Editing Howland Island (section)

===U.S. possession and guano mining===
Howland Island was uninhabited when the United States took possession of it under the [[Guano Islands Act]] of 1856. The island was a known navigation hazard for decades, and several ships were wrecked there. Its [[guano]] deposits were mined by American companies from about 1857 until October{{spaces}}1878, although there was a dispute between mining companies.

Captain Geo. E. Netcher of the ''Isabella'' informed Captain Taylor of its discovery. As Taylor had discovered another guano island in the Indian Ocean, they agreed to share the benefits of the guano on the two islands. Taylor put Netcher in communication with Alfred G. Benson, president of the American Guano Company, which was incorporated in 1857.<ref name="New York Times">{{Cite web |date=May 3, 1865 |title=The Guano Companies in Litigation – A Case of Interest to Stockholders |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1865/05/03/archives/the-guano-companies-in-litigationa-case-of-interest-to-stockholders.html |website=[[The New York Times]]}}</ref> Other entrepreneurs were approached as George and Matthew Howland, who later became United States Guano Company members, engaged Mr. Stetson to visit the island on the ship ''Rousseau'' under Captain Pope. Mr. Stetson arrived on the island in 1854 and described it as being occupied by birds and a plague of rats.<ref name="LH">{{Cite journal |last=Howland |first=Llewellyn |date=April 1955 |title=Howland Island, Its Birds and Rats, as Observed by a Certain Mr. Stetson in 1854 |url=https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/0f382672-d122-4564-8ebe-a6892b01d2f0/content |journal=[[Pacific Science]] |volume=IX |pages=95–106}}</ref>

The American Guano Company established claims with respect to [[Baker Island]] and [[Jarvis Island]], which were recognized under the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856. Benson tried to interest the American Guano Company in the Howland Island deposits; however, the company directors considered they already had sufficient deposits. In October{{spaces}}1857, the American Guano Company sent Benson's son Arthur to Baker and Jarvis Islands to survey the guano deposits. He also visited Howland Island and took samples of the guano. Subsequently, Alfred G. Benson resigned from the American Guano Company. Netcher, Taylor, and George W. Benson formed the United States Guano Company to exploit the guano on Howland Island, with this claim recognized under the U.S. Guano Islands Act of 1856.<ref name="New York Times" />
[[File:PacificGuanoWorks WoodsHole bySSKilburn ca1865.png|thumb|[[Pacific Guano Company]]]]
However, when the United States Guano Company dispatched a vessel in 1859 to mine the guano, they found that Howland Island was already occupied by men sent there by the American Guano Company. The companies ended up in New York state court,{{refn|1=''American Guano Co. v. U.S. Guano Co.'', 44 <abbr title="Barbour's Supreme Court Reports">Barb</abbr>. 23 (N.Y. 1865).|group=Note}} with the American Guano Company arguing that the United States Guano Company had, in effect, abandoned the island since the continual possession and actual occupation required for ownership by the Guano Islands Act did not occur. The result was that both companies were allowed to mine the guano deposits, which were substantially depleted by October{{spaces}}1878.<ref>{{Cite report |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/GAOREPORTS-OGC-98-5 |title=GAO/OGC-98-5 - U.S. Insular Areas: Application of the U.S. Constitution |date=November 7, 1997 |publisher=[[U.S. Government Printing Office]]}}</ref> Laborers for the mining operations came from around the Pacific, including from Hawai{{okina}}i; the Hawaiian laborers named Howland Island {{lang|haw|Ulukou}} ('kou tree grove').<ref>{{cite report|title=Early Cultural and Historical Seascape of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument: Archival and Literary Research Report|first1=Jesi|last1=Quan Bautista|first2=Savannah|last2=Smith|date=2018|number=SP-19-005|publisher=NOAA Fisheries Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center|doi=10.25923/fb5w-jw23|page=3}}</ref> Established in 1861, the [[Pacific Guano Company]] purchased Howland Island to provide a source of guano for its fertilizer plant.<ref name="GoodeAtwater1880">{{cite book |last1=Goode |first1=G. Brown (George Brown) |last2=Atwater |first2=W. O. (Wilbur Olin) |title=American fisheries: a history of the menhaden |date=1880 |publisher=Orange Judd |location=New York |pages=487–90 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americanfisherie00good/page/487 |access-date=9 November 2024 |language=en |chapter=A Description of the factory of the Pacific Guano Company, at Wood’s Holl, Mass., by Messrs. Crowell and Shiverick, of the Pacific Guano Company, and short-hand notes taken by Mr. H. A. Gill.}} {{Source-attribution}}</ref> 

In the late 19th century, British claims were made on the island, and attempts were made to set up mining. [[John T. Arundel]] and Company, a British firm using laborers from the [[Cook Islands]] and [[Niue]], occupied the island from 1886 to 1891.<ref>{{harvnb|Bryan|1942}}</ref>

Executive Order 7368 was issued on {{nowrap|May 13, 1936}} to clarify American sovereignty.<ref>{{cite web
 |url          = http://att.net/~higley.family/HullMemo.htm
 |title        = Memorandum of Secretary of State Cordell Hull to the President, February 18, 1936. ''Presidential Private File, Franklin D. Roosevelt Library, Hyde Park, New York.''
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20100311031926/http://home.att.net/~higley.family/HullMemo.htm
 |archive-date = March 11, 2010
 |url-status   = dead
 |df           = mdy-all
}}</ref>