Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Not A Planned Community”

At the time of Captain Cook’s contact with the Hawaiian Islands the land was divided into several independent Chiefdoms.  By succession and right of conquest, each High Chief was owner of all the lands within his jurisdiction.

Although the chiefs controlled the land and extracted food and labor from the makaʻāinana who farmed the soil, “everyone had rights of access and use to the resources of the land and the sea … The people were sustained by a tradition of sharing and common use.”

Kamehameha III divided the lands in a process known as the Great Māhele (1848.)  Ultimately, it transformed land tenure from feudal-like/communal trusteeship to private ownership.

Hui Kūʻai ʻĀina O Hāʻena (Hāʻena Cooperative to Purchase Land) was one of many groups formed by people after the Mānele and Kuleana Act.  Members held shares in the total land area, and the land was used collectively. That is, unlike the kuleana lands (individual homesteads,) Hui lands were not divided into individual parcels.

These cooperatives formed, in part, to retain traditional ways of life on the land, which were typically thwarted by the legal system shifting to Western ways.  A fundamental precept of the hui was sharing, collectively, on the land.  (Andrade)

Over the next century, changes that were affecting the rest of the Hawaiian Islands gradually reached Hāʻena. Among the most important of these were changes that eventually brought about the break-up of the Hui Kūʻai ‘Āina and resulted in the partitioning of the lands that had been held in common.

The path to this break-up was one whereby, over time, shares in the Hui were sold, transferred or auctioned off away from the original members and their families, and into the hands of newcomers from outside. (PacificWorlds)

Later, the Taylor family purchased a parcel of coastal land in the area.  “My family sailed over from O‘ahu in August of 1968. That first morning we came down here in an old Valiant station wagon. We looked around and ate our lunch on one of the flat rocks that are still over there by the stream.”

“My parents fell in love with this place, went back to our house on O‘ahu and sold that place. They sold the boat, sold the house, sold everything and moved to Kauaʻi.” (Tommy Taylor)

Howard Taylor (brother to actress Elizabeth Taylor) went to acquire building permits to construct his family home on the property. However, the State would not grant him such a permit, since they were planning to condemn the land.

At the same time, however, they insisted that he still pay full taxes on the land. In disgust, Taylor turned the land over to the “flower power people” – they called it Taylor Camp.

Started in the spring of 1969, “Taylor Camp was not a planned community.  The land … had been loaned … to a small group of people who had been squatting at several of the county parks on Kauaʻi during 1968 and 1969.”

“The county police had shooed the group from one park to another and the county was taking legal action against them when Mr Taylor offered them the use of a small parcel of land bordering the beach at Hāʻena point.”  (Riley)

By 1970, the original group of thirteen men, women and children of Taylor Camp were gone; soon, waves of hippies, surfers and troubled Vietnam vets found their way to Taylor Camp and built a clothing-optional, pot-friendly village at the end of the road on the island’s north shore.

“The campers wanted to escape the mainland, the political situation, the Vietnam War.  There were dropping out, trying to get away and these people found Kauaʻi.”  (Taylor; Wehrheim)

Abandoning the tent village, by 1972 there were 21-permanent houses at Taylor Camp. All of them were tree houses, since local authorities would not issue them permits for ground dwellings.

In addition to the houses in the camp there was a communal shower, an open air toilet, a small church and even a cooperative store which operated on and off until the camp’s closing. (Riley)

“We were a Kauaʻi community at the end of the road in the seventies living like some of our local neighbors were living.  No electricity, no one had anything.  … It was very, very simple, very, very slow.” (Rosenthal; Wehrheim)

“It wasn’t a free for all type of place.  A lot of people came through and wanted to build something and stay but they couldn’t.  There was sort of a council and general rules to keep the peace and the order. … So everybody had to be approved by the elders”.  (Baricchi; Wehrheim)

“The camp also became an informal pool of causal labor.  While some of the campers worked legitimate jobs and a few even owned their own businesses, many – living on welfare, food stamps, unemployment and growing marijuana – welcomed causal labor”.

