Sometime back, coconuts mysteriously appeared in a “Kingston” photo. Today, the mystery was nearly solved, but not quite. This print by Huc Mazelet Luquiens, a Massachusetts-born artist known for his images of Hawaii, had been hidden between a silhouette of Abby Bosworth Holmes Jones and the back of the frame that held it. At first glance, it appeared to place the coconut party in Hawaii. Perhaps Abby and her husband Henry M. Jones bought this print as a souvenir of a trip to the islands, but no, the date at lower left is 1931. Abby died in 1922, Henry in 1926.
While the print links Kingston with tropics once again, reminding us that Kingston ships sailed the Pacific throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, still we wonder: where exactly was the coconut party?