General | Page 175 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 16, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Married Women’s Property Bill

Lorrin A Thurston introduced the Married Women’s Property Bill in the 1886 legislature to reverse what he saw as a grave injustice in early Hawaiian law that gave all of a woman’s property to her husband on marriage. (Twigg-Smith)

The Bill stated, “The real and personal property of a woman shall, upon her marriage, remain her separate property”.

“Mr. Palohau said if the bill passed it would cause domestic trouble.”

Mr. Kaunamano moved the bill be indefinitely postponed. It makes the woman the head of the house, and that was contrary to holy writ. The man would have to take a back seat. The present law was definite, and was well understood. Why not let well enough alone.”

“Mr. Nahinu said he opposed the bill from beginning to end. This law sets aside the law of God. Woman was made for man, and not man for woman. If it got into effect it would break up families. …”

“Third reading of an Act relating to the property of married women. Mr. Kalua moved the bill pass.”

“Mr. Palohau thought the bill should be considered section by section. He did not approve of section 2, as it says that, ‘a married woman may make contracts, oral and written, sealed and unsealed, in the same manner as if she were sole.’”

“The Attorney General seemed to be looking at the speaker with some astonishment, but he did not understand Hawaiian women as well as the speaker did, or the Minister of Finance or the Interpreter.”

“Mr. Thurston said that when he introduced the bill he expected some of the members would be afraid of it, but he never expected that Mr. Palohau, the biggest member in the House, would be one of them. …”

“Mr. Thurston said that if the bill was properly understood there would be no objection. It was for the protection of every woman. It provides that a man going into business cannot use his wife’s property in that business.”

“Mr. Thurston then cited several cases that had come under his own personal notice, to show that this bill would be very effective.”

“Mr. Kauhane spoke in favor of the bill He thought it very good law.”

“Mr. Kaulukou thought perhaps that the members did not understand the bill, therefore he moved it be considered section by section. Agreed to.”

“Section 1. The real and personal property of a woman shall, upon her marriage, remain her separate property, free from the management, control, debts and obligations of her husband …”

“… and a married woman may receive, receipt for, hold, manage and dispose of property, real and personal, in the same manner as if she were sole.”

“On motion of His Excellency Mr. Dare, the section was passed.”

“Section 2. A married woman may make contracts, oral and written, sealed and unsealed, in the same manner as if she were sole, except that she shall not be authorized hereby to make contracts with her husband.”

“Mr. Kaai moved the section pass.”

“Mr. Kaunamano moved it be indefinitely postponed.”

“Mr. Kaai was in favor of the section. In justice to women, they should have some control of their own property.”

“Mr. Palohau moved to insert at the end of the section, ‘if the husband fails to provide for her or her family.’”

“Mr. Nahinu moved to strike out the words ‘in the same manner as if she were sole,’ and inert, ‘with the consent of her husband.’”

“Mr. Richardson moved the section pass as is the bill, he remembered a woman who owned some sugar land. Her husband sold it, and is now living with another woman in a foreign country, enjoying himself on the proceeds. Mr. Richardson also quoted other instances of a similar nature.”

“His Excellency Mr. Dare said it afforded him pleasure to be in accordance with Mr. Thurston. He (the speaker) signed the committee report to pass this bill.”

“He did so, believing the bill was in advance of the state of this community. Any temporary inconvenience that might attend the passage of such a law at this time would be more than compensated for in the future by the beneficent of the law.”

“They did not contemplate a reversal of things by this bill, but they did contemplate that the Hawaiian woman should take her place alongside of her sisters of the United States, England and other countries.”

“It was oftener the man than the woman who squanders the substance. This bill provides that if a man raises a family, and is saving, so as to be able to endow his daughter, and she should marry a spendthrift, the latter could not squander her money.”

“He believed the bill to be a wise one, and on the inarch to civilization, and it should be on the statute books of the Kingdom.”

“The motions to indefinitely postpone the section and the amendments were lost.”

“The section passed as in the bill.”

“Section 3. All work and labor performed or services rendered by a married woman for or to a person other than her husband and children shall, unless there is an express agreement on her part to the contrary, be presumed to be performed or rendered on her separate account.”

