Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

White House

Located along the banks of the Potomac River, the site of the nation’s capital city was selected after much debate through a compromise between southern and northern representatives during the late 1780s.

The Residence Act of 1790 placed the site along the Potomac River, and gave President George Washington the authority to select the exact location of the new capital city.

President George Washington signed the Residence Act in July 1790 declaring that the Federal Government would reside in a district “not exceeding ten miles square…on the river Potomac.”

City Planner Pierre (Peter) Charles L’Enfant laid out plans for the nation’s new capital and together with President Washington chose the site for the “President’s House.”

The building’s history begins in 1792, when a public competition was held to choose a design for a presidential residence in the new capital city of Washington.

Thomas Jefferson, later the country’s third president (1801–09), using the pseudonymous initials “A.Z.,” was among those who submitted drawings, but Irish American architect James Hoban won the commission (and a $500 prize) with his plan for a Georgian mansion in the Palladian style.

The structure was to have three floors and more than 100 rooms and would be built in sandstone imported from quarries along Aquia Creek in Virginia.

President Washington marked the spot for the future north walls and entrance of the White House in 1791. The chosen location and position for the White House symbolically linked the President’s House to the U.S. Capitol via Pennsylvania Avenue (1600 Pennsylvania Avenue N.W. in Washington, DC)

The cornerstone was laid on October 13, 1792. Laborers, including local enslaved people, were housed in temporary huts built on the north side of the premises. They were joined by skilled stonemasons from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1793.

In 1800 the entire federal government was relocated from Philadelphia to Washington. John Adams, the country’s second president (1797–1801), moved into the still unfinished presidential mansion on November 1 and the next night Adams wrote in a letter to his wife, Abigail Adams:

“I Pray Heaven Bestow the Best of Blessings on This House and All that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but Honest and Wise Men ever rule under this Roof.”

At the insistence of President Franklin Roosevelt (1933–45), the quotation was inscribed on the fireplace of the State Dining Room immediately below the portrait of Abraham Lincoln, by George Healy.

During the War of 1812 the building was burned by the British, and President James Madison (1809–17) and his family were forced to flee the city. The Madisons eventually moved into the nearby Octagon House, the Washington mansion of John Tayloe, a Virginia plantation owner.

Reconstruction and expansion began under Hoban’s direction, but the building was not ready for occupancy until 1817, during the administration of President James Monroe (1817–25).

It survived a fire at the hands of the British in 1814 (during the war of 1812) and another fire in the West Wing in 1929, while Herbert Hoover was President.

President John Adams opened the White House to the public and started the tradition of hosting New Year’s Day receptions. President Thomas Jefferson expanded on this tradition of hospitality and hosted the first Fourth of July celebration.

Thomas Jefferson held the first Inaugural open house in 1805. Many of those who attended the swearing-in ceremony at the US Capitol simply followed him home, where he greeted them in the Blue Room. President Jefferson also opened the house for public tours, and it has remained open, except during wartime, ever since.

In 1829, a horde of 20,000 Inaugural callers forced President Andrew Jackson to flee to the safety of a hotel while, on the lawn, aides filled washtubs with orange juice and whiskey to lure the mob out of the mud-tracked White House.

After Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, Inaugural crowds became far too large for the White House to accommodate them comfortably.

In Grover Cleveland’s first presidency he held a presidential review of the troops from a flag-draped grandstand built in front of the White House. This procession evolved into the official Inaugural parade we know today. Receptions on New Year’s Day and the Fourth of July continued to be held until the early 1930s.

The 1902 renovation relocated the public entrance to the White House to the East Terrace, but the president and his wife still welcome state visitors in the Entrance Hall.

The Second and Third Floors are private living quarters, used only by the president, family, and guests.

Although the name “White House” was commonly used (because the mansion’s white-gray sandstone contrasted strikingly with the red brick of nearby buildings), it did not become the official name of the building until 1901, when it was adopted by President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–09). The White House is the oldest federal building in the nation’s capital.

There are 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, and 6 levels in the Residence. There are also 412 doors, 147 windows, 28 fireplaces, 8 staircases, and 3 elevators.

With five full-time chefs, the White House kitchen is able to serve dinner to as many as 140 guests and hors d’oeuvres to more than 1,000.

For recreation, the White House has a variety of facilities available to its residents, including a tennis court, jogging track, swimming pool, movie theater, and bowling lane.

