Territorial Penitentiary
The history of Hawai‘i’s Euro-American criminal justice system can be traced back to the first constitution of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i promulgated on October 8, 1840, by Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) at the advice of foreign political advisors. (ASM)
The Preamble of the Kingdom of Hawai`i Constitution of 1840 (the Declaration of Rights, Both of the People and Chiefs) stated, “Protection For The People Declared.”
“‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth,’ in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.”
“These are some of the rights which He has given alike to every man and every chief of correct deportment; life, limb, liberty, freedom from oppression; the earnings of his hands and the productions of his mind, not however to those who act in violation of the laws.”
“God has also established government, and rule for the purpose of peace; but in making laws for the nation it is by no means proper to enact laws for the protection of the rulers only, without also providing protection for their subjects;”
“neither is it proper to enact laws to enrich the chiefs only, without regard to enriching their subjects also, and hereafter there shall by no means be any laws enacted which are at variance with what is above expressed, neither shall any tax be assessed, nor any service or labor required of any man, in a manner which is at variance with the above sentiments.”
“The above sentiments are hereby published for the purpose of protecting alike, both the people and the chiefs of all these islands, while they maintain a correct deportment; that no chief may be able to oppress any subject, but that chiefs and people may enjoy the same protection, under one and the same law.”
“Protection is hereby secured to the persons of all the people, together with their lands, their building lots, and all their property, while they conform to the laws of the kingdom, and nothing whatever shall be taken from any individual except by express provision of the laws.”
“Whatever chief shall act perseveringly in violation of this constitution, shall no longer remain a chief of the Hawaiian Islands, and the same shall be true of the Governors, officers, and all land agents.” (Preamble of the First Constitution of Hawaii, October 8, 1840)
The First Act of Kamehameha III, An Act to Organize the Executive Ministry, signed by the King on October 29, 1845, established the position of Minister of the Interior and made him responsible “for the faithful and lawful execution of the duties comprised in the first part of”.
The Second Act of Kamehameha III, An Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Hawaiian Islands, signed on April 27, 1846. Among the duties assigned to the Minister of the Interior were those in Chapter III “Of Internal Improvements,” Article IV “Of Prisons and Houses of Correction” to manage the prisons of the Kingdom.
In Part V, Chapter I “Of the Executive Judicial Officers,” of the same act, the post of Marshal of the Kingdom was established. The Marshal was made responsible for the safekeeping of all prisoners. (HSA)
In the mid-1850s, Honolulu had approximately 10,000-residents. Foreigners made up about 6% of that (excluding visiting sailors.) Laws at the time allowed naturalization of foreigners to become subjects of the King (by about that time, about 440 foreigners exercised that right.)
The majority of houses were made of grass (hale pili,) there were about 875 of them; there were also 345 adobe houses, 49 stone houses, 49 wooden houses and 29 combination (adobe below, wood above.)
The city was regularly laid out with major streets typically crossing at right angles – they were dirt (Fort Street had to wait until 1881 for pavement, the first to be paved.)
Sidewalks were constructed, usually of wood (as early as 1838;) by 1857, the first sidewalk made of brick was laid down on Merchant Street.
At the time, “Broadway” was the main street (we now call it King Street;) it was the widest and longest – about 2-3 miles long from the river (Nuʻuanu River on the west) out to the “plains” (to Mānoa.) What is now known as Queen Street was actually the water’s edge.
To get around people walked, or rode horses or used personal carts/buggies. It wasn’t until 1868, that horse-drawn carts became the first public transit service in the Hawaiian Islands.
Honolulu Harbor was bustling at that time. Over the prior twenty years, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846; 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.
At the time, Honolulu Harbor was not as it is today and many of the visiting ships would anchor two to three miles off-shore – cargo and people were ferried to the land.
To accommodate the growing commerce, from 1856 to 1860, the work of filling in the fringe reef to create an area known as the “Esplanade” (where Aloha Tower is now situated) and building up a water-front and dredging the harbor was underway.
The legislature adopted a resolution directing the minister of the interior to remove Fort Kekuanohu (Fort Honolulu – then serving as a prison) and use the material obtained thereby “in the construction of prisons, and the filling up of the reef.” (Kuykendall)
Fort Street is named after this fort; it is one of the oldest streets in Honolulu. Today, the site of the old fort is the open space called Walker Park, a small park at the corner of Queen and Fort streets (also fronting Ala Moana/Nimitz.)
