Economy | Page 217 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 8, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Koehnen

Passengers and cargo landed at Hilo in the surf along the beach until about 1863, when a wharf was constructed at the base of present day Waianuenue Street; the wooden wharf was replaced by an iron pile wharf in 1865.

The northern side of the bay became a focal point for the community’s trade and commerce. During this time, Hilo was ranked as the third most frequented port for whaling vessels in need of repair and re-provisioning.

By 1874, Hilo ranked as the second largest population center in the islands, and within a few years shortly thereafter Hilo with its fertile uplands, plentiful water supply, and good port became a major center for sugarcane production and export.

In 1910, H Hackfeld built a warehouse and related building, a reinforced concrete building, spanning the entire block along Kamehameha Avenue, the two-story Hackfeld Building was the most substantial building in downtown Hilo when completed.

William Hardy ‘Doc’ Hill opened the Hill Optical Co in 1917 and added his jewelry business in 1919, and both his optical and jewelry businesses were among the largest in the Territory.

When he was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives in 1928, Doc sold his optical and jewelry businesses to his bookkeeper, Friederich Koehnen. (Narimatsu)

Friederich Wilheim “Fritz” Koehnen came to Hilo from Germany in 1909 to work for H Hackfeld Company (which later went on to become Amfac, one of the “Big-Five” corporations in Hawaii.)

In 1929, Koehnen and his wife, German-born Katherine Bocker, bought Hill Optical. They shut down the optical operation and started selling silverware, fine china, crystal and giftware as F Koehnen Ltd. (Laitinen)

Their daughter, Helie, who worked at the store from a young age, starting in high school, and joined full time during World War II when she met and married Carl Rohner, a U.S. military officer stationed on the island who came back to join the business after the war.

Rohner opened the furniture business in 1946 as Fritz took ill with pneumonia. He handed over the reins to his son, Fred J. Koehnen, who left college after the war to take over the business.

Koehnen oversaw the jewelry and giftware division; Rohner oversaw furniture sales. After moving to the current location in 1955, which was purchased from Amfac, Fred left the day-to-day operations to Carl and Helie but remained on the firm’s board of directors. (Bishop)

“Normal business day for me was to open up, take a coffee break shortly thereafter at the old Hilo Drug Co. lunch counter. Great place to swap info and tall tales with your business contemporaries. … I was on “the floor” as a salesperson most of the day.”

“In a family business with a small work force, being a manager just meant doing double duty in both sales and administration. You did the office work whenever you could. If that involved taking work home, so be it.”

“My father had a bookkeeping/accounting background, so he made sure his family learned that aspect of business first. Our bookkeeping, including the tax returns, was all done in-house.”

“In the retail business back then you knew just about all of your customers by name. Good service and personal relationships were the things that kept you in business!”

“Business in those days was based on trust. A man’s word was his bond and a handshake every bit as binding as a written contract. Most retail stores, ours included, carried charge accounts for customers. While some banks offered “charge cards,” today’s credit and debit cards were unheard of and most people carried little cash.” (Koehnen)

In 1957, the company bought the Hackfield building at the corner of Kamehameha and Waianuenue avenues in downtown Hilo and the store has called the building home ever since.

In the late 1960s F. Koehnen Ltd spun off its retail operation, which was renamed Koehnen’s Inc., leaving F Koehnen Ltd in charge of real estate holdings. (Laitinen)

After 83-years and three generations in business, Koehnen’s closed at the end of 2012; “We’re closing now not because we have to, but because it’s an appropriate time. We ran out of family to take over.” (Koehnen; Bishop, HTH)

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Koehnen’s-PBN

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koehnens_building

Hilo street scene-H_Hackfeld on right corner-PP-29-5-016

Hilo Drug Co., Ltd. near left and American Factors across street-Hilo-PP-29-3-049-1928

Amfac-Koehnen Building

American Factors (formerly H.Hackfield)-PP-7-5-020-00001

Waianuenue Street, Hilo, Hawaii from Hilo Landing-(HSA)-PPWD-5-2-007

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Hilo Landing, Hilo, Hawai‘i, early 1890s

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March 6, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Pulu

Hāpuʻu is an endemic tree fern found in wet forests in association with mature ʻōhiʻa at elevations from about 1,000-feet to 6,000-feet.

The tree can range from heights to about 7-35 feet. The fronds rise up high to about thirty feet or more and are 3-9 feet in diameter. The long green fronds of the tree grow to be about 12 feet long.

