Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hermit of Kalalau

“People may think I am a fool but I have found real happiness and, above all real peace of mind.” (Wheatley)

Bernard Gamaliel Wheatley was born the son of a shopkeeper in St Thomas, Virgin Islands, October 14, 1919, son of Osorio Solario Wheatley and Anna (Fleury) Wheatley. (Ancestry and Soboleski)

Wheatley received a medical degree from Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., and held a medical post with the Army, from which he was discharged in 1946.  Wheatley practiced medicine for a short time in Sweden. (TenBruggencate)  Dr. John Eriksson, who was his superior, says: “He was a good surgeon and a nice man.” (Ebony)

“There is evidence to indicate that both in medical school and in later practice the doctor showed brilliance and an unusual capacity for work. He was also successful.”  (Krauss)

Then, “‘He became,’ one of his friends say, ‘a religious fanatic.’ This transition was not accomplished without a mental upheaval. Dr. Wheatley disappeared three times. The last time he was found naked in a Stockholm park.”

“The doctor-turned-mystic is critical of his former colleagues. ‘Shooting people with penicillin,’ he says, ‘is no better way of curing disease than shooting hydrogen missiles is a means of curing war.’  His rejection of medicine, he says, was hastened by a heart attack he suffered in 1951 in Sweden.”

“‘I became struck,’ he continues, ‘with the similarity between psychosomatic medicine and the teachings of Christ – how closely hate and fear and anxiety are related to heart disease, high blood pressure, peptic ulcer, diabetes mellitus.’”

“‘Finally, I made up my mind to go directly to the cause of disease instead of treating the symptoms. In a moment of lucidity, I saw all the way to the fact that man could overcome death and could control his health by living a life of love.’” (Ebony)

“He was treated for a nervous breakdown. In 1953, he went to Paris, where his brother, a pianist, lives. He wandered around Europe for a while and then came to America.”

“He turned up unexpectedly at the homes of several of his classmates. They were shocked by his appearance and the sudden change in his personality. It was like meeting a completely different man, one doctor says. He walked from New York to California.”

“In Chicago, he was a guest in the home of the Reverend William J Faulkner, who was dean of chapel when Wheatley was a student at Fisk University. He told Faulkner that he wanted to found a center for the propagation of his philosophy. Faulkner replied in a lighthearted vein that Hollywood would be just the place for the center. Both men laughed.” (Ebony)

“A few months later, Wheatley turned up in Hawaii. He worked for a while as a dessert maker in a restaurant. He quit this job. ‘I found,’ he says, ‘that at the end of the day I had spent so much energy arguing with the waitresses that I had none left for creative thinking.’”

“When a man who knows Wheatley heard this explanation, he said; ‘That sounds typical of him. He was probably telling them what stupid, narrow lives they lead and they were telling him he was crazy. And probably, they were all right, in a way.’”

“Wheatley’s last job was at the Central YMCA in Honolulu. He was desk clerk. He quit this job because he didn’t think it was right to charge poor people for rooms.”  (Ebony)

“[I]n April, 1957, Dr. Wheatley turned his back on the world and went into Kalalau Valley. ‘My guess,’ a friend of his says, ‘is that these experiences are what finally drove him out of the world and into Kalalau. To a man of his sensitivity, I should think an arrest and appearance in court with attendant publicity would be a sort of final stamp of social disapproval in his mind.’” (Ebony)

Wheatley became known as the Hermit of Kalalau.

“The Hermit of Kalalau is a lean but powerfully built man of 40 years, His jaw and upper lip are covered with short, curling black whiskers. He was barefoot and dressed in a pair of tan swimming trunks and a spotlessly clean T-shirt.”

“He spoke with excellent articulation and with great poise, searching for just the right word, as if he were giving a lecture out there on the trackless beach. … Then then the Hermit helped us carry our gear across the sunlit sand into his ‘guest cave,’ a small cavern beside the one in which he lives under a majestic black cliff.”  (Krauss)

“In front of his cave, about 30 feet wide and 12 feet deep and eight feet high in the rear, were a series of neat, geometrical patterns ln the sand. Otherwise the sand was undisturbed.”

