Mary Jane Kekulani Fayerweather

Early life and family

Mary Jane Kekulani Fayerweather was born on May 14, 1842, in Honolulu, under the reign of King Kamehameha III. She was the third-born child and second daughter of Abraham (Abram) Henry Fayerweather (1812–1850) and Mary Kekahimoku Kolimoalani Beckley (1820–1850).

Fayerweather was born in the family home at the junction of Union Street and Adams Lane. The frame house had been shipped by her father from Boston around Cape Horn in sections, with its lumber sawn to fit before shipment. Notable Women of Hawaii instead places the home at Union Street and Garden Lane.

Her father, originally from New Canaan, Connecticut, settled in Hawaii and was a business associate of Hunnewell and Peirce before becoming chief accountant of C. Brewer & Co.. Her maternal family was considered part of the aliʻi (noble) class. Her maternal grandfather was George Charles Beckley (1787–1826), an English sea captain and merchant who came to Hawaii in 1806, served in the councils of Kamehameha I, and was appointed the first commandant of the Honolulu fort in 1816. Her maternal grandmother was Elizabeth Ahia (1797–1854), a Native Hawaiian high chiefess who was a distant relation of the reigning House of Kamehameha and a descendant of the 15th-century King Līloa. Through her parents, Fayerweather was one-quarter Native Hawaiian and three-quarters of European ancestry. She was described as small and fair-skinned, with auburn hair, and was proud of her Hawaiian, British, and American heritage.

Her older sister was Julia Fayerweather Afong (1840–1919), wife of Chinese businessman Chun Afong. Her other siblings included William Malulani Fayerweather (1841–1843), who died young; and Hannah Kealiipuahao o Kinau Fayerweather (1843–1870), who married Thomas Kamukamu Bell.

Upbringing on Hawaii Island

In infancy, Fayerweather was taken to Kohala on the island of Hawaii to be raised under the Hawaiian custom of hānai by her maternal uncle William Beckley and his wife, High Chiefess Ahuenaikamakahonu-i-kaiakekua Beckley, also known as Kamakahonu Wahine. Kamakahonu had helped Fayerweather's father obtain permission to marry her mother and, in return, secured his promise that she could raise one of their children. After he refused to give up his first two children, Kamakahonu took Fayerweather, their third child, shortly after her birth aboard the Manuokawai and brought her to Hawaii. Kamakahonu, whom Fayerweather described as her adopted mother, died when Fayerweather was about two years old. William Beckley subsequently married Kahinu, a daughter of High Chief Hoʻolulu, who thereafter raised Fayerweather as her mother.

Fayerweather spent her early childhood in Waimea, in the Kohala region, where she was raised in a traditional Hawaiian household, spoke only Hawaiian, and was treated as a kapu (sacred) child. She lived in her own grass house and had few playmates, accompanied by a servant when she went to play with other children. Her nurse and governess, Kahuluhulu, taught her Hawaiian language and grammar, and Fayerweather later described her as her "Mother Goose book". She also learned Hawaiian culture and legends and began a lifelong study of genealogy, and her upbringing in Kohala later influenced her poetry and music. Her grandmother Ahia Beckley also instructed her in traditional chiefly customs and appropriate conduct toward members of the Hawaiian royal family, with whom her family had longstanding personal and familial connections.

Return to Oahu

Fayerweather returned to her family in Honolulu around 1849. Her return required an adjustment from her Hawaiian upbringing to Western customs, including Western dress and table manners. Soon after her return, Kamehameha III visited her mother at the family home. On seeing Fayerweather, the king placed his hand on her head and referred to her in Hawaiian as the "little white head", after which she was instructed to salute him. Fayerweather later recalled that Kamehameha III had given her the name Kekulani in connection with an incident involving himself and Keoni Ana.

After returning to her parents, Fayerweather attended a select school operated by Mrs. Sarah Davis Gummer and her mother Mrs. Davis on King Street near Alakea Street, where her classmates included Rebecca Meek. Both of Fayerweather's parents died in 1850, her mother in April and her father later that year in November. Fayerweather recalled that her father was deeply affected by his wife's death and subsequently sold his sugar plantation at Waimea, disposed of much of his other property, and purchased the bark Helen Mar, intending to take his children to Savannah, Georgia, where he planned to manage his aunt's cotton plantation. He became ill and died before the family could leave Hawaii. Members of his Masonic lodge cared for him during his final illness and participated in his funeral. Shortly afterward, Stephen Reynolds, a fellow merchant and Mason, was appointed guardian of Fayerweather and her sisters Julia and Hannah and administrator of their father's estate.

The sisters were placed at Mrs. Wiseman's boarding school at the corner of Beretania and Punchbowl streets. After the school closed about a year later, Fayerweather attended Mrs. Bingham's private school on Hotel Street in 1851 and 1852. At Mrs. Bingham's school, mornings were devoted to academic studies and afternoons to needlework and other fancy work, in which Fayerweather developed a lifelong interest.

