CHAPTER VIIFROM 1853 TO 1861

CHAPTER X

NATHANIEL SAVORY'S WIFE: HIS ELDEST DAUGHTER, AGNES: HIS TREATMENT OF HIS CHILDREN: FINAL APPRECIATION OF HIS CHARACTER

To the short biographical notices given in the course of this history and mostly compiled by Rev. A. F. King, there are two more I must still add--I promise they shall be the last the one is that of Nathaniel Savory's wife, and the other that of their eldest daughter, Agnes. To both of them already brief allusions have been made.

MARIA DEL LOS SANTOS Y CASTRO (generally written Maria Dilessanto) was half Spanish, born in the Island of Guam in 1828, and brought up as a Roman Catholic. When she was about fifteen years old, John Millinchamp went to Guam and there met with Joaquina de la Cruz, Maria's aunt, whom he persuaded to leave Guam and a husband who ill-treated her and to come with him on board the schooner which lay in the harbour ready to sail for the Bonins. At Joaquina's invitation Maria also came on board, but with no other intention than to see the schooner and say Good-bye to her aunt. However she never had an opportunity of going ashore again and was brought to the Bonins with Joaquina. Whether she had any choice in the matter we do not know, but she became the wife of Mazarro, who headed the first party of colonists from Hawaii in 1830--a man at least four times as old as herself. Two children were born to them, John, and Reta, or Arita. John latterly went to Guam, where he died in 1897, leaving a wife and two children. Reta died when she was eleven years old.

Towards the close of 1850, about two years after the death of Mazarro, Maria was taken to wife by Nathaniel Savory to whom she bore ten children. The eldest, Albert Burbank, when he was hardly two years old, was found drowned in a small pool of water not far from the Savory's house on April 19, 1853. Foul play on occasions of this kind was generally suspected, and in this case suspicion fell on a Kanaka woman who bad been living with Nathaniel shortly before he married, and was supposed to have thus done away with the child to revenge herself on Nathaniel and his wife.

In 1855 a passport was sent by the Governor of Guam to Mr. and Mrs. Savory to enable them to go to Guam to be duly married. As it was on the sole condition that Mr. Savory should previously comply with the necessary forms of the Church of Rome, the offer was not accepted. As long after as in 1871 another passport was sent, and this time to Mrs. Savory, with the hope of prevailing upon her to return to her family in Guam, but she did not avail herself of it and never saw her native island again.

Mrs. Savory survived her husband by sixteen years and (more Boninico!) allowed herself, some two years after his death, to become the wife of a German settler, William Allen. Thus, being herself of Spanish extraction, she had in turn for her husbands an Italian, an American, and a German. She does not ever seem to have given up her faith as a Roman Catholic, though she never taught her children anything very definite about religion. One of her daughters remembers how “she would never do any sewing on Sundays"; and another tells how in her last illness "she prayed often and used to cross herself."

In the story that follows of Agues, Nathaniel's eldest daughter, there is, as in the other stories given, an element of romance, but it is a pathetic story too. It is right in any case that special mention should be made of her because she was the mother of Rev. Joseph Gonzales, our native clergyman on the Bonins to-day--a man whose simple earnestness and high character have won for him not only respect, but I might say an incalculable influence.

AGNES BURBANK SAVORY GONZALVE (so her name is given on the tombstone put up to her memory) was born on February 14, 1853. When about fifteen years of age she became engaged to George Gonzales then aged thirty-two. As we have seen in one of the letters in the preceding chapter, a man named C. H. Richards, pate owner of a schooner that sometimes anchored in Port Lloyd, had in 1866 written privately to her father desiring to have Agnes for his wife. Savory, doubtless, had given him no encouragement. Richards, however, was so enamoured of Agnes that when early in 1868 his schooner was again in port, he made up his mind to kill George Gonzales and so leave Agnes free to marry him. Flattering himself, apparently, that she would prefer him as a suitor he went so far as to give hint of his design to Agnes herself, but Agnes shrank in horror, from his dark suggestion, and secretly warned George Gonzales of his danger. Not long after, as George stepped outside his house one night just after dark, he saw a man hiding in the bushes. When he asked him his business the man pointed a gun at him and pulled the trigger. It missed fire and the man made off. There can be little doubt that this was Richards himself. Some time in 1869 Agnes was duly married to George Gonzales. They had two children. Joseph was born April 14, 1870, and Rosa, who afterwards became Mrs. Henry Webb, on June 23, 1872. Agnes seems to have had a presentiment that she would not live to see her twentieth birthday, and so it came to pass. For soon after Rosa's birth there was an epidemic of typhoid among the settlers; some sailor from one of the ships was the first to have it. Esther and Robert Savory, her brother and sister, both took it, and then their sister Jane. Agnes, though still far from strong, felt her mother could not undertake the nursing of three children at once, and herself saw Jane through her illness. Just, however, as Jane reached convalescence, Agnes herself sickened with the same fever. She was lovingly nursed in her turn by Jane, then only a girl of fourteen, but had not strength to battle with the disease and died on September 14, 1872, just five months short of her twentieth year. There is no evidence that she was ever baptized, but both from her father and mother she had learnt the fear of God, and was used to say her prayers. She was a clever woman--"one who could put her hand to anything"--and had much charm both of person and character.

