Mark,
My compliments on an excellent piece of research. We had not seen the 1924 newspaper article. Let's take a close look at it.
"Seven islands comprise the group, which is held under Crown lease by a wellknown Island identity."
There are eight islands in the Phoenix Group - McKean, Gardner, Hull, Sydney, Enderbury, Phoenix, Birnie and Canton. According to Harry Maude's history of Gardner Island prepared as part of his proposal for the Phoenix Islands Settlement Scheme, the "well-known island identity" was the Samoa Shipping and Trading Company, Ltd. who were issued an Occupation License for a term of 87 years on January 1st, 1914. The manager of the company, Captain Allen, "made several visits to Gardner for the purpose of cutting and loading timber for ship repairing but no other use was made of the island."
"A dilapidated shack told of a probable castaway. Here and there were small clusters of coconut palms,"
In 1924 the only coconut palms on the island were in five small clusters at the west end - three on Nutiran and two in Ritiati. They were the survivors of the Arundel plantings in 1890-92. The dilapidated shack was in all likelihood the remains of the well-documented Arundel barracks on Nutiran.
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Auckland Star, December 2, 1929, page 7
Aucklander’s Memories
“Gardner Island is well known to Captain William Ross, Auckland’s veteran mariner, who was ashore there 30 years ago, when he landed Mr. George Ellis, of Auckland, so that a survey might be made with view to establishing a coconut plantation…"
Thirty years ago would be 1899. The survey by Mr. Ellis may have been done for Lever's Pacific Plantations Limited who were considering taking over the lease around that time.
“…Many vessels were wrecked on Gardner Island in the old days, the survivors dying lonely deaths. Captain Ross found mounds above the graves of sailors when he visited the island 30 years ago, but the skeleton of the last to die was nowhere seen..."
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We've found no record of wrecks prior to Norwich City - and not for want of looking - but we could have missed some. The American Exploring Expedition aboard USS
Vincennes visited the island in 1840 and saw no wrecks. The mounds found by Captain Ross circa 1899 may have covered sailors but may also have been the graves of Arundel workers. In any case, sextant boxes made circa 1918 and products marketed to American women in the 1930s were not commonly available at the turn of the 20th century.
In short, there is nothing in these newspaper accounts that suggest an explanation for anything found at the Seven Site.