Unpacking The Lost Letters Of Long-Ago Hawaii Adventurers
Boxes of packets tied with twine hold the last possessions of Americans who died in Hawaii in the 1800s. They’ve been sitting unopened in a storage facility near Washington, D.C., for more than 100 years.
In 1885, George Fassett was a gregarious hotel manager in Honolulu. When he died at age 39, the victim of a sudden onset of a brain infection, he had planned to deliver some hard news to his wife, Fanny, who was living on the East Coast.
“I have thought the matter over and I have come to the conclusion that it is best for you and best for me that we should live apart,” Fassett wrote in a letter that was found in his possession at the time of his death in 1885. “We were not destined to live together I see it you have seen it. I will send you to your mother and in the future do all I can to make you as comfortable financially as my means will admit. If you wish a legal separation I will not oppose it. You are unhappy I am unhappy. Any time you are ready to move let me know and I will see that all is arranged for your comfort.”
He signed it “Yours, Geo.”
The letter, written in San Francisco apparently when George was on his way to Hawaii, was never sent, and instead was put into a packet of Fassett’s last remaining possessions that ultimately ended up in the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. His, along with more than 160 other packets of Americans who died in Hawaii in the 1800s, was never delivered to his family.
George Fassett made a splash in Hawaii when he arrived as the manager of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in downtown Honolulu. He quickly became “a most popular gentleman,” serenaded by the Royal Hawaiian Band on his 38th birthday, according to news reports. There seems to be no sign that a Mrs. Fassett was in the picture anymore.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
Newspaper records indicate that Fassett married Fanny H. Crosby in Massachusetts in 1873 but this letter he kept suggests he may have sent her back to the East Coast. There is no record that they divorced. She had signed a letter to him “your faithful and devoted wife.” A photo album and some jewelry was sent to his family in New York at his death, according to the consular records.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
Instead, the packets, wrapped up in old-fashioned butcher paper and tied with string, have sat unopened for 100 years, until they were discovered by a Civil Beat reporter who has spent the past several months carefully reviewing and chronicling the fragile items.
Most of the packets contain an inventory of what the person owned at his or her death, how much the goods brought at auction, and where and how the person was buried. There are also many family photos, small possessions like lockets, hand-drawn maps or snippets of embroidery, and, in many cases, letters from loved ones as well.
Besides Fassett’s letter to his wife telling her he was leaving her, in his possession when he died was a curled lock of reddish-brown hair. Who it belonged to is a mystery lost to time.
Elias Coon, of Stonington, Connecticut, lost both his mother and father by the time he was 10 years old. When he died at sea from consumption, at age 23, on a passage from San Francisco to Honolulu in 1853, his clothing was said to be “very poor.” He owned only a basic set of clothes — one shirt, one pair of pants, one coat. And two bottles of pickles.
Robert McCartney’s mother pleaded for her boy to come home in a letter she wrote him in 1869. It was one of the only things he owned when he died at a hospital in Honolulu.
“Dear Son,” she wrote. “It is sometime since I have heard from you, there has been several letters received from you from time to time but were written to those who have since departed. My health is very good considering my advanced age …
“You know of course what pleasure it would give me to see you once more. At times I think my children have entirely forsaken me and in a measure they have for if it had not been for good friends I might have lived in the poor house as your father died in it. Mr William Horwath called to see me and he is going to send this letter to you … New York has changed a great deal since you were last in it. I have nothing further to write you but hope you attend to your duties and it is possible come and see me before I die.
“Hoping you are enjoying good health, I remain your loving Mother, Nancy McCartney.”
Loving letters and well-worn Bibles. Tintypes, locks of hair, passports and union membership cards. The “dead letters” arrived first at the U.S. State Department where they were put into boxes and then into storage before landing at the National Archives.
The letters span the period from 1830 to 1900.
Under U.S. law at the time, the remains and estates of Americans who died abroad, including in the Hawaiian kingdom, were handled by U.S. consuls, who were political appointees of the State Department. These officials were expected to oversee the care of ailing Americans, bury the bodies, pay off the debts incurred by the deceased and send anything left behind to heirs living thousands of miles away on the mainland. Tracking down surviving family members on the American continent might have seemed an impossible task.
I have nothing further to write you but hope you attend to your duties and it is possible come and see me before I die. -Letter from Nancy McCartney to her son Robert McCartney
Hawaii was annexed by the United States in 1898 and became a territory in 1900. After that time, Americans living in Hawaii were no longer considered by the State Department to be residing in a foreign country.
