Peter T Young

October 26, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaunolū

Lānaʻi was under the control of nearby Maui before written history. Its first inhabitants may have arrived as late as the 15th century.

The first people to migrate here, most likely from Maui and Molokaʻi, probably established fishing villages along the coast, initially; but later branched out into the interior where they raised taro in the fertile volcanic soil.

Lānaʻi was first seen by Europeans in February 25, 1779, when Captain Charles Clarke sighted the island from aboard James Cook’s HMS Resolution. Clarke had taken command of the ship after Cook was killed at Kealakekua Bay on February 14 and was leaving the islands for the North Pacific.

Kaunolū Village is located on the south coast of the island of Lānaʻi. This former fishing village, abandoned in the 1880s, is the Island’s largest surviving ruins of a prehistoric Hawaiian village.

Old house foundations, terraces and petroglyphs are found at Kaunolū along with the remains of an ancient sacred area called Halulu Heiau, high on the edge of a cliff above the bay.

The archaeological site is very well-preserved and covers almost every phase of Hawaiian culture. It was designated a US National Historic Landmark in 1962 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.

The site consists of two historical villages straddling Kaunolū Gulch, a dry stream bed subject to occasional flash floods after rainstorms at higher elevations. The village on the western side was named Kaunolū; the one on the eastern side was called Keāliakapu.

The land is parched, with little fresh water, but the sheltered bay at the end of the gulch offers access to rich fishing in the deep seas below the high cliffs along the south coast of the island. Ancient Hawaiian bone lures used to troll for pelagic fish were found in Ulaula Cave, a small lava tube near the village.

After Kamehameha had conquered all the islands, he visited the village of Kaunolū to fish and sport. His residence was on the bluff which forms the east side of the bay, overlooking the village, the heiau and the bay.

Between 1778 and 1810, he is said to have held ceremonies at this heiau. During the late 18th century, Maui high chief Kahekili, a rival of Kamehameha, also used to visit here.

One of Kahekili’s many legendary feats was performed through the ancient Hawaiian sport of lele kawa (to leap feet first from a cliff into water without splashing.)

Northwest of the heiau there is a natural stone wall running along the sea cliff. Near the cliff’s edge, there is a break in the wall (called Kahekili’s Leap) and a steep 80-foot drop.

Kahekili was a formidable competitor and reportedly demanded his warriors follow his lead and ordered them to dive into the sea below to prove their courage.

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Halulu Heiau from across gulch at Kaunolu Village Site, Lanai

Walls of Halulu Heiau at Kaunolu Village Site, Lanai

Site of Kamehameha I's house at Kaunolu Village Site, Lanai

Kahekili's Leap starting point, Kaunolu Village Site, Lanai

October 25, 2019 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Glass Balls

I suspect many people would believe the occasional glass fishing float found on our shores is strictly a Japanese and Pacific Ocean phenomenon.

Actually, the first glass fishing floats probably came from Norway and were used in the Atlantic. From 1762 to 1880, a Norwegian glass company was in business and it is believed they were producing glass floats as early as the late-1700s.

The first time these “modern” glass fishing floats are mentioned is in the production registry for Hadelands Glassverk in 1841. The registry shows that this is a new type of production.

However, there might have been some other versions of glass floats in use before that time. In the early 19th-century, the Schimmelmanns Glassverk (1779–1832) produced dark brown and very thick, bottle glass floats.

Aasnaes Glasvaerk, in business from 1813 to 1883, produced 122,493 glass floats just in the year 1875. A glass float with Aasnaes’s mark on the seal button is a collector’s item.

Early evidence of glass floats being used by fishermen comes from Norway in 1844, where small egg-sized floats were used with fishing line and hooks. Around the same time, glass was also used to support fishing nets.

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats were made from recycled sake bottles. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

Other brilliant tones such as emerald green, cobalt blue, purple, yellow and orange were primarily made in the 1920s and 1930s. The most prized and rare color is a red or cranberry hue.

