Abraham Fornander

Native of Sweden; studied for the ministry prior to sailing on whaling ship; deserted ship in Hawai‘i in 1844; spent remainder of his life in the islands except for brief time in California gold fields; worked as coffee planter and surveyor before publishing the Argus (later renamed New Era and Weekly Argus), an opposition press to the Polynesian, in 1852; served as inspector of schools and as a judge; championed the declining Hawaiian way of life and authored two volumes of Hawaiian history, An Account of the Polynesian Race and Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folklore. (See Day, History Makers of Hawaii, 42; Davis, Abraham Fornander; Kuykendall, Hawaiian Kingdom, 1:441, 2:301, 3:752; GQC journal, Mar. 15, Nov. 17, 1853.)