Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Monkeypod

Monkeypod (Pukui refers to it as ‘ōhai) was introduced to Hawai‘i in 1847 by Peter A Brinsmade, then consul from the Kingdom of Hawai‘i at Mexico City, who brought in two seeds.

One became a tree which was at Bishop and Hotel Streets in downtown Honolulu until 1899, when it was cut down to permit construction of a building. The other seed was planted at Kōloa, Kauaʻi, and produced a tree that was the parent of a large stand of monkeypod there.  (CTAHR)

Originally from northern South America, primarily Venezuela, it goes by many names in the countries to which it has been introduced. In most English-speaking countries it is called rain tree.

A January 23, 1902 article in the Hawaiian Star notes, “Monkey Pod Valuable. Marston Campbell Shows Finely Polished Sample of the Wood.”

“Assistant Superintendent of Public Works Marston Campbell has had a section of native wood polished for exhibition to the government. The slab Is taken from the upper trunk of a monkey pod and shows a beautifully polished light wood not unlike mahogany, heavy and close grained.”

“‘This is what the people of Honolulu are burning in their stoves,’ said Mr. Campbell ‘The calabashes from the wood are splendid and I have some tables of It that cannot be beaten for polish and appearance.’”

“‘The wood is of great commercial value and there is plenty of It around.’ One tree furnishes enough material for a whole set of furniture. It is very hard and takes a splendid polish. He had to give up trying to surface it by hand and used the buffer at the planing mill for satisfactory results.”

“Wray Taylor has these notes in his agricultural report for 1900 ‘Albizzia Saman – Monkey pod – grows freely in lower portion of Tantalus forest though not to such size as In town.’ It would seem that line the algeroba, the monkey, pod nourishes best on sea level and not higher than 500-feet.”

Here, it’s typically planted for shade.  In some places, the pods are feed for cattle, hogs, and goats. Some people chew the pods for the sweetish flavor like licorice.

Hawaiʻi has had a couple notable Monkeypod trees.

First, in 1866, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) traveled through Hawaii writing articles for the Sacramento Union, which were the basis for several chapters in Roughing It.

Twain spent four months in the islands in 1866, when he was 31 and working on becoming famous.  Waiʻōhinu boasts of a monkeypod tree which was planted by Twain, when he visited there.

It stood in the front yard of the residence of Samuel Kauhane, former chairman of the Hawaii supervisors, and is an excellent specimen of the tree.

It is known as the “Mark Twain” tree.  (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, November 22, 1915)  In 1957, the original tree was blown down and a new tree grew from its sprouts that still stands today.

Moanalua Gardens is also the home of a large monkeypod tree (about 130-years old) that is known in Japan as the Hitachi Tree, one of the most recognizable corporate icons in Japan.

The Hitachi Tree first originated through a TV commercial for Japanese electronics manufacturer Hitachi, Ltd that first aired in Japan in 1973.

The tree is widely recognized, especially in Japan, and has become an important symbol of the Hitachi Group’s reliability, and earth-friendliness.  It also enhances Hitachi’s brand value as a visual representation of its corporate slogan: “Inspire the Next.”

Over the past 40 years, the Hitachi Tree has become a valuable Hitachi Group asset as a familiar and respected image in Hitachi’s expanding messages globally.

An earlier agreement between the Damon Estate and Hitachi gave Hitachi exclusive worldwide rights to use the tree’s image for promotional purposes in exchange for annual payments.   It was reported that Hitachi Ltd, has agreed to pay the owner of the Moanalua Gardens $400,000 a year for 10 years to use the garden’s famous monkeypod tree in its advertising.

The tree is registered as an exceptional tree by the City and County of Honolulu and cannot be removed or destroyed without city council approval.

We also know monkeypod for the various bowls, figures and furniture and other woodworking art/function.  I suspect, like many, I have a ‘project’ monkeypod end table that needs refinishing.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pāhoa

Early settlement patterns in the Islands put people on the windward sides of the islands, typically along the shoreline.  However, in Puna on the Island of Hawaiʻi, much of the district’s coastal areas have thin soils and there are no good deep water harbors. The ocean along the Puna coast is often rough and windblown.

