Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nu‘uanu Valley

“Within the famous valley of that name
Now twice or thrice the high wind blows each year,
In spiteful gusts: sometimes it comes with bursts
Until you hear it pulsing through the gorge
Of rain, in fiercer squalls; and, howling down the glen,
It breaks great tropic fronds like stems of clay.
Lo! then, unbending palms and rugged dates,
Loud-whistling, strain in each recurrent blast.
Like things alive! -or fall, with roots up-torn,
The feathered Algarobas, as the gale
Treads out its wasteful pathway to the sea!”
(Robert Louis Stevenson, 1889; Overland 1909)

“The first object that arrests the attention on approaching the shore, is the beautiful valley of Nuuanu situated just in the rear of the city and extending inland between two spurs of the Mountain. It is clothed with perpetual green and with its numerous cottages whose white walls peep forth from amid the shrubery has a cool and inviting appearance.” (Gorham D. Gilman, 1841)

“The scenery of Nuanau [Nu‘uanu] is strikingly picturesque and romantic.”

“I accompanied my friend Mr. Pelly to his rural retreat in the valley of Nuanau. The change of temperature within a distance of four miles of gentle ascent was very remarkable, so that, at our journey’s end, we found a change from light grass clothing to warm pea-jackets highly acceptable.”

“Mr. Pelly’s residence was a snug little cottage, surrounded by a great variety of tropical plants, particularly by beds of pine-apples and miniature plantations of coffee.”

“At the head of the valley, distant but a few miles from the house, a pali of 1,100 feet in height overhangs the windward side of the island. I had intended to ride to this precipice in the course of the afternoon, but was prevented by the heavy rain …”

“… our time, however, was spent very agreeably in receiving visits from many of the neighboring natives. Next morning, though the rain continued to fall as heavily as ever, and the clouds and mist were driving down the gorge before the trade-wind, I was trotting away at dawn in the very teeth of the storm.”

“On looking downwards, the placid ocean breaking on the coral reefs that gird the island, the white houses of the town glancing in the sun, the ships lying at anchor in the harbor, while canoes and boats are flitting …”

“… as if in play, among them, form together a view which, in addition to its physical beauty, overwhelms one who looks back to the past, with a flood of moral associations.”

“In the opposite direction you discover a rugged glen, with blackened and broken mountains on either side, which are partially covered with low trees, while from crag to crag there leaps and bubbles many a stream, as if glad and eager to drop its fatness through its dependent aqueducts, on the parched plain below.”

“On arriving at the pali, I saw, as it were, at my feet a champagne country, prettily dotted with villages, groves and plantations, while in the distance there lay, screened, however, by a curtain of vapors, the same ocean which I had so lately left behind me.”

“Though the wind, as it entered the gorge, blew in such gusts as almost prevented me from standing, yet I resolved to attempt the descent, which was known to be practicable for those who had not Kamehameha to hurry them.”

“I accordingly scrambled down, having, of course, dismounted, for some distance; but as the path was slippery from the wet, I was fain to retrace my steps before reaching the bottom.”

“In all weathers, however, the natives, when they are coming to market with pigs, vegetables, &c., are in the habit of safely ascending and descending the precipice with their loads.”

“While I was drenched on this excursion, the good folks of Honolulu were as dry and dusty as usual, the showers having merely peeped out of the valley to tantalize them.”  (Sir George Simpson, 1842)

The first foreigner to descend the Pali and record his trip was Hiram Bingham (my great-great-great grandfather.)  His zeal for spreading the word of God led him to take a group of missionaries over the Pali to the Koʻolaupoko area in 1821.

There was no road then.  The current Pali Highway is actually the third roadway to be built there.  A large portion of the highway was built over the ancient Hawaiian foot paths that traversed the famous Pali pass.

In 1845 the first road was built over the Nuʻuanu Pali to connect Windward Oʻahu with Honolulu.  It was jointly by the government and sugar planters who wanted easy access to the fertile lands on the windward side of Oʻahu.  Kamehameha III and two of his attendants were the first to cross on horseback.

