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Abel Douglass

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Abel Douglass
Abel Douglass, 1890
Abel Douglass, 1890
Born1841
Died1908 (aged 66–67)
OccupationWhaler

Abel Douglass (1841–1908) was an American whaling captain.[1][2]

Douglass born in 1841 in Maine as part of a seafaring maritime family.[3]

Career

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In the 1860s, Douglass partnered with James Dawson. The Dawson and Douglass Whaling Company worked off the coast of British Columbia.[1] The non-Native whaling industry in British Columbia began when Dawson and Douglass took eight whales from Saanich Inlet in 1868.[4]

Dawson and Douglass founded Whaletown in 1869 as a whaling station on Cortes Island.[4] The Whaletown operation was later moved to what is now called Whaling Station Bay on Hornby Island; the Dawson and Douglass Company merged with the Lipsett Whaling Company to form the British Columbia Whaling Company, but the company closed in 1871.[4]

Personal life

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Douglass had a common-law relationship with Maria Mahoi, who was of Hawaiian and First Nations descent; they lived with their seven children on Saltspring Island.[5][6] Mahoi later married George Fisher and moved to Russell Island.[5]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b Vinnedge, Dale (2014). Pacific Northwest's Whaling Coast. Images of America. Arcadia Publishing. p. 9. ISBN 9781467132572.
  2. ^ Webb, Robert Lloyd (1988). On the Northwest: Commercial Whaling in the Pacific Northwest, 1790-1967. University of British Columbia Press. pp. 125–133. ISBN 9780774843157.
  3. ^ Wright, E. W., ed. (1895). Lewis & Dryden's Marine History of the Pacific Northwest. Portland, Oregon: The Lewis & Dryden Printing Company. p. 441.
  4. ^ a b c "GeoBC: Whaletown". The Province of British Columbia. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
  5. ^ a b "Hawaiian Settlement on Russell Island". Gulf Islands National Park Reserve of Canada. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
  6. ^ "Maria Mahoi of the Islands". New Star Books. Retrieved January 12, 2015.
  7. ^ Ozeki, Ruth (2013). A Tale for the Time Being. Viking. p. 51. ISBN 9781101606254.