General | Page 23 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 8, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sowing Seeds In Hawai‘i Via The Airplane

In 1903, the Hawai‘i Territorial Legislature passed Act 44 establishing the Board of Agriculture and Forestry, predating the USDA Forest Service by one year.

The Forest Reserve System was created by the Territorial Government of Hawai’i through Act 44 on April 25, 1903. It was cooperative arrangement between the Hawai‘i Sugar Planters Association and the territorial government.

Plantations needed wood for fuel, but they also needed to keep the forests intact to draw precipitation from the trade winds, which in turn fed the irrigation systems in the cane fields below. (DLNR-DOFAW)

The first Territorial forester, Ralph S Hosmer, suggested that the forest had been declining in the uplands as a result of fire, grazing and insects. In order to preserve the forest, it was necessary to keep the ungulates out. From 1924 to 1926 hundreds of thousands of pigs, sheep, cattle and goats were reportedly removed from Hawai‘i’s Territorial forests.

Likewise, the watershed areas needed to be reforested. “The difficulty lies in the distribution of … seeds over the thousands of square miles of mountain land. …”

“It follows naturally that … seeds will germinate and develop into trees when sown in elevated position by birds, they should do the same if sown in positions by the hand of man. Therefore the experiment of throwing seed into such positions was started by the foresters when traveling through the forests on foot”.

“‘Why then,’ [Dr Harold L Lyon, superintendent of the Territory’s Department of Botany and Forestation] asked, ‘would it not be possible to fly over the decadent forests in an airplane, dropping … seeds wherever favorable conditions seem to exist for their reception?’”

“‘Naturally, most of the seeds so dropped would land in situations where it could not grow and thrive, but if one tree eventually matured for every 100,000 seeds so sown, the results would be worth the effort. …’”

“‘The air service of the US army has shown great willingness to assist us in this endeavor … We have learned many interesting and helpful facts regarding the culture and propagation …’ he concludes.”

“‘Our project has passed the critical tests and we can proceed with its further elaboration with every assurance that we are laying the foundation for a natural and permanent rejuvenation of our forests.” (SB, Jun 22, 1929)

Airplanes were not suggested just for reforestations in Hawai‘i, folks in Panama were seriously concerned about mosquitos and the malaria they carried.

“The definition of a Bombing Plane appears to be due for a revision – hurling bombs, dusting mosquitoes, sowing – what next?” (Army Corps News, September 18, 1931)

Then, several newspapers across the continent reported, “It might be called the story of the elephant, and the bombing plane. The wild beast of the jungles, with Its tremendous power of destruction, when once captured and trained, becomes the servant of man. Its lumbering hulk is put to work clearing paths through the wilderness transporting lumber and other cargo.”

“Under the guidance of its master its potential strength is turned to useful, peaceful pursuits to aid mankind. The Army Air Corps bombing planes, the greatest destruction machines in the Government’s military service, are being similarly ‘harnessed,’ on occasion, in peaceful pursuits.”

“Potentially capable or wiping out cities with the tons of bombs and poisonous gases they can carry, they are being used on errands of mercy, seeding of sugar plantations and in the Government’s ‘war’ on the malaria-carrying mosquito.”

“The most recent instance of these humanitarian services occurred during the hurricane which swept Belize, British Honduras, and caused widespread destruction and suffering.”

“Army planes were dispatched with first aid equipment and provisions supplies to help in caring for the injured and homeless.

Another recent case of the peaceful use of the army fighting planes has been the war on mosquitoes in Panama.”

“Contrary to prevalent belief, this was the first time dusting by airplane to kill mosquito larvae has been attempted in Panama or the Canal Zone.”

“Co-operating with the Health Department of the Panama Canal, the Air Corps has equipped a bombing plane with a ‘dusting’’ device and has attacked the breeding areas of the mosquito.”

“Still another Instance in line with these peaceful pursuits of the Air Corps is the sowing of seeds in Hawaii. At the request of the Forestry Division of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association and the Territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry, bombing planes have been utilized in planting seed over the mountain area of Oahu near Honolulu.”

