Buildings | Page 61 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 14, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Pierpoint

The December 5, 1874 issue of the Los Angeles Herald noted, “The telegraph line along the railroad is to be built under the superintendence of Mr John Cassidy, who arrived for that purpose yesterday.”

John Cassidy, an associate of Mr Alexander Graham Bell, was the builder of the first railroad telegraph line in California. He then came to the Islands at the time the telephone services were starting.

“Honolulu was among the first cities of the world to take up the telephone practically, and as far back as the year 1880 it is to be noted that it had more telephones than any other city of the same size in the world.”

“The honor of introducing the telephone in the Islands belongs to Senator Charles H. Dickey, who brought a set of instruments to Maui and used them there; this was in the early part of 1878, barely two years after the original patent had been granted to Alexander Graham Bell.”

“And in the latter part of the same year, Mr SG Wilder, Minister of the Interior, installed a set of instruments connecting the government building in Honolulu with the office of his lumber business some distance away.”

“The practicability of the telephone thus being demonstrated, King Kalākaua purchased telephones for the Palace and had them in operation for some time, these instruments being on exhibition at the Bishop Museum at the present time.”

“In the year 1879 the first telephone company was organized and incorporated under the name of ‘The Hawaiian Bell Telephone Co,’ and on December 30, 1880, began giving service in the City of Honolulu.”

“Starting with thirty instruments in operation, this number was considered at the time to be satisfactory, or enough for all time to come; but in this they were mistaken, for the number has always been steadily on the increase.” (Chamber of Commerce Annual Report, 1912)

“Mr. Cassidy has been in the telephone business here almost since it started. He was Superintendent of the old Bell Company during its existence, and when the consolidation with the Mutual Company took place he was made manager and has conducted the business satisfactorily.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 2, 1896)

“Mr. Cassidy remained with the Mutual company for several years, going to the Coast finally with a view to remaining there permanently; but the lure of the Pacific was greater than he could stand and he came back and entered the service of the Hawaiian Electric Company, where he now is.” (Advertiser, December 12, 1909)

Back in 1891, at Kālia, the ‘Old Waikiki’ opened as a bathhouse, one of the first places in Waikīkī to offer rooms for overnight guests. Then, “Ripley & Dickey, the architects are about completing plans for a new beach home for John Cassidy …. It will be one of the handsomest houses in that section of the city, which is noted for the number of its beautiful and comfortable residences.”

“The house will be two stories, of frame. It will be of the chalet type a German adaptation of the Swiss style. The exterior will be very pretty and the interior will be nicely finished.”

“Mr. Cassidy’s beach lot is a large one adjoining the premises of John Ena in Old Waikiki. The house at present occupied will be moved back and leased. … There will soon be a call for tenders for construction of the home. (Hawaiian Gazette, February 18, 1898) The Old Waikiki later served as a boarding house.

Cassidy died on March 9, 1915, at the age of 71. Advertisements shortly thereafter note his widow, Eliza E Cassidy, offering “The Pierpoint, formerly Cassidy, only home hotel, Waikiki Beach; consists of individual cottages and single rooms; cuisine excellent; 1000-ft promenade pier at the end of which is splendid bathing pool and beautiful view.” (Star Bulletin, May 15, 1916)

It appears the name of this new use as a hotel was geographical; the pier extended 1,000-feet out into the ocean from a point … a promotional item from Child’s Blaisdell Hotel noted it as a “Pier on a Point.” The pier had moments of excitement …

“When Arthur E. Troiel speared a conger-eel off the end of Cassidy’s pier at Pierpont Wednesday night he ran all the way home, donned his bathing suit and assisted in landing the big fellow before he could fully realize that he had not caught a whale or at least a shark.”

“Thereafter he was the pride of the fair ones and the envy of the stronger sex along the beach. By day Troiel works for J Hopp & Company.” (Star Bulletin, November 9, 1916)

Later Pierpoint became the Waikiki Annex for downtown Honolulu’s Blaisdell Hotel. In the early 1920s, nearby quaint clusters of cottages known as Cressaty’s Court and Hummel’s Court offered simple lodging. (Waikīkī Historic Trail)

The Pierpoint Hotel, Hummel’s Court and Cressaty’s Court, all located at Kālia, were acquired by the Heen Investment Company in May of 1926.

