What does the patent for measuring sails have to do with the Governor of Hawaii? Read on…

Who was John Dominis? 

John Dominis was a ship captain who arrived in New England from Trieste in 1819. As the captain of a trading vessel out of Boston Harbor, he did a great amount of business in China, and also in the fur and salmon trades on the Pacific coast. Dominis moved with his wife and young son, John Owen, to Honolulu in 1837. In 1842, he received a patent on an instrument for measuring canvas for ship sails. He signed the application “John Dominis of the Sandwich Islands.”