This is the story of a letter written by King Kalakaua on Oct. 14, 1877, that has turned up in Honolulu after a century and a quarter. The letter is addressed to Capt. Ezra Crane, skipper of an interisland schooner, instructing him to bring the queen from Moloka'i to Honolulu.

Here's a royal husband making travel arrangements for his wife at a time when it took a week to make connections between islands, and when steamer schedules changed with the weather. Apparently, the queen was on Moloka'i and had planned to pick up the steamer Likelike at Kaunakakai.

"Owing to the steamer Likelike making the circuit of Hawai'i, I will not be back here until Saturday," the king wrote in his fine copperplate hand. "I would like you to bring the Queen back from Moloka'i on Saturday and be here Sunday morning. .... She need not go to Kaunakakai then by this change of program."

Kalakaua's selection of the schooner in which his wife would sail, the Nettie Merrill, was one of the sharpest vessels to enter Honolulu Harbor. The boat boys at Lahaina wrote a poem about the Nettie Merrill: To the dear Nettie Merrill, aloha we give, The bird that glides over the waves. Breasting the billows that foam in their rage She laughs as she bends in the breeze.

In the 1860s, the Nettie Merrill and the Emma Rooke, named after Queen Emma, were the fastest ships in the Hawaiian fleet. They raced three times and nobody could decide which one was the fastest. They were always in a virtual tie. Both had top-of-the-line accommodations for passengers — that is, a curtain in the unisex cabin to preserve the privacy of the ladies.

Something else that makes the letter historic is the captain, Ezra Dean Crane, who founded a noted Island family. A descendant, Charlie Crane, became mayor of Honolulu. The next generation, another Ezra Crane, published the Maui News. A great-grandson, the Rev. Charles Crane, pastor of Holy Nativity Church in 'Aina Haina for 22 years, brought the letter to Honolulu. He now lives in Arizona.

"My great-grandfather was born in New England in 1823, one of 13 children," said the Rev. Crane. "He ran away to sea and landed in Hawai'i at about age 20 in a whaling ship. His wife came around Cape Horn as a schoolteacher and vowed she would never go to sea again."

Crane said the letter fell out of an envelope when the family was sorting things to give to Goodwill. He is donating the letter to the Hawai'i Maritime Center's exhibit of the Nettie Merrill. The letter will be on display with Capt. Crane's telescope, two pairs of binoculars and a watercolor of the ship.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.