“In the morning builders or farmers in need of strong backs could pull up in their trucks and find a few campers willing to work cheap.”  (Wehrheim)

Kauaʻi’s north shore boomed with surfers and hippies to a point where more than 350-people were in and around Taylor Camp.

“It was getting to be a mess.  It wasn’t a commune anymore.  The communal life just didn’t work.  There were too many freeloaders.  There were only two or three people that were gathering, buying and cooking the food … but the people eating were not even cleaning up … That’s what started the break-up.  (Harder: Wehrheim)

“(I)t was really kind of stressful, when we had so little and there were freeloaders mooching, not contributing anything.  Soon it evolved into, ‘We are not doing this communal thing anymore!’ “

“And people started building little shelters and then everybody said, ‘Okay, we will do our individual house and we will do our individual cooking,’ and so the commune ended”.(Harder; Wehrheim)

Folks on the outside added to the pressures.  “There was a lot of tension between the locals and the hippies … We were the devil – evil incarnate.… The locals who knew us didn’t think that, but the politicians, the elected officials, they needed a bad guy”.  (Rosenthal; Wehrheim)

“People did not like Taylor Camp, because it was different.  Like you have homeless in Honolulu living on the beach – that was Taylor Camp. … People just did not like hippies.  They weren’t wearing clothes and they were planting marijuana all over the place.”  (Malapit; Wehrheim)

Then, the headlines told the future, “Condemnation for Park;” “All the land on the North side of Kauaʻi between Limahuli Stream and the end of the road at Hāʻena is about to be taken over by the State through condemnation proceedings. A State Park is planned for the area.”  (Garden Island, May 17, 1971)

In 1974, after five years of bureaucratic government maneuvers, the State government finally formally condemned and acquired Howard Taylor’s land.  But some of the residents didn’t leave and they made claims back upon the State.

The dragged-out eviction proceedings and other legal challenges wore on the campers and they finally dropped all claims against the State and left voluntarily.   Many moved to the Big Island.

In 1977, government officials torched the camp – leaving little but ashes and memories of “the best days of our lives.”  (Wehrheim) (Much of the information and images here are from John Wehrheim’s Taylor Camp book – that was an unanticipated, but much appreciated arrival at my door one day.)

The original 13: Victor Schaub,  Sondra Schaub (with 4-year old daughter Heidi Schaub,) Webb Ford, Carol Ford, John Becker, George Berg, Jr, Thomas Carver, Teri Ann Rush, John Rush, Kirby Nunn, Wendy Nunn, Jackie Nixon and Gail Pickolz.  (Wehrheim)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamokuʻakulikuli

Coral doesn’t grow in fresh water.  So, where a stream enters a coastal area, there is typically no coral growth at that point – and, as the freshwater runs out into the ocean, a coral-less channel is created.

In its natural state, thanks to Nuʻuanu Stream, Honolulu Harbor originally was a deep embayment formed by the outflow of Nuʻuanu Stream creating an opening in the shallow coral reef along the south shore of Oʻahu.

Honolulu Harbor (it was earlier known as Kuloloia) was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794.

They called the harbor “Fair Haven” which may be a rough translation of the Hawaiian name Honolulu (it was also sometimes called Brown’s Harbor.)  The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

More sailors came.  Captain William Sumner arrived in the Islands in 1807.  Arriving first at Kaua‘i, Sumner jumped-ship and lived amongst the Hawaiians there.  Kaumuali‘i was the king of Kaua‘i at the time, and when he saw Sumner, he was entranced by this youth, and took him as a “keiki hoʻokama” (adopted him.)

In the Islands, Kamehameha I, who had been living at Waikiki, moved his Royal Residence to Pākākā at Honolulu Harbor in 1809. Sumner served as one of the captains on ships in this fleet.

Some foreigners, like Sumner who sailed ships for Kamehameha, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III,) were awarded land grants for their services.