The White House and its landscaped grounds occupy 18 acres.  The White House Grounds and the surrounding parkland, known as President’s Park, provide an elegant setting to welcome foreign dignitaries and to host national celebrations such as the lighting of the National Christmas Tree and the annual Easter Egg Roll, and on occasion public protests.

The Ellipse is the central landscape feature on the south side. Lafayette Park, on the north side, is surrounded by many historic buildings of interest and is the site of an equestrian statue of President Andrew Jackson and a number of statues of Revolutionary War heroes erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The National Park Service maintains the White House Gardens and Grounds, the surrounding parkland known as President’s Park, and provides interpretive programs in the park and at the White House Visitor Center.

For two hundred years, the White House has stood as a symbol of the Presidency, the United States government, and the American people.

Click the following link to a general summary about the White House:

Click to access White-House.pdf

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Adams Family

Samuel Adams and John Adams were second cousins. Abigail Adams was John Adams’ third cousin.  John Quincy Adams was the son of John and Abigail.

Samuel Adams

The elusiveness of the character of Samuel Adams has allowed for a wide interpretation of his place and influence in American Revolution.  Prominent American Revolution histories rarely discuss Adams at length and there are few biographies about him.

Samuel Adams’ description in history goes from heroic “Father of the Revolution” to zealot and propagandist directing mobs to a complex man who greatly influenced the American Revolution. (Perkins)

Samuel Adams, (born September 27 [September 16, Old Style], 1722, Boston, Massachusetts – died October 2, 1803, Boston) was a politician of the American Revolution, leader of the Massachusetts “radicals,” a delegate to the Continental Congress (1774–81) and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was later lieutenant governor (1789–93) and governor (1794–97) of Massachusetts.

Adams was a powerful figure in the opposition to British authority in the colonies.  He denounced the Sugar Act, being one of the first of the colonials to cry out against taxation without representation.

He played an important part in instigating the Stamp Act riots in Boston that were directed against the new requirement to pay taxes on all legal and commercial documents, newspapers, and college diplomas.

His influence was soon second only to James Otis, the lawyer and politician who gained prominence by his resistance to the revenue acts.

Samuel Adams was one of the first American leaders to deny Parliament’s authority over the colonies, and he was also one of the first—certainly by 1774—to establish independence as the proper goal.

He was again a leading figure in the opposition of Massachusetts to the execution of the Intolerable (Coercive) Acts passed by the British Parliament in retaliation for the dumping of tea in Boston Harbor, and, as a member of the First Continental Congress, which spoke for the 13 colonies, he insisted that the delegates take a vigorous stand against Britain.

A member of the provincial congress of Massachusetts in 1774–75, he participated in making preparations for warfare should Britain resort to arms. When the British troops marched out of Boston to Concord, Adams and the president of the Continental Congress, John Hancock, were staying in a farmhouse near the line of march, and it has been said that the arrest of the two men was one of the purposes of the expedition.

As a member of the Continental Congress, in which he served until 1781, Adams was less conspicuous than he was in town meetings and the Massachusetts legislature, for the congress contained a number of men as able as he.

He and John Adams were among the first to call for a final separation from Britain, both signed the Declaration of Independence, and both exerted considerable influence in the congress.

Elizabeth Checkley Adams

Elizabeth Checkley Adams, the first wife of Samuel Adams, was the daughter of Rev. Samuel Checkley, pastor of the New South Church in Boston.

The elder Checkley and the father of Samuel Adams were life-long friends, and it is said that it was the influence of the elder Adams that secured the appointment of his friend to the pastorate.

Five children were born to Samuel and Elizabeth Adams, only two of whom came to maturity, Samuel, Jr., and Hannah. On July 25, 1757, at the age of thirty-two, Elizabeth died soon after giving birth to a stillborn son.

Elizabeth “Betsy” Wells Adams

“On December 6, 1764, forty-two-year-old Samuel Adams married Elizabeth Wells, the twenty-nine-year-old daughter of his good friend, Francis Wells, an English merchant who came to Boston with his family in 1723. They had no children, but Elizabeth helped raise Samuel and Hannah, the surviving children of the first Mrs. Adams.

Elizabeth Wells Adams was a pleasant and hard-working woman who, through the forty years of life that remained to Sam, supported him in every way. She turned out to be a good manager. While he nurtured the birth of Independence, he was quite careless about his home and the condition of his own children’s clothes and shoes. (History of American Women)

After the British evacuated Boston in March 1776, she and her family returned to the city to live. Sometimes they were “low in cash,” as she naively put it, but with her fine sewing and Hannah’s “exquisite embroidery,” they managed to live in comfort.

