TRAGIC EVENT RECALLED.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16218, 22 May 1918, Page 7

TRAGIC EVENT RECALLED.

DEATH OP AN OLD SETTLER.

The death of Mrs Honour Anderson, which took place in Christchurch on Monday, at tho residence of her daughter, recalls the tragic death of her first husbancl, Mr William Belcher. In 1867-68 Messrs Belcher and Fairweather held the contract for erecting tho poles for the telegraph line from Christchurch to Nelson. On a Sunday in October, 1868, the ketch Crest, loaded with left Akaroa for Kaiapoi. Those on board wore Captain W. A. Ellis, master and part owner, E. Cunningham, seaman, J. B. Barker, part owner, and Mr W. Belcher, charterer of the craft. The weather was fine, arid no one expected any casualty from wind or tide, but next morning Mr Barker arrived in Akaroa, and reported that the vessel had been wrecked, and he was-the only survivor. Later two men, named Rhodes, reported that they had visited tho locality whero tho vessel was said to be wrecked, and rescued Cunningham from a rock, to which he had swum after Barker left, and ho believed Ellis and Belcher were alive on the craft, which had drifted into a cave over a reef covered with kelp. Cunningham said Ellis could have saved himself by swimming, but had refused to leave Belcher, who could not swim. The weather was moderate for two or three davs. and everything was done to reach tho two men. Ellis succeeded in dotting one of the ropes, which were drifted into the' cavo, but its strands parted. A_ man named Dominique tried to swim into tho rave, but without avail. Ellis and Belcher could bo sosn, and their cries heard. They rigged two pieces of rope to the top of tho cave, sat on n board when tho tide came in. At Hi ah water tho moutli of the cave was submerged. For three days the suspense was great, but on the boats going out on the fourth morning the cave was discovered to be vacant. A tablet in Akaroa Church commemorates tho snrl event of fifty years ago. The late Mrs Anderson, who was 87 years of ago, was a vory old resident of Kaiapoi.