Pohnpei has about fifty resident whites, and Kosrae’s beach community reaches its peak.

What happened

Hezel estimates that about fifty whites lived on Pohnpei in 1840, while Kosrae’s beach community was at its largest that year. After Kosraeans destroyed the whaler Harriet in 1842, the few whites on Kosrae feared for their lives, and the island became “less a home than a way station” for deserters heading to Pohnpei.