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Ah Ping

Chun “Ah Ping left Yen Ping district, China. when onJy 20 years old and sailed to Los Angeles where he remained one year. Here he signed a three year contract to come to Hawaii with about 150 other Chinese as a laborer in Hawaii’s growing sugar industry.”

“Upon arrival he was sent to Molokai with 13 of his countrymen to work on the Kamalo sugar plantation owned by Dan McCorriston. He found only two Chinese on Molokai upon his arrival.”

“He laughs out loud when he is reminded of the first Kamalo sugar plantation mill.  This mill was wind powered and only one stalk of cane at a time could be fed to the tiny rollers.  ‘Sometime cane too big must cut in half,’ he says. …”

“After two years at this plantation, they were suddenly informed that the plantation was being closed down … Receiving no funds. the little group of Chinese disbanded in disgust and moved to other islands. From here, he went to Puunene plantation where he was employed as u camp cook for five years.”

He then went to Kipahulu plantation and became its manager. He remained there for nine years. “He then left for Honolulu in 1915, bought what is now the Nuuanu hotel and retired.  In 1921.”

“However, the urge to do things became so insistent that he moved to his present location at Kilohana where he has been operating a large store with the help of his sons.” (SB, Sep 8, 1939)  The store was “Right across the road [from] the fish pond, ‘Ualapu‘e Fishpond.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“I had to leave school when I was sophomore to help my father in the store, ’cause he cannot go haul freight thirteen miles from our store to Kaunakakai Wharf. Hard, eh? That’s why I left school to go home help my father.”

After Chun Ah Ping’s death (July 9, 1948), his son Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping and his brothers ran the store – the only store on the east end of Molokai with a gasoline pump.

“Yeah, general merchandise. Working shoes, all kinds, shirt, pants, canned goods, sugar, rice, flour, all kind.  Grass knife, you know, cane knife, all the hoe and that pick and shovel.”

“All the kind people want, eh. General merchandise, mix up all kind. Country, eh. Sometimes we order nails, too. Sometimes people like paper roofing, we order paper roofing, you know, all that. Regular country store.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“I do regular general merchandise and the poi shop. There’s a little building on the side … We used to get our taro from Halawa Valley. Every week we grind. Sometimes ten bags, like that, twelve bags of [taro]”. (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“Early days had plenty wholesalers. Theo [H] Davies used to be grocery, American Factors had grocery department. All that. Early days, salesmen, every month they come take order.”

“We [used to] deliver [groceries]. See, cause when they buy rice, they no buy ten pound, twenty pound. They buy all hundred-pound bag rice, you know, for the whole month.”

“And feed for the hog; barley, scratch feed, and middling for the pigs or whatever it is, chicken like that. Used to get the feed from Fred Waldron Feed Store [in Honolulu]. Those feed barley come in eighty-five-pound bag.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“They get horse those days and get the hitching post where you tied your horse. You go in the back [of Ah Ping Store], all the old folks live in this district all behind, gambling. And they carry gun; they get their gun with them.”

“Get maybe five, six Hawaiians sitting down gambling, all talking Hawaiian and laughing. We used to go watch them. But you no see that [anymore]. Everybody owned horse in the old days. Was dirt road, yeah, over here. Never had the paved road, nothing.” (William “Billy” Kalipi, Sr, UH Oral History)

“And then that was really handy ‘cause he had liquor, too. (Chuckles) Yeah, whiskey. And [Joseph] Ah Hong [Ah Ping] was terrific. Anytime at night (he’d open up), ‘Oh, we want a bottle.’” (Laura Duvauchelle Smith, UH Oral History)

“Crack seed, too, was selling. They say ono, the crack seed. I said, ‘Honolulu get.’ The retail stores. And they say, ‘No ‘ono, Honolulu kind.’ They come they buy two pound, three pound, take Honolulu. Some of them buy about four pound to send to the states.”

“I said, ‘Why? Honolulu get.’ ‘Chee, we get from Honolulu. But funny, the taste is different.’  … Shave ice, once in a while we made. … Yeah, those days all gone.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“[They sold] dry goods and perishables. They (sold) all kinds (of things). Not bad. (It) was a good store.  They had everything in there. They (sold) gasoline, (crack seed from China, cans of corned beef, sardines, Vienna sausage. Also dried fish, salt salmon, butterfish, and even laahp cheung).”

“They made poi, too. You know, they (used to) grind (the taro in the) machine (to make poi. The machine was operated by gasoline using the pulley system.) People were fortunate to get the store (in ‘Ualapu‘e). They (didn’t) have to (go) all the way to Kaunakakai because the store (was) centralized.” (John K. Iaea, Sr, UH Oral History)

People used to meet at the store to talk story … “Oh, sometimes some politician come over, stop, see people there and talk. Early days. … They used to come [from Maui] on a sampan, about three miles away from our store.”

