Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kawaiahaʻo Steeple

The Reverend Hiram Bingham prepared plans for a stone building of two stories with cellar, galleries, pillars in front, and a bell tower. The final dimensions were 144 feet long by 78 feet wide, large enough to accommodate thousands. “March 12th, 1839. Work on meeting house commenced. June 5th. Cornerstone of church laid.” “The high chief Abner Paki furnished the corner stone which was laid in 1839. It was hewn out of the reef at Waianae and floated to Honolulu on a raft, some say on canoes.” “Rev. R. Armstrong succeeded (Hiram Bingham) as Pastor of the church, and under him it was completed and dedicated July 21, 1842 (before the steeple and gallery had been completed.)”

In 1850, the town’s first clock, presented by the King, was installed in the Kawaiaha‘o tower, having come around the Horn from Boston. It cost $1,000.00 and commenced running January 10, 1851. The tower chock has continued in operation to this date. Kawaiaha‘o Church ordered an organ in 1867 to replace the melodion then in use. Music was under the leadership of Mrs Lydia Dominis (later Queen Lili‘uokalani) and Mrs Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Pauahi died on October 16, 1884. Her will (Clause 13) “provide first and chiefly a good education in the common English branches”. But Pauahi’s will also provided funds to Kawaiaha‘o Church – $5000 for repairs to Kawaiaha‘o Church. With those funds, they built up the tower with coral stone to give it the square tower (at its present height) and removed the pointed spire.

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Remond Grove

BF (Frank) Dillingham’s OR&L company, created in 1889, changed the landscape of west Honolulu. In the beginning, since there were as yet no real destinations along the line, Dillingham he created the concept of picnicking along Pearl Harbor and within days of the line’s opening began marketing excursions.

He held a contest that gave to Mānana the new name ‘Pearl City,’ and on its main thoroughfare, Lehua Road, he promoted a dance pavilion named Remond Grove (the large dancing pavilion had a capacity for 1,000 people.) It was built for the use of picnickers and dancing parties by the railroad company. It is seventy feet square, open on all sides, and a well-kept lawn, with a playing fountain in front, and provided with swings, croquet games, etc.

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Dole Street

The beginning of the original Dole Street was just below the Punahou School campus and was part of an 1880 small subdivision of lots the school developed to raise money for the school’s endowment. It was named for Rev Daniel Dole, Punahou’s first teacher/administrator. Streets within the subdivision were named for prior leaders of the school: Dole, Beckwith, Alexander and Bingham. Apparently, some at the University of Hawaiʻi are trying “to restore Dole Street to its Hawaiian name” – suggesting Dole Street was originally named Kapaʻakea Street. (HNN)

This is not true. The history is clear, Dole Street was formed in 1880 by Punahou School and was named for Rev. Daniel Dole, not his son, Sanford. Suggestions that the ‘original’ name of Dole Street was Kapaʻakea Street are simply wrong and not consistent with the clear history of the road and its subsequent extensions. The image is a portion of an 1892 map of the area. It notes Dole Street and the Punahou Lots subdivision (on the left); note that there are no roads on the right, and definitely nothing labeled Kapaʻakea, other than the wetland. Check out the full story and multiple maps that show the same – Dole Street, but no Kapaʻakea Street.

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sailor’s Home and Seamen’s Institute

It opened September 11, 1856, “That little affair at the Sailor’s Home came off on Thursday, and if the house is ever again so full of merry laughter and innocent enthusiasts, it may congratulate itself upon being the scene of a second triumph. … We have not yet heard what the receipts were. If ever an institution was introduced to public notice under happy patronage it is the Sailor’s Home. Long may it flourish.”

The nearby Seamen’s Bethel Chapel was built by the American Seamen’s Friend Society of New York, in 1833, the materials having been shipped from New London, Ct, for Honolulu via Cape Horn. It was the first edifice for the public worship of English-speaking people, erected in Polynesia. It was open to both seamen and foreign residents. The Honolulu Sailor’s Home provided mariners with room and board at a reasonable price. In this building were the offices of “Hawaiian Board and Bible Society;” office of the Friend; the “Bible and Tract Depository,” and YMCA Reading Room.

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kidwell’s Mānoa Pineapples

John Kidwell was born January 17, 1849 in the small north Devonshire village of Marwood. At the age of fifteen (in 1864,) he left home to become an apprentice to a second cousin, who was a nurseryman in London. He emigrated to the US in 1872 and became a nurseryman in San Francisco. In 1882, with letters of introduction, Kidwell sailed to Honolulu. At the time, there was great demand for fresh Hawaiian pineapples in San Francisco.

Kidwell started a pineapple farm with locally available plants at Wailele (where Mid-Pacific Institute is situated). The fruit was of poor quality; so he searched for better cultivars, importing 12 ‘Smooth Cayenne’ plants. Kidwell is credited with starting Hawai‘i’s pineapple industry; after his initial planting, others soon realized the potential of growing pineapples in Hawaii and consequently, started their own pineapple plantations. The commercial Hawaiian pineapple canning industry began in 1889 when Kidwell’s business associate, John Emmeluth, a Honolulu hardware merchant and plumber, produced commercial quantities of canned pineapple.