Prominent People | Page 2 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 13, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Claus Spreckels

Claus Spreckels (1828–1908) was perhaps the most successful German-American immigrant entrepreneur of the late-nineteenth century; he was one of the ten richest Americans of his time.

The career of the “sugar king” of California, Hawaiʻi and the American West consisted of building and breaking monopolies in sugar, transport, gas, electricity, real estate, newspapers, banks and breweries.

The first industry in which Spreckels succeeded was quite typical for German immigrants: beer brewing. In the spring of 1857, together with his brother Peter Spreckels and Claus Mangels, among others, he founded the Albany Brewery, the first large-scale producer of beer in San Francisco.

Though profitable, he sold his beer operation in 1863 and switched to a new field that would make him rich: sugar. That year, he started the Bay Sugar Refining Company, but sold it three years later.

He then constructed the California Sugar Refinery in 1867 to process sugar. While grocers, then, sold “sugar loaves,” Spreckels introduced the European process of packaging granulated sugar and sugar cubes (so customers could more easily divide the portions.)

In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he acquired the fee simple title to the Wailuku ahupuaʻa.

That same year, Spreckels founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.

The Spreckelsville Mill was actually four mills in one complex (it was located just to the northeast of the present Kahului Airport, near the intersection of Old Stable Road and Hana Highway.) The town of Spreckelsville built up around it.

Part of the production innovation was the use of electric lights; the first recorded onshore use of electric lighting in Hawaiʻi was at Mill Number One of the Spreckelsville Plantation on Maui on Aug. 21, 1881.

To satisfy the curiosity of people anxious to see the “concentrated daylight,” Capt. Coit Hobron ran a special train from Kahului, and King Kalākaua, Widow Queen Emma and Princess Ruth were among those who came to view the lights.

Spreckels modernized and mechanized the sugar production process, from hauling cane to the mill, to extracting the juice, reducing the juice to syrup and producing sugar grains. The raw sugar was then packed and shipped to his refinery in San Francisco. (Miller)

Sugar is a thirsty crop and Spreckels built the Haiku Ditch that spanned thirty miles and delivered fifty million gallons of water daily, irrigating twenty times as much land as had previously been irrigated.

Looking to upgrade from the mule and oxen means of moving sugar to the mill (as well as reduce costs,) Spreckels built a narrow-gauge railroad to haul the sugar from the plantation to the mill.

By 1881, twenty miles of iron track were completed. The rail line also transported the processed sugar to Maui’s major port, Kahului. By 1885, Spreckelsville had forty-three miles of railroad, four engines and 498 cars for hauling cane.

Needing transportation to move his Hawaiʻi sugar for refining on the continent, he formed JD Spreckels & Bros. shipping line in 1879, which was incorporated as the Oceanic Steamship Company in 1881.

It was the first line to offer regular service between Honolulu and San Francisco, and his sons managed to reduce travel time immensely. While the sailing ship Claus Spreckels made a record run of less than ten days in 1879, by 1883 the new steam vessel Mariposa needed less than six days.

Spreckels incorporated the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in 1884; it included four sugar mills, thirty-five miles of railroad with equipment, a water reservoir and the most advanced ditch system in the Pacific region. (Spiekermann)

Spreckelsville was the largest sugar estate in the world by 1892.

The late-1890s saw internal family conflicts. Spreckels lost control of HC&S and in 1898; it became a part of Alexander & Baldwin Co. Following the 1948 merger of HC&S and Maui Agriculture Co., HC&S became a division of Alexander & Baldwin.

Claus Spreckels was a controversial figure. For friends, he was a man “with a fine presence, an open, pleasant countenance and a cheerful word for everybody.” Others, however, characterized him as impatient, implacable, and ruthless, driven by “Dutch obstinacy.” (Spiekermann)

Hawaiʻi served as only one of the venues for the Spreckels holdings. During the 1880s and early 1890s, he bought and built up several blocks of office buildings in San Francisco.

Claus Spreckels was a financial and an industrial capitalist. Obtaining, investing and multiplying money was his main business, and his role as a pioneer of Hawaiian sugar planting and Californian beet sugar production was merely an outgrowth of his desire to increase his fortune. (Spiekermann)

Although none of his firms survived, his name today is still mentioned in San Francisco and Hawaiian travel guides as an example of an exceptional self-made man: “The life of Claus Spreckels is one of the interesting and absorbing personal histories of which America is so proud.” (Spiekermann)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

October 10, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Mauna Loke

Called the “Prince of Entertainers” and the “Entertainer of Princes,” John Cummins was a prosperous businessman known for his generous and lavish hospitality to royalty and commoner alike and for his knowledge and love of Hawaiian traditions.

