Peter T Young

January 30, 2016 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

ʻAilāʻau

The longest recorded eruption at Kilauea, arguably, was the ʻAilāʻau eruption and lava flow in the 15th century, which may be memorialized in the Pele-Hiʻiaka chant. It was the largest in Hawaiʻi in more than 1,000-years.

The flow was named after ʻAilāʻau was known and feared by all the people. ʻAi means the “one who eats or devours.” Lāʻau means “tree” or a “forest.”

ʻAilāʻau was, therefore, the forest eating (destroying) fire-god. Time and again he laid the districts of South Hawaii desolate by the lava he poured out from his fire-pits. (He was the fire god before Pele arrived at Hawaiʻi Island.)

He was the god of the insatiable appetite; the continual eater of trees, whose path through forests was covered with black smoke fragrant with burning wood, and sometimes burdened with the smell of human flesh charred into cinders in the lava flow.

ʻAilāʻau seemed to be destructive and was so named by the people, but his fires were a part of the forces of creation. He built up the islands for future life. The flowing lava made land. Over time, the lava disintegrates and makes earth deposits and soil. When the rain falls, fruitful fields form and people settled there.

ʻAilāʻau still poured out his fire. It spread over the fertile fields, and the people feared him as the destroyer giving no thought to the final good.

He lived, the legends say, for a long time in a very ancient part of Kilauea, on the large island of Hawaii, now separated by a narrow ledge from the great crater and called Kilauea Iki (Little Kilauea).

The ʻAilāʻau eruption took place from a vent area just east of Kilauea Iki. The eruption built a broad shield. The eastern part of Kilauea Iki Crater slices through part of the shield, and red cinder and lava flows near the center of the shield can be seen on the northeastern wall of the crater.

The eruption probably lasted about 60 years, ending around 1470 (based on evaluation of radiocarbon data for 17 samples of lava flows produced by the ʻAilāʻau shield – from charcoal created when lava burns vegetation.) The ages obtained for the 17 samples were averaged and examined statistically to arrive at the final results.

The radiocarbon data are supported by the magnetic declination and inclination of the lava flows, frozen into the flows when they cooled. This study found that these “paleomagnetic directions” are consistent with what was expected for the 15th century.

Such a long eruption naturally produced a large volume of lava, estimated to be about 5.2 cubic kilometers (1.25 cubic miles) after accounting for the bubbles in the lava. The rate of eruption is about the same as that for other long-lasting eruptions at Kilauea.

This large volume of lava covered a huge area, about 166 square miles (over 106,000-acres) – larger than the Island of Lānaʻi. From the summit of the ʻAilāʻau shield, pāhoehoe lava flowed 25-miles northeastward, making it all the way to the coast.

Lava covered all, or most, of what are now Mauna Loa Estates, Royal Hawaiian Estates, Hawaiian Orchid Island Estates, Fern Forest Vacation Estates, Eden Rock Estates, Crescent Acres, Hawaiian Acres, Orchid Land Estates, ʻAinaloa, Hawaiian Paradise Park and Hawaiian Beaches. (USGS)

After a time, ʻAilāʻau left these pit craters and went into the great crater and was said to be living there when Pele came to the seashore far below.

When Pele came to the island Hawaiʻi, she first stopped at a place called Keahialaka in the district of Puna. From this place she began her inland journey toward the mountains. As she passed on her way there grew within her an intense desire to go at once and see ʻAilāʻau, the god to whom Kilauea belonged, and find a resting-place with him as the end of her journey.

She came up, but ʻAilāʻau was not in his house – he had made himself thoroughly lost. He had vanished because he knew that this one coming toward him was Pele. He had seen her toiling down by the sea at Keahialaka. Trembling dread and heavy fear overpowered him.

He ran away and was entirely lost. When he came to that pit she laid out the plan for her abiding home, beginning at once to dig up the foundations. She dug day and night and found that this place fulfilled all her desires. Therefore, she fastened herself tight to Hawaii for all time.