Samuel Adams died at the age of 81 on October 2, 1803, and was interred at the Granary Burying Ground in Boston. The city’s Republican newspaper, the Independent Chronicle, eulogized him as the Father of the American Revolution.  Elizabeth Wells Adams died in 1808.

John Adams

Adams was born in the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1735 (he was 13 years younger than Samuel Adams).  He was the eldest of the three sons of Deacon John Adams and Susanna Boylston of Braintree, Massachusetts.

His father was a farmer and shoemaker; the Adams family could trace its lineage back to the first generation of Puritan settlers in New England.  A local selectman and a leader in the community, Deacon Adams encouraged his eldest son to aspire toward a career in the ministry.

In keeping with that goal, Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1755.  For the next three years, he taught grammar school in Worcester, Massachusetts, while contemplating his future. He eventually chose law rather than the ministry and in 1758 moved back to Braintree, then soon began practicing law in nearby Boston.

Then Adams’s legal career was on the rise, and he had become a visible member of the resistance movement that questioned Parliament’s right to tax the American colonies.

He early became identified with the patriot cause; a delegate to the First and Second Continental Congresses, he led in the movement for independence.

Despite his hostility toward the British government, in 1770 Adams agreed to defend the British soldiers who had fired on a Boston crowd in what became known as the Boston Massacre.

His insistence on upholding the legal rights of the soldiers, who in fact had been provoked, made him temporarily unpopular but also marked him as one of the most principled radicals in the burgeoning movement for American independence. He had a penchant for doing the right thing.

He and his cousin, Samuel Adams, quickly became the leaders of the radical faction, which rejected the prospects for reconciliation with Britain.

During the Revolutionary War he served in France and Holland in diplomatic roles, and helped negotiate the treaty of peace. From 1785 to 1788 he was minister to the Court of St. James.

Soon after his return to the United States, Adams found himself on the ballot in the presidential election of 1789.

Washington was the unanimous selection of all electors, while Adams finished second, signaling that his standing as a leading member of the revolutionary generation was superseded only by that of Washington himself. Under the electoral rules established in the recent ratified Constitution, Adams was duly elected America’s first vice president.

When Adams became President, the war between the French and British was causing great difficulties for the United States on the high seas and intense partisanship among contending factions within the Nation.

Adams retired to his farm in Quincy. Here he wrote his elaborate letters to Thomas Jefferson. Here on July 4, 1826 (the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence), he whispered his last words: “Thomas Jefferson survives.” But Jefferson had died at Monticello a few hours earlier.  (White House)

Abigail Smith Adams

Like other women of the time, Abigail lacked formal education; but her curiosity spurred her keen intelligence, and she read avidly the books at hand. Reading created a bond between her and young John Adams, Harvard graduate launched on a career in law, and they were married in 1764. It was a marriage of the mind and of the heart, enduring for more than half a century, enriched by time.

The young couple lived on John’s small farm at Braintree or in Boston as his practice expanded. In ten years she bore three sons and two daughters; she looked after family and home when he went traveling as circuit judge. “Alas!” she wrote in December 1773, “How many snow banks divide thee and me….”

Long separations kept Abigail from her husband while he served the country they loved, as delegate to the Continental Congress, envoy abroad, elected officer under the Constitution.  Her letters – pungent, witty, and vivid, spelled just as she spoke – detail her life in times of revolution. They tell the story of the woman who stayed at home to struggle with wartime shortages and inflation; to run the farm with a minimum of help; to teach four children when formal education was interrupted

Abigail Adams was the first woman to serve as Second Lady of United States and the second woman to serve as First Lady. She was also the mother of the sixth President, John Quincy Adams.

Abigail died in 1818, and is buried beside her husband in United First Parish Church. She left her country a most remarkable record as patriot and First Lady, wife of one President and mother of another.  (White House)

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams (eldest son of President John and Abigail Adams) entered the world (July 11, 1767, Braintree [now Quincy], Massachusetts) at the same time that his maternal great-grandfather, John Quincy, for many years a prominent member of the Massachusetts legislature, was leaving it – hence his name.

He grew up as a child of the American Revolution – he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill from Penn’s Hill and heard the cannons roar across the Back Bay in Boston.

