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June 28, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamakahonu Royal Center

Kamakahonu Royal Center at Kailua Bay was the residential compound of Kamehameha I from 1813 until his death in 1819.
 
It had previously been the residence of a high chief, and it was undoubtedly a residential area back into the centuries prior to European contact. 
 
Kamakahonu (which literally means eyes of the turtle) was the location of multiple heiau known collectively as Ahu‘ena, originally said to have been built by either Liloa or his son Umi-a-Liloa during the sixteenth century, was reconstructed and rededicated by Kamehameha I in the early nineteenth century.
 
John Papa ʻĪʻī, attendant of Kamehameha I, to become a companion and personal attendant to Liholiho (later King Kamehameha II,) described Kamakahonu from on board a ship in 1812 …
 
“Kamakahonu was a fine cove, with sand along the edge of the sea  and  islets  of  pāhoehoe,  making  it  look like a  pond,  with a  grove of  kou trees a  little inland and a heap of pāhoehoe  in  the center of the stretch of sand.”
 
Kamehameha first moved into the former residence of Keawe a Mahi. He then built another house high on stones on the seaward side of that residence, facing directly upland toward the planting fields of Kuahewa.
 
Like an observation post, this house afforded a view of the farm lands and was also a good vantage from which to see canoes coming from the south.
 
The royal residence at Kamakahonu was served by a series of anchialine pools, upwellings of fresh and salt water found on young lava fields. These anchialine pools were used to raise bait fish and shrimp for larger catches.
 
During Kamehameha’s use of this compound, reportedly 11 house structures were present. These included his sleeping house, houses for his wives, a large men’s house, storehouses and Ahuʻena heiau. 
 
Kamehameha also included a battery of cannon and large stone walls to protect the fortress-like enclosure.
 
Upon Kamehameha’s death, a mortuary house was built, which held his remains until they were taken and hidden away.
 
After Liholiho’s departure from Hawaiʻi Island in 1820, the high chief Kuakini, who served as Governor of Hawai’i for many years, resided here until 1837, when he had Huliheʻe built and moved there.
 
By the late-1800s, Kamakahonu was abandoned and in the early-1900s H. Hackfield & Co. purchased the land, and its successor American Factors used the site as a lumberyard and later for the King Kamehameha Hotel.
 
Today, three remnant structures are present on the seaward beach of the property (all recreated in the 1970s and recently refurbished) – ‘Ahu’ena heiau, the mortuary house’s platform and an additional structural platform.
 
These structures are set aside in a covenant agreement between the State’s Historic Preservation Division and the current hotel owners.
 
Kamakahonu became the backdrop for some of the most significant events in the early nineteenth-century history of the Hawaiian Kingdom.
 
Three momentous events occurred here which established Kamakahonu as one of the most historically significant sites in Hawaiʻi:
  • In the early morning hours of May 8, 1819 King Kamehameha I died here.
  • A few months after the death of his father, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) broke the ancient kapu system, a highly defined regime of taboos that provided the framework of the traditional Hawaiian socio-economic structure
  • The first Christian missionaries from New England were granted permission to come ashore here on April 4, 1820.
The property is now part of King Kamehameha’s Kona Beach Hotel; none of the original houses or walls remain.
 
Ahuʻena heiau was reconstructed in the 1970s at 2/3-scale and can be viewed, but not entered.
 
The small sandy beach provides a protected beach for launching canoes and children swimming.  The first Hotel was built here in 1950; it was imploded (boy, that was an exciting day in Kona) and the current one constructed in 1975.
 
Kamakahonu is one of the featured Points of Interest in the Royal Footsteps Along The Kona Coast Scenic Byway.  We prepared the Corridor Management Plan for the Scenic Byway.
 
© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC
 

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Hawaiian Traditions, Place Names Tagged With: Kailua-Kona, Liholiho, Kamakahonu, Royal Footsteps Along The Kona Coast, Hawaii, Kamehameha

June 25, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bird’s Nest

Robert Wilcox defeated Prince Kuhio’s brother David to become the first Hawaiian Delegate in the US Congress.  Kuhio later joined Wilcox’s Home Rule Party. In July 1902, the Home Rule Party tapped Kuhio to lead a reorganization committee.

