Thought to have been built in Scotland about 1860, and used in the 1870s in Western Australia for the purposes of delivery as a sailing vessel, the ship was sold to the Adelaide Steam Tug Company in 1877, although the supply of the vessel from Albany was not straight-forward.

Deemed by the Port Authority to be unseaworthy, the York made a sail for it and arrived in Port Adelaide some 15 days later.

Sailing with the company until 1925, The York was then sold to Captain Pilberg, of Port Pirie, to sail mallee stumps from near Whyalla on the other side of Spencer Gulf, just as his ketch Plank Point did for years.

While the vessel proved too big for its intended purpose, The York did serve as one of the earliest wharves of the region when it was beached at Port Flin-ders, also known as Weeroona Island, and used as a loading platform for carting stone to Port Pirie in the years to follow.

Historical records show the Plank Point was eventually positioned near the tanker berth in the Port Pirie Harbor where it was used as a home for the old captain in his later years.

Jutting out in Spencer Gulf, between Port Pirie and Port Germein, there lays the tidal island that is known on seafarers’ maps across the world as Port Flinders.

In 1840, the 45-metres-high sandstone hill was named Benjamin’s Hill by Captain Germein after his youngest brother.

This unlikely island would go on to be called Price’s Nob and then Mount Ferguson after Peter Ferguson, a pastoralist of Crystal Brook.

The Mount Remarkable Mining Company bought Benjamin’s Hill in 1848 with the intention of creating a local port facility for copper and wool from the Melrose area to be shipped out.

The new site was named Port Flinders and plans got underway with surveyed areas being reserved for settlers, wharves, a township, a railway terminal and a two-kilo-metre-long causeway to cover the tidal swamp that exists to this day between the headland and mainland.