Peter T Young

April 10, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Palea and the Pinnace

Captain Cook spent the month of December beating around the eastern and southern sides of Hawaiʻi, and finally anchored in Kealakekua Bay January 17, 1779 – having returned to make repairs to a broken mast. (Alexander)

Cook’s reception this time presented a striking contrast to his last. An ominous quiet everywhere prevailed. No one greeted them. A boat being sent ashore to inquire the cause, returned with the information that the king was away, and had left the bay under a strict taboo. (Jarves)

During the king’s absence the chiefs Palea and Kanaʻina kept order among the people. After Cook’s ships had anchored, the chiefs came on board and informed Cook that Kalaniopuʻu would be back in a few days.

Another prominent man, Koa, was apparently the highest officiating priest of the place (in the absence of the high-priest who accompanied Kalaiopuʻu.) (Alexander)

“Being led into the cabin, he approached Captain Cook with great veneration, and threw over his shoulders a piece of red cloth, which he had brought along with him. Then stepping a few paces back, he made an offering of a small pig which he held in his hand, while he pronounced a discourse that lasted for a considerable time.”

“This ceremony was frequently repeated during our stay at Owhyhee, and appeared to us, from many circumstances, to be a sort of religious adoration. Their idols we found always arrayed ill red cloth in the same manner as was done to Captain Cook, and a small pig was their usual offering to the Eatooas.” (King; Cook’s Journal)

“That same afternoon Captain Cook landed and was received by Koa, Palea, and a number of priests, who conducted him to the Heiau (Hikiʻau,) just north of the Nāpoʻopoʻo village and at the foot of the Pali. Here the grand ceremony of acknowledging Cook as an incarnation of Lono, to be worshiped as such, and his installation, so to say, in the Hawaiian Pantheon took place.” (Fornander)

The next day (Friday) the damaged masts and sails and the astronomical instruments were landed at the former camp, and the friendly priests tabued the place as before.

On Saturday afternoon, matters rapidly went from bad to worse.

Some of Palea’s retainers stole a pair of tongs and a chisel from the armorer of the ‘Discovery,’ leaped into their canoe, and paddled with all haste to the shore. Several muskets were fired after them in vain, and a boat was sent in chase.

Palea, who was on board, offered to recover the stolen articles, and followed in another canoe. The thieves reached the shore first, beached their canoe, and fled inland.

Mr Edgar, the officer of the boat, undertook to seize this canoe, which belonged to Palea, who refused to give it up, protesting his innocence of the theft. A scuffle ensued between them, in which Edgar was worsted, when a sailor knocked Palea down by a heavy blow on the head with an oar.

Upon this the whole crowd of natives looking on immediately attacked the unarmed seamen with stones, and forced them to swim off to a rock at some distance.

Palea, however, soon recovered from the blow, dispersed the mob, called back the sailors, and restored the missing articles as far as he could.

The following night the large cutter of the ‘Discovery’ was stolen by Palea’s people, taken two miles north, and broken up for the sake of the iron in it. (Alexander)

“This was the same Palea who from the first had been the constant, kind, and obliging friend of Captain Cook and all the foreigners, and who, only the day before Cook’s death, had saved the crew of the pinnace of the ‘Resolution’ from being stoned to death by the natives, exasperated Palea himself.”

“The boat had been at the brutal and insolent manner in which Palea had been treated by an officer of the ‘Discovery.’”

“It was during the night after the above fracas, the night of the 13th February, that the cutter of the ‘Discovery’ was stolen from her mooring, as King himself admits…”

“… ‘by Palea’s people, very probably in revenge for the blow that had been given him,’ and not by Palea himself. The boat had been taken to Onouli, a couple of miles higher up the coast, and there broken to pieces.” (Fornander)

Captain Cook commanded Kalaniopuʻu, the king of the island, to make search for the boat, and restore it. The king could not restore it, for the natives had already broken it in pieces to obtain the nails, which were to them the articles of the greatest value.

