Bully Hayes was married at Penwortham
Alfred Thomas Saunders (4 September 1854 – 3 November 1940) was an accountant
and amateur historian of the early days of South Australia.
Working with his own remarkable collection of chronological but un-indexed notes, an incredible memory and a passion for facts clearly stated, he came to be regarded as South Australia's unofficial historian, with a particular interest in the sea and River Murray.
By engaging in controversy, he attracted a wide following.
His greatest asset in this endeavour was his collection of clippings from every South Australian newspaper from 1837 to 1909, arranged chronologically, and relying on his memory to locate the required article.
He also had records of the arrival of every ship which had visited South Australia.
Nearly every day he answered an enquiry relating to South Australian history, and frequently contacted authors and newspapers.
Saunders had a very jaundiced view of the Lutheran Church and the German people (at least those who came to South Australia and settled in places such as Hahndorf and Klemzig), finding them boorish and insular. Such sentiments found ready acceptance during the First World War. - Wikipedia
Bully Hayes
Around 1911 Saunders took to visiting his bedridden aunt, who regaled him with
stories of her time in the Spice Islands, where she had met the famed naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace and the notorious Bully Hayes.
The more he checked her dates and facts, the more he trusted her memory and decided to commit the Hayes story to print.
Marriage at Penwortham
Writes Lucy Webb in 1952: "Bully Hayes, the buccaneer, was married to 'widow -Amelia Littleton, of Port Adelaide at St. Mark's, Penwortham, and Bully gave the clergyman, Rev. William Wood, a £10 wedding fee and gave Mrs. Wood a roll of grass (green?) lawn (cloth) for a surplice."
Having begun to write a history of Hayes, he found it essential to visit Singapore, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
Saunders collected his findings into a privately distributed 40 page tract:
"BULLY HAYES THE PIRATE : barrator (overly officious in litigation), bigamist, buccaneer, blackbirder and pirate: An authentic life of William Henry Hayes of Ohio or New York City, born 1829, killed 1877; 40 pp." [5] -- which was published by various newspapers in 1913.
(There are many other sources which Saunders did not find, so I have compiled all these into a single story, listing my sources below.)
Born in 1827 in Cuyahoga County, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, his father is said to have kept either a tavern or an ordinary grog-shop. His father was called Henry Hayes; his mother's name is unknown. Their son was William Henry Hayes.
There is no direct word of his boyhood, but there is ground for the assumption that he grew up as a reckless desperado.
The Honolulu Advertiser of September 24th, 1859 gives an interesting, history of the “Consummate Scoundrel.”
About the year 1852, he was “unfortunate as to mistake a few horses belonging to a neighbour for his own, and sold them accordingly, pocketing the cash.”
Unfortunately again for the world, he escaped prison by a flaw in the indictment and fled from danger.
The young Hayes received his education at Norfolk, Virginia, and later was appointed to a cadetship in the US Revenue Service, where he served with honor and promotion.
Subsequently, he resigned and became Captain of one of the Great Lake steamers, but afterwards – about the year 1854 or 1855 – he joined the US Navy, where he is reported to have served with credit under Admiral Farragut.
It was near the middle-1850s when Captain Hayes first appeared in the Pacific; he arrived in Honolulu in 1858: over six feet in height, big, bearded, and blond, with a soft voice and a persuasive smile – 240-pounds of intriguing manner and sly scheming. [1]
The adult Bully Hayes had a powerful physique, reddish-brown hair and beard, piercing blue eyes, and a pleasant baritone voice.
By 1854 or 1855 he had acquired his master's ticket and was engaged in trading in California, Australia, East Asia and the Pacific islands. [2]
He is then said to have got a job with the Chinese Navy, but it didn’t take long for this position to turn into a criminal enterprise with the aid of another American captain, Ben Pease.
Bully and Pease sailed all around China extorting merchants for “protection” from pirates. “They had a protection racket. They were mobsters.”
After their scam was exposed, Bully and Pease were fired from the Chinese Navy and cheating merchants became Bully’s full time career.
He was infamous for “paying with the foretopsail” - loading up with cargo and then sailing off in the middle of the night without paying. He also made money through insurance fraud and by stealing and selling ships through various cons.
