Categories

September 18, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Myles Yotaka Fukunaga

“The fates have decided so we have been given this privilege in writing you on this important matter. We presume you will be alarmed at first. Nevertheless we hope that you will get over this surprise soon and listen to the writers namely. What is it all about?”

“Your son has been kidnapped for ransom!” (Fukunaga; Sullivan; Cool)

Speculation ran rampant in the streets, but nearly everyone was convinced that it was a racial matter. It’s more than likely, they said among themselves, that the kidnapper is Japanese. Racial tensions began to heat up between the haoles and the Japanese. (Kawatachi)

“All Honolulu became a posse today seeking Gill Jamieson, 10, son of Frederick W Jamieson, vice president of the Hawaiian Trust Company, who was kidnapped yesterday and held for ransom of $10,000 under the threat of death.”

“Twenty thousand school children were released from their classes this afternoon to join in the search.” (Schenectady Gazette, September 20, 1928)

Here is what happened … “Under pretext that the boy’s mother had been injured in an accident, a man prevailed upon a teacher at the Punahou School to allow Gill to accompany him.” (Schenectady Gazette, September 20, 1928)

On Tuesday morning, September 18, 1928, Myles Yotaka Fukunaga, dressed as a hospital orderly, picked up Jamieson at Punahou School.

Earlier, school officials had received a call indicating that Jamieson’s mother had been injured in an auto accident and that an orderly was being sent to pick him up at school.

About one hour after picking him up, Fukunaga killed the boy, choking him to death after hitting him three times with a steel chisel. His body was left in a clearing of kiawe trees near the Ala Wai canal.

Fukunaga was born on February 4, 1909 in Makaweli, Kauai. He attended ʻEleʻele and Kapaʻa schools achieving the reputation as being very bright and eager to learn.

In 1924, when he was 15, Fukunaga and his family moved to Waialua. He attended Waialua Grammar School and graduated from eighth grade, top of his class. Eventually the Fukunagas moved to Honolulu.

To help pay the rent, Fukunaga and his father worked at the Queen’s Hospital as messenger and gardener, respectively. (Kawatachi)

While he was recovering from appendicitis and unable to work, his family was unable to pay its rent on the small house they occupied near the corner of Beretania and Alapai Streets.

A rent collector from the Hawaiian Trust Company visited the family in May 1928 demanding the immediate payment of $20 the family did not have and threatened to evict them.

Feeling somewhat responsible for the family’s plight, Fukunaga developed a scheme to kidnap Jamieson, partly in revenge against the Hawaiian Trust Company. (Niiya)

“After receiving a call at around 9:00 pm, the elder Jamieson followed the instructions in the note and brought the ransom money to the indicated contact point.”

“After turning over $4,000, Jamieson demanded to see his son before paying the rest of the money. The kidnapper agreed, but disappeared into the bushes and didn’t return.” (Niiya)

Fukunaga was apprehended a few days later coming out of a Fort Street adult establishment after the serial numbers on the ransom money were traced. He was arrested and later confessed to the murder. (Song)

Fukunaga was charged, convicted and sentenced to hang despite the fact that the entire trial lasted less than a week, his court-appointed attorneys called no witnesses on his behalf, and concerns about Fukunaga’s sanity were never resolved. (Nakamura)

“Executive clemency for Myles Fukunaga, convicted of murdering little Gil Jamieson, was asked of the Governor in a petition presented to him today by Robert Murakami, attorney for the condemned man.”

“Fukunaga was sentenced to hang for the kidnapping and murder of Jamieson. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the verdict.”

“The petition asking for clemency was drawn up because many believed the youth to be insane. Insanity of the accused, however, was not established during the trial.” (San Jose News, November 9, 1929)

There was standing room only at Myles Fukunaga’s execution. (Theroux) He was hung at Oʻahu Prison on November 19, 1929, at 8:24 am. (Song)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Myles Fukunaga

September 17, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Hiram Bingham: I – IV

Hiram Bingham I was born at Bennington, Vermont, October 30, 1789, in a family of thirteen children – seven sons and six daughters – of Calvin and Lydia Bingham. About the age of twenty-one, he united with the Congregational church in his native town in May, 1811.

