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January 22, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sufferings of an Exile

“The Governor of Woahoo (Boki) is brother to the minister Pitt (Kalanimoku); and following his example, as soon as he was informed in what consisted the ceremony of baptism, he also became a Christian, and returned on shore with a full sense of the advantage he had derived from it.”

“The occupations of this Governor are surprising; they scarcely leave him a moment’s time to give to strangers who have to treat with him.”

“In the morning he intoxicates himself with ava; in the evening, and during the night he does the same: during the intervals of these copious libations, he proceeds reeling to the square of Anourourou, with an ample supply of knives and fish-hooks …”

“… there, in the midst of the numbers who are subject to him, he joins in the different. games, and lays bets with such of his officers as will take them.”

“He never recollects his rank but when the chances are unfavourable to him; then, under some pretext or other, he contrives to obtain restitution of part of the property which he has lost at play.”

“With the great, it is said often to be the wisest part to allow one-self to be in the wrong.”

“Commerce has attracted to this place some Americans, who, in the hope of speedily making their fortunes, established themselves here several years ago.”

“I cannot say that they carryon any regular trade here, but rather contraband: they can obtain whatever they want at so cheap a rate!”

“In the morning they take half a dozen of wine to the Governor, and the good sow is soon stretched at their feet: they make presents of a few hatchets and muskets to the principal Chiefs; all the rest of the population are then quite at the disposal of these gentlemen.”

“Some strong and active men are sent to the mountains; the forests are examined, and some sandal-wood trees are cut down: these are conveyed to the water’s edge at night by about twenty women, who are paid for either carrying or dragging them along, with a few ells of European cloth or linen; thence to be embarked on board a vessel that is always stationed in the harbour.”

“On the arrival of spring, their correspondents on the North-West coast of America come here with a cargo of furs, to obtain provisions, and increase their rich ventures with the acquisitions of their partners …”

“… and, sure of an immense profit, they push on to Macao, or Canton, to sell their cargoes to the lazy Chinese for dollars, sugar, or silks, which they know how to transmit speedily to Europe.”

“However lucrative this species of commerce may be in appearance, it has great drawbacks; nor do I know to whom the perilous activity of some, or the long solitude of others would offer attractions.”

“We are all of us much delighted with the Sandwich Islands; some new object present itself every day: we study the manners, and customs of this singular people; and the moments of relaxation which our occupations leave us, are never long enough to allow ennui to have any share in our excursions.”

“But how soon would this life of uniformity become tiresome to us; how disgusting would be these savage customs; how gloomily would pass our days, how mournfully our nights! – not a soul with whom to share our pleasures …”

“… not a friend whose cares we might alleviate; and our country, that expects us! – how much more attractive to me is a moderate fortune in my native land, than the greatest riches on a foreign shore!”

“Remote from the paternal soil, the air is frozen, nature discoloured, the fruits tasteless, even the very waters bear with them a slow poison.”

“The sky, the earth, the trees, the clouds, every thing presages evil, and seems to attack the springs of life. The most trifling event is regarded as an extraordinary occurrence; the fruit that withers, the leaf that falls, congeals your soul …”

“… the lessening sail seems to bear away your last hope; and you die, vainly calling upon a country, which you are destined never to see more. Alas! What must be the sufferings of an exile!”

All is from ‘Narrative of a Voyage Round the World’ by Jacques Arago (March 6, 1790 – November 27, 1855), a French writer, artist and explorer who joined Louis de Freycinet on his 1817 voyage around the world aboard the ship Uranie.

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Na Mokupuni O Hawaii Nei-Kalama 1837
Na Mokupuni O Hawaii Nei-Kalama 1837

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Commerce, Hawaii

January 21, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Scotch Coast

Answering a recruiting call from Hawai‘i for teachers, Marsue McGinnis McShane arrived at Laupahoehoe School in September of 1945. … “We were invited to all the parties and they gave a big party for us, the plantation.”

