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{{Short description|American judge (1821–1857)}}
{{Infobox
|name = William Little Lee
|image = Portrait of William Little Lee, Aliiolani Hale.
|image_size =
|caption = Portrait of William Little Lee, [[Aliiolani Hale|Aliʻiōlani Hale]]
|birth_date = {{birth date|1821|2|25}}
|birth_place = [[Sandy Hill, New York]]
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|parents = Stephen Lee <br> Mary Little
|occupation = Judge
|nationality = American<br />[[
}}
'''William Little Lee''' (
==Life==
William Little Lee was born February 25, 1821, in [[Sandy Hill, New York]]. His father was Colonel Stephen Lee (1773–1856) and mother was Mary Little (1795–1881).<ref>{{cite web |title= Lee Families (5) 1100 - 1913 |work= Rootsweb |url=http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~dav4is/ODTs/LEE.shtml |
He graduated from [[Norwich University]] in 1842. He taught in a military school established by [[Alden Partridge]] in [[Portsmouth, Virginia]], for one year, and then graduated from [[Harvard Law School]].<ref>{{cite book |chapter= The Hon. William Little Lee, A.M. |title= Norwich university: Her history, her graduates, her roll of honor |author= William Arba Ellis |pages=
One of his teachers at Harvard was [[Joseph Story]], who was sitting on the [[Supreme Court of the United States]] at the time. He practiced law in [[Troy, New York]], but convinced his boyhood friend [[Charles Reed Bishop]] to travel with him to the [[Oregon Territory]] in February 1846 on the ship ''Henry''.
The ship was damaged while passing around [[Cape Horn]], and needed to stop at the [[Hawaiian Islands]] for provisions and repairs on October 12.
Lee was only the second person in Hawaii with any western-style law training. [[John Ricord]] had arrived just two years earlier, and was acting as Attorney General.<ref>{{cite journal |
Ricord convinced Lee to stay, and Bishop was given the job of sorting out the defunct [[Ladd & Co.]] which was also the center of a long-lasting legal dispute. A related land dispute by [[Richard Charlton (Hawaii)|Richard Charlton]] had caused a British military occupation a few years earlier called the [[Paulet Affair (1843)|Paulet Affair]] which was still being sorted out.<ref>{{cite book |title= Report of the proceedings and evidence in the arbitration between the King and Government of the Hawaiian Islands and Messrs. Ladd & Co., before Messrs. Stephen H. Williams & James F. B. Marshall, arbitrators under compact
On December 1, 1846, he was appointed judge of the island of [[Oahu|O{{okina}}ahu]], and served on the Privy Council of King [[Kamehameha III]] for the rest of his life.
Ricord left in 1847 and Lee had to finish drafting legislation to formalize the court system. Called the "third organic act" or "act to Organize the Judiciary Department" it was passed September 7, 1847, activated January 10, 1848.<ref>{{cite book |title=Hawaiian Kingdom 1778-1854, foundation and transformation |author= [[Ralph Simpson Kuykendall]] |url= http://www.ulukau.org/elib/cgi-bin/library?c=kingdom1&l=en |volume=1 |publisher= University of Hawaii Press |year= 1965 |
Starting in 1847 he became a member of a commission to [[quiet title|quiet land titles]] that led to legislation known as the [[Great Mahele]] which formalized [[fee simple]] ownership of real estate. On January 16, 1848, he was named Chief Justice of the Superior Court. On March 11, 1849, he married Catherine Newton (c. 1819–1894), and became a boarder in [[Washington Place]] with [[John Owen Dominis]] and Dominis' mother. Lee had proposed by letter, and they were married aboard the ''Leland'' by Rev. [[Samuel C. Damon]].<ref name="letters"/>
[[
On August 12, 1849, French admiral [[Louis Tromelin]] staged a [[French Invasion of Honolulu]]. On August 28 Lee and chief government minister [[Gerrit P. Judd]] went aboard the French ship for an attempted peace conference. However, Tromelin continued to sack the city before sailing off with the king's yacht and other plunder. Judd and two young princes were sent to Europe to negotiate treaties, stopping in the United States on the way. Judd advocated annexation by the United States to protect against further actions by British and French.<ref>{{
Lee was more in favor of a simple treaty of [[Reciprocity (international relations)|Reciprocity]].
Former Scottish physician, now Foreign Minister [[Robert Crichton Wyllie]] agreed, and former Hawaiian newspaper publisher [[James Jackson Jarves]] negotiated a treaty with [[John M. Clayton]] signed on December 20, 1849.<ref>{{cite web |title= Treaty with the Hawaiian Islands |date= December 20, 1849 |url= http://hawaii-nation.org/treaty1849.html |
In 1851 Lee was elected to the House of Representatives in the [[legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom]].<ref name="office"/>
Lee helped draft the [[1852 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii]] and a judiciary bill to implement its provisions. [[Lorrin Andrews]] and [[John Papa
On December 15, 1854, Kamehameha III died; his nephew took the throne as [[Kamehameha IV]].
On January 15, 1855, Lee was named Chancellor, and in March 1855 to 1856 served as an envoy to the United States where he traveled for medical advice.<ref name="office">{{cite web |url= http://archives1.dags.hawaii.gov/gsdl/collect/governme/index/assoc/HASHedce/3448c499.dir/Lee,%20William%20L.jpg |title= Lee, William L. office record |work=state archives digital collections |publisher=state of Hawaii |
Lee and his wife first went to [[San Francisco]] where he met with California's first Senator [[William M. Gwin]]. On July 10, 1855, they arrived in [[Washington, D.C.]], and he met
However, the treaty never went into effect, because it was never ratified by the Senate.<ref name="kingdom2"/>{{rp|45}}
His health declined, and he returned to [[Honolulu]]. He had probably been suffering from [[tuberculosis]]. After his death May 28, 1857, fellow American [[Elisha Hunt Allen]] became Chief Justice, who would also try to push the treaty through.
His widow Catherine Newton traveled back to New York and in 1861 married [[Edward L. Youmans]], the founder of ''[[Popular Science]]''. She used income from the
==See also==
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==References==
{{commons category}}
{{Reflist}}
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{{end}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lee, William Little}}
[[Category:1821 births]]
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[[Category:Members of the Hawaiian Kingdom Privy Council]]
[[Category:Members of the Hawaiian Kingdom House of Representatives]]
[[Category:Chief
[[Category:New York (state) lawyers]]
[[Category:Norwich University alumni]]
[[Category:Harvard Law School alumni]]
[[Category:People from Hudson Falls, New York]]
[[Category:Ambassadors of the Hawaiian Kingdom]]
[[Category:Chancellors of the Hawaiian Kingdom]]
[[Category:19th-century American lawyers]]
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