! \\ICII ISLANDS. 



SMITH, GEBRIT. 



767 



claro tho Catholic religion free to all. Accord- 

 ing to tiu> oiiicial census of 18CS, there were 

 in tin.- islands 11,4(11 Catholics, by tho side of 

 80,840 Protestants and 2,778 Mormons. In 

 ('a'hnlir missionaries in tho Sandwich 

 Islands claimed a Catholic population of 24,- 

 whilo of the remainder, according to 

 their stat.'in.-nts, 23,000 belonged to the "sev- 

 eral sects of Methodists, Anglicans, and Mor- 

 mon-/' mill tlio others were pagans. Tho 

 Sandu idi Nands were inaclo a vicariate apos- 

 in 1846. The number of churches in 

 1874 was about 60. 



King Lunalilo I. died February 12, 1874. 

 I .ravin:.', like most of his predecessors, no 

 . the choice of a new sovereign fell, by 

 tho u-nns of tho Hawaiian Constitution, to the 

 Legislative Assembly, and two candidates were 

 put I'urwnrd Queen Emma, well known both 

 in England and the United States, who was 

 supported by the foreign party, and was looked 

 upon as the candidate favored by the English ; 

 and David Kalukaua, representative of the 

 national party, and also regarded as the Amer- 

 ican candidate. The death of Lunalilo, the 

 late King, occurred just after tho biennial 

 election for delegates to tho Legislative Assem- 

 bly; when, for the first time in the history of 

 the kingdom, the successful candidates, with a 

 single exception, were natives, using the cry 

 of " Hawaii for the Hawaiians ! " The . most 

 prominent of these native members, the be- 

 fore-mentioned David Kalukaua, had been 

 Lunalilo's rival at the previous election to the 

 throne, and now came forward again. A 

 proclamation was at the same time issued by 

 Queen Emma, widow of Kamehameha V., 

 by whose influence the mission of the Angli- 

 can Church was established at Honolulu, and 

 who now, in declaring herself a candidate for 

 the sovereignty, called " her loyal people " to 

 rally round her. 



But, as the day for the Legislative Assembly to 

 proceed to the election approached, it occurred 

 to thoughtful and intellectual observers that if 

 Emma was elected the kingdom would have 

 " Church and state united, and the throng of 

 evils and expenses which such a union would 

 bring with it ; " and, finally, American sym- 

 pathies were, as a rule, on the side of Kalu- 

 kaua, and English sympathies on that of Queen 

 Emma. The votes of the Assembly went in 

 favor of Kalukaua. 



In October the cabinet resigned, and the 

 King appointed W. L. Green, Minister of For- 

 eign Affairs ; W. L. Mochonera, Minister of tho 

 Interior; J. S. Walker, Minister of Finances, 

 and R. II. Stanley, Attorney - General ; be- 

 sides, W. P. Nood, W. 0. Parker, and W. J. 

 Smith were appointed Councilors of State and 

 J. K. Boyd, Chamberlain. 



The Hawaiian Legislature, which closed its 

 sessions in September, passed, among others, 

 laws for promoting immigration, for a better 

 irrigation of tho country, for tho conclusion 

 of a new treaty of reciprocity with the United 



States, for contributing to the laying of a cable 

 Hoin California to Japan, and lor contracting 

 n loan of $1,000,000. 



.-Ml'l'll, GEUBIT, an American philanthro- 

 pist, reformer, and statesman, born in Utica, 

 . March 6, 1797; died in New York City, 

 December 28, 1874. He was the second ton 

 t 1'eter Smith, at one time a partner of John 

 Jacob Astor in the fur-trade, and subsequently 

 the largest landholder in New York. Gt-rrit 

 was educated at Hamilton College, Clinton, N. 

 Y., graduating in 1818 with the highest honors 

 of his class, and the same year married the 

 daughter of Rev. Azel Backus, D. D., tho 

 president of the college. She lived less than a 

 year. When he attained his majority his father 

 presented to him as a birthday gift, a deed of 

 the entire town of Florence, in Oneida County. 

 During his college course he gained a high 

 reputation both as a student and an orator, 

 and he retained it amid all his cares and his 

 manifold business. He studied law and was 

 admitted to the bar, that he might the better 

 manage the vast interests confided to his care, 

 and also that he might be able to aid the poor 

 and the unfortunate. As soon as he left col- 

 lege, and perhaps even before, he was em- 

 ployed in the management of his father's im- 

 mense landed estates, buying and selling, and 

 so satisfactory was his management that very 

 soon his father gave the entire business into 

 his hands, and made him, though the younger 

 son, the executor of his will. He was a model 

 business-man; systematic, prompt, and exact. 

 He was inflexibly honest and trustworthy : it 

 is related of him that in 1837, finding himself 

 greatly embarrassed by the impossibility of 

 making collections, and in danger of being 

 compelled to sacrifice his valuable property, he 

 applied to his father's and his own friend, John 

 Jacob Astor, for a loan of $250,000, giving his 

 verbal promise to execute mortgages on certain 

 tracts of land as security for its repayment. 

 For the only time in his life the cautious old 

 merchant paid over to hiin, on his verbal 

 promise, the sum for which he asked, and re- 

 quired no memorandum even of the transac- 

 tion. Mr. Smith, on his return to Peterboro', 

 immediately executed the mortgages and had 

 them recorded, but through the negligence of 

 the county clerk the papers were pigeon-holed, 

 forgotten, and not forwarded ; and it was not till 

 six months later that Mr. Astor wrote, saying 

 he thought it was time the mortgages were 

 sent on. But while thus judicious in his pur- 

 chases of land, the conviction had been for 

 years fastening itself upon Mr. Smith's mind 

 that landed monopoly was a wrong to the land- 

 less. In 1842, the owner of largo tracts of land 

 in forty-two out of the sixty (fifty -nine at that 

 time) counties of the State, he proceeded to 

 give away 200,000 acres, mostly in parcels of 

 about fifty acres, to deserving poor white and 

 black men in these various counties, and in 

 many cases aiding them in erecting cheap but 

 comfortable houses on their little farms. He 



