In November 1852, 33-year-old Captain Cooper of the 58th Regiment purchased around 38 acres of land in what is now the Onepoto Stream area near Onewa Road in Northcote. In November 1853, he purchased around 40 acres in what is now the Clarence Road and part Church Street area, also in Northcote. In December 1853 he then bought around 23 acres in the neighbouring upper part of Church Street, bordering Onewa Road.

The Church Street land had been set aside in 1844 for part of a New Zealand Company settlement, but when this was abandoned that land came back on the market. In May 1854, Cooper also purchased around 108 acres in what is now the Park Hill Road area, opposite Pupuke Road. That totalled at least 209 acres on the North Shore.
His obituaries claim that he did live in the Northcote area for a time, and he may have even farmed there. Certainly, he was elected as a Warden on the local body, the Hundred of Pupuke, in February 1855, with local residents Patrick Heath and Henry J. Hawkins. However, he didn’t seek re-election in 1856.
Cooper and his mortgagor, John William Hall, set aside around one and half acres on what is now Church Street for an Anglican Church. The site was consecrated in 1859 and the Church dedicated on 24 June 1860, as St John the Baptist. Similarly, on 8 February 1865 Cooper granted to the General Synod of the Anglican Church around an acre for “for the erection of a church” opposite Pupuke Road. However, by 1882 this was instead being used as the Anglican cemetery for St John the Baptist Church.
By at least March 1856 Cooper had also bought land in the Orewa area. In 1856 or 1857 he built what became known as Orewa House and in 1857 successfully stood for the Northern Division on the Auckland Provincial Council. That electorate included the North Shore, most of West Auckland and extended North to Warkworth. He first represented that electorate until 1861.
Cooper retired from the army in December 1857 and soon after took up the position of postmaster at Orewa, until 1861. In February 1860 he was made Captain of the City Company of the Auckland Volunteer Rifles and on 16 April 1860 was appointed Major of the Wanganui Regiment of the New Zealand Militia. However, the government dismissed him from this post for “disobedience” etc., in November 1861.
He married Rora (Laura) Te Makohe in 1864; they had been together since 1861 and this relationship had in part led to his dismissal. Their two children are on St John the Baptist’s baptismal register, in 1865 and 1867. In 1864 Cooper had returned from Whanganui to again become the postmaster in Orewa (until 1868), and again represented the Northern Division in the Auckland Provincial Council from 1865 until 1869. In 1868 he sold Orewa House to the Grut family and moved to Thames, where he commanded the local militia as Major until 1878. Rora died in 1875 and he remarried in 1877.
Nevertheless, Cooper maintained much of his extensive Auckland area land holdings. He sold off the last of his land in the Onepoto Stream area on 28 January 1879 and the last of his land in the Clarence Road area on 16 April 1880. He had already disposed of the last of his land at the top of Pupuke Road in the late 1860s, as with the last of his Church Road land on 28 May 1869. In 1887 Cooper still owned 173 acres in the Waiwera/Orewa area and another 110 acres at Waikumete. He died in Manly, Sydney, where he had lived for some years, on 6 October 1889.

By David Verran