General | Page 148 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

July 11, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaupapa Field System

Molokai Island can be divided into three ecological regions based on rainfall, exposure to northeast trade winds and landform: (1) the wet, windward valleys of the north shore, (2) the dry, leeward valleys of the south shore, and (3) the arid rocklands of the island’s west end.

The Kalaupapa Peninsula, located at the western end of these valleys, is a unique landform formed by a volcanic rejuvenation centered on the Kauhakō Crater (about 330-thousand years ago,) at the base of the north shore’s cliffs.

Archaeological and carbon-dating evidence indicate that the initial settlement and presence of people on the Kalaupapa (“the flat plain”) peninsula on the Island of Molokai was between 800 and 1200.

Next to the peninsula is a distinctly-different, wet ecological zone with sediment soils distributed at the bottoms of the short Waihānau and Wai‘ale‘ia Valleys, the large Waikolu Valley and along the base of the cliffs.

Based on archaeological studies, the northern portion of the peninsula has “two main types of agricultural complexes … alignments with enclosures around them, and alignments without enclosures”. The density of plots within the later type suggested “possible intensification of an earlier field system”.

Identified as the Kalaupapa Field System, there is a grid of rain-fed plots, defined by low stone field walls built, in part, to shelter sweet potatoes and other crops from trade winds, that cover the Kalaupapa Peninsula.

It appears that the field system was a secondary area of settlement and agricultural development, with the wetter valley and sediment soil being the preferred areas.

Like other windward areas, wind erosion is a problem. To address this, long, narrow linear plots (defined by low field walls,) are packed densely together in locations exposed to the northeast trade winds. In addition, plots were in swales between boulder outcrops.

Initial theories suggested the entire field system was primarily the result of a historic boom in the production of potatoes for “gold rush” markets in California.

Recent work by various teams of archaeologists, which included surveys in different ecological zones – specifically, the peninsula and several valleys – revealed a well-preserved archaeological landscape across the region.

Instead of enclosed fields associated with the more recent historic era, archaeologists found dense rows of unenclosed alignments and substantial house sites quite unlike the temporary shelters found in other Hawaiian field systems.

The findings suggest that early agricultural development in the area started well before the “gold rush” exports and was first concentrated in valleys (with permanent streams) and, perhaps more significantly, that most of the Kalaupapa Field System was likely to have been built before European contact.

Although limited cultivation in dryland environments may have begun as early as 1200 and continued through the 13th century, widespread burning across the Kalaupapa Peninsula, which archaeologists suggest signals of the beginning of the Kalaupapa Field System, does not commence until 1450-1550.

It appears that not only is there a correlation between rich, geologically young soils and Hawaiian dryland intensive agricultural systems, but also the creation of these large-scale systems around 1400 appears to have been nearly simultaneous in both windward and leeward districts.

Then, between 1650 and 1795, there were increases in the peninsula population, indicated by house sites, rock shelters, an animal enclosure, a possible shrine and a site interpreted as a men’s house (mua.)

In terms of agriculture, there is good evidence that people continued to actively cultivate the entire area throughout this period.

Following the abandonment of the field system at the end of the 18th century, settlement shifted to small house sites spread along the coast and local roadways.

The introduction of cattle in 1830 caused the construction of large, architecturally-distinct walls to protect fields and yards from roving animals.

In 1849, portions of the fields were reactivated and intensified to supply potatoes and other crops to California’s “gold rush” markets.

The Kingdom of Hawaiʻi instituted in 1865 a century-long program of segregation and isolation of patients with Hansen’s Disease (leprosy) and patients were banished to the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa, displacing resident families.

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Kalaupapa_Field_System_Walls-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Walls-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Field-Plot-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Field_Plot-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Zones-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-densely packed windbreak field walls are visible from the air-(McCoy)

Kalaupapa_Field_System-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-(SJSU-McCoy)-Island_Map

Kalaupapa_Field_System-Illustration_of_Erosion-Zones-(SJSU-McCoy)-Map

July 10, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Japanese Internment

During World War II, Japanese Americans were incarcerated in at least eight locations in Hawaiʻi.