Captain Cook came on shore with armed men to take the king on board, and to keep him there as security till the boat should be restored. (Dibble)

On February 14, 1779, Cook was killed. (The image shows a drawing of Palea by William Ellis.)

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April 9, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

First Settlement

‘Āina as the term for homeland identified the Hawaiian as a food producer. The word is compounded from the verb ‘ai, to eat, referring specifically to vegetable foods, with the substantive suffix na, which makes it a noun. The word ‘āina, then, means ‘that which feeds.’

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, studies suggest it was about 900-1000 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

When the first colonists reached Hawai‘i they found along the shores a flora with which they were familiar in tropical Polynesia: beach morning glory or pohuehue, naupaka, hau, milo and kamani.

The rich valley bottoms which later they would clear, terrace, and irrigate for wet-taro cultivation were, in their pristine state, dense jungle, probably covered mostly with the hau shrub which, where it runs wild, produces a dense, tight jungle. For this jungle the first settlers had no use.

What taro tops they had, they planted along the banks of the streams, as taro is still planted along the banks of irrigation and drainage ditches. If they had sweet-potato shoots, these were planted in sandy soil near their huts.

It is more likely, however, that the first settlers had little or nothing to plant. The plants and more colonists were probably brought by canoes sent back to the homeland.

For generations the small, slowly growing population clustered around shore sites near streams that supplied them with water. Such sites are best for inshore fishing.

In the course of native settlement, as the early kanaka colonizers spread from fishing sites on the shore to inland areas and fanned out over the plains and hills from original centers of settlement, households with ties of relationship became scattered.

Some located on upland slopes (ko kula uka,) some on the plains toward the sea (ko kula kai) and some along the shore (ko kaha kai.) Neighborly interdependence, the sharing of goods and services, naturally resulted in the settling of contiguous lands by a given ‘ohana rather than in a scattering over an entire district.

When they had acquired taro, they no doubt rapidly cleared away the jungle along the streams to make room for taro patches, and there was a beginning of terraced flats that could be irrigated directly from the stream.

Fishermen and their families living around the bays and the beaches, or at isolated localities along the coast where fishing was practicable, led a life that was materially simpler than that of planters who dwelt on the plains.

Once they had discovered the great koa trees in the uplands, they were in a position to build large voyaging canoes, and it would take only a few men to sail these back in the direction of the Society Islands, or to the Marquesas, Samoa or Tonga.

Later, Polynesians brought with them shoots, roots, cuttings and seeds of various plants for food, cordage, medicine, fabric, containers, all of life’s vital needs. “Canoe crops” (Canoe Plants) is a term to describe the group of plants brought to Hawaiʻi by these early Polynesians.

“The people had ample cultivable land in the moist upland from two to four miles inland at altitudes of one thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. … The soil is most fertile, being formed from the decay of recent lava flows.”

“There the natives found their chief means of subsistence, and, in good seasons, were sufficiently fed. In bad seasons there were droughts, and more or less of ‘wī,’ or famine.” (Bishop)

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods. (Krauss)

Eventually, most of the makaʻāinana (‘common people’) were farmers, a few were fishermen. Tenants cultivated smaller crops for family consumption, to supply the needs of chiefs and provide tributes.

There was a high degree of stability or permanence of tenure despite the general turnover of authority and titles to the land whenever a new aliʻi came into power, owing to the fact that particular ‘ohana enjoyed the rights of occupancy and use and faithfully fulfilled their obligations.

In many cases their ancestors had pioneered the area and cultivated it since the earliest era of Hawaiian settlement. (Lots of information here is from Handy, Handy & Pukui.)

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April 8, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

‘Pāʻia High School’

“Because of the fact that there is no site available for the proposed high school at Paia, Maui, the building of which was authorized by the last legislature, it was decided at the meeting of the school commissioners yesterday afternoon that the school will have to be located elsewhere on the Valley Isle, although no definite site was named.”

