Henry Martyn Whitney
Encyclopedia
Henry Martyn Whitney was an early journalist in the Kingdom of Hawaii
. Born of early missionaries, he became the first postmaster and founded several long-lasting newspapers.
on the remote island of Kauai
.
His father was missionary Samuel Whitney (1793–1845) and he was the namesake of English missionary Henry Martyn
.
His mother was Mercy Partidge (1795–1872), granddaughter of Adonijah Bidwell
.
His sister Maria Kapule Whitney (1820–1900) married missionary John L. Pogue (1814–1877).
His father was originally a lay teacher, but was ordained in the field on November 30, 1825.
The family moved to Lahaina on Maui
in 1827, and then back to Waimea in 1829.
Whitney was sent to Rochester, New York
, for school in 1831, and graduated from the Rochester Collegiate Institute in 1841.
He planned to enter college, but a hearing loss convinced him to work in journalism.
He worked for Harper & Brothers
in New York City
where he learned the printing trade and became a foreman in two years. He also worked in the American Bible Society
printing office. He might have had a piece printed in the New York Tribune
of Horace Greeley
.
His relatives and other missionary friends, such as Gerrit P. Judd
who was now in the government, tried to persuade him to return to Hawaii, since few journalists had left to join the California Gold Rush
.
Whitney married Catherine Olivia March (1821–1896) in June 1849, and travelled via Panama
to San Francisco.
He happened to meet Judd there with two young Hawaiian princes.
By November Whitney arrived back in Hawaii; his new wife arrived in January 1850.
Whitney worked for the Kingdom of Hawaii
government printing office, which published a newspaper called The Polynesian (but he did not have editorial control).
Whitney became the first postmaster general in Hawaii on December 22, 1850.
Before that time, the Polynesian office had just used an informal mail bag that customers could use to gather letters to be taken by the next ship. The first stamps issued by the kingdom in 1851 are now called Hawaiian Missionaries
.
In 1855 he was elected to one term in the house of representatives of the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom
.
He grew disenchanted with government service and wanted to go into business for himself. He offered to buy the printing office, but the government was not interested. He also invested in a wheat flour mill briefly but sold that business in 1856.
On July 1, 1856 he resigned as postmaster and was replaced by Joseph Jackson.
Other attempts at independent newspapers had quickly gone out of business or become supported by government or missionary funding. Its name is based on the new York Commercial Advertiser
which Whitney had known while living on the mainland, at least being acquainted with its editor William L. Stone
.
The first issue contained the news of Kamehameha IV
's royal wedding to Emma Rooke
besides the titular advertisements. A sketch Whitney made of Honolulu Harbor
after climbing the mast of a ship became the paper's symbol even after the masthead was redesigned.
In his words of the first editorial:
Although born in the Kingdom of Hawaii (and thus a citizen of that country), he openly called for closer ties with the United States.
The second Advertiser issue included coverage of the US Independence Day
celebrations.
The first issues were printed on a hand press that produced 600 papers an hour, but by March 1857 he could expand circulation with a new power press invented by Isaac Adams
.
In 1859 Whitney acquired the assets of the Sandwich Islands Mission Press, paid for with printing services. The mission press had been established in 1822 as the first printing operation of any kind in Hawaii.
newspaper Ka Nupepa Kūokoa ("the independent newspaper"), in 1861. Based on a one-page section his Advertiser in Hawaiian called Ka Hoku Loa ("the morning star"), it was first edited by fellow missionary son Luther Halsey Gulick. Whitney would serve as editor at various times. He hired native Hawaiians
including Joseph Kawainui, and fellow Americans John Mott-Smith
, Samuel Garner Wilder
, and Thomas George Thrum. Historian Samuel Kamakau
wrote a series on Hawaiian history that has been translated and published in English.
In 1862 Ka Nupepa Kūokoa published a two-color engraving of the Hawaiian flag, a level of professionalism not matched the other smaller Hawaiian language publications.
In 1865 the bilingual Whitney published one of the first Hawaiian language dictionaries compiled by Lorrin Andrews
.
whom Whitney claimed was shifting the kingdom away from American Puritan influence to Europeans, such as allowing the St. Andrew's Cathedral
to be built for Anglican Bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley
. Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V were the two princes Whitney met in 1849.
