Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pratt, The Land Man

“[T]hey gave Ainahau to the city and the city wouldn’t take it, which would have been one of the glamorous tourist sites. [In a letter to Governor Lucius E. Pinkham, dated January 30, 1914, J, M. McChesney, Chairman of the Committee on Parks Civic Federation, states:

“A Resolution introduced in the last [Seventh] legislature [1913] to accept this munificent gift [Ainahau] was defeated by a majority of two; the general belief being that many of the legislators were influenced by the fact that if accepted by the [Territorial] government the heirs would be deprived of the property …”

“… and others voted against it on account of the cost of maintenance and still others on account of the conditions imposed [in A. S. Cleghorn’s will] that the grounds be closed nights.”  (Thomas Alexander Kaulaahi Cleghorn oral history)

Then it was reported, ‘Āinahau has been sold “to James W Pratt and other interests and will immediately be cut up into building lots.” The price for the 11 2/3 acres was $60,000. The new owners plan to subdivide the property into forty lots and develop it into “an exclusive residence section. . . .”

“Only the trees necessary to make the roads are to be cut down, which will leave all the rare plants, flowers and trees, with which the grounds abound, for the new owners to dispose of as they see fit.”

The lots will be priced at $3,500 up. For the past three years the house and land have been leased by Mrs. E. H. Lewis and used as a hotel and she is “to continue with the hotel without interference.” (Star Bulletin, Jan 19, 1917; Thomas Alexander Kaulaahi Cleghorn oral history)

So, who is Pratt? … “James William Pratt [was] familiarily known to Honolulans as ‘Pratt the Land Man.’” (PCA, Dec 8, 1919)

“It is best to consult some one who knows the land and the climate before selecting a building site in Honolulu, or on the islands at large. The land office can put you right, or there is Pratt, the land man …”

“Mr. Jas. W. Pratt was for many years Land Commissioner, and he can tell you just where it is best to build.” (Mid-Pacific Magazine, January 1912)

 Pratt was “Son of Horace C and Susan M McCue Pratt. [He was born December 9, 1861 in Greenbush, NY.] James W Pratt moved from New York to California in 1874, when he was a boy of 13. He attended public schools in Rotterdam, New York and Oakland California.”

“In 1878 he was employed at Oakland by the Western Union Telegraph Company, remaining there until 1881, when he joined the California Electric Works at San Francisco, staying with that concern until 1884, when he came to Honolulu as superintendent of the Mutual Telephone Company, holding the position for nine years.”

“In 1893, following the overthrow of the monarchy, James W Pratt became prominently identified with the military department of the Provisional Government.”

“Two years later he became assistant superintendent of the Honolulu water works, and from 1901 to 1903 he was assessor and collector of tazes for Oahu.”

“For six years, from 1903 to 1909, he held the office of commissioner of public lands, after which he went into business for himself in real estate. …”

“One of the last projects of  ‘Pratt the Land Man’ in Honolulu was the cutting up of the Ainahau tract for sale of lots, but his health was such that he left the work for others to take up.”  (PCA, Dec 8, 1919)

Pratt married Ellen M. Torbert in Honolulu. December 2, 1895; they had three children, Susan Adelaide, James William, Jr, and Linton Torbert. (Siddall)

With respect to Ainahau, “on May 1, 1919, Percy M Pond, Honolulu real estate man, advertised 46 lots for sale, mostly at $1,400 to $2,200, representing a price of about 32 cents a square foot.” (Star Bulletin, June 2, 1956)

Pratt died December 6, 1919 in Berkley, CA, of heart disease. “Mr Pratt left the Islands for the mainland about 18 months ago hoping to benefit his health.” (PCA, Dec 8, 1919)

“[The house at Ainahau burned to the ground on August 2, 1921 while it was occupied by W. F. Aldrich, a motion picture producer, and his wife Peggy. The fire was said to have originated from an automatic gas heater next to Aldrich’s darkroom, which had been the old kitchen.]”

“[An account of the fire in the Honolulu Advertiser on August 1, 1921 states that the banyan tree saved the bungalows on the grounds, one owned by Samuel Parker and another occupied by Mr. McElroy being the only ones scorched. The article also mentions that the house had been used as a hotel at one time.]” (Thomas Alexander Kaulaahi Cleghorn oral history)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Last House on the Beach

“In the latter post-contact period (ca. post 1850), the area [along Waikiki Beach] has been used for private residences: in the early portion of this period it was the domain of the royal family and the high ali‘i.”

