What an 1848 letter between two 16 year old cousins taught me about my family

Ann Marie Holt's gravestone
at the Oahu Cemetery, Honolulu, Hawaii

The following letter, written in Dorchester, a village outside of Boston, to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) in 1848 was written by Ann Marie Holt.  She was my first cousin five generations removed. Ann Marie wrote to her first cousin, John Owen Dominis.  She was about sixteen years old, and John was the same age.

Cousin John had gone to Hawaii when he was about five years old with his mother, to meet up his father, a sea captain who had made Honolulu his new residence.  Captain John Dominis was lost at sea in 1846, about two years before this letter was written. The Captain had built his Boston wife a fine home out of local wood and from parts shipped from Boston to Honolulu. He was going to China to buy furnishings for the new house when his ship was lost.  Auntie Mary (Jones) Dominis (1803-1889) decided to stay in Honolulu, and at about this time John was starting out on his own in business.  The fine home, known as “Washington Place”, mentioned in the letter, is still standing in Honolulu and serves as the Hawaiian Governor’s residence.

Auntie Mary had six sisters. One was my 4^th great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger (1799 – 1828) who was already dead by the time this letter was written.  Ann Marie’s mother was another sister, Ann Marie Stanwood (Jones) Holt (1811 – 1832), who had also died young in Boston.  Ann Marie’s father, Captain Robert William Holt, was also a sea captain who made many trips to Hawaii.  He had remarried to a native Polynesian woman in 1835 and his second wife and children were living in Honolulu.  When Ann Marie and her sister, Elizabeth (1830 – 1865), were a bit older, they traveled to Hawaii to reunite with their father. Unfortunately, Anne Marie, the author of this letter, died on 15 May 1851, at Washington Place, soon after disembarking at Honolulu. 

This letter is especially poignant to me because I knew that these two teenaged cousins, long separated by two oceans, would meet again in a few years under tragic circumstances.  Ann Marie must have arrived in Honolulu very ill, and died in cousin John’s own home soon after.

I am also imagining how difficult it was for family members to be separated in 1848.  How long did it take for a letter to get from Boston to Hawaii?  You can guess in the last paragraph that the family must have located a ship bound for Hawaii, and rushed to get letters on board before it sailed.

The “Aunt Agnes” mentioned in this letter is a fourth Jones sister from Boston.  All the sisters grew up in Boston’s North End, the daughter of Owen Jones, a mariner.  Agnes (Jones) Hart (1816 – 1890) was the youngest daughter.  She must have taken in her Holt nieces while they continued their education in Massachusetts, waiting for the day to join their father in Hawaii.  The “Aunt Lee” mentioned in this letter is the fifth daughter, Laura Williams (Jones) Lee (1890 – 1887).  The only sisters not mentioned in this letter were my 4^th great grandmother, Catherine, already deceased, and the eldest daughter, Sarah Dargue (Jones) Snelling (1794 – 1875), whose husband Enoch Howes Snelling was a Boston glazier who provided the doors and windows for “the handsomest [house] on the Island”, Washington Place.

This letter was found in the Hawaii State Archives.  John Owen Dominis (1832 – 1891), the teenaged boy who was the recipient of this letter, grew up to marry Lydia Kamekeha Paki, who became Queen Lili’uokalani.  Thank goodness he saved this letter, and that his private papers were preserved by his wife and passed on to the Hawaii State Archives.  Finding this letter, and others like it, have helped me to piece together the story of the Jones sisters of Boston.  None of the sisters had their births or marriages recorded in city or state vital records.  Finding their kinship and family relationships has come together from these letters, family documents, oral history, church and official death records.

Source: Hawaii State Archives, Queen Lili’uokalani Collections, M-93, Box 11, Folder 104, Letter from A. M. Holt to John Owen Dominis, dated 13 August 1848.

                                                  Dorchester Aug. 13^th 1848

Dear Cousin

                I found looking over my letters the other day

that I am in debt to you for two.  I thought that I must

do my best to pay you by writing to you this opportunity.

