Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks | Page 51

February 6, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu Oil

William Matson was born in 1849 in a Swedish seacoast town and ran off to sea at the age of twelve. According to his daughter, he had not a single day’s schooling in his life.

At 18, Matson “came round the Horn” to California and soon worked his way up to the captaincy of a scow schooner (barge) in San Francisco Bay.

At age 33 he became one-quarter owner—for $5,000—of the new three-masted schooner, Emma Claudia, and brought her to Hilo on her first voyage. Matson saw opportunity on the Big Island and began to focus his service there.

“My father used to do everything. He bought the horses, he bought needles, thread, mules, dress materials… a floating store.” (daughter Lurline Matson)

Every voyage was a partnership—with different partners holding shares, generally in eighths—and then splitting the profits. Matson expanded in this way, buying more ships and chartering others.

Matson became well established in the Hawaiian trade. His small fleet of sailing vessels shuttled back and forth between Hilo and San Francisco.

Westbound to Hawai‘i, he would bring goods of all descriptions. Eastbound to California, he would take sugar, molasses, fruits, vegetables and hides.

His fleet was still all wind-driven sailing ships, though in 1889 he was quoted: “I was wondering whether I’d ever be able to run a steamship between the islands and San Francisco.”

In 1901, Matson acquired his first steamship, the Enterprise. At that time, most steamers burned coal to fire the boilers. Matson immediately converted the Enterprise to the first oil burner in the Pacific, because oil was cheaper.

It cost $2.10 in oil for the same energy provided by $7.00 worth of coal. Oil was also cleaner, more space efficient, and demanded less manpower.

Matson recognized the potential of oil. He convinced Hawai‘i’s plantation and sugar mill owners to switch from coal and bagasse (sugar cane waste) to oil. Then he converted some of his sailing flee into tankers to carry the oil to the Islands.

Matson said, “If you use fuel in large quantities, you must control the source.” To insure a supply of oil for his ships, Captain Matson bought some wells in California and built a “couldn’t be done” 112-mile pipeline from the Coalinga oil fields to Monterey.

In 1903, he formed the Monarch Oil Company and five years later bought the Buena Vista Hills property (Matson later renamed the area Honolulu Hills) and a year later (1910) created Honolulu Oil Company.

Matson told investors: “You’ll either go broke or get rich.” (Castle and Cooke invested $140,000. Fifty years later, the company was receiving $400,000 in annual dividends, and finally liquidated its shares (at government behest) for over $23-million.)

Honolulu Oil Corporation was engaged in exploration for, and extraction and sale of oil and gas in 15 states and the Dominion of Canada. The actual drilling was done by independent contractors, with Honolulu’s engineers acting in an advisory capacity.

Honolulu’s operations were divided into five geographical divisions: California (California, Nevada and Utah,) Mid-Continent (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma,) Canadian, Rocky Mountain (Montana and Wyoming,) Southeastern (Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.) Reports note Honolulu Oil was later acquired by a larger oil company.

In 1911, Matson developed compressors to convert his oil product into gasoline and a year later built a pipeline to Los Angeles. That led to the modernization of the US Navy and their conversion to oil. (David Whitley; Taft Midway Driller)

Captain Matson brought the Falls of Clyde into the Hawaiian sugar trade, specifically servicing the plantations of the Big Island, bringing needed goods and machinery from the West Coast to Hilo, and returning with burlap sacks full of raw sugar on its way to the California refineries and then to the markets of the US.

He modified the Falls of Clyde sail plan, added a deck house and chart house, and rearrange the after-quarter for passengers. From 1899 to 1907, the Falls made over sixty voyages between these ports. Sailing time averaged seventeen days.

To help move oil, the Falls of Clyde was converted to a sailing oil tanker (1907;) her insides were gutted and ten large tanks were constructed along both sides and the bottom, giving her a capacity of 756,000 gallons of oil.

Heavy-duty pumps and a second steam boiler to operate them were installed. She sailed between Gaviota and Honolulu Harbor; molasses was often loaded into her tanks for the run back to California.