These sites that include Honouliuli Gulch, Sand Island, and the U.S. Immigration Station on Oahu, the Kilauea Military Camp on the Big Island, Haiku Camp and Wailuku County Jail on Maui, and the Kalaheo Stockade and Waialua County Jail on Kauai.

The forced removal of these individuals began a nearly four-year odyssey to a series of camps in Hawaiʻi and on the continental United States.

They were put in these camps, not because they had been tried and found guilty of something, but because either they or their parents or ancestors were from Japan and, as such, they were deemed a “threat” to national security.

In all, between 1,200 and 1,400 local Japanese were interned, 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 detainees were never formally charged and granted only token hearings. Many of the detainees’ sons served with distinction in the US armed forces, including the legendary 100th Battalion, 442nd Regimental Combat Team and Military Intelligence Service.

During the war, there was a Hawaii Defense Act, Order No. 5 that stated “all aliens were forbidden from possessing weapons, firearms, explosives short-wave radio receiving sets, transmitting sets, cameras, or maps of any United States military or naval installation.”

They could not travel by air, change residence or occupation or move without written permission from the provost marshal.

On December 8, 1941, the first detention camp was set up on Sand Island. Several factors made Sand Island a logical place for establishment of the first detention camp. Geographically, it was an island immediately adjacent to the city of Honolulu in the Honolulu Harbor.

The Territorial Quarantine Hospital had been located on Sand Island and it had housing, food prep and administrative facilities.

Within one week of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the FBI detained 370 Japanese, 98 German and 14 Italians. Almost all of the Japanese detainees were men; of the European detainees, many were women. The European and Japanese internees were segregated.

The first POW of the war (Ensign Kazuo Sakamaki, of the captured Japanese submarine that beached at Waimanalo) was also interned at Sand Island.

Each compound operated its own mess and maintained its own sanitary and internal administrations. The detainees supplied their own recreational activities, such as softball and volleyball games. Each compound had its own spokesman.

While most of the internees were residents of Oʻahu, there were Japanese detained on the Neighbor Islands.

On Kauai internees were crowded into the county jail. According to Gwen Allen (Hawaii War Years), the December 12, 1941 issue of the Kauai newspaper reported that “the men are building double decker bunks.” On the Big Island, detainees were interned at Kilauea Military Camp at Volcano.

Restrictions at each were different. On Kau‘i, after two days of war, a newspaper announcement invited families to call on detainees any day between 1 pm and 3 pm and they were allowed to take clean laundry and simple Japanese food.

On Maui, each detainee was given a questionnaire asking if they had any animals that needed feeding and other care, and if so, where can they be found. On the Big Island, there was no public visiting until February 14, 1942.

For some O‘ahu internees, they began their detention at the Immigration Station at Fort Armstrong and were then moved to Sand Island. Internees at Sand Island lived in tents until wooden barracks were built.

“Until books and other materials were allowed, the internees passed the time by smoothing sea shells for necklaces by rolling them on the concrete floors.”

In March 1942, Sand Island closed. Some detainees were sent to Honouliuli Internment camp.

Because arrests and detentions continued through the war, the community remained on edge, fearful as to who might be next. Japanese culture became equated with Japanese political affiliation, and Japanese language clothing and customs suddenly disappeared.

Though some detainees were released after a short imprisonment, the majority were detained for the duration of the war, with most eventually transferred to camps on the continental United States, for a period approaching four years.

Most eventually returned to Hawai‘i after the war.

In 2006, President Bush signed the Camp Preservation Bill (HR 1492), which authorized $38 million in funding for the preservation of former World War II confinement sites.

In part, the intent is that the Honouliuli site become a public historical park where the Hawai‘i internees story can be shared with future generations.

The fact that the internment did happen here in the Hawaiʻi are something to never forget.

