William Little Lee
| William Little Lee | |
|---|---|
Portrait of William Little Lee, Aliʻiōlani Hale
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| Born |
February 25, 1821 Sandy Hill, New York |
| Died | May 28, 1857 (aged 36) Honolulu, Hawaii |
| Nationality |
United States Kingdom of Hawaii |
| Occupation | Judge |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine Elizabeth Newton |
| Parent(s) | Stephen Lee Mary Little |
William Little Lee (February 25, 1821 – May 28, 1857) was an American lawyer who became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Kingdom of Hawaii.
William Little Lee was born February 25, 1821 in Sandy Hill, New York. His father was Colonel Stephen Lee (1773–1856) and mother was Mary Little (1795–1881). He graduated from Norwich University in 1842. He taught in a military school established by Alden Partridge in Portsmouth, Virginia, for one year, and then graduated from Harvard Law School. One of his teachers at Harvard was Joseph Story, who was sitting on the Supreme Court of the United States at the time. He practiced law in Troy, New York, but convinced his boyhood friend Charles Reed Bishop to travel with him to the Oregon Territory in February 1846 on the ship Henry.
The ship was damaged while passing around Cape Horn, and needed to stop at the Hawaiian Islands for provisions and repairs on October 12. Lee was only the second person in Hawaii with any western-style law training. John Ricord had arrived just two years earlier, and was acting as Attorney General. Ricord convinced Lee to stay, and Bishop was given the job of sorting out the defunct Ladd & Co. which was also the center of a long-lasting legal dispute. A related land dispute by Richard Charlton had caused a British military occupation a few years earlier called the Paulet Affair which was still being sorted out.
On December 1, 1846 he was appointed judge of the island of Oʻahu, and served on the Privy Council of King Kamehameha III for the rest of his life. Ricord left in 1847 and Lee had to finish drafting legislation to formalize the court system. Called the "third organic act" or "act to Organize the Judiciary Department" it was passed September 7, 1847 activated January 10, 1848. Starting in 1847 he became a member of a commission to quiet land titles that led to legislation known as the Great Mahele which formalized fee simple ownership of real estate. On January 16, 1848 he was named Chief Justice of the Superior Court. On March 11, 1849 he married Catherine Newton (c. 1819–1894), and became a boarder in Washington Place with John Owen Dominis and Dominis' mother. Lee had proposed by letter, and they were married aboard the Leland by Rev. Samuel C. Damon.
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