Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Japanese Charity Hospital

In the late 1800s, the sugar plantations in Hawaii were booming and the contract laborers were the backbone of the industry. During this period, relief to needy persons was provided according to ethnicity by various charity organizations such as the Hawaiian Relief Society, British Benevolent Society and Ladies’ Portuguese Charitable Association.

Although several Japanese charity groups were formed, these organizations provided limited relief and many were in existence for only a short time. However, one such organization, the Japanese Benevolent Society, survived.

The Society was established as a voluntary association in 1892 and incorporated in 1899 as an eleemosynary corporation for the purpose of giving relief to the Japanese in Hawaii whose needs resulted from illness, poverty, accident or other causes.

In January 1900, the Chinatown fire left thousands of Japanese immigrants without homes, food or clothing. The Society provided emergency relief and then immediately started plans to build a hospital.

After raising enough funds, they purchased a site with more than half an acre of land located in the Kapalama district of Honolulu, south of King Street at the end of a narrow lane. In July 1900, a two-story wooden building containing 38 beds was completed and called the Japanese Charity Hospital.

“That the society is accomplishing a great work among the Japanese people in this city was evidenced by the statements submitted by Secretary S. Masuda, who briefly outlined the objects and future ambitions of the of the society.”

“Since the early part of the year 1893 the society has seen the necessity of building a permanent hospital in order to carry out its work of charity among Japanese people. It was about this time that Dr S Kobayashi realized the need of the hospital and decided to erect one at his own expense.”

“With this end in view a temporary hospital was built on leased ground on Liliha, near School street. Satisfactory arrangements were made for the time being with the hospital and the Benevolent society whereby its patients were to be received and treated at special and reasonable rates.” (Honolulu Republican, Oct 6, 1900)

In August 1902, the hospital moved a few miles away into a three-story wooden structure. It had 25 bedrooms, three operating rooms, an autopsy room, a morgue, and a few other specialized rooms. For fifteen years, the Society maintained this hospital until it, too, became overcrowded and rundown.

By September 1918, funds from the Society and public contributions (which included a special donation from Emperor Taisho and the Empress of Japan) helped build a modern facility at the hospital’s third and present site on Kuakini Street.

The 16-building hospital had 120 beds and was equipped with up-to-date appliances and facilities. The institution, whose name was shortened to “Japanese Hospital” in April 1917, was situated on almost four acres of land. By 1920 the Japanese Hospital was the second-largest civilian hospital in the territory.

In 1932, many of the Japanese immigrant men who had worked on the plantations had reached retirement age, were unmarried and had no families to care for them.

In order to assist these elderly men who were not acutely ill but needed a protective environment, the Society built the Japanese Home of Hawaii on the grounds of the hospital using community donations. The 50-bed facility, the forerunner of the present Kuakini Home, provided care, food and shelter for these elderly men.

A major expansion program that was completed in 1939 increased the hospital’s size to 100 beds and provided more services with the addition of X-ray, surgical, pediatric and maternity facilities.

A portion of the new building (designed with a copper dome) was called the Imperial Gift Memorial Building in recognition of the financial support Kuakini received from the Imperial Family of Japan. (In 1934, Hirohito, posthumously known as Emperor Shōwa) and the Empress of Japan donated 10,000 yen for the hospital expansion program.)

With the onset of World War II in 1941, the U. S. Army took control of over half of the hospital’s facilities. Due to the fact that Kuakini’s Board consisted of descendants of Japanese immigrants, Kuakini was the only hospital in the United States to be occupied by the U.S. Army. In 1942, the hospital changed its name to Kuakini Hospital and Home. The hospital was returned to civilian control in 1945.

A major fund drive in 1951 financed the construction of the hospital’s Ewa wing and part of its Waikiki wing which increased Kuakini’s bed count to 140 beds.

Kuakini received its first accreditation from the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (now called the Joint Commission) in 1954. At that time, there were 235 employees, 63 full-time registered nurses and 225 doctors on the medical staff.

With its modern, well-equipped facilities, the hospital was an excellent training ground for interns in need of further medical experience. Physicians from Japan came to Kuakini to receive training in American medicine before going to mainland hospitals for additional experience.