“(W)e went up to the [plantation] manager’s house. They were expecting us and we had tea and everything. [The area] was called the Scotch Coast, [because] a lot of the people were real Scotsmen.”

“And there were these Scotsmen and I remember they put on their kilts for us and did the dances. One guy, the one who was head of the sugar processing, the raw sugar, played the bagpipes.” (McShane)

“It has been said that ‘Scotland’s greatest export product is Scotsmen’ and many of them turned up in Hawaii beginning with the two Scots aboard Capt. James Cook’s Resolution when he discovered Hawaii for the West.” (LA Times)

“One well-known Scotsman was Capt. Alexander Adams, a wide-ranging navigator and friend of Hawaii’s first monarch King Kamehameha I.”

“In the 19th century a Scot, Robert Crichton Wyllie of Ayeshire, was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Kings Kamehameha III and IV.”

“From Edinburgh came Archibald Scott Cleghorn, who became governor of Oahu and husband of Princess Likelike. He was also father of a famous beauty, Princess Kaiulani, to whom another Scot, Robert Louis Stevenson, dedicated a poem.”

“The Hawaiian island that drew the most Scots was the Big Island of Hawaii. Some Scots undoubtedly found pleasure in settling in the island’s Waimea-Kohala area because its cool, misty upland climate reminded them of their own misty isles.” (LA Times)

“Unlike other large ethnic groups, the Scots never came in large groups or by the shipload. And in a society where ethnicity was easily identified, the Scots were simply part of the ‘haoles’”. (Orange County Register)

“The Scots came for various reasons. Some came for the pleasure of Hawaii. Others followed kinsmen already in Hawaii when economic conditions became poor in Scotland.”

“The Scottish emigrants came mostly from rural areas of Scotland and settled in country areas of Hawaii, particularly on the sugar plantations.”

“Eventually, so many Scots settled on the plantations along the Hamakua Coast that the area became known as the ‘Scotch Coast.’”

“On Saturday nights the Scots came into Hilo, the island’s main city, and congregated at the end of the railroad line at the corner of Kamehameha Street and Waianuenue Avenue. It was eventually known as the ‘Scotsmen’s corner.’” (LA Times)

“The Scots kept their ties to the mother country by letter, and by occasionally recruiting kinsmen to come to the islands to join them. They kept their traditional foods, as did other ethnic groups, and scones, oatmeal and shortbread were common on the island.”

“But the Scots also were canny enough to assimilate, or at least acculturate. An observer of the Scots in Hawaii, George Mair, described what a new Scot did when he arrived on the Island of Hawaii.

“‘He would get outfitted, learn about cane, learn pidgin.’ Only a few Scots maintained their British citizenship and most quickly worked at becoming American citizens.” (Orange County Register)

“A period of intense emigration was 1880 to 1930, when many of the Scots on the island sent back to Scotland for friends and relatives.”

“Most came from eastern Scotland – Kirriemuir, Aberdeen, Portknockie, Inverness, Angus and Perth. A few came from the Highlands.” (LA Times) “On the plantations the Scots worked quickly into managerial positions.” (Orange Coast Register)

“The calibre of these men were recorded by others, in particular the plantation owners. John T Moir said, ‘They were reliable men and whenever they were given a job to do, they saw it through. There was no slacking.’”

“At one time there were 26 sugar plantations along the ‘Scotch Coast’ and every one had Scots at some managerial level.” (LA Times)

“Over the Big Island, with Hawaiian Air Lines – ‘You’re now flying over the Hamakua coast, better known as the Scotch coast,’ said our purser. ‘Below us is the most productive soil in the world. As much as 300,000 pounds of sugar cane have been grown per acre on these plantations.’”

