Dear Reader,
Beginning in May 2025, many of you joined me on a weekly journey through the early, flinty life of William Fitzroy Raglan Battles in Book #1 of my trilogy. The response to Billy’s episodic memoirs was incredibly rewarding, and I’ve frequently been asked what happens next to the man with the pale slate eyes.
However, today, I am thrilled to invite you to the next episodes in Billy’s turbulent life.
Starting today, and continuing every Saturday for the next five weeks, I will be publishing the first five chapters of Book #2, The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles, gratis right here.
Where Truth Meets Imagination
If you enjoyed the “faction” elements of the first book, Book #2 takes the story to an even larger global stage. We leave the violence of late 19th-century Kansas behind as Billy is thrust into the sweeping historical currents of turn-of-the-century Asia and Latin America—worlds that were largely dangerous and unknown to most Americans of the era.
As a former foreign correspondent, weaving meticulous historical reality with narrative fiction is my passion.
How it Works:
- When: Every Saturday morning, a new chapter will land directly in your inbox.
- The Cost: Completely free for all subscribers and followers.
- The Hook: You’ll get a front-row seat to the perilous, accidental adventures that defined Billy’s middle years.
If you are new here and want to skip the weekly wait to read Billy’s entire 100-year-long journey, you can find the complete, award-winning trilogy on my Amazon Author Page.
Otherwise, pour a cup of coffee this Saturday, open your inbox, and prepare to step aboard a ship bound for the unknown with Captain Battles.
As Billy himself might say, we’ve got a long way to travel, and the road isn’t getting any smoother.
Warm regards,
Ronald E. Yates
Journalist, Author, & Creator of Foreign Correspondent
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Welcome to the Launch of Book #2!
Today, we officially step aboard the SS China, a steamship bound for the unknown with William Fitzroy Raglan Battles. Because Book #2 takes Billy from the plains of Kansas into the sweeping, turbulent currents of turn-of-the-century Asia and Latin America, I have included some brief, essential context below to bring new readers fully up to speed.
Below, you’ll find a brief Author’s Note, a Foreword by Ted Sayles, and an Introduction by Billy himself, followed immediately by the first full chapter of The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles.
Pour a fresh cup of coffee, settle in, and let’s step back to 1894.
The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles (Book 2) © 2016 by R. E. Yates. All rights reserved.
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Author’s Note:
This sequel opens in 1894 with William Battles aboard the SS China, bound for the Orient. Like Book 1, this installment is a work of “faction”—weaving meticulous historical truth with narrative fiction. While the story is told in Billy’s own voice, it is his great-grandson, Ted Sayles, who inherits the journals and sets the stage. If you haven’t read Book 1, I highly encourage you to pick up the sequential saga on my Amazon Author Page.
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Foreword: Ted Sayles
At the end of Book 1, my great-grandfather, William Fitzroy Raglan Battles, was aboard the SS China, bound for what, in 1894, was called the Mysterious East. His life had taken a tragic turn, and he sought to escape it by putting as much distance as possible between himself and his past—even if that meant leaving loved ones behind.
As I pored through the tapes, journals, and letters Great-Grandfather Battles left for me, I witnessed a boy mature into early manhood and middle age. I felt professional kinship with him—we were both journalists, though he was much more of an active participant in history than I had ever been. As Billy grew older, he became more complex, and his writing reflected it. The torment and regret he felt were palpable on the page. He had survived attempts on his life, taken lives, lost his beloved wife to a fatal illness, and essentially abandoned his five-year-old daughter in an imprudent pursuit of solace.
I have broken his one-hundred-year life into three parts. Book 1 dealt with his early existence in the lawless American West. Book 2 finds Billy in the Far East, Latin America, and Europe. Book 3 finds Billy in Mexico during its bloody revolution, among other places.
What follows is Billy’s improbable story in his own words.
— Ted Sayles, Kansas City, Missouri
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Introduction
William F. R. Battles
Kansas City, Missouri, 1949
I spent most of my life as a newspaper scribbler, what they call a journalist today. So, I appreciate how important it is to seize your readers early on so they will keep reading. However, there are a few things I need to explain before I get to the next very tumultuous time in my life.
