Koa | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 28, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Papa Koa Lumber Company

“The marketing of a quantity of koa lumber will prove a noteworthy event in the history of our exports, it is to be regretted that so little is known on the mainland of the commercial woods of these islands.”

“A complete collection of Hawaiian economic woods, is greatly to be desired. In many cases the beauty of their texture is only equalled by their possibilities of utility.”

“Not only are hard woods of beautiful grain, capable of retaining a splendid polish, well represented in Hawaii, but also others whose peculiar properties would make them valuable tor special purposes. Notable among the latter is the wood of the wili-wili tree, whose extreme lightness will no doubt some day find an economic application.”

The ‘ōhi‘a forms the major part of the forest in South Kona and in many places the trees attain good height and fairly large diameter. The ‘ōhia forest extends up to an elevation of about 4,000 feet.

“Above that the character of the forest changes, the ‘ōhi‘a being replaced by koa in fairly pure stand, with less undergrowth. The koa occurs in groves more or less connected, rather than as a dense forest cover.”

The upper part is much rougher than that lower down, but nevertheless there are many pockets and little islands of good soil in the lava in which the koa develops well and reaches good size. Where the soil is scant the trees are short and spreading. (Hawaiian Forester and Agriculturalist, 1905)

Between 1906 and 1919, Papa Koa Lumber Company, owned by Cristel Bolte, was the major supplier of koa lumber for Hawai‘i and the US. (Jenkins)

Bolte was a German national who became a naturalized Hawaiian subject. He was a merchant in the corporation of Grinbanm & Co. and was connected with the Planters’ Labor and Supply Association and a sugar shareholder; “There is hardly any person of property in this country who is not an owner of some sugar stocks.”

Bolte leased about 600-acres of koa forest lands in Papa, South Kona, and in 1906 he negotiated a contract to supply koa logs to the American-Hawaiian Mahogany Company in Petaluma, California. He shipped 30,000 feet of unsawed logs to the American-Hawaiian Mahogany Company in the first year of operation.

In 1909, Bolte purchased sawmill equipment on the mainland and entered into a partnership with EH Cant to harvest ‘ōhi‘a in Pahoa. Cant and Bolte, Ltd. had picked up part of the Santa Fe Railroad contract that the Hawaiian Mahogany Lumber Company had. but lost.

By 1914, the once large market for ‘ōhi‘a in the US had all but disappeared and by 1915 Bolte consolidated his lumber business back at Papa, South Kona, now on approximately 1,200 acres.

He added a band saw and forty-two-inch circular saw used for sawing the logs. There was also a machine shop, a complete woodworking shop, a manager’s home, and six to ten workers’ cottages on the site. It was a modern sawmill, employing whatever machinery was practical in the rugged, steep terrain.

Two old lumber wagons with ‘wood wheels’ were also used for hauling lumber down to the Ho‘opuloa Village landing for shipment

Transporting the lumber to the shipping point was as difficult and costly as it had been 100 years earlier. The tortuous roads over the rugged lava were essentially wagon trails, and the lumber vehicles were in constant need of repair.

The company was a major supplier of koa lumber to Honolulu’s largest koa furniture manufacturer, Fong Inn Company. The Papa Koa Lumber Company was in fact the main source of all commercial koa lumber during that time.

Bolte died in April 1919 at the age sixty-five; two of his sons, Ernest and Fred, continued the business as Bolte Brothers Sawmills. In September 1919, only five months after Bolte’s death, Mauna Loa volcano erupted, destroying much of the company’s forest lands, but stopped short of the sawmill.

The lava continued around and past the mill, destroying more forest lands on its way to the sea. The Bolte Brothers continued for two more years, until May 1921 when the Security Trust Company foreclosed on a loan made the year before.

In September, the sawmill and land were sold to neighboring landowner CQ Yee Hop, who also took the name of the defunct Hawaiian Mahogany Lumber Company. The new company then became the major supplier of koa lumber in the territory. (Lots of information here is from Jenkins, Daughters of Hawaii.)

