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May 13, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Food Administration

“When war began in summer 1914, the United States declared its neutrality, seeing the conflict as European. That position held, despite the mid-1915 death of 128 Americans in the Lusitania sinking. The campaign slogan, “He Kept Us Out of War” helped re-elect Pres. Woodrow Wilson in 1916.”

“Neutrality was soon impossible: in early 1917 Germany began unrestrained submarine attacks on Atlantic shipping … the United States entered The Great War on April 6, 1917”. (Manning, WWI Centennial Commission)

The US Food Administration was created by Executive Order No. 2679-A (August 10, 1917), under authority of the Food and Fuel Control (Lever) Act of the same date, with Herbert Hoover as Food Administrator. Hoover had already established a headquarters for the agency on May 4, 1917, following his return from a fact-finding tour of Europe. (National Archives)

The Food Administration was given broad powers to control the production, distribution, and conservation of food. It also had responsibilities for preventing monopolies and hoarding and maintaining governmental control of foods by means of voluntary agreements and a licensing system for the importation, manufacture, storage, and distribution of foodstuffs. (National Archives)

The Food Administration had very little enforcement powers and relied primarily on encouraging voluntary cooperation in conservation and sales with posters for outdoor and indoor display with slogans such as “Food Will Win The War” and pledge campaigns to “enroll all men, women, and children …in a food conservation army.” (National Archives)

These programs relied heavily on using the “weapon of publicity” to appeal to the “patriotism and loyalty of citizens.” Prices were controlled mainly through local price interpreting (“fair price”) committees which prepared and published fair price lists and “retail price reporters” who investigated violations. (National Archives)

Local food administrators tried to “hold in check the forces of speculation and avariciousness” and prevent “extortionate profits” by merchants by publicizing the names of business that did not follow the price guidelines. (National Archives)

In the Islands, in a cable sent in April, 1917, Secretary of Agriculture Lane asked Governor Lucius E Pinkham that Hawaii make itself as self-supporting as possible and increase its exports of foods, especially sugar to the mainland.

Legislation was rushed through the closing days of the Legislature and Act 221, which created the Territorial Food Commission and allotted it $25,000, was approved by Governor Pinkham on May 2, 1917. (Hawai‘i State Archives)

One of the first tasks undertaken by the Hawai‘i Commission was an inventory of the different food supplies on hand in the Islands and a comparison of it with the Custom House imports of the same goods, to see which island products could be increased and imports of it decreased.

It also undertook the investigation of such things as hoarding, wasting of food and excessively high costs and prices. In this endeavor, it used its powers to fix a ceiling on the price of Hawaiian grown rice and taro. (Hawai‘i State Archives)

The Food Control Act of August 10, 1917 and subsequent Presidential proclamations did give the Food Administration the authority to license the manufacture, storage, and distribution of “certain necessaries” including …”

“… the milling of corn, oats, barley and rice; the manufacture of “near-beer” and similar cereal beverages; operation of warehouses to store food or food commodities; baking; cotton ginning; salt water fishing and the distribution of seafood; importation of flour; and use of commercial feeds for livestock, cattle, and hogs.” (National Archives)

“An ongoing 1917-18 effort was food conservation. Herbert Hoover, Pres. Wilson’s ‘Food Administrator,’ exhorted Americans to stretch and increase available food. Food saved by civilians could feed frontline troops. Patriots would plant Victory Gardens, avoid waste, and not horde.” (Manning, WWI Centennial Commission)

“Hawaii must feed more troops, stationed here or passing through. Shipping food to Hawaii took valuable cargo space. Better to use less, eat local foods, and dry or can fresh produce.”

“Key military ration ingredients were targeted for conservation. ‘The woman handling the home food supply is equal to the man who handles a battlefield gun,’ wrote an advocate. Housewives were encouraged to observe Meatless Monday and Wheatless Wednesday.”