These are the words in which the legend disposes of this ancient god of volcanic fires. He disappears from Hawaiian thought and Pele from a foreign land finds a satisfactory crater in which her spirit power can always dig up everlastingly overflowing fountains of raging lava. (Westervelt)

The ʻAilāʻau flow was such a vast outpouring changed the landscape of much of Puna. It must have had an important impact on local residents, and as such it may well be described in the Pele-Hiʻiaka chant.

Hiʻiaka, late on returning to Kilauea from Kauaʻi with Lohiau, sees that Pele has broken her promise and set afire Hiʻiaka’s treasured ʻōhiʻa lehua forest in Puna. Hiʻiaka is furious, and this leads to her love-making with Lohiau, his subsequent death at the hands of Pele, and Hiʻiaka’s frantic digging to recover the body.

The ʻAilāʻau flows seem to be the most likely candidate because it covered so much of Puna. The timing seems right, too – after the Pele clan arrived from Kahiki, before the caldera formed (Hiʻiaka’s frantic digging may record this), and before the encounters with Kamapuaʻa, some of which probably deal with explosive eruptions between about 1500 and 1790. (Information here is from USGS and Westervelt.)

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Ailaau Flow-Kīlauea summit overflows-their ages and distribution in the Puna District, Hawai’i-Clague-map

Ailaau_lava_flow-map-USGS

Kilauea_map-Johnson

Hawaii-Volcanoes-NPS-map

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Age and Distribution of Lava Flows in Kilauea-USGS

Kilauea-Byron-1825

January 22, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter

Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter (also known as Henry Augustus Peirce Carter) was born in Honolulu August 7, 1837.

His father came from one of the old Massachusetts families, and had gone to Honolulu to engage in business, one of the first traders between the East Indies, Chinese ports and the Pacific Coast.

At about ten years old, young Carter was sent to the continent to be educated; for three or four years he attended school in Boston (all the formal education he ever had.)

When he was thirteen years old he went to San Francisco, and shortly afterward back to the Islands. He was office boy at C Brewer (he later became president of the firm.)

It was young Henry Carter who recognized that the commerce of Honolulu could not prosper until the Islands produced some commodity that could be used in exchange for merchandise which was imported and consumed here.

Hence, he persisted in accepting sugar agencies, believing that the sugar industry could but offer some permanent relief to the trying situation that then existed. (Nellist)

In 1862, Carter married Sybil Augusta Judd, a daughter of Dr. Gerrit P Judd of Honolulu (who came to the Islands in 1828 as a physician for the Missionaries and who later served the Kingdom.)

(The Carters had five children; one of them, George Robert Carter was appointed the 2nd Territorial Governor in the Islands.)

Carter brought Peter Cushman Jones into the business in 1871 as a junior partner, to eventually take over the operations while the sugar industry was growing.

For some years during his business life Carter had devoted considerable time to study of foreign affairs; with the expectation of someday becoming Minister of Foreign Affairs; when he gave up his business life, he was appointed.

Though born in the Islands and intensely loyal to his American parentage, he did not approve of the policy of annexation. At a public meeting in 1873, held at the old Hawaiian Hotel, this young merchant boldly challenged the wisdom of annexation but debated in a most winning manner in favor of reciprocity with the US.

He pointed out the past unsuccessful efforts in this direction and the reasons thereof, and urged the wisdom of slower but more certain growth of American sentiment in these Islands.

In 1876 he travelled to the US as one or the foreign legation; that year the first Reciprocity Treaty was negotiated. Immediately upon the establishment of the Reciprocity Treaty and the reduction of duties on certain commodities between the US and the Kingdom of Hawaii, a cry was raised over the advantage in trade that this new treaty gave to the Americans.

He then travelled to England, France and Germany to explain the treaty. (NY Times) Carter pointed out the treaty did not violate ‘favored nation’ clause of other treaties and that he negotiated similar treaties with others.

