Peter T Young

May 12, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pulehunui

Pulehunui is an ahupuaʻa in central Maui; it extends from the peak of Kilohana on the rim of the crater of Haleakala, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, in a nearly west direction for about fifteen miles. The eastern or mountain portion is comparatively narrow, often less than half a mile wide.

The western portion reaches to the low land of the Island and grows broader up to the western boundary joining the lands of Waikapu, being at this end from three to four miles wide. It includes about 2,000 feet along the sea coast from a sand spit known as Kihei to a point of rocks called Kalaepohaku. (Supreme Court Records)

During pre-contact times, agricultural uses were basically wetland or dryland. River valleys typically provided the right conditions for wetland kalo (taro) cultivation in loʻi (pond fields,) with water supplied through ʻauwai (irrigation ditches.)

Where sufficient water was not available for irrigation (from rivers or springs,) then dryland farming took place; ʻuala (sweet potato) was the primary crop in those regions.

Due the height and size of Haleakala, Pulehunui does not have regular streams or springs. It is in the area known as Kula. Kula was always an arid region, throughout its long, low seashore, vast stony kula lands, and broad uplands. Kula was widely famous for its sweet-potato plantations. ‘Uala was the staple of life here. (Handy; Maly)

The ahupuaʻa of Pulehunui extended across the Kula plain; its name, literally “large pulehu,” might refer to the degree of broiling one could receive from the sun in this area. Kula was always an arid region, throughout its long, low seashore, vast stony kula lands and broad uplands. (Maui Planning)

Kula makes up most of the central plain of Maui, created by the joining of Haleakala and West Maui volcanoes. Kula means open country, or plain – as distinct from valley or stream bottom, and has long been used as a term to distinguish between dry, or “kula land,” and wet-taro land. This is an essential characteristic of Kula, the central plain of Maui which is practically devoid of streams. (Maly)

“On the coast, where fishing was good, and on the lower westward slopes of Haleakala, a considerable population existed, fishing and raising occasional crops of potatoes along the coast, and cultivating large crops of potatoes inland”. (Handy; Maly)

In 1793, Vancouver noted, “The appearance of this side of Mowee (Maui) was scarcely less forbidding than that of its southern parts, which we had passed the preceding day. The shores, however, were not to steep and rocky, and were mostly composed of a sandy beach…”

“… the land did not rise to very abruptly from the sea towards the mountains, nor was its surface so much broken with hills and deep chasms; yet the soil had little appearance of fertility, and no cultivation was to be seen. A few habitations were promiscuously scattered near the water side…”

A couple decades later (1817,) Peter Corney sailed this area and noted, “We now made sail towards Mowee … we passed Morokenee (Molokini,) and made sail up Mackery bay (Maʻalaea;) here we lay until the 6th, and took on board a great quantity of hogs, salt, and vegetables.”

“This bay is very deep and wide, and nearly divides the island, there being but a narrow neck of land and very low, keeping the two parts of the island together. There is good anchorage; and the only danger arises from the trade winds, which blow so strong at times as to drive ships out of the bay with two anchors down…”

“The neck of land is so low, and the land so high on each side, that the N.E. wind comes through like a hurricane. On this neck of land are their principal salt-pans, where they make most excellent salt.”

The early Polynesians brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands. The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i in 1835. Others followed, including on Maui.

Sugar is a thirsty crop; in order to irrigate, in 1876 the initial Hamakua Ditch was built, bringing water from streams from the windward and wet East Maui. A total of ten ditches were constructed between 1879 and 1923; this system makes up what is known today as East Maui Irrigation (EMI.)

Sugar became part of the Maui landscape – including at Pulehunui. More than 30-plantations of various sizes popped up on Maui. Over time, consolidations and closures gradually reduced the number to fewer, but larger, plantations. Today, only one sugar producing mill remains in the Islands – Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company – on the island of Maui. (Sugar Museum)

On June 15, 1938, a few hundred acres of land at Pulehunui was set aside for a Maui Airport; it was opened on June 30, 1939 (the new Maui Airport replaced a smaller airfield at Māʻalaea.) Inter-Island Airways, Ltd (to be later known as Hawaiian Air) constructed airport station improvements.

Immediately after December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, the military took control of all air fields in the Territory and began the expansion of Maui Airport at Pulehunui. An expansion lengthened and widened the runways.

