Early Shipping in New Zealand waters

Echo
In October 1819 Captain Spence departed England on a whaling expedition to the South Seas on the ship Echo, arriving at the Bay of Islands on February 8 1820. Echo’s previous voyages in the South Seas had been under the command of Captain Mowatt and she had not sailed as far as New Zealand. On this occasion when Captain Spence brought her into the bay, she found herself in the company of other British whalers Martha and Catherine. Soon after her arrival Indian and New Zealander joined them, and the vessels were all anchored in Paroa Bay when HMS Dromedary arrived with Reverend Marsden onboard. Boat crews from Echo rowed over to greet the naval ship. On March 2 Echo sailed from the Bay of Islands in company with Indian as they headed for the whale fishery. Both ships were back at the Bay in May, but it was to be Echo’s last appearance there. On June 13 1820 she was wrecked on Cato’s Reef but her crew was fortunately rescued by Captain Brind on Cumberland.

Eliza
On March 28 1836 whaling entrepreneur John Jones commissioned Captain John Howell to sail from Sydney to the south coast of New Zealand on the schooner Eliza to establish a whaling station at Jacob’s River. Now known as Riverton, Captain Howell’s venture proved hugely successful and many of his descendants still reside in the south of the island today. In 1844 Eliza was used to relay Bishop Augustus Selwyn from Port Levy on Banks Peninsula to Wellington. Bishop Selwyn had been visiting various settlements in the south where he had conducted baptisms and marriages. For whalers who were some of the first European settlers in New Zealand, this was the first opportunity for them to have their marriages to local Maori women made official by the church, and for their children to be baptised.

Elizabeth
In the 1820’s ships by the name of Elizabeth frequently sailed in New Zealand waters. Captains Kent, Wiseman, Young, Brown and Stewart were all at times at the helm of a vessel called Elizabeth either whaling or trading. However it is Captain Stewart and his ship that remains one of the most talked about in New Zealand history after being directly involved in an infamous incident that had far reaching consequences for both European visitors and native Maori inhabitants of New Zealand. By the late 1820’s it was becoming increasingly difficult to secure a cargo of flax from the Cook Strait region. Captains were frustrated by Maori chiefs who, realising the true value of their commodity, began to expect higher prices and refused to supply it for any less than what they asked. Captains were faced with returning to Sydney without profit and the prospect of very unhappy, potentially mutinous, crews onboard their ships. On August 23 1830 Captain Stewart sailed Elizabeth out of Sydney bound for Cook Strait intending to fill his ship’s hold with flax. When they arrived in New Zealand several other ships were already there with the same goal in mind. Many of these ships were empty, having failed to negotiate a supply from local Maori. During October, Captain Stewart in his eagerness to obtain flax, agreed to transport local war chief Te Rauparaha and 120 of his warriors from Kapiti to Akaroa on the South Island’s Banks Peninsula in return for a cargo load of flax. Elizabeth set sail for Akaroa on October 29 1830. Eight days later Ngai Tahu’s paramount chief Te Maiharanui had been lured onboard by the captain who claimed to want to negotiate a flax deal with him. Once aboard the hidden northern warriors leapt out and captured him. While being held onboard, apparently first secured by a European crewman, Te Maiharanui could do nothing but listen to the screams as his people were massacred ashore. Mission accomplished, Captain Stewart sailed Elizabeth, the northern warriors and their chief, and the captured southern chief back to Kapiti where they arrived on November 11 1830 where Te Maiharanui and his wife were tortured to death. On January 14 the following year Captain Stewart arrived back at Sydney with his cargo of 30 tons of flax. Soon after Pere, a fifteen year old relative of the murdered southern chief, and survivor of the massacre, managed to tell his story to the Governor in Sydney. The news of Europeans being involved in such an atrocity set in motion a court case in which Captain Stewart and his first mate where charged as being accessories to murder. However the case fell apart when the crown’s witnesses disappeared and it was argued that as the Maori chiefs were engaged in legitimate warfare, it could not have been murder. Captain Stewart is believed to have died on the home voyage to England, dropping dead on deck and his body was thrown overboard by his crew as they rounded Cape Horn.

Elizabeth and Mary
As early as 1825 the sealing ship Elizabeth and Mary was reported to be working off the Auckland Islands. In 1826 Captain Worth brought Elizabeth and Mary into Port Pegasus on Stewart Island to collect a sealing gang and found five other ships already in the harbour. So many vessels would have made for a hive of industry on the island and Captain Worth’s men were busy on shore cutting planks for their ship with saw-pits and forges. Several years later on 7 April 1829, Elizabeth and Mary arrived at Sydney with a cargo of oil and seal skins. She had come from Macquarie Island and was still commanded by Captain Billy Worth who spent six weeks at the colony before steering his ship out of the harbour and back to Macquarie Island. A few months later Elizabeth and Mary arrived at Port Underwood at the top of New Zealand’s South Island. Already there was long time resident Jacky Guard, with his ship Waterloo. However, all eyes were on another vessel Cyprus which had been overtaken by mutinous convicts on their way to Norfolk Island. Fearing for their own safety and feeling they had too few men to recapture the pirated ship, Captains Guard and Worth chose not to risk the lives of them men and let the vessel sail away unhindered. On September 22 Elizabeth and Mary arrived at Sydney with 18 tons of elephant seal in her hold. At this time the position of Master transferred to Captain Morris and he led a crew on one trading voyage to New Zealand from December to May 1830. During this time they managed to procure 24 tons of flax and two tons of potatoes. Elizabeth and Mary’s next captain was Captain Owen and he departed Sydney for New Zealand on 25 May 1830 and over the winter months made three trips across the Tasman in search of flax. The following year luck ran out for Captain Owen and his crew when Elizabeth and Mary was wrecked in New Zealand waters in early February 1831.

