The new Early Mormon Missionaries database includes a short entry about Philip Pugsley's mission to the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii. (Note that his name is misspelled in the database. I have sent a correction.)
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| Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, Flickr, used as is. |
Here is what Edward Tullidge's biography of Philip Pugsley says about his mission:
In 1865 Pugsley was sent to the Sandwich Islands [Hawaii], by President Young, to investigate the propriety of starting a tannery there, to be worked by the native Mormons, but he found it not practicable or promising and so reported. He traveled over the Islands, visited Kalakaua [Kealakekua] Bay, saw the spot where Captain Cook was massacred and wrote his name on the stump of the cocoanut tree—covered with copper by a sailor—on which visitors write their names in honor of the great voyager who “sailed around the world three times” and then was massacred by the natives of the Sandwich Islands.
Here are the two sources provided by the database; they have not been digitized, but most likely contain the information currently found in the database.
Missionary Department missionary registers, 1860-1959, Vol. 1, p. 7, line 265; Vol. 2, p. 7, line 265.