“When built, however, the school will bear the name of the Pāʻia high school in keeping with the order of the legislature.” (Star Bulletin, June 27, 1913)

“It was at first thought that the school would be located at Pāʻia, but there was difficulty in securing a good site there. The Hāmākuapoko location is an ideal one and the people of Maui are lucky in getting such a fine site for their High School.”

“The county will build the school and the structure will be an up-to-date one. The Department of Public Instructions provides three teachers, and it will be up to the people of Maui to pay the salary of a fourth instructor.” (Maui News, July 5, 1913)

“There will be no tuition charged for admission, although this was the first plan. It is expected that the school will open with some thirty-five pupils in September in the upper department and many more in the school as a whole.” (Star-Bulletin, July 14, 1913)

Maui’s first co-educational high school opened in 1913 in a small frame building at Hāmākuapoko, close to bustling Pāʻia town and near the large plantation camps of East Maui. (OMHS) (It was known as Pāʻia High School, Maui High & Grammar School and, more commonly, Maui High School – now, Old Maui High School.)

When Maui High School was founded, the island was a rural community of some 32,000, mostly immigrants working in cane fields and sugar mills. Education was available only through grammar school, though boys could continue into their teen years at Lahainaluna, then a vocational-trade school.

The upper classes hired tutors, or sent their children to Punahou on O‘ahu or to the Mainland for secondary education. But a growing Caucasian middle class wanted their children educated at home. (Engledow)

“The school is answering a long-felt need on Maui. The basis for admission is a good knowledge of English. Heretofore it was impossible for pupils that spoke English at home to get the full attention they needed at various Maui schools, where the students were held back more or less by those who did not know English.”

“This was the condition everywhere in spite of the most earnest efforts of principals and assistants to have the condition otherwise.” (Star-Bulletin, October 6, 1913)

“The special train that the Kahului Railroad Company put on for carrying the pupils to that school is a very great convenience, for now the boys and girls can leave Wailuku as late as 8:30 and still arrive in time for the school work at the usual hour. This train is patronized by the pupils along the line of the railroad. The children near by come by other conveyance.” (Star-Bulletin, October 6, 1913)

Over the years, the campus expanded to 17,000 square feet along with the enrollment. (EPA) Noted Hawaiʻi architect Charles W. Dickey was chosen to design a large and inspiring school building, taking advantage of the site’s climate, landscape and views. In 1921 the concrete, mission-style administration and classroom building was opened.

Many more classrooms were added to the 24-acre campus, as well as teachers’ cottages, a gymnasium, an agricultural complex, athletic fields and a cafeteria. Students came from surrounding communities, central Maui and Upcountry, often by horseback, via Kahului Railroad trains or buses, or over the well-worn footpaths from neighboring plantation camps. (OMHS)

At its peak, just before World War II, as many as 1,000-students attended Maui High, coming in from throughout central Maui, some even by train. (Napier)

But island demographics changed. Central-Maui landowner, Alexander & Baldwin, formed Kahului Development Co, Ltd (KDCo) (the predecessor of A&B Properties, Inc) to serve as a development arm of the agricultural-based entity.

This timing coincided with the sugar company’s plan to close down some plantation camps. To provide for housing for its sugar workers, as well as meet post-WWII housing demand, KDCo announced a new residential development in Central Maui, in the area we now refer to as Kahului.

“Dream City,” a planned residential community was launched and over the next couple decades 3,500+ fee simple homes were offered for sale in 14-increments of the new development.

Under this 25-year plan, Kahului quickly became one of the first and most successful planned towns west of the Rockies – and the first in Hawai‘i.

As the development proceeded, the plantation camps were closed down, one by one, according to a schedule that gave the workers and the workers unions ten years’ advance notice.

It was announced that the plantation planned to be out of the housing business within ten years of the start of the project, and February 1, 1963, was the date it was all supposed to shut down. It took a little longer than that, but the schedule was implemented pretty much as planned.

Enrollment at Maui High began to steadily decline, as plantation camps closed and families moved to modern subdivisions in central Maui.

In 1972, the present Maui High School campus opened in the Dream City of Kahului. The school is now comprised of twelve major buildings, 36 portable classrooms and several athletic facilities on 75 acres.