The six acres were re-landscaped, the cluster of cottages was renovated, and a new main building was added with the Tapa Room and a dance floor. The site, renamed Niumalu Hotel, meaning “sheltering palms,” opened in 1928. (Cord International)

Henry J Kaiser bought it and adjoining property and started the Kaiser Hawaiian Village (1955.) He sold to Hilton Hotels in 1961 and the property (now totaling 22-acres) continues to be known as the Hilton Hawaiian Village.

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Pierpoint-pier-Atkins

Fort_DeRussy_before_Maluhia_Recreation_Center-(HABS)-1938-noting location of Pierpoint

End of the Pierpoint Pier-BidStart

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On the porch of a cottage at the Pierpoint Hotel-sallysdiaries4

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Niumalu Hotel Tarrant

Hummels Court-Tarrant

Cressatys Court-Tarrant

Kewalo-Ala_Wai_aerial-(UH_Manoa)-1927-portion-noting pier-lower

Ala_Wai-Channel_being_dredged-UH_Manoa-(2411)-1952-portion

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Pierpont Hotel Ad-Hnl_SB-Sept 10, 1917

July 11, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Koa House

In 1840, John Joseph Halstead sailed to Hawai‘i on a whaling ship bringing with him from New York carpentry and cabinet-makings skills. He set up a shop in Lāhainā. (Martin) He was said to be the first man to put up a frame house in Lāhainā.

With the news of the discovery of gold in California in 1848, came orders from San Francisco merchants for Irish potatoes and other food supplies for those heading to the gold fields.

Halstead did not join the pioneers of 1849; He moved over to Kalepolepo, along the Kihei shoreline, with his family and shortly thereafter built a new house for himself. (Wilcox)

It was a large Pennsylvania Dutch style house made entirely of koa, built next to the south wall of Koʻieʻie Loko I‘a (fishpond) (also called Kalepolepo Fishpond.)

Halstead’s three story house/store was nicknamed the ‘Koa House.’ With the mullet-filled fishpond, the Koa House became a popular retreat for Hawaiian royalty such as Kamehameha III, IV, V and Lunalilo. (Starr)

No one remembers the actual date of construction of Koa House, but the fact that King Liholiho (Kamehameha IV), visited Kalepolepo on a royal tour immediately after accession to the throne in the fall of 1854, and stayed overnight as the guest of Halstead, its owner, is proof it was built before that time. (Wilcox)

Its timbers were from saw mills in East Makawao and from Kula, partly hewn and whip-sawed by hand Into shape, for labor was cheap In the good old days. Also pine and other material brought around Cape Horn by early traders.

When finished the first floor was fitted up with koa wood counters and shelves, and used for a store. The upper floors were used for living quarters. Many of the larger pieces of furniture were made of koa wood by Halstead himself. (Wilcox)

He opened a trading station on the lower floor. Whalers came ashore to buy fresh produce that was brought in by the farmers via the Kalepolepo Road.

He promoted the Irish potato industry in Kula, which even then was a thriving industry for provisioning whale ships in their seasonal voyages after whales.

At Halstead’s Kalepolepo Store a cartload of potatoes – thirty to forty bags – could readily be exchanged for a bolt of silk or other provisions.

During the Irish potato boom of those days any native farmer with an acre or two of potatoes would sell his crop, and as soon as he received payment in fifty-dollar gold pieces he would hurry off to the nearest store to buy a silk dress for his wife or a broadcloth suit for himself.

Halstead held his share of the Irish potato trade against more promising cash offers made by his business rivals. So lively was the competition that LL Torbert of ʻUlupalakua conceived the idea of an Irish potato corner.

He sent out his men and bought up all the Irish potatoes in sight, paying as high as five dollars for a bag of potatoes, a fabulous price for those days when native labor was plentiful at twenty-five cents a day.

Having cornered all the potatoes to be had, he shipped about $20,000 worth by the bark Josephine for San Francisco. The bark proved leaky, water got into the potato-filled holds and rotted them so that on arrival at San Francisco not enough good potatoes were left in the cargo to pay the freight bill.

At that time Kalepolepo was a thriving village, with two churches, a Mormon church where George Cannon or Walter Murray Gibson expounded the Christian doctrines of Joseph Smith against Christian Calvinism as preached by the Reverend Green and David Malo.

Reportedly, Halstead’s old house at Kalepolepo was Rev Green’s granary during the wheat boom of the 1850s and early-1860s, when the upper Makawao country from Maliko to Waiohuli was cropped to wheat.

Possibly some wheat may have been shipped from Kalepolepo in those days, for from early times to the late-1860s it was a shipping port for Wailuku and Kula. Halstead had one or two big warehouses standing makai of his residence.