“Several flights are made each year over areas difficult to plant by ground methods with highly satisfactory results. The Army Fokker plane Bird or Paradise, in which Lieuts Maitland and Hegenberger flew from Oakland, Cal to Honolulu in 1927, was used for a time, sowing as much as a ton on a flight.”

“Now smaller quantities are scattered from the rear cockpit of bombing planes.” (Brooklyn Eagle, Sep 27, 1931) “Several flights are made each year over areas difficult to plant by ground methods.” (Army Corps News, September 18, 1931)

February 4, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Polynesian Confederacy

The last decades of the 19th-century were a period of imperial expansion, especially in the Pacific. European (primarily Britain, France and Germany,) Asian (Japan) and American (US) were making claims and establishing colonies across the Pacific.

After the British took control of Fiji in 1874, only three major island groups remained independent in the Pacific: Tonga, Hawai‘i and Sāmoa. The Euro/American powers had marked off all three of these groups as falling under their own spheres of interest.

However, the Americans took a specific interest in Hawai‘i, the British in Tonga, and the Germans, British and Americans all claiming a right to determine the future of Sāmoa. (Cook)

Kalākaua was filled with visionary schemes for the protection and development of the Polynesian race; (Walter Murray Gibson) fell in step with him … The king and minister at least conceived between them a scheme of island confederation. (Stevenson)

“(Gibson) discerned but little difficulty in the way of organizing such a political union, over which Kalākaua would be the logical emperor, and the Premier of an almost boundless empire of Polynesian archipelagoes.” (Daggett; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 6, 1900)

“The first step once taken between the Hawaiian and Samoan groups, other Polynesian groups and, inclusively, Micronesian and Melanesian groups, might gradually be induced to enter into the new Polynesian confederation just as Lord Carnarvon gets colony after colony to adopt His Lordship’s British Federal Dominion policy.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 17, 1877)

As early as 1880, the American consul in Hawaiʻi had complained that Kalākaua was “inflamed by the idea of gathering all the cognate races of the Islands of the Pacific into the great Polynesian Confederacy, over which he will reign.”

On June 28, 1880, Kalākaua’s Premier Walter Murray Gibson, introduced a resolution in the legislature noting, “the Hawaiian Kingdom by its geographic position and political status is entitled to claim a Primacy in the family of Polynesian States …”

“The resolution concluded with an action “that a Royal Commissioner be appointed by His Majesty, to be styled a Royal Hawaiian Commissioner to the state and peoples of Polynesia …” (Kuykendall)

It passed unanimously and within six months Gibson became the head of a new ministry, as Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Although Kalākaua had been elected and serving as King since 1874, upon returning from a trip around the world, it was determined that Hawaiʻi’s King should also be properly crowned.

“It was through (Gibson’s) influence that the Hawaiian Legislature ceremonies of the occasion were impressively enacted in the presence of the representatives of the most of the great civilized powers and with the warships of many nations giving salutation to the event in the harbor of Honolulu.” (Daggett; Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 6, 1900)

“ʻIolani Palace, the new building of that name, had been completed the previous year, and a large pavilion had been erected immediately in front of it for the celebration of the coronation. This was exclusively for the accommodation of the royal family; but there was adjacent thereto a sort of amphitheatre, capable of holding ten thousand persons, intended for the occupation of the people.” (Liliʻuokalani)

“On Monday, 12th February, the imposing ceremony of the Coronation of their Majesties the King and Queen of the Hawaiian Islands took place at ʻIolani Palace. … Like a mechanical transformation scene to take place at an appointed minute, so did the sun burst forth as the clock struck twelve, and immediately after their Majesties had been crowned.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 17, 1883)

Then, to set the stage for the assemblage of the Polynesian Confederacy, Gibson wrote a diplomatic protest that the legislature officially approved, condemning the predatory behavior of the Great Powers in the Pacific.

