Simon Metcalfe (original) (raw)

Simon Metcalfe (also spelled Metcalf) (c. 1741 – 1794) was a British-born American surveyor and one of the first American maritime fur traders to visit the Pacific Northwest coast. As early visitors to the Hawaiian Islands in 1789, Metcalfe and his son Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe unwittingly provided Western military weapons and advisors for Kamehameha I, when two of their men and a ship and its armaments were captured. These helped the chief win strategic battles and unify the Hawaiian Islands. The son Thomas and most of his crew were killed about 1789-1790 in an attack by Hawaiian warriors, which the father never learned about.