Peter T Young

May 24, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mailable Matter

In early colonial times, correspondents depended on friends, merchants, and Native Americans to carry messages among the colonies. In 1639, Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston was designated the first official repository of mail brought from or sent overseas (consistent with the European practice of using coffee houses and taverns as mail stations.)

On July 26, 1775 (shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775,) the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War,) members of the Second Continental Congress agreed that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United Colonies. That year, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General of the Postal Service.

A couple years later (January 20, 1778,) Captain James Cook, made ‘contact’ with the Islands and anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kauai’s southwestern shore. After a couple of weeks, there, they headed to the west coast of North America.

Like early mail exchange in the American Colonies, following Cook’s contact, mail in Hawaiʻi was handled privately by employing forwarders or by making arrangements directly with a ship captain; most letters were folded inward and sealed so the address could be written on the blank outer side. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi and the United States agreed on a ‘Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation and Extradition, December 20, 1849;’ among other things, Article 15 of the Treaty created an arrangement for delivery of mail. (State Department)

“Whereas a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, between the United States of America and his Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, was concluded and signed at Washington, on the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine”.

“Mail arrangements – So soon as steam or other mail packets under the flag of either of the contracting parties shall have commenced running between their respective ports of entry, the contracting parties agree to receive at the post-offices of those ports all mailable matter, and to forward it as directed …”

“All mailable matter destined for the Hawaiian Islands shall be received at the several post-offices in the United States, and forwarded to San Francisco, or other ports on the Pacific coast of the United States, whence the postmasters shall despatch it by the regular mail packets to Honolulu …”

“It shall be optional to prepay the postage on letters in either country, but postage on printed sheets and newspapers shall in all cases be prepaid. The respective post-office departments of the contracting parties shall in their accounts, which are to be adjusted annually, be credited with all dead letters returned.” (US Statutes at Large and Treaties, 1845-1851)

On November 2, 1850, The Polynesian, “Official Journal of the Hawaiian Government,” announced it was keeping a letter bag open to receive letters and promised to place on board reliable vessels any letters deposited in its letter bag.

By 1850, almost all mail was being sent to/from Hawaiʻi via San Francisco to enter the mail stream there and be carried in the US mail via Panama to New York. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi opened a post office at Honolulu and Henry Martyn Whitney (who worked at the Polynesian) was appointed Postmaster of Honolulu (December 22, 1850.) The location of the new post office was at the office of The Polynesian. (Whitney later left the Polynesian and started his own newspaper, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (forerunner of Honolulu Advertiser.))

During the fifty years of Hawaii’s independent postal system from 1850 to 1900, the post office occupied three premises: a room in The Polynesian Office (1850-1854;) rooms in Honolulu Hale, situated next door to The Polynesian Office (1854-1871;) and about half of the ground floor in the “New Post Office” (Kamehameha V Post Office, 1871-1922,) situated on the former site of The Polynesian Office.

On June 14, 1900, the Kamehameha V Post Office officially became a unit of the United States Post Office (the year that Hawaii became a Territory of the US.)

In 1922, the United States Post Office was moved to the Federal building and control of the old building was returned to the Territory of Hawaii. It was remodeled as a postal substation and for use as the Territorial Tax office. (NPS)

When Whitney was postmaster, he conceived and produced Hawaiʻi’s first stamps, issued in 1851 (the stamps are now called ‘Hawaiian Missionaries,’ all printed locally by letterpress at the Government Printing Office.

The stamps were in three denominations: a 2-cent stamp paid the newspaper rate, a 5-cent stamp paid the rate for regular mail to the United States, and a 13-cent stamp paid the rate to the US East Coast.

The first three stamps in the issue were announced for sale on October 1, 1851, at the Honolulu and Lahaina post offices. By early April, 1852, the fourth stamp was printed to correct confusion and state clearly the 13¢ value was to pay both Hawaiian and United States postage through to any East Coast United States destination.

May 23, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hole Hole Bushi

“Kane wa kachiken
Washa horehoreyo
Ase to namida no
Tomokasegi”

“My husband cuts the cane stalks
And I trim the leaves
With sweat and tears we both work
For our means.”