As I am writing this, it is early 1949, and even though I consider myself blessed to have so far avoided my second childhood, the filaments of my ripe old brain sometimes get about as limp as worn-out fiddle strings when I exercise them too much. Nevertheless, I have recorded to the best of my memory and ability the incidents that transpired as I made my way to French Indochina aboard the SS China in 1894.
Readers may conclude that my reasons for leaving the United States for the Orient were self-centered and vague. If you read the initial installment of my tale, then you know the first thirty-three years of my life were fraught with tragedy of one kind or another—some of it of my own making, but much of it the result of what others did. As I said in that first book, I need to acknowledge the corn about some pretty terrible things I did during my life.
I have killed people. And people have tried to kill me. I never wanted such a life, but it was thrust on me, and I had to make the best of it. Even though most of those violent altercations occurred early in my life, their repercussions were relentless and unwelcome companions as I grew older. They still are, even now at my advanced age. I wanted to let you know all of that so you can decide right now whether you want to read further.
I had my share of tragedy and misfortune, too. If you read the first part of my story, then you know I lost my wife to a cruel disease after only eight years of marriage. You will also recall that my response to that tragedy was to fog it out of the country. In doing so, I left everybody I loved behind. Those included my five-year-old daughter, Anna Marie; my mother, Hannelore Battles; my in-laws, Mr. and Mrs. Cornelius McNab; my cousin, Charlie Higgins; and many other people whom I considered good friends.
Some folks may think my flight to the Orient a craven act—one that any man worth his salt would never contemplate, let alone carry out. I cannot disagree with that condemnation. I felt that way often as the SS China made its way to the Far East. Even later on, after I had settled in places like Manila and Saigon, I would reproach myself for what I had done.
Had I been indicted and put on trial for my actions, and were I the judge and jury, I certainly would have found myself guilty of appalling judgment, capriciousness, and even child abandonment. As it was, there was no trial and no conviction, but I was a guilty prisoner of my impropriety nevertheless. Never a day went by that I didn’t regret leaving my little daughter behind in Denver for others to rear. As my mother pointed out to me more than once when she attempted to dissuade me from my journey to the Orient, I was raised without a father. Now my daughter was about to suffer the same fate. It was a brutally compelling argument, but I was not to be deterred.
And so here I was aboard the SS China En route from San Francisco to our first port of call—Honolulu, the Republic of Hawaii. Back then, Hawaii was an independent republic, not the annexed territory it is today.[1] As I would learn, in 1894, many native Hawaiians considered Americans unwelcome interlopers. They were seen as greedy exploiters who were interested only in manipulating and profiting from the sugar and pineapple industries.
The first day aboard the SS China had been eventful, to say the least. I had been questioned by a surly Pinkerton detective who was trying to determine if Nate Bledsoe—the man I had killed five years earlier in a gunfight at Battles Gap—was dead or alive. Of course, I knew exactly where Nate Bledsoe was, but I was “economical with the truth,” as my cousin Charley Higgins used to say.
My ongoing trouble with the Bledsoe clan could have been another reason for my voyage to the Orient had I wished to rationalize it that way. But of course, I was not running away from the Bledsoe clan or the ghosts of the two Bledsoes I had eradicated or even the Pinkerton Detective Agency. I was running away from myself, though at the time I didn’t know it.
Of course, those thoughts were furthest from my mind that first evening aboard the SS China. I had, after all, been invited to have dinner at the captain’s table in the first-class dining saloon with a few other passengers, among them the mysterious and stunning widow Schreiber.
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Chapter 1
The widow Schreiber was ravishing, intimidating, and undeniably regal in both dress and manner. She was, in short, a woman that a wretched Kansas scribbler such as I had nothing in common with. At least that is what I thought as I settled into the chair next to her for dinner at the captain’s table aboard the SS China that first night at sea.
How wrong first impressions can be.
“Mr. Battles,” said Captain Kreitz, speaking with a conspicuous German accent, “I am happy you can join us. Allow me to present Frau Katharina von Schreiber, who is traveling with us to Manila.”
I quickly stood up from my chair as the widow Schreiber extended her hand.
“Ich freue mich, Sie kennenzulernen“, I said in my most courteous German, taking her hand in mine.
Captain Kreitz looked at me with obvious surprise. “Aber Herr Battles, ich wusste nicht, dass Sie Deutsch sprechen!”
