A Secret Wife?

The Sandwich Islands Gazette

January 27, 1838

“ Married on Friday evening, January 21st by Reverend Lowell Smith, Mr. William Heath Davis to Kaimiaina.”

This short newspaper notice appeared just before William Heath Davis received a letter from his stepfather, John Coffin Jones. Mr. Jones, who was in Santa Barbara, California at the time, reiterated an offer to set Mr. Davis up in the trading business for himself, and included an offer to keep a store in the islands. The letter arrived in February. Mr. Davis abruptly left Honolulu, and politely declined his stepfather’s generous offer.

This short notice of his marriage to a Hawaiian woman is the only mention of such an event, and no other documentation has been found.

Davis, himself, never referred to this marriage.