“‘These are my paths,’ the Hermit explained. ‘May I ask you to use them?  You see, there is great beauty in the land with the sun or moonlight upon it. Footprints destroy it. And I’ve found that, of all the requirements for survival, beauty is the most important.’” (Krauss)

“Then he took us on a tour of his valley. We started with his own cave. It reminded me very much of the cell of a monk. The immaculate sand floor is terraced in two levels. On the first terrace the Hermit has, on one side of the cave, his tiny fireplace, which is a grill set neatly upon four stones. He must use it only occasionally because there was only a trace of ash.”

“Above the fireplace, on the top terrace in a niche in the lava rock, the Hermit keeps his silverware and cooking utensils. He has about four spoons, as many forks and a few knives. Also three cups and saucers and as many jelly glasses.”

“Everything was neatly arranged on the rocks and on a wooden board. ‘I try to keep some degree or nicety and orderliness,’ the Hermit explained. “I always set my table (a wooden box) correctly with silverware at meals even though I’m having only taro. One can judge character by the way a man acts m the wilderness.’” (Kraus)

“Little by little I pieced together the strange story of survival that began in April, 1957.  ‘I had seen the valley from the lookout in January of that year,’ the Hermit said, ‘and felt attracted to it. In April I hiked in for the first time.’”

“’Had you ever been on the trail?’ ‘No. All I had with me was a lunch. I didn’t even have matches. It took me two days to get into the valley. I lost the trail and had to hull my way through the lantana. My clothes were pretty badly torn.’”

“‘The first time I stayed for 23 days. Then I became constipated because of the guava seeds. The pain was pretty bad for about five days. Finally I flagged down a passing sampan and the crew took me to Lihue Hospital.’  Five weeks later the Hermit was back in his valley, armed with a mess kit this time, and a change of clothing.”

Why was he there … “What he is trying to do, he said, is live according to what he believes with no compromise. Apparently, the only place he  has found this is possible ls in remote Kalalau Valley.”

“‘On the outside I constantly feel limitation around me,’ he said. ‘The instinctive reaction to a new situation is fear. There is so much that is negative in the world so many people to say, ‘That’s impossible.’ Here in the valley I feel no fear or limitation. That doesn’t mean I think I can fly. But I feel that l can always do what I have to do. Some wisdom must come from taking chances.”

“‘I’ve found,’ he said, ‘that very few people want to hear what I have to say. I can accomplish more by talking to the occasional person who is interested and understands. Try not to judge others. There is no way of knowing which of us will finally be most important in the scheme of things.’”

“When hippies came to Kalalau in the late-1960s with their hallucinogens and lifestyles at odds with his own, he finally left his once solitary home.  A good friend of his said that he had dedicated his life to God, and Kalalau had been his test. By surviving there alone for so long, he had proven that God had taken care of him.”  (Soboleski)

“I think a person should be improving all the time. Then, on a certain day, you know that you have achieved enough change in yourself to belong in another place on a certain day. That is what happened to me. … I have stayed at the YMCA several times. Other times I stay with friends.”  (Kraus)

“’I’ve never really been a hermit I used to leave the valley fairly frequently when friends needed me. I often played tennis or bridge with them. I’m primarily a thinker. I came to the valley to evaluate things.’ … He says he is never going back to the practice of medicine.”  (Knaefler)

“One of his chief criticisms of you and I is that we don’t DO the things we say we believe. … He puts little stock in philosophers because ‘they don’t act on their philosophies; they don’t participate in the universe.”  (Krauss)

“Dr. Bernard Wheatiey died on Kauai at 72 on December 3, 1991, and his ashes were scattered in Kalalau Valley.” (Soboleski)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Codebreakers – Secret to Success at Battle of Midway

Around 7:20 Sunday morning, a single-engine Japanese reconnaissance plane entered the cloud-streaked airspace over Pearl Harbor.  Launched earlier that morning from the heavy cruiser Chikuma, the plane circled as the pilot studied the ground below.

Having seen all he needed to see, at precisely 7:35 the recon pilot radioed his report to the striking force, which quickly relayed the information to the Japanese planes now approaching Oahu from the north: “Enemy formation at anchor; nine battleships, one heavy cruiser, six light cruisers are in the harbor.”

The attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion a series of battles in the Pacific between the Japanese and the United States.

With the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became the westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific.

Midway occupied an important place in Japanese military planning. According to plans made before Pearl Harbor, the Japanese fleet would attack and occupy Midway and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska as soon as their position in South Asia was stabilized.

Defenses on the atoll were strengthened between December and April.  Land-based bombers and fighters were stationed on Eastern Island.  US Marines provided defensive artillery and infantry.

Operating from the atoll’s lagoon, seaplanes patrolled toward the Japanese-held Marshall Islands and Wake, checking on enemy activities and guarding against further attacks on Hawaiʻi.

The turning point in the Pacific came in June 1942, when the US surprised and overpowered the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway.

That victory was possible, in large part, because of the work of a little-known naval codebreaker named Joe Rochefort.  (Rochefort, responsible for the Pacific Fleet’s radio intelligence unit at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack, felt immense guilt at the failure to predict the Pearl Harbor attack.)

The Japanese Combined Fleet depended on a complex system of codes to communicate by radio. The codes were regularly modified to avoid detection, but in the confusion of the rapid Japanese expansion in the South Pacific the change scheduled for early-1942 was delayed.

The course to Midway started not on a map in a top secret chart room with top strategists and tacticians contemplating Japan’s next move, but was set by the deciphering of messages from the Japanese Fleet.

This was done by a handful of US Navy intelligence officers stationed at Pearl Harbor.

In the spring of 1942, it took cryptanalysts in Australia, Washington, DC and Hawai‘i to achieve the breakthrough that made an American victory at Midway possible.

The Japanese naval code, known as JN 25, consisted of approximately 45,000 five-digit numbers, each number representing a word or a phrase.

Breaking this code, which was modified regularly, meant finding the meanings of enough of these numbers that a whole message could be decrypted by extrapolating the missing parts.

According to one of the leading codebreakers involved, it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle with most of its pieces always missing.

Leading the codebreaking effort was Station Hypo, the code name for the combat intelligence unit at Pearl Harbor under Commander Joseph Rochefort.

Rochefort included members of the band from the battleship ‘California,’ damaged at Pearl Harbor.  He thought their musical skills might make them adept codebreakers in much the same way that Marine bandsmen used to serve as fire control technicians on ship — the ability to quickly read and play music made them excellent mathematical problem solvers.

By May 8, Rochefort knew that a major enemy operation, whose objective was sometimes called AF, was in the offing and that it would take place somewhere in the Central Pacific.

When they checked this against their partially solved map grid, the found that “A” represented on coordinate of Midway’s potion and “F” represented the other.

His superiors in Washington weren’t convinced; they devised a test that would flush out the location of AF.

The radio station on Midway dispatched an uncoded message falsely reporting that the water distillation plant on the island had broken, causing a severe water shortage.  Within 48 hours, a decrypted Japanese radio transmission was alerting commanders that AF was short of water.

Several days later, he was sure the target was Midway.  As a result, the Americans entered the battle with a very good picture of where, when and in what strength the Japanese would appear.

On June 4, 1942, armed with information from Rochefort and his team, American planes caught the Japanese by surprise and won the decisive battle – it marked the turning point in the war in the Pacific.

In the four-day sea and air battle, 292 aircraft, four Japanese aircraft carriers – Akagi, Kaga, Soryu and Hiryu, all part of the six carrier force in the attack on Pearl Harbor six months earlier – and a heavy cruiser were sunk.  There were 2,500 Japanese casualties.

The US lost the carrier Yorktown, the destroyer USS Hammann, 145 aircraft and suffered 307 casualties. (The inspiration and information in this summary comes from NPS, NPR and Naval History) 

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Emma Louise Smith Dillingham

Rev. Lowell Smith and his wife Abigail arrived in Honolulu on May 1, 1833, with the Sixth Company of missionaries of the ABCFM.  He first served at Molokai in June 1833; then, in 1834, he established a church at Ewa District, O‘ahu and later founded and served as pastor of Kaumakapili Church (Second Native Church) in Honolulu, 1839–1869.

