Annual Maritime Archaeology and History of Hawaii

May 16-18, 2002

The Mystery of the Brig Owyhee’s Anchor and the Disappearance of Captain John Dominis.  Jim Mockford Advisory Council, Grays Harbor Historical Seaport

DOMINIS, JOHN

Fifty years after the disappearance of a sea captain on his voyage to China in 1846 the Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani held a séance to see if she could learn what happened to her Father-in-law Captain John Dominis.  She lived in the grand house in Honolulu called Washington Place built by Dominis in the early 1840s. The mansion became the home of his wife Mary and son John Owen Dominis who moved to Hawai’i from New York and lived there while Captain Dominis sailed off on trading ships across the Pacific. Eventually, John Owen married the Hawaiian Princess Lydia who would become Hawai’i’s Queen and call Washington Place her home. Yet even Queen Liliuokalani sought to know more about Captain John Dominis.

This paper examines the career of Captain John Dominis utilizing early records that show him in command of the Brig Owyhee on which he entered the Columbia River in 1829 to trade as the first American merchant vessel in the river since 1814. The British Hudson’s Bay Company had established itself at Fort Vancouver in 1824 and took a dim view of the American trader making its way up the Columbia. But Dominis did not stop at Fort Vancouver. He continued up the Willamette River as far as the mouth of the Clackamas River and anchored there, the first sea going vessel to penetrate the river that far. Records vary about the cause of an attack by Clackamas Indians on Dominis and his men but in the melee that followed the Owyhee was cut loose from its anchor by Clackamas swimmers and had to drift downstream to escape.

Dominis is credited with bringing the first peach trees to the Oregon country and for being the first to bring Columbia River salmon to Boston. Was the Owyhee’s anchor the only thing the ship left behind in the Oregon country? What happened to the Owhyee’s anchor? In an interesting story about the recovery of this maritime artifact the author describes how the Owyhee’s anchor was found and is now displayed by the Portland Yacht Club. There still remains the mystery of Captain Dominis disappearance at sea in 1846. But new sources and research on the life of Captain John Dominis is beginning to shed light on the story of the mysterious man whom even his own daughter in law, Hawai’i’s Queen sought to learn through unconventional sources over a century ago when no one could answer her questions about Captain John Dominis. Today Washington Place, which has been home to Hawai’i’s governors for over eighty years, is preparing for change. Plans for a new Governor’s residence are underway allowing room for historical exhibits in the house that Captain John Dominis built. It is time we learned more about the man who built it!