Whose Grave Is This On Campbell Island?

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30442, 16 May 1964, Page 5

Whose Grave Is This On Campbell Island?

[Specially written fur "The Press" by ROBYN JENKIN] QOSSIP and legend have many features in common. They usually begin with one or two genuine fragments which, by a certain amount of manipulation and juggling wind up as a story far from the truth.

The juicier the fragments the better gossip material they make, and if the basic facts concern a man, a woman and an unusual set of circumstances there is a good chance that what started out as gossip will finish up as a highly romantic legend. Nowadays we have all the means for keeping factual accounts of anything that should happen. But take a bunch of illiterate whalers, spending months on lonely islands, the secrecy which surrounded the early sealing parties, and the .inadequacy of the early shipping records and we have all the ingredients for the “Lady of the Heather” or “Did Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Daughter live

on Campbell Island?” Like all good legends, the story takes several forms. Perhaps the most common is that of a woman, supposedly seen by the early whalers, who tripped along the shores of Campbell Island wearing a Stuart tartan, paisley shawl, shoes with silver buckles and on her glengarry a sprig of heather. She lived in a small stone cottage surrounded by heather and from her front door a white pebble path lead down to the shore of Camp Cove in Perserverance Harbour. She was, so the story goes, the daughter or granddaughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It seems that at the festivities at Holyrood in 1745 Charlie was much taken by one Meg (or Peg) Walkenshaw (or Walkendaw) and when he was forced to flee to France, Meg followed him. A daughter was born and it was she who was later-accus-ed of treachery to the Jacobite cause. As a result she was abducted by a whaler, named Stewart, from Dundee—he is said to be the Stewart who discovered Stewart Island—and whisked away to bleak isolated Campbell Island. In another version the girl is the French granddaughter

of the Bonnie Prince. Of course, any version is first-class material and the novelist Will Lawson, made full use of the story in his “Lady of the Heather.” His version told of Marie Armand, granddaughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, and contained just enough real names and happenings to have a ring of truth. By making Marie the granddaughter of the prince, the dates fitted in well with actual events.

Another writer, Carlyle Ferguson, added to the legend in “Marie Levant.” He claims to have bought a box at a left-luggage sale in Dunedin. The box contained, among other things, the “confession” of one who supposedly knew the w r hole story. This time, the girl, Marie Levant, is not related to Charlie, but, by an involved sequence of child-swopping, turns out to be none other that the daughter of Louis XVII. The heather found her door was explained by the fact that her mother was Scottish, and, as in Will Lawson’s story, the grave and the heather are on the island for all to see. All the stories are variation! on the same theme.

They happen about the years 1820-1830 when competition among the sealers cloaked the area in secrecy. But 'she is always the daughter of some well-known person and always of Scottish-French ancestry. But all legends have a fragment of .truth. In Camp Cove there are the remains of a stone cottage with a white pebble pathway leading down to the beach. Round the ruins grow clumps of heather. Not far away is the grave of a girl, Elizabeth Farr, and until recently an elaborate cross marked the grave of a Frenchman buried there during the French expedition of 1830-40.

Of Captain Stewart a good deal is known, but it does seem odd that the one period of his life unaccounted for should be the time he was supposed to be taking the girl to Campbell Island. All the ingredients for a story are there, but what of the facts. Campbell Island last century was important for its seal colonies and as a base for whalers. The island was first discovered by Captain Hasselburg in the Perseverance in August, 1810. Sealers were left on the island while the

captain returned to Sydney with news of his findingsLater the same year he returned to Campbell Island Later the same year he returned to Campbell Island bringing with him a woman named Elizabeth Farr. She was also known as Helen Parr or Fahar, a convict from the penal settlement at Norfolk Island. This was not uncommon as many of the early sealing vessels carried women from the convict settlements.

During their . visit, the captain, Elizabeth Farr and four others set off for the shore in a small boat, but as they neared the coast a squall capsized the boat and the captain and a young boy were drowned. Elizabeth Farr was helped ashore but died and was buried next day. Her grave is the only woman’s grave recorded on the island. Captain J. C. Ross in his “Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern Antarctic Regions, 1839-43” mentions the graves of several seamen “and amongst them that of a French woman drowned in a boat in the harbour.”

Captain Stewart was known to be in the Southern Hemiphere from 1801 onwards, and in 1809 was first officer of the

Pegasus when he made his historic survey of the coast of Stewart Island.

By 1824, Stewart was in England forming ideas of Stewart Island as a trading centre for timber and flax. A syndicate was floated and in 1825 Stewart sailed from Sydney in the Prince of Denmark “for New Zealand and thence on an unknown speculating trip.” What Stewart did on that trip is not known for certain, but it is known that he went further south than Stewart Island for on a lonely ledge of rock in the Antipodes there is the grave of Foster, chief officer of the Prince of Denmark, dated December, 1825.

Next to nothing is known of Stewart’s doings at this time, yet the date corresponds with the time when, according to the legend, he was casting Bonnie Prince Charlie’s granddaughter on to the lonely shores of Campbell Island. In Will Lawson's story, the girl was often visited by Captain Kelly of the Sophia. Kelly was a whaler. Later he was Harboi"-master at Hobart Town.

In 1838, the Rev. J. Wilkinson wrote; "Traces of

Elizabeth Parr's burial plot are still extant on the southwest arm of Perseverance Harbour. It is reputed to be the grave of a French woman, arising, no doubt, from the fact that an officer of a French expeditionary ship lost his life in the harbour and is buried in a grave not far from the other.” This grave, of a French midshipman who was described as “a youth of gentle birth” was marked by an ornamental cross erected inside an iron railing. This was kept in good repair for many years until the cross disappeared some years ago. It would seem from all the available evidence that the two graves have been reduced to one, probably from the fact of the one being cared for, the other being neglected, so that in the end Elizabeth Parr’s grave was lost while the grave with the cross has become that of the French “woman.” The cottage and the white path to a natural jetty was probably sold by the sealers. But the heather is more difficult to explain. Nevertheless it is far more romantic to believe the daughter of Bonnie Prince Charlie once walked on the bleak shores of Campbell Island.

The new electoral system was formulated after searching inquiry by a committee set up by the Legislative Council, which conducted many public hearings before preparing its recommendations. For months before the elections, patrol officers visited every part of the territory to explain the polling procedure to people who in many cases had never had the opportunity of voting before. The stamp illustrated is not the first to reflect constitutional progress in this part of the world. The reconstitution of the Legislative Council was the occasion for two special stamps issued in April, 1961. The two names of Papua and New Guinea appearing together on a stamp may mystify some people, since Papua is, of course, part of the island of New Guinea. Papua was at one time known as British New Guinea; the territory of New Guinea, on the other hand, is the former German New Guinea, mandated to Australia after the First World War. Together they form the eastern part of the island. The western half, formerly part of the Netherlands East Indies, now uses over-printed Indonesian stamps.