Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Lani Moo

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

When Vancouver landed additional cattle at Kealakekua in 1794, he strongly encouraged King 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.  Kamehameha III lifted the kapu in 1830 and the hunting of wild cattle was encouraged.

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.

Now, roaming nearly 750,000-acres of pasture land (as of January 1, 2013,) the total number of cattle and calves on Hawai‘i’s ranches was estimated at 132,000-head. Of these, about 2,100 were milk cows; another 2,000 were milk cow replacements.

There are currently only three dairy farms operating in the state of Hawaiʻi. There were more than 20, up until the early 1980s, when the pesticide heptachlor was found in much of Hawaiʻi’s milk supply. Heptachlor was used by pineapple growers, and pineapple waste was commonly fed to dairy cows.  (dairystar)

Milk producer Meadow Gold Dairies Hawaiʻi traces its roots back to June 1897, when seven Oʻahu dairy farms formed a partnership to create a stronger presence in the marketplace.

The organization, comprised of the Honolulu Dairy, Kaaipu Dairy, Kapahulu Dairy, M. A. Silva Dairy, M. A. Baptista Dairy, Waialae Dairy and Woodlawn Dairy, came to be known as the Dairymen’s Association.

“It is a co-partnership rather than a cooperative plan. There is neither sentiment nor theory about the affair. It is the application of practical business methods and it may be said fairly and honestly that in banding themselves together the producers of milk for the public market benefit, largely and very decidedly, the consumers.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, March 29, 1898)

“There are now eight dairies in the Association. These under the separate managements used ten delivery outfits in the service of routes. Four wagons are used now. The expenses are reduced in a number of directions. The owners of the cows deliver the milk to the Association manager and receive a stipulated price for the same.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, March 29, 1898)

In order to promote more milk consumption, they later devised the ‘Healthy Baby Contest.’ The first took place in 1953 and, in cooperation with the Dairyman’s Association, was produced by the Honolulu Chinese Jaycees to promote healthy families in Hawai‘i.

The Dairymen’s Association’s sponsorship of the original Healthy Baby Contest aligned with its community initiatives at the time ― to raise awareness amongst Hawai‘i families of the importance of nutrition and healthy lifestyles – and drinking milk.

In 1949, the organization had already been taking a proactive approach in communicating and reaching out to Hawai‘i families and keiki when it introduced a young calf to Hawaiʻi, its Ambassador of Good Health and Nutrition.

A children’s contest was held to name the calf.

First grader Patricia Colburn’s entry, Lani Moo, was selected as the name of Hawaiʻi’s most famous cow.  (MeadowGold)

Over the years, the various Lani Moos had various homes – today’s dairy diva resides at the Honolulu Zoo.

The Honolulu Zoo unveiled the Lani Moo Keiki Corner interactive educational exhibit, which teaches children about cows, milk and nutrition.

In addition, a costumed Lani Moo (and side-kick Kawika) travels to various events to help spread the message.

In 1959, the Dairymen’s Association, Ltd name changed to Meadow Gold Dairies Hawai‘i, and the name for the Healthy Baby Contest followed suit.

Meadow Gold Dairies Hawai‘i has been the title sponsor of the O‘ahu Healthy Baby Contest for decades, and through a few incarnations.

Later in 1986 the event was sponsored by Borden, Inc., which was the parent company of Meadow Gold Dairies Hawai‘i at the time.  Contests are going on now across the islands to crown Hawaiʻi’s healthy babies.

Our family had experience with the Healthy Baby Contest.

Two brothers (my nephews) entered in 1996 and 1998, respectively.  Unfortunately, young Jack White would rather have been elsewhere in 1996 (some photos in the album (he’s in the red palaka) show his various stages of tantrum.)

A couple years later, younger brother Monte White won 1st place in Waimea on the Island of Hawaiʻi (our old home town.)  Monte recently graduated from college; he still has his 1st place trophy (photos in the album show the later Monte – he was about as large as the trophy in 1998.)