However, the prison could not be removed until a new prison was built; construction for the new prison began in 1855, but not entirely completed until more than two years later. The Fort was then removed in 1857. (Kuykendall)
Prisoners from Molokai (“nearly every man in the village”) who were implicated in a cattle-stealing program; they were tried and sentenced to jail. These, along with other prisoners, cut the coral blocks and constructed the prison. (Cooke)
On the opposite side (ʻEwa) of Nuʻuanu stream was a fishpond, identified as “Kawa” or the “King’s fish pond.” Iwilei at that time was a small, narrow peninsula, less populated than the Honolulu-side of Nuʻuanu stream.
The new prison was on a marshy no-man’s land almost completely cut off from the main island by two immense fishponds. The causeway road (initially called “Prison Road,” later “Iwilei Street”) split Kawa Pond into Kawa and Kūwili fishponds.
Sometimes called the “Oʻahu Prison,” “King’s Prison,” “Kawa Prison” or, simply, “The Reef,” it was a coral block fortress built upon coral fill at the end of a coral built road over the coral reefs and mudflats of Iwilei.
“As one enters the heavy front gates one stands in a long, but narrow, inclosure that forms the front yard of the prison proper. Here a few of the prisoners are sometimes allowed to take their exercise.”
“The only difference in the cells occupied by the women is that they have a mattress on the floor instead of a hammock to sleep on. They wear blue denim dresses, while the men wear a combination of brown and blue.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 15, 1894)
In 1886, Mark Twain visited the prison and wrote: “… we presently arrived at a massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first, but found out directly that it was the government prison.”
“A soldier at the great gate admitted us without further authority than my countenance, and I supposed he thought he was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so did I until I reflected that the place was a penitentiary”. (Twain)
“When I was at Honolulu, I had occasion to visit the reef. That is, the island prison of Oahu, where all classes of offenders, murderers, felons, and misdemeanants are confined at hard labor.”
“While I was there my attention was drawn to thirty-seven Galicians, subjects of Austria, who were confined because they had refused to fulfil their contracts to labor for the Oʻahu plantation. They were dressed in stripes like the other prisoners.”
“They were made to do the same labor in the quarries and on the roads. They were conveyed about the islands in a public vehicle, accompanied by armed guards.” (Dr Levy; Atkinson, 1899)
The overall responsibility for prisons remained with the Minister of the Interior until 1890, when it was transferred by Act 3 to the Attorney General, along with authority over the Marshal. (The Marshall was later renamed High Sheriff.)
Meanwhile, an intervening supervisory level, the Board of Prison Inspectors, also under the Minister of the Interior, had been created in 1888 to “supervise the discipline and government” of the prisons.
In 1914 under the Territory of Hawai‘i, a 9.8-acre site in Kalihi-Kai was identified as the new location for Oahu Prison. Construction for the new prison was underway the following year, and by 1918, the prison was completed and renamed the Territorial Penitentiary.
The Territorial Penitentiary served as the main detainment center for convicted felons, misdemeanants, and inmates awaiting trial. By the mid-1970s, the former Territorial Penitentiary came under the control of the City and County of Honolulu and subsequently renamed to the present Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC).
By the late 1970s, most of the buildings constructed for the Territorial Penitentiary were demolished. The redesign was dramatically different from the previous penitentiary as it replaced the large single structure with multiple wings design, to one with multiple interdependent structures.
Since its establishment, OCCC has expanded to the current 16-acres and is the largest jail facility in Hawai‘i with a capacity of 628 beds and an operational capacity of 954 beds, however OCCC consistently operates above these capacities.
The existing main OCCC jail building opened in 1980 and was fully occupied by 1982. From 1978 to 1987, OCCC served as both local jail and State prison. In 1987, the Halawa Correctional Facility was completed, after which OCCC assumed its current primary function as a detention facility.
Teacherages
The teacher’s home stands in almost the same relation to the school that the parsonage or manse does to the church.
Various names, such as teacher’s home, manse, teacherage, attic apartment, “lean-to,” and dominage, are applied to the district-owned buildings or to rooms in the schoolhouse that provide living quarters for teachers. (Muerman)
In the New England States the academies of the early days usually provided dormitories for the pupils. In these dormitories rooms were frequently set apart for members of the faculty who had supervision over the students who lived in the dormitories.
Several of these academies have been purchased by the school committees for use as public-school buildings, and with this purchase a home is provided for the teacher.