“Foreign born businessmen and the children of missionaries began to acquire property along the beach in the late nineteenth century. They built large beach houses, which were used on weekends and holidays. The Young, Wilder, and Macfarlane families had house lots within and adjacent to the project area by 1897.”

Alexander Young was born in Blackburn, Scotland, December 14, 1833, the son of Robert and Agnes Young. His father was a contractor. When young, he apprenticed in a mechanical engineering and machinist department.

One of his first jobs included sailing around the Horn in 1860 to Vancouver Island with a shipload of machinery and a contract to build and operate a large sawmill at Alberni.

He left Vancouver Island for the distant “Sandwich Islands,” arriving in Honolulu February 5, 1865; he then formed a partnership with William Lidgate to operate a foundry and machine shop at Hilo, Hawaiʻi, continuing in this business for four years.

Moving to Honolulu, Young bought the interest of Thomas Hughes in the Honolulu Iron Works and continued in this business for 32 years. On his retirement from the iron works he invested in sugar plantation enterprises. He became president of the Waiakea Mill Co.

During the monarchy he served in the House of Nobles, 1889, was a member of the advisory council under the provisional Government and was a Minister of the Interior in President Dole’s cabinet.

With the new century he started a new career, when in 1900 he started construction of the Alexander Young Hotel, fronting Bishop Street and extending the full block between King and Hotel streets in downtown Honolulu.  The 192-room building was completed in 1903.

In 1905, Young acquired the Moana Hotel and later the Royal Hawaiian Hotel (the ‘old’ Royal Hawaiian in downtown Honolulu that was later (1917) purchased for the Army and Navy YMCA.)

The Honolulu businessman whose downtown hotel that bore his name helped him became known as the father of the hotel industry in Hawaiʻi.

“Even before the Waikīkī coast became a tourist attraction, rich haole businessmen built their own beach houses along the shore. West of the Seaside were three houses, according to the recollections of Elizabeth Kinau Wilder, who grew up in their Waikīkī home in the 1910s. She recalled:”

“‘A narrow driveway, which faced the length of our front yard, led to the Youngs. Mr. Young didn’t have enough room for his carriage to turn around, so S.G. [Samuel Gardner Wilder, Elizabeth’s grandfather] let him use some of his property as a friendly gesture, never dreaming that he would never get it back! And when the Macfarlanes’ house was found to be fifteen feet on our land, S.G gave it to him rather than have the house torn down!’”

A 1914 Fire Insurance map, shows to the west of the Seaside dining room (with a semicircular rotunda), the “Seaside Hotel Rooms” partially over the water, which is the old Hawaiian Annex. Adjacent to this is a series of bathhouses and then a large family residence (labeled with a “D” for dwelling).

“This house is identified in several historic photographs as the ‘Bertha Young’ house. Bertha was a playmate of Elizabeth Wilder, who remembers many pleasant days spent at the adjacent Seaside Hotel.”

“During the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape would be transformed when the construction of the Ala Wai Drainage Canal, begun in 1921 and completed in 1928, resulted in the draining and filling in of the remaining ponds and irrigated fields of Waikīkī.”

“The muliwai or lagoonal backwater of ‘Āpuakēhau Stream that reached the sea between the present Royal Hawaiian and Moana Hotels was filled in between 1919 and 1927. The filling in of ‘Āpuakēhau Stream and the excavating of the Ala Wai canal were elements of a plan to urbanize Waikīkī and the surrounding districts:”

“‘The [Honolulu city] planning commission began by submitting street layout plans for a Waikīkī reclamation district. In January 1922 a Waikīkī improvement commission resubmitted these plans to the board of supervisors, which, in turn, approved them a year later.’”

“The Royal Hawaiian Hotel was formally opened on February 1, 1927 and with a maximum height of 150 feet was the tallest privately owned building in the Territory at that time.” (Cultural Surveys).

