Taieri Island may have been the "Isle of Wight" where
The Brothers, a Sydney sealer chartered by Robert Campbell and commanded by Robert Mason landed eight of a gang of eleven men in November 1809. William Tucker, to Māori "Taka" and "Wioree" who settled in 1815 at
Whareakeake (Murdering Beach) near the
Otago Heads, was in the gang. Alternatively the "Isle of Wight" may be
Green Island a few kilometres along the coast to the north. In 1839 the
Weller brothers of the
Otago station on Otago Harbour established an outstation at Taieri Island, which they operated for three years. Edward Shortland recorded that it caught 70
tuns of oil in 1839, 15 in 1840 and 8 in 1841. The station operated under Mr. Cureton. In the evening of 9 June 1839 the
schooner Dublin Packet, under the command of Captain Wells, was wrecked while attempting to pick up oil from the island station. She lost the second mate, the steward and a mentally ill man named "Dole" or "Cole" who was being sent from the Wellers' Otago station to Sydney. In 1844,
Johnny Jones of
Waikouaiti briefly revived whaling on the island where
Tommy Chaseland (who was of Australian aboriginal descent), with his wife Puna,
Te Matenga Taiaroa's sister, presided over the gang. According to the visiting
Frederick Tuckett, "nowhere, perhaps, do twenty Englishmen reside on a spot so comfortless as this naked inaccessible isle". ==See also==