As a result, settlement patterns in Puna tend to be dispersed and without major population centers. Villages in Puna tended to be spread out over larger areas and often are inland, and away from the coast, where the soil is better for agriculture.  (Escott)

This was confirmed on William Ellis’ travel around the island in the early 1800s, “Hitherto we had travelled close to the sea-shore, in order to visit the most populous villages in the districts through which we had passed. But here receiving information that we should find more inhabitants a few miles inland, than nearer the sea, we thought it best to direct our course towards the mountains.”  (Ellis, 1823)

An historic trail once ran from the modern day Lili‘uokalani Gardens area in Hilo to Hāʻena along the Puna coast. The trail is often referred to as the old Puna Trail and/or Puna Road. There is an historic trail/cart road that is also called the Puna Trail (Ala Hele Puna) and/or the Old Government Road.

This path was essentially the main thoroughfare through the Puna district before the late-1800s.  Pāhoa was oʻioʻina (a resting place) on the trail.  (Papakilo)  Then it grew to become the principal town of lower Puna.

The evolving trail (first by foot, then by horse, cart and buggy, and finally by automobile) likely incorporated segments of the traditional Hawaiian trail system often referred to as the ala loa or ala hele.  (Rechtman)

The full length of the Puna Trail, or Old Government Road, might have been constructed or improved just before 1840. The alignment was mapped by the Wilkes Expedition of 1804-41.  (Escott)

People who traditionally had lived along the Puna coast were moving toward Hilo and into the more fertile upland areas of Puna in order to find paid work and to produce cash crops for local markets and for export.

The focus began to shift to the center of the Puna District and the developing sugar and related industries near ʻŌlaʻa, Hilo and the volcano region.

Before the turn of the century, railroad operations began – with lines running into Hilo. A main railroad line and several feeder lines were constructed in the early-1900s from Keaʻau to locations in lower Puna District.

The major line ran from Hilo through Keaʻau to the Kapoho area.  A branch line ran from the ʻŌlaʻa Sugar Mill up past present day Glenwood. A second branch line ran to Pāhoa town.

Some suggest this is how Pāhoa received its name.  “Then the train was put in from Hilo to Puna. One spur went up into Pāhoa; it was like a dagger into the forest. I‘m told this is how Pāhoa got its name. (Pāhoa means dagger.)”  (Edwards; Cultural Surveys)

People began to work in the inland areas to grow sugarcane. The new road, the Pāhoa branch of the railroad, sugarcane agriculture and a logging venture all combined to create Pāhoa as a population center in the region.  (Rechtman)

Macadamia nuts and papaya were introduced in 1881 and 1919; at the turn of the century, large-scale coffee cultivation was attempted.  Over 6,000-acres of coffee trees were owned by approximately 200-independent coffee planters.

This fledgling industry couldn‘t compete with more successful ventures located in other districts, and after a few decades the coffee industry in Puna was abandoned.  (Cultural Surveys, Rechtman)

By 1901, sugar dominated the island’s industry and landscape, and Hilo was the epicenter of production and export. Railroads connected sugar mills and sugar plantations in Hilo, the Hāmākua and Puna. The railroad also connected the mills to the wharves at Hilo Bay.

Early on, one of the major export items transported by the railroad was timber.  Starting in 1907, the Hawaiian Mahogany Company began cutting trees to clear land for sugarcane. The logs were brought to Pāhoa Town to be milled, then sent to Hilo Harbor and eventually shipped to the US Mainland as railroad ties for the Santa Fe Railroad.

The lumber mill facilities and the railroad line that served them were located near the center of town where the Akebono Theater is located.

In 1909, the company was renamed Pāhoa Lumber Company. In 1913, the main mill facilities were lost in a fire; it was rebuilt that year the company was renamed the Hawaiian Hardwood Company.

The company closed down in 1916 when the Santa Fe Railroad ended its contract to buy lumber. The defunct company then leased its mill facilities, buildings and railroad tracks to the expanding ʻŌlaʻa Sugar Company.  (Rechtman)

Today, Pāhoa Town has a main street – the former highway route before the construction of the by-pass road – that still retains much of the original street-wall of plantation-era structures, as well as some significant stand-alone buildings.

Most of the uses are commercial or civic.  The County has acquired a large tract of land within Pāhoa Town, which presents a significant opportunity for community revitalization and a possible catalyst for economic activity.  (Puna CDP)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ko‘olau Railway

As Hawai‘i’s most populous island, O‘ahu has probably the most expansive railway history, other than perhaps arguably the Big Island. The island was home to plantation railroads and military railroads.

Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham, the same father of the Hilo Railroad, conceived the Oahu Railway & Land Company in an effort to improve transportation on the island.

