Mr Boyd took Wanderer far and wide. He went shooting duck in the Solomon Islands and was killed by islanders on Guadacanal in 1851 (some say eaten by cannibals) and was never heard of again.
He had arrived in Sydney harbour in Wanderer in 1843. The story is that crowds lined the Sydney foreshore to applaud his arrival. Boyd soon proposed to base his Steamship Company at Twofold Bay, Eden.
As well as extensive holdings in the Government town of Eden, Boyd purchased a large section of land in the southern part of Twofold Bay where he began to build Boydtown (where the 2017 replica of Wanderer is being built) and East Boyd in 1843, commencing with the “Seahorse Inn”, now restored as a boutique hotel, and later that year the area’s first Post Office.
In a census of 1849 only 49 people were listed as living in Eden town, whereas over 200 resided in Boydtown. Boyd himself spent little time in Twofold Bay preferring to operate from his property in Neutral Bay, Sydney.
Ben Boyd is a colourful and controversial figure in Australian history. He soon became one of the largest landholders in Australia with over two million acres in the Monaro, Gippsland, along the Murray and other parts of the colony. As well as interests in whaling, shipping, export, banking and finance he was also elected to the NSW Legislative Assembly.
He instigated many grandiose schemes but his financial empire was plagued by shipping losses, labour disputes and financial mismanagement until he was ultimately declared bankrupt in 1848 and departed in Wanderer in 1849 for an unsuccessful bid to revive his fortunes on the Californian goldfields.
Boyd disappeared presumed dead in the Solomon Islands in 1851 after leaving the ship to hunt ducks ashore. His body was never recovered despite searches initiated by his creditors. Caught in a major storm, Wanderer was wrecked on the NSW coast near Port Macquarie a few months later, her timbers salvaged over the years to form parts of smaller vessels.
By this time, Boydtown had become a virtual ghost town, with its church roofed but otherwise unfinished as it remains today. About the only things in Boydtown today are the Seahorse Inn hotel, a caravan park, the Wanderer replica construction site, and a new housing estate currently with about a dozen houses.