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September 10, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Standing Bear

“A Hawaiian by the name of Frank Grouard is living as a scout in the American Army under General Crook, fighting Sioux Indians.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

Whoa, that’s getting waaay ahead of ourselves … let’s look back.

May 23, 1843, Elders Benjamin F Grouard, Addison Pratt, Noah Rogers and Knowlton F Hanks, intending for the Hawaiian Islands, set sail as the first Mormon missionaries to the Pacific Islands. Rather than Hawai’i, they ended up in the Solomon Islands. (Cluff)

In 1846, Elder Grouard married Ana, a local chieffess; a few years later, on September 20, 1850, Frank Grouard was born. A couple years later (1852,) the Grouards and Pratts left Polynesia. In California, young Grouard was turned over to Addison and Louisa Pratt, for care. (His own mother had returned to the islands and later died; Elder Grouard died in 1894.) (Trowse)

The Pratts, with Grouard, emigrated to Utah. Grouard ran away and at the age of nineteen, ended up a Pony Express mail carrier … “out West” through hostile Indian Country (between California and Montana.) (Trowse)

“During one of his trips on a lonely trail he was captured by Crow Indians and taken prisoner. The Crows took him many miles from the road, and in a lonely forest, stripped off his clothes and possessions, then released him to wander alone.”

“He wandered, cold and hungry, a piece of fur for clothing, eating grasshoppers and other bugs for food. When he had given up hope of surviving, he was discovered by a group of Sioux Indians. Because of his expressions of aloha, they took a liking to him.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

There were two factions in the camp – one led by Chief Sitting Bull, the other led by Chief Crazy Horse. Grouard was held for nearly seven years, during the first two of which he was practically a prisoner.

He all but became an Indian, and, though he declared he never, as an Indian, fired upon a white man, he took part in scores of battles against other enemies of the Sioux and in hundreds of forays after game and the horses and cattle of settlers. (Trowse)

“The Sioux took him into a heavily forested area where he was cared for. Chief Sitting Bull adopted him to be his own child of his own blood but with a different language. He grew in stature to be greatly admired by the Indians for his skill and wit.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

He was given the name ‘Standing Bear.’

“In a very short time, he became one of the best riders of wild Indian horses and he became one of the best shots. For nine years he lived with the Indians, his manner becoming much like them.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

He learned the landscape, customs and traditions – all the while constantly on alert to escape captivity. Around age 26, he eventually escaped from his Indian captors. Then, Grouard became an Indian Scout in the American Army under General George Crook, fighting Sioux Indians.

Almost every summer for nearly a dozen years, Grouard was in the field as a scout, commanding as many as 500 scouts and friendly Indians with all the Indian fighters who made reputations in subduing the Indians. He was wounded many times, suffered almost incredible hardships, saved small armies on several occasions and often saved the lives of individual men and officers.

He never led a party to disaster, was invariably chosen to head any “forlorn hope” enterprise or to make any particularly perilous ride; with Grouard, victory followed victory. Gen. Crook never wearied of telling anecdotes of Grouard and praising his favorite. (Trowes)

Crook noted, “he would sooner lose one-third of any command than lose Grouard and accredits him as the greatest scout and rider and one of the best shots and bravest men that ever lived.” (Berndt)

By February 1876, believing there was peace, many Indians were leaving the reservations in search of food. Orders had been given by the American government to return, but they did not take it seriously. General Crook began his winter march from Fort Fetterman, March 1, 1876 with many companies of troops.

When Sitting Bull learned that Grouard was the scout for General Crook, he saw the chance to kill Grouard in battle. By March 17, Grouard located Crazy Horse’s village on the Powder River in Montana. (Dodson) In May 1876, in preparation for the summer campaign, the Army was fitted out at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Fort Laramie, founded as a local trading post in 1834 at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, soon served as a stop for folks emigrating West on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails (the westward migration peaked in 1850 with more than 50,000 traveling the trails annually.)