Beginning service in 1889 between Honolulu and Aiea, the railroad only continued to grow. By 1898, the mainline extended to Kahuku.

It was proposed, although never seriously considered to circumnavigate the island in a circle. Rather, numerous branch lines were constructed.

The development of sugar plantations in the Ko‘olauloa District began at Lā‘ie around 1868, when the first mill in the region was built.

In 1890, the Kahuku Plantation Company was organized, and shortly thereafter took on the processing of both the Lā‘ie and Kahuku crops.

By 1903 a railway between Lā‘ie and Kahuku Mill had been laid out, and James B Castle, partner in the corporation, was also planning his own plantation venture under the Koolau Agricultural Company and Koolau Railway Company, Limited. (Maly)

On July 5, 1905 Castle and others formed an association and filed with the Treasurer of the Territory of Hawaii a petition to incorporate under the name of Koolau Railway Company Ltd. for a term of fifty years.

The line was initially planned to run from the end of the Oahu Railway and Land Company’s track at Kahuku to Heeia, a distance of 25-miles.

By 1905, Castle’s Koolau Agricultural Company and Koolau Railway Company were initiating plans for the laying out of fields and planting sugar, and development of the railway system and support facilities in Kaluanui (‘Sacred Falls’) and other lands between Kahuku and Kahana Valley. (Livingston)

In 1906, Castle also secured a lease from Bishop Estate for more than 125 acres of kula lands in Kaluanui, for the term of 50 years, bringing to a close the tenure of the Hui Hoolimalima Aina o Kaluanui (Bishop Estate Lease No. 1219).

(The total acreage planted in Kaluanui was around 160 acres; and by 1922, cement-lined irrigation channels and flumes were developed to transport water from the Kaluanui-Kaliuwa‘a Stream to the fields – including those of neighboring ahupua‘a.)

The first 10 miles of the rail line to Kahana were completed in 1907 where construction stopped even though surveys were completed all the way to Honolulu.  By late-1908, the Koolau Railway Company, Limited, system was in service between Kahuku and Kahana.

Construction never resumed, probably due to the extremely high cost to build along the windward side of Oahu and a decided lack of traffic.

Joseph F Smith, a missionary whose first Mormon mission to Hawai‘i was in 1854, visited Lā‘ie in 1915, and remarked on the great changes made by the missionaries since his first visit …

“Besides the almost omnipresent automobile, a railroad nearly circumscribes this Island, with vast networks or rails permeating the sugar-cane fields. The old grass-thatched huts have given place to comfortable and pleasant homes and grounds beautified with evergreens and flowers.”

“Modern furniture, comforts, and conveniences of homes have supplanted the gourds, calabashes and pandanus-leaf mats, on which the natives slept, and the native kapa, which furnished their clothing and the covering of their beds. To a great extent the ancient and dim light of the kukui-nut and the oil lamp has given place to the brilliant illumination of modern electric lights.”

In 1916, the Kahuku Plantation leased some of its land for pineapple cultivation to one large grower (C Okayama) and other individual growers on small pieces of land.

The growers were obligated to sell their crop to the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Libby, McNeill & Libby of Honolulu, and the California Packing Corporation (which later became the Del Monte Corporation).

The Kahuku Plantation remained relatively small, with less than 4,000 acres under cultivation until the early 1900s, when it expanded to the southeast as far as Hau‘ula.

The Kahuku Plantation Company expanded by buying or incorporating other sugar plantation lands. In 1924, it bought the fields of the Koolau Agricultural Company as far south as Kahana Bay.

In 1931, the Laie Plantation Corporation was dissolved and their sugar lands, totally 2,700 acres, were purchased and added to the Kahuku Plantation.

Under the caption of “Laie Purchase,” the 1931 Kahuku Plantation Manager’s report for the year comments as follows: “Your company acquired the lease of Zion Securities agricultural lands and the transfer of leases previously held by them through Laie Plantation for a period of 25 years, dating from July 1, 1931.”

“Koolau Railway Company Ltd. was also bought from the Zion Securities Corporation. This railroad will be disincorporated as soon as possible and become purely a plantation railroad.”

The end for the cane hauling railroad at the Kahuku Plantation came in 1972, when this notice in the Honolulu Advertiser appeared: “The company had been losing money on the plantation for the last few years.”

“In 1968, A&B announced the closing of the plantation and the mill. The last crop was harvested in 1968, the last cane was ground at the mill on November 25, 1971, and the final paperwork was completed on February 1972, when the mill was locked to prevent vandalism.”

