She was born in Russell, Northland, New Zealand c.1834[2] to a Māori mother (Kōtiro Hinerangi, of Ngāti Ruanui from Taranaki) and a Scottish father (Alexander Grey or Gray).

[3] She was baptised "Mary Sophia Gray" in 1839, and it is believed that she left home to be raised by Anglican missionary Charlotte Kemp at the Kerikeri Mission House then sent to school at the Wesleyan Native Institution at Three Kings in Auckland.

Local Māori leaders developed tourism industries alongside public accommodations and eventually allowed for surveys by railway companies to increase the tourist traffic.

Alfred Fairbrother, who was sent from England as missionary to Te Wairoa in 1882, was a controversial figure with some local people complaining to the church in Auckland about his brusque manners.

In 1896 a report by Annie Jane Schnackenberg, Superintendent of the WCTU-NZ department of Maori Missions, in The White Ribbon lists Hinerangi ("Sophia, the well-known guide"[10]) as president of the Whakarewarewa Union.

She told the local Tohunga that they then saw a waka with ghostly men that vanished as it came toward them - the elder explained that this was a sign that their ancestors were angry for the way the land was being abused by the tourists.

[3] With their homes and gardens buried in volcanic ash, all the displaced Tūhourangi people moved to the nearby village of Whakarewarewa (under the care of the Ngāti Wāhiao).