17 hours Ago By Susan Morrison
Thomas Cleghorn was a seedsman, born on a farm in the Borders. By the time he was in his 20s, he had moved to Edinburgh and was working for the highly reputable gardening company of Dickson Brothers, Seedsmen and Florists. Gardening was becoming increasingly fashionable in Scotland, and Edinburgh was no slouch in the competition for the best herbaceous borders.
There was a market for good gardeners and reliable suppliers of seed in the city. In 1832, Thomas established himself in his own business, and announced his new seed shop on Princes Street, opposite the Register Office. Shoppers and gardeners could discover the “fine condition of his annual supply of bulbous flowers and roots, direct from the most eminent growers in Holland, consisting of an extensive collection of Hyacinths, Narcissus, and Anemones”.
A map of Edinburgh’s city centre in 1835 shows just how well Thomas was doing. Where we see East Princes Street Gardens today, shoppers and strollers in the very New Town would have seen Cleghorn's Nursery and Flower Gardens. Underhand dealings by railway investors Thomas had signed a 28-year lease on this land reclaimed from the drained Nor Loch.
A park was to be created for the keyholders of the new Gardens. Subscribers were thrilled by the design Mr Cleghorn presented. The steep slopes that had once led down to a ‘stagnant puddle’ were already planted with trees and shrubs.
Rustic walks were planned through glades of holly and Portuguese laurel. It wasn’t to last. Cleghorn's Nursery and Flower Gardens stood in the path of the new railways running into the city.
Thomas found his promised lease being reneged upon. Evidence suggests some fairly underhand dealings by the rail investors. By 1845, they’d lost the flower gardens and on the map of 1850 the name Cleghorn has disappeared, replaced by the words “Public Gardens”.
Thomas was already gone. The Caledonian Mercury of January 1842 noted that “Mr Thomas Cleghorn, formerly of the Princes Street Nursery Gardens, who last year emigrated to New Zealand, with all his family, has been appointed superintendent of the Government domain at Auckland, New Zealand”. Hawaii bound His family included his son, Archibald, born in Edinburgh in 1835.
He was baptised in St Cuthbert's Church. In 1851, Thomas and Archibald left New Zealand and sailed to Hawaii. Archibald wasn’t impressed.
In an interview in 1910, he described 1851 Honolulu as “bleak”, and “hoped we would not tarry long on our way to San Francisco, where we hoped to go to make a home. I have tarried..
. I do not regret It. I found my home here many years ago.
" Despite the bleakness, they set up a dry goods store, but in 1853, Thomas died suddenly, leaving his son orphaned and alone. Archibald was only 18. Within four years, Archibald Scott Cleghorn was running his own business and, by 1862, he was running full-column adverts in The Polynesian Commercial Advertiser for his fire-proof warehouse by the wharf, selling black silk and “best Scotch gingham”.
There aren’t many images of this young entrepreneur, but later photos show an imposing figure with a beard that has a personality of its own. He must have been quite the head turner, and was definitely a lad for the ladies. By the time he was in his 30s, he was the father to three daughters, Helen, Rose, and Annie.
Their mother was a Hawaiian lady named Elizabeth. The last king of Hawaii Archibald was climbing the mercantile and social ladders fast. He became a citizen of Hawaii in 1870, and during a convivial evening at a business men's club, he met David Kalākaua, a member of the Royal House of Kamehameha.
David sounds like a very clubbable man. He became the last king of Hawaii, and during his reign he worked hard to regenerate Hawaiian culture, including reviving the famous Hula dance. He played the ukulele and rebuilt the Iolani Palace, technically the only royal residence on American soil.
He also had a sister, Likelike, who sounds every bit as lively as her brother. On September 22, 1870, Archibald Scott Cleghorn, bachelor of St Cuthbert's parish, Edinburgh, married Princess Miriam Likelike Kekāuluohi Keahelapalapa Kapili. The groom was 35, the bride 19.
The marriage seems to have been happy. Likelike (pronounced Lee-kay Lee-kay) adopted the three girls from Archibald’s previous relationship, and the letters between the two are affectionate, apart from the occasional marital spat. High society The seedsman’s son from Scotland was now at the heart of Hawaiian high society.
Archibald rose to the House of Nobles and the Privy Council and became Governor of Oʻahu. He also found the time to indulge the passion he shared with his father, horticulture. Just like his father all those decades before in Edinburgh, he got to work right in the middle of the city.
Along Kalakaua Avenue in Honolulu, he planted ironwood trees, and was a driving force behind the move to convince the king to let them have a 30-year lease of land to build Kapiʻolani Park, the first public park in Hawaii. No one bilked Archibald out of that lease. He learned hard lessons from his father’s experience.
A tale of treachery and tragedy The grounds of the homes he shared with Likelike were magnificently planted with hibiscus, mango and banyan trees. Peacocks strutted about under the branches. Thomas Cleghorn would have been thrilled to see his son plant on such an epic scale.
It wasn’t the only new link Archibald created between his home and adoptive lands. On October 16, 1875. Princess Kaʻiulani Victoria Kawēkiu Kaʻiulani Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa Cleghorn was born.
Hawaii went wild. Cannons were fired, bells were rung and undoubtedly toasts were drunk. This little girl would go on to be the last Crown Princess of Hawaii, but never queen.
It’s an almost Scottish tale of treachery and tragedy. We’ll look at her story next..