With a commodity for world markets and a treaty to benefit local growers, the development of the sugar industry caused the labor question to become acute, and in 1882 Carter was sent on a diplomatic mission to Portugal where he was successful in securing a new treaty regulating the Portuguese immigration to Hawaii.

On January 1, 1883, the Hawaiian Minister Resident at Washington, Judge Allen, died suddenly in the midst of a reception at the White House. In February, Carter was sent to Washington as his successor.

Carter’s efforts were successful in protecting the Reciprocity Treaty from various attacks, and finally in securing its definite renewal.

This renewal, which went into effect in 1887, carried for the first time the Pearl Harbor clause, by which the US was granted the use of a naval station at Pearl Harbor. This clause was the subject of much official correspondence between Mr. Carter and the secretary of State. (Nellist)

Carter served his country as Minister to the US for about 10-years. He was one of King Kalākaua’s closest advisers” and in all affairs of great moment to the kingdom his advice was carefully considered”. (Hawaiian Gazette, November 24, 1891)

“Henry Alpheus Peirce Carter was probably the ablest diplomat ever to serve the Hawaiian kingdom. … He was a man of great energy, of positive views and facility in the expression of them, with a self-confident and forceful manner that sometimes antagonized those who disagreed with him.”

“From 1875 until his death he spent most of his time abroad, as a diplomatic representative of the Hawaiian kingdom in the United States and Europe, where he became a familiar and much respected figure.” (Kuykendall) Carter died November 1, 1891, in New York.

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January 18, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Edwin Lani Hanchett

On September 26, 1967, the telephone rang with the news the Rev. Edwin Lani Hanchett, the first priest of the Episcopal Church of Hawaiian ancestry, rector of St. Peter’s, Honolulu, had been elected Hawaii’s first suffragan Bishop by the House of Bishops meeting in Seattle; he later (January 18, 1970) became the first Bishop of Hawaiian ancestry of the Episcopal Church.

The eldest child of six (five boys and one girl,) Hanchett was born at Hoolehua, Molokai, on November 2, 1919 to Dr Alsoberry Kaumualiʻi Hanchett and Mary Hazel (McGuire) Hanchett.

His father was the first person of Hawaiian ancestry to graduate from Harvard Medical College; the first doctor of Hawaiian descent to practice in the Islands; first City-County physician in Honolulu and first doctor at the Shingle Memorial Hospital, Molokai.

His grandfather, Salem Hanchett of Massachusetts, went to sea as a teenager aboard a Pacific whaler, and settled on Kauai during the reign of King Kaumualiʻi; he married Aluhua Aka, a descendent of Kaumualiʻi.

In 1848, he was granted citizenship in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, and seven years afterward, he obtained a license to operate a Wailua River ferry at a time when no bridges spanned the river. (Soboleski)

Hanchett was baptized in the Holy Cross Chapel and confirmed at St Alban’s Chapel, Iolani School (from which he graduated – Class of 1937.)

He attended the University of Hawaii (1937-1939) and the Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley (1958.)

Originally a pre-med student, Hanchett worked at the City-County Emergency Hospital (1938-1941) at the corner of Miller and Punchbowl, only a block from St. Peter’s.

On June 21, 1941, Hanchett married Puanani Akana (the fourth of nine children born to John and Julia Spencer Akana (she graduated from the Priory in 1937) of Kalihiwai, Kauai; they had four children: Carolyn, Suzanne, Stuart and Tiare.

During the war, Hanchett took a position in the Navy Yard at Pearl Harbor, supervising for the duration that section of the Supply Department servicing and supplying naval aircraft; he later worked in the Territorial Tax Office in Lihue.

He was a full-time youth worker for Kauai in 1950, becoming a lay-reader, and reading for orders. On July 20, 1952, he was ordained deacon at Christ Church, Kilauea, parish church of his wife’s family.