Elizabeth Henrietta
On 5 November 1823, Captain Kent departed Sydney on the Elizabeth Henrietta with a view to establishing flax trade with the native inhabitants of Foveaux Strait, at the bottom of New Zealand’s South Island. Kent had visited the region on a three month voyage earlier that same year on Mermaid. Conditions now seemed favourable for trade to be established and on February 25 1824 Elizabeth Henrietta was anchored in Ruapuke Bay at the island of the same name when she was hit by a gale and driven ashore. Any attempt to refloat the ship on their own would prove futile, so Kent sent his Chief Officer to Sydney onboard the sealer Wellington to enlist help. Soon after the distressing news arrived, HMS Tees was on her way from Sydney to see if the ship could be salvaged. After much effort from all available hands, they had managed to move Elizabeth Henrietta a few yards and it hoped that their strenuous attempt would be successful. Cruelly on May 10 another gale blew in and ended what little hope there was when the vessel was pushed further up the beach. All that could be done now was for Captain Kent and two of his men to wait with the ship while instructions were fetched from Sydney on what should be done. In the end perseverance paid off when John Busby who had some experience in this matter arrived on Mermaid and incredibly with the aid of only six men managed to refloat the ship in less than a month. Elizabeth Henrietta and Mermaid then set sail in company for the Bay of Islands. Before she sailed away however, Elizabeth Henrietta left some of her smaller passengers at the island in the form of mice, the sight of which sent Maori girls fleeing in fear. For many years after the small rodents were known on the island as Henriettas.

Emily
On 17 December 1825 Captain William Brind arrived back at the Bay of Islands from England on his new ship Emily. Brind was by now already a familiar figure in the Bay having been a regular visitor there on his previous ship Cumberland. Captain Brind brought with him stores from England for the mission station which he unloaded before heading off again for the whaling fishery. Emily made several appearances at the Bay of Islands over the the following two years as Captain Brind established himself a base there and lived with a chief’s daughter between whaling cruises. By the end of December 1826 Emily’s crew had taken 1800 barrels of whale oil in the 17 months since leaving England but it wasn’t until the following September that Brind sailed Emily back home. There he unloaded his cargo of whale oil and promptly set sail again for the South Seas on his next ship Toward Castle.

Endeavour (1)
On January 14 1770, Captain James Cook sailed Endeavour into a small cove he considered the perfect anchorage, and so named it Ship Cove. This marked the arrival of European ships and their crews to the shores of New Zealand's South Island. Cook first reached land off the North Island's east coast and sailed north around the island before arriving at Ship Cove in the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. Here he established friendly terms with the native inhabitants and was able to replenish his ship. Cook claimed possession of the area at the top of a small island, then left again to sail down the east coast of the South Island.

Endeavour (2)
In May of 1815 a ship with the same name as New Zealand’s most famous visiting vessel, Endeavour, arrived at the Bay of Islands under Captain Powell. They were there to obtain a supply of pork to see them through their voyage to Tahiti and Marquesas, one thousand miles north-east of Tahiti. In 1816 Endeavour returned to the Bay of Islands, this time under the command of Thomas Hammond. By now the Christian Mission Station had been established and Hammond approached missionary Thomas Kendall regarding five stowaways from Sydney that had been discovered on board during the voyage. Hammond requested that the unwanted runaways be left at the Bay under the care of the misson, but he could not offer to leave any provisions to cover their keep. Unable to provide for them either, Kendall insisted that Captain Hammond return the men to Sydney and the Endeavour sailed two days later on March 6. In 1822 when Endeavour arrived at the Bay of Islands, her master was John Dibbs and she was again on her way to Tahiti on another trading voyage. It wasn’t until 1824 that Endeavour, Captain Dibbs, arrived back at the Bay from Tahiti on her return voyage to Sydney.

Enterprise
There are two known occasions of a ship called Enterprise sailing into New Zealand waters in the early days of European contact. The first in 1817 when the American whaling ship Enterprise on a sealing voyage called at Auckland Islands, and then sailed onto a group of rugged sub-antartic islands called The Snares located 200 kilometres south of New Zealand. Here they found three men who had been left on the islands by the captain of Adventure several years earlier. The men were all escaped convicts from Norfolk Island, and when the provisions on the ship had began to run dangerously low, they were given the option of being put ashore on the freezing remote islands, or slowly starving to death on board. To increase their slim chances of survival, the destitute men were given some potatoes which they planted. Not surprisingly during their distressing exile over a long period of time, one of the men went insane and rather than risk him harming them, the others pushed the unfortunate man off a cliff to his death. Enterprise returned to Philadelphia, America in May 1818.

Another Enterprise to sail in New Zealand waters in the early days was built by Thomas Raine at Hokianga’s shipbuilding yard Deptford. In November 1827, Captain Clarke sailed her into the Bay of Islands while on a trading voyage from Sydney for flax. However the schooner was wrecked in May the following year when she was just a few miles north of Hokianga. It was believed that her entire crew was then killed by Maori. No less than five ships called Enterprise have been wrecked in New Zealand waters.

Experiment
In early April 1810 Experiment, Captain Dodds, arrived at the Bay of Islands on a trading voyage from Sydney. While at the Bay the captain and crew of Experiment were alarmed to hear of four white men who were being held inland along a river that ran off the north side of the Bay of Islands. Several boat loads of crew embarked on a dangerous mission up the river in an attempt to rescue the men. However after traveling ten miles upstream the crew were forced to leave the captive men to their fate when they began to fear for their own safety, and reluctantly returned to the Bay. The following day, April 9, Captain Dodds and his men continued their voyage south to Cook Strait, before returning to Sydney.