In 1778 and again in 1780 the boy accompanied his father to Europe. He studied at a private school in Paris in 1778–79 and at the University of Leiden, Netherlands, in 1780. Thus, at an early age he acquired an excellent knowledge of the French language and a smattering of Dutch.

In 1790 he was admitted to the bar association in Boston.  While struggling to establish a practice, he wrote a series of articles for the newspapers in which he controverted some of the doctrines in Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791).

All through his life, ever aspiring to higher public service, he considered himself a “man of my whole country.”

The Monroe Doctrine rightly bears the name of the president who in 1823 assumed the responsibility for its promulgation, but its formulation was the work of John Quincy Adams more than of any other single man.

As President Monroe’s second term drew to a close in 1824, three in his cabinet – Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, and Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford -aspired to succeed him. Adams was elected. 

Perhaps the most dramatic event in Adams’s life was its end.

On February 21, 1848, in the act of protesting an honorary grant of swords by Congress to the generals who had won what Adams considered a “most unrighteous war” with Mexico, he suffered a cerebral stroke, fell unconscious to the floor of the House, and died two days later in the Capitol building.

Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams

John Quincy Adams was married in London in 1797, to Louisa Catherine Johnson (Louisa Adams), daughter of the United States consul Joshua Johnson, a Marylander by birth, and his wife, Katherine Nuth, an Englishwoman.

Adams had first met her when he was 12 years old and his father was minister to France. Fragile in health, she suffered from migraine headaches and fainting spells. Yet she proved to be a gracious hostess who played the harp and was learned in Greek, French, and English literature. Accompanying her husband on his various missions in Europe, she came to be regarded as one of the most-traveled women of her time.

Adams was cold and often depressed, and he admitted that his political adversaries regarded him as a “gloomy misanthropist” and “unsocial savage.” His wife is said to have regretted her marriage into the Adams family.

Click the following link to a general summary about the Adams Family:

Click to access Adams-Family.pdf

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

American Revolution and Kamehameha’s Conquest

“… at 5 o’clock we arrived there and saw a number of People, I believe between 2 and 300 … we still continued advancing, keeping prepared against an attack tho’ without intending to attack them …”

“… they fired one or two shots, upon which our Men without any orders rushed in upon them, fired and put ’em to flight; several of them were killed”.  (Diary of Lt. John Barker, Library of Congress)

Thousands of militiamen arrived in time to fight; 89 men from 23 towns in Massachusetts were killed or wounded on that first day of war, April 19, 1775. By the next morning, Massachusetts had 12 regiments in the field. Connecticut soon mobilized a force of 6,000, one-quarter of its military-age men.  (Smithsonian, Ferling)

On April 19, 1775, the Battles of Lexington and Concord were the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War.  The battles marked the outbreak of open armed conflict between the Kingdom of Great Britain and its thirteen colonies of British North America.

The first shot (“the shot heard round the world”) was fired just as the sun was rising at Lexington. The American militia were outnumbered and fell back; and the British regulars proceeded on to Concord.

Within a week, 16,000 men from the four New England colonies formed a siege army outside British-occupied Boston. In June, the Continental Congress took over the New England army, creating a national force, the Continental Army. Thereafter, men throughout America took up arms. It seemed to the British regulars that every able-bodied American male had become a soldier.  (Smithsonian, Ferling)

Following this, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence and it was signed by 56-members of the Congress (1776.)

The next eight years (1775-1783) war was waging on the eastern side of the continent.  The main result was an American victory and European recognition of the independence of the United States.

Some 100,000 men served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Probably twice that number soldiered as militiamen, for the most part defending the home front, functioning as a police force and occasionally engaging in enemy surveillance.  (Smithsonian, Ferling)

Fighting on the patriot side were allied Indian tribes as well as French military forces, who supported the rebel cause both in the United States and in Europe by engaging the British in a colonial fight for independence that ultimately became worldwide in scope. (Veterans Museum)

The formal end of the war did not occur until the Treaty of Paris and the Treaties of Versailles were signed on September 3, 1783 and recognized the sovereignty of the United States over the territory bounded roughly by what is now Canada to the north, Florida to the south, and the Mississippi River to the west.

The last British troops left New York City on November 25, 1783, and the US Congress of the Confederation ratified the Paris treaty on January 14, 1784.