“I only speak a little German, I’m afraid,” I responded, looking first at the widow Schreiber and then at Captain Kreitz. “My mother grew up speaking German, and she passed a few phrases on to me. I also studied the language at the university.”
“Wie schön,” the widow Schreiber sniffed, flashing me a fleeting, perceptibly contrived smile. Her demeanor was noticeably patronizing. I looked away and sat back down. It was then that I noticed the other people seated at Captain Kreitz’s large round table. In addition to the captain, the widow Schreiber, and me, there were Deputy Captain Partington and another couple—a man and woman in their fifties whom Captain Kreitz introduced as Stanley and Agnes Gladwell. Mr. and Mrs. Gladwell were on their way to Yokohama, Japan, where he was to manage an American trading company.
After Captain Kreitz made his introductions, I inspected the first-class dining saloon, which was situated amidships and occupied the SS China’s entire width. It was about the size of a mid-quality hotel’s main dining room, with enough tables to accommodate perhaps 150 people. Six miniature chandeliers adorned the room’s twenty-foot-high ceiling. Mahogany walls were decorated with ornate carvings, bas-reliefs, and gilt-framed mirrors. Large glowing stained-glass windows on both sidewalls created a multicolored kaleidoscopic effect in the room.
Stanley Gladwell noticed me taking in the dining saloon. “Outsized magnificence, wouldn’t you say, Mr. Battles?”
I nodded. “Quite a spread.”
“My, but we have quite the international table, don’t we?” Agnes Gladwell said, her voice a reedy trill. Mrs. Gladwell’s face was rubescent with close-set, heavy-lidded brown eyes. She was a short, stumpy woman with mouse-colored hair combed into a chignon. She looked like the archetypal aunt.
Stanley Gladwell nodded. He was, like his wife, short, but unlike her, he was spare and bony. His gaunt face was framed by bushy muttonchops and a full head of auburn hair that made his head look too big for his body.
“Indeed, we do, Mrs. Gladwell,” Partington said. “Two Germans, two Americans, an Englishman, and a Kansan.” Partington, who was from Yorkshire, meant his comment as a friendly jibe at me, but he and I were the only ones who seemed to understand his intent.
“Why, Mr. Partington, I must correct you. Kansas is part of the United States,” Mrs. Gladwell said resolutely.
“Yes, I know,” Partington said, smiling. “I’m afraid I failed in my little jest with Mr. Battles.”
“Well, there are some folks who believe we sand cutters and Jayhawkers—that’s what they call us pitiable Kansans—are poor relations when it comes to American citizenship,” I said, attempting to rescue Partington.
Before he could respond, the widow Schreiber spoke up. “And I am not German!” she snapped, her words crisp and frosty. “I was simply married to one.”
Mr. Partington, now sufficiently chagrined, smiled weakly. “Perhaps I should keep my oral cavity closed. I seem to be making a right bog of things.”
Captain Kreitz cleared his throat. “At sea, nationality matters not. We are all citizens of the SS China now.”
Mr. Partington quickly concurred. “There is a saying that aboard ship we are all met on an equal footing. For these few days and weeks, we shall all be weighed, not by what we own or claim to be, but by what we really are.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Stanley Gladwell said, raising his wine glass and taking a sip. “No need for such conventions on the high seas.”
But Kreitz was not finished. “Nevertheless, I would be remiss if I didn’t reveal that Baroness von Schreiber is the widow of the late Baron Heinrich Rupert von Schreiber of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. The baron was a well-known officer in the army of the Königreich Preußen and a very successful businessman.”
“Oh my,” Mrs. Gladwell blurted, “how should we common persons address you then, dear?”
It was an apparent attempt at levity that was lost on the widow Schreiber, and she regarded Agnes Gladwell the way she might a loaf of bread or a wheel of Emmenthaler cheese.
For a few moments, a deafening silence embraced our table. Then Katharina von Schreiber spoke, and when she did, it was as if another woman had suddenly occupied her body.
“My dear Mrs. Gladwell, I certainly don’t consider myself anything more than a widow—and certainly not a baroness, even though that title was bestowed upon me by marriage. I was born and reared in Chicago. I am as American as you are. So, you are welcome to keep your patrician titles to yourself.”
“Aber Baroness von Schreiber, Ihre Vorfahren waren Deutsche,” Captain Kreitz insisted.