Kuhio’s proposals prioritized attracting younger moderates, but Wilcox preferred the status quo.  On July 14, Kuhio and his followers left the Home Rule party and formed the Independent Party, or Hui Kokoa.  Hui Kokoa’s platform read as a rebuke of Home Rulers’ racial politics.

Kuhio later joined the Republican party; ultimately, Republicans swept both the legislature and the delegacy and Kuhio was elected as Hawaii’s delegate to congress. Kuhio’s victory fatally weakened the Home Rule Party. For a few elections, they split votes with Democrats, who eventually absorbed the remaining Home Rulers.

In early years serving in Congress, Kuhio became aware that neither congressional colleagues nor federal bureaucrats knew much about Hawaii. So he dedicated himself to educating American administrators about the islands.  Much of this process happened off the House Floor, and Kuhio reveled in these extracurricular venues.

 Much of his time was spent in committee rooms hosting card games, playing golf, and attending various functions to expand his social circle and influence. Sometime after 1904, Kuhio set up a luxurious getaway for guests, dubbing it the Bird’s Nest. (GPO)

The house, which no longer exists, was built by a famous naturalist, ornithologist Spencer F Baird, who owned a remarkable collection of 3,696 stuffed birds, including many specimens he kept in his home.  (Civil Beat)

Baird was Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution during the 1870s and 80s and he was also the curator of the US National Museum. (Adolf-Cluss) (The bird collection eventually was donated to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.) (Civil Beat)

The house was in a block of row houses set back from Massachusetts Avenue on a slight elevation. A service road called Highland Terrace ran in front of the houses, creating the effect of a boulevard with shaded trees separating the residences from the busy street. (Adolf-Cluss)

The large three-story brick townhouse, built during 1878-1880 at 1445 Massachusetts Avenue, featured sandstone lintels, a decorative Mansard roof and stairs which led to an elevated entrance. (Adolf-Cluss)

The property was apparently left vacant after Baird’s death while his daughter prepared a biography of him. It makes sense that “Bird’s Nest” might have been a play on the name Baird, and where some of the preserved bird collection may have lingered in the house at the time Kuhio lived there, but it is hard to know for sure.  (Civil Beat)

Furnished with a bar, poker tables, pool tables, and his African hunting trophies, it became a getaway for officials where Kuhio would hold forth on Hawaii’s beauty, fertility, and strategic position in the Pacific.

When Princess Kahanu made the trip to the capital, the couple hosted dinner parties for Members featuring the guest of honor from the islands. Kuhio even arranged for an exhibit on Hawaii in the Alaska–Yukon–Pacific Exposition of 1909 in Seattle, Washington. (US House)

Kuhio didn’t remain at that house very long. After 1906, city records show him living variously at the luxurious Dewey Hotel and the original Shoreham hotel at 15th Street and H Street NW.

He rented houses at other times, including possibly during long visits from Queen Liliuokalani, who he was helping as she sought restitution from the federal government for the loss of the crown lands. (Civil Beat)

However, starting in May 1907, Kuhio’s preferred method was to host colleagues on extended tours of Hawaii. The territorial legislature even chipped in for the three-week tour of Hawaii that spring.

These excursions became more popular over time. The 1915 entourage included 27 Representatives, 10 Senators, congressional family members, staff, and a gaggle of press.

Hawaiians sailed out to greet the congressional visitors before they reached land, presenting leis and playing Hawaiian music from an accompanying tugboat. The firsthand experience often helped grease the skids for legislative action afterward.

“I have a few things to take up with the prince about the merchant marine and transportation facilities that come within the jurisdiction of my committee,” wrote Representative William Wilson of Illinois after one tour, “and I intend to help rectify those unreasonable sailing conditions when we get together.” (GPO)

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Kuhio, Bird's Nest

June 24, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

History Books Could Have Been Different

Manuel paused, said in a confidential voice: “If today I wrote all that I overheard and saw in those years, the complexion of many an incident would be changed in our history books.” (Manuel Reis)

Manuel Gil dos Reis was born in Oporto, Portugal.  When he was a whippersnapper, his father took him to Cape Verde islands, down in the Atlantic, west of Africa.  Father Reis was port-master there.  His father gave Manuel thimblefuls of deep red wine, told him sagas of the sea. 

Transatlantic clippers, stately and wondrous ships of trade, opening new worlds in the Americas, called for provisioning at Cape Verde.  One day young Manuel could not resist the temptation.  He signed on one, made his way to New Bedford, MA and later transferred to an American whaler, the bark Atlantic, as lookout and steerer.

