THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS and the FIRST SETTLEMENT UPON THEM.
• (From the Nelson Colonist.) Last week we published the narrative of the visit of the steamer Southland to these islands, on a vojago of exploration, for the purpose of ascertaining whether there were any shipwrecked people in any parts of the island. Neither the Victorian sloop of war Victoria, nor the Southland, fo*nd any person on the islands, and only a few traces of former habitations. Among these was a wellexecuted gravestone, bearing the inscription— I. Y., Died December 22nd, 1850. Aged throe months. By a curious coincidence the father of the infant whoso death and place of rest on the wild and silent shores of Port Ross is thus recorded, is at present in Nelson, and from him wo have gathered the particulars of the first expedition to the Auckland Islands, and its complete failure, and the abandonment of the company who started the Southern Whale Fishery Mr Thomas Younger, who is managing the mason and brick work of the new building for the Bank of New Zealand, under Mr Scott, the contractor, is the father of the little girl, “I, Y.," Isabella Younger, who was born, died, and was buried in the strange and desolate place. Mr-
Younger is the son of -Mr Thomas Younger, the engineer of the town of Sunderland, in the north of England, and in 1849 he engaged himself for a term of fire years ns mason and builder to the Southern Whale Fishery Company, newly establish'!!!, with offices in Cornhill, London. The first ship of the company, named the Charles Enderbuw, a barque of about 300 tons, set sail from Engi-md in December, 18-ti), to fix headquarters at what is now called. Tort Eoss, in the Auckland Islands, there to prosecute the whole fishery in the Southern seas. Thera were in the ship an experienced whaling crew, with men to undertake the necessary works on shore. These comprised eight married couples, and about thirty young men of different trades. Others were to follow in another ship, the Fanny. On board the barque was Mr Charles Emlerby. the manager of the company, who was also created LieutenantGovernor of the Auckland Islands, as a dependency of New Zealand, and after whose father, who had been in the service of the Crown, Enderby Island one of the group was named. After a four months’ voyage the barque arrived off the Auckland Islands, and found three tribes of natives (Maoris) there. They were all dressed in sealskin, and numbered about 100 in all—men, women, and chilnren, the last of whom numbered much less than one-third of the whole. The chiefs of the tribes were Matuora, Matatera, and Pilot Jack, who received his name from the fact of his having piloted the Charles Enderby into Port Boss, where the settlement was planted. The natives were all very friendly. On arriving at the anchorage Mr Enderby dressed himself in his uniform as Lieutenant-Governor, and read over his commission, the laws of the place, and his powers over the people. That day (ho landing took place, and the next the men set to work clearing bush, for the erection of‘the houses of the workpeople and the warehouse for stores and the oil which the ships were to bring in from their whaling ground. These buildings were all framed and fitted in England, and bed only to be put together on arrival. The company bad eight new ships, including the pioneer vessel, which was followed by the remaining seven, but all which went on the whaling ground returned with very poor fishing. They seemed to have no luck. None of them ever met whales, and, in fact, with the single exception of a large school of blackfish, a good number of which were taken by one vessel, there was no return to the company for all their outlay. The main cause of the want of success was the want of a practical man ns manager the ships and the settlement, plenty of whales were often seen out in the bay, at the head of which Port Ross settlement lay, but the vessels were all on their respective whaling grounds, at sea at the time, and although there were whale boats at Port Boss, and though it was the duty of the workmen, according to agreement, to take a boat and go after whales seen in the bay, yet landsmen as they all were, they felt neither very enthusiastic in this work, nor, of course, could they understand it is so as to put the arduous and special business of whale fishing into practice. The mistake was that a regularly experienced whaling crow was not left at the settlement ; for the landsmen, although formed nominally into boats’ crews, did not relish the idea of fastening on to a. whale, about whose management they knew nothing. After a lapse of two years, during which time bad accounts of want of success had reached England through Sydney, where an agent of the company, was stationed, two commissioners came out from London with large powers from the company, and these commissioners, seeing how the affairs stood, and how the shareholders were getting into deeper and deeper loss, broke up the settlement, and abandoned the enterprise. During the two years, the bricks brought out in the firstship to erect “ try-works”—the first thing that should have been done by way of preparation—lay unused ; and generally the whole affair was a'great failure. The houses, warehouses, governor’s houses, and all the material on hand were sold, and were taken to various places in the colonies, most to Sydney, and some to Auckland and Wellington.
While at Port Eoss Mrs Younger had a baby, ■which died three months after its birth, and over whose grave its father erected the stone already spoken of, forming it out of a large grindstone which Mr Enderby gave him for that purpose. While the company’s people were at Port Boss a visit was paid to the settlement by Sir George Grey and his lady, and they and their friends enjoyed a day’s pig-hunting on the island. The settlement was also occasionally visited by the Havar.nah and the Hy, the ships-of-war at that time on the Australian station.
Provisions wore supplied at stated intervals by the Sydney agent, (Mr Eobert Towns), who also sent cattle, and sheep, and other live stock on different occasions. The cattle and sheep were always placed on Enderby Island, which was the most fertile of the group; and on this island the greatest number of goats and pigs have been placed by the steamers Victoria and Southland.
The narrative given bj the Southland explorers, respecting the large number of seals which they found to exist in these waters, is quite in accordance with the experience of Mr Younger when with the whaling company. They were then, as now, very large and very plentiful; and might of themselves have formed an available source of employment for the people. The human skeletons found by the Southland are probably skeletons of Maoris who were on the island, as while the company’s men were there several of the natives died. The place had been vhited by whalers before ; for the five Maoris who came out to pilot the Charles Enderby in came, not in a canoe, but in an old whaleboat; and the Maoris spoke of whalers having been amongst them at times. Those of the Maoris who remained on the Island, after the breaking up of the whaling settlement, are believed to have shortly afterwards gone to Wellington, as Wellington traders were then occasionally touching at the Islands. The climate is described as being wet and cold, from tbe Southern position of (be group, which is situated about the 51st parallel S. Port Eoss lies of the head of a bay from two to four miles in width, and about three deep. At tbe entrance to this bay is an island called Ocean
Island, which blocks up the bay in the centre, leaving an opening at each end, between the small island and the mainland, through which vessels can enter. Out at sea from two to three miles distant from this Ocean Island, Mr Younger says there is a small rock called Bristow’s rock which, from its distance from the islands, and its small size, is dangerous to the navigation of these parts, and requires that a “ wide berth” be given to the islands. From port Ross passing vessels could be easily discovered, and were frequently seen during the time the company’s men occupied the now deserted and forlorn island.
Such is the story of the attempted settlement on the Auckland Islands, and the commercial failure by which it Was inaugurated ; a story possessing some interest both as regards the decline of the natives, and the spirit of enterprise which seeks to plant the Anglo-Saxon race in every accessible region, an interest that is nothing lessened fcy the fact that the present narration of the story is due to the publication of a description of a little gravestone that marks the silent spot where a little baby lies, and that the story itself is gathered from the lips of that baby’s father.
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Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 331, 11 December 1865, Page 1
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1,538THE AUCKLAND ISLANDS and the FIRST SETTLEMENT UPON THEM. Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 6, Issue 331, 11 December 1865, Page 1
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