Thursday October Christian I

Thursday October Christian (14 October 1790 – 21 April 1831) was the first son of Fletcher Christian (leader of the historical mutiny on the Bounty) and his Tahitian wife Mauatua.^[1] He was the first child born on the Pitcairn Islands after the mutineers took refuge on the island. Born on a Thursday in October, he was given his unusual name because Fletcher Christian wanted his son to have "no name that will remind me of England."

Thursday, at age 16, married an older native woman, Teraura (Susannah/Susan Young), who had been Ned Young's original consort. She was past 30 at the time of the marriage. The ceremony was carried out with a ring that had belonged to Ned Young.

Along with a number of other Pitcairners, he migrated to Tahiti in 1831, but having no immunity to the diseases of the island he died on 21 April.^[2] At that point he had been "the oldest and perhaps the most respected of the first generation of native born islanders". Eleven other Pitcairners died in the same epidemic. Deprived of leadership, the group left Tahiti on 14 August 1831 to return to Pitcairn facilitated by Captain William Driver. His wife outlived him by 19 years. Thursday's third son was Thursday October Christian II (1820–1911).

For many years Thursday's house was the oldest building still standing on the island, until it was demolished on 12 March 2004 because of termite damage.^[2]