Jarvis is said to have been discovered by Captain Brown of the English ship Eliza Francis, 21 August 1821. Jarvis Island shows up on Jeremiah Reynold's List of 1828 in approximately the correct position. There he calls it Jarvis' Island. Also in close proximity are Bunker's Shoal, Brock's Island and Clark's Reef (seen by Captain E. Clark). The island has also been called Volunteer but I have also heard this name used for Starbuck Island. Interestingly, Volunteer was the name of the ship that Captain Edmund Fanning was originally to sail to the South Seas in on a voyage of discovery for Presidnet James Madison, but the War of 1812 caused the voyage to be cancelled.

Some of these various names appear on charts or occur in lists of discoveries prior to 1821. Captain Michael Baker made landings on Jarvis Island from the ship Braganza in 1835 and 1836, and from the Desdamona in 1845. The U.S. Exploring Expedition's ships Peacock and Flying Fish surveyed the island in December, 1840.

Who or what is Jarvis Island named after? The answer to this question eluded me for years. The breakthrough came when my daughter pointed out that Eliza Francis, the ship that first recorded a visit to Jarvis Island in 1821, made no sense. She pointed out that Francis (with an i) is a man's name, but Frances (with an e) was a woman's name. So I did some research to see if there was a ship by the name of Eliza Frances and that's when I found it. My source is an 1833 legal proceedings that can be seen at R. v. Higgins, Fuller, Anderson, Thomas, Belford and Walsh. In any case, the ship Eliza Frances was owned by Edward, Thomas, and William Jarvis, subjects of the English crown and based in England. So Captain Brown must have named or even claimed the island for his employers. It was, in fact, known for awhile as Jarvis' Island (with the possessive apostrophe).

Guano is formed from the excrement of sea birds, where it has accumulated in dry regions, such as islands off the coast of Peru and in the mid-Pacific. The word comes from huanu, Peruvian for dung. This grayish, powdery material is high in phosphates and ammonium compounds that are readily assimilated by plants, and forms a valuable fertilizer.

American whalers and other visitors to islands in the central Pacific, landing in some instances to bury dead seamen, discovered guano on several of these islands, between 1830 and 1850.

There was immediate interest in this form of prospecting, and after considerable debate the United States Congress, on August 18, 1856, passed an act which allowed Americans to claim unoccu-pied islands in the name of the United States, for the purpose of removing the guano. Claims were made to about 48 islands under this Guano Act.

Guano samples were first taken at Jarvis Island in 1855. In March, 1857, Alfred G. Benson, of New York, and Charles H. Judd, of Honolulu, landed from the Hawaiian schooner Liholiho (Captain John Paty) and claimed it for the American Guano Company, under the Guano Act of 1856. On 1 May 1857, the first batch of guano from Baker Island and nearby Jarvis Island arrived in Boston. On board also was a sample from Howland Island, just north of Baker. 'The supply is reported as being almost inexhaustible, and of a quality not inferior to that of the Chinchas', the Boston Daily Advertiser proclaimed. The Baltimore American was even more fulsome on 9 May, asserting that the islands were as important as 'a new El Dorado', and although they were not literally covered with gold dust, they were indeed covered in material 'which will cover our wasted fields with golden grain'. By April 1859, forty-eight islands had been appropriated, including Jarvis, Baker, Howland, Christmas, Malden and the Phoenix Islands, plus Johnston (south-west of Honolulu), French Frigate Shoals (north-west of Honolulu), and Elide Island (nominally owned by the Mexican Government but recognised by 1859 as effectively owned by a company of American citizens).

A few months later the U.S.S. St. Mary's under Commander Charles Henry Davis, surveyed the island and made formal claim in the name of the United States. February 27, 1858. C. H. Judd took 23 native workmen to Jarvis on the ship John Marshall, Capt. Pendleton, to commence digging operations. Buildings were erected and moorings laid. From 1858 to 1879 there is continuous record of guano shipments from Jarvis island, one of the most extensively exploited of the guano islands. An excellent narrative covering this period, especially the early days of settlement on Jarvis Island, is contianed in the article OUR EQUATORIAL ISLANDS.