“He could have added that from an 180-mile square area, slightly larger than that of New York City, Hawaii produces over a 1,000,000 tons of sugar, manufactured in the US,’ pointed out my fellow passenger, Roy Leffingwell, of the Hawaii Sugar Plantations association. ‘It’s Hawaii’s main industry ….’” (Burns; Medford Mail Tribune)

Large coastal sugar promoter Theo H Davies hired as manager a Scotch engineer then operating a small Hilo foundry. The new manager was Alexander Young with whom Davies joined forces to organize Waiakea Mill Company.

Years later Davies was a stockholder with Young in the organization of von Hamm-Young Company, forerunner of The Hawaii Corporation. Principals were Young’s son Archibald, and Conrad C. von Hamm. An early project was the Alexander Young Hotel. (Greaney)

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Portable sugar cane flumes in field near Kukuihaele, Hawaii, looking toward Waipio-(BM)
Portable sugar cane flumes in field near Kukuihaele, Hawaii, looking toward Waipio-(BM)
Hamakua Sugar Worker-Christensen
Hamakua Sugar Worker-Christensen
Hamakua_Mill_Paauilo-1935-(bishopmuseum)
Hamakua_Mill_Paauilo-1935-(bishopmuseum)
Sugar cane flume, Hamakua Hawaii-(BM)
Sugar cane flume, Hamakua Hawaii-(BM)
Laupahoehoe_Point-1885
Laupahoehoe_Point-1885
Hamakua Sugar
Hamakua Sugar
Koholalele Landing-Paauilo Landing-1900
Koholalele Landing-Paauilo Landing-1900
SS Helene loading sugar at Koholalele Landing-Nelson
SS Helene loading sugar at Koholalele Landing-Nelson
Sugar coming down the wire at Kukuihaele Landing-Nelson
Sugar coming down the wire at Kukuihaele Landing-Nelson
Sugar on a car coming down the wire at Koholalele Landing-Nelson
Sugar on a car coming down the wire at Koholalele Landing-Nelson

Filed Under: General, Place Names, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Hawaii Island, Hamakua, Scotch Coast

January 20, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Chinatown Evacuations to Kawaiaha‘o Church

“Chinatown is no more. …”

“It was intended by the Board of Health that that portion of Block 15, between Kaumakapili Church and Nu‘uanu street and mauka from Beretania, should be given to the flames, as has been done with several other plague spots.”

“The Fire Department proceeded as usual to carry out the instructions of the Board. Chief Hunt, with the entire Fire Department forces, and four engines, got to work at about 9 o’clock yesterday morning (January 20, 1900).”

“A fair northeast wind was blowing across the city at the time, and realizing the danger from a break away should the wind rise, one engine (No. 1) was placed at the Intersection of Maunakea and Beretania streets while the others obtained connection with the water mains along Beretania street.”

“It was intended that the fire should eat its way back against the wind toward Kukui street and with this object in view a two-story frame structure back of the church was selected as the best situated for the application of the torch.”

“All went well for about an hour, when the wind began to rise and changed about two points eastward. This combination carried the blazing embers upon the dry roofs of the closely packed buildings in the vicinity”.

“The high wind fanned the flames till they took leaps of fifty and sixty feet along the doomed buildings of Block 1, from which the occupants had hastily removed, carrying as many personal effects as could be collected, and in many cases returning three and four times for more.”

“The Fire Department, as soon as it was discovered that the flames were beyond control …” (Hawaiian Gazette, January 23, 1900)

“Four thousand three hundred and twenty-five men, women and children, Chinese, Japanese, Hawaiians and white were rendered homeless by the flames today.”

“Tonight they are the wards of a community which has risen to the humanity and generosity demanded by the emergency and with an energy seldom equaled has provided shelter and food and made the refugees as comfortable as it is possible under the circumstances.” (Hawaiian Star, January 20, 1900)

“Japanese and Chinamen are being marched by the hundreds to Kawaiaha‘o church yard, guarded all the way from Nu‘uanu street by a line of volunteer citizen guards. There they will remain until some accommodations can be prepared for them.”