She continued to carry a few passengers and small amounts of cargo “tweendecks.” (Simpson) (Lots of information here is from Simpson, Stanford, Castle & Cooke and Taft Midway Driller.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Honolulu Hills – Taft CA

William_Matson

Honolulu Hills Oil Field

Honolulu Hills – Regional

Falls of Clyde-(NPS)

Falls of Clyde-(FOFOC)

January 19, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Herbert, William & Jack

Good seafaring men of Maine stock, whose parents went to California in Forty-nine, they followed a natural inclination, and the application of Yankee methods soon built up a business which has grown to be one of the most important in the Islands. (Rogers)

The family hailed from San Diego – four boys, Herbert, William, Jack and Edgar, and older sister Edith. The family patriarch, John, had sailed through the Isthmus of Panama to San Francisco from New Brunswick in 1849 then skippered the schooner Champion for several years along the West Coast.

The boys must have inherited this nautical bent because, at an early age, they were hiring themselves out for fishing trips using a small skiff that they sailed around the bay. In the summer of 1899, all four boys ran a glass-bottomed boat excursion at Catalina Island.

Then, on January 19, 1900, 29-year old Herbert and 25-year old William had their first view of Honolulu after a ten-day journey from San Francisco.

Shortly after, Jack, age 18, arrived on October 16, 1900; youngest of all, Edgar, arrived in July 1901 (but being only fifteen at the time, he attended McKinley High School before returning to California to study medicine.)

Shortly after arrival, the boys were “building a boat fitted in the bottom with a cased pane of the finest plate glass procurable, one-fourth of an inch thick. This will be so placed that it can be easily removed, as one of the most important conditions for success is that the glass be perfectly clean.”

“This kind of boat is much used on Catalina island.… With a glass bottomed boat, where the light from above is excluded be a wide awning the bottom may be inspected at from twelve to eighteen fathoms.”

The boys planned “to take passengers out to the reef surrounding the (Honolulu) harbor”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 31, 1901) They did other things to entertain people, as well.

Fifty members of the Methodist Church were their guests; “the entertainment taking the form of a moonlight ride about the harbor, and refreshments at the island home of the hosts.”

They “spent the evening upon the waters or the bay. There was a compete round of the harbor made, the launches going out to where the lights of the battleship Wisconsin outlined the mass of the great ship, and then the return(ed) (for) an hour spent in games and partaking of refreshments, after which there was another ride about the placid bay before the good nights.”

“The evening was enlivened with music, several of the young people taking musical instruments with them. The arrangements were made by Mrs. Katherine Clarke, the chairman of the social committee.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, October 25, 1901)

They also added other adventure. “Professor PM Stewart who occupies one of the chairs of language in Cambridge University, England, has had an experience during his visit to Honolulu that probably never came to him before. He went shark fishing”

“On Friday he caught a shark. His wife who has attracted much attention in this city on account of being a very tall striking looking blonde with very ultra English appearance, accompanied him and to catch the first shark.”

“He hooked one shark yesterday morning and drew the shark close to the boat and then started to dispatch the sea wolf with a spade. The weapon was bent and then Professor Stewart took a hatchet to strike the monster. In his excitement the professor struck the line with the hatchet cutting the line and allowing the shark to escape.”

“Later in the day a second shark was caught near the bell buoy. This time the shark was dispatched without cutting the line and was towed in shore. The shark measured about 14 feet in length and was of the man eating variety.”

The boys “have hit on a new scheme for shark fishing. They are able now to take the sharks with a hook and line instead of harpooning them as was done formerly. Some very successful expeditious have been taken out by tile young men.” (Hawaiian Star, June 2, 1906)

They also looked at other fish activities …

It was the idea of Jack. “He has been plying the waters of the bay at all hours of the day and night for many years and had grown so accustomed to seeing the buzzing blue fish leap out of the water as his launch plowed past that he knew, almost to a foot, where every school of flying fish is between the bell buoy and Diamond Head.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, August 23, 1910)

“Yesterday a new sport was born; Waikiki bay was the birthplace, and HP. Wood of the Hawaii promotion committee was the accoucheur. For the first time in the history of the field and gun were flying fish flushed with a steam launch and shot on the wing.”

“It was a brand new experience in the hunting line that a party of local nimrods and visitors indulged in yesterday morning, an experience that will undoubtedly be shared in by many others before long. Taking pot shots at fish on the wing is sport of the first water, affording plenty of exercise in the good sea air, giving the opportunity for quick shooting, providing for the use of all the alertness contained within a man and being not too hard upon the fish.”

It all was not fun and games. In those days, there might be from five to twenty sailing ships off Sand Island. When a ship came in, the anchor line had to be run out to secure the ship; if the ship was coming to the dock, a line had to be carried to the pier.

