Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Grand Old Man of the Pacific

“The grand old man of the Pacific,” “the dean of American shipping,” and “self-made shipping magnate” are a few of the phrases often used in reference to Captain Robert Dollar.  (Museum of History and Industry)

Robert Dollar was born at Falkirk in Scotland in 1844. At the age of 13, in 1857, he emigrated to Canada with his family and soon began working in a lumber camp as a cook’s helper.

Dollar used his time at the lumber camp to learn French and to learn how to keep the camp’s accounts. By the age of 22 he was placed in charge of the lumber camp, and in 1872 he was able to purchase his own lumber camp.

 Though his first venture was a failure, Dollar persevered and achieved great success in the lumber business, first in Canada, then in Michigan, and finally in northern California. There, in 1888 at San Rafael, Robert Dollar settled with his wife Margaret Proudfoot, whom he had married in 1874.

From his base in San Rafael, Dollar began buying lumber tracts and camps up the coast to Oregon and as far north as British Columbia. In 1895 Dollar purchased a steam schooner to transport his lumber down the Pacific coast to San Francisco. And so began his second career as a shipping magnate. (Takao Club)

But 1888 had actually been the momentous year for Robert Dollar, Scottish emigrant and owner-operator of a redwood lumber mill at Usual in northern California. Disturbed with the exorbitant tariffs charged by marine carrier that transported his forest yield, this shrewd lumberman decided that the answer lay in owning his own vessel.

Fitting action to thought, Dollar purchased the 218 gross ton steam schooner Newsboy April 19. 1895. The Newsboy paid for itself in less than one year, appealing to the Scotch in a man who was to become one of America’s “Fifty Greatest Business Men.”

“If one tupenny could be so profitable,” he reflected, “why not buy more vessels?” Dollar again dovetailed idea with deed, to start what became the famous Dollar Steamship Lines.

Launching of the Grace Dollar, on May 7, 1898, marked Robert Dollar’s entry into the world of trans-Pacific ships and one year later the canny businessman followed the Grace with the 199 foot Robert Dollar.

Ship followed ship, vessels of wood then steel, each larger and more modern than their predecessors. Within a decade Captain Dollar had the nucleous or a substantial fleet of ocean going sailing vessels and steamers, most carrying family names and all operating under the Robert Dollar Company’s house flag. (Saga, Scott)

At its height in the 1920s, the Dollar Steamship Company was the largest and most successful United States shipping firm, and its signature white dollar sign mounted on red-banded stacks was known around the world.

In the early 1920s, Dollar began a successful strategy of buying shares in his competitors in order to achieve controlling interests. His influence and accomplishments continued to grow.

In 1920 he established a round-the-world cargo service, and in 1924 he established the first round-the-world passenger service to publish scheduled departure and arrival times. (Peaceful Sea)

 In 1925 the Dollar Steamship Company took over its chief competitor, Pacific Mail, which gave it a near-monopolistic share of U.S. Pacific coast shipping.

The late 1920s would turn out to be the peak of Dollar’s shipping fortunes. The Merchant Marine Act of 1928 established generous subsidies for carrying mail. The Act, however, had strict performance requirements and Dollar would need new ships.

The company began an ambitious plan of building six luxurious ocean liners. Before the first ships rolled off the line, the onset of the Great Depression sent the global economy into chaos. Only two of the ships would be completed, the President Hoover and the President Coolidge, which famously set out on their respective maiden voyages at less than half capacity.  (Peaceful Sea)

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected the Dollar Steamship Line (renamed that same year), and though the ships were luxurious and state-of-the-art rivaling the best hotels of the era, the ships only carried half their capacity.

On May 16, 1932, Robert Dollar died at the age of 88, and though his son Robert Stanley Dollar took over their shipping business, the company began a steady decline. (Calisphere)

The US Maritime Commission’s mounted pressure on the Dollar Steamship Lines to turn over controlling stock in the company to the Commission upon threat of enforced bankruptcy.