Notably he never stole a ship or cargo on the high seas, so while he was frequently described as a pirate he never committed actual piracy. [4]
Arrives in Adelaide
Hayes arrived in Singapore with an American brig which was seized for debt and sold by the Vice-Admiralty Court, and Hayes was stranded; but he was a charming young man of good appearance and manners, had a good voice, sang nicely, and was generally liked, especially by women.
A Singapore merchant, Mr. Webster, bought a barque of 187 tons, the C. W. Bradley Junior, and gave Hayes in charge of her. This was in December 1856. Hayes apparently filled the barque with stolen cargo from Batavia (Jakarta).
As captain of the ship C. W. Bradley, Jr. in January 1857, Hayes visited the port of
Fremantle, Western Australia. Hayes arrived in Fremantle on January 30 1857, and had been the "lion" of Perth for about six weeks.
Further, he had astonished the natives generally, and had entertained the Chief Justice and the elite of the place on board his barque, made many valuable presents to lady friends, engaged himself to marry Miss Scott. the daughter of the harbourmaster, and had taken her brother with him to Adelaide. [5]
Miss Scott’s keepsake necklace from Hayes (above) was passed on through family generations before being gifted to the WA Museum in 1990. [7]
Hayes converted his cargo carrying barque to a passenger ship. The ship’s cabin accommodation was excellent, and Bully soon found paying passengers for two trips to Adelaide, South Australia.
As many of these passengers were convicts with conditional pardons, the S.A. authorities were displeased with this influx of immigrants.
Apparently Hayes hadn't paid his bills, because the Singapore ships chandlers caught up with him and forced the sale of his ship, which bankrupted him. [3]
Bigamous Marriage
In the Clare Valley town of Penwortham, on 20 August 1857, ignoring the fact that he was already married, he married widow, Amelia Littleton. Perhaps Amelia had money that could help him start up again.
In Melbourne, Australia Hayes gained the command of the Orestes sailing to Vancouver, Canada. Hayes was thrown off the ship in Honolulu by the supercargo (person employed on board a vessel by the owner of cargo carried on the ship) for swindling passengers.
He proceeded to gain command of a new ship, the 318-ton brig Ellenita with a cargo obtained by fraud. Hayes sailed back across the Pacific, abandoning Amelia in San Francisco (another tale has her running a liquor store there).
On the return trip to Sydney, Hayes lost the Ellenita off Navigator Islands on 16 October 1859 and with the women and children and a skeleton crew reached Savai'i to raise the alarm.
After considerable difficulties, the remaining passengers and crew were returned to Sydney by H.M. brig Elk. There Hayes evaded a charge of having indecently assaulted one of the passengers, Miss Cornelia Murray, aged 15.[6]
The loss of his ship, the Ellenita, off Samoa in October 1859, left Hayes stranded in Sydney, penniless. He was sued for debt and incarcerated in the debtors' prison, Darlinghurst gaol, from 17 to 19 January 1860.
New Zealand
Hayes was a notable early figure in the history of the Otago region of New Zealand.
After facing bankruptcy in Australia in the late 1850s, he sailed to Otago in 1862 (at the time the region was the center of a gold rush).
After his release in Sydney Hayes joined an itinerant vaudeville troupe, the Buckingham Family entertainers, as manager. With them he travelled to New Zealand on the Cincinnati, arriving in Dunedin on 23 September 1862.
In January 1863 they arrived at Arrowtown.
Hayes "unofficially married" a widow Mrs Roma 'Rosie' Buckingham, whose four sons were vaudeville artists, performing as The Masters Buckingham. Hayes and Roma settled in Arrowtown where he opened a hotel, the "United States", later called "The Prince of Wales".
The nearby Lake Hayes is indirectly named for him; originally called Hay's Lake after an early settler, the spelling changed over the years as locals came to associate the name with that of Bully Hayes.
Open hostilities began when Rosetta Buckingham, the most talented member of the Buckingham Family entertainers, became pregnant and went to live with Hayes as his wife. No formal marriage took place, and in any case Hayes's first wife was probably still alive.
Hayes's seduction of Rosetta so angered the Buckinghams that they are said to have offered £5 to any barber courageous enough to cut Bully's long hair sufficiently to establish that he had lost an ear as punishment for cheating at cards. The challenge was apparently accepted, the locks were cut and the loss revealed. The whole incident, much to Hayes's anger, was later acted out by the Buckinghams as a comedy.