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JapaneseAmericansChildrenPledgingAllegiance1942

Honouliuli-

Honouliuli_Camp

Sand_Island-Gate-Fence

Sand_Island-camp

Sand_Island-Aerial

Sand Island-Internee tents shortly after the camp opened in December, 1941

Sand Island, 1946. What remains of the internment camp can be seen in the middle portion of the image.

Kilauea Military Camp, 1942

Hawai‘i internee group at Sante Fe camp, 1944

Ansel_Adams,_Baseball_game_at_Manzanar,_1943

Sand_Island-Camp-Layout

japanese-internment-poster

July 8, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haiku Valley Communications … and Stairway

With World War II underway, the Navy recognized the need to be able to communicate across the Pacific.

A plan was proposed in the early spring of 1942; a group of radio experts determined a superpower radio station with pan-Pacific range might be built provided that the antenna could be raised high enough above the ground.

The greater the power to be radiated, the higher and larger must be the antenna system and the network of ground wires under it.

An Alexanderson Alternator was the sending source; it is a rotating machine invented in 1904 for use as a radio transmitter (as a technology, it was later replaced by vacuum tube transmitters.)

The Navy discovered that, rather than the conventional steel radio tower, the best way to accomplish that was by stringing copper cable between the peaks of two mountains with vertical drops.

The solution was to find a topographic feature that would act like the “unbuildable” tall tower. Using technology developed pre-World War I, they strategically positioned four Alexanderson Alternators; one was located in Haiku Valley.

Haiku Valley with its horseshoe shape and sheer side-walls filled the prescription perfectly, except for the logistical nightmare of constructing in an all but inaccessible area.

Then stepped forward (and up) two pioneers, Bill Adams and Louis Otto, who in 21-days, climbed the vertical cliffs in Haiku Valley, pounding in iron spikes into the face of the cliff (to be used as supports for a ladder and wooden staircase up the mountain.)

The Navy then installed a lift to haul up materials and strung cables across the valley. The Alexanderson Alternator radio system, transmitting Morse code across the Pacific, was operational in 3-months.

The equipment at Haiku provided reliable transoceanic radiotelegraph communication and was able to send signals to submarines during World War 2 – while they remained underwater – as far away as Tokyo Bay.

The Navy maintained the Haiku system from 1943 to 1970, when they reconfigured the facility as an OMEGA radio navigation system: it then became part of a network of worldwide OMEGA stations (two US stations (Haiku and North Dakota,) joined by Argentina, Norway, Liberia, France, Japan and Australia.)

When the eight station chain became operational, day to day operations at Haiku were managed by the United States Coast Guard and was used by several airlines flying long range routes over water, as well as by military forces. The new station could radiate transmissions at a power of 10,000-watts and over an 8,000-mile radius.

The OMEGA antenna system reaches 7,200-feet across Haiku Valley and is 1,250-feet above the ground. The anchors weigh over 180,000-pounds. Unlike the original construction for the Alexanderson Alternator (climbing the cliff,) a helicopter, helium balloons and hot air balloons were used in erecting the anchors and placing the wires.

OMEGA was the first truly-global radio navigation system and had the ability to achieve a four-mile accuracy when fixing a position for aircraft.

Using receiver units, it enabled ships and aircraft to determine their position by receiving very low frequency radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed terrestrial radio beacons. The Haiku OMEGA facility became operational around 1971 and was shut down in 1997.

Initially, the system was to be used for navigating nuclear bombers across the North Pole to Russia. Later, it was found useful for submarines and aircraft.

With the Global Positioning System (GPS) being declared fully operational, the use of OMEGA had dwindled to a point where continued operation was not economically justified; it ended on September 30, 1997.

Obviously, all of this ultimately leads us to a discussion on the Haiku Ladder, Haiku Stairs – the Stairway to Heaven.

