Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Settlement & Agricultural Development

Folks describe different ‘phases’ or ‘periods’ of human settlement and agricultural development in the Islands over time. Different people use different terms for each of these (some use varying timeframes, as well,) but they seem to generally fall into Settlement, Development, Expansion and ultimately Post-Contact. It is believed that initial Polynesian discovery and settlement of the Hawaiian Islands occurred between approximately AD 1000 and 1200. (Kirch) This effectively started the ‘Settlement’ phase.

Then came Development- AD 1400-1650 – As the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved. The traditional land use in the Hawaiian Islands evolved from shifting cultivation into a stable form of agriculture. The Expansion – AD 1650-Contact (1778) occurred as population peaked, or shortly before, when Hawaiians began to inhabit less favorable coastline areas and barren zones between the coast and upland agricultural sites and to develop extensive dryland agricultural systems in marginal regions. At the time of Captain Cook’s arrival (1778-1779) ‘Contact’, the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms.

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.”

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

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.

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

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)