Peter T Young

April 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Walker Estate

Captain Heinrich Hackfeld was an adventurer born in Dalmenhorst, in Oldenberg, Germany. He was a sea captain on the China run when he sailed into Honolulu Harbor for provisions.

He stayed; he and his brother-in-law Johann Carl Pflueger founded a dry goods store called H Hackfeld and Company in 1849 in Honolulu. In 1881, Paul Isenberg became a partner.

George Rodiek was first vice president of H Hackfeld & Co; he also served as German consul in the Islands. In 1905, Rodiek built a two-story home with a series of garden featuring ferns, rocks and orchard in Nuʻuanu.

Then, WWI came (1914-1918.) In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation, whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company, bought the H Hackfeld stock. (Jung)

The German-started H Hackfeld & Co became one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five.” (Hawaiʻi’s Big 5 were: Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C Brewer (1826.))

In 1918, Rodiek sold his Nuʻuanu home to Alan Wilcox who remained in it until the 1930s when it was taken over by Henry Alexander Walker (Walker became president of American Factors in the 1930s – American Factors shortened its name to “Amfac” in 1966.

The next year (1967,) Alexander’s son, Henry Alexander Walker became president and later Board Chairman. Over the next 15-years, Walker took Amfac from a company that largely depended on sugar production in Hawaiʻi to a broadly diversified conglomerate. After adding so many companies, Amfac sales were $1.3 billion by 1976, up from $575 million in 1971. (hbs-edu)

After subsequent sales of controlling interests in the company and liquidation of land and other assets, in 2002, the once dominant business in Hawaiʻi, the biggest of the Hawaiʻi Big Five, Amfac Hawaiʻi, LLC (Limited Liability Company) filed for federal bankruptcy protection. (TGI)

OK, back to the house … The nearly-6-acres of grounds were originally used for orchards and vegetables although the Japanese garden was put in shortly after the house was built (thought to be the oldest formal Japanese garden in Hawaiʻi,) the stones, lamps and images specially brought from Japan for it.

Wilcox expanded the gardens, but it was not until the Walkers took over the house that the grounds were made into a showplace. (NPS)

The Walkers turned the estate into world famous orchid gardens. Una Walker (Henry Sr’s wife) maintained the estate by making the grounds available for weddings and visitors and as a movie and television set.

The Walker residence is one of the few intact estates that were built in the upper Nuʻuanu Valley before and after the turn of the century. The Classical Revival style reflects an era of gracious living that for various reasons has passed from existence except in a few isolated cases. (NPS)

In 1973, the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places; in addition more that 20 of its trees are listed as exceptional trees. (Being on the register doesn’t mean that a private landowner cannot demolish a historic site.)

In 1989, two years after Una’s death, the house and its grounds were sold by the Walker heirs to Masao Nangaku of Minami Group (USA) Inc. His intention was to restore the original house to be used as a corporate retreat; he renovated the house.

After Nangaku experienced financial problems, Richard Fried and partners took the property over and, in 1998, asked for planning permission to build a chapel to facilitate weddings on the site.

When this was refused, the estate was sold to Holy-eye (the Hawaii business arm of Forshang World Foundation and Forshang Buddhism World Center) the same day.

In 2005, Holy-Eye listed the estate for sale. In June 2006, real-estate developer TR Partners attempted to purchase the estate and planned to demolish the building and subdivide up to 20-home sites.

In 2006, Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation listed the Walker Estate to that year’s Most Endangered Historic Site (listing there calls attention to Historic resources that are often threatened by demolition, neglect, ignorance and/or apathy.)

The Taiwan and US flags are flown at the entrance to the property.

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April 18, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Yokohama Specie Bank

In 1860, a special Japanese envoy stopped in Honolulu on the way to Washington, DC, thus beginning formal recognition between the Japanese and Hawaiians.

In 1868, members of the Japanese working class came as contract labor to the relatively unpopulated young city of Honolulu to fill job openings in the sugar plantations.

