The Capelle Company begins operating on Kosrae; Snow suffers a stroke and returns to Maine.

What happened

When the German firm Capelle & Co. began trading on Kosrae, a Hernsheim company trader falsely told the king that Capelle had failed, and Kosraeans angrily refused to trade with him. Rev. Benjamin Snow, who had founded the mission in 1852, suffered a stroke and went home to Maine, where he died in 1880.

Why it matters

The rivalry between Capelle and Hernsheim led to the 1880 “Hernsheim scandal,” when Kosrae’s chiefs were forced to pay a huge copra indemnity.