“While an egg saved in Hawaii might not reach the troops, flour not needed here could. Ways to stretch flour, and avoid waste were pushed. A patriotic Love’s Bakery experimented with a recipe for a ‘Victory Loaf’ – sandwich bread made from bananas.”

“Patriotic letters to the editor pushed ‘Bread Economy’: a slice a day per person saved in Hawaii translated into food for thousands. Love’s Bakery ads suggested ideas for cooking with stale bread – ‘Don’t Waste.’”

“To ‘Do Your Bit,’ Love’s said, buy their ‘Truly Patriotic Loaf’ – Graham Bread made with ingredients not used in white breads. If all Honolulu ate Love’s Graham 2 days a week, 10,000 lbs. of wheat would be saved ads bragged.” (Manning, WWI Centennial Commission)

Most of the enforcement powers of the Food Administration were ended by a Presidential proclamation of January 1, 1919. (National Archives)

The US Food Administration officially existed for less than 24-months and yet its legacy included momentous impacts to the political, social, and economic landscape of the nation, along with a profound influence on peace negotiations and international affairs. (Buschman)

Perhaps the Territorial Food Commission’s most important project was the initiation of the county agent system for the purpose of advising and instructing planters of crops other than sugar cane and pineapple, about matters pertaining to planting, cultivating, spraying, harvesting and marketing.

These agents, one each on Oahu, Maui and Kauai, and two on Hawaii, also served as marketing demonstrators for the Marketing Division of the Board of Agriculture and Forestry.

They supplied them with information about crops that were planted or about to be marketed and other data of interest …. County agents also acted as representatives of the Federal Food Administration in 1918. (Hawai‘i State Archives)

The Cooperative Extension Service (CES) and the University of Hawai‘i developed its own version of an extension program, which was the basis of a successful appeal to Congress after several years of struggle for Hawai‘i’s inclusion in the Act.

The CTAHR Cooperative Extension Service is a part of the world’s largest non-traditional education system, the Cooperative Extension System. CES is the third major component of land grant universities, along with instruction and research.

It is a partnership between federal, state, and local governments and has responsibility for providing science-based information and educational programs in agriculture, natural resources, and human resources. (CTAHR)

May 12, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lanai City Schools

The schools in Pālāwai, Kō‘ele, and Lānai City underwent changes in name and location. The schools had their start around 1904 when Charles Gay started Pālāwai School, a one-room schoolhouse for his own children and children of ranch employees. (UHM Center for Oral History)

The Pālāwai School was built near the lower end of Keaaku Gulch where it opens into Pālāwai basin, about two miles south of Kō‘ele. The school was built like a house and had one classroom. (The Pālāwai School building had been moved three times.)

Pālāwai was chosen for the location of the school because of its central location; students came from Kō‘ele, Malauea, and Waiapa‘a. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

Violet Gay was the eighth of eleven children born to Charles Gay and Louisa Kala Gay; some of her sibling went to school on O‘ahu. As she notes, “there were five of us that stayed on Lanai and went to [Pālāwai] School.”

“My oldest sister, Amelia, is Mrs. Dickson. And they all came to Punahou, you know. My grandmother put them all in Punahou, see. And they were boarders up at Punahou.”

“Then when she [Amelia] left, she came back to Lanai, that’s when they started the school. Down Palawai, started a school. And I was six years old when I went to the school.”

“About twelve or fifteen children, I think, went to that school. And we walked all the way from Ko’ele, you know, where Kahonu is, past Kahonu down there to Palawai.” (Violet Keahikoe Gay, UHM Center for Oral History)

“It was a one-room schoolhouse, a short walk from our home. And they put me in school so that we could have fifteen children in order to get a schoolteacher. The schoolteacher lived with us because there was no other place for her to stay.”

“Well, it was a little white house with several windows around it and inside we had these desks and blackboards on the walls, the back wall with no windows. … We were put in rows of desks by age, and the teacher would go row by row teaching. Each row, just a different subject.”