The Maritime Commission accused the old captain’s heirs of using the holding companies to set up a “milking system” to pay themselves fat salaries while the line was drained of its assets. In addition, the line owed the Government $7,500,000, and $2,000,000 to other creditors. Its net current liabilities exceeded assets in 1938 by $46,367.

With the rocks of bankruptcy dead ahead, Stanley Dollar turned 93% of the voting common stock over to the Maritime Commission and bowed out. No cash consideration was involved, but in return, Dollar was absolved of personal liability for the line’s debts.

The Government changed the company’s name to American President Lines, Ltd., ran the line as a US-supervised private corporation, and pulled it off the rocks within a year.

After pouring in $4,500,000 to slick up the ships, the Government cashed in on the wartime shipping boom. By 1943 the line was able to pay off both the new financing and the $7,500,000 Dollar Line debt, most of it, says American President, out of earnings.

By war’s end the Maritime Commission had done so well that buyers became interested. In 1945 a syndicate headed by Charles U Bay, now Ambassador to Norway, bid the flattering sum of $8,600,000. But Stanley Dollar, who had been enviously watching the line’s balance sheets throughout the war, had different ideas.

Even though the Government’s profitable operation was paying $5 a share on the preferred stock, the majority of which is held by the Dollar family ($1,369,720 has been paid out, in all, under Government operation), that was not enough.

Dollar filed suit and stopped the sale. His claim: the Maritime Commission did not own the line. Dollar said that when he transferred the controlling stock to the Maritime Commission in 1938, he did not transfer title.

He had merely posted the stock as collateral for the debt that had now been paid off. Thus, APL belonged to him, Dollar argued, and the Government should hand it back.

The commission countered that Dollar had described himself in writing as “former owner” of the line and, in fact, had written off the stock as a capital loss on his income-tax return.

The commission won the first round in federal district court in Washington, which ruled that Dollar had sold his company.

So the commission confidently continued to build up the line, acquired virtually a new fleet of ships, including two 23,515-ton passenger liners, the President Cleveland and President Wilson.

Under President George Killion, onetime chain-store executive and former treasurer of the Democratic Party, the line’s operations were streamlined and costs cut. 1949’s profit after taxes: $2,517,989.

But in July 1950 the commission got another rude shock; the circuit court of appeals upheld Dollar.  Later, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus, in effect, ruling that the line should be handed back to Dollar.  (Time)

Dollar settled with the commission. Rather than the Dollar family taking back the company, it was sold to a group of investors led by Ralph K. Davies for $18.3 million.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Popham Colony

Long before the arrival of Europeans, the land which is now Maine was the home of the Wabanaki (translates to “People of the Dawn”).  The Wabanaki are made up of several Algonquin-speaking tribal nations. The five current tribes are the Mik’kmaq, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy, Abenaki, and Penobscot, but there were others historically.

The Wabanaki lands include what are now the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, and the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the eastern part of Quebec.  This is a land with a long coastline due to the many bays and islands.  Inland there are many rivers and lakes, and some high mountains.

Wabanaki  is the name used to describe these people as it is the preferred collective name.  However, most of these people would have known themselves as members of a tribe, village, and family rather than the larger collective.

The Wabanaki did not always live in peace and both fought wars and made alliances among the various tribes. The Wabanaki also faced incursions from outside such as from the Iroquois to the west.

The waters and marshes were full of fish, clams, oysters, and lobsters.  There were also seals and birds to hunt. The Wabanaki also harvested plants and hunted moose, deer, and beaver on the land. Rather than living in a single location, they followed the food seasonally, carrying their houses with them.

When the Europeans arrived, they found lush stands of fruits and nuts along the coasts and waterways, but more dense forest inland.  Although the Wabanaki lived within the natural world, they also made significant modifications to it.

The Wabanaki had little to no metallurgy technology and used stone tools. They were efficient hunters and gatherers.  The Europeans sometimes referred to them as lazy as they had a significant amount of free time after  providing for food and shelter.

The land of the Wabanaki was originally named Norumbega by the French, and later referred to as France Nouvelle (New France) or Acadia.  The easternmost peninsula was called New Scotland, a name it still maintains as Nova Scotia.

