A Multinational Fraternity: Freemasonry in Hawai'i, 1843-1905
FRANK J. KARPIEL A Multinational Fraternity: Freemasonry in Hawai'i, 1843-1905 ON MARCH 30, 1843, in the midst of a short-lived British occupa- tion of the Hawaiian kingdom's capital, the Ajax, one of the few French whaling vessels in the Pacific, sailed into Honolulu harbor. It had been seven months since it had collided with an American whale ship in the Indian Ocean, and her captain, Joseph Marie Le Tellier, needed the repair facilities of the mid-Pacific port. Le Tellier also had another purpose during his stopover: Named a "Special Inspec- tor" by the Supreme Council of France, he was specially authorized to create new Masonic lodges. Within days after arriving in Honolulu, Captain Le Tellier contacted the local representative of the French government, the Mauritius-born merchant Jules Dudoit, and they recognized each other as Masons. Little more than a week later, Le Tellier acted on his commission, gathering Dudoit and fourteen other men to organize the first Masonic lodge in the Pacific, Lodge Le Progres de l'Oceanie.1 Initially meeting aboard the Ajax and then at Dudoit's store, the group soon moved its meetings to an adobe house owned by another charter member, John Meek, an American seafarer. A system of fraternal societies centered on convivial sociability and complex ritual, Freemasonry originated in the British Isles and had spread like wildfire throughout Europe and America during the eigh- teenth century. Although entering into a decades-long decline in the Frank J. Karpiel teaches at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah, New Jersey.
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