Japanese laborers quickly comprised the majority of Hawaiian sugar plantation workers after their large-scale importation as contract workers in 1885. (Oxford Press)

Their folk songs provide good examples of the intersection between local work/life and the global connection which the workers clearly perceived after arriving.

While many are songs of lamentation, others reflect a rapid adaptation to a new society in which other ethnic groups were arranged in untidy hierarchical order–the origins of a unique multicultural social order dominated by an oligarchy of white planters. (Oxford Press)

From 1885-1924, about 200,000 Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations. (Kim) By 1900, the Japanese population, about 40% of the total, was the largest ethnic group in Hawai‘i. (Densho)

Many of those Issei women, first generation of Japanese immigrants, came as picture brides and found themselves working long hours in the canefields.

The men cut the cane; the women’s work was to strip the leaves from sugar cane stalks so that it produces more juice while providing fertilizer for the growing plant.

These women sang songs about work and the dilemmas of plantation life. The songs, called Hole Hole Bushi, used old Japanese folk tunes, and mixed Hawaiian and Japanese words for dramatic lyrics. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a hybrid term that combines the Japanese word for tune (bushi) with a Hawaiian term describing the stripping the leaves off of sugar cane (hole.) Issei women composed and sung a repertoire of these songs, set to familiar Japanese melodies, which expressed their hardships, disappointments, and hopes. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a folk song which Issei (first-generation Japanese overseas emigrants) who immigrated to Hawai‘i at the end of the 19th century, sang at their work in the sugarcane fields. (Nakahara)

Folk songs are short stories from the souls of common people. Some, like Mexican corridos or Scottish ballads, reworked in the Appalachias, are stories of tragic or heroic episodes. Others, like the African American blues, reach from a difficult present back into slavery and forward into a troubled future. (Oxford Press)

Japanese workers in Hawaii’s plantations created their own versions, in form more like their traditional tanka or haiku poetry.

These Holehole Bushi describe the experiences of one particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Oxford Press)

The name “Hole Hole Bushi,” first appears in Saishin Hawai Annai (The Latest Hawai‘i Guide) by Namitarō Murasaki (1920.) “Hole-hole Bushi” is described as one of Hawai‘i’s specialties to see, as in the following:

“Honolulu is a song-less town. One rarely hears singing except through a phonograph or overhearing a spree coming out of a restaurant. Of course, new popular songs are imported every time Japanese ships come into port. But these songs are sung only at tea houses for the time being, and mostly disappear before they spread outside.”

“Nevertheless, if you go to the countryside, you can still hear the loud singing of a tune saturated with a sorrowful mood. That is “Hole-hole Bushi”—a distinctive feature in Hawai‘i.” (Nakahara)

The lyrics are mostly in Japanese with Hawaiian and English words mixed in, and follow a poetic form with lines of 7+7+7+5 syllables. The texts cover a wide range of topics, from the hardships of field labor and uncertainty in life to the relationships between men and women, name-calling and gossip.

Around 1930, the lives of the Issei improved, and many moved to cities. The Hole Hole Bushi which had been sung in the field disappeared, and, in its place, lively-sounding versions of Hole Hole Bushi were performed in Japanese tea houses.

During the Second World War, the government banned Japanese cultural activities. After the war, however, the great success of the Nisei troops in the fight received admiration. However, Hole Hole Bushi was never performed; for the Issei, Hole Hole Bushi had become an embarrassment. (Nakahara)

Hole Hole Bushi performed by Allison Arakawa at Japanese American National Museum:

May 22, 2026 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Insane Asylum

The first hospital service for mentally afflicted persons in America was established at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia in the year 1752. (Kimmich)

Later, across the US, interest was growing in caring for the mentally ill; asylums are opened in East Coast US cities. Kamehameha V expanded his interest in medical facilities.

The 1863 law passed by the Hawaiian legislature states: “A building is to be erected for the reception of insane persons. This facility will furnish restraint till the person becomes of sane mind or is discharged.”

“There shall be in Honolulu, at such places as the superintendent of public works shall direct, a suitable building for the reception of all insane persons, to be styled an insane asylum … The board of health shall have the management and control of the insane asylum.” (1862, Revised Laws, 1915)

“It shall be the duty of (the) district magistrate or circuit judge to examine all persons brought before them on said warrants as to their sanity.”

