Peter T Young

May 18, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Native Americans in the American Revolution

In the 1750s, the area west of the Allegheny Mountains was a vast forest. American Indians primarily from three nations – the Seneca, the Lenape or Delaware, and the Shawnee – inhabited the upper Ohio River Valley.

About 3,000 to 4,000 American Indians were living there. The population of all the Indian nations in northeastern North America was about 175,000.

A few French and British traders traveled through the area.

New France had three colonies: Canada (along the St. Lawrence River), the Illinois country (the mid-Mississippi Valley), and Louisiana (New Orleans and west of the Mississippi). There were about 70,000 colonists throughout the French settlements. Their economy was based on trade with the American Indians. It was a weak economic system, and the colonies were not self-sustaining.

To the east of the Allegheny Mountains lived more than 1 million colonists in the 13 British colonies. They had a strong economy based on farming. Their population was expanding rapidly, both through immigration and population growth. Although they had no settlers in the Ohio River Valley in 1750, the British colonies claimed the land.

The border between French and British possessions was not well defined, and one disputed territory was the upper Ohio River valley. The French had constructed a number of forts in this region in an attempt to strengthen their claim on the territory.

The American Revolution

The relationship between native peoples and the emerging United States during the era of the American Revolution was a complicated one. From the onset of Lord Dunmore’s War in 1774 to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, Indians in North America faced a dilemma on whether they would fight, for whom they would fight, and why they would fight.

Most Native Americans initially thought that the Revolution was an isolated disagreement between white colonists and their mother country. However, the Revolutionary War evolved into a continent-wide struggle that the Indians could not avoid.

Individual Indians joined both the Continental and British armies as regular soldiers or as scouts, guides, mariners, and diplomats. History shows that Native Americans not only participated in the American Revolution, but also survived the long-term changes it produced. (Merritt)

Native Americans in the Revolutionary War

Many Native American tribes fought in the Revolutionary War. The majority of these tribes fought for the British but a few fought for the Americans. Many of these tribes tried to remain neutral in the early phase of the war but when some of them came under attack by American militia, they decided to join the British.

Other tribes joined the British in the hopes that if the British won, they would put a stop to colonial expansion in the west, as they had done with the Royal Proclamation of 1763. Rebecca Beatrice Brooks provides a list of the various tribes who fought in the Revolutionary War:

Wabanaki Confederacy

The Wabanaki Confederacy was an alliance of five northern tribes: the Penobscot, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki and Micmac. They were situated generally in Maine and New Brunswick.

Stockbridge-Mohican Tribe

The Stockbridge-Mohican, a tribe who lived in Western Massachusetts, sided with the Americans in the Revolutionary War, even though they had been long-standing allies of the British and even served in militia units during King George’s War, the French and Indian War and Pontiac’s Uprising.

Shawnee Tribe

The Shawnee, a tribe who lived in the Ohio River Valley sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. When the Revolutionary War first broke out, most Shawnee tried to remain neutral. American encroachment on Shawnee land persisted though and the tribe soon became divided on the issue.

Delaware Tribe

Many Delaware chiefs argued that an alliance with the Americans was an opportunity to assert the tribe’s independence from the Six Nations and to challenge the Six Nations’ claims to lands west of the Ohio. In 1778, the United States signed its first treaty, the Treaty of Fort Pitt, with the Delaware tribe. The treaty allowed American troops to pass through Delaware territory. In addition, the Delaware agreed to sell meat, corn, horses and other supplies to the United States and allow their men to enlist in the United States army.

Miami Tribe

The Miami, a tribe in the Great Lakes region, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. After the British lost the war, the Miami tribe continued to fight the Americans who began pouring into the Ohio country. Between the years 1783 and 1790, the Miami tribe killed 1,500 settlers. This sparked a war between the Americans and the Miami tribe, the Miami War, which is also known as Little Turtle’s War, from 1790-1794. The Miami tribe were defeated. Throughout the 19th century, the Miami continued to sign more treaties and ceded more land and the tribe eventually emigrated to Kansas in 1846 and were then removed to Oklahoma in 1867.