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pua‘a Pepeiaohao

With the arrival of Western ships, new plants and animals soon found their way to the Hawaiian Islands.

The simple‐seeming gift of a few cattle given to Kamehameha I by Captain George Vancouver in 1793 made a major impact on the Hawai`i’s economy and ecosystem.

Having never seen animals with horns before, the Hawaiian called them pua‘a pepeiaohao, literally “pigs with iron ears.”

It also spawned a rich tradition of cowboy and ranch culture that is still here today.

Spaniards introduced the first cattle to Veracruz, Mexico in 1521.  Vancouver picked up descendants of these animals from the Spanish mission in Monterey when he set off across the Pacific, intending to use them as food and gifts.

Cattle were not the only animals introduced to Hawai`i during this period.  In 1778, Captain Cook left both goats and pigs.

British introduced sheep in the 1790s and they all soon roamed on Mauna Kea and Hualālai.  In 1803, American Richard Cleveland presented horses ‐ a stallion and a mare ‐ to Kamehameha.

When Vancouver landed additional cattle at Kealakekua in 1794, he strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a 10‐year kapu on them to allow the herd to grow.

In the decades that followed, cattle flourished and turned into a dangerous nuisance.  By 1846, 25,000-wild cattle roamed at will and an additional 10,000-semi‐domesticated cattle lived alongside humans.

A wild bull or cow could weigh 1,200 to 1,500-pounds and had a six‐foot horn spread.  Vast herds destroyed natives’ crops, ate the thatching on houses, and hurt, attacked and sometimes killed people.

Kamehameha III lifted the kapu in 1830 and the hunting of wild cattle was encouraged.  The king hired cattle hunters from overseas to help in the effort; many of these were former convicts from Botany Bay in Australia.

Hunting sometimes ended in inadvertent tragedy.  In 1834, the trampled dead body of Scottish botanist David Douglas, for whom the Douglas Fir tree is named, was discovered in a cattle-trap pit on Mauna Kea.

Hawaiʻi’s wild cattle population needed to be controlled for safety reasons, but the arrival of cattle hunters and Mexican vaquero (“Paniolo”) also happened to coincide with an economic opportunity.

In the early-1830s, trade in sandalwood slowed down as island forests became depleted.  At about the same time, whaling ships hunting in the north Pacific began wintering in Hawaiian waters.

Ships provisioning in Hawaiʻi ports provided a market for salt beef, in addition to hides and tallow.  With the economic push of providing provisions to the whaling fleets, ranching became a commercial enterprise that grew in the islands.

Cattle ranching remains an important export and food industry in Hawai‘i. Currently, ranchers provide calves for finishing on the mainland and produce cattle for local consumption.

Cattle are Hawaii’s third most valuable agricultural commodity, worth about $44.8 million in 2017, though a history of having to respond to the whims of greater market forces has forced ranchers to constantly adapt to new changes in the supply chain. And for the past 30 years, cow-calf operations have been the best way for ranchers to make a living.

In 2019-2020, Idaho billionaire Frank VanderSloot assumed the leases for and purchased the slaughterhouses on O’ahu near Kapolei and on the Big Island in Paauilo, which together account for 70% of the state’s animal harvest capacity.

VanderSloot, founder of wellness company Melaleuca (the largest online wellness shopping club), recently completed upgrades to the O’ahu operation and work on the Big Island facility is underway. (Civil Beat)

When living in Waimea, I had a brief experience in “ranching.”

We picked up a day-old dairy bull calf from an Āhualoa dairy; we named him “Freezer Burn.”  We removed the middle seat and transported him back home in our VW van.  (I know; real cowboys don’t name their steers.)

After bottle-feeding him and briefly pasturing him, he ditched the premises and hooked up with part of the Parker Ranch herd.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kāneʻohe Pineapple

Sugarcane was introduced to Koʻolaupoko in 1865, when the Kingdom’s minister of finance and foreign affairs, Charles Coffin Harris, partnered with Queen Kalama to begin an operation known as the Kāneʻohe Sugar Company.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

By 1865, four plantations were in production, at Kualoa, Kaʻalaea, Waiheʻe and Kāneʻohe, and in the early 1880s, four more at Heʻeia, Kāneʻohe, Kahaluʻu and Ahuimanu, with a total of over 1,000-acres in cultivation in 1880.  (Coles)

After almost four decades of a thriving sugar industry in Koʻolaupoko, the tide eventually turned bad and saw the closures of all five sugar plantations by 1903. The closures were due to poor soil, uneven lands and the start-up of sugar plantations in ʻEwa, which were seeing much higher yields.