Senior medical technology students from the University of Hawaii spent a year in the hospital’s laboratory for training and nursing students obtained their clinical experience in medical and surgical nursing at Kuakini.

In 1956, the governing Board of Kuakini authorized the use of an architectural consultant to assist in the development of a master plan for future physical expansion at Kuakini.

In the late 1950s, more physicians became specialists and pediatric and obstetric patients began to seek these physicians as well as the specialty hospitals for their care. With the resulting low occupancy rate of its obstetrics and pediatrics units and the need for more medical/surgical beds

Kuakini eliminated its obstetrics department in 1964 and its pediatrics department in 1967. This decision not only benefited Kuakini through the availability of more beds for medical and surgical services, but it also helped increase census at the specialty hospitals in the community through the elimination of duplicate services at Kuakini.

Through the years, Kuakini has kept pace with the community’s demand for quality health care. The hospital was renamed Kuakini Medical Center in 1975 to reflect its expanded programs to the community and in celebration of its 75th anniversary.

Kuakini has the distinct honor of being the last surviving hospital established by Japanese immigrants in the US.  Kuakini Medical Plaza, an eight-story physicians’ office building next to the Medical Center, was completed in 1979 to provide a medical facility that enables doctors to be near their hospitalized patients.

In March 1980, Kuakini dedicated its Hale Pulama Mau (House of Cherishing Care) building. Acute medical/surgical services as well as geriatric care services are provided within Hale Pulama Mau. A second physicians’ office building, the Kuakini Physicians Tower and a new parking facility for employees were completed in 1998.

Today, Kuakini is a 250-bed acute care hospital.  (Lots of information here is from Kuakini Health System.)

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Hilo High School

“The American Public School system comprises in most of the states twelve grades, occupying the children between the ages of 6 and 12. These grades are thus denominated: First to Fourth Primary, Fifth to Eighth Grammar, Ninth to Twelfth High.”

“A slight departure from this scheme of classification is made in the Territory.  Here, though maintaining the same twelve grades, as in the states, they are divided in six grades in the Primary School, and six grades in the High School.”

“The curriculum of the grades nine to twelve inclusive corresponds to that of the same grades in the schools on the mainland.”  (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

Without a high school on the Island of Hawai‘i, “It has been the habit of solicitous parents of this island during the past century to send their children to the schools of Honolulu, for whatever education they received beyond the grammar grades. It is needless to say that this necessity has entailed both anxiety and expense.”

“Thus it became an object with the teachers and parents of Hilo to secure in their midst sufficient advantages to return their children at home.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

A High School in Hilo had a shaky start.  After passage in 1903, but failing to receive the Governor’s signature, in a February, 1905 session of the legislature, “Under suspension of the rules, Senator [John T] Brown introduced a bill (S. B. No. 23) entitled ‘An Act to Provide for a High School in Hilo, Island and Territory of Hawaii, under the Department of Public Instruction of the Territory.’”

The proposed legislation, again, passed through the legislature.  When presented to Governor Carter and Carter stated, “I am unable to approve”, citing that “This bill falls within that class of absolutely unnecessary legislation.”  On April 18, 1905, the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto.

“A special committee of the Board of Education … held a conference with Superintendent Davis and Normal Inspector King when the plans for putting the high school in operation were discussed.”

“The problem before the Commissioners was whether they should start the High School work of Hilo at the beginning of the next school year as a separate organization or wait until the new High School building was erected and then begin the independent organization.”  (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905) It was decided to start sooner than later.

“In Sept. 1905 a class of twenty pupils was excellently fitted to begin their secondary studies.  … Room for its reception was made in the Union School, where, despite much painful crowding, very efficient work was accomplished.”  (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

“The Hilo High School began its career under that apellation on Sept. 6, 1905, under the direction of Mr. FA Richmond (‘a Stanford graduate and has been vice principal of the Honolulu High School’), CO Smith and Miss MP Potter.”

