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September 16, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Luther Aungst

Luther S Aungst was born at Linglestown Pennsylvania on October 26, 1862, the son of Daniel and Amanda Aungst. He was educated in public school in Decatur, Illinois.

Aungst got into the telephone business and worked in Des Moines, Iowa 1879-1882, Philadelphia 1882-1886; San Francisco and Los Angeles 1886-1890. He came to the Islands in February, 1890, to take charge of the rebuild the Hamakua and South Kohala telephone systems.

“Mr Aungst, the new telephone man, is making a good start, and has the lines in good working order. He understands the business thoroughly.” (Hawaiian Gazette. March 25, 1890)

Aungst was known as the man who ‘wired’ the Big Island. He installed a line from Hilo to Kau, and across Kona to North Kohala. He used mules to drag telephone poles across lava flows.

He later secured a franchise from the government for Kona-Kau Telephone and Telegraph (1892-1932), stringing a phone line from Kau to Waimea. Kona-Kau Telephone & Telegraph later merged into Hawaii Telephone Company. (HIGenWeb)

Aungst (5 ‘6″ tall, sloping forehead, grey eyes, light hair, fair complexion) married Emma L Schoen of Hilo on February 1, 1896; they had three children Edith A, Elmer L and Wallace M.

He did more than telephone operations … “The sisal mill was run by Mr. Aungst [from 1917 – 1921], the man that owned the telephone company. Mr. Aungst was quite a pioneer.”

Young Minoru Inaba (later, Kona Representative in the State legislature) notes, “I got the job at the sisal mill after I graduated from the eighth grade.”

“My father used to be the foreman at the sisal mill. So, I got a job there. I used to get up, 3 o’clock in the morning, get on a donkey from Holualoa, go all the way to Keopu, and go down the trail. You see, the sisal mill used to be on Palani Road.”

“It’s little below where the Liliuokalani Housing is. Used to take me three hours to get to the sisal mill every morning. I used to get up 3 o’clock in the morning – well, before 3 o’clock, and leave home at 3 o’clock. Get to the sisal mill at 6 o’clock, work there the whole day, then come back. So, I used to get home about 7 o’clock at night daily.”

“I had to haul in a wheelbarrow all the thrash that came out of the sisal. And haul it away from the mill, dump it on the ma kai side of the road. You couldn’t loaf on the job. Because if you’d loaf, it’d pile up, accumulates, and you’d have a hard time. So, it had to be continuously working. It was a pretty good-paying job … $2.50 … per day”.

“What they used to do was to thrash the sisal. You take the green leaves, and at the tip there’s always a spine, huh? So, they had to cut the tip off, and then, cut the leaf off – the sisal leaf. And then, they’d put it on a conveyor.”

“That leaf is really thick, you know, and much of it is moisture and thrash in there. So, this machine would thrash that leaf and leave only the fibers.”

“The thrash that used to come out of the leaves is what I used to haul away. After the liquid and thrash was cleaned out, it left only the fibers. This was what they made rope out of sisal.”

“They had to dry this out in the sun. After it was thoroughly dried – the fibers were dried – they’d bring it in, and they’d compress it into bales. They used to ship it to San Francisco. But the cost of bringing out the sisal from the field …. They used to pack it, and those things were heavy.”

“You know, to bring it out in a rocky terrain, they used to bring it out on the donkeys. Load ‘em up on the donkeys and bring ‘em out. This was the costly part of their operation, so finally, they had to give up.” (Minoru Inaba)

“In Holualoa, he started the first garage. He was the first one that had a radio. He was the first one that brought in the carbide lights – you know, gas lamps for the home. He was the first one that imported the flashlight.”

“He was the first one that brought in ice from Honolulu. There was no ice factory here, so every steamer day, the ship would bring in ice, and they’d bring it up to his home. He was the only one that had ice.”