At the time, over 60% of the school’s student body traveled from the northeast sector, a predominantly agricultural and rural community. Central Maui students were added to the school’s population at that time. (Maui High)

A notable alum of the Old Maui High was Patsy Takemoto, a Hāmākuapoko Camp student in the class of 1944; we knew her as Patsy Mink.

She became the first Japanese-American woman to be elected to the Territorial House of Representatives, the first Asian-American woman to be elected to the US Congress, a 1972 candidate for US president (running on an anti-war platform) and the author of Title IX legislation, aka The Patsy T Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act. (Wood)

Today, the Friends of Old Maui High School are working with government and private groups to develop a preservation plan, obtain funding and eventually rehabilitate the Dickey-designed building (to become the Patsy Takemoto Mink Center.)

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April 7, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lihue Plantation

“(T)he plains of Whymea … are reputed to be very rich and productive, occupying a space of several miles in extent, and winding at the foot of these three lofty mountains far, into the country.”

“In this valley is a great tract of luxuriant, natural pasture, whither all the cattle and sheep imported by me were to be driven, there to roam unrestrained, to ‘increase and multiply.’” (Vancouver, February 1794)

The Waimea of the 1830s and 40s was a busy place. Wild cattle were being caught for hides and beef, tanneries were turning hides into leather, sugar cane was being milled into sugar, and farm products were being grown. In 1835, the Protestant minister, Lorenzo Lyons, wrote to the mission headquarters in Honolulu:

“Waimea ought to be supplied (with more missionaries) for it has become the residence of Governor Adams (Kuakini – brother of Kaʻahumanu) … and many foreigners reside there…” (Lyons, June 25, 1835)

One reason for the presence of so much activity in Waimea was its proximity to the port of Kawaihae, a preferred stopping place for sailing vessels due to its relatively safe anchorage and good provisioning. The ships had access to plentiful supplies of water, salt, beef, pork, sweet potatoes, etc.

On (September 7, 1835) the Diana arrived 92 days from Canton via Bonin Islands. … Brig full of miscellaneous cargo … the principal of the balance to the Chinamen in French’s employ….”

“There were in the brig four Chinese sugar manufacturers with a stone mill and 400 to 600 pots for cloying and 5 cast Iron boilers. They are under control of Atti (Ahtai who was employed by William French) and hopefully can be obtained on fair terms.” (William Hooper, Ladd & Company; Kai)

Besides his interest in sugar, French had a store and a warehouse at Kawaihae as well as a store, a home and a tannery in the uplands at Waimea, Kohala. (Kai)

A visitor to the area in 1839 noted, “I accompanied Mr French on a walk to a place about two miles distant where the business of tanning is being carried on under the direction of Chinamen. The establishment is extensive and the leather exhibited … was of a very superior quality. Besides a saddlemaker close by the tan works, Mr. French has a shoemaker and a carpenter in his employ.” (Olmstead)

Records have not been found giving the names of these Chinese tanners but the names of six other Chinese men who were in the Waimea area during the 1830s and early 1840s are known. These were Ahpong, Ahsam, Ahchow, Aiko (Lum Jo), Lau Ki or Kalauki, and Apokane (Ahsing.) (Kai)

The first sugar mill is described as having been established by a Chinese man named Lau Ki, who had come to Hawai‘i with Captain Joseph Carter, grandfather of AW Carter. The mill was powered by a water wheel using water from Waikoloa Stream. (Stewart)

The sugar plantation was doing business under the name of Achow & Company. (Kai) It was situated in Lihue, an area in Waimea that is generally where the Lālāmilo agricultural subdivision is situated.

Aiko, whose Chinese name was Lum Jo, was listed as one of the six ‘sugar masters’ who came to Hawaiʻi between 1820-1840. He appears to have been one of the principal partners in Lihue Plantation.