In 1864 he travelled to Australia and purchased the brigantine Black Diamond, only to default on the mortgage interest payments.
He returned to New Zealand, intending to take the Buckingham Family entertainers, with whom he was now reconciled, to China.
He reached Croisilles Harbour, near Nelson, where on 19 August 1864, Rosetta Buckingham; her 14-month-old daughter, Adalaida Eudora; her brother, George Buckingham; and a nursemaid were accidentally drowned.
Hayes's ship was seized, he was sued for non-payment of wages, and later, accused of abduction. [2]
South Pacific
Despite these setbacks Hayes re-emerged as the registered owner of the Shamrock and engaged in trading between Lyttelton and the Pacific islands.
Later he owned the Rona and traded around the New Zealand coast and the Pacific. On 26 July 1865, at the Royal Hotel, Christchurch, Hayes married Emily Mary Butler.
Although he described himself as a widower, the marriage may have been bigamous. Twin daughters, Leonora Harriet Mary and Laurina Helen Jessie, were born on 2 May 1866 at Lyttelton. A son, Frederick, may have been born after Hayes's final departure from New Zealand in January 1867.
The family lived in Samoa while Hayes traded among the Pacific islands.
Blackbirding on the Rona, Samoa and Leonora
In May 1866 Hayes acquired the brig Rona and operated in the Pacific with bases in Apia, Samoa, and in Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
Hayes became notorious in the Pacific because of his "recruiting" of Pacific islanders to provide labour for the plantations of Tahiti, Fiji, Samoa and Australia.
While there was some voluntary recruitment of Pacific islanders, the activity predominantly involved kidnapping, coercion and tricks to entice islanders onto ships, on which they were held prisoner until delivered to their destination.
On 17 April 1868, Hayes arrived off Suwarrow on the brig Rona, with 109 islanders from Niue (then known as Savage Island) who were being transported to Tahiti. He found Captain Handley B. Sterndale, and a work crew of 18 men, 2 women and 3 children, whose food supplies had run out.
Hayes agreed to rescue Sterndale and the islanders, notwithstanding the Rona was already crowded, with Sterndale and the Islanders being delivered to Rakahanga (Reirson island), from where they eventually were able to travel to Tahiti.
Sterndale sold the pearl shell, beche-de-mer, copra and equipment to Hayes.
Hayes made money and purchased the brigantine Samoa. By coincidence Hayes lost both ships off Manihiki, Cook Islands in March 1869.
Hayes then purchased the schooner Atlantic, although soon after he was arrested in February 1870 by the Consul Williams in Apia on charges related to his activities. Williams concluded that Hayes was guilty of the charges brought against him and was preparing to send him to Sydney where they would have more authority to deal with the case.
In the meantime, however, another rogue, one Ben Pease had arrived on the brig Pioneer and Hayes, persuading the consul that his chronometers needed checking, was allowed to go aboard and promptly sailed away.
Hayes escaped from Samoa on 1 April 1870 on the ship Pioneer of Ben Pease, a fellow American of similar reputation. [8]
There are differing accounts of the adventures of Hayes and Pease. That of James A. Michener and A. Grove Day is different in detail to that provided by Alfred Restieaux, an island trader who had dealings with both Hayes and Pease.
What is consistent between the accounts is that Hayes and Pease proceeded on a trading cruise in the Caroline Islands and the Marshall Islands in the 250-ton brig Pioneer.
According to Restieaux, Hayes and Pease argued over the ownership of the cargo; Hayes claimed the cargo was his and that Pease was merely carrying it as freight, while Pease claimed a half share in the cargo.
Restieaux's account is that Hayes sold the cargo in Shanghai; with Restieaux recounting two stories that he had been told about Pease's death: the first was that he drowned after jumping overboard from a Spanish Man-of-War, the second was that he was killed in a fight in the Bonin Islands.
In any event when the Pioneer arrived back in Apia Hayes was in sole command with his explanation for this change in command being that Ben Pease had sold the ship to Hayes and had retired to China – an explanation that many doubted but would not or could not challenge.
