The Fantastic Life of Walter Murray Gibson Walter Murray Gibson The Fantastic Life of Walter Murray Gibson HAWAII’S MINISTER OF EVERYTHING JACOB ADLER and ROBERT M. KAMINS Open Access edition funded by the National En- dowment for the Humanities / Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Humanities Open Book Program. Licensed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Inter- national (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits readers to freely download and share the work in print or electronic format for non- commercial purposes, so long as credit is given to the author. Derivative works and commercial uses require permission from the publisher. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/li- censes/by-nc-nd/4.0/. The Creative Commons license described above does not apply to any material that is separately copy- righted. Open Access ISBNs: 9780824883669 (PDF) 9780824883676 (EPUB) This version created: 5 September, 2019 Please visit www.hawaiiopen.org for more Open Access works from University of Hawai‘i Press. © 1986 UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII PRESS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED For Thelma C. Adler and Shirley R. Kamins In Phaethon’s Chariot … HAETHON, mortal child of the Sun God, was not believed by his Pcompanions when he boasted of his supernal origin. He en- treated Helios to acknowledge him by allowing him to drive the fiery chariot of the Sun across the sky. Against his better judg- ment, the father was persuaded. The boy proudly mounted the solar car, grasped the reins, and set the mighty horses leaping up into the eastern heavens. For a few ecstatic moments Phaethon was the Lord of the Sky. Soon, however, the flaming steeds overcame his mortal strength and took the bits in their teeth. They bolted off the path of the Sun and drew the wildly careening chariot down toward the earth. When the mountain slopes began to burn and the rivers to shrink from the heat of the celestial horses, Zeus intervened. His thunderbolts forced the horses down to the sea and struck the rash driver dead. Contents PREFACE xv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xvii 1 ORIGINS: DARK EARTH, BRIGHT SUN 1 2 CAPTAIN GIBSON OF THE Flirt 12 3 GIBSON VS. THE GOVERNMENT OF THE NETHERLANDS 32 4 HIGH PRIEST OF MELCHIZEDEK 44 5 SHEPHERD KING OF LANAI 69 6 KIPIKONA: THE HAWAIIANIZATION OF GIBSON 77 7 GRATIFYING THE LONGINGS OF AN ARDENT HEART 108 8 IN PHAETHON’S CHARIOT 126 9 MINISTER OF EVERYTHING, CATSPAW FOR SPRECKELS 141 10 “HOW NOBLE AND HOW GOOD; HOW MUCH I LOVE HER” 154 11 THE CHARIOT CRASHES 172 12 DEATH AND DISAPPEARANCE 187 POSTSCRIPT I 196 POSTSCRIPT II 197 POSTSCRIPT III 200 NOTES 217 BIBLIOGRAPHY 233 INDEX 237 PHOTOGRAPHS PAGES 201–216 MAP OF HONOLULU CA. 1885 PAGE 216 ILLUSTRATION CREDITS PAGE 245 xiii Preface There is still a curious disinclination to speak the name of Walter Murray Gibson in official or quasi-official discourse in Hawaii. Even during a revival of Hawaiian nationalism and interest in the times of the old monarchy, this chief minister of King Kalakaua who brought to their highest pitch the political aspirations of the monarch is seldom mentioned. Visitors to Iolani Palace, newly re- stored to its nineteenth-century brilliance, hear from the docent all about its history—all, that is, except that Representative Gib- son arranged for its financing and Premier Gibson oversaw its construction. Nor are viewers of the heroic statute of King Kame- hameha I, founder of the Hawaiian kingdom, informed that the statue was also the product of Gibson’s political energies, an em- bodiment of the monarchy, a defiance of those who would dictate to the king. Across Oahu at Laie, center of the Church of the Latter-Day Saints in Hawaii, the Mormon community remembers Gibson as a rascally conniver who used his position of leadership in the church, a High Priest of Melchizedek and chosen emissary of Brigham Young, to take unto himself lands that belonged to the church. On the island of Lanai, those lands no longer bear any trace of their industrious cultivation by Gibson, his children, and a generation of native farmers and ranchers who worked for him there. The people of Maui have forgotten that Gibson represented them in the legislature of the kingdom, the most skillful politician of his day. Local Mormons, however, are reminded by church his- tory that it was on Maui that Gibson was judged by the church to deserve excommunication. That is how Gibson survives, hazily, in the collective memory xv Preface of Hawaii, as an apostate, an engaging rogue appropriately in- cluded by Michener and Day in their assortment of Rascals in Paradise, along with buccaneer Bully Hayes and Captain Bligh of the Bounty. However, a glimpse of another Gibson, a romantic and compassionate man who rashly challenged the ascendant planter-missionary party at a decisive