She Found Herself Alone In Hawaii, Her Dream Derailed. And Then A Freak Accident Took Her Life
Irene Cowles was seeking the excitement of travel and opportunity in the film and photography business that was emerging in the late 1800s.
San Francisco resident Irene Cowles snapped up an unusual and promising job offer in 1899.
A newly divorced, forward-thinking artist who was a pioneer in the “moving picture” industry, Cowles learned of an entrepreneur in Honolulu who was looking for people who owned and could operate the sensational new machines.
She reached out to the businessman, an entertainment promoter named Russell Colegrove. He seemed thrilled to hear from Cowles and responded on the spot in a letter on Feb. 15, 1899. Colegrove could provide Cowles with “regular work” at a salary he promised would be “entirely satisfactory to you” — if she would bring her equipment to the islands along with filmstrips showing footage of the Spanish American war, as well as what he called “illustrated songs,” an early version of music videos.
But, he told her, she needed to move fast because he was planning to take this show on the road to Hong Kong, Yokohama and Manila “as quickly as it is safe.” He urged Cowles to join the venture by buying the filmstrips and illustrated songs and promptly traveling to Hawaii.
Entertainment promoter Russell Colegrove made Irene Cowles a promising job offer but he turned out to be a huckster from Washington, D.C., with a long record of acrimonious litigation in his past.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
He suggested she immediately book a berth on the new steamship S.S. Moana, a stylish luxury vessel that could make the passage from San Francisco to Hawaii in only eight days. News reports suggest she made it to Honolulu by early March.
And with that decision, Cowles became one of the relatively few single women who traveled to Hawaii on their own in the 1800s. Her life was noteworthy. And as it turned out, so was her death.
Fragments of the story of Irene Cowles’ last days, including the letter from Colegrove that set her on the path to Hawaii, are contained within a largely forgotten set of documents shipped to the East Coast from Hawaii during the 1800s. The records, stored away by the U.S. State Department and eventually deposited in the National Archives storage facility in College Park, Maryland, represent the letters and papers left behind when Americans died in Hawaii in the 1800s.
There are more than 160 such packets, almost all of them relating to men who died in Hawaii, including sailors, merchants and tourists. Only three, including Cowles’, appeared to show the disposition of the estates owned by unmarried women.
But much of Irene Cowles’ story can be pieced together from old newspaper stories written about her and her family and from other records that track a person’s ancestry and history.
The consular records and newspaper accounts don’t say how old Cowles was when she arrived in Hawaii or her age when she died. But the public record reflects she had two adult children — a daughter named Mary Bella Cowles and an adopted son in Illinois, so she was probably at least in her 40s.
She had been living in San Francisco before her arrival in Honolulu, even though she told people she had come from Galena, Illinois. Newspaper accounts variously and rather implausibly claimed she was a medical doctor, an experienced chemist, “an artist of considerable worth,” and also a “thorough businesswoman.”
Cowles appears to have married into money and lived a privileged life in Red Bluff, California, a farming town about 130 miles north of Sacramento. According to the Weekly Sentinel in Red Bluff, in the late 1880s she operated an art school in the grand and ornate structure known as the Odd Fellows Temple, where she did portraits and gave lessons on landscape and figure painting.
Her husband’s family held some distinction in Red Bluff, and there is still a Cowles Avenue there. Court records from San Francisco indicate she divorced her husband, John C. Cowles, in 1898, on the grounds of desertion, about six months before she left for Hawaii.
Colegrove’s invitation to join him on his tour of Asia came at an exciting time. Opportunities for Americans were opening up all across the Pacific because the United States had annexed Hawaii in July 1898; it would become a U.S. territory in 1900. The United States had also recently taken possession of the Philippines as a prize for its victory in the Spanish American War in December.
Moving picture shows with filmstrips depicting the Spanish American War were a big hit in the late 1800s. In January 1898, a cineograph motion picture showing “many thrilling incidents, such as the shooting of a Spanish spy, Battle of Guantanamo, Red Cross Society at work on the field after the battle,” was advertised in the Hilo Daily Tribune, with tickets costing 50 cents for adults ($18 today adjusted for inflation), and 25 cents for children under age 12.
A company, probably Colegrove’s, promoting a similar spectacle in Honolulu, was preparing for a tour of Asia, including Yokohama and Manila, according to the Hawaiian Gazette.
But things went wrong. In late March, an entertainment event called Russell Colegrove’s Manila Show, starring a young ingenue named Rosa Berlinger, went badly awry when the moving picture machine caught on fire during a performance in Honolulu, causing panicked theater-goers to flee for the exits, the Honolulu Advertiser reported on March 27. This was a fairly common occurrence in the early days of moving pictures because the films the machines used were flammable. The fire was soon extinguished and the crowd returned to their seats, but it was an unlucky omen for the venture.
And Colegrove, as it turned out, had an unsavory past, including several incidents where business ventures he had operated had ended in riots or acrimonious litigation. He had married a woman in New York City in 1897 but left her within a few days, for which he was later charged with abandonment. He had gotten involved in a fistfight with Berlinger’s father over what he considered to be Colegrove’s improper attentions to his daughter. It was later reported that Colegrove hadn’t paid for his passage on a ship and was a stowaway.
Colegrove’s unsavory relations with young women made him the subject of news reports at several points in his life. He was about 31 years old when he married in 1897; she was 19. He left Ollie Wynne within two days and disappeared.