“Yes, Captain Kreitz, you are correct. My roots are deeply German,” the widow Schreiber conceded. “My parents are German, my maiden name was Messner, and the German language is almost my mother tongue. But I am red, white, and blue through and through.”
“Well, doesn’t that beat the Dutch!” Mrs. Gladwell exclaimed. It was clear Agnes Gladwell was a woman who liked to chatter and was either impervious or insensible to the overt slight just directed at her by Frau Schreiber. “Stanley and I are from Chicago, too! What part are you from, dear?”
“The north shore, near Lincoln Park,” Katharina said flatly.
After she had answered, I regarded Katharina Schreiber carefully and, for the first time, was able to scrutinize her from head to toe. She looked to be about thirty. Her face was delicately sculpted and radiant with luminous emerald eyes set wide apart above a delicate aquiline nose and a full, sensual mouth. She wore a royal-blue velvet-and-silk evening gown with a low neckline, short, frilled sleeves, a collar of pearls, and white suede gloves. Her straw-colored hair was worn in an upswept bouffant, à la the Concierge style of the time, pulled to the top of her head and pinned into a knot. She was, I thought, the most physically beautiful woman I had ever seen, my late Mallie notwithstanding.
I found it difficult to take my eyes off her. I was finally able to, as the conversation about Chicago continued. I recalled that Mallie and I had taken a walk through Chicago’s Lincoln Park and visited the zoo there during our trip to visit the Columbian Exposition barely a year before. Immaculate three-story brick row houses and impressive mansions filled the neighborhoods near the park. Apparently, Katharina Schreiber came from a family of means long before she married the Baron Von Schreiber.
“We’re from Hyde Park . . . on the South Side,” Mrs. Gladwell said. “It’s in a bit of disarray now that all of those Columbian Exhibition buildings are being razed. Stanley and I are happy to be leaving the area. We are going to Japan… Oh, I think Captain Kreitz already said that.”
Katharina nodded. I could tell she was not eager to engage in more small talk, but Agnes Gladwell was far from finished.
“How long have you been… uh, without your husband, dear?” she asked. Then, not waiting for the widow Schreiber to answer, she appended another question that sounded more like an indictment. “Are you traveling on your own responsibility . . . I mean to say, unaided . . . alone?”
It was a query that Mrs. Gladwell already knew the answer to, but one that she felt compelled to ask. Not many women in the nineteenth century took month-long voyages to the Orient by themselves.
Katharina Schreiber gave Agnes Gladwell an exasperated look and replied snappishly, “I don’t see why women who are single and independent should deny themselves the delights of foreign travel just because, voluntarily or involuntarily, they are without husbands or convenient male relatives to escort them. This is 1894 after all, not 1794.”
Agnes Gladwell drew back in her chair as if trying to make herself smaller. “My dear, I meant no offense . . . I was only—”
“None taken, Mrs. Gladwell, I can assure you,” Katharina Schreiber interrupted. “But I am always amazed that women on their own are somehow always required by meddling women who are not on their own to validate their decisions and preferences in life.” Her voice was dispassionate and cold, but the words were like hot embers smacking Agnes Gladwell’s face, which promptly reddened with either mortification or ire.
Conversation at the table froze. Captain Kreitz and Mr. Partington cleared their throats nervously. Stanley Gladwell clinched his fists and fixed the Baroness Von Schreiber with a withering, disapproving stare—his way, I surmised, of coming to the aid of his wife.
I smiled inwardly. Katharina reminded me of Mallie when she used to get her back up.
“You sound like my late wife,” I said quietly, looking at Katharina. “She did what she wanted, when she wanted, and the devil take anyone who objected.”
“She sounds like a woman I would have enjoyed knowing,” Katharina replied. “When did she pass?”
I cleared my throat, which was now knotted with anguish. I still could not talk about Mallie without the pain of her loss causing my eyes to water and my stomach to harden.
Katharina noticed my grief. “Forgive me, Mr. Battles . . . I don’t mean to pry—”
“Harrumph, unlike me, I suppose,” quipped Mrs. Gladwell, her tone steely and resentful. Stanley Gladwell leaned over to his wife and whispered something sternly in her ear. Whatever he said did not placate Mrs. Gladwell, who was still glowering at Katharina.
