Baker Island - History

History

Baker was discovered in 1818 by Captain Elisha Folger of the Nantucket whaling ship Equator, who called the island "New Nantucket". In August 1825 Baker was resighted by Captain Obed Starbuck of the Loper, also a Nantucket whaler. The name goes back to Michael Baker, who visited the island in 1834. Other references state that he visited in 1832, and again on August 14, 1839, in the whaler Gideon Howland, to bury an American seaman.

The United States took possession of the island in 1857, claiming it under the Guano Islands Act of 1856. Its guano deposits were mined by the American Guano Company from 1859 to 1878. John T. Arundel and Company, a British firm using a competing claim to the island by the UK, made the island its headquarters for its guano-digging operations in the Pacific from 1886 to 1891. To clarify American sovereignty, Executive Order 7358 was issued on May 13, 1936.

In 1935, a short-lived attempt at colonization was begun. The American colonists arrived aboard the USCGC Itasca, the same vessel that brought colonists to neighboring Howland Island, on April 3, 1935. They built a lighthouse, substantial dwellings, and attempted to grow various plants. One sad-looking clump of coconut palms was jokingly called "King-Doyle Park" after two well-known citizens of Hawaii who visited on the Taney in 1938. This clump was the best on the island, planted near a water seep, but the dry climate and sea birds, eager for anything upon which to perch, did not give the trees or shrubs much of a chance to survive. King-Doyle Park was later adopted as a geographical name by the USGS.

The settlement was named Meyerton after Captain H.A. Meyer of the United States Army, who helped establish the camps for the colonists in 1935. It had a population of four American civilians, who were all evacuated in 1942 after Japanese air and naval attacks. During World War II it was occupied by the U.S. military.