John Adams Kuakini Cummins was born on O’ahu on March 17, 1835, the son of High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papali‘ai‘aina and Thomas Jefferson Cummins, Jr.

He was a namesake of island governor John Adams Kuakini (1789–1844,) who in turn took the name of John Quincy Adams.

His mother was a descendent of the Lonoikahapu‘u line and was a cousin of King Kamehameha I. His father was a wealthy and aristocratic Englishman, born in Lancashire and reared in Massachusetts, who came to the Islands in 1828.

Cummins married Rebecca Kahalewai (1830–1902) in 1861, also considered a high chiefess, and had six children: Matilda Kaumakaokane, Jane Pi‘ikea, Kaimilani, ‘Imilani, Thomas Puali‘i and May Ka‘aolani. When she died, her pallbearers included Princes David Kawānanakoa and Jonah Kalaniana‘ole. In 1903, he married his son-in-law’s sister, High Chiefess Elizabeth
Kapeka Merseberg.

Cummins was a staunch monarchist, who, in his later years, was arrested, tried, imprisoned and heavily fined by the new Republic of Hawaiʻi.

Thomas Cummins purchased or leased lands known as the Waimanalo Sugar Plantation; the first record of this was March 27, 1842, when High Chief Pākī leased Cummins a parcel of land on which to build a house.

This residence was later named Mauna Loke, or Rose Mont. (He had another home, Ahipu‘u, named after the hill and caves behind the house. Today it is the site of the O’ahu Country Club.)

However, it was Mauna Loke, the family home in Waimānalo that was the scene of lavish Hawaiian-style living and entertaining that was synonymous with Cummins’s name.

It was said that the food served there excelled that of the best in San Francisco, and the wines were of the choicest vintage. Although always offering plenty to drink, Cummins himself never touched a drop.

His guests included royalty, starting with Kamehameha V, as well as foreign visitors. This included German Princes and the Duke of Edinburgh in 1869.

“Cavalcades of horsemen and horsewomen braved the dangers of the steep pali and the rocky trail in order that they might reach the fertile valley and beach where John Cummins kept open house for all who came his way.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 21, 1913)

King Kalākaua often enjoyed Cummins’s hospitality at the spacious home. There were several grass houses scattered throughout the grounds, one for the exclusive use of Kalākaua and one exclusively for Princess Kaʻiulani.

As a child, Kaʻiulani helped “Uncle John” erect a flagpole nearby, then she raised the Hawaiian flag and christened it with a bottle of champagne.

King Kamehameha V also liked to visit Mauna Loke. In order to avoid the difficult trip over the Pali trail, the king purchased a small steamboat in which to ride around the island from town and had a short railway line installed from the boat landing to the house.

A huge celebration took place at Mauna Loke in November 1874, the first stop of a two-week “Grand Tour of O’ahu” by Queen Emma.

The queen stayed three days, by which time the number present – both invited and uninvited – was in the hundreds. Guests brought food by the wagon load: hogs, bullocks, ducks, turkeys and poi.

Three hundred torches burned throughout the night of the lū‘au. (By the way, Pukui notes, “lū‘au” is not an ancient name, but goes back at least to 1856, when so used by the Pacific Commercial Advertiser; formerly a feast was called pāʻina or ʻahaʻaina.)

There were fireworks, bonfires, swimming, surfing, stream fishing, lei making, horse racing, rifle shooting and hula troupes performing one after another until daylight the next day.

Cummins then escorted Emma on the rest of the tour around the island.

Cummins was elected representative for his Koʻolau district in 1873 and assisted in the election of King Lunalilo that same year. The following year, he aided in the election of King Kalākaua and eventually served as Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Cummins was instrumental in helping King Kalākaua effect a reciprocity treaty with the United States in 1874, after which the sugar industry prospered and the value of Waimānalo Plantation was greatly enhanced.

John Adams Cummins died March 21, 1913, his obituary read, in part, “Being one of the last of the high chiefs, whose youth was spent in associating with the kings and princes of the realm, if he had no love for the Hawaiian flag and of the traditions of his country, then no one had. He had been dandled on the knee of Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III.”