Wyandot Tribe

The Wyandot (Huron), a tribe in the Great Lakes region, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. After the war, the Wyandot continued to fight the Americans who encroached on their land. There was a brief lull in the fighting from 1783-1785, and the United States, Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, and Ottawa tribes signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785. In 1843, the Wyandots were forcibly removed from their remaining land and relocated to a reservation in Kansas. After the Civil War, the Ohio Wyandot were relocated to Oklahoma.

Iroquois Confederacy

The Iroquois Confederacy, also known as the Six Nations, was an alliance of six tribes in New York and Canada: the Mohawks, Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. The Iroquois Confederacy had been long-standing allies of the British. Yet, when the Revolutionary War broke out, the confederacy split in two when the Onondagas, Cayugas, Senecas and Mohawks sided with the British, while the Tuscarora and the Oneida sided with the Americans.

Potawami Tribe

The Potawami, a tribe in the Great Lakes region, tried to remain neutral in the Revolutionary War but eventually sided with the Americans in 1778. The Potawami had been long-standing trading partners and military allies with the French and fought alongside them in the French and Indian War but were reluctant to get involved in another war. They were later convinced to join the American’s side. The Potawatomi had ceded much of their lands to the United States by the mid-19th century and the tribe split up and relocated to various distant locations, such as Texas, Kansas, Iowa and Canada, although many stayed in Wisconsin.

Catawaba Tribe

The Catawaba, a tribe with a population of a few hundred that lived in the Piedmont area along the border of South Carolina and North Carolina, sided with the Americans in 1775. The Catawaba fought in numerous key battles in South and North Carolina. In 1782, after General Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, the Catawaba returned home and the South Carolinians paid them for their service. The Catawbas also received a state-recognized reservation in South Carolina as a result of their support of the Americans, which they still occupy today.

Chickasaw Tribe

The Chickasaw, a southern tribe with a population of 4,000 who lived in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. The Chickasaw had been trading partners and staunch allies of the British throughout the 18th century and continued their support for the British in the Revolutionary War.

Choctaw Tribe

The Choctaw, a southern tribe with a population of 15,000 who inhabited about 50 villages in a key strategic position of the lower Mississippi, were coveted by both the Americans and the British during the Revolutionary War but the tribe sided with the British.

Creek Tribe

The Creek, a southern tribe with a population of 15,000 that lived in Georgia, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina, never officially joined the war effort, preferring instead to engage in cautious participation. The Creek tribe never engaged in significant sustained fighting during the war.

Cherokee Tribe

The Cherokee, a southern tribe with a population of about 8,500 who lived in the interior hill country of the Carolinas and Georgia, sided with the British during the Revolutionary War. After initial successes in their attacks, the Cherokees soon witnessed four American armies from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia invade nearly all their villages during the summer and fall of 1776.

Declaration of Independence and Native Americans

In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson clearly described the role of American Indians in the American Revolution. In addition to his other oppressive acts, King George III had,

“endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

Inscribed in the founding document of the United States, Jefferson’s words placed Indians on the wrong side of the struggle for liberty and the wrong side of history from the very beginning of the Revolution. Thus while Americans fought for their rights and freedoms, Jefferson argued that Native Americans fought against them, the vicious pawns of a tyrannical king.

Subsequent Indian Relocation (Trail of Tears)

Then, during the 1830s, there was a forced relocation of Eastern Woodlands Indians of the Southeast region of the United States (including Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, among other nations) to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River – on the Trail of Tears.

Estimates based on tribal and military records suggest that approximately 100,000 indigenous people were forced from their homes during that period, which is sometimes known as the removal era, and that some 15,000 died during the journey west.

The term Trail of Tears reminds us of the collective suffering those people experienced, although it is most commonly used in reference to the removal experiences of the Southeast Indians generally and the Cherokee nation specifically.

The physical trail consisted of several overland routes and one main water route and, by passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act in 2009, stretched some 5,045 miles across portions of nine states (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee).

