Frederick Hasselburg

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Frederick Hasselburg , in various sources also Hazelburgh , Hasselbough or Hasselborough written, (* unknown; † November 4, 1810 in Perseverance Harbor , Campbell Island , New Zealand ) was an Australian captain and seal hunter. He is considered to be the discoverer of Campbell Island and Macquarie Island in the southern Pacific Ocean .

Life

First sources mentioned that Frederick Hasselburg came to Sydney , Australia in 1807 as the first officer on the cargo ship The Brothers . Employed by Robert Campbell in Sydney , Hasselburg set sail in September 1809 as the captain of the brig Perseverance with the aim of the Auckland Islands . The ship reached the archipelago in late November to hunt for seals for a month and to extract furs and oil. On the further journey to the southeast, the crew finally came across the previously undiscovered Campbell Island on January 4, 1810 . Hasselburg left six of his men behind to hunt seals for a planned six months and first sailed to the Bay of Islands before returning to Sydney , where he entered the harbor on April 28th.

On June 25, the Perseverance left the port to pick up the crew who had been left behind, whose provisions were slowly running out. Instead of choosing the direct course on Campbell Island , Hasselburg steered more south and discovered Macquarie Island on July 11, 1810 . Instead of picking up his people on Campbell Island , he let more people go seal hunting on Macquarie Island and, to the amazement of everyone in Sydney , returned to the home port on August 17th. Rumors spread that he had abandoned his people on Campbell Island .

On September 6th, Hasselburg sailed with his crew to Macquarie Island in order to take 827 skins on board on October 2nd, again left 20 people behind for the further hunt and, after a 15-day stay, sailed towards Campbell Island . Entered Perseverance Harbor in October . His people there had in the meantime tried to keep themselves alive by hunting birds because of the scarce supplies. When Hasselburg and some of his people did an inspection on land on November 4th, their small boat capsized on the way back to the ship and Hasselburg drowned with two of his people.

Eighteen years later, in September 1828, the ship he commanded sank off Campbell Island during a renewed visit to the island. The Perseverance Harbor was later named after the ship.

Posthumous honors

  • Hasselburg Stream - a one kilometer long creek named after him north of the entrance to Perseverance Harbor .
  • Hasselborough Bay - a bay named after him on the north end of Macquarie Island .

literature

  • William James Mills : Exploring Polar Frontiers . A Historical Encyclopedia . ABC-CLIO , Santa Barbara 2003, ISBN 978-1-57607-422-0 , pp. 287 f . (English).
  • Peter Entwisle : Taka - A Vignette Life of William Tucker 1784-1817 . Convict, Sealer, Trader in Human Heads, Otago Settler, New Zealand's First Art Dealer . Port Daniel Press , 2005, ISBN 978-0-473-10098-8 , pp. 73-76 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b c Mills : Exploring Polar Frontiers . 2003, p.  287 f .
  2. ^ Jock Phillips : Subantarctic islands - Early human settlement . In: Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand . Ministry for Culture & Heritage , September 12, 2012, accessed June 10, 2018 .