Palmyra Atoll - History

History

Palmyra was sighted in 1798 by the American sea captain Edmund Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut while his ship, the Betsy, was sailing to Asia. According to the accounts, Fanning had awoken three times during the night before. On the third time, he took this as a premonition, and he ordered his first mate to heave to. On the next morning the ship resumed its travel, but she only went about a nautical mile before reaching the reef of Palmyra. Had the ship continued on her course at night, the ship might have been wrecked. On November 7, 1802, Captain Sawle and the U.S.S. Palmyra shipwrecked on the reef, which ultimately took the name of this vessel.

In 1859, Palmyra Atoll was claimed for the United States by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd of the brig Josephine, in accordance with the Guano Islands Act of 1856, but there was no guano there to be mined. On February 26, 1862, King Kamehameha IV of the Hawaiian Islands commissioned Captain Zenas Bent and Johnson Beswick Wilkinson, both Hawaiian citizens, to take possession of the atoll, and on April 15, 1862, it was formally annexed to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Throughout the next century, ownership of the atoll passed through various hands. Bent sold his rights to Palmyra to Wilkinson on December 24, 1862, and the atoll was owned by Kalama Wilkinson (Johnson's widow) through 1885. It was then divided between three heirs, two of whom immediately gave their rights to William Luther Wilcox who, in turn, gave them to the Pacific Navigation Company. In 1897, this company was liquidated, and its interests were sold first to William Ansel Kinney, and then to Fred Wunderburg.

Wilkinson's third heir sold his rights to William Ringer.

Then in 1889, Commander Nichols of the British ship HMS Cormorant claimed Palmyra for the United Kingdom, unaware of the prior claim made by the Kingdom of Hawaii.

In 1898, Palmyra was annexed to the United States along with the overall annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, and on June 14, 1900, Palmyra became part of the new Territory of Hawaii. To end all British claims, a second act of annexation by the U.S. Government was made in 1911. This Act of Congress made Palmyra the only "incorporated territory" of the United States at that time.

Since the Panama Canal was about to open up, the Palmyra's location became important. The British Empire had established a submarine cable station for the All Red Line on nearby Fanning Island. Hence the warship USS West Virginia was dispatched to Palmyra, on February 21, 1912, she formally reaffirmed the American claim on Palmyra.

In 1912, Henry Ernest Cooper (1857–1929) acquired William Ringer's property rights to Palmyra and, after a challenge in court, he became the sole owner of the atoll. Cooper visited the island in July 1913 with the scientists Charles Montague Cooke, Jr., and Joseph F. Rock, who wrote up a scientific description of the atoll.

Cooper sold the whole atoll except two minor islets to Leslie and Ellen Fullard-Leo on August 19, 1922 for $15,000. These two people established the Palmyra Copra Company to harvest the coconuts growing on the atoll. Their three sons, including actor Leslie Vincent, continued as the owners afterwards, except for the period of administration by the U.S. Navy during World War II (1940–1945).