Click the following link to a general summary about Native Americans in the American Revolution:

Click to access Native-Americans-in-the-American-Revolution.pdf

May 17, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Truman Taylor

Explosive eruptions do not generally come to mind when people think of Hawai‘i’s volcanoes. Their eruptions are typically characterized by the relatively quiet outflow of very fluid lava and by sometimes spectacular lava fountains.

Hawai‘i’s volcanoes have therefore become the textbook example of nonexplosive volcanism, and the term “Hawaiian type” is used to refer to such eruptions. Eruptions at Kilauea can often be observed safely at close range. (USGS)

The late 1780s were years of great strife on the Island of Hawai’i. Kamehameha, who later became the first king of the Hawaiian Islands, was at war with his rival Keōua. After one of several indecisive battles, probably in 1790, the balance was suddenly tipped in favor of Kamehameha when a natural disaster struck.

As a large group of Keōua’s warriors traveling with their families passed the crater of Kilauea Volcano, there was a sudden explosive eruption of searingly hot ash and gas. At least 80 and perhaps hundreds of people were killed in the deadliest historical eruption to occur in what is now the United States. (USGS)

During 18 days in May 1924, hundreds of steam explosions from Kilauea hurled mud, debris, and hot rocks weighing as much as 8 tons as far as two-thirds of a mile from the center of Halema‘uma‘u the current crater within the larger volcanic depression (caldera) at Kilauea’s summit.

Columns of volcanic ash and dust rose more than 2 miles into the air, at times turning day into night at the town of Pahala, nearly 20 miles downwind.

Only one person was killed during this eruption, a photographer who ventured too close and was struck by falling rocks and hot mud. (USGS)

The largest explosive event in 1924, on May 18, ejected blocks toward the southeast, including the eight-ton block, and killed Truman Taylor. (Pacific Parks)

Taylor Stearns notes in his autobiography, “[WO] Clark told me how he had brought Taylor, a clerk about twenty-seven years old from Pahala [he worked on the C. Brewer plantation], up to the volcano. Miss Bradfield, the local nurse, and her companion [Miss Peck] had been with them.”

“Taylor had borrowed Clark’s camera and tripod to take a close-up shot. [When the explosion began, Ted] Dranga and the two nurses ran to the Essex car nearby, which they had left running so as to make escape easy [those were the days of hand cranks].”

“When they reached the car the [others] wanted to start right away but Miss Bradfield said she didn’t want to leave with Taylor out there. She made them wait a minute, and then as the stones began to fall around them she decided it would be better to leave Taylor than for all to be killed.”

Per, “Ruy Finch, in the HVO journal: 10:36 a.m. With L.A. Thurston and W.O. Clark of Pahala. Large puffs of steam; rumbling, earthquake. Went to sand spit above Algae [an area of algae growing on the south-facing cliff, then known as the Italian cliff, that forms the south side of what is now known as Sand Spit] and sat down on a boulder which had been ejected at 12:30 p.m.”

“May 17. Numerous quakes and rumbling. Sent T. Dranga Jr., to get Thurston who was with Carlsmiths. A wave of increased air pressure that decidedly hurt my head, was felt at 11:09 a.m. Jumped and exclaimed, ‘Here comes a terrible one.’”

“The air pressure was felt several seconds before rocks appeared and two or three seconds before the explosion cloud cleared the rim. Started to take picture but saw rocks of great dimensions high in the air headed toward our locality.”

“Ran to cliff and slid down a wash. A rock, judging from its air appearance to have weighed over 300 lbs [135 kg] cleared the cliff and landed on 1921 lava. Left Thurston, Clark and ladies of Carlsmith party on cliff.”

“O Emerson in the afternoon reported a 10-ton rock on airplane landing-field [on Sand Spit], found while searching for possible killed or wounded soldiers. Two men were seen on rim of pit a short time before 11:09 a.m. explosion.”

“TA Dranga Sr. came across crater floor but said that Mr. Truman Taylor of Pahala, who was with him on the way up to crater, had left him 10 minutes before the explosion”

“Went back to find missing man with Clark, Dranga Jr. and Dranga Sr. Taylor was discovered with legs crushed by fallen bowlders about 125 feet from old parking place.”