period in Hawaii’s political history, emerges in A Dream of Islands, where Gavan Daws groups him with Herman Melville, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Paul Gauguin. What follows is an attempt to show the many sides of Walter Murray Gibson, both visionary and conniver, and indeed the outer man of many talents as well—adventurer, New York busi- nessman, Washington lobbyist, author, newspaper editor, orator, rancher, consummate legislative leader, “Minister of Everything” for King Kalakaua, and, always, a dreamer who dared to reach for the sun. xvi Acknowledgments The authors have debts of gratitude to those who have provided information—especially the knowledgable librarians of the Hawaii and Pacific Collection of the University of Hawaii, of the Uni- versity of Utah at Provo, Yale University, the British Library in London, and the Library of Congress; archivists of the Hawaii State Archives, the National Archives in Washington, the Nether- lands Royal Archives in The Hague, and in the [Mormon] Church Historian’s Office, Salt Lake City, as well as at Brigham Young University-Hawaii Campus. Charles P. Neat of Sunderland, County Durham, England, helped trace Gibson’s true birthplace and Robert Alain of Montreal obtained the records of Gibson’s schooling. Beatrice and Fred Oet- tinger of New York City obtained for us photographs and records of the blocks in Manhattan where the Gibson family lived and con- ducted their business. Frank Damon of Honolulu kindly provided material relating to the Reverend Samuel Chenery Damon. Family photographs of Gibson and his family in Hawaii were generously lent for reproduction by his great granddaughter, Mrs. Hazel Montgomery of Kaneohe. Another descendant, Walter H. Kaaihili of Honolulu, kindly made available to us an oil painting of Gibson, dated 1885. Within the University of Hawaii at Manoa, many others were also helpful, too many to list them all, but we must acknowledge the office space provided through the courtesy of David A. Heenan and David Bess, the former and current deans of the College of Business Administration, and the valued assistance given by Masayo Matsukawa and Joan Karimoto, secretaries of the college. Special thanks are due to Cecile Freitas. xvii Acknowledgments In preparation, the manuscript benefited from reading by O. A. Bushnell, Gavan Daws, Edward Joesting, Pauline King, Shirley Kamins, Bob Dye, Steve Dawson, and Joseph V. Miccio. Bob Krauss made a thorough critique of the chapter dealing with Gibson’s work as a newspaper editor, while Sister Mary Nabb kindly checked the chapter in which Mother Marianne figures promi- nently. At the University of Hawaii Press, editing of the first quality by Elizabeth K. Bushnell and Damaris A. Kirchhofer is gratefully acknowledged. The substance of Chapter 6 appeared in the Hawaiian Journal of History for 1984 under the title “The Political Debut of Walter Murray Gibson.” Helen G. Chapin, co-editor of the journal, was most helpful in that initial publication of our reconstruction of the life of Gibson. JACOB ADLER ROBERT M. KAMINS Honolulu xviii The Fantastic Life of Walter Murray Gibson CHAPTER 1 Origins: Dark Earth, Bright Sun ALTER Murray Gibson shunned the commonplace as other Wmen shun poverty and sickness. From youth to death, ro- manticism shaped his thoughts and acts—indeed his very origin. After a long voyage home from prison in Java had given him the time, and the need, to design a suitable origin, Gibson claimed to be a native American, born on a U.S. ship, storm-tossed off Gibral- tar (or in the Bay of Biscay) en route to the United States.1 He embellished this story of his birth in telling it to Nathaniel Hawthorne, then the American consul at Liverpool. Actually, he assured Hawthorne, two infants had been born on that vessel. In the turmoil of the storm, the babies were mistakenly exchanged: he was taken from his real parents, an English lord and lady, and given to the commoners whose name he bore.2 The mistake de- prived him of the noble status to which his blood entitled him but he was able to claim American citizenship by birth, since the ves- sel was of United States registry. Reality was unacceptably prosaic. It is true that Walter sailed with the Gibson family when they migrated to the New World, but that was in 1832, when he was already a boy of ten. Baptismal records of the Church of England show that Walter Murray Gibson was born—presumably on January 16, as he always said—in Kears- ley, parish of Stamfordsham, Northumberland, and was there bap- tized on March 9, 1822.3 His parents, John and Lucy (Murray) Gibson raised sheep there, as had his grandparents, John and Ann (Cheston) Gibson. Kearsley, no more than a tiny hamlet comprising the homes of a few tenant farmers, lies on the bleak Ingoe Moor in the windswept country rising toward the Scottish border, inland from 1 CHAPTER 1 Newcastle-upon-Tyne.