Supplies were taken to the guano islands about four times a year from Honolulu by schooners, which also transported native laborers, and white overseers and chemists. Following the Agate, this run was made by the Helen, the Odd Fellow, and the Active, 1863 to 1864; the Hawaiian bark Kamehameha V, 1865 to 1869; and the C. M. Ward, 1870 to the end of activity in 1879.

A large number of schooners, barks, and clipper ships, flying various flags, called at the islands and carried the guano away to American and foreign ports. We have a record of those that touched at Honolulu; others went direct.

The loading of these vessels with thousands of tons of guano was an enormous task. The powder had to be sifted from the rocks, shoveled into bags, run on tram cars to the beach, loaded into small boats, and these run through the surf to the waiting ships; all hand work. There was little or no anchorage. Vessels had to make fast to buoys or lines leading out from shore, risking the danger of piling up on the reef should the wind shift. Many fine ships were wrecked. Navigation was difficult because of the swift currents that swept past the islands.

On July 26, 1879, the American schooner Jos. Woolley under Capt. Benj. Hempstead, "took all the men and material on board" and sailed in turn to Baker and Howland, where the guano works on these islands likewise were closed up. The story of the last superintendant and his family, as well as the interesting story of their life on Jarvis Island is told in Under the Southern Cross. After the American guano diggers withdrew, nearly all of these islands were worked by John T. Arundel and Co., a British firm, between 1883 and 1891. Parties were supplied by schooner from Apia. The laborers were mainly from Niue and the Cook Islands.

Very soon after the Americans left, a New Zealand company tried, rather unsuccessfully, to claim the island for its remaining guano resources. Two young men, Henry Winkelmann and Harold Willey Hudson, were placed on the island for the requisite three months to claim the island but ended up marooned for eight months! Their story is told in Henry Winkelmann's Biography

On June 3, 1889, Great Britain annexed the island. In 1906 it was leased to the Pacific Phosphate Company of London and Melbourne; but very little, if any, digging was done. However, the idea of guano mining was not yet given up on and the island was visited in 1909 by J T Arundel and a party from the Pacific Islands Company Limited of which he was vice chairman. At the time, there was some prospect of renewing guano mining on Jarvis. Of interest are the graves and the erection of the day beacon, which was still there and repaired by the Hui Panala'au. A collection of thirteen photographs were taken by the expedition and are shown here: Arundel Kodaks

The Wreck of the Amaranth

On the night of August 30, 1913, at three minutes past eight, the "Amaranth" was running northeast under full sail, in slightly foggy weather. She was sailing with a cargo of coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, for San Francisco with C. W. Neilson master. Suddenly it struck the reef on the southwest side of Jarvis and heeled over. There was no surf or other sign of land. Captain Neilsen immediately ordered the crew to take to the boats. They stood by all night, and next morning a landing was made on the opposite side of the island. There were remains of old buildings and a few graves, but no sign of life or useful vegetation. As the party landed, staring them in the face was a sign that Vining said seemed ludicrous even to the wrecked seamen. It said:

"This island is leased by His Britannic Majesty King George to the Pacific Phosphate Company of London and Melbourne. All trespassers will be prosecuted under English rules."

Vining went on to say that the vessel broke up rapidly. Water and provisions were obtained from the poop, the only part exposed, and it was decided to proceed south to Samoa in two boats.