“Alexander Liholiho, Kamehameha IV, and his gentle Queen Emma were his most intimate friends and companions. Kalākaua owed his election largely to the instrumentality of Mr. Cummins, and would gladly have had him near him continually.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 21, 1913)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Mauna_Loke_(Rose_Mont),_Waimānalo,_Hawai'i

Kaiulani,_Liliuokalani,_and_Poomaikelani_at_Mauna_Loke_1880s

Princess Ruth Keelikolani with hapa-haole chiefs Samuel Parker and John Adams Cummins as kāhili bearers

September 12, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Anthony Allen

The history of the Black presence in Hawaiʻi goes back to the early sailors; Blacks were crewmembers of Cook’s second and third Pacific voyages.

There is a “high likelihood” for the presence of Blacks on many of the ships that crossed the Pacific. Free and unfree Blacks had been serving onboard these ships in a variety of capacities.

Between about 1820 and 1880, hundreds of whaling ships annually pulled into (primarily) Honolulu and Lāhainā, and a significant number of Blacks stayed behind in the islands and became permanent residents where they worked as cooks, barbers, tailors, sailors on interisland vessels and members of musical groups.

Discussion of early African-American presence in Hawaiʻi usually starts with Anthony D. Allen. He was born a slave on the German Flats, in New York, in 1774. At about the age of 24, fearing his old master’s widow (Dougal) might sell him and he would have to leave his mother, he arranged for a new slave master and he was bought for $300.

Shortly thereafter, in 1800, he made a flight for freedom from Schenectady, NY, and made his way to Boston. He went to work at sea, sailing with the same sea captain for eight years, seven as steward and one as cook.

Many other African Americans worked in the maritime industry during this period as crew members, pilots, cooks, stewards, stevedores, builders and captains. In the coming decades, Americans with African lineage would account for up to 50 percent of the maritime forces. (Scruggs, HJH)

In 1806, he ran into his former slave master and was almost forced back into slavery. Mr. Coolege, the ship owner on which he worked, agreed to pay the former owner $300; the former owner agreed.

In return, Allen gave Coolege a promissory note to pay him back. In April 1807, Allen paid the note back. He spent the next few years sailing across the globe – Boston, France, Haiti, Havana China, Northwest US and eventually, in 1811, Hawaiʻi.

Called Alani by the Native Hawaiians, Allen served as steward to Kamehameha the Great and he acquired a parcel of about six acres. He married a Hawaiian woman and had three children who survived into adulthood. (HHS)

He “resided at Waikiki, lived as comfortably, and treated us as courteously, as any who had adopted that country before our arrival.” (Hiram Bingham)

John Papa ʻĪʻī, a neighbor of Allen, in his testimony confirming rights to the land, told how Allen acquired his land: “The Allens got this land from an old high Priest – Hewa hewa. … this land was given him in the time of ‘’Kamehameha I’.” (HJH)

By 1820, Allen owned a dozen houses, “within the enclosure were his dwelling, eating and cooking houses, with many more for a numerous train of dependents. There was also a well, a garden containing principally squashes, and in one part, a sheepfold in which was one cow, several sheep, and three hundred goats.” (Sybil Bingham Journal)

Allen’s land held a variety of business enterprises, including animal husbandry, farming, a boarding house, a hospital, a bowling alley and a grog shop. Besides keeping his own animals, Allen boarded cattle for others. Allen may have operated the first commercial dairy in Hawaiʻi.

“Waikīkī” was once a vast marshland whose boundaries encompassed more than 2,000-acres (as compared to its present 500-acres below the Ala Wai Canal we call Waikīkī, today).

Allen’s six-acres and home were about two miles from downtown at Pawaʻa, between what we now call Waikīkī and Mānoa at what is now the corner of Punahou and King Streets. This is where Washington Intermediate School is now situated. (Washington was the first intermediate school built on Oʻahu; it opened in 1926.)

In addition to his farming, Allen provided overnight accommodations – one of the earliest known hotel uses in Waikīkī. Several references note his property as a “resort.” (Hawaiʻi’s first “hotel” may be attributed to Don Francisco de Paula Marin, sometime after 1810 on Marin’s property at Honolulu Harbor.)

Reverend Charles Stewart notes of Allen’s place in his journal, “… it is a favourite resort of the more respectable of the seamen who visit Honoruru. …” With it, he had a popular bowling alley.

He entertained often and made his property available for special occasions. “King (Kauikeaouli – Kamehameha III) had a Grand Dinner at A. D. Allen’s. The company came up at sunset. Music played very late.” (Reynolds – Scruggs, HJH)

He even operated a hospital where ill or injured seamen and sea captains were taken ashore to recuperate; however, it is not clear if he had medical training or who else there did.

It appears that Allen helped oversee the construction and maintenance of one of the first improved roads in Honolulu, probably what today is known as Punahou Street, which becomes Mānoa Road.

In the “… valley of Manoa … this afternoon Mr. Bingham drove me in a wagon to it. There is now a good carriage road … as far as the country house of Kaahumanu … five miles from Honolulu.” (Reynolds, Scruggs, HJH)

Allen, the former slave, died of a stroke on December 31, 1835, leaving behind a considerable fortune to his children.

In tribute to Allen, Reverend John Diell noted, “The last sun of the departed year went down upon the dying bed of another man who has long resided upon the island. He was a colored man, but shared, to a large extent, in the respect of this whole community. …”

“He has been a pattern of industry and perseverance, and of care for the education of his children. … In justice to his memory, and to my own feelings, I must take this opportunity to acknowledge the many expressions of kindness which we received from him from the moment of our arrival.”

The image shows an 1874 map (Waikiki DAGS Reg-797-(portion)) that notes the property owned by Anthony D Allen.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

September 4, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Carl Smith

On December 2, 1897, Carl Smith and Nelle Wood married in Atlantic, Iowa; later that month they left aboard the ‘Martha Davis’ from San Francisco and arrived in the Islands on December 27, 1897; Carl was 27 and his new bride was 26.

Carl was born September 4, 1870 in Cambridge, Vermont, son of Edward Charles and Marilla (Derby) Smith, and studied at the public schools of San Jose, California.

He attended the University of California and Stanford University and gained a law degree from Northwestern University in 1896.

He arrived in Honolulu in 1897, where he was associated with the law firm of Kinney & Ballou until June, 1898, when he moved to Hilo.

In Hilo he was associated in the practice of law with various partners, including D. H. Hitchcock and Charles F . Parsons. He had been in the private practice of law for many years, his two sons Wendell and Merrill joining him in 1920, and his grandson, Donn, joined the staff in 1953.

Along the way, Hawaii law allowed and defined a process for people to change their name.

Section 2350 of the Revised Laws of Hawaii was amended to read: “It shall not be lawful to change any name adopted or conferred under this Chapter, except upon a decree of the Governor …”

“… which decree shall be founded upon the petition of the person desirous of changing his or her name and shall be published for at least four consecutive weeks in some newspaper of general circulation in the Territory of Hawaii in such decree mentioned.” (Approved April 17, 1907, Governor GR Carter)

Carl sought to change his.

Notices for “the Matter of the Petition of Carl Schurz Smith for Change of Name” were published in the newspaper Dec. 12, 19, 26 (1911), Jan. 2, 12 (1912).

Those notices stated that Governor Walter F Frear “ordered and decreed that the name of Carl Schurz Smith hereby is changed to Carl Schurz Carlsmith”. (Hawaiian Star, December 19, 1911)

Implementation of the name change had its challenges …

“When Governor Frear left behind him the palmless shores of Makapuu point and proceeded towards the Golden Gate it was in full possession of the fact that when a man changes his name all public documents of which he might be a signer must have attached to them a certified copy of the change.”

“But it was with an equally profound ignorance of the fact that this important change had been effected in the landscape of Hilo that Secretary Mott-Smith assumed the duties of the acting Governor.”

“Upon taking his seat in the executive chamber and calling for the memo book he was first accosted by his gentlemanly and unobtrusive secretary who, pushing a broad sheet of parchment before him, designated a certain spot upon it and remarked.”

Name changing has consequences … “‘Sign here,’ please, The First National Bank of Squedunkport, in which Mr. Carl S. Carlsmith of Hilo has a small deposit, requires a certified copy of the change in his name. Thank you.’”

And gazing upon the extra fanciful chirographic specimen which designated Mr. Mott-Smith’s first official act, he passed out. But, alas, about this time the first national banks, and the second national banks and the other banks throughout the country as well as other Institutions who do business with Mr. Carlsmith began to clamor for official explanations.”

“Within a week Mr. Mott-Smith’s hair was standing straighter up and his signature was slanting further over and his profanity gradually rose from plain mush to the expressive buckwheats of yesterday.”

“This was occasioned by no less a fact that following the acting-Governor jubilation Monday over the completion of the deal for the land for the Hilo wharf in which Mr. Carlsmith was the other party …”

“… the private secretary yesterday presented to him a parchment which was to assure all future generations that the name which Mr. Carlsmith appended to the wharf agreement was a true and certified copy of the proclamation on file in the Governor’s office.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 31, 1912)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Carl Smith birth notation 1870

August 20, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mauna ‘Ala

During the reign of Kamehameha IV, there was talk of building a new royal mausoleum (at the time, Hawaiʻi’s ruling chiefs were buried in the crypt enclosure on the ʻIolani Palace grounds, known as Pohukaina, sometimes called ‘the mound’.)

His death on November 30, 1863 was the impetus needed to begin the construction of a new chapel; it was completed in January 1864 and a State funeral was held for Kamehameha IV on February 3, 1864.

Mauna ‘Ala is the resting place for many of Hawai‘i’s royalty. (Mauna ‘Ala means “fragrant mountain.”) On October 19, 1865, the Royal Mausoleum chapel was completed.

RC Wyllie, Hawaiʻi’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, was buried with a State funeral in the Royal Mausoleum on October 29, 1865.

The next night, October 30, 1865, the remains of 21 Ali‘i were removed from Pohukaina at ‘Iolani Place and transferred in a torchlight procession at night to Mauna ‘Ala, the new Royal Mausoleum in Nu‘uanu Valley.

“Earth has not seen a more solemn procession what when, in the darkness of the night, the bodies of these chieftains were carried through the streets”. (Hawaiian Gazette, January 14, 1880)

In a speech delivered on the occasion of the laying of the Cornerstone of The Royal Palace (ʻIolani Palace,) Honolulu, in 1879, JH Kapena, Minister of Foreign Relations, said:

“Doubtless the memory is yet green of that never-to-be-forgotten night when the remains of the departed chiefs were removed to the Royal Mausoleum in the valley.”

“Perhaps the world had never witnessed a procession more weird and solemn than that which conveyed the bodies of the chiefs through our streets, accompanied on each side by thousands of people until the mausoleum was reached, the entire scene and procession being lighted by large kukui torches, while the midnight darkness brought in striking relief the coffins on their biers.”

The March 10, 1899 issue of the Hawaiian Gazette noted that Liloa (1500s,) Lonoikamakahiki (late-1500s) and Alapaʻi (1700s) are among the buried at Mauna ʻAla.

In 1866, the remains of John Young, the British seaman who became a close friend and advisor to Kamehameha I, had been moved to Mauna ‘Ala.

Then the first major crypt was built during 1884-1887 by Charles Reed Bishop, husband of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, to house the remains of the Kamehameha family. Later, he too was buried there and the crypt sealed.

The Kamehameha crypt is the resting place Kamehameha II to V and other members of family – there are a total of 24 Kamehameha’s buried there.

Lunalilo chose to be buried on Kawaiaha‘o Church grounds in his personal crypt and not at the Royal Mausoleum.

A second crypt was built in 1904 to house nine of Queen Emma’s relatives and close associates. This tomb is named for Robert C. Wyllie, a close friend of the Kamehameha family and an important figure in late-19th century Hawaiian politics.

Between 1907 and 1910, a third crypt was built to shelter the Kalākaua family. The Kalākaua crypt holds the buried remains of members of the Kalākaua dynasty – a total of 20 members of the Kalākaua family.

It was Queen Lili‘uokalani’s wish and vision to convert the mausoleum building into a chapel, to be used specifically to celebrate the birthdays of Hawai‘i’s kings and queens and their legacy of aloha, left to the Hawaiian people through the various trusts created by these high chiefs and high chiefesses, to care for their people.

By a joint resolution of Congress on May 31, 1900, the 3.5-acres of land that make up the Mauna ʻAla premises were “withdrawn from sale, lease, or other disposition under the public-land laws of the United States” and the property is to be used as a mausoleum for the royal family of Hawai‘i.

Mauna ‘Ala is managed by DLNR’s State Parks Division; there is a curator agreement for the property. William John Kaihe‘ekai Mai‘oho (Bill) was appointed curator of Mauna ‘Ala in January 1995. His mother was kahu for 28-years prior. This position was handed down through the generations.

I had the good fortune to meet Bill on a couple occasions. Once, at Mauna ‘Ala for a service in the chapel and presenting of ho‘okupu at the Kamehameha crypt; the second was at the awa ceremony for the curator agreement between DLNR and the Royal Order of Kamehameha I at Kaʻawaloa Point at Kealakekua Bay.

Mauna ʻAla is open to the public from 8 am to 4 pm, Monday thru Friday and on Memorial Day.