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October 7, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tea

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.” (Henry James)

According to legend, in 2737 BC, the Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting beneath a tree while his servant boiled drinking water, when some leaves from the tree blew into the water. Shen Nung, a renowned herbalist, decided to try the infusion that his servant had accidentally created. The tree was a Camellia sinensis, and the resulting drink was what we now call tea.

Containers for tea have been found in tombs dating from the Han dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) but it was under the Tang dynasty (618-906 AD), that tea became firmly established as the national drink of China.

It became such a favorite that during the late eighth century a writer called Lu Yu wrote the first book entirely about tea, the Ch’a Ching, or Tea Classic. It was shortly after this that tea was first introduced to Japan, by Japanese Buddhist monks who had travelled to China to study.

Tea drinking has become a vital part of Japanese culture, as seen in the development of the Tea Ceremony, which may be rooted in the rituals described in the Ch’a Ching. (UK Tea)

The world began to learn of China’s tea secret in the early 1600s, when Dutch traders started bringing it to Europe in large quantities. With regular shipment to parts of Europe by 1610, tea first arrived in Britain in the 1650s, when it was served as a novelty in London’s coffee houses.

Back then, tea was a rare drink that very few consumed. The famous diarist Samuel Pepys wrote about his first tea experience, and the first written reference to tea drinking in England.

On September 25, 1660, Pepys was called to the meeting to discuss peace with Spain; he noted, “And afterwards I did send for a cup of tee (a China drink) of which I had never drank before, and went away”. (BBC)

Tea was slow to catch on in England.

However, it may have been the wife of King Charles II, two years later, who popularized tea in the UK. In 1662, Charles II, the newly restored monarch, married Catherine of Braganza, the daughter of Portugal’s King John IV. She became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Upon arriving in Portsmouth on May 14, 1662 ahead of her marriage to the king, Catherine asked for a cup of tea. Tea had arrived by this point, but it was rare for anyone to drink it, so none was available – instead, she was offered a small ale. She was already a regular tea drinker, as the drink was already a popular beverage among the aristocracy of Portugal.

The king and queen got married on May 14, and Portugal provided several ships of luxury items as it had been agreed. One of those items included a chest of tea, the favorite drink of the Portuguese Court.

Catherine popularized the drink among British nobility, and subsequently to the wealthier members of society. The invasion of tea in the country had well and truly started. (BBC)

OK; so, how does this relate to Hawai‘i?

Beginning well before 1600, the North American fur trade was the earliest global economic enterprise. Europeans and, later, Canadians and Americans, hunted and trapped furs; but success mandated that traders cultivate and maintain dense trade and alliance networks with Native nations.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China. The fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for silks, porcelain, other Chinese goods … and Tea, which were then sold in Europe and the US.

The East India Company was perhaps the most powerful commercial organization that the world has ever seen. In its heyday it not only had a monopoly on British trade with India and the Far East, but it was also responsible for the government of much of the vast Indian sub-continent.

Both of these factors mean that the East India Company (or, to call it by its proper name, the British East India Company) was crucial to the history of the tea trade. (UK Tea)

After acquiring the “Louisiana Purchase” in 1803, under the directive of President Thomas Jefferson, the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the “Corps of Discovery Expedition” (1804–1806), was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific coast undertaken by the United States.

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

Fast forward 150-years and in 1821, HBC merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise now spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (modern-day Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)

Fur traders working for the HBC traveled an area of more than 700,000 square miles that stretched from Russian Alaska to Mexican California and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Ships sailed from London around Cape Horn around South America and then to forts and posts along the Pacific Coast via the Hawaiian Islands. Trappers crossing overland faced a journey of 2,000 miles that took three months.

Traders, in order to obtain the wherewithal to purchase teas and silks at Canton, spent 18-months or more of each China voyage collecting a cargo of sea-otter skins, highly esteemed by the Chinese.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife, could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

Practically every vessel that visited the North Pacific in the closing years of the 18th century stopped at Hawai‘i to replenish supplies, refreshment and recreation.

Fur trading on the coast remained profitable from the 1780s into the 1820s, but the successful trade in furs depended entirely on the locale. Some parts of the coast, such as Nootka Sound and Clayoquot Sound, witnessed a complete collapse of the sea otter population after only a decade of intense hunting. (Igler)

October 6, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kakaʻako Pumping Station

The word “Sewer” is derived from the term “seaward” in Old English, as in ditches and ravines slightly sloped to run waste water from land to sea.