Rev and Abigail Smith had five children: Lowell Smith (1841–1842), Emma Smith (1843–1843), Emma Louise Smith (Dillingham) (1844–1920), Ellen Amelia Smith (1847–1848), and Augustus Lowell Smith (1851–1891).  (FindAGrave)

Emma Louise Smith was a writer and had talents  in music and the arts; her daughter Mary Emma Dillingham (Frear) published Emma’s 1850-51 Journal Book, written at age six. Emma later wrote poems, songs, books, etc. 

“Little Emma Louise Smith entered Punahou at the age of 13, after having attended the old Royal School.” (Star Bulletin, April 26, 1929)

“Her father tells how Emma rode from Nuuanu to Punahou daily with two of Dr. Judd’s children. He says she was in advance of most of the children of her age, for which credit was due to her mother. ‘Emma can put a horse to a carriage … wash dishes, darn stockings, play the piano and do some other things equally well,’ her mother wrote.” (Punahou First 100 Years; Morrow)

“She graduated with the class of 1863 and the next year became an instructor in the academy.  After one year, she accompanied her parents to the Atlantic coast of the United States, where she continued the study of music.”

“On her return to Honolulu she again became a Punahou instructor of music. She went to the Royal School as a teacher the next year, but after that again returned to Punahou.”

“Meantime, in 1865, there had arrived in Honolulu a young New England seaman, first officer of the bark Whistler.  Attempting to indulge in the almost universal island sport of riding …” “… he had found himself more skilled in guiding a ship than a horse, with the result that when the Whistler went on, it left its first officer nursing a broken leg, the result of a fall from his mount.” (Star Bulletin, April 26, 1929)

“The first officer of the bark Whistler, Mr. Dillingham, whose leg was broken last Friday night, by being thrown from a horse, in collision with a carriage, on the valley road. … [Dillingham] is now at the American Marine Hospital, where he receives every care and attention, and is in favorable condition for recovery.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 29, 1865)

“It felt as if I had anchored in a home port; the cordiality I experienced from all those whom I met removed at once the feeling of being in a foreign land though the streets were filled with several nationalities. The luxuriant foliage, the balmy breezes, the tropical fruits, all afforded such delights that I felt sure I should return.”

“The first evening I left the ship was spent at the Wednesday evening prayer meeting in the Bethel vestry (where Emma led the choir). One of the first calls I made was at the home of Rev. Lowell Smith.” (Dillingham; Morrow)

“Young Benjamin [Franklin ‘Frank’] Dillingham entered the commercial life of the city as soon as he was able to be about. When an opportunity came to leave here he decided against it, a matter, no doubt, in which the young teacher of Punahou figured, since they were married on [April 26] 1869.” (Star Bulletin, April 26, 1929)

Despite tales of Emma nursing Frank back to health, Emma was away in New England while Frank was recuperating. The two of them probably met for the first time when Frank attended a church service after his arrival in Honolulu. But his efforts to win her hand began in earnest only in 1867. On April 26, 1869, Frank Dillingham married Emma Smith. They were both 25.

Frank was stocky and well-muscled, Emma was lovely and tall. She, like her mother, had dark hair parted down the middle, but her face was softer than Abigail’s and her smile was bright and engaging.

She had been engaged to James Baldwin of Maui when she met Frank, but, not in love with her fiancé, broke off the relationship. Frank pressed his suit quietly but firmly after their meeting and slowly she fell in love. (Morrow)

He accepted a job as a clerk in a hardware store called H Dimond & Son for $40 per month. The store was owned by Henry Dimond, formerly a bookbinder in the 7th Missionary Company. In 1850 Dimond had been released from his duties at the Mission and had gone into business with his son.

Dillingham later bought the company with partner Alfred Castle (son of Samuel Northrup Castle, who was in the 8th Company of missionaries and ran the Mission business office;) they called the company Dillingham & Co.

On September 4, 1888, Frank Dillingham’s 44th birthday, the legislature gave Dillingham an exclusive franchise “for construction and operation on the Island of O‘ahu a steam railroad … for the carriage of passengers and freight.”