The Stairway is a 3,922-step ladder/stairway ascending the summit of the Koʻolau mountain range. First built by the Navy in 1942 to access transmission facilities at the top of the ridge, the wooden stairs were replaced in 1955 with ones built of galvanized metal.

In 1997, after the OMEGA facility was abandoned and plans were underway to remove the Stairs, Mayor Harris requested that the Coast Guard transfer the Stairs to the City. The City then spent $875,000 to repair the Haiku Stairs.

The City had planned to reopen the Haiku Stairs in October 2002. But from 2002 to 2003, the popular hiking attraction became a point of contention with area residents.

They complained that as many as 200-hikers a day were trespassing through their property, parking on their streets, blocking mail delivery and trash pickup and arriving early in the morning, causing dogs to bark and waking residents.

Then, in 2005, Mayor Hannemann tried to transfer the Stairs to DLNR. I was DLNR Director then. While I believe the stairs are an excellent climbing (and vertigo) experience, I do not believe its ownership and operation is a state concern. (It is certainly not a natural trail, that’s the kind of stuff DLNR deals with.)

We recommended that a private entity step forward and manage the stairs – for the City or lease it from them. We believed that an operator could charge a fee for hikers to climb the stairs and use the revenue for operations and insurance.

The Stairs remain closed.

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Junction of Haiku Road and Kamehameha Highway.-(DavidJessup)-

Black arrow points out the 60 foot tower on the North cliff. The white arrow indicates the lower hoist A frame-(DavidJessup)-

Bomb proof transmitter building - view east-(DavidJessup)-

CCL house at the peak showing the upper hoist house-(DavidJessup)-

Cement headed for the top of the South cliff-(DavidJessup)-

View West. Cage for the South hoist.

Construction of four antennas, each over a mile in length, had just begun-(DavidJessup)-1943

Kaneohe_Omega_Transmitter_with_CH-53_1987

Looking down from Transmitter Building-(DavidJessup)-

Very Low Frequency Alternator transmitted 200,000 watts of radio signal at a frequency of 16.8 Khz-(DavidJessup)-

Wooden_Ladder-cliff_falls_away_on_each_side-(DavidJessup)-

July 6, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Award Winning Okolehao

“There is enough okolehao in Honolulu today to make the whole town drunk.”

“A recent arrival from Ti-root Gulch, Ke‘ei, Kealakekua, Hawaii, talked interestingly to an Advertiser man of the manufacture of the frisky spirit yesterday.”

“Keei, by the way, is the only place boasting an okolehao distillery in the Territory.”

“The distillery has been closed down, for alterations and improvements, nearly 3000 gallons of raw spirit having been turned out during the run.”

“This is now in bonded warehouse in Honolulu, in eleven charred barrels with the designation “okolehao” burned into each head. The liquor in its present state is known as proof spirits.”

“The product of the Keei plant is said to be a liquor as clear as crystal. It is said that illicitly-distilled okolehao sent from here took prizes at The Paris Exposition and the Chicago World’s Fair. It is the purest spirit known and the only liqueur to be distilled from a root.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 6, 1907)

Eben Low tells the story … “‘It happened way back in the ‘80s – to be exact, 1889,’ said Low. ‘Col. Sam Parker have been given two gallons of okolehao which had been distilled in Waimanu valley, on the island of Hawaii. This was real okolehao, not the ‘rotgut’ which is being peddled about the country today ruining those who drink it.’”

“‘In the old days, the Hawaiians of Waimanu were noted for the excellence of the liquor they made. Copper stills were used and the liquor was given three different distillations.’”

“‘In the days of the monarchy it was illegal to have okolehao in your possession and the penalty for such an offense was severe. After sampling this liquor of Col Parker’s I decided to send some to the Paris Exposition along with a lot of other native products which were being prepared at that time.’”

“‘I did not want to take any chances of violating the law, however, and consulted John E Hassinger, who was then chief clerk of the department of the interior. Lorrin A Thurston was secretary.’”

“‘Hassinger told me that would be granted immunity provided that he received a sample.’”

