Palmerston Island
Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAL : Palmerston Island
Palmerston Island is the name of a coral atoll in the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean about 500 km northwest of Rarotonga. It was discovered by James Cook on June 16, 1774.
Although they're called the Cook Islands, Palmerston is the only one on which Captain Cook ever set foot himself. He discovered the island on his second voyage in 1774, but it wasn't until Sunday, April 13, 1777, during his third Pacific voyage, that he went ashore. He named the tiny and remote island after Lord Palmerston who was First Lord of the Admiralty. The ancient name was supposedly Avarau, meaning 200 harbours.
The island is so remote, it wasn't even properly located on maps until 1969! Up and till then, its position was based on Captain Cook's original charts which showed it 10 miles away from where navigation satellites have now confirmed it really is. Around the reef are six groups of islets, the largest being Palmerston, North Island, Lee To Us, Leicester, Primrose, Toms and Cooks.
Ships visit with supplies only a few times a year, so the recently built HF telephone station (above right) provides the only permanent link with the outside world. There is almost no cash economy - services, labour and food are bartered. Visiting yachts help supplement the island's needs.
All the islanders are descended from one Englishman, William Masters, a carpenter and barrel maker who arrived from Manuae in 1863. He was accompanied by two Polynesian wives who were cousins. He subsequently took a third wife, who turned out to be another cousin, and then a fourth. Masters had 17 children and 54 grandchildren before he died in 1899.
By the time his youngest daughter, Mrs Titana Tangi died in 1973, there were over one thousand Ma(r)sters living in Rarotonga or New Zealand. Less than 50 remain on Palmerston, but wherever they live, they all consider it their homeland.
The name Masters became corrupted to Marsters, possibly because of the way William pronounced it - he's thought to have come from Gloucestershire in England where the accent would have made it sound like there was an "r" in the middle.
Palmerston was annexed to the UK in May, 1891 and soon after, the British Government granted him a lease on the island.
The Marsters family were granted full ownership of Palmerston in 1954 by means of an amendment to the Cook Islands Act passed by the UK Parliament.
Three branches of the family remain and each has a section of the main island for houses and crops, and parts of the other islets. Marriage within a family branch is prohibited.
External link
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.