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

Asahara Glass Company had several factories and made a variety of sizes. Asahara made baseball- to orange-size floats for tako jigs, salmon gillnetting and seine fishing; grapefruit-size floats for seine and long-line cod fishing; basketball-size for tuna operations, bottom trawls and crab trapping; and the small rolling pin floats were used for tako jigs and troll fishing.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

After being blown, floats were removed from the blowpipe and sealed with a “button” of melted glass before being placed in a cooling oven. This sealing button is sometimes mistakenly identified as a pontil mark (scar where the punt was broken from a work of blown glass.) However, no pontil (or punty) was used in the process of blowing glass floats.

While floats were still hot and soft, marks were often embossed on or near the sealing button to identify the float for trademark. These marks sometimes included kanji symbols.

A later manufacturing method used wooden molds to speed up the float-making process. Glass floats were blown into a mold to more easily achieve a uniform size and shape.

Seams on the outside of floats are a result of this process. Sometimes knife markings where the wooden molds were carved are also visible on the surface of the glass.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.

By the 1940s, glass had replaced wood or cork throughout much of Europe, Russia, North America and Japan.

Today most of the glass floats remaining in the ocean are stuck in a circular pattern of ocean currents in the North Pacific Gyre.

Off the east coast of Taiwan, the Kuroshio Current starts as a northern branch of the western-flowing North Equatorial Current. It flows past Japan and meets the arctic waters of the Oyashio Current.

At this junction, the North Pacific Current (or Drift) is formed which travels east across the Pacific before slowing down in the Gulf of Alaska.

As it turns south, the California Current pushes the water into the North Equatorial Current once again, and the cycle continues.

Although the number of glass floats is decreasing steadily, many floats are still drifting on these ocean currents. Occasionally, storms or certain tidal conditions will break some floats from this circular pattern and bring them to ashore.

They most often end up on the beaches of Hawaiʻi, Alaska, Washington or Oregon in the United States, Taiwan or Canada.

Today, most of the remaining glass floats originated in Japan because it had a large deep sea fishing industry which made extensive use of the floats; some were made by Taiwan, Korea and China.

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Large_Glass_Fishing_Float_with_Net-14_inches

3-piece mold float thought to have originated in Korea. It has an amber seal button

14-in diameter-honey amber color. The float on the right is purple about 12-in diameter

AASNAES_from_Norway_1883

Blunt Nosed Torpedo

Camaleyre-French

Duraglas, made in USA, vintage 2-piece molded float with the Duraglas mark on the base

Estonian-Teardrop

‘Fortex’ were made in Scotland in the period 1910-1920

Hokkaido roller & is about 6-in long

Irish_Shamrock

Japan_Bullet_Rollers

Mexican Swirl Float

Norwegian Amber M Egg Float

Oriental_Fishing_Floats-1938

Overlapping_3_Fish_Euro

Pie Crust seal honey amber glass fishing float

Russian_Snakeskin

Sapri-brown-amber Italian Societa Altare

October 24, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kainalu

This spot was formerly called Kalehuawehe. The surf break ‘Castles’ is named after the Castle family’s four-story beachfront home.

In 1837, Samuel Northrup Castle arrived in Honolulu as a missionary. He left Hawaiʻi for a short time then returned as a businessman for the mission. With Amos Cooke, he founded Castle & Cooke Company in 1851 – it grew into being one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five” companies.

One of his ten children would surpass him as a businessman. James Bicknell Castle was born November 27, 1855 in Honolulu to Samuel and Mary (Tenney) Castle. He attended Punahou School 1867–1873, and then Oberlin College.

Castle acquired property in Waikīkī; it had been the home of Boki, the governor of O’ahu, and his wife Liliha. In 1899, James B. Castle built his Waikīkī home and called it ‘Kainalu.’ It was a lavishly furnished four-story mansion with extensive grounds, an ocean pier and other amenities.

In business, he greatly expanded Castle & Cooke in the sugar and railroad industries. One of his first moves was in 1890 when Lorrin Thurston and others joined to create the Kahuku Plantation Company on land subleased from Benjamin Dillingham.

Castle is credited with winning control of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company from Claus Spreckels in 1898, which he sold to Alexander & Baldwin for a large share of their stock. He later bought large amounts of land, such as Kāneʻohe Ranch.

