Oahu | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 30, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

St. Andrew’s Priory

At the invitation of King Kamehameha IV, the Anglican Church mission came to Hawaiʻi in 1862; the invitation was extended to both the Church of England and the Episcopal Church in the Unites States. The Church of England gave a favorable response.

At the time, the American Protestants, through the Congregational Church, and Roman Catholic Church were established and active in the islands. Each had also established schools within the islands.

Queen Emma recognized the educational needs of the young women of her island nation. Her mission of establishing a girls’ school in Honolulu took her to England to seek the counsel of the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Under his authority, the Sisters of the Church of England returned to Hawai’i with Queen Emma to begin their work.

Queen Emma was raised in the Anglican faith and envisioned a school where Hawaiian girls would receive an education equivalent to the education that was traditionally offered only to boys.

St. Andrew’s Priory School was founded on Ascension Day, May 30, 1867, by Queen Emma, wife of King Kamehameha IV, and Mother Priscilla Lydia Sellon of the Society of the Most Holy Trinity of Devonport, England.

St. Andrews Priory was named in honor of St. Andrew, which was also the dedication of the Cathedral. This name had been chosen for the Cathedral because St. Andrews Day, November 30, was the anniversary of the death of Kamehameha IV, for whom the building was a memorial.

The Society of the Most Holy Trinity used the Benedictine terminology, whereby the mother house of a religious order was called an abbey and a branch house a priory. Therefore, the school became St. Andrew’s Priory School for Girls.

The school opened with 11-boarders and a few day students; by the end of the year, 17-boarders had registered. Most of the boarders were aliʻi.

Priory was eligible and received government grants; in doing so, it had to follow government regulations. As such, curriculum included the required reading in English or Hawaiian, writing, arithmetic grammar, geography and training in industrial work,

Good English was the Priory’s chief objective, so all instruction was in English and the girls were not allowed to speak Hawaiian, even on the playground. The girls learned sewing and embroidery, music, drawing, in addition to the academic subjects. Religious classes were part of the school curriculum. (Heyes)

The Board of Education encouraged early entrance, before age 10, to English schools, so that students may learn English in their formative years. The Priory’s first 17-boarders ranged in age from four 1/2 to sixteen. In 1871, a 2 1/2-year old Kauaʻi student (McBryde) was admitted with her two older sisters.

The girls slept in dormitories (they furnished their own beds and bedding.) The girls had poi every day. Initially, the girls wore their own clothes, there was no uniform (however, every girl had a white dress for Sundays and special occasions – uniforms started sometime after 1918.)

By 1876, the school was well established; dormitory space had been almost doubled, making room for forty boarders. The number of day students also increased and in that year to a total of 118-students.

In the 1880s, the Royal Hawaiian Band played concerts twice a week in Queen Emma Square. “One of our pleasant diversions was to go to and hear Captain Berger’s band play at Emma Square every Saturday afternoon. … we all went and sat in the carriage just outside the park. There was usually a crowd there, as it was very popular.” (Sutherland Journal)

With the formation of the Republic of Hawaiʻi, the educational policy favored establishing the American system of free public schools for everyone. Government aid to private schools was forbidden. (However, private schools continued to flourish.)

In 1902, the school transferred to the jurisdiction of the Episcopal Church of the United States and was run by the Sisters of the American Order of the Transfiguration. The school was then dependent financially on tuition and gifts from friends.

Even with these changes, there was no basic change in the purpose of the school. An education suited for the “probable life circumstances” of the girls still placed high emphasis on the homemaking arts, as well as preparing the girls for teaching, nursing and secretarial work. (Heyes)

In 1903, a high school department was opened offering the girls an opportunity to receive secondary education, placing the Priory at the forefront of the secondary school movement in Hawaiʻi. At the time, the only other secondary education options for girls were Honolulu High School (later known as McKinley) and Punahou.

There was significant new construction between 1906 and 1914; in 1909 the cornerstone for the new Dickey-designed Priory was laid for a two-story building made of steel and concrete (the first of its kind in the islands.)