“At the Ewa end of the Royal was the Bertha Young property. Bertha Young was part of the family who started the Young Hotel. Bertha Young’s place fronted on the ocean right next to the Royal.” (Fred Hemmings Sr. OCC)

The Bertha Young home survived the demolition of the Seaside Hotel in the 1920s and the construction of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel in 1927. (Cultural Surveys)  “Miss Young attended Punahou School and was graduated from Oakland High School in California. … During World War II, Miss Young worked with the Red Cross.” (SB, June 12, 1963)

Bertha Young, “who refused to surrender to the concrete jungle of Waikiki,” (SB June 12, 1963) died June 11, 1963. “[S]he lived in the last privately owned beachfront home in Waikiki.” (SB, June 13, 1963)

She built the house in 1927, designed by Dickey & Wood, for $13,400. (SB, Nav 12, 1927)  “She lived for more than 50 years on the property given to her by her mother, Ruth.” (SB, June 12, 1963)

The Bertha Young property was sold in 1963 for $600,000 to the Von Hamm-Young Company.  (SB, Aug 20, 1963)  Her sister was Bernie Von Hamm and brother-in-law was Conrad C Von Hamm.

On February 26, 1969, “a bulldozer jazzed up with the flower leis dug the first spade of earth … for the Sheraton-Waikiki in an era full of memories for many kamaainas.” (SB, Feb 27, 1969)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pioneer Mill

The early Polynesians brought sugarcane with them to the Islands.  Kō (sugarcane) was planted as a subsistence crop – with domestic, medicinal and spiritual uses.

In 1802, processed sugar was first made in the islands on the island of Lānaʻi by a native of China, who came here in one of the vessels trading for sandalwood and brought a stone mill and boilers.  After grinding off a small crop and making it into sugar, he went back to China the next year.

It was not until ca. 1823 that several members of the Lāhainā Mission Station began to process sugar from native sugarcanes, for their tables.  By the 1840s, efforts were underway in Lāhainā to develop a means for making sugar as a commodity.  (Maly)

Sugar was being processed in small quantities in Lāhainā throughout the 1840s and 1850s; in 1849, it was reported that the finest sugar in the islands could be found in Lāhainā.  (Maly)

James Campbell, who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1850 – having served as a carpenter on a whaling ship and then operated a carpentry business in Lāhainā, started a sugar plantation there in 1860. The small mill, together with cane from Campbell’s fields, manufactured sugar on shares for small cane growers in the vicinity.

Soon after the establishment of the new plantation, Henry Turton and James Dunbar joined Campbell. Under the name of Campbell & Turton, the company grew cane and manufactured sugar.

The small sugar mill consisted of three wooden rollers set upright, with mules providing the power to turn the heavy rollers. The cane juice ran into a series of boiling kettles that originally had been used on whaling ships.

When the nearby Lāhainā Sugar Company, a small company founded by H Dickenson in 1861, went bankrupt in 1863, its assets were acquired by Campbell and his partners.

In 1865, the plantation became known as Pioneer Mill Company (that year Dunbar left the company.)  By 1874, Campbell and Turton added the West Maui Sugar Company, a venture of Kamehameha V, to the holdings of Pioneer Mill Company.

The Pioneer Mill Company was extremely profitable, enabling Campbell to build a large home in Lāhainā and to acquire parcels of land on Maui and Oʻahu.

Campbell became known by the Hawaiians as “Kimo Ona-Milliona” (James the Millionaire).  Despite his success in sugar, his interests turned to other matters, primarily ranching and real estate.

Over the years, Campbell acquired property in Kahuku, Honouliuli, Kahaualea and elsewhere, amassing the holdings that eventually became ‘The Estate of James Campbell.’

In 1877, James Campbell sold his half interest to partner Henry Turton for $500,000 with agents Hackfeld & Company holding a second mortgage of $250,000. The company’s charter was dated in 1882, but by 1885, Mr. Turton declared bankruptcy and sold the property back to James Campbell and to Paul Isenberg, who was associated with Hackfeld & Co. Mr. CF Horner was selected to manage the plantation.

With later acquisitions of additional West Maui lands, Pioneer Mill was incorporated on June 29, 1895.  Horner sold his interest to American Factors, formerly Hackfeld & Co., and in 1960, Pioneer Mill Company became a wholly owned subsidiary of Amfac.

Irrigation of Pioneer Mill Company’s fields, an area that eventually extended 14-miles long and 1 1/2-miles wide with altitudes between 10 and 700 feet, was accomplished with water drawn from artesian wells and water transported from the West Maui Mountains. The McCandless brothers drilled the first well on Maui for Pioneer Mill Company in 1883.