It was difficult to obtain the funds for this purpose, however, and the hospital was not constructed until 1866. Its first location was at the corner of School and Lanakila Streets.

The hospital was completed in 1866, and the first six patients were transferred to the hospital from the jails at which the mentally ill had previously been kept. By 1867, there were 62 patients. (Cultural Surveys)

The annual report of 1867 mentions a total of 62 admissions, an average age of 40 years, and goes on to state that 17 of the 62 admissions were discharged as “recovered.” (Kimmich)

The patients, with the exception of those most violent, were allowed to wander about the extensive grounds, assisting in the care of the lawns and flowers, and in light manual labor of various kinds.

The Hawaiians have ample allowances of their much loved poi, likewise, there were large luau, held there once or twice during each year.

These were attended by many of the residents and visitors to Honolulu, who chose these occasions to satisfy their curiosities. The inmates of the Hospital are of all nationalities, the aggregate number, in proportion of the Islands, being small. (Ellsworth)

The Legislature increased the Maintenance Appropriation from $40,000.00 to $45,000.00 under the title “Insane Asylum And Infirmary” in response to the representations of the President of the Board relative to the necessity of a place of detention and care of those whose cases properly require observation before a charge of insanity should be lodged against them.

“Many of these cases are the result of indulgence in liquor and drugs and in short time their normal mental balance becomes restored.”

“We have already taken steps to erect a building that will shelter forty patients and so relieve the buildings at the entrance of the grounds: they can be turned into the Infirmary and accommodate some twenty patients.”

“A visit to the Insane Asylum will show many improvements. Nothing is more conducive to the bodily health and mental condition of the physically able insane than employment to a moderate degree.”

“During the past twelve months the inmates have quarried stone, made curbing and macadam, filled in ground where necessary and generally improved the Asylum grounds. They practically rebuilt one building for men, repaired several cottages, and have done general renovating and painting.”

“They have built quite a large addition to the woman’s building and are now completing a cottage of four special rooms with a separate lanai for each, that patients may be isolated where the case requires, or friends desire by special arrangement.” (Report of President of the Board of Health, 1907)

“All inmates, if physically able, are taken out of doors every day … .During the year the female employees and patients made a considerable amount of clothing for use in the institution.”

“The principal articles for food were bread, beef, fresh fish, salmon, codfish, beans, poi, rice, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, prunes, canned fruits, eggs, milk, ham, bacon, fresh vegetables, tea and coffee, and fresh milk.” (Report of Governor of Hawaii, 1921)

“No institution extant is better, more cleanly and more orderly kept, resources considered, than the Oahu Insane Asylum. The Asylum is regularly, professionally and officially inspected each two weeks by the two medical members of the Board of Health. The President of the Board visits the Insane Asylum at least once each week.” (Report of President of the Board of Health, 1907)

From 1903 to 1928, a new site was looked for, a final decision on the present location in Kāneʻohe being made in late 1928. (Kimmich)

In 1930, all 549 patients in the then-named Territorial Hospital were transferred to the new Territorial Hospital in Kāne‘ohe, O‘ahu.

May 21, 2026 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Sneyd-Kynnersley

I ‘ike ‘ia no o Kohala i ka pae ko
a o ka pae ko ia kole ai ka waha.

One can recognize Kohala by her rows of sugar cane
which can make the mouth raw when chewed.

The Kynnersley estate and castle in Loxley Park (near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England) was in the possession of the Kynnersley family back to the time of Edward III (early-1300s.) In 1815, Clement Kynnersley, the last male in the line, dying, left it to his nephew Thomas Sneyd, who added the name of Kynnersley to his own, upon his accession to this estate.

Fast forward to about 1882 … brothers John (Ralph) Sneyd-Kynnersley (1860-1932) and Clement (Cecil) Gerald Sneyd-Kynnersley (1859-1909) left Uttoxeter and made their way to Kohala on the Island of Hawaiʻi.

At that time, sugar was changing the landscape. Kohala became a land in transition and eventually a major force in the sugar industry with the arrival of American missionary Elias Bond in 1841.

Bond directed his efforts to initiating sugar as a major agricultural industry in Kohala; his primary concern was to develop a means for the Hawaiian people of the district to compete successfully in the market economy that had evolved in Hawaiʻi.

