Posted on 04/28/2008 8:26:35 PM PDT by blam
Islanders speak with a West Country accent
By Richard Alleyne and Richard Savill
Last Updated: 1:32am BST 29/04/2008
The entire population of a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean has been found to speak with a West Country accent - because the residents all descend from one man from Gloucestershire.
William Marsters [left] and with his family, who had four wives, 17 children and 54 grandchildren before his death in 1899. All the inhabitants of the island descend from him
Researchers have long been puzzled by the strong rural drawl spoken by the inhabitants of Palmerston Atoll, one of the smallest and most remote of the Cook Islands with a land mass of less than one square mile.
The island is home to 63 people, who are all descended from William Marsters, an English carpenter and barrelmaker who settled there in 1863.
Now linguists have matched their accent to that of their very distant cousins 12,000 miles away in Gloucestershire.
The discovery has led to intense interest in the islanders, now in their fifth generation, and one English writer and historian has launched a quest to find out more about Mr Marsters, who had four wives, 17 children and 54 grandchildren before his death in 1899.
John Roberts, a former broadcast journalist from the BBC, wants to contact anyone who thinks they may be related to Mr Marsters to solve the mystery of his origins.
"It is an absolutely fascinating story," said Mr Roberts, 53, from Warrington, Cheshire. "We know about his time on the island because it has been documented by passing missionaries and yachtsman, but his early life remains a mystery.
"It was originally thought he was from the Midlands but this discovery points to him coming from Gloucestershire. Linguists from the University of South Pacific are very confident the accent that the islanders speak originates from there."
Mr Marsters, who ran away to be a whaler when he was 18, then headed to California for the gold rush of the 1840s before plying the trade routes of the Pacific.
He arrived on Palmerston - named by Capt Cook after Lord Palmerston, the First Lord of the British Admiralty at the time - on July 8, 1863.
Already travelling with three Polynesian wives, he later took a fourth.
The atoll was uninhabited at the time, and Marsters used wood salvaged from shipwrecks to build and populate a tiny community, which soon included a church, school room and homes.
He then grew more than 8,000 coconut trees for shelter and food and exported sea cucumbers from the nearby lagoon to the Chinese market.
Said to be an authoritarian and austere figure, Mr Marsters carried a loaded gun with him at all times and was guarded by two fierce dogs.
William Wyatt Gill, an English missionary who travelled to the Cook Islands, spoke of him in his book Jottings from the Pacific in 1885.
He described him as a "short well set man of 60 years old with an uneasy expression of countenance" who ran the island with an iron fist and had survived at least one attempt on his life.
After his death, Mr Marsters's legacy remained intact and in 1954 ownership of the island was granted to his descendants. Although under the protection of New Zealand, it is still run by his great-grandson.
The reason for the family's survival is put down to its strict adherence to religious laws. It is split into three branches, one for each original wife, and marriage within each branch is strictly forbidden.
West country? So visitors can be expected be greeted with "howdy, pardner."
It would have helped if the reporter had told us what religion these folks practice. I speculate that it may be old style Mormonism, as Mr. Marsters traveled through the western U.S. at a time the Mormon church still practiced polygamy and was growing by leaps and bounds.
If only the Muslims should be pursued with the same passion for the same crime.
Your speculation would be incorrect. I saw a piece on this family years ago on TV. The Marsters were, and still are, Anglican. The original Mr. Masters even declared himself to be an Anglican minister, though no evidence exists to prove the claim. He was apparently a very religious man though...even though it was originally just he and his wives on the island, he still insisted that the church be built first, even before his home was erected.
Did the piece say how he squared Anglicanism and polygamy?
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