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Early Life

George Freeth Jr. was born in 1883 in Honolulu and grew up immersed in Hawaiian culture, which encouraged and nurtured time in the ocean. Aquatic sports were a large part of this, from boat races to diving competitions, where Freeth began to develop the water skills that he would use throughout his life. “I can not remember the day when I couldn’t swim. The first days I can remember were those spent at Waikiki Beach, four miles distant from Honolulu, Hawaii, where, with hundreds of native boys, I swam and dove a greater part of the time.” In addition to the aquatic nature of Hawaiian culture developing Freeth, he also grew up in the last years of the Hawaiian monarchy as American businessmen began to populate the island. His mother’s family being rich in Hawaiian blood, this likely would have had an effect on his childhood. Freeth’s youth also included a large amount of inconsistency and travel. His father moved the family frequently due to his changing businesses, eventually landing on the island of Laysan. Laysan was home to a large migrant seabird population that produced guano, which Freeth Senior’s company mined for fertilizer. Freeth traveled between Laysan and Honolulu from the ages of seven to eleven, primarily spending his summers on the small island. There, he would interact with the Japanese workers that his father employed and swim with his siblings in the ocean. Laysan and its lagoon was his childhood place to play. After his father’s fertilizer company went bankrupt, Freeth moved back to Honolulu. Freeth stayed in Honolulu until he was fourteen, when his father took him to Clipperton Island, which is located off the coast of Mexico.