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Palmyra Atoll

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Geography of Oceania
(Australasia)

   Coordinates: 5°52′0″N, 162°6′0″W
   Map of Palmyra Atoll
   Enlarge
   Map of Palmyra Atoll
   Orthographic projection over Palmyra Atoll
   Enlarge
   Orthographic projection over Palmyra Atoll

   Palmyra Atoll, is an incorporated atoll administered by the United
   States government. The atoll is 4.6 square miles (12 km²) and it is
   located in the Northern Pacific Ocean at 5°52′N 162°6′W.
   Geographically, Palmyra is one of the Northern Line Islands (southeast
   of Kingman Reef and north of Kiribati Line Islands), located almost due
   south of the Hawaiian Islands, roughly halfway between Hawaii and
   American Samoa. Its 9 miles (14.5 km) of coastline has one anchorage
   known as West Lagoon. It consists of an extensive reef, two shallow
   lagoons, and some 50 sand and reef-rock islets and bars covered with
   vegetation—mostly coconut trees, Scaevola, and tall Pisonia trees.

   The islets of the atoll are all connected, except Sand Island in the
   West and Barren Island in the East. The largest island is Cooper Island
   in the North, followed by Kaula Island in the South. The northern arch
   of islets is formed by Strawn Island, Cooper Island, Aviation Island,
   Quail Island, Whippoorwill Island, followed in the East by Eastern
   Island, Papala Island, and Pelican Island, and in the South by Bird
   Island, Holei Island, Engineer island, Marine Island, Kaula Island,
   Paradise Island and Home Island (clockwise). Average annual rainfall is
   approximately 175 inches (4,445 mm) per year. Daytime temperatures
   average 85° F year round.

Political status

   Palmyra's North Beach
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   Palmyra's North Beach

   Palmyra is an incorporated territory of the United States, meaning that
   it is subject to all provisions contained in the United States
   Constitution and is permanently under U.S. sovereignty. However, it is
   also an unorganized territory as there is no Congressional act
   specifying how it should be governed; the only relevant law simply
   gives the President the discretion to administer the island as he sees
   fit (see Section 48 of the Hawaii Omnibus Act, Pub. L. 86–624, July 12,
   1960, 74 Stat. 411, attached as a note to former sections 491 to 636 of
   Title 48, United States Code ).

   The atoll is part of the United States Minor Outlying Islands. The
   issue of Palmyra's governance is an obviously moot point, as there is
   no indigenous population remaining nor any reason to think that there
   will be one in the future. It remains therefore currently the only
   unorganized incorporated U.S. territory. It is privately owned by The
   Nature Conservancy and managed as a nature reserve, but administered
   from Washington, D.C. by the Office of Insular Affairs, United States
   Department of the Interior. The surrounding waters, out to the 12 mile
   (22.2 km) limit, were transferred to the United States Fish and
   Wildlife Service, and designated as the Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife
   Refuge in 2001. Defense is the responsibility of the United States.
   Palmyra Airstrip
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   Palmyra Airstrip

   There is no current economic activity on the island. Many of the roads
   and causeways on the atoll were built during World War II. All are now
   unserviceable and overgrown. There is a roughly 2,200 yard (2,000 m)
   long, unpaved and unimproved airstrip. Various abandoned World War
   II-era structures are found on the island.

   The atoll has been manned by a group of scientists and volunteers
   (totalling between four and 20 in all) for the last several years. A
   series of improvements in 2004 consisted of new two-person bungalows
   and showers for the island's inhabitants. Water is collected from the
   roof of a concrete building not far from the main living area of the
   scientists. Communal buildings of the settlement on the north side of
   Cooper Island (the only one on the atoll) consist of a common
   cooking/dining building adjacent to the Atoll's only dock and a kayak
   and scuba equipment storage building next to the launch ramp.

