"I have the honour to report that on Wednesday, the 28th of August, 1867, in compliance with the orders of the Hon. Secretary of the Navy of May 28th, I took formal possession of Brooks Island and reefs for the United States. Having previously erected a suitable flagstaff I landed on that day, accompanied by all the officers who could be spared from the ship, with six boats armed and equipped, and under a salute of twenty-one guns, and with three cheers, hoisted the national ensign, and called on all hands to witness the act of taking possession in the name of the United States. "The ceremony of taking possession over, the howitzers and small-arm men and marines were exercised at target-firing. Having hauled the seine and procured an abundant supply of fish, the men cooked their dinner on shore, and the rest of the day was spent pleasantly, picnic fashion upon the island.... I sincerely hope that this will by no means be the last of our insular annexations. I venture to name the only harbour at this island after the present Hon. Secretary of the Navy, and to call its roadstead after the present Hon. Secretary of State (Seward)." "In 1869," writes C. S. Alden, in his life of Commodore Perkins, "Congress appropriated $50,000 for deepening the entrance of the harbour; the work was begun, but the amount proved insufficient for completing the plan. One hundred miles to the west, Lieutenant-Commander Sicard, of the U. S. S. _Saginaw_, who had the duties of inspecting and assisting in this work, had the misfortune to wreck his ship on a reef. The hazardous voyage of Lieutenant Talbot with three men in a small boat sailing over 1500 miles to Kauai, Hawaiian Islands, to gain succour, and the drowning of all but one of the men just as they reached their destination and were pushing through the surf to make a landing, is one of the thrilling tales of the sea. Nothing further seems to have been done by our Government until three or four decades later, when it sought to insure safety to navigation by establishing there a lighthouse and buoys. After the visits of the _Lackawanna_ and the _Saginaw_, the islands were deserted until the Pacific Commercial Cable Company placed there a station in the San Francisco-Manila line, maintaining about forty men. This is the intermediate station between Honolulu and Guam."[7]