Dillingham formed O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L,) a narrow-gauge rail, whose economic being was founded on the belief that O‘ahu would soon host a major sugar industry.

‘Dillingham’s Folly’ had now become the greatest single factor in the development of O‘ahu and Honolulu.  (Nellist)  “With a shrill blast from the whistle and the bell clanging, the engine moved easily off with its load. Three rousing cheers were given by the passengers, and crowds assembled at the starting point responded.”  (Daily Bulletin, September 5, 1889)

Ultimately OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples in Wahiawa for Dole.

“It was in [Emma’s] home that the YWCA was organized, and she took an active part in the work of the Salvation Army.”  (Advertiser, July 7, 1956)  “In 1900, Emma Louise Smith Dillingham founded the YWCA Oahu as a place for Honolulu’s working women to learn skills that promote community engagement, build friendships, and develop shared values.”

“By 1915, Oahu YWCA boasted a membership of 1,386 women, which included Queen Liliuokalani. Today’s YWCA stands for empowering women, eliminating racism, standing up for social justice, helping families, and strengthening communities.” (BOH)

“She was one of [seven] founders of the Daughters of Hawaii.” (Advertiser, July 7, 1956)  “‘Daughters of Hawaii’ was formed November 18, (1903) by Mrs. Emma Dillingham. Mrs. Sarah Colin Waters, Mrs. Lucinda Severance, Mrs. Ellen A. Weaver, Mrs. Annie A. Dickey, Mrs. Cornelia H. Jones and Miss Anna M. Paris.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 26, 1904)

The women (all daughters of American missionaries) foresaw the looming loss of Hawaiian culture and in an inaugural meeting, their gathering gave rise to the “The Daughters of Hawaii” dedicated  to preserving  that culture. (Morrow)

“Its object is ‘To perpetuate the memory and spirit of old Hawai‘i and of historic facts, and to preserve the nomenclature and correct pronunciation of the Hawaiian language.’ No one is eligible to membership who was not born in Hawaii of parents who came here before 1860.” (Hawaiian Star, December 7, 1903)

The Daughters of Hawai‘i was one of the first organizations in Hawai‘i to recognize the importance of historic preservation. Since the early 1900s it has been distinguished for preserving Hānaiakamalama in Nu‘uanu, commonly known as the Queen Emma Summer Palace, and Hulihe‘e Palace in Kailua-Kona, restoring them with original royal furnishings and regalia.

The Daughters continue to be stewards of two of Hawai‘i’s three royal palaces, as well as the birth site of King Kamehameha III at Keauhou Bay in Kailua-Kona. (Daughters of Hawaii)

Children of Frank and Emma Dillingham are Mary Emma Dillingham (Frear) (1870–1951), Charles Augustus ‘Charlie’ Dillingham (1871–1874), Walter Francis Dillingham (1875–1963), Alfred Hubbard ‘Freddie’ Dillingham (1880–1880), Harold Garfield Dillingham (1881–1971), Marion Eleanor Dillingham (Erdman) (1883–1972). (FindAGrave)

On his death in 1918 at age 74, Dillingham was hailed as a “master builder” and Honolulu’s financial district closed its doors out of respect. (Wagner) The Islands would have been different if not for a sailor breaking his leg riding a horse.

Emma Dillingham, “one of Honolulu’s most prominent women for many years … passed away peacefully” August 15, 1920. (PCA, August 16, 1920)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Āhinahina

Although the Hawaiian name for this plant is not historically known, it is often referred to today as ‘Āhinahina, Hinahina or Hinahina Ewa. The reason for these names primarily has to do with their color. In Hawaii, many plants that are silvery in color are called hinahina or have the word hinahina in its name. (Hui Ku Maoli Ola)

Āhinahina (very gray) is the product of evolution in island isolation. Several million years ago, a California tarweed seed traveled 2,000 miles across the Pacific to Hawaii.

This single species evolved into the “silversword alliance,” a group of more than 30 species endemic to Hawai‘i that range from scraggly shrubs to ground-clinging cushions. (NPCA)

It is a distinctive, globe-shaped rosette plant, with a dense covering of silver hairs. (FWS)  We commonly call this plant the Silversword (due to their long, slender leaves and a silver-white color).