The Atlantic rounded the stormy Horn, beat across the south Pacific to the great whaling grounds near New Zealand.  At the Chatham Islands the Atlantic met another whaler, the Napoleon.  Together the two ships sought the rich harvest from the sea.  It was reckless work but with the reward that the harder you worked the more cash there was at the voyage’s end, when the

One day on these grounds the ships collided.  The Atlantic’s masts and rigging were badly smashed.  The closest refitting port was Honolulu, nearly 4,000 miles away.  He came to the Islands.

Manuel’s practical life at sea has made him resourceful.  He became a coachman and yardman to a Mrs. Hillebrand for $3 a week, yet soon bettered it for another position with the U.S. Minister, General James W. Comly, at $25 a month.

While driving about town he yarned with independent coachmen who, by publicly hiring their vehicles, made as much as $20 a day.  Manuel thought:  Why don’t I do that?

But he kept on with the U.S. minister, religiously saved his dollars, some of the only gold in the thriving town which used mostly silver Mexican dollars, until he had sufficient capital to launch out in his own business.

He bought wagonettes and California bred horses.  His stand was at the corner of Fort and King streets.  He could drive you to Waikiki, via King and Kalakaua, in 12 minutes.  There were no traffic stop signs. 

The drives to Waikiki and up the Nu‘uanu valley to the Pali were about as far as you could go in those years.  In his days off, Manuel often took a ride on horseback with friends. 

Manuel’s business flourished.  He lived on the job.  His stables and home were together on Queen St, opposite the federal building, where today the [Melim Building] stands.  Three drivers worked for him.  They had a hack each.  Pay: 25c of every dollar they took. 

The first telephone service in Honolulu – December 30, 1880 – was a boon for Manuel’s business.  It was much easier for patrons to telephone, have him send a hack any hour of the day or night.  Alexander Graham Bell, the hello business inventor, formed a firm friendship with Manuel.

Personally, Manuel drove King Kalakaua, whose favorite spot on the island was a private boathouse on the harbor front near Pier 5.  There the merry monarch made whoopee with haoles like Claus Spreckels.  One day at poker Spreckels held four aces, Kalakaua four kings.  Kalakaua claimed the pot because he said, “I make five kings – that’s better than 4 aces.”

At the beginning of the hard working, gay eighties, Manuel on his cab seat began to hear murmurings of unrest and discontent.  His passengers hatched plots and counter plots.

But Manuel remained neutral. [However, in a story on Reis Wray Jose notes “Manuel Reis was a royalist. … Manuel Reis often chauffeured such royal notables as Kalakaua, Kapiolani, Liliuokalani and others, as part of his business.” And his hackstand “was often called the ‘Royalist Hackstand’ because of the number of known royalists it served.”]

Up in the lonely, storm tossed lookout of the whaling ship, young Manuel had learned to hold his tongue, to think rather than talk.  It was a good habit, too, while he waited by the hour, for King Kalakaua.

Monarchs and the anti-monarchists used the hacks.  Manuel overheard many a conspiracy, could have won favors if he had passed on the information. 

So when the unrest finally culminated in the revolution of 1887 and the consequent uprisings, Manuel was not surprised.  He drove about his business, unperturbed by the rifle fire or the passions of his hot-headed passengers.

Government disturbances, after all, meant brisk business for Manuel, who was called upon to rush messengers: post haste from side to side with history making dispatches.

Because he had married Eugenia Keoho‘okalani Kahaule, fine daughter of an old Kona family, Manuel knew that inevitably he would be regarded with suspicion by the anti-monarchists.  On the third day of the 1895 uprising, Manuel was driving Miss Helen Wilder (sister of Gerrit P Wilder) out at Waikiki. 

Jim Quinn, “a tricky Irishman” who worked with Manuel, drove post haste to Waikiki, warned Manuel that Marshal Hitchcock sought him, Manuel told Miss Wilder and she was content to be dropped off at the foot of Nuʻuanu Street.

Manuel knew what was coming.  He told his wife to carry on the business, hid 1,000 silver dollars in the bureau drawer for her to use.  Then he went along to the prison house, knew that because he had a Hawaiian wife, drove so many of the monarchy, he would be probed. 