A legislative appropriation in 1857 facilitated road improvements that allowed the passage of carriages.  The Rev. E. Corwin and Dr. G. P. Judd were the first to descend in this manner on September 12, 1861.

In 1897, Johnny Wilson and fellow Stanford student Louis Whitehouse won the bid to expand and construct a ‘carriage road’ over the Pali.  Ground was broken on May 26, 1897 and the road was opened for carriages on January 19, 1898.

When the current Pali Highway and its tunnels opened (1959,) the original roadway up and over the Pali was closed and is now used by hikers.

In 1872, some referred to road into the valley as “Missionary Street,” although the Missionary Period had ended about 10-years earlier (the Missionary Period was from 1820 – 1863.)

You might more accurately call it the home of the elite, and that is not limited to folks of the Caucasian persuasion – both Kauikeaouli and Emma had summer residences here and included in the list of successful business people who called it home were the Afongs and others.

But you can’t help concluding the strong demand to live there based on early descriptions – even Realtors, today, would be envious of the descriptors Ellis used in 1831: “The scenery is romantic and delightful.”

“Across this plain, immediately opposite the harbour of Honoruru, lies the valley of Anuanu (Nuʻuanu,) leading to a pass in the mountains, called by the natives Ka Pari (Pali,) the precipice, which is well worth the attention of every intelligent foreigner visiting Oahu.”  (Ellis, 1831)

“The mouth of the valley, which opens immediately behind the town of Honoruru, is a complete garden, carefully kept by its respective proprietors in a state of high cultivation; and the ground, being irrigated by the water from a river that winds rapidly down the valley, is remarkably productive.”  (Ellis, 1831)

If you’re driving up the Pali Highway from town you can see two notches cut in the narrow ridgeline.  The notches are man-made.  Many believe they were cannon emplacements, used especially during the Battle of Nuʻuanu between Oʻahu’s Kalanikupule and Hawaiʻi Island’s Kamehameha.

However, per Herb Kane, “Kalanikupule had some arms bigger than muskets, but they were probably just swivel guns.  Besides, the Battle of Nu‘uanu Pali started as a skirmish by Diamond Head, and no one knew where the battle would end up.  Kalanikupule could not have planned it that way.”

“Hawaiians, like everyone else, understood the value of high ground.  These are certainly (pre-Cook) lookout stations, and that’s why you see them all over the islands – if you look out for them.”

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ninika

The Cowardin Classification System is a descriptive method developed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service that categorizes and defines wetlands according to their landscape position and water source.

Within these broad classes fall types of wetlands known by common names, such as marshes, bogs, and swamps. (DLNR, FWS)

Hawaiian bogs occur primarily in montane zones (a mosaic of rainforest and shrublands) as isolated small patches on flat or gently sloping topography in high rainfall areas in cloud forests and other wet forests on all of the high islands between 3,500-5,500 feet elevation.

These bogs also occur in the subalpine zone 7,446 feet elevation on Maui, and as a low-elevation bog at 2,120 feet on Kauai. Soils remain saturated on a shallow to deep layer of peat (0.01-5 m), underlain by an impervious basal clay layer that impedes drainage.

A few sloping bogs occur on steeper terrain were precipitation is extremely high, such as in North Bog in the Wai‘ale‘ale summit region of Kauai, where soils remain saturated despite adequate drainage.

Two bogs are believed to have formed in former small lakes, one along the Wailuku River, Hawai`i (Treeless bog), the other the subalpine bog on East Maui (Flat Top bog). The low-elevation bog on Kauai occurs on shallow, poorly drained acidic peat. (NatureServe Explorer)

Bogs are one of the most distinctive kinds of wetlands. They are characterized by spongy peat deposits, acidic waters and a floor covered by a thick carpet of moss. They are typically treeless areas, surrounded by cloud forest.

Bogs receive all or most of their water from precipitation rather than from runoff, groundwater or streams. As a result, bogs are low in the nutrients needed for plant growth, a condition that is enhanced by peat mosses.

Bogs serve an important ecological function in preventing downstream flooding by absorbing precipitation. (EPA)

Hawaiian bogs are characterized by an extremely dwarfed growth of the species represented in the surrounding forest, and by a number of species practically endemic to the bogs.

