Young Nick or Nicholas Young
Posted by: 
nzkeko
S 38° 40.354 E 178° 01.235
60H E 588780 N 5719063
Young Nick pointing at Young Nick's Head Peninsula in Gisborne NZ
The southern headland of Poverty Bay was named by both Maori and Europeans in honour of early explorers - Te Kuri a Paoa and Young Nick’s Head.
Waymark Code: WM7QEM
Location: North Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 11/22/2009
Views: 8
Young Nick’s sighting of Aotearoa
James Cook was sailing on the Endeavour in the South Pacific looking for an undiscovered landmass known as ‘Terra Australis Incognita’. He suspected he was near land having seen seals and rock weed floating on the water. To keep his crew alert, he promised a gallon of rum to the first man to see land during the day, and two gallons if he discovered it at night.
On 6 October 1769, it was Nicholas Young, the surgeon's boy sitting on the mast head, who saw land. This sighting was 127 years after the first European sighting of New Zealand by Abel Tasman.
It is now thought likely that the land Nicolas Young first saw was the peak of Mount Arowhana, rather than the southern headland of Poverty Bay, which Cook named Young Nick’s Head.
The life of Nicholas Young
Apart from this one event, very little is known about Nicholas Young’s life. He was approximately 12 years old when he sailed on the Endeavour and was the personal servant of the Endeavour’s surgeon, William Brougham Monkhouse. In 1772, he went with Joseph Banks when he led the first British scientific expedition to Iceland, but there is no record of service past this point.
Source Document of DOC (Dept of Conservation NZ)
URL of the statue: Not listed
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