Guilloû was born in
Philadelphia, on July 26, 1813. His father was Victor Gabriel Guilloû (1776–1841), who had escaped from the
French Revolution and fought in the
Haitian Revolution. His father introduced him to
Marquis de Lafayette when he
visited the US in 1824. During 1836, he visited his father, who had moved to
Cuba to start a sugar plantation after running a dance academy in Philadelphia. He befriended young midshipman
William Reynolds, whose journals provide a non-official version of the events of the voyage. In December 1839, the squadron headed farther south, and in January 1840 provided the first sighting of the continent of
Antarctica by a US Navy ship. Guilloû provided a sketch when the
Peacock was stuck in the ice. They returned to Sydney for repairs, before resuming exploration. Wilkes' imperious manner included dismissing many of the officers, leading to further low morale. Guilloû attended to sailors injured by frequent floggings. In September 1841, the squadron arrived in
Honolulu in the
Hawaiian Islands to spend the winter. The three-year planned time of the voyage was over, and several members requested to leave. Wilkes insisted on reading all journals and letters. When Guilloû removed some pages from his journal, saying they were of a personal nature, Wilkes suspended Guilloû and prepared charges for various offenses. After the
Peacock was lost in July 1841 while exploring the
Pacific Northwest, Guilloû was shuttled between various ships, officially under arrest. On his return in 1842, Guilloû helped organize the Navy's Bureau of Medicine and Surgery under
William P. C. Barton.
Diplomacy After being reinstated, Guilloû served on the , under Commodore
James Biddle. In June 1845 the ship was sent to
Guangzhou (then known as Canton), on a diplomatic mission with the first treaty between the US and China. On August 28, 1847, he was promoted to the rank of full Navy Surgeon. The
Columbus returned to
Hampton Roads in March 1848. Guilloû was then assigned to the which took another diplomatic trip, this one to Europe. On July 30, 1849, while at
Gaeta, the multilingual Guilloû acted as interpreter for a visit to the palace of
King Ferdinand II by local diplomat John Rowan. They also met Cardinal
Giacomo Antonelli, who was
secretary of state for the
Papal States. On July 31, they visited
Pope Pius IX, and invited him and Ferdinand to visit the ship, with Guilloû again interpreting. On his return, Guilloû was stationed at the
Brooklyn Naval Shipyard from 1852 to 1854. He married Dinah Postlethwaite (1815–85), daughter of Samuel Postlethwaite (1772–1824) from
Natchez, Mississippi in September 1852. They had one daughter, Margaret Acelie Guilloû (born September 13, 1853), who married George Alfred Blackmore. They also adopted Eloise ("Polly") Thibault.
Hawaii Guilloû sailed to Honolulu in 1854. He first tried to establish a hospital with Robert W. Wood, but that failed. Active in
Freemasonry, he helped reactivate Lodge Le Progrés de l'Océanie in Honolulu that had been chartered from the French organization. He was an early member of the Hawaiian Agricultural Society. He evidently decided to stick to medicine, since in 1856, he was one of the founding members of the Hawaiian Medical Society, with other prominent doctors such as
Gerrit P. Judd and
Thomas Charles Byde Rooke. On April 23, 1858, he gave a speech proposing to improve health care for
native Hawaiians by opening a hospital. Although the plan would later be adopted, the resulting Queen's Hospital (now
The Queen's Medical Center) passed up Guilloû and appointed German
William Hillebrand to head the new institution. Guilloû was appointed by
Victor Emmanuel II of Italy as the Consul of Italy to the Kingdom of Hawaii while he was there. The State Department suspected overcharging for the seaman's hospital. Commander William E. Hunt in of the was sent to investigate.
James W. Borden, the new
United States Minister to Hawaii, published letters in the
Pacific Commercial Advertiser newspaper of
Henry Martyn Whitney with accusations against Guilloû and
Abner Pratt, the American Consul who replaced Ogden. Pratt had already headed back to
Marshall, Michigan where he built a majestic mansion, while the
Levant was lost at sea. Although Pratt was asked to return the funds, the
American Civil War caused the government to never pursue the case. He returned to the US in 1867. He lived for a while in
Petersburg, Virginia, and then New York City. ==Death and legacy==