Pirates, treasure and murder: The centuries old WA shipwreck mystery

By Jon Daly

ABC South West WA

Topic:History

A small archaeological team scours the algal-green shoreline of a stagnant lagoon in Western Australia's South West.

They're searching for evidence of a mysterious ship that has been the subject of fevered speculation and unfounded theories for centuries.

The murky pool, known to Busselton locals as the Wonnerup Deadwater, sits off the side of the Wonnerup Inlet like an appendix.

In a moment of excitement, the underwater metal detector sings out, and one of the men dives his hands into the silt.

A small archaeological team combs the water's edge for any signs of an old wreck. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

But instead of hidden treasure, he pulls out an old, crushed can of Jim Beam bourbon.

"Another bogan artefact," the team laughs, before carrying on with their search.

Colonial accounts of the wreck have fuelled more than a century of intrigue and interest in what lies beneath the surface. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Several metres further, they find an antique glass bottle and a rotting jarrah fence post covered in stubborn barnacles.

Farther still, they find a tiny, handmade copper nail — possibly a fastening from a small boat.

"It's more likely to be from a tiny rowboat, but we can actually get that metal tested and work out where it's from," maritime archaeologist Ian McCann says.

An unsolved mystery

The elusive Deadwater wreck has left mere breadcrumbs for him and his peers.

It is one of Western Australia's longest-running maritime mysteries, stretching back to the earliest decades of British colonial rule.

Mr McCann joined the search in the 2000s, following in the footsteps of scores of wreck and treasure hunters over the years.

"People love stories," he says.

"They love stories about shipwrecks. They love stories about treasure.

"They love stories about mystery, and they love stories about atmospheric places.

Maritime archaeologist Ian McCann says the Deadwater wreck has all the elements of a great mystery. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

"When you've got all of that wrapped up into one package, which is the Deadwater wreck, it's something that just keeps going on and on."

'Ancient' wreck

The strongest evidence of the existence of the wreck comes from colonial officials who said they had seen it in the early decades of British colonisation.

Explorer and surveyor Francis Thomas Gregory reported seeing a vessel of "considerable tonnage" in the shallow estuary near the Vasse Inlet around 1846-47.

"From its appearance I should judge [it] to have been wrecked more than two hundred years ago," he wrote in an account published in 1861.

The most credible evidence of the centuries-old wreck remains the earliest accounts from colonists at Wonnerup. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Another early settler, Leonard Worsley Clifton, who became the colony's Receiver of Wrecks, claimed to have seen it as a teenager around the same period.

"The [Deadwater wreck] … has been a subject of the greatest interest and speculation to the settlers of the Vasse from the earliest days of the colony," he wrote in 1876.

"It is evidently ancient."

Modern-day researchers say the legend may have grown from combined sightings and artefacts of several wrecks across the Vasse-Wonnerup Estuary.

The case rests on colonial eyewitness accounts, objects later found and tenuously linked to the wreck, and vivid folklore that grew around both.

Unverified artefacts

Among the countless old curios and artefacts tucked away in plastic storage bins in the WA Maritime Museum's storage are the few physical clues that some say are connected to the Deadwater wreck.

A bleached piece of hardwood is handled with surgical gloves and great care by museum curator,Ross Anderson.

This bleached timber, believed to be a ship's knee, is among the items brought forward as evidence of the wreck. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)

The L-shaped piece, discovered in the Wonnerup Deadwater by a wreck hunter in the 1980s, was believed to be a mahogany "knee" or structural brace for a ship.

Other discoveries that could be linked to the wreck include small cannons, pistols and anchors, but none have been conclusively dated as pre-colonial.

The Deadwater wreck remains one of WA's oldest outstanding maritime mysteries. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)

Some believe the Deadwater wreck is a lost Dutch trading vessel from the 1600s.

Dutch mariners were charting parts of the south-west coast from the early 17th century.

"Until we find something conclusive or definite, we just don't really have any clue," Mr Anderson says.

Stories and myths have flourished in the absence of archaeological evidence.

"There's been this local folklore that has kind of built up around the wreck, and it's been this intense point of interest for the local community there at Wonnerup for decades, if not centuries," Mr Anderson says.

