Jarvis Island

History

Prehistory

Jarvis Island is unlikely to have hosted permanent human occupation before its use for guano mining. However, it is possible the island was utilized as a waypoint or stopover island by Polynesian voyagers; it is 375 km (200 nmi) southwest of Kiritimati, which was used by them between c. 1250 and 1450 AD. The remoteness of the island and a lack of freshwater resources have prevented large-scale archaeological surveys from taking place.

Discovery

The island's first known sighting by the British on August 21, 1821, by the British ship Eliza Francis (or Eliza Frances) owned by Edward, Thomas and William Jarvis and commanded by Captain Brown. The island was visited by whaling vessels until the 1870s.

The U.S. Exploring Expedition surveyed the island in 1841. In March 1857 the island was claimed for the United States under the Guano Islands Act and formally annexed on February 27, 1858.

Nineteenth-century guano mining

The American Guano Company, incorporated in 1857, established claims regarding Baker Island and Jarvis Island, recognized under the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856. Beginning in 1858, several support structures were built on Jarvis Island, along with a two-story, eight-room "superintendent's house" featuring an observation cupola and wide verandahs. Tram tracks were laid down to bring mined guano to the western shore. One of the first loads was taken by Samuel Gardner Wilder. Laborers for the mining operations came from around the Pacific, including from Hawaiʻi; the Hawaiian laborers named Baker Island "Paukeaho", meaning 'out of breath' or 'exhausted', which is indicative of the hard work needed.

For the following 21 years, Jarvis was commercially mined for guano sent to the United States as fertilizer. The island was abruptly abandoned in 1879, leaving behind about a dozen buildings and 8,000 metric tons (8,800 short tons) of mined guano.

New Zealand entrepreneurs, including photographer Henry Winkelmann, then made unsuccessful attempts to continue guano extraction on Jarvis, and the two-story house was sporadically inhabited during the early 1880s. Squire Flockton was left alone on the island as caretaker for several months and committed suicide there in 1883, apparently from gin-fueled despair. His wooden grave marker was a carved plank which could be seen in the island's tiny four-grave cemetery for decades.

John T. Arundel & Co. resumed mining guano from 1886 to 1899. The United Kingdom annexed the island on June 3, 1889. Phosphate and copra entrepreneur John T. Arundel visited the island in 1909 on the maiden voyage of the S.S. Ocean Queen, and near the beach landing on the western shore, members of the crew built a pyramidal day beacon made from slats of wood, which was painted white. The beacon was standing in 1935, and remained until at least 1942.

Wreck of barquentine Amaranth

On August 30, 1913, the barquentine Amaranth (C. W. Nielson, captain) was carrying a cargo of coal from Newcastle, New South Wales, to San Francisco when it wrecked on Jarvis' southern shore. Ruins of ten wooden guano-mining buildings, the two-story house among them, could still be seen by the Amaranth crew, who left Jarvis aboard two lifeboats. One reached Pago Pago, American Samoa, and the other made Apia in Samoa. The ship's scattered remains were noted and scavenged for many years, and rounded fragments of coal from the Amaranth's hold were still being found on the south beach in the late 1930s.

Millersville (1935–1942)

Jarvis Island was reclaimed by the United States government and colonized from March 26, 1935, onwards, under the American Equatorial Islands Colonization Project. President Franklin D. Roosevelt assigned administration of the island to the U.S. Department of the Interior on May 13, 1936. Starting as a cluster of large, open tents pitched next to the still-standing white wooden day beacon, the Millersville settlement on the island's western shore was named after a bureaucrat with the United States Department of Air Commerce. The settlement grew into a group of shacks built mostly with wreckage from the Amaranth (lumber from which was also used by the young Hawaiian colonists to build surfboards), but later, stone and wood dwellings were built and equipped with refrigeration, radio equipment, and a weather station. A crude aircraft landing area was cleared on the island's northeast side, and a T-shaped marker intended to be seen from the air was made from gathered stones, but no airplane is known to have ever landed there. According to the 1940 U.S. census, Jarvis Island had a population of three people.

At the beginning of World War II, an Imperial Japanese Navy submarine surfaced off the west coast of the island. Believing that a U.S. Navy submarine had come to fetch them, the four young colonists rushed down the steep western beach in front of Millersville towards the shore. The submarine answered their waves with fire from its deck gun, but no one was hurt in the attack. On February 7, 1942, the USCGC Taney evacuated the colonists, then shelled and burned the dwellings. The roughly cleared landing area on the island's northeast end was later shelled by the Japanese, leaving crater holes.

International Geophysical Year

Jarvis was visited by scientists during the International Geophysical Year from July 1957 until November 1958. In January 1958, all scattered building ruins from the nineteenth-century guano diggings and the 1935–1942 colonization attempt were swept away without a trace by a severe storm that lasted several days and was witnessed by scientists. When the IGY research project ended, the island was abandoned again. By the early 1960s, a few sheds, a century of accumulated trash, the scientists' house from the late 1950s, and a solid, short lighthouse-like day beacon built two decades before were the only signs of human habitation on Jarvis.

National Wildlife Refuge

On June 27, 1974, Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton created Jarvis Island National Wildlife Refuge, which was expanded in 2009 to add submerged lands within 12 nautical miles (22 km) of the island. The refuge now includes 1,273 acres (5.15 km²) of land and 428,580 acres (1,734.4 km²) of water. Along with six other islands, the island was administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In January 2009, that entity was upgraded to the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by President George W. Bush.

A feral cat population, descendants of cats likely brought by colonists in 1937, wrought disruption to the island's wildlife and vegetation. Including the complete removal of rats, but not the mice, which had been introduced to the island previously. These cats were removed through efforts which began in the mid-1960s and lasted until 1990 when they were completely eradicated. Since cats were removed, seabird numbers and diversity have increased. Among the seabirds that returned to Jarvis Island with gray-backed terns rebuilding quickly and petrels taking longer to reestablish themselves on the island.

Nineteenth-century tram track remains can be seen in the dried lagoon bed at the island's center, and the late 1930s-era lighthouse-shaped day beacon still stands on the western shore at the site of Millersville.

Public entry to anyone, including U.S. citizens, on Jarvis Island requires a special-use permit and is generally restricted to scientists and educators. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the United States Coast Guard periodically visit Jarvis.

Transportation

There is no airport on the island, nor does the island contain any large terminal or port. A day beacon near the middle of the west coast is in poor condition and no longer painted. Some offshore anchorage is available.

Military

As a U.S. territory, the defense of Jarvis Island is the responsibility of the United States. The laws of the United States apply when applicable.