Images of Old Hawaiʻi

You are here: Home / Categories

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Meteor

“To the ordinary, everyday, dollar-chasing human being the advent of a meteor is always clothed In a cloak of mystery, a sort of sublime supernatural.”

“Coming from another world as it were and passing through space within the limits of this world’s attractive force is enough in itself to cause one to believe that things ‘do move’ outside and beyond our own little cooling ball of mud.”

“And when one of these meteors gets so close to earth that its original propelling force is overcome by the earth’s attraction and it fails with a dull but dazzling thud we all sit up and take notice.”

A meteor falling to the earth is not of so rare an occurence as an ordinary being would suppose, still, the falling of one is considered worthy of cable and telegraph tolls from one end of the world to the other and the news is sent broadcast.”

“Most extraordinary occurrences that happen through the agency of man grow tame and gentle and even pall and grow stale and cease to call forth comment in a short time no matter how thrilling and wonderful may have been the initial performance.”

“Not so with a meteor. It is always new, always on tap for separation, always a subject that the wisest of us know so little about.”

“The passing of falling of a large fragment of a meteor is a sight to be long remembered by those in the lucky zone who are fortunate enough to witness it.”  (Evening Bulletin, Oct 23, 1909)

“When the steamer Claudine with the Congressional party on board was off Mahukona at 12:20 this morning. The ship appeared to be almost under struck by a meteor which fell into the sea something like three hundred yards in front of the ship.”

“The officers of the ship were almost blinded by the dazzling light and an explosion was heard, presumably caused by the meteor striking the water.”

“Territorial Senator Palmer Woods heard the explosion, thought comparatively few on board knew of the incident, the larger portion having turned in early to prepare for the first day in Hilo.”  (Evening Bulletin, May 20, 1907)

“‘You bet that was a real meteor,’ said Captain Parker of the Claudine this morning in speaking of the meteor display which was exclusively reported in the Bulletin.”

“‘It seemed to fall right in front of the ship just as we were off Mahukona. The flash was blinding and the explosion was like the report of a sixteen-inch gun.’”

“‘I put in at Mahukona to take Palmer Woods on board.  He was asleep in the Mahukona warehouse and the explosion aroused him so suddenly that he grabbed for his suit case and started up thinking something had happened or he was late for the boat.’” (Evening Bulletin, May 23, 1907)

The Claudine arrived in Hawai‘i in August 1890 and was part of the Wilder Steamship Company and later Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co.

She carried the Hawaiian annexation delegation to San Francisco following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.

In Dec 1899 the steamer collided in darkness with the barkentine William Carson causing it to roll over losing all its cargo and crew personal effects.

Her regular service run was to Kahului, Maui where ‘Claudine Wharf” was built to accommodate inter-island steamships (now ‘Pier 2). She left service in 1928.  (SOEST)

© 2022 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hudson’s Bay Company

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 tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States.

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).

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.

On January 21, 1829 the Hudson’s Bay Company schooner ‘Cadboro’ arrived at Honolulu from Fort Vancouver with a small shipment of poles and sawn lumber.

The Company was attracted to Hawaiʻi not for furs but as a potential market for the products of the Company’s posts in the Pacific Northwest.  That first trip was intended to test the market for HBC’s primary products, salmon and lumber.

(We can credit HBC with starting the lomi lomi salmon tradition in Hawaiʻi – Click here to see that story.)

Another goal of the trip was to recruit Hawaiians for HBC operations on the Northwest Coast.  As early as 1811, HBC had already hired twelve Hawaiians on three year contracts to work for them in the Pacific Northwest.

By 1824, HBC employed thirty-five Hawaiians west of the Rocky Mountains.  It is estimated that by 1844 between 300 and 400 Hawaiians were in HBC service in the Pacific Northwest, both in vessels and at posts.

(Click here to see the story on Hawaiians at Fort Vancouver.)

When the Hudson’s Bay Company entered the Hawaiian market in 1829, Honolulu had already become a significant Pacific port of call and major provisioning station for trans-Pacific travelers.

In addition to the sale of Northwest Coast products, the Company’s Honolulu Agency in the 1840s entered into the merchandising of English manufactured goods.

HBC was always considered a leading Honolulu merchant house, but what really distinguished it was its continuity.  In those days Honolulu business firms other than HBC were either sole proprietorships or partnerships, which were easily formed and as readily dissolved.  HBC was stable and strong and based outside of Hawaiʻi.