In the late sixties the Irish potato trade had become unimportant and later ceased altogether. In 1876, Halstead closed his store and moved to ʻUlupalakua, where he died eleven years later, May 3, 1887. (Wilcox)

The koa house remained standing until it was burned down in 1946 by the Kihei Yacht Club. (NPS) (Lots of information here is from NPS and Wilcox.)

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John Joseph Halstead-Koa House-Paradise of the Pacific-1921

Kihei Coastline-Kalepolepo-Pepalis

Koieie_Fishpond-NPS

Koieie-Fishpond-NPS

Uwaikikilani Halstead-Stanley-Hassrick-1849

Uwaikikilani Halstead-Stanley-Hassrick

John Joseph Halstead-gravestone

July 2, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Wauke

“Canoe crops” (Canoe Plants) is a term to describe the group of plants brought to Hawaiʻi by the early Polynesians. It is believed that these settlers, and the settlers that followed them, introduced a variety of plant species.

One such was Wauke (Paper Mulberry.) It’s a tree that can grow up to 50-feet. It thrives in places along streams, in woods, hollows or uneven grounds, in dry taro patches, in moist land where water flows. It is a species of the Hawaiian wet forests.

Legend identifies wauke with Hina, on the island of Maui. This may indicate that the paper mulberry, like one species of bamboo, was first brought to and planted on that island, which was Hina’s home.

The legend tells of Hina and her tapa making that anciently the sun hurried across the sky so fast that her tapa had no chance to dry. So her son Maui went to the place where the sun rises (Haleakala.) There he watched and caught the first ray that rose and broke it off, so that ever since the sun has traveled the sky more slowly.

The proper time for planting wauke is at the beginning of a rainy period. The shrub is said to mature within 18 months from the time the slip is planted.

Thereafter it continues to grow, young shoots springing from the roots to replace old ones. By recultivating an old patch, a flourishing crop of stems (for bark-stripping) may be had.

According to Thrum, in the upland plantations the whole plant was sometimes pulled out for harvesting and the roots lopped off and cut into segments for replanting. (Handy)

As the wauke tree grew, planters cut off the side branches, so a straight trunk stalk without branch holes could later be stripped. In 6-10 months the trunk shoots were cut down and the roots and tops removed.

The chief use and the main purpose of its cultivation were the making of cloth. In Hawai‘i, wauke made the softest, finest, and most durable kapa (tapa – bark cloth) for dress, bed sheets and for ceremonial purposes.

Indeed, the wealth of a household was often counted in the number and quality of its fine kapa materials, and in those made available, through the industry and skill of the womenfolk, as a store from which gifts might be made to ʻohana and revered ali‘i. (Handy)

It was pounded into kapa and made into a malo: a strip of cloth nine inches wide and nine feet long for the man, and pa‘u for the woman: a strip a little wider and somewhat longer.

The Hawaiians beat the fibers with beaters that had designs carved into them, this would leave a watermark on the cloth. Second, they used colors not found on other kapa, reds, blues, pink, green, and yellow.

The method of getting wauke is the same for the various kapas which a person desires; it is only during the process of beating out the kapa that a person could make use of the pattern which she prefers. (Fornander)

The trunks were stripped of bark, as thick as a finger and about 4 feet long. The outer bark was slit and peeled off. The inner bark fibers, called bast, were then soaked in running water, such as a high tide pool, with stones placed on top of the fiber pile.

This part of the process breaks down the woody fibers and washes away the starch. A complicated process of soakings and fermentation followed, leaving the fine fibers of the moist inner bark still tough and resilient when finally removed from the waters.

At this time in the process, the women of Hawai`i would often twist cordage out of the fibers, for use as fish nets, upena and as carrying nets, koko, from which to hang calabashes of wood and gourds. (CanoePlants)

For Kapa, strips were laid edge to edge, and felted together by beating with wooden beaters of different sizes, square in cross section, having carved geometric designs on their four faces to give watermarking. Many successive beatings with lighter and lighter clubs were required to make the finest cloth. (Handy)

For the process of beating the kapa these things are prepared: The block on which to do the beating; this block is made broad and flat on top and the two ends are made thus: the top one is lengthened and the under one is shortened. Water is used through the beating process to keep the wauke continually wet. (Fornander)

The first i‘e (club – tapa beater) (a coarse-figured club) is used for hard pounding. After that is the i‘ekike, the dividing club, a smaller-figured club; then comes the printing club and the finishing club. The kapa is then cut. It is next taken to soak in water.