Although the arrangement was originally temporary, many stayed, such that by 1908 the Japanese constituted 40% of the population of the Territory of Hawaiʻi, and had expanded to some of the professional fields. (LOC-HABS)

The government-supported Yokohama Specie Bank, founded in Japan in 1880, was international in origin. It developed an extensive network of branches, facilitating trade through its participation in foreign exchange activities, trade financing and even long-term financing of the raw material needs of Japanese industry. (Jones)

The bank was named after the ‘specie,’ a silver coin (as distinguished from bullion or paper money) used as an international currency for settling payments among traders. The word is Latin for “in kind;” we similarly use the term ‘species’ as a class of individuals having some common characteristics or qualities (distinct sort or kind.)

The Yokohama Specie Bank set up its first representative office in Shanghai, associated with the growing triangular cotton trade among Japan, India and China. It did so at the request of Japanese businessmen, who – when India ended free coinage of silver that year – had major difficulties with foreign exchange transactions. (Jones)

Japanese banking came to Hawaiʻi on August 8, 1892, with the opening of the Honolulu branch of the Yokohama Shokin Giriko, the Yokohama Specie Bank, Ltd.

The bank first operated from offices in the Japanese consulate. By 1900, the bank had moved to the Republic Building on King Street between Bethel and Fort Streets. Most of the bank’s depositors were Japanese, although the Chinese and Hawaiians had accounts there in smaller numbers.

It did not come under the monarchy’s jurisdiction in a commercial sense, as it was established as an agency and acted as a part of the Japanese consulate. However, it incorporated in Hawaiʻi in 1895, its increasing business making certification necessary under the Government’s Foreign Corporation Law. (LOC-HABS)

Although the Yokohama Specie Bank conducted a merchant bank business in Hawaiʻi, its principal function remained that of transacting foreign exchange business.

In 1907, the Yokohama Specie Bank bought the property at the corner of Merchant and Bethel Streets. From the mid-nineteenth century, this site had been occupied by the Sailor’s Home, which was a three-story structure whose cornerstone was laid by King Kamehameha IV on July 31, 1855.

The new bank building was the design of architect Harry Livingston Kerr, responsible for more than 900 buildings erected in Honolulu (from 1897 to 1937.)

The cornerstone was laid on October 20, 1908. A group photograph of the staff of the bank was included in the items placed in the cornerstone. It opened on the April 18, 1910, with separate receptions for Caucasians, Japanese and Chinese, and general public.

The brick and steel building was considered the most fireproof building in town, having no exposed wood (it has copper and marble window casings, copper doors and sashes.) The architect Kerr modestly proclaimed it “the finest structure in Honolulu today.”

Visitors to the new building were particularly struck by the steel desks, including roll tops, which were made to look like wood. The vaults, too, received much attention, the one on the first floor being for the deposit of cash, and two in the basement, one for storage and one for the safe deposit, with a capacity for 3,000 boxes.

The bank followed the Japanese teller procedure, in which one main cashier controlled all cash from a central desk. The tellers acted as his agents, working from desktops instead of the customary tellers’ cages.

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (December 7, 1941,) the building was confiscated by the Alien Custodian Agency.

During the war, the first floor was used for storing confiscated possessions, while the basement was converted into a 250-man drunk tank for inebriated military personnel. Showers, toilets and cell bars were installed.

In February of 1941 the United States Treasury Department started liquidating the $12,000,000 in assets of the three Japanese banks in Hawaii at that time.

The Yokohama Specie Bank was the hardest hit of the three, because it was the only one solely owned by Japanese interests. Despite claims filed, $1.3 million belonging to Japanese depositors was still impounded in 1943. (Non-enemy aliens and U.S. citizens received their impounded money almost immediately.) The Justice Department authorized payment on March 2, 1948.

By late 1949 it had paid out $1.1 million to Yokohama Specie Bank depositors. However, the government refused to pay any interest on the impounded funds, until forced to do so by lawsuits which were not settled until April of 1967.

The US Justice Department had completed liquidation of Yokohama Specie Bank assets when it was sold to City Realty in 1954. The city of Honolulu then leased the building for the Honolulu Police Department Traffic Citation Bureau. It’s now the downtown site for Cole Academy. It is part of the Merchant Street Historic District. (LOC-HABS) (Lots of information here is from HABS.)

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Yokohama Specie Bank Building, 1909

Yokohama Specie Bank

April 17, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lake Waiau

Mauna Kea falls in the senior line genealogy. (Maly)

Former Queen Emma, widow of the late Alexander Liholiho Kamehameha (IV,) and David Kalakaua were in competition for the position of monarch of Hawai’i.

