Meet Others

Island Owner Wants To Meet Others

By a Staff Writer

The owner of Palmyra island, e last authentic piece of the old ngdom of Hawaii now that awaii in a State of the US, ants all private owners of ands in the Pacific to write to T.

EVENTY-SIX years old, Mrs.

Ellen Fullard-Leo said in Syd ney in February that “many itters of mutual interest” might raised in correspondence with aer island owners.

Vtrs. Fullard-Leo should know nothing about running an atoll, she fought the US Government e times in nine years to defend r title to Palmyra. She retains the le.

Palmyra is SSE of Hawaii, and isists of about 50 small islets, ailing about 250 acres. The islets ? only about five or six feet above i-level, and total length of the )11 is about seven miles by one and iialf miles. .t has never had any native in bitants, it has no native fauna, t it does have about 40,000 self ded coconut trees. 3 almyra was discovered by Cap n Sawle of the American ship Imyra in 1802.

Many Owners

t has changed sovereignty quite quently in the last 159 years. It s annexed by the kingdom of waii in 1862, by Britain in 1889, i was included by the US among ■ Hawaiian Islands by Act of rigress in 1898. formal possession was taken by I US cruiser West Virginia in 1912. lowever, Judge Cooper acquired e to the island in 1911, and he i all but two islets to Mrs. llard-Leo and her husband in the o’s. When Cooper died in 1929, islets passed to his heirs.

Jonstruction of a civil airfield Pan Am use began in 1938. After erica entered the Pacific War, airstrip was completed and used a defence base. It was a pro ited area. ’he US occupation, which resulted all sorts of vermin and rodents ng introduced to the island as 1 as the destruction of thousands coconut trees, was the subject a series of five court cases, ex ding over nine years, during ich Mrs. Fullard-Leo sought to end her title. mother US airline planned to

use Palmyra on a Pago Pago- Hawall service, but it couldn’t be cause the British began H-bomb tests on nearby Christmas Island, in 1955.

While the British tests were under way, the US Air Force made use of the strip on Palmyra.

Today they still fly in and out of Palmyra, and have personnel based there.

The five law suits were brought by the US Government to obtain title to Palmyra. The Supreme Court’s decision in favour of the Fullard-Leo family in 1947, recog nised the original Hawaiian Mon archy title and a settlement was made for damages only.

Until she was 19, Mrs. Fullard- Leo, who was born in South Africa, spoke no English.

But for the last 30-odd years she has been a sportswriter on the Honolulu Advertiser. She is the only woman sportswriter in the business in the United States.

Her lifelong interest has been in athletics ( PIM , Feb., p. 20).

Her first visit to Australia was in 1919, in connection with the Pan Pacific Union movement, founded by her late husband, Leslie. In 1925 she came back with a swimming team.

A Writers 7 Colony After the Fullard-Leo’s bought the Palmyra islets in 1922, they planned to establish a colony of writers and artists in a native village. Like most similar idealistic ventures it came to nothing.

The islands produce nothing now (once they produced copra) because labour costs would be too high.

Palmyra is now a family corpora tion and the three Fullard-Leo brothers hope to develop the islands as a resort or private club when South Seas labour is available. In stead of making copra, there is a good market for fresh nuts in both Hawaii and the U.S.

Mrs. E. Fullard-Leo.

Photo: Alan Fitzgerald