After 10 to 30 years of rosette growth, thousands of aromatic flowers erupt from a human-sized stalk and are pollinated by native Hylaeus bees. After the silversword has finished flowering, it will die (silverswords only flower once in a lifetime). (NPS)

Some of the notable āhinahina are named for the mountains where they are found: Haleakalā Silverswords, Mauna Loa Silverswords, and Mauna Loa Silverswords.

Haleakalā Silverswords from Maui has larger flowers than the form on the island of Hawaiʻi. These plants were formerly abundant, but earlier in the century they faced the brink of extinction due to habitat destruction, goat grazing, and insect infestations.

Hotter temperatures and lower rainfall presents a new threat to these charismatic plants. Researchers with the University of Hawai‘i are actively working with park staff to evaluate the effects of drought conditions on Silverswords, and preserve these unique plants for generations to come. (NPS)

Haleakalā Silverswords live only in a 2,500-acre area at the top of the Haleakalā volcano, a moonscape pocked by cinder cones. They have developed an adaptation to cope with this harsh environment: The fleshy leaves are coated with tiny silvery hairs to break the wind, prevent drying and collect cloud moisture. (NCPA)

Mauna Kea Silverswords produce pink to wine-red flowers is rare and only found in the alpine regions of Mauna Kea. The harsh and challenging conditions of Mauna Kea volcano have forced the Silverswords to adapt to the environment in unique ways, similar to Mauna Loa Silverswords.

Leaves are covered with a dense layer of tiny hairs that help reflect sunlight and insulate the plant against cold temperatures. Sadly, impacts of climate change, and foraging invasive animals have put Silverswords in danger.

There are no records of the extent or density of the Mauna Kea silversword population prior to the introduction of ungulates to the island of Hawai’i in 1793 and 1794.

The Mauna Kea Silversword may have already been in decline due to browsing by feral ungulates by the time the silversword was first collected by James Macrae in 1825. Macrae noted in his diary that he found the remains of dead sheep near the summit of Mauna Kea on the same day that he encountered the silversword. (Mauna Kea Silversword Recovery Plan)

The Mauna Kea Silversword is distinguished from the Haleakalā Silversword by a high frequency of branching; taller, thinner flowerings; green bracts subtending flower heads; and fewer ray florets. (Mauna Kea Silversword Recovery Plan)

Mauna Loa Silverswords are perhaps lesser known than its Haleakalā and Mauna Kea cousins. The Kaʻū silversword is one of two forms of the Mauna Loa silversword that grow exclusively on Mauna Loa volcano.

The other, the Waiākea silversword, is rarer and found in wet bog habitat. Like its cousins, the Kaʻū form is in the sunflower family and blooms once by sending forth a dramatic stalk of small fragrant sunflower-like blossoms from its center.

These blooming stalks can reach nine feet in height. The plant dies after its towering display, but releases thousands of seeds to continue its legacy.  (NPS)

The Mauna Kea Silversword probably only occurred on Mauna Kea. However, there are some historical and recent suggestions that a similar taxon may have occurred on Hualālai and on Mauna Loa.

The Mauna Kea Silverswords was first collected by James Macrae in 1825. Macrae’s specimens were sent to Augustin-Pyramus DeCandolle in Geneva.  Later, David Douglas collected the Mauna Kea silversword in 1834 and sent specimens to WJ Hooker at Kew Gardens.

In 1852, Asa Gray described the Haleakala Silversword as endemic to the island of Maui. The similarity in vegetative features between Mauna Kea Silversword and the Haleakalā Silversword has led several authors to consider these taxa as the same species.  (Mauna Kea Silversword Recovery Plan)

In 1875, world traveler Isabella Bird, in Haleakalā, stated, “Soon after noon we began to descend; and in a hollow of the mountain, not far from the ragged edge of the crater, then filled up with billows of cloud …”

“… we came upon what we were searching for; not, however, one or two, but thousands of silverswords, their cold, frosted silver gleam making the hill-side look like winter or moonlight.” (Bird, Six Months)

Alexander noted in his Ascent of Mauna Kea, in 1892, “We crossed a shallow crater just east of a conspicuous peak called “Ka lepe a moa”, or cock’s comb, and began to ascend the mountain proper. After climbing a steep ridge through loose scoria and sand, the party halted for lunch at an elevation of 10,500 feet.”