The Lockville chest is an intriguing artefact that has been the subject of local myths about the Deadwater wreck. (Supplied: WA Museum)

Local mythology of pirates and treasure found no better vessel than an iron chest and heirloom of the pioneering Locke family who settled near Wonnerup.

The chest is kept in WA Museum, but rumoured links to the Deadwater wreck are unfounded, Mr Anderson says.

The lost treasure

A photocopy of a 1959 article headlined Search for Buried Treasure Gains Momentum sits on Helen McCall's kitchen table, among reams of maps, letters and surveys.

Intrigued by the mystery, she and her husband Sandy spent many weekends knee-deep in the Deadwater.

Ms McCall says another central figure in local folklore was a man named John Hurford, a penniless colonist who somehow amassed 2,000 pounds — a fortune in those days.

Helen McCall and her husband spent years of their lives searching for clues about the Deadwater wreck. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

He eventually owned land around the Wonnerup Deadwater and married a widow named Bridget Larkin.

"The rumour had gone around that a pirate ship had run aground in the Deadwater and that he had managed to salvage all the treasure, and he was therefore very rich, and it was buried somewhere," Ms McCall says.

Helen McCall says the Deadwater wreck sparked more than a century of local rumours and myth. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Instead, Ms McCall believes he likely earnt his riches by bootlegging rum and tobacco from American whalers anchored off Geographe Bay.

Mr Hurford was later murdered by his wife and her accomplice, who hoped to inherit his fortune.

The Deadwater wreck remains one of WA's most intriguing mysteries to face maritime archaeology. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Ms Larkin was put to the gallows for murder, becoming the first woman hanged in WA in 1855.

If there was any treasure to be found, Ms McCall says early settlers would likely have picked the wreck clean.

The ongoing search

As the sun beats down on his white Panama hat, archaeologist Ian McCann wades deep into the Deadwater.

He spears a tall metal pole into the sand, searching for any changes in consistency.

Finally, he finds something — a hard layer he first speculates is a large piece of timber.

The three-man team brings back a water drill and a diesel generator, balanced precariously on a fishing kayak.

Despite extensive searches, there has been no convincing evidence found in the Wonnerup Deadwater. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Once the drill reaches the compact layer, Mr McCann lets out a sigh of disappointment.

"It's a shell bed," he says, cutting off the generator, as the trail of the Deadwater wreck again goes cold.

After years of searching, Mr McCann doesn't think compelling evidence will ever be found.

"It would cost too much money to really do a good job to finally find an answer," he says.

Dutch, French or American?

Based on all the available evidence, Mr McCann doubts the wreck is a missing Dutch ship.

"By the descriptions from people who actually saw it firsthand, and from work that we've done in the field, it's leaning more towards the whaling ships," Mr McCann says.

American whalers began hunting off WA's coast from the late 1700s — decades before British settlement.

Ian McCann believes the Deadwater wreck is most likely an American whaling vessel. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

Another candidate is a French chaloupe, a large ship's longboat, which was lost at Wonnerup during the Baudin expedition, a French scientific mission to map the Australian coast in 1801.

The oared boat was wrecked, along with its cargo of dozens of muskets and sabres, and natural specimens collected by the explorers.

WA Maritime Museum curator Ross Anderson is doubtful the mystery will ever be solved. (ABC South West WA: Pip Waller)

"We know the chaloupe is there," Mr Anderson says.

"Some of the material that's been found, like knives and forks or bits and pieces, is exactly what that would be carrying.

"It's very tantalising, and probably that's an explanation for the Deadwater wreck.

An enduring mystery

Disturbance has made the search beneath the silt and sand even harder.

Parts of the wider estuary have been transformed by storms, changing shorelines and mineral sands mining.

"It's a very difficult area to survey because of the vegetation, the mud, the silt, the water," he says.

The answers to what early eyewitnesses saw remain buried beneath the silt and sand at Wonnerup. (ABC South West WA: Jon Daly)

"Until some storm or something happens that exposes something and someone's there to see it, then we won't ever really know."

The Deadwater wreck's secrets seem likely to remain buried beneath the mud.

"They're the best maritime mysteries of all, where the mystery continues," Mr Anderson says.

Header image: An artistic impression of the Deadwater wreck based off written accounts from colonists. (ABC News: Sharon Gordon)

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