A site was needed.  “At a meeting of the Board of Trade … it was decided to recommend the Riverside school site for the new Hilo High School, and to remove the present Riverside school to the Masonic Hall lot opposite”. (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905)

“There were in the schools of Hilo nine grades – the beginning with Ninth being the only grade entitled by usage in the States to be called High School. However, grades Seven, Eight and Nine were assembled under the High School teachers, and proceeded to work in two of the upstairs rooms of the Hilo Union School.”

“Since that time two new grades have entered the High School, and the original students no constitute grades Nine, Ten and Eleven. One year from now the present eleventh grade will graduate as the 1908 Twelfth Grade. And the curriculum of the school will be completely taught.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

“The first class will be given (1) what is known as ‘first year Latin,’ to prepare the students to read Caesar; (2) English, comprehending correct composition, rather than criticism; (3) History-Ancient Greek and Roman; (4) Physical Geography; (5) Algebra, through quadratics, and (6), the study of some language, either French or German.” (Hilo Tribune, Aug 29, 1905)

“The work of the High School has been shaped to fit carefully local needs. Such students as feel the need of immediately getting into business will be given a Commercial Course in book keeping, typewriting, shorthand, commercial arithmetic, court reporting, etc.”

“Such students as have expectations of colleges will be given careful preparation for entrance to the best American colleges and Universities.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)

The new school building opened September 9, 1907.  “The Hilo high school has four good, well-lighted and ventilated rooms downstairs, capable of accommodating 160 pupils.  There are six rooms upstairs there 100 additional pupils can receive instruction … The room for the commercial class is well equipped.”  (Advertiser, September 7, 1907)

Hilo High’s first graduating class consisted of seven students in 1909: Richard Kekoa, Amy Williams, Eliza Desha, Frank Arakawa, John Kennedy, Annie Napier and Herbert Westerbelt. (Mangiboyat)

Hilo High Auditorium was built in 1928. It was donated to the school by the Alumni Association. It was designed by a former student (and part of the first graduates) of Hilo High School, Frank Arakawa.

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Broken Leg

In 1834, John Paty sailed for the first time to Hawai‘i in the brig Avon, of which he was master and part owner, accompanied by his wife and brother, and arrived at Honolulu in June of that year.  (They had three children while in Hawaiʻi, John Henry Paty (1840,) Mary Francesca Paty (1844) and Emma Theodora Paty (1850.)

In 1860, “Capt John Paty, as a ship master out of Honolulu, and the valuable assistance rendered by him in the furtherance of commercial intercourse between the Hawaiian Islands and adjacent ports in foreign countries, as evidenced by the accomplishment of his one hundredth passage across the Pacific.”   (The Friend, November 1, 1860)

In 1865, Paty, on another run to the Islands, hired Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham as first mate on the bark Whistler, on the San Francisco/Honolulu run.

Frank, the son of Benjamin Clark Dillingham, a shipmaster, and Lydia Sears (Hows) Dillingham, was born on September 4, 1844 in West Brewster, Massachusetts. Frank left school at 14 and shipped on his uncle’s vessel for a voyage around the Horn to San Francisco. 

“A brief sojourn in the city enabled me to realize that I had no training in any other vocation, save that of the sea, and learning that Capt. Paty of the bark Whistler plying between the coast and Honolulu was in need of officers, I applied and obtained the position of first mate without delay.”  (Dillingham; Chiddix & Simpson)

Dillingham wrote that he felt at home the first time he came ashore in Honolulu: “After my tempstuous experiences in rounding Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, the trip seemed to me like a pleasure excursion.”

“It felt as if I had anchored in a home port; the cordiality I experienced from all those whom I met removed at once the feeling of being in a foreign land though the streets were filled with several nationalities. The luxuriant foliage, the balmy breezes, the tropical fruits, all afforded such delights that I felt sure I should return.”

He would indeed return, and on his third trip aboard the Whistler, he rented a horse. “Sailors are notoriously unfamiliar with horses” he later wrote—describing his collision with a carriage. Ships and sailors were of economic import in the Islands, and on July 29, 1865, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser ran a short piece on his accident:

“The first officer of the bark Whistler Mr Dillingham, whose leg was broken last Friday night by being thrown from a horse, in a collision with a carriage on the vally road, is now at the American Marine Hospital, where he receives every care and attention, and is in a favorable condition for recovery.”

