The scene of the tragedy, the Waikino schoolhouse.

A man with a gun walks into a school.

He kills two, injures six.

After police arrest him, a bomb is found. Three sticks of gelignite wrapped in newspaper, with a fuse attached to a detonator.

He also had a knife, and a big grudge against a community he felt was out to get him.

But despite the similarities with the almost weekly litany of shootings from the United States, this isn't America.

This is little Waikino School, near Waihi, in 1923 and this is the story of New Zealand's only mass school shooting.

On Friday, October 19, 1923, Canadian expat John Christopher Higgins snapped and killed two children at the school.

But the road to the incident that left a quiet country school with its unwanted dark distinction began years before.

Fifteen years earlier, Higgins arrived in New Zealand and during his time in Waikino he worked as a local wood salesman. He lived with his family in Waitawheta, on the other side of the Ohinemuri River from Waikino. Nearby was the school with a roll of 143 pupils, staffed by principal Robert Theodore Reid, two assistant teachers, a student teacher, and two probationers.

John Christopher Higgins on his way to Auckland after arrest.

Over those 15 years, Higgins felt as though he was being persecuted by the world, but more specifically by his neighbours.

Higgins also had an unfortunate series of events occur on the land he was leasing.

His chickens started dying. Cattle grazed on his grass after his fences were cut. Queen bees were stolen from his hives.

The neighbours were blamed.

Higgins eventually got in trouble for keeping his youngest son home from school, locked in the house, to watch over the property while he and his wife worked.

A few nights before the shooting, Higgins found his mare dead in a paddock. He said somebody had killed it.

On October 18, 1923, Higgins told local farmer Colin Mason he needed a horse to take seven bags of wood to a Waikino resident. This was going to be his last delivery before giving up the firewood business.

In the past, Higgins had only visited Mason's residence, about half a mile from Higgins', unless he was in trouble.

A horse was loaned to him by another farmer, Matthew Arnold, on the morning of October 19.

Arnold had known Higgins for about seven years and found nothing unusual about his manner that Friday morning.

Thirteen-year-old Kathleen Sarah McGarry saw Higgins that morning. They exchanged pleasantries and went their separate ways.

Just hours later, Higgins shot McGarry in the leg.

Revenge

The schoolmaster Robert Reid, who was shot by Higgins.

"I am here for revenge" were the words repeated multiple times by Higgins at Waikino School.

He said it outside the building, and again in Reid's study.

He had left his wood delivery outside the local post office and made his way to the school.

Higgins was looking to get revenge for how he felt persecuted by his neighbours and the world. Justice had eluded Higgins, in his mind, and with a gun, a knife and explosives at the school was the only place he could get it.

On the barrel end of that gun held at the hip was Reid, the principal speaking to Higgins, trying to talk around the man who had appeared offering violence to his charges in the peaceful mining and farming valley's school.

Higgins told Reid he did not want to shoot him, and suggested the principal leave the school and get out of harm's way.

STUFF A sketch of Waikino School published in the Auckland Star, October 20, 1923.

But Reid would not move. He told Higgins he could not leave and if there were to be any shooting Higgins would have to shoot him first.

"Surely you would not shoot innocent children?" asked Reid. "I did not think you would be such a coward."

Higgins replied matter-of-factly. "That's what I am here for."

Reid asked him, "Why don't you go to the battery and shoot men?"

Higgins gave a short response. "No."

Higgins was there for revenge on the children of those he saw as out to get him.

Peter Raymond Shaw, right, wounded in the hand. Kelvyn Morris McLean, left, killed.

He walked back towards the door of the study, with the gun staying aimed at Reid.

Reid pleaded with Higgins but he fired point blank at Reid's head.

The bullet went through Reid's right shoulder and into his jaw.

Higgins left the study and preyed on the rest of Waikino School.

He entered the classroom of the younger pupils and fired in rapid succession. Teachers hid behind a cupboard while children rushed out doors and windows, and Higgins moved around in a seemingly deliberate and calm manner.

Twelve-year-old Alexander John Bustard was sitting in the seat nearest the door of the other classroom when Higgins began shooting.

He saw Higgins in the hallway. He heard Higgins fire. He saw children running away.

Bustard was frightened and left his seat to get out of the building. At the same time, Higgins entered that classroom and shot Bustard in the groin.

Despite his wound, Bustard ran and made his way outside.

Kathleen McGarry, who had offered a Reid a pleasant greeting only hours before, was shot in the leg, but also escaped out of the building.

Senior Sergeant O'Grady in the position at the book cupboard occupied by Higgins when firing out the window.

Kelvyn Maurice McLean, 13, was one of two who were not so lucky that day.

McLean knew Higgins, having helped him with his firewood in the past. He pleaded with Higgins, asking him not to hurt him.

Higgins fired – the bullet hit McLean in the leg.

McLean dropped to the floor. Higgins shot McLean twice more: once in the back of his neck, and another bullet passing through his neck and coming out the left side of his mouth.

The other fatality was 9-year-old Charles Alan Stewart. Higgins shot him once through the head.

Higgins later went back to Reid's study, where the principal was lying face down. Higgins dragged his body across the floor and tried to cram him into a cupboard. Unbeknown to Higgins, Reid was pretending to be dead.

