Mahogany Ship

The Mahogany Ship refers to a putative, early shipwreck that is purported to lie beneath the sand in the Armstrong Bay area, approximately 3 to 6 kilometres west of Warrnambool in southwest Victoria, Australia. In many modern accounts it is described as a Portuguese caravel.

While there is no conclusive evidence such a wreck exists today or that it ever existed, accounts of the relic persist both in popular folklore and in publications of varying academic rigour. Early reports relating to the ship touch upon two cardinal characteristics: it was described as being constructed of panels and its timbers were said to be of a dark wood, described as either mahogany or cedar. In terms of these criteria, the vessel did not resemble ships built in northern Europe in the 18th or 19th centuries.

Overview

For over a century and a half the mystery of this ship has captured the imagination of Australians. This fascination is largely because the existence of such a vessel could throw a different light on the earliest phases of exploration of the eastern seaboard of Australia by Europeans.

In January 1836, a party of three whalers from Port Fairy travelled to the mouth of the Hopkins River in search of seals. Their boat overturned and one man was drowned. The survivors were walking back to Port Fairy along the coast when, about halfway along, they discovered the wrecked ship in the sand dunes. The sighting was reported to Captain John Mills, who was in charge of the whaling station at Port Fairy. It is reported that Mills subsequently visited the wreck and described it as having very "hard dark timber – like mahogany", giving rise to the name. Many historians believe that this account by Hugh Donnelly is the first reliable eyewitness account of the wreck, although it appears that Captain Mills himself placed nothing on the public record in writing. Donnelly first wrote this account in a letter to the "Warrnambool Standard" on 3 March 1890.

Some writers dismiss such tales as hearsay and argue that their supporters have been too romantic in the assessment of the import of the alleged wreck. Donnelly's credibility as an eyewitness has been seriously questioned and there is convincing evidence he did not arrive in Victoria until July 1841. Nevertheless, despite all the doubts, the fascination continues. Some devotees have spent much of their lives trying to unravel the mystery, even carrying out excavations in the region in an attempt to unearth remains of the wreck. Three Mahogany Ship Symposia have been conducted in nearby Warrnambool: in 1981, 1987 and 2005, attracting significant public and academic interest, and the contributions of Manning Clark, Barry Jones, Kenneth McIntyre, Lawrence Fitgerald, Ian McKiggan, Bill Richardson, Edmund Gill, Jack Loney and many others.

Any search for buried timbers or artefacts will always be fraught with difficulties. The sand dunes in which the vessel may now rest have changed drastically over the years, possibly in response to the introduction of livestock and pests such as the rabbit from Europe in the 1830s and 1840s. These creatures have contributed to destabilisation of the dunes, resulting in the generation of massive sand drifts that have destroyed the coastal road and overrun large areas of grazing land.

Reports of sightings

In the early 1990s, Ian McKiggan documented forty purported eyewitnesses to the Mahogany Ship. While these were of varying degrees of detail, they indicate a strong local tradition about the wreck in the area. One of the earliest was a letter written on 1 April 1876 by Captain John Mason of Port Fairy to the Melbourne Argus.

Riding along the beach from Port Fairy to Warrnambool in the summer of 1846, my attention was attracted to the hull of a vessel embedded high and dry in the Hummocks, far above the reach of any tide. It appeared to have been that of a vessel about 100 tons burden, and from its bleached and weather-beaten appearance, must have remained there many years. The spars and deck were gone, and the hull was full of drift sand. The timber of which she was built had the appearance of cedar or mahogany. The fact of the vessel being in that position was well known to the whalers in 1846 (1836) when the first whaling station was formed in that neighbourhood, and the oldest natives, when questioned, stated their knowledge of it extended from their earliest recollections. My attention was again directed to this wreck during a conversation with Mr M'Gowan, the superintendent of the Post-office, in 1869, who, on making inquiries as to the exact locality, informed me that it was supposed to be one of a fleet of Portuguese or Spanish discovery ships, one of them having parted from the others during a storm, and was never again heard of. He referred me to a notice of a wreck having appeared in the novel "Geoffrey Hamlyn", written by Henry Kingsley, in which it is set down as a Dutch or Spanish vessel...