“And we had two little outhouses (laughs) away from the school. One for boys and one for girls. … There was a flagpole out in front. … We put the flag up every morning and learned the Pledge of Allegiance. And then we’d march into class . And that’s about all I remember of that.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

Sometime about 1920-22, the Pālāwai School was moved to Kō‘ele, and set up at a site near where the 7^th green of the Cavendish Golf Course is today. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612) It then became generally known as Kō‘ele School.

In 1922 the school became part of the public school system of the Territory of Hawaii. The Kō‘ele School ceased functioning as a classroom in 1927, when the two-room Kō‘ele Grammar School was built a short distance away. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

Around 1927, with the construction of the new Kō‘ele Grammar School, the Pālāwai/Kō‘ele) School was moved to the Kō‘ele Ranch Camp and became a residence. The building underwent numerous alterations since the time it was a one room school house, including a kitchen addition, bathroom, and the partitioning of the original single class room. (Pālāwai School, HABS HI-612)

The Kō‘ele Grammar School was a single-story, gable roof, wood building with an 8′ wide lanai along the front long side of the building. The interior of the main portion of the Kō‘ele Grammar School is divided into two 24’ x 26’ classrooms by a partition wall with a doorway (no door).

“When I was ready for the sixth grade [in 1927] we went over to the [Ko’ele Grammar] School [located near the present Cavendish Golf Course clubhouse], which was about another half mile away.”

The building was financed by the County of Maui. It was built about a half mile from the Kō‘ele Ranch Camp, to the south, across Iwiole Gulch on the site of what would become the Cavendish Golf Course. Students from Kō‘ele Ranch and from Lānai City attended. Eighth grade graduation ceremonies from Kō‘ele Grammar School were held at the Lanai Theater in Lānai City.

“I think there were six of us [in 1928]. And it was the first class to graduate from [Ko‘ele Grammar] School, so we had a big ceremony down at the one and only theater. We had chairs set up on the platform … we had these lovely leis, leis you don’t often see anymore.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

In September 1928, the people of Lanai City petitioned the Maui County board of supervisors to have the school’s name changed to Lanai City School.

By the mid-1930s, school children of Hawaiian Pineapple Co. (HAPCo) employees had expanded public school enrollment on Lanai to such a degree that additional classes were held in the Lanai Japanese School and in the HAPCo plantation gymnasium.

By about 1937, “There were two buildings and the smaller building had two classes and the other building must have had four classes. … And new teachers were brought in, they had to build a cottage for these new teachers. Because prior to that, the teacher at [the old] Ko‘ele School stayed with us.”

“At the Ko‘ele [Grammar] School, by the golf course. When we’d go to school, we had to make a garden. We had a project. We’d go out and make our garden and plant vegetables.” (Jean Forbes Adams, UHM Center for Oral History)

“[W]hen we used to be naughty, we had to go pull weeds. And during our Ko‘ele [Grammar] School days – not the old cottage, maybe we were too young, but the other school – if you were naughty or were to be punished, we had to go pull weeds, you know. And then we always took turns to clean the rooms. Young as we were, we used to mop.” (Warren Nishimoto, UHM Center for Oral History)

“[M]ost of the kids, from sixth grade into seventh grade, most of the kids would leave. The ones that (the family) could afford it, their parents either send them to Lahainaluna (in Maui), Punahou (or) Kamehameha School in Honolulu. That’s about it. We might lose maybe five or six (children per school year).” (Charlotte Richardson Holsomback, UHM Center for Oral History)

“I was pau with school after the sixth grade. … most of them [the girls] quit after the sixth grade. However, if there were older sisters who could take care of the house, sometimes a girl could go on to intermediate school.” (Tama Teramoto Nishimura, UHM Center for Oral History)

In January 1938, the Lānai High and Elementary School was opened at its present location on Fraser Avenue. The buildings of the Kō‘ele Grammar School complex were moved, in sections, to this new high school site.