The US military purchased the post in 1849 and stationed soldiers there to protect the wagon trains. The US Civil War took soldiers away from it and other outposts. The Western migration continued. With the ending of the Civil War, soldiers came back. (Talbott)

Tension between the native inhabitants of the Great Plains and the encroaching settlers resulted in a series of conflicts … this eventually led to the Sioux Wars. The most notable fight, fought June 25–26, 1876, was the Battle of Little Big Horn (Lt Col George Armstrong Custer lost – Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and others won.) (Grouard was not involved in that fight.)

Most native Americans were confined to reservations by 1877. In September 1877, Chief Crazy Horse left the reservation and General Crook had him arrested. When Crazy Horse saw he was being led to a guard house, he resisted and was stabbed to death by a guard. (Denardo)

In the fall of 1877, Sitting Bull headed north to Canada; life there was tough and in 1881 he surrendered to the US. In 1889 Sitting Bull was shot by Police. (NPS)

Grouard continued in the service of the US government until the end of the Indian Wars. Frank Grouard died at St. Louis, Missouri in 1905 where he was eulogized as a “scout of national fame”.

“To him perhaps more than to any other one man is due the early reclamation of that rich section of the mainland embraced in South Dakota, a large part of Montana, the whole of Northern Nebraska, and the whole of Northern Wyoming. Let us, then, write him as a factor – a Polynesian factor – in the making of the nation of nations.” (Trowse)

(There is conflicting information on the ethnicity of Grouard – Kuakoa reported in 1876 that Grouard was half-Hawaiian; he, himself, claimed to be “partial Hawaiian” (Dobson) and he told Trowse that his mother was a “woman of the Sandwich Islands”. (Trowse) Several others note he was son of a chiefess from the Solomon or ‘Friendly’ Islands (Tonga.))

There is more to the story … After serving with the Confederate Army during the Civil War, John Carpenter Hunton came West to work at Fort Laramie. His brother James came to join him in 1876; James’ headstone tells the rest of his history that ended later that year – “Killed by Indians”.

As noted above, the Sioux Wars military campaign provisioned at Fort Laramie, prior to heading north to South Dakota and Montana. Hunton was fort sutler (providing provisions out of the camp post) – Hunton and Grouard were at the fort at the same time, so it is likely they met.

They had closer ties than that. Hunton lived with/was married to LaLie (sister to fellow scout (and half-breed) Baptiste Garnier (Little Bat.)) LaLie later left Hunton and married Grouard – that marriage didn’t last either, and she left Grouard, too.

Oh, one other ‘rest of the story’ … John Hunton is Nelia’s Great Great Uncle. On a number of ocassions, we visited Fort Laramie and the John and James Hunton gravesites in Wyoming.

September 9, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … ‘United Colonies’ Becomes the ‘United States of America’

On September 9, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted a new name for what had been called the “United Colonies.” The name “United States of America” has remained since then as a symbol of freedom and independence.

Benjamin Franklin popularized the concept of a political union with his May 9, 1754 warning in the Pennsylvania Gazette to the British colonies in America to ‘Join or Die’, exhorting them to unite against the French and the Indians, showing a segmented snake, “S.C., N.C., V., M., P., N.J., N.Y., [and] N.E.”

The “Snake Cartoon,” which appeared in the Gazette directly below the article, has usually been considered the first American political cartoon.

Thomas Jefferson is credited as being the first person to come up with the name (United States), which he used while drafting the Declaration of Independence. In June 1776, Jefferson’s draft version of the Declaration started with the following sentence: “A Declaration of the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress assembled.”

The final version of the Declaration starts with the date July 4, 1776 and the following statement: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America.”

Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had used the name “United Colonies” in a June resolution to Congress; he wrote, “Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.”

These thoughts are included in the Declaration’s final paragraph,

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Also, the words “United States of America” appeared in the first draft of the Articles of Confederation on July 8, 1776, as it was submitted to Congress. The Articles weren’t ratified by the states until March 1781.

The United Colonies Become the United States … on Monday, September 9, 1776, the Continental Congress moved to approve some important resolutions. John Adams notes in his Diary on that day,

Resolved, that in all Continental Commissions, and other Instruments where heretofore the Words, ‘United Colonies,’ have been used, the Stile be altered for the future to the United States.

“The abbreviation ‘U. S. A.’ had its beginning in poor quality gun-powder.