As sugar was on its way out in Koʻolaupoko, rice crops began to emerge as the next thriving industry.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)  In 1880 the first Chinese rice company started in the nearby Waiheʻe area. Abandoned systems of loʻi kalo were modified into rice paddies. The Kāneʻohe Rice Mill was built around 1892-1893 in nearby Waikalua.

By 1880, there were five sugar plantations in Kāneʻohe and a plantation and mill in Heʻeia. In the 1890s, the Heʻeia mill had its own railroad. By 1903 the growing of rice took over the production of sugar which had declined in Koʻolaupoko. Rice was grown in the Heʻeia wetland until the early 1920s. (Camvel)

Pineapples are typically grown in large fairly flat tracts of well-drained inter-mountain land that is composed of what is affectionately termed Hawaiian red dirt (the red color is due to the presence of the oxides of Fe). (Rubin, SOEST)

From 1901 to 1925 lands previously unused for agriculture were being covered up with pineapple fields, especially the hillsides and upslopes.  It was estimated that approximately 2500 acres of land throughout the Ko‘olaupoko region was converted to pineapple cultivation. (History of Koʻolaupoko)

The plantation was established in the windward side of O‘ahu around 1900 by the Hawaiian Development Company and became known as Koolau Fruit Company.

JB Castle and Walter MacFarlane were the key promoters of this early pineapple venture. In 1909, the Hawaiian Cannery Co began operating a small cannery at Kahalu‘u.  And by 1910, Castle was in possession of a thousand acres in Ahuimanu which were suitable for pineapple.

The following year, the Hawaiian Pineapple Co, which James D Dole had founded in 1901, bought out Castle’s Koolau Fruit Co., Ltd and sold it five years later to Libby, McNeil & Libby.

Libby, McNeil & Libby, with control of the Kahalu‘u land, built a large-scale cannery on the site; the cannery had an annual capacity of 250,000-cans.  (Thompson, Kahaluu)

Ten years later, the cannery represented a quarter of a million-dollar investment with a maximum of 750 regular employees, plus an additional 125 at the height of the harvesting season.

The company used a narrow-gauge railway to move the canned fruit to a wharf at the Waikāne Landing, from there sampans took the product to Honolulu for transshipment to other ports. (Conde, Light Railways)

The pineapple cannery along with numerous old-style plantation houses popped up and became known as “Libbyville” (named after its owners, Libby, McNeill, and Libby). (St John’s by the Sea now occupies the site.)

At its peak, 2,500 acres were under pineapple cultivation on Windward O‘ahu, and of this a large percentage was in the Kāne‘ohe Bay region.

The change in landscape to the Windward side by 1914 is reflected in the following sentences: “At last we reached the foot of the Pali … Joe and I looked over the surrounding hills, but looked in vain for the great areas of guava through which but a few months ago we had fought and cut our way.”

“As far as the eye could reach pineapple plantations had taken the place of the forest of wild guava.” (Cultural Surveys)  Libby’s pineapple covered the southern portion of Kāneʻohe, what is now the Pali Golf Course, Hawaiian Memorial Park and the surrounding area.

While Libby managed the operation of large tracts of land, it was noted that, “… much of the pineapple production was carried out by individual growers on small areas of five to 10 acres.”

“A man, a mule, a huli plow and a hoe provided most of the power and the equipment for these smaller operations. This was the typical pineapple production pattern in the area of Waikāne, Waiāhole, Kahaluʻu and ‘Ahuimanu.”

By 1923, it was evident that pineapple cultivation on the Windward area could not keep up with that in other O‘ahu areas. Crops on the Windward side were not yielding tonnages as compared with the Leeward side, fields were smaller, with wilt more prevalent, and growing costs considerably higher. Plantings were therefore reduced.

By this time, the condition of the Pali Road had been improved, and trucks with solid tires were available, so that the struggling pineapple operation found it more economical to haul the fresh pineapple to a central Libby Cannery in Honolulu.

The relatively inefficient, high production costs of operating many small, scattered fields resulted in a decision to discontinue pineapple growing on the Windward side.

The result was the closure of the cannery in 1923.   After the closure of the cannery, the pineapple fields were left to grow over and was then converted to grazing pasture land for cattle.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

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