I am at Aunt Agnes’ visiting.  They have a very pleasant

place near Granite Bridge the house is old fashioned

but very good the fireplaces about two yards long wide

and a yard and a half long the panes of glass in the

windows about as large as a sheet of note paper.

I suppose that you have almost set up business for your-

self.  How do you like your house I should like to see it

very much as I understand it is the handsomest on

the Island.  Sarah Ann is in Boston visiting I suppose

she will write to you this opportunity we miss her

and the children very much she has two very pretty

little girls  I know that you long to see them.

Aunt Lee has left Charter St. at last and gone to

Bridgewater to live they have quite a farm I believe

keep cows hens &c.  Uncle William and Aunt Agnes send

love to your mother and she will write if she has

time but she has such a family that if the vessel

sails tomorrow she will not be able to.  Do you

-------------------------

ride as much as ever?  Write every opportunity

and believe me yours suffice

A.      M. H.

-------------------------

A.M.Holt, Dorchester

Aug. 13/48

-------------------------

John O. Dominis

Honolulu

Oahu

S.I.

For more information on the Jones sisters, see this blog post (my very first blog post in 2009!)

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/07/hawaii-boston-connection-to-royal.html     

For more information on Ann Marie Holt and her grave in Honolulu, Hawaii

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/08/hawaiis-holt-family.html     

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/03/annie-maria-holt-1832-1851.html     

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/07/a-memorial-for-annie-marie-holt-hawaii.html     

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The URL for this post is

http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2014/06/what-1848-letter-between-two-16-year.html

Copyright © 2014, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Tombstone Tuesday ~ A Visit to Mount Auburn Cemetery

Mount Auburn Cemetery is a very historic place in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  Some of the most famous Bostonians and New Englanders are buried here, and will continue to be buried here. I used to pass by here  as a student, since it is just a few blocks from Harvard Square.  My student teaching was right down the street.  I remember riding my bike through the cemetery with friends. It's located right next to the Cambridge City Cemetery, but Mount Auburn is much more beautiful since it was designed to be a park.  The trees, flowering bushes and plantings, lawns and hillsides are all features usually not seen in municipal, or even most private cemeteries.  It's 170 acres are officially an arboretum.

You can read all about the history of Mount Auburn and its illustrious "residents" in books or online at the website HERE .  As a genealogist, I'm most impressed by the staff and services offered by the main office at Mount Auburn.  I've been to visit similar cemeteries around Boston, like Woodlawn or Harmony Grove.  Both of those cemeteries are private, garden style cemeteries, with gates and staffed offices.

The difference between these cemeteries is how visitors and genealogists are treated.  At Harmony Grove, the office manager will bend over backwards to share her files on the families buried there.  But sometimes she cannot pull information up while you wait, but she will mail things and keep your name on file to connect with unknown cousins.  At Woodlawn, the staff is very suspicious.  If you don't have a specific name, you won't get information.  You cannot browse the files to "look up people" who might be buried there from your family, or even to see if there might be another family plot under the same surname.  Woodlawn also doesn't allow photographs.

Compare those with Mount Auburn and you will have a pleasant surprise.  First of all, Mount Auburn welcomes visitors with open arms, and not only for visiting graves, but for riding bikes, bird watching, jogging, you name it.  There is an active "Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery" group for events and fund raising. They reach out to the community, and the community has embraced the cemetery back with both arms.  Tourists, photographers, family and historians all are welcome.

The staff has set up an extensive website.  You can link to a map page where you can search for a specific plot HERE  or read about their genealogical resources HERE. The staff also takes email requests for genealogical information  and is very prompt about returning answers to queries. Copies of the cemetery plots are available free of charge HERE for family plots (not for burials in public lots).

What information is included in a cemetery lot card? Here is an example of the front and back of a cemetery plot for my distant cousins.  You can see that the entire family is listed, and that three were buried at the same time, even though they died in different years.  I can assume that they were removed from another cemetery to be buried here.  The layout of the stones marked on the plot map matches the layout in the photographs.  On the back you can see that the three marble stones are under perpetual care.


front

back

From this information on the lot card I was able to look up the names of the females buried here, to find their marriages, since I only had their maiden names. This helped me to find their marriage records, and to add their husbands and families to my family tree.