Another definite account was presented by the former editor of the Warrnambool Examiner, local historian Richard Osburne, who wrote about the wreck in his book "History of Warrnambool" (published 1877):

"In connection with this wreck, the author remembers to have noticed a wreck in the hummocks between Belfast and Warrnambool, in 1847 or 1848; but it was much nearer Warrnambool than Belfast - in fact, it was only two or three miles from the former place, to the west of the big hummock which was supposed to fill Warrnambool Bay with drift sand washed by the Merri River until the cutting was made.

He followed up with a letter to the Port Fairy Gazette on 25 June 1890 during a period of heightened interest in the wreck, although he was unsure of the provenance of the ship.

The old wreck was, in fact, miles away from the Port Fairy beach, and only about four miles from Warrnambool. In the years 1847 and 1848 I have often seen the wreck and I regret to say [for the enthusiasm of the explorers] I do not believe she was a foreign ship at all."

After lobbying by the local museum curator in Warrnambool, a search of the area was carried out in 1890 and multiple, organised search parties set out from Warrnambool throughout the 1890s to locate the wreck but without success. The searchers may have been hindered by unreliable claims of first-hand reports of its location; it has since been argued that many people who had claimed to have seen the ship were merely repeating and embellishing older accounts.

The most recent reported sighting of the ship to which any historian attaches weight was in the 1880s. Historians have speculated that since then it may have disappeared deep under the sand dunes, or been used as firewood, or been swallowed up by the sea. It is also possible that the ship, as conceived of in folklore, never existed at all. Today there is no definitive evidence that the Mahogany Ship ever rested on that shore.

The theories of foreign origin

Spanish origin

In many of the accounts written in the late 19th century, the Mahogany Ship was described as Spanish. According to local writer and antiquarian Jack Loney, several theories supporting the Spanish connection were advanced. One theory was that the ship was the galleon "Santa Ysabel", which had sailed from Peru in 1595. A second theory was that the wreck was the ex-Spanish ship "Santa Anna". However, both theories lacked supporting evidence. Popular writers of the time also tended to reinforce the notion of a Spanish wreck. In 1884, Julian Thomas, writing as “The Vagabond” for The Argus, referred to the vessel (in a series on "Picturesque Victoria") as being made of “Spanish mahogany.” In The Book of the Bush (1893), George Dunderdale wrote of the 1836 discovery of a “Spanish” wreck; “Vain search was made for it many years afterwards in the hope that it was a Spanish galleon laden with doubloons.” Neither Dunderdale nor Thomas had seen the wreck themselves.

French origin

One of the earliest documented accounts of a wreck in the area was a Portland newspaper article of 1847 which described “a wreck, about two miles on the Belfast side of Warrnambool…of…a three hundred ton vessel …thrown completely into the [sand] hummocks”. The article went on to connect the wreck to the 1841 discovery of a number of articles of French manufacture found strewed along the beach. In 1981, writer Ian Mckiggan also found further evidence of an 1841 French shipwreck in the area in the journal of Government Surveyor C.J. Tyers. Tyers wrote that the wreckage (including a keg containing a boat compass by maker Devot of Harve) indicated an unknown French whaler had been lost in the area. However, the date of this report does not fit with the 1836 account, written by Hugh Donnelly in 1890.

Portuguese origin

Main article: Theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia

Today, the most widely accepted theory suggests that the vessel is a missing ship of Portuguese sea captain Cristóvão de Mendonça, wrecked in 1522. Kenneth McIntyre advanced this theory in 1977, as part of his theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia and it has since gained considerable popularity. According to McIntyre the Mahogany Ship was part of a secret Portuguese expedition, under Cristóvão de Mendonça, that set out from the Spice Islands in 1522 to look for the Isles of Gold. McIntyre argued secrecy would have been essential because the mariners were entering waters deemed Spanish under the Treaty of Tordesillas. He suggested that, after discovering the north coast of Australia, they followed and chartered it and continued down the east coast and around Cape Howe, before one of the caravels was wrecked at Warrnambool. The others turned back and returned to the Spice Islands. Maps and documents of such a voyage would have been kept locked away so as to avoid antagonizing Spain and to keep the discoveries from her or other nations. McIntyre suggested that all of the original documents have since been lost or destroyed, except for references to Jave la Grande, which appear on the French Dieppe school of maps. Several other writers, including Lawrence Fitzgerald and Peter Trickett support McIntyre's theory connecting the Mahogany ship to a Portuguese voyage. Extant French world maps (the Dieppe maps) of 1540s, 1550s and 1560s are argued by McIntyre to depict Australia's southern coastline as far as Armstrong Bay - only six kilometres west of Warrnambool.

Another theory links the ship to Portuguese sea captain Gomes de Sequeira, lost in 1525.

Chinese origin

In 2002 English writer Gavin Menzies speculated that the ship was a modified Chinese junk. He pointed to the reports that it was made of a 'dark wood' and was 'of an unconventional design'. He also cited claims that local Aborigines had a tradition "yellow men" had at one time come from the wreck. The claims of Chinese origin have not been well received in academic circles. Many notable historians have dismissed the notion as fanciful at best.

Recent events and today

In 1992 the State Government of Victoria offered a reward of A$250,000 to anyone who could locate the fabled vessel but the offer was withdrawn in 1993 without money having been paid. Extensive searches of the area were conducted in late 1999 and in 2004, using heavy drills that penetrated to a depth of 10 metres. The probes yielded only small, unidentified wooden fragments. Wood found in the area in 2005 has recently been dated to 3000 years old and from the olive tree family.

Today, visitors frequently take to the Mahogany Ship Walking Track, which follows the coast between Warrnambool and Port Fairy and passes possible sites where the Mahogany Ship may rest. The area of greatest interest to contemporary researchers is Armstrong Bay east of Gormans Road (formerly Lane) and west of Levys Point near Dennington.

The "Mahogany Ship", in common with the Loch Ness Monster, has become a local industry and the legend is likely to be promoted and to endure, whatever the actual facts of the case.

The Mahogany Ship in fiction

In the novel Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn by Henry Kingsley (1859), there is a fictional account of a wreck that resembled the Mahogany Ship. In the book the ship is described as being Dutch or Spanish. As two characters admire the Great Southern Ocean, the following conversation takes place;

"Fancy", said Halbert, “one of those old Dutch voyagers driving on this unknown coast on a dark night…” “The very thing you mention is the case,” said the Doctor. “Down the coast here under a hopeless black basaltic cliff is to be seen the wreck of a very, very old ship, now covered in coral and seaweed. I waited down there for a spring tide, to examine her, but could determine nothing save that she was very old; whether Dutch or Spanish, I know not.”

In some editions a footnote at the bottom of the page reads: “Such a ship may be seen in the eastern end of Portland Bay, near the modern town of Port Fairy.”

To what extent this novel helped to promote the popular image of the wreck is uncertain. There are several examples of works of literature that have influenced the popular imagination to such an extent that the fictional accounts in the books are now widely held to be fact. A good example of this phenomenon from Australian literature is Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay (1967). The shocking events in it are presented as fact, complete with references to (imaginary) newspaper articles but in reality nothing like them ever occurred.

Wrack by James Bradley (1997) also uses a wreck inspired by the Mahogany Ship.

See also

• Australian folklore
• Geelong Keys
• Theory of Portuguese discovery of Australia

External links

• South West TAFE - Collection of newspaper clippings on the Mahogany Ship 1876-1934