Pitcairn Island & Pacific Union College

Seventh-day Adventist schooner Pitcairn

Pitcairn Island, in the South Pacific Ocean some 5,000 miles south of its campus, and Pacific Union College, a co-educational liberal arts institution in California's Napa Valley just north of San Francisco, have a common religious bond, the Seventh-day Adventist faith.

A conservative Protestant Christian body of some 10 million members world-wide, the Seventh-day Adventist denomination has, since its founding in 1863, practised the biblical injunction to carry the gospel message "to every nation, kindred, tongue and people." In harmony with this charge, the church today is active in practically every country of the world.

In 1876, J.N. Loughborough and James White, two Seventh-day Adventist clergymen who were living in the Napa Valley, learned the fascinating story of the mutiny on HMS Bounty, and that the mutineers' descendants were living on Pitcairn Island. They determined to see that the Pitcairners learned of their Adventist faith. They prepared a box filled with religious papers, and took it to the San Francisco waterfront where they found Captain David A. Scribner of the ship St. John who agreed to take them to Pitcairn.

The Pitcairners read the papers sent by the clergymen, but they made no change from their Church of England faith which they had been practising since the early 1800s. At that time John Adams, the only surviving mutineer, had introduced them to religion through a Bible and a Church of England prayer book taken from the Bounty. In the changed life of John Adams -- from criminal-minded sailor to peace-loving patriarch -- those on Pitcairn found eloquent testimony to the Divine power that changes lives. But, as it must to all, death came to the beloved island leader. The Pitcairn Register Book entry of March 5, 1829, states simply, "John Adams died aged 65."

Sir Charles Lucas in his introduction to the register book, writes:

Many notable cases of religious conversion have been recorded in the history of Christianity, but it would be difficult to find an exact parallel to that of John Adams. The facts are quite clear. There is no question as to what he was and did after all his shipmates on the island had perished. He had no human guide or counsellor to turn him into the way of righteousness and make him feel and shoulder responsibility for bringing up a group of boys and girls in the fear of God .

He had a Bible and a Prayer Book to be the instruments of his endeavour, so far as education, or rather lack of education, served him. He may well have recalled to mind memories of his own childhood. But there can be only one straightforward explanation of what took place, that it was the handiwork of the Almighty, whereby a sailor seasoned to crime came to himself in a far country and learnt and taught others to follow Christ.

Given the simple religious principles and piety Adams taught them, it was natural that the Pitcairners would have considerable interest in the box of Seventh-day Adventist tracts brought to them by Captain Scribner, even if their message did not inspire an immediate change in worship habits.

In 1886, John I. Tay, a Seventh-day Adventist layman living in Oakland, California, who had retired from a seafaring life, went to Pitcairn. For five weeks the islanders studied with him the principles of the Adventist faith. They clearly recalled having been introduced to the Adventist way of worship some 10 years before through the box of tracts they had received. Almost all on the island decided to embrace the Adventist faith. They asked to be baptised as Seventh-day Adventist Christians, but Tay, pointing out that he was not an ordained minister and thus could not perform the rite, promised to return with an ordained clergyman for the baptism they desired.

It was four years, 1890, before John I. Tay could keep his promise. He returned on the Seventh-day Adventist schooner Pitcairn in November, 1890. Most Pitcairners, since then, have been members of the Adventist faith.

The Pitcairn made six missionary voyages into the Pacific from San Francisco. On each voyage, Pitcairn Island was her first port of call. In connection with several of the voyages, as the islanders caught the spirit of spreading the Christian gospel to other lands, a number asked to join the missionaries on the ship who were being assigned to other Pacific islands. Yet others, realising that they needed formal training, were brought to San Francisco where they enrolled in Healdsburg College, just north of the city.

Healdsburg College, founded in 1882, was renamed Pacific Union College, and in 1909 was moved to the mountain-top resort called Angwin's in the Napa Valley. One of Pacific Union College's women's residence halls is named Andre Hall. Hattie Andre was the first non-island school teacher on Pitcairn, having arrived on the island in 1893 on the Pitcairn. A beloved teacher, Miss Andre taught the islanders the art of basket weaving and wood carving which today accounts for much of the island's economy. After her service on Pitcairn, Miss Andre came to Pacific Union College as a dean of women.

Thus it is that Pacific Union College records the names of Pitcairn Islanders among its student bodies of the past; has developed a world-class study center about the entire Bounty saga; maintains a women's residence hall named after one of Pitcairn's most beloved teachers; and is in frequent contact with its many friends on the tiny South Pacific Island.

--Herbert Ford, Director, Pitcairn Islands Study Center