“The upper limit of the māmane tree is not far from 10,000 feet. … The beautiful Silver Sword (Argyroxiphium), once so abundant is nearly extinct, except in the most rugged and inaccessible localities.”  (Alexander, PCA, Sep 14, 1892)

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Liberty Bell

In the 18th century, citizens across the colonies depended on bells to communicate important news. Bells might call them to put out fires, notify them of an approaching merchant ship, warn them about a possible attack by Indians or enemy soldiers, or tell them to gather to hear news important to the community.  (NPS)

The Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly had the State House Bell made in 1751 to mark the 50-year anniversary of William Penn’s 1701 Charter of Privileges, which served as Pennsylvania’s original Constitution.

Speaker of the Pennsylvania Assembly Isaac Norris first ordered a bell for the bell tower of the State House of Pennsylvania (now known as Independence Hall) from the Whitechapel Foundry in London. That bell cracked on the first test ring.

Local Pennsylvania metalworkers John Pass and John Stow melted down that bell and cast a new one in Philadelphia. It is this bell that would ring to call lawmakers to their meetings and the townspeople together to hear the reading of the news. (NPS)

The following King James version Bible verse (Leviticus 25:10) is inscribed on the Bell: “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

This verse refers to the ‘Jubilee’, or the instructions to the Israelites to return property and free slaves every 50 years. (NPS)  Also included is information about the Pennsylvania Assembly and the Bell’s maker. (Constitution Center)

The bell originally rang in the tower of the Pennsylvania State House in 1753. It was in the Assembly Room of this building that members of the Second Continental Congress debated and signed the Declaration of Independence.

While there is evidence that the bell rang to mark the Stamp Act tax and its repeal, the bell probably didn’t ring on July 4, 1776. A magazine writer in 1847 made up the story of the bell ringing on the first Independence Day.  (NPS & Constitution Center)

Once the Congress approved the Declaration of Independence document on July 4, it was sent to a printer named John Dunlap. About 200 copies of the Dunlap Broadside were printed.

Then on July 8, 1776, Colonel John Nixon of Philadelphia read a printed Declaration of Independence to the public for the first time on what is now called Independence Square. The bell may also not have rung on that day, as well. (NPS & Constitution Center).

It is known that bells in the city of Philadelphia were ringing to celebrate the public announcement of the Declaration of Independence. According to the Independence Hall Association, the statehouse steeple was under repair at the time, making it unlikely for the Liberty Bell to be in use. But with no contemporary accounts, we just don’t know.

In 1777, the Bell was removed from Philadelphia under armed guard and taken to Allentown, Pa., where it was hidden in a church. The fear was the British would melt the Bell and use it to make cannons. It came back to Philadelphia the following year. (Constitution Center)

Though known as the State House Bell, the Biblical inscription became a herald of liberty, and provided a rallying cry for abolitionists, who first referred to the bell as the ‘Liberty Bell’ in 1835, years before that name was widely adopted. (Philadelphia Visitor Center)

While there are a lot of subsequent stories and statements naming dates, no one recorded when or why the Liberty Bell first cracked. But the most likely explanation is that a narrow split developed in the early 1840s after nearly 90 years of hard use.

In 1846, when the city of Philadelphia decided to repair the bell prior to George Washington’s birthday holiday, metal workers widened the thin crack to prevent its farther spread and restore the tone of the bell using a technique called ‘stop drilling’. The wide ‘crack’ in the Liberty Bell is actually the repair job.  There are over 40 drill bit marks in that wide ‘crack’.

