Tamahere and the surrounding district as from the time of the Maori War.
The district consisted for this survey of the Cambridge Road Board and part of Tamahere Road Board. The Boards were later incorporated into the Waikato County ridings. The area concerned - Leslies Gully at the cities Boundary, west to river, south beyond Bald Hill, east covering an acreage on north side of Mangaone Stream, which includes Leslies farm "Wartle" and all the land to Crawford Gully on the Matangi Road.
The Cambridge Riding extended to the Borough Boundary, but the far end I will omit.

The Tamahere Cross Roads, consisted in the 1880's of Camps Hotel on the Western Corner, with Blacksmith's shop on Narrow's Road. Saint Stephen's Church and graveyard on South Corner and the store on the main road, a chain away from the Hotel.
The school was further along the main road towards Hamilton - erected and opened May 1884.
Camps hotel was burnt down, as recorded in Grahams following diary, with loss of two children.
The Hotel was the usual meeting place for the Cambridge Road Board referred to as at Hautapu.

BARWELL:
On the Northern end of Grahams block, bounding on the River and Leslies Gully, was the farm, bought by Mrs Banvell and her sons. Charles and J. Henry. On the Eastern side the boundary was the gully running parallel with the main road until it bounded on Aberdeen.
Barwell's land had been laid out in orchard, the land deemed to be suitable for fruit, being of clay formation.
A cider plant was purchased which was later bought by Mr Barugh of "Wartle". Little use was made of the machine.

William Reids Mill; from the Waikato Times 29th July 1875. The flour mill erected in the Mangaone Stream about half a mile from Crawfords crossing, between Reids property and that of John Shaw, on the Southern bank, was burnt down at about 8.00 a.m. on Monday 18th July under suspicious circumstances.
A feud had been in progress with John Shaw, who did not approve of the dam, and there was a suspicion that he had dug a trench and let water away.

HAUTAPU SCHOOL:
The first school in the district was Hautapu School which was built in 1878 on the triangle section of the corner of Pickering's Road and the main road.
Roll of 54, 36 boys and 18 girls.
The first Head was R. McLaurin; at a salary of £65, which hardly covered the living costs with nine children.

We must pay a tribute to the housewives of the countryside, who in many cases, were not used to ordinary housework. The better class, if you may use the word class, were used to their maids in England or Scotland; had to take over and run their new houses with conditions nowhere comparable to the conditions they were used to in the old country. They also had to help outdoors. The garden being their main interest.

FOOD SUPPLY:
Food other than that produced on the farm would be obtained from the local store, mentioned earlier. Tamahere had its own store over many years George Owen ad Son who followed J.H. Stewart, were from 1920 to 1940. Anything from this store, galvanised piping to peas, beans and raisins. The store burnt down one Christmas morning 1975.