Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Honolulu Oil

William Matson was born in 1849 in a Swedish seacoast town and ran off to sea at the age of twelve. According to his daughter, he had not a single day’s schooling in his life.

At 18, Matson “came round the Horn” to California and soon worked his way up to the captaincy of a scow schooner (barge) in San Francisco Bay.

At age 33 he became one-quarter owner—for $5,000—of the new three-masted schooner, Emma Claudia, and brought her to Hilo on her first voyage. Matson saw opportunity on the Big Island and began to focus his service there.

“My father used to do everything. He bought the horses, he bought needles, thread, mules, dress materials… a floating store.” (daughter Lurline Matson)

Every voyage was a partnership—with different partners holding shares, generally in eighths—and then splitting the profits. Matson expanded in this way, buying more ships and chartering others.

Matson became well established in the Hawaiian trade. His small fleet of sailing vessels shuttled back and forth between Hilo and San Francisco.

Westbound to Hawai‘i, he would bring goods of all descriptions. Eastbound to California, he would take sugar, molasses, fruits, vegetables and hides.

His fleet was still all wind-driven sailing ships, though in 1889 he was quoted: “I was wondering whether I’d ever be able to run a steamship between the islands and San Francisco.”

In 1901, Matson acquired his first steamship, the Enterprise. At that time, most steamers burned coal to fire the boilers. Matson immediately converted the Enterprise to the first oil burner in the Pacific, because oil was cheaper.

It cost $2.10 in oil for the same energy provided by $7.00 worth of coal. Oil was also cleaner, more space efficient, and demanded less manpower.

Matson recognized the potential of oil. He convinced Hawai‘i’s plantation and sugar mill owners to switch from coal and bagasse (sugar cane waste) to oil. Then he converted some of his sailing flee into tankers to carry the oil to the Islands.

Matson said, “If you use fuel in large quantities, you must control the source.” To insure a supply of oil for his ships, Captain Matson bought some wells in California and built a “couldn’t be done” 112-mile pipeline from the Coalinga oil fields to Monterey.

In 1903, he formed the Monarch Oil Company and five years later bought the Buena Vista Hills property (Matson later renamed the area Honolulu Hills) and a year later (1910) created Honolulu Oil Company.

Matson told investors: “You’ll either go broke or get rich.” (Castle and Cooke invested $140,000. Fifty years later, the company was receiving $400,000 in annual dividends, and finally liquidated its shares (at government behest) for over $23-million.)

Honolulu Oil Corporation was engaged in exploration for, and extraction and sale of oil and gas in 15 states and the Dominion of Canada. The actual drilling was done by independent contractors, with Honolulu’s engineers acting in an advisory capacity.

Honolulu’s operations were divided into five geographical divisions: California (California, Nevada and Utah,) Mid-Continent (Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Nebraska and Oklahoma,) Canadian, Rocky Mountain (Montana and Wyoming,) Southeastern (Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee.) Reports note Honolulu Oil was later acquired by a larger oil company.

In 1911, Matson developed compressors to convert his oil product into gasoline and a year later built a pipeline to Los Angeles. That led to the modernization of the US Navy and their conversion to oil. (David Whitley; Taft Midway Driller)

Captain Matson brought the Falls of Clyde into the Hawaiian sugar trade, specifically servicing the plantations of the Big Island, bringing needed goods and machinery from the West Coast to Hilo, and returning with burlap sacks full of raw sugar on its way to the California refineries and then to the markets of the US.

He modified the Falls of Clyde sail plan, added a deck house and chart house, and rearrange the after-quarter for passengers. From 1899 to 1907, the Falls made over sixty voyages between these ports. Sailing time averaged seventeen days.

To help move oil, the Falls of Clyde was converted to a sailing oil tanker (1907;) her insides were gutted and ten large tanks were constructed along both sides and the bottom, giving her a capacity of 756,000 gallons of oil.

Heavy-duty pumps and a second steam boiler to operate them were installed. She sailed between Gaviota and Honolulu Harbor; molasses was often loaded into her tanks for the run back to California.