But probed he was not.  Marshal Hitchcock boomed from the office:  “Take him down below.”  And quickly Manuel found himself with 12 other “political prisoners” in the dark, overcrowded cells.  There were nine Britishers, two Greeks, (one of them George Lycurgus), and one Dane. 

For 35 days and nights they were kept in the hot, close cells.  They were never questioned as they expected to be, but they were irritated and scared blue by the threatening, bullying guards.

Two and three times every night the prisoners would be awakened rudely and moved from cell to cell.  There were two men to each cell, six by eight feet.  The only real fresh air and daylight they enjoyed was two hours of exercise in the yard every morning.

The guards delighted in scaring the prisoners.  They polished their bayonets, rattled their rifles, talking loudly about death at dawn.  They stretched new ropes, guffawed about the hangman’s noose.  One of the prisoners became hysterical.

He considered he could save his neck if he told all, which was that Queen Liliuokalani’s supporters had hidden rifles under Washington Place, he claimed.

Manuel contracted a fever in the unsanitary cells.  He was at the point of death, so he was released.  They wanted him to sign a declaration of guilt, that he had conspired against the republic.  But independent Manuel, weak in body but strong in spirit, refused.  He went to Kona’s hospitable coast for a month and recuperated slowly.

Manuel’s funniest story about that attempted insurrection is of a well-known Hawaiian who, panic stricken by the bullets that whirred in the civic square between the palace and the judiciary building, flung himself at the foot of the Kamehameha statue and feigned death for many hours. 

All here is from an interview/article on Manuel Reis published in the Star Bulletin, September 7, 1935.

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Counter-Revolution, Overthrow, Manuel Reis

June 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Louis Alexander Williams

Mary Ellen Pleasant was an ardent Abolitionist, and she determined to assist John Brown.

She married John Pleasant (or Pleasants), who had been an overseer on the Smith plantation. She reportedly was involved in the Underground Railroad, and was so successful in assisting escaping slaves that she had “a price on her head in the South.” 

Pleasant moved to San Francisco and put her business acumen and entrepreneurial skills, not to mention her reputation as a noteworthy cook, to work. There was much wealth circulating in the heady days of the gold rush, but few luxuries in the area to spend it on.

Miners and merchants were clamoring for services, and Pleasant, according to San Francisco newspapers, rejected many offers of employment as a cook from people with means. Instead, with her name now well known, she opened a boarding house that provided lodging and food, both of which were scarce.

She expanded her business dealings by lending money to businessmen and miners at an interest rate of 10%, while also investing wisely on the advice of her influential boarders and other associates. During this time, she gained a reputation as “The Fabulous Negro Madam,” acting as a procurer for her male associates.  (Encyclopedia)

She invested her money wisely: Her businesses in San Francisco included laundries, dairies and exclusive restaurants — all of which were quite lucrative in a city filled with miners and single businessmen.

Concerned about racial equality, she became increasingly involved in helping others and in civil-rights activities during the 1850s and 1860s. Mary Ellen Pleasant, used her Gold Rush wealth to provide financial assistance for these causes; she also sought out and rescued slaves being held illegally in the California countryside.

Pleasant also found jobs in wealthy households for runaway slaves and developed an information network. One of the most widely circulated, albeit unsubstantiated, reports on Pleasant concerns her role in abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the US arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859.

She reportedly sailed to the East in 1858 and in Canada gave Brown $30,000 to finance his battle against slavery. When John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, for murder and treason, a note found in his pocket read,

“The ax is laid at the foot of the tree. When the first blow is struck, there will be more money to help.” Officials most likely believed it was written by a wealthy Northerner who had helped fund Brown’s attempt to incite, and arm, an enormous slave uprising by taking over an arsenal at Harpers Ferry in Virginia. No one suspected that the note was written by a black woman named Mary Ellen Pleasant. (NY Times)

Some called her ‘Mammy’, but she asserted, “I am Mammy to no one.”

According to Pleasant, she was born free on August 19, 1814 in Philadelphia.  She claimed her father was Louis Alexander Williams, a native Hawaiian (‘a Kanaka from the Pacific Islands’) and her mother, Mary (her namesake) was a “full blooded Negress from Louisiana.”  (Ball etal)

Pleasant noted, “My father was a native Kanaka [Hawaiian] and my mother a full-blooded Louisiana negress.”

“Both were of large frame, but I think I must have got my physical strength from my father, who was, like most of his race, a giant in frame. His name was Louis Alexander Williams.”

