BROOKLINE HISTORY: Hawaii's Queen & A Winter in Brookline

Many of us may wish we were basking in Hawaii’s sun as Boston endures its coldest week in decades. But 121 years ago, it was a visitor from the Hawaiian Islands whose month-long stay in Brookline made national news.

(Above: Queen Liliuokalani, left, and a report on her Brookline sleigh ride in the New York Times, right)

Liliuokalani, the first queen and last monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, had been overthrown in 1893 by a group led by American and other non-native businessman who took over the government and established the Republic of Hawaii. (It was formally annexed to the United States in 1898.)

Placed under house arrest after an abortive counter-coup in 1895, Liliuokalani was pardoned a year later and set off for the United States, travelling by sea to San Francisco and then across the country by rail to Washington, D.C. After a brief stay in the nation’s capital, she set off for Boston where relatives of her late husband, the American John Dominis, had arranged a stay at the Parker House Hotel.

On December 27, 1896, 58-year old Liliuokalani, accompanied by her late husband’s cousin William Lee, walked from the Lee house near Coolidge Corner across Beacon street to the home of Lee’s neighbor and friend George Armstrong.

William Lee’s house, left, stood at the corner of Beacon and Centre Streets. George Armstrong’s house extended from Marion Street to Beacon, across from the Lee house. Both houses were later replaced with apartment blocks.

In the yard of the Armstrong house, the ex-queen climbed aboard a sleigh outfitted with an unusual (for the time) glass wind screen. She was joined by Lee and Armstrong and the latter’s wife Flora. Liliuokalani’s Hawaian companions Joseph Heleluhe and Kia Nahaolelua, along with her American aide Julius Palmer and the Lees’ daughter Alice were in a second sleigh.

Kia Nahaolelua and Joseph Helehule accompanied Liliuokalani on her trip to the U.S.

The sleighs travelled from Brookline through Jamaica Plain, before bringing the queen back to the Parker House.

It was a bright and beautiful day when the jingling bells and prancing horses acquainted me with the much-praised experience of sleigh-riding; [wrote Liliuokalani in her autobiography] and my kind host had determined that I at least should suffer no inconvenience from the cold, for our sleigh was abundantly provided with robes, and was warmed by a recently invented apparatus…. I must say that I failed to see the delight and exhilaration of the sport, although I enjoyed the afternoon very much indeed; but if I had had the same charming companions on a good road with an easy-riding carriage, it seems to me the pleasure of the ride would have been greater.

A few days later, Liliuokalani moved from the Parker House to the Stirlingworth Cottage boarding house at 61 Sewall Avenue, not far from the Lee residence. She and her companions had a four-room suite on the second floor of the house.

At Stirlingworth Cottage I passed a most delightful month, although the frost often covered the window panes, the snow whirled around the house, and the icicles formed on the trees; the kindly greetings of my Boston friends and the warmth of their hearts deprived a Northern winter of all its gloom. The health of my party was excellent, and it seemed to be a matter of surprise to those who met us that we suffered so little by the change from the mild air of our beautiful islands to the rigors of a New England winter.

Stirlingworth Cottage boarding house, as shown in the Boston Globe, December 30,1896.

While in Brookline, Liliuokalani largely avoided large social gatherings. “[I]t is not easy for me,” she wrote, “to get over that shrinking from the gaze of strangers acquired by recent years of retirement, eight months of experience as a prisoner, and the humiliations of the time when I was under the supervision of government spies or custodians.” She did attend a New Year’s Day party given by the Lees at their Beacon Street home and another January party given by another of her husband’s cousins.

She also attended church services at All Saints Church, then meeting in a wooden building before the current church was built. She also made a side trip to Niagara Falls. (“All the tales I had ever heard of the grandeur of the great cataract fell far short of the truth.”)

Liliuokalani left Brookline on January 22nd to return to Washington, where she remained for six months. She met with President Grover Cleveland at the White House, attended the inauguration of his successor, William McKinley, and lobbied unsuccessfully for the return of the monarchy and native control of Hawaii.

While in Washington, she wrote a history of Hawaii — Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen — edited by William Lee’s wife Sarah and published by Lee’s publishing company Lee & Shepard. She also worked on compilations of Hawaiian music, including many of her own compositions. (She was a prolific composer of song, including her best-known work Aloha Oe.)

Liluokalani continued to fight for the return of Hawaiian sovereignty until 1910. She died in Honolulu at the age of 79 in 1917.

Provided by the Brookline Historical Society and the Public Library of Brookline. For more Brookline history, visit http://brooklinehistoricalsociety.org and https://www.brooklinelibrary.org/what-we-have/local-history/