Pioneer Mill Company was one of the earliest plantations to use a steam tramway for transporting harvested cane from the fields to the mill. Cane from about 1000-acres was flumed directly to the mill cane carrier with the rest coming to the mill by rail.  (The Sugar Cane Train is a remnant of that system.)

In 1937, mechanically harvested cane was bringing so much mud to the factory that Pioneer Mill Company began the development of a cane cleaner.

Between 1948 and 1951, a rock removal program rehabilitated 3,153 acres of Pioneer land to permit mechanical planting, cultivating, and harvesting. In 1952, the railroad was eliminated and a year later new feeder tables were conveying cane directly from cane trucks into the factory.

Lāhainā Light and Power Company, Lāhainā Ice Company, the Lāhainā and Puʻukoliʻi Stores, and the Pioneer Mill Hospital were associated with the plantation, providing services to employees as well to Lahaina residents.

Faced with international competition, Hawaiʻi’s sugar industry, including Pioneer Mill Company, found it increasingly difficult to economically survive.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000-workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.  That plummeted to 492,000-tons in 1995.  A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s.

Seeing hard times ahead, Pioneer Mill Company took 2,000-acres out of cane during the 1960s to develop Kāʻanapali as a visitor resort destination.

By 1986, the plantation had reduced its acreage down to 4,000-acre (which at its height had 14,000-acres planted in cane.)  After years of losing money, in 1999, Pioneer Mill closed its operations.

The Lāhainā Restoration Foundation and others worked to preserve the Pioneer Mill Smokestack.  It remains tall above the Lāhainā Community as a reminder of the legacy of sugar in the West Maui community.  (Lots of information here from the UH-Manoa, HSPA Plantation Archives.)

(One of our few locations that survived the Lahaina fire relatively unscathed is the Pioneer Mill Smokestack and Locomotives. (Lahaina Restoration Foundation))

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Washington Place

Captain John Dominis was an Italian-American ship captain and merchant from New York who had been trading in the Pacific since the 1820s.

In the 1840s, he purchased property on Beretania Street.  There, he started to build a home for his family, Mary Lambert Dominis (his wife) and John Owen Dominis (his son.)

The original central portion, built in 1844-1847, was designed and executed in Greek Revival Style, with supplies ordered from Boston.

Captain Dominis reportedly embarked on several trading voyages while the house was being built, using the profits to pay off accumulated debts and resume operations (it’s not clear how many trips were required to build the new home.)

It is a two-story structure with partial basement. Various additions and alterations have occurred over the years.  Cellar walls and foundations are of coral stone; Walls are coral stone (approximately 2½-feet thick) faced with cement to simulate stone work.  The second floor is wood frame.

In 1847, on a voyage to the China Sea, Captain Dominis was lost at sea.

The grounds were said to have been planted “by Mrs. Captain Dominis as the first private garden in Honolulu, carefully watered until the yard was a handsome, cool retreat.” By 1848 the garden was sufficiently interesting for a visitor to ask for a list of the plants in the yard.

Mary Dominis then rented out the spare bedroom to American Commissioner Anthony Ten Eyck.  Impressed with the white manor and grand columns out front, Ten Eyck said it reminded him of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s mansion and that it should be named “Washington Place.”  He wrote a letter to RC Wyllie stating such.

King Kamehameha III, who concurred, Proclaimed as ‘Official Notice,’ “It has pleased His Majesty the King to approve of the name of Washington Place given this day by the Commissioner of the United States, to the House and Premises of Mrs. Dominis and to command that they retain that name in all time coming.”  (February 22, 1848)

In 1862, John Owen Dominis married Lydia Kamakaʻeha (also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī.)  Lydia Dominis described Washington Place “as comfortable in its appointments as it is inviting in its aspect.”

Mary Dominis died on April 25, 1889, and the premises went to her son, John Owen Dominis, Governor of Oʻahu.

Lydia was eventually titled Princess and later Queen Liliʻuokalani, in 1891.  John Owen died shortly after becoming Prince consort (making Liliʻuokalani the second widow of the mansion.)  Title then passed to Queen Liliʻuokalani.

Liliʻuokalani continued to occupy Washington Place until her death on November 11, 1917.

Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole, one of the heirs to the estate of Queen Liliʻuokalani, suggested that the Territory acquire Washington Place as the Executive Mansion. The Legislature appropriated funds for the purchase, and in May, 1921, the property was acquired by the Territory.