From an 1857 story in the Commercial Pacific Advertiser it appears that the first sewer facility to be constructed on Oʻahu was a storm drain located at Queen Street at the foot of Kaʻahumanu Street opposite Pier 11. (ASCE)

Despite three outbreaks of smallpox, a typhus epidemic and two cholera epidemics between 1853 and 1895, no other serious actions were taken to improve conditions.

Honolulu was a growing city and needed a better way of disposing its wastewater.

At that time, the city had grown to approximately 30,000-people, and it was estimated that about 1.8-million gallons of sewage was being disposed of in the City septic systems daily. This was much more than septic tank excavators could keep up with – which caused sanitation and odor concerns.

In 1897, Rudolph Hering, a New York Sanitary Engineer, was hired to prepare specifications for a Honolulu sewerage system, pumping station and ocean outfall (Hering had previously designed the New York and other large city sewage systems.)

Hering recommended a “separate system” whereby separate networks of conduits would carry sewage and storm waters, a system still used today in Honolulu.

Work on the system began in 1899 and sewer lines were laid out in a gravity flow pattern in a rectangular fashion and ran along Alapaʻi, River and South Streets, past Thomas Square, and ended in the Punahou area.

The system was extended to the remaining portion of what was then considered to be “town,” between Liliha on the ʻEwa side, Artesian Street, beyond Punahou to Judd Street, and including the Kewalo District.

The expansion was later delayed, due to a lack of funding. Much of the extension work thereafter was performed by property owners who were furnished piping and sewer components by the government.

The collection lines terminated at a main reservoir (the underground reservoir was dubbed the Hering Reservoir) at the low point at the intersection of Keawe Street and Ala Moana Boulevard in Kakaʻako. (Darnell) The sewage would then be pumped out to sea.

In addition, OG Traphagen (designer of the Moana Hotel) was hired to design the steam-powered sewer pumping station at this low spot.

The cost was tremendous for the construction of the lines, and construction was stopped several times due to lack of funding. The sewer outfall to the ocean was built in 1899. The outfall ran some 3,800-feet out to sea at a depth of 40-feet of water, rather than farther out to a 100-foot depth (again, due to funding constraints.) (Darnell)

In 1900, the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was constructed; with features such as large arched windows, exterior walls of local lava rock, roofs of green tile and a smokestack 76-feet tall.

The architectural style is Industrial Romanesque with the walls constructed of locally-cut bluestone and concrete with plaster finished interior walls.

The first sewer system connections (to the Department of Health building on Punchbowl and Queen Streets, and to the Post Office building on Bethel and Merchant) were completed in 1900. This was followed by the slow conversion of other properties from cesspools to sewers.

Two additions were built to support the Pumping Station facility. In 1925, an additional “Pump” building of brick to house a high-speed, electric powered pump was added and the original plant was turned into a machine shop, storeroom and office. In 1939 a second “New” Pump House was constructed on the southwestern side of the existing structures.

The use of the Kakaʻako Pumping Station was abandoned by the City and County of Honolulu when it built a new pumping station on the southwest portion of the block, adjacent to the Historic Ala Moana Pumping Station in 1955.

Now under the jurisdiction of the Hawaiʻi Community Development Authority, it is restored by the nonprofit Hawaiʻi Architectural Foundation.

Today, the interior of the 1900 Pumping Station does not contain any historic equipment or utilities. (Lots of information here from HCDA, HHF, ASCE and Darnell.)

October 5, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiian Volcano Research Association

“Keep and publish careful records, invite the whole world of science to co-operate, and interest the business man.” (Jaggar, 1913)

In contemplating the formation of a volcano observatory in Hawai‘i, Thomas Jaggar enlisted support from the Chamber of Commerce and the leading citizens of Honolulu.

In 1909, subscriptions were started by personal interview through the agency of Mr. Thurston and volunteer solicitors, after a lecture on volcanoes by Professor Jaggar, delivered at the University Club of Honolulu. A generous response came from a number of organizations and individuals.

