Black Swan (1851/05)

Murray Estuary

Little is known of the cutter Black Swan which was owned by Anthony Curtis, merchant and ship-owner of Fremantle. However it is believed to have been built in New South Wales with a square stern, and with no galleries or figurehead. The cutter transported cargo between Fremantle and the Busselton region, calling at various anchorages, often taking cattle on the return voyage. The earliest record of this trade appears to be an entry in the magistrate’s memorandum book for Vasse which shows the Black Swan, Captain Leary in command, arriving at that port from Fremantle on 18 October 1843. Despite the comparatively small size of this vessel it carried nine passengers on one voyage from Fremantle to Bunbury in September 1850.
THE LOSS
With a gale in the offing the Black Swan was working out of the Peel Inlet when it went aground on the bar at the entrance, and could not be got off before the gale struck, causing it to become a total wreck.
EXCAVATION AND ARTEFACTS
In 1978 an anchor was uncovered by a dragline dredge operating in the Mandurah ocean marina area. The anchor, retrieved from a depth of 12 ft (3.7 m), was ‘heavily coated with limestone’ (Coastal District Times, 18 June 1982: 3c-e). The newspaper speculated that the anchor may have come from the Leviathan, wrecked in August 1921 (see entry). However, because the anchor had a substantial limestone concretion it would appear to have probably come from a much earlier wreck, possibly the Black Swan, the Alert or the Preston, although concretion is not necessarily indicative of a long period underwater.