Young stems were formerly used to make hats; the starchy core has been used for cooking and laundry, the outer fibrous part to line or form baskets for plants. (Pukui) The edible starch in the core of the trunk and the young leaves were eaten during the time of famine. (KSBE)

The young unfurled fronds are densely covered with soft golden colored, wool-like fibers called pulu; Hawaiians stuffed bodies of their dead with pulu after removing vital organs. (Pukui)

Later, pulu became a commodity, “Pulu, or fern down, is also an important and staple article of export. This soft, yellow, silken down, gathered from the exhaustless fern fields of Hilo and Puna, is much used in California for upholstery as a substitute for feathers, wool and hair.” (Titus Coan, March 5, 1858)

“The pulu of commerce is obtained from this fern, and is extensively used … in the making of beds and mattresses, and stuffing of sofas and chairs.” (Baxley, 1865)

“More than two hundred thousand pounds of this article has been shipped from Hilo during the past year. Men, women, and children engage in collecting it, and many of our usual villages are deserted for months at a time while the people are collecting pulu in the jungle.” (Titus Coan, March 5, 1858)

“(O)nly a small quantity, a few ounces, is found on each plant, the growth of about four years. The labor of gathering pulu was slow and tedious. When picked it was wet and had to be brought down to the lowlands to be dried. The natives were employed in gathering it, men, women and children, living for weeks at a time in the mountains, in crude shelter huts.” (Thrum, 1929)

“In the early sixties (1860s) the business of picking and packing pulu had become so important that trails cut by the many natives thus employed opened the crater country far more than ever before.” (Bingham; Holmes)

“In the natural state the pulu forms a snuff-colored silken envelope for the young and tender branches of the fern, which grow from the top of the stalk or trunk, forming beautiful scrolls until of sufficient strength to supersede the older branches and leaves that droop on all sides like graceful plumes.”

“In gathering pulu the natives cut from the top of the fern trunk the tender scrolls in mass, then strip off the soft fibrous wrapper that protects them, which they loosen by picking, and expose for several weeks on platforms to the rain and sun.”

“From two to four pounds are gathered from a full-sized tree. When perfectly cleansed and dry, it is bagged and sometimes baled for shipping, and is much sought after for the California market.” (Baxley, 1865)

“I have ridden through vast fields of this species of fern in the vicinity of the volcano Kilauea, that extended as far as the eye could see.”

“On the edges of these fields nearest the volcanoes the lava has flowed and covered large tracks, forming plateaus upon which the natives have built pleasant hamlets, and are carrying on a lucrative business in gathering and drying the pulu for shipment to San Francisco, where it is extensively used for filling mattresses.”

“From a single fern they gather a tuft about the size of a man’s hand and spread it on the grass and lava banks, where it is thoroughly dried, then bagged and transferred on the backs of mules to the sea coasts. There it is pressed in bales for shipment like cotton.” (The Pulu for Mattresses, Scientific American, August 23, 1862; Uyeoka)

“The most remarkable of the gigantic ferns of this belt are the great tree-ferns, with branches four or five feet long. At the foot of these trees is found a soft, feather-like substance, called pulu which forms an article of considerable trade. It is used extensively in California for bedding …” (The Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review, October 1, 1864; Uyeoka)

“(P)ulu gatherers, who are scattered through the forests in all directions, from one to three miles from the volcano;” making “the wilderness of Kilauea”” one of his “stations in pastoral tours.”

“From Kilauea I went about ten miles, into the highland forests of Hawaii, where there was another camp of about sixty pulu gatherers. This camp is a romantic one. It is a little opening of field lava and sand, one-fourth of a mile in diameter, nearly circular, and surrounded by tall forests and jungle.” (Coan, Missionary Herald, 1864-1865)

Pulu picking could be dangerous, “As I followed a path made by the pulu-pickers through the dense forest, I came upon a large hole on the edge of the path which proved to be the entrance to a cave of great depth.”

“The path had been turned to one side to avoid it, and in the dark it would be exceedingly dangerous. Such holes are common in this part of Puna, and natives occasionally disappear mysteriously. Brushing through the bushes I came to a precipice forming the edge of a crater nearly three quarters of a mile in diameter and seven hundred feet deep.” (Brigham, 1868)

Likewise the market for pulu changed, “Those who have used it, however, are substituting hair or straw on account of the unhealthiness of the pulu, which, from its heat, has the same ill effects as feathers, and it popularly thought to increase rheumatism.”