The Chamber of Commerce appointed a committee to seek subscriptions in June, 1909. These were: Charles M. Cooke, Ltd., C. H. Cooke, Acting Director; Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., Ltd., James A. Kennedy, General Manager; Mr. W. G. Irwin; Kilauea Volcano House, Ltd., E. W. Campbell, Treasurer; Hilo Rail Road Co., Lorrin A. Thurston, General Manager; Hawaiian Promotion Committee; Mr. George Wilcox; Mr. Aug. Knudsen and the Bishop Museum.

The founding of the Volcano Observatory and the formation of the group of subscribers called the “Research Association,” were themselves evolved productions of the inspiring work of early investigators, as well as of the natural intellectual stimulus created in man by the unexplained Kilauea lake of boiling nebulous flux.

October 5, 1911, at a well-attended meeting in the University Club, Honolulu, an informal organization of the Research Association was adopted and placed in the hands of a committee consisting of L. A. Thurston, chairman; A. F. Judd, representing the trustees of the Bishop Museum; President J. W. Gilmore, representing the College of Hawaii; C. H. Cooke, treasurer of the association; J. A. Kennedy.

Mr. Thurston at this meeting pointed out that there should be no break in the collection of records at Kilauea so well started by Mr. Perret, and suggested that a committee of five be appointed with power to act, to draw up a form of organization and to solicit subscriptions to help cover daily operations.

The persons who signed the subscription list of 1909 had been interviewed and had mostly expressed themselves as willing to renew their subscriptions. He reviewed the history of the observatory movement and then suggested that a voluntary, unincorporated, local organization be formed, to secure funds to carry on volcanic research; such funds to be administered and expended by an unpaid executive committee of five to be annually elected by the association.

The meeting of October, 1911 put the money-raising in the hands of the committee of five, and the estate of CM Cooke, Ltd. became guarantor of a fund of $5,000 annually, the actual subscriptions in Hawaii at first amounting to some three-quarters of that sum.

Mr. Jaggar by personal interviews raised $2,800 additional in 1912, assisted by a new subscription blank approved July 10, 1912, by the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce. In January of that year he had raised $1,785 in Hilo through the energetic assistance of Mr. Demosthenes Lycurgus, with the approval of the Hilo Board of Trade, this money being for the Observatory building.

A few small gifts have been made for special purposes such as the motorcar and certain specimens destined for the Bishop Museum.

The subscriptions are partly for five years, but many are renewable from year to year. Their motto was Ne plus haustae aut obrutae urbes (No more shall the cities be destroyed).

President Gilmore mentioned the many unsolved problems at the volcanoes and the necessity for continuous and concerted effort to collect data. He pointed out the extensive instrumental equipment which would be necessary and agreed for the College of Hawaii to give such assistance as its rules would permit.

Mr. Judd expressed great interest on the part of the Bishop Museum and undertook to investigate thoroughly what funds could be used to this end under the trust deed of that Institution.

Mr. C. H. Cooke, president of the Bank of Hawaii, deplored the multiplicity of organizations in Honolulu and expressed the belief that it would be to the welfare of all concerned if the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) would take the scientific responsibility of the work.

Governor Frear cited two main propositions as involved in the plan of work of the proposed Volcano Research Association, one concerning the scientific value of the work and the other the advertising of the Islands to the world.

He did not know whether the government could assist but it might profitably be brought before the legislature. He thought the project would be heartily endorsed by the Hawaiian members.

Mr. T. Clive Davies expressed the hope that the scientific motive would greatly dominate the publicity idea as he feared the “blighting hand of commercialism” would seriously interfere with good research.

The net result of this meeting was to establish an association for the private subscription of money to volcano research. Through this, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was formed.

According to its constitution, the name of this Association shall be the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association. The objects of this Association shall be:

To encourage and promote investigation of and research concerning volcanoes and volcanic phenomena, and all matters connected therewith or incidental thereto;
To establish and maintain an observatory at the Volcano of Kilauea, with subordinate stations at other points, from which investigation and research may be conducted, and at which records may be made and kept for the information of all, subject to the rules of the Association;
To invite scientific institutions and observers to make use of the buildings, apparatus and facilities of the Association, subject to the rules of the Association, and, so far as possible, to assist such institutions and observers in carrying on their work;
To promote the publication and dissemination of knowledge concerning volcanology and allied subjects, and to accumulate literature, photographs, models, maps and specimens, relating thereto, for the information of all, subject to the rules of the Association.

