Abel Douglass (1841–1908) was an American whaling captain.[1] [2]
Douglass born in 1841 in Maine as part of a seafaring maritime family.[3]
In the 1860s, Douglass partnered with James Dawson. The Dawson and Douglass Whaling Company worked off the coast of British Columbia.[1] The non-Native whaling industry in British Columbia began when Dawson and Douglass took eight whales from Saanich Inlet in 1868.[4]
Dawson and Douglass founded Whaletown in 1869 as a whaling station on Cortes Island.[4] The Whaletown operation was later moved to what is now called Whaling Station Bay on Hornby Island; the Dawson and Douglass Company merged with the Lipsett Whaling Company to form the British Columbia Whaling Company, but the company closed in 1871.[4]
Douglass had a common-law relationship with Maria Mahoi, who was of Hawaiian and First Nations descent; they lived with their seven children on Saltspring Island.[5] [6] Mahoi later married George Fisher and moved to Russell Island.[5]