Scottish-born cabinet minister Robert Crichton Wyllie
threatened Whitney with a libel suit, but eventually backed down.
In 1866 the young reporter Samuel Clemens asked for a job, but there were no openings since Whitney already had the small staff he needed. Clemens, later better known as Mark Twain
, often dropped by the office since Whitney enjoyed his humor, and would borrow Whitney's cigars.
Originally Whitney's newspapers were focused on an objective professional philosophy to "get the story first". However, as Twain became more popular, Whitney adopted the satiric humorist's style. They exchanged letters and Twain mocked Staley and the Hawaiian royalty as he toured the US and wrote his book Roughing It
with a chapter on Hawaii.
The two kept up an exchange of hyperbolic threats over a book that Whitney claimed Twain had borrowed, while Twain claimed the book belonged to Samuel Chenery Damon:
Whitney strongly supported the Union in the American Civil War
, although the kingdom was officially neutral.
He printed letters from Charles Guillou
critical of James W. Borden
, the US Commissioner, who was from the south and had relatives in the Confederacy
. Borden threatened Whitney with a knife, but had diplomatic immunity.
After the war, he opposed the importing of contract labor from Asia, comparing it to slavery. This put him at odds with the growing influence of wealthy Hawaiian sugar planters
.
In 1870, after a threat of advertising boycott
s by the planters, he sold the Advertiser to investors James H. Black and William Auld, but remained associated as editor. Whitney claimed he did not cave into planters' demands, but sold to finance a vacation with his family back to the United States, which he took in May 1871.
On hearing the news Mark Twain continued the joke about cannibalism
: "Mr. Whitney is one of the fairest-minded and best-hearted cannibals I ever knew" and "we used to eat a great many people in those halcyon days."
In 1872 he published a book on Hawaiian history with former Polynesian publisher James Jackson Jarves
.
The book was an expanded update of the 1840s Jarves book borrowed by Mark Twain on his 1866 trip with appendix by Whitney.
On January 22, 1873 Whitney was appointed to the privy council of king Lunalilo
, but Lunalilo died just a year later.
In 1873 Whitney bought the Hawaiian Gazette company which published a weekly.
The Gazette had been founded in 1865 as a government publication by James Black after the Polynesian had failed in 1864.
In 1875, Whitney published the first tourist guidebook to Hawaii.
Whitney renewed his battles with the administration of the new King Kalākaua
. By January 1878 Thomas Crawford MacDowell took over editing the Gazette, but Whitney kept a stake in the printing company.
In 1880, Claus Spreckels
financed the purchase of the Advertiser by Walter Murray Gibson. Whitney cut any ties with the Advertiser and wrote editorials attacking Gibson (who was appointed to several prominent positions in the cabinet) and Kalākaua in the Gazette.
Meanwhile the Gazette business had grown to the point where a new building was built in 1881, and offices moved there in 1882, next door to the original Advertiser building, which was in turn next to the original post office.
This block of the street was sometimes called "printers row".
While working in the stationery store on the ground floor, Whitney could not resist the urge to publish. He posted a one page Marine Bulletin on the store window with news that quickly became popular.
After John Kapena resigned to become minister of foreign affairs
, Whitney was again appointed postmaster general on February 16, 1883 (although by this time there was more than one post office). He served until April 15, 1886. He resigned after a financial scandal and robbery, replaced by John Lot Kaulukou.
Whitney made his peace with the plantation owners, and was editor of the Planter's Monthly from 1886.
He was "one of the important promoters of the Hawaiian tourist industry" as he brought out new editions of his guide book in 1890 and 1895.
James W. Robinson bought the rights to the Bulletin, and developed it into the newspaper known as the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
.
In 1888 the Hawaiian Gazette Company bought the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, which Whitney managed until 1894. Just a year later, the Advertiser got its first linotype
machine. Lorrin A. Thurston
bought the Advertiser in 1895, whose family would own it until 1992.
Active until the end, Whitney edited Planter's Monthly until April 1903.
He died suddenly at his home on August 17, 1904.
The Gazette survived until 1918.
Ka Nupepa Kūokoa became the most circulated and longest lasting Hawaiian language newspaper, publishing until 1927.
The Advertiser later became known as the Honolulu Advertiser
, which published daily until it was merged in June 2010 with the other major newspaper to become the Honolulu Star-Advertiser
. Whitney's first editorial was reprinted in the last issue.