Popham Colony

The French had a colony on an island in the St. Croix River, between Maine and New Brunswick, in 1604. (Maine Encyclopedia)

On May 31, 1607, about 100 men and boys set sail on two ships for the northerly destination. Discharged soldiers made up most of the colonists’ ranks, but shipwrights, coopers, carpenters and a smattering of “gentlemen of quality” rounded them out. (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

In late August 1607, a small band of English colonists landed at the mouth of the Kennebec River in Maine to establish the first English colony in New England.  (Brain)  They also returned a native, Skidwarres, who had been captured by George Weymouth in 1605.

Known as the Popham Colony, it was sister colony to Jamestown and was intended as the northern branch of a coordinated geopolitical effort by England to claim that part of North America lying between Spanish Florida and French Canada. (Brain)

The Popham Colony is named after Sir John Popham, the chief financial investor in the venture, and George Popham, the first president of the colony and Sir John’s nephew. Accompanying George to Virginia was his nephew, Edward Popham, Sir John’s great nephew.

It was founded about 20 years after Sir Walter Raleigh’s North Carolina colony disappeared in the 1580s, when, as the economic race with France and Spain heated up, England made another attempt to plant its flag in the New World.

In 1606, James I granted a charter to a joint stock company to establish two colonies, one, Jamestown, on the southern Atlantic Coast, and the other, Popham, on the northern. (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

Both colonies were sent out by the Virginia Company – Virginia being the name applied to this entire coast by the English since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh – and were intended to be the initial beachheads of English domination.

As such, they were primarily military outposts designed to defend against attack from both local native inhabitants as well as European antagonists. Once defense had been established, the mandate of the colonists was to explore the new country for exploitable resources and also find the long-sought northwest passage through the continent to the Pacific Ocean.

Both colonies were similar in size and composition, consisting of just over 100 men the majority of whom were soldiers, and were comparably equipped. Both sailed forth in high hopes, confident that they possessed the best human and technological resources that England could muster for the challenge.

The first ocean-going English ship built in the Americas, the Virginia, was constructed there in 1607.  It was a shallow draft, decked vessel, with a rounded bow and square stern. This type of boat was designed to sail or row.

Unlike Jamestown, which just managed to survive after horrible trials and thus became the first permanent English colony in America, the Popham Colony has become a mere footnote, its place in history taken by the Pilgrims thirteen years later.

The Popham Colony, however, failed; in December, with winter coming and food scarce, half of the colonists returned to England. The next fall [1608], after erecting several buildings, the remaining 45 sailed home.

After making changes to meet the challenges of deep sea sailing, and accompanied by Mary and John, Virginia made her first Atlantic crossing.

In May 1609, carrying “sixteen proper men more,” the Virginia left England, joining a supply convoy headed to Jamestown. She completed her second Atlantic crossing in September. Although she is rumored to have made more crossings, no documentation has been found.

Most of the returned settlers disappeared into history; a few crossed the Atlantic again to try their hand at Jamestown. The Pilgrims who arrived 12 years later, landing at Plymouth, had obviously learned some lessons from Popham.

“They settled farther south in a milder climate that was more familiar to them and more conducive to agriculture,” says Brain. “They tried harder to work with the Indians. They also brought women and children.

“Luck had a lot to do with these early ventures,” Brain adds, explaining that Jamestown, too, almost failed. Hit hard by disease and starvation, the 50 or so remaining settlers abandoned the colony in the spring of 1610 and were sailing home when they encountered a relief fleet and a new governor, who ordered them back to Jamestown.   (Beckenstein, Smithsonian)

Click the following link to a general summary about Popham Colony:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Popham-Colony.pdf

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaʻahumanu’s Coffin

While on a trip to the continent, Queen Kamāmalu (age 22) died on July 8, 1824; King Kamehameha II (Liholiho, age 27) died six days later on July 14, 1824.  (Prior to his death he asked to return and be buried in Hawai‘i.)