“On motion of Mr. Kaai the section passed.”

“Section 4. A married woman may be an executrix, administratrix, guardian or trustee, and may bind herself and the estate she represents without any act or assent on the part of her husband.”

“On motion of Mr. Dickey the section passed.”

“Mr. Kalua said that as the objections were confined to the first three sections, he moved the balance of the bill pass.”

“Mr. Dole said he had an amendment to make to section 7. He moved the words “her property shall immediately descend to her heirs as if she had died sole” be stricken out. The motion prevailed, and the section passed as amended.”

“The bill then passed as amended. (September 9, 1886)” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 10, 1886)

Present law is similar, “§572-25 Separate property. The real and personal property of a spouse, upon marriage, shall remain that spouse’s separate property, free from the management, control, debts, and obligations of the other spouse …”

“… and a spouse may receive, receipt for, hold, manage, and dispose of property, real and personal, in the same manner as if that spouse were sole.” (HRS)

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Hale_Pili-Kalihiwai-(ksbe)

May 14, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sanitary Instructions

The word “Sewer” is derived from the term “seaward” in Old English, as in ditches and ravines slightly sloped to run waste water from land to sea.

From an 1857 story in the Commercial Pacific Advertiser it appears that the first sewer facility to be constructed on Oʻahu was a storm drain located at Queen Street at the foot of Kaʻahumanu Street opposite Pier 11. (ASCE)

What about before that?

“The kapus which were established by the priests for the disposal of body wastes had a double concern: the protection of the mana, the spiritual power, of the person from whom the wastes were derived; and respect for the mana of all of the gods …”

“Out of respect for the gods, the Hawaiian refrained from polluting their abodes. Out of fear for himself, he was most careful to keep his body’s parts, or its wastes, and his personal possessions from falling into the hands of the dreaded sorcerer, the kahuna ana‘ana, or into the keeping of an enemy who would give them to the sorcerer to use in his fell ritual.”

“When a man needed to relieve himself he went off into the bush or into the wasteland, apart from the others of his household or village; and there, as a Jew was enjoined to do by the Mosaic Laws …”

“… he dug a hole and buried in it the portions of himself that were so indubitably his, together with the leaves or small stones or wisps of grass with which he cleaned himself when he was done.”

“(H)e carefully covered the cat-hole he had dug and all traces of his visit, in order to hide its secrets from the searching eyes of the kahuna ana‘ana.”

“Others of his personal wastes were not casually thrown away; they were buried, as carefully as was his excrement, or they were burned. Nor were they cast into the sea, or into streams, pools, swamps, taro-patches, or other accumulations of fresh water.” (Bushnell)

Following Western contact, “Having no inside lavatories, our ancestors had to contrive acceptable indoor facilities. Bedrooms were equipped with a corner washstand holding soap and water.”

“The toilet problem was solved by the use of a large covered chamber pot that was usually kept under the bed. Most well-to-do homes in the eighteenth century had servants who emptied the chamber pot daily …”

“The formal washstands of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries took several shapes. Some were rectangular but the corner stand was the most popular because it was a space saver”

“A hole was cut in the top of the stand so that a basin could fit into the top, thereby lessening the danger of spilling …” (Kovel; Mission Houses)

“As we know them today, there were no bathrooms in the homes of our forefathers … Some distance beyond the houses (for obvious reasons) were the ‘Necessary Houses’ (or ‘outhouses’), usually secreted behind or enclosed within pleasing plant screening …”

“In the homes of long ago, there were the ‘chamber pots’, so called perhaps because they were located generally in the bedchamber where there was little concern to hide them …” (Wise; Mission Houses) A chamber pot was sometimes referred to as a potty. (Tung)

“’The language of the toilet is indeed an etymologlsts’s nightmare: chamber comes by way of chamber pot to mean the pot itself; the adjective privy (private) comes by way of privy chamber, to mean the chamber or room itself.”

“Closet (small room) comes by way of water closet to mean the apparatus, not the room. Lavatory (washing place) comes to mean the water-closet …” (Wright; Mission Houses)

“Toilet paper was unbleached pearl-colored pure manila hemp paper made in 1857 by Joseph C. Gayetty of New York City, whose name was watermarked on each sheet.”