“Whereas His Hawaiian Majesty’s Government being informed that certain Sovereign and Colonial States propose to annex various islands and archipelagoes of Polynesia, does hereby solemnly protest against such projects of Annexation, as unjust to a simple and ignorant people, and subversive in their ease of those conditions for favourable national development which have been so happily accorded to the Hawaiian nation.” (Gibson Protest, August 23, 1883)

The protest evoked the goals of the Confederacy and justified Hawai‘i’s right to lodge such a protest based on its dual status as both a Polynesian state and part of the Euro/American community of Nations. (Cook)

Kalākaua’s vision of a Polynesian Confederacy reflected a complex and multi-dimensional understanding of both the identity of the Hawaiian people and how that identity connected and allied them with a broad array of other peoples and states across the globe.

It was a project that envisioned Hawai‘i as intimately connected to the Euro/American powers through the bonds of an international community built on the shared ideals of constitutional governments, formal diplomatic recognition, and the rule of law.

At the same time, it envisioned the nation as closely allied with other non-European peoples against the shared threat of the Euro/American empires. More specifically, however, it envisioned Hawai‘i as part of a Polynesian community whose members needed to rely upon one another in order to maintain both their independence and shared identity. (Cook)

John Bush, Hawaiʻi’s ambassador to Sāmoa, succeeded in negotiating Articles of Confederation, which the Hawaiian cabinet ratified in March 1887. Kalākaua sent the Kaimiloa to salute High Chief Malietoa Laupepa in Sāmoa. (However, a German warship there warned Kalākaua to stop meddling in Samoan affairs.) (Chappell)

Later, the Berlin Act (signed June 14, 1889,) between the US, Germany and Britain, established three-power joint rule over Sāmoa. This ultimately led to the creation of American Sāmoa.

Eventually, the confederacy attempts failed. It part, it is believed too many changes to existing systems were proposed, many of which were modeled after the Western way.

However, Kalākaua’s dream was partially fulfilled with later coalitions (although Hawaiʻi is not the lead.) In 1971, The Pacific Islands Forum, a political grouping of 16 independent and self-governing states, was founded (it was initially known as the South Pacific Forum, the name changed in 2000.)

Members include Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Kiribati, Nauru, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Marshall Islands, Sāmoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu.

Later (2011,) eight independent or self-governing countries or territories in Polynesia formed an international governmental cooperation group, The Polynesian Leaders Group.

The eight founding members are: Sāmoa, Tonga and Tuvalu (three sovereign states;) the Cook Islands and Niue (two self-governing territories in free association with New Zealand;) American Sāmoa (an unincorporated territory of the United States;) Maʻohi Nui (French Polynesia) and Tokelau (a territory of New Zealand.)

Its members commit to working together to “seek a future for our Polynesian people and countries where cultures, traditions and values are honored and protected”, as well as many other common goals. (PLG Memorandum of Understanding, 2011)

January 30, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bathing Suit Law

“Shades of Stephen Desha! It seems that the bluest of blue laws, that nefarious ‘cover your knees’ bathing suit law is going to be inforced even on our own little island.”

“Haint you never heard of Stephen Desha? Don’t you know of the bathing suit law? Don’t you know that you are not supposed to have knees, or if you must have them that, you’ve got to keep ‘em covered.” (The Garden Island, April 25, 1922)

Stephen Langhern Desha Sr “was a colorful personality and was an outstanding leader of his people. Tracing back to New England and Kentucky as well as Polynesia, he combined the best qualities of both races in perpetuating their traditions and exemplifying traits that distinguish both the Polynesian and the Anglo-Saxon.”

“Mr Desha was born in Lahaina, Maui, on July 11, 1859, and spend the first years of his boyhood on the Island of Lanai. He later moved to Honolulu and in his adolescent years was an employee of the firm of C. Brewer & Company.”

“Being filled with the desire to preach the Gospel, he entered the North Pacific Missionary Institute and graduated in 1885. He became pastor of the Kealakekua Church in Nāpoʻopoʻo in that year and served in this, his first charge, for four years.”

