The US claimed it in the 19th century and mined it forguano. In the 20th century, it was the subject of a small settlement. It was attacked during WW2 and evacuated, leaving some buildings and aday beacon. In modern times, it is managed as a nature reserve.
While a few offshore anchorage spots are marked on maps, Jarvis Island has no ports or harbors, and swift currents are a hazard. There is a boat landing area in the middle of the western shoreline near a crumblingday beacon and another near the island's southwest corner.[4] The center of Jarvis island is a driedlagoon where deepguano deposits accumulated, which were mined for about 20 years during the nineteenth century. The island has atropical desert climate, with high daytime temperatures, constant wind, and intense sun. Nights, however, are quite cool. The ground is mostly sandy and reaches 23 feet (7.0 meters) at its highest point. The low-lying coral island has long been noted as hard to sight from small ships and is surrounded by a narrowfringing reef.
Jarvis Island is one of two United States territories that are in theSouthern Hemisphere (the other isAmerican Samoa). Located only 25 miles (40 km) south of theequator, Jarvis has no known naturalfreshwater lens and scantrainfall.[5][6] This creates a very bleak, flat landscape without any plants larger than shrubs.[7] There is no evidence that the island has ever supported a self-sustaining human population. Its sparsebunch grass, prostratevines, and low-growing shrubs are primarily a nesting, roosting, and foraginghabitat for seabirds, shorebirds, and marine wildlife.[2]
Jarvis Island was submerged underwater during the latest interglacial period, roughly 125,000 years ago, when sea levels were 5–10 meters (16–33 ft) higher than today. As the sea level declined, the horseshoe-shaped lagoon formed in Jarvis Island's center.[8]
Jarvis Island's highest point has atopographic isolation of 380.57 kilometers (236.48 mi; 205.49 nmi), with Joe's Hill onKiritimati being the nearest higher neighbor.[9][10]
Jarvis Island once held some of the largestseabird breeding colonies in the tropical ocean. Still, guano mining and the introduction of rodents have ruined much of the island's native wildlife. Eight breeding species were recorded in 1982, compared to thirteen in 1996 and fourteen in 2004. ThePolynesian storm petrel had made its return after over 40 years of absence from Jarvis Island, and the number ofbrown noddies multiplied from just a few birds in 1982 to nearly 10,000. Just twelvespectacled terns were recorded in 1982, but by 2004, over 200 nests were found there.[11] The island, with its surrounding marine waters, has been recognized as anImportant Bird Area (IBA) byBirdLife International because it supportscolonies oflesser frigatebirds,brown andmasked boobies,red-tailed tropicbirds, Polynesian storm petrels,blue noddies andsooty terns, as well as serving as a migratory stopover forbristle-thighed curlews.[12]
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. The remoteness of the island and a lack of freshwater resources have prevented large-scale archaeological surveys from taking place.[13]
Remains of aguano tramway on Jarvis Island, looking west with 125-year-old heaps of mined but never-shipped guano in the background near the day beacon
The island's first known sighting by the British on August 21, 1821, by theBritish shipEliza Francis (orEliza Frances) owned by Edward, Thomas and William Jarvis[14][15] and commanded by Captain Brown. The island was visited by whaling vessels until the 1870s.
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.[18][19] Beginning in 1858, several support structures were built on Jarvis Island, along with a two-story, eight-room "superintendent's house" featuring an observationcupola and wideverandahs. Tram tracks were laid down to bring minedguano to the western shore.[20] One of the first loads was taken bySamuel Gardner Wilder.[21]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.[22]
For the following 21 years, Jarvis was commercially mined for guano sent to the United States asfertilizer. Still, 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.
News story of Squire Flockton's death on Jarvis. The nameJuror's Island in the article is a typographical error for Jarvis Island.[23]
New Zealandentrepreneurs, including photographerHenry 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 committedsuicide there in 1883, apparently fromgin-fueled despair.[24] His woodengrave marker was a carved plank which could be seen in the island's tiny four-gravecemetery for decades.[25]
John T. Arundel & Co. resumed mining guano from 1886 to 1899.[26][27] The United Kingdom annexed the island on June 3, 1889.Phosphate andcopra entrepreneurJohn T. Arundel visited the island in 1909 on the maiden voyage of theS.S. Ocean Queen, and near the beach landing on the western shore, members of the crew built a pyramidalday beacon made from slats of wood, which was painted white.[25] The beacon was standing in 1935,[28] and remained until at least 1942.