Membership was open to Any person, corporation, association or institution signing an application blank, whose name may be approved by the Board of Directors and who shall pay the dues prescribed by the Constitution, shall thereby become a member of the Association. (The membership dues shall be $5.00 per annum, payable annually in advance.)

Those who contribute to the support of the Association other than or in addition to the membership dues, shall be known as ”Patrons” of the Association.

The Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), in operation from July 1, 1912, under the direction of the Department of Geology of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in part, received initial funding from trustees of the Estates of Edward and Caroline Whitney.

The Whitney Fund provided $25,000 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where the principal and interest of the fund was for the conduct of research or teaching in geophysics.

MIT cooperated with the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association by becoming its largest subscriber for the five years, through the income of the Whitney fund and other payments. The Research Association’s funding support continued for several decades.

By December 1915, with Jaggar having worked in Hawai‘i for three years, the Research Association and MIT sent him to Washington DC to appeal to Congress to take over HVO as a government institution. In addition, the governor of Hawai‘i and the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce asked him to continue to push for the establishment of a national park. (Moniz Namakura)

The US Geological Survey (USGS) has operated HVO continuously since 1947. Before then, HVO was under the administration of various Federal agencies – the US Weather Bureau, at the time part of the Department of Agriculture, from 1919 to 1924; the USGS, which first managed HVO from 1924 to 1935; and the National Park Service from 1935 to 1947.

It currently operates under the direction of the USGS Volcano Science Center, which now supports five volcano observatories covering six US areas – Hawaiʻi (HVO), Alaska and the Northern Mariana Islands (Alaska Volcano Observatory), Washington and Oregon (Cascades Volcano Observatory), California (California Volcano Observatory), and the Yellowstone region (Yellowstone Volcano Observatory). (Information here is from various documents of USGS, HVO and NPS.)

October 4, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kimo Ona-Milliona

James was son of William and Martha (Adams) Campbell, descended from the Scottish Campbell clan, the eighth child in the family of eight boys and four girls (born in Ireland, February 4, 1826.) His father was a carpenter who operated a furniture and cabinet shop adjacent to the home where he and his wife raised their family.

With limited opportunities on that island, at the age of 13, he stowed away on a schooner for Canada and later wound up on a whaler out of New Bedford and was bound for the Pacific. He survived a shipwreck in the South Pacific (Tuamotus) on the way.

He and two shipmates immediately were seized by the Islanders and bound to trees to await their fate. After Campbell fixed the chief’s broken musket, they were freed and accepted as members of the community. A few months later Campbell left the Island by drifting out to a passing schooner that took him to Tahiti, and later (1850) he went to Hawaiʻi.

He settled in Lāhainā, Maui and honed his skill as a carpenter in building and repairing boats and constructing homes. He boarded with a European named Barla and married Barla’s only child, Hannah. There were no children of this marriage, which ended with the death of young Hannah Barla Campbell in 1858.

He expanded beyond carpentry and ventured into the Islands’ fledgling sugar industry. In 1860, Campbell, with Henry Turton and James Dunbar, established the Pioneer Mill Company (Dunbar later left;) they not only invested capital in the business, they also worked alongside employees in the field and mill.

When Campbell and Turton were starting the plantation, the small sugar mill consisted of three wooden rollers set upright, with mules providing the power to turn the heavy rollers. The cane juice ran into a series of boiling kettles that originally had been used on whaling ships.

By 1876, the annual production had increased to 1,708-tons of raw sugar and the World’s Fair in Philadelphia awarded Pioneer Mill a prize for its fine quality sugar that year. In 1882, Honolulu Iron Works built an iron three-roller mill for the factory and soon there were six boilers generating steam power to drive the machinery.

Pioneer Mill Company not only survived but thrived and enabled Campbell to build a palatial home in Lāhainā. Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate and he started to acquire lands in Oʻahu, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi.

In 1876, he purchased approximately 15,000-acres at Kahuku on the northernmost tip of Oʻahu from HA Widemann and Julius L Richardson. In 1877, he acquired from John Coney 41,000-acres of ranch land at Honouliuli.

In 1877, he sold his interest in Pioneer Mill Company to his partner, Turton; he married Abigail Kuaihelani Maipinepine (age 19) and soon after moved to a home on Emma Street in Honolulu, which Campbell purchased from Archibald S Cleghorn in 1878. (Now the site of the Pacific Club.)

