A source mentions he was swimming across the mouth of the Mataura near Fortrose to bring a boat back to the other side. The river was higher than usual and he went under, his body found some days later. No mention whether there was an autopsy!

Thanks for that correction then Marie. There's a lot of very hazy information about Sam's life in Otago so it was quite hard to work out the details of his back story.

That's the old Dunedin Gaol on the right and it sat roughly where the present Law Courts building is. So you're looking from the site of the present Dunedin Railway Station back towards Bell Hill. You can see High Street being formed on the hillside to the left of the photo - if we blow the image up enough you can actually see the workmen engaged in digging out the lower portion of High Street at the base of Bell Hill. This is covered more fully in Episode 5 of Byte-sized Dunedin History on this channel, which also features this photograph.