Pioneers to the South Pacific
I
n 1876, two Seventh-day Adventist clergymen in California, John Loughborough and James White, learned the fascinating story of the mutiny on the British ship HMS Bounty and that some of the mutineers’ descendants were living on a small island in the South Pacific called Pitcairn. Determined to share their faith with the islanders, the ministers prepared a box filled with literature and took it to the San Francisco waterfront where a ship captain agreed to take it to Pitcairn.
In the early 1800s, John Adams, the only surviving mutineer on Pitcairn, had introduced the Pitcairn islanders to Christianity through a Bible and a Church of England prayer book.
The Adventist literature sent by Loughborough and White in 1876 drew some attention from the islanders, but they continued to practice their Anglican faith. A decade later, that would change.
In 1886, John I. Tay, a retired seaman and Seventh-day Adventist layman living in Oakland, California, journeyed to Pitcairn. For five weeks, he studied the principles of Adventism with the islanders, and most embraced it. He was pleased when they requested baptism, but because he wasn’t an ordained minister, he couldn’t perform the rite. He promised to return with a minister who could fulfill their wishes.
Back in the United States, Tay appealed to church leaders to begin spreading the Adventist faith throughout the Pacific islands. One attempt to do this in the late 1880s failed because of the mysterious disappearance at sea of the Adventist missionary ship Phoebe Chapman. But, in a successful second attempt, the church commissioned a missionary ship, aptly named the Pitcairn, to be built at a shipyard in California. Adventist children in Sabbath Schools throughout the United States contributed money for the ship’s construction that they had earned by shining shoes, doing yard work, and other such jobs.
On October 20, 1890, the Pitcairn sailed from Oakland, California, under Captain Joseph Marsh. The crew included a first mate, three sailors, a cook, and cabin attendant. Also aboard were three missionary couples: Edward H. and Ida Gates, Albert and Hattie Read, and John and Hannah Tay. Soon after their arrival on November 25, 82 Pitcairn islanders were baptized, and a church was established on the island.
When the missionary ship departed Pitcairn in December 1890 to visit other islands, three newly baptized Pitcairners were aboard. At their request, they would assist the missionaries in their ministry. The Tays served in Fiji, a group of islands where cannibalism had prevailed and Christians had suffered martyrdom.
Sadly, Tay, the initiator of the whole Pitcairn enterprise, died from influenza on January 8, 1892, at the age of 61. Hannah returned to America where she died at the age of 79.
The Pitcairn made six voyages during its 10-year period of missionary service. By 1899,
Australasian missionaries were being trained at Avondale school in Cooranbong, Australia, and the service of American missionaries was phased out. Not long after the Pitcairn returned to San Francisco from its sixth voyage, it was sold for commercial purposes early in 1900.