Peter T Young

April 16, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Happy Easter !

April 15, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“(T)ake possession in our name of Palmyra Island, the said Island being situated in longtitude 161° 53′ west and in latitude 6° 4′ north not having been taken possession of by any other government or any other people …”

“… by erecting thereon a short pole with the Hawaiian flag wrapped round it and interring at the foot thereof a bottle well corked containing a paper signed by (Zenas Bent) in the following form viz: …”

“… Visited and taken possession of by order of His Majesty King Kamehameha IV, for him and his successors on the Hawaiian throne by the undersigned in the Schooner Louisa this day of . . . . . . . . . . . . 186. . . . . . .” (Kamehameha IV and Kuhina Nui, March 1, 1862) (Bent did so on April 15, 1862.)

Lot Kamehameha, the Minister of the Interior, duly issued a proclamation on June 18, 1862 as follows: “Whereas, On the 15th day of April, 1862, Palmyra Island, in latitude 5° 50′ North, and longitude 161° 53′ West, was taken possession of, with the usual formalities …”

“… by Captain Zenas Bent, he being duly authorized to do so, in the name of Kamehameha IV, King of the Hawaiian Islands. Therefore, This is to give notice, that the said island, so taken possession of, is henceforth to be considered and respected as part of the Domain of the King of the Hawaiian Islands.” (Lot Kamehameha, Minister of Interior)

Later legal decisions note that ownership of Palmyra was held privately, initially in the name of Bent and Johnson B Wilkinson. Palmyra Atoll was a part of the Territory of Hawaii prior to Hawaii’s entering the Union on August 21, 1959. Congress expressly excluded Palmyra from the State of Hawaii by section 2 of the Hawaii Statehood Act. (DOI)

Palmyra Atoll is situated nine hundred sixty miles south by west of Honolulu and three hundred fifty-two miles north of the Equator. The atoll has an area of about one and one-half square miles with numerous islets in the shape of a horse shoe surrounding two lagoons.

The climate is wet and humid, as the dense vegetation evidences. Palmyra lies near the zone where the northeast and southeast trade winds meet. The contact between these bodies of air forces the warmer air to rise, to become cooled and to drop its moisture in the form of tropical rain.

“‘Don’t wait to get fresh milk from Honolulu. Use the cow of the Pacific.’ The coconut is known as the cow of the Pacific. Its milk is very nourishing. I said, ‘Get me two nuts and I’ll show you how to make both cream and milk.’” (Fullard-Leo)

Palmyra Atoll is the northernmost atoll in the Line Islands Archipelago halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa. The atoll received its name from the American vessel Palmyra under the command of Captain Sawle, who sought shelter there on November 7, 1802.

The Palmyra group is a coral covered atoll of about fifty islets, some with trees, and extends – reefs, intervening water and land – 5 2/3 sea miles in an easterly and westerly direction and 1 1/3 sea miles northwardly and southwardly. (US Supreme Court)

One prior owner, Judge Henry Cooper Sr made short visits to Palmyra in 1913 and 1914 for two to three weeks and built a house there in 1913. The judge’s house collapsed by 1938.

In 1920 and 1921 the Palmyra Copra Company was actively engaged on the island under a lease from Cooper. On August 19, 1922, the Leslie and Ellen Fullard-Leo bought all but two of the Palmyra islands.

As a militaristic Japan made inroads into China in the 1930s, concern heightened for the security of Wake, Midway, Johnston, and Palmyra Islands, the outposts protecting Hawaii, a vital staging area for a war in the Pacific.

In 1934, Palmyra Atoll was placed under the Department of the Navy. According to the November 3 issue of The Coast Defense Journal (courtesy of John Voss), “Rear Admiral Claude Bloch announced the establishment of Naval Air Station Palmyra Island on 8/15/41, officially opening the air station.”

“They used (the atoll) during the war as a base; constructed two hospitals there to bring the wounded from the west and southwest Pacific”. (Fullard-Leo)

On December 23, 1941, a little more than two weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine surfaced offshore at Palmyra Island, 1,000 miles south of Hawai‘i, and opened fire.

The enemy’s target that day: a new U.S. Naval Air Station that was still under construction. Specifically, enemy guns focused on the “Sacramento,” a US Corps of Engineers dredge anchored in the atoll’s central lagoon.