In the early years of the company, they used its first boat, Billy, to service the ships by carrying supplies and sailors to ships at anchor outside the harbor, as well as run lines for anchoring or docking vessels. They also pulled boats off the reefs, conducted salvage operations and various other harbor-related activities.

Regularly, the brothers were called upon to help in rescue and salvage operations, including, “For more than an hour yesterday morning Prince Kuhio Kalanianaole and the three companions with whom he started to make the sail from the harbor to Pearl River, in is yacht the Princess, battled for their lives in the waves which swept over their heads …”

“It was left for some young men on the galleries of the Myrtle Boat house to see, without a glass, the accident and the position of the sailors, and to rush an order to (Herbert and William) and to send their fastest launch to the rescue.”

“When the men were reached they were all in fair shape though they felt the effects of the battering of the waves and were considerably exhausted by the strain upon them. They were taken into the launch and a line passed to the yacht and she was towed to her anchorage off the club house.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 17, 1902)

Oh, the boys of this story, the brothers, Herbert, William and Jack (and a bit of their early history) … they were the Young brothers. Their company, Young Brothers, eventually grew over the years into an active interisland freight company. Young Brothers continues today.

In 1999, Saltchuk Resources, Inc of Seattle, Washington, the parent company of Foss Maritime, acquired Young Brothers and selected assets of Hawaiian Tug & Barge. In 2013, Hawaiian Tug & Barge was rebranded and incorporated into the Foss Maritime fleet, while Young Brothers remains a wholly own subsidiary of Foss.

The youngest of the Young Brothers, Jack, is my grandfather. (Lots of information here is from YB-100.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Young-Brothers-Captain_Jack_Young_on_Makaala

Several_Ships_at_Anchor_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900

Ships_in_Honolulu_Harbor-1900

Young_Brothers_Boathouse-center_structure_with_open_house_for_boats_on_its_left-1910

Young Brothers shark hunt

Honolulu Harbor Shark-Jack Young-PCA-June 14, 1907

FLying Fish Shooting-PCA-Aug_23,_1910

FLying_Fish Shooting-PCA-Aug_23,_1910

Harbor_Warehouses-1900

Young_Brothers-Sea_Scout-1905

Young_Brothers-PDQ

Young_Brothers-Fleet-1915

Young_Brothers-first_boat-Billy

Young_Brothers_Boathouse-1910

Young_Brothers_Boathouse-1902

Young Brothers logo

December 27, 2015 by Peter T Young 6 Comments

Lurline

Lorelei (Loreley) means lauern, “to lurk,” “be on the watch for,” and lai, “a rock” – also “murmuring rock.” The Lorelei is a rock in the Rhine River – it marks the narrowest part of the river between Switzerland and the North Sea.

Stories say that Lorelei was a maiden who threw herself into the Rhine in despair over a faithless lover, and became a siren whose voice lured boats to destruction.

A variant of Lorelei is Lurline – some ships carry her name.

William Matson had first come to appreciate the name in the 1870s while serving as skipper aboard the Claus Spreckels family yacht ‘Lurline’ out of San Francisco Bay.

Born in Sweden, Captain Matson (1849–1917) arrived in San Francisco in 1867, at the age of 16. There, he began sailing in San Francisco Bay and northern California rivers.

Captain Matson became acquainted with the Spreckels family and was asked to serve as skipper on the Spreckels’ yacht, Lurline. The Spreckels family later assisted Captain Matson in obtaining his first ship, the Emma Claudina.

In 1882, Matson sailed his three-masted schooner Emma Claudina from San Francisco to Hilo, carrying 300 tons of food, plantation supplies and general merchandise.

That voyage launched a company that has been involved in such diversified interests as oil exploration, hotels and tourism, military service during two world wars and even briefly, the airline business. Matson’s primary interest throughout, however, has been carrying freight between the Pacific Coast and Hawai‘i.

In 1887, Captain Matson sold the Emma Claudina and acquired the 150-foot brigantine Lurline from Spreckels – this was the first of several famous Matson vessels to bear the Lurline name.

Matson met his future wife, Lillie Low, on a yacht voyage he captained to Hawai‘i; the couple named their daughter Lurline Berenice Matson, she was their only child.

After Lurline was born, Captain Matson did not command a ship again, but the family often traveled on the Matson ships to Hawaiʻi, staying there for a month or more at a time.

