Economy | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 8, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Pele’s Grandson”

He was known as “Pele’s Grandson” to many – and “The Runt” to his boss, Thomas R Boles, Superintendent of the Hawaiʻi National Park (he was 5-foot 1-inch in height and weighed ninety-five pounds.) (NPS, 1953)

Alexander P Lancaster (aka Alex or Alec,) a Cherokee, was employed by Volcano House and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes Observatory, guided tourists to Kilauea’s active lava lake from 1885 to 1924. (Wright)

Lancaster was a firm believer in Pele and her powers; he took a proprietary interest in the volcanoes – thus the nickname. He enthralled thousands of visitors with his intimate knowledge of volcanoes.

When someone mentioned Vesuvius to him, his stock reply was, “Vesuvius is just an old man. Pele is sturdy on her job.” It was nothing short of a sacrilege to talk about other volcanoes in Alec’s presence. (NPS)

An interview with “Uncle George” Lycurgus Volcano House owner (on his one-hundredth birthday) reveals more on Pele. When asked if he had ever seen Pele, Lycurgus replied:

“Oh, yes. I tell you. I saw Pele, in the fire. There is a woman … you can see a woman, in the flames … she comes out and walks around … then she goes back in the fire … and prays ….”

“The Hawaiians believe in Pele. Certainly I believe in Pele, too. Pele belongs to the Islands. She will come to tell us what to do. She always comes when we need her. Pele is bound to come soon.” (Nimmo)

When Halemaʻumaʻu was inactive and business at the hotel was poor, Lycurgus decided to offer prayers and rituals at the volcano to coax the goddess back to the crater and thereby improve business at the hotel.

He and Lancaster “walked down to Halemaʻumaʻu and invoked some prayers to the volcano goddess. Following that, they tossed into the fire pit an Ohelo berry lei made by Lancaster … “

“As a final gesture, Lycurgus tossed in a bottle of gin which had been partially drained by him and Lancaster on the walk to the pit. More prayers followed and the two of them returned to the Volcano House for the night. Within hours after the men went to bed, the volcano began erupting.” (Nimmo)

“Alec Lancaster, the well-known guide at the crater, has made a trail to a ledge of pahoehoe, a distance of 200-feet from the brink, and takes down to that point those visitors who desire to make a closer inspection than can be made at the edge. So far not many have shown a willingness to accept Alec’s invitation.” (Evening Bulletin, June 15, 1902)

Thomas Augustus Jaggar, Jr was an American volcanologist; he founded the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and directed it from 1912 to 1940.

“Lancaster, probably wound up each trip into Kilauea caldera with one pocket full of tips and another full of Cuban cigars – until Jaggar put him on the Observatory’s payroll as janitor, guide and general roustabout. Lancaster’s experiences close to Kilauea’s flowing and fountaining lava made him a good hand for Jaggar.” (USGS)

“Once again, in the interest of science, Madame Pele has been braved by the investigators living on the volcano’s brink for the purposes of studying systematically the vagaries of the fire goddess and of reducing her phenomena down to rules of cause and effect.”

“Last week, while the pit of Halemaʻumaʻu was in a state of unusual activity, with lava fountains playing, spatter cones forming, streams of liquid fire swelling in flows over the hardened crust…”

“Dr ES Shepherd, of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution, and HO Wood, technical assistant of Professor Jaggar, accompanied by Alex Lancaster the veteran Volcano House guide, descended four hundred feet into the pit, crossed the hardened but heated lava floor and collected sufficient of the nascent gas from one of the open vents for analyses.”

“Rope ladders were used to descend the first one hundred and eighty feet of the pit, for which distance the walls are sheer. At this depth the walls were broken down and the intrepid scientists and their daring companion were able to scramble down the rest of the way to the fire level, over the smoking, crumbling lava.”

“During the greater part of their descent, the three were hidden from the view of those who tried to watch them from the pit’s rim by the swirling, opaque gases that swept in clouds over the surface of the lower levels. (Hawaiian Gazette, December 10, 1912)

Alec’s thirst for liquor was his undoing; he was dismissed from the Park in 1928. He spent his last years as a public ward in the Old Folks’ Home in Hilo. (NPS) (Reportedly born in 1861, Lancaster died in 1930.)

October 6, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Carriage to Horseless Carriage

“The automobile owner uses his car six days a week either in direct pursuit of his business or as a means of quickly transporting himself and others to and from that place of business.”