He then moved to his next phase of his work, which was to connect the Dillingham’s Oahu Railway & Land Co. (OR&L) in Kahuku with the proposed street railway system in Honolulu by way of the Windward Coast.

His plan was to extend his Koʻolau Railroad Co. south of Kahana Bay through Kāneʻohe and Kailua, and on to Waimanalo where it would go through a tunnel and into Manoa Valley and connect with the Rapid Transit & Land Co.

Unfortunately, he died in 1918 before the project could be completed; however, he ran the line from Kahuku to Kahana Bay and extended his plantation and used this railway to haul it to the Kahuku mill. The train service completely closed down by 1952.

When Castle died, his widow found the beachfront property more than she wished to keep up. Mrs. James B. Castle was impressed by the charitable work being done by the Elks (the Honolulu Elks Lodge 616 was established on April 15, 1901) and in 1920 sold them 155,000 square feet on the beach at Waikīkī complete with lavish home, for $1 a square foot.

For decades, the Elks membership and officers worked to raise funds to pay off the mortgage. Every possible method of raising funds was tried. Elks held carnivals, “smokers,” baseball matches, boxing matches, theatricals, auctions, circuses, concerts and dances.

Funds were raised for charity, and a bit set aside to retire the mortgage. Finally, on March 3, 1943, as members sang “Auld Lang Syne;” the mortgage was burned with great ceremony.

Several times since 1920 the sale of the property was proposed and even authorized, but motions were defeated or rescinded. Most prominent was a protracted discussion with the Outrigger Canoe Club, which was looking for a new home.

Between 1954 and 1956, Outrigger Canoe Club made several offers to purchase about half the Castle property. All were refused. Eventually, in 1955, the Elks agreed to lease property to Outrigger. Negotiations continued, and a lease was signed effective November 17, 1956.

In 1958 the Lodge determined to raze Kainalu and rebuild a new lodge. After an April gala aloha event, the old Lodge was demolished in June of 1959. Ground breaking for the new building took place on August 17, 1959. On June 20, 1960, the first meeting was held in a new building, the present lodge building.

In the sand, constantly washed by the waves, are 6 flat-topped black basalt rocks set in cement. The rock is said to come from the Kaimuki Quarry. Also visible is one round, bowl-shaped object. These are the last remnants of the James Castle home.

The multi-sided stones were the footings for pillars holding up the Castle home’s dining room. Facing the ocean, 9 tubular wooden pillars sat on the round cement footings, and in the rear a second row of heavier pillars sat on the lava rock.

In 2007, a rent dispute between the Elks Lodge and Outrigger Canoe Club was settled by a three-member arbitration panel. Terms of the new rent between the next-door neighbors were not disclosed because of a confidentiality agreement (the Elks Lodge, the landowner, was seeking up to $1 million or more a year in rent from the canoe club for a 99-year lease that was renegotiated midway through the term.)

James Castle and his wife had one child, Harold Castle; in the form of various gifts, Harold Castle is the man behind Castle Hospital, Castle High School, Kainalu Elementary, Central Union Windward Church and the Windward Branch of Hawaiʻi Pacific University.

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An aerial view of the Elks Lodge’s original Waikiki building.

James Castle estate built in 1899 and sold to the Elks Club in 1920. Torn down in 1951

Mrs. Castle, widow of businessman James B. Castle, sold their Waikiki home to the Elks after he died in 1918.

October 23, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaʻahumanu Wall

In the early 1800s, the city of Honolulu went as far as South Street; Kawaiahaʻo Church and Mission Houses (on King Street, on the Diamond Head side of town) were at the edge and outskirts of town.

The flat area between Mānoa and Honolulu was known as Kulaokahu‘a – the “plains.” It was the comparatively level ground below Makiki Valley (between the mauka fertile valleys and the makai wetlands.) This included areas such as Kaka‘ako, Kewalo, Makiki, Pawaʻa and Mōʻiliʻili.

Queen Kaʻahumanu was Kamehameha’s favorite wife. When he died on May 8, 1819, the crown was passed to his son, Liholiho, who would rule as Kamehameha II. Kaʻahumanu created the office of Kuhina Nui (similar to premier, prime minister or regent) and ruled as an equal with Liholiho.