The question we may now turn to consider is, how Nathaniel played the part of a father to his children. In the matter of education--so far as teaching them to read and write--it may be said at once that he faced a problem that fairly baffled him. He was no schoolmaster; their mother could do nothing; there was nobody else to whom he could turn, and he gave the problem up. The most he could do was to bring them up to work. But even this was no easy matter, for the rocks and thickly wooded hills, the sea and the beach, and the warmth of the climate were all favourable to the children growing up wild and free. Nathaniel, however, was a disciplinarian as the following anecdote will prove. It was taken down, as he told it, from the lips of his eldest son Horace Perry by Miss Black to whom reference has been made in the introduction:

"The Ole man mos' allus let us off if we spoke up and didn't try to hide what we done. I remember once when Jane was a youngster. We used to get our drinking-water in a demi-john, them bottles what have got like a basket outside o' 'm. Big heavy things, they was. Well, one day Jane, she goes to get water from the river and somehow lets the demi-john slip out of her hands so that, of course, it got all broke up. 'Never yer say noding,' ses she, ‘I shan't say who done it,' she ses, and she tooken it home, and put it in the middle of the table same as allers. Yer see being it had the basket outside, yer couldn't tell as the bottle inside were all broke. Then she goes to the sleeping room and puts on every dress she had, one over de oder, till she looked round as a ball--everything she had. Then she went to hide for she know'd the Ole man 'd spank her when he found out what she'd done.[1]

"By-'n-bye he com’d in; straight he goes to the demi-john to get some water. ‘Who done this?’ he ses. ‘I'll give you such a whipping,' he ses. ‘Come on!' Jane seed it wasn't no sort of good to hide so she com'd out with all those clothes on. She know'd she couldn't feel the stick much. By jingo, I wonder the ole man didn't laugh!

"’Did you done it ?' he ses. ‘If yer tell me a lie about it,' he ses, ‘yer'd better be keerful,' he ses, ‘but if yer owns up I won't say no more about it.'

"Jane got off that time, but my father, he ses ‘Don't yer never try to hide anything,' he ses. ‘Come and tell me at once and I forgie ye.' But I shan't never furget how Jane looked--she were that round !"

On the whole Savory's family has done him credit. We have had the story of Agnes. Of his three surviving sons, Horace has worked hard but has somehow generally "been down on his luck." Robert is a fine handler of tools, a good farmer, and has done well. Benjamin had the advantage of going for a time to a Mission school in Japan and acquiring a little learning. He is the father of a large family, has been fairly prosperous and was the first to build himself a well boarded house which he painted green. If we ask how far Savory was a religious man, the true account of him is probably this: He had been brought up in a home where the claims of religion had been definitely recognized. He would cherish recollections of the piety of his mother and of his sister Judith; and from his childhood he would have been imbued with the belief that it was the right thing for people to say their prayers and to keep Sunday. In his seafaring life we may take it for certain that he was not one who passed among his fellows for a "Christian "--a term which in a ship's company, or among soldiers, is generally convertible with that of a "converted man." We may be equally satisfied that he never threw in his lot with those who set religion at naught. Thus in his Bonin life we see in

him an instance of one who, having left it to others to actively concern themselves about religion, found himself by force of circumstances bound either to bring what religion he had in him to the front or to let it go altogether. It was to his honour that he did the former. There was not much that he did, but in what he did there was just the reality that made it of value. There was no cant about the man. He never allowed Sunday to be a working day, and he had prayers of a kind in his family.

But the admirable qualities of Nathaniel Savory best show themselves in his commercial dealings and in the friendly relations he cultivated with men of the right sort. Abundant testimony is paid to his uprightness. He was an honourable man to deal with, and did what he could to win for the islands a fair name. No doubt among the settlers there were those who were jealous of him and his influence, but none the less they could not fail to recognize that it was Savory who mainly brought to the islands their trade. The men whom Savory trusted, and who put trust in him, were the most worthy of trust, and the islands benefited by their coming. Webb was a different type of man altogether, and Savory never got on with him too well. Webb would fall a dupe to a bragging scoundrel like Benjamin Pease, but Savory never made a friendship or created an enmity that was not on the whole to his credit.

In taking our final leave of Savory, I cannot do better than quote here a testimonial from a Captain Shields, master of the schooner Lady Lee, who had come to Port Lloyd bringing to him an introduction from Mr. George Seward, U.S.A. Consul in Shanghai. How the Bonin settlers had been able to furnish him with another vessel, I again cannot say, but this is the testimonial:

"I have had the pleasure of Mr. Nathaniel Savory's acquaintance for two months and a half during the time my vessel the Lady Lee, now condemned here, has been in this port and I can truly say that only through his kindness and influence with the other inhabitants have I been enabled to leave these Islands by having presented to me and others the vessel we trust will a take us to China. He has always been ready to assist us with anything when at a loss; my wishes are that he may prosper and be happy, he is, I firmly believe, a strictly honest and upright man who will treat anyone in want of things the Islands can supply (with) strict honesty; For me it remains to thank him for much kindness shown.

"WILLIAM SHIELDS.

"Master of the late Lady Lee.

"Port Lloyd, Dec. 20th. 1863."

Only a few steps from the door of the house now occupied by Horace Savory is a

tombstone bearing this inscription:

"Sacred to the memory of Nathaniel Savory a native of Bradford in Essex County, Mass U.S.A. and one of the first settlers of this island who departed this life April 10th, 1874, aged 80 years."[2]