Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1916-07-21
Miss Emily Mccoy Is Descendant
of Bounty Mutineer Who
Settled There.
FATHER IS PRESENT RULER
She Came to America Eight Years Ago
to Study Medicine and Nursing to
Help Her PeopIe-Anxious to
Return Now and Take
Up Her Work.

Bridgeport, COnn.-Miss Emily Nc
Coy, a graduate nurse living here, has
announced to her friends that after
eight years study and tenderly caring
for strangers in their illness, she was
going home to her own people, the
inhabitants Of Pitcairn island, far OF
in the Pacific.
Miss Mccoy looks to be twenty
eight or thirty, though she smilingly
refuses to testify as to this, has mid
night black hair, soft olive-white skin
that suggests SUMMER skies than Con-
necticut's, kindly hazel eyes and a
pleasant round face denoting serious
ness and intelligence. She is large
and competent looking, the kind OF
woman that a nerve-racked patient
likes to see enter the sickrOom. To
Bridgeport she has been known as a
quiet. retiring, ministering angel in
times of distress in prominent fami-
lies.
When her friends inquired where
her home was and who her people
were, the romance of the South seas
came out, though a few of them had
known it all along.
A "Princess Royal"
Miss Mccoy is the daughter OF
King" ]. R. Mccoy. president of tiny
Pitcairn island, which is two and q
half miles long-a lot of land in the
mid-eastern Pacific ocean, little known
even to mariners because of its great
distance from other land. 1t lies south
of the Paumotu archipelago and Is 300
miles from the nearest member of this
group. 1t is seven miles in circum-
ference, of volcanic origin, with shores
rising almost perpendicularly to groves
of cocoanut, plantain, banana, orange
and breadfruit. In this tropical para
disc Emily Mccoy was born, and des-
tined, according to local usage, to
become its queen" Her father and
her grandfather had long ruled as
kings" the handful Of people.
A glamour of romance hangs about
the island and its people from the
fact that it was originally settled in
1880 by the mutineers of the English
ship Bounty, consisting of Fletcher
Christian, the leader of the mutiny.
eight Englishmen, six Polynesian men
and twelve Polynesian women. 1t was
heard of the remarkable colony there.
In 1925 Captain Beechey found here
q colony of &C people under the patri-
archal rule of John Adams, the only
Englishman left, who had risen to the
emergency and trained the growing
generation In education, religion and
husbandry. There were male and fe-
male descendants of Adams, Edwin
Young. Matthew Mccoy and Matthew
Quintal, which names, with those of
George HUM hobbs, who later joined
the colony, alone exist today. The
colony has been a law-abiding, up
right community since its discovery
in 1926, when Beechey was astonished
to find there race of people speak
ing and writing English, living in
Arcadian simplicity and devoting them
selves to agriculture, religion and
music. Only four generations nave
grown from the founders. Hiss Mccoy
is of the third generation.
Women Vote There.
Our people are simple in their
lives" said Miss Mccoy There are
only 1876 souls on the island, and ships
seldom visit US unless they need vege-
tables. and the only ship that we are
sure to see is the yearly visit of a Brit
ish warship, which is not allowed to
carry women, the island being within
the jurisdiction of the British high
commissioner of the Pacific. We have
our own little parliament and are self
elected yearly by the votes of both
men and women over eighteen years
of age. There is no competition for
father have held the Office for years.
There has never been a resident
physician on the island, for there is
little sickness among us, and the peo-
pie know almost nothing of medicine
as it is practiced outside. 1t was be-
cause of the suffering Of my mother
before her death that / determined to
go away and study medicine and nurs-
ing that l might be of more use to
my people. Leaving everything, in
GLIDING the young man to whom was
engaged, l went on. a ship that hap
pened to touch there, to Samoa, the
home of Robert Louis Stevenson. and
studied in the medical mission there
for number of years until felt that
l knew enough to really be of serv-
ice. Then arose the problem of get
ting back to lonely little Pitcairn
island, lost in the waste of the ocean
and seldom visited. l came to San
Francisco, expecting that from there
l should stand better chance of get
ting a ship that would touch there.
For nine months was in California
waiting. and finally, seeing no chance,
/ decided to improve my time by con-
tinuing my studies of medicine, den
tistry and nursing, and wrote to a