In 1819, Kamehameha I gave land to Sumner for services rendered.  This site was at the corner of today’s Hotel and Punchbowl Streets (near where the present Barracks are at ʻIolani Palace.)

Sumner was also awarded “… a fishery of the 647-Diamond Head acres of the reef lying between the Kalihi and Honolulu Harbor Channels.  The area carried the Hawaiian name of Kaholaloa (Koholaloa, Kahololoa, Kaholoa.)  The Ewa portion of this reef was designated Mokauea.”

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships, the Balena out of New Bedford, and the Equator, out of Nantucket, became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands.

Rich whaling waters were discovered near Japan and soon hundreds of ships headed for the area.   The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Japan brought many whaling ships to the Islands.

With increased whalers to the Islands, so did disease.  A law was passed noting, “All vessels having had contagious diseases on board … on arrival at Sandwich Islands, or at any port hereof, shall be entirely at the direction of the Board of Health … all vessels quarantined … shall keep constantly flying, during the day, a yellow flag at the main top.”  (Quarantine Laws, May 29, 1839)

The first efforts to deepen Honolulu Harbor were made in the 1840s. The idea to use the dredged material, composed of sand and crushed coral, to fill in low-lying lands was quickly adopted.   Some of the material was deposited on the fringing reef.

“In the year 1849 … the land of Kahololoa, was confirmed to William Sumner by Land Commission Award No, 153 … The title to these lands passed to JI Dowsett and John K Sumner, and from them to the Dowsett Company, Limited, and the Oahu Railway & Land Company.”

In 1872, the small island off Iwilei – “Kamokuʻakulikuli” – became the site of a quarantine station used to handle the influx of immigrant laborers drawn to the islands’ developing sugar plantations. The site is described as “little more than a raised platform of sand and pilings to house the station, with walkways leading to the harbor edge wharf, where a concrete sea wall had been constructed” and as “a low, swampy area on a reef in the harbor”.

Improvements were made.   “Looking seaward from the prison I noticed a building which had been erected upon the reef, and on enquiry found it to be a Quarantine Station. … (it was) used occasionally as a temporary accommodation for immigrants.”

Then, the arrival “of a vessel bringing twenty-five Chinese passengers, among whose crew small-pox had broken out, demonstrated the foresight of the Government in erecting this commodious building…”  (Bowser, 1880-1881; Maly)

More came.  “Over seven hundred Chinese immigrants, mostly men, who came here on the steamer Septima on the 13th of last month, were placed in quarantine on their arrival, on account of the existence of small pox among them. For nine days they were detained on board of the ship in the harbor, until the quarters were prepared for them on the quarantine island.”

“Those ill with small-pox were removed from among the others as soon as the disease appeared, and finally when about twenty days had passed since the last case had been removed the Board of Health allowed them to go as fast as they found employment; or as they found responsible persons who would become responsible to the Board of Immigration that they would not become vagrants or a charge on the community for their support.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, March 23, 1881)

By 1888, Kamokuʻākulikuli Island had been expanded and was known as “Quarantine Island.”  If vessels arrived at the harbor after 15 days at sea and contagious disease was aboard, quarantine and disinfecting procedures were required at Quarantine Island.  (Cultural Surveys)

“Upon annexation of the islands the United States took possession of Quarantine Island in the belief that the title to that land had been vested in the Hawaiian government. (Dowsett and OR&L filed suit.)”

In a compromise, “in 1902 the (Oʻahu Railway & Land Company) and the Dowsett Company turned over to the federal government 550-acres of what is now Quarantine Island and adjacent ground, and for themselves kept only 82-acres.  (They also retained wharfage privileges and rights to access the channel/harbor.)”  (Honolulu Star Bulleting, June 16, 1914)

Quarantine Island became the largest United States quarantine station of the period, accommodating 2,255-individuals.  This facility included two hospitals and a crematorium.  (Cultural Surveys)

Dredged materials from improvements to Honolulu harbor had enlarged Quarantine Island again and by 1906 the island was encircled by a seawall and was 38-acres.  By 1908 the Quarantine Station consisted of Quarantine Island and the reclaimed land of the Quarantine wharf (with a causeway connecting the two.)

