Cervantes

Whaling was a global industry in the 19th century, fuelled by a seemingly insatiable demand for whale oil and bone. Wherever whales were to be found, there were whalers. The industry was dominated by Americans, operating out of the many ports strung along the New England coast - places like New Bedford, New London, Nantucket, Cape Cod, Provincetown, Westport and Boston. By 1846 there were 735 American whaling vessels, comprising 80 percent of the world's total whaling fleet. The whaling captains built themselves lavish homes, many with so-called widow's walks on their rooftops, from which wives watched and waited for their husbands to return from sea - and sometimes they'd be gone as long as three years. Many American whalers followed migrating whales into the southern oceans, with Western Australia's waters providing a bountiful harvest. In 1837 alone, they yielded over 30,000 pounds worth of oil and bone - and that was a lot of money in those days. The Cervantes was one such American whaler to visit “New Holland”.

The Cervantes was originally built as a whaling brig with one deck, square stern and a billet head. It was copper fastened and had a coppered bottom. It was built in Bath, Maine, and registered in that port on 4 October 1836. Dimensions listed on official records indicate that the Cervantes was 91 feet (ft) 9inches (28 metres (m)) long, 24 ft 5.5 inches (7.5 m) breadth, 11 ft 8 inches (3.5) depth and 231 tons.

The vessel’s owners were Richard McManus of Brunswick and Frederic G. Thurston of New York. The vessel was subsequently owned by a consortium consisting of Benjamin F. Brown, Jonathon Coit, Amos Willets, Samuel Willets, Nathan Belden and Sylvanus H. Gibson. They had it converted from a brig (2 masts) to a barque (3 masts) in June 1841, and the registration was changed from Bath to New London. The extra mast no doubt enabled smaller sails to be used without compromising the overall area of canvas available. Smaller sails enabled a whaling ship to be manoeuvred by the few crewmen who remained on board while most of the others were out hunting whales in the whale-boats. The first whaling voyage to Western Australia had taken place in late 1841 under the command of Benjamin F. Brown. While in Albany re-victualling three crew, Joseph Clark, John Morrison and James Wolley, deserted. After being captured and gaoled they broke out of gaol and hid, giving themselves up to the authorities only after the Cervantes had left port. They were each fined 10 shillings, in default of 10 days hard labour. The Cervantes returned home in May 1943 with 300 casks of sperm oil, 700 casks of whale oil and 5000 pounds of whale bone – a moderately successful trip for the time. Within a month, the Cervantes was re-fitted and departed New London on 23 June 1843 with Sylvanus Gibson as her Master. The Cervantes arrived off the coast of “New Holland” (Western Australia) in 1844. It was decided that they would stay close to the coast for the winter and conduct bay whaling. The barque must have spent some time on the Western Australian coast, as it was in the Geographe Bay area during January and February of 1844. Despite this it had managed to obtain only ten barrels of oil at the time it was wrecked.

On the 28 of June 1844, Cervantes was fishing about 16 miles off the coast of Western Australia near Jurien Bay, when some inclement weather picked up. Gibson directed the vessel into an area sheltered by a few small islands. In the morning of 29 of June, the weather had cleared up and Cervantes began to move on as the wind picked up once more. Before the crew was able to take precautionary measures, the ship was struck against rocks and was run aground on a shallow sand bar. The sandbar was located between the northern of two main islands and outcropping now called Thirsty Point, on the inside of a reef system.

The following morning, all crew members were able to leave the ship and make it to shore. As the location was quite remote, it was decided that the crew would make their way to Fremantle, which was about 100 miles south of the location of the shipwreck. A rumour that has manifested in the Cervantes community about the journey from the ship to Fremantle is that when the crew left, among the items they took with them was a cask of rum. Upon stopping for the first night the crew realized that they would not be able to carry the rum with them without considerable struggle and so decided to finish off the cask that night. The next morning the group woke having hangovers and the bay was then called Hangover Bay. Six of the 23 men, after walking a while, decided that they would have an easier time reaching Fremantle by boat, and turned back to the ship to retrieve one of the whaleboats. On the 6 of July three men reached Fremantle, exhausted, and gave word of the ships wrecking. Three days later Gibson arrived with the rest of the crew, save the six who thought to try their luck in boats and one who could not continue any further due to hunger and exhaustion, and was left about 30 miles north of the Moore River (about a third of the way through the entire trip). Gibson asked the government for assistance in sending a boat, Champion, back to the wreck to gather up the captain and crews’ belongings and to search for the missing crew members. The crew members in Fremantle were taken care of by the Resident Magistrate, Richard McBride Brown Esq. Brown was understood to be the Consul for the American Government and the Brother of the Colonial Secretary. Brown would later become the Treasurer for the Fremantle Whaling Company in 1850 and arranged its sale.