“The fact that he may take his family out on a Sunday is not a pleasure trip, but a necessary recreation in order, to ‘keep fit’ for his work.” (McAlpine, Schuman Carriage, Honolulu Star Bulletin, November 3, 1907)

“The automobile is here to stay. If we had better roads there would be more automobiles sold, naturally.” (Gustav Schuman, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

Gustav Adolph Schuman was born July 6, 1867 in Dresden, Germany to Charles and Martha (Schmalden) Schuman. (His father was a state highway inspector.) Mr. Schuman attended the public schools until he was fourteen.

He left school and started as an apprentice to learn furniture making in Germany. In 1884, he followed an older brother to Hawaiʻi and took a position as a carriage trimmer (upholsterer) with the Carriage Manufacturing Co.

Four years later, he started a carriage shop of his own, and in 1896 he disposed of it to enter the livery business (boarding and care of horses) with the purchase of the Club Stables. In 1900, he built the Territorial Stables on King Street, which he sold two years later.

“Gustav Schuman in 1897 started a business in carriages and harness on Fort Street above Hotel. All of the goods sold at the time were American made, and the business steadily increased year by year.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

“The business carried on by G. Schuman has been incorporated, and from this time the name will be G. Schuman, Ltd. The corporation will have the right to do all kinds of merchandising, handling real estate, and do a livery and sale business”. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 6, 1901)

“The principal attention will be given to the carriage and harness lines, and the hacks which have been run for several years by Schuman, the sales of animals and their hiring, will be carried on only as before, there being no intention to expand at this time.”

“The declared objects of the company are to deal in carriages and all kinds of conveyances and vehicles, in grain, provisions and feed, horses and real estate, and to have stables for the purpose of keeping horses to hire.”

“While there is little chance that the company should go into general livery business, there are many members of the company who foresee that there will be some difficulty in the future, if they try to keep out of this all the time.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 6, 1901)

“At the time of the organization of the business the concern covered 2,000 feet of floor space. There is now 80,000 feet of floor space in the new building.”

“In 1897 there were two employees busily engaged in handling the business. Today the establishment is a veritable beehive, with upward of 100 employees carrying on the business that is forty times larger than that of less than twenty years ago.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

“From a modest beginning in the days before the ‘horseless carriage,’ the Shuman Carriage company has developed into a concern known throughout the territory and with dealings in every part of the island.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, March 31, 1917)

“Mr Schuman visited the world’s exposition at St. Louis in 1904, and brought back the first car with him. It was a (gasoline powered) Ford. Mr Schuman drove this car, and the first year eight of the cars were sold. One of the features of the sales was that the Club Stables bought four cars to be placed in the rent services in 1905.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

“The Schuman Company was a going concern before the auto invaded the ‘Paradise of the Pacific.’ Foreseeing the possibilities of the gasoline engine, Gus Schuman took up the auto and soon it superseded the wagon and carriage business in importance.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, March 31, 1917)

“During the early years in the automobile business Mr Schuman, like many other men, believed that the automobile was merely a fad, and expected it to die out in time.”

“But as the fad grew to be a necessity he took advantage of the opportunities and went into the automobile business with a purpose, and as a result the sales average about one car per day at the present time.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

The company grew and at a point was the largest privately-owned automobile concern in the Territory, and the agent for Ford, Lincoln, Hudson and Essex cars, Federal and White trucks, Goodrich tires, tractors and various automobile accessories. (Nellist)

“The various departments, including the motorcycle, bicycle and accessories, are connected. … Other departments are: automobile accessories and tires, including all supplies; carriage and wagon materials; farming implements; auto repair shop; carriage shop, which includes woodworking, blacksmith and trimming and painting departments; garage, including the Associated Garage on Bethel and Merchant streets, where a service is still retained for automobile owners.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, June 24, 1916)

Over the years, it was situated in several locations. One notable site was at the corner of Beretania and Richards, Schuman bought it in the mid-1920s. Before he modified the building it had been the Central Union Church (they needed more room and built a new facility down Beretania Street.)

The Schuman display room had stained glass windows. (Schuman later moved down Beretania for his later, and last, Honolulu facility. Schuman Carriage closed its dealerships in 2004.) (The first autos that appeared on the streets of Honolulu on October 8, 1899 were Woods electric cars (this story is about later cars with internal combustion engines. (Schmitt.))

