Princeville | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 5, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Fort Alexander

When we think of Russia’s interest in Hawai‘i, we initially (and, typically, only) think of what we refer to as “Russian Fort Elizabeth” in Waimea, Kauai. However, Hawai‘i’s interactions with Russia go well beyond that, yet only short-lived. (And, it really wasn’t a Russian fort.)

In the early-1800s, multiple foreign interests, including Russia, were developing trading relationships with Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i served as an important provisioning site for traders, whalers and others crossing the Pacific.

The Russian story starts when three-masted Behring wrecked on the shores of Kauai’s Waimea Bay early on the morning of January 31, 1815. The Behring had a load of seal skins/otter pelts bound for the Russian-American Trading Company in Sitka, Alaska.

Russian-American Company’s governor, Alexander Baranov, sent German-born Georg Anton Schäffer (1779-1836) to the Hawaiian Islands to retrieve the cargo (he wanted to exchange the furs for sandalwood.)

Schäffer first landed in Honolulu and, under the pretext of building a storehouse near Honolulu Harbor, began building a fort and raised the Russian flag. Kamehameha had him removed and Schäffer then voyaged to Kauai.

There, King Kaumuali‘i, who had ceded Kauai to King Kamehameha I in 1810, had seized the Behring’s cargo and had the valuable pelts taken to his home in west Kauai.

Schäffer quickly gained favor with Kaumuali‘i – and, reportedly, Kaumuali‘i was considering joining forces with Russia to reclaim his rule from Kamehameha (that Kaumuali‘i had ceded over 5-years before.)

On May 21, 1816, and without the knowledge or approval of Czar Alexander Pavlovich, Kaumuali‘i signed a document that put Kauai under the protection of the Russian Empire.

In return, Schäffer promised Kaumuali‘i protection and an armed Russian warship to lead an attack on Kamehameha’s forces. (Baranoff later informed Schäffer that he was not authorized to make such agreements.)

On July 1, 1816, Schäffer and Kaumuali‘i entered into a secret agreement to use Schäffer’s (purported) Russian authority to reclaim Kauai from King Kamehameha I, and also to launch expeditions against other islands that Kaumuali‘i felt he had a hereditary right to rule.

Kaumuali‘i had thoughts of conquering Maui, Lānaʻi, Moloka‘i and O‘ahu, which he felt to be his right based on lineage.

Subsequently, Kaumuali‘i gave Schäffer Hanalei valley and two or three other valuable pieces of land. Schaffer went to Hanalei on September 30 and renamed the valley Schäffertal (Schäffer’s Valley.)

Schäffer began work on two earthen fortresses in Hanalei: Fort Alexander (named after the Czar Alexander and built in what is now Princeville – by the valet parking at the Princeville Resort); and Fort Barclay, named for Russian general Barclay deTooly and built nearer to Hanalei River.

Unlike Waimea’s Fort Elizabeth (with massive stone walls,) Fort Alexander had low earthen walls. Schaffer’s main focus for the Russian-American Company was not Waimea, but Hanalei, and they spent most of their time around Princeville.

Schäffer’s grandiose gestures were not confined to fort-building. He was also able to take possession of the ship Lydia and promptly gave the Lydia to Kaumuali‘i.

Meanwhile, rumors of Schäffer’s activities had filtered back to the Czar’s court. On November 21, 1816, Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue arrived in Hawai‘i on the Russian Navy brig Rurik.

He repudiated Schäffer’s acts, informing King Kamehameha that Schäffer and Kaumuali‘i did not have the support of the Russian Emperor.

On May 8, 1817 the Russians were expelled from Hawai‘i; some of Schäffer’s men left for Sitka and Schäffer was provided safe passage from the Hawaiian Islands.

It wasn’t until August 1818 that all parties had agreed that Kauai had indeed been abandoned by the Russian-American Company, and for a couple of years following that, efforts were still being made to recover from the damage done by Schäffer.

An outline of the foundation of Fort Alexander may be seen on the lawn at the St. Regis Princeville Resort.

