!! 
Eagle”|under a Captain John Gunn 
ontrol of the island by JTorce. k Gunn arrived at the island early in January, l 86 l 
and by threatening, John 
to gain 
the Phoenix company agent on the island, coerced 
him into leaving the island on his ship. They mounted two cannon 
Gunn left two men on the island b txxk^dxi±xxHdx±wxxi^KHs»cafxxsxiffisxM±Kdxoppostie 
the landing txxkxidxxffxxkxpxxxfxtkx anH had explicit orders to fire upon anyone 
who attempted to land on the island. 
Unawarre of this development AmM.Goddard sailed from Honolulu on February 28, 
on the schooner Liholiho. He took with him a crew to begin guano mining operation 
on Enderbury, but when he reached the island on April 4 he was not permitted 
to land wnd of necessity had to return to Honolulu. 
eek later Cpatain Fletcher of the bark Zoe arrived at the island to 
a carpenter and building ma erials for the Phoenix Guano company 
xx He too was repulsed and forced to return to Honolulu. 
The 1 agents of the Phoenix Guano company were quick to retaliate. They presented 
their case to John A. Parker, the U.S. Consul in Hawaii, who, after deliberating 
on the facts of the matter, issued a notice to the effect that the two men 
on Enderbury were trespassing and "would be summarily dealt with if they did 
not relinquish their illegal claim." The agents of the Phoenix,G^a^o C^ajnay-^ 
a cqp j - returned to the island waftWs a sufficient 
fooce to remove the squatters if they did not azzedzztozthe leave peacefully 
when confronted with they document, they aounicand were removed from 
aw 4 
the island. 
Vo WccMfe 
In this instance, ifznotzonzHowiandzwherezBBnBonzaizozuBedzforzeztaztins^z 
xtxk^xxtx^xx xxM ^xxpCTxyxpxi'xkx xxxfxt±xk x±xxmo agxMmM: Bensons attempt at force 
t least 
was unsuccessdul. (On Howland Island, Benson had carried through a similar 
mauever successfully, but in that case his legal position was considerably 
stronger than it was on Enderbury.) 
Apparetnly shortly thereafter, sometime in 1862, guano difging operations 
on the island began. (+2) Since the surviving historical recors of guano 
shipping operations are quite scant, being for the most patt occasional reports 
in the Honolulu newspaper, The Fri4nd, it is impossible to state exactly how 
much guano was removed from the island. Hutchinson (1950) who analyzed available 
records estimated that the original guano reserve on Enderbury was on an order 
or magnitude of 100,000 tons. This‘is particularly interesting since Thomas 
Long, orignal claimant to the deposits also estimated the reserve at about 
100 , 000 tons . yvft 
kwtyt:kxxgwxxxxl xfxxmxxfxkkgxxpxxx±±XMXX Xxkxkkx x x xMXxkxxxk±a±xx 
The guano operations, themselves, are known in but little detail, but were 
apparetnly similar to those conducted on other of the Central Pacific guano 
islands. "When the American clipper ships arrived at the island to load guano 
they moored at a buoy off the west side of the island and also secured themselves 
by lines to an anchor imbedded on shore. (Shorf 1878 ) The guano was brought 
from the main d eposits by railway trams and taken to the ship from a pier 
built out from the western side of the island. 
Eveidently there was a considerable amount of contsrtuction by the Phoenix 
Guano company (and perhaps by its successor, J.T. Arundel and Co.as well). 
In 1924 long after the island had been abandoned, Bryan (1934-621) observed the 
remains of a relatively large number of structures from this period. These 
included a paved stone trail, the remains of a tram line, and the slab walls 
M 
(+2) Bryan (1942) stated that"guano digging began about April, l860while 
Maude ( 19 m ) gave the date as "1862". From the xxxxty documents given 
in the Nat onal Archives (see above) it would seem that the earilier 
daete is in error and the latter must approximate the time at which guano 
shipments and diffing began. 