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April 13, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Fong Inn

“Notice is hereby given that the undersigned have formed a partnership under name of Fong Inn as Furniture Manufacturers and Dealers at No. 1152 Nuʻuanu St., Honolulu. Dated July 24, 1909. Yuen Kwock, Gin Jau” (the Polynesian, July 26, 1909)

A couple years before, Fong Inn Co was operated through a partnership between Le Wa Cheung and Gin Jau (it dissolved through notice in the newspaper on June 4, 1907 – Gin Jau assumed the debts and liabilities.)

Fong Inn (Yuen Kwock) was born in Chung Shan District, Kwantung Province, China in 1873. He came to Hawaii in 1898 and started a Chinese import company (that was devastated in the 1900 Chinatown fire.)

In the Islands he held office in the United Chinese Society and the See Dai Doo Society and was the longest living founder of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1911.

Fong Inn and his son, Henry, visited the Orient often. In 1915, they brought back fine silk, Chinese antiques, pieces of art and jewelry. (Louie)

“Collectors in Peking, Nanking, Shanghai and Canton employed by the Fong Inn Company, 1152 Nuʻuanu street have gotten from private houses and individual artists, a collection of Chinese good’s which is probably not equalled anywhere out of China.”

“The embroidered goods, intricate and delicate, appeal especially. There are table covers, wall strips, handkerchiefs, kimonos and other articles, beautiful in design and coloring, and some of which must have taken months of work. They have even small ladles’ purses, hand-embroidered and exquisitely done, and there are many pretty Chinese slippers.”

“The Fong Inn Company has ancient Chinaware, some vases as old as 400 years and worth $300, and others more modern, but just as pretty and much cheaper.”

“There are works of art by famous Chinese artists, beautiful lanterns of teakwood, with hand-painted glass panels, amber beads, portieres, mandarin coats colored like the rainbow jades, crystals and necklaces of amber, besides a hundred other beautiful curios and useful articles.” (Star Bulletin, December 16, 1915)

“So impressed was Herbert Fleishhacker, the San Francisco millionaire banker, with Honolulu’s Oriental shops as places in which rare curios may be obtained, that he purchased great quantities of things here, his bill at the store of Fong Inn, 1152 Nuʻuanu street, having run well into five figures, besides purchases for smaller amounts elsewhere.”

“The goods are now being packed, and will go to the coast on the next steamer, to be put into Mr. Fleishhacker’s private museum, which is considered one of the largest and most costly in San Francisco.”

“Among the articles purchased from Fong Inn, numbering about 75 in all, were several authentic pieces dating back to the Sung Dynasty (960 to 1127 AD), several made during the ascendancy of the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644 AD), and one very rare piece from a period about 185 BC.”

“One folding screen is an especially striking work of art, with eight semiprecious stones, including jade, ivory, cornelian, mother of pearl and moonstones, Inlaid on a background of dull ebony.”

“Mr. Fleischhacker also purchased several pieces of cloisonne, some lacquer work screens, old embroideries, Ivory carvings, red lacquer bowls, paintings on silks and parchments, and rare porcelains and bronzes.” (Star Bulletin, December 8, 1915)

Many of the prized antiques found their way into homes throughout the Islands. Their customers were the Cookes, Judds, Dillinghams, Baldwins, Damons and other who’s who of Hawaii.

Father and son became close friends with many kamaʻaina families and worked closely with the Cooke family to supply the Honolulu Art Academy with Asian treasures and helped assist Mrs. Cooke to acquire the famous scroll, The Hundred Geese, attributed to painter Ma Fen. (Louie)

While Fong Inn became one of Honolulu’s leading art importers, especially Chinese antiques … they were also Honolulu’s largest koa furniture manufacturer.

He began the House of Fong Inn, the leading manufacturer of koa furniture that made beds for Hawaiian Royalty and many wealthy clients.

