Before any white man had made his abode in Gippsland, a schooner sailed from Sydney chartered by a new settler who had taken up a station in the Port Phillip district. His wife and family were on board, and he had shipped a large quantity of stores, suitable for commencing life in a new land. It was afterwards remembered that the deck of the vessel was encumbered with cargo of various kinds, including a bullock dray, and that the deck hamper would unfit her to encounter bad weather. As she did not arrive at Port Phillip within a reasonable time, a cutter was sent along the coast in search of her; and her long boat was found ashore near the Lakes Entrance, but nothing else belonging to her was ever seen.
When the report arose in 1843 that a white woman had been seen with the blacks, it was supposed that she was one of the passengers of the missing schooner, and parties of horsemen went out to search for her among the natives, but the only white woman ever found was a wooden one--the figure-head of a ship.
Some time afterwards, when Gippsland had been settled by white men, a tree was discovered on Woodside station near the beach, in the bark of which letters had been cut, and it was said they would correspond with the initials of the names of some of the passengers and crew of the lost schooner, and by their appearance they must have been carved many years previously. This tree was cut down, and the part of the trunk containing the letters was sawn off and sent to Melbourne. There is little doubt that the letters on the tree had been cut by one of the survivors of that ill-fated schooner, who had landed in the long boat near the Lakes, and had made their way along the Ninety-Mile beach to Woodside. They were far from the usual track of coasting vessels, and had little chance of attracting attention by signals or fires. Even if they had plenty of food, it was impossible for them to travel in safety through that unknown country to Port Phillip, crossing the inlets, creeks, and swamps, in daily danger of losing their lives by the spears of the wild natives. They must have wandered along the ninety-mile as far as they could go, and then, weary and worn out for want of food, reluctant to die the death of the unhonoured dead, one of them had carved the letters on the tree, as a last despairing message to their friends, before they were killed by the savages, or succumbed to starvation.