Princess Kaʻiulani, daughter of the Cleghorns, was born there in 1875. The Campbells’ first daughter, Abigail Wahiikaahuula, later Princess Abigail Kawānanakoa, was born in the same room as Princess Kaʻiulani. (Other children included Alice, Beatrice and Muriel; four other children were born to the couple but died in infancy.)

In 1883 he built the Campbell Block Building at the corner of Merchant and Fort Streets, Honolulu, where he established his office. (This building was headquarters for the Campbell Estate until 1967, when the Estate constructed the modern James Campbell Building at this site to house its offices.)

In 1885, Pioneer Mill Company, cultivating about 600 of its 900 acres of land and producing about 2,000 tons of sugar a year, encountered difficulties and Turton declared bankruptcy. To protect his mortgage, Campbell, with financial partner Paul Isenberg of Hackfeld and Company, acquired all the stock and Campbell again took on management of the operation.

With major interests on Maui and Oʻahu, Campbell split his time between the Islands. He was a member of the House of Nobles representing Maui, Molokai and Lānaʻi in the special session of 1887 and the regular session of 1888.

Back on Oʻahu, critics scoffed at the doubtful value of Campbell’s purchase of Honouliuli. But he envisioned supplying the arid area with water and commissioned California well-driller James Ashley to drill a well on his Honouliuli Ranch. In 1879, Ashley drilled Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well; Campbell’s vision had made it possible for Hawaiʻi’s people to grow sugar cane on the dry lands of the ʻEwa Plain.

In 1889, Campbell leased about 40,000-acres of land for fifty years to BF Dillingham (of Oʻahu Railway and Land Co;) after several assignments and sub-leases, about 7,860-acres of Campbell land ended up with Ewa Planation.

(ʻEwa Plantation was considered one of the most prosperous plantations in Hawaiʻi and in 1931 a new 50-year lease was executed, completing the agreement with Oʻahu Railway and Land Company and beginning an association with Campbell Estate. The ʻEwa mill closed in the mid-1970s; the mill was demolished in 1985.)

After a lengthy illness, Campbell died on April 21, 1900, in his Emma Street home. On the afternoon of his funeral the banks and most of the large business houses closed. (In January of 1902, Abigail Campbell married Colonel Sam Parker.)

“We knew him then as a very capable and industrious mechanic at Lahaina. By hard work and sound judgment, twenty years later he had built up a valuable sugar plantation in Lahaina. From that beginning of wealth he became the possessor of more than three millions of property, all of it, to the best of our knowledge, honestly gained without detriment to others.”

“Mr. Campbell was a good citizen, although not a religious man. He was remarkable for sound business judgment, capacity for hard persistent effort, and for great personal courage, qualities very commonly accompanying Scotch descent.” (The Friend, May 1, 1900)

When Campbell died, the Estate of James Campbell was created as a private trust to administer his assets for the benefit of his heirs (in 2007, the James Campbell Company succeeded the Estate of James Campbell.) The Estate played a pivotal role in Hawaiʻi history, from the growth of sugar plantations to the growing new City of Kapolei.

Over the years, Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire.) Campbell himself said that the principle upon which he had accumulated his wealth was in always living on less than he made. (Lots of information here from Campbell Estate publications.)

October 3, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Manual

Before her death in 1884, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, heir to the vast lands of the Kamehameha dynasty, established through her will the design to create two private schools, one for boys and one for girls. (Beyer)

Bernice Pauahi died childless on October 16, 1884. She left her large estate of the Kamehameha lands in a trust “to erect and maintain in the Hawaiian Islands two schools, each for boarding and day scholars, one for boys and one for girls, to be known as, and called the Kamehameha Schools.”

She further stated, “I desire my trustees to provide first and chiefly a good education in the common English branches, and also instruction in morals and in such useful knowledge as may tend to make good and industrious men and women”.

Bernice Pauahi Bishop, by founding the Kamehameha Schools, intended to establish institutions which should be of lasting benefit to her country; and also to honor the name Kamehameha.