During one of these trips, Lillie and Lurline created the Matson Navigation Company flag from old signal flag pieces; the design is a circle with a large “M” surrounded by seven stars depicting the seven ships then in the fleet.

Matson built a steamship named Lurline in 1908; one which carried mainly freight yet could hold 51 passengers, along with 65-crew. That steamer served Matson for twenty years, including a stint with United States Shipping Board during World War I.

The family bought a house near Mills College where they spent summers, and they would rent a house in San Francisco for the winter months. Lurline remembers her father as “strict and straight-laced.” Lurline commuted to the city with her father to attend Miss Hamlin’s, a private girl’s school, studying music and art.

In 1913, Lurline met Bill Roth, a young stockbroker in Honolulu; she and Roth were married in 1914. Roth sold his brokerage business and went to work for Matson Navigation Company in San Francisco.

In October 1916, Captain William Matson died at age 67. After his death, Bill Roth was named general manager and vice president of Matson Navigation Company.

The Roths lived in San Francisco. Their son, William Matson Roth, was born in September 1916. Identical twins, Lurline and Berenice, named for their mother’s first and middle names, were born in 1921. (Filoli)

By 1918, Hawaiʻi had 8,000 visitors annually and by the 1920s Matson Navigation Company ships were bringing an increasing number of wealthy visitors.

With growing passenger traffic to Hawai‘i, Matson built a world-class luxury liner, the SS Malolo (later christened the Matsonia,) in 1927. At the time, the Malolo was the fastest ship in the Pacific, cruising at 22 knots. Its success led to the construction of the luxury liners Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline between 1930 and 1932.

On December 27, 1932, the Lurline sailed on her maiden voyage from San Francisco to Australia via Los Angeles, Honolulu, Auckland, Pago Pago, Suva, Sydney and Melbourne.

This was the heyday of the great Matson Liners; passenger trains were adopted as “Boat Trains,” carrying passengers from New York and Chicago to connect in San Francisco with the liner sailings. (cruiselinehistory)

Matson’s famed “white ships” were instrumental in the development of tourism in Hawai‘i. Matson’s luxury ocean liner and its 650-wealthy passengers would be arriving in Honolulu every two weeks.

In 1927, Matson built the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and, in 1932, Matson bought the Moana. Matson’s Waikiki hotels provided tourists with luxury accommodations both ashore and afloat.

Immediately after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, the passenger liners Lurline, Matsonia, Mariposa and Monterey, and 33 Matson freighters, were called to military service.

The post-war period for Matson was somewhat difficult. The expense of restoration work proved to be very costly and necessitated the sale of the Mariposa and Monterey, still in wartime gray. In 1948, the Lurline returned to service after a $20-million reconversion.

Later, Laurance Rockefeller encouraged his San Francisco friend, owner of shipping company, Lurline Matson Roth, to build a house next to the Mauna Kea property. (The Roth family also lived in Filoli, the property in Woodside, CA, now open to the public.)

The Lurline continued to provide first class-only service between Hawaiʻi and the American mainland from June 1957 to September 1962, mixed with the occasional Pacific cruise. In 1963, the Lurline was sold and resold (renamed Ellinis,) and later laid up in 1981 and scrapped in Taiwan in 1987. Matson was sold to Alexander & Baldwin in 1969.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

SS_Lurline_at_Honululu_in_the_1930s

Matson’s-First_Lurline

Matson Lurline

Lurline first steamer-enters service with accommodations for 51 passengers-1908

USAT Grant, SS Lurline, Canadian Pacific Empress of Japan, SS President Coolidge, USAT Republic & SS Asama Maru-PP-40-5-023-1933

Royal Hawaiian Band at dockside on departure of the Lurline-PP-4-4-044-1935

Boat Day… Honolulu – 1930s

SS LURLINE arrrival scene – Honolulu – 1941 – Months before Pearl Harbor

SS Lurline Departing Honolulu with 442nd RCT, 1943

Matson Lurline

Lurline Matson Roth, who competed nationally and won many awards for her equestrian skills

Matson-Royal_Hawaiian-Princess_Kaiulani-Moana-Surfride-Hotels_Ad-(eBay)-1958

Loreley_LOC-600

Lorelei Monument-Bronx-600

December 17, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Oceanic Steamship Company

“The arrival yesterday morning of the Suez, the first of the line of the Oceanic Steamship Company, which proposes to run regularly between these Islands and the Coast is an event of importance.”