In the year 1894 rural school district No. 1, in Hall County, Nebraska, built a teachers’ home at a cost to the district of $1,000. This is perhaps the first one built by a school district for this purpose.
100 years ago, “It is not difficult to secure the services of competent teachers for such schools as have been supplied with teachers’ homes …”
“… and when good teachers schools as have been supplied with teachers’ homes, and when good teachers have been hired for these schools there seems to be less difficulty in retaining them for a greater number of years than they would be willing to stay in schools where teachers’ homes have not been provided.”
“The teachers who live at these homes are able to do better work; they live at a lower cost; they are happier; they have a place in which to prepare their work undisturbed …”
“… they are free from liability to entanglement in neighborhood differences; they are not so apt to make enemies during the school year because of a change of boarding places …”
“… they have a place in which to entertain patrons of the school, who as a rule are inclined to call on the teachers more often than where they are expected to go to the homes of their neighbors in order to do so …”
“… they go home less frequently on Friday evenings; in fact they live at home, feel at home, act at home, and are at home at the school.” (Muerman)
As part of the national discussion about teacherages 100 years ago, “The discourse about the cottages reveals that the issue is larger than just providing housing for teachers.”
Some saw them as a way to accomplish the goal of integrating scientific management techniques into the education system. “For them, teacherages provided an opportunity to put into practice their theories about home economics, vocational training and the cultivation of community life through schools.”
Others, particularly women, saw teacher housing as one of the several reforms needed to remediate women’s position in education and society. (Felber)
“The system of providing teachers’ cottages is an old one in Hawaii, going back to the middle of the last century. The teachers’ residence was built on the school lot, which was owned either by the Mission or by the Crown. The first cottages were small and primitive, in keeping with the simple architecture of the time.”
“It must be remembered that Hawaii had a highly developed educational system long before the western States were extensively settled. At one time, children were sent from the Northwest and from California to Hawaii to receive their education.”
“From those early days down to [100-years ago], there has been a steady growth in the number and character of the teachers’ cottages.”
100 years ago in Hawai‘i, “constructed cottages compare favorably with the better suburban bungalows and cottages. For example, the type of cottage [then] provided at a number of our larger rural schools would rent in Honolulu for from sixty to ninety dollars per month.” (MacGaughty)
“The school cottages are almost invariably built on the school lot adjacent to the regular school buildings. In most of the larger rural schools, the principal has a separate cottage for himself, or herself, and family.”
“[T]here is no other part of the United States where the teachers’ cottage system has been developed to the degree found in Hawaii. Here, it is a regular feature of all rural schools throughout the Territory.”
“The teachers who are assigned to the rural schools are given lodgings gratis, with no additional charge and in addition to their regular salary.” (MacGaughey)
The following letter from a group of mainland teachers, who came to the Islands 100-years ago, will indicate one reaction of newcomers to the teachers’ cottage system in Hawaii: “To the Editor of the Hawaii Educational Review” …
“Dear Sir: From the deepest gratitude we write this public testimony to the unexpected and very generous welcome the six coast teachers received. No one can fully appreciate the pleasure that we felt unless she too has been a coast girl plunged into the new and not altogether easily adaptable circumstances of a teacher in a plantation school of the Hawaiian Islands.”
“From the moment we crossed the landing place, where we were met by some kindly citizens with cars, and given the best breakfast obtainable at one of the local hotels, until we crossed the threshold of the cottage which was to be our home for the next year, we have felt welcome and wanted.”
“But more especially when we entered the cottage did we see evidences on every side of the thoughtfulness of the men and women of the interior of the cottage had been freshly painted, the necessary furniture had been made the previous school year by the manual training boys and nicely stained during the summer.”
“The windows shone clear and were hung with dainty curtains, and the dressers and tables were fitted out with covers to match. The kitchen was almost completely equipped with the needed utensils, and there was a very complete set of tasteful and pretty dishes – all of which girls especially appreciate.”
“From the outset of the school year, we have been called upon by the women of the plantation, and we really have felt an enthusiasm for entering into community affairs.”
“The clean and dainty appearance of our cottage as we explored it made us long to do the best we could for the boys and girls whose parents had been so thoughtful of us who were almost strangers to them.”
“Since all these things have been done for our comfort, we feel that it would be the least we could do in return to give their boys and girls the best we have of ourselves, our ideals, and our advantages”. (signed, the teachers)
“The effects of the teachers’ cottage system in stabilizing the teaching force are obvious.”
Kakaʻako Pumping Station
The word “Sewer” is derived from the term “seaward” in Old English, as in ditches and ravines slightly sloped to run waste water from land to sea.
From an 1857 story in the Commercial Pacific Advertiser it appears that the first sewer facility to be constructed on Oʻahu was a storm drain located at Queen Street at the foot of Kaʻahumanu Street opposite Pier 11. (ASCE)
Despite three outbreaks of smallpox, a typhus epidemic and two cholera epidemics between 1853 and 1895, no other serious actions were taken to improve conditions.
Honolulu was a growing city and needed a better way of disposing its wastewater.
At that time, the city had grown to approximately 30,000-people, and it was estimated that about 1.8-million gallons of sewage was being disposed of in the City septic systems daily. This was much more than septic tank excavators could keep up with – which caused sanitation and odor concerns.
In 1897, Rudolph Hering, a New York Sanitary Engineer, was hired to prepare specifications for a Honolulu sewerage system, pumping station and ocean outfall (Hering had previously designed the New York and other large city sewage systems.)
Hering recommended a “separate system” whereby separate networks of conduits would carry sewage and storm waters, a system still used today in Honolulu.
Work on the system began in 1899 and sewer lines were laid out in a gravity flow pattern in a rectangular fashion and ran along Alapaʻi, River and South Streets, past Thomas Square, and ended in the Punahou area.
The system was extended to the remaining portion of what was then considered to be “town,” between Liliha on the ʻEwa side, Artesian Street, beyond Punahou to Judd Street, and including the Kewalo District.
The expansion was later delayed, due to a lack of funding. Much of the extension work thereafter was performed by property owners who were furnished piping and sewer components by the government.
The collection lines terminated at a main reservoir (the underground reservoir was dubbed the Hering Reservoir) at the low point at the intersection of Keawe Street and Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaʻako. (Darnell) The sewage would then be pumped out to sea.
In addition, OG Traphagen (designer of the Moana Hotel) was hired to design the steam-powered sewer pumping station at this low spot.
The cost was tremendous for the construction of the lines, and construction was stopped several times due to lack of funding. The sewer outfall to the ocean was built in 1899. The outfall ran some 3,800-feet out to sea at a depth of 40-feet of water, rather than farther out to a 100-foot depth (again, due to funding constraints.) (Darnell)
In 1900, the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was constructed; with features such as large arched windows, exterior walls of local lava rock, roofs of green tile and a smokestack 76-feet tall.
The architectural style is Industrial Romanesque with the walls constructed of locally-cut bluestone and concrete with plaster finished interior walls.
The first sewer system connections (to the Department of Health building on Punchbowl and Queen Streets, and to the Post Office building on Bethel and Merchant) were completed in 1900. This was followed by the slow conversion of other properties from cesspools to sewers.
Two additions were built to support the Pumping Station facility. In 1925, an additional “Pump” building of brick to house a high-speed, electric powered pump was added and the original plant was turned into a machine shop, storeroom and office. In 1939 a second “New” Pump House was constructed on the southwestern side of the existing structures.
The use of the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was abandoned by the City and County of Honolulu when it built a new pumping station on the southwest portion of the block, adjacent to the Historic Ala Moana Pumping Station in 1955.
Now under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority, it is restored by the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Architectural Foundation.
Today, the interior of the 1900 Pumping Station does not contain any historic equipment or utilities. (Lots of information here from HCDA, HHF, ASCE and Darnell.)
Pioneer Inn – Maunalei Sugar Connection
Getting a little back into posting historical summaries, I have wanted to correct the record on a couple of the prior posts …
I previously posted a summary on the Maunalei Sugar Company on Lanai. I also did one on the Pioneer Inn in Lahaina.
I never knew of a connection between the two.
Then, Rick Towill loaned me a book and I was shocked to learn of their connection – something that never showed up in any of the research I did on each.
You can read the prior posts on each. I’ll let Ruth Tabrah (who wrote a book on Lanai that Rick loaned me) tell the rest of the story …
“The Hayselden venture was named Lanai Sugar Company. Later, the name was changed to Maunalei Sugar Company. The lands, like much of the old Gibson holdings, were on lease. The annual ground rent on the beach portions was $10 an acre, that of the valley lands $5 an acre.”
“Fred Hayselden had renegotiated many of the Gibson leases in his own name. He 78 bought several small kuleanas outright.”