The Sisters of the American Order of the Transfiguration operated the school until 1969. Since that time, the school has been under the leadership of a head of school.

In 1976, the Priory became a non-profit corporation with a Board of Trustees and a charter of incorporation that continues to provide an official link with the Episcopal Church.

Founded as a school for girls, the Priory remains dedicated to this legacy. Today, the Priory provides girls in grades K-12 a college preparatory education within a Christian environment so that in any future community they will be self-confident, capable, participating members. (Lots of information here from Heyes.)

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May 29, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kewalo Basin

The Island of Oʻahu has three of the State’s nine commercial harbors – Kalaeloa Barbers Point, Kewalo Basin and Honolulu Harbor.

Kalaeloa Barbers Point Harbor, on the leeward, westerly side of the island, is in the vicinity of the growing city of Kapolei, while Kewalo Basin and Honolulu Harbor are located on the leeward, south shore, in the only well-sheltered area available for commercial purposes.

Kewalo Basin harbor was formerly a shallow reef that enclosed a deep section of water that had been used as a canoe landing since pre-Contact times and probably was used since the early historic period as an anchorage.

In 1899, Gorokichi Nakasugi, a Japanese shipbuilder, brought a traditional Japanese sailing vessel (called a sampan) to Hawai‘i, and this led to a unique class of vessels and distinctive maritime culture associated with the rise of the commercial fishing industry in Hawai‘i.

Japanese-trained shipwrights adapted the original sampan design to the rough waters of the Hawaiian Islands. The fishermen used a traditional live bait, pole-and-line method of fishing and unloaded their catches of aku (bonito, skipjack) and ahi (yellow-fin tuna) at Kewalo Basin. (It’s interesting that the Japanese aku boat fishing closely resembles the traditional Hawaiian technique.)

The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were a time of intense development of the coasts of Honolulu, Kaka‘ako, and Waikīkī.

In 1919, the Hawai‘i Government appropriated funds to improve the small harbor of Kewalo for the aim of “harbor extension, in that it will be made to serve the fishing and other small craft, to the relief of Honolulu harbor proper”.

A number of land reclamation projects dredged offshore areas to deepen and create boat harbors, and used the dredged material to fill in the former swampy land. Kaka‘ako became a prime spot for large industrial complexes, such as iron works, lumber yards and draying companies.

Since the area chosen for the harbor was adjacent to several lumber yards, such as the Lewers and Cooke yards, the basin was initially made to provide docking for lumber schooners.

Dredging of the Kewalo Channel began in 1924 (the harbor is approximately 55-acres including ocean acreage;) ; but by the time the wharf was completed in 1926, the lumber import business had faded, so the harbor was used mainly by commercial fishermen.

Half of the bulkhead along the mauka side of Kewalo Basin was built in 1928. The remainder of Kewalo Basin’s mauka bulkhead was constructed in 1934.

During the 1920s (before Ala Moana Park,) a channel was dredged through the coral reef to connecting Kewalo Basin to the Ala Wai Boat Harbor, so boats could travel between the two (later, the channel extended to Fort DeRussy.)

Part of the dredge material helped to reclaim swampland on the ʻEwa end of Waikīki (filled in with the dredged coral.)

Later, when it became a very popular swimming beach, the parallel coastal channel was closed to boat traffic.

The sampan aku fleet relocated to Kewalo Basin by 1930, and the McFarlane Tuna Company (later known as Hawaiian Tuna Packers) built a shipyard there in 1929 and a new tuna cannery at the basin in 1933.

Kewalo Basin’s Waikiki bulkhead was constructed in 1951. In 1955, workers placed the dredged material along the makai (seaward) side to form an eight-acre land section protected by a revetment—now the Kewalo Basin Park.

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May 26, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Hole

Fear of a repeat-attack on Pearl Harbor prompted the Army and Navy to plan a less vulnerable, bomb-proof complex, designed and built as an underground open bay with floor space for an aircraft assembly and repair plant.