“Dranga Sr. started to get car seat, to use as stretcher, when another explosion came. Dranga Jr. and I carried Taylor to road where he was put into car.” (USGS)

“Truman A Taylor, bookkeeper at Pahala, died at 11:30 o’clock last night [May 18, 1924] at Hilo Hospital from hemorrhage and shock. One leg had been amputated at the ankle after it had been crushed by a shower of rocks from the volcano.”

“Taylor was found shortly before noon yesterday by an unidentified man who heard screams. He was covered by burning ash, and both legs were crushed.”

“First aid was given by Capt PK McKenzie, surgeon at Kilauea Military Camp and the injured man was rushed in Army ambulance, accompanied by Miss Molly Thomas, Hilo nurse, to Hilo Hospital.”

“Taylor was from Chicago, and had been in Pahala about two months, after a stay of three weeks in Honolulu. He wore a tag bearing the legend, ‘USA 3422044.’” (SB, May 19, 1924)

May 16, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sugar, Growth Years

“The first successful sugarcane plantation was started at Kōloa, Kauai in 1835. Its first harvest in 1837 produced 2 tons of raw sugar, which sold for $200. Other pioneers, predominantly from the United States, soon began growing sugarcane on the islands of Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu.” (HARC)

Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha III, seeking to encourage commercial cultivation of sugar by native Hawaiians offered the “acre system,” giving “out small lots of land, from one to two acres, to individuals for the cultivation of cane.”

“When the cane is ripe, the King finds all the apparatus for manufacturing & when manufactured takes the half. Of his half one fifth is regarded as the tax due to the aupuni (government) & the remaining four fifths is his compensation for the manufacture. These cane cultivators are released from all other demands of every description on the part of chiefs.” (Armstrong (1839;) MacLennan)

About this time, the initial signs of commercial sugar are found on Maui, in Wailuku. In 1840, the King ordered an iron mill from the US, and it was erected by August. Hung & Co in 1841 advertised the sale of sugar and sugar syrup from its 150-acre plantation in Wailuku. More than likely, this was sugar from the King’s Mill. (MacLennan)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well. Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.” (Garvin)

Then, King Kamehameha III sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands. In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly. I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …” (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880. These twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. Basic features of rural factory life were established.

This was a period of rapid growth for the sugar industry, building upon the momentum triggered by the Māhele of 1848, the Kuleana Act of 1850, and the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

From January 27, 1848 through March 7, 1848 King Kamehameha III participated in what we refer to as the “Great Māhele” that was a reformation of the land system in Hawaiʻi and allowed private ownership; this fundamentally changed the land tenure system to a westernized paper title system through the Māhele.

The lands were formally divided among the king and the chiefs, and the fee titles were recorded in the Māhele book. Deeds conveying land contained the phrase “ua koe ke kuleana o na kānaka,” or “reserving the rights of all native tenants,” in continuation of the reserved tenancies which characterized the traditional Hawaiian land tenure system. (Garavoy)

The 1850 Kuleana Act allowed “native tenants” to claim fee simple title to the lands they worked. Those who claimed their parcel(s) successfully acquired what is known as a kuleana.

The Kuleana Act did not allow the maka‘āinana to exercise other traditional rights, such as the right to grow crops and pasture animals on unoccupied portions of the ahupua’a. The court’s interpretation of the act prevented tenants from making traditional use of commonly cultivated land. (MacKenzie)

The growth in the size and number of sugar plantations was further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i that eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

During the Civil War boom period, the typical 1860s plantation was two hundred to three hundred acres in size, with about one hundred acres in cane, employing around one hundred workers year-round.

Hawai‘i’s government committed extensive resources to the success of sugar export. Honolulu’s merchants and financiers came to dominate sugar production. The Islands turned a corner during these decades – Hawai‘i’s dependence upon sugar began.

The fastest growth occurred on Maui, which in 1866 had twelve plantations, compared to Hawai‘i’s eight, O‘ahu’s six, and Kauai’s four. Production on Hawai‘i Island, was just under a third of the total.