“It has been recently exported to China in considerable quantities, and it is not improbable that as the demand from California decreases that from China will increase. The natives are largely engaged in gathering it, and are employed more or less by the Chinese merchants of Honolulu …” (The Merchants’ Magazine and Commercial Review, October 1, 1864; Uyeoka)

“According to the customs tables, the last year of pulu exports was 1884, with but 465 pounds, the two years previous being without any, so that practically the life of the industry had an existence of but thirty-one years (with exports) ranging generally from 200,000 to 649,000 pounds.” (Thrum, 1929)

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Tree Fern Pulu Fiber

Hapuu_pulu_tree_fern_(Cibotium_glaucum)-WC

cibotium_species-tree fern-pulu

Hawaiian Tree Fern Pulu Fiber

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Cibotium glaucum ‘Hapu Apulu’

Cibotium_glaucum_(Hapu’u_pulu)

March 4, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mailable Matter

In early colonial times, correspondents depended on friends, merchants, and Native Americans to carry messages among the colonies. In 1639, Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston was designated the first official repository of mail brought from or sent overseas (consistent with the European practice of using coffee houses and taverns as mail stations.)

On July 26, 1775 (shortly after the Battles of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775,) the first military engagements of the American Revolutionary War,) members of the Second Continental Congress agreed that a Postmaster General be appointed for the United Colonies. That year, Benjamin Franklin was appointed the first Postmaster General of the Postal Service.

A couple years later (January 20, 1778,) Captain James Cook, made ‘contact’ with the Islands and anchored his ships near the mouth of the Waimea River on Kauai’s southwestern shore. After a couple of weeks, there, they headed to the west coast of North America.

Like early mail exchange in the American Colonies, following Cook’s contact, mail in Hawaiʻi was handled privately by employing forwarders or by making arrangements directly with a ship captain; most letters were folded inward and sealed so the address could be written on the blank outer side. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi and the United States agreed on a ‘Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation and Extradition, December 20, 1849;’ among other things, Article 15 of the Treaty created an arrangement for delivery of mail. (State Department)

“Whereas a treaty of friendship, commerce, and navigation, between the United States of America and his Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, was concluded and signed at Washington, on the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine”.

“Mail arrangements – So soon as steam or other mail packets under the flag of either of the contracting parties shall have commenced running between their respective ports of entry, the contracting parties agree to receive at the post-offices of those ports all mailable matter, and to forward it as directed …”

“All mailable matter destined for the Hawaiian Islands shall be received at the several post-offices in the United States, and forwarded to San Francisco, or other ports on the Pacific coast of the United States, whence the postmasters shall despatch it by the regular mail packets to Honolulu …”

“It shall be optional to prepay the postage on letters in either country, but postage on printed sheets and newspapers shall in all cases be prepaid. The respective post-office departments of the contracting parties shall in their accounts, which are to be adjusted annually, be credited with all dead letters returned.” (US Statutes at Large and Treaties, 1845-1851)

On November 2, 1850, The Polynesian, “Official Journal of the Hawaiian Government,” announced it was keeping a letter bag open to receive letters and promised to place on board reliable vessels any letters deposited in its letter bag.

By 1850, almost all mail was being sent to/from Hawaiʻi via San Francisco to enter the mail stream there and be carried in the US mail via Panama to New York. (HawaiianStamps)

Hawaiʻi opened a post office at Honolulu and Henry Martyn Whitney (who worked at the Polynesian) was appointed Postmaster of Honolulu (December 22, 1850.) The location of the new post office was at the office of The Polynesian. (Whitney later left the Polynesian and started his own newspaper, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser (forerunner of Honolulu Advertiser.))

During the fifty years of Hawaii’s independent postal system from 1850 to 1900, the post office occupied three premises: a room in The Polynesian Office (1850-1854;) rooms in Honolulu Hale, situated next door to The Polynesian Office (1854-1871;) and about half of the ground floor in the “New Post Office” (Kamehameha V Post Office, 1871-1922,) situated on the former site of The Polynesian Office.

On June 14, 1900, the Kamehameha V Post Office officially became a unit of the United States Post Office (the year that Hawaii became a Territory of the US.)

In 1922, the United States Post Office was moved to the Federal building and control of the old building was returned to the Territory of Hawaii. It was remodeled as a postal substation and for use as the Territorial Tax office. (NPS)

When Whitney was postmaster, he conceived and produced Hawaiʻi’s first stamps, issued in 1851 (the stamps are now called ‘Hawaiian Missionaries,’ all printed locally by letterpress at the Government Printing Office.