Construction on the $23-million underground complex began in 1942 and was completed in late-1944. It was a free-standing structure that was later covered with 5-feet of soil for pineapple cultivation.

It was in immediate proximity to Wheeler Army Airfield and Waieli Gulch Field. (While Wheeler remains an active military facility, Waieli Gulch Field only lasted through the war – however, remnants of the runway can still be seen.)

The secret underground facility was constructed as an open bay area, without interior cement blocks. The outer walls are composed of reinforced concrete and dirt.

The entrance was placed in the steep side of the gulch to obscure visibility; access to the structure was by means of a quarter-mile-long tunnel. The access was built on a curve with a 90-degree bend, intended to provide protection for the entrance to the bunker, at the end of which were elevators for the different levels.

It was nicknamed the “Kunia Tunnel” or simply, “The Hole.”

It is not a true tunnel; rather, a freestanding 3-story structure with approximately 250,000 square feet in overall size with a total of three floors. 220,000-square feet were available for assembly of folded winged aircraft (each floor was the equivalent of a football field,) with 30,000-square feet used for power generation and air conditioning.

The main shop was designed to provide space for three B-17 planes, two without wings and one with wings and was later modified to accommodate larger bombers. The work area was surrounded by smaller repair shops and storage rooms. To light the facility, it took almost 5,000 fluorescent tubes.

Two elevators serviced the field station – one capable of accommodating four 2 1/2-ton trucks or “an average size four-room cottage.” For passenger service, another elevator was provided with a carrying capacity of 20-people.

It had a cafeteria that could turn out 6,000-meals a day. Huge air conditioning and ventilating systems ensured a constant flow of fresh air drawn from the open countryside.

One World War II soldier described the tunnel as “the great underground cavern”. The soldier said the tunnel was “equipped with every modern facility and the three floors of the huge bombproof structure were found to be ideal for our purpose”.

Aircraft including the B-24s, B-17s, B-26s bombers and other types were serviced in the bunker; these bombers were used in major bombing operations in the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Japan and Okinawa. There is no historical evidence to suggest the field station was ever used for aircraft assembly.

After the danger of further enemy attack passed, this facility housed the Engineers’ extremely important map and chart reproduction services.

It provided personnel, information and communications support to the Pacific Theater and National warfare requirements; working with photographs supplied by Army and Navy fliers, they produced maps and aerial photographic mosaics.

These first “Kunians” were shift workers, working three, 8-hour shifts, making maps. They produced a staggering number of maps; in one month, more than 2,700,000-maps were printed and used by Allied forces in the war in the Pacific.

At the end of WWII, the facility was turned over to the Air Force. Then, in 1953, the US Navy officially took over the facility and used it for ammunition and torpedo storage; they then renovated it and converted the building into a secret security structure.

With renovations completed in the early-1960s, the Commander in Chief of the Naval Pacific Forces used Kunia as a command center. Further renovations to strengthen the structure against chemical and radioactive attacks were completed in the mid-1960s. The Fleet Operations Center was moved to another location in 1976, and the Kunia base was turned over to the General Services Agency.

January 1980, it became Field Station Kunia under Army control and later renamed the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (KRSOC) to reflect the change to a more “joint” mission, with Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines assigned to the unit. It also hosted the other members of the “Five Eyes” (US, Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.)

A state-of-the-art Hawaiʻi Regional Security Operations Center (HRSOC) was constructed near Wahiawa, which replaced the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (KRSOC).

It is now known as NSA/CSS Hawaiʻi, an intelligence receiving hub for the National Security Agency; much of what goes on at Kunia is top secret. (Lots of information from the Army, Navy and Marines websites.)