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Generations

Ichi, Ni, San, Shi, Go, Roku, Shichi, Hachi, Kyu, Jyu

That’s counting in Japanese, from 1 to 10.

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, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi. Concerned that the Chinese were taking too strong a representation in the labor market, the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration. Further government regulations, introduced 1886-1892, virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In 1868, an American businessman, Eugene M Van Reed, sent a group of approximately 150-Japanese to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam. This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM)

However, for the next two decades the Meiji government prohibited the departure of “immigrants” due to the slave-like treatment that the first Japanese migrants received in Hawaiʻi and Guam. (JANM)

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government and an economic depression in Japan served as motivation for agricultural workers to move from their homeland. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company City of Tokio on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885.

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, a formal immigration treaty was concluded between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886. The treaty stipulated that the Hawaiʻi government would be held responsible for employers’ treatment of Japanese immigrants.

OK, why the initially counting lesson?

As suggested by the title, the respective generations of Japanese in the Islands and elsewhere are identified by the simple numbering pattern. Literally speaking, the Japanese terms Issei, Nisei, Sansei, etc mean first, second and third generation.

The Issei (first generation) were born in Japan and emigrated here from 1885 to 1924 (when Congress stopped all legal migration.) (The Immigration Act of 1924 (aka Johnson-Reed Act) limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia. (State Department))

Like the other ethnic immigrant groups, the Issei worked on sugar and pineapple plantations. The term Issei came into common use and represented the idea of a new beginning and belonging.

The children of the Issei were the Nisei, the second generation in Hawaiʻi and the first generation of Japanese descent to be born and receive their entire education in America, learning Western values and holding US citizenship.

However, to some degree, preservation of their mother language and culture was reinforced by attending Japanese language schools and by being members of the audience at Japanese cultural plays.

The Nisei hold a significant legacy in Hawaiʻi – this is the generation through the World War II years that included internment for some and service in the US military for many.

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400-local Japanese were interned in Hawaiʻi, along with about 1,000-family members. The number of Japanese in Hawai‘i who were detained was small relative to the total Japanese population here, less than 1%.

By contrast, Executive Order 9066, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on February 19, 1942, authorized the mass exclusion and detention of all Japanese Americans living in the West Coast states, resulting in the eventual incarceration of 120,000-people.

The Nisei made up the storied 442nd Combat Team and 100th Infantry Battalion (which later became the 1st Battalion of the 442nd,) composed entirely of Americans of Japanese ancestry.

Having been born in the Islands, all of the men were citizens of the US; however, very few had ever been to Japan and most of them could not speak Japanese. The “Go For Broke” soldiers of the 442nd are the most decorated infantry regiment in the US Army.

Another term used to describe some of the generations that followed the Issei were the Kibei (return to America) – those who were American born, but who were educated in Japan and returned home to America.

Subsequent generations follow the simple counting patter; the Sansei were children born to the Nisei (the third generation;) Yonsei, the fourth generation – born to at least one Sansei parent and Gosei, the fifth generation – the generation of people born to at least one Yonsei parent, etc.

The Japanese did not just emigrate to Hawaiʻi and the US. Brazil is home to the largest Japanese population outside of Japan (they first started emigrating there in 1908 to work on the coffee plantations.) There were between 1.5-million people of Japanese descent in Brazil; 1.3-million in all of the US, with a little over 185,000 in Hawaiʻi.

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“Where Rail Meets Sail”

Actually, it’s where the river, railway and roadway intersect; but that’s getting a little ahead of the story.

The original inhabitants of the area were variously called The Cawalitz, Cow-a-lidsk, Cowalitsk, Cow-e-lis-kee, Cowelits, Cowlitch, Co-litsick, Kawelitsk, Cowalitsk, Kowlitz, Kowlitz; but the most common name is Cowlitz.

