Of the ships that visited the islands, all but a small fraction were American. The commerce of the US, which calls at the Sandwich islands, may be classed under five categories:
- vessels which trade direct from the US to the islands
- vessels which are bound to the NW coast, trading for furs
- vessels which, on their passage across the Pacific, stop at these islands to replenish or repair
- Hawaii-resident. American resident-owned vessels trading in the Pacific
- vessels which are employed in the whale-fishery on the coast of Japan, which visit semi-annually (John Coffin Jones Jr, US Consulate, Sandwich Islands, October 30th, 1829)
The little community of respectable traders and missionaries, with a disreputable fringe of deserters from merchantment and whalers, was so predominantly Bostonian that “Boston” acquired the same connotation in Hawaii as along the Northwest Coast. It stood for the whole United States.
Hawaii had, in fact, become an outpost of New England. The foreign settlement at Honolulu, with its frame houses shipped around the Horn, haircloth furniture, orthodox meeting house built of coral blocks, and New England Sabbath, was as Yankee as a suburb of Boston.
As early as 1823 there were four mercantile houses in the Islands: Hunnewell’s, Jones’s, ‘Nor’west John’ D’Wolf’s (from Bristol, Rhode Island) and another from New York (possibly that of John Jacob Astor & Son, represented by John Ebbets (Kuykendall.)) (Morison)
“Their storehouses are abundantly furnished with goods in demand by the islanders; and at them, most articles contained in common retail shops and groceries in America, may be purchased.”
“The whole trade of the four probably amounts to one hundred thousand dollars a year – sandal wood principally, and specie, being the returns for imported manufactures.”
“Each of these trading houses usually has a ship or brig in the harbor, or at some one of the islands; besides others that touch to make repairs and obtain refreshments, in their voyages between the north-west, Mexican and South American coasts, and China.”
“The agents and clerks of these establishments, and the supercargoes and officers of the vessels attached to them, with transient visiters in ships holding similar situations, form the most respectable class of foreigners with whom we are called to have intercourse.” (Stewart)
On August 13, 1804, a young sea captain named John D’Wolf sailed from his native port of Bristol, Rhode Island aboard the Juno, rounding South America’s Cape Horn and sailing northward to acquire furs along the Pacific Coast.
“The Juno at that day was considered a crack ship, and her outfit embraced all that was needed for both comfort and convenience. She mounted eight carriage guns, and was otherwise armed in proportion …”
“… and when hauled into the stream presented quite a formidable and warlike appearance. Such an equipment was essential in her time for the dangerous business for which she was destined.” (D’Wolf)
The Juno dropped anchor in Newette Harbor on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island on April 10, 1805. Having been unsuccessful in trade at various ports in Canada, Captain John then set sail for the Russian settlement at Norfolk Sound in Alaska, arriving in port on May 7th.
The Juno conducted successful trades in Norfolk Sound, Port Retreat and in several other locations. Their enterprise was aided by the Russian Governor Baranoff, with whom John had become friends.
After acquiring a full cargo, John had the bulk of the furs transferred to the Mary, another American ship in company with Juno and on October 5th sold the Juno and the remainder of his cargo to the Russian American Company (and the Yermerk, a small Russian vessel of 40 tons.)
John dispatched the Yermerk and her cargo of otter skins under the command of his first mate, George W. Stetson to Canton, China and then wintered over with his newfound Russian friends.
He traveled westward the following year and spent his second winter on the Kamchatka Peninsula. John then traveled across Siberia by horseback, buggy and boat, arriving at Moscow on October 8, 1807 and at St. Petersburg, Russia on October 21st.
Before Napoleon entered Moscow, before Lewis and Clark crossed the American mainland, D’Wolf became the first American, and perhaps the first non-Russian, to travel by land from the Pacific to the Baltic, across the empire of the tsars. (Howe, American Heritage)
Captain John departed the Russian port of Kronstadt aboard a small Dutch vessel in November for England. At a port call in Elsinore, Denmark, they encountered the ship Mary out of Portland, Maine, Captain Grey in command.
John transferred to the Mary and after a stopover in Liverpool, he arrived in Portland on March 25th and finally returned to Bristol on April 1, 1808 almost 4 years after he had sailed away on the Juno. (The initial fur trading venture of Captain John and the Juno netted the D’Wolf family $100,000.) (Rhode Island Historical Society)
His travels in the region earned him the nickname of Nor’west John. He was born in Bristol, Rhode Island on September 6, 1779 to Simon and Hannah May D’Wolf and was married to Mary Melville in 1817.
He had a profound influence on Mary’s young nephew, Herman Melville, who spent his summer vacations with D’Wolf’s family at Bristol, Rhode Island.
The seafaring tales of ‘Nor’wester John’ stirred the boy’s imagination, encouraging him eventually to seek his own adventures at sea, culminating in the novel Moby Dick.
In Moby Dick, Melville describes a whale that John D’Wolf had encountered in the Russisloff in the Sea of Okhotsk. ‘A whale bigger than the ship set up his back and lifted the ship three feet out of the water.’
‘The masts reeled and the sails fell all together, while we who were below sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding we had struck upon some rock; instead of which we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity, leaving the ship uninjured.’
“Captain Dwolf, one of the most compassionate and benevolent of men, who often made me the sharer of his joys and sorrows”. (Langsdorff) He died in Dorchester, Massachusetts at the home of his daughter on March 8, 1872. He was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1967.
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