Upon their arrival in Hawai‘i, in consultation between the Kuhina Nui (former Queen Kaʻahumanu) and other high chiefs, and telling them about Westminster Abbey and the underground burial crypts they had seen there, it was decided to build a mausoleum building.

In 1825, Pohukaina (translated as “Pohu-ka-ʻāina” (the land is quiet and calm)) was constructed on what is now the grounds of ʻIolani Palace to house the remains of Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and Queen Kamāmalu.

The mausoleum was a small 18 x 24-foot Western style structure made of white-washed coral blocks with a thatched roof; it had no windows.   Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu were buried on August 23, 1825.

About this same time, April 25, 1825, Richard Charlton arrived in the Islands to serve as the first British consul. He had been in London during Kamehameha II’s visit in 1824.

Nearly 10-years later, in 1832, Kaʻahumanu died; her death took place at ten minutes past 3 o’clock on the morning of June 5, “after an illness of about 3 weeks in which she exhibited her unabated attachment to the Christian teachers and reliance on Christ, her Saviour.”  (Hiram Bingham)

The Kaʻahumanu services were performed by Bingham.  After the sermon in Hawaiian, he addressed the foreigners present and the mission family.  After the close of the services, the procession was again formed and walked to Pohukaina, where the body was deposited, with the remains of others in the Royal family.  (The Friend, June 1932)

The above helps set the stage for subsequent events that happened there.

Nearly 10-years later, in 1840, Charlton made a claim for several parcels of land in Honolulu.   At the time the lease was made, Kaʻahumanu was Kuhina Nui and only she and the king could make such grants.  The land was Kaʻahumanu’s in the first place, and Kalanimoku certainly could not give it away.  (Hawaiʻi State Archives)  The dispute dragged on for years.

This, and other grievances purported by Charlton and the British community in Hawai‘i, led to the landing of George Paulet on February 11, 1843.

He noted in a letter to the King, “I have the honor to notify you that Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Carysfort, under my command, will be prepared to make an immediate attack upon this town at 4 pm tomorrow (Saturday) in the event of the demands now forwarded by me to the King of these islands not being complied with by this time.”

On February 25, the King acceded to his demands.  Under the terms of the new government the King and his advisers continued to administer the affairs of the Hawaiian population.

It soon became clear that Paulet had no intention of limiting his rule to the affairs of foreigners.  New taxes were imposed, liquor laws were relaxed.   Paulet refused to restore the old laws.  After raising multiple objections to the actions by Paulet, Judd resigned from the commission on May 11.  (Daws)

Fearing that Paulet would seize some of the archives and other national records, Gerrit P Judd took them from the government house, and secretly placed them in the royal tomb at Pohukaina.  He used the mausoleum as his office.

By candlelight, using the coffin of Kaʻahumanu for a table, Judd prepared appeals to London and Washington to free Hawaiʻi from the illegal rule of Paulet.

Dispatches were sent off in canoes from distant points of the island; and once, when the king’s signature was required, he came down in a schooner and landed at Waikīkī, read and signed the prepared documents, and was on his way back across the channel, while Paulet was dining and having a pleasant time with his friends.  (Laura F Judd)

For about five months the islands were under the rule of the British commission set up by Lord George Paulet.  Queen Victoria, on learning these activities, immediately sent an envoy to the islands to restore sovereignty to its rightful rulers.  Finally, Admiral Richard Thomas arrived in the Islands on July 26, 1843 to restore the kingdom to Kamehameha III.

Then, on July 31, 1843, Thomas declared the end of the Provisional Cession and recognizes Kamehameha III as King of the Hawaiian Islands and the Islands to be independent and sovereign; the Hawaiian flag was raised.  This event is referred to as Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day, and it is celebrated each year in the approximate site of the 1843 ceremonies, Thomas Square.

Nearly 20-years later, Pohukaina was the final resting place for the Hawaiʻi’s Kings and Queens, and important chiefs of the kingdom.  Reportedly, in 1858, Kamehameha IV brought over the ancestral remains of other Aliʻi – coffins and even earlier grave material – out of their original burial caves, and they are buried in Pohukaina.

