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| 2002 Washington Place ballroom |
Captain John Dominis was a trader
who had traveled from Europe to North America, Alaska, and to China. He
wanted to build the finest house in the Pacific for his wife and family. She wanted
a house in the New England style, and he wanted to furnish it with imported
pieces from China. Windows, doors and trim work were imported from Boston, from
the workshop of a great uncle Enoch Snelling, a North End glazier (married to
another Jones sister). In 1846 Capt. Dominis left for a voyage to China to buy
her items for the new house, and his ship disappeared. He was never heard from
again.
Mrs. Dominis moved into the Honolulu
house in 1847 and, because of her reduced circumstances, she had to rent out
rooms to dignitaries and visiting Americans. One boarder, Commissioner Anthony
Ten Eyck, suggested the name “Washington Place” for her mansion, since it
looked like the first president’s home at Mount Vernon. King Kamehameha III
said "it has pleased His Majesty the King to ... command that they retain
that name in all time coming." And so the name has remained as Washington
Place for Aunt Mary’s house.
In 1862 her son moved his new bride
into his mother’s home at Washington Place. Her name was Lydia Kamaka‘eha Paki.
After her mother-in-law’s death in 1889, Mrs. John Owen Dominis was also known
as Princess Lili’uokalani, who became the Queen and last monarch of Hawai’i in
1891. Washington Place was her home during her monarchy, and since 1921 it has
become the home of the Hawaiian Governors. It is now a museum in Honolulu, open
to the public for tours.
Washington Place is a much beloved
landmark in Honolulu, but it is also famous for being one of the first places
where Christmas was celebrated in Hawai’i. The New England missionaries in
Hawai’i were descendants of Puritans. In the Calvinist tradition Christmas was
not celebrated, especially not with Christmas trees and parties. But Aunt Mary
was not a missionary, and she was the daughter of a Welsh immigrant to Boston. Perhaps when she lived in Chittenango, New
York (near Schenectady) she learned how the Dutch celebrated Christmas.
On Christmas Eve in 1858 Mary
Dominis brought 100 children to Washington Place to see her Christmas tree and
Santa delivered gifts to each child. The Christmas tree was an imported Douglas
fir. The children were later sent home and the parents held a grand ball and
dinner. The missionaries frowned on her display, but it was the beginning of a
Victorian Christmas tradition in Hawaii. Four years later, in 1862, the same
year that John Owen Dominis married his royal bride, King Kamehameha IV proclaimed
Christmas a national holiday in the Kingdom of Hawai’i. The past curator of
Washington Place, Corinne Chun, said that Mary Dominis’s Christmas tree may
have been the first Christmas tree in Hawai’i.
In 1863 there was another Victorian
era style Christmas celebration at the home of Elizabeth Holt Aldrich, the
daughter of Robert W. Holt, and niece of Mary Dominis. It is described in a
series of articles written for the Honolulu Star Bulletin named “The Fabulous
Holts.” Article number 17 is titled “An Aldrich Christmas” and it outlines how
Elizabeth Aldrich had a Christmas tree arranged by building a wooden form and
decorating it with maile and fern wreaths. Colored candles, toys and dolls were
hung on the tree. There were 18 different dollies dressed in handmade outfits.
According to the article “Thirty-eight children and forty adults attended the
Aldrich party at 7 p.m. Christmas. The children let out many squeals of delight
when the parlor folding doors were opened to display the lighted tree. Elizabeth
Aldrich took Puritan Maria Rice to attend Episcopalian Christmas Eve services
and the two hour high church service on Christmas day. Maria Rice thought the
lighted candles and singing were beautiful.” Maria Rice was the wife of
missionary William Harrison Rice who had come to Hawai’i in the ninth
missionary company.