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Russian Fort Alexander Marker (panel 1)

Site of Russian Fort Alexander

Russian Fort Alexander Markers

Site of Russian Fort Alexander

August 26, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Barony de Princeville

Kauai is the oldest of the eight main Hawaiian islands, and the island consists of one main extinct shield volcano( estimated to be about 5-million years old), as well as numerous younger lava flows (between 3.65-million years to 500,000-years old). The island is characterized by severe weathering. (DLNR)

Historically, the Island was divided into several districts and political units, which in ancient times were subject to various chiefs – sometimes independently, and at other times, in unity with the other districts. These early moku o loko, or districts included Nāpali, Haleleʻa, Koʻolau, Puna and Kona (Buke Mahele, 1848; Maly)

Located along the north coast of Kauai, Haleleʻa today is commonly referred to as the Kauaʻi “north shore”, which today encompasses the communities of Kilauea, Kalihiwai, ‘Anini/Kalihikai, Princeville, Hanalei/Waiʻoli, Wainiha and Haʻena.

Some suggest Hanalei ahupua‘a extended up onto the bluff to the east; others suggest Pupoa appears as the ahupua‘a in this area (between ʻAnini Beach to the east and Hanalei Bay to the west).

In 1831, Richard Charlton, British Consul to the Hawaiian Islands, leased lands between Hanalei and Kalihiwai from Governor Kaikioewa of Kauai to be used as a cattle ranch. Charlton brought in longhorn cattle from “Norte California,” and by 1840 the herd numbered 100 head.

In 1842, British sea captain Godfrey Rhodes (1815-97) and his partner, Frenchman John Bernard, established the first commercial coffee plantation on Kauai at Hanalei, on 150 acres of government-leased land along the banks of the Hanalei River. (Soboleski; TGI)

By 1846, Rhodes’ plantation and Yankee Charles Titcomb’s neighboring plantation had more than 100,000 coffee trees in cultivation. (Soboleski; TGI)

Yet, beginning in the late-1840s, coffee production suffered. Flooding damaged the coffee crop in 1847, workers were lost to the California Gold Rush beginning in 1848, a severe drought struck in 1851 and epidemics killed Native Hawaiian laborers.

By the time the rains finally returned and immigrant Chinese had eased the labor shortage, a blight caused by aphids ruined the coffee crops in Hanalei. (Soboleski; TGI)

In 1845, Charlton sold the ranch to the Dudoit family (later French consular agent). By this time, the number of cattle increased to an impressive 1800 head. The Dudoits salted beef locally to sell to whalers as well as shipped cattle to Honolulu for beef.

In 1855, Robert Crichton Wyllie (a Scottish physician who served as foreign minister under Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V) bought the Rhodes Coffee Plantation, which included 1700 acres in Hanalei.

He continued to acquire land and in 1862 purchased the remaining ranch lands as well as Titcomb’s Hanalei Sugar Plantation. (PrincevilleRanch) Wyllie abandoned the entire coffee planting of Hanalei and planted the land in sugar cane.

By 1860, coffee literally disappeared from Kauai and the decline continued in the other islands in the Kingdom. Sugar took its place. (Goto)

In 1860, Robert Crichton Wyllie, hosted his friends King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their two-year-old son, Prince Albert at his plantation estate for several weeks.

In honor of the child, Wyllie, founder of the plantation, named his estate the “Barony de Princeville,” the City of the Prince (Princeville on Kauai.)

Alexander Liholiho and Emma had hoped to have Albert christened by a bishop of the Church of England. However, the prince became ill. As Albert became sick, and the bishop’s arrival was delayed; he was baptized on August 23, 1862 by Ephraim W. Clark, the American minister of Kawaiahaʻo Church. (Daws)

On the 27th of August, 1862, Prince Albert, the four-year-old son of Alexander Liholiho and Emma died, “leaving his father and mother heartbroken and the native community in desolation”. (Daws)

Albert Spencer Wilcox (1844-1919, son of eighth company of missionaries Abner Wilcox (1808-1869) and Lucy Eliza (Hart) Wilcox (1814-1869) was born in Hilo on Hawai‘i Island and grew up at Waiʻoli in Hanalei, Kauai.