Under Navy control, the facility was renamed Naval Air Station Puʻunene, the airport served as a principal carrier plane training base. By the end of the war, Puʻunene had a total complement of over 3,300-personnel and 271-aircraft. A total of 106-squadrons and carrier air groups passed through during WW II.

Following the war, the Territory took back various airfields and converted them back into full-scale commercial operation of airports. In December 1948, the Navy declared the Puʻunene Airport land surplus to their needs and the airport reverted to the Territory under Quitclaim Deed from the US Government.

It was later abandoned and the old runway was used for drag races and time trials in May 1956; it remains in use as Maui Raceway Park as an automobile “drag strip” and park for such activities as go-kart racing and model airplane flying.

Other uses of the former site include the Maui Regional Public Safety Complex and prison facility to alleviate overcrowding at the existing 7-acre Maui Community Correctional Center facility in Wailuku.

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Pulehunui-Google Earth

Pulehunui-Maui-DAGS-0770-Monsarrat-1879

Puunene Airport, Maui, 1948

NAS Pu`unēnē looking westward, Maalaea Bay-(Maui Historical Society-NOAA)

Maui_Airport-Puunene-USGS-UH_Manoa-(4807)-1965

Maui_Regional_Public_Safety_Complex-Prison-Site_Plan-Puunene

Maui-Dodge-DAGS-(1268)-1885-noting Sugar Planatations and Pulehunui

EMI_System-map

May 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Boles Field

On August 1, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the country’s 13th national park into existence – Hawaiʻi National Park. At first, the park consisted of only the summits of Kilauea and Mauna Loa on Hawaiʻi and Haleakalā on Maui.

Eventually, Kilauea Caldera was added to the park, followed by the forests of Mauna Loa, the Kaʻu Desert, the rain forest of Olaʻa and the Kalapana archaeological area of the Puna/Kaʻu Historic District. (On, July 1, 1961, Hawaiʻi National Park’s units were separated and re-designated as Haleakala National Park and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.)

On-the-ground administration of the park began with the arrival of Superintendent Thomas R Boles in April 1922. Boles’ designation was made effective two months before he entered on duty.

Born in Yell County, Arkansas, he was the son of Judge Thomas and Catherine (Keith) Boles (his father voted in favor of the establishment of the world’s first national park, Yellowstone, back in 1872.)

Boles was educated in the grammar and high schools of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and took a civil engineering course at the School of Mines, University of Missouri.

For a few years, Boles was involved in various construction and engineering endeavors, as construction engineer for the Illinois Steel Bridge Co, in Arkansas and Oklahoma; assistant field engineer, Interstate Commerce Commission; chief engineer, Fort Smith Light & Traction Co., and chief engineer, Fort Smith & Western Railroad Co. (Nellist)

Boles arrived in Hawaiʻi in March, 1922; he became the first superintendent of the Hawaiʻi National Park, appointed to the position by the Secretary of the Interior. He has jurisdiction over a total area of 118,000 acres of the volcanic area of the Territory.

At the same time the Park was created (1916,) the military opened a rest and recreation Camp within the Park boundaries – the Kilauea Military Camp (KMC.)

KMC was the military’s rest and recreation facility on the Island of Hawaiʻi; it was situated on about 50-acres within the Park boundaries.

A military landing field was constructed on volcanic sand at the area called Sand Spit Horst, located just south of Halemaʻumaʻu crater. It was referred to as Kilauea Airfield.

However, shortly after completion, on the morning of May 11, 1924, a ranger from Hawaiʻi National Park noticed several hot boulders on the rim of Halemaʻumaʻu. Evidently, a small explosion had occurred in the pit overnight.

The park superintendent, Thomas Boles, put up roadblocks a half a mile from the crater and ventured out to investigate with two other observers.

Boles was within 10 feet of rim when he heard a “thud” followed by a “prolonged whooosh.” Thousands of red-hot boulders shot up amidst a fury of black ash. The ash column rose 3,000-feet above the crater.

Fortunately, all three made it back to their vehicle, sustaining only a few cuts and bruises. They found that a boulder weighing nearly 100-pounds had sailed over the vehicle during the explosion, landing more than 2,000 feet from the crater.

They pushed the roadblocks back 2-miles from the crater.

