The Cutter Three Bees

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 88, 15 April 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

The Cutter Three Bees

A TALL-MASTED CUTTER, a fortune in gold in the owner's locker ; three bad men, and the dark and freedom of the sea— all the elements were here for a deed of murder, robbery and piracy. This is a factual story; it was a tragic episode of nearly a century ago on the east coast of Auckland, the scene of many a strange adventure ana crime in the "dangerous days." One day in 1843 John Kennedy, tim-ber-man, sailor and shipwright, sailed from the bay of Harataunga—known now as Kennedy's Bay—for either Auckland or the Bay of Islands in a cutter he had built himself, taking with him a largo 3um in gold. Neither he nor the cutter* was seen again. The cutter bore the curious name of the "Three Bees." The mystery surrounding the disappearance of the small trading vessel so near Auckland was. not explained by any sudden storm, and no wreckage was reported. In an endeavour to ascertain the facts of the Three Bees incident, I made inquiries at one time and another over some years; it in only now that I have been able to put together a connected account, linking up one item with another. But there are many missing links, and some of these can probably be supplied only from New South Wales records. To begin with the first appearance of John Kennedy on 'the New Zealand scene, we go back to the year 1836, when H.M.S. Buffalo came to New Zealand to collect kauri spars for the ships of the Royal Navy. Kennedy came in the ship for the purpose of selecting suitable kauri trees at Mercury Bay. and after supervising the squaring of the logs he shipped and stowed tnem. Kennedy remained on the coast, first at Mercury Bay and later at Harataunga. Wlfen the Buffalo made a second visit to that place he was loading her with squared logs for spars when the vessel was wrecked on the shore, now known as Buffalo Beach. This was in 1840. The Admiralty dispatched a replace ship, H.M.S. Tortoise, usually employed as a store-ship and transport. John Kennedy loaded her from Tairua while she lay at anchor under the Shoe and Slipper Islands. Kennedy had employed a number of men, Europeans as well as Maoris, to fell, saw and square the kauri log 3. After paying all his sawyers and axemen he turned to and completed a strongly timbered cutter, which he had been building at Harataunga for his coast trading work. He had married a Maori

A Piracy-And-Murder Mystery Off The Auckland Coast

woman, and had established himself comfortably at this snug little port, which now became known as Kennedy's Bay. He named the vessel in memory of his old home in the North'of England; there was a well-known wayside inn in the North Country, which bore the name and sign of '-The Three Bees." It was Known at the kauri-working bays along the coast that John Kennedy had made considerable profits on his dealings in kauri spars, and that he had received a large payment in gold from the Tortoise's commander. -He had in all over £4000, which was said to be mostly in gold. This money he was anxious to place in a bank, either at Auckland or at Kororareka, Bay of Islands, where he had done business before Auckland settlement came into existence. , Kennedy engaged three of the men who had been working for him as crew for the cutter. These men, it was concluded later, had.come from New South Wales; they were bad characters and probably ex-convicts or tieket-of-leave men. There were many men of this kind on the coast, who had stowed away in whaleships and trading craft. The Three Bees, taking departure from the home bay, slipped along up, the coast with a fair wind, everything' set, jackyard-topsail aloft. Two hours' sail from Harataunga would put her up

abeam of the lofty dark mountain of Moehau, Cape Colville. It was growing dark by the time she was off the pitch of the Cape. Cuvier Island was twenty miles away to the E.N.E. No lights m those waters that year, 1843. Dark -heaving -waters, capes and island headlands of unrelieved gloom. Lonely places"; although coastwise traffic was beginning to brisk up the bays and estuaries about the Hauraki. The night closed down and the lonely cutter was one with the night. No navigation light; Kennedy intended furnishing his little vessel shipshape and complete at the Bay of Islands. Kororareka was still the most frequented whaling port, and the oldestablished ship chandlery stores were better stocked than those of Auckland town.

Some time that night, most probably very early in the morning hours, when men were most likely to be off their guard, murder was done in the cutter. Kennedy apparently was unsuspicious of his crew; although he was not likely 'to be comfortable in mind until he had his money safely deposited in the bank. Midmght Murder But with three ruffians intent on killing him, it was not likely that he would be given a chance for his life. One smashing blow, iron weights made fast to his legs to take him down, and over the side he goes.. The gold had been stowed away by John Kennedy in two boxes in the locker under his bunk in the small cuddy. Probably one of the men also bunked in the cabin; the other two would sleep forward in the dog-kennel of a berth there. The. pirates counted the gold and estimated its weight. Four thousand sovereigns roughly would weigh ninety pounds troy. Each man could therefore make up a swag weighing about thirty pounds jn his blankets. The bundle would not be bulky enough to attract attention out of the ordinary, so long as no inquisitive shore-dweller lifted it. The shore T The three murderers must land somewhere, and soon. A council of blood and guilt. They decided on Tauranga, or thereabouts. But it would never do to show up there, or anywhere else, in the Three Bees. "Well scuttle her" they decided, "and land in the dinghy—if it will carry us.

Well get close inshore, and make two trips of it." And that was done, whe& thev had dodged down the coast, lying close under Mayor Island one day, with sails stowed. "They took her in dose to the mainland under cover of the night.

The Three Bees "vanished from the face" of of the waters between dark and morning. Some time later, a day or two, or it may have bean three, the three pirates rolled out of a snug camp near Tauranga Heads,, and proceeded to tramp across the island. They took their time about it; a trading store here and there and the Maoris supplied some of their needs; they had a gun for the birds in every bit of bush and every stream and swamp. They reached Auckland, and avoiding the town made their way to the Kaipara. and so up to the Northern Wairoa. There New Zealand quits itself of the three murderers. They shipped as sailors in a timber-laden vessel for Sydney.

Nemesis Came That was the •beginning ©f the end for them. Sydney was just one of those places, in fact the principal one, they should have avoided. One of the party presently was picked up by the police, on suspicion of murders in New South Wales before the New Zealand interlude. This man, reports stated, confessed to the murder of nine men at various times, and admitted also that he and his gang murdered John Kennedy on the New Zealand coast. The ruffian. was hanged; so at least one of the murderers met his just fate. Probably it was some of this blood-won gold that led to the discovery of the murderer. %

It has been mentioned that Join Kennedy, the timber man, had a Maori wife at Harataunga. A son was bora to them, and this half-caste boy was two years old when his father disappeared, and with him the family's treasure. The mystery was not cleared up until the news of a murderer's confession, long afterwards. The mother presently left Kennedy's Bay for Auckland town, taking the little boy, Joseph. When he was nine years old he raa away to sea in a coasting craft. At the age of 18 he was in command of a vessel in the AnstnflSti trade. Captain Joseph Kennedy in biter years became a. prominent master trading to and from Gisborne. He commanded the schooner Tawera and other vessels, and later was harbourmaster and pilot at Gisborne. He went into business with Captain G. E. Read, in fact these two veterans of the coast were the leading men of commerce in Poverty Bay. Names and history, and Captain Kennedy's descendants, of blended pakeha and Maori blood, are numerous on the East Coast to-day.