Hayes renamed the ship Leonora (the name of his favourite daughter), painting her white in an effort to change her reputation. Hayes continued to trade in coconut oil, copra and blackbirding.
Hayes was arrested by Captain Richard Meade of the Narragansett (1859) on 19 February 1872 but was released as Meade could not find witnesses or sufficient proof. Hayes's reputation meant that no crew members would give evidence against him.
In 1872 Hayes was engaged in the copra trade, including installing George Winchcombe on Nukufetau in the Ellice islands. [6]
Bully Hayes was certainly engaged from time to time in 'Blackbirding', or trading in native laborers taken aboard by trickery or force, and delivered to work on plantations in Fiji.
It doesn't appear that Hayes was involved in shipping laborers to Queensland. It seems that Hayes only occasionally took to blackbirding, his usual business being trading in copra and coconut oil. [8]
Read much more: State Library Qld.
His activities, including 'blackbirding' (slave trading), gun and alcohol running, alleged piracy and atrocities, engaged the attention of British and American authorities, but their inquiries failed to find sufficient evidence to substantiate charges.
Hayes was arrested by Spanish officials at Guam in 1875, and convicted of aiding the escape of political prisoners. He was imprisoned in Manila gaol, where he was said to have been baptised into the Catholic faith.
Released after nine months, he resumed trading.
More Stories at Wikipedia:
Death
The commonly accepted version of the death of Hayes provided by Charles Elson, the mate of the Lotus, was that when leaving Kosrae on 31 March 1877, the ship's cook Peter Radeck, "Dutch Pete", responding to threats from Hayes, killed him.
While the events are unclear, it is understood that Hayes was shot with a revolver, struck on the skull with an iron implement, and thrown overboard.
Charles Elson and the remaining crew sailed the Lotus to Jaluit in the Marshall Islands and gave an account of the death of Bully Hayes. No one was concerned at his death – indeed Peter Radeck was treated as a hero.
Louis Becke's interpretation of the events was that Charles Elson plotted with the other crew members to murder Hayes. The motive was remove Hayes and allow Elson and the crew to search for and take the money that Hayes was believed to have buried on Kosrae following the wreck of the Leonora in 1874.
The existence of this buried money is part of the myth that surrounds Hayes.
Summary
Hayes was an astute entrepreneur and a mariner of great ability.
He was courageous, resourceful, determined in the face of adversity, and capable of acts of generosity.
He was also a philanderer and a rogue, given to towering rages and sullen moods.
He regularly defrauded creditors and willingly engaged in illegal trading activities.
He had a reputation for ruthlessness, which has endured.
While his numerous misdeeds are acknowledged, it is now generally agreed that Bully Hayes was probably little worse than other trader captains who sailed the Pacific during the nineteenth century. [2]
Sources:
[1] Images of Old Hawaiʻi - Bully Hayes https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/bully-hayes/
[2] NZ Biography: Story: Hayes, William Henry https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1h13/hayes-william-henry
[3] Pirate Captain William Henry Hayes
[4] Swashbuckler: the story of Bully Hayes https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/black-sheep/story/2018675656/swashbuckler-the-story-of-bully-hayes
[5] BULLY HAYES THE PIRATE. TRUE HISTORY OF THE SOUTH SEAS BUCCANEER.
(Written for 'The Mail' by A. T. Saunders, North Adelaide.) https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63803478
[6] Wikipedia: Bully Hayes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bully_Hayes
[7] Western Australian Museum › Explore › Articles › Collection Highlight: Bully Hayes' Necklace https://museum.wa.gov.au/explore/articles/collection-highlight-bully-hayes-necklace
[8] Bully Hayes - Pacific pirate : truth or fiction? https://www.slq.qld.gov.au/blog/bully-hayes-pacific-pirate-truth-or-fiction
Hayes in Popular culture
The 1894 novel A Modern Buccaneer, by Thomas Browne writing as "Rolf Boldrewood", is based on the story of Bully Hayes.
Hayes featured in an episode of the radio series Tales of the Southern Cross
The 1954 film His Majesty O'Keefe includes Hayes' character as the antagonist.
Captain Bully Hayes : blackbirder and bigamist by Frank Clune
The 1983 film Savage Islands, (also known as Nate and Hayes), is an adventure film, which starred Tommy Lee Jones as Hayes.
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