“He was a man of great intelligence and had a fair education, judging from his letters.  He was a commercial man and imported silks from India.  He imported other things, but his main business was silk.”

“My mother’s name was Mary, and I was named after her, but I recall very little about her.  I don’t think she was as well educated as my father, for I don’t remember that she ever wrote me any letters.”

“When I was about six years of age, I was sent to Nantucket, Mass., to live with a Quaker woman named Hussey.  I never knew why I was sent there, and about all I know is that my first recollections of life dated from Nantucket.”

“When my father sent me to live with the Husseys, he also gave them, as I learned afterwards, plenty of money to have me educated, but they did not use it for that purpose, and that’s how I came to have no education.” (Mary Ellen Pleasant, autobiography)

“It is quite possible that a Pacific Islander named Louis Alexander Williams and a free black woman from Louisiana became the parents of a baby girl in Philadelphia in 1814, as Pleasant claimed.”

“According to the US Census there was an Alexander Williams living in Philadelphia in 1810 and 1820.  He is listed as a white male, which is how Pacific Islanders were recorded in the census at the time”.  (Hudson)

Pleasant had another Hawai‘i connection; images of Queen Emma are sometimes mistaken/mislabeled as Mary Ellen Pleasant.

“In 1880 Mammy was invited to the Palace Hotel to meet King Kalakaua of Hawaii.  It was the custom in San Francisco to always send an invitation to any major affair.  She invariably ‘regrets’ but on this occasion she wanted to attend because she wished to ask the king if it was true that she closely resembled the Dowager Queen Emma of Hawaii.”

“He obviously thought she did because when he left for Hawaii he carried with him a negative plate of Mammy’s full length portrait.” (Holdredge to Smyser; Hudson)

© 2023 Ho‘okuleana LLC

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Prominent People Tagged With: Queen Emma, Mary Ellen Pleasant, Louis Alexander Williams

June 5, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pukaʻōmaʻomaʻo

Traditions on the island of Oʻahu note Mā’ilikūkahi was a ruling chief around 1500 (about the time Columbus crossed the Atlantic.) Māʻilikūkahi is said to have enacted a code of laws in which theft from the people by chiefs was forbidden.

A son of Mā’ilikūkahi was Kalona-nui, who in turn had a son called Kalamakua. Kalamakua is said to have been responsible for developing a large system of taro planting across the Waikīkī-Kapahulu-Mōʻiliʻili-Mānoa area. The extensive loʻi kalo were irrigated by water drawn from the Mānoa and Pālolo Valley streams and large springs in the area.

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver described Mānoa Valley on a hike from Waikīkī in search of drinking water: “We found the land in a high state of cultivation, mostly under immediate crops of taro; and abounding with a variety of wild fowl chiefly of the duck kind …”

“The sides of the hills, which were in some distance, seemed rocky and barren; the intermediate vallies, which were all inhabited, produced some large trees and made a pleasing appearance. The plains, however, if we may judge from the labour bestowed on their cultivation, seem to afford the principal proportion of the different vegetable productions …” (Edinburgh Gazetteer)

One century later, before it was urbanized, Mānoa Valley was described by Thrum (1892:)  “Manoa is both broad and low …”

“… with towering hills on both sides that join the forest clad mountain range at the head, whose summits are often hid in cloud land, gathering moisture there from to feed the springs in the various recesses that in turn supply the streams winding through the valley, or watering the vast fields of growing taro, to which industry the valley is devoted.”

“The higher portions and foot hills also give pasturage to the stock of more than one dairy enterprise.”

Handy (in his book Hawaiian Planter) writes that in ancient days, all of the level land in upper Mānoa was developed into taro flats and was well-watered, level land that was better adapted to terracing than neighboring Nuʻuanu.  The entire floor of Mānoa Valley was a “checkerboard of taro patches.”  “The terraces extended along Manoa Stream as far as there is a suitable land for irrigating.”

The well-watered, fertile and relatively level lands of Mānoa Valley supported extensive wet taro cultivation well into the twentieth century. Handy and Handy estimated that in 1931 “there were still about 100 terraces in which wet taro was planted, although these represented less than a tenth of the area that was once planted by Hawaiians.” (Cultural Surveys)

Mānoa Valley was a favored spot of the Ali‘i, including Kamehameha I, Chief Boki (Governor of O‘ahu), Haʻalilio (an advisor to King Kamehameha III,) Princess Victoria, Kanaʻina (father of King Lunalilo), Lunalilo, Keʻelikōlani (half-sister of Kamehameha IV) and Queen Lili‘uokalani.  The chiefs lived on the west side, the commoners on the east.