He strongly felt it to be his duty to prepare for the Gospel ministry. He entered Middlebury College in 1813; was graduated at the same institution in 1816, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1819. (Congregational Quarterly, 1871)

On September 19 1819, Bingham was ordained in Goshen, Connecticut, site of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) school for Sandwich Islanders. That morning, he met Sybil Moseley; she had asked Bingham for directions and he offered to drive her there. Three weeks later, on October 11, 1819, the couple was married in Hartford, Connecticut. (Miller)

On October 23, 1819, Bingham led the Pioneer Company of ABCFM missionaries as they set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.) These included two Ordained Preachers, Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived (April 1820,) Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished; through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho,) with encouragement by former Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother,) the Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs.

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period,”) about 180-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

Bingham had seven children, including Sophia Moseley Bingham born 1820 (the first Caucasian girl born on Oʻahu;) Levi Parsons Bingham; Jeremiah Everts Bingham; Lucy Whiting Bingham; Elizabeth Kaʻahumanu Bingham, born 1829; Hiram Bingham II, born on August 16th, 1831; and Lydia Bingham, born 1834 (who later became principal of Kawaiahaʻo Seminary, forerunner to Mid-Pacific Institute.)

Hiram I’s position as trusted advisor to the King and the chiefs resulted in the gift of the land of Ka Punahou from Boki and Liliha (Kaʻahumanu is considered responsible for this gift.) While the land was given to the Binghams and they resided there, the land was held by the Sandwich Island Mission.

On account of the failing health of his wife, Sybil, Bingham was compelled to return to the US on August 3, 1840, after a period of about twenty-one years in the Islands. He continued in the service of the Board during the five following years, and did not until the end of that time wholly abandon the hope of returning to the mission. Sybil died at Easthampton, Massachusetts, February 27, 1848.

Bingham’s second marriage was in 1852, to Miss Naomi C Morse. Hiram I died at New Haven, Connecticut, November 11, 1869, at the age of eighty-one.

Hiram Bingham II was born in the Islands on August 16, 1831. At the age of ten, he and sisters Elizabeth Kaahumanu and Lydia were sent to the continent to attend school. Hiram II was enrolled at Williston Seminary in Easthampton, Massachusetts and graduated from Yale University in 1853 and Andover Seminary (1856.)

Hiram II was ordained a Congregationalist minister in New Haven, Connecticut on November 9, 1856 and married Clara Brewster only nine days later. Like his father, he set sail less than two weeks later to begin his missionary career. He left Boston on December 2, 1856 on the brig Morning Star, arrived in Honolulu on April 24, 1857, then in the Gilbert Islands in November 1857.

The Gilbert Islands (named in 1820 after the British Captain Thomas Gilbert) are a group of 16-coral atolls and islands, that are part of Kiribati (‘Kiribati’” is the Kiribatese rendition of “Gilberts.”) Hiram II settled at Abaiang, just north of Tarawa.

Hiram II spent seven years in the Gilbert Islands, struggling against disease, hunger and hostile merchants. During that time he made few converts, about fifty in all, but learned the language and began translating the Bible into Gilbertese.

Due to ill health, he was forced to return to Honolulu in 1864. Except for occasional visits to the US and another short stay in the Gilberts (1873-75,) Hiram II spent the remainder of his life in Hawaiʻi where he translated of the entire Bible into Gilbertese.

Hiram II also wrote a Gilbertese hymn book, commentaries on the gospels and a Gilbertese-English dictionary. His wife published a book of Bible stories in Gilbertese. (Youngs)

From 1877 to 1880, Hiram II served as Secretary of the Hawaiian Board of Missions and in 1895, Yale University awarded him the Doctorate of Divinity. He died October 25, 1908 in Baltimore, Maryland.

Hiram Bingham III was born in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, to Hiram Bingham II; He was the grandson of Hiram Bingham I. He attended Punahou School and continued his studies at the Phillips Academy of Massachusetts, and then at Yale University, where he graduated in 1898; got a masters In History and Political Sciences from Berkeley and a PhD from Harvard in 1905.

In 1900 at the age of 25, Hiram III married Alfreda Mitchell, heiress of the Tiffany and Co fortune through her maternal grandfather Charles L. Tiffany. With this financial stability he was able to focus on his future explorations.