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Entrance to Underground NSA-Naval Security Group Kunia Regional Security Operations Center

Entrance to The Hole just above helipad - Kunia

Entrance-Underground NSA-Naval Security Group Kunia Regional Security Operations Center

NSA-CSS Hawaii Regional Security Operations Center-that replaced the Elephant Cage-GoogleEarth

Waiele Gulch Airfield under construction-July_9,_1942

May 22, 2020 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Evolution of Honolulu Harbor

Coral doesn’t grow in freshwater. So, where a stream enters a coastal area, there is typically no coral growth at that point – and, as the freshwater runs out into the ocean, a coral-less channel is created.

In its natural state, thanks to Nuʻuanu Stream, Honolulu Harbor originally was a deep embayment formed by the outflow of Nuʻuanu Stream creating an opening in the shallow coral reef along the south shore of Oʻahu.

Honolulu Harbor (it was earlier known as Kuloloia) was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794.

They called the harbor “Fair Haven” which may be a rough translation of the Hawaiian name Honolulu (it was also sometimes called Brown’s Harbor.) The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

Tradewinds blow from the Northeast; the channel into Honolulu Harbor has a northeasterly alignment. Early ships calling to Honolulu were powered only by sails. The entrance to the harbor was narrow and lined on either side with reefs. Ships don’t sail into the wind. Given all of this, Honolulu Harbor was difficult to enter.

Boats either anchored off-shore, or they were pulled into the harbor (this was done with canoes; or, it meant men and/or oxen pulled them in.)

It might take eight double canoes with 16-20 men each, working in the pre-dawn calm when winds and currents were slow. In 1816 (as stories suggest,) Richards Street alignment was the straight path used by groups of men, and later oxen, to pull ships through the narrow channel into the harbor. (Richards Street was named for a man selling luggage to tourists in his shop on that street.)

A few years after, in 1825, the first pier in the harbor was improvised by sinking a ship’s hull near the present Pier 12 site. As Honolulu developed and grew, lots of changes happened, including along its waterfront. What is now known as Queen Street used to be the water’s edge.

The first efforts to deepen Honolulu Harbor were made in the 1840s. The idea to use the dredged material, composed of sand and crushed coral, to fill in low-lying lands was quickly adopted.

In 1854 the first steam tug was used to pull sail-powered ships into dock against the prevailing tradewinds.

The old prison was built in 1856-57 at Iwilei; it took the place of the old Fort Kekuanohu (that also previously served as a prison.) The new custom-house was completed in 1860. The water-works were much enlarged, and a system of pipes laid down in 1861.

Between 1857 and 1870, the coral block walls of the dismantled Fort edged and filled about 22-acres of reef and tideland, forming the “Esplanade” or “Ainahou,” between Fort and Merchant Streets (where Aloha Tower is now located.) At that time, the harbor was dredged to a depth from 20 to 25-feet took place.

By the 1880s, filling-in of the mud flats, marshes and salt ponds in the Kakaʻako and Kewalo areas had begun. This filling-in was pushed by three separate but overlapping improvement justifications.

The first directive or justification was for the construction of new roads and the improvement of older roads by raising the grade so the improvements would not be washed away by flooding during heavy rains.

Although public health and safety were prominently cited as the main desire (and third justification) to fill in Honolulu, Kewalo, and then Waikīkī lands, the fill ultimately provided more room for residential subdivisions, industrial areas and finally tourist resorts.

In the early part of the twentieth century, Kakaʻako was becoming a prime spot for large industrial complexes, such as iron works, lumber yards, and hauling companies, which needed large spaces for their stables, feed lots and wagon sheds.

An 1887 Hawaiian Government Survey map of Honolulu shows continued urban expansion of the Downtown Honolulu area.

In 1889, the Honolulu Harbor was described as “nothing but a channel kept open by the flow of the Nuʻuanu River;” a sand bar restricted entry of the larger ocean vessels. In 1890-92, a channel 200-feet wide by 30-feet deep was dredged for about 1,000-feet through the sand bar.

Piers were constructed at the base of Richards Street in 1896, at the site of Piers 17 and 18 in 1901 to accommodate sugar loading and at Piers 7 and 12 in 1907.

After annexation in 1898, the harbor was dredged using US federal funds. The dredged material was used to create a small island in the harbor in order to calm the harbor and avoid constructing a breakwater. This island became what is now known as Sand Island.

