Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/226

216 ; and, second, that it would have detained him twenty-four hours—one hour would have been an ample allowance.

From the Britannia the two Americans were transferred to the Morrison, an American bark under command of Captain Lavender, of New York. The voyage to America was made without accident, and at New York, although Holden had no money, he was forwarded to Boston by the aid of friends, reaching his home city in 1835.

Here he wrote and published a narrative of his adventures, two copies only, so far as known, being now extant. He felt it his duty to see that the hostages on the island of Pelew were released, so he published a small edition of his book in order to obtain funds to visit Washington City and make the proper representations there. At the capital he visited the Secretary of the Navy, Levi Woodbury, of New Hampshire, and found upon examining the records that two and a half years previously the man-of-war Vincennes had been ordered, for a part of her three years' cruise in the Pacific, to visit Pelew, and also Tobey; and the news was just brought that this vessel was now at Norfolk, just returned. Two of the hostages, Medor and Davis, were brought home on the Vincennes, the other, a boy, having escaped. The Pelew chief was also returned to his island home from Tobey.

Mr. Holden was married in Boston, and in 1837, with his wife and infant son returned to the Pacific, making a home on the Hawaiian Islands, attempting the culture of silk, but later going into sugar raising. In 1844 he decided to come to Oregon, to help make this an American, rather than a British, country. He was very loyal to the stars and stripes, his wife being perhaps the first to make an American flag, which, for the Fourth of July celebra-