“Every caskful manufactured or purchased was to be examined and none received into the public magazines for the use of the United States of America but such as has been approved by the public inspector as to its quickness in firing, strength, dryness and other necessary qualities.”

“The inspector was to mark each cask so approved with the letters ‘U. S. A.’ and such other marks as were necessary to distinguish the several sorts of powder. Robert Towers was elected by Congress the first inspector of gunpowder.”

“This was the first official determination to use a distinguishing mark or brand …. this convenient and unmistakable letter triad was not settled upon. Instead, however, the Congress went back to the full words ‘United States.’”

Click to access United-Colonies-Become-the-United-States-of-America-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access United-Colonies-Become-the-United-States-of-America.pdf

September 8, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nobuo Fujita

On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, an American naval base in Honolulu. Thousands of American soldiers were killed, and as a result, the United States officially joined World War II in the Pacific.

The United States conducted the “Doolittle Raid,” a comparably small air raid off Tokyo in April 1942, just four months after Pearl Harbor. While the damage to Japan was relatively minor—fifty people were killed—it served as a morale booster for the Allies and a demonstration to Japan that its main islands weren’t safe from air attack.

Following the raid, Japan set out to show that the United States could also be bombed. (NCTAsia) A wartime mentality set in immediately, as coastal residents were commanded to black out their homes at night by covering windows with shades and blankets. (Oregon History Project)

“The Pacific Coast, totally dimmed out … twice previously has been subjected to shelling by submarines – apparently Japanese- but presumably never before has undergone aerial bombardment.”

“On February 23, during President Roosevelt’s fireside chat, a submarine lofted more than fifteen shells into an oil field near Goleta, Calif., 120 miles north of Los Angeles, and on June 21 a submarine pitched nine shells near a United States Army fort at Seaside, Ore.” (Courier Journal, Sept 15, 1942)

Then, “A foot-deep crater, apparently caused by an incendiary bomb gave evidence today of what may have been the first aerial assault on United States home soil, an apparent attempt to set fire to an isolated forest on the southern Oregon coast.”

“The Army’s Western Defense Command, in a carefully-worded communique, disclosed that an unidentified, small seaplane or a type that might have been carried on a submarine was seen coming inland just before dawn September 9, and was heard roaring out to sea about half an hour later.”

“Some time after the plane was seen circling the Mount Emily area nine miles northeast of Brookings, Oreg., a fire was observed, and forestry patrols who extinguished the blaze found a crater and metal fragments …”

“… which the Army said bore ‘markings of Japanese ideographs which may have been part of a code indicating the arsenal where the bomb was manufactured.” (Evening Star, Sept 15, 1942)

It was later concluded that a submarine was fitted with a modified Zero seaplane, that catapulted off the deck of the sub. It was fitted with two 170-pound incendiary bombs and flew toward Mt. Emily in the Siskiyou National Forest.

Piloted by Nobuo Fujita, the plane dropped both bombs on the heavily forested mount slope starting a small forest fire that was easy to control due to the wet conditions. (Fujita was the only foreign pilot to drop bombs on the continental United States.)

“When all was ready, the catapult was fired. [Petty officer Shoji Okuda was his crewman.] I flew straight ahead toward Cape Blanco lighthouse, crossed the coast, and swung northeast for the bombing area.”

“The sun filled the eastern sky with a red-gold brightness. After flying an estimated 50 miles, I ordered Okuda to release the first bomb, which burst, and splashed a brilliant white light over the earthscape.”

“I took no chances on the return flight, for someone had certainly sighted me before. It must not happen again, so I cut the Zero’s engine and glided down to 1,000 feet, passing north of Cape Blanco and well out to sea before starting it again.”

“I flew westward for the amount of time Okuda specified and, on reaching the rendezvous point, looked around me. No I-25 [the submarine].” (Fujita, US Naval Institute)

This attack by the Japanese submarine was intended to start a large enough forest fire that large numbers of resources in men and money would be allocated to suppress a massive wildfire. It was also a reprisal for the American bombardment of Tokyo in April. (Hughel, Oregon NG)

A total of four bombs were dropped over two occasions with the intent of starting forest fires; however, due to damp conditions, little damage occurred.

