Cochituate (1861/06/14)

Abrolhos Islands, near Rat Island, Easter Group

Position approx 113.705666 -28.727856
the vessel bearing W by S, distant 4 1/2 miles. from Rat Island
The Cochituate was built in the north-east of the United States of oak, pitch-pine and hackmatack. The barque had two decks and was copper fastened.
THE LOSS
The Cochituate, commanded by G. Harbands, struck the reef known locally as West Reef, to the west of Rat Island in the Easter Group of the Houtman Abrolhos about 3.00 a.m. on 14 June 1861. The vessel went on the reef while in stays, i.e. while in the process of tacking. Although having had gales for several days prior to the wrecking, the wind was light when it struck the reef. The ship quickly half filled with water and within an hour began breaking up.
The crew left the barque in the two ship’s boats, the captain, second mate and three crewmen in one and the first mate (Mr Devries) with six crewmen in the other. The impact of the vessel on the reef had broken the helmsman’s shoulder. Not knowing of the presence of the settlement at Champion Bay the two boats headed south close to the coast, but on the second day after leaving the vessel, rising winds caused them to abandon the boats, either ‘near the Arrowsmith River, a little south of Dongara’ (Henderson, 1988: 43) or ‘at Cockleshell Gully’, a little north of Jurien Bay (newspaper account and WAM File MA-56/72). As they landed Captain Harbands’ boat was swamped, losing all the provisions that were in it. On foot the skipper and his party continued southwards, living off dead fish and birds collected along the beach. They met Devries’ group at the end of the first day, and camped together on the beach. The following morning the second mate and six men started walking along the beach, leaving the captain, mate and three men waiting for an improvement in the weather which they hoped would enable them to launch the boat. The skipper was said to be ‘sickly’ and one of his party was described as ‘an old man, too infirm to travel’ (The Inquirer and Commercial News, 3 July 1861: 2e.) The weather did not abate, so on 18 June they also commenced walking towards Perth.
The second mate’s party crossed the Moore River on a makeshift raft of logs. Here they killed a dog and an extra allowance of the meat was given to John Barlish, a Dutchman, to enable him to travel ahead and seek aid, as the whole party was getting very weak. He reached Fremantle about midnight on 30 June.
A Police party organized by Mr Hogan was immediately sent to search for the survivors and on 1 July the Police found the mate and his men. The following day the captain and the remaining men were found by a search party led by Mr Dewar about 10 miles (16 km) south of the Moore River, and taken by horseback to Dewar’s house, where they remained for three days before travelling on to Perth.
INITIAL SALVAGE
When they abandoned the wreck of the Cochituate the crew took very little with them. John Wellard purchased the wreck of the Cochituate and sent a salvage party aboard two cutters, the Speculator and the Mystery, to the wreck site. A line was taken from the wreck’s mizzen mast to the reef and set up taut. By means of a flying fox along this a great number of salvaged items were landed from the ship (The Inquirer and Commercial News, 2 October 1861: 2e).
Some salvaged goods, which included a live pig, 28 casks of salt meat, 13 spars, a set of sails, and other bits of rigging gear, was trans-shipped from the Mystery to the schooner Favourite for shipment to Fremantle. The pig had survived without food or water in its sty on board the wrecked Cochituate for about three months. As it returned to Fremantle the Speculator also recovered the two abandoned boats and a chronometer that had been left with the boats on the beach.
The Acting Collector and Receiver of Wrecks, Leonard Worsley Clifton, stated in a memorandum of 11 July 1863 to the Colonial Secretary:
I demanded and received Ad-Valorem duty upon valuation, of all the material from the ‘Cochituate’ that was brought to Fremantle (CSR Vol. 515/43).
SITE LOCATION
According to the salvage party that Wellard sent to recover as much as possible from the wreck, it lay 4½ miles west by south from Rat Island. This would place it on what is locally known as West Reef. There is a report that during the early 1930s Fred Cato, caretaker of a canning factory on West Wallabi Island, saw a wreck on West Reef, which may be that of the Cochituate.
More recently divers from the Western Australian Museum found and photographed a length of bronze railing in the area where the Cochituate is believed to have been wrecked.