The island of Hawai’i had become the major sugar producer. Plantation statistics for the Hawaiian government in 1879 shows Hawai‘i with twenty-four plantations, Maui with thirteen, Kauai with seven, O‘ahu with seven, and Molokai with three – a total of fifty-four operations.

At the heart of this transformation was the plantation center. Unlike the commercial sugar mill, which drew on existing communities of Hawaiian workers, the plantation center represented a new clustering of population and technology.

Specifically, it was characterized by a sizable increase of foreign population, government recognition of the area as a vital economic region with distinct political needs, and by public and private investment in a shared physical infrastructure (e.g., stores, wharves, harbors) established specifically to trade with the West.

An important development in Hawai‘i’s history, the plantation center created new social institutions of dependency. The Hawaiian government also had a significant hand in the rise of plantation centers.

The decline of whaling, collapse of the native vegetable trade, and a rapidly decreasing native population left the government with huge expenditures and little source of income.

In response, it applied public funds and assets toward the sugar trade in hopes of increasing Hawai‘i’s wealth. The Board of Immigration was established in 1866 to recruit workers for plantations. (MacLennan)

Five plantation centers changed the surrounding landscape and altered nearby Hawaiian communities. Plantations in Līhu‘e, Wailuku, Makawao, Hilo and Kohala brought an invasion of agricultural practices, technologies and repeopled the land with foreigners (from China, Portugal and Japan) and Hawaiians from other islands.

Characteristics of the five developing plantation centers separate them from the smaller sugar ventures of the period. Plantation centers comprised several separate sugar mills and fields of different owners. Schools, stores, and worker villages sprang

up around these centers, serving the plantations.

By 1880 there were several other very new centers in Ka‘ū and Honoka’a on Hawai‘i, Lahaina on Maui, Princeville on Kauai, and several scattered plantations on O‘ahu. (MacLennan)

May 15, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Manuia Lanai

Henry French Poor was the eldest son of Henry Francis Poor and Caroline Paakaiulaula Bush; he was born in the Islands, June 8, [1857].

“Henry F Poor was one of the most brilliant Hawaiians whose cradle ever rocked in these beautiful Islands. … He possessed the generous spirit of his race and the keen intelligence of his New England’s forebears.”

“As secretary to Colonel Iaukea on the Kalakaua embassy to the rulers of the world he covered himself with honors and his bright letters were published in the local papers.” (The Independent, Nov 29, 1899)

Poor hosted Robert Louis Stevenson on his visit to the Islands. On January 24, 1889, Stevenson arrived in Honolulu and spent the first six months of that year in the Hawaiian Islands (he later settled and lived in Samoa.)

On January 24, 1889, Stevenson arrived in Honolulu and spent the first six months of that year in the Hawaiian Islands (he later settled and lived in Samoa.)

“For the first few days the Stevenson party stayed with Henry Poor and his mother Mrs Caroline Bush, at 40 Queen Emma Street, Honolulu (24-27 January).”

“Then on 27 January 1889 they moved to Poor’s bungalow, Manuia Lanai [“a pavilion of the native pattern” (Brown)], at Waikiki, three miles east of Honolulu. In early February Stevenson decided to send the Casco back to San Francisco and stay on to work in Hawaii.”

“As a result he rented the house next to Henry Poor’s. This too was a one-storey ‘rambling house or set of houses’ in a garden, centred on a lanai, ‘an open room or summer parlour, partly surrounded with venetian shutters, in part quite open, which is the living room’”. (RLS Website)

“Mr. Robert Louis Stevenson has retired to ‘Manuia Lanai’ Mr. H. F. Poor’s sea-side place at Kapiolani Park, where he will probably

remain some time in quiet in order to complete some of the literary work he has undertaken. We are informed privately however, that it is the intention of Mr. and Mrs. Stevenson after this week to be ‘at home’ on Wednesday afternoons from 2 to 5 pm.” (Daily Bulletin, January 28, 1889)

On Oʻahu, Stevenson was introduced to the King Kalākaua and others in the royal family by fellow Scotsman, Archibald Cleghorn. Stevenson established a fast friendship with the royal family and spent a lot of time with his good friend King Kalākaua.