Aiko married a Hawaiian woman from the Waimea area in 1835 and they had a daughter, Amelia, born in 1836. Aiko’s wife, Maria Kaʻahuapeʻa, probably from the Waimea area, was baptized a Catholic in 1840. Amelia was their only natural child. They raised other children, hānai and adopted. (Kai)

In 1843, Aiko and his partners sold the Lihue mill, their tools, the cane in the fields and whatever rights they had in their original agreement with Governor Kuakini, to Abraham (Abram) Henry Fayerweather. (Kai)

After selling the plantation Aiko went up to Kohala where he started another plantation in Iole, then came down to Hilo to start another plantation on Ponahawai and he was involved in various businesses including the first bowling alley in Hilo. (Clarry)

Back in Waimea, on December 5, 1843 Fayerweather entered into an agreement with Kuakini. That agreement noted, in part, “Kuakini shall plant sugar cane at Waimea and when the same shall be ripe, shall carry or cause the same to be carried to the sugar mill of AH Fayerweather at Waimea, and shall also furnish men to do all the labour for same including the grinding, and shall furnish firewood for boiling the same.”

“That, AH Fayerweather shall furnish a mill for grinding the aforenamed cane, a sugar maker and all the tools for making the sugar and molasses, and the sugar and molasses, proceeds of the aforenamed cane, shall be shared equally between the said Kuakini and AH Fayerweather, one half each.”

“This agreement is to commence on the first day of January AD one thousand eight hundred and forty four, and is to continue and be binding on the parties, for themselves their heirs and assigns for the term of five years.”

“It is also agreed that the land now planted with cane by the said AH Fayerweather and also heretofore planted by Achow & Co at Waimea, shall be free from taxes of all kinds.” (Kuakini/Fayerweather Agreement)

Although unsuccessful, sugarcane continued to be cultivated in Waimea after George W Macy and James Louzada purchased the mill in 1853. Macy and Louzada leased a large portion of Puʻukapu in 1857 for growing sugarcane. However, cultivation of sugarcane in Puʻukapu was abandoned by 1877. (Kai)

While sugar was out; cattle was in.

Around this time, more lands were converted to pasturage and holding pens; and, according to Lorezo Lyons, Waimea had turned into a “cattle pen” and “(b)y another unfavorable arrangement 2/3 of Waimea have been converted to a pasture for government herds of cattle, sheep, horses, etc.” (MKSWCD)

In 1847, the branding of wild cattle became a government function, overseen by William Beckley. That same year, John Palmer Parker purchased the first acres of land that would become Parker Ranch. (Bergin)

Shortly after, in 1850, the King appointed George Davis Hueu, of Waikoloa, as “Keeper of the Cattle” at Waimea, Mauna Kea and surrounding districts. (MKSWCD)

Likewise, because of the demand for Irish potatoes and sweet potatoes by those in California involved with the Gold Rush, Waimea farmers began to increase their production and shipping of potatoes to California, along with other agricultural products. (Stewart)

(Lihue Plantation Company on Kauai originated in 1849 as a partnership between Charles Reed Bishop, Judge William L. Lee, and Henry A. Pierce of Boston; H Hackfeld & Co. served as agents.)

(The site of the mill was selected in the valley of the Nāwiliwili stream; water power was used to drive the mill rollers, which were iron bound granite crushers brought from China. A centrifugal sugar dryer was installed in 1851. Open kettles provided the means for boiling the syrup.) (HSPA)

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April 6, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Calvin Ellis Stowe was born on April 6, 1802 in Natick, Massachusetts. His father died when he was 6; at 12, he apprenticed as a paper maker. But his passion was books.

Stowe graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, with highest honors; he then entered Andover Theological Seminary in 1825. He completed his theological studies with the Andover Class of 1829.

Stowe taught Greek at Dartmouth College and Biblical Literature at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati. At Lane, Stowe met Harriet Elizabeth Beecher, daughter of the school’s renowned president, Lyman Beecher.

Beecher was born on June 14, 1811 in Litchfield, Connecticut; her mother died when she was 5. She enrolled in the seminary run by her sister Catharine. At the age of 21, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio to join her father at the Lane Theological Seminary.