During the 1970s the Kō‘ele Grammar School, on its second site at the high school campus near 7th and Fraser Avenues, was used as a meeting hall for the Lanai City chapter of the Boy Scouts of America.

May 11, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Happy Mother’s Day!

The image shows my mother, grandmother, grandfather and some of their friends in 1928 in front of Moku‘aikaua Church. (My mother is the littlest girl sitting near the middle, her mother is sitting next to her near the middle (wearing a hat) and her father is on the right.

This stone and mortar building, completed in 1837, is the oldest surviving Christian church in the state of Hawaiʻi, started by the first Protestant missionaries to land in Hawaiʻi and the oldest intact Western structure on the Island of Hawai‘i.

With the permission of Liholiho (Kamehameha II), the missionaries first built a grass house for worship in 1823 and, later, a large, thatched meeting house.

Missionary Asa Thurston directed the construction of the present Moku’aikaua Church, then the largest building in Kailua-Kona. Its massive size indicates the large Hawaiian population living in or near Kailua at that time.

Built of stones taken from a nearby heiau and lime made of burned coral, it represents the new western architecture of early 19th-century Hawaiʻi and became an example that other missionaries would imitate.

The original thatch church which was built in 1823 but was destroyed by fire in 1835, the present structure was completed in 1837. Moku‘aikaua takes its name from a forest area above Kailua from which timbers were cut and dragged by hand to construct the ceiling and interior.

In 1910, a memorial arch was erected at the entrance to the church grounds to commemorate the arrival of the first missionaries.

My mother was the great-great grand-daughter (and her father was great grandson) of Hiram Bingham, leader of first missionaries to Hawaiʻi who first landed in the Islands, here at Kailua-Kona in 1820.

Happy Mother’s Day!

May 10, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

250 Years Ago … Green Mountain Boys

Vermont was not one of the 13 colonies.

In 1609 French explorer Samuel de Champlain claimed part of the region for France. Several suggest French explorer Samuel de Champlain referred to it as “Verd Mont” (green mountains).

(However, Vermont Historical Society states, “The word Vermont (or alternate renderings) does not appear in the publications of Champlain, Des sauvages and Les Voyages (1613 and 1632 versions), or on the maps which he prepared or published.”) A Vermont lake is named for Champlain.

The state’s name comes from two French words vert (green) and mont (mountain), which explains Vermont’s nickname, the “Green Mountain State.” (Library of Congress)

Samuel de Champlain was followed by missionaries, traders, settlers, and soldiers who identified rivers and other physical features of the Champlain watershed.

Families from southern New England who settled in the ‘Grants’ (as the New Hampshire titled lands were known) created communities similar to the ones they had left behind. They were confident that if they moved their families, built farms, and worked the land, their claims would be justified.

They believed that the royal governments of New Hampshire and New York, representing the king, wouldn’t deny the rights of citizens who tamed the land, organized governments, paid taxes, and obeyed the laws.

When the ‘Yorkers’ (as the New York landholders were called) started to stake their claims, the troubles began. (Vermont Historical Society)

The Green Mountain Boys at present-day Bennington, Vermont, was an unauthorized militia organized to defend the property rights of local residents who had received land grants from New Hampshire.

New York, which then claimed present-day Vermont, disputed New Hampshire’s right to grant land west of the Green Mountains.

When a New York sheriff, leading 300 militiamen, attempted to take possession of Grants farms in 1771, he was met with resistance. A determined group of Bennington militia led by young firebrands Ethan Allen and Remember Baker blocked his efforts.

Several Grants towns then organized committees of safety and military companies to protect their interests against the Yorkers. These military groups called themselves “The New Hampshire Men” while New York authorities referred to them as the “Bennington Mob” and rioters.

By 1772, they were called the “Green Mountain Boys.”