Both of them needed to prove their connection to the senior line and connect back to a wahi pana (celebrated and storied places). Kalakaua went to Kanaloa-Kahoʻolawe to bathe in the waters of the ocean god Kanaloa.

Emma went to the top of Mauna Kea to bathe in the waters of Waiau. The ceremony was to cleanse in Lake Waiau at the piko of the island.

The water caught at Lake Waiau was considered pure water of the gods much like the water caught in the piko of the kalo leaf, the nodes of bamboo or the coconut and is thought of as being pure. (Maly, Mauna-a-Wakea))

Papa is a goddess of earth and the underworld and mother of gods. Wakea is god of light and of the heavens who “opens the door of the sun”. (Beckwith)

“In the genealogy of Wakea it is said that Papa gave birth to these Islands. Another account has it that this group of islands were not begotten, but really made by the hands of Wakea himself.” (Malo)

Waiau is named for the mountain goddess, Waiau (Ka piko o Waiau), and home of the moʻo (water-form) goddess Moʻo-i-nanea.

It is a place where piko of newborn children were taken to ensure long life; and from which “ka wai kapu o Kane” (the sacred water of Kane) was collected. (Maly)

Lake Waiau, located at the 13,020-foot elevation, is on the Island of Hawaii, near the summit of Mauna Kea.

The ancient Hawaiians believed that spirits traveled to and from the spirit world through Lake Waiau, which had ‘no bottom.’ (Actually, the lake has been measured in modern times at 10 feet deep.) The lake freezes over in winter. (Allen)

Lake Waiau is a ‘perched’ water body, in which water is held in a depression by an impermeable substrate of layers of silty clay, interbedded with ash layers, and it has been proposed that permafrost also underlies the lake. It has also been suggested that permafrost surrounds the lake and provides a catchment that directs water into the lake. (USGS)

In 1830, Hiram Bingham and Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) ascended Mauna Kea and stopped at Lake Waiau – Bingham noted, “In the morning we proceeded slowly upwards till about noon, when we came to banks of snow, and a pond of water partly covered with ice.”

“In his first contact with a snow bank, the juvenile king seemed highly delighted. He bounded and tumbled on it, grasped and handled and hastily examined pieces of it, then ran and offered a fragment of it in vain to his horse.”

“He assisted in cutting out blocks of it, which were wrapped up and sent down as curiosities to the regent and other chiefs, at Waimea, some twenty-eight miles distant.”

“These specimens of snow and ice, like what are found in the colder regions of the earth, excited their interest and gratified their curiosity, and pleased them much; not only by their novelty, but by the evidence thus given of a pleasant remembrance by the youthful king.”

“After refreshing and amusing ourselves at this cold mountain lake, we proceeded a little west of north, and soon reached the
lofty area which is surmounted by the ‘seven pillars’ which wisdom had hewed out and based upon it, or the several terminal peaks near each other, resting on what would otherwise be a somewhat irregular table land, or plain of some twelve miles circumference.” (Hiram Bingham)

Others made the ascent, “(T)hrough the sliding, weathered lava and cinders, to the pass to the right of the summit cone, and down the slope of the shoulder of the mountain wherein nestles the surprise of Mauna Kea – Lake Waiau.”

“Here, as the sun dipped behind the blue waters of the Pacific, curving up to meet it, we gazed with astonished eyes upon a tiny emerald gem, glacier made in some past time, set in a niche in the arid side of Mauna Kea.”

“We pitched our tent hurriedly by the green, cold lake, built a fire in the whipping trade wind, with its chilly bite, ate an early supper, and retired like packed sardines between our blankets. We were in an arctic zone under a tropic sky.”

“Taking our last look across the lake, we saw the image of fair Venus, streaming in white and shimmering light across the tiny, rippling waves. A thousand jewels glittered in the reflected phantom light of our neighbor planet. The next morning, ice over a half-inch thick was found in the gravel bar about the lake.” (Daingerfield, Paradise of the Pacific, December 1922; Maly)

Another noted, “At last, about 3 PM, we clambered over the rim of a low crater west of the central cones, and saw before us the famous lakelet of Waiau, near which we camped.”