On February 15, 1910, Honolulu Harbor Light station was built and the beacon went into service. Soon, with added filling and subsequent connection of the two emergent islands on the reef, the resulting single island took the name Sand Island.

In 1916, Sand Island Military Reservation was established on the reclaimed land of the quarantine station. Subsequent episodes of harbor improvements resulted in enlarging the island and, by 1925 the reef around Sand Island had been removed and the island was completely surrounded by water.  (Dye)

Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor and declaration of martial law on December 7, 1941, military authorities immediately rounded up Japanese and placed them in internment camps.  Those arrested on Oʻahu were initially crowded into the Honolulu Immigration Station pending a hearing or a short boat ride to Sand Island.

In May 1942, military authorities turned the quarantine station into the Sand Island Detention Center, complete with 10-foot-tall fences.  Other internment facilities were constructed in the Islands and on the continent.  By the end of the war, an estimated 1,440-people were detained or interned in Hawai’i at one of five locations on O’ahu, the Big Island, Maui and Kaua’i.

During the early-1940s, Sand Island became the headquarters of the Army Port and Service Command and in the early 1940s the island was further enlarged with fill materials from the dredging of the seaplane runway.  (Dye)

In 1959, the Department of the Army transferred Sand Island to the Territory of Hawaiʻi, and in 1963 ownership was transferred to the State of Hawaiʻi.  (Star Bulletin, March 12, 1991)  The island was once home to the Jaycee’s 50th State Fair.

Initial vehicular access was via a causeway; in April 1962, the Army Corps of Engineers completed the Lt John R Slattery Bridge (Slattery was the first Army Corps of Engineers Honolulu District Engineer in 1905.) The two-lane bascule bridge (draw bridge) originally could be raised and lowered to allow boat traffic to pass underneath.

In the late-1980s, though, the state permanently sealed the metal bridge and built a new concrete bridge alongside, creating four lanes to accommodate the growing commercial traffic on and off the island.

Several other names have been associated with Sand Island. Lot Kamehameha (Kamehameha V) gave the name Mauliola to the island in reference to the island’s use as a quarantine station. (Star Bulletin, April 28, 1969)  Older names for the island were Kamokuʻākulikuli or Kahaka‘aulana. Rainbow Island and ʻĀnuenue were names used in the 1970s. (Dye)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Richards Street

Some suggest it was named after missionary William Richards (later, advisor to King Kamehameha III – instructor in law, political economy and the administration of affairs generally;) others note it was named for a man selling luggage to tourists in his shop on that street.

One thing is certain, in looking at early maps of Honolulu, Richards Street was different.  Let’s look back.

Honolulu Harbor, also known as Kuloloia, was entered by the first foreigner, Captain William Brown of the English ship Butterworth, in 1794.  He named the harbor “Fair Haven.”  The name Honolulu (meaning “sheltered bay” – with numerous variations in spelling) soon came into use.

Hawaiʻi’s streets, for the most part, started out as trails that were widened and straightened, as horses, buggies and then transit became available.  In Honolulu, over time, trails headed mauka following and crossing the Nuʻuanu River, or headed southerly (to Kālia – Waikīkī) or easterly (toward Mānoa.)

Some of the present downtown Honolulu street alignments have origins dating back to 1809. It was about this time that Kamehameha the Great moved his capital from Waikīkī to what is now downtown Honolulu.

A large yam field (what is now much of the core of downtown Honolulu – what is now bounded by King, Nuʻuanu, Beretania and Alakea Streets) was planted to provide visiting ships with an easily-stored food supply for their voyages (supplying ships with food and water was a growing part of the Islands’ economy.)