Fayerweather subsequently lived in Reynolds's household, where she participated in weekly dancing lessons and monthly social gatherings intended in part to teach the children manners and social etiquette. Contemporary correspondence from Reynolds records that Julia continued lessons at Mrs. Bingham's school while Mary Jane and Hannah attended Mililani School, then known as the Honolulu Free School. Reynolds reported that the girls' boarding, clothing, and schooling costs were drawing on the capital of their relatively small inheritance. After becoming dissatisfied with another teacher, Fayerweather was introduced by Reynolds to George B. C. Ingraham, principal of Mililani School. Despite her older sister Julia's concern that attending a charity school would be socially embarrassing, Fayerweather later recalled that she was never ashamed of having attended Mililani because it had given her a good education. As a student there, she received the school's monthly academic honor three times, which entitled the recipient to dine with the British Consul General William Miller at his home next to Washington Place.

Teaching and social life in Honolulu

In 1860, Fayerweather rejoined the household of her uncle William Beckley and his third wife, Mary Ann Kameʻehiwa Tressilyan Beckley, who was regarded as the most beautiful woman of Kamehameha IV's court and was called the "Rose of the Pacific". Her younger sister Hannah was also living with them, while her older sister Julia had by then married Chun Afong and had her first child.

At the same time, her former teacher, Mr. Ingraham, invited her to return to Mililani School as an assistant teacher, taking the place of her friend Clara Armstrong. By then, Mililani had expanded into a two-story schoolhouse. Ingraham taught approximately 40 older pupils upstairs, while Fayerweather taught about 60 beginning pupils downstairs with one assistant. She remained at Mililani for about four years and later recalled with pride that many of her former students had become “fine men and women in Honolulu.”

During these years, German consul William Pflüger placed Fayerweather on Honolulu's social list, beginning what she called her "social whirl". Her social life brought her into close contact with members of the royal court. During the fundraising campaign to establish the Queen's Hospital, Queen Emma personally visited homes in Honolulu seeking assistance. Fayerweather was assigned to make a moss mat for the effort, and Queen Emma taught her how to make it. Princess Victoria Kamāmalu frequently visited the Beckley home with other members of her circle, and Fayerweather recalled accompanying the young women who collected fabric samples in Honolulu for the princess to select for her dresses. On one occasion, Fayerweather dressed Kamāmalu's hair for the wedding of Lydia Kamakaʻeha (the future Liliʻuokalani) in 1862, an undertaking she remembered as intimidating because of the etiquette surrounding physical contact with a high-ranking aliʻi.

Fayerweather resigned from Mililani upon her marriage in 1864. She retained an interest in education later in life. In 1909, she wrote to Ka Nupepa Kuokoa opposing reductions in teachers' salaries and urging greater investment in public education, particularly for Native Hawaiian children.

Marriage and ranching

During these years, Fayerweather met Benoni Richmond Davison, a native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, who had worked as a pharmacist in Wilmington, Delaware before arriving in the Hawaiian Islands around 1860. Davison had previously worked at a drugstore in Lahaina before moving to Honolulu when the United States Marine Hospital was transferred there. By 1864, he was superintendent of the hospital, then located on Punchbowl Street. Fayerweather and Davison married on July 4, 1864, in a ceremony performed by Rev. Samuel C. Damon. Their wedding coincided with Honolulu's Fourth of July ball, for which Davison served as a floor manager. After their wedding supper, the newlyweds attended the ball.

In September 1866, when the Hawaiian government opened the Oahu Insane Asylum, Davison became assistant superintendent under Seth Porter Ford, the institution's superintendent. He subsequently became superintendent of the asylum. Fayerweather also assisted Davison in caring for patients associated with the insane asylum. Among them was former missionary and businessman Amos Starr Cooke, who suffered from what contemporaries described as "softening of the brain". Cooke was accommodated in a room in the Davison home rather than in the asylum ward, and Fayerweather personally assisted in his care.

Together they had five children: William Compton Malulani Davison (1865), who died in infancy; Emma Ahuena Davison Taylor (1867); Rose Compton Davison (1868); Henry (Harry) Fayerweather Davison (1870); and Marie Hope Kekulani Davison Brown (1874).

Fayerweather continued to participate in Honolulu's royal and chiefly social life during her marriage. In 1869, she and Davison were formally invited by Kamehameha V to a ball at ʻIolani Palace honoring Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second son of Queen Victoria, who was visiting Hawaii while commanding the Royal Navy frigate HMS Galatea on an extended world tour. Kamehameha V also invited Fayerweather to participate in a grand lūʻau at the king's private residence, Helumoa, in the duke's honor, instructing her to wear a white holokū and lei mamo. At the lūʻau, she was assigned to Queen Emma's group, while her cousin Maria Kahaʻawelani Beckley was assigned to that of Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Fayerweather later recalled the occasion as the grandest lūʻau she had ever witnessed.

Davison died unexpectedly at their home at Waikuakio in the Pālama district of Honolulu on July 3, 1875, at the age of 40, leaving Fayerweather a widow with four surviving children.