Most of the plants are deeply embedded in cushions and hummocks (ground rising above a marsh) of mosses, hepatics, and turf-forming grasses and sedges. The area is saturated with water and there are often channels and pools. (Fosberg & Hosaka)

The more familiar bogs of the islands are those in Alakai swamp, Kauai; Kawela Swamp, Molokai; Puu Kukui, west Maui and northeastern Haleakalā, Maui; Kaala Bog, Kohala Mountains, Hawaii; and in the Koolau Mountains on Oahu. (Fosberg & Hosaka)

These marshes and bogs are found in depressions where rain or groundwater collects. Hawai‘i’s rare montane bogs take millions of years to form. (DLNR)

Ninika (a boggy region in the Laupāhoehoe-Maulua forest) (Maly) is at the seaward end of the Hakala Forest refuge in Honohina. This name was recorded by the surveyor D.H. Hitchcock (1874) based on information from his two informants.

Ku and Kalaualoha (both Boundary Commission witnesses for Piha and Honohina); he says “I found that most of the [coastal] gulches ended at Ninika, and [upland] gulches from mauka ended at swamp.”

Kalaualoha testified that from its upper point of origin “Nauhi gulch only runs a short distance into woods and there spreads out all around;” for the Honohina testimony, he states that the coastal “Nanue gulch ends at Ninika.” Kapou (witness for Hakalau Nui) also mentions Ninika: “I have heard that Kaiwiki reaches to the Ninika.”  (Tuggle)

The Waikaumalo/Piha boundary runs “up gulch to Ninika to where Puuohua ends and Mauluanui bounds it to the mountain. Bird catchers from these two lands used to catch in common … Ninika is at mauka end of Puuohua, Kumuohia is on Piha.” (Hawaiian Place Names)

When we think of Hakalau Forest Refuge, we typically think and see native ohia and koa forest and lots of forest birds. However, below where people go, but still within the Refuge, is a somewhat different story. As described by Myra Tomonari-Tuggle in a report she did for the Refuge:

“The wet ‘Ôhi‘a zone covers essentially the entire seaward half of the refuge and is characterized by a forest dominated by ‘Ôhi‘a trees. … The groundcover is primarily ferns.”

“This low elevation area is cut by numerous streams and gullies and the ground surface is often bog-like, described by Stine as:”

“At the lowest elevation of the [Refuge] is the bog – ohia dieback community. This unit is actually a mosaic of open bog, matted fern and native shrub communities, and open to scattered wet ohia forest with many standing dead or partially defoliated trees.”

“The forest dieback in this area is believed to be a result of the poor rooting conditions found in this extremely wet habitat … The wet open boggy areas are dominated by introduced grass and sedge species with scattered native shrubs.” (Stine)

“Soil samples from the bog in the southern half of the refuge suggest that the bog may range from 8 to more than 12 feet deep; these samples were collected from six sites ranging in elevation from 4,405 to 5,040 feet asl.”

“A 19th century map of Honohina, one of the traditional Hawaiian land units within the refuge, gives the name ‘Ninika Swamp’ to this lower elevation bog.”

“This zone corresponds to the lower range of McEldowney’s montane rainforest zone, which she describes as an area largely used as a source of specialized forest resources such as a forest birds for feathers and dry or mesic hardwood species for crafts or construction.”

“Historically, the bog at the seaward edge of the refuge was called Ninika Swamp; it is probable that this swamp extends at this elevation across all of the ahupua‘a in the refuge.”

“A multitude of stream channels enter from the upper slopes, dissipate in the bog, then exit as new channels to the lower coastal slopes.”  (Tomonari-Tuggle)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Military Units on the Mōkapu Peninsula

At present, the Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH) on Mōkapu peninsula at Kāne‘ohe Bay maintains and operates the airfield and other training facilities in support of the readiness and global projection of DoD and military operating forces. (MCBH)

The Base has trained countless carrier pilots for combat, provided logistical support for naval aviation forces throughout the Pacific, and supported airborne early warning and antisubmarine patrol operations. (Marines)

But the Marines weren’t there first, and they aren’t alone. Let’s look back …

On February 6, 1901, the US Army artillery corps divided into separate field and coast artillery components by General Order 9, War Department, implementing the Army Reorganization Act (31 Stat. 748), February 2, 1901.

