Discovery and Naming
Kanton Island was discovered on 5 August 1824, by two London whaling ships: the Phoenix, Capt. John Palmer; and the Mary, Capt. Edward Reed. The atoll was initially named "Mary Ballcout's Island" after the shipowner's wife.
Kanton got its permanent name from the New Bedford whaler Canton, which ran aground on the atoll on 4 March 1854, while under the command of Capt. Andrew Wing. The crew managed to escape on whaleboats and after an open-water voyage of 49 days, reached Tinian Island in the Marianas, without the loss of a man. Three of the survivors, including Capt. Wing and Thomas E. Braley settled in Acushnet, Massachusetts.
Read more about this topic: Kanton Island
Famous quotes containing the words discovery and, discovery and/or naming:
“The new supplants the old. Yet men’s minds are stuffed with outworn bunk. Educating the young in the latest findings of authorities and scholars in the social sciences is important. It is equally important to devise ways and means for aiding the middle-aged and old to reexamine hang-over unscientific doctrines and ideas in the light of recent discovery and research.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)
“We are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we have been making up our world entirely without it.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“Husband,
who am I to reject the naming of foods
in a time of famine?”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)