On August 30, 1913, thebarquentineAmaranth (C. W. Nielson, captain) was carrying a cargo ofcoal fromNewcastle, New South Wales, toSan Francisco when itwrecked on Jarvis' southern shore.[22] Ruins of ten wooden guano-mining buildings, the two-story house among them, could still be seen by theAmaranth crew, who left Jarvis aboard twolifeboats. One reachedPago Pago,American Samoa, and the other madeApia inSamoa. The ship's scattered remains were noted and scavenged for many years, and rounded fragments of coal from theAmaranth'shold were still being found on the south beach in the late 1930s.[29][30]
Jarvis Island was reclaimed by the United States government and colonized from March 26, 1935, onwards, under theAmerican Equatorial Islands Colonization Project.[31] PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt assigned administration of the island to theU.S. Department of the Interior on May 13, 1936.[2] Starting as a cluster of large, open tents pitched next to the still-standing white wooden day beacon, the Millersvillesettlement on the island's western shore was named after abureaucrat with theUnited States Department of Air Commerce. The settlement grew into a group of shacks built mostly with wreckage from theAmaranth (lumber from which was also used by the youngHawaiian colonists to buildsurfboards), but later, stone and wood dwellings were built and equipped with refrigeration, radio equipment, and a weather station.[32] 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 the1940 U.S. Census, Jarvis Island had a population of three people.[33]
At the beginning ofWorld War II, anImperial Japanese Navysubmarine surfaced off the west coast of the island. Believing that aU.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, theUSCGCTaney 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.[34]
Map of the central Pacific Ocean showing Jarvis and neighboring islands.
Jarvis was visited by scientists during theInternational 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.[35] By the early 1960s, a few sheds, a century of accumulated trash, the scientists' house from the late 1950s, and a solid, short lighthouse-likeday beacon built two decades before were the only signs of human habitation on Jarvis.
Coral at Jarvis Island National Wildlife RefugeGrey reef shark in the waters of Jarvis Island
On June 27, 1974, Secretary of the InteriorRogers 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.[36] Along with six other islands, the island was administered by theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex. In January 2009, that entity was upgraded to thePacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument by PresidentGeorge W. Bush.[37]
Aferal cat population, descendants of cats likely brought by colonists in 1937,[38] wrought disruption to the island's wildlife and vegetation.[39][40] Including the complete removal of rats, but not the mice,[41] which had been introduced to the island previously.[41] These cats were removed through efforts which began in the mid-1960s and lasted until 1990 when they were completely eradicated.[42] Since cats were removed, seabird numbers and diversity have increased.[43] Among the seabirds that returned to Jarvis Island withgray-backed terns rebuilding quickly andpetrels taking longer to reestablish themselves on the island.[41][43]
Nineteenth-century tram track remains can be seen in the dried lagoon bed at the island's center, and the late 1930s-era lighthouse-shapedday 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 theUnited States Coast Guard periodically visit Jarvis.[6]
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.[45]
^Darwin, Charles; Bonney, Thomas George (1897).The structure and distribution of coral reefs. New York: D. Appleton and Company. p. 207.ISBN978-0-520-03282-8.
^abc"Jarvis Island". DOI Office of Insular Affairs. Archived fromthe original on February 7, 2012. RetrievedJanuary 26, 2007.
^Rauzon, Mark J. (2016).Isles of Amnesia: The History, Geography, and Restoration of America's Forgotten Pacific Islands. University of Hawai'i Press, Latitude 20. Page 38.ISBN9780824846794.
^Pacific Remote Islands National Wildlife Refuge Complex,Jarvis Island NWR Draft CCP EA, August 2007, retrieved November 25, 2010: "No information is available on the subsurface hydrology of Jarvis Island. However, its small size and prevailing arid rainfall conditions would not likely result in a drinkable groundwater lens formation. During staff visits to Jarvis, potable water is carried in containers to the island for short visits."
^Rauzon, Mark J. (2016).Isles of Amnesia: The History, Geography, and Restoration of America's Forgotten Pacific Islands. University of Hawai'i Press, Latitude 20. Page 48.ISBN9780824846794.
^Rauzon, Mark J. (2016).Isles of Amnesia: The History, Geography, and Restoration of America's Forgotten Pacific Islands. University of Hawai'i Press, Latitude 20. Pages 38 and 56.ISBN9780824846794.
^"Jarvis Island".BirdLife Data Zone. BirdLife International. 2021. RetrievedJanuary 23, 2021.
^abQuan Bautista, Jesi; Smith, Savannah (2018). Early Cultural and Historical Seascape of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument: Archival and Literary Research Report (Report). NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center. p. 3.doi:10.25923/fb5w-jw23.
^Auckland Star, Volume XIX, Issue 3978, 28 April 1883.p. 2.
^Ellis, Albert F. (1935).Ocean Island and Nauru; Their Story. Sydney, Australia: Angus and Robertson, limited.OCLC3444055.
^Maslyn Williams & Barrie Macdonald (1985).The Phosphateers. Melbourne University Press.ISBN978-0-522-84302-6.
^Edwin H. Bryan, Jr. (1974)."Panala'au Memoirs". Pacific Scientific Information Center – Bernice P. Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii. RetrievedApril 23, 2013.
^Bryan, Edwin H., Jr.Panala'au Memoirs. Retrieved: July 7, 2008. Contains several photos of the Millersville settlement and a diary of events in the colony.
^abRauzon, M. J.; Forsell, D. J.; Flint, E. N.; Gove, J. M. (2011). "Howland, Baker and Jarvis Islands 25 years after cat eradication: the recovery of seabirds in a biogeographical context".Island Invasives: Eradication and Management(PDF). p. 346. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on October 10, 2013. RetrievedDecember 4, 2020.
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