I took a sip of the claret a waiter had been pouring into our glasses.
“That’s all right,” I said. “It’s been only about five months . . .” my voice trailed off.
“It’s been just over six months since my husband passed away,” Katharina said.
Then, glaring at the Gladwells, she added in a cloying voice, “And for those who may be wondering what I, a helpless widow, am doing on a ship headed for the Philippines, I am going to live with my brother, who is in the business of exporting mahogany, teak, and rosewood lumber from there.”
The table was silent for several moments as everybody digested the information Katharina Schreiber and I had shared. It was as if someone had thrown a shroud over the table. Mrs. Gladwell, who was the apparent target of the widow Schreiber’s vehemence, excused herself and walked swiftly into the ladies’ powder room. As she left, a string quintet at the other end of the room began playing.
“Ah, Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca… one of my favorites,” Deputy Captain Partington said, breaking the gloom. The music filled the dining room and provided a welcome respite from our tedious table conversation and the dented dispositions of Captain Kreitz’s guests.
When Mrs. Gladwell returned ten minutes later, she did so with renewed vitality and vitriol.
“My, but it was nice to get some fresh air,” she said, focusing on Katharina Schreiber. “It was getting rather stale and oppressive in here, Captain.”
Captain Kreitz ran his hand through his finely trimmed beard and scratched his cheek. “Make a note of that, Mr. Partington,” he said flatly, looking at the deputy captain with half-lidded eyes. “We need to open a few windows during dinner.”
The rest of the meal was spent in small talk, when there was a conversation at all. I recall saying a few words to Katharina, and she responded politely. Mostly, however, I spoke with Partington and Captain Kreitz about the SS China and the kind of vessel she was. Both men enjoyed those exchanges more than the type of chatter that had, as Mr. Potts, my steward on the China, once told me, “put people’s knickers in a twist.”
I was especially amazed at the complexities of getting a nineteenth-century ocean-going steamship underway. In our case, Partington explained, because the SS China was due to sail on the eighth of the month, stokers, firemen, and engineers began firing up the boilers two days before, on the sixth.
“Why, I had no idea,” Mrs. Gladwell said.
Partington looked around the table. “I don’t want to bore everyone to death with this, but if you are interested, I will be happy to explain the process.”
“Please do, Mr. Partington,” Katharina said. She seemed genuinely interested, which surprised me.
“Well,” Partington began, “first, the boilers are filled with water, and then the furnaces are lit. To do that, you must shovel in coal that is brought from the coal bunkers by wheelbarrows. Once the fires are burning, you must feed them more and more coal. The fires must glow entirely white hot.”
Partington paused. He didn’t seem sure if his audience was still paying attention or wanted to hear more.
“Please continue, Mr. Partington,” Katharina said languidly. “My father was an engineer, and I grew up hearing all about steam engines. They are one of my favorite topics.”
“Well, if you insist,” Partington said. He cleared his throat and continued, “As the heat builds up, the water in the boilers begins to boil. This can take several hours, and don’t forget that lighting the fires already took many hours. Once the water is boiling, it makes steam.
“Constant heat is needed to keep the steam from cooling off and condensing again, so fires have to be kept lit and stoked up at all times. Once the steam is produced, you have to wait for the steam pressure to build up. This can take a full day. Steam power runs everything on the SS China—lights, generators, etc., so if you don’t get the boilers fired up… the ship doesn’t move, and nothing works.”
Captain Kreitz jumped in before Mr. Partington could go into further detail regarding the SS China’s mechanical marvels.
“Uh, thank you, Mr. Partington. Indeed, an excellent clarification. But it looks like the first course is about to be served, and I am sure we have all worked up an appetite after so much conversation.”
Dinner ended about twenty minutes later. I excused myself before dessert was served and took a walk on the promenade deck. The night air was warm, and the sea looked like an opened bolt of black silk. After several turns around the deck, I settled into the chair Mr. Potts, my East End London cabin steward, had acquired for me and placed before my stateroom.
As I sat there looking out at the black expanse of the ocean, a thin shaft of moonlight danced on the flat, tranquil water, and I found myself thinking about Denver and Mallie and Anna Marie and my mother. The guilt I felt at leaving Denver, and everybody I loved behind, while I flitted off to the Orient, was still as strong as ever. It took all the mental energy I could muster to keep it submerged in my subconsciousness. Alcohol helped, and I yearned for a cigar—even though I didn’t use tobacco as a rule. Maybe it was the sea air, or maybe it was just a sudden craving to liberate myself from the predictable conventions of my life.