In 1922, major additions were made. These included the glassed-in lanai, the porte-cochere and the rear one-story wing with Dining Room and Kitchen. Family bedrooms were added to the second-story of this wing, later.

Washington Place became the official home of the Governor of Hawaiʻi when it was formally opened on April 21, 1922, by Governor Wallace Rider Farrington.

In 1954, the large Covered Terrace was constructed and in 1959, the second-story TV room was built above the glassed-in lanai. An elevator and the metal fire escape were added in 1963.

The Beretania Street and Miller Street sides and a portion of the rear line are enclosed with a wrought iron fence set on a concrete base.

The original tract, as owned by the Dominis family and Queen Liliʻuokalani, comprised about 1.46 acres. The Territory of Hawaiʻi acquired additional property on Miller Street, making a total of about 3.1 acres.

Across the street from the State Capitol on Beretania Street, Washington Place was the executive mansion for the territorial governors from 1918 to 1959, and, after Hawaiʻi became the 50th state, the state governor’s mansion, from 1959 to 2002.

Washington Place remains the official residence of the governor however, a new house, built on the property in 2002, is now the personal residence of the Governor of Hawai‘i.  (governor-hawaii-gov)

© 2024 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mauka-Ewa Corner of Richards and Hotel Streets

I wasn’t sure what to call this post.  It includes a little bit of history and is essentially a discussion of the evolution of the site and building that now houses the Hawai‘i State Art Museum.

The uses evolved from scattered homes to the Hawaiian Hotel to the Armed Forces YMCA to Hemmeter Corporation headquarters to No. 1 Capitol District Building, and now to the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and State offices.

Here’s a little bit of history.

Back in the mid-1800s, the growth of steamship travel between Hawai‘i and the West Coast of the United States, Australia and New Zealand caused a large increase in the number of visitors to the islands.

The arrival and departure of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain,) the Duke of Edinburgh and others included envoys, politicians, merchants and opportunists, created the need of good hotel accommodations to lodge similar visitors.

The Hawaiian Hotel was proposed in 1865, but not laid down until 1871.  The Hotel was located on the Mauka-Ewa corner of Hotel Street and Richards Street and was formally opened by a ball on February 29, 1872.

The Hawaiian Hotel was later called the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, because King Kamehameha V felt adding “Royal” to the name would give it regal feel.

Therefore, first “Royal Hawaiian Hotel” was not in Waikīkī; rather, it was in downtown Honolulu (the later one, in Waikīkī, opened over fifty years later, in 1928.)

In 1879, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was surrounded by dwellings, including several thatched-roof hale, but the hotel expanded over the next twenty years and replaced most of the residences.

Reportedly, Kalākaua kept a suite there; the Paradise of the Pacific noted it was “one of the coolest buildings in the city.”  (I’m not sure that this is the same “cool” that I refer to as “waaay cool.”)

By 1900, the last dwellings and a doctor’s office were located on the corner of Beretania and Richards Streets.  These were all gone by 1914.

In November 1917, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was purchased by a group of local businessmen and became the official headquarters of the Armed Services YMCA in Hawai‘i.

In 1926, the hotel was demolished and the present building was constructed.  The Army and Navy YMCA building was erected on the site of the former Royal Hawaiian Hotel in 1927.

Through the middle of the century, the downtown “Y” was a popular destination for service men from all branches of the military.

By the mid-1970s, an increasing number of junior enlisted personnel were married with children.

The Armed Services YMCA responded to the changing needs of the military by opening family centers at Aliamanu Military Reservation, Iroquois Point Housing, Marine Corps Base Hawaii-Kaneohe, Wheeler/Schofield and Tripler Army Medical Center.

The building was rehabilitated in the late-1980s by Hemmeter Corporation, when it was renamed No. 1 Capitol District Building.

This remodeled office complex became the Hemmeter Corporation Building.  After completion in 1988, the historic building served as Hemmeter Headquarters for several years.

Hemmeter Design Group earned national awards for the redevelopment of the historic YMCA building in downtown Honolulu.

Today, the Hawai’i State Art Museum (managed by the Hawai’i State Foundation on Culture and the Arts) and several State offices are housed in the historic Spanish-Mission style building.

The Hawai‘i State Art Museum opened in the fall of 2002.  The museum is located on the second floor of the No. 1 Capitol District Building.

The museum houses three galleries featuring (and serves as the principal venue for) artworks from the Art in Public Places Collection.

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC