On June 14th 1861 the American Barque 'Cochituate' of some 347 tons was bound from Melbourne to Singapore under Capt. George Bangs when she struck the Abrolhos Islands at 0300am in the morning. The Captain and small crew of 11 men escaped the ship in 2 small boats with only the clothes that they wore. Sailing southwards they finally had to shelter from bad weather on the beach near the Arrowsmith River, just south of Dongara. It was decided that the Second Mate with some of the crew were to walk ahead, they lived on dead fish, birds and killed a dog, probably a 'Dingo'. At this point John Barlish was given extra rations of the dog meat and sent on ahead. He reached Fremantle on 30th June, a very good effort. The next day a rescue party of mounted troopers found the advanced party, then on 2nd July found the Captains party. The Captain, the Mate and another man were in a dreadful state of starvation, they were given a little brandy and water with a piece of bread, then fed some boiled sago which worked wonders for them. Two cutters, the 'Mystery' and the 'Spectulator' were sent to the Abrolhos to see if there was anything worth salvaging. The ship was found wrecked on the Pelsart Group just south of the Abrolhos Easter Group of islands. The main party anchored at Rat Island about 4.5miles in the distance. When they boarded the wreck in heavy surf they found it in total disarray with no sign of life.

Here now begins a lovely story onto which they stumbled. They discovered a pig in a sty below decks, apparently dead, but someone remarked that he thought he saw the pigs stomach move! They prodded the pig and to their surprise, it grunted. They fed it doses of Castor Oil and Gruel to which it responded, the pig was taken with them and reportedly lived a long and happy life. The pig was close to death, not having had food or water for nearly 80 days, also to their surprise they found a big black cat who was taken by the owner of the vessel, Mr. Wellard. What a nice story to come out of such adversity.