On February 3, 1889, there was a luau party at Manuia Lanai, where both Kalakaua and Liliuokalani were invited as special guests. At the height of the party, Mrs Stevenson presented Kalākaua with a golden pearl from the Tuamotus. (Ejiri) In giving the gift, Stevenson recited the following line of his sonnet (Daily Bulletin. Feb 4. 1889):

The Silver Ship, my king, – that was her name

In the bright islands whence your fathers came –

The Silver Ship, at rest from wind and tides,

Below your palace, in your harbour rides;

And the sea-farers sitting safe on the shore,

Like eager merchant, count their treasures o’er.

One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,

Now doubly precious, since it pleased a king.

The right, my liege, is ancient as the Lyre,

For bards to give to kings what kings admire.

‘Tis mine to offer, for Appollo’s sake;

And since the gilt is fitting, yours to take.

To golden hands the golden pearl I bring:

The Ocean jewel to the Island King.

“The feast was purely Hawaiian there being no foreign dish upon the table. Aside from pig, fish, and fowls, roasted underground, were many strange edibles: pu-pu, opihi, two kinds of opae, koelepalau, and kulolo, taro and sweet potato poi, besides others, all beautifully arranged upon a bed of fern leaves.” (Daily Bulletin, Feb 4, 1889)

In the Islands, the renowned author found time for writing, completing The Master of Ballantrae and The Wrong Box and starting others during his short stay.

Stevenson visited Kalaupapa (shortly after Damien’s death) and later wrote of the good work of Father Damien (now Saint Damien.) He also travelled to Kona on the Big Island (the setting for most of his short story “The Bottle Imp.”)

Henry French Poor died in Honolulu on November 28, 1899 and is buried at O‘ahu Cemetery.

May 13, 2023 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Punahou – It Had More Than One Campus

Kapunahou, the site of the present Punahou School campus, was given to Kameʻeiamoku by Kamehameha, after the Battle of Nuʻuanu. The land transferred to his son Hoapili, who resided there from 1804 to 1811. Hoapili passed the property to his daughter Kuini Liliha.

Sworn testimony before the Land Commission in 1849, and that body’s ultimate decision, noted that the “land was given by Governor Boki about the year 1829 to Hiram Bingham for the use of the Sandwich Islands Mission.”

The decision was made over the objection from Liliha; however Hoapili confirmed the gift. It was considered to be a gift from Kaʻahumanu, Kuhina Nui or Queen Regent at that time.

In Hiram Bingham’s time, the main part of the Kapunahou property was planted with sugarcane by his wife Sybil, with the aid of the female church-members.

Bingham’s idea was to make Kapunahou the parsonage, and to support his family from the profits of this cane field, selling the cane to the sugar mills, one of which was in Honolulu.

The other mill was in Mānoa Valley, owned by an Englishman; but he also made rum, and Queen Kaʻahumanu’s consistent hostility to rum caused his failure, and also the failure of sugar-cane culture at Punahou. (Punahou Catalogue, 1866)

Founded in 1841, Punahou School (originally called Oʻahu College) was built at Kapunahou to provide a quality education for the children of Congregational missionaries, allowing them to stay in Hawaiʻi with their families, instead of being sent away to school. The first class had 15 students.

The land area of Kapunahou was significantly larger than the present school campus size.

While many see Punahou today as the college preparatory school in lower Mānoa, over the years, the school, though based at Kapunahou, also had campuses and activities elsewhere.

All students who entered the Boarding department were required to take part in the manual labor of the institution, under the direction of the faculty, not to exceed an average of two hours for each day. (Punahou Catalogue, 1899)

“We had a dairy, the Punahou dairy, over on the other side of Rocky Hill. That was all pasture. We had beautiful, delicious milk, all the milk you wanted. The cows roamed from there clear over to the stone wall on Manoa hill. There were a few gates and those gates caused me trouble because the bulls wanted to get out or some boys would leave a bar down … Occasionally, just often enough to keep me alert, there would be a bull wandering around across the road and down the hill onto Alexander Field or just where I wanted to go.” (Shaw, Punahou)

By vote of the trustees, the standard of the school was raised, and the course of study included a thorough drill in elementary algebra, Latin, colloquial and written French, and a careful study of the poems of Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Holmes, Bryant and Emerson. There is also regular instruction in freehand drawing and vocal music through the year. Lectures were given with experiments, designed to serve as an introduction to the study of physical science. A brief course in physiology and hygiene was given by the president of the College. (Punahou Catalogue, 1899)

In 1881, at the fortieth anniversary celebration of the school, a public appeal was made to provide for a professorship of natural science and of new buildings. President William L Jones in his speech expressed the need for Punahou to meet the changing times.

