Historic Bible to Be Returned

To Pitcairn

PITCAIRN Island’s new school-teacher is not allowing the grass to grow under his feet. It will be remembered that a few months ago Mr. A. W. Moverley, with his wife and small daughter, and complete with a prefabricated! school house and home for himself, went to Pitcairn from New Zealand.

It has now been reported from the United States that due to Mr. Moverley’s efforts an historic Bible, once owned by Bounty mutineer, John Adams, and taken to the United States in 1839 by a whaler, Levi Hayden, is to be returned to the island.

When Hayden visited Pitcairn, John Adams, of course, was dead, but the Bible was obtained from his grandson.

Hayden’s relatives in the United States eventually presented it to the Connecti cut Historical Society in whose possession it has remained ever since.

The Society has now handed the Bible over to the British Ambassador in Washington who will undertake to have it returned to the island. Records show that this particular Bible was used by John Adams as his sole text-book in undertaking the education of the mutineers’ children.

Many historical relics have been taken away from Pitcairn in the last century by souvenir hunters. Mr. Moverley has undertaken the task of trying to recover some of them.

New Caledonia’s wartime five franc notes, issued by the Treasury, were with drawn from circulation on February 12.