William Henry Daniels was born on June 2, 1855, at Wailuku, on the island of Maui, of Native Hawaiian and British descent. His father was Henry Wilson Daniels, the English-born circuit judge of Maui, and his mother was the British-Hawaiian Nancy Hannah Kamaekalani Copp, who married Judge Daniels on August 7, 1852 at Hana. One of his sisters, Emma Daniels, was the wife of Colonel John Dominis Holt. On October 23, 1875, Daniels married Margaret Kalauwalu Kahanu, at Waimea, Hawaii. They had ten children. Daniels became a successful businessman. At one point, he purchased the island of Kahoʻolawe with W. H. Cummings and sold it to C. Sneyd-Kynnersley. He was also an investor in the Hawaiian Fruit and Taro Company in Wailuku.
Political career
Daniels was appointed to the position of Labor Contract Agent on January 2, 1883. In 1887, King Kalākaua was forced to sign the Bayonet Constitutionunder duress by the Hawaiian League, a group of foreign businessman and Hawaiian subjects of American missionary descent including Lorrin A. Thurston. This constitution limited the absolute power of the monarch and strengthened the power of the executive cabinet. It also raised property requirements for suffrage, disenfranchised many poor Native Hawaiians and naturalized Asian citizens, and gave the vote to unnaturalized foreign residents of European or American descent. Instigators of this coup d'état formed the Reform Party, drawing its memberships from Hawaiian conservatives and citizens of foreign descent. The new constitution also called for an election to be held ninety days after its enactment on September 12, 1887. Daniels ran for the election for a seat on the House of Representatives for the district of Wailuku. He and O. Nawahine ran on the Reform ticket and won both seats in Wailuku for the new political party against the other oppositional candidates. Representatives Daniels would served in the legislative special session of 1887, which met from November 3, 1887 to May 28, 1888, and the regular session of 1888, which met from May 29 to September 11. In the election of 1890, he ran as a member of the National Reform Party for a six-year term in the House of Nobles for the island of Maui but was defeated in the race. Around the time of the overthrow of the monarchy, Daniels served as the district magistrate of Wailuku and was a police justice and judge on the Wailuku District Courts. However, his refusal to take the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government of Hawaii led to his dismissal from the government in 1894. His commission expired on May 30, 1894, and Elia Helekunihi, a supporter of the annexation cause was appointed to replace him despite his popular support from the community. Petitions and demands in the district for his reappointment were ignored.
In 1895, Daniels was arrested and briefly detained by the Republic of Hawaii on charges of conspiracy and involvement in the 1895 Counter-Revolution in Hawaii. Daniels struggled to find employment and support his large family after his release from prison. He found work managing the construction of ditch work in Huelo, Hamakualoa, Maui for the Spreckelsville sugar plantation. On April 17, 1897, he committed suicide because of his economic troubles and a domestic disagreement with his wife after she had spent all of his wages. After paying the workers under his management, Daniels shot himself at his home in Kailua: Daniel's obituary in The Hawaiian Star noted that he was "staunch Royalist and in him that party here lose their foremost leader. He was well known all over the islands, and many friends will mourn his death." After a funeral in his hometown of Wailuku, he was buried in the Daniels family plot in the Iao Community Cemetery, beside the spot where his son Henry was buried in 1872.
