John Young (Hawaii) - Death

Death

During an illness in December 1835, his daughter Grace sent a ship to collect him and his wife Kaʻōanāʻeha. She transported them from Kawaihae on the Big Island to Honolulu, so Rooke could administer a heart medication and keep him under observation. He insisted on bringing his own coffin with him. "When I die, I don't want to leave any question about how I wished my body to be treated," he said. Fear of being murdered and having his body treated for burial in the old traditions, with the chiefs taking his bones to make icons or fishhooks, plagued his painful day and nights. Two weeks after he arrival on Oahu, John Young died at Rooke House in Honolulu on December 17, 1835, at the age of 93 after living in Hawaiʻi for 46 years. Grace sent for the family while the Oahu chiefs planned his funeral. His lands were divided among his children and the children of Isaac Davis whom he had adopted.

He was interred in the cemetery adjacent to the little coral mausoleum, called Pohukaina, on the Iolani Palace ground, on December 18, 1835. Later he was removed to the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii at Mauna 'Ala on May 16, 1866. At the Royal Mausoleum, on a flat, grey stone which covers his grave, is the following inscription:

Beneath this stone are deposited
the remains of John Young
(of Lancashire, England)
The friend and companion-in-war of
Kamehameha.
who departed this life
17 December 1835,
in the 93rd year of his age
and the 46th of his residence
on the "Sandwich Islands"

The wording on John Young's grave marker reads as follows:

Beneath this Stone are deposited the remains of JOHN YOUNG (of Lancashire in England) the Friend and Companion in Arms of KAMEHAMEHA who departed this life December 17th 1835 in the 93rd year of his age and the 46th of his residence on the SANDWICH ISLANDS