Their leader Ethan Allen declared they were fighting for their “liberty, property, and life,”

“Those bloody law-givers know we are necessitated to oppose their execution of law, where it points directly at our property, or give up the same:”

“but there is one thing is matter of consolation to us, viz. that printed sentences of death will not kill us when we are at a distance; and if the executioners approach us,”

“they will be as likely to fall victims to death as we: and that person, or country of persons, are cowards indeed,”

“if they cannot as manfully fight for their liberty, property and life, as villains can do to deprive them thereof.” (A Vindication, Ethan Allen)

The Green Mountain Boys stopped sheriffs from enforcing New York laws and terrorized settlers who had New York grants, burning buildings, stealing cattle, and administering occasional floggings with birch rods.

Catamount Tavern

The Catamount Tavern was the gathering place of men who played vital roles in the creation of the state of Vermont. Built in the mid-1760s by Stephen Fay, one of Bennington’s original settlers, it was first called the Green Mountain Tavern. It was one of three taverns in the town that served people journeying to their new homes on the frontier.

Dr. Jonas Fay, Ethan Allen, Remember Baker, and Thomas Chittenden were some of the patriots that gathered in the Catamount’s rooms. They plotted the course of the Green Mountain Boys, the Council of Safety, and later the government of the new Republic of Vermont.

Westminster Massacre

The Westminster confrontation was a continuation of the Grants vs. Yorkers dispute. The farmers needed to put off their creditors until the fall harvest when they would have money to pay off their debts. They resented the New York land speculators they owed and feared being jailed or losing their land.

Up until this time, most Grants settlers on the east side of the Green Mountains had peacefully negotiated any disputes with New York.

When one hundred unarmed farmers occupying the county courthouse at Westminster refused to leave, a Yorker sheriff ordered his men to shoot them. Panic ensued and forty men, including the wounded, were herded like animals into the courthouse jail and left to die.

Massachusetts and New Hampshire militia came to the farmers’ aid the next day and arrested the sheriff. The Westminster Massacre of March 13, 1775 is viewed by some as the first battle of the American Revolution.

They had not been enthusiastic supporters of the Green Mountain Boys. The New York sheriff’s actions changed their minds, and they were happy when Ethan Allen’s men rode into town the next day.

Green Mountain Boys in the American Revolution

Under the joint command of Ethan Allen and Benedict Arnold, the Green Mountain Boys immediately joined the Revolution.

(Benedict Arnold, later known as a traitor during the American Revolution, was an important part of fighting for the American cause. He created a navy for Lake Champlain, battled the British at Valcour Island, and burned the boats in what is now Arnold Bay during retreat from that battle, effectively stopping the British from gaining a foothold in the area.)

A Green Mountain Boys regiment was authorized by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1775 and they became part of the Continental Army (they were part of the Northern Army).

Control of Lake Champlain was a crucial military objective during the Revolutionary War.

The British strategy was to unite their Canadian forces with those in New York. If they succeeded they would cut off New York and New England from the other colonies.

The Champlain Valley was the site of several bloody encounters. Settlers in this no man’s land fled their homes for the duration of the war, fearful of the British and their Iroquois Indian allies.

The British had several victories, but the Americans fought hard and delayed their advance south. These delays allowed the American armies to regroup.

When the British were defeated at Bennington and again at Saratoga, they gave up their plan to control Lake Champlain.

This was a turning point in the war, as it allowed the Continental Army to turn southward and convinced France to enter the war as an ally of the Americans.

Ethan Allen

Ethan Allen (born January 21, 1738, Litchfield, Connecticut – died February 12, 1789, Burlington, Vermont) was a soldier and frontiersman, and leader of the Green Mountain Boys during the American Revolution.

After fighting in the French and Indian War (1754–63), Allen settled in what is now Vermont. At the outbreak of the American Revolution, he raised his force of Green Mountain Boys (organized in 1770) and Connecticut troops and helped capture the British fort at Ticonderoga, New York (May 10, 1775).

Later, as a volunteer in General Philip Schuyler’s forces, he attempted to take Montreal (September 1775), in the course of which he was captured by the British and held prisoner until May 6, 1778.