The Company’s Honolulu customers were both the whaling fleet and local businesses, and individuals, including the Hawaiian population – all of whom appreciated the high quality of the products the Company offered for sale.

The Company’s role in Honolulu’s merchant shipping forms a considerable chapter in Hawaiian maritime history; shipping was the lifeline of the Agency.  Company cargo, with only a few exceptions, was transported in vessels owned or chartered by the Company.

Each year a Company vessel carrying trade goods and supplies was sent from England around Cape Horn to the Northwest Coast, usually stopping at Honolulu.

The earliest location of the HBC in Honolulu was on the north side of Nuʻuanu Street close to King Street, where it occupied a two-story, shingle-sided building.  In 1846 HBC moved to a new site closer and more convenient to the waterfront at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets (the ‘Beaver Block,’ but that’s another story.)

As the year 1859 started, Pacific whaling entered its decline, the Agency’s competition in the importation of goods increased. Janion Green and Co. (forerunner of Theo H. Davies), Hackfeld and Co. (forerunner of Amfac,) C. Brewer, and Castle and Cooke (the beginnings of the Big Five) were established firms.

The Honolulu market was overstocked with goods, and trade was slow. In 1859, HBC decided to close its Hawaiʻi operations; a couple years later, they were gone.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiʻi Nei Pae ʻĀina

Captain James Cook made three voyages into and around the Pacific.  On the first voyage (1768-1771,) the Royal Society had petitioned the British government and the Admiralty to send astronomers to observe the Transit of Venus from Tahiti in 1769 – they were also looking for the great southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita (Australia.)

His second voyage (1772-1775) expanded on the exploration of the South Pacific (he finally found Australia on this trip, as well as other locales (Easter Island, the Marquesas Islands, Tonga and the New Hebrides.)

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1780) took him to the North Pacific, seeking a navigable northwest passage.  On this trip, in 1778, Cook made contact (‘discovered’) the Hawaiian Islands (he was killed there in 1779 and his crew completed the voyage.)

Cook first sighted Oʻahu on January 18, 1778. On February 2, 1778 his journal entry named the island group after his patron: “Of what number this newly-discovered Archipelago consists, must be left for future investigation.”

“We saw five of them, whose names, as given by the natives, are Woahoo (Oʻahu,) Atooi (Kauaʻi,) Oneeheow (Niʻihau,) Oreehoua (Lehua) and Tahoora (Kaʻula.) … I named the whole group the Sandwich Islands, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich.”  (Cook’s Journal)

The name ‘Sandwich Islands’ stuck, at least for a while; and later foreign, as well as Hawaiian, writers referred to the Islands this way.

As an example, on May 23, 1786, Captain Portlock referenced the islands in his journal, as he made way to “Owhyhee, the principal of the Sandwich Islands.”

Later, in instructions to Captain George Vancouver (March 8, 1791,) “The King, having judged it expedient, that an expedition should be immediately undertaken for acquiring a more complete knowledge, than has yet been obtained, of the north-west coast of America” and further told him to proceed “to the Sandwich islands in the north pacific ocean, where you are to remain during the next winter”.  (Vancouver’s Journal)

Missionary Hiram Bingham in recounting the time he spent in the Islands (April 4, 1820 – August 3, 1840) named his book “A Residence of Twenty-One Years in the Sandwich Islands”.   The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, sponsors, named the mission the “Sandwich Islands Mission.”

The first English language newspaper in the islands was named the Sandwich Islands Gazette and Journal of Commerce, published in Honolulu from July, 1836 to July, 1839. Another early Honolulu newspaper was entitled the Sandwich Island Mirror.

But the “Sandwich Islands” reference was not limited to foreigner use.

In one of the first written laws in the Islands, “He Mau Kanawai no ke Ava o Honoruru, Oahu (Some Laws for the Harbor of Honolulu, Oʻahu),” noting seven rules, written in Hawaiian and English in parallel columns, Kalanimōku signed the measure noting their location, “Oahu, Sandwich Islands, June 2, 1825.” (Hawaiian Historical Society)

Another law begins with the clause, “Be it enacted by the king and Chiefs of the Sandwich Islands, in council assembled, That, after the first of January 1839, the importation of rum, brandy, gin, alcohol and all distilled spirits whatsoever, shall be entirely prohibited to be landed at any port, harbor or any other place on the Sandwich Islands ….” (Report of the Executive Committee of the American Temperance Union)

Hawaiʻi’s first treaty, signed December 23, 1826 between Hawaiʻi and the United States, notes in Article 1, “The peace and friendship subsisting between the United States, and their Majesties, the Queen Regent, and Kauikeaouli, King of the Sandwich Islands, and their subjects and people, are hereby confirmed, and declared to be perpetual.”  Further references to the Sandwich Islands are noted throughout.