The Captain's boat held nine persons, including Mrs Neilsen and her 18-month-old boy. The other boat, commanded by First Officer A. M. Johnson, held six people. They set out from Jarvis on the morning of September 1. Each rigged a jury mast, made of oars, and set sail far Samoa, 1400 miles away. The second day out they parted company. Vining, in the Captain's boat, stated that after ten days (September 11) they reached Danger Island, where the Polynesian inhabitants treated them kindly. As no steamers touched there, they sailed on and four days later reached Pago Pago. Here, Vining said, they received a minimum of kind attention. They were put up in natives' barracks. However, sailors of the U. S. Gunboat "Princeton", stationed there, gave them some clean clothes to wear. That ship went to sea to look for the other boat and found it at Apia on September 24. Although they had run out of water, all were well. The entire party was sent by way of Honolulu on the S.S. "Ventura" to San Francisco.

Regarding the boat trip, Vining stated at Honolulu, that scurvy had made its appearance among them in a mild form. But despite the long dreary days and nights without seeing a sail, and with occasional buffeting by winds and rough seas, Mrs. Neilsen and her child had remained cheerful. "The baby had been a wonderful kid, ready to laugh and crow at all times. He had kept all of us in good humor."

What remains of the wreck of the Amaranth is scattered along the southern shore of Jarvis Island. Occasionally rounded fragments of coal are still to be found.

US Claims and Colonization

Probably the most interesting period in the history of Jarvis Island is the period of near continuous occupation, or "colonization" from 1935 to early 1942. This period is period is chronicled eloquently and with interest and humor in Edwin H. Bryan, Jr.'s Panala'au Memoirs (1974). Much of the following comes from that book with details added from other sources.

Bryan discusses the politics and motivations behind the move to colonize the small, equatorial pacific islands, including Jarvis Island, in his chapter titled The Challenge. The publicly stated reasons for the colonization were to firm up U.S. territorial claims to the islands which were considered valuable for their locations as refueling stops for trans-Pacific air travel in the mid-1930s. Actually, there was much more going on behind the scenes that I don't think Mr. Bryan was even aware of.

Randall Brink, in his investigative book Lost Star: The Search for Amelia Earhart (1994), was able to obtain recently de-classified documents relating to the equatorial islands, including Jarvis Island. He found a series of confidential memorandum between President Roosevelt, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and Director of Air Commerce Rex Martin which laid out the benefits of claiming the three equatorial islands (Howland, Baker and Jarvis Islands) to be used for air bases in the likely event of hostilities with the Japanese in the Pacific. In particular, The Martin Memo of 8 April 1935 discusses the possible cover story to be used in the event of public and newspaper inquiry. The Hull memo of 18 February 1936 goes into great detail concerning the US stand on its territorial claim to the islands as well as the history of that claim and recent Department of Commerce colonization. The end result was that Roosevelt agreed to issue an executive order to claim the islands and move jurisdiction of them from the Department of Commerce to the Department of the Interior.

To the "colonists" though, none of this was known nor of much matter. For the most part, these colonists were a mix of enlisted military men and native Hawaaian youths of Polynesian extraction from the Kamehameha Boys School. The story of the first period of colonization is told with great detail in Panala'au Memoirs where the Jarvis Island Log is reproduced for the entire one year period from first landing on 26 March 1935 (Jarvis was the first of the three to be ("colonized") until they were removed on 5 March 1936 to prepare for Department of Interior colonization later that year.

After Roosevelt's executive order effectively claimed the three islands, including Jarvis Island, for the United States. The colonists that were already there were removed and replaced later that summer. Once again the colony was people by four to six young men from the Kamehmeha Boys School as well as one or two enlisted military personnel. The colonization was much less secret and more publicity engendered. Several articles appeared in The New York Times as well as other sources such as The Literary Digest.

The colonists provided valuable meteorological observations as well as continuing to improve their standard of living for the entire time the island was occupied.

World War Two

At the beginning of World War II, a Japanese submarine surfaced off the west shore of Jarvis. The four colonists on the island, Bernard Hall, David Hartwell, Karl Jensen and Paul Gordon Phillips, thinking this was a U. S. Navy submarine that had come to remove them, rushed down the beach joyously waving their arms. The sub unlimbered its deck gun and commensed to fire upon the completely defenseless, unarmed colonists. Fortunately, due to poor marksmanship, no one was hurt. The colonists scattered and ran, hiding inland on the island.