Source: Newspapers.com
Colegrove soon headed to Asia, as he had told Cowles he intended to do, accompanied by Berlinger and her mother. There he was said to be engaging in business ventures, including reportedly lending $1 million to a Chinese venture. In 1905, he was abducted from his hotel and found dead by the side of the road in Peking, the Hawaiian Gazette reported.
In any case, Colegrove proved to be an unreliable employer and Cowles found she needed a new plan. Instead of touring Asia, Cowles ended up renting a room in a home in downtown Honolulu.
In June 1899, she sold four parcels of land in what was called the “Cowles Addition” for $1,000, according to the Red Bluff Weekly People’s Cause newspaper. She also owned other real estate, including some 19 parcels near the water in Santa Cruz, California.
About that time, Cowles opened a grocery store at Camp McKinley, a new military installation located at Kapiolani Park. Her primary customers were young soldiers.
She was said to be kind to them, and many of these young men, thousands of miles from their homes, viewed her with affection. Soldiers’ wages were low and she allowed them to buy food and other items from her on credit, something many must have appreciated.
In those days, a woman alone had a difficult time getting from place to place. But bicycles were becoming a popular means of transport for men although people frowned on seeing women ride them.
Women’s rights advocates like Susan B. Anthony praised bicycles as a form of self-emancipation for women. The independent-minded Cowles owned a bicycle, according to consular records and newspaper reports, and it led to an accident that claimed her life about six months after she settled in Honolulu.
The fatal accident occurred on Aug. 23, 1899. Cowles was riding her bicycle through the grounds of Iolani Palace, heading toward Waikiki, when she was hit by a horse and buggy going the opposite direction.
She suffered internal injuries in the accident and her pain was excruciating, leaving her unable to communicate very well, witnesses said. She was rushed to The Queen’s Hospital and died in agony, alone for much of the time, the next day.
The dramatic death drew a flurry of news coverage. She told one person that she believed she had been struck deliberately. An early report said the buggy had been driven by a woman, a contentious allegation given that women were frequently disparaged as bad drivers. Later reports said a young Portuguese driver was to blame.
Still, her tragic death attracted considerable sympathy. Cowles was reported to have been buried at what was then Nuuanu Cemetery with many enlisted men in attendance. Six soldiers from the Sixth Artillery served as her pallbearers.
The cemetery, now Oahu Cemetery on Nuuanu Avenue, has no record of a burial site for her.
“Mrs. Cowles in her little store at Waikiki had made many friends among the boys in blue and many of them attended the funeral,” the Hawaiian Star reported on Aug. 24, 1899.
An inquest was held, also on Aug. 24, to determine what had happened. At least five witnesses testified and the six men who deliberated decided that the Cowles’ death had been accidental, that her bicycle slipped, depositing her in the path of the buggy, which had been moving at a fast clip. It was just an unfortunate event, they decided.
Sorting out Cowles’ estate became a serious headache for W.P. Boyd, the United States’ deputy consul general, whose job included handling the estates of deceased Americans in Hawaii. Following customary procedure, he placed a legal notice in the Honolulu Advertiser on Sept. 2, 1899 informing people they should bring any claims they had against Cowles to the consulate office.
And claims soon began to emerge.
It had cost $205 — more than $7,500 in today’s dollars — to bury Cowles but she didn’t have enough in accessible assets to pay the cost. Reports that she had been a rich woman appear to have prompted local merchants to pad their bills.
The receipt from the Honolulu Undertaking Co., for instance, showed that Cowles’ estate had been charged $85 for a lined casket. But records for other funeral receipts found in the consular records showed casket prices ranging from $10 to $30 at the time. None, even for the wealthiest people, had cost more than $35.
It turned out that some of the soldiers she had befriended had never paid their bills. The consular records contain a list of 86 soldiers who she’d extended credit to. About two dozen of them still owed her money at the time of her death.
Boyd took charge of Cowles’ possessions. Officials had to arrange a mounted patrol to stand watch over Cowles’ now-untended grocery store to guard against looters, according to news reports. The grocery items it contained — jams, sausages, pickles, soap and cigarettes — were sold at auction on Sept. 14, 1899.
Cowles’ landlady, a Mrs. Greening, had kept possession of Cowles’ valuable moving picture machine and did not want to give it up. In November 1899, Boyd had to demand its return, saying she should surrender it or the U.S. government would take further action.
Cowles’ landlady, identified as Mrs. Greening, took possession of Cowles’ valuable moving picture machine. An advertisement for an Edison “cineograph” around that time offered it for $850. That would be more than $31,000 in today’s dollars.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
Back in California, Cowles’ daughter Mary Bella, who represented the family in its dealings with Boyd, didn’t have enough money to have her mother’s personal possessions transported home. She planned to sell a painting to pay for shipping but that idea didn’t work out.
In August 1900, a year after Cowles’ death, the consul put her possessions up for auction. There had been considerable news interest in the valuable jewelry that Cowles was reported to have owned. Among the goods auctioned on Aug. 9 was a phonograph, a gramophone, a pair of gold eyeglasses, six pieces of jewelry studded with gems, a sewing machine and all her clothing, said to be “in excellent condition, and choice.”
One year after her death, with her adult children unable to raise enough money to pay their mother’s bills and to arrange for shipment of the things she owned, Cowles’ possessions were put up for auction, according to this advertisement in the Honolulu Advertiser.
Source: Newspapers.com
The moving picture machine was not among the items sold and records don’t show what happened to it after Boyd threatened the landlady if she didn’t give it up.
But one of the items listed for sale at auction? A woman’s bicycle.