In 1904, the area around South Street from King to Queen Streets was filled in. The Hawaiʻi Department of Public Works reported that “considerable filling (was) required” for the extension of Queen Street, from South Street to Ward Avenue, which would “greatly relieve the district of Kewalo in the wet season.”

A series of new piers were constructed at the base of Richards Street in 1896, at the site of Piers 17 and 18 in 1901 (to accommodate sugar loading) and then at Piers 7 and 12 in 1907. Further dredging was conducted at the base of Alakea Street in 1906.

With the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 and anticipated increased trans-Pacific shipping, government and business planned to further enlarge Honolulu Harbor by dredging Kalihi Channel and Kapālama Basin.

However, because of military concerns, the Reserved Channel connecting Honolulu Harbor to Kapālama Basin was dredged instead. This is known as the Kapālama Channel. Honolulu Harbor expanded into the Kapālama Basin and by the early 1930s Piers 34 had been constructed. Pier 35 was constructed in 1931 to provide dedicated facilities for inter-island pineapple shipments.

On September 11, 1926, after five years of construction, Aloha Tower was officially dedicated at Pier 9; at the time, the tallest building in Hawaiʻi.

Today, Honolulu Harbor continues to serve as Hawai‘i’s commercial lifeline for goods to/from Hawaiʻi and the rest of the world.

The image shows Honolulu in 1854, in a drawing done by Paul Emmert. It shows Honolulu just before these changes and the expansion of land in the downtown area (you can see people standing on the reef on the right.)

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Honolulu Harbor-Ships pulled by canoes-Henry Walker-1843

Battle_of_Honolulu-Dolphin-(Massey)-1826

View_of_Honolulu_Harbor_and_Punchbowl_Crater._(c._1854)

Downtown_Honolulu-sites-uses_noted-(1870_roads_in_red)-Map-1810

'Entrance_to_Honolulu_Harbor'-William_Alexander_Coulter-1882

Honolulu_Harbor_(taken_from_prison_in_Iwilei)

Honolulu_Harbor-Downtown-(DAGS0237)-early-1850s

Honolulu_Harbor-InteriorDept-(Wall-Reg_1119)-1886

Honolulu_reproduced_from_map_drawn_by_Lt_CR_Malden_of_HBMS_Blonde-1825

Map Detail of Honolulu Harbor-C. R. Malden_Reg640 (1825)

May 21, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waialeʻe Industrial School

The legislature, on December 30, 1864, approved “An act authorizing the board of education to establish an industrial and reformatory school for the care and education of helpless and neglected children, as also for the reformation of juvenile offenders”.

“The only object of the said industrial and reformatory schools shall be the detention, management, education, employment, reformation, and maintenance of such children as shall be committed thereto as orphans, vagrants, truants, living an idle or dissolute life, who shall be duly convicted of any crime or misdemeanor”. (Hawaiian Commission, Annexation Report, 1898)

“The first notice of a reform school is contained in the report of M. Kekuanao’a, president of the board of education, in 1866. The legislature in March, 1865, voted an appropriation of $6,000 for an industrial and reform school.” (Report to the Governor, 1903)

The department of public instruction established an industrial and reformatory school at Keoneula, Kapālama, Oʻahu and had authority to establish other industrial schools across the Islands.

In 1899, a proposal was made to establish a new school at Waialeʻe on Oʻahu’s North Shore, but action wasn’t taken until 1901 when the land was deeded over to the department of education. It was built to replace an older school.

On the May 13, 1902, the last of the boys of the reformatory school in Honolulu – 68 in number – were moved down to the new buildings at Waialeʻe, the institution was thereafter known as the Waialeʻe Industrial School.

The Waialeʻe Industrial School was situated on 700-acres of land, about 5-miles from Kahuku and 8-miles from Waialua. It had a coast line of over a mile, and it extended back to the mountain ridge.

