MISSING BOTTLE

Grey River Argus, 13 March 1940, Page 9

MISSING BOTTLE

STEWART ISLAND MYSTERY SEARCH CONTINUES An important Centennial celebration will take p’ace on June 5 next. On that date Stewart Island will commemorate the proclamation of sovereignty in the name of Queen Victoria, which was made over it on June 5, 1840. But the completeness of this forthcoming commemoration hinges upon the finding of a bottle. No doubt once an ordinary bottle — very likely the container of a ship’s rum—this bottle has assumed historical importance. It is also an elusive bottle. In it was placed the original proclamation document, and then it was buried. That was on the afternoon of June 5, 1840, but since then no one has set eyes on that bottle. Prolonged search has been made by individuals, and even by a ship ol his Majesty’s Navy, but the bottle has yet to be discovered. Until it is, Stewart Islanders will be unable to point with certainty to the spot where sovereignty was proclaimed, and they will be uncertain where to erect the memorial cairn, it is proposed to build in order to commemorate the centennial of annexation.

The story of Stewart Island and its bottle goes back to the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. For the purposes of this Treaty it was desired to get as many signatures of Maori chiefs as possible. The frigate, H.M.S. Herald, therefore, set out from the north on a signature-collecting mission. Captain Joseph Nias was in command and Major Bunbury accompanied him on this diplomatic mission. After calling at various ports on her way down the coast, H.M.S. Herald found herself at the southernmost tip of New Zealand. Captain Stewart, after whom the island was named, was on board as a pilot. He knew all that treacherous coast, and on June 4 without a qualm, sailed H.M.S. Herald into a cove of sheltered water in Stewart Island, Captain Nias getting the “wind up” thoroughly as Captain Stewart successfully negotiated the many hazards in this inlet. Sylvan Bay was the name given to this cove in Port Pegasus, and there, on the following day, June 5, a party from H.M.S. Herald landed, hoisted the Union Jack and proclaimed sovereignty. The proclamation was placed in a bottle and the bottle was buried under a mound on an island eminence which became a peninsula at low water. The log of H.M.S. Herald gives the bearings of the spot where the proclamation was made and the bottle buried, but in spite of this the exact spot has never since been located, and until it is the bottle will not be found. The bearings given in the Herald’s log may possibly be wrong; there may have been slips and an alteration in the coastline since 1840; and possibly the bottle and its contents have come to an untimely end long ago, either at the hand of Nature or, less probably, at the hand of man. NAVY JOINS IN SEARCH. The location of this historic bottle is an intriguing mystery to Stewart Islanders and to others also. Admiralty researches a few years ago seemed to be leading towards a solution of the mystery, and in 1936 H.M.S. Dunedin, with the late Mr T. Lindsay Buick on board, went south with the intention of finding the bottle. The weather, however, was not too kind, and in spite of an active search by the ship’s complement the bottle remained hidden. Further search by Mr Buick and others met with no better success.

Efforts to find the bottle, however, are still being pursued. The Stewart Island Centennial Committee has made arrangements with the skipper of the motor-vessel Ranui, Mr J. W. P. Thomson, to continue the search, Mr Thomson having been the pilot of the cruiser Dunedin when she entered Port Pegasus to join in the bottle hunt. Mr Thomson has already conducted several searches, and search has even been made round a spot described as “the” spot by a spiritualist medium.

But still no bottle and no historic document. In the event of the search not being successful before June 5 next, a cairn of boulders will probably be erected at a point where most students of the problem believe that the English naval party took possession in 1840. A STRANGE CHARACTER Stewart Island was seen by Captain Cook when he sailed round New Zealand, but was not recognised by him as a separate island. That recognition did not take place until 1809, when a seaman named Stewart (originally spent Stuart, apparently), who was trading between New Zealand and Sydney, found it to be separate from the mainland. So Stewart Island it was called. This Captain Stewart was a strange character. He had resided in this part of the world for a good many years, having left his wife behind in Scotland. He knew the New Zealand coast weii, hence his choice as pilot for H.M.S. Herald in 1840.

Tne ancient Scotch Jacobite, tired of his sea life, decided to return to Scotland and to his loving wife. The latter, however, had long ago given up her lawful husband as dead and was loving someone else. She refused to recognise him upon his return and he, disgusted with the reception accorded him by the house of his fathers returned to New Zealand. He finally died in Poverty Bay in 1851 at the age of 85.

. To the last he sported a royal tartan, and to the Maoris he spun yarns which would have done credit to Sihbad the Sailor. Legend has it, too, that he was not unacquainted with the bottle, but those which he emptied have not the historical interest possessed by the one which the Steware Islanders hope to find and which he was instrumental in burying, in that he was the pil/ot />f H.M.S. Herald when it originally went to Stewart Island.