Jacques-Antoine Moerenhout ( 1796 - 1879)

Moerenhout was a Belgian born merchant seaman and ethologist, had previously served as Dutch consul at Valparaiso and had settled in Tahiti in 1830. His business interests led him through the Pacific, taking him to Pitcairn, Fiji, Gambier and Easter Island. He was appointed United States consul to the Pacific Islands in 1835, and French consul in 1838. After seventeen years on the island he left Tahiti in 1847 to become French consul at Monterey California, during the gold-rush period. In June 1848 he toured the gold fields above Sacramento and reported back on them and the subsequent development of the gold rush. He died in Los Angeles in 1879.