She continued to carry a few passengers and small amounts of cargo “tweendecks.” (Simpson) (Lots of information here is from Simpson, Stanford, Castle & Cooke and Taft Midway Driller.)

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Honolulu Hills - Taft CA
Honolulu Hills – Taft CA
William_Matson
William_Matson
Honolulu Hills Oil Field
Honolulu Hills Oil Field
Honolulu Hills - Regional
Honolulu Hills – Regional
Falls of Clyde-(NPS)
Falls of Clyde-(NPS)
Falls of Clyde-(FOFOC)
Falls of Clyde-(FOFOC)

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Piggly Wiggly

On February 4, 1928, the Star Bulletin noted that three men arrived from the mainland to open Hawai‘i’s first chain grocery store; it was situated on Beretania Street at Keʻeaumoku, a “large crowd attends the Piggly Wiggly opening.”

Andrew Williams, president and general manager of Piggly Wiggly Pacific made the decision to enter the Hawai‘i market and promised 7 stores by the end of the year. (Krauss)

The entry of Piggly Wiggly initiated the first national chain grocery store into the Islands; with it came a new way of food shopping.

Today, we take for granted the convenience of comparing and choosing from a wide range of prepackaged products, placing them in our shopping carts and going through a checkout.

The late-19th and early-20th centuries were the age of the independent mom-and-pop store. Grocery stores of that era tended to be small (generally less than a thousand square feet) and also focused on only limited aspects of food retailing.

Grocers sold what is known as “dry grocery” items, or canned goods and other non-perishable staples. Butchers and greengrocers (produce vendors) were completely separate entities, although they tended to cluster together for convenience’s sake.

These were counter-service stores; owners/workers were hands on with each customer, pulling individual needs out of bulk jars or bins and packaging each for each customer on the other side of the counter.

Piggly Wiggly stores (established by Clarence Saunders in Memphis in 1916) are widely credited with introducing America to self-service shopping, revolutionizing the grocery industry.

Self-service stores came to be known as “groceterias” due to the fact that they were reminiscent of the cafeteria-style eateries that were gaining popularity at the time. (groceteria)

Instead of a clerk to assist individual customer needs behind a counter, there were open aisles, open shelves with individually-packaged products to select from, shopping baskets and check-out stands.

The largest order for receipt printing National Cash Registers ever received has just been placed with The NCR Company by the Piggly Wiggly Stores. This order called for 1,030 receipt printing registers of the Class 800 type. One hundred of the registers were to be delivered at once and the remainder from time to time as new stores are opened up. (Hotel Monthly, Vol 26)

In the cafeteria style or “Piggly Wiggly” groceries, the storerooms were all planned alike, and every shelf had a designated and uniform place for the particular kind of groceries allotted to that particular space; and the grocery shelves were arranged to conform to the storeroom shelves.

Rather than pull and package for individual needs from bulk jars and bins, items such as sugar, rice, coffee, etc, were automatically weighed into uniform packages by a machine. The correct weight was stamped on the bottom of the package and it is then sealed by adhesive tape and put on display on a shelf in the aisle.

In the Piggly Wiggly stores customers become their own clerks and select their own purchases without interfering with any of the other customers who are on similar missions. By this method, the customer is made part of the machinery of distribution.

All goods are placed on the shelves with careful consideration as to display, convenience, and classification (several kinds of the same article are always grouped together.) Thus in one part of the store the soap will be found, in another the cereals and in another the canned goods.

The overhead of the store is reduced and the individual purchaser is directly benefited by the reduced price. (Hotel Monthly, Vol 26)

Piggly Wiggly was the first to:
• Provide checkout stands
• Price mark every item in the store
• High volume/low profit margin retailing
• Feature a full line of nationally advertised brands
• Use refrigerated cases to keep produce fresher longer
• Put employees in uniforms for cleaner, more sanitary food handling
• Design and use patented fixtures and equipment throughout the store
• Franchise independent grocers to operate under the self-service method of food merchandising

Shoppers and store owner loved it. Likewise, the Piggly Wiggle brand issued franchises to hundreds of people across the country – the company slogan was “Piggly Wiggly All Over the World.”

