Parker Ranch, Hawaii

In 1809 John Palmer Parker, son of a New England whaling captain, jumped ship in Hawaii and became one of the first white men to settle there. He soon befriended King Kamehameha and married his granddaughter, Kipikane. Kamehameha gave Parker charge of the wild cattle, left years earlier by a British captain. As more and more ships visited the island, the cattle business boomed. In 1845, the king bestowed a land grant on Parker and so began the Parker Ranch, which has been operated by the Parker family ever since.
But even more fabulous than the story of this huge and flourishing ranch is the tale of the Parker family. Ebenezer, John Palmer Parker’s son, fought to marry the Hawaiian woman he loved. Colonel Sam Parker, friend of King Kal1ikaua, lived a life of lavish parties. Elizabeth Jane Lanakila Dowsett married John Palmer Parker III who died only a few months after the birth of their only child, Annie Thelma Parker. Elizabeth-Aunt Tootsie-raised Thelma alone and hired the manager able to bring the ranch back to its former glories. Then Thelma, at the age of eighteen, married Henry Gaillard Smart and bore him a son, Richard Palmer Smart. When the baby was barely a year old, Thelma died tragically, trying vainly to return to Hawaii from a European voyage. Eleven months later, Henry Smart died. Again, Aunt Tootsie was left to raise the only heir to the ranch, its present owner.
The Parker Ranch of Hawaii, the story of a legendary episode in both Hawaiian and American history, is based on research using Parker Ranch archives through the per- mission of Richard Smart.