TRAGIC SHIPWRECK

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 17 December 1947, Page 10

TRAGIC SHIPWRECK

GENERAL GRANT WAS CARRYING GOLD ATTEMPT AT RECOVERY Behind the intention (announced recently) of an Australian syndicate to try and recover the gold from the General Grant and the Niagara lies one of the most moving stories of the sea. The Niagara's story is of recent years, and is well known. That of the General Grant goes back 80 years. It is a shipwreck saga * perhaps unsurpassed for sheer drama. The General Grant, a fine ship of 1200 tons under Captain Lopghlin, sailed from Hobson's Bay, Victoria, on May 4, 1866, with a valuable cargo of wool, hides and gold, and carrying a large number of passengers. She was Londonbound. At 1 a.m. on May 14. the vessel crashed on to towering cliffs and then drifted slowly astern for half a mile, when she struck again. Next she canted towards the land, and finally drifted into a cave about 250 yards deep. Startling Development At dawn, steps were taken to land the people. After two boats had been launched, there was a startling development. As the ship drifted further in to the cave with the falling tide, the top of one of her snapped-off masts jammed against the cave roof. This must have sprung the ship’s hull, for she began to fill and settle rapidly. Tragedy deepened every moment. One of the small boats was smashed against the rocks, and the men and women in the other boats had to sit helplessly by, watching their friends drown. The captain was still on board the General Grant., and he went down with her.

After drifting about for some hours in the hope of picking up any who might be floating in the sea, the survivors in the two remaining boats turned away and set a course for Disappointment Island, about 10 miles from the spot on the main Auckland Island where their vessel had struck. In attempting to land on Disappointment, the smaller of the two boats was swamped. Her occupants managed to scramble ashore, but most of the food and stores which had been saved from the General Grant were lost. Yet this was only the beginning of the saga of ffie General Grant’s people. More than 18 months of brutal hardship, with death 1 and suffering among them, were still to be spent by those who finally survived this ordeal. Fifteen Survivors When they finally landed from their small boat on Disappointment Island, the survivors numbered 15 —one woman and 14 men. They were Bartholomew Brown, chief officer of the General Grant; Andrew Morrison, William Newton Scott, Peter Mac Nevin, David McLellan, Joseph Jewell, Cornelius Drew and William Ferguson, all able-bodied seamen; William Murdock Singuily and Aaron Hayman, both ordinary seamen; and five passenger's, Mary Ann Jewell (wife of seaman Jewell), James Teer, Frederick Patrick Caughey, David Ashworth and Nicholas Allen. Among them, the survivors had one match. It probably saved all of them from dying of exposure and exhaustion. They managed to light a fire, and from then on they never let it go out. Then began a long, dreary, dispirited wait. Dreams of civilisation and home yearned in their hearts. Someone had the idea to launch “messengers”— rudely carved miniature ships, up to 3ft. long, kept upright by a keel made from a piece of iron. On the “deck” of this miniature was cut, in legible characters, the story of their plight. Another plan was to inflate the bladders of seals which they killed and, tying them to pieces of wood on which messages had been carved, set them adrift. So far as is known, not one of these “messages” was ever picked up. All the time, they were living on seal, and making garments from the skins. Bold Effort to Reach N.Z.

After some months a bold effort to reach New Zealand was decided on. The pinnace, 22ft. long and with a beam of sft. 4in., was “decked” in with sealskins, equipped with a crude sail, and provisioned. On January 22, 1867, she set out, carrying Bartholomew Brown (chief officer), Scott, Morrison and McNevin. They went with the prayers of the 11 left behind —but they were never heard of again. For the 11 left, life dragged on. They found odd tools and implements, apparently left by whalers, and they managed to eke out an existence. Then, on October 6, 18 months after they had been wrecked and 10 months after the pinnace had sailed away, a ship appeared on the horizon. Huge fires were lighted, and the one boat left was launched. But the ship sailed away without seeing them. It was a cruel blow. Two More Sad Experiences The party had two more sad experiences. The seaman McLellan became ill and died, and on November 19 they again had the mortification of seeing another ship sail by without noticing their frantic signals. Then, on November 21, rescue came. The whaling brig, Amberst, from Bluff, under Captain Gilroy, sighted the fires and took the castaways on board. The General Grant’s manifest showed 25760 z. of gold in her cargo, and among the passengers were 68 gold-miners (all drowned when she struck), who were taking their gold back to England with them. If Diver Johnston’s syndicate can retrieve any of this gold, it will have succeeded where others have failed. One craft, the Southland, built in Scotland to serve as a tug at Bluff, attempted to recover the gold, but it was a disappointed crew that returned to Bluff. On March 26, 1870, the schooner Daphne sailed from Bluff to try again. The expedition was fruitless, and it ended in the deaths of six members of the party. Among the six was one of the survivors of the General Grant, the passenger David Ashworth.