“It sold at five-hundred sheets for fifty cents and was known as ‘Gayetty’s Medicated Paper – a perfectly pure article for the toilet and for the prevention of piles’.” (Kane; Mission Houses)

In 1879, Walter Murray Gibson, Chair of the Legislature’s Sanitary Committee, wrote Sanitary Instructions for Hawaiians. It is a collation of “a series of sanitary instructions, deemed suitable to the conditions of Hawaiians, and have the compilation translated into the Hawaiian language.” (Gibson)

In part, the Instructions note, “Every Hawaiian, who desires to be regarded as civilized must construct a privy near his dwelling, with a pit underneath it, at least six feet deep.”

They further note, “Every head of a family, and owner, or renter of a lot in Honolulu, or other town, can observe these rules …”

“Rule 1. Fill up at once, without waiting to be commanded by health officers, any privy pit, that has been open and used for a number of years.”

“Rule 2. Dig a new pit adjoining the outer wall of your yard, not less than seven feet deep; and do not wall up its sides with stone, or brick, or plank, or any other material. Let the surrounding soil of the walls of the pit help to absorb and defecate the impurities cast in.”

“Do not dig your pit within 30 feet of any well in use. And do not dig your pit adjoining your neighbor’s house. Be sure and have an air opening at least two feet square in the little house you build over your pit, as well as a door.”

“Rule 3. Provide a barrel, or a box, to stand inside of, or near the little house that covers your pit; and have this barrel or box filled with fresh, dry soil, especially the red, dry, iron tinctured soil from the kula plains …”

“… and have a paddle, or scoop of any kind, – a shingle would answer – to cast, after you use the place, a small quantity of dry earth into the pit. This earth must always be kept dry. All this will require some little labor, and perhaps expense on your part, but a blessing will come with the care and outlay, O, Hawaiian father of a family.”

“Rule 4. Dig a fresh pit at least every year. If your yard is small, you can return to the old places covered up, after a few years, and dig a pit in the same place a second time, without annoyance or injury.”

“Rule 5. Never permit any ordure to be deposited, or exposed in your yard, or on any pathway by your house, no more than you would permit your own person, or the person of any member of your family to be openly defiled by such impurities …”

“And thus, as you would keep your persons and your premises clean, your lives would be clean, and God, that giveth health, will abide with you, and not turn away.” (Gibson)

In 1897, Rudolph Hering, a New York Sanitary Engineer, designed Honolulu’s sewer system; it was a “separate system” whereby separate networks of conduits would carry sewage and storm waters, a system still used today in Honolulu.

Work on the system began in 1899 and sewer lines were laid out in a gravity flow pattern in a rectangular fashion and ran along Alapaʻi, River and South Streets, past Thomas Square, and ended in the Punahou area.

The sewer outfall to the ocean was built in 1899. The outfall ran some 3,800-feet out to sea at a depth of 40-feet of water, rather than farther out to a 100-foot depth (due to funding constraints.) (Darnell)

In 1900, the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was constructed; with features such as large arched windows, exterior walls of local lava rock, roofs of green tile and a smokestack 76-feet tall.

The use of the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was abandoned by the City and County of Honolulu when it built a new pumping station on the southwest portion of the block, adjacent to the Historic Ala Moana Pumping Station in 1955.

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Bannack-Outhouse-Shaw

May 11, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Piece of Pahoehoe

Richard and Clarissa Armstrong were with the Fifth Company of American Protestant missionaries to the Islands (which included the Alexanders, Emersons, Forbes, Hitchcocks, Lymans, Lyons, Stockton and others). They arrived on May 17, 1832.

The Armstrongs had ten children. Son William N Armstrong (King Kalākaua’s Attorney General) accompanied Kalākaua on his tour of the world, one of three white men who accompanied the King as advisers and counsellors (Armstrong, Charles H Judd and a personal attendant/valet.)

