ELLENGOWAN

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shipstamps
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Joined: Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:12 pm

ELLENGOWAN

Post by shipstamps » Sun Nov 09, 2008 4:49 pm


Built in 1866 at Christiana, Norway as an iron hulled cargo vessel under the name NØKKEN.
Tonnage 58 grt, 36 net, dim. 79.7 x 15.1 x 8.4ft.
Brig rigged.

It looks that she Scottish was owned later, her owner was listed at G Cumming of Dundee, and Captain as J. Cumming.

The New Guinea stamps issued for the centenary of the Post Office, shows the ELLENGOWAN as an illustration in an 1885 newspaper story about delivery of mail.

1874 Bought by the London Missionary Society and refitted as a steamer by M Baxter of Dundee for a cost of £3.234 and renamed ELLENGOWAN.
Then she sailed to the Pacific and used as a missionary vessel on the Fly and Baxter Rivers in New Guinea. She made also voyages from and to the Northern Territory of Australia.
1874 She pulled the missionary bark JOHN WILLIAMs of a reef off Stephens Island near New Guinea. She was fortunate to fill her coal bunkers with coal from a stranded vessel on the same reef.
1877 She stranded in Mayri Straits.

1880 Sold to Palmerston Plantation Co.
She was associated with a number of important ventures in the Northern Territory and with numerous people who made significant contributions to the development of Darwin, what at that time was named Palmerston.
In the early 1880s she was used as a supply vessel between Palmerston and a sugar plantation on the Daly River, and later carried mail and government officials to the Roper and McArthur Rivers.
Early October 1881, on a voyage from the Palmerston Plantation Company to Darwin, with on board the manager of the Plantation, she dashed against a reef in the Daily River by a strong tide and was lost. All on board were saved.

It looks that she later was refloated, she was declared unseaworthy in 1886 and various companies later used as a quarantine hulk in Darwin, taken on board Chinese passengers from Hong Kong.
By April 1888 she required frequent pumping to keep her afloat.
27 April 1888 she sank whilst unoccupied, and the owners, believing she was not worth raising, abandoned her.

1991 Discovered again by local scuba divers, and the identity was confirmed in 1994.

Papua New Guinea 1985 40t sg 509

Source: Northern Territory Government web-site. Watercraft Philately. Australian Shipwrecks Vol. 3 by Jack Loney.

aukepalmhof
Posts: 7771
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2009 1:28 am

Re: ELLENGOWAN

Post by aukepalmhof » Tue May 04, 2021 4:10 am

The stamp has disappeared so I will replace it.
Attachments
1985 ELLENGOWAN Centenary-of-the-Papua-New-Guinea-Post-Office-1985.jpg
1985 ELLENGOWAN Loading-mail-onto-aircraft.jpg

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