The repair was not successful; the Public Ledger newspaper reported that the repair failed when another fissure developed. This second crack, running from the abbreviation for ‘Philadelphia’ up through the word ‘Liberty’, silenced the bell forever. (NPS)

“‘These is, of course, the large crack that everyone knows about. It is also full of things called ‘shrinkage’ and ‘porosity.” (Mike Modes) These are soft spots created when metal cooled after casting. They were common in metals in the 1750s.” (Star Bulletin, Nov 27, 1975)

Millions of Americans became familiar with the bell in popular culture through George Lippard’s 1847 fictional story ‘Ring, Grandfather, Ring’, when the bell came to symbolize pride in a new nation. Beginning in the late 1800s, the Liberty Bell traveled across the country for display at expositions and fairs, stopping in towns small and large along the way. (NPS)

In the 1950s, Hawai‘i had two Liberty Bells …

In 1950, a Liberty Bell replica was presented to the Territory “by the US  Treasury Department and toured the Neighbor Islands on US savings bond campaigns.” (Star Bulletin, Aug 11, 1959) (A significant number of other replicas have been made by others.)

The Treasury Department created 55 replica Liberty Bells for the “Save Your Independence” bond drive in 1950. Bells were delivered to States, Territories and the District of Columbia to support the bond program. (US Treasury)

“The bell, made in France, is an exact replica of the original Liberty Bell in every detail, except the crack.  It is of the same size and weight (2,080 pounds), made of the same materials and by the same process as the original.” (Star Bulletin, Jun 26, 1950)

“Island residents along with their fellow Americans on the Mainland are sounding a new note of independence on the Liberty Bell in a US Savings Bond campaign that will reach its climax on the Fourth of July.”

“Today, its replicas in the American States and Territories are proclaiming the independence of the individual to be had through orderly savings that will provide him with freedom from want in his declining years.” (Advertiser, May 23, 1950)

“Honolulans had their first hearing of the sounds of the Liberty Bell as Hawaii’s replica was rung 49 times at Iolani Palace this morning and again at a US savings bonds rally at King and Bishop street.” (Star Bulletin, Jun 27, 1950)

Starting on February 9, 1951 at Lincoln school, “Hawaii’s replica of the famous Liberty Bell will start a 97 day tour to schools on Oahu. … The bell will remain at each public and private school on the island for a 24 hour periods. Each school is to present an appropriate program in connection with the visit.” (Star Bulletin, Jan 11, 1951)

“Last summer, at least ten million Mainlanders heard and/or saw Hawaii’s 3,000 pound replica of the Liberty Bell. … This was, indeed, small service relative to the total statehood effort of many years duration. … Hundreds of pictures were taken, and the bell rang more than 50,000 times.” (Advertiser, Mar 3, 1959)

The bell went to bolster Hawaii’s unsuccessful bid for Statehood last year. (Apparently, sometime after 1959, a crack was drilled into the Hawai‘i bell.) Hawai‘i’s replica Liberty Bell is on the front lawn of the Hawaii State Capitol building facing Beretania.

Around 1953, someone used adhesive tape to simulate the crack in the Hawai‘i bell; in 1953, that was replaced by a “streak of bronze paint outlining exactly the split” in the original bell. (Sat Bulletin, July 14, 1953) Later, a simulated crack was drilled int to the Hawai‘i replica.

Then, later in the decade, a second Liberty Bell came to Hawai‘i … “The newest thing in commercial passenger planes chased the sun across the Pacific over the week end and didn’t lose by much.  The spinning world moves the sun’s rays westward from Honolulu to Tokyo in five hours.”

“Pan American World Airways’ big new plane made the 4,200-mile chase in 9 hours and 33 minutes,  Including 48 minutes on the ground at Wake Island.

The plane put into commercial Pacific service with this flight is the intercontinental Boeing 707 with 2,000 miles more range and greater size and seating capacity that the 707s in use before this. The flight was a milestone in aviation …”

The “plane is [named] the ‘Liberty Bell’ and it’s been ringing around the world.  It’s been to Moscow (carrying the press for Nixon’s visit), to London, Seattle, Tokyo (from San Francisco via the Great Circle), no-stop Seattle to Rome, Hawaii twice.” (Geroge Chaplin, Advertiser, Sep 7, 1959)

Click the links for more on the Liberty Bell:

Click to access Liberty-Bell-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Liberty-Bell.pdf

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