American Whaling Vessels and John B. Williams

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga – Part IX
American Whaling Vessels and John B. Williams

American whaling ships were prominent among the 2000 vessels known to have visited tribal New Zealand before the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840. During their typical two year whaling voyages, these large vessels, which averaged 340 tons, not only reprovisioned at main trading ports like the Bay of Islands, Kapiti Island and Akaroa. Competing with English, French and colonial Australian vessels also seeking provisions, they also stood off every populated cape and peninsula and entered every bay and safe harbour to trade with Maori.

From the mid-1820s, smaller colonial Australian whaling-gun trading vessels like the Haweis, John Dunscombe and Prince of Denmark anchored off Motiti Island or entered Tauranga Harbour to trade with Ngai Te Rangi. Yankee whalers were also regular visitors to the Bay. One vessel stood off Whakatane to take on provisions and Maori sailors including the Ngati Awa warrior Hemi Paraone Te Waiwe. Another, with a large cargo of oil and whale bone, was driven ashore and wrecked to the east of Maketu as late as 1838. The cargo was plundered and the surviving crew enslaved by local tribes. Intriguingly, Ngai Te Rangi informed the missionary leader Henry Williams in 1825 that they had helped unload barrels from a large vessel within Tauranga harbour. This unidentified vessel (not the missionary vessel Herald which visited in 1826), was the first European vessel known to have visited Tauranga. The barrels likely contained rum, gunpowder or whale oil, the latter being a trade item prized by Maori.

A ship driven ashore on the New Zealand coast. In 1838, an American whaler with a cargo valued at US$10,000 was driven ashore during a fierce storm and wrecked in the Bay of Plenty

The American sailor John B. Williams of Salem, Massachusetts visited New Zealand and the Bay of Plenty aboard the whaler Tybee during 1832-1833. Later appointed by President Tyler as United States Consul at the Bay of Islands, Williams compiled a journal during his residence between 1842 and 1844. A combination of first hand observations, hearsay, fact and opinion, William’s journal nevertheless provides one of the first detailed pictures of the Bay of Plenty and its Islands, following Captain Cook’s first cursory description in 1779.

“The seacoast is mostly sand with bard [barred] harbours, only capable for small vessels to enter. The natives of these places were very treacherous often seizing small vessels and detain[ing] them taking property to a large amount. Should a vessel be so unfortunate as to get aground, going in or out of either of those places she is free for plunder and considered a lawful prize.

Of the Islands in the Bay of Plenty the first or northernmost one is Mairs [Tuhua or Mayor] Island, or Tuhua], high, sandy & covered with wood with a population of 200 natives subsisting chiefly on fish and mutton birds. When they are fearful of their enemies they retire to a flat top hill which is composed of loose rocks etc. These they tumble down on their enemies (that attempt to attack them) with great vengeance & effect. This island was formerly volcanic, having a large lagoon in the centre, doubtless has been the crater.

The next or inner island in the Bay is Flat Isld [Motiti] a little south of Touranga, is at present uninhabited, capable of cultivation, fine land of rich soil but no harbours. A small vessel can anchor between the island and the main, however the holding ground is not good being rocky bottom,

[An Island] known by the appelation of Moutohora lays about 7 miles from the mainland, highly elevated and one part is on fire, immense quantities of sulpher can be had (large cargoes). Around its shores are found excellent fish, and the natives frequently go from the main for that purpose. It has been noted and remarkable for black whale in great numbers. Whaling parties have been fitted out at very great expense, and often in danger of losing all their property. One season one whaling party was unsuccessful and came away leaving their property to whomsoever might think proper to use it. A rock about the size of a whale boat lies between Mair Island and Flat Island in a direct line between the two about midway."

Moutohora or Whale Island, Bay of Plenty

Williams journal casts light on the large sulphur deposits on Moutohora as well as the resident shore whalers.

"Fourth Island, so called, White Isld [Whakaari], has a volcanoe which is constantly burning, and issuing from it a very great smoke, which is often noticed to increase before a gale. It has a very large crater in the centre, running in from the east side. The level of the mouth of this crater is not more than 4 feet from the level of the sea. Here are to be found many kinds of variegated stones, with sulphur in large quantity. Pumice stone is also floating about the island, which must have been thrown out. It would be impossible for any person to remain on this island any great length of time (say a few hours) as the smell of sulphur is so exceedingly strong. The north part is covered with a scrub, and very bold water around the island, one or two small pyrimid rocks lay at some distance from it

1843. Touranga is said to be finest part of New Zealand; in this vicinity said to be a fine country and much level land about the sea coast, the soil very fertile. Potatoes & Corn are to be found in great abundance. And more flax has been dressed by its natives than by any others on the coast. 150 tons was procured for the Sydney market. Of late they have commenced salting pork.