“It has become quite apparent of late that the rapidly increasing trade on this route requires more and better accommodation than we now have, both for freight as well as passengers.”

“We are assured by the President of the Oceanic Company that they will have in actual service on this route, before the end of twelve months, two boats which are being specially built for them, and that the Suez is merely chartered as a pioneer.” (Daily Bulletin, June 15, 1882)

During the decade of 1875-1885 Pacific Mail operated a monthly service to New Zealand and Australia, via Hawai‘i. It could not handle the growing demands in the fast developing community in Hawaii.

Sons of the Hawai‘i “Sugar King” (Claus Spreckels) formed John D Spreckels and Brothers (John Diedrich, Adolph Bernard and Claus August Spreckels.) On December 22, 1881, the Oceanic Steamship Company was incorporated in California.

The company had its roots in a fleet of sailing vessels created in 1878 by Claus Spreckels, then a major sugar planter in Hawaii, to move raw sugar to his refinery in California.

Claus built the California Sugar Refinery in 1867 to process sugar. While grocers, then, sold “sugar loaves,” Spreckels introduced the European process of packaging granulated sugar and sugar cubes (so customers could more easily divide the portions.)

In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he acquired the fee simple title to the Wailuku ahupuaʻa.

That same year, Spreckels founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.

In 1882, Oceanic Steamship first chartered ships, then owned and operated their own fleet. The first of the fleet was the Mariposa, launched on March 7, 1883.

The large steamers provided more cargo space than was needed for sugar, so they expanded into merchant shipping more generally.

It was the first line to offer regular service between Honolulu and San Francisco, and it reduced travel time immensely. While the sailing ship “Claus Spreckels,” made the trip in less than ten days in 1879, the new steam vessel Mariposa required fewer than six days to make the run in 1883.

On November 8, 1883, the Mariposa delivered Mother Marianne Cope, the leader of a small group of Franciscan Sisters who sailed to Hawaii to help “procure the salvation of souls and to promote the glory of God.” (She is now Saint Marianne.)

Likewise, the family enterprise controlled the sugar trade and, from 1884, the mail service on the San Francisco-Honolulu stretch as well. In 1885, steamer service was extended to New Zealand and Australia. (Spiekermann)

When Pacific Mail decided not to continue their service from San Francisco, Oceanic Steamship submitted a proposal and was ultimately awarded the contract with Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand (terms of the contract required a British firm be involved.) (Plowman)

The Oceanic Steamship was economically dependent on trans-Pacific mail contracts from the US government, which at the time were awarded through a political process by act of Congress.

Oceanic thrived when it had the contracts but fell into economic problems when it didn’t. Meanwhile, the Spreckels family’s position in the sugar business was overtaken by other firms, calling into question the basic reason for the shipping company’s existence. (McMillan)

As a result the line was sold to Matson Navigation Co. in 1926 and operated as a Matson subsidiary thereafter. (The Mariposa was sold in 1912 to the Alaska Steamship Company. On December 18, 1917 it sank after hitting a Straits Island reef off the coast of British Columbia.)

With increasing passenger traffic to Hawai‘i, Matson built a world-class luxury liner, the SS Malolo, in 1927. At the time, the Malolo was the fastest ship in the Pacific, cruising at 22 knots. Its success led to the construction of the luxury liners Mariposa, Monterey and Lurline between 1930 and 1932.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Oceanic_SS_Co

Schedule Cover of the Oceanic Steamship Co

Oceanic-Steamship-Company-Ad

Mariposa-Oceanic_Steamship_Company-1883

The_Oceanic_Steamship_Company’s_Steamship_Advertisement-(WC)

Oceanic_SS_in_conjunction_with_Union_SS-1900

Advertising of the Oceanic Steamship Co., 1889

Mother Marianne, far, right, led a group of six volunteers from the Sisters of St. Francis to Hawaii

John D Spreckels

December 12, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

John Kendrick

Sea Captain John Kendrick fought in the French and Indian Wars in 1762, threw tea overboard in the Boston Tea Party in 1773, and was in charge of the Fanny, one of the United States’ first ships, during the Revolutionary War.

He survived all that, and was later killed on December 12, 1794 in a 13-canon saluting round in Fair Haven (now known as Honolulu Harbor.) (Lytle)

Let’s look back …

Kendrick was born in 1740 on a small hilly farm in East Harwich, Cape Cod, the third of seven children of Solomon Kendrick and Elizabeth Atkins.