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...
. Born of early missionaries, he became the first postmaster and founded several long-lasting newspapers.
Early life
Henry Martyn Whitney was born June 5, 1824 in WaimeaWaimea, Kauai County, Hawaii
Waimea is a census-designated place in Kauai County, Hawaii, United States. The population was 1,787 at the 2000 census...
on the remote island of Kauai
Kauai
Kauai or Kauai, known as Tauai in the ancient Kaua'i dialect, is geologically the oldest of the main Hawaiian Islands. With an area of , it is the fourth largest of the main islands in the Hawaiian archipelago, and the 21st largest island in the United States. Known also as the "Garden Isle",...
.
His father was missionary Samuel Whitney (1793–1845) and he was the namesake of English missionary Henry Martyn
Henry Martyn
Henry Martyn was an Anglican priest and missionary to the peoples of India and Persia. Born in Truro, Cornwall, he was educated at Truro Grammar School and St John's College, Cambridge. A chance encounter with Charles Simeon led him to become a missionary...
.
His mother was Mercy Partidge (1795–1872), granddaughter of Adonijah Bidwell
Adonijah Bidwell
Adonijah Bidwell was the first minister of Housatonic Township No. 1. He played a large role in the formation and upkeep of the Monterey, Massachusetts militia. Classically educated at Yale, he participated in the victorious Louisbourg, Nova Scotia expedition during the third French and Indian...
.
His sister Maria Kapule Whitney (1820–1900) married missionary John L. Pogue (1814–1877).
His father was originally a lay teacher, but was ordained in the field on November 30, 1825.
The family moved to Lahaina on Maui
Maui
The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is part of the state of Hawaii and is the largest of Maui County's four islands, bigger than Lānai, Kahoolawe, and Molokai. In 2010, Maui had a population of 144,444,...
in 1827, and then back to Waimea in 1829.
Whitney was sent to Rochester, New York
Rochester, New York
Rochester is a city in Monroe County, New York, south of Lake Ontario in the United States. Known as The World's Image Centre, it was also once known as The Flour City, and more recently as The Flower City...
, for school in 1831, and graduated from the Rochester Collegiate Institute in 1841.
He planned to enter college, but a hearing loss convinced him to work in journalism.
He worked for Harper & Brothers
Harper & Brothers
Harper is an American publishing house, the flagship imprint of global publisher HarperCollins.-History:James Harper and his brother John, printers by training, started their book publishing business J. & J. Harper in 1817. Their two brothers, Joseph Wesley Harper and Fletcher Harper, joined them...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
where he learned the printing trade and became a foreman in two years. He also worked in the American Bible Society
American Bible Society
The American Bible Society is an interconfessional, non-denominational, nonprofit organization, founded in 1816 in New York City, which publishes, distributes and translates the Bible and provides study aids and other tools to help people engage with the Bible.It is probably best known for its...
printing office. He might have had a piece printed in the New York Tribune
New York Tribune
The New York Tribune was an American newspaper, first established by Horace Greeley in 1841, which was long considered one of the leading newspapers in the United States...
of Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley
Horace Greeley was an American newspaper editor, a founder of the Liberal Republican Party, a reformer, a politician, and an outspoken opponent of slavery...
.
His relatives and other missionary friends, such as Gerrit P. Judd
Gerrit P. Judd
Gerrit Parmele Judd was an American physician and missionary to the Kingdom of Hawaii who later became a trusted advisor and cabinet minister to King Kamehameha III.- Life :...
who was now in the government, tried to persuade him to return to Hawaii, since few journalists had left to join the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
.
Whitney married Catherine Olivia March (1821–1896) in June 1849, and travelled via Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...
to San Francisco.
He happened to meet Judd there with two young Hawaiian princes.
By November Whitney arrived back in Hawaii; his new wife arrived in January 1850.
Postmaster
Kingdom of Hawaii
The Kingdom of Hawaii was established during the years 1795 to 1810 with the subjugation of the smaller independent chiefdoms of Oahu, Maui, Molokai, Lānai, Kauai and Niihau by the chiefdom of Hawaii into one unified government...
government printing office, which published a newspaper called The Polynesian (but he did not have editorial control).