“In 1889 he received a call to become pastor of the Haili Church in Hilo, and for forty-five years labored in the one parish which was to feel the strong influence of this great preacher and forceful personality.”

“Mr Desha was no ordinary preacher of the word. He had a remarkable gift of oratory in his native tongue, in which he was a master. He was saturated with the spirit of ancient mele, folklore, traditions and stories of the Hawaiian people, and this gave him considerable influence among his own people.”

“It was easy for him to make his point known by introducing some apt story or telling illustrations from Hawaiian history or mythology.”

“First and foremost. Mr. Desha will be remembered as a Christian minister. His work in the pulpit was outstanding and he was often called upon to make addresses and to give sermons not only in his own parish, but in various parts of the territory.”

“His intimate knowledge of the Scriptures increased his ability in proclaiming the Word. Mr. Desha was also a good pastor and vitally interested in the welfare of his flock as a good shepherd should be.”

“In his relationships with his fellow ministers, ‘Kiwini,’ as he was generally known by his associates, was always regarded as a friendly counsellor and loyal coworker. His interest in the island and territorial associations was genuine, and he was always present except when ill-health prevented his being with his associates.”

“We must not forget that Mr. Desha was also a journalist and for many years was editor of “Ka Hoku o Hawaii” (The Star of Hawaii), a weekly newspaper published in Hilo. This contained a good deal of church news as well as translations of stories from the English language and general items of interest to Hawaiian readers.”

“Stephen Desha was not only a Christian, but also a loyal patriot, and the Hawaiian people have never had a more zealous champion for their rights and privileges than ‘Kiwini.’ In association with the late Prince Kūhiō, Mr. Desha was a great advocate of the Hawaiian rehabilitation plan and did all within his power to preserve and perpetuate the Hawaiian race.”

“Mr. Desha fulfilled the definition of the true patriot – one who loves his country and zealously supports its authority and interests. He accepted the change from the monarchy to the provisional government, and later to that of the Republic of Hawaii and the subsequent transfer of authority to the United States of America.”

“It was most natural for him to become interested in politics, for he was not a mere theorist in matters of government. After serving a term as supervisor of the County of Hawaii, he became a senator and served five terms, with the total record of twenty years as a member of the senate of Hawaii.” (The Friend, August 1, 1934)

One year, when Desha “came to Honolulu for the biennial session of the territorial legislation after a considerable period of hibernation in his native habitat, the sights that he saw a the beach at Waikiki resulted in the enactment of a new law. And this is what he says:” (Washington Herald, May 30, 1921)

“Section I—No person over 14 years of age shall be or appear on any road or highway within the Honolulu District, City and County of Honolulu, in a bathing suit unless covered suitably by an outer garment reaching at least to the knees.”

Section 2. Any person violating the provisions of this Act shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $50.00.

“The Desha law was designed to give pause to young and older mermaids who had been in the habit of dashing through the streets of the Waikiki district clad in bathing suits which made Mack Sennett’s girls look all dressed up. But it didn’t give them much pause.”

“The Waikiki beach beauties still fly along the highways and byways, en route to the surf, wearing suitable outer garments, but hardly covered by them, save around the neck, the rest of said garments fluttering in the breeze like the tail of a comet in a hurry to go somewhere, with most everything Senator Desha wanted to cover up still available for optical appraisal.”

