Statewide County HI Archives Biographies.....Mellen, George October 2, 1875 - 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
J. Orr jessicanorr@gmail.com November 17, 2011, 4:03 pm

Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders. Published by the Honolulu Star Bulletin Ltd., Territory of Hawaii, 1925.
Author: Edited by George F. Nellist

GEORGE MELLEN, Writer and Advertising Counselor. Cowboy, artist and 
telegrapher at different periods in his earlier years, George Mellen abandoned 
a commercial career in 1907 to devote himself to art and literature, and since 
1918 he has been engaged in Hawaii as a magazine writer, editor and 
advertising and publicity expert.
  Mr. Mellen was born in Boston, Mass., Oct. 2, 1875, the son of Albert Bemis 
and Katherine (Moffet) Mellen. His parents removed to California in 1876 and 
he was educated in the public schools and by a private tutor (British 
M.R.C.P.). He worked as a ranch hand and cowboy on his father’s ranch in 
Southern California and, having a natural talent for drawing, sought an 
opening in commercial art in Los Angeles when he was 17, but the financial 
panic of 1892 was on and demand for art work was at a low ebb.
  With a slight knowledge of telegraphy acquired in practice on instruments he 
had made in the ranch blacksmith shop, he applied for a position with the Los 
Angeles Terminal Railroad and was made station agent and telegrapher at Long 
Beach, Calif., Alamitos Station, holding that position a year. At 18 he 
entered the service of the Los Angeles District Telegraph and Merchants’ 
Patrol as night manager, Los Angeles main office. After six months he decided 
a commercial education was needed and worked his way through the Ventura 
Business College by teaching a class in telegraphy and drawing chalk plate 
cartoons for newspapers.
  Graduated at 19, he entered the Western Union Telegraph service as 
telegrapher and assistant manager at Ventura, Calif., becoming manager at 20. 
Subsequently for twelve years he was in the commercial and railway telegraph 
service, chiefly in executive positions, and originated a rapid method of 
telegraph accountancy. Mr. Mellen took an active interest in the Mellen 
Apiaries of California and inaugurated the sealed carton method of marketing 
comb honey.
  From 1907 until 1916 he worked as a free lance writer and artist and 
volunteered his services as a writer of publicity for the government in the 
summer of 1917, spending the ten months prior to the Armistice in Hawaii, 
having arrived in Honolulu in February, 1918. Mr. Mellen was managing editor 
of the Hilo Daily Tribune, Hilo, Hawaii, for one year, and has been a special 
writer and advertising counselor with the Charles R. Frazier Co., Honolulu, 
since March, 1920. He has originated much novel and progressive advertising, 
the most unique of which is that of “Musa-shiya, the Shirtmaker,” once an 
obscure Japanese who has become widely known in English-speaking countries 
through reprints of his philosophical advertisements in pidgin English.
  Mr. Mellen has taken an active interest in the preservation of Hawaiian 
legends and places of historical interest, notably the ruins of the ancient 
deserted village of Kaupo, Oahu, which, due largely to his initiative, has 
been reserved by the territorial government as a 90-acre public park.
  Mr. Mellen is a member of the Honolulu Press Club, which he served for two 
consecutive terms as president, April, 1923, to April, 1925; the Honolulu Ad 
Club, whose official weekly newspaper, Welakahao, he founded in Aug., 1920, 
and edited until Feb., 1924; Hui o Pele Hawaii, which he assisted in 
organizing and for which he designed the emblem and certificate of membership; 
the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce, Commercial Club, Automobile Clun, Pan-
Pacific Union, National Aeronautic Association of U.S.A., and Boy Scouts 
(sustaining member). He married Kathleen Dickensen of Castlewood, Va., in 
Honolulu in June, 1922.


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