In 1865, the remains of 21-Ali‘i were removed from Pohukaina and transferred in a torchlight procession at night to Mauna ‘Ala, a new Royal Mausoleum in Nu‘uanu Valley.  In a speech delivered on the occasion of the laying of the Cornerstone of The Royal Palace (ʻIolani Palace,) Honolulu, in 1879, JH Kapena, Minister of Foreign Relations, said:

“Doubtless the memory is yet green of that never-to-be-forgotten night when the remains of the departed chiefs were removed to the Royal Mausoleum in the valley.”

“Perhaps the world had never witnessed a procession more weird and solemn than that which conveyed the bodies of the chiefs through our streets, accompanied on each side by thousands of people until the mausoleum was reached, the entire scene and procession being lighted by large kukui torches, while the midnight darkness brought in striking relief the coffins on their biers.”

“Earth has not seen a more solemn procession what when, in the darkness of the night, the bodies of these chieftains were carried through the streets”.  (Hawaiian Gazette, January 14, 1880)

In order that the location of Pohukaina not be forgotten, a mound was raised to mark the spot.  After being overgrown for many years, the Hawaiian Historical Society passed a resolution in 1930 requesting Governor Lawrence Judd to memorialize the site with the construction of a metal fence enclosure and a plaque.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Room 120

Amasa Leland Stanford was born and grew up in New York; he was a lawyer.  Stanford married Jane Eliza Lathrop on September 30, 1850; they first lived in Port Washington, Wisconsin, then New York, and then they moved West after the gold rush, like many of his wealthy contemporaries.

Stanford made his fortune in the railroads; he co-founded and was president of the Central Pacific Railroad (it formed part of the “First Transcontinental Railroad” in North America; It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad.) He served as California Governor and US Senator.

In 1868, the Stanfords had their only child, a son, Leland DeWitt Stanford (later known as Leland Stanford Jr.)  In 1876, Stanford purchased the Rancho San Francisquito for a country home and began the development of his famous Palo Alto Stock Farm.

Tragically, in 1884, while travelling in Italy, young Leland died of typhoid fever (2-months before his 16th birthday.)

Within weeks of his death, the Stanfords decided that, because they no longer could do anything for their own child, “the children of California shall be our children.” They quickly set out to find a lasting legacy to memorialize their beloved son.

Ultimately, they decided to establish two institutions in Leland Jr’s name.  The ‘Leland Stanford Junior University’ was founded in 1885; on October 1, 1891, it opened its doors with 15 faculty and more than 400 students (David Starr Jordan served as president.)  The Leland Stanford Junior Museum opened in 1894.

They were built on the 8,000-acre Palo Alto Farm; a provision in the school’s founding grant stipulated that the land could never be sold.  The campus still carries the nickname ‘the Farm,’ it is more commonly called, ‘Stanford.’

The university was coeducational, in a time when most were all-male; non-denominational, when most were associated with a religious organization; and avowedly practical.

The Founding Grant states the university’s objective is “to qualify its students for personal success, and direct usefulness in life” and its purpose “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.”

On June 21, 1893, Leland Stanford died at his Palo Alto home at the age of 69.  For a decade following her husband’s death, Jane Stanford was the sole trustee of the University; she doted on the fledgling institution with “the commanding meddlesome love which an unbridled maternal instinct thrusts upon an only child.”  (Wolfe)

Jane involved herself in Stanford’s daily management, corresponding with Jordan on every operational matter. When she disapproved of a faculty member, she told Jordan to oust him. And when she began to second-guess some of Jordan’s decisions, she found a faculty confidant, German professor Julius Goebel, to keep a paper trail on him.  (Wolfe)

On June 1, 1903, Jane granted control of the university’s endowment and management to the Board of Trustees, although she remained a member of the board and continued to be involved in its operation.