“The spirit, not the letter of the law is observed, but thus far no arrests have been made in an effort to make the word ‘covered’ in the law mean something. The sight at Waikiki still exercises a strange fascination for elderly tourists.” (Washington Herald, May 30, 1921)

“Honolulu policemen are reported to have taken the Desha Law onto the beach at Waikiki. The general impression has been that it applied only to streets and alleys and that the bather could discard the superfluous covering after reaching the beach. If sun baths are to be taken only in robes and mackintoshes, the remaining popularity of the much sung of strand will still further wane.” (Maui News. April 21, 1922)

The law met with opposition, across the Islands, “Honolulu’s Bathing Suit law is still regarded as a joke where it is regarded at all, is the word coming from the capital city. The Desha Bill was a joke when introduced and has never been able to outgrow it.” (Maui News, July 15, 1921)

The Maui News cynically followed up with, “Honolulu has a curfew law and a Desha bathing suit law that appear to be enforced to an equal extent.” (Maui News, March 7, 1922)

“(T)he Desha Bathing Suit Law so unpopular in Honolulu that it can be repealed at the next legislative session.” (Maui News, April 21, 1922)

Not regularly enforced, and ignored by many, it wasn’t until 1949 that the law was eventually repealed. “I don’t think many Hawaiians know about the law. The only reason I learned about it is that someone dug it out of the mothballs the other day and is working the territorial legislature to repeal it.”

“The repealer passed the senate and is now before the lower house. If it passes there, as seems absolutely certain, we can all go around the way we’ve been going – but legally, yet. … But it’s nice to know it’s going to be repealed. As a law-abiding citizen it goes against the grain for me to leer illegally.” (Dixon, The Independent, April 15, 1949)

Bathing_Suit_Law-Andre de la Varre with Waldron Sisters at the Outrigger Canoe Club Waikiki Beach, 1923

January 24, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Some Kind of Mettle”

After a brief stay in the Islands, in 1839, John Augustus Sutter, a Swiss seeking his fortune in America, brought a small group of native Hawaiians with him to California.

They worked for him and eventually intermarried with local native American families. They settled in the area of Vernon, which is now called Verona, where the Feather River flows into the Sacramento River in South Sutter County. (co-sutter-ca-us)

At the time of Sutter’s arrival in California, the territory had a population of only 1,000 Europeans, in contrast with 30,000 Native Americans. At the time, it was part of Mexico and the governor, Juan Bautista Alvarado, granted him permission to settle.

In order to qualify for a land grant, Sutter became a Mexican citizen in 1840; the following year, he received title to about 49,000-acres and named his settlement New Helvetia, or “New Switzerland.” He called his compound Sutter’s Fort.

In his memoirs, Sutter recalled the Hawaiians, using a name then-common to describe Hawaiian workers, “I could not have settled the country without the aid of these Kanakas.” They built the first settlers’ homes in Sacramento – hale pili (grass shacks) made with California willow and bamboo.

Sutter later ordered that a sawmill be built in the Coloma Valley on the South Fork of the American River, about 50-miles from the fort. In the process of deepening the millrace (the channel of water where the flow of current causes the mill wheel to turn,) James Marshall made an important discovery that changed things, a lot.

On January 24, 1848, a young Virginian named Henry William Bigler recorded in his diary: “This day some kind of mettle was found in the tail race that looks like gold first discovered by James Martial, the boss of the Mill.” (csun)

Marshall and Sutter tried their best to keep the discovery of gold quiet until the construction of Sutter’s mill was completed; the news leaked out, and the stampede began. Some 300,000-people came to California from the rest of the United States and abroad.

“Forty-Niner” has become the collective label for those who participated in the famous California Gold Rush. Quite a few people arrived in 1848, and many came after 1849; however, it was the year 1849 which witnessed the large wave of gold-seekers. (Hinckley)

The first large group of Americans to arrive were several thousand Oregonians who came down the Siskiyou Trail. News reached Hawaiʻi on June 24 on a boat that had departed San Francisco on May 24.

A large proportion of the Americans and Europeans residing in the Islands, along with many native Hawaiians, headed east; as many ships as were available were outfitted for the journey to the Pacific Coast.

When news of the Gold Rush reached Canton in 1848, thousands of young Chinese mortgaged their futures and boarded boats to “Gum Shan,” or “Gold Mountain,” as California became named. (By 1852, 25,000 Chinese had reached Gold Mountain.)

New Zealanders received the news in November 1848 when an American whaler put into port with several newspapers from Hawaiʻi, and Australians learned about the discoveries a month later.