Whitney became the first postmaster general in Hawaii on December 22, 1850.
Before that time, the Polynesian office had just used an informal mail bag that customers could use to gather letters to be taken by the next ship. The first stamps issued by the kingdom in 1851 are now called Hawaiian Missionaries
Hawaiian Missionaries
The Hawaiian Missionaries are the first postage stamps of the Kingdom of Hawaii, issued in 1851. They came to be known as the "Missionaries" because they were primarily found on the correspondence of missionaries working in the Hawaiian Islands...
.
In 1855 he was elected to one term in the house of representatives of the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom
Legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom
The Legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom was the bicameral legislature of the Kingdom of Hawaii. A royal legislature was first provided by the 1840 Constitution and the 1852 Constitution was the first to use the term "Legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom", and the first to subject the monarch to...
.
He grew disenchanted with government service and wanted to go into business for himself. He offered to buy the printing office, but the government was not interested. He also invested in a wheat flour mill briefly but sold that business in 1856.
On July 1, 1856 he resigned as postmaster and was replaced by Joseph Jackson.
Independent newspaper
On July 2, 1856, Whitney produced the first issue of his own newspaper: a four-sheet weekly called the Pacific Commercial Advertiser. It was the first successful publication in Hawaii sponsored by advertisements.Other attempts at independent newspapers had quickly gone out of business or become supported by government or missionary funding. Its name is based on the new York Commercial Advertiser
Commercial Advertiser
The New-York Commercial Advertiser was an evening American newspaper.It was published, with slight name variations, from 1797-1904, though it originated as the American Minerva founded in 1793.-History:...
which Whitney had known while living on the mainland, at least being acquainted with its editor William L. Stone
William Leete Stone, Sr.
William Leete Stone was a journalist and historical writer mostly on topics relating to the American Revolutionary War.-Biography:...
.
The first issue contained the news of Kamehameha IV
Kamehameha IV
Kamehameha IV, born Alexander Iolani Liholiho Keawenui , reigned as the fourth king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from January 11, 1855 to November 30, 1863.-Early life:...
's royal wedding to Emma Rooke
Queen Emma of Hawaii
Queen Consort Emma Kalanikaumakaamano Kaleleonālani Naea Rooke of Hawaii was queen consort of King Kamehameha IV from 1856 to his death in 1863. She ran for ruling monarch against King David Kalākaua but was defeated....
besides the titular advertisements. A sketch Whitney made of Honolulu Harbor
Honolulu Harbor
Honolulu Harbor, also called Kulolia and Ke Awa O Kou, is the principal seaport of Honolulu and the State of Hawaii in the United States. It is from Honolulu Harbor, located on Mamala Bay, that the City & County of Honolulu was developed and urbanized, in an outward fashion, over the course of the...
after climbing the mast of a ship became the paper's symbol even after the masthead was redesigned.
In his words of the first editorial:
Thank heaven the day at length has dawned when the Hawaiian Nation can boast a free press, untrammelled by government patronage or party pledges, unbiased by ministerial frowns or favors — a press whose aim shall be the advancement of the nation in its commercial, political and social condition.
Although born in the Kingdom of Hawaii (and thus a citizen of that country), he openly called for closer ties with the United States.
The second Advertiser issue included coverage of the US Independence Day
Independence Day (United States)
Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain...
celebrations.
The first issues were printed on a hand press that produced 600 papers an hour, but by March 1857 he could expand circulation with a new power press invented by Isaac Adams
Isaac Adams
-Biography:He was born in Rochester, New Hampshire to Benjamin Adams and Elizabeth Horne Adams in 1802. His education was limited, and at an early age he was a operative in a cotton factory. Afterward he learned the trade of cabinet maker, but in 1824 went to Boston and sought work in a machine...
.
In 1859 Whitney acquired the assets of the Sandwich Islands Mission Press, paid for with printing services. The mission press had been established in 1822 as the first printing operation of any kind in Hawaii.