“It was too wet and it just stopped raining. He dropped these thermite bombs and they just fizzled. They created enough smoke so the forest service saw them,” says Brenda Jacques, a retired reference librarian in Brookings. (OPB)

The war ended on September 2, 1945; in 1962, the Brookings Jaycees invited Fujita to Brookings for their annual Azalea festival as an occasion of historical significance. (Brookings, Oregon)

But not everyone in town was thrilled. A full-page op-ed was printed in the local paper, The Brookings-Harbor Pilot, in 1962. Part of it read, “[Fujita’s] sole claim to fame is that he’s the only Nip pilot who bombed the mainland of the United States by airplane … Why stop with Fujita?”

“Why not assemble the ashes of Judas Iscariot, the corpse of Atilla the Hun, a shovel full of dirt from the spot where Hitler died … .” (“Nip” is a derogatory abbreviation of “Nippon,” the Japanese name for Japan.) (OPB)

Fujita accepted the invitation and came back to Oregon. He donated his Samurai sword, which had flown with him in the cockpit, to the City of Brookings “in the interest of peace and friendship.” Fujita was later named an honorary citizen and an ambassador of goodwill by the City of Brookings for his continued peace efforts. (Brookings, Oregon)

Fujita returned to Brookings in 1990, 1992, and 1995. In 1992, he planted a tree at the bomb site as a gesture of peace. In 1995, he moved the samurai sword from the Brookings City Hall into the new library’s display case.

He died in Japan on September 30, 1997, at the age of 85. His family honored his wishes and buried his ashes by a tree he had planted as a peace gesture at the bombing site during his 1992 visit. (KTVL)

Fujita fulfilled a promise to bring a small group of high school students to Japan for a cultural exchange “I just can’t admire the man enough. Just to keep this friendship between the town and himself. He was so good about that.” (Greg Jacques, OPB)

September 7, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Labor Day

Hawai‘i is an exceptional case in American labor history because of its workforce made up of mostly non-white and immigrant workers.

The sugar planters increased the labor supply as needed to decrease labor’s demands. The major sugar planters grew into five big companies that eventually dominated the Islands’ economy.

Alexander & Baldwin, American Factors, Castle & Cooke, C Brewer and Theo H Davies before long constituted a power in the islands that controlled virtually all business and commercial as well as public employment opportunities.

Over the years in successive waves of immigration, the sugar growers brought to Hawai‘i 46,000 Chinese, 180,000 Japanese, 126,000 Filipinos as well as Portuguese and Puerto Ricans, each one used generally to offset the bargaining power of its predecessor.

“It was advantageous to have on your plantation groups from different ethnicities so that if one of them got it in their mind to strike that you would still be able to get things done by the other groups,” says William Puette, the Director of the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu.

“That obviously, they didn’t admit to this but it laid the groundwork for them to be able to have one group pitted against the other by making sure that they didn’t play well together.”

Hawai‘i’s labor unions during this period were organized based on ethnic groups. Sugar planters pinned these distinct groups against each other by difference in wages, hiring more workers from different countries, and used the Portuguese as a model minority.

Hawaii’s workers attempted strikes since the beginning of the sugar industry beginning in the 1800s. Some of the more significant in size occurred in 1909, 1919, 1924, and 1937.

In 1935, President Roosevelt, as part of his New Deal legislation, passed the Wagner Act giving workers the legal right to organize unions that could demand employer recognition. (UH West O‘ahu Center for Labor Education and Research)

Some unions were able to win small gains, but most strikes were broken and workers were forced to return to the plantations with harsher treatment. (Martinez)

Hawaiian officials expressed harsher anti-union attitudes by undermining the National Labor Relations Board, canceling union contracts, and threatening workers.

Employers froze wages to show that employees would not be hired in other locations. In addition, anti-Japanese hysteria after the bombing of Pearl Harbor deepened discrimination on the islands.

Blake Clark, a professor at the University of Hawaii, wrote in 1942, “A great many mainland Americans believe that most of the Japanese in Hawai‘i are hiding around in the canefields, ready at a signal to leap out and stab us in the back.”