It is then spread to dry at a place prepared for drying it, that is the drying ground; there it is spread out and pressed down with rocks placed here and there so that the pa‘u would not wrinkle. This is continued until the pa‘u is dry. And this is done until there are five kapa; they are then sewn together. That is called a set of kapa.

The sap is used medicinally as laxative. Ashes from burned tapa was used as medicine for ‘ea (thrush). Strips of coarse tapa were worn around a nursing mother’s neck for milk flow. (kcc.hawaii-edu)

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Wauke – rolls of inner bark-kapakulture

Wauke-stalk-theothershoedropped

Wauke-pealing the stalk-theothershoedropped

Wauke strips soaking-kapakulture

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Wauke stalks

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June 20, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Arthur L Andrews Outdoor Theatre

Cornell-educated core faculty was brought in during the early days of the College of Hawai‘i to help build a foundation for the University of Hawai‘i’s future.

One such was Arthur Lynn Andrews; He was born in 1871 in McLean, New York and received a MA and his doctorate from Cornell University.

When he arrived in the islands in 1910, he first joined the College of Agriculture and Mechanic as an English professor. College classes were held in a remodeled residence in the backyard of a high school at Beretania and Victoria; the entire student enrollment was 17.

Andrews was active in all aspects of university life. He did not play football but is said to have introduced the famous Statue of Liberty feint play to island teams.

In 1913, he produced the University’s first play, “The Revolving Wedge,” and engaged students in playwriting. He organized the first campus newspaper and the first annual, sang in the glee club and played third base on the baseball team. (UH)

Andrews became the first Dean of the College of Arts and Science, when the College of Hawai‘i was transformed into the University in 1920.

Debate was once a major part of the university. Andrews founded the debate and forensics program in 1924, modeling it after the world famous Oxford Union.

He then became Dean of Faculties from 1930 until 1936, when he retired. From 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the board of Regents. (NPS)

Construction of the Manoa Campus almost stopped during the great depression in the 1930s. Exceptions were projects for which the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA – under the ‘New Deal’) provided the manpower.

One such project at the University was an Outdoor Theater. The University provided $5,213 (cost of materials) and $50,000 was provided by the FERA.

The Outdoor Theatre was designed by Ralph Fishbourne and Professor Arthur R. Keller served as the consulting engineer. The landscape designer was a noted UH graduate and landscape architect in Hawaiʻi, Richard Tongg.

The structure was designed with a 5,500 person seating capacity with some of the stone material for the seating coming from Fort Ruger.

The approximate size of the space is 200 feet wide by 300 feet long. The curve of the Outdoor Theatre portion has a sweeping 60-foot radius. The Outdoor Theatre seating is partially sunken into the ground, with the stage area set below grade. The 25 foot by 35 foot concrete surface at the center of the raised stage gives way to lawn, used as an extension of the formal stage.

It opened on June 20, 1935. Originally the structure was called Andrews Amphitheatre (named after Andrews,) but President Gregg Sinclair renamed it “Arthur L. Andrews Outdoor Theatre” in an attempt to use the proper descriptive vocabulary, since ‘Amphitheatre’ refers to a structure that wraps all of the way around the stage.

The graduating class of 1935 was the first to hold commencement ceremonies in the Outdoor Theatre. The theatre was dedicated at the Annual Commencement on June 12, 1945, to Dr Andrews who had died a month earlier.

In the 1970s there was discussion of adding a retractable roof in order to guarantee dry events, but these ideas were terminated in favor of keeping the garden design preserved and open to daylighting. Andrews served as a venue for graduation ceremonies, speeches, and concerts.

The University has two programs dedicated to Andrews: Arthur Lynn Andrews Distinguished Visiting Professor of Asian Studies to promote Asian and Pacific studies at UH through the selection of outstanding visiting professors each year and Arthur Lynn Andrews Award for Fiction awarded to the top entry from undergraduate and graduate students – entries not to exceed 10,000 words. (UH)

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Andrews-Amphitheater-1935

Arthur Lynn Andrews

Andrews-Amphitheater-1940

Andrews-Amphitheater 1940

Arthur Lynn Andrews-gravestone-Oahu Cemetery

Andrews Outdoor Theatre

Andrews-UH-1950s graduation-EBay

Andrews Amphitheater

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Andrews-Amphitheater

UH Manoa – Before Andrews Amphitheater-1932

UH Manoa – Andrews Amphitheater noted-1937

UH Manoa – Andrews Amphitheater noted-1936

June 17, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Maui Grand Hotel

“Those Honeymoon Isles are getting all sorts of publicity these days, says last Sunday’s Bystander … ‘The Valley Isle’ and Wailuku city of 30,000, a hundred miles or a half-day by boat from O‘ahu Island, and the gateway to the colossus extinct crater, ‘Haleakala,’ will step into the tourist limelight this season with the lure of the new Grand Hotel …”

“… a Wailuku Clift – snow white, solid and beautiful, with every San Francisco fad and fancy of comfort, convenience and service, and a capacity for 100 patrons.”