Similar events followed; the largest occurred on May 18. The dark, mushrooming column “loomed up like a menacing genie from the Arabian Nights.” Static electricity generated between ash particles produced streaks of blue lightning and condensed steam mixed with the ash to create a rainstorm of gray mud. (Boles; NPS)

Truman Taylor, a young accountant from Pahala sugar plantation had slipped past the road blocks set up by the Superintendent and was within 2,000-feet of the rim (near today’s Halemaʻumaʻu parking lot) when the explosion occurred.

He was hit by a boulder and severely burnt by the falling ash. Rescuers hurried in to the caldera when the explosion ended some 20 minutes later, but the unfortunate man died on the way to the hospital.

Scientists estimate that approximately 400 million cubic meters (520-million cubic yards) of magma shuttled down the east rift zone conduit in 1924. That’s enough magma to fill 265,000 Olympic swimming pools. (USGS)

A news article in March 1925 reported that a New Army field was under construction on the bluff between Uwekahuna and KMC (Hilo Tribune-Herald 1925.) The new field was named Boles Field after the park superintendent, Thomas R Boles.

Although originally anticipated to be in a much more desirable location than the original Spit Horst field, it was almost immediately found to be dangerously short, and was evaluated in a report on landing fields on the island of Hawai‘i (Hawaiian Department 1925:)

“I ‘shot’ the field and found the wind currents so treacherous and uncertain that it was next to impossible to land short without a good chance of being dashed to the ground prematurely. Personally, I would rather trust my parachute than use this field.”

The location of this second field has been variously identified as “outside Kilauea Crater about one half mile North-East of Uwekahuna toward KMC, close to the belt road” and “west of the great Kilauea Crater” (Hilo Tribune-Herald 1925.) (NPS)

The field remained in use for fifteen years primarily for recreational purposes. As part of its war planning, the military surveyed several sites on Hawaiʻi as possible airfields and emergency landing strips. The optimum site was Keauhou, though cost ultimately prevented its development.

Other fields, notably Morse Field at Ka Lae (South Point,) became the primary airfields for the military in Hawai‘i. The military and NPS approved the existing airfield at Kīlauea for emergency use, but the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) cautioned that it was unsafe for military aircraft.

In 1941, following the Pearl Harbor attack, Civilian Conservation Corps workers assisted the military in plowing and obstructing the single field to render it unusable by the enemy.

Nearly two years later, in December 1943, the Army leveled the field again to use as a training site for spotter planes employed in exercises at the Kaʻū Desert Training and Impact Area.

The Park Service indicated in August 1945 that airfield were incompatible with NPS policy; in 1946, the CAA concluded there was no need for an airfield in the park, a policy later reinforced by legislation. (Chapman) (Boles retired from the National Park Service in 1951.)

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Thomas R Boles

Some Military Uses-Kilauea-Map-Nakamura

Kilauea Military Camp, 1936-Chapman

Kilauea Military Camp-(NPS)-1923

Kilauea Airfield-1923-Chapman

Halemaumau-Eruption-1924

8-10 ton boulder-formed an impact crater in the aviation strip. View looks away from Halemaumau-sent May 18, 1924

May 10, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaluanui

The old custom of placing laʻi (ti) or ʻohiʻa ʻai (mountain apple) leaves under a stone at stream crossings on the way was a requirement to make one safe from falling stones, handed down over generations; a custom of this place, though not necessarily a custom of other places. (Thrum, 1907)

Kaluanui is one of 23-ahupua‘a (traditional land division) that make up the district of Koʻolauloa on the island of O‘ahu It extends from the sea to the summit (approximate 2,700-foot elevation) and contains approximately 1,650 acres of land.

“The district of Koʻolauloa is of considerable extent along the sea coast, but the arable land is generally embraced in a narrow strip between the mountains and the sea, varying in width from one half to two or three miles.”

“Several of the vallies are very fertile, and many tracts of considerable extent are watered by springs which burst out from the banks at a sufficient elevation to be conducted over large fields, and in a sufficient quantity to fill many fish ponds and taro patches.” (Hall, 1839; Maly)

“The valley, which is about two miles deep, terminates abruptly at the foot of a precipitous chain of the mountains which runs the whole length of this side of Oahu, except a narrow gorge, which affords a channel for a fine brook that descends with considerable regularity to a level with the sea.”

“(E)ntering this narrow pass, which is not more than fifty or sixty feet wide, the traveler winds his way along, crossing and recrossing the stream upon the stones to obtain the smoothest path, till he seems to be, and in fact is, entering into the very mountain.”