Wood is very scarce, the plains are covered with nothing but fern, the hills being a great distance back, from where they are obliged to get wood. If indolence prevails they gather whatever may come in their way on the sea shore. Pipe clay is plentiful, covered with a very heavy black sand.

The Fishermen (natives) are very expert at Touranga, leaving early in the morning and returning late at night with a very great variety of fish, which that Bay is so much noted for its great variety. The whole of the long range of New Zealand Coast is abundantly supplied with beautiful fish.”

Of interest to modern day local fishermen, Williams included in his description of ‘beautiful fish’: hapuka, sting ray, flounder, snapper, kahawai, mullet, gurnard, tarakihi, crayfish and eel.

References
Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Slaves, Maori Masters: The Forgotten Story of New Zealand’s White Slaves, New Holland, Auckland, 2019.
Mair, Gilbert, Reminiscences and Maori Stories, Brett, Auckland, 1923: 2.
McNab, Robert, From Tasman to Marsden: A History of Northern New Zealand from 1642 to 1818, Wilkie and Co, Dunedin, 1914.
Williams, John, B; The New Zealand Journal, 1842-1844 of John B. Williams of Salem, Massachusetts, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, 1956: 39-45.

Images
Cuthbert Clarke, ‘The beaching of the French corvette L’Alcmene’, B-030-009. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.
'Moutohora or Whale Island, Bay of Plenty.' Image provided courtesy of East Bay Aviation and White Island Flights.

The schooner Columbine and the Anglican Missionaries

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga - Part VII
The schooner Columbine and the Anglican Missionaries

The 70 ton Columbine was a regular and welcome visitor to Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty. Built in Sydney and purchased by Church Missionary officials at the Bay of Islands in 1835, it was described as a ‘handsome’ schooner; one of a succession of vessels acquired to help establish and service New Zealand’s increasing number of coastal mission stations. [1]

In the hands of veteran skippers like Captains Mair (snr) and Stratton, the Columbine safely transported missionaries and their families, property, and stores from Sydney to the Pacific Islands, the Bay of Islands and around New Zealand’s coasts from the mid-1830s to mid-1840s. Impressed with the Columbine’s speed and seaworthiness, the trader Joel Polack described the schooner as ‘a beautiful model’ of its type, ‘admirably adapted for the coast [and] working off a lee shore.' [2]

Figure 1. Ship arriving and schooner departing the Church Mission station at Rangihoua, Bay of Islands

In March 1836, when the Western Bay of Plenty was wracked by intertribal warfare, the leading Ngati Haua rangatira Te Waharoa sent a messenger to Tauranga, warning the missionaries not to unload stores from the Columbine. Te Waharoa feared that his victorious warriors would plunder the vessel during their triumphal return home to Matamata. The Tauranga missionaries promptly sent their families aboard the vessel for safety, but the attack never eventuated, as Te Waharoa and his personal retinue were able to get to Tauranga first. By symbolically lying across the doorway of one of the houses, Te Waharoa rendered the whole missionary settlement tapu and the taua (military expedition) passed by without incident. [3]

Figure 2. William Fairburn was among the Tauranga missionaries who placed their families aboard the Columbine for safety in March 1836

In October 1839, the Rev Henry Williams and four missionary companions sailed through squally weather from the Bay of Islands to Tauranga, intending to visit Alfred Brown, James Stack and John Wilson who had re-established the mission at Te Papa the previous year. Unable to enter the harbour, the Columbine anchored off ‘Maunganui’, obliging the missionaries to row through ‘pounding surf’ at the entrance. The captain and mixed Maori and Pakeha crew endured five days of ‘violent winds’ before Williams was able to return to the vessel. [4]

The Rev Alfred Brown’s journal entries for 1842 indicate the importance of the Columbine to the Tauranga missionaries and early New Zealand mission stations elsewhere.
- 20th January: the schooner arrived in the harbour with ‘a large shipment of stores’ which took two days to unload.
- 10th February: the vessel arrived with a cargo of timber for the Tauranga station.
- 14th February: the Columbine took missionaries Brown and Wilson to Tuhua (Mayor Island), to remonstrate with resident Maori who had shown interest in Catholicism which Brown referred to as ‘Popery.’
- 29th March 1842: the vessel transported Rev Stack from Tauranga to the Turanga (Gisborne) station with cattle and stores. [5]