On the continent or in the Islands, in the early-1800s there was limited private and public transportation and it was expensive. Thus, workers’ homes were always within two miles of downtown – less than an hour’s walk.   For these reasons cities of the mid-1800s were virtually all small, dense and on the water.

In 1825, Andrew Bloxam (naturalist aboard the HMS Blonde) noted in Honolulu that, “The streets are formed without order or regularity.  Some of the huts are surrounded by low fences or wooden stakes … As fires often happen the houses are all built apart from each other.  The streets or lanes are far from being clean …” (Clark, HJH)

In 1838, a major street improvement project was started. Honolulu was to be a planned town. Kinaʻu (Kuhina Nui Kaʻahumanu II) published the following proclamation: “I shall widen the streets in our city and break up some new places to make five streets on the length of the land, and six streets on the breadth of the land… .” She designated her husband, Governor Mataio Kekūanāoʻa, to head the project.

In 1845, Commander Charles Wilkes criticized the city by saying: “The streets, if so they may be called, have no regularity as to width, and are ankle-deep in light dust and sand … and in some places, offensive sink-holes strike the senses, in which are seen wallowing some old and corpulent hogs.”

It wasn’t until 1850 that streets received official names.  On August 30, 1850, the Privy Council first named Hawaiʻi’s streets; there were 35-streets that received official names that day (29 were in Downtown Honolulu, the others nearby.)

So, what was different about Richards Street?

Tradewinds blow from the Northeast; the channel into Honolulu Harbor has a northeasterly alignment.  Early ships calling to Honolulu were powered only by sails.

The entrance to the harbor was narrow and lined on either side with reefs.  Ships don’t sail into the wind.  Given all of this, Honolulu Harbor was difficult to enter.

Although Bloxam said Honolulu “streets are formed without order and regularity” and Wilkes confirmed they “had no regularity in width”, early mapping notes Richards was the exception.

Richards Street is, alone of Honolulu streets, in the combination of being straight, of even width and reaching to the water-front; also  it is in line with the edge of the reef bordering the harbor channel.  (Clark)

In the early years, boats either anchored off-shore, or they were pulled into the harbor (this was done with canoes (it might take eight double canoes with 16-20 men each)) or it meant men (different accounts give the number from 200 to 400.)

In 1816 (as stories suggest,) Richards Street alignment was the straight path used to pull ships through the narrow channel into the harbor, working in the pre-dawn calm when winds and currents were slow.

Effectively, the street was the inland tow path.

Later, Governor Kekūanāoʻa organized an ox-team to pull the larger vessels up the narrow channel into the harbor basin.

“The ox-team waited on the eastern point of the harbor entrance until connected by a hawser (rope) with the vessel anchored in the deep water outside. The hawser necessarily was very long because the shoal water extended outward for quite a distance.”

“When all was ready, the team walked along the channel reef but, as such towing must be in straight line, on reaching the beach the cattle could only proceed straight inland until the long hawser had drawn the vessel right into the basin.”  (In one account the team numbered twenty oxen.)  (Clark)

“… a rope of great length was used, and it was a never-to-be-forgotten sight to see yokes of oxen, teams of horses and natives tugging at the rope. A time was consumed in making a start, but when once in motion, it was a steady walk-away.”  (Brown)

In 1854 the first steam tug was used to pull sail-powered ships into dock against the prevailing tradewinds.  Captain Jacob Brown was captain of the towing tug “Pele.” The “Pele” was the first steam tug used in Hawaiʻi (screw tug with thirty-horse power.)

Its primary use was for towing vessels in and out of the harbor and replaced the use of men or animals to bring ships into the harbor against the prevailing northeast tradewinds.

In 1856, the Pele was also used to tow barges about the harbor in connection with the Honolulu Harbor dredging operations. Pele served, with short interruptions, as the sole tug for shipping at Honolulu until after 1882.

Piers were constructed at the base of Richards Street in 1896, at the site of Piers 17 and 18 in 1901 to accommodate sugar loading and at Piers 7 and 12 in 1907.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Oregon Trail

Radiocarbon tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed indicate that the sediments containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North American long before the last ice age (more than 20,000-years ago). (Science Daily)

From at least 10,000 years ago to approximately 1100, the North American Plains were very sparsely populated by humans. Typical of hunting and gathering cultures worldwide, Plains residents lived in small family-based groups, usually of no more than a few dozen individuals, and foraged widely over the landscape.

By approximately the year 850, some residents of the central Plains had shifted from foraging to farming for a significant portion of their subsistence and were living in settlements comprising a number of large earth-berm homes.

As early as 1100, and no later than about 1250, most Plains residents had made this shift and were living in substantial villages and hamlets along the Missouri River and its tributaries. (Britannica)

Because of the limitations inherent in using only dogs and people to carry loads, Plains peoples did not generally engage in extensive travel before the horse. However, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s expedition in 1541 reported encounters with fully nomadic buffalo-hunting tribes who had only dogs for transport.

By the mid-18th century horses had arrived, coming from the Southwest via trade with the Spanish and the expansion of herds of escaped animals. Guns were also entering the Plains, via the fur trade. (Britannica)

The Spanish were among the first Europeans to explore the New World and the first to settle in what is now the United States.  European nations (England, France and Spain) came to the Americas to increase their wealth and broaden their influence over world affairs.

By 1750, some 80 per cent of the North American continent was controlled or influenced by France or Spain. Their presence was a source of tension and paranoia among those in the 13 British colonies, who feared encirclement, invasion and the influence of Catholicism.

As the United States spread across the Appalachians, the Mississippi River became an increasingly important conduit for America’s West (which at that time referred to the land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi).

Since 1762, Spain had claimed the territory of Louisiana, which included 828,000-square miles. The territory made up all or part of fifteen modern US states between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.

Following the American Revolutionary War, France acquired Louisiana from Spain in 1800 and took possession in 1802; the French planned expansion of their empire in the New World.

The fledgling United States saw Louisiana as an important trade/transportation area and feared that the French would seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico.

On January 18, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson sent a secret message to Congress asking for $2,500 to send an officer and a dozen soldiers to explore the Missouri River, make diplomatic contact with Indians, expand the American fur trade, and locate the Northwest Passage (the much-sought-after hypothetical northwestern water route to the Pacific Ocean).

The US was negotiating to acquire New Orleans and West Florida for $10-million.  Instead, Napoleon decided to give up his plans for Louisiana and offered the entire territory to the US.  (State Department)

The proposed trip took on added significance on May 2, when the United States agreed to the Louisiana Purchase.  Jefferson asked his personal secretary, Meriwether Lewis, to lead the expedition.  As his co-commander he selected William Clark, who had been his military superior during the government’s battles with the Northwest Indian Federation in the early 1790s.

Over the duration of the trip, from May 14, 1804, to September 23, 1806, from St. Louis, Missouri, to the Pacific Ocean and back, the Corps of Discovery, as the expedition company was called, traveled nearly 8,000 miles. (Britannica)

American Indians had traversed this country for many years, but for European Americans it was unknown territory. Lewis and Clark’s expedition was part of a US Government plan to open Oregon Country to settlement. However, the hazardous route blazed by Lewis and Clark was not feasible for families traveling by wagon. An easier trail was needed.

Robert Stuart of the Astorians (a group of fur traders who established Fort Astoria on the Columbia River in western Oregon) became the first white man to use what later became known as the Oregon Trail. Stuart’s 2,000-mile journey from Fort Astoria to St. Louis in 1810 took 10 months to complete; still, it was a much less rugged trail than Lewis and Clark’s route.  (NPS)

The Oregon Trail is an overland trail between Independence, Missouri, and Oregon City, near present-day Portland, Oregon, in the Willamette River valley. It was about 2,000-miles long and crossed through the States of Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon and Washington

It was one of the two main emigrant routes to the American West in the 19th century (the other being the southerly Santa Fe Trail from Independence to Santa Fe (now in New Mexico)).

