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January 30, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palikū

In 1837, Samuel Northrup Castle arrived in Honolulu as a missionary. He left Hawaiʻi for a short time, then returned as a businessman for the mission.

With Amos Cooke, he founded Castle & Cooke Company, in 1851 – it grew into being one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five” companies.

One of his ten children would surpass him as a businessman; James Bicknell Castle was born November 27, 1855 in Honolulu to Samuel and Mary (Tenney) Castle.

Harold Kainalu Long Castle was born July 3, 1886 in Honolulu, son of wealthy landowner James Bicknell Castle and Julia White, and grandson of Castle & Cooke founder Samuel Northrop Castle.

In 1917, Harold Castle purchased about 9,500-acres of land on the windward side of Oʻahu, in what became Kāneʻohe Ranch. Later acquisitions added several thousand acres of land, with holdings from Heʻeia to Waimanalo. The Castle fortune was built on ranching and dairying.

The family had land in Waikīkī, as well; it was formerly called Kalehuawehe. The surf break ‘Castles’ is named after the Castle family’s three-story beachfront home; they called it Kainalu. They later sold it to the Elks Club, who now use part of the site and lease the rest to the Outrigger Canoe Club.

With the widening and paving of Old Pali Road in 1921 (which helped to initiate the suburban commute across the Koʻolau,) the Castles realized that the Windward side of the island of Oʻahu was a beautiful place to live and could become a vibrant community. (The Pali Highway and its tunnels opened in 1959.)

In 1927, Harold and his wife Alice Hedemann Castle built a home for themselves that overlooked much of their land holdings. It was just below the hairpin turn, below the Pali.

They called the home Palikū (Lit., vertical cliff.)

Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue designed it (Goodhue’s other work included Los Angeles Central Public Library, the Nebraska State Capitol and Saint Thomas Church, New York City;) there were 27 rooms with ornamental ironwork, redwood beams, plumbing and electricity – one of the first buildings on the windward side of the island to have those amenities. (Brennan, Honolulu Advertiser)

In 1946, the Castles sold the 22-acre Palikū to the Catholic Church for the Saint Stephen Seminary (the seminary closed in 1970; it’s now the St. Stephen’s Diocesan Center (the driveway is makai, just below the scenic lookout at the hairpin turn.))

St. Stephen’s Seminary was shut down for a time after a mysterious occurrence in October 1946.

Some suggest the seminary was haunted; when one night there were methodical clicking and tapping sounds; invisible pressure on a person in bed; dishes, pots and pans strewn all over – they suggest it was “diabolical obsession.” Later, “I understand there was some kind of a blessing done,” said Bishop Joseph Ferrario, the retired bishop of Honolulu. (honoluluadvertiser)

After the seminary’s ultimate closure, the facility was transformed into a diocesan center housing various offices of the diocesan curia (a diocesan center (chancery) is the branch of administration which handles all written documents used in the official government of a Roman Catholic diocese.)

The former Castle home also serves as the residence of the Bishop of Honolulu, Clarence Richard Silva, popularly known as Larry Silva (born August 6, 1949), bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the fifth Bishop of Honolulu, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on May 17, 2005.

In 1962, Castle founded the Harold KL Castle Foundation. On his death in 1967, he bequeathed a sizeable portion of his real estate assets to the Foundation.

Throughout his life, Castle donated land for churches of all different denominations because he felt that churches would bring congregations, congregations would bring stability, and that would benefit the community that was growing around them.

Mr. Castle also donated land and money to Hawaii Loa College, Castle Hospital, ʻIolani School, Castle High School, Kainalu Elementary School and the Mōkapu peninsula land, which would become the Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Base.

His foundation has annually provided millions of dollars in support to worthy causes, a good chunk of it going to the windward side of Oʻahu.

January 29, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lāhainā Roads

It’s not about automobiles – this is the area where ships anchor off Lāhainā.

Lāhainā Roads, also called the Lāhainā Roadstead is a channel of the Pacific Ocean in the Hawaiian Islands. The surrounding islands of Maui and Lānaʻi (and to a lesser extent, Molokaʻi and Kahoʻolawe) make it a sheltered anchorage.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between the continent and Japan whaling grounds brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Between the 1820s and the 1860s, the Lāhainā Roadstead was the principal anchorage of the American Pacific whaling fleet. During that time, up to 1,500 sailors at a time were on the streets of the small town.

One reason why so many whalers preferred Lāhainā to other ports was that by anchoring in a roadstead from half a mile to a mile from shore they could control their crews better than when in a harbor.

“This mountain barrier (West Maui Mountains) shuts off the trade wind, and Lahaina roadstead is as smooth as the proverbial millpond, though a brief time may bring the sailor to a wind-tossed portion of Neptune’s domain of a very different finality.” (The Friend, April 1903)

“Four channels lead into this inland sea, from the north, from the west, from the south, and from the southeast, and each has its own significant name. The islands which make these channels are seen most comprehensively from the hill back of the town -“

“Molokai on the right, stretching westward; Lanai directly in front, blocking the ocean on the southwest; and Kahoolawe, long and low, on the left, running southwestward.” (The Friend, April 1903)

“The anchorage being an open roadstead, vessels can always approach or leave it with any wind that blows. No pilot is needed here.”

“Vessels generally approach through the channel between Maui and Molokai, standing well over to Lanai, as far as the trade will carry them, then take the sea breeze, which sets in during the forenoon, and head for the town.” (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“The anchorage is about ten miles in extent along the shore and from within a cable’s length of the reef in seven fathoms of water, to a distance of three miles out with some twenty-five fathoms, affording abundant room for as large a fleet as can ever be collected here.” (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“I shall never forget the finest sight of ships under sail I ever saw. It was a beautiful Sabbath morning at Lahaina. A very few ships were anchored off our place. The familiar cry of “Kail O!” was early heard and a glance towards the point towards Molokai revealed a ship under full sail coming down the channel.” (Paradise of the Pacific, 1906 – referring to 1851-1861)

“It was soon followed by another and another until the increasing numbers ceased to be numbered. It was a fine sight as they came into view. As if some common agreement they had all agreed to make the port the same time. They had come from the Arctic and the Okhotsk sea”. (Paradise of the Pacific, 1906 – referring to 1851-1861)

After whaling ended, the Roadstead continued to be used.

Since the 1930s, the US Navy had been using the Lāhainā roadstead between Maui and Lānaʻi as a protected deepwater anchorage for fleet deployment.

While the support facilities were limited on land, the location offered a convenient alternative to the crowded Pearl Harbor for temporary fleet basing.

Through the 1940s, Lāhainā Roads was as an alternative anchorage to Pearl Harbor.

While planning for the attack on the US Pacific Fleet, Japanese planners hoped that some significant units would be at anchor there because with Lāhainā’s deep water, those elements of the Pacific Fleet in all likelihood would never have been recovered.

The possibility that the Pacific Fleet would be at Lāhainā anchorage was taken seriously in the plan of the Japanese naval strike force for the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Scout planes were dispatched from the fleet, and submarines were sent to Lāhainā Roads to inspect the anchorage. (The ships were at Pearl Harbor.)

January 27, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Blackface Minstrel Shows and Sleigh Rides

This is about a song … the song was dedicated to John P Ordway, Esq. A “lengthy obituary of John Pond Ordway, [described him as] ‘a prominent citizen of Boston’ who had been “identified in many important enterprises” in his fifty-six years.”

“The obituary described Ordway’s Harvard education, enlistment in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment, and role as ‘one of ten surgeons sent to minister to the wounded’ at Gettysburg, as well as his political career, his thirty-year involvement in Freemasonry, and, not least of all, his ‘splendid physique.’”

“In this midst of these personal, professional, and physical attributes, the obituary described the pursuit of his ‘early life’: music. Not only did Ordway ‘write many popular songs,’ but he also ‘organized the troupe known as Ordway’s Aeolians, which performed in Ordway Hall, where the Province House now stands.’” (Tucker)

It was at Ordway Hall, on September 15, 1857, that the song was first performed by the minstrel performer Johnny Pell in a part of the program of the Dandy Darkies. (Hamill)

Johnny Pell, an endman – meaning he lampooned white civility in his ‘blackness’ – would have likely performed the song through the medium of the blackface dandy. (Hamill)

Blackface minstrelsy, which derived its name from the white performers who blackened their faces with burnt cork, was a form of entertainment that reached its peak in the mid-nineteenth century. (Library of Congress)

Using caricatures of African Americans in song, dance, tall tales, and stand-up comedy, minstrelsy was immensely popular with white audiences. (Library of Congress)

The classic age of blackface minstrelsy began in the late 1830s, when performers began to regularly form duos, trios, and occasionally quartets. By the 1840s, the show typically was divided into two parts: the first concentrated largely upon the urban black dandy, the second on the southern plantation slave. (Library of Congress)

At the same time, “sleighmania” onstage seems to have peaked during the 1857–8 entertainment season in Boston and New York. The popularity of burlesquing the sleigh narrative onstage might also reflect the activity in the newly opened Central Park that same season. (Hamill)

In these sleigh songs, singing about sleighing becomes the subject. “British actor Charles Mathews first toured Boston in 1823 and wrote back to his wife of the novelty of sleighs replacing carriages in the snow-filled streets …”

“‘These people are all happy, and as merry as Americans can affect to be, – that vexes me, who can only make myself happy by anticipating a thaw, and death to their mad frolics in their sleighs.’” (Hamill)

Sleighing as a mode of transportation evolved not only due to the climate, but also to accommodate the urban development of a peninsular city accessible by an isthmus known as the “neck” along Washington Street. (Hamill)

Sleighing was a popular activity not only for amusement, but also to display wealth. In 1857, the New-York Daily Times reported that EP (Edwin Pearce) Christy, founder of Christy’s Minstrels …

… ostentatiously made “a great dash in the streets, with a magnificent sleigh, which attracted unusual attention, from its splendor and the beauty of the prancing stud of snow-white horses to which it was attached.” (Hamill)

If speed, distance, flirting, and music were the essential qualities of a sleigh ride, it is probable that alcohol was also involved: temperance societies began warning people to “look out for the combination of cold sleigh rides, and hot punches.” (Hamill)

Sleigh riding was adopted as a youthful courtship ritual. Sleighing, such as an account by the humorist Mortimer Q. Thomson, “I can readily conceive that in the country …”

“… give a man a fast team, a light sleigh, a clear sky, a straight road, a pretty girl, plenty of snow, and a good tavern with a bright ball-room and capital music waiting at his journey’s end, the frigid amusement may be made endurable”. (Hamill)

These settings are seen in parts of different verses of the song … i.e. in one verse, “A day or two ago … I tho’t I’d take a ride … And soon miss Fanny Bright … Was seated by my side” – and in another verse, “Now the ground is white … Go it while you’re young … Take the girls tonight … and sing this sleighing song”. (Pierpont)

The song was written by James Lord Pierpont – he was the uncle of JP (John Pierpont) Morton (American financier and industrial organizer, one of the world’s foremost financial figures during the two pre-World War I decades). (Britannica)

Some suggest Pierpont wrote the song for his brother or father (bother ministers in Savanna, Georgia and Medford, Massachusetts, respectively) as a song for a Thanksgiving church service; due to its popularity, they say it was sung again at the following Christmas service.

Each city has a plaque outside proclaiming it as their song.

The song became immensely popular – some suggest it is one of the most popular Christmas carols of all time. The song was the first song broadcast from space during a Gemini mission in 1965.

Rather than it being a song for Thanksgiving written by the organist and choir director (James Pierpont) at his brother’s or father’s church, as many suggest … “The speculation is that [Pierpont] was short on funds, and just kind of dashed it off in order to make some money”. (Hendricks, WSAV)

As noted by Hamill, “its origins emerged from the economic needs of a perpetually unsuccessful man [James Pierpont], the racial politics of antebellum Boston, the city’s climate, and the intertheatrical repertoire of commercial blackface performers moving between Boston and New York.” (Hamill)

Pierpont capitalized on minstrel music and entered upon a “safe” ground for satirizing black participation in northern winter activities. (Hamill)

The legacy of the song is a prime example of a common misreading of much popular music from the nineteenth century in which its blackface and racist origins have been subtly and systematically removed from its history. (Hamill)

Oh, the song? …

Pierpont first named it (in 1857) “One Horse Open Sleigh”; he recopyrighted it in 1859 under a new name … Jingle Bells.

January 26, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaʻahumanu Church

The church began on August 19, 1832; the first services were held under a thatched roof.

The present Kaʻahumanu Church is actually the fourth place of worship for the Wailuku congregation. The original congregation, under the leadership of the Reverend Jonathan S Green, was forced to hold their meetings in a shed.

During its first year, Queen Kaʻahumanu, the Kuhina Nui of the Kingdom and convert to Christianity, visited the congregation and asked that when the congregation built an actual church, it be named for her.

Queen Kaʻahumanu was Kamehameha’s favorite wife. She was, at one time, arguably, the most powerful figure in the Hawaiian Islands, helping usher in a new era for the Hawaiian kingdom.

When Kamehameha died on May 8, 1819, the crown was passed to his son, Liholiho, who would rule as Kamehameha II.

Kaʻahumanu created the office of Kuhina Nui (similar to premier, prime minister or regent) and would rule as an equal with Liholiho. She ruled first with Kamehameha II until his departure for England in 1823 (where he died in 1824) and then as regent for Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III).

Ka‘ahumanu assumed control of the business of government, including authority over land matters, the single most important issue for the Hawaiian nation for many generations to come. She later married Kauaʻi’s chief, Kaumualiʻi, who Kamehameha I had made a treaty with instead of fighting and thereby put all the islands under single control.

On December 4, 1825, Queen Kaʻahumanu was baptized and received her new name, Elizabeth, then labored earnestly to lead her people to Christ.

The congregation’s small shed meeting house soon proved too small as the service held there attracted as many as 3,000 worshippers. In 1834, a larger meeting house with a thatched roof was erected by the congregation.

The Reverend Richard Armstrong who had replaced the Reverend Green as pastor in 1836, supervised the construction of two stone meeting houses one at Haiku, and the other at Wailuku. The new Wailuku Church, completed in 1840, was 100 feet by 52 feet, and was two stories (actually one story and a gallery) in height. Reverend Green returned to replace Armstrong in 1840.

In 1843, the Reverend Green was replaced by the Reverend EW Clark. Five years later, Clark was transferred to Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu, and the Reverend Daniel Conde took over the pastorate at Wailuku. Later, Reverend WP Alexander became pastor.

Active fundraising under Pastor William Pulepule Kahale led to the opportunity to finally build a permanent church. Under the direction of Reverend Edward Bailey, in May, 1876, the new church, finally named the Kaʻahumanu Church, was completed.

Only a rock retaining wall that borders High Street in Wailuku is what remains of the old church.

The Kaʻahumanu Church is a large blue stone structure with wall more than two feet thick. It has a high-pitched gable roof with no overhang, but the eave terminates in a small molding adjacent to the top place along the wall.

The exterior is finished in plaster. The church tower was not added until 1884 with a “fine tower clock from the U.S. costing $1,000.” In 1892 the chandeliers were added to the interior.

The structure is four bays in depth with each bay having a single tall Gothic arched window with the interior of the window opening splayed. Windows are multi-paned, double-hung wood frame with simple pattern in the upper part of the arch.

Adjoining the church is Honoliʻi Park. It is believed that John Honoliʻi, a Native Hawaiian who had studied at Cornwall, Connecticut with Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and later sailed aboard the brig Thaddeus with the original Protestant missionaries in 1820, is buried in an unmarked grave in the Kaʻahumanu Church cemetery. (Honoliʻi died in 1838.)

January 25, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Eleventh Century

There was conflict in various parts of the world …

It was nearing the end of the Heian period in Japan. The battle of Kawasaki was the first major battle of the Early Nine Years’ War (Zenkunen War) (1051-1063.) (The fighting lasted for twelve years (or nine if you subtract short periods of ceasefire and peace.))

The war was fought between the forces of the powerful Abe clan of the far northeast of the main island of Honshū, led by Abe no Sadato, and those of the Minamoto clan, acting as agents of the Imperial Court, and led by Minamoto no Yoriyoshi and his son Yoshiie.

In 1062, Minamoto no Yoriyoshi, along with his son, led an assault on an Abe fortress on the Kuriyagawa. They diverted the water supply, stormed the earthworks and stockade, and set the fortress aflame. After two days of fighting, Sadato surrendered.

At about this time, the seiitaishogun or shōgun became de facto rulers of Japan through powerful regional clans with support from samurai (bushi) serving as the military nobility.

Europe was at war as well; on September 28, 1066, William (William the Conqueror) of Normandy (Northern France) landed in England on Britain’s southeast coast, with approximately 7,000 troops and cavalry.

He then marched to Hastings; on October 14, 1066 William defeated King Harold (England) at the Battle of Hastings. After further military efforts, William was crowned king (the first Norman King of England) on Christmas Day 1066.

At the end of the century, Europe saw the first of the Crusades, launched on November 27, 1095 by Pope Urban II; it was a military expedition by Roman Catholic Europe to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquests of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem in 1099. (Between 1095 and 1291 there were seven major crusades.)

Stuff was happening in the Pacific, as well.

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, recent studies suggest it was about this same time that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

“Most important from the perspective of Hawaiian settlement are the colonization dates for the Society Islands and the Marquesas, as these two archipelagoes have long been considered to be the immediate source regions for the first Polynesian voyagers to Hawai‘i. …”

“In sum, the southeastern archipelagoes and islands of Eastern Polynesia have a set of radiocarbon chronologies now converging on the period from AD 900–1000.” (Kirch)

Research indicates human colonization of Eastern Polynesia took place much faster and more recently than previously thought. Polynesian ancestors settled in Samoa around 800 BC, colonized the central Society Islands between AD 1025 and 1120 and dispersed to New Zealand, Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui and other locations between AD 1190 and 1290. (Hunt; PVS)

With improved radiocarbon dating techniques and equipment to more than 1,400-radiocarbon dated materials from 47 islands, the model considers factors such as when a tree died rather than just when the wood was burned and whether seeds were gnawed by rats, which were introduced by humans. (PVS)

“There is also no question that at least O‘ahu and Kauai islands were already well settled, with local populations established in several localities, by AD 1200.” (Kirch)

Late and rapid dispersals explain remarkable similarities in artifacts such as fishhooks, adzes and ornaments across the region. The condensed timeframe suggests assumptions about the rates of linguistic evolution and human impact on pristine island ecosystems also need to be revised. (PVS)

While Europeans were sailing close to the coastlines of continents before developing navigational instruments that would allow them to venture onto the open ocean, voyagers from Fiji, Tonga and Samoa began to settle islands in an ocean area of over 10 million square miles.

The settlement took a thousand years and involved finding and fixing in mind the position of islands, sometimes less than a mile in diameter on which the highest landmark was a coconut tree. By the time European explorers entered the Pacific Ocean in the 16th century almost all the habitable islands had been settled for hundreds of years.

The voyaging was all the more remarkable in that it was done in canoes built with tools of stone, bone and coral. The canoes were navigated without instruments by expert seafarers who depended on their observations of the ocean and sky and traditional knowledge of the patterns of nature for clues to the direction and location of islands. (Kawaharada; PVS)

The canoe hulls were dug out from tree trunks with adzes or made from planks sewn together with a cordage of coconut fiber twisted into strands and braided for strength. Cracks and seams were sealed with coconut fibers and sap from breadfruit or other trees.

An outrigger was attached to a single hull for greater stability on the ocean; two hulls were lashed together with crossbeams and a deck added between the hulls to create double canoes capable of voyaging long distances.

The canoes were paddled when there was no wind and sailed when there was; the sails were woven from coconut or pandanus leaves. These vessels were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, such as the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

And though these double-hulled canoes had less carrying capacity than the broad-beamed ships of the European explorers, the Polynesian canoes were faster: one of Captain Cook’s crew estimated a Tongan canoe could sail “three miles to our two.”

By the time Europeans arrived in Hawai‘i in the 18th-century, voyaging between Hawai‘i and the rest of Polynesia had ceased for more than 400 years, perhaps the last voyager being Pā’ao or Moʻikeha in the 14th-century. The reason for the cessation of voyaging is not known.

However, after the 14th-century, the archaeological evidence reveals a dramatic expansion of population and food production in Hawai‘i. Perhaps the resources and energies of the Hawaiian people went into developing their ‘āina; and ties with families and gods on the islands to the south weakened. (Kawaharada; PVS) (Lots of information here from Kirch, Kawaharada and Polynesian Voyaging Society.)