Armstrong and Judd were Kalākaua’s schoolmates at the Chiefs’ Children’s School in 1849. (Marumoto) “Thirty years afterward, and after three of our schoolmates had become kings and had died (Kamehameha IV & V and Lunalio) and two of them had become queens (Emma and Liliʻuokalani,) it so happened that Kalākaua ascended the throne, and with his two old schoolmates began his royal tour.” (Armstrong)

Another Armstrong son was Samuel Chapman Armstrong. “More than 100 people from Hawai‘i fought on both sides of the Civil War. Arguably the most famous was the Union general Samuel C Armstrong.” (NY Times)

Armstrong, the son of missionaries, was born January 30, 1839 in Maui, the sixth of ten children. In 1860 his father suddenly died, and Armstrong, at age 21, left Hawai‘i for the United States and attended Williams College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1862.

After graduation, Armstrong volunteered to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War, and recruited a company near Troy, New York.

Armstrong was among the 12,000-men captured in September 1862 with the surrender of the garrison at Harpers Ferry. After being paroled, he returned to the front lines in Virginia in December; he fought at the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, defending Cemetery Ridge against Pickett’s Charge.

Armstrong subsequently rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, being assigned to the 9th Regiment, United States Colored Troops (USCT) in late 1863, then the 8th US Colored Troops when its previous commander was disabled from wounds. Armstrong’s experiences with these regiments aroused his interest in the welfare of black Americans.

When Armstrong was assigned to command the USCT, training was conducted at Camp Stanton near Benedict, Maryland. While stationed at Stanton, he established a school to educate the black soldiers, most of whom had no education as slaves.

At the end of the war, Armstrong joined the Freedmen’s Bureau. With the help of the American Missionary Association, he established the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute – now known as Hampton University – in Hampton, Virginia in 1868.

The Institute was meant to be a place where black students could receive post-secondary education to become teachers, as well as training in useful job skills while paying for their education through manual labor.

Among the school’s famous alumni is Dr Booker T Washington, who became an educator and later founded Tuskegee Institute. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the historic “Emancipation Tree,” which is still located on the campus today.

“As an acknowledgment of the origin of Hampton from work done in Hawaii at the entrance of the great assembly hall there is built into the wall a piece of lava rock. This is a token that the foundation of Hampton lay in Hawaii.” (Ford, Pan Pacific Union)

“To anyone going to Hampton that piece of pahoehoe at the entrance to the great hall tells silently to those who can read the inestimable value of the Hawaiian Mission in its world-wide influence.” (Centennial Book)

“‘Education for Life,’ which was the constant theme of Armstrong’s teaching, essential though it be to secure to thousands of young men and women their self-support, is not an end in itself, but a means.” (Peabody) He incorporated the Head, Heart and Hand approach used by the missionaries.

“(Armstrong’s) parting message has become, not alone a precious legacy to Hampton, but a source of strength to great numbers of lives which are trying to go the same way of happy sacrifice.” Portions of his ‘Memoranda’, found after his death, follows …

“A work that requires no sacrifice does not count for much in fulfilling God’s plans. But what is commonly called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one’s self and one’s resources …”

“…the best investment of time, strength, and means. He who makes no such sacrifice is most to be pitied. He is a heathen because he knows nothing of God.”

“In the school the great thing is not to quarrel; to pull all together; to refrain from hasty, unwise words and actions; to unselfishly and wisely seek the best good of all …”

“… and to get rid of workers whose temperaments are unfortunate – whose heads are not level; no matter how much knowledge or culture they may have. Cantankerousness is worse than heterodoxy.”

“I am most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian home, for war experiences, and college days at Williams, and for life and work at Hampton.”

“Hampton has blessed me in so many ways; along with it have come the choicest people of the country for my friends and helpers, and then such a grand chance to do something directly for those set free by the war, and indirectly for those who were conquered; and Indian work has been another great privilege.”

“Few men have had the chance that I have had. I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life – have been, seemingly, guided in everything.”

“Prayer is the greatest power in the world. It keeps us near to God—my own prayer has been most weak, wavering, inconstant; yet has been the best thing I have ever done. I think this is a universal truth—what comfort is there in any but the broadest truths?”

“”Hampton must not go down. See to it, you who are true to the black and red children of the land, and to just ideas of education. The loyalty of my old soldiers and of my students has been an unspeakable comfort.”

