This cemetery, located on the corner of SH 45 and Holloway Road is associated with the Omata Primitive Methodist Chapel.
Two headstones are present - 1. William Holloway & Frances Hart and 2. John Hurford.
Inscription on Left Gravestone
In Memory of William Holloway
Who died Janry 23 1855
Aged 50 Years
Also of Frances Hart his wife
Who died April 3 1892
Aged 72 years
Arrived at New Plymouth
On the Barque Blenheim
19th Nov. 1842
[Frances Holloway (neé Anthony] married Robert Hart in 1856]
&
On right headstone
In Honoured Memory
of
John Hurford
Killed by Hostile Maoris
2 - 8 - 1860
Erected by N Z Govt
A third stone to the right is thought to originally have had a plaque identifying the site as that of the Omata Primitive Methodist Church, opened in 1852. (Ref: Fifty Years of Primitve Methodism in NZ, 1893) The chapel was demolished in the 1950s. The building was once used as an extra classroom for the adjoining Ōmatā School.
John Hurford was a local farmer who arrived as a New Plymouth Company setter on the Blenheim. He was killed while checking crops and stock on his farm on what is now Hurford Road. James Gaffney, one of four Royal Artillery escorts was also killed in the incident. (Taranaki Herald 11 August 1860)
The Ōmata graves became overgrown but were revealed in 1957 by roadworks nearby.
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