Congress gave Allen the brevet rank of colonel with back pay, but he did not serve in the war after his release. Instead, he devoted his time to local affairs in Vermont, especially working for separate statehood from New York. Failing to achieve this, he attempted to negotiate the annexation of Vermont to Canada.

Vermont Statehood

It was not a certainty in 1777 that Vermont would become the fourteenth state in the Union. America was still at war and victory wasn’t assured. New York, an important part of the American effort, wasn’t going to give up title to the Grants without a fight.

Vermont didn’t improve its chances of acceptance when it began negotiating with Great Britain to become part of greater Canada. The American Congress was suspicious of the new republic and became even more frustrated when Vermont tried to annex more lands—this time from New Hampshire.

Finally, in 1790 New York and Vermont settled their long-standing differences over the Grants. In January 1791 Vermont delegates met in Bennington and ratified the US Constitution. On March 4, 1791, Vermont was accepted into the United States of America, as the fourteenth state.

Click the following link to a general summary about the Green Mountain Boys:

Click to access Green-Mountain-Boys-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Green-Mountain-Boys.pdf

May 9, 2025 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Rock Silo to Bell Tower

Carl W Winstedt and the National Construction Company began construction on the Aloha Tower on 1924. The project took a year and a half to complete.

Aloha Tower opened in 1926; at 184-feet, 2-inches tall, it was the tallest building in the Territory (and remained such for the next forty years.) (LRB)

Winstedt was originally from Sweden. Life wasn’t always so tall for Winstedt; back in 1915, he and his wife Marie Camr Winstedt went through bankruptcy in Juneau, Alaska.

But things were looking up.

Following Aloha Tower, Winstedt built the Egholm Residence in the Diamond Head Terraces subdivision in 1926. It is one of the few examples of small cottages in the Spanish Colonial Revival style popular in Hawai‘i in the 1920s and early-1930s.

Both of those structures (Aloha Tower and Egholm residence) are still here. In fact, there is another structure attributed to Winstedt that is still around, although it is very unlike the prior two examples of his work.

Reportedly in 1926, Winstedt’s National Construction Company, Ltd was the lowest bidder for the construction of a portion of the Kamehameha highway, designated “Job 4057.”

Winstedt and National were awarded the contract for this work by the Territory of Hawaiʻi acting through Lyman H Bigelow, the territorial highway commissioner. (Court Records, March 8, 1933)

Winstedt was to build Kamehameha Highway from Waimea Bay to Kahuku. Reportedly, to support it, in 1930, he built a rock quarry on the North edge of Waimea Bay to produce gravel. (pupukea-waimea)

However, it appears Winstedt and his companies, National Construction Co and Realty Development Co, faced hard times related to the road project.

“(T)he aggregate of the claims filed against the construction company … is in excess of $100,000. It is also conceded that the construction company and the sureties on its bond are insolvent.” (Court Records, March 8, 1933)

The facility was abandoned in 1932; it’s not clear what happened with it for the next 20-years.

Then, St Michael’s Church was looking for a church facility. With changing demographics and land needs, they had given up their 1853 stone church in Waialua and were in a 1923 concrete building; they looked at Waimea, at the far end of the parish.

In April of 1953, the Catholic mission acquired the old rock crusher site and converted the buildings into Saint Michael Parish, Waialua with Mission of Saints Peter & Paul.

The concrete rock silo was converted into a 100-foot bell tower. The former construction company machine sheds were converted into a patio and chapel. (Clark & pupukea-waimea)

About that time, other changes were happening at Waimea Bay; sand was being removed to replenish the eroded Waikīkī Beach, across the island.

Reportedly, before sand mining operations removed over 200,000-tons of sand from Waimea Bay to fill beaches in Waikīkī and elsewhere, there was so much sand that if you would have tried to jump off Pōhaku Lele (Jump Rock,) you would have jumped about six feet down into the sand below.

Like Aloha Tower, the former silo for crushed rubble has become one of the most famous landmarks on Oʻahu.