He said: “The missionaries when they landed here were all cultivated gentlemen, trained in the colleges of the United States, and they were unwilling that their children would suffer from their self exile into this country. … A change has been coming over the aims of college education lately; people desire less Latin and Greek and more Natural Science, more Astronomy, more Chemistry, more modern language … We have to teach Chemistry without laboratory, Astronomy without a telescope, Natural History only from books. More men and machinery is what we want.” (Soong)

The appeal was so successful that the trustees moved to purchase the Reverend Richard Armstrong premises at the head of Richards Street (at 91 Beretania Street adjoining Washington Place) from the Roman Catholic mission for the Punahou Preparatory School (the property had previously been used by the growing St Louis High school.)

On September 19, 1883, the Punahou Preparatory School was opened for the full term at the Armstrong Home … Three of the trustees were present at the opening exercises, together with many parents of the pupils, of whom there were 85 present, with a prospect of a larger attendance … It is the design of the trustees to have no pupils at Punahou proper, except such as are qualified to proceed with the regular academic course. (The Friend, October 4, 1883)

By the 1898-1899 school year, there were 247 students in grades 1-8 in the Punahou Preparatory School campus downtown. Later, in 1902, the Preparatory School was moved to the Kapunahou campus, where it occupied Charles R Bishop Hall.

Near the turn of the last century, the Punahou Board of Trustees decided to subdivide some of the land above Rocky Hill – they called their subdivision “College Hills;” at that time the trolley service was extended into Mānoa, which increased interest in this area.

The College Hills subdivision, the largest subdivision of the time (nearly 100 acres of land separated into parcels of from 10,000- to 20,000-square feet,) opened above Punahou and became a major residential area.

Then, in January 1925, Punahou bought the Honolulu Military Academy property – it had about 90-acres of land and a half-dozen buildings on the back side of Diamond Head. (The Honolulu Military Academy was originally founded by Col LG Blackman, in 1911.)

It served as the “Punahou Farm” to carry on the school’s work and courses in agriculture. “We were picked up and taken to the Punahou Farm School, which was also the boarding school for boys. The girls boarded at Castle Hall on campus.” (Kneubuhl, Punahou) The farm school was in Kaimuki between 18th and 22nd Avenues.

In addition to offices and living quarters, the Farm School supplied Punahou with most of its food supplies. The compound included a big pasture for milk cows, a large vegetable garden, pigs, chickens, beehives, and sorghum and alfalfa fields that provided feed for the cows. Hired hands who tended the farm pasteurized the milk in a small dairy, bottled the honey and crated the eggs. (Kneubuhl, Punahou)

The Punahou dairy herd was cared for by the students as part of their course of studies – the boys boarded there. However, disciplinary troubles, enrollment concerns (not enough boys signing up for agricultural classes) and financial deficits led to its closure in 1929.

By the mid-1930s, the property was generally idle except for some faculty housing. In 1939, Punahou sold the property to the government as a site for a public school (it’s now the site of Kaimuki Middle School.)

In addition to these, there belonged in former times, as an appurtenance to the land known as Kapunahou, a valuable tract of salt-ponds, on the sea-side to the eastward of Honolulu Harbor, called Kukuluāeʻo, and including an area of seventy-seven acres (this was just mauka of what is now Kewalo Basin.) (Punahou Catalogue, 1866)

It’s not clear how/when the makai land “detached” from the other Punahou School pieces, but it did and was given to the ABCFM (for the pastor of Kawaiaha‘o Church.)