The Nicholas Land Family:

Generation 1: Nicholas Land, born about 1802 in Germany; married on 15 May 1834 in Boston to Abigail Rice Arnold, the daughter of Eliphaz Arnold and Mary Torrey Rice.  She was born about 1801 in East Weymouth, Massachusetts and died on 19 July 1854 in Boston.   Abigail was was the widow of Elisha Wales, by whom she had two daughters, Lucy Ann born 1823 and died 17 June 1849 in Boston, and Cordelia born in 1831 and died in 1833.

Three Land children:

1. Mary Abigail Land, born about 1835, died on 31 August 1895 in Boston; married on 4 December 1862 to Nathaniel Greenwood Snelling, son of Enoch Howes Snelling and Sarah Dargue Jones.  He was born in Cambridge in 1823 and died on 24 July 1902 in Hull, Massachusetts.
2. Nicholas L. Land, born about 1839 and died 1880 in Boston; married on 11 November 1862 in Chelsea, Massachusetts to Mary E. Pettingill.
3. Catherine I. Land, born about 1843, died on 19 October 1905; married on 22 April 1889 in Boston to Josiah Brigham Stetson, son of James Aaron Stetson and Abigail Fiske Brigham.  He was born 23 July 1843 in Quincy, Massachusetts and died on 25 April 1895.

Nathaniel Greenwood Snelling, known as Greenwood, is my first cousin 5 x removed.  His mother, Sarah Dargue (Jones) Snelling (1794 - 1875) is the sister of my 4x great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger (1799 - 1828).  They were both sisters of Mary Lambert (Jones) Dominis (1803 - 1889), who went to Hawaii with her husband and had a son, Governor John Owen Dominis (1832 - 1891) who married Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawaii.

When Queen Lili'uokalani came to Boston in 1897 to visit her relatives, she attended a family party at Nathaniel Greenwood Snelling's home.  He lived on 96 Dudley Street in Roxbury, which was a swanky address at that time.  I know there were three first cousins in attendance: Nathaniel Greenwood Snelling, Governor J. O. Dominis, and Mary Esther (Younger) Emerson, my 3x great grandmother .  My great grandmother, Carrie Maude (Batchelder) Allen and her mother Mary Katharine (Emerson) Batchelder were probably in attendance, too.  It is Carrie who passed on the story of how she met the Queen to my family.  She would have been 24 years old at the time of the Queen's visit.  Carrie died in 1963. I spent twenty five years trying to find out how Carrie was related to Queen Liliuokalani!

In her autobiography Queen Liliuokalani describes a party at N. G. Snelling's house in the January of her Boston visit.  pages 320-1  "Before leaving Boston, as it was my intention to do some time during the month of January, my cousin  Mr. N. G. Snelling, gave a family party at his house, to which my suite was invited, and I had the pleasure of meeting as many of the family as could be brought together.  More than thirty relatives and a few of the most intimate friends of the kind host were present.  An elegant table laden with refreshments and adorned with flowers occupied the centre of one of the rooms, and the event was made in all respects as delightful as possible to us."  [The Queen was famous for using only initials in her autobiography, which made it very difficult to figure out who the relatives were in Boston!]

The staff at Mount Auburn is collecting stories on the people interred in their cemetery.  This is a perfect example of a wonderful bit of history and an interesting story to add to their files.  Imagine the delight it will give to someone someday in the future, when they contact Mount Auburn about this family.  I have news clippings, letters to Hawaii and family trees to contribute.  Imagine what other information is already in the Mount Auburn files, and maybe it is one of your ancestors!