“The walls on each side are of solid rock, from two hundred to three hundred, and in some places four hundred feet high, directly over his hear, leaving but a narrow strip of sky visible. After following up the stream for the distance, perhaps, of one fourth of a mile, the attention is directed by the guide to a curiosity called by the natives a waa (canoe.)” (Hall, 1839; Maly)

Kaluanui is perhaps best known for this deep valley and steep cliffs which form the waterfall of Kaliuwaʻa. Kaliuwaʻa falls drop some 1,500 feet from the pali of Koʻolauloa, and its course resembles the inner hull of a canoe—thus the name “Kaliu-wa‘a,” (“The-canoe-hold or inner hull.”)

“(H)ere is the noted valley of the celebrated Kamapuaʻa’s exploits, and residents … seldom fail to remind visitors of the fact and point with pride to Kaliuwaʻa gorge, where the demi-god escaped from his pursuers.” (Thrum, 1911)

“For this a guide will have to be obtained. Almost any of the natives around will be willing to undertake the task. The valley is really a cleft in the mountains, with almost precipitous sides. The vegetation is very dense, showing varieties of almost every tree and plant found on Oʻahu.” (Whitney, 1890; Maly)

Semicircular cuts in the cliff, extending from the base to the top, look like the half of a well. In no other part of the islands is a similar formation found. (Whitney, 1890; Maly)

Kamapuaʻa was accused of eating ʻOlopana’s chickens. ʻOlopana, chief of O`ahu, decided that he must apprehend the hog-thief, so he called to all of Oʻahu to wage war against Kamapuaʻa.

Kamapuaʻa heard of ʻOlopana’s plans and took his people to Kaliuwaʻa, where they climbed up his body to the safety of the cliff top. In doing so, Kamapuaʻa’s back gouged out indentations on the cliff-side that can still be seen today.

Once his people were safe, Kamapuaʻa dammed the water of Kaliuwaʻa. ʻOlopana and his men arrived, and a battle ensued. Kamapuaʻa was nearly killed, but he released the dammed water, killing ʻOlopana and all but one of his men; Makaliʻi knew that Kamapuaʻa could not be killed and escaped to Kaua`i. (McElroy)

Because of this association to Kamapuaʻa, the valley is considered sacred. Forms of the modern name first appear in historical documents in the 1890s, where the valley is called Sacred Ravine.

Over the next ten years, this name evolved into Sacred Valley, and it wasn’t until the 1950s that the name Sacred Falls appeared in the literature. (McElroy)

By the 1950s, visitor publications were also introducing readers to, and informing them how to get to Kaliuwaʻa. One such, in 1958 noted:

“Sacred Falls may be visited by taking a road through the cane-field marked by the Hawaiian Warrior of the Visitors Bureau. The falls are located in a spectacular gorge at the head of Kaliuwaʻa valley. The lower falls drop over an 87-foot cliff at the head of the gorge which is only 50 feet wide. Above the falls, the palis of the Koʻolau range tower 2,500 feet.” (Thrum; Maly)

In the early 1970s, Kaluanui was held by private interests. As a result of community input, the State of Hawaiʻi acquired about 1,375-acres of Kaluanui land (1976.) The land was then set aside to the DLNR and made into a State Park (May 28, 1977.)

Then, on Mother’s Day (May 9, 1999,) tragedy struck.

Portions of the sheer rock face fell. The landslide material dropped a total of about 480-feet: the first 330-feet it cascaded down a precipitously steep waterfall chute, and the last 150-feet it was airborne and fell straight down to the impact zone. (USGS)

Eight people were killed and 50-others were injured. Following that, the Sacred Falls State Park at Kaluanui was permanently closed.

(Entry into a closed park is a petty misdemeanor offense and subject to criminal penalties of not less than $100 for a first offense; $200 for a second offense; and $500 for a third or subsequent offense; in addition to administrative penalties of $2,500 for a first offense; $5,000 for a second offense, and $10,000 for a third violation.)

