Henry E. Cooper - Personal Life and Legacy

Personal Life and Legacy

By a series of transactions between 1888 and 1911, Cooper purchased Palmyra Atoll, located in a remote latitude near the Equator at 5°53′15″N 162°4′52″W / 5.8875°N 162.08111°W / 5.8875; -162.08111 (Palmyra Atoll). He visited the island in July 1913 with scientists Charles Montague Cooke, Jr. and Joseph F. Rock who wrote a description of the atoll. He sold most of the atoll in 1922 to the Fullard-Leo family, who sold it to the Nature Conservancy in 2000. He retained ownership of the Home Islands at the southwestern tip of the atoll, which his heirs have inherited. His land title, passed to the Fullard-Leos and his own legatees, was confirmed by the U. S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Fullard-Leo, 331 U.S. 256 (1947) after it was disputed by the U. S. military. The largest island of the group is called Cooper Island, despite a proposed name change to Samarang Island in 2003. The airstrip built in World War II is often called Cooper Airport.

In his later years he was active in Freemasonry. In 1894 he joined Hawaiian Lodge No. 21, and organized Pacific Lodge No. 822, A.F. & A.M. under the Grand Lodge of Scotland through the then District Grand Lodge of Queensland, Australia. He served as its first Master in 1895 and again in 1896. Cooper also served as Deputy of the Orient of Hawaii for the Scottish Rite Bodies from 1896–1915. In 1897 he commissioned architect Charles William Dickey to build a stone house on his Mānoa land in California Mission Revival Style architecture. On May 1, 1907 he became a founding member and president of the board of regents of the University of Hawaii (then known as Hawaii College), and served until 1914. He selected the site in the Mānoa valley for the main campus, the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

He moved to Long Beach, California to live with a daughter where he died on May 15, 1929. Son Theodore graduated from Punahou School (then called Oahu College) in 1908, and became an Engineer constructing Fort Ruger in Honolulu. After working briefly for Bank of Hawaii, he enlisted to the United States Army Corps of Engineers and served in France during World War I.

Daughter Alice Cooper Bailey, wrote several articles and books including two Dutch folk stories, a popular Hawaiian children's book Kimo in 1928, and a biography of Robert Louis Stevenson in 1966. She was part of a ceremony in 1948 marking the 50th anniversary of Hawaii's annexation, and was a benefactor of the ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu where Cooper had worked during the Republic of Hawaii period.

Several of Cooper's descendants have had distinguished naval and nautical careers, including U. S. admirals and Space Shuttle astronaut Rick Hauck. On August 19, 1922 a grandson Henry Ernest Cooper III was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut to Wallace McKay Cooper. Henry III served in the US Navy in World War II aboard the USS Card. In 1987 he sailed with a few friends from Maine through the Pacific Ocean, including a visit to his inherited Home Islands at Palmyra Atoll, and died April 9, 1999.