“Included in this mass of Asiatics are a great number of women with their children and all that can be done for them is being done.”

“The citizens have the situation well in hand. Every man is out with some kind of a club and there is a set determination that there shall be no outbreak from Chinatown.” (Evening Bulletin, January 20, 1900)

“No church ever held a more extraordinary assemblage than that which gathered in Kawaiaha‘o when the tired inhabitants of Chinatown reached there after their march of four blocks between lines of Honolulu citizens armed with clubs.”

“The march was a very hard one for some of the people who were compelled to move, and the line was a most pitiful spectacle as it moved along King street.” (Hawaiian Star, January 20, 1900)

“‘Women first’ was the natural order, as soon as the business of getting people into the church was begun. In two hours the big-church was packed up stairs and down with Chinese women and children. They occupied all of every pew.”

“The big place of worship was so crowded that those who had seats could not even turn in their places. The gallery held a throng that filled nearly all the aisles and the reception rooms, as well as the auditorium, was the same.”

“Still women were coming and asking for places, and a thousand men were outside with no place to do anything but sit down and await developments. Inside the church the women and children sat and waited for what was coming.”

“Some of the mothers walked up and down the aisles trying to quiet infants that cried for food, while Board of Health men ran up and down doing all they could to help their charges.”

“It was a pitiful scene of suffering, as a climax to what the victims have suffered in the quarantined district ever since the beginning of the dread visitation of black plague. The Chinese Consul and the Japanese Consul were both in the building, watching the efforts that were being made to look after their countrymen.” (Hawaiian Star, January 20, 1900)

“Under the shadow of the clouds of smoke and fire the hordes of Chinatown stood in mute terror. Depressed by their long quarantine, when the literal baptism of fire came, it found them without spirit.”

“Beyond the confines of the district, particularly along the main thoroughfares of King and Beretania, they beheld not only the guardsmen with bayonetted guns, but a mass of people which must have overawed them by its very numbers.”

“Hundreds of these citizens had voluntarily offered their services to hold the Chinese and Japanese of the plague-infected district in check, should the advancing fire cause a riot before the unfortunate could be brought out in an orderly manner.”

“There was very little time for the quarantined people to gather their personal belongings. As the first of them came along King street the novelty of their appearance attracted great attention.”

“Stout little (Japanese) carried sewing-machines on their shoulders, and beside them brown infants bobbed up and down on the backs of mothers. Bundles of every conceivable description were carried, some large, some small, but everybody able to lug a parcel had his or her hands employed.”

“Veritable hordes of Asia, they marched along, casting frequent glances back at the red tongues licking up their homes. But there was no wailing – no loud complaint that might have made a bad situation worse.”

“Following the first batch of Chinese and Japanese – men, women and children, who were led out of the burning district down King street, came others from Beretania street down around Nu‘uanu street into King and hundreds of Hawaiians from toward the waterfront …”

“… all being led by guards into King street and along that thoroughfare down past the Executive building gates to the spacious grounds of Kawaiaha‘o Church, at the corner of King and Punchbowl streets.”

“In through the wide gates they passed, the women and children being allowed to take possession of the big stone church building, while the men swarmed over the grounds. Guards were immediately placed along the stone wall surrounding the premises, and crowds of curious people filled up the adjoining streets.”

“The church and the adjacent streets presented a scene of great animation from about 1:30 o’clock in the afternoon, when the quarantined Asiatics first began to arrive there, until a late hour last night.”

“At 5 o’clock in the afternoon the guardsmen and volunteers who patrolled the outer edge of the church premises were relieved by Batteries R and K of the Sixth Artillery, USA …”

“… who, in khaki uniforms and with rifles, took up the work of keeping the Chinese and Japanese within the church yard. The soldiers cleared the sidewalks of spectators and loungers and went at their task of patrolling like veterans.”

“Some of the most prominent men in the city volunteered to assist in looking after the unfortunates, and getting them settled.”

“The Chinese Consul deserves great praise for his efforts, which went far toward bringing order out of chaos. Toward evening it was ascertained that 1,780 Chinese, 1,025 Japanese and about 1,000 Hawaiians were within the walls of Kawaiahao Church yard.”

“These figures did not include the Japanese and Chinese women and children in the church building, estimated to number fully half a thousand.”

“The hospitality and liberality of the people of Honolulu was never before so much in evidence. Soon after it was learned that the thousands of homeless Chinese and Japanese were at the Kawaiaha‘o Church, transfer wagons, trucks and carriages began to arrive there in great number, with supplies of provisions.”

“Tons of cooked rice and other victuals were received through the gates, Mr. George Carter and a number of other gentlemen directing the work or receiving and distributing the provisions.”

“A large awning belonging to the church was also brought into use. Inside the church building the women and children were well provided with mattresses and blankets. No army brigade was ever so comfortably sheltered and fed, in so short a time, as these thousands of Chinese and Japanese were looked after last night.” (Hawaiian Gazette, January 23, 1900)

“In 1886 Honolulu was visited by a fire almost as disastrous as the Chinatown plague fire of last January. The ancient fire occurred in that section of the town now known as the burnt district, and it served to clear out blocks of miserable hovels and to clean up the most filthy section of the city.”

“Prior to the visitation the streets in Chinatown were only 36 feet wide. The houses were of a miserable character, mere shacks, and more suited for stables than the abode of human beings. Honolulu’s greatest cesspool had been cleared out and great chances for improvement were admitted to have been given the city.”

“The men in power at the time were not long in seizing the opportunity. Streets were widened to 50 feet and the majority of the houses were built of brick.” (Honolulu Republican, December 22, 1900)

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Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(02),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(02),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
kawaiahao_church-1900
kawaiahao_church-1900
Honolulu_Chinatown_Fire_of_1900_(49),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(06),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(06),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(09),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(09),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(11),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(11),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(14),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(14),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(15),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram
Ruins_of_Chinatown,_Honolulu_(15),_photograph_by_Brother_Bertram

Filed Under: General, Buildings, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Economy Tagged With: 1900, Hawaii, Honolulu, Kawaiahao Church, Chinatown, Fire

January 19, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Are You Sure?

I wasn’t sure I would publicly ever tell this story, but it seems like the right time and place, now.

While at DLNR, when we were contemplating State rules for the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands (NWHI,) several proposals were being considered; multiple maps illustrated the various alternatives.

Of particular interest and one of the significant issues at hand, was whether we would continue to permit bottom fishing, or not. At the time, a handful of bottom fishers had permits.

In addressing the potential impact of eliminating NWHI bottom fishing, I had a concern about the impact to the price of fresh bottom fish that local consumers would face, if we would eliminate that source.

I had requested that a study be done to evaluate the impact. PEW Foundation funded the study that folks at UH prepared concerning the price impact. That study concluded that prices increases were expected to be insignificant.

Never-the-less, various alternatives and mapping of such were part of the final evaluation.

We had regular meetings with individuals, organizations and federal agencies about the rules – whether fishing should be allowed, or not; if allowed, should we limit that to certain areas, etc.

For the longest time, we would go back to a certain map that was labeled “Peter’s” map. (I think it was really ‘Alternative 3’.)

That map, and the internal draft rule package associated with it, allowed for continued fishing in designated areas.

DLNR staff prepared a set of draft rules to take before the Board of Land and Natural Resources as the State’s proposed rules – it called for continuation of existing bottom fishing in the NWHI; the map noted open and closed areas for fishing.

These were being prepared to present them to the Land Board.

For weeks, each night, I would take the rule package home and review the rules and maps. I would occasionally make tweaks in the rules, but the basic premise (of continued fishing) remained.

Literally, in the morning of the decision to set the date for presentation and decision by the Land Board, I came to work (having re-reviewed the package the night before) and received a call from Athline Clark, who was DLNR’s lead for the NWHI.

We discussed the draft rules and I said, “Let’s go with it.”

Then, she simply asked, “Are you sure?”

At that moment, the last three weeks flashed through my mind and I remembered how uncomfortable I had been feeling about what we were proposing – and the lack of sleep that I had during this time.

I then went with my gut feeling of what I felt was right and said, “No, let’s shut it down.”

We immediately created the Refuge rules whose intent is “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.”

Fishing is prohibited.

This started a process where several others followed with similar protective measures.

The BLNR unanimously adopted the State’s Refuge rules, they were later signed by Governor Lingle; President Bush declared it a Marine National Monument (President Obama later expanded its size)’ UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site and … I guess, the rest is history.

To me, this action reflects the responsibility we share to provide future generations a chance to see what it looks like in a place in the world where you don’t take something.

One of the issues about the rules, and in protecting the place, relates to access. Due to the sensitivity of the area, permits are limited – so, rather than taking the people to the place, there are tools now in place to bring the place to the people.

Here’s a link to Google ‘Street View’ for some of the islands and atolls:

https://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov/education/virtual_visits.html

Here’s a link to the Monument website:

http://www.papahanaumokuakea.gov

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pmnm-map
Clouds of reef fish and corals, French frigate shoals, NWHI
Clouds of reef fish and corals, French frigate shoals, NWHI
fish-NOAA
fish-NOAA
green_turtles_midway-NOAA
green_turtles_midway-NOAA
midway_eastern_island_02_noaa_gleason
midway_eastern_island_02_noaa_gleason
monkseal-ulua-NOAA
monkseal-ulua-NOAA
sharks-NOAA
sharks-NOAA
Tern_Island
Tern_Island
Wisdom_and_chick
Ulua-NOAA
Ulua-NOAA
Jean-Michel Cousteau - PTY
Jean-Michel Cousteau – PTY
Papahanaumokuakea-Marine-National-Monument-Map
Papahanaumokuakea-Marine-National-Monument-Map
Papahanaumokuakea_World_Heritage_Site
Papahanaumokuakea_World_Heritage_Site
Papahanaumokuakea-World_Heritage_Site
Papahanaumokuakea-World_Heritage_Site

Filed Under: Place Names, Economy, General Tagged With: Hawaii, Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Northwest Hawaiian Islands

January 18, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu in 1846

“The so-called city of Honolulu of to-day is in every particular a very different place from the village of that name, when I arrived here on the 8th of March, 1846, after a voyage of 116 days around Cape Horn from Boston, in the clipper-schooner Kamehameha III., Captain Fisher A. Newell.”

“There were over one hundred whale ships in the harbor, closely packed, three and four side by side, coopering oil, discharging into homeward bound whalers or merchant vessels, and preparing for the summer’s cruise in the northern seas.”

“The whaling business was much more generally successful in those days than it ever has been since. Seventeen hundred barrels was an ordinary season’s catch, while frequently twenty-five hundred and as high as three thousand barrels was reported.”

“The port, as may be supposed, presented a busy scene. Each of these 100 and more ships had on an average thirty persons attached to it as seamen and officers, amounting in the aggregate to some 3,000 persons …”

“… about one half of whom were always on shore “on liberty,” and they gave the town quite a lively appearance. The grog-shops were particularly lively, and the police-court presented an animated spectacle every morning.”

“The streets of the town – or village, as the foreign residents appropriately termed it – were dusty or muddy thoroughfares, according to the weather, with no pretense to sidewalks. Indeed, there were no necessity for the latter, for there were no horse teams and hardly a carriage to be seen.”

“When ladies – and sometimes gentlemen – went out to an evening party or to church on Sunday, they were conveyed in a sort of handcart with four wheels, drawn by one kanaka and pushed from behind by another.”

“To a new-comer, the sight was grotesque and a forcible reminder of the partially civilized state of the country, to see a well-dressed white lady thus pulled and propelled along the street by two bareheaded and barefooted natives, whose only clothing consisted of a malo and a very short denim frock.”

“Goods were transported from the wharves to stores on heavy trucks, drawn by a dozen natives, sweating and tugging through the yielding soil and sand of the streets. Horses were plentiful and cheap, and most foreign residents kept one or more for riding.”

“Then most of the houses were of thatch, even down to the business part of the village, with here and there a stone, or more frequently an adobe structure, but generally with a thatched roof, for shingles brought around Cape Horn were costly, and Oregon lumber was as yet unknown.”

“It cannot be denied that the thatched house, when sufficiently high between joints, was a much more comfortable lodging in this climate than our modern clapboard and shingled houses.”

“The largest foreign-built structure at this date, – with the exception of the King’s palace – was the Bethel church, where the Rev. Dr. Damon officiated, having succeeded the Rev. Mr. Deill in 1843.”

“With the large number of seamen visiting the port at that time we may be assured that “Father Damon” – as he was generally but quite respectfully entitled – had no idle time on his hands, but was often to be seen visiting from ship to ship. The Sailor’s Home was not built until some years after this.”

“What is now Nu‘uanu Avenue, was then little else than a bridle-path through the taro patches up the valley and leading to the Pali.”

“There were no pretty cottages such as now line both sides of that fine thoroughfare, but only here and there a hut of thatch, squatting on the edge of a patch of taro or sweet potatoes.”

“Ornamental trees had not been introduced, and the only ones to be seen in the village and suburbs were an occasional kukui or the unsightly hau.”

“There were no water-works, the supplies for domestic use and for shipping being obtained from wells, of which there was one in almost every house-lot.”

“In some of these wells – particularly those near the harbor – the water rose and fell with the ocean tides. It was more or less brackish, and what housewives denominate as peculiarly ‘hard.’”

“Gentlemen’s linen was not so immaculately white in those days as now. There was no Fire Department, and fortunately no fires of any consequence, until when a Department was organized some years after.”

“Among the prominent natives of that time, I remember, beside the noble King Kamehameha III, and his Queen Kalama, A. Paki and Konia his wife, Keliiahonui, John Young, M. Kekuanaoa, Kanaina, Leleiohoku, Kapeau, Kaiminaauao, Kaliokalani, J. Piikoi, B. Namakaeha, Hooliliamanu, L. Haalelea, Kekauonohi, and many others, all now dead.”

“The Commerce of Honolulu, as gathered from official sources, was in those days rather insignificant when compared with the record of to-day.”

“The gross value of imports at the Custom House, for the year ending Dec. 31, 1846, was $598,382.24; the exports of domestic produce for the same period, (more than half of which represented supplies to whalers) amounted to $763,950.74. The custom receipts for that year were $36,506.64.”

“Sugar figures in the exports to the amount of 300,000 lbs., and molasses, 16,000 gallons. Among the imports the whalers brought goods free of duty to the value of $11,142.68, and the American Mission to the value of $5,896.15, also duty free.”

“Lahaina, which was a favorite port of call and roadstead anchorage for whalers, returned in 1846 for harbor dues, duties, etc., the sum of $4,874.62.”

“The American Missionaries, then and for many years subsequently under the direction and supported by the ABCFM. of Boston, held their general meeting in Honolulu in June, 1846.”

“As I had read a great deal in boyhood about the Sandwich Islands Mission, I naturally was curious to see these men who had devoted their lives to the work of Christianizing the heathen people.”

“And so I was gratified by a sight and in some instances with a personal acquaintance with those I herewith name, some of whom have gone to rest, while some yet remain”. (Sheldon, 1881)

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Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Timeline, 1846, Hawaii, Honolulu, Oahu

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