At the time of first contact with Europeans and Americans, there were as many as 6,000-members of the tribe who lived in cedar-plank longhouses in about 30-villages along the river and its tributaries.

In the Lewis and Clark journals, Lewis and Clark refer to the river as “Cath la haws Creek” (1805,) while Ordway calls the river “Calams” and Whitehouse calls the river “Calamus” (1806.)

The river is a 45-mile tributary of the Columbia River, in the state of Washington. It begins on the southwest slope of Mt. St. Helens and flows west-southwest and enters the Columbia River.

While steep in its upper reaches, at the lower 8-miles it is flat to moderate. At the mouth, there’s a town.  The town’s motto is “The Little Town with the Big Aloha Spirit.”

The town is named after the river; the river is named after a Hawaiian, John Kalama.

John Kalama was born in Kula, Maui in 1814; he left home at sixteen to seek employment. John joined a fur-trading vessel returning to the Northwest Coast of America.

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) records indicate Kalama started working there in 1837, and continued working for the firm until 1850.  He worked at several of the HBC posts, Nez Perces, Snake Party, Nisqually, Fort Vancouver and Cowlitz Farm.

HBC was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

Fast forward 150-years and HBC merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise now spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (modern-day Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)

Fur traders working for the HBC traveled an area of more than 700,000-square miles that stretched from Russian Alaska to Mexican California and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Ships sailed from London around Cape Horn around South America and then to forts and posts along the Pacific Coast via the Hawaiian Islands.  Trappers crossing overland faced a journey of 2,000-miles that took three months.

By 1824, HBC employed thirty-five Hawaiians west of the Rocky Mountains.  It is estimated that by 1844 between 300 and 400-Hawaiians were in HBC service in the Pacific Northwest, both in vessels and at posts.  By 1846, Hawaiians made up half of the Hudson’s Bay workforce.

Hawaiians worked as trappers, laborers, millers, sailors, gardeners and cooks; however, HBC employed more people at agriculture than any other activity.

The daily routine was work from sun up to sun down, with only Sundays off.  Kalama’s service record notes he was employed as a Middleman and Laborer.

Kalama met and married Mary Martin, one of five daughters of Indian Martin, chief of the Nisqually tribe in southern Puget Sound.  He and his wife lived at the mouth of the river which now bears his name, the Kalama River (Calama River is an old variant name.)

He hunted, fished and trapped for many years, and the area soon became recognized as his domain.  (The Kalama family also once owned land where Fort Lewis now stands.)

John and Mary had one son, Peter Kalama, born in 1860. When Peter was about seven years old, Mary died and Peter went to live with other members of the Nisqually tribe.   Peter graduated at the top of his class at Chemawa Indian School.  (Naughton)

John Kalama married a second time and had a daughter, but there are no other records of this second child. John died around 1870.  (KalamaCofC)

The town on the river was first settled in 1853 by Ezra Meeker and his family. One year later, Meeker moved to north Puyallup, Washington, but he sold his Donation Land Claim to a Mr. Davenport, who, with a few others, permanently settled in the area.

The present day City of Kalama was born in 1870 when the Northern Pacific Railway Company (NP) purchased 700-acres for the terminus of the new railroad and turned the first shovel of dirt.

The town was officially named in 1871 by General John Sprague, an agent for the Northern Pacific; Sprague adopted the same name as the Kalama River that runs through the area just to the north of town.  (KalamaCofC)

Near the present day location of the Kalama Marina, the Northern Pacific Railroad began construction of the first mainline rails in the northwestern United States on March 19, 1871; Northern Pacific established its headquarters in Kalama (the headquarters was later moved to Tacoma.)

This western rail would ultimately connect with work started on February 15, 1870 near Carlton, Minnesota, creating a transcontinental line across the northern portion of the United States.

Kalama was selected because Northern Pacific engineers determined it was down-river from winter river ice, the Columbia River channel depth was the same as at the river’s bar at Astoria, and it was close to Portland and the Willamette Valley.

