The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-08-20
THE All FONGS OF HONOLULU.
A Chinese Father and His Thirteen
Beautiful Daughters.
From the Philadelphia Times.


From the Philadelphia Times.
Still another of the famously pretty
All Fong sisters of Honolulu will be
led to the marriage altar by an Amer
lean. The Honolulu newspapers say
that the approaching wedding in the
great All Fong mansion in the suburbs
of Honolulu will be the most notable
event, in point of ceremony and style,
of any similar affairs that have taken
place there. Miss Sue All Fong will
be welded to Samuel S. Hocroft, who
had been considered one of the fore
most matrimonial catches in Oregon
for several years. He is a Harvard
University man, an heir to large min
ing wealth, and a traveller and polished
club man. After ten years of mingling
in society in Europe and much of
America, he has laid his heart at the
feet of a lovely daughter of the tropi
cal islands in the South Seas and he
snaps his fingers at all talk about the
Chinese father of his prospective bride.
No home in all the broad Pacific has
been so well known by Americans and
British naval officers and globe-trotting
tourists for longer than a dozen years
as the All Fong mansion in Honolulu.
Naval officers say that very few homes
have been so Hospitality open to them
in their cruises as has been that of
All Fong-the millionaire Chinese in
the Hawaiian Islands.
Ask any naval officer who has been
aboard a ship that lay at anchor in
the harbor of Honolulu whether he re-
members the All Fong home and note
the fitting of pleasant memories
through his brain. If he is laxative
he may tell you of the liberal and
charming hospitality dispensed in the
All Fong mansion among the wonder
full grounds filled with trees and shrubs
from all tropical lands and of the thir-
teen All Fong girls ranging from tod
ding tot to winsome young woman
hood. He may tell you also of the
Oriental dinners served in the All Fong
home, where covers were laid for fifty
and more guests; of the lovely balls
in the bamboo room; of the many piaz-
zas where ladies' and gentlemen were
welcomed day and evening, and enter
tained with music and mirth that
seemed to have no end. If he has a
bit of sentiment beneath his blue uni
form he may tell you of the languorous
ballads he heard sung at the All Fong
home, of the blackeyed, jolly All Fong
girls and their skill in dancing.
Among foreign people there have
been few more ardent admirers of
Americans than the big All Fong fam
lily. Long before Hawaii became an
American possession the All Fongs
longed for the union. When the Amer
lean soldiers were on their way to the
Philippines and stopped at Hawaii the
All Fong girls, were always among the
first in Honolulu to entertain the boys
in blue with feasts and public enter
tainment- Six of the sisters have mar
ried American husbands, and each has
had happy welded life. Miss Janet
All Fong is now engaged to marry
lieutenant in the United States Army
in the Philippines when his term of
service will have expired next year.
Four of the All Fong sisters have been
educated at seminaries in San Francis
co and Oakland, and Miss Martha All
Fong (now wife of Lieut.. Dougherty,
in = Manila) took high rank at Mills
Seminary as pianist and composer.
The All Fong children comprise thlr-
teen girls and one boy. The eldest,
(Mrs. Morgan of New Orleans) is about
IS and the youngest miss Anna) is
just II. Mrs. An Fong is a handsome
woman with olive complexion. large
black eyes and unusually pleasing
manners and is of Portuguese birth.
All of the daughters have her disposi-
ton and love of music, and some OF
them have the Chinese nose and high
cheek bones of Papa All Fong The
mothers manners and the fathers
commercial sense are observable in
every one of the All Fong progeny.
Miss Nellie All Fong is now in Paris
studying art. She is a strikingly hand
some brunette. notwithstanding she in
herits her fathers slanting eyes more
than any of her sisters. Mrs. Arthur
tombstone, who was Miss Helena All
Fong until four years ago, is a demi-
blonde, and the combination of her blue
eyes and dark eyelashes and hair and
her pink-and- white complexion makes
her the most generally accepted beauty
of the family. Several of the sisters
have their fathers tall stature, but the
rest are of petite figures. Three have
pronounced suggestion of Chinese al
mond-shaped eyes, and nearly every
one of them has the mothers complex
ion and soft mode of speech. No less
authority than Sir Edwin Arnold said
that the few days he spent at the All
Fong home a few years ago were the
most tropically charming" he ever
knew in the South seas.
Along about 1858 a young Chinaman
named Wing All Fong came with a
shipload of Chinese to Honolulu. He
was highly intelligent and genial, and
with a little capital soon built up
prosperous business in Chinese crock
cry, silks and bric-a -brac. He was soon
te leading merchant in Honolulu. He
spent money freely and was well liked
by whites and blacks in the quaint old
town. AS he grew in wealth he made
love to the daughter, Conception, of a
poor Portuguese sailor who had fioated
into Hawaii. The Chinaman's money
and his superiority TO his fellow coolies
made him an accepted sutton. SO All
Fong was married in 1862. His wife
was fine looking and energetic for that
land of languor and siesta. All Fong
invested in sugar cane plantations, and
in the old times. when sugar planta-
lions paid almost incredibly large prof
its, he grew very rich. In ten years
All Fong was worth over 100000, and
was adding $35, 900 TO 1t annually. He
was careful and prudent. while his
business associates drowsed and took
no heed of the morrow He was cease
lessly watching chances to buy planta-
tion land cheap from the improvident
Hawaiians. BY 1870 the All Fong sugar
plantation on the Island of Hilo had
become one of the most productive
there. While such men as Claus Spree
kels made 100000 and $500. 900 annually
from sugar exports, An Fong made