Maximilian "Max" Schlemmer (1856–1935) was called the "King of Laysan" and superintendent of a guano mining operation on the Hawaiian island of Laysan, where he lived from 1894 to 1915. Much of the desecration of Laysan and species extinction (such as the extinction of the Laysan Rail and Laysan Millerbird) at the turn of the 20th century was a result of his entrepreneurial initiatives to support his growing family.
Contents |
Schlemmer was born in Germany and immigrated to the United States in 1871 when he was fifteen. In 1885, he moved to Hawaii and worked in sugar plantations on various islands until he was hired to oversee a Japanese guano mining labor force on Laysan in 1894. In 1895, he brought his new sixteen year-old wife, Therese, to Laysan and subsequently had five children with her, in addition to the three from his previous marriage.
Schlemmer was made superintendent of the guano operation in 1896. Soon after, he left to open a bar and boardinghouse on Kauai during which time a Japanese miner was murdered during a dispute between American and Japanese workers. In the ensuing court case, the existing superintendent was removed and Max 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, allowing him to export anything from Laysan. Yamanouchi used this permission to export not guano, which had been mostly depleted, but bird feathers.
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 five-thousand were killed, leaving a substantial number still alive. Max couldn't 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 having broken out and the subsequent ameri-German paranoia it cause in full effect, Schlemmer found himself falsely accused of being a German spy using Laysan as his headquarters.
Not all of the animals on Laysan were hardy enough to survive the following few years, during which time Laysan degenerated into a veritable desert devoid of vegetation. Many species became extinct in the early 1920s, including the Laysan Rail (which survived on other islands afterwards but soon became extinct there as well), the Laysan Millerbird, and the Laysan Fan Palm. The Laysan Finch was able to survive by scavenging other dead birds, and the Laysan Duck survived because its diet of brine flies was unharmed.