KAIULANI
Part I: The White Packet The origins of the three-masted steel bark Kaiulani are deeply rooted in the life of the Hawaiian princess whose name she bears. Princess Kaiulani died in 1899, the year the ship was launched; ironically, the ship named for the last of a line of Hawaiian kings became in her time the last square-rigged merchantman at sea. It is also ironic that the ship that has kept the name of Kaiulani alive should have been built to carry the commodity that cost her her throne. It was the larger vehicle of the potties of sugar trade that brought together the diverse character of Arthur Sewall, a strongwilled New England shipbuilder, and Princess Victoria Kaiulani, heir apparent to the Hawaiian throne. The story begins half a century earlier, in 1849, when a German entrepreneur named A. Hackfield arrived in Hawaii. He was to establish a trading route from Honolulu to San Francisco and Europe, eventually founding the "Hawaiian Line" of packets for which the Kaiulani was built. It was Hackfield who encouraged Europeans to invest money and labor in sugar plantations, causing trade to expand and opening up Hawaii for settlement by foreigners. One of these, an enterprising Scottsman named Archie Cleghorn, married a Hawaiian woman and brought her father, Kalakaua, to power as king of the islands . Kaiulani-the name means "royal, sacred being" -was the daughter born to this off-islander. She was bright, charming, and willful, an ornament to the Hawaiian court and subject of verses
By E. Victoria Lomaugh
by Robert Louis Stevenson, who knew her well. At the age of fourteen she left her beloved Hawaii for England to complete her education. While Kaiulani was growing up, Arthur Sewall was building a kingdom of ships in Bath, Maine. He loved Maine as Kaiulani did Hawaii; he wrote a friend once, "this is the spot in the whole world to live and die in ... that inspires the best thoughts, so essential to carrying us through this journey of life successfully." A tall, imposing man, fond of strong cigars and fast horses, and whose "personal dignity did border on the aristocratic," Sewall was known to the shipbuilding world as the "maritime prince." Together with his brother Edward (who died in 1879) he brought new life to the American wooden squarerigger; his was also the yard that built eleven of the thirteen iron or steel square-riggers launched in America. The first was launched in 1894 and named, appropriately enough, Dirigo-" I lead" . The Kaiulani was the Sewall yard's first commissioned ship, built in 1899 for a . Hackfield & Co., whose agents were Williams, Dimond & Co. of San Francisco. Upon the annexation of the Republic of Hawaii to the United States in 1898, Hackfield had determined to build a vessel superior to any other for his Hawaiian Line of packets. The Sewall yard won the bid and the Kaiulani, a moderate-size vessel of 1570 gross tons, was the result. Considered to be one of the fastest ships of her day, she
was designed to exploit the favorable wind system between San Francisco and the islands . Ultimately, she became the last surviving American-built squarerigger to carry sail. The year the Dirigo was launched SilW the establishment of the Republic of Hawaii. King Kalakaua had died in 1890, and his sister had taken over the throne. But early in 1893 she was deposed, the monarchy abrogated, and a provisional government created. Kaiulani issued a statement through the London press, which read in part: "I am coming to Washington to plead for my crown, my nation and my flag. Will not the great American people hear me?'' And go to Washington she did, meeting President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland and the cream of Washington society before returning to England to await news of her country's fate. America was captivated by the tall, graceful, intelligent young woman who, though scarcely out of her teens, argued her cause so well. However, Hawaii's monarchy was doomed; in 1895, an unsuccessful attempt was made to overthrow the newly-formed Republic of Hawaii. The rebels were captured, and only by relinquishing all claim to the throne was the former queen able to save her people from being put to death. It was an event that ensured the annexation of Hawaii to the United States three years later . So in 1896 it was as plain Miss Cleghorn that Kaiulani returned quietly to Hawaii. And it was that same year With hats at playful angles in the low winter sun, passengers take their ease on Kaiulani's first voyage lo Hawaii from San Francisco, December, 1900. Below, a prelly passenger in nautical dress takes the Kaiulani 's brass bound, star studded wheel, which can be seen today al National Society headquarters in Brooklyn. Photos courtesy the San Francisco Maritime Museum.
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SEA HISTORY, FALL 1977