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Links:

Mount Auburn Cemetery http://www.mountauburn.org/

Wikipedia- Mount Auburn Cemetery and its history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Auburn_Cemetery

Friends of Mount Auburn Cemetery at Facebook https://www.facebook.com/mountauburncemetery?fref=ts

Harmony Grove Cemetery, Salem, Massachusetts has no official website, but a list of famous people interred there can be found at this link http://salem.essexcountyma.net/HarmonyGroveCemetery.htm 

Woodlawn Cemetery, Everett, Massachusetts http://www.woodlawncemetery.com/

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Copyright 2013, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Boston Tea Party ~ 16 December 1773

The newly re-opened Boston Tea Party Museum

The Boston Tea Party took place on 16 December 1773, and was an act of violence and treason. There is no official list of participants, especially since the men who threw the tea into the harbor were committing a crime. There is a list at the Boston Tea Party Museum website that contains the names of men “documented” to have been at the event. http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/. There is a list of participants at this link, too:  https://familypedia.fandom.com/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party_participants   

In various records I've found several members of my family tree who claimed to have been at the Boston Tea Party. Who knows for sure? What do you think?

Robert Hichborn was the brother in law to my 6x great grandfather Daniel Glover (1735 – abt 1790). He had several famous military brothers in law, including General John Glover (1732 – 1797). Robert Hichborn was a sailmaker and shipbuilder who lived on Anne Street in Boston’s North End, near the site of the Boston Tea Party. He was a member of the Sons of Liberty and was also an officer in the American Revolution. In the Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings Volume 20, page 11, he was listed along with 25 men, including Paul Revere, to guard the tea (guard?). This is the same bunch accused of tossing it into the harbor.

Nathaniel Frothingham (1746 – 1825) is a 2^nd cousin seven generations removed, grandson of my 7x great aunt Hannah (Rand) Frothingham (1672 – 1760), great grandson of my ancestors Thomas Rand and Sarah Edenden. He was a Boston coachmaker or “chaisemaker”and is listed on the Tea Party Museum website, as well as on the SAR list.

Major Robert Davis (1747 – 1798) was a descendant of my ancestors John Gore and Rhoda Gardner. He was an officer in the American Revolution, and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was said to have been a member of the Boston Tea Party in compiled genealogies, and was also a Freemason. He is on the museum list, and the SAR list has him as an “importer of groceries and liquors”. I wonder if he was involved with importing tea?

John Holyoke (1743 – 1807) was married to Elizabeth Treat (1747 – 1830) my 2^nd cousin 8 generations removed. He served in the American Revolution and claimed to have participated in the Boston Tea Party. “Mr. HOLYOKE never, never confirmed the tale; the whole party was pledged to secrecy” [ Holyoke, A North American Family 1637 - 1992, John Gibbs Holyoke, Gateway Press, Inc. (Baltimore, 1993)] He is not on the lists at the museum or SAR. I’m inclined to think he was telling his grandchildren a tall tale.

Serendipity! Last year I was pleased to find out that fellow genealogy blogger, Deb Ruth, had made a “cousin connection” with me when she was researching her husband’s ancestor James Starr. She was excited to find out that James was a member of the Sons of Liberty, and he had participated in the Boston Tea Party. Starr is listed on the museum website. She wrote about our cousin connection at this link: http://deb-adventuresingenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/11/surprise-connection-hello-cousin.html

There was a Josiah Snelling listed on the page of participants from the Boston Tea Party museum, but there are no details about him. My 4x great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Dominis, had a sister, Sarah Dargue Jones (1794 – 1875) who married Enoch Howes Snelling in Boston. Enoch had three cousins named Josiah Snelling, born in 1735, 1741 and 1757. The last one would have been only 16 years old in 1773. All these Snellings lived along the waterfront in Boston, mostly in the North End, where Paul Revere lived, too. I’m pretty sure that the Josiah Snelling on the list is one of these cousins, or maybe even one I don’t have in my Snelling database.

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The list of participants from the Boston Tea Party Museum can be seen at this link:

http://www.bostonteapartyship.com/participants-in-the-boston-tea-party

A list of participants from the Old South Meetinghouse website:
https://www.osmh.org/boston-tea-party/who-dumped-the-tea 

There is also a running theme at J.L. Bell's Blog "Boston 1775" about the participants at the Boston Tea Party. He writes posts every December about the possible men who were documented to be at the event, believe it or not. You can find his blog at this link http://boston1775.blogspot.com/

From my Christmas Ornament collection

This blog post was orginally published 16 December 2011 at this link:
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/12/boston-tea-party-16-december-1773.html

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To Cite/Link to this blog post: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "Boston Tea Party ~ 16 December 1773", Nutfield Genealogy, posted December 14, 2012, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/12/boston-tea-party-16-december-1773.html: accessed [access date]). 

Washington Place ~ Needs your help!

Yours Truly, Mom and Husband at Washington Place
built for my 4x great aunt, Mary (Jones) Dominis

Most Americans have never heard of Washington Place.  It is a historic house in Honolulu built by Captain John Dominis for his Boston born wife in the 1840s.  At a time when most people were living in thatched huts, this enormous white mansion became a showplace.  No one knows why Capt. Dominis built such an impressive home, but within a short time of its construction he died at sea in 1846. His widow was reduced to taking in boarders to help cover the expenses of running such a big household.

Mary’s boarders were mostly Americans.  One of her first boarders was Anthony Ten Eyck, the American Commissioner to the islands.  Ten Eyck nicknamed the house “Washington Place” in a letter dated 22 February 1848, on an anniversary of George Washington’s birthday.  The name stuck when King Kamehameha III liked the name and wrote a royal decree retaining the name “in all time coming”.

Mary Lambert Jones was born in Boston on 3 August 1803.  She married Captain John Dominis in Boston on 9 October 1824.  He was a native of Trieste, Italy, which is now in Slovenia.  Mary was the sister of my 4x great grandmother, Catherine Plummer (Jones) Younger.  When she was building the house in Hawaii, she enlisted the aid of her brother-in-law, Enoch Howes Snelling, to send the windows and doors from Boston.  Enoch, a glazier in Boston’s North End, was married to another sister, Sarah Dargue Jones.

The glass in the windows and doors of Washington Place
were sent from Boston by Enoch H. Snelling, husband of my 4x great aunt

For some unknown reason, the Dominises removed from Boston to Schenectady, New York where their three children were born.  Mary lived with the family of Reverend Christopher Yates while Captain Dominis went on many voyages to the Pacific.

 In 1837 they sailed on board the bark Jones to Honolulu, leaving two young daughters, Mary, age 12, and Frances, age 8, at school in Schenectady.  They brought their little son, John Owen Dominis, age 5, with them to Honolulu.   The year after they left Mary died in Schenectady, and in 1842 Francis also died.  Mary Dominis traveled back to Boston and New York in 1843, but her daughters were already laid to rest in the Yates family plot at the Vale Cemetery, Schenectady.  It is hard to imagine her loss.

But Mary returned to live in Honolulu, and raised her son there.  John Owen Dominis became the governor of Oahu and Maui.  He married Lydia Kamekeha Paki in 1862, the daughter of an ali’i family.  She became Princess Liliuokalani and later the last Queen of Hawaii.  After the Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown, she made Washington Place her permanent home. Liliuokalani lived there for the rest of her life, and died in her bedroom there on 11 November 1917.  She had lived there for 55 years.

A portrait of Queen Liliuokalani graces the dining room inside Washington Place

Washington Place was bought from the Queen’s estate by the legislature of Hawaii in 1921.  It became the governor’s mansion for the territorial and state governors of Hawaii until 2002 when a new governor’s mansion was built.  It is now a historic house museum, and the site of official events for the state of Hawaii, such as parties, press conferences, and official visits from heads of states. Tours are free, and available by appointment.

Although Washington Place is owned by the state of Hawaii, the funds for maintenance and upkeep are raised by the private Washington Place Foundation.  The house is now 171 years old, and the tropical climate has caused several maintenance problems which will be expensive to repair.  With state cutbacks and economic measures being what they are now, the house museum is seeking additional donations towards major structural repairs.  To make a donation please make a check payable to:

The Washington Place Foundation

PO Box 873

Honolulu, HI 96808

For more information on Washington Place:

Washington Place, A First Lady's Story,  by  Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi,  Honolulu, Japanese Cultural Center of Hawaii, 2004

Washington Place Foundation website http://www.washingtonplacefoundation.org/

A previous blog post about Washington Place
http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2009/12/advent-calendar-christmas-in-hawaii.html 