Hawaiian language contributions
Whitney established a Hawaiian languageHawaiian language
The Hawaiian language is a Polynesian language that takes its name from Hawaii, the largest island in the tropical North Pacific archipelago where it developed. Hawaiian, along with English, is an official language of the state of Hawaii...
newspaper Ka Nupepa Kūokoa ("the independent newspaper"), in 1861. Based on a one-page section his Advertiser in Hawaiian called Ka Hoku Loa ("the morning star"), it was first edited by fellow missionary son Luther Halsey Gulick. Whitney would serve as editor at various times. He hired native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians
Native Hawaiians refers to the indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands or their descendants. Native Hawaiians trace their ancestry back to the original Polynesian settlers of Hawaii.According to the U.S...
including Joseph Kawainui, and fellow Americans John Mott-Smith
John Mott-Smith
John Mott-Smith was the first dentist to set up a permanent practice in the Kingdom of Hawaii. He was also a politician, newspaper editor, and diplomat.-Life:John Mott-Smith was born in New York City November 13, 1824,...
, Samuel Garner Wilder
Samuel Garner Wilder
Samuel Gardner Wilder was an American shipping magnate and politician who developed a major transportation company in the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Life:Samuel Gardner Wilder was born June 20, 1831 in Leominster, Massachusetts....
, and Thomas George Thrum. Historian Samuel Kamakau
Samuel Kamakau
Samuel Manaiākalani Kamakau was a Hawaiian historian and scholar. His work appeared in local newspapers and was later compiled into books, becoming an invaluable resource on the Hawaiian people, Hawaiian culture, and Hawaiian language during a time when they were disappearing.Along with David Malo...
wrote a series on Hawaiian history that has been translated and published in English.
In 1862 Ka Nupepa Kūokoa published a two-color engraving of the Hawaiian flag, a level of professionalism not matched the other smaller Hawaiian language publications.
In 1865 the bilingual Whitney published one of the first Hawaiian language dictionaries compiled by Lorrin Andrews
Lorrin Andrews
Lorrin Andrews was an early American missionary to Hawaii and judge. He opened the first post-secondary school for Hawaiians called Lahainaluna Seminary, prepared a Hawaiian dictionary and several works on the literature and antiquities of the Hawaiians. His students published the first newspaper,...
.
Politics
Over time Whitney became more outspoken in opposition to the monarchy, especially King Kamehameha VKamehameha V
aloghaKamehameha V , born as Lot Kapuāiwa, reigned as monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1863 to 1872. His motto was "Onipa`a": immovable, firm, steadfast or determined; he worked diligently for his people and kingdom and was described as the last great traditional chief...
whom Whitney claimed was shifting the kingdom away from American Puritan influence to Europeans, such as allowing the St. Andrew's Cathedral
Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, Honolulu
The Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew, also commonly known as St. Andrew's Cathedral, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church in the United States located in the State of Hawaii...
to be built for Anglican Bishop Thomas Nettleship Staley
Thomas Nettleship Staley
Thomas Nettleship Staley was a British bishop of the Church of England and the first Anglican bishop of the Church of Hawaii.-Life:Thomas Nettleship Staley was born 17 January 1823 in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England...
. Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V were the two princes Whitney met in 1849.
Scottish-born cabinet minister Robert Crichton Wyllie
Robert Crichton Wyllie
Robert Crichton Wyllie was a Scottish physician and businessman. He also served two decades as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Kingdom of Hawaii.-Early life:...
threatened Whitney with a libel suit, but eventually backed down.
In 1866 the young reporter Samuel Clemens asked for a job, but there were no openings since Whitney already had the small staff he needed. Clemens, later better known as Mark Twain
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, often dropped by the office since Whitney enjoyed his humor, and would borrow Whitney's cigars.
Originally Whitney's newspapers were focused on an objective professional philosophy to "get the story first". However, as Twain became more popular, Whitney adopted the satiric humorist's style. They exchanged letters and Twain mocked Staley and the Hawaiian royalty as he toured the US and wrote his book Roughing It
Roughing It
Roughing It is a book of semi-autobiographical travel literature written by American humorist Mark Twain. It was written during 1870–71 and published in 1872 as a prequel to his first book Innocents Abroad...
with a chapter on Hawaii.