   Palmyra Atoll's location in the Pacific Ocean, where the southern and
   northern currents meet, means that its beaches are littered with trash
   and debris. Plastic mooring buoys are particularly plentiful on the
   beaches of Palmyra, as well as plastic bottles for soft drinks,
   detergents, etc.

   Large parts of the Atoll are closed to any sort of public access due to
   the threat of uncleared World War II ordnance.

History

   Population/Elevation sign
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   Population/Elevation sign

   Palmyra was first sighted in 1798 by an American sea captain, Edmund
   Fanning of Stonington, Connecticut, while his ship the Betsy was in
   transit to Asia, but it was only later—on November 7, 1802—that the
   first western people landed on the uninhabited atoll. On that date,
   Captain Sawle of the U.S. ship Palmyra was wrecked on the atoll.

   In 1859, Palmyra was claimed by Dr. Gerrit P. Judd of the brig
   Josephine for the American Guano Company and the United States, in
   accordance with the Guano Islands Act of 1856; however, the company
   never started mining for guano, because there was none to be mined.
   Palmyra is located close to the Intertropical Convergence Zone; there
   is too much rain for guano to accumulate. In the meanwhile, on February
   26, 1862, Kamehameha IV ( 1834– 1863), Fourth King of Hawaii ( 1854–
   1863), issued a commission to Captain Zenas Bent and Johnson B.
   Wilkinson, both Hawaiian citizens, to sail to Palmyra and to take
   possession of the atoll in the king's name and on April 15, 1862 it was
   formally annexed to the Kingdom of Hawaii.

   Captain Bent sold his rights to Palmyra to Mr. Wilkinson on December
   24, 1862 and from 1862 to 1885, Kalama Wilkinson owned the island which
   was divided in 1885 between three heirs, two of which immediately
   transferred their rights to a certain Wilcox (?) who, in turn,
   transferred them to the Pacific Navigation Company. The latter entity
   made an attempt to colonize the atoll by sending a married couple to
   live there between September 1885 and August 1886.

   In 1898 Palmyra was annexed to the U.S. in conjunction with the overall
   U.S. annexation of Hawaii; on June 14, 1900 it became part of the then
   U.S. Territory of Hawaii. In the period preceding the formal annexation
   of the atoll by the U.S., the U.K. had shown interest for the atoll to
   become part of the "Guano Empire" of John T. Arundel & Co; and in 1889
   the British had even formally annexed it. In order to end all further
   British attempts or contestations, a second, separate act of annexation
   of Palmyra by the U.S. was made in 1911.

   Afterwards, by a series of agreements signed between 1888 and 1911, the
   Pacific Navigation Company transferred its interests to Henry Ernest
   Cooper Sr. ( 1857– 1929). The third heir of Kalama Wilkinson
   transferred his rights to a Mr. Ringer, whose children in turn also
   transferred their rights to Henry Ernest Cooper Sr. (s.a.) in 1912 and
   who then became the sole owner of the atoll.

   On February 21, 1912 it was formally claimed by the U.S. government,
   still as part of Hawaii Territory.

   In 1922 Cooper sold the whole atoll except some minor islets (the 5
   "home islands") to Leslie and Ellen Fullard-Leo on August 19 for
   $15,000.00. The latter party established the Palmyra Copra Company to
   exploit the coconuts growing on the atoll. Their heirs continued as
   proprietors afterwards, except for a period of Navy administration
   during World War II.

   In 1934, Johnston Atoll, Kingman Reef, and Palmyra were placed under
   the Department of the Navy. When the U.S. Navy took over to use the
   atoll as a naval air station on 15 August 1941, the atoll was owned
   privately by Hawaiian and American citizens. It only had permanently
   resident government representatives, styled Island Commanders, from
   November 1939 to 1947.

   After the war, the Fullard-Leos fought for the return of Palmyra all
   the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and won in 1947. When Hawaii achieved
   statehood in 1959, Palmyra, which had been officially part of the City
   & County of Honolulu, was explicitly separated from the new state as an
   Incorporated Territory of the U.S., administered by U.S. Department of
   Interior.