The move toward constitutional governance (through the Declaration of Rights) by King Kamehameha III proclaimed the rights of the people, ensuring equal protection for both the people and the chiefs. Written by Kamehameha III and the Chiefs, and enacted on June 7, 1839, its translation notes …

“Whatever chief shall perseveringly act in violation of this Constitution, shall no longer remain a chief of the Sandwich Islands, and the same shall be true of the governors, officers and all land agents.”

Shortly after, however, was an apparent concerted effort to drop the Sandwich Islands reference, in favor of referring to the islands as the Hawaiian Islands.

“It may be safely said that the term ‘Sandwich Islands’ was never accepted by local authority, or had official use, and hence called for no legal act, or by authority notice, for the adoption of what was their own.”

“That important cluster of Islands, situated in the North Pacific Ocean, commonly known as the Sandwich Islands, were so named by Captain Cook, at the date of their discovery by him, in honor of his patron, the Earl of Sandwich, then first Lord of the Admiralty.”

“Their legitimate appellation, and the one by which they still continue to be distinguished by the aboriginal inhabitants, is ‘Hawaii nei pae ʻāina,’ a collective term, synonymous with ‘these Hawaiian Islands.’”    (Thrum, 1923)

“This term is derived from the largest of the group, Hawaiʻi, whence the reigning family originated, and is gradually taking the place of the former.”  (Jarves, 1847)

A notable change in the Constitution of 1840 shows the substitution of “Hawaiian Islands” for “Sandwich Islands,” specifically the clause from the Declaration of Rights noted above, as well as other similar references.  It is suggested that the 1840 Constitution officially named the islands the Hawaiian Islands.  (Clement)

After a transition period, generally, after that point the Hawaiian Islands label took hold.

However, still into the 1880s, when King Kalākaua was visiting New York, his spokesman it speaking with New York Times reporter noted …

“Now, before you ask me a single question, let me ask just two favors. One is that you won’t speak of the King as ‘King of the Sandwich Islands,’ the title grates on our nerves, as it were, you, know, and then, too, it is altogether improper.”

“There is now no such thing as the ‘Sandwich Islands’ — that is all changed; it is the Hawaiian Islands, and please write it that way and we will all be obliged, greatly obliged.”  (NY Times, September 24, 1881)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hāmākua

In very ancient times, the lands were not divided and an island was left without divisions such as ahupuaʻa and ʻili, but in the time when the lands became filled with people, the lands were divided, with the proper names for this place and that place so that they could be known.  (Kamakau)
 
Prior to European contact, each of the major islands or independent chiefdoms in the Hawaiian chain comprised a mokupuni (island.) Over the centuries, as the ancient Hawaiian population grew, land use and resource management also evolved.
 
Each island was divided into several moku or districts, of which there are six in the island of Hawaiʻi, and the same number in Oʻahu. There is a district called Kona on the lee side and one called Koʻolau on the windward side of almost every island.  (Alexander)  The moku of Hawaiʻi Island are: Kona, Kohala, Hāmākua, Hilo, Puna and Kaʻū.
 
Initial settlement of the Hawaiian Islands is believed to have occurred along the wetter windward sides of the Islands, along the fertile coastline.    On Hawaiʻi Island, that included Hāmākua.
 
Waipi‘o (“curved water”) is one of several coastal valleys on the north part of the Hāmākua side of the Island of Hawaiʻi. A black sand beach, three-quarters of a mile long, fronts the valley, the longest on the Big Island.
 
For two hundred years or more, Waipiʻo Valley was the Royal Center to many of the rulers on the Island of Hawaiʻi, including Pili lineage rulers – the ancestors of Kamehameha – and continued to play an important role as one of many royal residences until the era of Kamehameha.  (UH DURP)
 
Royal Centers were where the aliʻi resided; aliʻi often moved between several residences throughout the year. The Royal Centers were selected for their abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.
 
In 1872, Isabella Bird traveled by horseback along the Hāmākua coast from Onomea to the Waipiʻo Valley and described the landscape she travelled through. The journey was over very rough and steep trails and took five days.  Bird noted, “this is the most severe road on horses on Hawaiʻi, and it takes a really good animal to come to Waipiʻo and go back to Hilo.”
 
