Whaling Career
The next years are poorly documented, but he later wrote that circumstances in America forced him to go to sea, and it seems he became a whaler for the following decade. He joined the whaleship Ann Alexander in New Bedford in 1841, which set out for what would prove to be a five-year campaign in the Pacific Ocean. In 1844, Fornander deserted his ship in Honolulu, Hawaii. Fornander was to stay in the Hawaiian Islands for the rest of his life. On January 19, 1847, he became a citizen of the Kingdom of Hawaii as he took an oath of allegiance to Kamehameha III, the Hawaiian king, and married a Hawaiian chiefess from Molokai named Pinao Alanakapu. The couple had three daughter and a son, but only his daughter Catherine Kaonohiulaokalani survived him. His wife died giving birth to their son in 1857.
Read more about this topic: Abraham Fornander
Famous quotes containing the words whaling and/or career:
“The only thing that was dispensed free to the old New Bedford whalemen was a Bible. A well-known owner of one of that city’s whaling fleets once described the Bible as the best cheap investment a shipowner could make.”
—For the State of Massachusetts, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
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