The number of Island Piggly Wigglys grew; however, “because of the inconvenience of proper supervision”, on January 2, 1935, Theo H Davies (then, a Hawai‘i Big 5 company) bought out the Piggly Wiggly brand in Hawai‘i. They expanded and grew into the 1950s.

While supermarkets increased in number throughout the mainland during the 1930s, it was not until after World War II that supermarkets developed on a large scale basis in Hawai‘i.

Foodland opened in May 1948, and Albert and Wallace Teruya started Times in 1949. Star Market opened its Mōʻiliʻili store in 1954. Chun Hoon in Nuʻuanu built a new store along supermarket lines, which opened in December 1954.

By 1957 supermarkets accounted for close to fifty percent of all retail food business in America. In 1963 the national chain Safeway made its appearance in the islands.

With lower payroll and handling costs, coupled with volume purchasing and high turnover in sales, the supermarket was able to cut prices and take over the retail grocery business. (HHF)

Supermarkets typically served as anchors for community shopping centers, providing economic stability and even encouraging further commercial and residential development in surrounding areas.

In addition, government-supported services such as libraries and post offices were often constructed within or immediately nearby these new commercial hubs. The clustering of such amenities provided individuals and families with the mainland style a “one-stop” shopping center. (docomomo) Davies sold Piggly Wiggly in the mid-1950s.

Saunders’ reason for choosing the intriguing name “Piggly Wiggly” remains a mystery; he was curiously reluctant to explain its origin. One story says that, while riding a train, he looked out his window and saw several little pigs struggling to get under a fence, which prompted him to think of the rhyme.

Another suggests that someone once asked him why he had chosen such an unusual name for his organization, to which he replied, “So people will ask that very question.” Regardless of his inspiration, he succeeded in finding a name that would be talked about and remembered. (Lots of information here is from Piggly Wiggly.)

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Piggly Wiggly grocery store at the corner of 10th and Waialae Avenues
Piggly Wiggly grocery store at the corner of 10th and Waialae Avenues
Piggly-Wiggly-Honolulu-HT&N
Piggly-Wiggly-Honolulu-HT&N
Piggly-Wiggly-Ad-The_Friend-July_1945
Piggly-Wiggly-Ad-The_Friend-July_1945
Piggly-Wiggly-Ad-The_Friend-May_1939
Piggly-Wiggly-Ad-The_Friend-May_1939
Piggly-Wiggly-Original_Tennessee Store
Piggly-Wiggly-Original_Tennessee Store

by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Joseph Atherton Richards

“’Who is this A. Richards?’”

“The players themselves, as well as others who usually know tennis players and tennis form as intimately as the average small boy knows the record of Babe Ruth, were asking each other the question at the clubhouse during the progress of this astonishing match.”

Richards, an unknown, beat favorite Watson Washburn in two straight sets and won the championship at the New York Tennis Club Tournament. (HMCS)

“Atherton Richards was the youth who thus confounded the prophets and tore the dope and the traditions into things of shreds and patches.” (NY Times, June 22, 1921)

He was called AR or Atherton Richards; however his full name was Joseph Atherton Richards. (Giles)

Richards was born in the Islands on September 29, 1894 (he died in 1974.) His father, Theodore Richards, came to Hawaiʻi in 1888 to become teacher of the first class to graduate at the Kamehameha Schools and, in 1894, principal of the Kamehameha Schools for five years. Atherton’s paternal grandfather was Joseph H Richards.

Theodore Richards founded Kokokahi on the windward side of Oʻahu (now a YWCA facility,) which means “of one blood”, which he meant as a place for people of different races to live together as people of one blood. (Star-Advertiser)

Theodore Richards married Mary Cushing Atherton, daughter of Juliette Cooke Atherton and Joseph Ballard Atherton. Joseph Atherton’ Richards maternal great grandparents were missionaries Amos Starr and Juliette Montague Cooke (Amos Starr Cooke and Samuel Northrup Castle formed Castle and Cooke.)