Tactical artillery districts, each consisting of one or more forts and accompanying mine fields and land defenses, were established by General Order 81, War Department, June 13, 1901, to protect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and the coasts of Hawai‘i and Puerto Rico.  (US Archives)

In January 1905, President Teddy Roosevelt instructed Secretary of War William H Taft to convene the National Coast Defense Board (Taft Board) “to consider and report upon the coast defenses of the United States and the insular possessions (including Hawai‘i.)”

In 1906 the Taft Board recommended a system of Coast Artillery batteries to protect Pearl Harbor and Honolulu.  Between 1909-1921, the Hawaiian Coast Artillery Command had its headquarters at Fort Ruger and defenses included artillery regiments stationed around the Island.

The Army mission in Hawai‘i was defined as “the defense of Pearl Harbor Naval Base against damage from naval or aerial bombardment or by enemy sympathizers and attack by enemy expeditionary force or forces, supported or unsupported by an enemy fleet or fleets.”

Renamed Headquarters Coast Defenses, following World War I and until the end of World War II additional coastal batteries were constructed throughout the Island.

President Woodrow Wilson’s signing of Executive Order No. 2900 established a military reservation on July 2, 1918 and set aside 322 acres of public land on the Mōkapu peninsula for military use. The first name for the Army installation on the east side of the Mōkapu peninsula was Kuwa‘ahohe Military Reservation.

In 1927, the Oahu contingent of the Army’s Coast Artillery Corps, based at Fort Kamehameha since 1908, established a coast defense position at Ulupau.

It began after WWI, when the Army expanded its ideas of how the Coast Artillery units of Fort Kamehameha should be protecting Pearl Harbor. Army planners realized that in addition to providing protection against a naval bombardment of Pearl Harbor, it was also necessary to prevent enemy forces from landing anywhere on Oahu.

This was to thwart a possible land attack on the naval base.  In 1922, upon the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty, the US diverted twelve 240mm howitzers to Hawai‘i from shipments originally bound for the Philippines.

Article XIX of the treaty prohibited new fortifications or upgrading of coastal defenses of US, British, and Japanese bases in their small island territories in the Pacific. The treaty allowed expansion at the US bases in Hawai‘i, Alaska, Panama Canal Zone, and the mainland. (HABS 311-P)

Between WWI and WWII, ranchers leased some portions of the Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation.  Army usage at Kuwa‘aohe began to increase in anticipation of war. Although the Army did not man the former 240mm howitzer battery, they formed various coast artillery batteries and activity increased at the installation.

From 1940 to 1941, the military reservation had a different Hawaiian name – Camp Ulupau. The change in 1942 to Fort Hase honored Major General William Frederick Hase. He was the Chief of the Army Coast Artillery Corps from 1934 until his death. He received the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his service in France during WWI.

Fort Hase was the headquarters for the Army’s Harbor Defenses of Kāne‘ohe Bay (HDKB), created about 1940 to defend NAS Kāne‘ohe. Prior to and during World War II, Fort Hase grew from a humble beginning as a defense battalion to a major unit of the Windward Coastal Artillery Command.

About this time, Navy planners began eyeing the Mōkapu peninsula as the home of a strategic seaplane base.  They liked the isolated location, the flat plains for an airfield and the probability of flights into prevailing trade winds.

The Navy acquired 464 acres of the peninsula for use by the PBY Catalina Patrol seaplanes [PB representing ‘Patrol Bomber’ and Y being the code assigned to Consolidated Aircraft as its manufacturer] for long-range reconnaissance flights. One year later, the Navy owned all of the Mōkapu peninsula except for Fort Hase. (Marines)

The Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station was established following a recommendation by the Hepburn Board in 1938 to develop a base for squadrons of seaplanes to support the Pearl Harbor fleet.  Construction of NAS Kāne‘ohe started in September 1939.  By the end of 1941 the air station had approximately 90 permanent and 60 temporary buildings. (HABS 311-M)

The initial design for NAS Kāne‘ohe was to support five seaplane patrol squadrons. The first work was dredging seaplane lanes and using the spoils to fill shallow bay areas (about 280 acres total of filled land) for building sites.

