to New Zealand conditions. Its walls are made of local timber, its proportions modest. But what makes Christ Church truly remarkable are the marks it bears from the violence that would soon engulf the town.
Look closely at the church walls, both inside and out, and you’ll see them: musket ball holes from the Flagstaff War of 1845-46. When British troops and Māori warriors clashed in the streets of Russell, Christ Church stood in the crossfire. These aren’t decorative features or reconstructions; they’re genuine battle scars, small dark holes that speak more eloquently than any plaque about what happened here.
The church graveyard holds its own stories. Here lie some of New Zealand’s earliest European settlers, their weathered headstones recording the dangers of frontier life: young deaths, shipwrecks, disease. Walking among these graves is like reading the rough draft of New Zealand’s European history.
Pompallier Mission: The Catholic Presence
While Protestant missionaries worked from Paihia and Kerikeri, the Roman Catholic Church established its own presence in Kororāreka. In 1842, Bishop Jean Baptiste Pompallier built a two-storey mission house that served as headquarters for Catholic missions throughout New Zealand and the Pacific.
What made Pompallier Mission unique was its printing operation. Using a tannery in the building’s lower level, the Catholic missionaries produced leather bindings for books printed on-site. They printed religious texts in both Māori and French, creating beautiful volumes that were distributed throughout the Pacific.
The building itself is architecturally distinctive: rammed earth walls (pise) with kauri timber framing, a French-influenced design that looks distinctly European yet is built entirely from New Zealand materials. It’s a physical representation of cultural adaptation, European methods applied to New Zealand conditions.
Pompallier Mission survived the conflicts that destroyed much of early Russell, and today it’s been beautifully restored. Visitors can tour the printing works and tannery, see demonstrations of 19th-century printing techniques, and handle replica books. It’s a fascinating counterpoint to the Protestant mission stations across the bay, evidence that even in early New Zealand, there were multiple European narratives playing out.
The Flagstaff and Hōne Heke’s War
By 1844, disillusionment with British colonial rule was growing among many Māori chiefs. Trade patterns had changed. The capital had moved to Auckland, taking much of Kororāreka’s economic vitality with it. British authority was asserting itself in ways that conflicted with Māori sovereignty.
At the top of Maiki Hill above Kororāreka stood a flagstaff, flying the Union Jack as a symbol of British authority. To Hōne Heke, a chief who had been one of the first to sign the Treaty of Waitangi, that flagstaff had become a symbol of everything wrong with British rule. On 8 July 1844, he cut it down.
The British re-erected it. Heke cut it down again in January 1845. They put it up a third time, now guarded by British troops. On 11 March 1845, Heke cut it down for the fourth and final time, and this time, the town itself erupted into battle.
What followed was a coordinated attack on the settlement. While Heke engaged British forces on Maiki Hill, his ally Kawiti attacked from another direction. The town descended into chaos. Buildings burned. Residents fled to ships in the harbour. When the fighting ended, much of early Kororāreka lay in ruins.
The conflict that became known as the Flagstaff War (or the Northern War) continued for over a year, with battles fought at various locations around the Bay of Islands. It was never a simple conflict: some Māori chiefs fought alongside the British, others supported Heke and Kawiti. The war demonstrated that Māori were not passive recipients of colonisation, that they would resist when they felt the Treaty’s promises had been broken.
Eventually, a tense peace was negotiated. Heke and Kawiti were never defeated militarily, but the fighting gradually ceased. The flagstaff, symbol of so much conflict, was never re-erected. You can still climb Flagstaff Hill (Maiki Hill) today, where a different flagstaff now stands with Ngāpuhi agreement, and look out over the town Heke’s warriors once attacked.
Resurrection and Reinvention
After the 1845 attacks, many settlers abandoned Kororāreka, convinced it had no future. The town that had been New Zealand’s largest European settlement seemed destined to fade away. But slowly, tentatively, it rebuilt.
The name change came later. By the 1840s, the old name Kororāreka had become too associated with the town’s rough past. In 1844, the settlement was officially renamed Russell, after Lord John Russell, British Colonial Secretary. It was an attempt to draw a line under the past, to signal that this would be a different kind of town.
And it was different. Post-war Russell was quieter, smaller, more respectable. The whaling industry was in decline; ships went elsewhere. The rough crowds moved on. What remained was a modest provincial town with an outsized history.
Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Russell survived rather than thrived. It was too small and isolated to attract much development, which paradoxically helped preserve its historic buildings. Christ Church, Pompallier Mission, and various early cottages survived simply because there was no pressure to replace them.
Russell Today: Living History
Modern Russell has achieved something remarkable: it has become a living museum without becoming a theme park. People actually live here, in a town where nearly every building has a story, where history isn’t recreated but simply remains.
The waterfront is elegant now, lined with Norfolk pines and dotted with cafés and galleries. Yachts bob at moorings where whaling ships once anchored. The rough grog shops have given way to boutique hotels and restaurants. But the bones of the old town are still visible.
Walk along the waterfront and you’ll pass The Duke of Marlborough Hotel, which claims (with some justification) to be New Zealand’s oldest licensed hotel, though the current building dates from after the 1845 conflict. The settlement’s rough-and-tumble character lives on in its marketing if not its reality.
The Russell Museum, housed in a historic building on York Street, does an excellent job of presenting the town’s many-layered history. Here you’ll find a detailed scale model of Kororāreka as it appeared in 1840, helping visitors visualise the settlement in its wild heyday. The museum doesn’t shy away from difficult topics; it presents the Flagstaff War, the whaling years, and early Māori-European relations with honesty and nuance.
A Town of Two Names
One fascinating aspect of Russell today is that locally, many people still use both names. “Russell/Kororāreka” appears on signs and in conversation. This dual naming reflects a growing recognition that the town’s Māori past isn’t something to be erased or forgotten, but an essential part of its identity.
The tension between Russell and Kororāreka, between the respectable present and the rowdy past, between European order and the reality of Māori land, these tensions aren’t resolved so much as acknowledged. Modern Russell lives comfortably with its contradictions, a town that was both hellhole and haven, battlefield and birthplace of the nation.
Exploring Russell’s Layers
When you visit Russell, approach it as a place of layers, each one revealing something different about New Zealand’s founding era.
Start at Christ Church on Robertson Road. Attend a service if you’re there on a Sunday, or simply visit the church and its graveyard. Those musket holes are small, easy to miss if you’re not looking; ask the volunteers to point them out. The church is still an active parish, not just a museum, which adds to its resonance.
Walk to Pompallier Mission on The Strand. Take the guided tour; it’s worth it. The printing demonstrations bring the 19th century alive in a tangible way, and the building itself is architecturally fascinating.
Climb Flagstaff Hill (Maiki Hill) for the views and the history. The walk is short but steep, and the panorama from the top is magnificent. Stand by the current flagstaff and think about what it meant for Heke to keep cutting it down, the symbolism of that repeated act of defiance.
Visit the Russell Museum to tie everything together. The scale model of 1840s Kororāreka is particularly valuable for understanding how different the town once was.
Simply wander the streets, particularly along the waterfront and through the residential areas behind it. Many of the cottages date from the mid to late 19th century. This is a town to explore slowly, noticing details, reading plaques, imagining the wild settlement that once stood here.
Consider taking a ferry ride to Paihia and back, just for the pleasure of seeing Russell from the water as early settlers and sailors would have. From the bay, you get a sense of why this harbour was so important, so attractive to ships seeking shelter.
The Contradiction of Russell
Russell today is a paradox. It’s genteel, pretty, almost quaint; exactly the kind of place wealthy retirees and holidaymakers love. Yet underneath that gentility lies one of New Zealand’s most turbulent histories: violence, resistance, cultural collision, and the messy reality of colonisation.
Perhaps that’s appropriate. Perhaps it’s a reminder that history isn’t simple, that places can change dramatically, that the rough edges of the past can be smoothed without being entirely erased. The musket holes in Christ Church walls ensure we don’t forget what happened here, even as the town around them has transformed into something its rowdy founders wouldn’t recognise.
When you visit Russell, you’re not just visiting a pretty seaside village. You’re standing where New Zealand’s colonial experiment nearly came undone, where Māori resistance made clear that this country would not be taken without a fight, where the promises of the Treaty were first tested and found wanting.
It’s worth remembering, even as you sip coffee at a waterfront café, that this peaceful spot was earned the hard way, through conflict and compromise, through Māori determination and colonial persistence, through the efforts of people on all sides who eventually chose negotiation over endless fighting.
Haere mai ki Russell/Kororāreka – come and discover where history got complicated.
All photos by Steve Western Kingfisher Yacht Charters