All of these groups predated Americans arriving from the US East Coast, who had to wait until trading ships from Asia who had stopped in San Francisco or Hawaiʻi either rounded the tip of South America or reached the Isthmus of Panama and crossed it with the news.

Kanaka colonies sprang up throughout the gold country, and California’s first “Good Humor” man, Charlie O’Kaaina, supposedly sold ice cream from his ice wagon in the Sierra foothills. (Magagnini)

Place names like Kanaka Creek in Sierra County and Kanaka Bar in Trinity County tell us of the growing presence of Hawaiians in gold country. “Hawaiians also migrated to Yolo County, California to participate in the Gold Rush and created their own Kanaka Village.”

“There is evidence that Hawaiians settled across California in the late-1800s and even intermarried with Native Americans. Many scholars speculate that Hawaiians migrated to the mainland in order to gain more economic opportunity and to flee from the dramatic Westernization that was changing the face of Hawaiʻi.” (pbs-org)

The California Gold Rush drawing Hawaiians to the continent was not its only effect on the Islands; the Hawaiian economy was affected in several ways – good and not-so-good.

Prior to the Gold Rush, supporting the Pacific whaling and trading fleets and trade between the West Coast and Hawaiʻi was the scale of the Hawaiʻi participation. The scale of that significantly changed with the Gold Rush.

Hawaiʻi was only three to five weeks away, and with the growing population drawn to the gold fields, in addition to provisioning ships, Hawaiʻi farmers were feeding the gold seekers on the continent.

There were some down sides; this also brought a marked increase in the prices of consumer goods, especially food, caused by the great increase in agricultural exports to California, which offered very profitable new markets. (Rawls)

Likewise, the exodus to the continent created a critical labor shortage in Hawaiʻi, where a sizeable number of sugar plantation workers migrated to the California gold fields.

The parting of workers from the plantations between 1848 and 1853 was so large, Hawaiʻi sugar producers began to seek Chinese immigrants to fill the gap. (Rawls)

As the California Gold Rush demonstrates, the success of the Island’s economy was largely tied to events that occurred outside the Islands, especially on the continent. The American Civil War’s influence on Hawaiʻi’s fledgling sugar industry is another example of that, starting in 1861.

The Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to fill part of the void left by the absence of then-blockaded southern exports – at elevated prices.

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.

January 23, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Koholālele Landing

“The slopes of Mauna Kea Volcano steepen near the town of Ookala and the entire coast between Koholalele Landing and Niu Village is lined by steep sea cliffs ranging 50-300 ft high. Only a few foot trails enable access to the shoreline from the headland bluffs above.”

“Periodically the cliffs become saturated with heavy rainfall and may develop landslides. Several streams cut across the Ookala coastal plain creating deep gulches, beautiful waterfalls, and boulder beaches at their terminus. This region receives moderate to high wave energy from north swell and trade wind waves, limiting reef development.” (USGS)

The sugar companies began clearing the fertile lowlands of Koholālele, like much of Hāmākua, in the mid to late-1800s, to make way for the expansion of sugarcane production on the island of Hawai‘i. (Peralto) (Koholālele (leaping whale) is a land division and landing, Hāmākua and Mauna Kea, and a former steamer landing for sugar plantations.)

“The entire coast line, excepting where the big gulches break through is sheer cliff of varying height up to 400 ft and behind the land, which is cut by frequent gulches, rises with gentle even slope to the mountain: every available bit of land, from the actual cliff edge to the timber line, is cane covered.”

“A fringe of evergreens will be seen along cliff edge in places. These were planted to protect the cane from the NE trade. No off lying dangers were found in the steamer track: they generally pass close in. The landings however should be approached with caution”. (Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1913)

“At one time there were 26 sugar plantations along the [Hamakua Coast]”. (LA Times) “Over the Big Island, with Hawaiian Air Lines – ‘You’re now flying over the Hamakua 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 18-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)

Francis (Nelson) Frazier assembled some ‘Notes’ that her father, Richard Nelson, wrote; they were reminiscences of his years at sea and on the inter-island steamers. “The following excerpt describes the method used to transfer cargo and people ashore along the Hamakua Coast, noted for its steep cliffs.”