The Sacramento was hit, but only lightly, and when U.S. forces promptly returned fire, the Japanese vessel submerged, never to be seen again. That incident marked the only war-time attack on Palmyra. From then on, until the fighting ended in 1945, the atoll served as a strategic Pacific outpost for the U.S. military. (TNC)

Around the atoll’s periphery, pill boxes were built for defense while further inland a line of small coastal gun emplacements and command posts were installed. Roads, waterlines, warehouses, barracks, a mess hall, radio station, cold storage plant, ammunitions depot, hospital and other elements of a modern infrastructure were also constructed.

The primary mission of the Palmyra Naval Air Station was to serve as a troop transport and re-servicing and staging point for U.S. aircraft and small ships en-route to the south and southwest Pacific.

Palmyra’s growth in personnel, from 112 men on December 7, 1941, to the maximum of 2,410 men in August of 1943, and its subsequent reduction to 428 men in July of 1945, traces its importance in the early years of the war and its later decline. (TNC)

After several private transfers, title is now held by The Nature Conservancy. It is an incorporated Territory of the US. On January 18, 2001, the Secretary of the Interior signed Secretary’s Order No. 3224, which transferred all executive, legislative and judicial authority from the Office of Insular Affairs to the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Palmyra is part of the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument in the Central Pacific Ocean that ranges from Wake Atoll in the northwest to Jarvis Island in the southeast. The seven atolls and islands included within the monument are farther from human population centers than any other US area. (Lots of information here is from TNC, DOI &US Supreme Court.)

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Coconut crab, Sand Island; Palmyra Atoll

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Meng Island, Palmyra Naval Air Station, 1942

Airfield, Palmyra Naval Air Station, 1943-TNC

Marine quarters, Palmyra, 1942. The hut slept eight men-TNC

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April 14, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Pu‘umaile Home

“The tubercle bacillus, the germ that causes tuberculosis, is responsible for the loss each year of millions of lives. The spitting, coughing and sneezing of people who have tuberculosis are the chief means of the spread of this disease to individuals, families and even to entire communities.”

“The Territory of Hawaii has a high death rate from this disease as compared with most mainland cities. … The County of Hawaii has the highest rate of the disease of any of the counties in the Territory. During the last five years an average of 67 people died each year on this Island.”

“(T)here are hundreds of people on this Island who have been exposed to tuberculosis and who are potential cases of the disease. There are many people on this Island who have the disease but who do not know that they have it.”

“If the problem is considered not as “cases,” but as individuals who are our neighbors, it becomes a more interesting problem. Who is my neighbor? Last year there were maids, bus drivers, dressmakers, plantation laborers, waiters, students and teachers who had tuberculosis.”

“More than half of the people who have tuberculosis are between the ages of 15 and 45. Think of these young people starting out in new jobs, establishing homes – struck down in the prime of life!”

“Too many people do not know about, nor heed, the warning signals that should send them to a doctor for a physical check-up. Ignorance as to the ways in which tuberculosis is spread oftentimes causes neglect of the early case. Ignorance of the seriousness of the situation keeps the public from taking sufficient action on this problem.” (Chandler, Director, Tuberculosis Society of Hawai‘i; The Friend, July 1, 1939)

“The control or prevention of the spread of the disease is chiefly dependent upon the various district nurses, who not only furnish the Bureau with correct data for reliable statistics, but who supervise cases requiring it, directing them how to avoid infecting others, and observing that all due precautions are maintained in each case.”

“These nurses devote their time to hunting up cases which have not been reported, supervising certain cases, and giving instructions to patients as to how to care for themselves so as not to infect others.”

“The treatment of those afflicted is carried out by seven institutions—three in Honolulu, namely, Pa Ola Day Camp, Free Dispensary, and Leahi Home; one on Hawaii—Pu‘umaile Home; two on Kauai—Lihue and Waimea Hospitals; and one on Maui—the Kula Sanitarium. (Board of Health, 1921)

“The benefits of hospital treatment may be shown by the figures from two of the institutions in the Territory. Out of 103 persons discharged 84 were able to return to work.”