It wasn’t until 1836 that the first wagons were used on the trek from Missouri to Oregon. A missionary party headed by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman set out to reach the Willamette Valley. Though the Whitmans were forced to abandon their wagons 200 miles short of Oregon, they proved that families could go west by wheeled travel.

In the spring of 1843, a wagon train of nearly 1,000 people organized at Independence, Missouri with plans to reach Oregon Country. Amidst an overwhelming chorus of naysayers who doubted their success, the so-called “Great Migration” made it safely to Oregon. (NPS)

Interest in the East for the Oregon country had begun to grow.  By 1846, thousands of emigrants who were drawn west by cheap land, patriotism or the promise of a better life found their way to Oregon Country.

With so many Americans settling the region, it became obvious to the British that Oregon was no longer theirs. They ceded Oregon Country to the United States that year.  (NPS)

Crucial to the success and well-being of travelers on the trail were the many forts and other settlements that sprang up along the route. (Britannica)   The forts were manned by troops of cavalry who were there to protect the emigrants traveling west and to also provide supplies for the wagon trains. (NPS)

Fort Laramie grew to become the largest and most important military post on the Northern Plains. It served emigrants as post office, resupply point and protection on the trail. Fort Laramie is now a NPS National Historic Site. (NPS)

As a result of the 1849 Gold Rush, the 1847 Mormon exodus to Utah and the thousands who moved west on the Oregon Trail starting in the 1840s, the need for a fast mail service beyond the Rocky Mountains became obvious.

The Pony Express, although it lasted only about 19-months (April 1860 and November 1861), generally followed the Oregon Trail and used some of the Forts as part of the horseback relay mail service. (NPS) There were approximately 190 relay stations located approximately 15 miles apart. (U of Nebraska)

Likewise, some of the forts served as telegraph stations and the forts protected the stations and helped to repair the telegraph lines. (The telegraph effectively eliminated the need for the Pony Express.)

The trail had several break-offs that were used by the Mormon pioneers, the California Gold Rush miners and many people who found what they were looking for or simply broke down along the way and decided to homestead the land they ended up on. (Post Register)

The Overland Trail and Stagecoach Line was an alternate wagon route off the Oregon Trail. Pioneers crossed this area as they headed westward in the late 1800s. (Laramie)

Possibly a half million traversed the Oregon Trail, covering an average of 15 to 20-miles per day; most completed their journeys in four to five months.  (Britannica)

Settlers who traveled the Oregon Trail spent roughly $800 to $1200 to be properly outfitted. Many of the pioneers raised their capital by selling their farms and possessions.

Along the way they found inflated prices for scarce commodities at trading posts and ferries. Once arriving in Oregon, there were scarce supplies available for purchase, requiring ability to work in exchange for goods and services (than cash for purchasing). (BLM)

Overwhelmingly, the journey was made by wagons drawn by teams of draft animals. Some people did not have wagons and rode horseback, while others went west with handcarts, animal carts, or even the occasional carriage.  (Britannica)

It is estimated that as many as 1 in 10 emigrants died on the trail – between 20,000 and 30,000 people (an average of ten graves per mile). The majority of deaths occurred because of diseases caused by poor sanitation. Cholera and typhoid fever were the biggest killers on the trail.

Another major cause of death was falling off a wagon and getting run over. This was not just the case for children; many adults also died from this type of accident.

Other deaths on the trail are recorded in dairies as: stampeding livestock, attack by emigrants on other emigrants, lightning, gunpowder explosion, drowning at river crossings and suicide. (BLM)

Most Native Americans tolerated wagon trains passing through their territories. Many pioneers would not have made it if it had not been for trading with the tribes along the trail.