“It pays to follow one’s best light—to put God and country first; ourselves afterwards.” (Armstrong; Peabody)

The Islands were at the grave of Armstrong … “At its head was set a huge fragment of volcanic rock, laboriously brought from his island-home in the Pacific, and at its foot a quartz boulder hewn from the Berkshire Hills, where he had been trained.”

“The monument is a witness of the character it commemorates, volcanic in temperament, granitic in persistency; a life of self-destructive energy, like a mountain on fire, but with the steadiness and strength of one who had lifted up his eyes to the hills and found help.”

Samuel Chapman Armstrong died May 11, 1893. “Such was the end of an era in the history of Education for Life.” (Peabody)

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Grave of Samuel Armstrong-Peabody

Grave of Samuel Armstrong

Headstone at Grave of Samuel Armstrong

Samuel_Chapman_Armstrong

Samuel-Chapman-Armstrong

Samuel_C._Armstrong,_later_life

Booker_T_Washington

American Indian at Hampton Institute, Virginia

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute

Hampton Normal & Agricultural Institute

Emancipation Oak CWT Marker

May 5, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

E Nihi ka Helena i ka Uka o Puna

Walk carefully in the uplands of Puna (Kumupaʻa)

Walking in the mauka regions of Puna can be extremely hazardous because of the numerous lava cracks hidden by vegetation in the forest (some with over 30-feet vertical drops and 30+ feet wide).

Sometimes, when walking in the mauka forests of Puna, there is abundant uluhe fern; you effectively walk ‘on’ uluhe, not ‘through’ it. You could find yourself walking over the edge of a crack, before you know it.

Local residents have reported numerous incidents in which individuals and dogs have fallen into the lava cracks and suffered serious injury. In addition, in the event of an emergency, there is no cellular phone service, and difficulty of emergency rescue, etc.

It is not just cracks from old flows that are a problem. Starting in June 27, 2014, lava from the Puʻu ʻŌʻō vent had been over-running Wao Kele o Puna.

We must also be cognizant of the ongoing eruption; the flow that headed to Pāhoa ran through Wao Kele o Puna. While the flow is not causing problems in Pāhoa at this time, outbreaks recently covered portions of Wao Kele o Puna.

The flow has since been redirected makai of the vent and not affecting Wao Kele o Puna. (Information in this section is from the USGS website, searched December 27, 2016)

Kīlauea’s ongoing Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption, which began in January 1983, ranks as the most voluminous outpouring of lava from the volcano’s East Rift Zone in the past five centuries.

By December 2012, flows had covered 125.5 km2 (48.4 mi2) with about 4 km3 (1 mi3) of lava, and had added 202 hectares (500 acres) of new land to Kīlauea’s southeastern shore. Lava flows had also destroyed 214 structures, and resurfaced 14.3 km (8.9 mi) of highway, burying them with as much as 35 m (115 ft) of lava.

The eruption can be roughly divided in to five time periods. From 1983 to 1986, a series of short-lived lava fountains built a cinder-and-spatter cone later named Puʻu ʻŌʻō.

In 1986, the eruption shifted 3 km (1.8 mi) northeastward along Kīlauea’s east rift zone, where a nearly continuous outpouring of lava built a broad shield, Kupaianaha, and sent flows to the coast for more than five years.

In 1992, the eruption moved back uprift and new vents opened on the southwestern flank of Puʻu ʻŌʻō. Over the next 15 years, nearly continuous effusion of lava from these vents sent flows to the ocean, mainly within Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

The most significant change during the 1992–2007 interval was a brief uprift fissure eruption and the corresponding collapse of Puʻu ʻŌʻō’s west flank in January 1997.

In June 2007, an hours-long, unwitnessed eruption uprift of Puʻu ʻŌʻō led to renewed collapse within the cone and a brief hiatus in activity.

When the eruption resumed in July 2007, new vents opened between Puʻu ʻŌʻō and Kupaianaha, sending flows to Kīlauea’s southeastern coast until early 2011.

This activity was terminated by another short-lived eruption uprift of Puʻu ʻŌʻō in March 2011. Activity at Puʻu ʻŌʻō then resumed with a brief breakout from the western flank of the cone in August 2011, followed by the opening of a new, persistent vent on Puʻu ʻŌʻō’s northeast flank in September 2011. Flows from this latter vent remained active on Kīlauea’s southeastern flank as of December 2012.

