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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 1 (April 1, 1935)

The “Three Bees” Mystery

The “Three Bees” Mystery.

There were some unravelled mysteries in the maritime stories of our early days. I have before me some notes, tantalisingly brief, of the tragic affair of the cutter “Three Bees.” (A name to excite enquiry. There was a ship of the name that brought convicts out to New South Wales over a century ago and then went whaling in these waters.)

The New Zealand cutter was built on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula at the place now known as Kennedy's Bay. The builder and owner was a Mr. John Kennedy, who arrived in New Zealand in 1836 and married a Maori chieftainess. He traded with the Maoris, and he loaded ships with kauri spars.

About the year 1843 Kennedy sailed in his cutter for either Auckland or the Bay of Islands. He is said to have had with him a sum of over £4000, mostly in gold, the profits of his trading and timber-ship-loading; he intended to bank this money. The crew of the cutter, three in number, murdered Kennedy for the sake of his money, and threw the body overboard. This deed is supposed to have been committed near the Great Barrier Island. The vessel never reached her destination; her disappearance was long a mystery. The villains sailed her down the coast and into the Bay of Plenty, where they scuttled her, and made for the shore in the dinghy. They landed at Tauranga; and by devious ways found their way north to Hokianga, where they shipped in a kauri-carrying vessel for Sydney.

One of the three had committed other murders in New South Wales, and he was arrested and convicted. Before he was hanged he confessed that he and his gang had murdered the owner of the “Three Bees” and pirated the cutter, and that they had killed nine other men at various times. What happened to the other two murderers is not known.

So goes the story, but that is all that is definitely known. There are the bones of an adventure or detective tale in this, for some of our young New Zealanders who have a bent for research work. Some of the descendants of the ill-fated cutter-owner are living in the Poverty Bay country today.