After graduating from Wesleyan University in 1915 (where he was captain of the tennis team,) Atherton served as a First Lieutenant in the US Army in 1917 and as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1942. (HICattle)

During WWII, Richards was one of the top officials serving under General William J “Wild Bill” Donovan, then-chief of the CIA’s Office of Strategic Services (OSS.)

Richards was tasked in the “Economics Branch” and was authorized to conduct research bearing on “the economic problems of the United States during and following the termination of the war emergency”. They also discussed “the possibilities of economic warfare organization.” (CIA)

In his business career, Richards served as an officer or director of Castle and Cooke Co, Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Bank of Hawaii, Ewa Plantation Co, Hawaiian Electric Co, and was a Kamehameha Schools, Bishop Estate (KSBE) trustee (1952-1974.)

In 1931, Hawaiian Pineapple accounted for about 38% of the Islands’ production (measured by cases of pineapples produced.) However, the Great Depression was on and Hawaiian Pineapple was facing bankruptcy.

In October 1932, Hawaiian Pineapple (what we call Dole) was reorganized to avoid catastrophe and founder James Dole was removed from management and Atherton Richards replaced him as general manager. (Cooper & Daws)

In late-1939, Richards tried to establish a new pineapple plantation on Molokai, in order to reduce their dependency on Waialua Agricultural Co, but the Molokai plantation plan was rejected by the board the next year. Richards left in 1941. (Hawkins)

As Bishop Estate trustee, Richards planted the idea of development of KSBE’s East Oʻahu property with Henry J Kaiser. They took a drive out to Kuapa Pond where Richards challenged Kaiser to make the development a success.

Kaiser accepted and proposed a $350-million dream city of 11,000 single family homes. Initially dubbed ‘Kaiser’s Folly,’ Hawaiʻi Kai became a success for Kaiser and Bishop Estate. (Hawaii Business)

Another lasting legacy of Richards is Kahua Ranch in Kohala, Hawaii Island, which he formed with Ronald Von Holt in 1928. The pair pooled their money and bought the property from Frank Woods.

Richards’ nephew, Herbert Montague “Monty” Richards, Jr, carries on his legacy today as Manager of Kahua Ranch. (Pono Von Holt runs the adjoining Ponoholo Ranch that had been split off from the original holdings.)

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Joseph Atherton Richards-HICattle
Joseph Atherton Richards-HICattle

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Plantation Camps

“I want (my children) to remember that the parents, grandparents were part of that company, the sugar company. The parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, you know, down the line, the older generation.”

“I want (my children) to think about the older generation, what they gone through for make you possible, as a young generation coming up, eh? That the sugar made you a family, too.” (John Mendes, former Hāmākua Sugar Company worker; UH Center for Oral History)

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the Hawaiian landscape. A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America. There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885 and Filipinos 1905.

Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

The different languages and unusual names created problems; because of this, sugar plantation owners devised an identification system to keep workers sorted out. Upon each laborer’s arrival, a plantation official gave them a metal tag called a bango.

The bango was made of brass or aluminum and had a number printed on one side. It was usually worn on a chain around their neck. Bangos came in different shapes. The shape you wore was determined by your race. Every plantation used bangos. (Lassalle) “They never call a man by his name. Always by his bango, 7209 or 6508 in that manner.” (Takaki)

Plantation camps, developed to house workers and their families, were once scattered among the cane fields. The plantation camps were segregated by ethnicity as well as by occupational rank. Most had the “Japanese camp,” “the Puerto Rican camp,” “the Filipino camp.” (Merry) “There was one called ‘Alabama Camp.’ “Alabama?” “Yeah; we used to have Negroes working on the plantation.” (Takaki)

Supervisors, called lunas, were generally haole (white,) native Hawaiian or Portuguese until the early twentieth century, or Japanese by midcentury. They lived in special parts of the plantation housing, divided from those of other backgrounds by roads and by rules not to play with the children across the street.

