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Dorence Atwater

Dorence Atwater (February 3, 1845 – November 26, 1910) was a Union Army soldier, merchant, entrepreneur, and United States Consul to Tahiti. He was born and raised in Terryville, Connecticut, the third child of Henry Atwater and Catherine Fenn Atwater. He was well-educated, and at 16 he joined the Union Army to fight in the American Civil War. In July 1863, Atwater was captured and found himself among the first batch of prisoners at Andersonville, Georgia. There, he kept a list of the dead and made a secret copy of his own, which allowed him, in cooperation with Clara Barton, to mark the graves of otherwise unknown soldiers. After persecution and prosecution by a small clique in the Federal Government, he was released from prison by President Andrew Johnson and sent to the Seychelles as a 23-year-old United States Consul. From there, he was sent to Tahiti to be consul there. He met and married Princess Moetia "Moe" Salmon, and was successful in shipping, pearl fisheries, and many other enterprises. He was a proficient businessman. He worked with lepers and other charities and was beloved by the Tahitian people, who called him "Tupuuataroa" (Wise Man).He died in San Francisco on November 28, 1910, and in 1912 his body was returned to Tahiti, where he was given the only Tahitian royal funeral ever to have been awarded a non-royal. He is buried beneath a magnificent 7000 lb. marker, next to his wife of 35 years. His headstone bears the inscription, “He builded better than he knew perchance he might awake one day in surprise to find he had wrought a monument more enduring than brass.”