“It is an oval sheet of the purist water, an acre and three quarters in extent, surrounded by an encircling ridge from 90 to 135 feet in height, except at the northwest corner, where there is an outlet, which was only two feet above the level of the lake at the time of our visit.”

“The overflow has worn out a deep ravine, which runs first to west and then to the southwest. A spring on the southern side of the mountain, called “Wai Hu”, is believed by the natives to be connected with this lake.”

“The elevation of Waiau is at least 13,050 feet, which is 600 feet higher than Fujiyama. There are few bodies of water in the world higher than this, except in Thibet or on the plateau of Pamir. No fish are found in its waters, nor do any water-fowl frequent its margins.” (Alexander, Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 14, 1892)

“Lake Waiau … is the highest lake within the boundaries of the Pacific Ocean Basin. The southern rim of the depression containing the lake is a low segment of a cinder cone, Pu‘u Waiau, on which rests moraine of the latest period of glaciation.”

“The lake water is perched on a layer of silt and mud washed into the basin from the sides of the cone and from the glacial moraine. … The lowest point of the rim is on the western side, where the lake water occasionally overflows into the headwaters of Pohakuloa Gulch.”

“The water is derived entirely from precipitation and runoff from the edges of the basin.” (Geology and Groundwater Resources of the Island of Hawaii, Stearns & Macdonald, 1946)

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Lake Waiau on September 26, 2013

Lake-Waiau

April 15, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kamiano

The history of the Christian missionary movement that got underway in the nineteenth century and lasted well into the twentieth characterized the whole of Western Christianity at the time – Roman Catholic, Anglican and Protestant.

The missionary movement was part of the large-scale religious revival that followed the 18th-century Enlightenment thinking and the bloody French Revolution.

Joseph De Veuster was born in Tremeloo, Belgium, in 1840. Like his older brother Pamphile, Joseph studied to be a Catholic priest in the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts.

Pamphile was to serve as a missionary in the far distant ‘Sandwich Islands,’ but when it came time for him to depart he was too ill to go. His brother Joseph went in his place. (NPS)

Joseph arrived in the Islands on March 9, 1864; he had the remainder of the schooling at Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu, founded by the Catholic mission on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846.

“The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.” (Yzendoorn)

Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien de Veuster at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864. “Here I am a priest, dear parents, here I am a missionary in a corrupt, heretical, idolatrous country. How great my obligations are! How great my apostolic zeal must be!” (Damien to parents; Daws)

Early in June, 1864, Maigret appointed Damien to Puna on the east coast of the island of Hawai‘i; another new missionary, Clement Evrard, was appointed to Kohala-Hāmākua.

Damien learned the Hawaiian language (he had just previously learned English during his long journey to Hawai‘i. His Hawaiian was far from perfect, but he could manage to get by with it. Damien’s name became ‘Kamiano.’

Like most Catholic missionaries of that time, he saw his mission in intense competition with that of the Protestant ‘heretics,’ who did not kneel while praying and who distributed the local kalo (taro,) instead of bread for communion and even water instead of wine. (de Volder)

Shortly after arriving in Puna, in a letter to Pamphile, Damien wrote, “I regret not being a poet or a good writer so as to describe our new country to you.” Although he had not yet seen the active Kilauea volcano erupting, he added, “from what the other Fathers say it seems there is nothing like it in the world to give a correct idea of Hell.” (Daws)

A few months in Puna taught Damien at first-hand what he had heard in advance from the Maui missionaries: that life in the field was nothing like life as a novice in the religious order in Europe.

“Instead of a tranquil and withdrawn life, it is a question of getting used to traveling by land and sea, on horseback and on foot; instead of strictly observing silence, it is necessary to learn to speak several languages with all kinds of people …”

“… instead of being directed you have to direct others; and the hardest of all is to preserve, in the middle of a thousand miseries and vexations, the spirit of meditation and prayer.” (Damien in letter to father-general of the Sacred Hearts, 1862; Daws)

Father Clement Evard, his closest but distant neighbor, had an even more formidable area to cover: the double district of Kohala-Hāmākua, about a quarter of the Island. He was not as strong as Damien.

Damien carried his church on his back (a portable altar which he set up with four sticks pounded into the ground and a board balances on top with a cover cloth.)