In 1938, Fong Inn built a building in Waikiki using yellow tile similar to the roof of the Imperial Palace. Fong Inn’s new building, on Kalākaua Avenue, was designed by Roy Kelley (an architect before he built his Outrigger Hotels.) This building later was the home of the Hawaii Tourist Bureau. (Louie)

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September 27, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Protecting a Forest, Preserving a Culture

Envision a child helping to plant a seedling; then, while standing before a 100-year old tree, asking him about what he thought life was like in the islands when that tree was once a seedling.

More importantly, imagine him wonder what life will be like in the islands when his planted seedling turned 100-years old.

This was part of the vision for a forest management plan; let’s look back …

Native koa ecosystems serve as watershed recharge areas while providing recreational opportunities and important wildlife habitat. Koa is considered a vital species for healthy populations of endemic birds and insects. The tree itself has myriad uses in Hawaiian culture and traditions.

In making Hokuleʻa, the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) wanted to use traditional materials (koa wood hulls, lauhala sails, sennit lashing) and traditional tools (adzes, bone gouges, coral files and sharkskin for sanding) in building the canoe.

Instead, the hulls were constructed out of plywood, fiberglass, and resin, and the sails were made from canvas; the lashings were done with synthetic cordage. (PVS)

It takes 125 years or more to grow a koa log large enough for a canoe, which generally needs to be 35 to 45 feet long with a diameter of 48 inches or more (voyaging canoes require larger logs.)

That period may be shortened if specific koa logs are identified for canoes now, and forestry prescriptions (e.g. thinning, pruning) are applied to favor the growth of those trees for canoe logs. (DLNR)

Unless committed efforts were made to grow koa for canoe logs on a sustainable basis now, no Hawaiian voyaging canoes would be built in the future using traditional methods (i.e. from a single large log.)

Likewise, racing and smaller style canoes will need to be fabricated from smaller koa logs joined or spliced together.

While I was Chair at DLNR, I remembered how folks could not find appropriately sized/shaped native trees in Hawai‘i to build the Hokule‘a and subsequent voyaging canoes.

Likewise, I knew of the interest canoe clubs and others had for koa racing canoes. Without protection of our koa forests, we may never have the trees for future canoes.

In 2004, we then initiated the formal designation of the Kapapala Koa Canoe Forest Management Area on land set-aside in 1989, near the Volcano National Park, in Kaʻu, on the Big Island. The designated area consists of approximately 1,200-acres of mature koa-ʻohiʻa forest.

The 1,257-acre property extends from the 3,640-foot elevation of Mauna Loa to 5,100 feet. It is next to the state-managed Kapapala and Ka’u Forest Reserves, and is covered with young and old koa trees, although the trees aren’t yet suitable for canoe building.

Here, koa trees grow tall and straight – necessary traits for core material in canoe shaping. It was the first Forest Management Area specifically designated for nurturing and harvesting koa canoe logs.

A broad, multi-faceted focus was envisioned, dealing with cultural & historical, technical forestry (planning, measurements, theory,) applied forestry (plant, weed, thin, prune, harvest) and wood working (canoe building, as well as crafting of excess/scrap material.)

Seven major goals of the project included:

Preserve Hawaiʻi’s unique natural and cultural inheritance for future generations, by fostering knowledge and respect for Hawaii’s native forests, in a way that inspires better care of its natural environment.
Protect threatened tropical forest habitat and promote environmental policies and practices, that address biological sustainability and human well-being, by identifying and integrating relevant traditional Hawaiian natural resource stewardship models with current Western management strategies.
Develop natural resource stewardship models that involve a wide range of constituent groups.
Involve youth through cooperative programs with the Department of Education, University of Hawaiʻi, and other school and education institutions.
Provide wood workers with portions of harvested trees that are not processed as canoe logs.
Involve other constituency groups (i.e. canoe clubs, forest management entities and cultural organizations).
Provide compatible opportunities for public uses such as hunting and recreation.

Protecting trees for canoes is great; but, for me, the plan was not just about trees – we envisioned greater benefit by getting school children into the forests to help with the management and monitoring of its progress – and help them wonder.

At the outset, we envisioned that trees in the forest would be ‘designated’ to schools and canoe clubs across the state, with students and paddlers from each school/club periodically visiting and nurturing their respective tree. Ultimately, the school/club would get a log for a school/club koa canoe.

Likewise, the intent was to make the excess wood available to wood workers, so nothing would be wasted and crafters would have material to work with.

As part of the project implementation, Hawaiʻi Forest Institute worked with the Hawai‘i Forest Industry Association (HFIA,) DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW,) Imi Pono and the Three Mountain Alliance to develop a plan for bringing youth to the Kapapala Canoe Forest for cultural and environmental education. (I am proud to now serve as an HFI Board member)

The dream of assuring future koa logs for canoes is apparently working toward reality through partnerships with DLNR and others. I am hopeful the needs for future koa canoe logs will be filled, DOE and children across the state can also participate in these activities, and a healthy forest will be protected.

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Koa Canoes

Koa Canoe

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July 20, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Three Princes

As early as the 1870s, “surf swimming,” as it was called, had become one of the most popular attractions in the bourgeoning tourist Mecca of Santa Cruz. Folks weren’t on boards; they were ‘bathing’ in the ocean.

In June of 1885 “the beach and the surf were both at their best … the breakers with their white crests, beautiful enough to delight the genuine sea lover … Late in the afternoon, a large party of swimmers went into the water, a number of our best lady swimmers being among them.” (Dunn & Stoner)

“Sunday afternoon at the beach was one of the liveliest of the season. It was warm, very warm, but tempered by a breeze, which made the heat endurable and kept people good-natured.”

“The breakers at the mouth of the river were very fine and here occurred the very primest of fun, at least, so said those who were ‘in the swim.’”

As many as 30 or 40 swimmers were out in the water with them, “dashing and tossing, and plunging through the breakers, going out only to be tossed back apparently at the will of the waves and making some nervous onlookers feel sure that they were about to be dashed against the rocks.”

“The young Hawaiian princes were in the water, enjoying it hugely and giving interesting exhibitions of surf-board swimming as practiced in their native islands.” (Santa Cruz Daily Surf, July 20, 1885; Divine)

This was the first recorded account of surfing on the continent … let’s look back.

The present Church of St Matthew in San Mateo, located at the corner of Baldwin and El Camino, dates back to 1865. At that time, San Mateo boasted a modest population of 150, with a corner grocery, blacksmith, railroad depot, one Roman Catholic Church, an old schoolhouse and about 25 houses spreading from San Mateo down to Belmont.

Almost simultaneous with the construction of the Church was the founding of St Matthew’s Hall, a full-fledged military boarding school for boys. The original site was a two-story building on Baldwin in San Mateo, adjacent to today’s St. Matthew’s Church (where the Mills Medical Arts Building now stands.) (St Matthew’s)

In 1882 the school was moved to an 80-acre site at the upper end of Barroilhet Avenue. Enrollment averaged 120 boys a year and in its 49 years, approximately 3,000 students passed through the school. Most of the students were boarders who came from around the West and the Pacific.

Three Hawaiian princes (and brothers,) David Kawānanakoa (Koa,) Edward Keliʻiahonui and Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, nephews of Queen Kapiʻolani, were schooled at St Matthew’s Hall in 1885, and went on to study at prestigious academic institutions like Stanford, the University of California and a dozen Eastern colleges accepted graduates without further examination. (St Matthew’s)

When not at St Mathew’s, the three princes were placed under the careful eye of Antoinette Swan (daughter of Don Francisco de Paula Marin and hānai daughter to Dr Thomas Charles Byde Rooke (and hānai sister to future Queen Emma) who had moved to Santa Cruz a few years before.)

