island of the lost

the wreck of the grafton

The story of the Grafton shipwreck in 1864 and the incredible survival of its crew is detailed thoroughly in the book Island of the Lost by Joan Druett, which, as I noted earlier, I found to be such an incredible read that it inspired me to come in person to the Auckland Islands and to include them in this project. 

The Carnley Harbour coastline where the Grafton went down

Our Grafton “expedition team”

The schooner Grafton left Sydney, Australia, with a crew of five -- Captain Thomas Musgrave (USA), François Raynal (France), Alexander McLaren (Norway), George Harris (England), and Henry Forgés (Portugal) -- to prospect for tin ore on Campbell Island.  After their search for tin came up empty, they left Campbell and headed back to Sydney.  During that return journey, in early January 1864, they stopped in at Carnley Harbor in the Auckland Islands, and it was there that a storm pushed them into the shallows and wrecked the Grafton just offshore. 

Their disciplined survival over the following 19 months was a testament to both their creativity and their willingness to work together in order to make it home.  After salvaging what they could from the wreck and using the schooner’s sails to make their initial shelters, they collectively built a wooden longhouse, which they called Epigwaitt, using wood salvaged from the Grafton and taken from the surrounding rātā forest.  During their time there, they made their own fishing line and hooks, tanned and sewed their own shoes and clothing from seal skin, and made lime mortar from seashells in order to build a stone fireplace and chimney for their longhouse.  Most significantly, drawing on Raynal’s technical expertise, they actually build a forge and bellows.  Using scrap metal from the wreckage of their ship, they first fashioned a set of tools, and then, using these, made the necessary hardware to construct the new boat that would eventually get them all rescued. 

The last remaining pieces of the Grafton shipwreck

Mussels and limpets - sustenance for the Grafton crew

In addition to building, crafting, and hunting, the Grafton crew also established a strict routine to keep their minds and bodies in good shape and their hopes up.  They set up classes, taking turns teaching one another language, mathematics, and engineering, reading to one another daily from the books they had salvaged, and adhering to an exercise routine.

By July of 1865, they had finished their boat, and Musgrave, Raynal, and McLaren left the other two behind to attempt the dangerous 450 km crossing to New Zealand.  The journey took five days, and after they arrived at Stewart Island (30 km off South Island), they worked with the New Zealand authority to organize a rescue mission to retrieve their companions. In August 1865, Harris and Forgés were collected and brought back to New Zealand to recover.

The remains of Raynal’s forge

Rātā clearing where Epigwaitt once stood

Completely unknown to the crew of the Grafton, in May of 1864, a storm drove the ship Invercauld onto the rocky northeast coast of Auckland Island and wrecked it.  Nineteen of the Invercauld’s 25 sailors made it to shore, but unlike the Grafton crew, they were disorganized and consumed by social hierarchy, which prevented them from working together on the tasks that might have allowed their survival.  Failing  to build a suitable shelter or cooperate to find food, the Invercauld’s crew slowly dwindled over 12 months, and all but three of them died of starvation, exposure, injury, or sickness, or wandered off, never to be seen again.  The three survivors were picked up in May 1865 by a whaling ship passing by the Aucklands.  The fact that these two incidents occurred simultaneously on the same island, yet with each group completely unaware of the other, offers a sharp contrast between the ingenuity and cooperation that allowed one group to survive, and the petty disorganization of the other that all but guaranteed their end.