“Lanai, which had the reputation thirty years earlier of being the sheep raising center of the kingdom, still supported a population of livestock far larger than the human population.”
“There were nearly 50,000 sheep, large herds of goats and hogs, flocks of wild turkeys, but only 174 people on Lanai when Maunalei Sugar Company began.”
“Hayselden worked hard to boost the water resources and the reservoir capacity of the island. Water was the key to high sugar yield and one of the three wells advertised in the prospectus was already in operation. It produced between one and two million gallons of water a day. This was fortunate, since the other two wells did not turn out.”
“The decision was made not to build a mill, but to ship the cane to Olowalu, Maui for grinding. A wharf was built at Halepalaoa and a railroad between there and Keomuku to haul the harvested cane and plantation supplies.”
“Had Walter Murray Gibson been alive, or had Talula been consulted, the engineer would never have torn down the walls of Kahe‘a heiau to make the roadbed. The Hawaiians of Keomuku predicted that because of this, there would be trouble.”
“At first, everything prospered.”
“A spacious verandahed two story building went up. The plantation offices and the company store were on the ground floor. On the second floor were rooms for visitors, a company boarding house and quasi-hotel.”
“Camp houses and barracks were built as the population of Lanai ballooned with contract laborers. Those Lanaians who applied were hired, but the majority of the work force had to be brought in.”
“There were Gilbert Islanders, the first Japanese to arrive on Lanai, and fellow countrymen of that first sugar maker of them all, Wu Tsin, who had been the first Chinese on Lanai nearly a century before.”
“By August 1899 there were 710 laborers at Maunalei. Wages varied for each ethnic group.”
“Chinese were paid either $18.75 or $20 a month depending on their jobs. Japanese field laborers were paid $15 a month for men, $10 a month for women. Cooks earned $15 a month. Carpenters were paid at the rate of $1.50 a day.”
“Since the company made all deductions for room and board in advance, and allowed workers to run up accounts at the company store, many sugar workers on Lanai like their counterparts on the other islands, were always in debt to their employer.”
“The only cash that seemed to reach and stay in working hands was that earned by the Chinese. In Honolulu the most affluent of the merchants were Chinese, and they invested their money in the Maunalei venture to such an extent that they soon owned seventy-five per cent of the shares.”
“For its first year, the company did well.”
“Then, plague flared up among the Chinese laborers.”
“The shacks they lived in were burned, but this did not stop the epidemic. The church at Keomuku was turned into a dispensary. Those who were not already too sick to do so, fled.”
“The curse predicted when the walls of Kahe’a were broken fell heavily now on the plantation. The water in the well turned brackish. The sugar content of the cane was too low to make it worthwhile to harvest.”
“By June of 1900 the payroll of Maunalei Sugar Company carried only 38 men and by March 1901, 12 were left to shut the plantation down.”
“The two-storied company store and hotel was left up until 1905 when it was carefully dismantled, a section at a time, and floated on rafts to Lahaina. There it was hammered together again to become the Pioneer Inn.” (Tabrah)
Whoa … Who knew the Pioneer Inn was originally a structure on Lanai?
All prior research did not note the Maunalei building and Pioneer Inn connection.
In fact, newspaper accounts of that time only noted the formation and construction of the hotel in Lahaina, not that it was formerly built on Lanai and floated to Lahaina and then reassembled.
A notice in the Hawaiian Star, October 9, 1901, noted “New Hotel For Lahaina. Articles of association were filed yesterday by the Pioneer Hotel Company, with the principal place of business at Lahaina, Island of Maui.”
“The object of the association is to conduct a general hotel and restaurant business, and billiard tables. … The officers and principal stockholders are J. J. Newcomb, president, twenty-five shares; A Aalberg, secretary, twenty-five shares; P. Nicklas, treasurer, two shares; George Freeland, thirty-five shares.”
Three weeks later, the newspaper reported “George Freeland, manager of the Pioneer hotel at Lahaina, is in town for the purpose of purchasing supplies and furniture for the establishment. He will return to Lahaina nest Tuesday. (Honolulu Republican, October 31, 1901)
“Lahaina now boasts two new and up-to-date hotels. Matt. McCann has just finished and moved into his new hosterie (Lahaina Hotel,) and is not able to handle all the travel at present, consequently he is compelled to turn away guests this week.”
“The Pioneer Hotel is practically completed and under the management of Mr. Freeland, will be thrown open for the reception of guests about December 1.” (Maui News, November 23, 1901) Thanks, Rick.
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