He taught history and politics at Harvard and then was a lecturer and subsequently professor in South American history at Yale University. In 1908, he served as delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress at Santiago, Chile. On his way home via Peru, a local prefect convinced him to visit the pre-Columbian city of Choquequirao.

Hiram III was not a trained archaeologist, but was thrilled by the prospect of unexplored cities. He returned to the Andes with the Yale Peruvian Expedition of 1911.

On July 24, 1911, Hiram III rediscovered the “Lost City” of Machu Picchu (which had been largely forgotten by everybody except the small number of people living in the immediate valley.)

His book “Lost City of the Incas” became a bestseller upon its publication in 1948; he also wrote “Across South America” (an account of his journey from Buenos Aires to Lima, with notes on Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Peru.)

Hiram III was elected governor of Connecticut in 1924; he was also a US Senator. Hiram III has been noted as a source of inspiration for the ‘Indiana Jones’ character.

Hiram (Harry) Bingham IV, born July 17, 1903, was one of seven sons of former Governor of Connecticut and US Senator Hiram Bingham III and his first wife, Alfreda Mitchell. He married Rose, they had eleven children: Rose Tiffany, Hiram Anthony, Thomas, John, David, Robert Kim, Maria Cecilia, Abigail, Margaret, Benjamin and William.

He was a US diplomat stationed in Marseilles, France during World War II when Germany was invading France. At great personal risk and against State Department orders, he (a Protestant Christian) used his government status to help over 2,500-Jewish people escape the Holocaust as they escaped Hitler’s occupied Europe from 1939-1941.

He organized clandestine rescue efforts and escapes, harbored many refugees at his diplomatic residence and issued “visas for life” and affidavits of eligibility for passage.

Hiram IV helped some of the most notable intellectuals and artists to escape, including Marc Chagall, (artist;) Leon Feuchtwanger, (author;) Golo Mann, (historian, son of Thomas Mann;) Hannah Arendt, (philosopher;) Max Ernst, (artist and poet;) and Dr. and Mrs. Otto Meyerhof, (Nobel Prize winning physicist.)

In 1998, Hiram IV was recognized as one of eleven diplomats who saved 200,000-lives from the Holocaust, which amounts to one-million descendants of survivors today.

He is the only US Diplomat who has been officially honored by the State of Israel as a “righteous diplomat.” He was the only American diplomat recognized during Israel’s 50th Anniversary at the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.

Sixty years after leaving the Foreign Service (in 2002,) the State Department posthumously recognized Bingham with the department’s American Foreign Service Association “Constructive Dissent” award.

In 2005, Bingham was posthumously given a letter of commendation from Israel’s Holocaust Museum. In 2006, a US commemorative postage stamp was issued in his honor. Hiram I is my great-great-great-grandfather.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Hiram_Bingham_I-1852

Hiram_Bingham_II

Hiram_III_at_tent

Hiram (IV) circa 1980

Hiram_(I)_and_Sybil_Moseley_Bingham,_1819,_by_Samuel_F.B._Morse

Hiram Bingham II and Minerva Clara Brewster-1866

Hiram Bingham III and Alfreda Mitchell Bingham

Hiram (IV) and Rose Newlyweds-1934

September 13, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Laʻanui and Namahana

“I cannot die happy without making this reparation while the breath is in my body. Forgive me for the part I took in the wrongful measure.” (Namahana Kekuwai-Piia; Pratt)

Whoa … let’s look back.

“There were born to Nuhi and Kaohele first a daughter and then a son, the girl being named Kekaikuihala and the boy Laʻanui. Kamehameha, although fierce and cruel in war, was disposed to be conciliatory toward those he conquered, aiming to make amends in a measure for the wrongs he inflicted and to establish friendly relations with families to which he had brought misfortune.”

“He extended a welcoming hand and opened his heart to many, men and women alike, who flocked to his hospitable court. Alliances in this way were created, and one by one new homes spread over the lately deserted countryside once more, through the influence of which contentment was made to rule supreme in the land.”

“Among the visitors to the royal court was (Namahana) Kekuwai-Piia, who had just become a widow, coming as a guest of her sister, Queen Kaʻahumanu. Laʻanui was a boy growing to maturity.” (Pratt)

“The king had not forgotten the great wish of his heart, coveting possession of Waimea and hoping to gain it, if not in battle, through a matrimonial alliance. His failure to accomplish this end through Kaohele was a sting to the old warrior’s pride, and now he chose a new agent of his ambition by inviting Laʻanui to the court.”