On June 27, 2014, new vents opened on the northeast flank of the Puʻu ʻŌʻō cone that fed a narrow lava flow to the east-northeast.

On August 18, the flow entered a ground crack, traveled underground for several days, then resurfaced to form a small lava pad. The sequence was repeated twice more over the following days with lava entering other cracks and reappearing farther downslope.

In this way, the flow had advanced approximately 8.2-miles from the vent, or to within 0.8-miles of the eastern boundary of the Wao Kele o Puna Forest Reserve, by the afternoon of September 3, 2014.

Lava emerged from the last crack on September 6, 2014, forming a surface flow that initially moved to the north, then to the northeast, at a rate of 1,300-ft/day). This flow advanced downslope before stalling in Pāhoa on October 30 about 170-yards from Pāhoa Village Road. Breakouts upslope continued to widen the flow within the Wao Kele o Puna property.

Puʻu ʻŌʻō continues to erupt, but the lava flow from it has stopped running through Wao Kele o Puna, but remains as a reminder of the risks associated with the nearby Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption. The present volcanic activity in the uplands of Puna remind us of the message and warnings of the ‘Ōlelo No‘eau.

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Upland Puna Crack

PuuOo-eruption-flow-USGS

PuuOo eruption-flow

Lava_Flow-Former_Geothermal_Site-BigIslandVideoNews

Puu_Oo_Eruption-06-30-15-USGS

Leilani Estate fissure-eruption-flow on roadway

Leilani Estate fissure-eruption on roadway

USGS Mapping of Rift Zone-fissures in Leilani Estates-05-04-18

May 4, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Captain Cole

Fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water. The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska.

The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

As early as 1811, HBC had already hired twelve Hawaiians on three year contracts to work for them in the Pacific Northwest. By 1824, HBC employed thirty-five Hawaiians west of the Rocky Mountains.

“(Y)oung Hawaiian males left Hawai’i as workers on whaling ships and traveled to China, Europe, Mexico, and the U.S. mainland. In addition, many ventured into the Pacific Northwest territory, worked in the fur trade, and ended up settling in those areas.” (pbs-org)

Ships sailed from London around Cape Horn around South America and then to forts and posts along the Pacific Coast via the Hawaiian Islands. Trappers crossing overland faced a journey of 2,000 miles that took three months.

On January 21, 1829 the Hudson’s Bay Company schooner ‘Cadboro’ arrived at Honolulu from Fort Vancouver with a small shipment of poles and sawn lumber. Another goal of the trip was to recruit Hawaiians for HBC operations on the Northwest Coast.

One such recruit who later came from the Islands to work with the HBC was ‘Captain Cole’. Cole entered the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company at O‘ahu in 1840.

On the continent, ‘Captain Cole’ was witness to a killing.

“Just after midnight on April 21, 1842, John McLoughlin, Jr – the chief trader for the Hudson’s Bay Company at Fort Stikine (situated at what is now Wrangell on the Alaska panhandle), in the northwest corner of the territory that would later become British Columbia – was shot to death by his own men.”

“The men were known to have disliked McLoughlin and some had threatened to kill him, but the company’s governor, Sir George Simpson, relied on their accounts of the incident to conclude that the murder was a matter of self-defense”.

They claimed it was “their only means of stopping the violent rampage of their drunk and abusive leader. Sir George Simpson, the HBC’s Overseas Governor, took the men of Stikine at their word, and the Company closed the book on the matter.” (Komar)

It is estimated that by 1844 between 300 and 400 Hawaiians were in HBC service in the Pacific Northwest, both in vessels and at posts.

Journal entries in early 1848 identify Cole as “Captian Cole,” but in later entries for 1848 and 1849 he is simply referred to as “Cole.” He was posted to Fort Stikine in the Columbia District as a ‘midman,’ middleman, from 1841-1843.

Cole continued in service to the HBC until November 23, 1844, when he returned to Honolulu. He re-enlisted in 1847, serving as a laborer at Fort Victoria (1847-1849) and Fort Rupert (1849-1850), where he died of tuberculosis on March 12, 1850. (Fort Victoria Journal)

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Stikine, Alaska