In the last blog we met the sea captain Valentine Starbuck. Of course, the first thing that comes to mind hearing his last name is overpriced coffee. Just kidding. As a retired teacher, I had my share of Starbucks gift cards and enjoyed redeeming every one of them. But the Starbuck surname predates the coffee chain by about a thousand years.
The Starbuck family probably derives their name from Starbeck, a town in Yorkshire, England. Predating that spelling is ‘Stor-Bokki’ meaning ‘great river’ – a word that arrived with the Vikings in the 800’s. As a last name there are various spellings: Starbock, Stabuck, Starbucke, Starbok.
Nantucket Island
In America the first Starbuck was Edward who was one of the ‘proprietors’ who invested and settled in Nantucket Island in 1659. The story is told that the early residents found the island’s land too poor to support their growing farms and families. About 1690 an islander looked out to the ocean where whales were spouting. “There is the green pasture where our children’s grandchildren will go for bread.”
Nantucket became the center of the American whaling industry, providing sea captains and crews from 17th to 19th century. Starbuck became well known as a Nantucket name – there’s even a Starbuck Island in the Pacific named after a whaling captain. When Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick, he developed a Quaker character named Starbuck as first mate of the whaler Pequot. (And if you’re a science fiction fan, Lt. Starbuck of the Battlestar Galactica is named after Moby Dick’s Starbuck)
Whaling in the Pacific
Jump forward two hundred years to when three business partners were casting about for a name for their coffee shop. They were looking for much the same thing as Melville – a strong sounding word with nautical ties. The company says its name “evoked the romance of the high seas and the seafaring tradition of the early coffee traders,”
The Starbuck sea captains brought home whale oil, not coffee beans, but their name became famously associated with the coffee chain. And coincidentally, another early whaling family from Nantucket was Folger.
Connection: My grandmother’s sister married Clifford Coffin. Cliffords’s 6th great grandaunt married Edward Starbuck’s son.
It’s hard to figure out Valentine Starbuck. Especially from the distance of 200 years. He made many friends with his kindness and then alienated many more through his violence and chicanery.
Born in 1791 in Nantucket, Massachusetts, he was part of a well-known whaling family. In 1820 he was the captain of the whaling ship L’Aigle, owned by British investors. When his ship landed in Hawaii Starbuck befriended the newly-arrived Christian missionaries. He had his ship’s surgeon attend a missionary’s pregnant wife. He donated to their causes and used his ship’s resources to ease some of their struggles.
“Among the visitors, whose attentions had a cheering effect upon the minds of the missionaries, the name of Captain Valentine Starbuck, formerly of Nantucket, but now master of a London whaler, deserves to be particularly mentioned. During several visits of considerable length, he manifested a great interest in the mission, and liberally imparted to it such articles as he could conveniently spare, beside subscribing generously to a school fund of which he and others laid the foundation.” (12th Annual Meeting Report of the ABCFM, 1821)
Three years later something had changed. After his arrival in 1823 he began cultivating a relationship with King Kamehameha II, also known as Liholiho, the island’s reigning monarch. He visited the king’s house and evidently became a confidant. Not only Starbuck’s politics, but also his demeanor had changed. There were several instances of Starbuck becoming angry, threatening local officials, even shooting at them.
Hawaii had changed, too. There was tension between those wanting a wide-open whaling town and those trying to establish laws protecting Hawaiian interests. American, French, British and Russian governments cast longing glances at this well-situated group of islands in the middle of the Pacific. Liholiho saw that it would be a struggle to maintain the independence of his kingdom.
King Kamehameha II
The 27-year-old king decided he would visit England. It was rumored he would ask for British protection against other foreign interests. It was a stunning decision, made without consultation with the king’s advisors. Given the distances involved, the king would likely be absent for up to 2 years. The chiefs were against it, the American missionaries were against it. But the king went ahead with his plans. He and his entourage had chartered the “L’Aigle” with Captain Starbuck to take them to England.
Starbuck’s involvement immediately dismayed the chiefs. He had earned a reputation for violence and bullying the locals. Especially suspicious, they believed, was his insistence on determining the make-up of the king’s entourage. He refused to take the king’s interpreter, saying he could provide that service. The king’s advisors feared Starbuck would falsely represent Hawaiian interests to the British.
Queen Kamamalu
There was no dissuading the king. So on November 27, 1823 King Kamehameha II, his favorite queen Kamamalu and nine other Hawaiian officials and aides sailed on the L’Aigle.
The L’Aigle landed at Portsmouth England on May 17, 1824 and immediately became a public sensation.
Newspapers tended to color their reporting based on what they believed would sell the most copy. Some reported on the graceful demeanor and lovely manners of the king and queen. Others reported on their boorishness and complete lack of niceties of civilization. King George’s advisors took a hands-off stance. The palace did not immediately respond for the request for an audience. Were these visitors truly royalty to be granted respect and or only local chiefs of some dot in the Pacific?
King Kamehameha II (Liholiho), Queen Kamamalu and their party from the Sandwich Islands attending a performance at the Drury Lane Theatre in London on June 4, 1824, by J.W. Gear
While they waited for their audience, the Hawaiian entourage was given several ceremonial visits and tours around London. Liholiho became ill with measles. A few days later the queen and then much of the party also showed symptoms. To the Hawaiians, with no natural immunity against Western diseases, measles was not a minor childhood disease. The queen died on July 8 and a week later so did the king. In all, only seven of the company’s original eleven would return to Hawaii.
Newspapers now became universally sympathetic and mourned the loss of these noble visitors. The government had waited too long to acknowledge their arrival. Now King George was embarrassed to have to send word to Hawaii that their rulers had died in his country without being granted an audience. Their bodies were returned to their homeland with King George’s sympathies.
Starbuck had settled into the background for much of the Hawaiians’ short visit, but now the L’Aigle’s owners opened an investigation. They had questions about why Starbuck had abandoned the whaling voyage to take on the transportation of these passengers. The ship’s hold was 25 tons short of its capacity of whale oil, some of the ship’s gear had been jettisoned to make room for the royals and there were suspicious charges in the ship’s books. Starbuck submitted a claim to the British government for his ‘patriotic act’ in bringing the Hawaiian monarchs to consult with the British. He lost his court case and the Crown ignored his claim. The whole debacle ruined Starbuck. He was broke and he never shows up on a whaling crew list again. In fact, he disappears from all public records.
Honolulu Advisor, 9 May 1927, p. 2
But there is one interesting postscript. In 1927 an Englishwoman named Miss Eva Starbuck donated a red and yellow feathered cloak to the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It had been presented by Queen Kamamalu to Captain Valentine Starbuck during their 1823-24 voyage and passed down through the family. The queen’s cloak had come home.
from Royal Hawaiian Featherwork by Christian Hellmich, Art of the Ancestors, 21 April 2020
Connection: Valentine Starbuck was the 5th cousin 3x removed of my aunt’s husband.
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