The stamps were in three denominations: a 2-cent stamp paid the newspaper rate, a 5-cent stamp paid the rate for regular mail to the United States, and a 13-cent stamp paid the rate to the US East Coast.

The first three stamps in the issue were announced for sale on October 1, 1851, at the Honolulu and Lahaina post offices. By early April, 1852, the fourth stamp was printed to correct confusion and state clearly the 13¢ value was to pay both Hawaiian and United States postage through to any East Coast United States destination.

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Folded Letter to C Brewer-October 18, 1850

First-day cover of The Polynesian letter bag – postmarked November 2, 1850

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Henry_Martyn_Whitney-WC

Polynesian-Merchant_Street-Emmert-1854

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March 3, 2016 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hole Hole Bushi

“Kane wa kachiken
Washa horehoreyo
Ase to namida no
Tomokasegi”

“My husband cuts the cane stalks
And I trim the leaves
With sweat and tears we both work
For our means.”

Japanese laborers quickly comprised the majority of Hawaiian sugar plantation workers after their large-scale importation as contract workers in 1885. (Oxford Press)

Their folk songs provide good examples of the intersection between local work/life and the global connection which the workers clearly perceived after arriving.

While many are songs of lamentation, others reflect a rapid adaptation to a new society in which other ethnic groups were arranged in untidy hierarchical order–the origins of a unique multicultural social order dominated by an oligarchy of white planters. (Oxford Press)

From 1885-1924, about 200,000 Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations. (Kim) By 1900, the Japanese population, about 40% of the total, was the largest ethnic group in Hawai‘i. (Densho)

Many of those Issei women, first generation of Japanese immigrants, came as picture brides and found themselves working long hours in the canefields.

The men cut the cane; the women’s work was to strip the leaves from sugar cane stalks so that it produces more juice while providing fertilizer for the growing plant.

These women sang songs about work and the dilemmas of plantation life. The songs, called Hole Hole Bushi, used old Japanese folk tunes, and mixed Hawaiian and Japanese words for dramatic lyrics. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a hybrid term that combines the Japanese word for tune (bushi) with a Hawaiian term describing the stripping the leaves off of sugar cane (hole.) Issei women composed and sung a repertoire of these songs, set to familiar Japanese melodies, which expressed their hardships, disappointments, and hopes. (Kim)

Hole Hole Bushi is a folk song which Issei (first-generation Japanese overseas emigrants) who immigrated to Hawai‘i at the end of the 19th century, sang at their work in the sugarcane fields. (Nakahara)

Folk songs are short stories from the souls of common people. Some, like Mexican corridos or Scottish ballads, reworked in the Appalachias, are stories of tragic or heroic episodes. Others, like the African American blues, reach from a difficult present back into slavery and forward into a troubled future. (Oxford Press)

Japanese workers in Hawaii’s plantations created their own versions, in form more like their traditional tanka or haiku poetry.

These Holehole Bushi describe the experiences of one particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Oxford Press)

The name “Hole Hole Bushi,” first appears in Saishin Hawai Annai (The Latest Hawai‘i Guide) by Namitarō Murasaki (1920.) “Hole-hole Bushi” is described as one of Hawai‘i’s specialties to see, as in the following:

“Honolulu is a song-less town. One rarely hears singing except through a phonograph or overhearing a spree coming out of a restaurant. Of course, new popular songs are imported every time Japanese ships come into port. But these songs are sung only at tea houses for the time being, and mostly disappear before they spread outside.”

“Nevertheless, if you go to the countryside, you can still hear the loud singing of a tune saturated with a sorrowful mood. That is “Hole-hole Bushi”—a distinctive feature in Hawai‘i.” (Nakahara)

The lyrics are mostly in Japanese with Hawaiian and English words mixed in, and follow a poetic form with lines of 7+7+7+5 syllables. The texts cover a wide range of topics, from the hardships of field labor and uncertainty in life to the relationships between men and women, name-calling and gossip.

Around 1930, the lives of the Issei improved, and many moved to cities. The Hole Hole Bushi which had been sung in the field disappeared, and, in its place, lively-sounding versions of Hole Hole Bushi were performed in Japanese tea houses.