“Oh, he was quite a pioneer. And he started the soda works there. … The old soda works used to be the Kona Bottling Works. Yes, he was quite a pioneer.” (Minoru Inaba) “The Kona Bottling Works bottled and delivered soda throughout the district”. (Peterson)

Aungst died at his home in Holualua on September 17, 1953 at the age of 90. The County “Board of Supervisors prepared a resolution of condolence to Mr Aungst’s family, honoring him as the first citizen of Kona and a pioneer in developing telephone communications on this island.” (Hawaii Tribune Herald, September 18, 1953)

September 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

St. Augustine by-the-sea

At the time of the arrival of Europeans in the Hawaiian Islands during the late-eighteenth century, Waikīkī had long been a center of population and political power on Oʻahu. Starting back in the end of the fourteenth century, Waikīkī had become “the ruling seat of the chiefs of O’ahu,” including Kamehameha, who resided here after conquering Oʻahu in 1795.

In 1819, Kalanimōkū was the first Hawaiian Chief to be formally baptized a Catholic, aboard the French ship Uranie. “The captain and the clergyman asked (John) Young what Ka-lani-moku’s rank was, and upon being told that he was the chief counselor (Kuhina Nui) and a wise, kind, and careful man, they baptized him into the Catholic Church” (Kamakau). Shortly thereafter, Boki, Kalanimōkū’s brother (and Governor of Oʻahu,) was baptized.

In July 1827, three Sacred Hearts priests and three Sacred Hearts brothers from France arrived in Honolulu to begin the Hawaiian Catholic Mission. The beginnings of the Mission were difficult. They were neither welcomed by the royal government nor by the Protestants already in the Islands.

France, historically a Catholic nation, used its government representatives in Hawaiʻi to protest the mistreatment of Catholic Native Hawaiians. Captain Cyrille-Pierre Théodore Laplace, of the French Navy frigate “Artémise”, sailed into Honolulu Harbor in 1839 to convince the Hawaiian leadership to get along with the Catholics – and the French. Finally, the persecution ended in June and the kingdom granted religious freedom to all.

With Catholics now free to practice their faith, a small Catholic chapel was built in 1839 in Waikīkī “in the Hawaiian style,” likely consisting of posts and thatch on the beach near the present Kalākaua Avenue.

This chapel was re-built 15 years later (in 1854) at that beach location in Western-style wooden framing (from the lumber of shipwrecked ships.) The size of this chapel was about 20 feet by 40 feet, with a steeple.

Waikīkī continued to grow and improvements to the chapel were made later by putting in flooring, galvanized roofing, and lattice walls. This church site on the beach served its purpose for many years, until the site was exchanged for a piece of land on what is now ʻOhua Avenue.

The chapel was used primarily for devotions; parishioners still had to go to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) for Sunday Mass.

During the Spanish-American War, American soldiers were garrisoned at Kapiʻolani Park (at a temporary Camp McKinley – 1898-1907) and the Catholic soldiers wanted a regular Catholic Mass in Waikīkī, so permission was given for Mass every Sunday. A larger chapel was built to accommodate all the worshippers.

The soldiers left when the war ended, but by that time there was a growing Catholic community in Waikīkī. On August 28, 1901, a more permanent church with lattice-work walls reminiscent of the palm fronds of the first chapel in Waikīkī.

As Waikīkī grew, so did the church; it was expanded twice, in 1910 and then in 1925; but time, a growing population and termites took their toll and by the early-1960s a larger church was needed.

In 1962, the present church was blessed. Designed by local architect George McLaughlin, the design reflects hands folded in prayer. The 20-side stained glass windows depict 15-mysteries of the rosary, the arrival of the missionaries, the first lay catechists (Catholic teachers of the faith) in Hawaiʻi, Father Damien and the bishop receiving the current church.

Today, St Augustine-by-the-Sea Church sits within urban Honolulu at the eastern end of the Waikīkī resort area. It is surrounded by modem urban development and high-rise hotels.