The ordination to the Diaconate was the fulfillment of a cherished dream ever since his days in ʻIolani School for boys; he had hoped that someday he might study for Holy Orders.

The next day, Hanchett left with his family for Holy Innocents’, Lahaina, Maui. As Archdeacon of Maui, Hanchett assisted the churchpeople of Molokai to establish Grace Church, Hoolehua and was instrumental in helping establish Camp Pecusa at Olowalu, Maui.

“Camp Pecusa” (PECUSA was an acronym for “Protestant Episcopal Church United States of America”) began as a church-sponsored camp for children in 1950 at Fleming’s Beach at Kapalua.

Campers stayed in big Army tents left over from World War II. Five years later, as the popularity of the camp continued to grow, Pioneer Mill leased the site Olowalu to the Church. The church held the lease on the campground until 2005, when the land was bought by a private company (now Camp Olowalu.)

Hanchett was ordained priest by Bishop Kennedy on September 19, 1953 (Ember Saturday). He later presided as vicar of St. George’s, Pearl Harbor during 1960-1961, and as rector of St. Peter’s, Honolulu, beginning in 1961.

Then, on January 18, 1970, he became diocesan Bishop at Saint Andrew’s Cathedral.

When cancer claimed his life in 1975, Rev. James Long, canon of the diocese noted, “We all loved him so and we loved him for what he was — a great friend, a great priest and great bishop and, above all, a man of great spirituality.”

Roman Catholic Bishop John Scanlan said, “The entire Hawaiian community has lost a valiant and gentle Christian man in the passing of Bishop Lani Hanchett.”

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January 11, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Flying for Fun

“(Flying) may not be all plain sailing … But the fun of it is worth the price.” (Putnam, The Fun Of It)

Five hundred enjoyed Mrs Putnam’s free lecture through the University Extension Service, University of Hawaiʻi – titled, ‘Flying for Fun.”

It was an interesting subject back then, only a few short years after Charles Lindberg first flew solo over the Atlantic. (She repeated the feat on the fifth anniversary of Lindbergh’s solo flight.)

‘Flying for fun’ (sport aviation) is basically flying for some purpose other than transportation or business (relaxation, hobby, competition, racing or thrill.) (CAP)

“I attempted to fly across the Atlantic ocean for my own person satisfaction. My flight added nothing to aviation. Literally hundreds of persons have crossed the Atlantic by aircraft, and one flight adds little to the starting sum total.”

“If my flight interested women to learn to fly as pilots or to fly as passengers on air lines, or to let their husbands and children fly as passengers, or to let their children embark on careers aeronautical engineers, then I think that my flight was worth while.” (Mrs Putnam, Rockford Morning Star, 02-15-1935; Genealogy Trails)

“A charming personality combined with a graciousness and ability in speaking to an audience as well as to the individual are paradoxically the qualities that the pioneering American woman flyer … possesses. In addition to these, her love for beauty is so real that she believes the lure of flying is the lure of beauty.”

She “described vividly and picturesquely her flight over the Pacific ocean, adding to her gift for pantomime a power of description and a true sense of humor that struck an immediate response in her audience.”

She insists “that the only reason for the flights was her own wish to fly. In this connection she said, ‘Women must often do for themselves what men have already done, and I look for the day to come when individual aptitude instead of sex will be the criterion for holding any job.’” (Daily Illini, March 22, 1935)

“I have long been interested in the comparative skills between the sexes. I have watched the flawless coordination of women champion drivers and I have watched the control and precision of women factory hands as they do work no man does (whether this should be ‘can do’ or not, I do not know)…”

“… and I wonder why the creatures who can with training perform these diverse tasks, and a hundred others, so excellently, should be balked by a contraption with an engine and four wheels or one with an engine and a couple of wings.” (Putnam to Wiggam, 1932)

She was rarely out of public view. In the many images of her after 1928, she appears as the epitome of grace and poise. During the years that America was in the grip of the Great Depression, she provided the nation with a sense of hope and optimism about its future.