The constant drone and vibration of China’s steam-driven engines, along with the sound of the ship slicing through the water, was hypnotic. I took a blanket that Potts had left under the chair, covered my legs and upper body with it, and in a few minutes, I nodded off. I don’t know how long I dozed before I heard voices and felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Sorry ter disturb yew, guvnor, but are ya all right?” It was Potts, and just behind him were Partington and Katharina Schreiber.
I blinked at Potts and rubbed my eyes. “I guess I dozed off for a minute . . .”
“Not a good idea,” Partington said. “You never know when a big wave might hit the ship at night and sweep you off the deck.”
The widow Schreiber chuckled. “Good heavens, can you imagine . . . what did you call yourself, Mr. Battles? A sand cutter? Can you imagine a Kansas sand cutter adrift in the Pacific in the middle of the night?”
Partington took the cue. “Not a pretty sight, Mrs. Schreiber . . . not a pretty sight at all.”
I stood up from my deck chair a bit unsteadily. As placid as the ocean was, I was still trying to acquire my sea legs and found myself wobbling a bit. The four glasses of claret I had consumed at dinner didn’t help with my balance either.
“’ Don’t ya worry none abaaht Mr. Battles garn overboard,” Potts said. “E’s as moored as Buckingham Palace, in’cha sir?”
“I wouldn’t take any bets on it, Mr. Potts,” I replied.
Katharina chortled and said sarcastically, “Well, at least we can all sleep well tonight knowing that Mr. Battles is tucked up nicely in his cradle. Gute Nacht, Herr Battles!”
I acknowledged her words with an ambiguous nod, Partington gave me a hasty salute, and then he and the widow moved on down the promenade. During the dinner, Partington had offered to see Frau Schreiber to her cabin.
“Need any ’elp, sir?” Potts asked as I opened the door to my cabin.
I shook my head and walked into my cabin.
“Right then, good night, guvnor.”
I slept that first night fitfully at sea, often climbing from my bed to pace the fifteen-by-fifteen-foot cabin. Once, I sat down to compose a letter but fell asleep at the small writing desk near the door. At 6:00 a.m., I was awake and dressed and took another turn along the promenade deck. I noticed that below the promenade and boat deck, there was another much longer deck. That was the lengthier second-class passenger deck where I could take a longer walk, and I decided to move down there. As I approached the stairwell, a deck steward stopped me.
“Sorry, sir, but you are not allowed below,” he said.
“What?” I couldn’t believe my ears.
“Company regulations prohibit passengers from passing from one class to another,” he continued. Then he pointed to a sign attached to the ship’s bulkhead. Written in large black letters were the words:
Passengers are kindly requested to keep within
the confines of the class in which booked
To ensure the rule was followed, spiked steel gates were installed at the tops and bottoms of all stairwells leading from one deck to another.
I had no idea that ships enforced such a rigid and archaic class system, and when I met Mr. Potts on the promenade deck, I told him so.
“It’s no only ter keep fird- and second-class passengers from usin’ the first class deck and uvver facilities. We want ter discourage slummin’,” he said.
“Slumming?”
“Yes, the second- and fird-class passengers are annoyed when superior-class passengers come ter the lower decks ter survey their conditions in comparison ter ffeir own.”
That was my first lesson in steamship class etiquette, and it would not be my last.
NEXT SATURDAY: CHAPTER 2
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The Improbable Journeys of Billy Battles (Book 2) All Rights Reserved. © 2016 by R. E. Yates. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any manner or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission from the author, who holds the sole right to all characters and concepts herein.
This is an original work of fiction. However, some names, characters, places, and incidents described in this book are based on fact. Others were invented by the author, and any resemblance to persons living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental.
[1] In January 1893, Queen Liliʻuokalani was overthrown and replaced by a Provisional Government composed of members of the Committee of Safety. The Provisional Government of Hawaii ended on July 4, 1894, and was replaced by the Republic of Hawaii. It was annexed by the U.S. in 1898 as an official territory and made a state in 1959.