St. Augustine by-the-sea has not undergone any major exterior renovations or improvements since its construction in 1962. The church recently published a Master Plan and Environmental Assessment for a new multi-purpose Parrish Hall, as well as other improvements.

St. Augustine features a small museum dedicated to the life and times of St. Damien of Molokaʻi. In 1863, his brother, who was to leave for the Hawaiian Islands, became ill and Damien took his place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864, and was ordained at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace (in downtown Honolulu) on May 21, 1864.

For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaiʻi. In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokaʻi, after volunteering for the assignment. He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics and churches, and some six hundred coffins. He died on April 15 1885, on Molokaʻi. (Lots of information and images from St. Augustine website and related reports.)

September 13, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Cousins

Wigglesworth Dole (born on November 17, 1779) married Elizabeth Haskell (born August 30, 1788. Among their children, they had two sons, Daniel Dole (born September 9, 1808) and Nathan Dole (born May 8, 1811).

Daniel had a son, Sanford Ballard Dole; Nathan had a son Charles Fletcher Dole – Charles’ first cousin was Sanford Ballard Dole. Charles had a son James Drummond Dole. James and Sanford were first cousins once removed (separated by one generation).

Wigglesworth Dole worked as a cabinet maker and kept a small farm, while serving as Deacon of a Congregational Church. Daniel Dole became a Protestant missionary to Hawai‘i. Nathan Dole was ordained as minister of the first Congregational Church in Brewer, Maine. Charles Dole was a Unitarian minister.

Daniel Dole graduated from Bowdoin College in 1836 and Bangor Theological Seminary in 1839, and then married Emily Hoyt Ballard (1807-1844,) October 2, 1840 in Gardiner, Maine. They were in the Ninth Company of missionaries to Hawai‘i and arrived in May 1841.

The education of their children was a concern of missionaries in Hawai‘i. There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

During the first 21-years of the missionary period (1820-1863,) no fewer than 33 children were shipped off to the continent by their parents. (Seven-year-old Sophia Bingham, the first Caucasian girl born on Oʻahu, daughter of Hiram and Sybil, was sent to the continent in 1828. She is my great-great-grandmother.)

Resolution 14 of the 1841 General Meeting of the Sandwich Islands Mission changed that; it established a school for the children of the missionaries (May 12, 1841.) A subsequent Resolution noted “That Mr (Daniel) Dole be located at Punahou, as teacher for the Children of the Mission.”

Daniel Dole resigned from Punahou in 1855 to become the pastor and teacher at Kōloa, Kauai. There, he started the Dole School that later became Kōloa School, the first public school on Kauai. Like Punahou, it filled the need to educate mission children.

Dole Street, laid out in 1880 and part of the development of the lower Punahou pasture was named after Daniel Dole (other nearby streets were named after other Punahou presidents.)

Sanford Dole, son of Daniel, was born at Punahou School. Sanford avoided the ministry and from 1866 to 1868 he studied at Williams College in Williamstown, MA, and studied law in Boston. He became a lawyer in Honolulu in 1869.

In 1884 and 1886 Sanford Dole was elected to the Hawai‘i legislature. In 1887 he was appointed an associate justice of the Hawaiian Supreme Court.

Sanford Dole desired the annexation of Hawai‘i by the US so that Hawaiian sugar planters could favorably compete in US markets. He was angered when Queen Liliuokalani, who succeeded her brother Kalakaua in 1891, tried to restore royal power.

In 1893 Dole joined a group of businessmen who, aided by the presence of US Marines, overthrew the monarchy. The next year he became president of the new Republic of Hawai‘i.

Sanford Dole pressed for annexation, but it was delayed until 1898, when Hawaii became a strategic naval base during the Spanish-American War. In 1900 Dole was appointed governor of the new territory.