On December 4, 1825, Queen Kaahumanu was baptized into the Protestant faith and received her new name, Elizabeth, then labored earnestly to lead her people to Christ.

In 1829, at the suggestion of Queen Kaʻahumanu (with the likely support of Hoapili), Boki and Liliha gave the lands of Ka Punahou to Hiram and Sybil Bingham, leaders of the first missionary group to Hawaiʻi. Bingham then gave the land to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to establish Punahou School.

The Binghams built their home there; Kaʻahumanu wanted to be close to them and built hers nearby (the Binghams later built an adobe house, with thatched roof.) A memorial boulder near Old School Hall and the Library marks the location of the makai door of the Bingham home.

Just as in other outlying areas around the islands, roaming cattle became a nuisance. Recall that in the early-1790s Captain George Vancouver gave Kamehameha I gifts of several cattle (a new species to the islands) and Vancouver strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a 10‐year kapu on them to allow the herd to grow.

In the decades that followed, cattle flourished and turned into a dangerous nuisance. Vast herds destroyed natives’ crops, ate the thatching on houses, and hurt, attacked and sometimes killed people. (Kamehameha III later lifted the kapu in 1830.)

To protect the Bingham’s property and surrounding areas, in 1830, Queen Ka‘ahumanu ordered that a wall should be built from Punchbowl to Mōʻiliʻili. “The object of the structure was to keep cattle grazing on the plains from intruding upon the cultivated region towards the mountains.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“Kaahumanu’s wall came from “the reef” (suggesting it was made of coral.) It is an Interesting fact many of the prisoners who built it were serving time for religion’s sake. After the native’s had cast down their idols and been converted, they turned against all forms of idolatry with the zeal new proselytes.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“When the Roman Catholic worship came in, the chiefs mistook the use of images’ for idolatry and threw a great many Catholics into prison. The labor which went into the Kaahumanu wall included theirs.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“Years afterwards when Curtis Lyons went into the Survey office and laid the streets on the plains he named the thoroughfare which ran alongside the great wall, Stonewall street.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

The wall followed a trail which was later expanded and was first called Stonewall Street. It was also known as “Mānoa Valley Road;” later, the route was renamed for the shipping magnate, Samuel G. Wilder (and continues to be known as Wilder Avenue.)

While the street was initially called “Stonewall Street,” it does not necessarily immediately suggest the wall was made of rocks.

A decade later the Kawaiahaʻo Church was constructed, it was commonly called the “Stone Church.” However, it is made of giant slabs of coral hewn from ocean reefs, as were other structures, at the time.

Likewise, “(s)uch blocks still appear in the Kawaiahao structure. In the ancient parsonage back of it and in the old house of government next door to the Postoffice and the material for the fence which fronted the “Hale” on Merchant street.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

However, a later reference suggests the wall, at least at Punahou, may have been made of “stone.” The Friend, in a summary on Punahou history stated, “To protect the Manoa land from grazing cattle she (Kaʻahumanu) called on the governor, Kuakini, to build a long stone wall at its makai side. To mark the boundary, at the makai entrance, two large stones were set up.” (Damon, The Friend, March 1924)

The ‘Pōhaku’ book (Cheevers) suggests this same rock wall configuration, rather than the coral construction noted in the 1901 Hawaiian Gazette article. Pōhaku notes, “About 2,000 men worked on it as each chief was responsible for building one fathom (six feet) of its almost two-mile length (or approximately six-feet of dry laid rock wall, five feet high, per man).”

Irrespective of The Friend’s reference to the “reef,” the rock material in the Kaahumanu stone wall appears the most plausible. The disappearance of the Queen Kaʻahumanu wall is due to the street widening order of the Board of Public Works.

This wasn’t the Islands’ only significant cattle wall. Between 1830 and 1840, Governor Kuakini built a 6-mile wall (from Kailua to Keauhou, on Hawaiʻi Island) that separated the coastal lands from the inland pasture lands (Ka Pā Nui o Kuakini – the Great Wall of Kuakini.)

