Joseph James

DETAILS OF DEATH

An account of the drowning of Superintendent McCluskey was reported in a Tasmanian newspaper, The Mercury, on Saturday November 28 1896. ‘A terrible boating catastrophe on the East Coast has resulted in the drowning of Superintendent McCluskey of Spring Bay … the wind was blowing strongly from the N.E. when the boat left Maria Island for the mainland … but has never since been heard of, though the steer oar, row locks, paddle and other parts of the boat must have been found on the beach near Cotton’s Point. So it is feared she must have foundered, and that all hands were lost.’ (The Mercury 28 November 1896) Unfortunately for McCluskey’s family, Joseph was one of six who drowned; some of the bodies were later washed up on the shore but McCluskey’s body was never found. An entry on Dec 8th 1896, in the Register of Deaths for Spring Bay notes under the column Cause of Death – Superintendent Joseph McCluskey ‘accidentally drowned body not recovered’. Mr A Ward, Acting Superintendent of Police, Spring Bay is listed as the ‘signature, description and residence of informant’. A death notice in the Mercury newspaper, Saturday 12 December 1986, also confirmed the death of Joseph McCluskey, aged 56 years, as ‘an accidental drowning’. McCluskey was travelling with another police officer to attend to ‘a sale of seized property’.