His life was simple – with the help of the faithful, Damien began to do some small farming (keeping sheep pigs and chickens; bees for honey and wax for candle making; etc.) “The calabash of poi is always full; there is also meat; water in quantity, coffee and bread sometimes, wine and beer never.” (Daws)

Eight months after they arrived in their respective districts, Damien and Clement discussed exchanging posts; in early 1865, Damien left Puna for Kohala-Hāmākua.

Damien was a considerable builder of chapels. In the months he was in Puna, he and his Hawaiian helpers put up four small buildings where Mass was said; in the eight years he was in Kohala and Hāmākua, he almost always had one or another construction project in hand. (Daws)

Damien stayed in Kohala until 1873; then an impassioned plea appeared in a Hawaiian newspaper: “This we respectfully suggest. The presence of His Majesty (King Lunalilo) at Kalaupapa would have a most inspiring effect upon his unhappy subjects, who are necessarily exiled; and also upon all others throughout the Kingdom, on observing this evidence of a paternal care for the saddest and most hapless outcasts of the land.”

It went on to note, “If a noble Christian priest, preacher or sister should be inspired to go and sacrifice a life to console these poor wretches, that would be a royal soul to shine forever on the throne reared by human love.” (Nuhou, April 15, 1873; Report of Board of Health)

Maigret was aware the lepers needed stable spiritual support, but did not dare to permanently charge a priest to that assignment, fearing it was too much of a risk or too cruel. He asked, Who wanted to go, in rotation to Molokai, each for a period of three months?

Four candidates quickly volunteered: Gulstan Robert, Boniface Schaffer, Rupert Lauter and Damien de Veuster. Damien was chosen as the first to go; the reason for the choice is unknown. (de Volder)

At thirty-three years of age, he was as old as Jesus at the time of his passion. Damien was ready, more than ever. “Lord, send me!” (de Volder)

Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi; he was diagnosed with Hansen’s Disease in January, 1885. He died April 15, 1889 (aged 49) at Kalaupapa. In 2009, Damien was canonized a Saint in the Catholic Church. The image is a portrait of Father Damien, attributed to Edward Clifford. (1868)

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Church of Waiapuka Kohala built by Father Damien

April 14, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Huliheʻe, Its Owners and Visitors

John Adams Kuakini was born about 1789 with the name Kaluaikonahale, the son of Keʻeaumoku and his wife Nāmāhana. His sisters were Queen Kaʻahumanu (Kamehameha’s favorite wife who later became the powerful Queen Regent and Kuhina nui,) Kalākua Kaheiheimālie and Namahana-o-Piʻia (also queens of Kamehameha) and brother George Cox Kahekili Keʻeaumoku.

He married Analeʻa (Ane or Annie) Keohokālole; they had no children. (She later married Caesar Kapaʻakea. That union produced several children (including the future King Kalākaua and Queen Liliʻuokalani.))

In 1838, Kuakini built Huliheʻe as his primary residence; a structure that exemplified Hawaiʻi’s ability to build modern structures; it is a two-story stone structure with a symmetrical floor plan that has strong similarities to a New England style house. These similarities were readily apparent to foreign visitors.

In 1838, a visitor who witnessed the palace under construction wrote: “It is of stone and as handsome a building as I have seen in the islands …. It is two story, has three rooms above and below, a lanai in front the whole length and a piazza back, the lower part painted marble color and the upper green. He has much of the Koa in it which is almost as nice as mahogany.” (NPS)

Huliheʻe Palace was a source of great pride for its builder and he would regularly show the palace off to foreign visitors to the island. Kuakini died December 9, 1844 in Kailua-Kona; Huliheʻe passed to his hānai son, William Pitt Leleiōhoku.

Leleiōhoku died a few months later, leaving Huliheʻe to his wife, Princess Ruth Luka Keʻelikōlani. It became a favorite retreat for members of the Hawaiian royal family.

Following Kuakini’s death, Amos Cooke and Thomas Rooke took the children of the Chiefs’ Childrens’ School (Royal School) on a visit to Kona, arriving on July 11, 1846. Cooke noted in his journal:

“… we landed at Kailua, & were escorted to the large stone house, builed by John Adams. It had been cleared of its furniture, but mats were plenty & we occupied them for beds. Our meals were cooked on board the vessel & brought on shore.”