Figure 3. The Columbine was similar in tonnage and sail configuration to the schooners Rifleman and Eclipse, which later also plied Bay of Plenty and East Coast waters

Tauranga was also the last port of call for John Wilson, William Williams and John Colenso who were transported southwards by the Columbine to establish new mission stations at Opotiki, Turanga (Gisborne) and Hawke’s Bay. Colenso who had been aboard the schooner when it was nearly wrecked on Matakana Island during a visit to Tauranga in 1843, recalled his visit in 1844:

On 1st January we left the Bay in the Mission Schooner “Columbine”; on the 4th we anchored inside of Tauranga Harbour under Maunganui, and remained onshore till the 12th, visiting the various pas there – Maunatapu, Otumoetai &c; in which were a great number of Maoris, some of whom I had formally seen at Paihia. Here I gained some curious information from old priests. [6]

The names of the many interesting missionary men and women who sailed aboard the Columbine are too numerous to list here. It is likely however, that every missionary based in New Zealand between 1835 and 1846 sailed aboard the vessel at some time, as did their families.

Figure 4. In this sketch by Joseph Merrett, Ngai Te Rangi greet visitors outside Otumoetai Pa

Despite its seaworthiness and ability to work off lee shores, the Columbine had several close calls. In October 1842 it was driven ashore in Tauranga harbour during a gale. It was refloated with difficulty, with relays of Ngai Te Rangi warriors manpowering it back into deeper water, over the course of four days. [7] Again in May 1843 the Columbine went aground and was badly damaged while crossing the Wanganui River bar. After two months, and with the assistance of the Rev Richard Taylor at the Putiki station and Whanganui Maori, the schooner was repaired and refloated. Safely recrossing the bar, it sailed for Port Nicholson (Wellington) with a cargo of potatoes, pigs and passengers. [8]

References in the literature to the Columbine decline sharply between 1842 and 1846 as the missionaries built, purchased or hired vessels to service their own stations. In 1847, the schooner was acquired by Sydney owners, for the Pacific Islands and Australian coastal trade. Among the last references to the missionary maritime workhorse was a letter sent from Sydney by Leonard Williams to Rev William Williams at the Gisborne station in December 1847. ‘As we came in this morning we had a beautiful view of the harbour and brought up alongside the old Columbine. [9] During the Californian gold rush of 1849, the Columbine (Captain Sargeant) was among the 200 Australian and New Zealand vessels that carried passengers to California’s Pacific Coast by way of Tahiti and Hawaii. [10]

Posted by Trevor Bentley

References
[1] J. W. Stack, Early Maoriland Adventures, A. H. and A. W. Reed, Dunedin, 1935:16.
[2] Joel Polack, New Zealand: Being A Narrative of Travels and Adventures, Vol. II. Capper Press Christchurch, 1974: 151.
[3] L. W. Melon, ‘Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua’, in The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 71, 1962: 373.
[4] Paul Moon, The Voyagers: European Explorations of New Zealand, Penguin, Random House. 2014:  98.
[5] Alfred Brown, The Journals of A. N. Brown, The Elms Trust, Tauranga, 1990: 44-56.
[6] William Colenso, Fifty Years Ago in New Zealand, R. C. Hardy, Hastings, 1888: 43.
[7] Brown, ibid, 1990: 69-70.
[8] William Williams, The Turanga Journals, 1840-1850, Frances Porter (ed.), Price Milburn,   Wellington, 1974: 313.
[9] Stack, ibid, 1935: 464.
[10] Australia and New Zealand Mining Companies, 1848-1890, www.maritimeheritage.org

Illustrations
Figure 1. James Richardson, ‘Church Missionary Settlement at Rangihoua, in New Zealand [circa 1830], Missionary Register, Church Missionary Society, The Missionary Register for 1832.’ Seely and Sons, London, 1832: 279.
Figure 2. A. H. Messenger, ‘The Schooner “Rifleman’’, in James Cowan, The New Zealand Wars, A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period, Vol. II, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1956, 228. enzb.auckland.ac.nz
Figure 3. Artist unknown, ‘William Thomas Fairburn’, [1850-1869], 2018 332.01. Image courtesy of Howick Historical Village.
Figure 4. Joseph Merrett, ‘A meeting of visitors Mounganui. Tauraga in the distance’, [1843?], E-212-F-119. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington.

