Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Friday 12 August 1910, page 11


THE "MAHOGANY SHIP."

KOROIT, Thursday.—Considerable in-terest has been revived in the question of the whereabouts of the "mahogany ship," which is supposed to have been wrecked on the coast near here a very long time ago.

Mrs. Joseph Ogle, who has resided in the vicinity of Tower Hill since 1844, has some interesting recollections. She is a niece of Captain Mills, a whaler, who resided at Port Fairy, and she arrived there in 1844, when she was 12 years of age. She re-members that Captain Mills went to the wreck of the "mahogany ship," and that he marked the exact position of it in his log, so if the book could be found the posi-tion of the wreck would be known. When Mrs. Ogle was a young girl the oldest black-fellows told her that the wreck was there when they were piccaninnies. From this it appears that the wreck has been known for over 120 years, and it may have occurred before the blackfellows living here in 1844

were born.

Some doubt has been expressed here as to whether the wreck exists at all. One reason is this. The old road from Warr-nambool to Port Fairy was made along the top of the sandhills, and a man named Cronin built a large two-story building to be used as an hotel, but the sand-drifts rendered it useless for that purpose. The house is still there. The early settlers were filled with admiration for the splendid in-terior fittings of the house, and what they regarded as heavy cedar beams. It is now said that the beams and fittings were of mahogany, and the inference is that the timber must have come from a wreck. Mrs. Ogle says that H. Donnelly, who was em-ployed a few years ago to search for the wreck, was one of Captain Mills' men, and therefore he should have had an idea of its

whereabouts.

The annual concert promoted by the mayor and councillors of Coburg in aid of the funds of the Coburg Ladies' Benevolent Society was given in the Coburg Public-hall on Tuesday evening, the

mayor presiding. The hall was crowded. A capital programme was presented.