The church was built before road construction came to the Te Puna district and the rivers had to be forded and swum. Pirirakau residents trecked to Whakamarama for building timber and felled rimu trees 4 and 5 ft diameter. The logs pit sawn to reduce them to manageable dimensions.

With no wagons or roads, the only alternative was to use horses to drag the timber from the bush down to the head of the Te Puna River. Here the sawn logs were assembled into rafts and workers then poled them down-river with the outgoing tide and slowly and laboriously brought them down the harbour to the Te Puna sea front where they were dragged to the site and the building of St Joseph's Church was able to begin.

The construction was undertaken by Werehiko Borell and Hone Bidois. Puriri blocks of almost strainer length were first, put in the ground at each corner of the building with shorter lengths between. The floor framing was amade of heart rimu. The wall framing, roof beams were made of heart wood and of heavy dimension and hand dressed. The interior lining, pit sawn rewa-rewa with a beautiful grain was hand dressed and varnished until "Poutu-Terangi" (the Pillar that stands from the Earth to Heaven)opened in January 1st 1900, a symbol of faith and hope.                                                 Written by Mr David Borell, J.P.

A meeting house was also built and this was used to accommodate the congregation who attended the opening.

     

St Josephs, the Spiritual Church of the Roman Catholic Faith, Te Puna.

Click on photos to enlarge