He worked with his brother George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933) in a sugarcane business in Hanalei, before working as the manager of Hanamāʻulu Plantation; for many years (1877-1898) he managed that section of Līhuʻe plantation.

In 1892, Albert purchased an interest in the Princeville Plantation, and by 1899 had complete ownership; he sold the Princeville lands in June of 1916.

Līhuʻe Plantation expanded in 1910 with the purchase of controlling interest in Makee Sugar Company. Expansion again occurred in 1916 when Līhuʻe Plantation and WF Sanborn purchased the 6,000-acre Princeville Plantation.

Today, Princeville is a 2,000-acre resort and residential community along the sea cliffs between ʻAnini Beach to the east and Hanalei Bay to the west.

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The-Prince-of-Hawaii-Albert-Edward-Kauikeaouli-_by_Enoch_Wood_Perry-_Jr.-_1865

August 7, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Robert Crichton Wyllie

Robert Crichton Wyllie was born October 13, 1798 in an area called Hazelbank in Dunlop parish of East Ayrshire, Scotland. His father was Alexander Wyllie and his mother was Janet Crichton.

He earned a medical diploma by the time he was 20. In 1844, he arrived in Hawaiʻi and stayed in the Hawaiian Islands for the rest of his life.

Wyllie first worked as acting British Consul. During this time he compiled in-depth reports on the conditions in the islands. Attracted by Wyllie’s devotion to the affairs of Hawaiʻi, on March 26, 1845, King Kamehameha III appointed him the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Kamehameha IV reappointed all the ministers who were in office when Kamehameha III died, including Robert C. Wyllie as Minister of Foreign Relations. Wyllie served as Minister of Foreign Relations from 1845 until his death in 1865, serving under Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V.

Within five years after taking the helm of the office he had negotiated treaties with Denmark, England, France and the United States whereby Hawaiʻi’s status as an independent state was agreed.

Wyllie eventually gave up his allegiance to Queen Victoria and became a naturalized Hawaiian subject.

In 1847, Wyllie started collecting documents to form the Archives of Hawaii. He requested the commander of the fort in Honolulu and all the chiefs to send in any papers they might have. Two of the oldest documents included the 1790 letter of Captain Simon Metcalf and a letter by Captain George Vancouver dated 1792.

The foundation of the Archives of Hawaiʻi today are based almost entirely upon the vast, voluminous collections of letters and documents prepared and stored away by Wyllie.

Wyllie built a house in Nuʻuanu Valley he called Rosebank. He entertained foreign visitors at the house, and the area today still has several consular buildings.

In his role in foreign affairs, Wyllie was seen as a counter to the American influence. Wyllie wrote in the early part of 1857, “There are two grand principles that we aspire to; the first is that all nations should agree to respect our independence and consider the Archipelago strictly neutral in all wars that may arise – and the second is, to have one identical Treaty with all nations.” (Kuykendall)

Of these two principles, the second was auxiliary to the first. Wyllie’s great ambition was to set up some permanent barrier against any possible threat to Hawaii’s national independence. He had a clear idea as to the direction from which danger was most likely to come. (Kuykendall)

In the latter part of 1857 he wrote, “If we be left to struggle for political life, under our own weakness and inability to keep up an adequate military and naval force, in the natural course of things, the Islands must sooner or later be engulfed into the Great American Union, in which case, in time of war, the United States would be able to sweep the whole Northern Pacific.” (Kuykendall)

Wyllie, above all other men in Hawaiʻi, succeeded in compelling the powers to maintain an attitude of “hands off”, leaving the kingdom in the list of independent nations. (Taylor)

In March 1853, he bought a plantation on Hanalei Bay on the north shore of the island of Kauaʻi. In 1860, he hosted his friends King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their two-year-old son, Prince Albert, at his estate for several weeks. In honor of the child, Wyllie named the plantation the “Barony de Princeville”, the City of the Prince (Princeville.)