Intimidated Japanese Hawaiians, who made up a significant portion of plantation labor, halted organizing. Police on the islands jailed anyone who did not follow the laws and ILWU membership froze to about 900 from the start of war until 1944.

Pent-up rage made workers receptive to ILWU organizers, due to the difficult conditions of life. Living quarters were more compressed as shacks “averaged less than 500 square feet for a family of five, with as many as eight persons living in a room of about 100 square feet,” and most homes lacked indoor plumbing.

When families requested maintenance of their housing or working facilities, managers deducted the cost from their pay. Controversy also spread about children on plantations in Hilo, working and missing school days.

The timing was ripe. Union organizers mobilized on the islands by speaking to workers’ grievance, as union power surged following the war. Workers from different ethnic and national backgrounds were soon convinced to join the union with each other.

Members of the ILWU went door to door to explain the need to unite under their union and strike in order to gain better wages and working conditions. Union bulletins, newspapers, voting ballots, and contracts were printed in each of the workers’ native languages.

The Sugar Strike of 1946 began on Labor Day. It was the first strike to ever shut down Hawai’i’s powerful sugar industry. More than 26,000 plantation workers and their families went on strike for nearly three months, closing all but one of 34 plantations across the island chain. (HPR)

The strike succeeded in changing the balance of power between workers and the plantation. In collective bargaining, the ILWU secured benefits such as housing, medical, pensions, and wages, as inherent rights for workers instead of privileges granted as favors by plantation owners.

“The politics of Hawai‘i would never be the same after that. And certainly labor relations would not be the same after that,” says Puette.

“Leadership in all the different areas would not be the same because you started to see the rise of people from the different ethnic groups, not just Japanese, but Filipinos, and everybody else which you wouldn’t have seen without that landmark strike of 1946.”

Based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, noting Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by state, 2019-2020 annual averages, Hawai‘i ranks #1 in 2020 with Percent of Employed – Members of Unions (23.7%) and Represented by Unions (25.7%). New York is #2.

September 6, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Mānoa Arboretum

Hahai nō ka ua i ka ululāʻau
The Rain Follows the Forest

“Not enough rain and not enough water in the streams are great evils”.

“It appears to me to be unnecessary to again go deeply into the theory of the relation between forests and rainfall when all intelligent and observing people admit that the decrease or increase of rainfall goes pari passu (‘hand-in-hand’) with the decrease or increase of the forests.”

“The forest, which not only produces rain, but also retains the rainwater, holding it among its leaves and branches, its undergrowth, its myriads of roots and rootlets and its fallen debris, letting the rainwater trickle down slowly to the water streams and keeping them supplied for a long time”.

“(T)hat forest is not there. Rain pours down, the water rushes in torrents through the streams to the sea and soon after everything is dry again.” (Gjerdrum to HSPA, 1897)

“The ultimate success of forestry in Hawaiʻi depends on the continued cooperation of individuals and private corporations with the Territorial Government.” (Board of Agriculture and Forestry, December 31, 1907)

In the early-1900s, Mānoa Valley’s lower slopes were stripped of their native vegetation by excessive agricultural cultivation and the overgrazing of cattle.

Without healthy forest cover, rainwater flowed to the ocean rather than recharging the ground water table, Hawaiʻi’s primary source of drinking water. This loss was of special concern to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA,) because sugar required great quantities of water.

In 1918, HSPA established Mānoa Arboretum in order to develop methods of watershed restoration, test tree species for reforestation and collect plants of economic value.

They put Dr Harold L Lyon, a young botanist from Minnesota, in charge of 124-acres at the back of Mānoa Valley. He was, at the same time, superintendent of the Territory’s Department of Botany and Forestation.

The site lies in the ʻili (land division) of Haukulu and ʻAihualama, in Mānoa. Several man-made features, including stone platforms, loʻi and the occurrence of many Polynesian-introduced plants note early use of the site.

One of Dr Lyon’s tasks at the arboretum was to identify trees suitable for rebuilding watersheds. Lyon observed that the adverse conditions of soil created from volcanic rock erosion appeared to affect the growth, survival and eventual death of many tree species.