The Whistler could not wait and sailed without him. Ultimately, and unknown to anyone at the time, this changed to course of economic history in the Islands and resulted in lasting legacies.

While recovering, Dillingham had a long time to reflect upon his options. This time he was more serious about staying ashore. Already in love with these Islands, he had met Emma Louise Smith on an earlier visit.

Despite tales of her nursing him back to health, she was away in New England while Frank was recuperating. She was also engaged to another man whom by all accounts she did not love. Dillingham’s patience in slowly courting Emma demonstrated a determination for which he later became known.

He accepted a job as a clerk in a hardware store called H. Dimond & Son for $40 per month. The store was owned by Henry Dimond, formerly a bookbinder in the 7th Missionary Company. In 1850 Dimond had been released from his duties at the Mission and had gone into business with his son.

Dillingham later bought the company with partner Alfred Castle (son of Samuel Northrup Castle, who was in the 8th Company of missionaries and ran the Mission business office;) they called the company Dillingham & Co (it was later known as Pacific Hardware, Co.)

On April 26, 1869, Dillingham married Emma Smith, daughter of 6th Company missionaries Reverend Lowell and Abigail Smith.

But hard times came on Dillingham with the collapse of whaling and the rise of sugar. Large suppliers pulled Dillingham’s credit lines, and his accounts were paid late.  Then Dillingham was given the opportunity to buy the James Campbell lands in Ewa.

While he couldn’t raise the money to buy it, Campbell leased the land for 50-years.  Dillingham realized that to be successful, he needed reliable transportation.

On September 4, 1888, Frank Dillingham’s 44th birthday, the legislature gave Dillingham an exclusive franchise “for construction and operation on the Island of O‘ahu a steam railroad … for the carriage of passengers and freight.”

They laughed at him and called it ‘Dillingham’s Folly.’ But Benjamin Franklin Dillingham’s dream of a railroad into the wilderness of West Oahu carried the promise of a sugar industry and major developments that would change Hawaii forever. (Wagner)

Dillingham formed O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L,) a narrow gauge rail, whose economic being was founded on the belief that O‘ahu would soon host a major sugar industry.

“Among the most important works now in process of rapid construction, is the Oahu railway to Pearl Harbor, which is already approaching completion, so far as grading is concerned. Eleven miles of this line will have the grading completed in two weeks; and of this length ten miles are already finished.”

“The depot itself will be of imposing size and made as ornamental in appearance as convenience and traffic requirements will allow. … The progress of this important work has been so rapid during the month of July that we give it first place among the works in progress during the past month.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 27, 1889)

“Mr BF Dillingham, promoter of the Oahu Railway and Land Company [OR&L], on his birthday a year previous, was accosted by an acquaintance with the remark: ‘Well, Mr. Dillingham, you have got your franchise: when are you going to give us the railway?’”

“Mr. Dillingham replied that on his next birthday, that day one year, he hoped to treat his friends to a railway ride.  … with a strong company now at his back, the originator of the enterprise, having taken the contract to build the road, resolutely pushed operations to their present advanced stage.”

On September 4, 1889, Mr. Dillingham’s forty-fifth birthday, the first train to run out of Honolulu took an excursion party one-half mile into the Palama rice fields.

‘Dillingham’s Folly’ had now become the greatest single factor in the development of O‘ahu and Honolulu.  (Nellist)

“With a shrill blast from the whistle and the bell clanging, the engine moved easily off with its load. Three rousing cheers were given by the passengers, and crowds assembled at the starting point responded.”  (Daily Bulletin, September 5, 1889)

The rail line was extended, reaching Waianae in 1895 and, with Waialua plantation enormously expanded under Mr. Dillingham’s driving leadership, the railroad eventually was extended there and on to Kahuku. (Nellist)

Ultimately, OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples for Dole.

By the early-1900s, the expanded railway cut across the island, serving several sugar and pineapple plantations, and the popular Haleʻiwa Hotel.  They even included a “Kodak Camera Train” (associated with the Hula Show) for Sunday trips to Hale‘iwa for picture-taking.

