A FAMOUS CHARACTER

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18585, 20 December 1934, Page 11

A FAMOUS CHARACTER

(To the Editor of tho Herald.) Sir, —I am sending you some particulars of a very interesting character whose career I’m sure .will he read bj your readers witli much interest. One of the most notable and famous characters who sailed around the New Zealand coast in -early days was Captain William Stewart, who discovered and named Stewart Island. In one of the old chronicles of New Zealand lie is described as a “Scottish Jacobite who bad seen the world and drunk Burgundy.” Presumably it was- under tho intluence of this beverage that be boasted that he liad marooned a woman of noble birth on one of the stormy sealing islands away to the south. Doubtless it was to this remark also which gave rise to the legend that Charlotte Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie’s daughter, was kidnapped and taken by an Aberdeen whaler to Campbell Island, where she was supposed to have lived out. the remainder of her life as a lonely exile. Certain it is thht at one time a European woman did live there, lor the remains of her hut and the path she built of tiny pebbles are a fact. So also is the Scottish heathogAwhich grows on what is pointed out aPner grave. Who she was- and how she came there must remain for ever a mystery.

Stewart’s iirst arrival in tho South Seas was about 1801, having previously seen service with the British Navy in the West Indies. lie crossed Baron dc Thierry in one of his grandiose schemes for becoming King of New Zealand, de Thierry wrote to Earl Bathurst stating that Stewart was not only a deserter from the navy but had also been a prizemaster aboard a privateer. Anyhow, Stewart was well supplied with funds on his arrival in Sydney. For some years he was engaged in the Bass Strait sealing trade and later in th southern islands of New Zealand. 11 was one of the earliest on the scene. Tn 1809 he joined the ship Pegasus, and it was while with this vessel that he surveyed the coast of the island which to this day bears his name. Very early he grasped the possibilities of the New Zealand flax and timber trade, and went

to England to float a company to. develop a tradrfor thf»e .products. ttWaw on this trip that he returned to Scotland in order to see his wife, but she, believing him dead, had married agairr-and denied his identity. So back again he went to. the stormy southern walets he knew . sor well. His flax and timber scheme failed, arid after that he ‘took such navigating jobs as offered and a sailing-mastership. His last notable performance was the piloting of fthe H.M.S. Herald on the occasion of governor Hobson’s sending Major Bunhury to hoist the flag at, various points p.f-the South Island.

Stewart’s last days Tvero_spßirtrifi Poverty* Bay, where he was exceedingly popular among the Maoris.. Hjdi B#ved here about the year 183? Captain J. -W.'.Harris, <Sf the earliest traders and laiowri familiarly as Pene Hareti and with whom he was very friendly. After living with him at Opou, ho died in 1839 and yras buried there: " ‘

lie was a familiar figure with' the pakeha and Maori alike, wearing kj.lts of the .Royal Stuart tartan, sharing Jiis pipe with his native friends, and drinking Burgundy to the last. With, liis passing went ( lie last of ..New Zealand’& early adventurers, lire soloisurvivor of that lawless company jvnp.'saijlpH "their ships about our early coasts arid wdin dared shipwreck and massacre «<t part of their daily lives. Tjieir doings were in many cases more than questionable", lint for all that they left. behind-them for future generations of • Now' ZfraJanders a tradition of high and rollicking courage. It will be one of the purposes, and objects of the Poverty Bay "Early Settlers’ Association to locate’ Captain Stewart’s grave and erect some/ suitable memorial to mark his. last- resting l 'place. -Yours, etc., JAS. B. POYNYIjIR, ■ Organiser, Poverty Bay Early Settlers* Association.

P.S.—There is a slight difference as to the period he lived here. (Some chronicles have it that ho arrived here in 1847 arid died two years later.—J.B.P.