According to the American Battlefield Trust, around 230,000 proto-Americans fought in the Continental Army, though never more than 48,000 at a time. (Military-com, Stilwell)  Between 25,000 and 70,000 American Patriots died during active military service.  Of these, approximately 6,800 were killed in battle, while at least 17,000 died from disease. The majority of the latter died while prisoners of war of the British, mostly in the prison ships in New York Harbor. (Veterans Museum)

It was the turning point in the future of the continent and an everlasting change in the United States.

At this same time, there was a turning point in the future of the Hawaiian Islands.

‘Contact’

In the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

Hawaiian lives changed with sudden and lasting impact, when western contact changed the course of history for Hawai‘i.

Kamehameha’s Conquest

In the Islands, over the centuries, the islands weren’t unified under single rule.  Leadership sometimes covered portions of an island, sometimes covered a whole island or groups of islands.

Island rulers, Aliʻi or Mōʻī, typically ascended to power through familial succession and warfare. In those wars, Hawaiians were killing Hawaiians; sometimes the rivalries pitted members of the same family against each other.

At the period of Captain Cook’s arrival (1778-1779), the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four kingdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokai, Lānai and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauai and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

“At that time Kahekili was plotting for the downfall of Kahahana and the seizure of Oahu and Molokai, and the queen of Kauai was disposed to assist him in these enterprises.”

“The occupation of the Hana district of Maui by the kings of Hawaii had been the cause of many stubborn conflicts between the chivalry of the two islands, and when Captain Cook first landed on Hawaii he found the king of that island absent on another warlike expedition to Maui, intent upon avenging his defeat of two years before, when his famous brigade of eight hundred nobles was hewn in pieces.”  (Kalākaua)

Kamakahelei was the “queen of Kauai and Niihau, and her husband was a younger brother to Kahekili, while she was related to the royal family of Hawaii. Thus, it will be seen, the reigning families of the several islands of the group were all related to each other, as well by marriage as by blood.”

“So had it been for many generations. But their wars with each other were none the less vindictive because of their kinship, or attended with less of barbarity in their hours of triumph.”  (Kalākaua)

Fornander states that “It had been the custom since the days of Keawenui-a-Umi on the death of a Moi (King) and the accession of a new one, to redivide and distribute the land of the island between the chiefs and favorites of the new monarch.”  This custom was repeatedly the occasion of a civil war.  (Thrum)

“Before the conquest of Kamehameha, the several islands were ruled by independent kings, who were frequently at war with each other, but more often with their own subjects. As one chief acquired sufficient strength, he disputed the title of the reigning prince.”

“If successful, his chance of permanent power was quite as precarious as that of his predecessor. In some instances the title established by force of arms remained in the same family for several generations, disturbed, however, by frequent rebellions … war being a chief occupation …”  (Jarves)

Following Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s death in 1782, the kingship was inherited by his son Kīwalaʻō; Kamehameha (Kīwalaʻō’s cousin) was given guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war, Kūkaʻilimoku.

Dissatisfied with subsequent redistricting of the lands by district chiefs, civil war ensued between Kīwalaʻō’s forces and the various chiefs under the leadership of Kamehameha. At the Battle of Mokuʻōhai (just south of Kealakekua) Kīwalaʻō was killed and Kamehameha attained control of half the Island of Hawaiʻi.

In the late-1780s into 1790, Kamehameha conquered the Island of Hawai‘i and was pursuing conquest of Maui and eventually sought to conquer the rest of the archipelago.

At that time, Maui’s King Kahekili and his eldest son and heir-apparent, Kalanikūpule, were carrying on war and conquered O‘ahu.

In 1790, Kamehameha travelled to Maui.  Hearing this, Kahekili sent Kalanikūpule back to Maui with a number of chiefs (Kahekili remaining on O‘ahu to maintain order of his newly conquered kingdom.)

Kamehameha’s superiority in the number and use of the newly acquired weapons and canon (called Lopaka) from the ‘Fair American’ (used for the first time in battle, with the assistance from John Young and Isaac Davis) finally won the decisive battle at ‘Īao Valley.

Arguably, the cannon and people who knew how to effectively use it were the pivotal factors in the battle.  Had the fighting been in the usual style of hand-to-hand combat, the forces would have likely been equally matched.

The Maui troops were completely annihilated, and it is said that the corpses of the slain were so many as to choke up the waters of the stream of ‘l̄ao – one of the names of the battle was “Kepaniwai” (the damming of the waters.)