“General manager AJ de Souza of the Grand Hotel Company has just returned to the Maui Wailuku following a month at the Fielding, San Francisco, buying the equipment, engaging a manager Frederick McDonald and “planting” the Pacific Slope with patronage publicity.” (Maui News, October 6, 1916)

“General manager de Souza said that the new Grand will be the Maui ‘Mecca’ this season with its California high-type hotel accommodations, the want of which has until now decimated tourist travel to the deep and dead Vesuvius, whose dimensions are incomprehensible and its depth bottomless and unknown.”

“Thus Maui, Wailuku, the new Grand Hotel and the bottomless Haleakala will this season and henceforth vie and rank with Oahu, Honolulu.”

“Waikiki Beach and their horde of hotels in the eye and appetite of the rich and multiplying America winter and summer tourist, indefinitely barred out of Europe.”

“The Maui ‘Mecca’ Wailuku and the new Grand will soon bid Western Hotels and Travel fans to the added development of the ‘Hawaiian’ paradise.” (Maui News, October 6, 1916) Folks also learned, “The Grand hotel is going to work in conjunction with the St Francis of San Francisco.” (Star Bulletin, September 23, 1916)

The early hype helped, but shortly after, the hotel was in bankruptcy proceedings, “it is quite true that the Grand Hotel company is involved and unable to pay its debts”. (Star Bulletin, July 21, 1917)

Associated litigation suggested “Rumors are flying thick and fast as to the nature of the probable adjustment of the case. One theory is to the effect that the Grand will be purchased and turned into a Japanese hospital. This is more or less of an old story, but is probably one of the plans upon which those interested are working.” (Maui News, September 28, 1917)

The hotel, the largest hotel on Maui until after World War II, later ended up under the operation of William H Field and his Maui Hotel Company. “Mr. Field built and opened the Maui Hotel 21 years ago which at that time was considered far in advance of Maul’s needs for years to come.”

“Later he built additions and enlarged the Maui into the present building. Three years ago he formed the idea of securing a string of hotels on Maui and leased from George Freeland the Pioneer Hotel at Lahaina, the West Maui port being considered the main gateway to Maui for tourists and traveling men, and he conducted the two hotels under his one management.”

“To these he added the Grand Hotel two years ago and conducted the three under one management. Finding it unnecessary to conduct two dining rooms he closed the one in the Maui Hotel and used that building as an annex or for room accommodations only for guests who took their meals at the Grand.” (Maui News, January 6, 1922)

Later, EJ Walsh owned the Maui Grand Hotel. Walsh was “one of the big wheels for Kahului Railroad”. He also “ran the observation station in Haleakala.” Back then (the 1930s and 40s,) Haleakala was not a national park. It was run privately. (Haleakala National Park was established in 1961.) (Kaneshiro)

Walsh began furnishing meals and other services for visitors at Haleakala in 1936, becoming the first concessioner in this section of the park. (NPS)

One famous Grand guest was Georgia O’Keeffe; she was in the Islands to submit two paintings for a Dole Pineapple ad campaign. More than six months after her arrival in Hawaiʻi, O’Keeffe had produced 20-paintings, not one included a pineapple and she subsequently “submitted depictions of a papaya tree and the spiky blossom of a lobster’s claw heliconia” for the Dole ads.

“This little hotel is very good – the Japanese boy carries my things up and down stairs for me – There is a Danish man (Harold Stein) who has charge of recreational work for the island who treats me as if I am his own special guest – It makes things easy”. (Georgia O’Keeffe, March 25, 1939; Saville)

The large two-story wooden structure stood on Wailuku’s Main Street; cars drove into the hotel’s semi-circle driveway and it was the center of social life and fine dining into the 1960s. (Tsuchiyama) In 1961, The Maui Grand Hotel closed and was demolished for a service station (the site of the Chevron at Main and Church.)

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Maui Grand Hotel-PP-41-8-039-1937

Grand Hotel-Wailuku

Maui Grand Hotel