Music and cultural work

Fayerweather was a prolific composer of Hawaiian poetry, chants, and mele (songs), many of which were set to music by Charles E. King. Her notable compositions included "Kuʻu Home", also known as "Old Plantation", which was written for her childhood friend Victoria Ward and set to music by David Nape, "Maid of Honolulu", and "Beautiful Kahana", which she dedicated to Mary E. Foster. Other compositions included "Nene Hanu Aʻala", "Mauna Aʻala", and "Pua Loke Lani". Many of her songs and name chants commemorated events involving her family and friends. She also wrote "Honolulu Aina Kupua" ("Honolulu, Our Fairy Land") for the fourth anniversary of The Outdoor Circle, a Honolulu civic beautification organization, in 1916.

Her "Na Kamalei o Hawaii", composed in 1918 and published in Ka Nupepa Kuokoa in 1919, honored Hawaiian servicemen fighting in World War I. It was later reprinted in Paradise of the Pacific with a dedication to her cousin George Healiʻi Kahea Beckley and the men of Hawaii who had served in the war. In 1922, she composed a name song for the Māmakakaua Association (Daughters and Sons of Hawaiian Warriors). She also wrote "Haaheo Kilohana i ka Lai", a name song for the Honolulu Academy of Arts dedicated to Anna Rice Cooke, which was set to music by Bina Mossman.

Fayerweather was regarded as an authority on Hawaiian customs, genealogy, language, and culture and was frequently consulted on these subjects. Her knowledge drew on her traditional Hawaiian upbringing, the teachings and oral traditions of older members of the Beckley family, and her lifelong participation in Hawaiian chiefly and royal circles. Her reminiscences document her associations with prominent aliʻi, including Ruth Keʻelikōlani, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Queen Emma and Liliʻuokalani. She later assisted her daughter Emma in planning and directing historical pageants that recreated events and social life from Hawaiian history. Their historical work included the seventy-fifth anniversary celebration of Punahou School in 1916, a pageant held on Rocky Hill with a cast of hundreds. In 1924, Fayerweather contributed her own collection of Hawaiian mele to a collection of ancient Hawaiian music and mele compiled by ethnomusicologist Helen Heffron Roberts for the Hawaiian Legends and Folklore Commission.

In her later years, Fayerweather recorded her memories of 19th-century Hawaii and its people. Her reminiscences included accounts of her grandfather George Charles Beckley, members of the Hawaiian royal family, Honolulu society, the California Gold Rush, the 1853 smallpox epidemic, and other events and individuals from the Hawaiian Kingdom. A series of these reminiscences was published in The Honolulu Advertiser in 1923 and 1924. In 1927, she also contributed older Hawaiian mele and accompanying genealogical information to Ka Nupepa Kuokoa.

Death and burial

Fayerweather died in Honolulu on November 8, 1930. At her death, the Lunalilo News, written and printed by sixth-grade students at Lunalilo School, dedicated that week's issue to her. The eulogy stated: "Deeply religious, charitable in deed and thought, kindly and affectionate, she will long be remembered as well deserving the respect and regard that is so widely accorded her."

She was buried at Oʻahu Cemetery, where she shares a marker with her son Henry Fayerweather Davison.

Publications and works

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 2, 1923). "Granddaughter of Capt. George Beckley, Kamehameha's "Field Marshal" Tells Of His Colorful Career In Hawaii – Drama Of Old Hawaii Made Real In Fascinating Story Of Picturesque Early Actors – Englishmen, Americans, Russians and Men of Other "Haole" Nations Move In Interesting Array Through Reminiscences of Grande Dame of the Old Regime". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 1. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 2, 1923). "Drama Of Old Hawaii Made Picturesque (Continued from Page 1)". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 13. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 9, 1923). "Personal Reminiscences Of Old-Time Hawaii And Noted Actors In Stirring Drama – How Many of the Chiefs Joined in the California Gold Rush and Died of Frontier Hardships; Terror of Smallpox Scourge of 1853 When Thousands Died Throughout Islands". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 9. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 9, 1923). "Mrs. Montano's Reminiscences Of Old Hawaii (Continued from Page 9)". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 10. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 16, 1923). "Former Belle Tells Of Honolulu Society In Far-Off 'Sixties' – Mrs. Montano Continues Her Charming Reminiscences of Old Hawaii; Notable Characters and Incidents Revived After Six Decades During Which Community Has Moved Far, Far Away From Them". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 5. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 16, 1923). "Former Belle Tells Of Society In Old Honolulu (Continued from Page 5)". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 6. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.

Montano, Mary Jane Fayerweather (December 25, 1923). "Quaint Recollections Of Hawaiian Royalty In Picturesque Year – Mrs. Montano Continues Reminiscenses – How Queen Emma Started Fund for Hospital – Palace Named for Prince – Duke of Edinburgh's Visit Memorable in Hawaiian History – Leisure Time of Chiefesses". The Honolulu Advertiser. Honolulu. p. 12. Retrieved August 16, 2018 – via Newspapers.com.