A MARSHALLESE COMPANY ON GUAM

Map showing the commercial activity of Capelle & Ingalls in the Marshalls

Adolf Capelle was a German gentleman who combined a businessman's ambition with a yearning for travel. Micronesia, mostly unknown to the Western world in the 1800s, proved an exotic and enticing destination. Off he went to the Marshall Islands to work for a German company doing business there. When that company folded up, Capelle started his own business, with various partners. One partner was the Portuguese Anton Jose de Brum and another was the American Charles H Ingalls.

At the top right of the picture above, you can see a German map of coconut plantations in the Marshalls run by Capelle and his partner Ingalls.

Adolf Capelle

The company didn't confine its activity to the Marshalls. It branched out to several places, and the company even tried to get something going in the Spanish Marianas.

In 1880, Ingalls was in Guam and won a contract from the Spanish government to build a warehouse, or almacén, at Punta Piti (in the vicinity of the current Cabras power plant).

Maybe that Piti project was just a way in since, not long after, Ingalls got Spanish permission to exploit Pagan and Agrigan's coconut tree resources to make money from copra.  Hired for the Pagan job in 1880 were the following men from Guam :

Ramón Gumataotao, José Fejarang, Ignacio de la Cruz, José Pereda, Francisco de la Cruz, Vicente Lizama, Ramon Wisle (Wesley), José Pangelinan, Mariano Pangelinan, José Aguon, Juan Roberto, José Tenorio, José de Salas, Pedro de los Reyes, José de los Santos, Vicente Mendiola (but he signed his name "Flores"), Ignacio de la Rosa, Antonio de San Nicolás, Enrique Carolino and Pedro de los Santos.

Enrique Carolino sounds like the name of a Carolinian named Enrique.

Gregorio Pérez, probably the founder of the Goyo clan, which would make him Gregorio Cruz Pérez, was to be the head of this crew. Félix Montufar Roberto was appointed alcalde, or mayor, of Pagan for the duration of the Capelle settlement. I am not sure if these men ever did get to Pagan. The license was only to last a year, anyway.

Not long after, another agent for Capelle, one SS Foster, with Alexander Milne, came to Guam to get government permission to exploit, once again for copra, the island of Agrigan. I am not sure if that project ever actually happened.

The Capelle Company's presence in the Marianas was very brief; more like poking their noses in the area to see what could happen. The answer was nothing much. Their success lay in the Marshalls and other areas close by.

Charles H. Ingalls' signature

on the 1880 Punta Piti contract