When the Swan home became too crowded, the princes boarded at the nearby Wilkins House, located half a block away, on Pacific and Cathcart streets. (Dunn & Stoner)

Meanwhile, during the mid-1880s, the first-growth redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains were being lumbered by several fledgling timber businesses. Indeed, the lumber industry was by far the largest in Santa Cruz County during the 1870s and 1880s, with enormous amounts of redwood being transported out of the region by both rail and shipping lines.

The brothers had surfboards made from “solid redwood planks and milled locally by the Grover Lumber Co. They were over 100 pounds in weight and 15 feet in length.”

“Grover Lumber Co. had a planing mill on lower Pacific Ave. and Santa Cruz housewives could set their clocks by the noon whistle.” This finish mill was just a few blocks from the Swan home in which the three princes stayed. (By the end of the 1880s, the redwood trees had all been cut, and they renamed the lumber camp settlement, Clear Creek in 1890.) (Stoner)

While the likes of George Douglas Freeth Jr and Duke Kanahamoku are honored for their indroduction of surfing to others, “On weekends the princes could be found enjoying water sports at the mouth of the San Lorenzo River”; and, as noted above, were the first reported to surf in California.

They also enjoyed some of the local sports as well, “Olympic Rink was honored by the presence of the Hawaiian princes, who received their first lesson in roller skating. They fell down about as many times as ordinary individuals. A pair of skates has no respect for rank. They level all persons who can’t skate.” (Dunn & Stoner)

Shortly after (1887,) Prince Edward was sent home ill from St Mathews and died a short time later in Honolulu from scarlet fever. Koa would eventually become the immediate first heir to the throne. His youngest brother Jonah, who had been Queen Liliʻuokalani’s personal favorite, was second. Neither of them, however, would ever become king.

Kūhiō, an advocate for Hawaiian independence, was involved in the rebellion against the overthrow and was sentenced to a year in prison. Immediately upon his release from prison he traveled the world. In 1902, he returned from exile to participate in Hawaiian politics.

While Koa headed up the state’s Democratic Party (and was a delegate to the 1900 Democratic National Convention,) Kūhiō joined the Republican Party and was elected to the US Congress in 1903 as a delegate from the Territory of Hawaiʻi, where he served until his death in 1922. (Dunn & Stoner)

Today, the two surfboards of Kūhiō and Koa are on loan from Bishop Museum and included in the display at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ‘Princes of Surf’ exhibition (July 3 – October 25, 2015.)

A plaque with the three princes was added at Santa Cruz Surfing Museum at Mark Abbott Memorial Lighthouse.

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Kuhio and Koa surfboard (on display in Santa Cruz)

Students_at_St._Matthews_Military_Academy,_PrinceKoa, leaning against bicycle wheel-Thomas Puali’i Cummins, seated center frontc._1885

St._Matthews_Military_Academy,_San_Mateo,_California,_in_the_1880s

Santa Cruz

Plaque_at_the_Santa_Cruz_surfing_museum-Lighthouse Point

Plaque_at_the_Santa_Cruz_surfing_museum_Lighthouse Point

May 4, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Transformation of Waimea, South Kohala, Hawaiʻi

Over the centuries, and even today, Waimea was an attractive draw with ideal climate and soils, and moderate distance from the ocean.

Still holding remnants of a cowboy town, it looked very different in centuries past – with transformation of forest lands, to agricultural fields, to pasture lands.

Now upper pasture land, archaeologists and others suggest the upper slopes of Waimea was a forest made up of ʻōhiʻa, koa, māmane, ʻiliahi (sandalwood) and other trees. Pili grass and shrubs were also found.

Within these forested uplands, you could find a variety of forest birds, ʻiʻiwi, ʻelepaio, ʻapapane and others. Fossil remains of a flightless goose have been found in the region.