At Lane, Stowe married Beecher.

Harriet’s brother was Henry Ward Beecher, one of the era’s most celebrated clergyman and preachers. Her sister was the writer and reformer Catharine Beecher, a prominent champion for improved education for women and girls.

Convinced of his wife’s own talents, Calvin told Harriet she “must be a literary woman.” He remained one of her greatest supporters.

Starting June 5, 1851, she published installments of a story in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era; she called it Uncle Tom’s Cabin; it originally had a subtitle “The Man That Was A Thing”, but it was soon changed to “Life Among the Lowly”.

Her writing of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was precipitated by two events: in 1849 her sixth child, Samuel Charles, died in a cholera epidemic in Cincinnati; then, the year following Charley’s death Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law.

The law required citizens to assist the sheriff in catching runaway slaves, stipulating fines and imprisonment for those who refused – it brought slavery home to the doorsteps of northerners.

Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin to encourage citizens to disobey what she took to be an unchristian law and to engage white parents, many of whom, she knew, had lost a child, in the deep question of what a slave parent feels. (Hedrick)

The weekly publications continued to April 1, 1852. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published in book form on March 20, 1852, by John P Jewett with an initial print run of 5,000 copies. (People liked it; it sold 300,000 copies in the US in the first year of publication.)

While the book is focused on the slavery issue on the continent, she includes some reminders of her past, as well as passages on the Islands.

As noted, her family, birth and betrothed, come religious education backgrounds; she went to a seminary. Recall that her husband graduated from Andover Theological Seminary.

Dedicated September 28, 1808, the purpose of the Founders for the Seminary, according to their constitution, was to increase “the number of learned and able defenders of the Gospel of Christ, as well as of orthodox, pious, and zealous ministers of the New Testament ; being moved, as we hope, by a principle of gratitude to God and benevolence to man.” (Rowe)

In addition to ministers, the seminary also produced hundreds of missionaries. Two notable graduates were part of the Pioneer Company of missionaries to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi.)

Hiram Bingham and Asa Thurston were classmates at Andover Theological Seminary (completed Seminary courses 1819 – a decade before Stowe’s husband;) they were ordained on September 29, 1819 at Goshen, Connecticut. (Joesting)

Calvin Stowe returned to Andover Theological Seminary in 1852 as professor of sacred literature.

Harriet’s book exposed the brutal reality of slavery in the American South; but it did not leave many of those in the North off the hook.

One character in her writing, Miss Ophelia, “stands as the representative of a numerous class of the very best of Northern people.” (Stowe notes in her ‘Key” to the book.)

“There are in this class of people activity, zeal, unflinching conscientiousness, clear intellectual discriminations between truth and error, and great logical and doctrinal correctness; but there is a want of that spirit of love, without which, in the eye of Christ, the most perfect character is as deficient as a wax flower – wanting in life and perfume.” (Stowe; Key)

“It is, however, but just to our Northern Christians to say that this sin (prejudice) has been committed ignorantly and in unbelief, and that within a few years signs of a much better spirit have begun to manifest themselves.”

Stowe, goes on to note in her Key a link to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) and the Islands:

“… many a good Miss Ophelia has opened her eyes in astonishment to find that, while she has been devouring the ‘Missionary Herald,’ and going without butter on her bread and sugar in her tea to send the gospel to the Sandwich Islands, there is a very thriving colony of heathen in her own neighborhood at home …”

(The Missionary Herald, established in 1821 printed reports from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM.) For many Christians in America, the Missionary Herald became prime information for many Americans about foreign lands.)

“… and, true to her own good and honest heart, she has resolved, not to give up her prayers and efforts for the heathen abroad, but to add thereunto labors for the heathen at home.” (Stowe)

When Calvin retired after the war, another of Harriet’s brothers, Charles Beecher, opened a school in Florida to teach newly emancipated slaves. At his urging, Calvin and Harriet joined him each winter, extending their activist partnership well into their golden years. (Andover-Newton)

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