“I spent three very happy years on the SS Hawaii with Hilo as the home port, learning how to handle the steamers and the wire at the wire landings. Our duty in those years was to act as tenders to the Matson sailing ships.”

“There were two steamers, the Hawaii and the Kaiulani, in this trade, and our work was to tow the sailing ships in and out of Hilo Bay and to place them at their moorings under the direction of the Pilot.”

“We then came alongside the sailing ships and took their cargo on board for the various ‘outside’ plantations and then brought sugar in from those plantations and delivered it to the ships to take to San Francisco.”

“Most of the places we went to had wire landings, but there were a few derrick landings, which were mostly disliked by the Captain and crews of the steamers as they were more dangerous in rough weather than the wire landings, which could be worked in most any kind of weather except when the wind was from the north, when even they were unsafe.”

“The coast of Hawaii known as the Hamakua Coast was a stretch of about 50 miles running north from Hilo to {Kukuihaele]. The shore was a continuous bluff from 100 to 400 feet above sea level.”

“All the plantations were on the top of the bluff, and the reason for the wire landings was that the shore line was so rough and dangerous for boat work most of the time that some means had to be found to enable the loading to be carried on in all kinds of weather.”

“The idea of loading by wire was imported from the Pacific Coast when lumber from the redwood forests had been shipped that way for many years. As the trade winds blow almost constantly from the east north east all the landings and moorings were laid out so that the steamer would lay head to the wind and sea.”

“There were four (4) mooring buoys with heavy anchors and chains to them at all wire landings, and a small buoy with a light chain only a few feet longer than the depth of water was fastened to the end of the sea wire, which lay on the sea bottom all the time when there was no steamer using it.”

“There was also a permanent wire from the top of the bluff leading down to an anchor not very far from the shore. This wire was used when first getting the hauling rope from shore. A weight was slid down this wire with the end of the hauling rope attached to it.”

“The ship’s boat would go in to this wire and pick up the end of the hauling rope that came down from the top of the bluff. This end they took back to the ship, and this way the connection with the landing was established.”

“In coming to a wire landing, the steamer was taken in between the two head buoys and one or two anchors let go and enough chain payed out to allow the ship to turn around head to the wind, with the small ‘wire buoy’ alongside the off shore side of the ship near the fore hatch.”

“The ship was then approximately in the right position but not yet secured, so the two boats with the stern lines already coiled in them were lowered, and the stern lines (2) run to the buoys and secured there. When all was connected up and ready the work began.”

“If we had cargo, that was first hoisted up out of the hold and landed on deck or on the half of the hatch cover that was always left on for the crew to stand on. “

“After all the cargo was ashore, the process was reversed and the [bagged] sugar was sent down on the carriage and landed on the ship’s hatch and then tumbled down for the rest of the crew to stow away in the hold.” ((Nelson) Frazier)

“There is an excellent landing at Koholalele Landing, small boats lie at the derrick pier and have a lee from the NE trade. This is an excellent place for getting ashore since the inclined c.r. cut offers easy access to top of cliffs. One mooring buoy, red can.”

“There is a rumor that this landing will be abandoned, because the railroad is going to handle all freight. The Hilo Railroad traverses entire sheet.”

“Paauilo is the terminus. there is no present intention of extending it farther, one reason being that the plantations beyond could give no business, having contracts with the Inter Island SS Co for several years ahead.” (Coast and Geodetic Survey, 1913)

The old Koholālele Landing on the Hāmākua was once considered for use as an emergency airplane landing field. This land, owned by the Hāmākua Mill Company, was not particularly good cane land and that Company was agreeable to exchanging it for other territorially-owned property. (Territorial Aviation Commission, March 4, 1931)