He married the daughter of a Maori named Morgan, or, in Maori, Mokena. The land on which old Te Aroha was built belonged to Mokena, his daughter Ema Lipsey and her children. Morgantown and Lipseytown are named respectively after Morgan and Ema.

‘Mokena’s generosity’ was then described:

He made many valuable gifts to Te Aroha, among them the Domain, the hot springs, the area that became the Herries Memorial Park, the original site of the Catholic Church and the sites of the Anglican and Methodist churches and the school.⁵¹

To commemorate the centenary of Te Aroha Borough, David More wrote:

Now the memory of Mokena is to be perpetuated during the centenary by unveiling a bronze plaque in his honour on a concrete-based cairn in the Domain. And a new set of baths, to be called the Mokena complex, is being built in the Domain. It will replace the old No 1 baths. Nearby boiling water from the Mokena Geyser will be used.⁵²

The ‘Mokena complex’ is the group of spa pools at the site of spring 1.

The local perceptions concerning ‘gifts’ had some basis in fact. The actual gifts George Lipsey made were two blocks given to the Crown for Government buildings, a school, and some church sites on his wife’s land known as Lipseytown. A goldfield had been proclaimed at Te Aroha in November 1880. Lipsey’s motivation seems to have been, at least in part, to ensure that the proposed goldfields township would be on land he controlled. In December 1880, the Waikato Times reported:

During the last two days, says the Aroha Miner of Saturday members of the various religious denominations have been engaged selecting sites for the erection of places of worship on the land kindly granted for church purposes by Messrs Lipsey and Mokena Hou and family. The Anglican Church site is at Lipsey’s paddock; the Wesleyan on the western boundary of the High School Reserve; the Baptist near the creek running past O’Hallorans’ and the Presbyterian and Congregationalist near Stafford’s slaughterhouse. We have not yet heard if our Roman Catholic friends have yet picked out a section, though one is open for them, and we have no doubt that they will not be behind hand.⁵³

The Lipsey family certainly donated to the Crown sites in section 17 for a school (1a 3r 32p) and Government buildings (two acres). Because there was some doubt about the powers of Ema Lipsey to convey land in which interests were held by her two children, Ani and Akuhata, who were still minors, the transfer of these two blocks to the Crown was

51.C W Vennell and David More, Land of the Three Rivers (Auckland: Wilson and Horton Ltd, 1976), p 256

52.New Zealand Herald, 8 November 1880

53.Waikato Times, 25 December 1880 (doc J18, app B)