When the man who was left north of the Moore River, due to the inability to continue, was found he was already dead and ‘eaten by wild dogs’. This man was the only casualty associated with the disaster.

As the location of the ship was remote and far from Fremantle, the only place where repairs could be done, Gibson decided to put the wreck up for auction. At the time of the wreck, the population of Perth was less than 5000 with limited skilled tradesmen available to travel the distance to make the required repairs. Gibson explained that the ship had merely ‘broken its back’, but would still be in good condition for a while; he also pointed out that the area in which the ship wrecked was abundant with seals. Messers L. and W. Sampson, who owned an auction house in Fremantle, would conduct the auction on the 16 of July 1844. The event was advertised in several different newspapers but was not expected to make much money. The ship was to be sold in two lots: the chronometer on its own as the first and the ship, as it stands with all contents besides the crews’ personal belongings, as the second. The fact that the whaling gear had been refitted before this journey and that they had not used it much, as evidenced in the lack of oil, was publicised as a way to bring in more interest. It was suggested that the ship and gear could be used to start up a whaling and sealing venture near where the wreck occurred and this seemed to be the intent of the man who purchased it. Mr Wicksteed bought the hull and its contents for £155. It was speculated in one report of the auction that Wicksteed was not the actual buyer after suspicions arose when he paid the down payment of 20 sovereigns, and the next day paid the rest with notes and sovereigns, which was considered unusual at the time. The chronometer was sold for £23, showing how valuable the piece of equipment was as it went for almost one seventh of the price of an entire ship, its gear and stores.

Shortly after Wicksteed bought the wreck he sent a team to investigate and begin recovery. They found the wreck as described by the crew. Their return was reported in the Perth Gazette on the 10 of August 1844, explaining that they had already recovered cables, anchors, a boat and some provisions and by their description Mr Wicksteed stood to gain more than triple the amount he paid at the auction.

Unfortunately for Wicksteed, Cervantes had suffered a broken keel and could not be refloated. Despite intentions of starting a whaling venture near the wreck site, no evidence of the equipment being used for such an undertaking has been found. The hull, after being stripped of anything worthwhile, was left in the shallow water to degrade. On the 22 of July Gibson put an ad in the Inquirer, a newspaper based in Perth, extending thanks from himself and his crew for the kindness that was shown to them by the government and various individuals after the ship had wrecked. The loss of the ship was published in several newspapers throughout Australia, often in conjunction with the ship Halcyon—another American whaler lost on the coast of Western Australia.

The shell of the Cervantes was discovered in 1969 by Laurie Walsh who was out chasing a turtle at the time. He alerted the WA Museum. During excavation work on the wreck of the Cervantes, a small quantity of what appears to be Pinctada maxima pearl shell from the north-west of Western Australia was found. If so, this would indicate that the vessel had visited the coast of that area, or that trade was being carried out with Aborigines. It has been speculated that had the Cervantes reached its home Port intact to show off its catch, a Pearling Industry off W.A. may have commenced much earlier, and led by American enterprise.

In 1962 when names were being proposed for the townsite, the State Archivist advised the Nomenclature Advisory Committee that Cervantes Island had been named during the Baudin Expedition to Australia in 1801-03, and was presumed to be named after the famous Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Further investigation however showed that Joshua William Gregory in fact named the island after the whaler Cervantes in 1847 when he surveyed that section of the coast in the schooner Thetis. The wreck lies in 2 to 3 metres of water about 0.5 nautical miles West South West of Thirsty Point.