This is what the earliest settlers to the region probably saw (however, it is likely the first settlers on the island probably first lived in the valleys on the wetter windward side of the island and others later came to Waimea.)

The forests had general characteristics of an open canopy and the appearance of a wooded parkland, particularly when contrasted with the grassy plains to the west and the dense “impenetrable” rainforest to the east. (McEldowney)

Statements typifying these characteristics, generally made while enroute from the Waimea settlements, through Parker’s ranch house at Mana, and along Mauna Kea’s eastern slope, include: “a scanty forest” (The Polynesian 1840); “those parts of the plain adjoining Hāmākua are better wooded having a parklike appearance” (Sandwich Islands Gazette 1836); “well shaded by clumps of trees” (The Polynesian 1847); and is “thickly wooded with large trees, entirely free from underbrush, and is covered with a greensward, giving it the appearance of a parkland” (The Polynesian 1848.) (McEldowney)

Reverend Lorenzo Lyons (missionary leader of Waimea’s Imiola Church and songwriter who composed “Hawaiʻi Aloha”) frequently described his home as ʻAla ʻŌhiʻa Nei (home of the fragrant ʻōhiʻa lehua.) (Paris)

The population began to increase dramatically around 1100 AD and the west side population doubled every century. (Kirch) The population of the islands reached a peak in about 1650 AD, with a total of several hundred thousand.

Waimea’s initial population (probably first settling in the 1100s – 1200s) likely grew into a fairly large community. Settlement areas expanded into the hillsides and out onto the drier Waimea plains.

As permanent settlements were established and populations grew, to feed the people and increase the amount of arable land, the leeward slopes and valleys were cleared of the native forest and replaced by intensively cultivated field systems. (Watson)

Field walls (kuaiwi) delineated garden plots (Kihāpai) and helped retain the soil. Fields were irrigated using canals (ʻauwai) that tapped the Waimea streams. (Watson)

Once the advantages of living in Waimea were known, the population quickly grew. Terraced agricultural plots expanded and more of the forest was removed.

The upper slopes of Waimea are said to have supported more than 10,000-people prior to contact.

Post-contact brought further changes – two major modern land-use practices transformed the landscape – first, the harvesting of sandalwood, which was shortly-followed by the management of the cattle herds.

Various references establish the importance of sandalwood, the most famous of early historic export commodities, in the Waimea region, while remarks such as, these “woods frequented by sandalwood cutters” suggest exploitable sandalwood was in the region’s māmane/koa forests. (McEldowney)

William Ellis, in 1831 wrote, “Before daylight on the 22d, we were roused by vast multitudes of people passing through the district from Waimea with sandalwood, which had been cut in the adjacent mountains for Karaimoku (Kalanimōku,) by the people of Waimea, and which the people of Kohala, as far as the north point, had been ordered to bring down to his storehouse on the beach, for the purpose of its being shipped to Oahu. There were between two and three thousand men, carrying each from one to six pieces of sandalwood, according to their size and weight.”

In 1856, while editor of the Sandwich Islands’ Monthly Magazine, Abraham Fornander wrote an article arguing that large cattle herds had altered or ameliorated the climate of Waimea by destroying a “thick wood” that covered “the whole of the plain” as early as 1825 or 1830 (Sandwich Islands’ Monthly Magazine 1856). (McEldowney)

All of this forever changed Waimea. Once the native forests were cleared, the “natural” landscape of Waimea ceased to exist. (Watson)

Early Hawaiians first altered the landscape by clearing the forest and plotting out agricultural fields; later, introduced species took over.

A notable introduced (and invasive) plant to Waimea is fountain grass; it was introduced on the island of Hawaiʻi as an ornamental plant in the 1920s. It spread quickly and today, less than a century later, fountain grass is a dominant species along roadsides and in undeveloped areas on the leeward side of the island. (Watson)

Waimea, we used to call it home – I miss it.

The image shows a map of early vegetation in and around Waimea (McEldowney.) In addition, I have included other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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