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In October 1813 Dr. Scheffer took service as ship's surgeon on the "Suvorov" bound for Russian America. The captain and the doctor did not get on well together, and, when "Suvorov" returned to Europe, Scheffer remained in Alaska.
When Gov. Baranov, manager of the Russian American Company, launched an effort to establish a Russian colony in Hawaii under the guise of rescuing the plundered freight of the Company's brig, "Bering", wrecked on Kauai in 1815, he selected Dr. Scheffer as his agent. The doctor sailed on the "Isabella" from Sitka on October 17, 1815.
Landing on the island of Hawaii, the doctor was able to assure King Kamehameha that his main purpose was botanical research. In his report Scheffer states that he "healed Queen Kaahumanu from a sickness and the king himself from a feverish cold", and succeeded in winning the King's favor. He was given lands for plantation on Oahu.
Dr. Scheffer got permission to go to Oahu to cultivate his lands and even to buy additional lands from Queen Kaahumanu. However, he was soon in trouble for building a fort, and Kamehameha insisted that he leave Oahu. This fort, finished by John Young, became a stronghold of Kamehameha, and is today commemorated by Fort Street in Honolulu which passes over the site.
From Oahu Dr. Scheffer went to Kauai, probably in April 1816, on the "Discovery" owned by the Russian American Company. King Kaumualii of Kauai received him very kindly and promised to pay for the property plundered from the shipwrecked "Bering" with sandal and fragrant wood, to trade only with the Russians, to give the Company lands for plantations, to allow the establishment of factories and took an oath of allegiance to the Tzar. Apparently, these concessions were granted because Kaumualii feared Kamehameha. At the King's request, the doctor superintended the building of a fort at Waimea on which were mounted a number of guns and which flew the Russian flag. Another fort overlooking Hanalei Bay was seemingly not completed.
Meanwhile, the Russians left on Oahu had polluted a Hawaiian temple near Honolulu and roused such fury among the natives that only at John Young's intervention were their lives spared. The Russians were taken aboard a schooner sent by the doctor and returned to Kauai.
In November 1816 King Kamehameha had learned that Dr. Scheffer was acting without the authority of the Russian government and that, together with pressure brought by other foreigners who did not take kindly to the idea of a Russian monopoly in sandalwood trade of Kauai, caused him to send imperative orders to Kaumualii to expel Dr. Scheffer and his force. Finally in May 1817 Kaumualii threatened Scheffer and his men with death if they did not leave. After a fight which killed three Russians and several natives, the Russians were forced to board their own ships. Dr. Scheffer escaped to Canton on an American vessel.
Chamisso in his account of the voyage of the "Rurik" states that Dr. Scheffer returned to Petersburg where "his adventurous schemes do not appear to be favorably received" and adds that the doctor appears later as an Imperial recruiting officer in Hamburg.
*11/8/1999: Scheffer's first and middle names were changed based on information from A. Grove Day's History Makers of Hawaii: A Biographical Dictionary (Honolulu, Hawaii: Mutual Publishing of Hawaii, 1984).
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