“Pu‘umaile Home, in Hilo, was in charge of Miss Wilhelm and Miss Kate W. Sadler, district nurses for Hawaii, with Dr. L. L. Sexton as medical officer. … A total of 37 cases were handled at Pu‘umaile, some of the patients being Filipinos en route to Honolulu to take steamer for the Philippines. There were 7 deaths, 15 discharged at their own request, 6 for other reasons, and 2 as apparent cures. (Board of Health, 1915)

“Pu‘umaile Home is the only institution for the care of tuberculosis in the Territory that is maintained solely from Territorial funds. One hundred and twenty-two were admitted during the year, with 68 Patients remaining at the end of the period, just double the number as compared with the previous year.” (Report of Governor, 1924)

The original Pu‘umaile Home was built in about 1912 at a site that is now in the vicinity of the old terminal building at Hilo Airport. It took its name from a nearby cinder cone (approximately 50-feet high.) The Home served the entire island.

The Hilo Airport was dedicated in February 1928 and in April 1938 a new facility was constructed at the end of Kalanianaʻole Avenue (at what is now Lehia Park.) (Clark)

“A son of a former pastor of the Finnish National Lutheran church here has been appointed superintendent of a new hospital known as the Pu‘umaile home at Hilo, Hawaii.”

“Well known to most everyone to Hilo is Dr. Carl J. Wilen, superintendent of Pu‘umaile home, who has held that position since July, 1935, when he came to Hilo as the first full-time physician at the sanatorium.” (Ironwood Daily Globe, November 24, 1939)

Some incorrectly suggest that the hospital washed away by the 1946 tsunami; however, it was spared. “The (sea)wall itself was undamaged, and buildings sheltered by it were undisturbed except for minor damage by flooding.” (Wiegel)

“Observers said waves drove 40-feet high over the Hilo breakwater … Water reached 1,000-yards inland, flooded the first floor of the Pumaile Hospital, and wrecked outlying homes of hospital personnel.” (Albuquerque Journal, January 5, 1947)

The Army installed standby generators until power could be restored. Engineers laid 2-miles of emergency pipeline to restore water. Patients were temporarily evacuated by Navy personnel and cared for at the nearby naval air station (Hilo Airport.) (Muffler)

The hospital remained on the shoreline until 1951 when it was relocated into new facilities on the grounds of the Hilo Memorial Hospital, above Rainbow Falls. Shortly after (1955,) Pu‘umaile was combined with the Hilo Memorial Hospital to establish Hilo Hospital (now Hilo Medical Center.)

In 1955, new and more effective drugs were introduced in the treatment of tuberculosis and, as a result, by 1958 the average daily patient census significantly dropped. (Legislative Auditor, 1968) (Pu‘umaile was referred by several names, including Pumaile and Puumaile.)

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Pumaile Home, a county hospital at Hilo-3b14345r-LOC

PuuMaile Home-tsunami

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April 13, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Fong Inn

“Notice is hereby given that the undersigned have formed a partnership under name of Fong Inn as Furniture Manufacturers and Dealers at No. 1152 Nuʻuanu St., Honolulu. Dated July 24, 1909. Yuen Kwock, Gin Jau” (the Polynesian, July 26, 1909)

A couple years before, Fong Inn Co was operated through a partnership between Le Wa Cheung and Gin Jau (it dissolved through notice in the newspaper on June 4, 1907 – Gin Jau assumed the debts and liabilities.)

Fong Inn (Yuen Kwock) was born in Chung Shan District, Kwantung Province, China in 1873. He came to Hawaii in 1898 and started a Chinese import company (that was devastated in the 1900 Chinatown fire.)

In the Islands he held office in the United Chinese Society and the See Dai Doo Society and was the longest living founder of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce in 1911.

Fong Inn and his son, Henry, visited the Orient often. In 1915, they brought back fine silk, Chinese antiques, pieces of art and jewelry. (Louie)

“Collectors in Peking, Nanking, Shanghai and Canton employed by the Fong Inn Company, 1152 Nuʻuanu street have gotten from private houses and individual artists, a collection of Chinese good’s which is probably not equalled anywhere out of China.”

“The embroidered goods, intricate and delicate, appeal especially. There are table covers, wall strips, handkerchiefs, kimonos and other articles, beautiful in design and coloring, and some of which must have taken months of work. They have even small ladles’ purses, hand-embroidered and exquisitely done, and there are many pretty Chinese slippers.”