There were conflicts between Native Americans and emigrants along the trail, but, when compared to the number of people traveling the Oregon Trail, deaths by Indians attacks were very rare. (BLM)

The completion of the first transcontinental railroad at Promontory, Utah, in 1869 marked the beginning of the end for the great overland migration routes to the West. (Britannica)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lānai – Lāhainā Ferry

In ancient times, the windward coast of the island of Lānai was home to many native residents.  Maunalei Valley had the only perennial stream on the island and a system of loʻi kalo (taro pond field terraces) supplied taro to the surrounding community.

Sheltered coves, fronted by a barrier reef, provided the residents with access to important fisheries, and allowed for the development of loko iʻa (fishponds), in which various species of fish were cultivated, and available to native tenants, even when the ocean was too rough for the canoes to venture out to sea.  (Lānai Culture and Heritage Center)

The history of Lānai is rich and diverse, spanning first, some 800 years of native Hawaiian residency and subsistence practices (ca. 1000 – 1800 A.D.). Then following 1800, there was a decline in the native population as foreign influences began to grow.

In 1861, Walter Murray Gibson came to Hawaiʻi after joining the Mormon Church the year before; he was to serve as a missionary and envoy of the Mormon Church to the peoples of the Pacific.

The experience with the Church was relatively short-lived; in 1864, he was excommunicated for selling priesthood offices, defrauding the Hawaiian members and misusing his ecclesiastical authority (in part, he was using church funds to buy land in his name.)

By the 1870s, Gibson focused his interests at Koele, situated in a sheltered valley in the uplands of Kamoku Ahupuaʻa. As the ranch operation was developed, Koele was transformed from an area of traditional residency and sustainable agriculture to the ranch headquarters.  (Lānai Culture and Heritage Center)  In 1872, Gibson moved from Lānai to Lāhainā and then to Honolulu.

After Gibson’s death in 1888, the ranch was turned over to his daughter and son-in-law, Talula and Frederick Hayselden.  As early as 1896, the Gibson-Hayselden interests on Lānai, which held nearly all the land on the island in fee-simple or leasehold title, began developing a scheme to plant and grow sugar on Lānai.

They chose the ancient fishing community of Keōmuku for the base of operations.  However, before completing the construction of the mill and associated facilities, and prior to the first harvest being collected for processing, the Maunalei Sugar Company went bankrupt.

In the period between 1899 to the 1920s, Keōmuku served as the hub of residency and commerce. Several motor-driven boats were engaged in providing transportation of people and goods between Lānai and Lāhaina. (Lānai Culture and Heritage Center)

Navigating the rough seas and near shore reef waters took exceptional skill. With names like “Akamai” (Smart,) “Naheihei” (The Racer,) “Mikioi” (Skillful,) “Lokahi” (Unity) and “Manukiiwai” (Bird That Fetches Water,) the boats regularly made runs to Lāhainā from Halepalaoa.

The return trip from Lāhainā brought back the mail, various food supplies, along with poi, rice and flour, fresh water in bottles, and passengers – including family members and visitors to the island.

Kupuna, Venus Leinaala Gay Holt, born at Keomoku in 1905 recalled that: “No matter how rough, Noa Kaopuiki knew how to wait. He would keep the engine running and everything. He’d wait. He knew how to count the waves. And we would all hold right there, see everything. And all the sudden, he’d go! He was gone. Right through the channel, gone. And the big waves are coming right after that. Gone on his way to Lāhaina.”

“Our boats ran twice a week to Lāhainā. They always came back with a barrel of poi, bags of flour, or whatever, whatever, whatever. We had sort of a store room with all the things in it… The boat went over and we bought most of our supplies from Lāhainā.”

“We brought in large supplies, by cases. Case of corned beef, case of canned salmon… Every Wednesday and every Saturday, they bought fresh supplies, poi, a whole barrel of poi once a week. We always had rice, and we grew a lot of things down here. We grew a lot of vegetables. We grew sweet potatoes, even down at the beach house. Lots of sweet potatoes were grown for the pigs…” (Venus Leinaala Gay Holt, January 28, 2006; Lānai CHC)

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