After discovering the joy of flying, she came to see the airplane as her one true home. There she could escape, challenge herself, break records, and inspire others who longed to lead independent lives.

Although she was a vocal advocate for women’s rights and the future of aviation, she preferred being in the cockpit of a plane to anywhere else. She seemed to be happiest when flying an airplane. (Smithsonian)

At 4:44 pm, January 11, 1935, Putnam took off from Wheeler Field on Oʻahu for Oakland, California on a trans-Pacific flight never made solo before.

It was just one year prior that Commander M. Ginnis led his flight of six seaplanes from the West Coast to Hawaii. Now a woman was doing it in reverse, flying in one airplane, with one engine, and no other person aboard. (hawaii-gov)

A crowd of less than 1,000 was on hand to see the take-off. “Mr. Putnam was worried and perspiring as the plane got into the air. ‘I would rather have a baby,’ he said.”

“Despite the bad weather in the Schofield Barracks area, which included a drizzling rain and a muddy field, (Putnam) decided that conditions for her 2,400-mile cruise which she had planned ever since her arrival here two weeks ago, were right.”

“Everything fine; weather fair,” she radioed to Honolulu. (NYTimes, January 11, 1935)

The scene at Oakland Airport was a contrast to the Wheeler point of departure, as 5,000 people lined the field to offer a tumultuous reception for the first human to fly solo and non-stop over one ocean and 2,000 miles over another.

The West Coast appeared to the pilot twice in error, each time turning out to be cloud shadows on the water’s surface. The third time, however, was land.

Then she sighted the landing field and the hundreds of honking cars. The time was 12:50 pm, January 12, 1935. Some 2,090 nautical miles from Wheeler Field – 18 hours and 15 minutes later – she settled into a perfect landing in the California airport.

A brilliant success, the flight was accomplished by a flyer whose only motivation was the love of flying, and a desire to contribute trail-blazing marks to the world. (hawaii-gov)

Oh … we generally refer to Mrs George Palmer Putnam as Amelia Earhart. Today is the anniversary of her historic solo flight from Hawaiʻi to the continent, the first person, man or woman, to do so.

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Amelia Earhart poses in front of her airplane in Wheeler Field, Hawaii, on January 4, 1935-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart arrives in Hawaii on the Lurline, sailing past Aloha Tower on 12-27-1934

Amelia Earhart’s plans to fly solo from Hawaii to the U.S. shipped her plane from Los Angeles on December 23, 1934-NatlGeographic

George Palmer Putnam and Amelia Earhart Putnam

Flower leis drape Amelia Earhart in Honolulu on January 3, 1935-NatlGeographic

Eating pineapple with Duke Kahanamoku-January 11, 1935-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart & husband George Putnam are serenaded by Royal Hawaiian Hotel musicians 1-2-1935

Amelia Earhart 1935

Amelia Earhart delivers a lecture at University of Hawaii 1-2-1935.

Pilot Amelia Earhart readies her plane at Wheeler Field, Hawaii, for a flight across some Pacific islands-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart is showered with flowers-the first person to successfully fly from Hawaii to California-NatlGeographic

Amelia Earhart Memorial-plaque

January 10, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Oʻahu Charity School

Andrew Johnstone, born in Dundee, Scotland in 1794, came to the US in 1813; he and his wife (Rebecca Worth Johnstone) were members of the Fourth Company of missionaries to the Islands, arriving on June 7, 1831. (Mission Houses)

The missionaries stationed at Honolulu were overwhelmed with working with the native Hawaiian population, preaching, translating the Bible, preparing text books and superintending the Hawaiians in schools. (Alexander)

The missionaries taught their lessons in Hawaiian to the Hawaiians, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians.

Johnstone, by a previous understanding, devoted part of his time to visiting seamen and distributing Bibles and other books among them. During one of these visits, he met the 12 or 14-year-old son of Captain Carter, commanding the English Cutter ‘William Little’ then in port.

