His son, Eric Alfred Knudsen, was born in Waiawa.

Knudsen settled in Waiawa, between Mana and Kekaha, immediately across the channel from Niʻihau Island. Knudsen, or 'Kanuka', originally arrived in Koloa where he managed Grove Farm, but later sought a warmer land and purchased the leases to Mana and Kekaha, where he became a successful sugarcane plantation owner. Valdemar Emil Knudsen was a Norwegian plantation pioneer who arrived on Kauai in 1857. The settlement on Kauaʻi has been considered an abrupt instance of a Pacific outpost of the Russian Empire per se. Construction was begun in 1817, but in July of that year under mounting resistance of Native Hawaiians and American traders the Russians were expelled. It was an attempt by Kaumualiʻi to gain support from the Russians against Kamehameha I. In 1816, an agreement was signed by Kaumualiʻi to allow the Russians to build Fort Elizabeth. In 1815, a ship from the Russian-American Company was wrecked on the island. He ceded the island to the Kingdom of Hawai ʻi upon his death in 1824. In the face of the threat of a further invasion, however, Kaumuali ʻi decided to join the kingdom without bloodshed, and became Kamehameha's vassal in 1810. King Kamehameha twice prepared a huge armada of ships and canoes to take the islands by force, and twice failed once due to a storm, and once due to an epidemic.

Their ruler, Kaumuali ʻi, resisted Kamehameha for years. ĭuring the reign of King Kamehameha, the islands of Kaua ʻi and Ni ʻihau were the last Hawaiian Islands to join his Kingdom of Hawai ʻi. He named the archipelago the 'Sandwich Isles' after his patron, the 6th Earl of Sandwich, George Montagu. In 1778, Captain James Cook arrived at Waimea Bay, the first European known to have reached the Hawaiian islands.

Most populous hawaiian island