Maui Island was conquered and its fighting force was destroyed – Kalanikūpule and some other chiefs escaped over the mountain at the back of the valley and made their way to O‘ahu.

Then, in 1795, Kamehameha moved on in his conquest of O‘ahu.

The battle was the last stand of Kalanikūpule and 9,000-warriors of O‘ahu against Kamehameha and his invading army of 12,000-warriors from Hawai‘i.  (Dukas)

Outnumbered and outgunned, the O‘ahu defenders were already weakened by the Battle of ‘Aiea (Kukiʻiahu) and a failed attempt to seize two well-armed foreign merchant vessels.  (Dukas)

Both armies used traditional Hawaiian weapons, augmented with Western firearms. Kamehameha, however, used European-style flanking tactics and sited cannons on the Papakōlea ridgeline, routing similar positions held by Kalanikūpule’s cannoneers.  (James)

Kamehameha’s cannon’s rained fire down on Kalanikūpule’s forces, which disorganized under the assault from above. From that point on, it was a running fight, a desperate rear-guard action as Oʻahu’s defenders were herded up Nuʻuanu Valley.

A number of them did escape. Some went up Pacific Heights, but primarily they went up Alewa and over into Kalihi and escaped to Aiea and through there.  Others went up over the pali or went up to Kalihi and then went over into Kāne’ohe. A lot of them went down the old trails on the pali.  (Pacific Worlds)

But the actions of some gave the battle another name …

The name of the Battle of Nuʻuanu is also referred to as Kaleleakeʻanae, which means “the leaping of the mullet fish.”  With their backs to the sheer cliff of the Nuʻuanu Pali, many chose to fall to their deaths than submit to Kamehameha.

In 1897, while improving the Pali road, workers found an estimated 800-skulls along with other bones, at the foot of the precipice. They believed these to be the remains of Oʻahu warriors defeated by Kamehameha a hundred years earlier.  (Island Call, October 1953; Mitchell)

Kamehameha, through the assistance of the Kona ‘Uncles’ (Keʻeaumoku, Keaweaheulu, Kameʻeiamoku & Kamanawa (the latter two ended up on the Islands’ coat of arms;)) succeeded, after a struggle of more than ten years, in securing to himself the supreme authority.

Then, Kamehameha looked to conquer Kauai.

The island of Kauai was never conquered; in the face of the threat of a further invasion, in 1810, at Pākākā on Oʻahu, negotiations between King Kaumuali‘i and Kamehameha I took place and Kaumualiʻi yielded to Kamehameha. The agreement marked the end of war and thoughts of war across the islands.

“It is supposed that some six thousand of the followers of this chieftain (Kamehameha,) and twice that number of his opposers, fell in battle during his career, and by famine and distress occasioned by his wars and devastations from 1780 to 1796.”  (Bingham)

“However the greatest loss of life according to early writers was not from the battles, but from the starvation of the vanquished and consequential sickness due to destruction of food sources and supplies – a recognized part of Hawaiian warfare.”  (Bingham)

Click the following link to a general summary about the American Revolution and Kamehameha’s Conquest:

Click to access American-Revolution-and-Kamehamehas-Conquest.pdf

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Female Soldier

Women often followed their husbands in the Continental Army. These women, known as camp followers, often tended to the domestic side of army organization, washing, cooking, mending clothes, and providing medical help when necessary.

Each woman had their own motivations for following the armies: most were the wives, daughters or mothers of male soldiers and wanted to stay close to their loved ones. Others did so in order to provide for themselves, looking for food and protection because they were no longer able to support themselves after their men left for war. (Battlefields)

Sometimes they were inadvertently flung into the battle. There are known cases of women who chose to actively join the armies as fighting soldiers. One of the most famous of these women was Deborah Sampson.  (Battlefields)

The eldest of seven siblings, she was born on December 17, 1760, in Plympton, Massachusetts, Sampson grew up in poverty. Her father abandoned the family when Sampson was five.

She was sent to live with relatives until the age of ten, when they could no longer afford to care for her. She was then forced to become an indentured servant to the Thomas family in Middleborough, Massachusetts.

As an indentured servant, she was bound to serve the Thomas family until she came of age at eighteen. In exchange for serving them, she was given food, clothing, and shelter. Once she was free, she supported herself by teaching and weaving.