“The Fong Inn Company has ancient Chinaware, some vases as old as 400 years and worth $300, and others more modern, but just as pretty and much cheaper.”

“There are works of art by famous Chinese artists, beautiful lanterns of teakwood, with hand-painted glass panels, amber beads, portieres, mandarin coats colored like the rainbow jades, crystals and necklaces of amber, besides a hundred other beautiful curios and useful articles.” (Star Bulletin, December 16, 1915)

“So impressed was Herbert Fleishhacker, the San Francisco millionaire banker, with Honolulu’s Oriental shops as places in which rare curios may be obtained, that he purchased great quantities of things here, his bill at the store of Fong Inn, 1152 Nuʻuanu street, having run well into five figures, besides purchases for smaller amounts elsewhere.”

“The goods are now being packed, and will go to the coast on the next steamer, to be put into Mr. Fleishhacker’s private museum, which is considered one of the largest and most costly in San Francisco.”

“Among the articles purchased from Fong Inn, numbering about 75 in all, were several authentic pieces dating back to the Sung Dynasty (960 to 1127 AD), several made during the ascendancy of the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644 AD), and one very rare piece from a period about 185 BC.”

“One folding screen is an especially striking work of art, with eight semiprecious stones, including jade, ivory, cornelian, mother of pearl and moonstones, Inlaid on a background of dull ebony.”

“Mr. Fleischhacker also purchased several pieces of cloisonne, some lacquer work screens, old embroideries, Ivory carvings, red lacquer bowls, paintings on silks and parchments, and rare porcelains and bronzes.” (Star Bulletin, December 8, 1915)

Many of the prized antiques found their way into homes throughout the Islands. Their customers were the Cookes, Judds, Dillinghams, Baldwins, Damons and other who’s who of Hawaii.

Father and son became close friends with many kamaʻaina families and worked closely with the Cooke family to supply the Honolulu Art Academy with Asian treasures and helped assist Mrs. Cooke to acquire the famous scroll, The Hundred Geese, attributed to painter Ma Fen. (Louie)

While Fong Inn became one of Honolulu’s leading art importers, especially Chinese antiques … they were also Honolulu’s largest koa furniture manufacturer.

He began the House of Fong Inn, the leading manufacturer of koa furniture that made beds for Hawaiian Royalty and many wealthy clients.

In 1938, Fong Inn built a building in Waikiki using yellow tile similar to the roof of the Imperial Palace. Fong Inn’s new building, on Kalākaua Avenue, was designed by Roy Kelley (an architect before he built his Outrigger Hotels.) This building later was the home of the Hawaii Tourist Bureau. (Louie)

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April 12, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Samuel Rice

“Far, far back in the prosperous reign of Kamehameha I, a vessel visited these Islands. She had on board a blacksmith. Kamehameha was every inch a king. All these Islands were made for him; and so he thought was that foreign blacksmith.” (Lucy Thurston)

Kamehameha started to accumulate Western goods, including ships and weaponry. In 1790, he was joined by John Young and Isaac Davis, Europeans who knew how to use both.

A blacksmith would have been needed to keep these ships and weapons in working order. Samuel Rice was a blacksmith by trade. (Solomon)

“Power and skill so interlaced providences, that when the vessel sailed, the blacksmith was detained on shore. (He later) worked for his royal master, but with the full purpose of embracing the first opportunity to leave the Islands.” (Thurston)

Samuel Rice was born in about April 1787; his Hawaiian naturalization certificate notes he was a native of New Hampshire. He came to the Islands around 1811, probably aboard a fur trading ship. (Solomon)

Other note Rice was a native of Springfield, Massachusetts, and left a ship at Kealakekua, of which he was blacksmith, about the year 1815, and became the King’s ‘armourer.’ (Sheldon; Thrum, 1882)

“Kamehameha had never been introduced to the code of Christian morals. Another vessel came and went, and the pioneer blacksmith was still detained. The frightful idea of long and hopeless captivity now burst upon him. He drank more deeply …”

“Such was his sad state when the American Missionaries reached these Islands in 1820. Other foreigners came and took us by the hand. For four years he never approached us. His first call was one never to be forgotten.” (Lucy Thurston)