By 1904, it appears that Mrs Stanford had lost her toleration for Jordan. In June, Goebel had reported in a letter to her that Jordan’s favoritism and political patronage were endangering faculty recruitment. In a letter to trustee Horace Davis, who was another in her inner circle, Goebel wrote that she had reached the point of “final remedy … the removal of the President.”  (Wolfe)

Then a small story appeared in a couple out-of-town papers, reporting on a January 14, 1905 incident, “… private detectives are working on an alleged attempt to murder Mrs Jane Stanford … in her home here, by placing poison in mineral water.”

“The contents vomited from the stomach and found in the water were analyzed and showed sufficient poison to kill a dozen people.”  (Spokane Press, February 18, 1905.)

Of the incident, Mrs Stanford said: “How dreadful if I had died that time. People might have thought I committed suicide.”  (The San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)  Following the incident, she planned a trip.

“If I am not to stay in my San Francisco home, and as the wet season is coming on, rendering it inadvisable for me to go to my country residence, I prefer to go to Honolulu, as it is warmer there.” (Jane Stanford; San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)

“Mrs Stanford arrived in Honolulu … accompanied by her maid and her secretary (Bertha Berner,) and went at once to the Moana, announcing that she had come here to rest for a few weeks.”

“She seemed, however, very cheerful and received the many friends who called on her in that spirit, although to one at least of the more intimate ones she threw aside her cheerfulness and spoke of the fears that beset her (the prior poisoning attempt.)”

“Mrs Stanford went on a drive to the Pali, and down into Koʻolau, where the party had a picnic dinner. Mrs Stanford ate very heartily, and seemed to enjoy every moment of the drive. The party returned to the Moana hotel, and at dinner time Mrs Stanford went into the dining room.”

“She did not remain more than three minutes, but made no complaint of feeling ill. In fact, she said that she felt remarkably well. … Leaving the dining room, Mrs Stanford sat on the lanai talking very cheerfully until bed, time. At a little after ten o’clock … she went to her room on the second floor of the hotel, and retired.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 1, 1905)

“After Mrs. Stanford retired on February 28 I was aroused from my sleep by hearing my name called. I recognized Mrs Stanford’s voice calling out: “Bertha – May – l am so sick.’“

“We rushed out and found her clinging to the frame of her door. Mrs Stanford said: ‘Bertha, run for a doctor.’  Mrs Stanford walked two steps and then said: ‘Bertha, I am so sick.’“  (Bertha Berner; San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)

Doctors were called; but Jane Lathrop Stanford died in room 120 of the Moana Hotel on February 28, 1905.  (The room numbering system has changed at the Moana Hotel; her room is still used in the hotel pool.)

After a 3-day Coroner inquisition, a unanimous verdict in less than two minutes was returned, “The Coroner’s jury to-night returned a verdict that Mrs Jane L Stanford died from … strychnine poisoning, the poison having been introduced into a bottle of bicarbonate of soda with felonious intent by some person or persons to the jury unknown.”  (San Francisco Call, March 10, 1905)

Dr Robert WP Cutter wrote a book, ‘The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford,’ wherein he implies that Stanford’s President at the time, David Starr Jordan, was involved in a cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Mrs Stanford’s death.

Immediately following her death, Jordan was en route to Honolulu.  Jordan and Timothy Hopkins, Stanford Trustee, stated, “In our judgment, after careful consideration of all facts brought to our knowledge, we are fully convinced that Mrs Stanford’s death was not due to strychnine poisoning nor to intentional wrong doing on the part of any one.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 16, 1905)

“We think it probable that her death was due to a combination of conditions and circumstances.  Among these we may note in connection with her advanced age, the unaccustomed exertion, a surfeit of unsuitable food and the unusual exposure on the picnic party of the day in question.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 16, 1905)

Jordan also said, “Dr Humphris (the hotel Doctor) and his associates don’t know what they are talking about.”  (Evening Bulletin, March 15, 1905) And later said, “Mrs. Stanford died a natural death in Honolulu”.  (Hawaiian Gazette, January 2, 1906)

However, Honolulu papers suggested a bribe, “Hopkins interviewed the physicians and told them that if things were satisfactory, their bills would be paid at once.”