Here’s a video on consequences associated with illegally entering the valley:

https://vimeo.com/115830643

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Aerial View-Kaluanui-Kaliuwaa Falls

Kaliuwaa_Falls-DMY

Kaliuwaa-(missionhouses)

Kaliuwaa-early_years

Kaliuwaa_Falls

Sacred_Falls-(bluehawaiian)

Sacred Falls

Kaliuwaa-gouge

Kaliuwaa

koolauloa ahupuaa

Punaluu-Kaluanui-1885

Sacred Falls closed

Source area (indicated by arrow) of Sacred Falls rock fall (USGS)

May 9, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

The First School

God brought Hiram Bingham a woman “he chose himself and bade me take her with a thankful heart, and always remember that God hears prayer. For he had prepared her and her friends to bless the mission with her aid.” (Hiram Bingham to William Jackson, February 1821; Wagner)

“This friend of the heathen was an honor to the town that gave her birth and education. She was a sagacious and successful teacher in Southampton, Mass., Sharon and East Windsor, Conn., Canandaigua, N ., and Honolulu, Sandwich Islands”. (Hiram Bingham to William G. Bates, Westfield, Mass, October 6, 1869; Westfield Jubilee, 1870)

Sybil Moseley Bingham was born September 14, 1792, the daughter of Pliny and Sophia (Pomeroy) Moseley in Westfield, Massachusetts. She was educated at Westfield Academy. By the age of nineteen she had lost both of her parents (1810 and 1811.)

Sybil was a good scholar; and when she arrived at the age of twenty-one, she commenced teaching, in different and distant towns. She was a remarkably mild and gentle person in her manners. (Westfield Jubilee, 1870)

As the eldest of three sisters, she had to work to support herself and her two sisters, who stayed with relatives while she taught school at first at Hartford and later at in Canandaigua, New York.

“The result of her labors there, in conjunction with her fellow-laborers, has been of world-wide importance. Those beautiful islands have been redeemed from heathenism; and, though the population has decreased in its numbers, yet the people have increased in intelligence, and the products of their labor have added to the comforts of the world.”

“I doubt not, but that Mrs. Bingham was not surpassed, in her devotion and zeal, and in her earnest and faithful labors, by any other missionary, who ever went forth to a foreign land. Her whole soul was in the work.”

“She was, in a peculiar manner, fitted for it; and there was a pervading enthusiasm in her mind, which gave to her whole life, the highest impulse of Christian duty.” (Westfield Jubilee, 1870)

Hiram Bingham and his classmate, Asa Thurston, were ordained at Goshen, Ct., September 29, 1819; it was the first ordination of foreign missionaries in the State of Connecticut.

On October 11, Bingham was married, at Hartford, Ct., to Miss Sybil Moseley, who, out of sympathy with the new missionary enterprise, had been led to attend the ordination, and to whom he was first introduced on that occasion. (Congressional Quarterly, 1871)

They sailed for the Hawaiian Islands (then called Sandwich Islands) on October 23, 1819; on March 30, 1820, they anchored off shore of Kawaihae, then sailed to Kailua Kona and anchored there (April 4.) On April 11, King Kamehameha II (Liholiho) gave the missionaries permission to stay. Hiram and Sybil sailed for Honolulu the next day (and arrived April 19.)

It is said that she started the first school in Hawaiʻi in May 1820. (“… Sybil Moseley Bingham, opened the first school in this city in May, 1820, surely an historic date.” (Hiram Bingham II)

Sybil’s June 20, 1820 journal entry notes, “After neglect of my journal for more than two months in a most interesting part of our history too … Very soon I gathered up 12 or 15 little native girls to come once a day to the house so that as early as possible the business of instruction might be commenced. That was an interesting day to me to lay the foundation of the first school ever assembled in this dark land.”

June 21st. “The most which has interested me to-day has been my little school. To see the little things so ready to learn, and so busy with their needles, is very pleasant. I long to know more of their language, that I might be pouring into their tender minds more instruction than ab.”

“I think we make progress in that now. It was impossible to do much on the voyage, as, without books, all our knowledge of it must be acquired as it falls from the lips of the natives. There are a few females who understand a little of English.”

July 20th. “What arrangement we shall make of our family concerns when so large a part has gone, we have not determined. I should like to have this little cottage a few weeks with only my kind husband and pleasant native boy, that so I might attend with more delight to my school which is daily encreasing, and such missionary duties as each day brings with it.”

She did not just teach children, her July 22, 1820 entry notes, “a native woman called Sally in whom we have all been interested. She is the wife of an American – speaks English, and with her two little girls comes regularly every day to learn to read. I earnestly desire to be more faithful in instructing her.”