Early European Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga

The New Zealander, Captain Clarke and Captain Rapsey, 1829, 1832

Based at Port Jackson (Sydney), the schooner New Zealander (Captain Clarke), regularly whaled and traded with Maori around the New Zealand coast during the late 1820s and 1830s. The New Zealander was trading with Ngai Te Rangi hapu in Tauranga Harbour in March 1829, when Captain James and eight sailors drew alongside in a ship’s boat. They reported that their trading vessel Haweis had been attacked and seized by the chief Te Ngarara and the Ngati Awa people at Whakatane. Equipped with eight cannon and two swivel guns - the standard armament carried by vessels in the New Zealand trade – Captain Clarke immediately sailed the New Zealander to Whakatane, where his crew retook the Haweis and towed it back to Tauranga for repair.[1]

The Sydney schooner New Zealander
Frontspiece, A.H. Messenger, A Trader in Cannibal Land by James Cowan, Reed, Dunedin, 1935

When Captain Clarke returned to the Bay of Plenty later that year, the New Zealander carried the Ngapuhi rangatira and assassain Te Hana. At the Bay of Islands, some resident traders and Ngapuhi rangatira decided that Te Ngarara had to be punished for attacking the Haweis and jeopardizing trade along the New Zealand coast. At Whakatane, Te Ngarara was lured aboard the New Zealander and when he entered his canoe later that day, was shot dead by Te Hana.[2]

The records show the New Zealander at again at Tauranga under Captain Rapsey in February 1832, when a grand Ngapuhi amphibious artillery taua (expedition) under Titore Takiri and allied chiefs, entered the harbour. Having sailed in stages from the Bay of Islands, the taua comprised 70 waka and whaleboats, which transported 800 warriors and a siege train of ten purepo (ships’ cannon and carronades). The invaders were seeking utu (redress,) as Ngai Te Rangi had attacked and annihilated a combined Ngati Kuri and Ngapuhi predatory expedition on Motiti Island the previous year.[3]

At Tauranga, the invaders commenced a two week siege of Otumoetai Pa which, according the missionary Henry Williams, commenced with a remarkable daylong artillery bombardment. During the siege, the Maketu based trader Phillip Tapsell, whose wife Karuhi was Ngapuhi, entered the harbour on his cutter Fairy to supply the beseigers with six additional cannon, shot and powder. On Otumoetai Pa, the Tamarawaho hapu, who possessed at least two cannon of their own, bombarded Tapsell’s cutter, but were unable to strike it.[4]

On 31st March, Captain Rapsey who had continued trading with Ngai Te Rangi, sailed the New Zealander through the Mt. Maunganui entrance at first light and bombarded the Ngapuhi encampment located near modern day Fergusson Park. The Ngapuhi musketeers returned fire but without effect. As the schooner left the harbour, a  fleet of six waka, each with one of Phillip Tapsell’s cannon mounted in the bows, pursued and exchanged fire with the New Zealander in this country’s only Anglo-Maori naval battle.[5] After unsuccessful sieges at both Otumoetai and Maungatapu Pa, in mid April, the Ngapuhi expedition exited the harbour and returned home.

In 1834, the New Zealander’s new skipper Captain Cole, transported missionaries from the Bay of Islands to Tonga and continued trading and whaling on the New Zealand coast for the remainder of that decade.[6]

The Hokianga brigantine New Zealander
Vintage Transport – Sailing Ships, New Zealand Post, 1975

Captain Clarke and Captain Rapsey’s Sydney-based New Zealander is easily confused with the  locally built New Zealander skippered by a Captain David Clark, both vessels being active in New Zealand waters in the same period. The Sydney-based New Zealander was a large, schooner rigged trader-whaler. The Hokianga-built and based New Zealander, was a smaller, faster, 150 tonne, square rigged brigantine. Designed mainly for the trans-Tasman trade and described by the trader Joel Polack as ‘beautifully modelled for sailing’,[7] it made one crossing in a record six days, and another in nine days. Not surprisingly, some  residents of New South Wales were soon describing the brig as one of theirs.[8]

End Notes

[1] The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, 28 March, 1829: 3.
[2] Wilson, J. A. The Story of Te Waharoa: A Chapter in Early New Zealand History Together With Sketches of Ancient Maori Life and History, Wellington, Whitcombe and Tombs, 1909: 32.
[3] Bentley, Trevor, Tribal Guns and Tribal Gunners, Wilsonscott, Dunedin, 2013. 69-85.
[4] Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, 1826 1840, L. M. Rogers (ed.), Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961: 235.
[5] Ibid: 238.
[6] Early New Zealand Shipping Index, myancestorsstory.com/ships-index.html.
[7] Polack, Joel, New Zealand: Being a Narrative of Travels and Adventures, Vol II, 1838, Capper Press, Christchurch, 1974: 196.
[8] Ibid.