Originally the land was planted with coffee; eventually it was planted with sugarcane. Princeville became a ranch in 1895, when missionary son Albert S Wilcox bought the plantation.

A bachelor all his life, Wyllie died October 19, 1865 at the age of 67; Kamehameha V and the chiefs ordered the casket containing his remains be buried at Mauna ʻAla, the Royal Mausoleum, adjacent to those of the sovereigns and chiefs of Hawaiʻi.

Members of Queen Emma’s family are also interred in the crypt with Mr. Wyllie: Queen Emma’s mother, Kekelaokalani; her hānai parents, Grace Kamaikui and Dr. Thomas Charles Byde Rooke; her uncles, Bennett Namakeha and Keoni Ana John Young II; her aunt, Jane Lahilahi; and her two cousins, Prince Albert Edward Kunuiakea and Peter Kekuaokalani.

The image shows Robert Crichton Wyllie. In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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May 20, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ka Haku O Hawaiʻi

The marriage of Alexander Liholiho and Emma was one of mutual love. They had common interests in literature, music, opera, religion and theater. According to Emma, “Our happiest hours were spent reading aloud to each other.”

On May 20, 1858, the king and queen were blessed with the birth of a son, Albert Edward Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa a Kamehameha.

He was named Albert Edward, after the husband of Queen Victoria of England, and Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa, after his hānai grandfather Kamehameha III.

However, the Hawaiian people called young Albert “Ka Haku O Hawaiʻi,” “The Lord of Hawaiʻi.”

His mother and father affectionately called him “Baby.”

He was an honorary member of the Fire Engine Company Number Four and was given his own red Company Number Four uniform.

In 1860, Robert Crichton Wyllie, hosted his friends King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their two-year-old son, Prince Albert at his plantation estate for several weeks.

In honor of the child, Wyllie, founder of the plantation, named his estate the “Barony de Princeville,” the City of the Prince (Princeville on Kauaʻi.)

Alexander Liholiho and Emma had hoped to have Albert christened by a bishop of the Church of England.

The prince became ill. As Albert became sick, and the bishop’s arrival was delayed; he was baptized on August 23, 1862 by Ephraim W. Clark, the American minister of Kawaiahaʻo Church.

Queen Victoria of England had previously sent a silver christening vessel used at his christening. The British Queen and her husband, Prince Albert, were the godparents of the young prince.

On the 27th of August, 1862, Prince Albert, the four-year-old son of Alexander Liholiho and Emma died, “leaving his father and mother heartbroken and the native community in desolation”. (Daws)

The actual cause of death is not known.

Initially thought to have been “brain fever,” now called meningitis, today, some believe the prince may have died from appendicitis. Whatever the cause, the young prince suffered for ten days and the doctors could not help him.

The King then ordered the construction of the Royal Mausoleum, Mauna ʻAla, in Nuʻuanu Valley to house his son’s body, since Pohukaina had become too full.

After Prince Albert, no child was born to an reigning Hawaiian monarch. “The last of the line of Kamehameha the Great is at rest with his fathers.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 17, 1903)

“The king and queen had the sympathy of all parties in their bereavement; but Kamehameha IV completely lost his interest in public life, living in the utmost possible retirement until his death.” (Liliʻuokalani)

The king became a recluse, suffering from asthma and depression. He died on St. Andrew’s Day, November 30, 1863, two months’ short of his 30th birthday.

Following her son’s death and before her husband’s death, Emma was referred to as “Kaleleokalani”, or “flight of the heavenly one”.

After her husband also died, it was changed into the plural form as “Kaleleonālani”, or the “flight of the heavenly ones”.

Mauna ‘Ala (fragrant mountain) 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. On October 19, 1865, the Royal Mausoleum chapel was completed.

Emma ran unsuccessfully for the throne in 1874, losing to David Kalākaua. In 1883, Emma suffered the first of several small strokes and died two years later on April 25, 1885 at the age of 49.

The image shows Prince Albert at age four. In addition, I have added related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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