The Starbuck family were prominent in the history of whaling in the Hawaiian Islands, based in Nantucket, Massachusetts, from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Some members of the family gained wider exposure due to their discovery of various islands in the Pacific Ocean.
[1] A descendant of one of the first English settlers of Nantucket, Valentine commanded various whaling ships (whalers) in the Pacific.
In 1823 he was captain of the British whaleship L'Aigle, which Hawaiian King Kamehameha II chartered for a trip to Britain on a state visit.
The Hawaiian king and queen died of measles while at London, and Valentine was sued by his employers for not completing his whaling voyage.
[7] On this journey, Obed also completed the mapping of Tuvalu, which had been begun by Captain George Barrett of the Nantucket whaler Independence II.