Queen Kaʻahumanu lived there; her home was called Pukaʻōmaʻomaʻo (Green Gateway.)  It was situated deep in the valley (lit., green opening; referring to its green painted doors and blinds – It is alternatively referred to as Pukaʻōmaʻo.)

“Her residence is beautifully situated and the selection of the spot quite in taste. The house … stands on the height of a gently swelling knoll, commanding, in front, an open and extensive view of all the rich plantations of the valley; of the mountain streams meandering through them … of the district of Waititi; and of Diamond Hill, and a considerable part of the plain, with the ocean far beyond.” (Stewart; Sterling & Summers)

It was doubtless the same sort of grass house which was in general use, although probably more spacious and elaborate as befitted a queen. The dimension in one direction was 60 feet. The place name of the area was known as Kahoiwai, or “Returning Waters.”

“Immediately behind the house, and partially flanking it on either side, is a delightful grove of the dark leaved and crimson blossomed ʻŌhia, so thick and so shady … filled with cool and retired walks and natural retreats, and echoing to the cheerful notes of the little songsters, who find security in its shades to build their nests and lay their young.”

“The view of the head of the valley inland, from the clumps and single trees edging this copse, is very rich and beautiful; presenting a circuit of two or three miles delightfully variegated by hill and dale, wood and lawn, and enclosed in a sweep of splendid mountains, one of which in the centre rises to a height of three thousand feet.”

“In one edge of this grove, a few rods from the house, stands a little cottage built by Kaahumanu, for the accommodation of the missionaries who visit her when at this residence. … (It) is very frequently occupied a day or two at a time, by one and another of the families most enervated by the heat and dust, the toil, and various exhausting cares of the establishment at the sea-shore.“  (Stewart; Sterling & Summers)

“Not far makai … High Chief Kalanimōku, had very early allotted to the Mission the use of farm plots thus noted in its journal of June, 1823: “On Monday the 2d, Krimakoo and the king’s mother granted to the brethren three small pieces of land cultivated with taro, potatoes, bananas, melons, &c. and containing nineteen bread-fruit trees, from which they may derive no small portion of the fruit and vegetables needed by the family.”  (Damon)

Then, in mid-1832, Kaʻahumanu became ill and was taken to her house in Mānoa, where a bed of maile and leaves of ginger was prepared.   “Her strength failed daily.  She was gentle as a lamb, and treated her attendants with great tenderness.  She would say to her waiting women, ‘Do sit down; you are very tired; I make you weary.’”  (Bingham)

“The king, his sister, other members of the aliʻi and many retainers had already arrived at Pukaomaomao and had dressed the large grass house for the dying queen’s last homecoming. The walls of the main room had been hung with ropes of sweet maile and decorated with lehua blossoms and great stalks of fragrant mountain ginger.”

“The couch upon which Kaahumanu was to rest had been prepared with loving care. Spread first with sweet-scented made and ginger leaves, it was then covered with a golden velvet coverlet. At the head and foot stood towering leather kahilis. Over a chair nearby was draped the Kamehameha feather cloak which had been worn by Kaahumanu since the monarch’s death.”  (Mellon; Sterling & Summers)

“The slow and solemn tolling of the bell struck on the pained ear as it had never done before in the Sandwich Islands. In other bereavements, after the Gospel took effect, we had not only had the care and promise of our heavenly Father, but a queen-mother remaining, whose force, integrity, and kindness, could be relied on still.”

“But words can but feebly express the emotions that struggled in the bosoms of some who counted themselves mourners in those solemn hours; while memory glanced back through her most singular history, and faith followed her course onward, far into the future.”  (Hiram Bingham)

Her death took place at ten minutes past 3 o’clock on the morning of June 5, 1832, “after an illness of about 3 weeks in which she exhibited her unabated attachment to the Christian teachers and reliance on Christ, her Saviour.”  (Hiram Bingham)

© 2023 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Buildings, Place Names Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Kaahumanu, Queen Kaahumanu, Manoa, Pukaomaomao

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People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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