Maximilian Joseph August Schlemmer (April 13, 1856 – June 13, 1935), known as the "King of Laysan," was a German immigrant to the United States who settled in Hawaii and spent fifteen years from 1894 to 1915 living with his family on the

Hawaiian island The Hawaiian Islands ( haw, Nā Mokupuni o Hawai‘i) are an archipelago of eight major islands, several atolls, and numerous smaller islets in the North Pacific Ocean, extending some from the island of Hawaii in the south to northernmost Kur ...

Laysan Laysan (; haw, italics=no, Kauō ), located northwest of Honolulu at , is one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It comprises one land mass of , about in size. It is an atoll of sorts, although the land completely surrounds a shallow ...

as superintendent of a

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

mining operation. Schlemmer was interested in the birdlife of the island and made several studies which provide information on historic bird populations. However, Schlemmer and his family unwittingly introduced rabbits to Laysan, leading to the extinction of the

Laysan rail The Laysan rail or Laysan crake (''Zapornia palmeri'') was a flightless bird endemic to the Northwest Hawaiian Island of Laysan. This small island was and still is an important seabird colony, and sustained a number of endemic species, includ ...

and

Laysan millerbird The Laysan millerbird (''Acrocephalus familiaris familiaris'') was a subspecies of the millerbird, similar in appearance to the remaining subspecies, the Nihoa millerbird. Its dorsal side was brown, and its belly was grayish. Its name derives fr ...

and permanently changed the island's ecology in the early 20th century. A biography of Schlemmer was written by his grandson, Tom Unger.

Early life

Schlemmer was born in 1856 to German parents living in

Scheibenhardt Scheibenhardt () is a German municipality located in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In 2004 it had 714 inhabitants. Situated on the border with Alsace, it is continuous with the French village of Scheibenhard, separated only by a small creek c ...

, Alsace, on the border of Germany and France. He moved to New York in 1871 fearing the advance of the Prussian army into France and worked for several years aboard whaling ships before moving to Kauai in 1885 to live in a "German town" called Lihue. Schlemmer worked for some years at a sugar mill and applied his mechanical skills to a small railroad system for transporting material at the mill. He married Auguste Bomke on September 5, 1886 at the Lutheran church in Lihue. Auguste had three children (Marianne called Mary, Auguste called Gussie and Max Jr.) and after her death he married Auguste's younger sister, Therese, on March 22, 1895. Therese had several more children with him. In 1893 Schlemmer served in the Honolulu Police, assisting the government of Queen Liliuoakalani prevent a coup by Americans. The coup however was successful and the Republic of Hawaii was created. Schlemmer then obtained a job in the Pacific Guano & Fertilizer Company working for the Japanese under a Captain (“Governor”) Charles N. Spencer which extracted nitrate from the guano obtained from islands where birds nested in large numbers, particularly Laysan Island. In six years Schlemmer was able to turn around the company into a major profit. In 1899 Schlemmer left Laysan, with a falling out with Spencer and returned to Hawaii to obtain an American citizenship. In 1900, unrest broke out on Laysan and the Pacific Guano & Fertilizer Company people decided that Schlemmer's role in smooth operations was key and recruited him back to replace Spencer. Schlemmer was posted manager and his family, and two workers moved to Laysan and were the sole white residents, the remainder being Japanese labourers, leading to the jocular epithet of "King of Laysan." They continued to mine guano even after the company that he worked for moved out their operations.

"King of Laysan"

Schlemmer was made superintendent of the guano operation in 1896. Soon after, he left to open a bar and boardinghouse on

Kauai Kauai, () anglicized as Kauai ( ), is geologically the second-oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands (after Niʻihau). With an area of 562.3 square miles (1,456.4 km2), it is the fourth-largest of these islands and the 21st largest island ...

during which time a Japanese miner on Laysan was murdered during a dispute between American and Japanese workers. In the ensuing court case, the existing superintendent was removed and Schlemmer returned to Laysan again. The North Pacific Phosphate and Fertilizer Company sold their mining rights to Schlemmer, and he in turn sold them to a Genkichi Yamanouchi of

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, allowing him to export anything from Laysan. Yamanouchi used this permission to export not guano, which had been mostly depleted, but bird feathers. Max Schlemmer hired Japanese workers, and together they slaughtered over 300,000 birds. They were starved, had their wings removed, tossed aside on the beach, and slowly baked and died in the sun. LaysanEggsRothschild

With the creation of the bird reservation in 1909, however, these activities became illegal, and Schlemmer was removed from the island. The rabbits that he had previously let loose now became uncontrolled and ravaged the island for food. The US Biological Survey sent a crew to exterminate them in 1913, but ran out of ammunition after 5,000 were killed, leaving a substantial number still alive. Schlemmer was unable to live away from Laysan, and in 1915 the government allowed him to return while denying his request to become a federal game warden. With nothing to eat on the bare island, Schlemmer's family nearly starved before they were rescued by the USS ''Nereus''. With

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

having broken out and the subsequent anti-German paranoia, Schlemmer found himself accused of being a German spy using Laysan as his headquarters.

Repercussions of the rabbit outbreak

Not all of the animals on Laysan were hardy enough to survive the following few years, during which time Laysan lost most of its vegetation. Many species consequently became extinct in the early 1920s, including the

(which survived on other islands for a while), the

, and the Laysan fan palm. The

Laysan finch The Laysan finch (''Telespiza cantans'') is a species of Hawaiian honeycreeper, that is endemic to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. It is one of four remaining finch-billed Hawaiian honeycreepers and is closely related to the smaller Nihoa finc ...

was able to survive by scavenging other dead birds, and the

Laysan duck The Laysan duck (''Anas laysanensis''), also known as the Laysan teal, is a dabbling duck endemic to the Hawaiian Islands. Fossil evidence reveals that Laysan ducks once lived across the entire archipelago, but today survive only on Laysan Isl ...

survived because its diet of brine flies was unharmed.

Notes

References

* *Rauzon, M. ''Isles of Refuge: Wildlife and History of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands'', University of Hawaii Press: Honolulu, 2001.
FORUM di FILATELIA pagina 100
at www.cifr.it (most parts in Italian)
NWHI : Research : NOWRAMP 2002 : Journals
at www.hawaiianatolls.org

External links