Extensive dredging of Kāne‘ohe Bay and its entrance channel enabled ships and seaplanes to utilize the bay, and, of equal importance, provided the large amount of fill needed to enlarge the buildable area of Mōkapu peninsula. (HABS HI-311-P)

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the air station minutes prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of the 36 Catalinas stationed at the base, 27 were destroyed, six others were damaged, and 18 sailors perished in the attack.

The first Japanese aircraft destroyed in action were shot down at Kāne‘ohe, and Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer John Finn, stationed at Kāne‘ohe Bay, was awarded one of the 1st Medals of Honor for valor on that day. (Marines)

The naval air station’s Search and Rescue Crash Facility (SAR) was responsible for the rescue of any boats in distress in Kāne‘ohe Bay, or any planes which might crash into these waters. Their charge was to save lives and attempt any possible salvage.

By August 1946 the SAR at Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station managed twenty one boats, including three crash boats, each 63 feet long.  Crews were responsible to check the permits of privately owned boats in Kāne‘ohe Bay waters. (HABS 311-M)

The first permanent Coast Guard aviation unit in Hawai‘i became reality in 1945 when a unit was located at the Naval Air Station Kāne‘ohe. The Coast Guard Air detachment was established to provide air-sea rescue services.

Coast Guard Air detachment runs went from Kāne‘ohe to Hickam Field, then Johnson Island, Majuro, Kwajalein, Guam, Sangley Point to Japan and then back through Wake, and Midway.  The trip took between 20 and 28 days.

In 1949 the Navy decommissioned the Kāne‘ohe air station and the Coast Guard air detachment moved to NAS Barbers Point on the west coast of O‘ahu and was established as a Coast Guard Air Facility.  (Coast Guard Aviation Association)

After WWII ended, Fort Hase “became a skeleton outpost” for the Army. It remained under Army jurisdiction until 1952 when the land became part of Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe. (HABS HI-311-P)

The Marine Corps assumed control of both Fort Hase and the air station after landowner, Mr. Harold K. Castle, refused to take back the property in 1951.  Castle believed it was important to maintain a military base on the windward side of Oahu for defense and economic continuity.  (MCBH)

On January 15, 1952 the Marine Corps re-commissioned the idle airfield Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe Bay, making it a training site for a combined air/ground team.

Following the reactivation of the Mōkapu installation in 1952 as a Marine Corps Air Station, the Crash Boat operations were manned by an all-Navy unit, and organizationally was attached to the Airfield Operations Department as a Waterfront Operations Branch.

Station Operations and Headquarters Squadron supported flight operations until June 30, 1972, when Station Operations and Maintenance Squadron (SOMS) was created to take its place.

SOMS served until it was disbanded on July 30, 1994. Marine Corps Air Facility, Kāne‘ohe Bay was formed on that date. Following the Base Realignment and Closure Committee’s decision to close NAS Barbers Point, the Kāne‘ohe base acquired 4 Navy P-3 patrol squadrons and one SH-60 Anti-Submarine squadron in 1999.

Under the 1994 Base Realignment and Closure the Marine Corps consolidated all of its installations and facilities in Hawai‘i under a single command, identified as Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH); Marine Corps Air Facility (MCAF) and Headquarters Battalion (HQBN) are subordinate commands. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade was also deactivated. (MCBH)

On May 22, 2009, a redesignation ceremony was held renaming Marine Corps Air Facility to Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe Bay and the commemorative naming of the Airfield to Carl Field in Honor of Major General Marion Eugene Carl USMC.

Major General Carl, the Marine Corps’ first air ace who downed 10 enemy aircraft during the battle for Guadalcanal, was twice awarded the Navy Cross, and who finished World War II with 18 kills to his credit, was killed June 28, 1998 during a robbery at his home in Roseburg, Oregon. 