The two kept up an exchange of hyperbolic threats over a book that Whitney claimed Twain had borrowed, while Twain claimed the book belonged to Samuel Chenery Damon:
I am going chiefly, however, to eat the editor of the Commercial Advertiser for saying I do not write the truth about the Hawaiian Islands, and for exposing my highway robbery in carrying off Father Damen's book - History of the Islands. I shall go there might hungry. Mr. Whitney is jealous of me because I speak the truth so naturally, and he can't do it without taking the lock-jaw. But he ought not to be jealous; he ought not to try to ruin me because I am more virtuous than his is; I cannot help it - it is my nature to be reliable, just as it is his to be shaky on matters of fact - we cannot alter these natures - us leopards cannot change our spots. Therefore, why growl? - why go and try to make trouble? If he cannot tell when I am writing seriously and when I am burlesquing - if he sits down solemnly and take one of my palpable burlesques and reads it with a funereal aspect, and swallows it as petrified truth, - how am I going to help it? I cannot give him the keen perception that nature denied him - now can I? Whitney knows that. Whitney knows he has done me many a kindness, and that I do not forget it, and am still grateful - and he knows that if I could scour him up so that he could tell a broad burlesque from a plain statement of fact, I would get up in the night and walk any distance to do it. You know that, Whitney. But I am coming down there might hungry - most uncommonly hungry, Whitney.
Whitney strongly supported the Union in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, although the kingdom was officially neutral.
He printed letters from Charles Guillou
Charles Guillou
Charles Fleury Bien-aimé Guilloû was an American military physician. He served on a major exploring expedition that included both scientific discoveries and controversy, and two historic diplomatic missions...
critical of James W. Borden
James W. Borden
James Wallace Borden was an American jurist in Indiana and diplomat.-Life:James Wallace Borden was born near Beaufort, North Carolina on February 5, 1810.His father was Joseph Borden and mother Esther Wallace ....
, the US Commissioner, who was from the south and had relatives in the Confederacy
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Borden threatened Whitney with a knife, but had diplomatic immunity.
After the war, he opposed the importing of contract labor from Asia, comparing it to slavery. This put him at odds with the growing influence of wealthy Hawaiian sugar planters
Sugar plantations in Hawaii
Sugarcane was introduced to Hawaii by its first inhabitants in approximately 600 AD and was observed by Captain Cook upon arrival in the islands in 1778. Sugar quickly turned into a big business and generated rapid population growth in the islands with 337,000 people immigrating over the span of a...
.
In 1870, after a threat of advertising boycott
Boycott
A boycott is an act of voluntarily abstaining from using, buying, or dealing with a person, organization, or country as an expression of protest, usually for political reasons...
s by the planters, he sold the Advertiser to investors James H. Black and William Auld, but remained associated as editor. Whitney claimed he did not cave into planters' demands, but sold to finance a vacation with his family back to the United States, which he took in May 1871.
On hearing the news Mark Twain continued the joke about cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
: "Mr. Whitney is one of the fairest-minded and best-hearted cannibals I ever knew" and "we used to eat a great many people in those halcyon days."
In 1872 he published a book on Hawaiian history with former Polynesian publisher James Jackson Jarves
James Jackson Jarves
James Jackson Jarves was an American newspaper editor, and art critic who is remembered above all as the first American art collector to buy Italian primitives and Old Masters....
.
The book was an expanded update of the 1840s Jarves book borrowed by Mark Twain on his 1866 trip with appendix by Whitney.
On January 22, 1873 Whitney was appointed to the privy council of king Lunalilo
Lunalilo
Lunalilo, born William Charles Lunalilo , was king of the Kingdom of Hawaii from January 8, 1873 until February 3, 1874...
, but Lunalilo died just a year later.
In 1873 Whitney bought the Hawaiian Gazette company which published a weekly.
The Gazette had been founded in 1865 as a government publication by James Black after the Polynesian had failed in 1864.
In 1875, Whitney published the first tourist guidebook to Hawaii.
Whitney renewed his battles with the administration of the new King Kalākaua
Kalakaua
Kalākaua, born David Laamea Kamanakapuu Mahinulani Nalaiaehuokalani Lumialani Kalākaua and sometimes called The Merrie Monarch , was the last reigning king of the Kingdom of Hawaii...
. By January 1878 Thomas Crawford MacDowell took over editing the Gazette, but Whitney kept a stake in the printing company.