“In different interviews it was plainly shown that it would be satisfactory … if the physicians could arrange to revise their findings and agree that poison had nothing to do with the tragedy, and, in that event the amount of the bills would not be questioned, but it happened that not one of the medical men could or would change what he had said In the first place.”  (Hawaiian Star, August 23, 1905)

The Stanford website, in telling the life story of Jane Stanford notes, while “Trace amounts of strychnine were found in her body and in her bottle of bicarbonate … Her cause of death was never conclusively determined.”  (Lots of information here from Stanford.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Island Summits

He ‘Ohu Ke Aloha; ‘A‘ohe Kuahiwi Kau ‘Ole
Love is like mist; there is no mountaintop that it does not settle upon

“… as the sun shining in his strength dissipated the clouds, we had a more impressive view of the stupendous pyramidal Mauna Kea, having a base of some thirty miles, and a height of nearly three miles.  Its several terminal peaks rise so near each other, as scarcely to be distinguished at a distance.”

“These, resting on the shoulders of this vast Atlas of the Pacific, prove their great elevation by having their bases environed with ice, and their summits covered with snow, in this tropical region, and heighten the grandeur and beauty of the scene, by exhibiting in miniature, a northern winter, in contrast with the perpetual summer of the temperate and torrid zones below the snow and ice.”

“The shores along this coast appeared very bold, rising almost perpendicularly, several hundred feet, being furrowed with many ravines and streams. From these bluffs, the country rises gradually, for a few miles, presenting a grassy appearance, with a sprinkling of trees and shrubs.”

“Then, midway from the sea to the summit of the mountain, appeared a dark forest, principally of the koa and ʻōhia, forming a sort of belt, some ten miles in breadth-the temperate zone of the mountain.”  (Bingham at first sight of the Islands, 1820)

And when you think about high elevation places in the Hawaiian islands, of course you have to talk about that basic dichotomy between the lower elevation places where people live.

And in old times, the lower elevations would have been called the Wao Kanaka. Wao being a word that means “zone” and “Kanaka” being a person. So the Wao Kanaka is a zone in which people belong.

When you rise above that zone, you enter into a realm in which all of the living things there are not there because of human activity. They flourish as the result of the activity of the gods, or the Akua. And so that zone is called the Wao Akua. And the transition from Wao Kanaka to Wao Akua is not taken lightly.  (Gon)

The Islands’ peaks are considered the piko (summit or center of the land) and are considered sacred.  The places upon which clouds nestle are considered wao akua, the realm of the gods.  Clouds cover the actions of the gods while they walk the earth. The higher the piko, the closer to heaven, and the greater the success of prayers. (Maly)

Let’s look at Hawaiʻi’s peaks, the highest point on each Island as we move down the Island chain.

Niʻihau – Pānīʻau (1,281-feet)

Ni‘ihau was formed from a single shield volcano approximately 4.89-million years ago, making it slightly younger in age than Kaua‘i. It is approximately 70-square miles or 44,800-acres.  It’s about 17-miles west of Kauaʻi.

Pānīʻau, the island’s highest point, is 1,281-feet; approximately 78% of the island is below 500-feet in elevation.   Located inside Kauai’s rain shadow, Ni‘ihau receives only about 20 to 40-inches of rain per year.  Ni‘ihau has no perennial streams.  (DLNR)

Kauai – Kawaikini (5,243-feet)

Geologically, Kauai is the oldest of the main inhabited islands in the chain. It is also the northwestern-most island, with Oʻahu separated by the Kaʻieʻie Channel, which is about 70-miles long. In centuries past, Kauai’s isolation from the other islands kept it safe from outside invasion and unwarranted conflict.

Near the summit (Kawaikini) is Waiʻaleʻale; in 1920 it passed Cherrapunji, a village in the Khasi hills of India, as the wettest spot on Earth (recording a yearly average of 476-inches of rain.)