“The invitation was gladly accepted and the visit lasted for months. Kamehameha was loath to have Laʻanui depart while he was slyly intriguing with Kaʻahumanu to negotiate a marriage between Piʻia and Laʻanui.”

“Piʻia is described as being a person heavily built and not prepossessing in appearance like her sisters Kaahumanu and Kaheiheimalie. When at last the proposition was put squarely to Laʻanui, that it was the united wish of the king and queen that the marriage should take place, for a moment he was dejected.”

“To wed a woman very many years his senior was not the desire of his heart. Yet realizing that it might be perilous to go contrary to the express desire of the powerful monarch he quietly consented ‘to take the bitter pill.’” (Pratt)

“The couple took up their residence at Waialua, permanently, upon one of the divisions of land which Piʻia had received as her portion out of her father’s large estate.” (Pratt)

Laʻanui and Piʻia were one of the first couples to be married by Hiram Bingham.

“He was an interesting young chief of the third rank, well featured, and a little above the middling stature.” (Bingham)

“I could not refrain from tears to see the happy meeting of this interesting pair, after their separation for so lamentable a cause. His protection and restoration they both now piously ascribed to the care of Jehovah – the Christian’s God.”

“After a few expressions of mutual joy and congratulation, and a few words as to the state of affairs at Kauai, at Namahana’s suggestion, with which her husband signified his concurrence, we sang a hymn of praise, and united in thanksgiving to the King of nations for his timely and gracious aid to those who acknowledge his authority and love his Word.” (Bingham)

“Laʻanui, by his correct behavior for more than five years, has given us much satisfaction. He is a good assistant in the work of translation; we consult him and others of his standing, with more advantage than any of the youth who have been instructed in foreign school.” (Bingham)

On June 5, 1825, Laʻanui, Piʻia, former Queen Kaʻahumanu and a couple others “came before the congregation (of Kawaiahaʻo Church,) the only organized church then in the island, and made a statement of their religious views, and their desire to join themselves to the Lord’s people, and to walk in his covenant.” (Bingham)

Unfortunately, Piʻia’s corpulence did not inure to healthfulness and before long, she sickened and died. On her deathbed, she said to her husband:

“Laʻanui, I wish to divulge a secret in my heart to you. It was not my work that you gave up your patrimonial inheritance to me. It was at the instigation of Kamehameha that I played coyly toward you in order to gratify his selfish motives.”

“For your cheerful sacrifice of what was so dear to your hear I feel it is my duty to repay you.”

“Therefore, in return for great kindness I leave this dear Waialua to you, as well as all the other lands, which I own, for my token of love for you. I cannot die happy without making this reparation while the breath is in my body. Forgive me for the part I took in the wrongful measure.” (Namahana Kekuwai-Piʻia; Pratt)

“Laʻanui was the paramount chief of the Waialua division from 1828 to his death in 1849, as well as the particular ‘lord’ (hakuʻāina) of Kawailoa, the district (ahupuaʻa) corresponding to the Anahulu River valley.” (Kirch)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Laanui-Namahana

Gideon_Peleioholani_Laanui-GL-gravestone

Gideon_Peleioholani_Laanui-gravestone

Gideon_Peleioholani_Laanui

September 8, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiian, American missionary, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean & Filipino

Hawaiʻi is the world’s most-isolated, populated-place; the Islands are about: 2,500-miles from the US mainland, Samoa & Alaska; 4,000-miles from Tokyo, New Zealand & Guam, and 5,000-miles from Australia, the Philippines & Korea.

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, studies suggest it was about 900-1000 AD 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)

Then, in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

At the time of Cook’s arrival, the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Four decades later, inspired by ʻŌpūkahaʻia, a Hawaiian who wanted to spread the word of Christianity back home in Hawaiʻi, on October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries, from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from the northeast United States, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)

Then, something more significant in defining the social make-up of Hawaiʻi took place.

Sugar changed the social fabric of Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the planet.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i in 1835. It was to change the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for well over a century.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.

What encouraged the development of plantations in Hawaiʻi? For one, the gold rush and settlement of California opened a lucrative market. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

In addition, the Treaty of Reciprocity-1875 between the US and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US gained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets.