School improvements were built about ½-mile from the ocean on low land between a series of bluffs. Taro patches were built above the beach; there was a large pond supplied by “never-failing springs.”

This site enabled the school to carry on agriculture, dairy farming and fishing, besides giving instruction in carpentering, blacksmithing, the manufacture of poi and general school work.

In 1903, four taro patches had been made and planted; a fifth is about ready to plant. A vegetable garden was planted with onions, tomatoes, com, beans, lettuce, radish, beets, and carrots.

There have also been planted 220 banana plants and about 500 trees for windbreaks and firewood. The trees planted are eucalyptus, gravillea robusta, ironwood, kamani, poinciana, tamarind, alligator pear and mango.

A terrace was built, extending 30 feet around the main building, and planted with grass. A considerable area has been cleared of lantana and stones.

For the dining hall 8 tables and 24 benches have been made, 3 safes for the pantry, a table and cupboard for the kitchen, a table and cupboard for the hospital, and 42 desks have been set up and placed in the schoolroom.

The following buildings were built by the boys: a clothes and store room, 18 by 48 feet, a closet with 10 compartments, 5 by 30 feet, with urinals and latticed screen, a carpenter shop, 20 by 40 feet, and a poi house of corrugated iron with cemented floor, 13 by 15 feet.

In 1903, there were a total of 78-boys in the Waialeʻe Industrial School. (At that time, their attendance was noted as: In school 73; In hospital 1; In Oahu jail 3; and Escaped 1.)

Their offenses included: Truancy 18; Vagrancy and homeless 11; Disobedience to parents 15; Common nuisance 1; Trespass 3; Assault and lottery 2; Larceny 25; Housebreaking 1; and Burglary 2. (Reportedly, an average of 180-boys lived at the school at any given time.)

All was not pretty at the place. “Members of the education committee of the house of representatives are of the opinion that the so-called dark cells or dungeons are improper and should be abolished.” (Star-Bulletin, 1919; as noted in Honolulu Weekly)

Another Star-Bulletin article reveals excerpts of a journal discovered by then-superintendent Morris Freedman that covers most of the inmates from 1899 to 1908. “Disobedience to the moral suasion of parents [resulted in] a man-sized term of 3 to 5 years . . . Runaways were not few and far between . . . Ball and chain were used.” (As noted in Honolulu Weekly)

A related article on the “Boys of Waialee” notes an unpublished piece by Freedman between 1935–1939 that notes corporeal punishment: “Oregon boots, shackles, leg irons, cat-o-nine tails, straps soaked in vinegar and salt, terrific lashings and beatings were the order of the day.”

“In 1921, when Mr. Wesson [took over] the school his first act was to destroy these vestiges of the Dark Ages era [and he] discontinued the use of dark cells which were built below the level of the street surface … his treatment was by far more humane than it had been before.”

A September 3, 1953 editorial in the Honolulu Record notes, “70 per cent of the Oahu Prison inmates comes from Waialee Training School for Boys, which is supposedly a correction and rehabilitation home.”

“This does not include prisoners at Honolulu Jail who “graduated” from Waialee, many of them asking in early youth while at Waialee to be transferred to the jail rather than withstand the brutality and bestiality of the administration staff at the boy’s school.”

The school was operational for approximately 50-years; the boys were moved to facilities on the windward side (above Kailua.)

Later, Crawford’s Convalescent Home operated mauka of Kamehameha Highway. On about 135-acres of the makai lands (below the highway) UH-Manoa College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR) operated the Waialeʻe Livestock Experiment Station, an animal research and demonstration facility.

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Waialeʻe Industrial School For Boys-(ghosttowns)-1906

Waialeʻe Industrial School For Boys-(ghosttowns)-1930s

Waialeʻe Industrial School For Boys-1940

Waialeʻe Industrial School For Boys-(historichawaiifoundation)

Waialeʻe Industrial School For Boys-band_room-front; jail-middle; poi_factory-back-(ghosttowns)

Waialee, dinning hall

Waialee Trainning School – infirmery