Oʻahu – Kaʻala (4,025-feet)

The Waiʻanae Mountains, formed by volcanic eruptions nearly four-million years ago, have seen centuries of wind and rain, cutting huge valleys and sharp ridges into the extinct volcano.  Mount Kaʻala, the highest peak on the island of Oʻahu, rises to 4,025-feet.

Today, only a small remnant of the mountain’s original flat summit remains, surrounded by cliffs and narrow ridges. It’s often hidden by clouds.

Molokai – Kamakou (4,961-feet)

The island was formed by two volcanoes, East and West, emerging about 1.5-2-million years ago.  The cliffs on the north-eastern part of the island are the result of subsidence and the “Wailua Slump” (a giant submarine landslide – about 25-miles long that tumbled about 120-miles offshore – about 1.4-million years ago.)

Kamakou is part of the extinct East Molokai shield volcano, which comprises the east side of the island.   It and much of the surrounding area is part of the East Maui Watershed partnership and the Kamakou Preserve.  A boardwalk covers part of the rainforest and bog to protect the hundreds of native plants, birds, insects and other species there.

Lānai – Lānaihale (3,337-feet)

The island of Lānai was made by a single shield volcano between 1- and 1.5-million years ago, forming a classic example of a Hawaiian shield volcano with a gently sloping profile.  (SOEST)  The island of Lānai is about 13-miles long and 13-miles wide; with an overall land area of approximately 90,000-acres, it is the sixth largest of the eight major Hawaiian Islands.

“At the very summit of the island, which is generally shrouded in mist, we came upon what Gibson (an early (1861) Mormon missionary to the islands) called his lake – a little shallow pond, about the size of a dining table.  In the driest times there was always water here, and one of the regular summer duties of the Chinese cook was to take a pack mule and a couple of kegs and go up to the lake for water.”  (Lydgate, Thrum)

Maui – Haleakalā (10,023-feet)

Haleakalā was thought to have been known to the ancient Hawaiians by any one of five names: “Haleakalā,” “Haleokalā,” “Heleakalā,” “Aheleakalā” and “Halekalā.” (Hawaiʻi National Park Superintendent Monthly Report, December 1939)

Haleakalā is best known in stories related of the demi-god Māui; he is best known for his tricks and supernatural powers. In Hawaiʻi, he is best known for snaring the sun, lifting the sky, discovering the secrets of fire, fishing up the islands and so forth.  (Fredericksen)

Kahoʻolawe – Lua Makika (1,477-feet)

Kahoʻolawe is the smallest of the eight Main Hawaiian Islands, 11-miles long and 7-miles wide (approximately 28,800-acres;) it is seven miles southwest of Maui.  The highest point on Kahoʻolawe is the crater of Lua Makika at the summit of Puʻu Moaulanui, which is about 1,477 feet above sea level.

Located in the “rain shadow” of Maui’s Haleakalā, rainfall has been in short supply on Kahoʻolawe.  However, nineteenth century forestry reports mentioned a “dense forest” at the top of Kahoʻolawe.  Historically, a “cloud bridge” connected the island to the slopes of Haleakalā.  The Naulu winds brought the Naulu rains that are associated with Kahoʻolawe (a heavy mist and shower of fine rain that would cover the island.)

Hawaiʻi – Mauna Kea (13,796-feet)

Nani Wale ʻO Mauna Kea, Kuahiwi Kūhaʻo I Ka Mālie (Beautiful is Mauna Kea, standing alone in the calm) expresses the feeling that Mauna Kea is a source of awe and inspiration for the Hawaiian people. The mountain is a respected elder, a spiritual connection to one’s gods.   (Maly)

A significant pattern archaeologists note in their investigations is the virtual absence of archaeological sites at the very top of the mountain. McCoy states that the “top of the mountain was clearly a sacred precinct that must, moreover, have been under a kapu and accessible to only the highest chiefs or priests.”  (Maly)

ʻĀina mauna, or mountain lands, reflects a term used affectionately by elder Hawaiians to describe the upper regions of all mountain lands surrounding and including Mauna Kea.  (Maly)

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