ANCIENT WRECK RECALLED
STAR OF TASMANIA AT OAMARU
By Uramao.
Many readers of the Otago Daily Times, like myself, find pleasure with the eye of retrospection —pleasure not only with a review of the brighter passages of life; events the most distressing in their immediate consequences we often cherish in remembrance with a certain degree of enthusiasm. To this type of reader the column headed “Seventy-one Years Ago” recalling incidents and important events of that remote period, is read with avidity.
In a recent issue appeared an item dated from Port Chalmers, February 27, 1863, stating that, “The large freight of wool received from Oamaru by the steamer Geelong to-day was all transferred to the Star of Tasmania, which is now rapidly receiving her cargo at her moorings in Manstreds Bay, alongside of the hulk Cincinnati.”
What memories the names of old vessels conjure up in the minds of those who can recall the brave and romantic days of the sailors spreading their billows of white to the breeze as they bumped and rolled their way towards the horizon, and when the setting sun illuminated their hulls and white wings before the ships dipped down beyond the horizon. To those who can recall the days of sail in their pristine vigour the modern types of seagoing vessel seem somewhat prosaic and lacking in the elements that make the poetry and songs of the sea so alluring.
But this is digressing’ from the tale I would relate regarding the Star of Tasmania, relics of which are still to be seen in the town of Oamaru by those interested in such matters. The end of the brave old vessel was clouded by tragedy just five years after the notice quoted above from the Daily Times.
In the Oamaru Cemetery stands a monument to the memory of two small boys. It reads:
In loving memory of Malcolm Welsh Baker, aged three years, and of James Elphinstone Baker, aged five years; who were drowned in their mother’s presence during the breaking up of the ship Star of Tasmania, which, stranded at Oamaru on the evening of February 3, 1868.
The Star of Tasmania had gone to Oamaru from Port Chalmers to complete her cargo for London. That was in the days of the open roadstead before Oamaru boasted a harbour at all. Terrible storms and floods were experienced at the time and the vessel was observed one afternoon to have parted from her chains and to be drifting, dangerously. Eventually she was steadied with the starboard anchor. Sail was set and an attempt made to get to sea, but this proved abortive. Then she heeled over and the angry seas poured their bulk over her deck, which was stove in; her masts disappeared and the wool, of which she carried over 2000 bales, was precipitated into the sea.
This, however, was occassioning less concern to those on board and spectators from the shore than the fate of the human freight. The crew sought safety in the forecastle, where the two boys of a passenger named Mrs Baker were also placed by her for safety. Captain Culbert was observed to crawl forward, holding Mrs Baker, just before the after part of the vessel gave way. Several attempts made to get lines aboard were unavailing, for the sea was exceptionally rough. Attempts by a sailor to get ashore with a line were equally unsuccessful. The people aboard, however, clung on to their precarious foothold till the tide receded, when most were rescued, a surfboat man named Duncan Young getting aboard with a rope. The victims who perished were Petrie and Brooks and the two lads Baker (aged five and three).
The remnants of the wreck were sold by auction and realised £40, Some of the wood was used to build a residence in Ribble street, adjacent to the Club Hotel, and it is a tribute to British oak, that the house is in a good state of preservation to-day after 64 years and occupied by the owner. More of the wood was sold to farmers in the district. About four years ago, two gate posts were removed from the property of the late William Gardiner, the well-known farmer, when it was found that apart from the rot that had set in where the posts (apparently made from the masts of the Star of Tasmania) had been underground they were in a good state of preservation.
More of the vessel’s timber was used as joists of the Empire Hotel. During renovations made in 1925 when the joists were examined the oak was found to have withstood the ravages of time so well that it was unnecessary to replace that portion of the building.
Immediately after the wreck the vestry of the Church of England held a day of humiliation and prayer for the mitigation of the storms and floods, when an offertory realised £4 4s 10d. This was used to erect a gravestone over the lads in the Oamaru Cemetery. With the lapse of years and the dispersal of relatives of the boys the gravestone had fallen into disrepair. The cemetery trustees erected a new stone about ten years ago. Mrs W. Munro, of Otekaike, upon whose property some of the timber from the Star of Tasmania found a use, made a present of sufficient wood from the wreck to erect posts for the fence round the grave of the hapless boy Bakers.
Thus does a brief paragraph in the Daily Times conjure from the past a flood of memories. -Otago Daily Times, 16/3/1934.
Oamaru Cemetery.
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