The Isabella Bird description that follows helps give a perspective of what Hāmākua was like about 150-years ago:
 
“The unique beauty of this coast is what is called gulches – narrow, deep ravines or gorges, from one hundred to two thousand feet in depth, each with a series of cascades from ten to eight hundred feet in height.”
 
“I dislike reducing their glories to the baldness of figures, but the depth of these clefts cut and worn by the fierce streams fed by the snows of Mauna Kea, and the rains of the forest belt, cannot otherwise be expressed.”
 
“The cascades are most truly beautiful, gleaming white among the dark depths of foliage far away, and falling into deep limpid basins, festooned and overhung with the richest and greenest vegetation of this prolific climate, from the huge-leaved banana and shining breadfruit to the most feathery of ferns.”
 
“Each gulch opens on a velvet lawn close to the sea, and most of them have space for a few grass houses, with cocoanut trees, bananas and kalo patches. There are sixty-nine of these extraordinary chasms within a distance of thirty miles!”
 
“We had a perfect day until the middle of the afternoon.  The dimpling Pacific was never more than a mile from us as we kept the narrow track in the long green grass, and on our left the blunt, snow-patched peaks of Mauna Kea rose from the girdle of forest, looking so delusively near that I fancied a two hours climb would take us to his lofty summit.”
 
“The track for twenty-six miles is just in and out of gulches, from one hundred to eight hundred feet in depth, all opening on the sea, which sweeps into them in three booming rollers. The candlenut or kukui tree, which on the whole predominates, has leaves of a rich, deep green when mature, which contrast beautifully with the flaky, silvery look of the younger foliage.”
 
“Some of the shallower gulches are filled exclusively with this tree, which in growing up to the light to within one hundred feet of the top, presents a mass and density of leafage quite unique, giving the gulch the appearance as if billows of green had rolled in and solidified there.”
 
“The descent into the gulches is always solemn. You canter along a bright breezy upland, and are suddenly arrested by a precipice, and from the depths of a forest-draped abyss a low plash or murmur arises, or a deep bass sound, significant of water which must be crossed, and one reluctantly leaves the upper air to plunge into heavy shadow, and each experience increases one’s apprehensions concerning the next.”
 
“It is wonderful that people should have thought of crossing these gulches on anything with four legs, formerly, that is, within the last thirty years, the precipices could only be ascended by climbing with the utmost care, and descended by being lowered with ropes from crag to crag, and from tree to tree, when hanging on by the hands became impracticable to even the most experienced mountaineer.”
 
“In this last fashion Mr. Coan and Mr. Lyons (missionaries from Hilo and Waimea) were let down to preach the gospel to the people of the then populous valleys. But within recent years, narrow tracks, allowing one horse to pass another, have been cut along the sides of these precipices, without any windings to make them easier, and only deviating enough from the perpendicular to allow of their descent by the sure-footed native-born animals.”
 
“All the gulches for the first twenty-four miles contain running water. The great Hakalau gulch which we crossed early yesterday, has a river with a smooth bed as wide as the Thames at Eton. Some have only small quiet streams, which pass gently through ferny grottoes.”
 
“The path by which we descended looked a mere thread on the side of the precipice. I don’t know what the word beetling means, but if it means anything bad, I will certainly apply it to that pali.”  (Byrd)
 
In more modern times, sugar defined the landscape.  Production started with initial smaller plantations that later merged into larger facilities.
 
The Hāmākua Mill Company was first established in 1877 by Theo Davies and his partner Charles Notley, Sr.  In 1878, the first sugarcane was planted at the plantation and Hilo Iron Works was hired to build a mill. The mill was located at Paʻauilo.
 
By 1910, it had 4,800-acres planted in sugarcane and employed more than 600 people. The company ran three locomotives on nine miles of light gauge rail. There was a warehouse and landing below the cliff at Koholālole where ships were loaded by crane.
 
In 1914, the Kūkaʻiau Mill Company became a part of the Hāmākua Mill Company. In 1917, the Kūkaʻiau mill was sold and moved to Formosa (Taiwan.)
 
In 1917, the Hāmākua Mill Company was renamed the Hāmākua Sugar Company. The Kaiwiki Sugar Company was merged with the Theo H Davies Company-owned Laupāhoehoe Sugar Company on May 1, 1956 and operations were merged with the latter beginning January 3. 1957.
 
In 1978, the Hāmākua Sugar Company, Honokaʻa Sugar Company and the Laupāhoehoe Sugar Company were merged to form the Davies Hāmākua Sugar Company. 
 
