The General Grant was a 1,005-ton three-masted barque carrying 58 passengers and 25 crew, and bound from Melbourne to London in May 1866. She was named after Ulysses S. Grant, who later became 18th President of the United States.
It is remembered not only for her cargo (2,576 ounces of gold) but also for the peculiar circumstances of her wreckage. Lost in the fog, the ship drifted off her scheduled route and was lost into a large cave on Auckland Island's western shore, where the rising tide caused the main mast to pierce a hole through the hull as it collided with the cave's roof.
Fifteen survived the wreck at Port Ross. Four perished in an open boat attempt to reach New Zealand. Another survivor died of illness.
The ten remaining survivors were rescued in November 1867 by the Amherst. As a result of this incident, the New Zealand government established a network of castaway depots on the subantarctic islands for the relief of further shipwreck victims.
To date, the wreck's exact location is yet to be determined. There have been many shipwrecks on the Auckland islands: the Grafton (1864), the Invercauld (1865), the General Grant (1866), the Derry Castle (1887), the Anjou (1905), the Dundonald (1907). From as soon as 1868, the General Grant's treasure attracted numerous recovery attempts, several of which proved deadly for the wreck seekers, but no one could establish with certainty that the wreck they were working on was the one they were looking for.
   | Wreck of the General Grant - Maritime Archaeological Association of New Zealand: The Search for the General Grant |
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