Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pendulum Peak

Early pendulum experiments helped calculate the force of gravity. By taking different readings at different locations across the planet, it is possible to calculate the contours of the earth, as well as the density of the interior. (A later Foucault pendulum was used to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.)

Lt Charles Wilkes, as part of the US Exploring Expedition, came to Hawai‘i in 1840 with a 68-inch long pendulum and a pendulum clock. Just after new year’s in 1841, Wilkes conducted pendulum observations on the top of Mauna Loa, at a site they named Pendulum Peak. “The 3d proved fine, and the pendulum-clock and apparatus being arranged and adjusted, the clock was put in motion, and a comparison made with the three chronometers every two hours.”

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Lewers & Cooke

What started as a lumber company of Christopher H Lewers evolved into Lewers & Dickson, and eventually Lewers & Cooke. The primary parties in this process included Lewers, Robert Lewers (his cousin,) Joshua Gill Dickson and Charles Montague Cooke. Christopher Hamilton Lewers, a cabinet maker hailing from Dublin, Ireland, landed in Honolulu in about 1850. In 1852, he started into the business in the Islands with the purchase at auction of a cargo of eastern white pine shipped from the States via Cape Horn.

The Honolulu carpenters at that time kept on hand small lots of white pine to make sash, doors, blinds, etc, which were made entirely by hand. Lewers’ purchase cornered the market on white pine, and he found it a profitable transaction and made it the basis for a regular lumber business. At that time lumber, mostly Douglas fir. On January 1, 1901, Lewers & Cooke Ltd succeeded Lewers & Cooke. “A noteworthy fact in the establishment of the firm of Lewers & Cooke, Ltd., was the inclusion of a clause in the articles of incorporation empowering the directors to contribute a portion of the earnings for social, benevolent and religious purposes. It was the first time this had been done in Hawai‘i.”

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Pleasanton Hotel

“The premises of the late (Henry) Alexander Isenberg, at the corner of Punahou and Wilder avenue are to be opened today by Mrs JW Macdonald as a family hotel, to be called the Pleasanton.” The Isenberg home-turned-hotel “is in the most beautiful residential portion of Honolulu – Punahou. Lovely grounds occupying five acres of tropical garden surround the palatial building. The O‘ahu College is close by and the entrance to the exquisite and historic valley of Mānoa is reached by the cars running past the hotel.”

“The Pleasanton ‘s business has been increasing rapidly and there are now fifty guests, although the room space is rather limited.” In 1950, the Lutheran Church purchased part of the old Alexander Isenberg/Pleasanton Hotel property. On another portion of the property the YWCA built ‘Fernhurst’ (in 1952,) offering nightly shared accommodations. Between them is a high-rise condominium building that retains the memory of the old hotel in its name: The Pleasanton.

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South Side of East Maui

“The high lands all along the south side of East Maui … are very fine for farming. It is the region in which most of the Irish potatoes are raised for the ships at Lāhainā, and all the wheat raised at the Islands is grown here. Its climate, also, is highly salubrious, and it will yet be the garden of the Sandwich Islands, from which not only whale-ships, but the hotels of San Francisco, shall obtain their supplies.” (Cheever, 1851)

Oral traditions state that sweet potatoes were cultivated from sea level up to about 2,000 feet elevation and great quantities of dry taro were planted in the lower forest belt from one end of the district to the other. Archaeologists identified grid patterns over significant parts of the landscape, confirming the existence of a major dryland field system (a closely spaced grid of east-west embankments and small field plots bisected at right angles by longer north-south trending walls; it covered an area of 3,000 to nearly 4,000-acres and could have supported a population of 8,000-10,000 people). (Kirch)

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Chiefs Meeting King George IV

Liholiho (Kamehameha II) sailed from Honolulu, November 27, 1823, accompanied by his favorite wife Kamāmalu, Boki and his wife Liliha, Kekūanāo’a, Kapihe, Manuia, James Young Kanehoa, a few servants, and his interpreter John Rives. In London, Liholiho and Kamāmalu became ill. It is believed they probably contracted the measles on their visit to the Royal Military Asylum (now the Duke of York’s Royal Military School.) Kamāmalu (aged 22) died on July 8, 1824. The grief-stricken Kamehameha II (age 27) died six days later, on July 14, 1824. Prior to his death he asked to return and be buried in Hawai‘i.

By the death of the king, Boki became the leader of the party. After they had all regained their health and arrangements had been completed for their return to Hawaii, an interview was held (September 11, 1824) with King George IV who was accompanied by Secretary Canning and some other officials. “The king then asked Boki ‘What was the business on which you and your king came to this country?’ … Then Boki ‘We have come to confirm the words which Kamehameha I gave in charge to Vancouver, thus, ‘go back and tell King George to watch over me and my whole kingdom.’” “George IVth replied, you must look after the inside affairs, and I will look after the outside …”