High on the northwest slope of Mauna Kea, in a shady grove of Douglas fir trees, stands the loneliest memorial in Hawaii. The three-sided cairn honors 19th-century botanist David Douglas, whose namesake provides the signature scent of Christmas. This is where he died — trampled and gored by a wild steer, or bullock, in the summer of 1834.
Some called it an accident. Others called it murder. Either way, it’s a story that has been largely forgotten.
Douglas was already a well-respected explorer by the time he arrived in Hawaii in December 1833 to learn more about the local flora. Following his appointment to the Royal Horticultural Society of London in 1823, he led an expedition to northeast America to find new seeds to replenish Great Britain’s forests, which had been decimated to provide lumber to build its famed naval fleet.
Over the next decade, Douglas led two other expeditions, to the Pacific Northwest, on similar missions of discovery. As he went along he sent specimens and stories about his harrowing adventures back to the Royal Horticultural Society, adding to his every-growing fame.
One of the seeds Douglas collected was a hardwood tree whose scientific name became Pseudotsuga menziesii — commonly known as the Douglas fir.
On his third expedition, Douglas decided to extend his travels by sailing to Hawaii to satisfy his curiosity about tropical plants and to climb Mauna Kea.
He landed in Honolulu on Dec. 23, 1833, and over the next six months made two successful treks to Mauna Kea, whose summit reaches an elevation of roughly 13,800 feet. Although he used Hawaiian porters to haul food, cooking supplies, tents and wooden cases to store specimens and seeds, Douglas carried a 60-pound rucksack containing scientific instruments, a journal and a money purse, which he did not trust to the porters. He was accompanied by his beloved Scotch highland terrier, Billie.
After his first Big Island expedition, Douglas returned to Honolulu with a collection of tree ferns, lichens, mosses, shrubs and plants. His second trip started at Kawaihae in Kohala in July 1834. His plan was to attack the mountain via the northern flank along a narrow trail known as Laumaia, then to go around the east flank to Hilo, a distance of some 65 miles.
He was accompanied by an acquaintance named John Thomas. When Thomas collapsed from exhaustion early on and had to abandon the trip, Douglas continued on with only Billie by his side.
ON THE MORNING of July 12, Douglas came across a hut along the rugged trail that was occupied by an Englishman named Edward "Ned" Gurney, a hunter who trapped wild cattle by luring them into deep pits camouflaged with foliage. Without a guide, Douglas was eager to find someone who could direct his way.
According to Gurney’s account of what followed, he accompanied Douglas along the eastbound trail for about a mile, warning the botanist of the locations of his covered pits. Gurney also described how two men riding down the mountain at about 11 a.m. that day came across one of the traps and discovered Douglas’ lifeless body, "tramped under the feet of the bullock."
They fetched Gurney, who shot the animal and retrieved Douglas’ body. He hired the men to take the corpse 27 miles down a steep trail to the village of Laupahoehoe, where they in turn hired a local man to transport the deceased botanist in a canoe along the coast to Hilo, some 25 miles south.
Receiving the body in Hilo were Protestant missionaries Joseph Goodrich and John Diell, who knew Douglas and were expecting him to rest at the Hilo mission station after his arduous journey.
Sarah Lyman, wife of the Rev. David Lyman of Hilo, wrote a firsthand account of the arrival of Douglas’ corpse.
"This has been one of the most gloomy days I ever witnessed," she wrote.
"Mournful to relate Mr. Douglas is no more. … His clothes are sadly torn and his body dreadfully mangled. Ten gashes on his head."
Before Douglas could be buried under a breadfruit tree in the Goodrich garden, questions arose about whether he had been murdered. Diell and Goodrich decided to preserve the remains for further examination in Honolulu.
In a letter to British Consul Richard Charlton on Oahu three days after Douglas died, the two missionaries described how they meticulously removed the abdomen from his corpse and filled the cavity with salt. The body was then placed in a coffin filled with salt, and the coffin enclosed in "a box of brine."
During the two-week wait for a ship to arrive, Diell and Goodrich went about investigating Douglas’ death. They hired a cattle hunter to visit the pit at Mauna Kea. While there they retrieved the steer’s head and speculated that the wounds inflicted on Douglas could not have been made by the animal because it appeared to be old and its horns were blunt.
The missionaries grew more suspicious when they learned that Douglas’ rucksack was found beyond Gurney’s pits.
"How was it that Mr. D. should fall into a pit when retracing his steps, after once passed it by safely? And if the bullock had already tumbled in, how was it that he did not see the hole necessarily made in its covering?"
By the time Douglas’ corpse arrived in Honolulu, still boxed in brine, it was in a sorry state. The remains were taken on shore and examined by doctors from a British ship in port as well as three local physicians, all of whom concluded the wounds were made by the steer.
They did not speculate on whether Douglas fell into the pit accidentally or if he was pushed.
Douglas was buried at Kawaiaha‘o Church.
Back in Hilo, rumors spread that Gurney was an escaped convict of Australia’s Botany Bay penal colony and that he had killed Douglas, stolen his money purse and dumped his body in the pit along with the steer. Others speculated that he was killed and robbed by John Thomas, who had briefly hiked with Douglas.
The mystery of the botanist’s death has never been solved but he has been remembered in various ways.
At Kawaiaha‘o Church in 1855, an English clergyman named Julius Brenchley took it upon himself to have a white marble marker made for Douglas, but no one could locate the grave so the marker was placed on a wall of the church. In 1929, the marker was moved to a small room near the church entrance and remains there today.
The Mauna Kea cairn came later — 100 years after his death.
To honor their fellow Scotsman, members of the Hilo Burns Club installed the 7-foot-tall cairn at Kaluakauka — Hawaiian for "the doctor’s pit" — not far from the spot where Douglas was found dead.
It’s high on Mauna Kea, at the 6,000-foot elevation, and so out of the way that it’s rarely visited. But three plaques on the cairn, including one placed there in October by the Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, commemorate the botanist and the men who built the memorial, according to Jeff DePonte, a filmmaker and photographer from Oahu who knows the area well.
The cairn is in the state’s Hilo Forest Reserve off Mana Road, a 43-mile dirt route between Waimea and Mauna Kea Access Road that is primarily used by ranchers and off-road enthusiasts. A small sign points visitors to a short path to the dell where the memorial was built.
DePonte was there a few weeks ago to take photographs in the morning light.
"I’ve been there many times, but that was the first time I was there alone," he said. "The solitude was amazing. It is so remote and so quiet. There is only the sound of birds."
DePonte is convinced the botanist was murdered.
With his extensive explorer’s background, Douglas was not someone likely to stumble into a pit designed to catch wild steer, DePonte said.
"I think Douglas was way too tough of a guy," he said. "He spent so much time in the wild I can’t imagine him falling into a bull pit. It doesn’t make sense."
But Bob Oaks, a historian who has written and lectured about Douglas, sees it differently. Because the botanist’s dog was found waiting nearby, Oaks believes Douglas fell into the pit accidentally.
"It was kind of suspicious because there were a lot of suspicious characters involved," Oaks said. "When his belongings were returned to Hilo, some people thought he had more money. There is a lot of circumstantial wishful thinking."
Oaks doesn’t question the botanist’s abilities — Douglas had traveled across Canada on foot and dreamed of walking around the world.
But Oaks doesn’t think Douglas saw the pit, which would have been camouflaged.
"He had very bad eyesight," Oaks said. "He walked past these pits, and I suspect he heard something and walked back."
Nanette Napoleon is a freelance historical researcher and writer from Kailua. Honolulu Star-Advertiser staff writer Mike Gordon contributed to this report.