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Amanuensis Monday ~ A Letter to Hawaii, 1849

Sarah Ann Moore

Boston

Novr. 1849

Mr. John O. Dominis

Honolulu

Sandwich Islands

----------------

Boston, Novr. 1849

My Dear Cousin

Not wishing to lose the correspondence

of so “nice a young man” as yourself – I hasten to

improve this opportunity of answering your kind

letter, which owing to the press of – not business

but domestic cares have been suffered to remain

unanswered for a while.  The last I heard of

you, was that you was making preparations

to go to San Francisco.  I understand since

that you have returned to the Islands.  Thinking

probably that there is “no place like home”

The next time you start I hope you will be

bound towards this part of the world.  It

would do good to our eyes to see you.  I im-

agine you to be grown ever so tall and handsome

don’t be flattered.  Do send us a daguerreotype

of yourself- and I will hang it in my best

parlor.  You probably will wish to know how

many little responsibilities I have, to keep me

so much engaged all the time.  They number

three, their names are Sarah Ann, Ella Frances and

Helen Augusta, perfect beauties of course.  Father

and Augustus are in business together, the

dying business.  They have a great deal of

work more than they can cleverly manage.

----------------

They have two Dye Houses and two offices.

The idea was suggested at the time, the Cochituate

Water was introduced into the city- and being

the first and only thing of the kind here- they

have an abundance to do.  The girls Annie and

Lizzie, and Charlotte are still boarding at Fathers

and are waiting anxiously to hear which way

their Father has decided upon sending for them

or having them remain where they are.  A and E.

have finished their education and left school

quite young ladies I assure you.  I long to hear

how you made out with that charming young lady

Miss Mott that you wrote of.  Did she refuse or

accept if the former don’t lay it to heart mustn’t

for there is some beautiful girls in these parts

which are patiently waiting for offers and they

are ready and willing to accept.  But seriously

Time travels fast and those most beautiful

are the soonest to fade.  I must not forget to tell

you of the death of our Cousin Lawrence Younger

a young man of great promise.  He died in

the Hospital of this City of hip complaint.  He has been

wasting away for a long time.  And Aunt Agnes has

also lost a little boy – he died with the summer

complaint which has been quite prevalent here this

past summer.  Grandfather was quite sick with the

same, but has recovered and takes his usual

walks occasionally from Boston to South Boston. But

I must now close, by hoping to hear from you soon

---------------------

And don’t forget the daguerreotype.  Give my love

 to your Mother.  I will endeavor to write to her

soon.  Augs and myself join in wishing to be

remembered to all.

Your affectionate Cousin

Sara Ann Moore

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This letter was full of new information for me.  The recipient of this letter was John Dominis, about 17 years old, from his first cousin, Sarah Ann (Snelling) Moore of Boston.    First of all, John's cousin Sarah mentions the courtship incident with Charlotte Mott I blogged about previously at this link. http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2011/07/serendipity-week-3-letter-between-two.html   No, he didn't marry "that charming young lady Miss Mott" but in 1862 he married Lydia Paki, the future Queen Lili'uokalani.  

Sarah mentions her own daughters, but not her sons. This may have been a sensitive subject since in September 1849 she lost two of her little boys.  In fact by December Sarah herself will be dead at age 31, and her little daughter Ella will be dead the following year.   She mentions the death of a cousin, Lawrence Younger, which made me jump up and down with excitement.  My 4x great grandmother was her aunt, Catherine (Jones) Younger.  I found Lawrence's death record in Boston, age 25, on 23 October 1849, of an abcess (a hip complaint "wasting away for a long time" in the letter).  Lawrence was the brother of my 3x great grandmother, Mary Esther (Younger) Emerson.  I didn't know he existed until I read this letter. 

The grandfather Sarah mentions, who was ill, is Owen Jones, who died 22 April 1850, just a few months after this letter was mailed to Hawaii.  And what was a "summer complaint"?  

The historical part of this letter was the mention of the Cochituate Aqueduct which brought water to Boston between 1848 to 1951.  It must have been brand new when the letter was written.  

Although I was able to answer a few genealogy questions with this letter, I found another mystery.  I don't know the three young ladies, Annie, Lizzie and Charlotte, and I searched through the family tree for three sisters with these names.  I wasn't able to find who they are.  They were living with Sarah's father,  Enoch Howes Snelling.  I also don't know the child lost by my great aunt Agnes (Jones) Hart, but he must have died before the letter was written.  I haven't found this Hart child in the Boston records. 

Hawaii State Archives, Queen Liluokalani Collections,
M-93, Box 11, Folder 105,
Letter from Sarah Ann Moore to John O. Dominis, November 1849

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Another letter to Hawaii, 1887

Hawaii State Archives, Queen Liliuokalani Collections,
M-93, Box 11, Folder 94
Letter from Alice Lee to Mary Dominis, 17 May 1887

Boston, May 17, 1887

My dear Aunt Dominis,

Have been intending to

write to you for years,

but I have hesitated

fearing that I might

not be able to write

much that would

interest you, now,

after seeing “Cousin

John” again and

becoming acquainted

with “Cousin Lydia”

I feel that I must

---------------------------

write and tell you

what a pleasure it

had been to us all

to see them and

have them here.  I

think “The Princess”

Is one of the most

charming women I

have ever met and

I congratulate you

on having her for

a daughter.  Both

she and the Queen

made a most

pleasant impression

----------------------------

here and I hope

they enjoyed their

visit as much as

we did.  As infirm

John didn’t go

to many of the re-

ceptions given in

their honor, Papa

and I had the

pleasure of expending

a good deal of time

with him, and it

was a great pleasure,

The memory of which

will linger with

me all my life.

---------------------

Although I am you

niece only by adoption

yet I have known

and loved you all

since I was a little

girl and one of

my greatest desires

has been to see you.

I feel ?? I shall

sometime, if not here,

then, perhaps, in the

world beyond.  I

have such a nice

plan in my mind

I want Papa to

Take Grandmother Lee

---------------------------

And make you a

visit next winter.

Grandmother is so

well and strong, she

could easily bear

the journey and what

a joyful meeting it

would be between

you two!  And I know

Papa would enjoy

It.  Grandmother Lee

Is the dearest grand-

mother in the world

and I love her

dearly, she and I

---------------------------

have thought about

you for hours, haven’t

your ears burned?

if they have that

was when we were

??thing about you!

And now I must

say “Goodbye”, I hope

you will not try

to answer this letter

for I know how hard

it is for you to

write and as much

as I should enjoy

----------------------------

Hearing from you

I would rather that

you didn’t give your-

self the trouble.

I send you much

Love and I am

Your affec. niece,

 Alice Lee

Dear Aunt Dominis,

My “big baby” has of

her own free will and

accord written you how

----------------------

Glad we were in having

John and Lydia here

with us.  I am intending to

write you and tell you of

the nice reception all

the relatives had.  Some

fifty of us cousins- first,

second, third and friends.

The baby being Christopher

Snelling’s son’s child.

The Queen and the Princess

were very popular with all

of the family.  And all speak

In high praise of John and

his nice wife.  Mother had

the best time.  Affectionately

            William Lee

This letter needs a lot of historical background.  I’ll start with a family tree.

Gen. 1.   Owen Jones (abt 1768 – 1850)  m. Elizabeth Lambert (abt 1775 – 1834)

             My 5x g. grandparents in Boston.  They had 8 children including:

   Sarah Jones               Catherine Jones              Laura Jones

 m. Enoch Snelling      m. Levi Younger               m. John Lee

(children in letter)   (my 4x g. grandparents)    had eight children including

                                                                          William Lee ((1826 – 1906) m. Anna Leavitt

                                                                           His adopted daughter Alice Gookin Lee

                                                                (daughter of Anna’s sister Mary & George Gookin)

Another Jones sister (one of the eight children of Owen Jones and Elizabeth Lambert) was Mary Lambert Jones (1803 – 1889).  Mary married a sea captain, John Dominis (d. 1846) who took her to live on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.  He built her a big New England style home in Honolulu, and then was lost at sea.  Their only surviving son was John Owen Dominis (1832 – 1891) who married Lydia Paki, a native Hawaiian with noble blood.  When Lydia’s brother, David Kalakaua (1836 – 1891) became King of the Kingdom of Hawaii, she became Princess Lili’uokalani.    During Queen Victoria’s Jubilee (50^th Anniversary year on the throne), King Kalakaua, his wife Queen Kapiolani, and Princess Lili’uokalani went to London via Boston.  During the stop in Boston the Royalty visited with the Jones family.

The visit to Boston in 1887 is described in this letter.   I have several other letters from family members about this visit.  This visit was a family story passed down to my generation, but no one believed it until we found letters like this one.  This one is especially poignant to me because you can understand how the family felt so estranged from each other in the 1800s.  Hawaii was thousands of miles away by ships that had to go around South America, and this voyage took months and months. 

Alice and her grandmother never made the trip to Hawaii to see Auntie Mary Dominis.    Mary died just a few years later.   Queen Lili’uokalani succeeded her brother to the throne in 1891, and her husband John O. Dominis died later that same year.  After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 she lost the throne.  Queen Lili’uokalani again came to Boston in 1897 on her way to Washington DC to petition the president to reject the US annexation.   During her second Boston visit she again visited the Lees, Snellings and other family members.

Alice Gookin Lee was born 20 February 1854 in Hampton, New Hampshire, and she died on 4 March 1926 in Forest Hills, Massachusetts (a part of Boston now known as Jamaica Plain).  She is buried at the High Street Cemetery in Hampton, New Hampshire where her adopted father, William Lee, is also buried.   She never married, but was an accomplished woman who studied botany.  Alice was about twenty three years old when she wrote this letter.

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo

Favorite Cemetery Photo for the Carnival of Graveyard Rabbits

The Dominis Family Plot at Oahu Cemetery, Hawaii

It was easy to choose a photograph for this Carnival of Graveyard Rabbits "Favorite Cemetery Photo" theme.  It's not a favorite family member, or a a particularly beautiful photo, but it is the "brick wall smashing" that this photo represents which makes it a favorite.

All my life I heard that we were related to someone in Hawaii.  Over time people told me it was a Princess in Hawaii, but I thought that it was just that the fish tale had grown over the years.  I first researched this family story when I was in high school.  I wrote a thesis paper on the annexation of Hawaii by the United States under the guise of learning more about Queen Lili'uokalani.  I didn't find a family connection, but I was puzzled by some names she wrote about in her autobiography.  I learned that when the Queen came to Boston to visit her husband's relatives she visited with people named Jones, Emerson, Lee and Snelling.

Over time I found some tantalizing clues in our family tree. My great great grandmother was an Emerson.  Her grand mother was a Jones.  The Queen's mother-in-law had the maiden name of Jones.  There were too many Joneses in Boston to find a link.  It was like searching for a needle in a haystack. For years I wrote to Hawaii, to family members, to authors and genealogists.  Nothing matched.

Finally, a curator in Honolulu sent me copies of two letters that named my relatives and their relationship to the Queen's mother-in-law.  This gave me just the small evidence I needed to weed through the Joneses in Boston and put together a family tree.  I found six Jones sisters; two had families in Hawaii, one was my 4x great grandmother, and one married a Snelling who helped send windows from Boston to build the Queen's residence in Honolulu.  The last Jones sister I researched married a Lee, and was the mother of the Boston publisher who printed up Queen Lili'uokalani's autobiography.  Most of the sisters had letters in the Hawaii State Archives which helped me to piece together a family tree when I compared the names to those in the Massachusetts Vital Records, city directories and census records.

Going to Honolulu to complete my research, and to drape leis over Aunt Mary Dominis's grave was one of my most unforgettable genealogy moments!  We also went with my distant cousin, a Dominis descendant, to visit Governor John Owen Dominis's and Queen Lili'uokalani's tomb at Mauna 'Ala, the Royal Mausoleum across the street from the Oahu Cemetery.

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Copyright 2012, Heather Wilkinson Rojo