On 3/21/96 Megan Springate asked about Macassar Oil bottles:
 
        We recovered two such bottles from an isolated sweet potato
farmstead on the Kalaupapa peninsula, Molokai, Hawaii, as part of a data
recovery project in 1991.  The farmstead was in operation from ca.1845 to
ca. 1866.  The one complete bottle was labeled THE ORIGINAL AND GENUINE
ROWLAND MACASSAR OIL NO 20 HATTON GARDEN LONDON.  It is 90 cm tall and 30 cm
wide.  We believe it did contain a hair dressing made in London from a
botannical oil found and shipped from Indonesia.  If you would a copy of the
drawing from our report and complete reference, let me know - email address
is below.
 
        Subsequently in 1992 on Marin Tower site in downtown Honolulu, we
recovered fragments from another Rowland Macassar oil bottle from a large
disturbed midden feature which we dated to ca.1850-ca.1900.  Then again in
1994, we found fragments from a 4th Rowland macassar oil bottle from a
post-1850 feature on the Kekaulike site, also in downtown Honolulu - a block
from the Marin site.
 
        These two urban features\sites are associated with the period of
large Chinese immigration and settlement in Honolulu in the second half of
the 19th century.  Both are in the Chinatown section of the city - then and
now.  The Kalaupapa site, on the other hand, was a somewhat earlier Hawaiian
farmstead.  In all cases, though, Honolulu was the port of entry and served
as the trans-shipment trading center between Asia and the western U.S.
Ships from England, France, the Netherlands, and Germany also used Honolulu
as a port - sailing from Europe, stopping at cities along the east coast of
North and South America, through the Straits of Magellan, north to
Valpariso, northwesterly to Honolulu, then to San Francisco and British
Columbia.
 
Mac Goodwin
NOTE NEW GOOD ADDRESS
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