Johnstone offered young Carter some books and invited him to his house; in a day or two he brought with him another lad, the son of a foreign resident, who asked Johnstone to teach him to read.

Johnstone agreed, and very soon one and another boy came asking the same favor, to the point where a regular class was formed. (Alexander)

Meanwhile, “(m)arriages between foreigners and Hawaiians appear of late to be rapidly increasing, and it has been the custom of many parents to send their offspring to the United States to receive an education.” (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

Some of the parents of half-Hawaiian/half-foreign children wanted their children to learn the English language. There was an evident and growing need for an English language school. (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

Soon, a subscription was opened to raise funds for the creation of a school house for the instruction of English-speaking children. Generous donations were made by some of the residents, and an orphan-school fund was created. This led to the establishment of the ‘Oʻahu Charity School.’

The missionaries supported Johnstone’s efforts at their June 1832 ‘General Meeting,’ resolving “That the Mission approve of Mr and Mrs Johnstone’s continuing their attention to the instruction of the children of foreigners, making annually such a report to the Mission of the school and their labors, as is required of the rest of our number in our respective spheres of action.”

The King granted a lot for the school in an area of Honolulu known as Mililani. On September 3, 1832, the subscribers met and approved the construction of a schoolhouse. (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

“It is a neat substantial building of stone, 56 feet long and 26 feet wide, fitted up with benches, and other conveniences, for a school-room”. (Sailor’s Magazine, August 1838) (It stood in a lane running from King to Queen Street near the Waikiki end of the Judiciary building. (Goodale))

“On looking around the room, it appeared well furnished with cards, maps, books, slates, &c, of an excellent character and in sufficient variety.” (Polynesian, November 14, 1840)

“Thirty five children of both sexes having been admitted, the school was opened on the 10th Jan. 1833. … The children were all beginners, and nearly all entirely ignorant of the language of their teachers.” (Polynesian, April 10, 1841)

“Until the establishment of this institution, the education of (the children of Hawaiian mothers and foreign fathers) was almost entirely neglected, but now they appear to be in a fair way to become fitted for stations of usefulness and respectability in life.) (Polynesian, November 14, 1840)

Oʻahu Charity School was the first school in the Islands and the first school on the Pacific where the English language was used (it was one of six English language schools west of the Rockies.) In fact, it received pupils from the US, Alaska and Mexico. (NEA, February 1922)

In 1842, nine boys from the best families of California were sent here to be educated at the Oʻahu Charity School. One of these boys was José Antonio Romualdo Pacheco, Jr. He came to the Islands when he was 7-years old, and was in the Islands for five years. He later became the 12th-Governor of American California.

The School continued to increase in numbers and usefulness; however, there was a falling out and the Johnstones left (January 22, 1844) and formed their own school.

During the years Pacheco attended the School, its good reputation and numbers steadily increased. Students were arriving from the Russian settlement of Kamchatka, while others were coming from California and the other Hawaiian Islands.

The school had dormitories for the students who were either orphans or who had been sent from distant places. The curriculum was comprehensive and substantial, including classes to teach the Hawaiian language, writing, reading, mathematics, sciences, the arts and geography. (Hartmann & Wright)

Later, other schools offered English language education. Oʻahu Charity School experienced financial difficulties, with the rise of various competing private schools, and in 1851 was provided with public assistance.

A special tax was imposed on all foreigners of legal age residing in Honolulu: $3 for every individual without children, and $5 for every individual having children within the school age. This plan met with general approval. (Alexander)

The school’s name then changed to the Town Free School, but its board maintained control over the school until 1859, when it passed into the Superintendent of School’s domain. (NPS)

In 1865, the Board of Education split the school into separate boys and girls (the Town Free School became Mililani Girls School.) In 1874, that school closed and the girls went to a new school called Pohukaina. (Alexander)

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