While Higgins did this, police and locals closed in on the study. Constable Herbert Olsen aimed his pistol through a gap in the door but Higgins pulled the trigger first, striking Olsen in the groin.

That would be Higgins' final shot.

But he'd also left Peter Raymond Shaw, 12, and James Peter McKinney, 8, with gunshot injuries.

The aftermath

The window of the school house Higgins fired through.

Upon being arrested, Higgins told Senior Sergeant O'Grady he did not know why he went to the school.

Before the end of the day, evening newspapers around New Zealand had already reported two dead and several injured at the out-of-the-way country school.

The press identified Higgins as the shooter.

A 'Man's mad act', declared the headlines.

By October 20, New Zealand knew "a quite calm" and "quite self-possessed" Higgins had been charged with murder and was on the 9.15am express train under police escort to Mt Eden jail.

On the train he told Constable William Trask: "I am prepared to face the consequences of this terrible deed. I knew I was doing wrong, but could not help doing it. The devil was in me."

The funerals for McLean and Stewart were also announced, to be held the following day. The procession was one of the largest ever seen in the district.

The next week, on October 24, Waikino School was destroyed by fire.

It was labelled as the "sequel to a tragedy".

Police investigated but no charges were ever laid.

Classes resumed at Waikino School on November 5, 1923 – temporarily operating out of the Waikino Hall.

Constable Herbert Olsen was shot in the abdomen.

On December 14, 1923, Higgins was charged with two counts of murder and four counts of attempted murder.

His trial began two months later where he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

During the trial, details of Higgins' state of mind were shared.

He cut holes in window-less walls of his home to watch his neighbours, who he thought of as enemies.

Peter McKinney was wounded in the right hand.

He made a trapdoor so that he could escape if people approached the property.

Higgins watched his neighbours through telescopes and would only go into his house if all the blinds were closed and lights lowered.

His youngest son, when not locked in the house to keep watch during the day, was put in the stable to guard Higgins' horse until morning.

The Crown prosecutor argued Higgins' degree of insanity did not prevent him from going about his normal routine. They did not elaborate on this, leaving it to the jury.

On February 15, 1924, Higgins was sentenced to death after being found guilty of murdering McLean and Stewart.

It was noted that he showed no emotion on his final day in court. After the jury announced its verdict, Higgins had nothing to say.

Less than a month later, Higgins' death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment after it was was decided he did suffer from chronic delusional insanity.

He died in Avondale Mental Hospital in 1938.

Shortly after Higgins' sentence was commuted, his wife and two children moved back to Canada with money donated by the public.

The six injured victims all recovered. Reid, who suffered paralysis in his right shoulder as a result of being shot, never taught again.

Ninety-five years on

JAKE MCKEE CAGNEY/STUFF Waikino School principal Joanna Wheway.

Today, Waikino School bares many similarities to how the school was in 1923, but anyone unaware of what happened on that Friday morning could easily stay unaware.

A tile timeline of the school's history at the front entrance is the only memorial of October 19, 1923.

The tiles are wordless, apart from the years of events, so you wouldn't register the images on the tile printed with "1923" were signifying a school shooting unless you already knew.

The school buildings – in their third iteration since being rebuilt after the fire – are further into the hills, losing the waterfall view.

They still form a horseshoe shape, with the office and staffroom in the middle, flanked by classrooms to the south and a classroom and hall to the north.

The school roll is smaller today, but there is a third classroom.

Waikino School opened the 2018 school year with only 45 students and ended with 70.

When asked what the school's pupils know about the shooting, principal Joanna Wheway​ says it's not widely discussed.

"I don't think it's something the community want."

Wheway herself had no idea about the shooting before starting at the school at the beginning of 2018.

However, a school project saw two groups of children each create and perform a play based on the shooting on December 13 – the eve of the 95th anniversary of Higgins' murder and attempted murder charges being laid.

JAKE MCKEE CAGNEY/STUFF This tile timeline is the only form of a memorial of the October 19, 1923, school shooting.

"Quite a lot of them [pupils] made the connections to what they hear coming out of America," Wheway says.

Earlier in 2018, the school learned it owned a large area of bush behind the school, towards the original school site.

As a result, tracks have been built and classes are often held in the bush.

While building the tracks, a swimming pool was discovered. Wheway says it was thought to have been built in 1920 from cyanide tanks used to process gold. It's been pushed off its original site, now resting on a slope and rusting away in the bush.

JAKE MCKEE CAGNEY/STUFF A pool was discovered in bush land at Waikino School, thought to have been built in 1920 from cyanide tanks used to process gold.

"It can't be moved, so it's staying as a feature piece," Wheway says.

Located close to the current school site, near the edges of the bushland, it's hard to imagine it went undiscovered for so long. Perhaps, surviving the fire, it was left to be forgotten, overgrown in the bush while waiting for a curious wanderer.

It's a clue that something else was once there, a much different school where something dark happened almost a century ago.

But without being told by someone, it's unlikely you would know that once, in a peaceful valley, John Higgins picked up his gun one morning and went looking for revenge.

This story was compiled from historical newspaper reports and an interview with current Waikino School principal Joanna Wheway.