“The house had three large rooms above 5 below. The boys took one end room above & the girls the other. The room under the girls was used as a dining hall while we were there. It was a large & commodious house & must have cost $10,000.”

Later, Kamehameha IV (Ruth’s half-brother, who had visited Huliheʻe as a student at the Royal School) and Queen Emma particularly enjoyed their time vacationing at Huliheʻe, and visited the palace many times with their son, Prince Albert.

Kamehameha IV signed a lease with Princess Ruth for Huliheʻe at $200 per year, with the agreement that additions and repairs made would be deducted from the rental. (Daughters of Hawaiʻi)

The King and Queen purchased the ahupuaʻa of Waiaha; in 1858 they moved to Kona for a 4-month stay. (That visit was cut short with the untimely death of Queen Emma’s hānai father, Dr Rooke.)

In May, 1861 Lady Jane Franklin, widow of a famed explorer, visited the palace. Lady Franklin describes Huliheʻe as “a huge house, with excellent rooms, standing within a grassy enclosure close upon the shore and faced to the sea by a wall of lava blocks. “

“We have the great house all to ourselves, every door and window open, scanty furniture (only a bed, a sofa, tables and chairs).” The future king and future owner of the palace, David Kalākaua, accompanied Lady Franklin on the trip. (NPS)

Shortly after being elected King in 1873, Lunalilo became ill and at the urging of Princess Ruth and Queen Emma went to Huliheʻe to recover. Lunalilo brought the Henry Berger and the Royal Hawaiian Band to the palace throughout Christmas and the New Year to entertain the royalty during the holiday season. Lunalilo never recovered from his illness and died shortly after returning to Honolulu.

Despite owning Huliheʻe Palace, Princess Ruth Keʻelikōlani chose to live in a large hale pili (traditional grass home) on the same oceanfront property. When she became ill in Honolulu, her doctors recommended that she return to Huliheʻe, her Kailua-Kona residence, where they believed she would more quickly regain her health.

She received medical attention, but did not recover. On May 24, 1883, Keʻelikōlani died at the age of fifty-seven at Haleʻōlelo, her hale pili. Per her will, Huliheʻe Palace went to Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop (who died within a year of inheriting the palace.)

Shortly after King Kalākaua finished building ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu (1882,) he purchased Huliheʻe from Pauahi’s estate in 1885 and turned Huliheʻe into his summer residence.

He completed some major renovations so that the palace would more closely resemble the modern structures he saw during his travels. He stuccoed the entire lava rock exterior and plastered over the koa-paneled walls. He felt that the palace was outdated and that these renovations were necessary so that Hawai’i could portray itself to the world as a modern society.

Other changes included enlarging the lanais, and hanging crystal chandeliers, like those he had seen in the United States and Europe, in the entry ways. The ceiling of the palace was given an ornamental cornice and gold leaf picture molding was added in some of the rooms.

Kalākaua felt that these larger and more modern palaces were more comparable to those that he saw when he was abroad, and that they were better suited for the aliʻi to live in. (During the renovation he also demolished Princess Ruth’s grass house that still stood on the property.)

The same year he finished renovation to Huliheʻe (1887,) Kalākaua, under threat of force, signed the ‘Bayonet Constitution.’ The King spent the majority of his time at Huliheʻe Palace after he signed the new constitution.

He continued to make improvements to Huliheʻe while living there and had a telephone line installed in the palace in 1888, which was one of the first telephones on the island of Hawai’i. He continued to entertain foreign visitors at the palace.

In 1889 the Prince and Princess Henri de Bourbon, members of the Austrian royal family, visited the palace and were entertained by the King. Kalākaua died in 1891 and his wife, Queen Kapiʻolani, inherited the palace. Kapiʻolani resided at Huliheʻe throughout the period of the subsequent overthrow.

Upon her death in 1899, the property went to her nephews, Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole and Prince David Kawānanakoa. Fifteen years after the Princes inherited the palace they sold it to a wealthy woman, Mrs Bathsheba Alien, for $8,600. (She died just one month after the transaction.)

For years the property sat vacant and eventually fell into a state of disrepair. In 1925, the Territory of Hawaiʻi purchased the property then turned it over to the Daughters of Hawaiʻi to run it as a museum (which they continue to do today.)

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