When the hotel opened on August 5, 1899, guests were conveyed from the railway terminal over the Anahulu stream to fourteen luxurious suites, each had a bath with hot-and-cold running water.

Thrum’s ‘Hawaiian Annual’ (1900,) noted, “In providing so tempting an inn as an adjunct and special attraction for travel by the Oahu Railway – also of his (Dillingham’s) creation – the old maxim of ‘what is worth doing is worth doing well’ has been well observed, everything about the hotel is first class …”

The weekend getaway from Honolulu to the Haleʻiwa Hotel became hugely popular with the city affluent who enjoyed a retreat in ‘the country.’

In addition, OR&L (using another of its “land” components,) got into land development.  It developed Hawai‘i’s first planned suburban development and held a contest, through the newspaper, to name this new city.  The winner selected was “Pearl City” (the public also named the main street, Lehua.)

The railway owned 2,200-acres in fee simple in the peninsula.  First they laid-out and constructed the improvements, then invited the public on a free ride to see the new residential community.  The marketing went so well; ultimately, lots were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

“Mr. Dillingham, besides creating the O‘ahu Railway, a line for which he struggled twenty-seven years against a public prejudice that would not see its financial possibilities, established Olaʻa plantation on the Island of Hawai‘i and McBryde plantation on Kauai.”  (Sugar, May 1918) 

On his death in 1918 at age 74, Dillingham was hailed as a “master builder” and Honolulu’s financial district closed its doors out of respect.   (Wagner)  The Islands would have been different, if not for a sailor breaking his leg riding a horse.

The Dillingham Transportation Building was built in 1929 for Walter F Dillingham of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, who founded the Hawaiian Dredging Company (later Dillingham Construction) and ran the Oahu Railway and Land Company founded by his father, Benjamin Franklin Dillingham. (Information in this post taken, in part, from ‘Next Stop Honolulu.’)

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1849

In 1789, Congress created three Executive Departments: Foreign Affairs (later in the same year renamed State), Treasury, and War. It also provided for an Attorney General and a Postmaster General. Domestic matters were apportioned by Congress among these departments. (DOI)

In the decade of the 1840s the cry of Manifest Destiny expanded the vision of Americans to continental dimensions. In quick succession came the annexation of Texas in 1845, the resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain in 1846, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concluding the Mexican War in February 1848.

In three years the United States enlarged its domain by more than a million square miles, reaching nearly its present size between Canada and Mexico. Widely applauded, this remarkable national aggrandizement also prompted sectional controversy over the extension of slavery.  (NPS)

The idea of setting up a separate department to handle domestic matters was put forward on numerous occasions. It wasn’t until March 3, 1849, the last day of the 30th Congress, that a bill was passed to create the Department of the Interior to take charge of the Nation’s internal affairs.

Creation of the Home Department consolidated the General Land Office (Department of the Treasury), the Patent Office (Department of State), the Indian Affairs Office (War Department) and the military pension offices (War and Navy Departments).

Subsequently, Interior functions expand to include the census, regulation of territorial governments, exploration of the western wilderness, and management of the D.C. jail and water system. (DOI)

“Everything upon the face of God’s earth will go into the Home Department,” US Senator John O. Calhoun had prophesied.  Later, it became known as the Department of Interior.

As Interior took shape under its early leaders and in response to congressional mandates, it came more and more to deserve the appelation of “Great Miscellany” often given it.  Some suggested it was the Department of Everything Else. (NPS)

In the Islands …

French Invasion of Honolulu – 1849

On August 12, 1849, French admiral Louis Tromelin arrived in Honolulu Harbor on the corvette Gassendi with the frigate La Poursuivante.  Upon arrival, de Tromelin met with French Consul Dillon.

Dillon immediately initiated a systematic and irritating interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom, arising largely out of personal hostility to RC Wyllie, minister of foreign affairs, picking flaws and making matters of extended diplomatic correspondence over circumstances of trifling importance.

This continued until the French Admiral Tromelin arrived, and after a conference with Dillon the celebrated “ten demands” were formulated and presented to the Hawaiian Government with the commanding request for immediate action.