   In 1962, the U.S. Department of Defense used the atoll for an
   instrumentation site during high altitude atomic weapon tests over
   Johnston Island. There were more than 40 people living there to run the
   instrumentation and to service the technical staff. Problems occurred
   with the protection of wildlife from immature servicemen. The engineers
   and scientists there had their hands full keeping the servicemen away
   from the coconut crabs and birds.

   In July 1990, Peter Savio of Honolulu took a lease on the atoll until
   the year 2065 and formed the Palmyra Development Company. In January
   2000, the atoll was purchased by The Nature Conservancy for the
   purposes of coral reef conservation and research.

   In November 2005, a worldwide team of scientists has joined with The
   Nature Conservancy to launch a new research station on the Palmyra
   Atoll in order to study climate change, disappearing coral reefs,
   invasive species and other global environmental threats.

And the Sea Will Tell

   In 1974, a yachting couple from San Diego, California, Malcolm ("Mac")
   and Eleanor ("Muff") Graham, sailed to Palmyra hoping to find it
   deserted and to pass an idyllic year or more there. The Grahams
   overcame their disappointment of finding other "yachties" already on
   Palmyra and stayed. Their tragic decision was foreshadowed by the
   forbidding natural conditions on the atoll.

   Also on Palmyra were Duane ("Buck") Walker (now known as Wesley G.
   Walker, the name he uses as a federal inmate) and Stephanie Stearns
   (now known to many as "Jennifer Jenkins"), who sailed there together
   from Hawaii. Walker was an ex-con fleeing the law for life on the Iola,
   a deteriorated, patched-together wooden sailboat. In contrast, the
   Grahams' ship, the Sea Wind, was a beautifully finished, impeccably
   outfitted ketch. The Grahams brought more than a year's supply of food,
   but Walker and Stearns quickly consumed their meager supplies. They
   were forced to plan a voyage in the rickety Iola against prevailing
   winds to Fanning, a nearby atoll, to restock. Although they started off
   friendly, tension soon arose between the Grahams, and Walker and
   Stearns.

   Sometime between August 28 and August 30, 1974, Stearns said, the
   Grahams disappeared and the young couple found their Zodiac dinghy
   upside down. On September 11, 1974, after days of searching and waiting
   for the Grahams to return to their boat, Stearns said, Walker and
   Stearns scuttled the Iola and sailed for Hawaii on the Sea Wind. Once
   in Hawaii, the couple had the distinctive Sea Wind repainted on Kauai
   and renamed it, which according to boating superstition brings bad
   luck. This subterfuge merely aroused suspicion; acquaintances of the
   Grahams easily recognized the repainted Sea Wind. Walker and Stearns
   were arrested for their theft of the Sea Wind, for which both were
   tried and convicted, and served time.

   On an early morning in 1981, by remarkable timing, another visitor to
   Palmyra found Muff Graham's skull and other skeletal remains in the
   surf there near to a large metal container. The remains showed signs of
   dismemberment and burning (possibly by Mac Graham's acetylene welding
   torch), and the body appeared to have been concealed underwater in the
   container. Buck Walker was tried and convicted of Muff Graham's murder
   and is serving his sentence. Walker is scheduled for a parole hearing
   in 2006, when he will be 68 years old.

   As of 11/30/2006, Walker is being held in the Victorville Federal
   Prison, with an estimated release date of 12/4/2018. He will be 80
   years old at that time.

   Stearns was tried separately in the U.S. District Court for the
   Northern District of California in San Francisco, after her defense
   lawyer Vincent Bugliosi persuaded the court that publicity about the
   murders in Hawaii prevented the empaneling of an impartial jury there.
   Stearns was acquitted of the murder of Muff Graham and resumed her life
   in California in the telecommunications industry.

   Mac Graham's body was never found. Vince Bugliosi recounts the story of
   the murders and trials in his 1991 book, And the Sea Will Tell ( ISBN
   0-393-02919-0).
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