William Little Lee: Difference between revisions

{{Infobox Personperson

|image = Portrait of William Little Lee, Aliiolani Hale.JPGpng

|image_size = 190px200px

|nationality = American<br />[[UnitedKingdom of StatesHawaii]]

'''William Little Lee''' (1821–1857February 25, 1821 – May 28, 1857) was an American lawyer who became the first Chiefchief Justicejustice of the Supreme Court for the [[Kingdom of Hawaii]].

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 |accessdateaccess-date= 2010-03-13 }}</ref>

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=244–245[https://archive.org/details/norwichuniversit00elli/page/244 244]–245 |publisher= The Rumford press |year= 1898 |url= httphttps://booksarchive.google.comorg/books?id=UJgaAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA244details/norwichuniversit00elli }}</ref>

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 |url=http://hdl.handle.net/=10524/197 |title=Imposition of a Western Judicial System in the Hawaiian Monarchy |author=Jane L. Silverman |journal=Hawaiian Journal of History |publisher=Hawaiian Historical Society, Honolulu |year=1982 |volume=16 |pages= 48–64 }}</ref>

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 |authors= [[John Ricord]], Stephen H. Williams, James F. B. Marshall |publisher= C.E. Hitchcock, printer, Hawaiian Government press |year= 1846 |url= httphttps://books.google.com/books?id=s2iW_IL-mlkC |author= [[John Ricord]], Stephen H. Williams, James F. B. Marshall }}</ref>

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 |origyearorig-year=1938 |isbn= 0-87022-431-X |page=}}</ref>

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"/>

[[ImageFile:William Little Lee and Charles Reed Bishop 1846.jpg |thumb| |upright |left |alt=two young men | Lee on left, with [[Charles Reed Bishop]] in 1846]]

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>{{citationCite book|author= William De Witt Alexander |title= A brief history of the Hawaiian people |publisher= Board of Education of the Hawaiian Kingdom |year= 1891 |isbn=9780898753240978-0-89875-324-0 |url=httphttps://booksarchive.google.comorg/books?id=Fds3JhdHlnsCdetails/bub_gb_Fds3JhdHlnsC}}</ref>

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 |accessdateaccess-date= 2010-03-13 }}</ref>

Lee helped draft the [[1852 Constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii]] and a judiciary bill to implement its provisions. [[Lorrin Andrews]] and [[John Papa Ii|John Papa {{okina}}Ī{{okina}}īʻĪʻī]] became associate justices and Lee chief justice of what was now called the Supreme Court.<ref name="Frear1894">{{cite journal|last=Frear|first=Walter F.|author-link=Walter F. Frear|title=Evolution of the Hawaiian Judiciary|journal= Papers of the Hawaiian Historical Society |issue=7|year=1894 |titlepublisher=Evolution of the Hawaiian judiciaryHistorical Society|urllocation=http://Honolulu|hdl.handle.net/=10524/966 |author=[[Walter F. Frear]]}}</ref>

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 |accessdateaccess-date= 2010-03-11 }}</ref>

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 wirhwith [[William L. Marcy]] and then President [[Franklin Pierce]]. Marcy and Lee agreed on terms on July 20, 1855. He also met with representatives of other governments, but could not get them to sign on to a multi-party treaty. In September he returned to Hawaii.<ref name="kingdom2">{{cite book |title=Hawaiian Kingdom 1854-1874, twenty critical years |author= [[Ralph Simpson Kuykendall]] |url= http://www.ulukau.org/elib/cgi-bin/library?c=kingdom2&l=en |volume=2 |publisher= University of Hawaii Press |year= 1953 |isbn= 978-0-87022-432-4 |page=}}</ref>{{rp|40–41}}

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 sugar[[sugarcane]] [[Sugar plantations in Hawaii|plantation]] to help support the magazine in its early years.<ref name="letters">{{cite journal |urlhdl= http://hdl.handle.net/10524/147 |title= William Little Lee and Catherine Lee, Letters from Hawai'i, 1848-1855 |journal= Hawaiian Journal of History |publisher=Hawaiian Historical Society |volume= 38 |author= Barbara E. Dunn |year= 2004 |page=61 |accessdate= 2010-03-11 }}</ref>

[[Category:Chief Justicesjustices of the Hawaiian Kingdom of Hawaii]]