Since the Columbia was the main ‘highway,’ this area became more closely tied economically with Portland and Astoria.  The first regularly scheduled trains between Kalama and Tacoma began January 5, 1874.

Kalama was entirely a Northern Pacific railroad creation. Northern Pacific built a dock, sawmill, car shop, roundhouse, turntable, hotels, hospital, stores and homes.

In just a few months into 1870, the working population exploded to approximately 3,500 and the town had added tents, saloons, a brewery, and a gambling hall. Soon the town had a motto: “Rail Meets Sail”.

The population of Kalama peaked at 5,000 people, but in early 1874, the railroad moved its headquarters to Tacoma, and by 1877, only 700 people remained in Kalama.

It’s now home to about 2,500 (in town and about 5,500 in the surrounding area.)  Kalama is also home to one of the tallest single-log totem poles in the world (140-feet tall,) carved by Chief Lelooska.

River and Railway: check … what about the Road?

Interstate 5 (I-5) runs through Kalama, with 3-exits serving the town and surrounding community (I-5 runs from Mexico to Canada.)

Its path follows an old Indian trail connecting the Pacific Northwest with California’s Central Valley.  By the 1820s, trappers from the Hudson’s Bay Company were the first non-Native Americans to use the route of today’s I-5.

by Peter T Young 4 Comments

A Short Piece on a Short Cut

It wasn’t the same back then; they didn’t have two cars in the garage and other mobility options. Back then, land travel was only foot traffic, over little more than trails and pathways.

In 1803, the first horses arrived. However, until the mid-1800s, overland travel was predominantly by foot and followed the traditional trails.

By the 1840s, the use of introduced horses, mules and bullocks for transportation was increasing, and many traditional trails were modified by removing the smooth stepping stones that caused the animals to slip.

In 1868, horse-drawn carts operated by the Pioneer Omnibus Line went into operation in Honolulu, beginning the first public transit service in the Hawaiian Islands.

The first gasoline-powered automobile arrived in the Islands in 1900. That year, an electric trolley (tram line) was put into operation in Honolulu, and then in 1902, a tram line was built to connect Waikīkī and downtown Honolulu. The electric trolley replaced the horse/mule-driven tram cars.

“In those days – there were only four automobiles on Oahu in 1901 – you lived downtown because you worked downtown, you couldn’t live in Kaimuki or in Manoa.” (star-bulletin) The tram helped changed that.

In 1899, one of Honolulu’s first subdivisions was laid out – Pacific Heights, just above Honolulu. They built the Pacific Heights Electric Railway to support the housing development.

If you look at the layout and topography of Pacific Heights, due to the slope, as you go up the hill, the road switches back and forth – making the walk a lot longer. You quickly see the challenges those in the middle or upper section have in getting to the bottom.

It is not clear how far the tram traveled up the subdivision; but if you lived near the top and needed to get up/down the hill, you had a long way to go to get there.

The developer must have seen that, too.

Hidden in overgrowth (or in use by neighboring properties,) is a flight of stone steps from the bottom of the subdivision to the middle section of the subdivision (as the road bends back, just above the Water Department facility;) it was in the original subdivision.

Middle and upper homeowners walking up/down the hill could bypass the lower switchbacks and take a bee-line to/from the bottom.

Early mapping of the subdivision notes this short cut down the hill.

While Charles Desky (the developer) is reported to have “pulled several shady land transactions”, he got it right, here – with the stone step short cut. The images show portions of the stone steps in the Pacific Heights short cut.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiʻi and the American Civil War

When the first shot of the American Civil War was fired at Fort Sumter off the coast of South Carolina on April 12, 1861, nearly six thousand miles away, the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi was a sovereign nation.

On August 26, 1861, five months after the outbreak of hostilities and four months after the news of Civil War arrived in Honolulu, Kamehameha IV issued a Proclamation that, in part, stated, “hostilities are now unhappily pending between the Government of the United States, and certain States thereof styling themselves “The Confederate States of America”.”

With the Proclamation, the King also stated “Our neutrality between said contending parties.”

The discussion of neutrality versus partisanship had to include the reality that the Hawaiian kingdom had no standing army, and most importantly, no navy to protect its harbors if supporting either the Union or Confederacy brought the other side’s vessels to threaten the principal cities of Honolulu or Lāhainā. (Illinois-edu)

Likewise, while the majority of foreigners in Hawaiʻi were Americans from New England who supported the Union cause with great fervor, leadership and advisors to the King included European ties who believed that the Confederacy would succeed in securing its independence.

King Kamehameha IV declared a neutral stance but held largely Unionist sympathies – as did the majority of people living in Hawaiʻi. (NPS)

Although neutrality was declared, Hawaiʻi’s close relationship economically, diplomatically and socially with the United States ensured that the wake of the American Civil War reached the Hawaiian Islands.

Slavery was prohibited by Hawaiʻi’s Constitution of 1852; however, there was considerable debate comparing it to the contact labor system that brought workers from Asia to fill the growing need for labor on the sugar plantations.

This was a kind of indentured servitude, some in Hawaiʻi argued, that was little better than American slavery, a position that tended to fuel opposition to the American slaveholding South.

Prior to the Civil War, whaling and related activities were the primary economic engine of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The war enabled Hawaiʻi to fill part of the void left by the absence of then-blockaded southern exports, including sugar.

Hawaiian-grown sugar soon replaced much of this southern sugar through the duration of the conflict. By the end of the war, over thirty extremely prosperous plantations were in operation and expanded to new levels previously unheard of before the war’s commencement.

In part, because of this boom in business, the majority of Americans living and working on the islands were devoutly pro-Unionist. In fact, many living in Hawaiʻi had an ardent desire to serve in the armed forces.

Hawaiʻi’s neutrality did not prevent many of its citizens from enlisting in either Union or Confederate forces. One, a Hawaiian from Hilo, was Henry Hoʻolulu Pitman, son of Kinoʻole O Liliha, a Hawaiian high chiefess of Hilo. He enlisted in the Union Army and later died of disease in Richmond, Virginia’s infamous Libby Prison.

A dozen Hawaiians (possibly from captured ships) also served as Confederate sailors aboard the famous raider CSS Shenandoah which circumnavigated the globe and sank or captured nearly forty Union and merchant vessels throughout the Pacific. (Captured sailors could be put in chains below deck, marooned on an island or be given the chance to join the crew of the Southern vessel – many chose the latter.)

About 40 individuals who were born and raised in Hawaiʻi served in the Civil War. As many as 200 immigrants to Hawaiʻi who were living here at the outbreak of the war in 1861 may have served in the conflict.

To honor these men, the Hawaiʻi Sons of the Civil War Memorial Committee installed a bronze and stone memorial at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. It is dedicated to those from Hawai’i who served in the war.

Oʻahu Cemetery has thirty Union veterans who rest in a Grand Army of the Republic section of the burial ground (it is identified with four cannons at each corner.) (The Grand Army of the Republic was founded by Union veterans in Decatur, Illinois, in 1866.)

The war lasted from 1861 to 1865. Immediately following the war, many of the once prosperous sugar plantations collapsed as a result of the northern states reestablishing trade with their southern counterparts.

On May 11, 1865, Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (noting the death of Abraham Lincoln on April 15, 1865) noted “No words of ours can do justice to our grief. … All over the world the friends of liberty and justice, the poor, the oppressed everywhere, will weep for him, the Savior of his country, the Liberator of four million slaves, the People’s friend. … His name will forever be revered … The Nation still lives.”

In 1868, three years after the Civil War ended, a group of Union veterans established “Decoration Day” on May 30 as a time to remember and decorate the graves of service members with flowers, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. By the end of the 19th century, Memorial Day ceremonies were being held on May 30 throughout the nation.

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