Sybil was not alone in teaching the native Hawaiians. In 1820, missionary wife Lucy Thurston noted in her Journal, Liholiho’s desire to learn, “The king (Liholiho, Kamehameha II) brought two young men to Mr. Thurston, and said: “Teach these, my favorites, (John Papa) Ii and (James) Kahuhu. It will be the same as teaching me. Through them I shall find out what learning is.”

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built over 1,100-schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 53,000-students. (Laimana)

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the missionaries printing of 140,000-copies of the pi-ʻapa (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers. (Laimana)

In 1839, King Kamehameha III called for the formation of the Chiefs’ Children’s School (Royal School.) The main goal of this school was to groom the next generation of the highest ranking Chiefs’ children and secure their positions for Hawaiʻi’s Kingdom. The King asked missionaries Amos Starr Cooke and Juliette Montague Cooke to teach the 16-royal children and run the school.

Interestingly, as the early missionaries learned the Hawaiian language, they then taught their lessons in the mission schools in Hawaiian, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians. (Sybil Bingham is my great-great-great grandmother.)

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May 8, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Pualani Mossman

“They say she is the most photographed girl in the Islands …”

“(I)f you are really lucky … If you are one of those of whom refreshing and enchanting things sometimes happen. You will have wandered into the Hawaiian Room at the Lexington and seen her dance those ancient native hulas of Hawaii.”

“You will have hailed the first passing waiter and inquired her name. Let me beat the waiter to it. Let me tell you her name. It is Pualani, which in the land beyond old Diamond Head means ‘Flower of Heaven.’“ (Tucker, Man About Manhattan, June 14, 1938)

Pualani Mossman was born on April 16, 1916 in Honolulu. She began to work at the age of six in her father’s (George Paele Mossman) various Hawaiian ventures, which included ‘ukulele manufacturing and a Hawaiian language school. (Imada)

In 1932, her father opened the Lalani Village in Waikiki with demonstrations of traditional crafts, music and lūʻau as a way of preserving and teaching what he termed “Hawaiian lore that is fast vanishing.”

The family operation included every member of Mossman’s immediate family: his wife, Emma; several sons; and three daughters: Leilani, Piʻilani, and Pualani. Mossman and her sisters performed and taught hula.

Pualani was known for her “Volcano hula” dance, the highlight of the show. She would dance alone on a raised platform with another performer blowing fire and lighting a model of a volcano.

In 1934, Mossman was originally tapped by the Hawaiʻi Tourist Bureau to star in “Song of the Islands,” the first color movie made in Hawaiʻi, intended to promote tourism. After the film, she started modeling.

In 1937, Matson Navigation sent Mossman to New York City to be photographed for the company’s national advertising campaign. She became known as the “Matson Girl,” appearing in Life, Time and Fortune magazines.

“If you opened a major national magazine in those years it is very likely you would have seen Pualani in a Matson ad.” (Brown; Wilson) She was the face of Hawaiʻi in national travel advertisements.

“That photo appeared all over the country and was everywhere in New York City, even a year later. My, that was exciting, to be the Hawaiian poster girl.” (Mossman; Ryan)

For more than 50 years, Pualani Mossman epitomized the image of a Hawaiian hula dancer as the original poster girl for Matson cruises and the Hawaii Visitors Bureau. (Gee)

After the Hawaiian Room opened in the Hotel Lexington in New York City, Mossman, Meymo Ululani Holt, Mapuana Bishaw and Jennie Napua Woodd were dancers there – they were known as the “Aloha Maids.”

There, Mossman met her future husband, Randy Avon Sr, the hotel’s chief accountant; they married in 1939. The couple returned to Hawaiʻi for a few years, then relocated to Florida in 1950 where she taught hula.

Mossman was one of the most active fighters for statehood in Washington, DC, in the early-1950s. Her family later endowed the University of Hawaii with funds to perpetuate the Hawaiian language and traditions. (Ryan)

Pualani Mossman Avon’s hands symbolized the wind and the flowers when she danced and were like the song she inspired: “Graceful as birds in motion, gliding like gulls over the ocean.”

Mossman spent her last 55 years in Florida. She continued to dance hula and spread aloha well into her 80s, performing at senior-citizen centers during visits to Hawaiʻi and with Hawaiian entertainers appearing in South Florida. She died on May 8, 2006 in Palm Bay, Florida.

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