Year: 1871

1 have lately had pleasure of an inter-
view with Mr.. J. Wood, of Herne Bay,
who has followed the business of.a diver
for upward of twenty one years, and who
has now retired after long and active SER
vice.


Mr.. Wood made his first srart in life by
an extraordinary and, as it turned out,
very luck piece of diving If the reader
will look at the map of Ireland he will see
that outside of Belfast Lough, and little
to the southwest, opposite Donaghadee, are
situated the Copeland Islands. 1t so hap
pened that Whitstabeman was coast
guard in this district He heard legend
that slip laden with a heavy cargo of sill
yer had been wrecked off the Copeland
Islands some half century ago. He
therefore communicated with some of his
Whitstale friends who were divers. Ac-
cordingly, Wood and four others put their
diving dresses on vessel and sailed from
Whitstable to Donaghadee. The story
they heard when they got there, was that
the vessel wrecked was 10 the slave trade,
that she had on board when she struck the
rocks large number of slaves and con-
siderable amount of coin in the form of
silver dollars. Nothing would have been
known of the wreck having taken place
had not somebody discovered human legs
projecting above the water. 1t appears
that the people on board the ship had tried
to escape; they had filled their sleeves with
dollars, but IN getting up the rocks many
of them fell back and met with an untime-
I ly end as the weight Of the dollars kept
their heads under water. one had ever
disturbed the wreck since it happened, so
Wood and his friends set to work to find
out where it was They put on their div
ing dresses, and for two OF three days walk
ed to and fro at the bottom of the sea, in
about forty feet of water, searching for the
treasure This they did by clearing away
the weeds and turning over the stones with
a crowbar, and feeling for the dollars with
their hands, as the water was too thick to
see. The wreck itself had entirely perish
ed through the lapse of time. After a
long and careful search they came upon
the dollars; they were spread cut among
the stones but n any of them had slipped
down among some iron ore that had formed
the ballast of the ship. A great many
Of the dollars were worn away very thin
by the action of the waters. Some were
lying separate, others in great Jumps like
rocks sodered together, certainly in some
cases by the handouts of the slaves
Some days the divers got two hundred dol
lars, some days three hundred, some days
thousand; the best day they got five
thousand. In all, the number they got
from the wreck was about twenty five
thousand, a considerable sum of money
when reduced to English pounds


Wood showed me one of the dollars
which he always carries about him. The
following is the inscription: On one side,
'iiij, Del Gratia 1877, Hispan ct Ind
Rex NJ S R. FM." The coin is about the
size of an old five shilling piece ] he
"Diyers' Arms" near the clock tower at
Herne Bay, of which Wood is proprietor,
owes its existence to the discovery of these
dollars. Woods had on this occasion
curious adventure. One of the divers
complained that he was annoyed by lob
ster and couldn't work. Wood learned
the whereabouts Of the lobster and went
down after him. He soon discovered Mr..
Lobster sitting under rock, looking as
savage as lobster can look His feelers
were pointed well forward, and his two
great claws wide open in a threatening
manner. Wood, knowing the habits of
Holsters, gave this fellow his crowbar,
which he Immediately nipped with his
claws Then, watching his opportunity,
he passed his signal line over the Holsters
tail, made it fast and signalled to the men
above to haul up This the did, and in
stantly away went Mr.. Lobster flying up
the water into the air above, with his claws
still expanded, and scared as lobster
could be.