In 1903 he became presiding judge of the Federal District Court, a position he held until his retirement in 1915. Sanford Dole died in Honolulu on June 9, 1926. (Britannica)

Charles Fletcher Dole (1845–1927) – first cousin to Sanford Dole – was a Unitarian minister; after teaching Greek for a time at the University of Vermont, he was called by the Jamaica Plain church. Reverend Charles Dole served for more than forty years as pastor of the First Church of Jamaica Plain, MA.

He was prolific writer of books and pamphlets in the Jamaica Plain section of Boston, MA, and Chairman of the Association to Abolish War. Charles Dole authored a substantial number of books on politics, history and theology.

Charles Dole often expressed the hope that his son, James, would enter the ministry. (Jamaica Plain Historical Society) However, James (they called him Jim) concentrated on agriculture and horticulture.

James Dole’s love of farming had grown out of his boyhood experiences at the family’s summer home in Southwest Harbor, Maine. His summer chore was to take care of the family’s vegetable garden. What would have been a burden to most boys was a delight to Jim, and he gradually concluded that his “calling” was not the ministry but “the land.”

James Dole made his way to Hawai‘i with his total savings of about $1,500, intent upon making his fortune. Having just turned 22, this 5’ 11½”, 120 pound Harvard graduate landed in Honolulu on November 16, 1899.

At first he lived with his cousin Sanford. “Within two weeks I found the town quarantined for six months by an outbreak of bubonic plague. During the winter I saw the fire department, with the timely aid of a stiff wind, burn down all of Chinatown (the intention being to disinfect in this thorough manner only one or two blocks).”

The Hawaiian economy was dependent on a single product, sugar, and its fortunes bobbed up and down with the fortunes of sugar. James Dole wrote: “I first came to Hawaii … with some notion of growing coffee – the new Territorial Government was offering homestead lands to people willing to farm them – and I had heard that fortunes were being made in Hawaiian coffee.”

“I began homesteading a [64 acre] farm in the rural district of the island of Oahu, at a place called Wahiawa, about 25 miles from Honolulu.”

“On August 1, 1900 [I] took up residence thereon as a farmer – unquestionably of the dirt variety. After some experimentation, I concluded that it was better adapted to pineapples than to [coffee,] peas, pigs or potatoes, and accordingly concentrated on that fruit.”

Previous growers had tried to ship pineapples as a fresh fruit, but pineapple does not travel well and they did not prosper. James Dole’s intention was to distribute pineapple in cans – also an endeavor at which others had failed.

Undeterred, he planted about 75,000 pineapple slips on twelve of his acres, and simultaneously, with no knowledge of canning, he started a small cannery. “The people of Honolulu scoffed when, in December 1901, 24-year-old James Dole founded the Hawaiian Pineapple Company [Hapco]…”

The Honolulu Advertiser labeled the company “a foolhardy venture which had been tried unsuccessfully before and was sure to fail again.” In another editorial, the paper said, “If pineapple paid, the vacant lands near the town would be covered with them….Export on any great or profitable scale is out of the question.”

in 1910, Sanford Dole wrote to James Dole: “The more I think about it the less I like the proposition of using the Dole name for your enterprise. It is a name which has long been associated in these islands with religious, educational, and philanthropic enterprises…”

“I think it would be regrettable to give [the name Dole] an association of such a commercial character that would adhere to it if made a trade-mark or part of the business name of a corporation.”

James Dole adhered to his cousin’s wishes while he controlled Hapco, but the leaders of the reorganized company soon began exploiting the Dole name in labels and advertising. And after James’s death, Hapco was renamed the Dole Food Company.

Thirty years later – in 1930 – the company (popularly known as “Hapco”) had well over a billion plants in the ground and was packing 104,515,025 cans of pineapple a year for world-wide distribution. (Lots here is from F Washington Jarvis.)

September 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sake

When you drink sake
You feel like the springtime,
And the loud cries
Of impatient creditors
On the outside
Sound in your ears
Like the voices of nightingales
Singing most sweetly.
(Japanese drinking song, Burton Holmes Travelogues, 1870)

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Japan. It is made through fermentation, like beer and wine. Sake is made from rice, a staple food in Japan. (NRIB)

It is not exactly known when people began making sake in Japan; however, it is believed an alcoholic beverage made from rice was already made in the Yayoi period (300 BC- 250 AD) when rice cultivation was brought from China to Japan. (NRIB)

A Dec 18, 1910 article in the San Francisco Call notes, “It is said that 7 per cent of the entire rice crop of Japan goes to the making of this amber fluid, which contains about 13 per cent of alcohol and is characterized by five distinct tastes, according to experts – ‘sweetness, sharpness, sourness, bitterness and astringency.’”

In Hawai‘i, a century after Captain James Cook’s arrival, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations between 1885 and 1924, when limits were placed on the numbers permitted entry.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Most suggest the first Sake brewery outside of Japan was in Hawaii, the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co. Many people still believe that to be true, but it was likely the fourth sake brewery established in the US. The Japan Brewing Co was incorporated in Berkeley, California in June 1901. In addition, two other California sake breweries were established in 1903 and 1907. (Auffrey)

However, the Honolulu sake brewery was more successful, more long lasting, and left a much greater legacy than any other of the early Sake breweries in the US. (Auffrey)

“The Honolulu Sake Brewery and Ice Co Ltd, was built in 1908 by Tajiro Sumida and Tomokuni Iwanaga as the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co, Ltd.”

“‘The reason it was started is because of the early Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work as plantation laborers,’ Emil A Nomura, the brewery’s assistant brewmaster, said the other day.”

“‘You see,’ Nomura said, ‘with the meager wages these workers earned, there was barely enough money left to indulge in the privilege of drinking sake, the Japanese people’s favorite drink. And sake from Japan was expensive, because of import duties and things.’”

“To remedy that drinking man’s urge for his favorite brew, the Sumida-Iwanaga partnership designed the world’s first warm-weather sake brewery.”

“The new brewery differed from any traditional Japanese brewery because it was refrigerated and capable of producing sake all year. ‘The factory had to be refrigerated because sake has to be made in a cool room (as cool as 43 degrees),’ Shinsaburo S Sumida, the brewery’s present president said recently.”

For a time, it was “The only brewery in the world which makes sake year round.” “Sumida explained that until the Pauoa brewery was built by his father and Iwanaga, sake had only been made in winter months, usually from the end of October through February, because its fermentation-mold stages of brewing are easily spoiled by heat.”

The Hawai‘i sake brewery faced several other challenges …

Prohibition in 1920s … However, “The booming brewery, however, didn’t let the no-booze era dampen its spirits. Instead, it froze brewing operations, turned up the brewery’s refrigerators, reopened as an ice factory and skated through the lean Prohibition (and Depression) years.”

“With repeal, in 1934, the ice house thawed itself out, increased its working capital from $150,000 to $250,000 (400 shareholders), imported five sake experts from Japan to supervise the installation of new machinery and went back into the brewing business.”

“With World War II came new problems: a rice shortage which didn’t allow rice to be used as anything but food and a sociological shakeup in Japanese American society.”

“‘It was an order,’ recalls Sumida. ‘We couldn’t use rice for making sake, so at that time we started making shoyu (soy sauce).’ And so the Pauoa brewery-factory shoyued its way through the war, and eventually resumed sake operations in 1948.” (SB & Adv Jan 17, 1971) The Honolulu Sake Brewery ceased operations in 1989.

A side story on Japan’s sake industry …

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats we made from recycled sake bottles. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.

September 11, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

McGrew Point

“A name that will stand out prominently in Hawaiian history as long as history endures, is that of Dr John S McGrew, famous physician and esteemed citizen of the old Hawaii …”

“… whose long activities in promotion of a political union between the islands and the United States won him the title of ‘The Father of Annexation.’”

