History of Wake Island (1568–1898)

The history of Wake Island from 1568 to 1898 covers the period of time between the first recorded discovery of the island and its annexation by the US. In this time, the island was frequented by a variety of ships, and as a result of the shallow waters surrounding the island, many were wrecked.

The first recorded discovery of Wake Island was on October 2, 1568, by Spanish explorer and navigator Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira. In 1567, Mendaña and his crew had set off on two ships, Los Reyes and Todos los Santos, from Callao, Peru, on an expedition to search for a gold-rich land in the South Pacific mentioned in Inca tradition. After visiting Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands, the expedition headed north and came upon Wake Island, "a low barren island, judged to be eight leagues in circumference". Since the date, October 2, was the eve of the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, the captain named it St Francis Island (Isla San Francisco ) The ships were in need of water and the crew was suffering from scurvy, but after circling the island it was determined that Wake was waterless and had "not a cocoanut nor a pandanus" and "there was nothing on it but sea-birds, and sandy places covered with bushes." (It was while attempting to relocate Wake according to Mendaña's description of its coordinates that James Cook first reached the Hawaiian Islands.)

In 1796, Captain Samuel Wake of the merchantman Prince William Henry also came upon Wake Island, naming the atoll for himself. Soon thereafter the 80-ton fur trading merchant brig Halcyon arrived at Wake and Master Charles William Barkley, unaware of Captain Wake's visit and other prior European contact, named the atoll Halcyon Island in honor of his ship. In 1823, Captain Edward Gardner, while in command of the Royal Navy's whaling ship HMS Bellona, visited an island at 19.25°N, 166.53333°W, which he judged to be 20 - 25 mi long. The island was "covered with wood, having a very green and rural appearance". This report is considered to be another sighting of Wake Island. On December 20, 1841, the United States Exploring Expedition, commanded by US Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, arrived at Wake on USS Vincennes (1826) and sent several boats to survey the island. Wilkes described the atoll as "a low coral one, of triangular form and eight feet above the surface. It has a large lagoon in the centre, which was well filled with fish of a variety of species among these were some fine mullet." He also noted that Wake had no fresh water but was covered with shrubs, "the most abundant of which was the tournefortia." The expedition's naturalist, Titian Peale, noted that "the only remarkable part in the formation of this island is the enormous blocks of coral which have been thrown up by the violence of the sea". Peale collected an egg from a short-tailed albatross and added other specimens, including a Polynesian rat, to the natural history collections of the expedition. Wilkes also reported that "from appearances, the island must be at times submerged, or the sea makes a complete breach over it".

Wake Island first received international attention with the wreck of the barque Libelle. On the night of March 4, 1866, the 650-ton iron-hulled Libelle, of Bremen, struck the eastern reef of Wake Island during a gale. Commanded by Captain Anton Tobias, the ship was en route from San Francisco to Hong Kong with a cargo of mercury (quicksilver). After three days of searching and digging on the island for water, the crew was able to recover a 200 gal water tank from the wrecked ship. Valuable cargo was also recovered and buried on the island, including some of the 1,000 flasks of mercury, as well as coins and precious stones. After three weeks with a dwindling water supply and no sign of rescue, the passengers and crew decided to leave Wake and attempt to sail to Guam (the center of the then Spanish colony of the Mariana Islands) on the two remaining boats from Libelle. 22 passengers and some of the crew sailed in the 22 ft longboat under the command of First Mate Rudolf Kausch and the remainder of the crew sailed with Captain Tobias in the 20 ft gig. On April 8, 1866, after 13 days of frequent squalls, short rations and tropical sun, the longboat reached Guam. The gig, commanded by the captain, was lost at sea.

The Spanish governor of the Mariana Islands, Francisco Moscoso y Lara, welcomed and provided aid to the Libelle shipwreck survivors on Guam. He also ordered the schooner Ana, owned and commanded by his son-in-law George H. Johnston, to be dispatched with first mate Kausch to search for the missing gig and then sail on to Wake Island to confirm the shipwreck story and recover the buried treasure. Ana departed Guam on April 10 and, after two days at Wake Island, found and salvaged the buried coins and precious stones as well as a small quantity of the quicksilver.

On July 29, 1870, the British tea clipper Dashing Wave, under the command of Captain Henry Vandervord, sailed out of Fuzhou, China, en route to Sydney. On August 31 "the weather was very thick, and it was blowing a heavy gale from the eastward, attended with violent squalls, and a tremendous sea." At 10:30 pm breakers were seen and the ship struck the reef at Wake Island. Overnight the vessel began to break up and at 10:00 am the crew succeeded in launching the longboat over the leeward side. In the chaos of the evacuation, the captain secured a chart and nautical instruments, but no compass. The crew loaded a case of wine, some bread and two buckets, but no drinking water. Since Wake Island appeared to have neither food nor water, the captain and his 12-man crew quickly departed, crafting a makeshift sail by attaching a blanket to an oar. With no water, each man was allotted a glass of wine per day until a heavy rain shower came on the sixth day. After 31 days of drifting westward in the longboat, they reached Kosrae (Strong's Island) in the Caroline Islands. Captain Vandervord attributed the loss of Dashing Wave to the erroneous manner in which Wake Island "is laid down in the charts. It is very low, and not easily seen even on a clear night."