A Memorandum of Agreement between MCBH and Coast Guard Sector Honolulu calls for MCBH to provide rescue vessels and waterfront operation resources, and to coordinate with the Coast Guard Sector Honolulu’s Command Center (SCC) for SAR efforts in the vicinity of MCBH / Windward Oahu. (MCBH)

Known today as the Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH), Kāne‘ohe Bay, this facility occupies virtually the entire peninsula and houses thousands of military personnel and their dependents. (HASS HI-311-C) Today there are almost 10,000 active-duty Navy and Marine Corps personnel attached to the base.

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Maʻi Pākē

The common Hawaiian name for the disease was Maʻi Pākē, or Chinese sickness.

Its introduction to the Islands was but one of many new diseases; it was called maʻi pākē (Chinese sickness,) maʻi ali‘i (chiefly sickness) and eventually maʻi hoʻokaʻawale ʻohana (disease that separates family.) It is thought that it came to the islands in the early-1800s, but it did not attain levels of great concern until the 1850s and 1860s.  (Inglis)

One of the earliest descriptions of it in Hawaiʻi was written by the Reverend Charles Samuel Stewart, a missionary in the 2nd Company of American Protestant missionaries, who landed at Honolulu in 1823.

An entry in his journal dated May 21, 1823 notes “not to mention the frequent and hideous marks of scourge, which more clearly than any proclaims the curse, of a God of Purity, and which while it annually consigned hundreds of these people to the tomb, converts thousands while, living into walking sepulchres.”

“The inhabitants generally are subject to many disorders of the skin; the majority are more or less disfigured by eruptions and sores found many are as unsightly as lepers.”  (Schrodt)

The association of the disease with the Chinese people probably had to do either with the fact that an individual or individuals of that race were noted to have the disease or simply that the Chinese were familiar with it because they had often seen it in their own country.  (Greene)

The name “maʻi pākē” may, no doubt, have originated on the interrogation by a native of a Chinaman, “What is this disease?”  The Chinaman would probably answer, “I do not know the Hawaiian word, but there are plenty of people sick with the disease in my country.”

“It was recognized by the few Chinese, then on the islands, and this has given it the name of “Maʻi Pākē” here, and not because it has been introduced here by the Chinese.” (Hawaii Board of Health 1886)

From Eastern writings there is good evidence that India, East Asia and China are among its most ancient homes. The earliest reference appears to be rather universally accepted was written in the Chou Dynasty in 6th century B.C.

In the Chinese medical classic entitled Nei Ching there are four passages which may allude to an afflicted patient. If this classic was written by one Huang Ti, it may have been recognized in China over five thousand years ago.  (Schrodt)

Early incidences in the Islands were most often associated with Chinese immigrants to Hawai‘i and thus the name maʻi pākē. Some believed that it came with Chinese plantation workers, but many individuals and groups also arrived from other regions of the world where leprosy was endemic. It could have come from any number of sources such as the Azores, Africa, Malaysia or Scandinavia.  (Inglis)

Further statements from the Board of Health report refute that the disease was started by the Chinese, “if one Chinaman caused such an alarming spread of the disease thirty or forty years ago, there are now, comparatively speaking, so very few cases of leprosy among the seventeen or eighteen thousand Chinamen on these islands.”  (Hawaiʻi Board of Health, 1886)

“Again, if the disease had been introduced by the Chinese, and propagated by them … I should expect to find a much larger proportion of (them) affected with this loathsome malady, and yet we all know that the contrary is the fact.”

“It is much more likely that it came to these islands through the mixed crews of whale-ships, which had negroes, black and white Portuguese, and men of other races, coming from countries where leprosy was, and still is, prevalent.”  (Hawaiʻi Board of Health, 1886)

It rapidly spread on Oʻahu.  In response, the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands passed “An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy” in 1865, which King Kamehameha V approved. This law provided for setting apart land for an establishment for the isolation and seclusion of leprous persons who were thought capable of spreading the disease.

On June 10, 1865, a suitable location for incurable cases of leprosy came up for discussion.  he peninsula on the northern shore of Moloka’i seemed the most suitable spot for a leprosy settlement.

Its southern side was bounded by a pali – vertical mountain wall of cliffs 1,800 to 2,000 feet high, and its north, west and east sides by the sea and precipitous shores. Landings were possible in only two places, at Kalaupapa on the west side and at Kalawao on the east side of the peninsula, weather permitting.

The first shipment of lepers landed at Kalaupapa January 6, 1866, the beginning of segregation and banishment of lepers to the leper settlement.

Receiving and detention centers were established on Oʻahu.  Kalihi Hospital was the first hospital for leprosy patients in Hawaiʻi opening in 1865. Kapiʻolani Home opened in Kalihi Kai in 1891 adjacent to the Kalihi Hospital and Receiving Station; Kalihi Plague Camp (1900-1912) and Meyers Street, Kalihi Uka (1912-1938.)

Two notable people in Hawaiʻi associated with the treatment of patients with leprosy are Father (now Saint) Damien and Mother (now Saint) Marianne.)

Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864.  He continued his studies here and Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864; in 1873, Maigret assigned him to Molokaʻi.  Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi; he died April 15, 1889 (aged 49) at Kalaupapa.

In 1877, Sister Marianne was elected Mother General of the Franciscan congregation and given the title “Mother” as was the custom of the time. In 1883, she received a letter from Father Leonor Fouesnel, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, to come to Hawaiʻi to help “procure the salvation of souls and to promote the glory of God.”

Of the 50 religious communities in the US contacted, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaiʻi to care for people with leprosy.  The Sisters arrived in Hawaii on November 8, 1883.

In the summer of 1886, the Sisters took care of Damien when he visited Honolulu during his bout with leprosy.  He asked the Sisters to take over for him when he died.  Mother Marianne led the first contingent of Sister-nurses to Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi, where more than a thousand people with leprosy had been exiled.

A third person in Hawaiʻi, Alice Ball, made notable contributions in the treatment of the disease. In the fall of 1914, she entered the College of Hawaiʻi (later called the University of Hawaiʻi) as a graduate student in chemistry.   The significant contribution Ball made to medicine was a successful injectable treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease.

Although not a full cure, Ball’s discovery was an extremely effective in relieving some of the symptoms of Hansen’s disease and was a significant victory in the fight against a disease that has plagued nations for thousands of years.

The discovery was coined, at least for the time being, the “Ball Method.”  During the four years between 1919 and 1923, no patients were sent to Kalaupapa – and, for the first time, some Kalaupapa patients were released.

Once known as leprosy, the disease was renamed after Dr. Gerharad Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian physician, when he discovered the causative microorganism in 1873, the same year that Damien volunteered to serve at Kalaupapa.

During the third quarter of the nineteenth century incidence of the disease occurred in more than 1% of the population in Hawai`i. In 1890 Kalawao’s patient population peaked at around 1,100.

By 1900, the number of new patients in the islands began a slow decline, a trend that continued until the 1940s when it was determined that the disease was not spreading in the general population.  (NPS)

About 8,000 people have been exiled there since 1865.  The predominant group of patients were Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian; in addition there were whites, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipino and other racial groups that sent to Kalaupapa.  The law remained in effect until 1969, when admissions to Kalaupapa ended.

The image shows a view of Kalaupapa, Kalawao.

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Early Communication

“Marine Telegraph. Through the exertions of Mr. Jackson, Post Master, we are at length likely to have a marine telegraph erected on ‘Telegraph Hill,’ a knoll just back of Diamond Head and a little to westward of the government road to Waialae. A sum sufficient to defray the cost attending its erection and for keeping it in operation for some months has been subscribed.”

“So much has been said about the supposed value of a telegraph, that we are glad the experiment is to receive a fair trial. The telegraph will consist of a pole (seventy) feet in height, to have four arms, each four feet long.”

“From this knoll vessels can be seen in a clear day from twenty to twenty-five miles either way from Diamond Head, and all coasters as well as foreign vessels will be reported by it.”

“One advantage will be that China bound vessels, passing during the day time can be reported, and probably in most cases can be boarded from the port, to procure news, where heretofore they have passed without stopping.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, June 4, 1857)

On June 12, 1857, a marine telegraph was put into operation behind Diamond Head.  A companion semaphore signal was put on Honolulu Hale on Merchant Street in downtown Honolulu.

This device was actually a kind of semaphore designed to send visual (rather than electric) signals to the post office in Honolulu Hale when an approaching ship was sighted. (Schmitt)

The ‘marine telegraph’ is a semaphore.  Initially set up by the local Post Master to time the landing of ships to collect the mail, it also served as a means to notify the community of what ship was landing, especially those who service the ships and their passengers.

“There were very few who could not read the signals made by the directions of the arms of the semaphore and as soon as any was made some one would call out “whale ship coming past Koko Head” or “Fore and after coming past Barber’s Point” or “Steamer coming past Koko Head” as the case might be.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, May 21, 1905)

The postmaster posted advertisements in the newspapers offering to sell “Marine Telegraph Cards of Signals” for $1.

“Back of the head (Lēʻahi, Diamond Head) there was a lookout and when he saw a ship coming he raised a flag. Directly I saw it I gave the cry ‘Sail, ho!’ – and up went the signal on the semaphore. It was my call that brought the people from the neighboring offices and the signal from those further away.”

“If it turned out to be a whaler, all was well; but if it happened to be a schooner from the other islands I came in for a drubbing of words from everybody within the limits of civilization. I as the small boy who was blamed for the error of the lookout and seldom praised for his correct reports.”  (Stacker; Sunday Advertiser, December 5, 1909)

“Naturally there was a good deal of rivalry among the pilots, for in those days and for years, they received their compensation by the way of fees. Each man was supposed to leave the pilot house when a signal was given and go out to meet the vessel. The first man out got the ship and the fee.”

“If there were more coming down the channel Signal No. 2 would show it.” (Stacker; Sunday Advertiser, December 5, 1909)

“This enterprise, which has now been conducted for some two years, has proved itself of so much public benefit that there is scarcely a man in the community who would not regret to see it discontinued.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, November 17, 1859)

Unfortunately, a storm in 1872 took the semaphore out of service.  The loss was felt … “That the telegraph is needed and must be put in order again, everyone will concede; but the question is, whose duty is it to see the thing done.”   (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 27, 1872)

The Chamber of Commerce met shortly thereafter.  “It was the general understanding that the telegraph must be resumed, and a committee was appointed to procure subscriptions and attend to the necessary details.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 17, 1872)

“When the telephone system got into working order the lookout station was moved to a position on Diamond Head which gave a view further along the channel, because it was no longer necessary for the station to be in full view of the city.” (Hawaiian Star, February 10, 1899)

In 1878 Samuel G Wilder established the first telephone line on Oʻahu, from his government office to his lumber business.  “By the fall of 1881 telephone instruments and electric bells were in place in the Palace.”  (The Pacific Commercial, September 24, 1881)   (Charles Dickey in Haiku, Maui had the first phones in the islands (1878;) connecting his home to his store.)

Diamond Head was connected by telephone with the book store of Whitney & Robertson conducted in Honolulu Hale.  (Evening Bulletin, September 27, 1907)  The Marine Telegraph semaphore system was later discontinued.

Right about this same time, Hawaiʻi was getting connected through a submarine telegraph cable.  The first submarine cable across the Pacific was completed (landing in Waikīkī at Sans Souci Beach) linking the US mainland to Hawaiʻi, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Fiji (1902) and Guam to the Philippines in 1903.  (The first Atlantic submarine cable, connecting Europe with the USA, was completed in 1866.)

The first telegraph message carried on the system was sent from Hawaiʻi and received by President Teddy Roosevelt on January 2, 1903 (that day was declared “Cable Day in Hawaiʻi.”)  On January 3, 1903, the first news dispatches were sent over the Pacific cable to Hawaiʻi by the Associated Press.

On the afternoon of July 4, 1903, Honolulu was connected to the Pacific cable from Midway Island, which extended east to the Philippines and China. On that day, the Pacific cable commenced full operation between Asia and Washington, DC.

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