“Dr McGrew is believed to have been the first proponent of the proposition that Hawaii should be American, the first man to realize that under the American flag the islands and their people would find their greatest opportunity and the fullest realization of their destiny.”

“‘Annexation’ McGrew, he was called by King Kalakaua, who, although naturally enough opposed to Dr McGrew’s political program, often expressed his admiration for the doctor’s sincerity and honesty of purpose.”

“Dr McGrew was an earnest advocate of annexation long before the Hawaiian monarchy was destroyed by revolution, and not for an instant did he waver from his purpose.”

“When annexation finally became an accomplished fact in 1898, five years after the revolution, Dr McGrew was hailed as ‘The Father of Annexation’ …”

“… just as Judge Sanford B. Dole, president of the Republic of Hawaii and first governor of the American Territory, became known in later years as ‘The Grand Old Man of Hawaii.’ Two heroic figures in the evolution of Hawaii were Dole and McGrew.” (Nellist)

His first wife died in 1851. “At the close of the [Civil] war, Dr McGrew married Pauline Gillet at Washington, DC, and the couple started on a world tour which brought them to Hawaii in 1866, where Dr McGrew abandoned the tour and decided to enter medical practice in Honolulu.”

“Upon their arrival in Hawaii, Dr and Mrs McGrew became established in a homestead located on the present site of the Alexander Young Hotel. Their home became a Honolulu landmark and was a famous social center of the city.”

“Dr McGrew was widely known for his hospitality, entertaining visitors from all parts of the world. Kate Field, the noted woman writer, died at the McGrew home while making a tour of Hawaii.”

“The old mansion was built in the 40’s by Dr RAS Wood and was owned at the time of Dr McGrew’s arrival in Hawaii by General McCook, one of the “Fighting McCook’s” of Civil War fame. Dr McGrew and family later purchased the JF Hackfeld home at Lunalilo and Emerson Streets”.

“For many years he was in charge of the Marine Hospital. He served as the first president of the Honolulu Medical Society. Maintaining the practice of his profession at a high standard, he amassed a considerable fortune, acquiring real estate and stock in growing business concerns.”

“Dr McGrew was a member of the commission which cooperated with Generals Alexander and Schofield in making a survey for an American naval base at Pearl Harbor, as provided for by the Reciprocity Treaty. He assisted in making plans for the coaling station and lived to see a portion of the harbor improvements completed.”

“McGrew family has owned 44-acre McGrew Point at Aiea for the past 70 years [since about the 1870s]. The area has a mile of waterfrontage on the Waianae side of the peninsula and the home of [McGrew’s grandson] on the other side.”

“The family devoted years of effort of establishment of a plantation of fruit trees and other general improvements. Dignitaries from around the world, including top ranking army and navy officers, have been guests at the Cooper home.”

“[Katherine McGrew was born in Honolulu in February, 1873 is the daughter of Dr John S McGrew. She married Charles Bryant Cooper on March 24, 1897.]” Adv, Aug 21, 1946)

In 1944, “An order giving the federal government possession of about 49 acres at McGrew point in the Pearl Harbor area has been signed by Judge J Frank McLaughlin.” (Hnl SB, July 18, 1944)

The Loko Pa‘aiau Fishpond is located at McGrew Point Navy housing, Oahu, Hawaii. It is one of only three fishponds out of an original 22 in the Pearl Harbor area which are still relatively intact. (Navy)

Efforts are underway to restore it. Currently located on land leased for Navy housing, Aliʻi Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club and the ʻAiea Community Association see Loko Paʻaiau as a place where local community members, visitors, and military families can come together to build relationships to the land and each other.

In partnership with the Navy, local community groups involved in the restoration of Loko Paʻaiau have focused their efforts on bringing people together to raise cultural awareness of the fishponds and connect people to the history and culture of the area. (McDaniel) McGrew Point now has military housing.