In 1984 the Davies Hāmākua Sugar Company was bought by Francis Morgan and renamed the Hāmākua Sugar Company (1984-1994). The Hāmākua Sugar Company operated until October of 1994, and its closing marked the end of the sugar industry at Hāmākua, as well as the Island of Hawaiʻi.
 

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu House

The Consular Corps is in charge of looking after their own foreign nationals in the host country; a Consul is distinguished from an Ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another.

A Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the Consul’s own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries.

Former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Abner Pratt, resigned from the bench in 1857, when President James Buchanan appointed him the first US Consul to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi,) with headquarters in Honolulu, a post he held until 1862.

Prior to Pratt’s arrival in Honolulu, the federal government had changed how Consuls at important posts were compensated. The position of US consul to Honolulu became a salaried position, and Pratt earned $4,000 a year.  (von Buol; archives-gov)

Abner Pratt was born on May 22, 1801, at Springfield, Otsego County, New York. He had no formal schooling but eventually read law at Batavia, New York, later practicing in Rochester, New York, as District Attorney. He liked what he saw of Michigan on a business trip in 1839, and resigned his post in New York to move to Marshall, Michigan.  (Michigan Supreme Court)

He was a man of peculiar traits of character. His views, impulses, likes and dislikes were of the most decided kind and assumed the control of his conduct. He gave his whole energy to whatever principle or policy he espoused. This made him a bitter opponent or an unflinching friend.

There was no compromise in him. He always had the courage of his opinions, and gave them without stint on every occasion. He probably never uttered a doubtful sentiment in his life, or took back one he had uttered.   (Michigan Historical Commission)

Laid out in the 1860s, the Marshall community had hoped to be Michigan’s State capitol; however, prosperity came in the form of railroad activity and later a patent medicine trade.  With a cross-section of 19th- and early 20th-Century architecture, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places referred to Marshall as a “virtual textbook of 19th-Century American architecture.”

One of these was the home of Pratt.  This mid-nineteenth century mansion is believed locally to be a replica of the royal palace of Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.  The home is known as “Honolulu House.”

In the Islands, “Hoihoikea” was a large, old-fashioned, livable cottage erected on the grounds of the present ʻIolani Palace.  This served as home to Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V; the Palace being used principally for state purposes. (Taylor)

The palace building was named Hale Ali‘i meaning (House of the Chiefs.)  (The construction of the present ʻIolani Palace began in 1879 and in 1882 ʻIolani Palace was completed and furnished.)

Click HERE to a story on Hale Aliʻi.

A brochure published by the Marshall Historical Society provides a colorful description of Honolulu House: “The house is of true tropical architecture – fifteen-foot ceilings, ten-foot doors, long, open galleries with the dining room and kitchen on the ground level. A circular freestanding staircase rises from the lower level to an observation platform more than thirty feet above. The walls in the interior of the house were painted to depict scenes from the islands.”  (von Buol; archives-gov)

The house is a unique structure, not only in the Midwest, but in the entire United States.  An elaborate nine-bay porch spans the front, with its wide center bay serving as the base of its pagoda-topped tower.  Its tropical features include a raised veranda and the observation platform.  (Marshall Historical Society)

The main story is of wood, simulating an arcade whose central bay is wider than the others. This bay forms the lower part of a tower. Above the central bay is a second story, open at the front (east) through a Tudor arch and railing; the north and south sides are enclosed, having a window in each. The west side of this upper porch opens into a stair hall. (Historic-Structures)

This house occupies a large level lot at the southwest corner of Kalamazoo Avenue and West Mansion Street. The west edge is bounded by a narrow alley. The south edge and southeast corner have been cut into by a traffic circle. (Historic-Structures)

Pratt, who often wore tropical clothing more suitable for Hawaiʻi than winter in Michigan, did not get to enjoy the house for long; he died of pneumonia on March 27, 1863, after he had returned home in inclement weather from a trip to the state capital in Lansing.  At the time of his death, Pratt had been serving in the state legislature.

Each year, thousands of tourists interested in the architectural history of the 19th century visit Marshall. In a town known for architectural preservation, Pratt’s home has a unique honor of preserving not only Michigan history but also a piece of Hawaiian history.  (von Buol; archives-gov)

The Honolulu House Museum stands in the heart of Marshall’s National Historic Landmark District and is listed on the Historic American Buildings Survey.  Constructed of Marshall sandstone, the Museum is a wonderful blend of Italianate, Gothic Revival, and Polynesian architecture.  (Marshall Historical Society)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC