Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Glen Rock NJ and Hawaii as 49th State

Glen Rock, N.J., July 6, 1948 (By Wireless) – “Hawaii as the coming 49th state was the theme Monday of Glen Rock’s lively and colorful Independence Day pageant and celebration. This pleasant New Jersey town turned out thousands of residents to see the ceremony and enjoy a big family carnival. Thousands more motored from nearby towns and villages. Two featured speakers talked about the mid-Pacific territory and statehood.”

“They were Robert L. Ripley, famed Believe It or Not cartoonist and a recent Honolulu visitor; and Riley H. Allen, editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. They were present as guests of Glen Rock’s active and energetic Independence Day association. This was the 10th annual pageant staged by the association, and its largest to date.” Glen Rock was settled around a large glacial boulder in a small valley (glen), from which it gets its name. (A plaque was added in 1921 honoring Glen Rock’s WWI veterans and casualties.)

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Maui Jinsha Shrine

Shintoism is not Buddhism; but, the two religions are compatible. While Shintoism involves the prehistorical deities of Japan, Buddhism worships the Buddhist gods imported from India, as well as the departed spirits of the family. The name Shinto is translated to mean ‘The Way of the Gods;’ it embraces natural and ancestor worship. It teaches the innate goodness of the human heart.

There were once six Shinto shrines on Maui, located at Wailuku, Pa‘ia, Ma‘alaea and Kahului. The Maui Jinsha Shinto Shrine is the only remaining original Shinto shrine on Maui, and one of very few left in the entire state. It was established in 1914 by Masaho Matsumura in commemoration of the Emperor Yoshihito (the Taisho Emperor). Up until this point, there were no shrines dedicated to the emperor of Japan in Hawaii. In 1951, they moved the shrine to Wailuku.

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Largest Milk Dairy in the Hawaiian Kingdom

The east side of upper Mānoa (and a roadway through it) is known today as “Woodlawn.” It’s named for the Woodlawn Dairy and Stock Company. It became the largest milk dairy in the Hawaiian Kingdom. “This Dairy commenced business in June, 1879, under the name of “Woodlawn Dairy,” with stock consisting of ten native cows.”

“Mr (Benjamin Franklin) Dillingham’s beautiful residence, ‘Woodlawn,’ at Punahou, about a mile and a half from town, (is) where the dairy was originally started. Here there is about 350 acres controlled by the company, including land in Mānoa Valley and on this pasturage there is a herd of about 450 head of cattle, including Short horns, Durhams, Devon, Ayreshires, Holsteins and Jerseys.” (Dillingham’s ‘Woodlawn’ home was about where Central Union Church is situated.)

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Carl Frederick Reppun

Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun. He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing. He became a doctor. In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia. He chose to be the only physician in the Siberian mining or steel mill town of Tirljian.

At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljia. Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front. Later, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii; they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan. On July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Buford” for Honolulu, and stayed there. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.)

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Asked to Come … Then Excluded

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages in the sugar industry were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America. The first contract from China came in 1852. On the continent, in the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the US, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. Chinese immigrants were particularly instrumental in building railroads in the American west.

Objections to Chinese immigration took many forms, and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, as well as ethnic discrimination. Most Chinese laborers who came to the US did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there. At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could. Competition with American workers and a growing nativism brought pressure for restrictive action. In the Islands, in 1883, the Hawaiian Cabinet Council, concerned that the Chinese had secured too strong a representation in the labor market, passed a resolution to restrict Chinese immigration.