The plantation manager typically lived in the “big house” across the street, and although his children might sneak out to play with the workers, his social life revolved around visits with other haole manager families. (Merry)

After cane railroads came into use, field camps were discontinued almost entirely and everyone lived close to the mill. (MacDonald)

While the emigration of Japanese women during the picture bride era changed the composition of the plantation camps there still remained a large community of single male laborers. In 1910 men outnumbered adult women 2-to-1 in the Territory and in some communities, the sex ratio was even more skewed. (Bill)

The canefields were a social space as well as worksite. With families to care for, women had little free time and fieldwork offered daily contact with other women. The companionship of others is what women most often remember about their field work days. (Bill)

The camps were self-sufficient and resources, hours, and pay were tightly controlled by the plantation management. As their contracts expired, members of these ethnic groups either moved back to their home countries, or moved to “plantation towns” and began mercantile business, boarding houses bars, restaurants, billiard halls, dance halls and movie theaters. (Historic Honokaa Project)

Company towns with schools, churches, businesses, hospitals, and recreational facilities emerged as workers raised families on the plantations. (Bill)

“We bought most of our food and clothing from the plantation stores and, if our families were short of cash, credit would be provided. Some children were born at home, but most of us were born in and treated for our illnesses at the plantation hospital.”

“We were entertained (in a) recreational building provided by the plantation. Our young people, especially the males, enjoyed the ballparks provided – again – by the plantations. … (W)e worshiped in church building provided by plantation management for the large groups who worshiped and conducted religious instruction in the language of their members.” (Nagtalon-Miller)

While the public schools in the rural areas of Hawaii were not under direct control of plantation management, they were looked upon as an extension of the plantation because virtually every child had parents who worked on the plantation.

School principal and teachers were often included in the social milieu of the plantations hierarchy, and school program tended to represent middle-class American values of hard work and upward mobility, which have motivated second generation children from the early 1930s to the present.

Although immigrants did not own their own homes or lots (everything was owned by the plantations, which provided for most of their needs), our families were largely content with this economic support system. In any case, for most people there was no alternative.

Most laborers had little or no schooling. We lived in groups where language and cultural values were shared. While wages were meager, women took in laundry, made and sold ethnic foods, and did sewing to supplement their husbands’ pay, and many people were able to send money regularly to parents, siblings, or wives and children who remained in the Philippines, enabling them to buy property or finance an education. (Nagtalon-Miller)

“The plantation took care of us. The plantation was everybody’s mom over here. They held us. I mean, you had plantation life, and then you get the real world. And we were so sheltered.” (Dardenella Gamayo, Pa‘auhau resident; UH Center for Oral History)

Make no mistake; life on the plantation was hard.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Nutridge

For at least 40,000 years, Australian Aborigines have lived in macadamia heartland. As hunters and gatherers, they had an intimate understanding of their environment.

The wild macadamias usually grew in dense rainforests, with competition from other trees and absence of light resulting in their producing few nuts.

However, trees growing at the edge of the rainforest or where the Aborigines had encouraged them by burning around each tree generally produced annual crops.

Macadamia nuts were a treasured food but a very minor part of the Aboriginal diet due to their rarity. (McConachie)

In 1828, Alan Cunningham (explorer and botanist) was the first Western person to record the macadamia. Other names for Macadamia Nuts are Bush nut, Queensland nut, Queen of nuts, Macadamia, Bauple nut, Boombera, Jindilli and Gyndl.

In 1857, German-Australian botanist Ferdinand von Mueller gave the genus of this plant the scientific name Macadamia – named after von Mueller’s friend Dr John Macadam (although, allegedly, Macadam had not seen a macadamia nut tree, or even tasted the macadamia nut.)

Macadamia seeds were first imported into Hawaiʻi in 1882 by William Purvis; he planted them in Kapulena on the Hāmākua Coast. A second introduction into Hawaii was made in 1892 by Robert and Edward Jordan who planted the trees at the former’s home in Nuʻuanu Honolulu. (Storey)

“Brought in ‘solely as an addition to the natural beauty of Paradise’ (Hawaiian Annual, 1940,) it was not until ES (Ernest Sheldon) Van Tassel started some plantings at Nutridge in 1921 that the commercial growing of the plant began. On June 1, 1922, the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company Ltd. was formed.” (NPS)

The Van Tassel plantings were at ʻUalakaʻa on a grassy hillside of former pasture land. Mo‘olelo (Hawaiian stories) indicate that Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a was a favored locality for sweet potato cultivation and King Kamehameha I established his personal sweet potato plantation here.