In the early-1780s, Sampson first tried to disguise herself in men’s clothing and enlist in the military. She was rebuffed. In his diary, Abner Weston (a corporal in the Massachusetts militia) describes how Sampson’s cross-dressing scandalized their town:

“Their hapend a uncommon affair at this time, for Deborah Samson of this town dress her self in men’s cloths and hired her self to Israel Wood to go into the three years Servis. But being found out returnd the hire and paid the Damages.”

Sampson’s motivations for attempting to take up arms remain unclear. Patriotism may have been a driving factor, but the promise of money may have also played a role; towns that were unable to fill their recruitment quotas during the waning years of the war offered bounties to entice volunteer soldiers.  (Smithsonian)

At the age of twenty-one, Sampson disguised herself as a man named Robert Shurtliff and enlisted in the Continental Army under the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment.

“On the 14th September, 1818, the said Deborah made her declaration, under oath, that she served as a private soldier, under the name of “Robert Shurtleff,” in the war of the Revolution, upwards of two years, in manner following:”

“Enlisted in April, 1781, in a company commanded by Captain George Webb, in the Massachusetts regiment commanded by Colonel Shepherd, and afterwards by Colonel Henry Jackson;”

“That she served in Massachusetts and New York until November, 1783, when she was honorably discharged in writing; which discharge she had lost. She was at the capture of Cornwallis, was wounded at Tarrytown”. (Committee of Revolutionary Pensions Report)

To be inducted into the Light Infantry Troops, soldiers had to meet specific requirements. They needed a height of at least 5’5” and had to be physically able to keep a fast and steady marching pace.

They were referred to as “light” infantry because they traveled with fewer supplies and took part in small, risky missions and skirmishes.

She and the other new recruits then marched from Worcester, Massachusetts to West Point, New York.  While at West Point, Sampson was chosen to serve as part of the Light Infantry Troops – the most active troops in the Hudson Valley from 1782 to 1783.

Sampson spent most of her time in the army in the Lower Hudson River Valley Region of New York, which was then known as Neutral Ground.

Neutral Ground spanned throughout what is today Westchester County in New York and was termed “neutral” because it sat, unclaimed, between British-held New York City and American-held Northern New York. Neutral Ground was a lawless land filled with both Patriot and Tory raiders who terrorized the local citizenry.

While serving in Neutral Ground, Sampson was part of many skirmishes against Loyalist raiders, typically referred to as “cowboys.”

During one of these skirmishes, she was shot in the shoulder. Unable to seek proper medical treatment without revealing her true gender, she allegedly left the bullet in her shoulder and continued her duty as a soldier.  (Some suggest she extracted one piece of shrapnel from her leg by herself; another remained in her body for the rest of her life.)

Sampson served undetected until she fell unconscious with a high fever while on a mission in Philadelphia during the summer of 1783.

The attending physician, Dr. Barnabas Binney, discovered Sampson’s gender while treating her. He revealed her identity to General Paterson through a letter. Sampson was honorably discharged at West Point on October 25, 1783.

After the war ended, Sampson returned to Massachusetts and married a farmer, Benjamin Gannett, in 1784. They had three children and adopted a fourth. In 1792, she successfully petitioned the Massachusetts State Legislature for back pay for her service in the army and was awarded 34£.

In 1797, she petitioned Congress, claiming disability for the shoulder wound she received during the war. Her petition ultimately failed.

However, starting in March 1802, Sampson began a lecture tour of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. She was the first woman in America to do so.

On her journey, she spoke in Boston, Providence, Holden, Worcester, Brookfield, Springfield, Northampton, Albany, Schenectady, Ballston, and New York City.

After the lecture tour, Sampson petitioned Congress again. This time, her petition succeeded. On March 11, 1805, she was placed on the pension list for disabled veterans. She continued campaigning Congress for the entirety of the money she was due until she was denied the remainder of her pay on March 31, 1820.

Deborah Sampson Gannett died in Sharon, Massachusetts on April 29, 1827, at the age of sixty-six. She is one of the earliest examples of a woman serving in the United States Military. Her headstone in Sharon honors this accomplishment, referring to her as “The Female Soldier.”  (Mount Vernon)

Click the following link to a general summary about Deborah Sampson:

Click to access Deborah-Sampson-The-Female-Soldier.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Invisible Ink

George Washington received a letter from John Jay, written November 19, 1778, “This will be delivered by my Brother, who will communicate & explain to your Excellency a mode of Correspondence, which may be of use, provided proper agents can be obtained.”

“I have experienced its Efficacy by a three Years Trial. We shall remain absolutely silent on the Subject. I have the Honor to be with the highest Esteem & Respect Your Excellencys most obedient Servant.  John Jay”

John Jay was a Founder, delegate from New York to the First and Second Continental Congress (and served as President of the assembly from December 10, 1778 to September 28, 1779), served as the second Secretary of Foreign Affairs until the office was changed to ‘Secretary of State,’ wrote several of the Federalist Papers, signer of the Treaty of Paris, Second Governor of New York and First Chief Justice of the United States.

James Jay, the brother of John Jay (referred to in John Jay’s letter above), was a physician practicing in England at the time, created a chemical solution out of tannic acid to be used as an invisible ink, and supplied quantities of the stain to the colonists.

George Washington himself instructed his agents in the use of what was referred to as the ‘sympathetic stain,’ noting that the ink “will not only render … communications less exposed to detection, but relieve the fears of such persons as may be entrusted in its conveyance.”

Washington suggested that reports could be written in the invisible ink “on the blank leaves of a pamphlet … a common pocket book, or on the blank leaves at each end of registers, almanacks, or any publication or book of small value.”

James Jay studied and practiced medicine in Great Britain from the 1750s until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.  He developed his invisible ink in 1775 and used it throughout the war in correspondence with his brother.  He never disclosed the recipe, and although he exported small quantities to America for use in the Culper spy ring, it always remained in short supply.

A correspondent would write a letter using the ink on white paper, and the recipient would apply a reagent in order to read it. George Washington used the code word “medicine” to refer to the ‘sympathetic stain’ in his future correspondence with James Jay.

Espionage was an important part of the American Revolution; George Washington sought spies and suggested various forms of communication, including the use of invisible ink in correspondence relating such.

Acquiring intelligence about troop movements, supplies, and battle plans was General Washington’s highest priority. Because such field reports could not be overtly communicated to him, placing his agents at great risk, Washington used an 18th-century form of invisible ink known as “sympathetic stain.” (History Channel) (Mount Vernon)

Spying and Forms of Communicating

Ciphers and secret codes were used to ensure that the contents of a letter could not be understood if correspondence was captured. In ciphers, letters were used to represent and replace other letters to mask the true message of the missive.

The letter’s recipient utilized a key – which referenced corresponding pages and letters from a well-known book, such as Entick’s Dictionary – to decode the document’s true message. Some spy groups even created their own pocket guide to serve as a cipher’s key.

Similarly, some letters were written in intricate secret codes where numbers and special characters replaced letters.

One form of secret writing used by both the British and American armies was invisible ink. During the Revolutionary War invisible ink usually consisted of a mixture of ferrous sulfate and water.

The true contents of letters were also hidden through the use of mask letters. These documents were intended to be viewed by a recipient who would place a shaped template over the full letter. The true message of the letter would then appear within the boundaries of the “mask.” The letter and the “mask” were usually delivered by separate couriers to ensure that the trick would go undetected.

British spies placed rolled up letters and small notes into a variety of holsters to hide potentially sensitive information. The hollowed out quills of large feathers that were used as writing utensils, for example, could hide a tightly rolled up letter.

Other materials were used to hide messages, ranging from buttons on a textile to hollowed out small, silver balls.

One particularly unlucky British spy named Daniel Taylor was caught in New Windsor, New York with a message sent from Henry Clinton to John Burgoyne hidden inside one of these small silver balls.

In haste, the spy swallowed the silver ball to avoid detection. However, Patriot soldiers forced the spy to drink a purgative and vomit up the ball. Momentarily undeterred, Taylor grabbed the ball and swallowed it again. Under the threat of being hanged and having the ball cut out of his stomach, Taylor relented. However, Taylor would eventually meet the cruel fate of the gallows, executed on October 16, 1777.

Black Chamber Operations

The Americans operated Black Chambers (secret offices where sensitive letters were opened and deciphered by public officials)  in the Highlands and General Philip Schuyler ran one in upstate New York.

The stamp in the seal would be duplicated, the letter was opened and if needed transcribed, and the letter resealed using the duplicate seal. The French started a Black Chamber operation in 1590. The British operated a black Chamber in the British post office since at least 1732 and since 1765 all diplomatic mail was read.

Washington had set up both New York Black chambers, the one in the highlands and General Schuyler’s operation.

Click the following link to a general summary about Invisible Ink:

Click to access Invisible-Ink.pdf

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