An excerpt from a book about the
first Christmas Tree party in Hawaii in 1858:
"Christmas passed off in good
old fashioned style. The eve was ushered in by the assemblage of a large number
of children and their parents at Washington Place, the mansion of Mrs. Dominis,
where Santa Claus had given out that he would hold his court.... A magnificent
Christmas Tree had been provided... and the little folks as they gathered about
it...found it all lighted up with candles, and the branches bending with the
weight of gifts. Prompt as old Father Time ever was, bells were heard at the
windows... and in a moment old Santa Claus stood at the door before the
youthful group, who greeted him with a volley of merry shouts. He was dressed
in the garb in which children love to image the saintly old elf. For an hour he bestowed his
gifts with princely lavishness among the 100 children present, creating one of
the happiest groups ever witnessed in Honolulu... who will long continue to
talk of Santa Claus of Washington Place."
[from Hawaiian Annual for 1922, Thomas G. Thrum,
compiler and publisher, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1921, page 60, available to view at
Google Books.]
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| Washington Place, Honolulu, today |
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Jones/Dominis Family Tree
Gen. 1: Owen Jones, born about 1735
in Wales, died 28 February 1798 and buried in Aberstwyth, Wales; married to
Anne (maiden name unknown) served as a customs inspector for some time in
Boston where his daughter, Anne was born in 1769. My 6th great
grandparents.
Gen. 2. Owen Jones, born about 1768
in Wales, died 22 April 1850 in Dorchester, Massachusetts; married on 11 May
1793 at the 2nd Baptist Church in Boston to Elizabeth Lambert, born about 1775
in Boston, died on 6 February 1834 in Boston. Eight children. My 5th
great grandparents.
Gen. 3: Mary Lambert Jones, born 3
August 1803 in Boston, died 25 April 1889 in Honolulu, Hawaii; married on 5
October 1824 in Boston to Captain John Dominis, born in Trieste (now Slovenia)
and died in 1846 at sea. Three children. Mary is my 4th great aunt,
sister to my 4th great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger (about
1799 - 1828).
Gen. 4: Governor John Owen Dominis,
born on 10 March 1832 in Chittenango, New York, died on 27 August 1891 at
Washington Place, Honolulu, Hawaii; married on 16 September 1862 in Honolulu to
Lydia Kamekeha Lili’uokalani, daughter of Caesar Kaluaiku Kapa'akea and Analea
Keohokalole, born on 2 September 1838 and died on 11 November 1917 at
Washington Place, Honolulu, Hawaii. They had no children. John O. Dominis also
had a relationship with Mary Purdy Aimoku, and one son.
Gen. 5: John Owen Aimoku Dominis,
born 9 January 1883 in Honolulu, died on 7 July 1917 in Honolulu; married on 27
June 1911 in Honolulu to Sybil Francis McInerny, daughter of Edward Aylett McInerney
and Rose Kapuakomela Wond. Three children.
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| Washington Place, Honolulu, with Queen Lili'uokalani in the late 1800s |
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Sources:
“Hawaiian Annual for 1921” by
Thomas G. Thrum, Honolulu, 1920 (see pages 59 – 60 for information on the first
Christmas party)
Honolulu Star Bulletin “The
Fabulous Holts” (date unknown) (This was a series of newspaper articles written
about the Holt and Dominis families of Hawaii).
http://hawaii.gov/govnat/washington_place/
Official Website of the Hawai’i Governor’s office
http://www.washingtonplacefoundation.org/
The Washington Place Foundation
The photo at the top is courtesy of the
Hawaiian Star Bulletin, 2002, showing the Christmas Tree at Washington Place
for the annual Holiday public tour.
Paula Rath, “Recreating Hawai’i’s first Christmas Tree”,
Honolulu Advertiser, ( http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2004/Dec/03/il/il01a.html
December 3, 2004)
And for the latest article I could find mentioning
Mary Dominis’s Christmas Tree, here is one by Trustan Kekauoha, “Holiday
Classic, with a Twist!”, https://www.kaleookalani.org/3113/features/entertainment/holiday-classic-with-a-twist/
December 4, 2018.
This blog post is an update of one written originally
on December 7, 2009:
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To Cite/Link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, “The First Christmas Tree in
Hawaii 1858”, Nutfield Genealogy, posted December 19, 2019, (
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