A NOTABLE WRECK

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 21, 20 August 1928, Page 7

A NOTABLE WRECK

at Sydney heads. SEVENTY-ONE YEARS AGO. (yjiy w. F. Gordon, New Plymouth). The sad' story! Ims. often boon retold, but even Iso, doubtless , the following will be o£, interest to many of your rentiers. The good ship Dunbar sailed from Plymouth on Juno 2nd, 1857, for Sydney. She was a) full ship, and had 59 of a crew and G2 passengers. Among the latter were nauiy prominent colonists. On the morning of August 20th she was off Sydney Heads, but, the wind not being favourable, she sTecil off and waited ' flor daylight Earlv (hat

evening she was sighted by the lookout at South Head and presented a lino sight, ' being under tor in eaiivM.s, and it was the hist Lane she was! it was not the Heads, imf the Gap, ervcfi’ \seyn iVKun [thy )shor;e. Tlnj wind having shifted, the ship was unable t<> make an offing. t Tliere was a terrific isea. running amt a, darkness thVit could he felt. A FATAL All STAKE. About midnight' Captain Green determined to attempt the Heads, but which, in. the darkness, the capla id took to be the entrance. The look-

out man saw the cliffs and reported. /The order was given to put the wheel Rird over, bub it was too late, and with a terrible crash the Dunbar struck the rocks, and soon, all was over. Johnson, the only man saved, was washed overboard and cast on a, ledge of rock. This was on the Thursday night, hud next morning the steamer Grafton, inward bound, reported wreckage, and later a mail bag etc. marked “Dunbar” was found. On the second, day after tlTe wreck a handkerchief was seen, fluttering from a lodge on the cl iff a. jppul fa) young Icelander, /A.ntjnn D Woollier, volunteered to climb down what was known as Jacobs’ Ladder with a long rope, and ho rescued Johnson," who, with himself, , were hauled up to safety. Very few bodies were identified, and they, with the mutilated remmnp of others, weife laid, to rest. Johnson' was given a position ns lighthouse keeper at Nobby’s, Newcastle, and by a strange! coincidence he saved Hedges, the solo survivor of the ill-fated steamer Cawarra, which wns lost on the Ov-slqi-Bank, Newcastle, on July TTtb, 1866. She wa s hound from Sydney to Queensland ports and had damaged) her rudder (the, 1 cause of h lio mishap). Fifty-nine persons were drowned.

OTHE'R DISASTERS. Some years ago the writer was a, passenger in the s.s. Oollaroy from Sydney to Newcastle, and Hedges, who wa s “before the mat” on that steamer, pointed out the spot where the Cawarra wont down. Beside the Dunbar, the Duncan Dunbar was logt at sea, cud on AI arch 7(h 1801 the Phneho Dunbar was burned at Newcastle. She was a. lino isldp and w;w waiting to load cattle for Dunedin. She was totally destroyed). (’apt.

Crouch had -CBOD worth of merchandise on hoard, find £6OO in gold, none of which was recovered, Jamesi Johnson, who was saved from the Dunbar, died at an advanced age in Sydney on April lltli, 1915. WHOLE FAMILY DP OWN hi). On that awful night of August there was enacted another tragedy at Alolhee, near Dungog. N.S.W., when fhe whole of the Rosy family wore drowned. The Williams River

was in flood, ami d)nring the night the water snrro'undod the house making' escape impossible. Mr Ross cut a hole in the roof, upon which the whole of tho Tan illy We gathered scantily clad, and in torrential rain. The police and a crowd of settlers who had been informed of the. family’s unfortunate predictment, were quickly on tho. scene, hut were simply helpless to assist them. There was no boat of any kind on the river, and no possible means of getting a rope to those upon the roof. Presently a largo tree'carried! down! by the torrent .struck The house which collapsed, and the whole family were drowned. It was a fearful sight to. those on tho bank and

one never he forgotten to those who witnessed it. The elder child* reu of the family were lat school with tho writer tho day before. One of! the victims was a very" young child. Six of the bodies were recovered by the police j and some years afterwaruS a man fishing isome distance! down the river drew up car big Hue ai tiny skull, which’ was supposed to he that of the infant above-mentioned.