Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1909 — TO DIVE FOR SHIP SANK FORTY YEARS AGO [ARTICLE]

TO DIVE FOR SHIP SANK FORTY YEARS AGO

Captain Sorenson Ready to Start For General Grant, Wrecked Off Island of Auckland. Captain Nells Peter Sorenson, of the United States and the whole wide world, believes that he has Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island beaten to death. He claims to know where $20,000,000 in gold bullion lies buried at the bottom of the ocean just where he cao get at it, and shows documets to prove the existence of the wreck laden with gold, tallow and wool, just where it has lain for forty-two years. Captain Sorenson has organized an expedition to go after the buried gold, sad has given himself just 18 months to return a rich man. He has devised a clever scheme to 'circumvent old ocean, to defy swirling tides and sffias'BrngWaves7“ana h 6 has madecapitalists believe In the feasibility of his scheme. The captain is square set, hardy and florid, a Dane by birth. He arrived in New York City from his latest wanderings about 20 months ago. For 30 years he has been planning another assault upon the treasures that lies 14 fathoms deep in the bowels of the hulk. Twice he has met defeat in the project. Briefly told, the captain’s story of the hidden treasure, as related in the American office, runs like ibis:

“May 13, 1866, the Ameriacn clipper ship General Grant, was wrecked on the west coast of the Island of Auckland, an inhospitable bluff 20 miles long, 160 miles from the southernmost land of New Zealand. TL|J General Grant was A>ne of the four clippers owned in Boston, which were chartered by a London firm of shipping • merchants to put on a packet line between Melbourne and London. “The first vessel to sail with treasure was the General Grant. Her sister ship, the General Scott, followed her. The General Grant had aboard £ 3,000,000 sterling in gold bullion, shipped by the banks, and another million pounds in value of gold bars, in boxes, which 150 returning miners were taking back home with them. It took 15 days to load the gold aboard the vessel at Melbourne, and the treasure was locked into a strong compartment under the captain’s cabin.

“The General Grant sailed from Melbourne May 3, 1866, and was next reported missing by the Victoria papers. In 1868 newspaper accounts of the wreck were published in America, including this statement: “On November 21, last, the ten survivors, after eighteen months' hardship and on the island, were picked up by the whaling brig Amherst, Captain Gilroy, and taken to Bluff Harbor, New Zealand. The. cave into which the General Grant was thrown is twenty-five fathoms deep, and 250 yards long, and the masts just reached to the top. Tne captain and 168 perished. “Several of the passengers did escape,” continued Captain Sorenson. “One of them, Fritz William Albert, a German, worked for me on my oyster dredger in New Zealand In 1878 or 1879. He also told me the story of the wreck.' For forty-two years all that gold has lain there. I have not seen the wreck for thirty years about. But she still lies there, as sound as the day she went down. “Now we are going to get that gold. The New Zealand government makes no claim to it. I have arranged for a concession permitting me to land a crew on the island. I shall doubtless find the hulk sound and strong. I shall have to blow out the side. To do this I will prepare a canvas hose, six Inches In diameter, with loops alpng the side, and will fill this with dynamite. “When I go down after the flash. I will find a hole knocked in the side 0f the hulk Just under the captain’s cabin, and $20,000,000 in gold bullion will be awaiting me. The gold is all packed in cases, each case valued at $5,000. The treasure can’t sink in the mud for It Is hard sand and rock bottom. I have but to fasten the boxes to cables and have them hauled up. “The expedition will start from San Francisco, in one of the Spreckles vessels, for New Zealand. We shall outfit the expedition in Dunedin, in the south of New Zealand, and sail for the Aucklands in a chartered schooner.” Captain Sorenson has served in the United States navy. It was he who dived to the wreck of the 111-'fated Pacific Mall steamer, Rio Janerio, which sank in the Golden Gate, costing the lives of many passengers, including United States Consul Wildman, his wife and daughter.