He also noted that native plants did not thrive in areas that were previously trampled by cattle and other animals. The experiment station’s goal was to find trees that not only could survive in soil containing volcanic rock components, but also would comprise efficient water-conserving forests.

Mānoa Arboretum was a test site to evaluate trees that could be used for reforestation throughout the islands, and to test sugarcane seedlings. The test site became the basis of the Mānoa Arboretum.

Tree-planting was a coordinated effort involving Lyon, HSPA and Territorial Forestry under the direction of Ralph Sheldon Hosmer, the Territorial Forester. The early foresters planted many types of trees on an experimental basis, but concluded that native species were of limited utility and turned largely to introduced species for large-scale reforestation efforts. (Woodcock)

Lyon concluded that healthy forests should be preserved, that heavily damaged native forests could not recover on their own, and that damaged watersheds could be restored with introduced plants. Planting began in 1920, and was essentially completed by 1945.

“As an influential board member on the Agriculture and Forestry Commission, Harold Lyon succeeded in persuading the Territorial Commission to import seed of a vast number of alien tree species. … nearly 1,000 alien species were outplanted in Hawaiʻi forest reserves.” (Mueller-Dombois)

Various trees and plants were imported from diverse areas of the world including Madagascar, Australia, India, Brazil, the Malay states, China, the Philippines, southern Europe, the East Indies, the West Indies, New Zealand, Central America and South Africa. Trees that successfully survived the Mānoa Valley soil conditions and promoted water conservation were then widely planted throughout the arboretum

Eucalyptus species, silk oak, paperbark and ironwood were the most frequently planted trees due to their fast growth and their resistance to adverse environmental conditions. However, these very qualities, as well as their ability to seed profusely, would lead to some species such as tropical ash and albizia. (Iwashita)

The number of trees planted rose to many millions by the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was available for planting. From 1935 to 1941, with the help of the CCC, an average of close to two-million trees were planted per year in the forest reserves.

Lyon envisioned the plantations as a buffer zone that would be established between the remaining native forests and the lower-elevation agricultural lands to protect the native forests and perform the functions (maintaining input of water to aquifers.)

This large-scale attempt to engineer nature was probably the largest environmental project ever carried out in the islands. Forestry introductions have been a significant contributor to Hawaiʻi’s alien-species crisis, with many of these tree species now problem invasive species. (Woodcock)

In his 1949 annual report to the HSPA entitled, ‘What is to be the fate of the arboretum?,’ Lyon declared the Mānoa Arboretum’s mission to test new plant introductions to be essentially complete; he believed that the HSPA should not remain the arboretum’s custodian.

On July 1, 1953, HSPA conveyed the Mānoa Arboretum to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaiʻi. The regents were individually entrusted with the fiduciary duty of maintaining the arboretum. In 1962, the Board of Regents transferred the arboretum to the University of Hawaiʻi.

Dr. Lyon remained with the arboretum as its first director under the regents’ and university’s stewardship. After Dr. Lyon’s death in 1957, an advisory committee directed the arboretum until 1961, when Dr. George Gillette assumed the directorship on a part-time basis.

When Dr. Lyon died, the Board of Regents renamed the facility the Harold L. Lyon Arboretum (Lyon Arboretum) in honor of the man so closely associated with its growth and fruition.

In the early years, eight cottages were built on the arboretum site for staff use. The cottages were given alphabetical designations, beginning with cottage “A” at the foot of the hill leading into the arboretum site and ending with cottage “H” at the top of the hill. Lands surrounding the cottages were planted with sugar cane. Dr. Lyon also erected an orchid greenhouse between cottages “F” and “G,” which is still used today.

Cottage “H” was expanded over time and is now the main center of the Harold L. Lyon Arboretum, housing offices, a reception area, an educational office, and a book and gift shop.

Forestry, Forest Reserves, Watershed Partnerships, invasive species and related water and habitat concerns were very much a part of daily activities when I was at DLNR.

I am honored and proud to have served as a director on the Hawaiʻi Forest Institute, an organization dedicated to promote the health and productivity of Hawaiʻi’s forests, through forest restoration, educational programs, information dissemination and support for scientific research.