October 3, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lusitana Society

On September 30, 1878, a pioneer band of 180 Portuguese landed in Honolulu. The Portuguese entered Hawaiian society in large numbers between 1878 and 1913, predominantly, although not exclusively, to join the sugar plantation workforce. (Bastos)

“About 65 per cent of the Portuguese, who formed the bulk of the assisted Caucasian immigrants, were women and children, as against 19 per cent of the Japanese.”

“Therefore at a time when it cost but $87.75 to bring a Japanese laborer to the islands, it cost $266.15 to bring a Portuguese, including the passage of the nonproducing members of his family.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1902)

“In the long run the discrepancy in cost was not so great, because the Portuguese settled in the country and raised up children there, so that they and their families were a permanent increment to the working population”.

“The Portuguese are largely employed in the semi-skilled occupations of the plantation … These people are an exceedingly hopeful element of the population. They are both industrious and frugal, and their vices are not of a sort to injure their efficiency as workers.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor, 1902)

Few returned to the Portuguese islands, and to the disappointment of the planters, very few renewed their contracts. (Portuguese Historical Museum)

On O‘ahu, they followed the classic pattern: when their contracts expired, they moved to town, concentrating in the Punchbowl and Pauoa districts. (Jardine)

“Around the base of Punchbowl is to be found a colony of Portuguese, who naturally draw together in this strange land, and there they distinguish themselves by the neatness of their dwellings, the growth of pretty (if common) flowers, and a general air of thrift is lacking on the part of many of their neighbors.” (PCA, Sep 23, 1884)

Here, street names commemorate famous Portuguese people and the areas from which they came: Lusitana, Funchal, Lisbon and Azores; Alencastre, Madeira, Morreira and Magellan; Correa, Enos and Osorio. (Jardin)

Lusitana Street was named for the Lusitana Society (sometimes referred to as Lusitania Society), although two with that name existed: the Sociedade Lusitana Beneficente de Hawaii, and the União Lusitana Hawaiiana, founded in 1882 and 1892, respectively. (Bastos) (Lusitania is the ancient name of West Hispania, and now a poetic name for Portugal. (Hawaiian Dictionary))

“Like most other immigrant groups with little or no access to established sources of capital, the Portuguese fostered accumulation of savings among their number.”

“But the Portuguese Benevolent Society was formed in order to be able to help individuals hit by adversity – invalids, widows, and orphans, for example.” (Correa & Knowlton)

“The remarkable financial results achieved by our Portuguese immigrants grow more apparent still in their Benevolent Societies, of which there are four in Honolulu – the Lusitana (1,900 members), the San Antonio (2,100 m), the Patria (125 m) and the San Martino (200 m), to which must be added the Camoes Court of Foresters, with two societies in Hilo.” (Thrum)

“Of all these, the ‘Lusitana’ is the only one which possesses a complete financial statement from its incipiency; it was created in 1882, especially to help the newly-arrived plantation laborers, and has been, for the greater part of its existence, sustained nearly exclusively by such laborers from savings out of their meager wages”.

“Moreover, the ‘Lusitana’ owns its own premises, has $53,000 safely invested, thereby helping members in mortgages, and it keeps an emergency fund of about $9,000.” (Thrum)

“This shows on the part of the members of this Association a very laudable spirit of providing for the future, as well as a pride to prevent themselves from becoming helpless objects of charity during sickness or accidents, which might well be imitated by other nationalities in this Territory.” (Thrum)

“It is no small accomplishment for a few thousand imported plantation laborers, mostly driven to Hawaii by distress in their own country and arriving in a nearly indigent condition …”

“… to have insured themselves and their families against the worst economic consequences of illness and death, and to have accumulated so large an amount of collective funds during the two or three decades that they have been settled in the Territory.” (Report of the Commissioner of Labor in Hawaii, Sep, 1906)

The Lusitana Society building was at the intersection of Alapai and Lunalilo. It was later used as a dance hall and academy, and as the home of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The site was later run over by the H1 freeway.

The Portuguese population all over Hawai‘i declined significantly in the early 1900s. Partially due to the Gold Rush in California and the 1906 San Francisco fire, many moved to California to help rebuild or to find their fortune. (NPS)

September 30, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Mikimiki

Tugs and barges first began to appear on the East Coast during the late-nineteenth century. This was the time when steam ships and the developing railroads began displacing the slower and less reliable sailing vessels in the coastal trades.