On 22 January 1942, the United States Coast Guard Cutter Taney departed Honolulu in company with SS Barbara Olson, and arrived at Canton Island on the 28th. After sending a working party ashore to unload supplies, Taney screened Barbara Olson offshore until 7 February, when both ships got underway to evacuate the American colony on Enderbury Island. Embarking the four colonists at 1015 that day, Taney shelled the island and destroyed the buildings there before sailing for Jarvis Island.

Taney subsequently escorted her merchantman consort to Jarvis Island, where she evacuated the four Interior Department colonists and burned all structures to the ground before departing. Reaching Palmyra on the 12th, the ships remained there until the 15th, before Taney headed back for the Hawaiian Islands, arriving at Honolulu on 5 March.

Jarvis island was never used during World War II. According to the New York Times of 19 July, 1942, The islands of Howland, Baker, Enderbury and Jarvis Island were to be reoccupied as soon as conditions permitted in the southwestern Pacific. This according to Lieutenant Commander Roy E. Stockstill of the USCG, special representative of the Interior Department's Division of Territories and Island Possesions. He outlined the government's intention in his annual report to Joseph B. Poindexter, Govenor of Hawaii. I know for a fact that Baker was indeed reoccupied in September 1943. A mile long runway was built and the idland was used until March 1944 for operations in the area, including the Tarawa-Makin operation. Howalnd was never again occpied nor was Jarvis island which sat out the rest of the war.

The IGY

Jarvis was visited by a party of oceanographers, representing the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, during the International Geophysical Year, an 18-month period from July 1, 1957 to December 31, 1958. Harold G. Jewell, Jr, was a member of the party for about 13 months. Mr. Jewell published an interesting account of his observations on Jarvis in the Hawaiian Shell j News, volume IX (2), December 1960, to IX (4), April 1961. He was an enthusiastic shell collector, and gives identifica-tions of many of his shells. In the April issue he speaks about his conversations, after his return, with various colonists who had been on Jarvis, especially Paul Gordon Phillips, who had been on the island from August 2, 1941 to the final evacuation of the island February 9, 1942. Mr. Jewell published a map of Jarvis, annotated with such in-formation as the location of shell holes toward the eastern end of the island, which had been made by a Japanese sub-marine that had surfaced off the west shore of the island.

Mr. Jewell describes a violent storm that he experienced on Jarvis that started on January 14, 1958 and continued for days. It agrees closely with the storms described by the "colonists" during their stay 20 years earlier. Regarding changes in Jarvis he says: "In the Millerville landing area almost every evidence of the Hawaiian colonists has disappeared. ... Only the very solidly built lighthouse is still standing.

Of interest also, is that according to the e-book version of American Polynesia - Coral Islands of the Central Pacific by Edwin H. BRYAN, Jr.,(this takes you to www.pacificislandsinfo.com and from there, click on the link ETEXTS, and then you can find the E-BOOK: AMERICAN POLYNESIA, the entire etext is there.

"Otto H. Hornung, radio operator and weatherman, of Honolulu, died on Jarvis Island on November 11, 1958 while in charge of the station for the IGY authorities." I am searching for a copy of the Pacific Islands Monthly of November 1958, to fill in the details of Mr. Hornung's death.

Warren B. King presents an interesting note concerning the "conservation status" of Jarvis in recent years. It is based on the various visits of "POBSP" (Pacific Ocean Biological Survey Program) parties under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C. He says: The IGY scientists' house, a few sheds, trash, an old light-house, and a tramway are the only signs of human habitation remaining. The settlers brought cats with them, and these now feed on seabirds. Rats formerly occurred on Jarvis, but were probably extirpated by cats. POBSP personnel killed over 200 cats in 1964 and 1965, and in later visits in 1967 and 1968 eight or nine were seen in a day or two.

Recent History

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