Punahou’s dry stack rock wall along Punahou Street was constructed in 1834. The night-blooming cereus (known in Hawaiʻi as panini o kapunahou) that today continues to cover the Punahou walls (that back in 1924 was noted to have “world-wide reputation and interest”) was planted in 1836 by Sybil Bingham (Hiram’s wife) from a few branches of the vine she received from a traveler from Mexico. (The Friend)

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Kaahumanu Wall is on the left in this drawing of Punahou School-(MasonArchitects)-1848

Punahou Street looking toward Round Top-(HSA)-PPWD-17-3-027-1900

Oahu College scene of driveway to Old School Hall and E Building, c.1881

Bingham_house-marker-library_in_background

Punahou_Preparatory_School,_Honolulu-(WC)-(1909)

Oahu_College-Old_School_Hall_at_Punahou_School

Ka Punahou (the new spring) Robert Shipman Thurston, Jr. Memorial Chapel, designed by Vladimir Ossipoff in 1967-(MasonArchitects)

October 22, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sticky Wicket

Cricket has an unclear origin, but it probably was developed in medieval England before 1400 – by the end of the 18th century, it became the national sport in England.

Cricket has a long and illustrious history in Hawaiʻi dating back to the mid-nineteenth century. It is believed that the game was first played in Hawaii by Scottish engineers working at sugar companies in Oʻahu, the Big Island and Maui.

Cricket was sweeping the British Empire in the 19th century, and there were a number of Brits in the islands – and the Hawaiian royals had forged such a strong connection with the House of Windsor that Queen Lili‘uokalani even traveled to England to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. (Hana Hou)

Established in 1893, Honolulu Cricket Club is the oldest sporting club in the Pacific (according to Guinness World Records) and the second oldest cricket club West of the Appalachian Mountains.

One of the first enthusiast cricket supporters in Hawaiʻi was Alexander Liholiho (1834-1863), King Kamehameha IV. Reportedly, English cricket was one of the King’s favorite games.

The first cricket pitch in Honolulu is near where Makiki District Park is located and was known as the Makiki cricket grounds. There are several reports of teams travelling around the islands playing local teams, as well as crews from visiting ships.

Cricket is a bat-and-ball team sport for two teams of eleven players each. A formal game of cricket can last anywhere from an afternoon to several days.

Although the game play and rules are very different, the basic concept of cricket is similar to that of baseball. Teams bat in successive innings and attempt to score runs, while the opposing team fields and attempts to bring an end to the batting team’s innings.

A cricket field is a roughly elliptical field of flat grass, ranging in size from about 100-160 yards across, bounded by an obvious fence or other marker.

There is no fixed size or shape for the field, although large deviations from a low-eccentricity ellipse are discouraged. In the center of the field, and usually aligned along the long axis of the ellipse, is the ‘pitch,’ a carefully prepared rectangle of closely mown and rolled grass over hard packed earth.

Behind each batsman is a target called a wicket. One designated member of the fielding team, called the bowler, is given a ball, and attempts to bowl the ball from one end of the ‘pitch’ to the wicket behind the batsman on the other side of the pitch. The batsman tries to prevent the ball from hitting the wicket by striking the ball with a bat.

After each team has batted an equal number of innings (either one or two, depending on conditions chosen before the game,) the team with the most runs wins.

Gamers use terms like: Arm Ball, Asking Rate, Ball Red, Bat-Pad, Belter, Blob, Bosie, Bump Ball, Bunny, Bunsen, Chest-on, Chinaman Chin Music, Corridor of Uncertainty, Cow Corner and Cross Bat – and that’s only a few of the words from the A, B & Cs – there are tons more if you are really curious.

For additional Cricket information and rules, you can visit: http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/hosking/cricket/explanation.htm

Established ‘pitch’ cricket grounds are reportedly at Kapiʻolani Park and Baldwin Beach Park on the Hana Highway in Pāʻia, Maui.

The Honolulu Cricket Club notes on its website that it plays the Maui Cricket Club regularly for the Alexander Liholiho “Ipu Pilialoha O Hawaii” (Hawaiian Friendship Cup.)

Reportedly, today, cricket is second only to soccer as the most popular sport in the world.

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