What resulted was a vigorous, stable, and competitive industry which survived over a century of changing economic situations. For the Hawaiian people, however, the impact was not what Bond anticipated. (Tomonari-Tuggle; Rechtman)

Beginning in the 1850s, portions of Pūehuehu Ahupua‘a were divided and sold by the government as land grants. In 1873, the English born Robert Robson Hind moved to Kohala from Maui to invest in the booming sugar industry.

He purchased land in the flat plains of Pūehuehu west of Kohala Sugar Company, although rainfall was less than ideal, and established the Union Mill. Months prior to formal opening in 1874, a fire broke out destroying the mill.

The mill was rebuilt and Hind sold the mill; a January 31, 1887 ‘Partnership Notice’ in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser noted the co-partnership of the Sneyd-Kynnersley brothers and Robert Wallace organized as the Pūehuehu Plantation Company.

After several mergers with other growers, at its peak, the mill cultivated three thousand acres. The Union Mill was purchased by the Kohala Mill in 1937, the cane harvested from the former Union Mill planting fields was then transferred to Hala‘ula for processing.

Prior to the 1880s, the sugar companies hauled their product by ox-cart to landings at Hapu‘u, Kauhola Point, and Honoipu. With the completion of the North Kohala Railroad in 1883 – with its twenty-mile length, crossing seventeen trestles, and running from Mahukona to Niuli‘I – almost all sugar companies began shipping the processed sugar to the newly improved Māhukona Harbor facility.

Construction of the Kohala Ditch, which runs east/west, began in 1904 and was completed two years later. “(I)ts construction marked the virtual end of the frontier period; it was the last major effort by the sugar pioneers in fully developing their industry in Kohala”. (Tomonari-Tuggle; Rechtman)

Back to Sneyd-Kynnersleys … in 1887, King Kalākaua presented ceremonial lei to Daisy May Sneyd-Kynnersley on her baptism (daughter of Ralph Sneyd-Kynnersley.)

The discussion of American annexation of the Islands in 1893 got Clement Sneyd-Kynnersley riled up – to the point it was referred to as the ‘Kynnersley affair.’ (PCA, February 14, 1893)

“CS Kynnersley, of Kohala, does not like the new movement and his overwrought feelings may get him into trouble. Information came from to the effect that when the news about establishing the government reached Kohala he stamped around and commenced an agitation for an indignation mass meeting to be held.”

The Hawaiʻi Holomua came to his defense, “The ‘Advertiser’ has an editorial this morning in which it states that the supporters of the late government are certainly not to be consulted in regard to the future order of things in Hawaii nei.”

“As the supporters of the monarchy include all the Hawaiians and more than one-half of the foreigners in the country, the proposition of the ‘Advertiser’ to ignore this large majority indicates that it is the intention of the Provisional Government to hold the reins of the government at all hazard”.

“The ‘Advertiser’ seems to despise the feelings or sentiments of the taxpayers in the country districts, and sneers at Mr C Sneyd-Kynnersley’s letter in this morning’s issue.”

“When men like Kynnersley … openly denounce the annexation scheme and the action of the followers of the (Provisional Government) the ‘Advertiser’ will find it a more serious matter than can be disposed of in a dozen lines of editorial.”

Sneyd-Kynnersley “defied the deputy-sheriff to arrest him. The matter was before the Executive and Provisional Councils of the government … and it is now in the hands of Attorney-General Smith.” (Hawaiian Gazette, February 7, 1893) (“(T)he Government has very wisely decided to let the matter drop.” (PCA, February 14, 1893.)

A lasting Sneyd-Kynnersley legacy remains in North Kohala – the mauka-makai road through the Pūehuehu ahupuaʻa the brothers once raised sugar is named Kynnersley Road (it appears the name reverted to the older version.)

May 20, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pele’s Hair

“In the afternoon, Messrs. Thurston and Bishop walked out in a NW direction, till they reached the point that forms the northern boundary or the bay, on the eastern side of which Kairua (Kailua) is situated. It runs three or four miles into the sea; is composed entirely of lava …”

“… and was formed by an eruption from one of the large craters on the top of Mouna Huararai, (Hualālai,) which, about twenty-three years ago, inundated several villages, destroyed a number of plantations and extensive fish-ponds, filled up a deep bay twenty miles in length, and formed the present coast.”

“An Englishman, who has resided thirty-eight years in the islands, and who witnessed the above eruption, has frequently, told us he was astonished at the irresistible impetuosity of the torrent. Stone walls, trees, and houses, all gave way before it ….”

“Numerous offerings were presented, and many hogs, thrown alive into the stream, to appease the anger of the gods, by whom they supposed it was directed, and to stay its devastating course. All seemed unavailing, until one day the king Tamehameha (Kamehameha) … as the most valuable offering he could make, cut off part of his own hair, which was always considered sacred, and threw it into the torrent.”

“A day or two after, the lava ceased to flow. The gods, it was thought, were satisfied; and the king acquired no small degree of influence over the minds of the people, who, from this circumstance, attributed their escape from threatened destruction to his supposed interest with the deities of the volcanoes.” (Ellis, 1823)

Others did the same in offering hair to Pele. “This volcano, which has the name of Peli (Pele) from the goddess supposed to inhabit it, is also called by the natives, Kairauea Nui (Kilauea,) or the greater, and the extinguished crater, Kairauea in, or the little …”

“Night increased the magnificence, perhaps the horror, of the scene. The volcano caused … ‘a terrible light in the air.’ The roar occasioned by the escape of the pent up elements, and the fearful character of the surrounding scenery, suited with that light; and all impressed us with the sense of the present Deity …”

“No wonder, then, that the uninstructed natives had long worshipped, in this place, the mysterious powers of nature. Here it was that they supposed the gods of the Island had their favourite abodes, and that, from this centre of their power, they often shook the land, when it pleased them to pass under ground to visit the sea, and take delight in open places.”

“The first pair who arrived at the Island, with the animals and fruits necessary for their subsistence, met the fire gods, say they, on their first landing, and propitiated them by offerings of part of their provisions. …

“Hence no ohelo berry was eaten on Peli, till some had been offered to the goddess of the same name: the sandal-wood was not cut, nor the fern roots dug, without propitiating her by locks of hair, and often more precious things.”

“Frequently the hog and the dog were sacrificed to procure her favour; and never was the ground disturbed or any thing carried away from Kairauea.” (Byron, 1825)

But these offerings of hair to Pele are not the focus of this summary; this is about Pele’s Hair – a volcanic phenomenon that internationally carries the name of ‘Pele.’

Missionary Titus Coan describes Pele’s Hair: “All at once the scene changes, the central portion begins to swell and rise into a grayish dome, until it bursts like a gigantic bubble, and out rushes a sea of crimson fusion …”

“… which pours down to the surrounding wall with an awful seething and roaring, striking this mural barrier with fury, and with such force that its sanguinary jets are thrown back like a repulsed charge upon a battle-field, or tossed into the air fifty to a hundred feet high, to fall upon the upper rim of the pit in a hail-storm of fire.”

“This makes the filamentous vitrifaction called ‘Pele’s hair.’”

“The sudden sundering of the fusion into thousands of particles, by the force that thus ejects the igneous masses upward, and their separation when in this fused state, spins out vitreous threads like spun glass.”

“These threads are light, and when taken up by brisk winds, are often kept floating and gyrating in the atmosphere, until they come into a calmer stratum of air …”

“… when they fall over the surrounding regions, sometimes in masses in quiet and sheltered places. They are sometimes carried a hundred miles, as is proved by their dropping on ships at sea.”

“This ‘hair’ takes the color of the lava of which it is formed. Some of it is a dark gray, some auburn, or it may be yellow, or red, or of a brick color.” (Titus Coan)

Scientists say Pele’s hair is “volcanic glass that has been stretched into thin strands by the physical pulling apart of molten material during eruptions. Most commonly it forms during fire fountain activity.” (Batiza)

Thin strands of volcanic glass drawn out from molten lava have long been called Pele’s hair, named for Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of volcanoes.

A single strand, with a diameter of less than 0.5 mm, may be as long as 2 m. The strands are formed by the stretching or blowing-out of molten basaltic glass from lava, usually from lava fountains, lava cascades, and vigorous lava flows (for example, as pāhoehoe lava plunges over a small cliff and at the front of an ‘a‘a flow.)

Pele’s hair is often carried high into the air during fountaining, and wind can blow the glass threads several tens of kilometers from a vent. (USGS)