However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

Several waves of workforce immigration took place (including others:)
• Chinese 1852
• Portuguese 1877
• Japanese 1885
• Koreans 1902
• Filipinos 1905

The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000-workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

The Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens is a peaceful place to experience various cultural buildings; it was created as tribute and a memorial to Maui’s multi-cultural diversity.

Started in 1952, the park contains several monuments and replica buildings commemorating the Hawaiian, American missionary, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino cultures that make up a significant part of Hawaiʻi’s cultural mix.

Attractions include an early-Hawaiian hale (house), a New England-style missionary home, a Portuguese-style villa with gardens, native huts from the Philippines, Japanese gardens with stone pagodas and a Chinese pavilion with a statue of revolutionary hero Sun Yat-sen (who briefly lived on Maui.)

It is situated near the entrance to ʻIao Valley in the West Maui Mountain, just above Wailuku. It is open daily from 7 am to 7 pm; admission is free.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens- Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Banyan

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Hawaiian Hale

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens missionary house

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-missionary house

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – New England

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Chinese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Sun Yat-sen

Kepaniwai-Japanese_sugarcane_workers-Statue

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Japanese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Portuguese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Korean Garden

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Filipino

September 5, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Hale Kilo Hoku

“In ancient times, the class of people studying the positions of the moon, the rising and setting of certain fixed stars and constellations, and also of the sun, are called the kilo-hoku or astrologers. Their observations of these heavenly bodies might well be called the study of astronomy.”

“The use of astrology anciently, was to predict certain events of fortunes and misfortunes, victory or defeat of a battle, death of king or queen, or any high chief; it also foretells of pestilence, famine, fine or stormy weather and so forth.” (Nupepa Hawaiʻi, April 2, 1909)

Hawaiʻi’s last King, Kalākaua, has been referred to as a Renaissance man. While seeking to revive many elements of Hawaiian culture that were slipping away, the King also promoted the advancement of modern sciences, art and literature … and astronomy.

King Kalākaua has also been described as a monarch with a technical and scientific bent and an insatiable curiosity for modern devices. He became king in 1874. Edison and others were still experimenting with electric lights at that time.

Five years after Kalākaua and Edison met (1881,) Charles Otto Berger, a Honolulu-based insurance executive with mainland connections, organized a demonstration of “electric light” at ʻIolani Palace, on the night of July 26, 1886.

“The first telephone ever used in Honolulu belonged to King Kalākaua. Having been presented to him by the American Bell Telephone Company.” (Daily Bulletin, December 4, 1894) (It followed (1881) the placement of a phone in the White House (1879.))

Kalākaua’s interest in modern astronomy is evidenced by his support for an astronomical expedition to Hawaiʻi in 1874 that came from England to observe a transit of Venus (a passage of Venus in front of the Sun – used to measure an ‘astronomical unit,’ the distance between the Earth and Sun.)

The King allowed the British Royal Society’s expedition a suitable piece of open land for their viewing area; it was not far from Honolulu’s waterfront in a district called Apua (mauka of today’s Waterfront Plaza.)

Kalākaua addressed those astronomers in 1874 stating, “It will afford me unfeigned satisfaction if my kingdom can add its quota toward the successful accomplishment of the most important astronomical observation of the present century and assist, however humbly, the enlightened nations of the earth in these costly enterprises to establish the basis of astronomical distance.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 19, 1874)

(When American astronomer Simon Newcomb combined the 18th century data with those from the 1874/1882 Venus transits, he derived an Earth-sun distance of 149.59 +/- 0.31 million kilometers (about 93-million miles,) very close to the results found with modern space technology in the 20th century.)

Kalākaua later helped astronomy with the Transit of Mercury (November 7, 1881.) “The king, Kalākaua, offered me the free occupancy of the site from which the observations of the Transit of Venus were made in December 1874 …” (Rockwell, Royal Astronomical Society)

Kalākaua reinforced his positive feelings toward modern astronomy – and noted the importance of scientific learning versus the financial aspect of it. On November 22, 1880, King Kalākaua wrote to Captain RS Floyd noting his interest in telescopes and astronomy:

“I must thank you sincerely for the pamphlet you sent me of the ‘Lick Observatory Trust.’ Something of this kind is needed here very much but we have so few people who take interest in scientific matters. Everybody is bent upon making money on sugar and the all might dollar.” (King Kalākaua)

The King then took his trip around the world, “Among our passengers on the voyage to San Francisco was a well-known Englishman, a lecturer on astronomy, returning from Australia.”

“’He discussed with the King the astral theories of the Polynesians, which were, it must be confessed, not as advanced as those held by the present generation of Europeans, but quite as valuable as those of learned men two centuries before, who believed that comets were sent by the Almighty to frighten men into obedience.”

“The King became much interested in these semi-scientific conversations, and at the end of the voyage their effect upon him was shown after a not altogether unexpected fashion.” (Judd; Around the World with the King)

Later, in 1881, during his travels to the US, King Kalākaua visited the Lick Observatory in California and was the first to view through its new 12” telescope (which was temporarily set up for that purpose in the unfinished dome.)

“Then that magnificent type of a man, stalwart fellow with black hair, splendid features and bronzed complexion stood before Mr Lick, and said that he had heard what Mr Lick had done, and that he proposed to do for the state, that he thanked him on behalf of humanity.” (Wright)

“Kalākaua arrived … at a crucial time, as the first important astronomical venture on Mount Hamilton was about to be launched. The 12-inch dome was not yet finished.”

They improvised “by mounting the telescope temporarily on the pier in the open air. The next morning … he again went up the ‘hill.’ He told (Thomas Edward) Fraser (builder of the Lick Observatory) he was delighted with what he saw and wanted a transit at his place.” (Wright)

Hawaiʻi had a chance for a Hale Kilo Hoku (observatory or astronomy building (Pukui)) in 1887. Harvard College Observatory issued a circular, “looking about for a suitable site for a station.”

“It appears that by the will of the late Uriah A Boyden, property the present value of which exceeds $230,000 was left in trust for the purpose of astronomical research, ‘at such an elevation as to be free, so far as practicable from the impediments to accurate observations now existing owing to atmospheric influences.’”

“A location in the southern hemisphere will be preferable for various reasons one of which is that ‘the southern stars invisible in Europe and the United States have been less observed than the northern stars and by the aid of a southern station the investigations undertaken at Cambridge can be extended upon a uniform system to all parts of the sky.” (Harvard)

“There is no doubt Professor Alexander (of the Hawaiian Government) will be able to show that the Hawaiian Islands are fully qualified to fulfill some, if not all, of the required conditions (called for in the Harvard prospectus.)” (Daily Herald, April 13, 1887)

“The response to the Circulars was enthusiastic. (Harvard) received letters recommending mountain sites in the Andes and the Himalayas, and in South Africa, Australia, Japan and Hawaiʻi.” (Harvard College Observatory) Harvard chose ‘Mount Harvard’ in Lima Peru for The Boyden Station of Harvard Observatory.

It wasn’t until nearly a century after Hawaiʻi’s participation in the first Transit of Venus that a high elevation observatory was constructed in Hawaiʻi – in 1964, a NASA-funded 12.5-inch telescope was installed on Puʻu Poliahu to see if Mauna Kea provide the right observation conditions.

Dr. Gerard Kuiper’s team began “seeing” studies. Kuiper concluded that “The mountaintop is probably the best site in the world – I repeat – in the world – from which to study the moon, the planets, and stars.” (Ironwood Observatory Research)

At the close of the decade Mauna Kea saw the construction of a 0.6-meter (24-inch) (1968) and 2.2-meter (88-inch) (1970) telescopes, provided to University of Hawaiʻi by the US Air Force and NASA.

These were followed by NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, 3.0-m, 1979; Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, 3.6-m, 1979; United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, 3.8-m, 1979; Keck I and Keck II, each 10-m, 1992 & 1996; Subaru Telescope, 8.3-m, 1999; Gemini Northern Telescope, 8.1-m, 1999; Caltech Submillimeter Observatory, 10.4-m, 1987; James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, 15-m, 1987; Submillimeter Array. 8x6m, 2002; and Very Long Baseline Array, 25m, 1992.

In 1891, while ill in bed, King Kalākaua recorded a message on a wax-type phonograph in the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Kalākaua died in San Francisco a few days later (January 20, 1891.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger