Why for over 100 years treasure hunters have dreamed of finding the wreck of Captain Grant

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

General (or captain?) Grant, XIX century, New Zealand and a journey across the seas, a shipwreck, the search for a sunken ship - these are not only sketches for the well-known novel. One could assume that Jules Verne was prompted to write the book by the story of the ship "General Grant", which happened near New Zealand, but no - rather, the universe itself, inspired by the Frenchman's composition, decided on such a plot.

"General Grant" from Boston, Massachusetts

The novel "Children of Captain Grant" was published as a book in 1868, and in parts - in magazines - was published from 1865 to 1867. The incident with the passengers of the sailing ship could in no way serve as a source of inspiration for the writer. But one of the passengers or crew members of the ship could read this work before everything happened. However, it cannot be said that real history repeats the plot of the novel.

The three-masted sailboat, named after the hero of the American Civil War and future American President Ulysses Grant, sailed from Melbourne to London on May 4, 1866. The ship with a displacement of more than a thousand tons carried 58 passengers and 25 crew members. They carried a lot of cargo - wool, leather, but most importantly - gold. Officially, the holds of the "General Grant" contained 2,576 ounces of the precious metal, but how much was actually impossible to figure out. It can be assumed that among the officially declared boxes there were also contraband - a common practice for those times. The middle of the 19th century was the period of the gold rush in Australia. Gold was mined in the state of Victoria, and transported, of course, to Europe. The path was dangerous - first of all because of the pirates, and secondly - because of the vagaries of the weather, sailors had to overcome thousands of nautical miles and two oceans, skirting Cape Horn, to get to the Old World. Not a round-the-world trip, of course, but still there was a similarity to the route of Julesvern's heroes. True, the vessel in question did not manage to move far from New Zealand.

On May 13, nine days after leaving the port of Melbourne, the General Grant was approaching the Auckland Islands, south of New Zealand. This archipelago, uninhabited both in those years and now, belongs to the group of subantarctic islands. Not so far from these rocky shores are the lands of Antarctica, and the islands themselves are home to animals and birds that are associated with a cold climate - among them penguins and seals. Note that, since we are talking about the southern hemisphere, for those who were on board the General Grant, the cold season began. This will prove to be important - not for all travelers, but for the few who manage to survive.

Shipwreck

For some reason, the ship went directly to the rocks - either a navigational error was made, or other factors played their fatal role. Not stormy - on the contrary, the wind completely died down; the sailboat was carried by inertia onto the rocks of one of the islands, the ship hit the reefs. The rudder was broken and the General Grant was trapped in a large grotto; after several strikes against the walls and the vault of the cave, the mast of the ship pierced the hull. By the next morning, the sailboat was completely submerged in the water and sank to the depths. It was possible to launch and save only two boats - nine crew members and six passengers survived. The captain, William H. Laughlin, did not leave the ship.

Among the drowned were the families of gold diggers returning home - the lists included Mrs. Oates with four children, Mrs. Allen with three, the Oldfield family. The wife of the first officer, Bartholomew Brown, died, he himself managed to escape. After a while, the boats approached the shore of Disappointment Island, and from there - to Auckland Island. A temporary camp was set up there. The shipwrecked passengers of the General Grant found themselves on an uninhabited island surrounded by other uninhabited and rather inhospitable islands, and their only hope was the passage of at least some ship nearby - these places were sometimes visited by whalers. But time passed - there was no help. They ate what they could get by hunting - mainly seals. They sewed the clothes ourselves - from skins. A fire lit by one of the last remaining matches was kept constantly, not allowing it to go out for many months - otherwise the islanders would have been deprived of heat and at least some suitable food.

After nine months on the shore, the "Robinsons" decided to send an expedition to New Zealand on one of the boats: the venture was risky, but there were no other options left to act. Four set off, among them Officer Bartholomew Brown. This was in January 1867, at the height of summer in the southern hemisphere. Nothing else is known about what happened to those sent to the mainland, most likely they died without reaching their goal. Another of those who managed to get off the ship, 62-year-old David McLelland, died on the island from an illness … The ten remaining passengers of the General Grant moved to another island, Enderby, which lay closer to the routes of the ships. On November 19, 1867, 18 months after the shipwreck, a ship was noticed from the shore. But alas, no matter how hard the islanders tried to attract the attention of sailors, they were not noticed on the ship.

But two days later, luck finally visited the wrecked: they were seen and rescued by the sailors of the Amherst brig, which brought the exhausted Robinsons to civilization.

Searching for sunken gold

The rescue of the shipwrecked became a sensation and occupied newspaper pages for a long time. The colonial authorities have decided to continue to regularly patrol the sub-Antarctic islands located near New Zealand so that victims of disasters at sea can receive assistance as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the incident with "General Grant" was neither the first nor the last in a series of shipwrecks - the area remained unfavorable for navigation.

The gold transported by the sailboat haunted many of those who learned about the disaster. Even the most conservative estimates suggested that somewhere at the bottom of the cliffs of Auckland Island lies a huge fortune - and, of course, they immediately wanted to find it. The first expedition to the site of the shipwreck took place a couple of years after the discovery of those who survived this many months of struggle. One of the rescued also set sail - in order to pinpoint the place where the General Grant sank with maximum accuracy. Then the weather was unlucky - the search was unsuccessful, and the ship returned with nothing. Much more tragically ended another expedition of treasure hunters when the schooner "Daphnia" set off. By the way, it was attended by one of the passengers of the General Grant rescued from the uninhabited island. During the search, a boat was launched, which came as close as possible to the island - where a large ship could not safely maneuver. But due to a sudden storm, the schooner hastily moved away from the dangerous rocks into the open sea. When the weather improved, "Daphnia" returned - but the boat with 6 members of the expedition had disappeared without a trace by that time.

The exact location of the shipwreck remains unknown. But plans to discover and raise the precious cargo to the surface are being built again and again, and there is a possibility that sooner or later the treasures of "General Grant" will be recovered from the depths of the sea.

But what secrets does Point Nemo keep - the most mysterious place on Earth, which has become a cemetery for spaceships.