“‘I took a gallon of the liquor to Macfarlane & Co, then the leading wholesale liquor dealers of this territory, and had the liquor bottled. One was given to Hassinger. Judge Dole received another, one I kept for myself and the last was prepared for the Paris Exposition.’”

“‘I designed a most attractive label and then wrote a description in Hawaiian and English as to how the beverage was made. I had another description written in French by the late Pierre Jones.’”

“‘In due time this bottle of okolehao was sent to Paris with the rest of the Hawaiian exhibit. Col ZS Spalding was the Hawaiian commissioner as the exposition. When the day of the awarding prizes arrived, he and the French awarding committee visited the Hawaiian exhibit.’”

“‘Spalding afterwards told me that the most outstanding and prominent feature of the exhibit was this artistically labeled bottle of okolehao. He was so astonished at seeing it there that he ordered it opened immediately.’”

“‘It was, in fact, when the committee and Spalding got through testing the quality of the exhibit there was none of the ti left and they immediately awarded the exhibit a bronze medal for quality and purity.’”

“‘Several months later, concluded Low, ‘a most official looking document addressed to ‘the government of Hawaii’ arrived here. It contained a diploma of award and a bronze medal – both of which had ben won by this lone bottle of okolehao.’”

“‘The diploma was in French but bracketed at the of the document was Eben Low.’” (Star Bulletin, October 10, 1925)

“‘As far as I know,’ continued Rawhide Ben, ‘it was the only award Hawaii got.’”

“‘To snub up this yarn,’ he finished, ‘Hassinger’s bottle didn’t last 24 hours. Judge Dole kept his. Before he died he told me I could have it. That bottle was snitched from my hotel room. But this bottle of mine,’ he fondled it ‘… well, when the time comes, I’m going to pull the cork and try it.’”

“Eben’s bottle of 50 year old oke is legal, federal authorities said today, although illegal when made and with no tax ever having been paid.” (October 24, 1938)

“The federal authorities have decided to make war upon our local moonshiners. The lay of the land in the Territory lends itself easily to the easily to carrying on of Illicit distilling.”

“With high mountains deep valleys, ample wood for fuel, excellent places for observing anybody coming near the lair, and with the natural leniency of those around to protect, or at least to say nothing about the moonshiners, there has been a great opportunity for this class of illicit work.”

It has been carried on close to the environs of the city and even within the city limits. The local police have been forever after these people, but the revenue officers, whose whole attention has to be given to the matter are likely to be more successful when they thoroughly understand local conditions.”

“The practice of distilling the liquor, called by the euphonious name of okolehao, from the ti root, was introduced by old lags from Australia.”

“In the early and middle part of the last century quite a number of convicts found their way here, one lot arriving in a schooner from which they landed near Kawaihae, burning their vessel to hide its identity.”

“Well, the lags started making liquor from ti root, and taught the Hawaiians. Since then the Hawaiian has found out for himself that liquor can be made from other things besides ti root. Molasses is very largely used in the manufacture of okolehao.”

“The best okolehao, however, is made from the ti root, and it was for a bottle of this that Eben Low received a medal from the Paris exposition. It was the only liquor of its class.” (Hawaiian Star, April 14, 1920)

“‘I still have the diploma, the medal and last, but not least, my bottle of okolehao. Now that so much publicity has been given to the latter I think I will have it stored in my safe deposit box.’” (Low; Star Bulletin, October 25, 1925)

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Eben Low pulling prized Okolehao from safe-SB-10-24-1938

Hawaiian Exhibit, Exposition Universelle, Paris, 1889

Eben ‘Rawhide Ben’ Low-PP-75-5-006-1931-400

Eben ‘Rawhide Ben’ Low-PP-75-5-006-1931

July 5, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kuapā Pond

Kuapā Pond, also known as Keahupuaomaunalua (“the shrine of the baby mullet at Maunalua”) was once the largest loko kuapā on O‘ahu, estimated at approximately 523-acres.

Kuapā Pond was apparently created near the end of the ice age, when the rising sea level caused the shoreline to retreat and partial erosion of the headlands adjacent to the bay formed sediment that accreted to form a barrier beach at the mouth of the pond, creating a lagoon.

Early Hawaiians used the natural lagoon as a fishpond and reinforced the natural sandbar with stone walls.

Kuapā literally means “wall of a fish pond” and a loko kuapā is one type of fishpond made by building a wall on a reef. The wall at this fishpond was about 5,000 feet long.

One of the main harvests was mullet because the combination of freshwater and shallow sand or mud flats that the ponds created were ideal for growing the algae that mullet fed off of.

Hawaiian Historian Kamakau writes of Kamehameha I participating in the restoration of the Maunalua fishpond., “While he (Kamehameha) lived on Oahu he encouraged the chiefs and commoners to raise food and he went fishing and would work himself at carrying rock or timber … He worked at the fishponds at Ka-wai-nui, Ka‘ele-pulu, Uko‘a (in Waialui,) Mauna-lua, and all about O’ahu. (Kamakau 1961:192)

In 1900, the island of Oahu had a total of 100 documented, working fishponds, providing thousands of pounds of fish for the community throughout the year.

Missionary Levi Chamberlain, during his Trip Around Oahu on June 21, 1826, noted: “I descended with my attendant, and near the shares of a large pond containing a surface of many hundred acres I came to a little settlement called Keawaawa and stopped e few moments to enquire the way & to allow my attendant the luxury of a whif of tobacco.”

“Thence I walked on by the side of the pond in a southerly direction about a mile having the eminences Mounalua (Maunalua) on my left- I then came to a narrow strip of land resembling a causeway partly natural and partly constructed extending in a Northwest direction across what appeared to be considerable of a bay forming a barrier between the sea and the pond.”

“At the further end of this causeway sluices are constructed & the waters of the sea unite with the pond and at every flood tide replenish it with a fresh supply of water. Near the middle of this causeway there is a settlement of 18 houses belonging to Kalola called Mounalua (Maunalua.)”

It is said that the pond was partially constructed by Menehune, a legendary race of small people and was connected through an underground tunnel to Kaʻelepulu fishpond in Kailua.

In J. Gilbert McAllister’s 1933 Archaeology of Oahu, he notes: “Keahupua-o-Maunalua Fishpond—The pond is said to connect by means of an underground tunnel with Kaelepulu pond in Kailua.”

“From time to time great schools of mullet disappear from the Maunalua pond and are to be found in the Kailua pond. At the same time the awa, which were in the Kailua pond, appear in the Maunalua pond. When the mullet reappear in the Maunalua pond the awa disappear. Kanane, the fish warden, tells me that this occurs even today, but cannot be explained by the Japanese who leases the pond.”

The ownership of the ‘ili of Maunalua passed to Bernice Pauahi Bishop and thus to the Kamehameha Schools.

To a lot of people, Kuapā is now referred to as “Koko Marina,” the result of development in the 1960s by Henry J Kaiser.

In 1961, Bishop Estate leased a 6,000-acre area, which included Kuapa Pond, to Kaiser Aetna for subdivision development. The development is now known as “Hawaii Kai.”

Kaiser Aetna dredged and filled parts of Kuapa Pond, erected retaining walls and built bridges within the development to create the Hawaii Kai Marina.

They increased the average depth of the channel from two to six feet and also created accommodations for pleasure boats and eliminated the sluice gates.

The East Honolulu region (including Hawaii Kai,) has a population of approximately 49,100 people (2010,) 5.2% of O‘ahu’s population. Hawai‘i Kai is one of O‘ahu’s larger bedroom communities. The pond now serves as a marina for small boats, and is open space in this growing community.

Lots of good stuff is going on to protect and restore the nearshore waters and bring attention to the region by Mālama Maunalua and Maunalua Fishpond Heritage Center.

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