WRECK RECALLED

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 13 December 1938, Page 9

WRECK RECALLED

OL'D WHALER’S DEATH THE ELINGAMITE DISASTER MR J. McINTOSH'S PART Well known for the assistance he gave with his whaleboat when the Elingamite was wrecked at the Three Kings in 1902. Mr John Mclntosh died at Pukenui on Wednesday at the age of 76. He was one of the coastal whalers of North Auckland in his early days, and later was a store-keeper on the gum fields. Born at Hokitika. Westland, in 1862, he was left an orphan among the gold miners at the age of four years. His father had been a gold miner. Eventually the child was brought to Auckland and placed in an orphanage. When a lad he became an assistant in a store at Houhora kept by Mr Loui Subritzky, a member of one of the few white families living north of Awanui. THE ZEALANDIA INTERCEPTED As a young man Mr Mclntosh was employed by Mr Subritzky on coastal trade cutters, having charge of the Mahurangi at one period. He left that employment to take part in whaling in one of old New Bedford whaleboats. At that time Maoris and a few Europeans used to hunt whales up and down the coast in this type of open boat. About 40 years ago Mr Mclntosh gave up that occupation because of the growing scarsity of whales and entered upon storekeeping on his own account at Houhora. When word was brought to Houhora by a boatload of survivors of the dis-1 aster to the Elingamite, Mr Mclntosh set of in his whaleboat in an endeavour to intercept a steamer with the idea of rescuing any other survivors. Off the East Cape he encountered the Zealandia and reported the disaster. The steamer promptly made for the scene of the wreck and picked up 89 survivors who had landed at the Three Kings, and whose plight unless prompt rescue had been made would have been serious. BOAT KEPT FOR 40 YEARS Through the years that followed, Mr Mclntosh retained his whaleboat and early in 1931 considerable interest was shown in North Auckland in a race by Mr Mclntosh in his boat with a fast 181 t yacht owned by Mr C. Thode. Mr Mclntosh was then nearly 70. and he had been in possession of his whaleboat for 40 years. The course was set from Houhora to the Motutara Rock in the Awanui Harbour and back. It was a calm day, the conditions not suiting the heavier whaleboat, and the yacht won. Mr Mclntosh married Miss Elizabeth Richards, a daughter of an early Awanui family, and in his later years they lived at the home of a daughter in Pukenui. He is survived by his wife and a family of eight.