“If Mr Samuel Rice, of Kailua to be credited, Kamehameha did not forget John Young in his dying instructions to Kaʻahumanu. As Mr Rice was present on that occasion, and as few or any other of those who were, now survive, the statement made by him is to some historical importance, as a record of the olden time.” (The Polynesia, October 11, 1851)

Around 1820, Samuel married a Hawaiian woman known as Kahiwakalana. There are records with other variations of this name as well. They had a daughter named Hannah Kaʻakau Rice. That marriage was annulled; Rice married Kaʻanae of Lanihau on March 24, 1851. (Solomon)

“For about 18 years of his residence in these islands he was addicted to drinking to intoxication, and spent all he earned in this way. But about the year 1833 or 4 there was a marked change in his character in this respect, and he appeared a reformed man; and in the year 35 he was received as a member of the church at Kailua”. (Asa Thurston)

“The daughter had learned to fear, to obey, and to love her father. She then came under his guidance, the instruction and influence of the missionaries, as had never been thought of before. She married, became a faithful wife, a devoted mother, and a humble Christian.” (Lucy Thurston)

In the service of Kamehameha, and later Kuakini, Rice was given property in West Hawaii: Honuaʻino (an ahupuaʻa that runs through Kainaliu) and two house sites in Kailua; the first, Pa O ʻUmi Heiau (on Ololi Road between Kopiko Plaza and Kuakini Hwy.)

During Land Commission hearings regarding various land awards, John ʻIʻi stated, “I have seen this place which is on Hawaii named Honuainoiki (Honuaʻinoiki.) I had heard during the lifetime of Kamehameha that the place had been acquired by him (Rice) and in the year 1843.”

“I had seen the land and house-lot personally. … It is my belief that Kamehameha had given this land to him (Rice) because he (Rice) was Kamehameha’s blacksmith and no one has ever objected.”

“The House lot at Kailua Rice’s house-lot at Kailua is named ʻUmi. It has been enclosed and there are houses. The boundaries are shown in the map of the lot. I believe Kuakini had given him this interest in the year 1829 and since then to this day, no one has objected.” (ʻIʻi; Maly)

The other was Kolelua (in the Honuaʻula ahupuaʻa – in the vicinity of Kona Inn and Huliheʻe Palace;) “the first house built by a white settler”. (Daily Bulletin, April 8, 1886) “Claimant received from Kamehameha I in the year 1814…”

Hannah Rice married Charles Hall. “In the year 1843, Mr Rice came up from Oʻahu to make arrangements with Hall to enter into partnership in a coffee plantation.”

“Some four or five miles beyond Keauhou I reached Mr Hall’s place where he has an extensive coffee plantation. His thatched house, or rather houses, is pleasantly situated among beautiful shade trees – among them the Pride of India, kukui, etc.”

“He has many thousand coffee trees, and after five years’ labor is beginning to find it profitable. He estimates that coffee may be afforded at 5 cents per pound; the actual price this year is 16 cents, and in past years it has been 20 cents or more. “

“There is abundance of rain in this elevated region (some 2000 or 3000 feet above the sea and about 3 miles inland,) and the climate is moderate and bracing. He has a native wife and a family of several children. His wife is a daughter of Mr. Rice of Kailua…” (Lyman; Maly)

“He has been a member of the Church for about 18 years, during which period, and except the faults above mentioned, after each of which he professed repentance, he has exhibited himself as on the Lord’s side.”

“He was a regular attendant on the means of Grace, and his seat in the house of God was never vacant except from ill health, absence from home, or some press of business which could not well be deferred.”

“He read the Bible much till his eyesight failed, and since he frequently requested his wife to read to him some chapter or portion of the word of God; and a short time since lie was seen to take the blessed book and pressing it to his lips, with streaming eyes, expressed his tears that he should no more be able to peruse its sacred pages.”

“He died on the morning of the 24th (of July, 1853,) rather suddenly, with the cholic or cramp, of which he had many previous attacks in years past.” (Asa Thurston)

“Honor be to the memory of the humble old patriarch. I knew him well. He had my most profound sympathy in his deep degradation, in his mighty conflicts, and in his great conquests.” (Lucy Thurston)

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