Kendrick’s grandfather, Edward Kendrick, had arrived in Harwich around 1700 and married Elizabeth Snow, the granddaughter of Nicholas Snow, a holder of extensive lands and one of the ‘old-comers’ from Plymouth who first settled the Cape.

Kendrick’s father, Solomon, born sometime during the winter of 1705, was master of a whaling vessel who was famous in local lore. He followed his father and went to sea by the time he was fourteen. By his late-teens, he was crewing on local sailing vessels.

“John Kendrick came of age in the defiant atmosphere of the coffeehouses and taverns of Boston. Here, he was in the midst of the firestorm of opposition to the Parliament’s Stamp Act of 1765 and the hated Townshend Acts, which usurped local authority and levied an array of onerous taxes.”

“As strife increased on the waterfront, he may have been involved in the widespread boycott of British goods and the burning of Boston’s customs house, or riots over seizure and impressment of American sailors for British ships.”

“(O)n the rainy night of December 16, 1773, John Kendrick was part of the legendary band that boarded two East India Company ships at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor. Thumbing his nose at the British shortly after, he is said to have been master of the brig Undutied Tea.”

He fought in the American Revolutionary War and at its outbreak, he smuggled powder and arms from the Caribbean with the sloop Fanny, whose owners were under contract with a secret committee of the Continental Congress and later captured a couple ships, which helped to precipitate the entry of France into the war.

“Shortly before the British surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, Kendrick came ashore. In his sporadic visits home he had managed to father six children, and now he buckled down to making his way in the new nation.”

“After the victorious Revolution and the euphoria of the Peace Treaty of 1783, an economic depression had settled over villages and farms. Port cities and their harbors were left reeling from the war. Inflation was rampant.”

“There was no common currency, state governments were weak, and representatives to the Congress of the Confederation bickered over fundamental issues, threatening to secede.”

“Heavy debts owed to Britain for damages in the war were due, and the prospects for international trade and revenue were bleak. In a punching move, the king had closed all British ports from Canada and the British Isles to the Caribbean to the remaining American ships.”

Without trade, without customs revenue, without taxes, it would be impossible to support a new central government and succeed in securing independence.

Shipping was the soul of early commerce; the Pacific voyages of James Cook revealed the high prices sea otter furs from the Northwest Coast would bring in China.

That took Kendrick and his crew to the Pacific, where they traded with the local population and explored the northwest of the American continent. They eventually (January 1790) went to China to trade the Northwest furs and eventually made it to Japan, arriving on May 6, 1791, probably becoming the first official Americans to meet the Japanese.

On December 3, 1794, Kendrick arrived in Fair Haven (Honolulu) Hawaiʻi aboard the Lady Washington; a war was waging between Kalanikupule and his half-brother Kaʻeokulani (Kaʻeo.)

Also in Honolulu were Captain William Brown (the first credited with entering Honolulu Harbor) in general command of the Jackall and the Prince Lee Boo, Captain Gordon.

At the death of Kahekili in 1793, Kaʻeo became ruling chief of Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi. Kalanikupule was ruler of Oʻahu. Homesick for his friends, Kaʻeo set out to return to Kauai by way of Waialua and then to Waimea. He learned of a conspiracy to kill him. (Kamakau)

Captain Brown of the Jackall helped Kalanikupule. While Kaʻeo was successful after some initial skirmishes. A great battle was fought in the area between Kalauao and ‘Aiea in ‘Ewa. Kalanikupule’s forces surrounded Kaʻeo. (Cultural Surveys) The ship’s men successfully aided in the defense and Kaʻeo was defeated.

To celebrate the victory, on December 12, 1794, Kendrick’s brig fired a thirteen-gun salute in celebration the British ship of Captain Brown.

The tradition of rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them rendered them harmless.

Initially, the tradition began as a custom among ships, whose captains had volleys fired upon entering a friendly port to release its arsenal, which demonstrated their peaceful intentions (by placing their weapons in a position that rendered them ineffective.)

Following Kendrick’s salute, Brown answered with a round of fire.

Unfortunately, through an oversight, one of the saluting guns on the Jackall was loaded with round and grape shot, and this shot passed through the side of the Lady Washington, killing Captain Kendrick and several of his crew. (Kuykendall) (Lots of information here is from Ridley; Daughters of the American Revolution)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Captain John Kendrick