After Pauahi’s death, Charles Reed Bishop, as president of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate’s board of trustees, ensured that his wife’s wish was fulfilled. He generously provided his own funds for the construction of facilities and added some of his own properties to her estate. (KSBE)

Because Pauahi’s estate was basically land rich and cash poor, Bishop contributed his own funds for the construction of several of the schools’ initial buildings on the original Kalihi campus: the Preparatory Department facilities (1888,) Bishop Hall (1891) and Bernice Pauahi Bishop Memorial Chapel (1897.)

In the fall of 1887, preparations for the opening of the boys’ school were nearly complete. A workshop, dining hall, and the first two dormitories had been built at the Kaiwi‘ula campus, where the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum stands today.

An invitation had been sent to all Hawaiian boys over the age of 12 to take the admission test, and on October 3, thirty-seven boys arrived on campus to begin their schooling instruction. (Armstrong-Wassel)

“King Kalākaua addressed the boys in Hawaiian and his remarks were then translated into English. He told the boys that ‘the name the school bears is the name of one who was famous first of all for habits of industry in the fields before he became famous as a warrior.’”

“He emphasized that it was not simply the work of the hands that would lead to success in life, but the intelligence for which His Majesty urged the boys to strive.” (Kilolani Mitchell, noted by Armstrong-Wassel)

“Bishop had supported industrial and moral education for the masses and elite English-standard education for the highest tier of society. His administration marked a turn toward manual and industrial education, as well as increased funding for English-medium education.”

“Although there was already a history of educating Kānaka in higher branches of academic pursuit, Bishop argued against education that failed to produce an industrial agricultural workforce.” (Goodyear-Kaʻōpua)

Reverend William Brewster Oleson was hired from the Hilo Boarding School to become the first principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys at an annual salary of $3000.00 with house and pasturage.

Hilo Boarding school was the first manual labor type school in the Pacific. It instituted a program of rural education based on the idea of learning by doing. (Moe) Oleson brought that philosophy and program to Kamehameha.

By then, Hilo Boarding School was also the model for educating students at Hampton Institute in Virginia and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

The Kamehameha school was commonly known as the Manual Department or “The Manual.” (Beyer) The original name of the first school sponsored by the Bishop Estate was actually called the Manual Training School for Boys. (Broadbent)

Oleson penned the school song, “Sons of Hawai’i” together with Theodore Richards who adapts the tune from Yale’s “Wake, Freshman, Wake” and chose the school colors based on Yale school colors. (KSBE)

Oleson brought nine of his most prized pupils with him to Kamehameha Schools to create the school’s inaugural class.

Joining Oleson were WS Terry served as superintendent of shops, Mrs F Johnson was a matron, instructor Miss CA Reamer would later become the principal of the preparatory school and Miss LL Dressler also served as an instructor. (KSBE)

At the opening ceremonies, “Prof Alexander on being asked for remarks expressed his regret that Hon C R Bishop who had such an interest in the school was absent on the Coast. The institution of a technical school had often been discussed in Honolulu.”

“He rejoiced that the wishes of the noble lady foundress had been so successfully carried out. Founded upon a rock the institution he hoped would long stand on the rock and that it would keep the memory of its foundress green until generations yet unborn should call her blessed.” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 8, 1887)

A year later the Preparatory Department, for boys 6 to 12 years of age, opened in adjacent facilities. (Organization of the Kamehameha School for Girls was delayed until 1894.)

During a visit to see General Samuel Chapman Armstrong, Hampton’s founder, Oleson picked up the idea of including military training in Kamehameha’s curriculum (1888.) (Rath)

Officers were appointed by Oleson and were responsible for discipline and marching to and from town. Oleson was in charge of drills, but teachers joined in the marches to church or other meetings. In September 1899, the boys wore their uniforms to class and drills.

An interesting side note relates to the role and relationship Pauahi and Liliʻuokalani had with William Owen Smith, the son of American Protestant missionaries.

During the revolutionary/overthrow period, Smith was one of the thirteen members of the Committee of Safety that overthrew the rule of Queen Liliʻuokalani (January 17, 1893) and established the Provisional Government and served on its executive council.

When not filling public office, Smith had been engaged in private law practice – Smith and his firm wrote the will for Princess Pauahi Bishop that created the Bishop Estate.

Pauahi recommended to Queen Liliʻuokalani that he write her will for the Liliʻuokalani Trust (which he did.) As a result, Liliʻuokalani and Smith became lifelong friends; he defended her in court, winning the suit brought against her by Prince Jonah Kūhiō.