In 1880, Claus Spreckels
Claus Spreckels
Claus Spreckels, formally Adolph Claus J. Spreckels , , was a major industrialist in Hawai'i during the kingdom, republican and territorial periods of the islands' history...
financed the purchase of the Advertiser by Walter Murray Gibson. Whitney cut any ties with the Advertiser and wrote editorials attacking Gibson (who was appointed to several prominent positions in the cabinet) and Kalākaua in the Gazette.
Meanwhile the Gazette business had grown to the point where a new building was built in 1881, and offices moved there in 1882, next door to the original Advertiser building, which was in turn next to the original post office.
This block of the street was sometimes called "printers row".
While working in the stationery store on the ground floor, Whitney could not resist the urge to publish. He posted a one page Marine Bulletin on the store window with news that quickly became popular.
After John Kapena resigned to become minister of foreign affairs
Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Hawaii)
- Ministers of Foreign Affairs :-See also:Other members of the Hawaiian Cabinet*Ministry of Finance *Ministry of the Interior *Ministry of Public Instruction *Attorney General of Hawaii-Source:...
, Whitney was again appointed postmaster general on February 16, 1883 (although by this time there was more than one post office). He served until April 15, 1886. He resigned after a financial scandal and robbery, replaced by John Lot Kaulukou.
Whitney made his peace with the plantation owners, and was editor of the Planter's Monthly from 1886.
He was "one of the important promoters of the Hawaiian tourist industry" as he brought out new editions of his guide book in 1890 and 1895.
James W. Robinson bought the rights to the Bulletin, and developed it into the newspaper known as the Honolulu Star-Bulletin
Honolulu Star-Bulletin
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin was a daily newspaper based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the second largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii...
.
In 1888 the Hawaiian Gazette Company bought the Pacific Commercial Advertiser, which Whitney managed until 1894. Just a year later, the Advertiser got its first linotype
Linotype
The Mergenthaler Linotype Company is a corporation founded in the United States in 1886 to market the linecaster invented by Ottmar Mergenthaler...
machine. Lorrin A. Thurston
Lorrin A. Thurston
Lorrin Andrews Thurston was a lawyer, politician, and businessman born and raised in the Kingdom of Hawaii. The grandson of two of the first Christian missionaries to Hawaii, Thurston played a prominent role in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom that replaced Queen Liliuokalani with the...
bought the Advertiser in 1895, whose family would own it until 1992.
Active until the end, Whitney edited Planter's Monthly until April 1903.
He died suddenly at his home on August 17, 1904.
Family and legacy
His children were:- Henry Ely Whitney was born March 20, 1850 and died July 17, 1883.
- Helen Brown Whitney was born May 1, 1852, married Luke Chase Kelley and died April 7, 1896.
- Henry Martyn Whitney, Jr. was born March 26, 1856 and died February 7, 1936.
- James Nowell Whitney was born October 22, 1858 and died in Cambridgeport, Massachusetts.
- Emma March Whitney was born January 6, 1863, married William Whitmore Goodale (1857–1929) in 1884, and died June 9, 1943. Their son Holbrook March Goodale (1889–1927) married Juliet Atwood Rice (1901–1987) (granddaughter of William Hyde RiceWilliam Hyde RiceWilliam Hyde Rice was a businessman and politician during the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. He collected and published legends of Hawaiian mythology.-Life:William Hyde Rice was born at Honolulu, Hawaii on July 23, 1846...
) in 1922. After Goodale's death she re-married, and later co-founded the Kauai Museum. - Albert James Whitney was born November 7, 1865 but died in 1869.
- Frederich Damon Whitney was born November 7, 1867 and died December 25, 1897.
The Gazette survived until 1918.
Ka Nupepa Kūokoa became the most circulated and longest lasting Hawaiian language newspaper, publishing until 1927.
The Advertiser later became known as the Honolulu Advertiser
Honolulu Advertiser
The Honolulu Advertiser was a daily newspaper published in Honolulu, Hawaii. At the time publication ceased on June 6, 2010, it was the largest daily newspaper in the American state of Hawaii. It published daily with special Sunday and Internet editions...
, which published daily until it was merged in June 2010 with the other major newspaper to become the Honolulu Star-Advertiser
Honolulu Star-Advertiser
The Honolulu Star-Advertiser, based in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Hawaii. Formed from the merger of The Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star-Bulletin following the acquisition of the former by Black Press, owner of the latter, the newspaper...
. Whitney's first editorial was reprinted in the last issue.