During the Second World War, the government banned Japanese cultural activities. After the war, however, the great success of the Nisei troops in the fight received admiration. However, Hole Hole Bushi was never performed; for the Issei, Hole Hole Bushi had become an embarrassment. (Nakahara)

Hole Hole Bushi performed by Allison Arakawa at Japanese American National Museum:

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‘Japanese_Laborers_on_Spreckelsville_Plantation’,_oil_on_canvas_painting_by_Joseph_Dwight_Strong,_1885

14-1-14-11 =female worker on Maui 1915-rjb-Kamehameha Schools Archives

Japanese – Woman-PP-46-8-036-00001

Japanese sugar plantation workers in Hawaii around 1910 (BishopMuseum)

Japanese sugar plantation laborers at Kau, Hawaii Island-(HSA)-PP-46-4-010-1890

March 2, 2016 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Insane Asylum

The first hospital service for mentally afflicted persons in America was established at the Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia in the year 1752. (Kimmich)

Later, across the US, interest was growing in caring for the mentally ill; asylums are opened in East Coast US cities. Kamehameha V expanded his interest in medical facilities.

The 1863 law passed by the Hawaiian legislature states: “A building is to be erected for the reception of insane persons. This facility will furnish restraint till the person becomes of sane mind or is discharged.”

“There shall be in Honolulu, at such places as the superintendent of public works shall direct, a suitable building for the reception of all insane persons, to be styled an insane asylum … The board of health shall have the management and control of the insane asylum.” (1862, Revised Laws, 1915)

“It shall be the duty of (the) district magistrate or circuit judge to examine all persons brought before them on said warrants as to their sanity.”

It was difficult to obtain the funds for this purpose, however, and the hospital was not constructed until 1866. Its first location was at the corner of School and Lanakila Streets.

The hospital was completed in 1866, and the first six patients were transferred to the hospital from the jails at which the mentally ill had previously been kept. By 1867, there were 62 patients. (Cultural Surveys)

The annual report of 1867 mentions a total of 62 admissions, an average age of 40 years, and goes on to state that 17 of the 62 admissions were discharged as “recovered.” (Kimmich)

The patients, with the exception of those most violent, were allowed to wander about the extensive grounds, assisting in the care of the lawns and flowers, and in light manual labor of various kinds.

The Hawaiians have ample allowances of their much loved poi, likewise, there were large luau, held there once or twice during each year.

These were attended by many of the residents and visitors to Honolulu, who chose these occasions to satisfy their curiosities. The inmates of the Hospital are of all nationalities, the aggregate number, in proportion of the Islands, being small. (Ellsworth)

The Legislature increased the Maintenance Appropriation from $40,000.00 to $45,000.00 under the title “Insane Asylum And Infirmary” in response to the representations of the President of the Board relative to the necessity of a place of detention and care of those whose cases properly require observation before a charge of insanity should be lodged against them.

“Many of these cases are the result of indulgence in liquor and drugs and in short time their normal mental balance becomes restored.”

“We have already taken steps to erect a building that will shelter forty patients and so relieve the buildings at the entrance of the grounds: they can be turned into the Infirmary and accommodate some twenty patients.”

“A visit to the Insane Asylum will show many improvements. Nothing is more conducive to the bodily health and mental condition of the physically able insane than employment to a moderate degree.”

“During the past twelve months the inmates have quarried stone, made curbing and macadam, filled in ground where necessary and generally improved the Asylum grounds. They practically rebuilt one building for men, repaired several cottages, and have done general renovating and painting.”

“They have built quite a large addition to the woman’s building and are now completing a cottage of four special rooms with a separate lanai for each, that patients may be isolated where the case requires, or friends desire by special arrangement.” (Report of President of the Board of Health, 1907)

“All inmates, if physically able, are taken out of doors every day … .During the year the female employees and patients made a considerable amount of clothing for use in the institution.”

“The principal articles for food were bread, beef, fresh fish, salmon, codfish, beans, poi, rice, potatoes, cabbages, carrots, prunes, canned fruits, eggs, milk, ham, bacon, fresh vegetables, tea and coffee, and fresh milk.” (Report of Governor of Hawaii, 1921)

“No institution extant is better, more cleanly and more orderly kept, resources considered, than the Oahu Insane Asylum. The Asylum is regularly, professionally and officially inspected each two weeks by the two medical members of the Board of Health. The President of the Board visits the Insane Asylum at least once each week.” (Report of President of the Board of Health, 1907)

From 1903 to 1928, a new site was looked for, a final decision on the present location in Kāneʻohe being made in late 1928. (Kimmich)

In 1930, all 549 patients in the then-named Territorial Hospital were transferred to the new Territorial Hospital in Kāne‘ohe, O‘ahu.

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