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!