‘Pu‘u translates as “hill” and ‘ualaka‘a means “rolling sweet potato”, so named for the steepness of the terrain. (It’s above Makiki and also called Round Top.) Within the valley is a quarry where the basalt outcrop was chipped into pieces to make octopus lures. That is believed to be the origin of the word ‘makiki’ – a type of stone used for weights in octopus lures.

Historical attempts at cultivation in the Makiki-Tantalus area included a coffee plantation by JM Herring along Moleka Stream in the late-1800s (valley conditions proved too wet for coffee beans to flourish) and Hawai‘i’s first commercial macadamia nut plantation along the west side of Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a.

“Van Tassel, President of the Hawaii Macadamia Nut Company, Ltd, became interested in the possibilities of this nut for creating a new industry and had so much faith in its future that he organized in 1922 the present company for the purpose of commercial production and has been its guiding spirit ever since.” (Mid-Pacific, October 1933)

“At the present time, the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company has about 7,000 trees in its groves at Keauhou, Kona District, Hawaii, which are now coming into profitable bearing. The company has also approximately 2,000 trees growing and producing in the Nutridge grove on Round Top, Honolulu, or a total of 9,000 trees.” (Mid-Pacific, October 1933)

Nutridge was the name for Van Tassel’s home and grove. In 1925, Mr. Van Tassel commissioned architect Hart Wood to design his residence at Nutridge.

Wood was at the forefront of the movement to create a style of architecture in Hawaii which would appropriately reflect a sense of place.

One story high, the house is essentially devoid of ornate embellishment and follows an extremely original layout with the lanai (porch) serving in the capacity of a hallway, providing direct access to the bedrooms. Such an arrangement accentuates the sense of outdoor living.

Also by placing the rooms in a serial manner, the architect provided each room with cross-ventilation taking advantage of the trade winds. The dwelling’s double-pitched hipped roof would become a common feature in the evolving ‘Hawaiian style’ of architecture, and adds to the building’s low profile. (NPS)

In order to stimulate interest in macadamia culture, beginning January 1, 1927, a Territorial law exempted properties in the Territory, used solely for the culture or production of macadamia nuts, from taxation for a period of 5 years.

That year, the Territory granted Van Tassel a 50-lease on Nutridge. By 1934, there were about 25-acres planted on Tantalus. (CTAHR)

Commercial processing of macadamia nuts began in 1934 at Van Tassel’s new factory in Kaka‘ako. The nuts were shelled, roasted, salted, bottled and marketed there as “Van’s Macadamia Nuts.” (Schmitt)

Nuts went from the farm on Round Top down through the flumes into trucks to his processing warehouse in Kakaʻako, where they were then sold. This plantation remained in operation until the 1970s and discontinued when the Honolulu processing plant suspended operations. (NPS)

In its heyday, celebrities such as Clark Gable, Carlo Lombard, Frank Sinatra and Dina Merrill visited and stayed at the Nutridge House.

The macadamia nut trees and the remnants of the historic flume system used to collect and transport the nuts remain on the slopes of ‘Ualakaʻa today. In 1981, the house was nominated and placed on the National Register of Historic Places and is part of the Hawaii State Park System, Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a State Wayside in Tantalus.

For approximately 30-years, the historic house has been cared for and occupied under a permit by Rick Ralston, the founder and former owner of retail icon Crazy Shirts.

Ralston invested significant sums of money and devoted considerable time and energy in meticulously restoring the historic house which might have otherwise been lost due to years of neglect. The house had been quietly maintained and used as a residence. (DLNR)

Recently (2013,) DLNR issued a revocable permit to Discovering Hidden Hawaiʻi Tours, Inc for commercial events at the Nutridge property, including luaus (‘The Big Kahuna Luau’) and other similar events, tours and special, small scale events and non-profit and community use purposes.

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