“Then get a car and come check on different county matters. Then they go back. … Yeah, all those old politicians all gone.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“[I]f you get good health, you like live in the country, [Molokai is] all right. If your health is not good, it’s no use. When you sick, doctor far away, no specialist. It’s hard, you know. You go on a diet, you cannot have the proper food. You shorten your life.”

“Country, mostly eat canned goods, you know, people. They don’t go hunting. Goat, deer, or what, you no can go hunting every time. Most times in country they eat canned goods, corned beef, tomato sardine. All that eat all the time. Dried codfish, all kind.”

“The doctor no recommend you eat that kind. You see, that’s why you go visit all right, but live permanent – your health not good – no use. Better stay Honolulu.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

“Ah Ping Store was like a family store. You know, people who didn’t have money, they charge it until payday. Then they have a book that they write it down, you know, how much you charge on what day. And then when you get paid, they go down there and pay.” (Shizue Murakami Johnson, UH Oral History)

As for working in stores … “’Nough. Tired already, store life.” (Joseph Ah Hong Ah Ping, UH Oral History)

They also had knives … when I was a kid, a coveted pocketknife was the ‘Ah Ping’ knife from Molokai, at least that is what we called it. Lots of sizes, wooden handles in a regular pocketknife format (the larger was the most favored).

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250 Years Ago … Colonial Taverns

“All Taverns they call ‘Ordinary’s’”.

“There is no distinction here between inns, taverns, ordinaries and public houses; they are all in one and are known by the appelation of taverns, public house or ordinary …  They are all very indifferent indeed compared to the inns in England.”

“So came the establishment of the ordinary. It was created for the entertainment of travelers and for the mutual comfort of the settlers. This was scarcely second to their providing a gathering place for the church.”

“[T]he General Court of Massachusetts made towns liable to a fine for not sustaining an ordinary. Great inducements were offered to persons keeping them. Land was granted, pastures to keep their cattle or exemption from church rates and school taxes.”

“The early ordinaries were not operated just for the convenience of travelers, but also for the comfort of the townspeople, exchange of news and opinions, and the sale of liquors and socializing.”

“Drunkards were severely punished, either thrown into stocks, whipped or fined. Tobacco was considered more sinful, degrading and harmful than liquor. Both the use of and planting were forbidden.”

Samuel Cole opened the first tavern on March 4, 1634 in Boston. It was not long before the demand and necessity for taverns throughout the colonies was overwhelming.

The first ordinaries were built by a town to accommodate travelers, so they offered bed and board, and sometimes drink. So, initially, they weren’t exactly a tavern as we think of them as a place to go get a drink.

Taverns were traditional institutions “whose effect was to pull fledgling communities together.” “[E]arly taverns were not opened wholly for the convenience of travellers; …

“… they were for the comfort of the townspeople, for the interchange of news and opinions, the sale of solacing liquors, and the incidental sociability … the importance of the tavern to its local neighbors was far greater than to travellers.”

“The tavern has ever played an important part in social, political, and military life, has helped to make history.”

“From the earliest days when men gathered to talk over the terrors of Indian warfare; through the renewal of these fears in the French and Indian War … and through all the anxious but steadfast years preceding and during the Revolution, these gatherings were held in the ordinaries or taverns.”

Arguably the taverns’ most important role in society (and American history) is the role they played in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. As anger spread throughout the colonies, many took to the tavern to discuss, argue, and debate what needed to be done.

“These discussions soon brought decisions, and by 1768 the Sons of Liberty were organized and were holding their meetings, explaining conditions, and advocating union and action.”

“They adopted the name given by Colonel Barre to the enemies of passive obedience in America. Soon scores of towns in the colonies had their liberty trees or liberty poles.”

“The story of our War for Independence could not be dissociated from the old taverns, they are a part of our national history; and those which still stand are among our most interesting Revolutionary relics.”

Click the following links to general summaries about Colonia Taverns:

Click to access Colonial-Taverns-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Colonial-Taverns.pdf

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Liliʻuokalani, Her Early Years

She was born September 2, 1838 and named Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamakaʻeha.   (The following is a summary of some of her early years – as told by her.)

At that time, children often were named in commemoration of an event.  Kuhina Nui Kīnaʻu had developed an eye infection at the time of Liliʻu’s birth.  She gave the child the names Liliʻu (smarting,) Loloku (tearful,) Walania (a burning pain) and Kamakaʻeha (sore eyes.)

“My father’s name was (Caesar Kaluaiku) Kapaʻakea, and my mother was (Analeʻa) Keohokālole; the latter was one of the fifteen counsellors of the king, Kamehameha III, who in 1840 gave the first written constitution to the Hawaiian people.”

“My great-grandfather, Keaweaheulu, the founder of the dynasty of the Kamehamehas, and Keōua, father of Kamehameha I, were own cousins (he was also brother of Mrs Bishop’s ancestress, Hākau,) and my great-grandaunt was the celebrated Queen Kapiʻolani, one of the first converts to Christianity.”

“As was then customary with the Hawaiian chiefs, my father was surrounded by hundreds of his own people, all of whom looked to him, and never in vain, for sustenance. He lived in a large grass house surrounded by smaller ones, which were the homes of those the most closely connected with his service.”

“But I was destined to grow up away from the house of my parents. Immediately after my birth I was wrapped in the finest soft tapa cloth, and taken to the house of another chief, by whom I was adopted.”

In her youth she was called “Lydia” or “Liliʻu.” (She was also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī, with the chosen royal name of Liliʻuokalani, and her married name was Lydia K Dominis.)  As was the custom, she was hānai (adopted) to Abner Pākī and his wife Laura Kōnia (granddaughter of Kamehameha I.)

“…their only daughter, Bernice Pauahi (born December 19, 1831,) afterwards Mrs Charles R Bishop, was therefore my foster-sister. … I knew no other father or mother than my foster-parents, no other sister than Bernice.”    The two girls developed a close, loving relationship.

“(W)hen I met my own parents, it was with perhaps more of interest, yet always with the demeanor I would have shown to any strangers who noticed me.”

“My own father and mother had other children, ten in all, the most of them being adopted into other chiefs’ families; and although I knew that these were my own brothers and sisters, yet we met throughout my younger life as though we had not known our common parentage. This was, and indeed is, in accordance with Hawaiian customs.”

Liliʻu and Bernice lived on the property called Haleʻākala, in the house that Pākī built on King Street.  It was the ‘Pink House,’ made from coral (the house was named ʻAikupika (Egypt.))  (It is not clear where the ʻAikupika name came from.)

“At the age of four years I was sent to what was then known as the Royal School, because its pupils were exclusively persons whose claims to the throne were acknowledged. It was founded and conducted by Mr Amos S Cooke, who was assisted by his wife. It was a boarding-school, the pupils being allowed to return to their homes during vacation time, as well as for an occasional Sunday during the term.”

“Several of the pupils who were at school with me have subsequently become known in Hawaiian history.  There were four children of Kīnaʻu, daughter of Kamehameha I, the highest in rank of any of the women chiefs of her day; these were Moses, Lot (afterwards Kamehameha V,) Liholiho (afterwards Kamehameha IV) and Victoria”.

“Next came Lunalilo, who followed Kamehameha V as king. Then came Bernice Pauahi, who married Hon Charles R Bishop. Our family was represented by Kaliokalani, Kalākaua, and myself, two of the three destined to ascend the throne.”

“From the year 1848 the Royal School began to decline in influence; and within two or three years from that time it was discontinued, the Cooke family entering business with the Castles, forming a mercantile establishment still in existence.”

“From the school of Mr and Mrs Cooke I was sent to that of Rev Mr Beckwith, also one of the American missionaries. This was a day-school, and with it I was better satisfied than with a boarding-school.”

“I was a studious girl; and the acquisition of knowledge has been a passion with me during my whole life, one which has not lost its charm to the present day.  In this respect I was quite different from my sister Bernice.”

“She was one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw; the vision of her loveliness at that time can never be effaced from remembrance; like a striking picture once seen, it is stamped upon memory’s page forever.”

“She married in her eighteenth year. She was betrothed to Prince Lot, a grandchild of Kamehameha the Great; but when Mr Charles R Bishop pressed his suit, my sister smiled on him, and they were married.  It was a happy marriage.”

“At this time I was still living with Pākī and Kōnia, and the house now standing and known as the Arlington Hotel was being erected by the chief for his residence. It was completed in 1851, and occupied by Paki until 1855, when he died.”

“Then my sister and her husband moved to that residence, which still remained my home. It was there that the years of my girlhood were passed, after school-days were over, and the pleasant company we often had in that house will never cease to give interest to the spot.”

The comments in quotes are from Liliʻuokalani from her book “Hawaiʻi’s Story by Hawaiʻi’s Queen, Liliʻuokalani.”

Fast forward … on the afternoon of January 16, 1893, 162 sailors and Marines aboard the USS Boston in Honolulu Harbor came ashore.  The home that Liliʻuokalani was raised in (later known as Arlington Hotel) served as the headquarters for the USS Boston’s landing force (Camp Boston) at the time of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, January 17, 1893.

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Labor Day

Hawai‘i is an exceptional case in American labor history because of its workforce made up of mostly non-white and immigrant workers.

The sugar planters increased the labor supply as needed to decrease labor’s demands. The major sugar planters grew into five big companies that eventually dominated the Islands’ economy.

Alexander & Baldwin, American Factors, Castle & Cooke, C Brewer and Theo H Davies before long constituted a power in the islands that controlled virtually all business and commercial as well as public employment opportunities.

Over the years in successive waves of immigration, the sugar growers brought to Hawai‘i 46,000 Chinese, 180,000 Japanese, 126,000 Filipinos as well as Portuguese and Puerto Ricans, each one used generally to offset the bargaining power of its predecessor.

“It was advantageous to have on your plantation groups from different ethnicities so that if one of them got it in their mind to strike that you would still be able to get things done by the other groups,” says William Puette, the Director of the Center for Labor Education and Research at the University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu.

“That obviously, they didn’t admit to this but it laid the groundwork for them to be able to have one group pitted against the other by making sure that they didn’t play well together.”

Hawai‘i’s labor unions during this period were organized based on ethnic groups.  Sugar planters pinned these distinct groups against each other by difference in wages, hiring more workers from different countries, and used the Portuguese as a model minority.

Hawaii’s workers attempted strikes since the beginning of the sugar industry beginning in the 1800s. Some of the more significant in size occurred in 1909, 1919, 1924, and 1937. 

In 1935, President Roosevelt, as part of his New Deal legislation, passed the Wagner Act giving workers the legal right to organize unions that could demand employer recognition. (UH West O‘ahu Center for Labor Education and Research)

Some unions were able to win small gains, but most strikes were broken and workers were forced to return to the plantations with harsher treatment. (Martinez)

Hawaiian officials expressed harsher anti-union attitudes by undermining the National Labor Relations Board, canceling union contracts, and threatening workers.

Employers froze wages to show that employees would not be hired in other locations. In addition, anti-Japanese hysteria after the bombing of Pearl Harbor deepened discrimination on the islands.

Blake Clark, a professor at the University of Hawaii, wrote in 1942, “A great many mainland Americans believe that most of the Japanese in Hawai‘i are hiding around in the canefields, ready at a signal to leap out and stab us in the back.”

Intimidated Japanese Hawaiians, who made up a significant portion of plantation labor, halted organizing. Police on the islands jailed anyone who did not follow the laws and ILWU membership froze to about 900 from the start of war until 1944.

Pent-up rage made workers receptive to ILWU organizers, due to the difficult conditions of life.  Living quarters were more compressed as shacks “averaged less than 500 square feet for a family of five, with as many as eight persons living in a room of about 100 square feet,” and most homes lacked indoor plumbing.

When families requested maintenance of their housing or working facilities, managers deducted the cost from their pay. Controversy also spread about children on plantations in Hilo, working and missing school days.

The timing was ripe. Union organizers mobilized on the islands by speaking to workers’ grievance, as union power surged following the war.  Workers from different ethnic and national backgrounds were soon convinced to join the union with each other.

Members of the ILWU went door to door to explain the need to unite under their union and strike in order to gain better wages and working conditions. Union bulletins, newspapers, voting ballots, and contracts were printed in each of the workers’ native languages.

The Sugar Strike of 1946 began on Labor Day. It was the first strike to ever shut down Hawai’i’s powerful sugar industry. More than 26,000 plantation workers and their families went on strike for nearly three months, closing all but one of 34 plantations across the island chain.  (HPR)

The strike succeeded in changing the balance of power between workers and the plantation.  In collective bargaining, the ILWU secured benefits such as housing, medical, pensions, and wages, as inherent rights for workers instead of privileges granted as favors by plantation owners.

“The politics of Hawai‘i would never be the same after that. And certainly labor relations would not be the same after that,” says Puette.

“Leadership in all the different areas would not be the same because you started to see the rise of people from the different ethnic groups, not just Japanese, but Filipinos, and everybody else which you wouldn’t have seen without that landmark strike of 1946.”

Based on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, noting  Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by state, 2019-2020 annual averages, Hawai‘i ranks #1 in 2020 with Percent of Employed – Members of Unions (23.7%) and Represented by Unions (25.7%). New York is #2.

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Lahilahi

“Nearly in the middle of this side of the island is the only village we had seen westward from Opooroah (Puʻuloa, Pearl Harbor.) In its neighbourhood the bases of the mountains retire further from the sea-shore, and a narrow valley, presenting a fertile cultivated aspect, seemed to separate, and wind some distance through, the hills.” (Vancouver, March 1793)

The ahupuaʻa of Makaha extends from the coastline to the Waiʻanae Range. Pukui noted Mākaha means “fierce;” Roger C. Green suggests it relates to “fierce or savage people” once inhabiting the valley.

Green refers to “…the ʻOlohe people, skilled wrestlers and bone-breakers, by various accounts (who) lived in Makaha, Makua and Keaʻau, where they often engaged in robbery of passing travelers.” (Cultural Surveys)

Waiʻanae Ahupuaʻa within the Waiʻanae District was its Royal Center in the late-1600s to the 1700s. The ahupuaʻa had numerous important heiau and the largest population of the district at European contact.

The Waianae Coast received its name from the mullet that was once farmed here. Wai means water, and ʻanae means large mullet (perhaps from mullet in the muliwai, or brackish-water pools, that were once common in the backshore on many Waiʻanae beaches.) These fish were once produced in large amounts.

Ahupuaʻa served as a means of managing people and taking care of the people who support them, as well as an easy form of collection of tributes by the chiefs.

A typical ahupuaʻa (what we generally refer to as watersheds, today) was a long strip of land, narrow at its mountain summit top and becoming wider as it ran down a valley into the sea to the outer edge of the reef. If there was no reef then the sea boundary would be about one and a half miles from the shore.

Palena (place boundaries) demarcated the boundaries between ahupuaʻa; this lessened conflict and was a means of settling disputes of future aliʻi who would be in control of the bounded lands; protected the commoners from the chiefs; and brought (for the most part) peace and prosperity. (Beamer, Duarte)

“The shore here forms a small sandy bay. On its southern side, between the two high rocky precipices, in a grove of cocoanut and other trees, is situated the village…”

“… in the center of the bay, about a mile to the north of the village, is a high rock, remarkable for its projecting from a sandy beach. At a distance it appears to be detached from the land.” (Vancouver, March 1793)

That ‘rock’ noted by Vancouver is Mauna Lahilahi (thin mountain – referred to by some as the ‘world’s smallest mountain’) is the palena, or boundary marker between the Makaha and Waianae ahupuaʻa (the hill itself is within the ahupuaʻa of Makaha.)

“The few inhabitants who visited us from the village, earnestly intreated our anchoring, and told us, that if we would stay until the morning, their chief would be on board with a number of hogs, and a great quantity of vegetables; but that he could not visit us then because the day was (kapu.)”

“The face of the country did not however promise an abundant supply; the situation was exposed, and the extent of anchorage was not only very limited, but bad; under these circumstances, having, by eleven at night, got clear of the shores, I deemed it most prudent to make the best of our way, with a light S.E. breeze towards Attowai (Kauai.)” (Vancouver, March 1793)

The village Vancouver saw was Kamaile, “with the beach and fishery in front and the well watered taro lands just behind.” A fresh water spring, Kekoʻo, gave life to this land and allowed for the existence of one of the largest populations on the Waiʻanae Coast. (Cultural Surveys)

Mauna Lahilahi inspired at least two songs. One, by Kaʻiulani, “I Mauna Lahilahi ko Wehi,” was probably inspired by a royal visit to the Holt estate in those golden days of Makaha Ranch. From about 1887 to 1899, the Holt Ranch raised horses, cattle, pigs, goats and peacocks.

It opens by offering Kaʻiulani a lei of “pua mamane melemele”: “Here at Mauna Lahilahi is your adornment; it is made of the golden blossoms of the mamane tree.”

The second verse shifts its focus from flower to princess and from beauty to status: “You are anointed with coconut water whose fragrance is wafted by the gentle Kaiaulu breeze.”

Verse three brings flower and natural action together in the drenching of the māmane in the Naulu rain: “The Naulu comes this way to soak the māmane blossom.” (deSilva)

“I Mauna Lahilahi ko Wehi”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcyuLccG25g

A later song, “Maunalahilahi” by Mary Robbins speaks of the love for Maunalahilahi and appreciation to its later owner, Jack Waterhouse.

“Affection for Maunalahilahi; Lingers in my heart; You are a treasure to us; As you approach my presence; It is as if we are in the presence of royalty ; Where many gather often; … This is my praise of Jack; You are a beloved person to all of us.”

Jack Waterhouse had his house at the foot of Mauna Lahilahi (on the Makaha side of the hill.)

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