The records are fragmentary. Last names are misspelled, documents are missing, in many cases the records contain only the initials of a person’s first name, not the full name. Almost all lack a cause of death and don’t explain precisely who got what when people died.
In some cases, Civil Beat was able to find accounts of their death or other information through a search of old newspaper archives.
Irene Cowles, a pioneer in moving pictures who had become something of a celebrity in Honolulu, suffered internal injuries when a horse and buggy ran over her while she was riding her bicycle near Iolani Palace in 1889, according to the consular records.
Charles Burleson, who worked on Samuel Parker’s ranch, was killed “by a kick from a horse” in September 1879, and Parker was left with the sad obligation of writing to his adult son with the news.
Many of the men — almost all were youngish, mostly white but some black as well — were virtually penniless at their deaths, but some had assets including gold dust in their possession when they died. In most cases the heirs appear to have received little or nothing. In some cases, the money that remained was instead sent to the U.S. Treasury.
Civil Beat’s research also shows that some of the U.S. consuls were corrupt. Well-founded accusations were raised, including within the State Department, about whether the dead people’s estates were managed competently or were looted. Documents in the packets also raise questions about exactly how much of what the deceased owned at the time of their deaths got into the official inventory at all, or instead ended up in the pockets of people who happened to be onsite or nearby when the person died.
Edward L. Phelan of Boston had $396 in assets at his death in 1885, but after his bills were paid and he was buried at Nuuanu Cemetery, there was only $5.18 for his heir in San Francisco.
Enoch Hatch, a California ’49er, was found to have $1,206 in gold dust among his effects when he died in Honolulu in 1850. The folder contains no further information about what happened to it.
Enoch Hatch, who died in 1850 in Honolulu, seems to have been a California ‘49er. He came to Hawaii aboard the bark Connecticut. The consul’s inventory of his possessions indicated Hatch had $1,206 in gold dust in his possession at his death. Gold sold for $18.53 an ounce in 1850, so Hatch must have had about 65 ounces of it. That amount of gold would be worth $127,134 today. The consular records do not say what became of it.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
Gold dust was such a big lure that some miscreants even took it before the corpse was cold. Thomas Joyce, 33, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been born in Ireland, was wounded on the coast of California and was hospitalized in Hawaii before dying.
His crew mates were reported to have used money out of a bag Joyce owned to buy liquor, according to a vague deposition taken in Honolulu that was placed in the consular report. The deposition revealed that one sailor had even urged another shipmate to lift Joyce’s head to get gold dust out of the bag on which the incapacitated man’s head was resting. It was said to contain $400. It appears from the deposition that they began spending the money on the spot.
Sailors and merchants, tourists and vagabonds. Some came to Hawaii looking for economic opportunity. Still others came hoping to escape problems at home or looking for a miracle cure in the fabled golden Hawaiian sunshine.
Many of them died of diseases or injuries that are rare or uncommon today. The largest single cause of death listed in the records is consumption, a bacterial infection that attacks the lungs and causes patients to literally waste away, a disease now known as tuberculosis. Today, antibiotics are used to treat the infection but back then, most people who contracted it eventually died from it.
Some had mysterious deaths, with documents providing few details that reveal exactly what occurred.
Edward Kemp was a prosperous and hard-driving grocer, a landlord with substantial land holdings on Oahu. A news story at the time reports he joined a group of other businessmen in protesting the arrival of a circus on the island, which they said was distracting their Chinese employees from their duties. They urged officials to impose higher taxes on such amusements.
How Kemp died, “suddenly,” during the night on March 1, 1860, was never explained, not in the consular records or in newspaper accounts, but there were published reports that a Hawaiian priest had “prayed him to death,” an act of “anaana,” or sorcery, an allegation that the Polynesian newspaper angrily retorted was only superstition, with the effect of “stigmatizing the memory of the dead.”
But it was noticeable that no one cared to enter Kemp’s business, a grocery store on Hotel Street, for some period of time after the proprietor’s death. It turned out that a dog named Tom had been accidentally locked inside Kemp’s store for two weeks after his death, but ultimately was released, hungry and thirsty but unharmed, much to his owner’s delight, the Polynesian newspaper reported.