Sensing disaster, King Kamehameha III issued orders: “Make no resistance if the French fire on the town, land under arms, or take possession of the Fort; but keep the flag flying ‘till the French take it down. … Strict orders to all native inhabitants to offer no insult to any French officer, soldier or sailor, or afford them any pretext whatever for acts of violence.”

The marines broke the coastal guns, threw kegs of powder into the harbor and destroyed all the other weapons they found (mainly muskets and ammunition).  They raided government buildings and general property in Honolulu, including destruction of furniture, calabashes and ornaments in the governor’s house.  After these raids, the invasion force withdrew to the fort.

On the 30th, the admiral issued a proclamation, declaring that by way of “reprisal” the fort had been dismantled, and the king’s yacht, “Kamehameha III,” confiscated (and then sailed to Tahiti,) but that private property would be restored. He also declared the treaty of 1846 to be annulled, and replaced by the Laplace Convention of 1839. This last act, however, was promptly disavowed by the French Government.

Alexander Liholiho and Lot Kamehameha travel abroad – 1849

Alexander Liholiho and Lot Kapuaiwa, grandsons of Kamehameha I through his daughter Kīnaʻu, later ruled Hawai’i as Kamehameha IV and V. While still teenagers, 9n 1849, they traveled to the United States and Europe accompanied by their guardian Dr. Gerritt Judd.

Alexander Liholiho celebrated his 16th birthday in Paris where he learned to fence and speak French. He and Lot met with French President Louis-Napoleon, with Prince Albert in London, and with President Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore in Washington, DC.

Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation and Extradition with US – 1849

On December 20, 1849, the US and the Kingdom of Hawaii signed a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation and Extradition. The treaty, negotiated by US Secretary of State John M. Clayton and the Hawaiian special Commissioner to the Government of the United States James Jackson Jarves, was signed in Washington, D.C. (US State Department)

H Hackfeld & Co and BF Ehlers (Amfac and Liberty House) started – 1849

On September 26, 1849, sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers.  Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

In 1850 he moved to a larger location on Fort Street. This store was so popular, it became known as “Hale Kilika” – the House of Silk (because it sold the finest goods available.) As business grew, the nephew took over management of the store while Hackfeld traveled the world for merchandise. The company took BF Ehlers’ name in 1862.

By 1855, Hackfeld operated two stores, served as agent for two sugar plantations, and represented the governments of Russia, Sweden and Norway. (Later the firm or its principals also represented Austro-Hungary, Belgium and Germany.)  When Hackfeld left on a two-year business trip to Germany and Pflueger took charge in his absence.  (Greaney)

In 1881, Hackfeld and Paul Isenberg became partners.  Isenberg, who had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1858, had extensive experience in the sugar industry, previously working under Judge Duncan McBryde and Rev. William Harrison Rice in Kōloa and Līhu‘e.

From that time on Mr. Isenberg was a factor in the development of the Hackfeld business, which became one of the largest in Hawaiʻi.  When the partnership was incorporated in 1897, a new building was erected at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets; it stood there for 70-years.

A few years later, with the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co. and BT Ehlers.

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) 

At that same time, the BF Ehlers dry goods store also took the patriotic “Liberty House” name.  In 1937 a second store was opened in the Waikiki area. Eventually there would be seven stores on Oahu, and several more on the other islands.

Judd Trail – 1849 – 1859

At its May 23, 1849 meeting, the Privy Council of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (a private committee of the King’s closest advisors to give confidential advice on affairs of state) sought to “facilitate communication between Kailua, the seat of the local government, and Hilo, the principal port.”

They resolved “that GP Judd and Kinimaka proceed to Kailua, Hawaiʻi, to explore a route from that place to Hilo direct, and make a road, if practicable, by employing the prisoners on that island and if necessary taking the prisoners from this island (Oʻahu) to assist; the government to bear all expenses”. (Privy Council Minutes, Punawaiola)

(In 1828, Dr Gerrit Parmele Judd came with the Third Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi. A medical missionary, Judd had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician; by 1842, he left the mission and served in the Hawaiian government.)

In planning the road, the words of the Privy Council’s resolution were taken literally, and the route selected ran to the high saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on a practically straight line between the terminal points.

What became known as the “Judd Road” (or “Judd Trail”) was constructed between 1849 and 1859; construction began at the government road in Kailua (what is now known as Aliʻi Drive) and traversed through a general corridor between Hualālai and Mauna Loa. (Remnants of perimeter walls can still be seen at Aliʻi Drive.)

When the road had been built about 12-miles from Kailua into the saddle between Hualālai and Mauna Loa, the project was abandoned – an 1859 pāhoehoe lava flow from the 11,000 foot-level of Mauna Loa crossed its path. Though incomplete (it never reached its final destination in Hilo,) people did use the Judd Road to get into Kona’s mauka countryside.

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Halekūlani Hotel

Historically, Waikīkī encompassed fishponds, taro lo‘i, coconut groves and a reef-protected beach that accommodated Hawaiian canoes.

Waikīkī shifted from agricultural to residential uses, with private residences for the Hawaiian royalty and the well-to-do.  Near the turn of the 20th-century, some of these homes were converted into small hotels and eventually into world class resorts.

Robert Lewers (whose firm Lewers & Cooke supplied much of the lumber for O‘ahu homes) built a two-story wooden frame bungalow with an open veranda overlooking a coconut grove in 1883.  Then, in 1907, Edwin Irwin leased the Lewers’ house and converted it into a small hotel called the Hau Tree.

Nearby, the J Atherton Gilman family bought 3-acres and built a two-story house from a man named Hall.  La Vancha Maria Chapin Gray rented the Gilman house in 1912 and converted it into a boarding house and named it Gray’s-by-the-Beach.  The sandy area fronting it was soon referred to as Gray’s Beach.

In 1917, Clifford and Juliet Kimball acquired the Hau Tree Inn near Gray’s Beach and, in the late 1920s, they decided to expand and bought the Gilman property, including Gray’s-by-the-Sea and an adjacent parcel belonging to Arthur Brown.

When their expansion project was completed, the Kimballs had acquired over five acres of prime Waikīkī beachfront for their resort, which they named Halekūlani, or “house befitting heaven.”

An early guest at the Halekūlani was Earl Derr Biggers, the author of a murder mystery called ‘The House Without a Key’ (1925.)  Biggers’ book title was based on his discovery that no one locked their doors there.  In memory of the author and his novel, the Halekūlani named its seaside bar and lanai “House Without a Key.”

The principal character in the story was Charlie Chan, the celebrated Chinese detective, patterned after a Honolulu detective named Chang Apana.

(Born Ah Ping Chang on December 26, 1871 in Waipiʻo, Oʻahu; he eventually became known as Chang Apana (the Hawaiianized version of the Chinese name Ah Ping.)  In 1898, Chang joined the Honolulu Police Department and the “shrewd and meticulous investigator” rose through the ranks to become detective in 1916.)

The beach in this area is a place of healing called Kawehewehe (the removal.)  The sick and the injured came to bathe in the kai, or waters of the sea.  It’s now a small pocket of sand nestled between the Halekūlani and the Sheraton Waikīkī.

Kawehewehe takes its meaning from the root word, wehe (which means to remove) (Pukui.)  Thus, as the name implies, Kawehewehe was a traditional place where people went to be cured of all types of illnesses – both physical and spiritual – by bathing in the healing waters of the ocean.

There was a Kawehewehe Pond; people with a physical ailment would come to the pond in search of healing.  A kahuna, or priest, would place a lei limu kala around their neck, and instruct them to submerge themselves in the healing waters of the pond.

When the lei came off and floated downstream, it was said that the afflicted ones were healed.  (This area is also typically known as Gary’s Beach.)

Gray’s Channel heading out from the beach was a natural channel through the reef off the Halekūlani Hotel.  It was enlarged by dredging in the early 1950s to allow catamarans to come ashore at Gray’s Beach.   Popular surf sites are just off-shore.

Eventually, the Norton Clapp family of Seattle bought Halekulani, by now consisting of a large Main Building and 37 one and two-story bungalows.

In 1981 the hotel was purchased by Mitsui Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. Today the 456-room Halekūlani Hotel is one of Waikīkī’s premier resorts.  (Lots of info here from Halekūlani and Clark.)

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