Rather than scrapping all of these sailing ships, folks took advantage of their sound hulls and the new steam technology by converting the steam ships into barges and towing them behind steam tugs. (However, by 1950, tug-barges became practically extinct on the East Coast.) (Marcus)

Not so in the Islands …

The Youngs went to Hawaiʻi from San Diego. Good seafaring men of Maine stock, whose parents went to California in Forty-nine, they followed a natural inclination, and the application of Yankee methods soon built up a business which has grown to be one of the most important in the Islands. (Rogers)

In 1929, the tug Mikimiki ((‘to be quick, to be on time’) designed by Leigh H Coolidge and built by the Seattle-based Ballard Marine Railway Co) was launched.

The original wood-constructed Mikimiki was powered by twin Fairbanks-Morse diesels developing a total of 1,200 horsepower. At the time of completion, this power made her the most powerful tug in the US.

She made the voyage to Hawaiʻi from the West Coast, towing a 140-foot steel barge, in eleven days, sixteen hours and ten minutes. This worked out to an average speed of 8.5 knots, bettering the record of the earlier Seattle-built Mahoe by almost three days.

The Mikimiki spent her entire career working in the Hawaiian Islands, with an occasional tow to the West Coast included. (YB-100)

The design of the Mikimiki tugboat, although devised for commercial use, had a major influence on World War II tugboats and the post-war towing industry, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. (Port of Anacortes)

The excellent performance of the original Mikimiki led to the adoption of her basic design for a large fleet of tugs produced for the US Army Transport Service in West Coast shipyards for World War II service. (YB-100)

At the beginning of 1942, more ships were needed for the war effort. Folks recognized the Mikimiki design “could be used as it was a proven, reliable tug that has already been drawn and lofted, and was available with only slight design changes”.

Miki-class tugs were built for the US Army during World War II to haul supplies and rescue stalled ships. They were designed to move barges with supplies and equipment as efficiently as possible. But that they ‘did more than they were built for’’ a Miki-class tug landed men on the beach in Normandy during World War II. (Benthien; Port of Anacortes)

These tugs were classed as LTs (large tug) with an overall design length of 126 feet and a beam of 28 feet. They were heavily constructed with 15-inch square fir keels.

Bulwarks were solid with iron bark rail. Although they were constructed of wood, the tugs were at least ‘one-third iron.’ Although the tugs were built “heavy” meaning that they were of solid construction, they retained their graceful lines and they were fast. (Jones; Port of Anacortes)

The Army contract for construction of the vessels was written so that the shipyards could use local wood for building the tugs. Those Miki-class tugs built on the West Coast were constructed from fir, oak and cedar, while those on the East Coast were composed of oak for the structure with white pine. Inside sheathing was ¾- inch waterproof plywood. (Port of Anacortes)

Of the 61 Mikis built for the Army, most of the tugs were built on the West Coast; however, 10 tugs were built on the East Coast, 38 were built at various yards in Washington State.

Actually, there were Mikis, which had a single main engine, and the Mikimikis, which had two main engines. Each tug had about 1,500 total horsepower. (Towingline)

After World War II the Miki class tugs worked in the commercial tug and barge industry, and filled the gap and became the backbone of the towing industry after they were surplused by the US Army.

They also played a major role in the commerce that aided the development of the Territory of Alaska, and bolstered the tug and barge trade between the West Coast and Hawaii.

They were instrumental in the expansion of several Pacific Northwest tug and barge companies. No class of tugs contributed more to the success in the postwar era than the Miki-class tugs built for US Army service. And it all started in Hawaiʻi, with Young Brothers. (Jack Young, the youngest brother of the Young Brothers, is my grandfather.)

September 29, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Doubtful Island of the Pacific

“In the early dawn of the second day out, the steamer rounds Kalae Point, the extreme southern cape of Hawaiʻi – a locality noted for the wreckage and drift logs occasionally thrown ashore, and which often line the beach for miles, consisting mostly of timber and trunks of trees and occasionally wreckage of vessels.”

“It was here that … one of the masts of the United States sloop-of-war Levant, which was lost in the winter of 1860, while on the passage from Hilo to the mainland (was found.) After leaving Hilo the ship was never heard from.” (Hawaiian Planters Monthly, January 1900)

“A ship’s mast has drifted ashore, just below the harbor of Kawalunalu (Kaʻaluʻalu,) in Kaʻu (near Kamilo.) It is seventy-six feet long. The lower part of the mast, which was in between decks, is squared and finished, as if it had been used as a rack for guns, while on one side are large spikes driven in, as though it had been used for a raft.” (New York Times, August 4, 1861)

“… the fact of the entire mast having been used as a raft would go far to sustain the belief that the ship had been wrecked on some shoal, reef, rock or island, and not foundered, as is more generally believed; and in the former case there is still a chance that some of the ill-fated crew may yet survive or be heard of.” (New York Times, August 4, 1861)

Let’s look back a bit.

