Metcalfe Hare Joins the Staff

Carrying heavy responsibilities was Metcalfe Hare, of Kaeo, New Zealand. Hare had attended the New Zealand camp meeting held in February at Epsom. There W. C. White pushed the school matter hard. He found Hare deeply interested. Of Hare's eagerness to be a part of the program, White wrote to his mother:4BIO 218.4

I am very much pleased at the interest that Brother Metcalfe Hare takes in the school work. He is ready, if we think best, to close up his business in Kaeo, and move to Avondale. He will move on his own responsibility, and hold himself ready to act a part in our work of preparing for the school, erecting the buildings, or anything that may be needed. But if we do not wish to employ him, he will engage in work on his own account till school opens, and then he will enter as a student....4BIO 218.5

It seems to me that he is the right sort of man to stand by the side of Rousseau as a worker and counselor.... His whole heart seems to go out to the school, and I believe that the Lord has been fitting him up to help us in this time when we need a man that can do many things at once.—7 WCW, p. 160.4BIO 219.1

Reporting to the Foreign Mission Board, White wrote in rosy terms of Hare's qualifications:4BIO 219.2

He has had lots of experience clearing land, and also in handling timber. He has had full experience in running a sawmill. He can build a house or a boat, and has had much experience as salesman, and can keep books. He is a close, conservative man, and may lack breadth in his plans. But he has a high regard for Brother Rousseau, and this would help him some. It appears to me that Rousseau and Hare would make a good team to work together in clearing, making roads, putting up the workshop, and getting material for the girls’ hall ready for the builder.—Ibid., 188.4BIO 219.3

At the New Zealand camp meeting White also found a number of young men eager to enter the industrial department. One was a brickmaker, another a tentmaker, still another, a stonecutter.4BIO 219.4

When Ellen White and W. C. and his family came onto the school grounds in early July, Metcalfe Hare was there managing a team of a dozen or more young men, Rousseau was managing a similar group in their work on the land, and good progress was being made.4BIO 219.5

On July 6, 1895, the church service was held in the long, narrow dining room of the hotel. Ellen White spoke, and then they organized a church of twenty-five members and chose two elders and two deacons (Letter 88a, 1895; Manuscript 61, 1895).4BIO 219.6