Edward Kemp, who was from Hagerstown, Maryland, was a successful businessman in Honolulu, and his estate records indicate he owned a grocery store and a residence on Hotel Street at his death. He was also a landlord who owned property in Nuuanu.
(source: Newspapers.com)
Kemp’s death was openly described as mysterious but without further details. Rumors of what had become of him began circulating after his death in 1860.
(source: Newspapers.com)
The Polynesian, a government-backed newspaper, ridiculed reports that Kemp had been prayed to death.
(source: Newspapers.com)
The Honolulu Advertiser reported that Kemp himself had feared he was being prayed to death and that many Hawaiians and long-time residents in the islands feared he became a victim of the practices.
(source: Newspapers.com)
Some died of causes that are all too familiar today. Solomon L. Buckland, who was from Connecticut, said to be about age 50, drowned near Halehaku Gulch on Maui in 1889, leaving behind two young adult sons on the mainland. He had owned livestock, and after he died, his sons inherited $3,400 from his estate, according to consular records.
William Mulligan, who was black, drowned at the beach at Hilo in 1877. His possessions were valued at $38.35 when they were sold at auction.
Many arrived on a ship and died within days or weeks of their arrival. Alvan F. Alpress, a merchant from Bristol, Connecticut, was 41 years old, with light blue eyes, dark hair and a dark complexion, according to his passport, and he arrived in Hawaii from San Francisco in January 1850. He had been in Hawaii only three days when he died, according to consular records.
Richard Butler, a hat salesman from Philadelphia, survived only a few months. Butler’s clothing inventory at his death suggests he maintained a dapper appearance. He had bought some 160 hats in San Francisco, intending to sell them in Hawaii.
At the end of his life, he was staying with an American named James Wilcox, who appears to have been renting out guest rooms at his home in Nuuanu. By the time he died, Butler had only 61 hats remaining in his inventory, and, according to the U.S. consul’s records, they were sold at auction on Jan. 6, 1854.
Granville Chase’s heirs didn’t get much when he died but some of his possessions were sent to them, according to the consular records.
Photo: Kirstin Downey/Civil Beat/2024
Granville H. Chase must have been an avid reader. According to the consular records, he ended up with little more than his 40-volume set of the works of William Shakespeare, which apparently found little interest at auction in Honolulu. His final estate was valued at $4.10, which was sent to his cousin in San Francisco. After his death-related expenses were paid, Chase’s cousin in San Francisco received the sum of 41 cents, neatly detailed in the report.
We were sorry to hear of Hughie’s death but perhaps he is better off as he seemed to be all alone in the world. -Letter from Maggie McIsaac
For Americans, Hawaii was a far-off land in the 1800s, and the packets in the National Archive reflect that distance. Some people were clearly lost from their families back home, others appear to have created that disconnection themselves.
Hugh McInnes, 5 foot, 9 inches tall, with blue eyes and brown hair, was a gifted artist who drew beautiful maps of the Hawaiian Islands. He was a careful and studious man, who kept notes calculating shipping routes and times.
He had once struck it rich in New Mexico, and had a receipt for 1,496 ounces of silver, which he had sold for $125. Once in Hawaii, he had pitched in as a firefighter, and seemed to have been making friends. He even received an engraved invitation to a luau hosted by the queen.
But he had no family around him when he died of what was called “la grippe,” now known as the flu, in 1893. Efforts were made to find his next of kin, and a friend in Santa Rosa, California, dimly recalled that he might have had some relatives in Scotland, but no one knew for sure.
“We were sorry to hear of Hughie’s death but perhaps he is better off as he seemed to be all alone in the world,” his friend, Maggie McIsaac, wrote in a letter that got deposited into the McInnes folder sometime after his death.
Thomas Driscoll’s family in New Bedford, Massachusetts was deeply worried about him, a fact driven home by the letters Driscoll had in his possession at his death, from a lung hemorrhage on Dec. 12, 1874.
“It seems to me you have had a hard time of it since you left New Bedford but I hope it may serve as a warning to you never to go again,” Driscoll’s sister Nellie scolded in a letter. “After you return this time and if you will get home as soon as you can and not running more risks for the best of my opinion is you have had quite enough of them without trying the Arctic Ocean again but I shall not ask you to come home again for I see you mean to suit yourself anyhow.”
Next: The whaling centers of Honolulu and Lahaina became life’s last stop for many sailors and other adventurers.