By the 1850s, both Honolulu and Lāhainā, on the island of Maui, had become the busiest ports for American whaling ships sailing in the Pacific Ocean. Hilo, on the Island of Hawaiʻi, was another important port.

Before the widespread use of petroleum oil, whale oil was the main source of fuel oil for illumination. At the time, it was also the best industrial lubricant for machinery.

Most whaling ships regularly sailed between New England and the Sea of Japan off the coast of Asia, then the prime hunting ground for sperm whales. Sperm oil was considered the finest whale oil and it often sold double or triple the value of other whale oils.

At the Hawaiian ports, incapacitated or sick sailors and whalers would disembark to recover. It was the duty of a Consul or an Agent to provide for their care or to send a destitute seaman home to America. (US Archives)

Hospitals had been established to serve sick and destitute sailors. The US Commercial Agent was responsible for recommending seamen to the hospital, keeping necessary papers and books, and handling the financial transactions.

A physician of the hospital had a contract with the US States Government which guaranteed him exclusive treatment of American seamen at US expense. The purveyor supplied food, clothing, shelter, maid service, laundry service and assorted other necessities. All of these services were charged to the US government. (Pyle)

The Levant, an 18-gun second-class sloop-of-war, had been sent to Hawaiʻi at the request of the State Department. Commodore William E Hunt, the ship’s captain, had been appointed to serve as a special commissioner to investigate charges of fraud among the US consular service and its employees at the US seamen’s hospitals in Hawaiʻi. (US Archives)

In addition, the US Commissioner in Hawaiʻi, James W Borden, participated in the investigations of the workings of the US hospital and consular system in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo.

The investigators were blunt in terms of specific charges of fraud that were alleged to have taken place at the Honolulu consulate.

In part, Borden reported, “A careful examination of the evidence will, I believe, satisfy you that the Physician as well as the Purveyor, in this respect, and also in that of obtaining from the seamen blank receipts, have been engaged in defrauding the Government, and I have therefore no hesitation in recommending the removal of them both …” (Borden, April 27, 1860; US Archives)

After Hunt and Borden concluded their investigation, their reports were sent to the State Department. Hunt’s official report to the Secretary of State never arrived in Washington.

After spending four months in the Hawaiian Islands investigating at Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo and receiving a state visit by King Kamehameha IV at Honolulu on May 7, 1860, Levant sailed for Panama on September 18, 1860, about 4,500 miles away to the south and east.

Unfortunately, that was the last day anyone ever saw the 23-year-old sailing ship intact or any of its 150 crew members alive. The ship never arrived at its destination.

The US Navy conducted a search for the vessel in early 1861, but no trace of the ship or its crew was found at that time. “The disaster must have been so sudden that no time was given to save the lives of those on board by taking to the boats or building a raft.” (US Archives)

Meantime, shortly after the failure of the Levant to arrive at Panama, and long before the finding of the above wreckage, two vessels of the US Navy (Saranac and Wyoming) had been sent from that port to the Hawaiian Islands.

But these and all similar efforts to solve the fatal mystery proving fruitless, Congress, by resolution duly adopted, fixed the date of June 30, 1861 to be reckoned as the day on which the Levant had foundered at sea, with the loss of all on board. (National Geographic Magazine, December, 1904, and March, 1907)

All ships that vanish at sea gather rumors in death as they collect barnacles afloat. But since Levant disappeared just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, an unusual number of intriguing yarns surround her last voyage. Bits of evidence, too scanty to solve her mystery, have multiplied the myths. ((navy-mil)

Commodore Montgomery reported that a violent hurricane had occurred in September in a part of the Pacific Ocean which Levant was to cross. Some rumors had her running aground on an uncharted reef off California (or some other doubtful island of the Pacific.)

Others had her defecting to the Confederacy. Whatever her real fate, this ghostly heroine of colorful episodes in American naval history still sails the seas of imagination and legend. (navy-mil)

The disappearance of the Levant, with 210 aboard, was the second worst marine disaster in Hawaiian history. The greatest marine disaster in Island history was the loss of the Kamehameha, in 1829 or 1830, with High Chief Boki, Governor of Oʻahu, and 250 others that went down in a storm seeking sandalwood.