General | Page 58 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 1, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Smith and Jones Myth

The US has a legal immigration system; you do not have to sneak across the border illegally to enter the US. Being a permanent resident is a “privilege” and not a “right.” (US Citizenship and Immigration Services – uscis-gov)

Permanent immigrant residents are expected to respect and be loyal to the United States and to obey our country’s laws. Being a permanent resident also means that there are new rights and responsibilities. (US Citizenship and Immigration Services – uscis-gov)

In the 1800s, rising political instability, economic distress, and religious persecution plagued Europe, fueling the largest mass human migration in the history of the world.

Prior to 1890, individual states, rather than the Federal Government, regulated immigration into the United States. Castle Garden (now Castle Clinton), located in the Battery of Manhattan, served as the New York State immigration station from 1855 to 1890.

Around 1890, it became apparent that Castle Garden was ill-equipped and unprepared to handle the mass influx, leading the Federal government to construct a new immigration station on Ellis Island. During construction, the Barge Office in the Battery was used for immigrant processing.

The new structure on Ellis Island began receiving arriving immigrants on January 1, 1892. Annie Moore, a teenage girl from Ireland, accompanied by her two younger brothers, made history as the very first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island.

If an immigrant’s papers were in order and they were in reasonably good health, the Ellis Island inspection process lasted 3 to 5 hours. The inspections took place in the Registry Room (Great Hall) where doctors would briefly scan every individual for obvious physical ailments.

Doctors at Ellis Island soon became very adept at conducting these “six second physicals.” By 1916, it was said that a doctor could identify numerous medical conditions (ranging from anemia to trachoma) by simply glancing at a person.

Most immigrants entered the United States through New York Harbor, although there were other ports of entry in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, San Francisco, and New Orleans. (Ellis Island Foundation)

Between 1892 and 1954, over twelve million people entered the United States through the immigration inspection station at Ellis Island, a small island located in the upper bay off the New Jersey coast.

There is a myth that persists in the field of genealogy, or more accurately, in family lore, that family names were changed there.

The legend goes that officials at Ellis Island, unfamiliar with the many languages and nationalities of the people arriving at Ellis Island, would change the names of those immigrants that sounded foreign, or unusual.

No one’s family name was changed, altered, shortened, butchered, or “written down wrong” at Ellis Island or any American port. That idea is an urban legend. (American Library Association)

“Nearly all … name change stories are false. Names were not changed at Ellis Island. The proof is found when one considers that inspectors never wrote down the names of incoming immigrants.”

“The only list of names came from the manifests of steamships, filled out by ship officials in Europe. In the era before visas, there was no official record of entering immigrants except those manifests.”

“When immigrants reached the end of the line in the Great Hall, they stood before an immigration clerk with the huge manifest opened in front of him. The clerk then proceeded, usually through interpreters, to ask questions based on those found in the manifests. Their goal was to make sure that the answers matched.” (Vincent J Cannato, NY Public Library)

Inspectors did not create records of immigration; rather they checked the names of the people moving through Ellis Island against those recorded in the ship’s passenger list, or manifest.

The ship’s manifest was created by employees of the steamship companies that brought the immigrants to the US, before the voyage took place, when the passenger bought their ticket. The manifest was presented to the officials at Ellis Island when the ship arrived. If anything, Ellis Island officials were known to correct mistakes in passenger lists. (NY Public Library)

Many names did get changed as immigrants settled into their new American lives, but those changes were made several years after arrival and were done by choice of someone in the family. (American Library Association)

Surnames, then, become one measure of immigration to the US, though you sometimes have to look beneath the surface for what they’re saying. For example, many German immigrants changed Schmidt to Smith or Müller to Miller upon arrival on American soil – or in response to anti-German sentiment surrounding World War I. (Ancestry)

As mass migration began growing, immigration laws started changing. Contract laborers were allowed admittance in 1864, but barred in 1885, according to the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

In 1875, prostitutes and convicts were barred entry, and in 1882, those convicted of political offenses, lunatics, idiots, and persons likely to become public charges were prohibited. Polygamists and political radicals were added to the no-go list in 1903. (Smithsonian)

In the Islands, by the middle of the 19th century the Hawaiian population had declined drastically through the impacts of disease and epidemics and the dispersal of the young men of the Kingdom on whaling ships and seeking their fortunes in the California gold fields.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885 and Filipinos 1905; several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

“Hawai‘i is America in a microcosm – a melting pot of many racial and national origins, from which has been produced a common nationality, a common patriotism, a common faith in freedom and in the institutions of America.” (Senator Herbert

Lehman; GPO)

For nearly one hundred years immigrants arriving in Hawaiʻi had their initial processing in the area of the present immigration building at the entrance to Honolulu Harbor.

In the 19th century they came over the channel wharf to be processed at the pavilion and quarters of the Kingdom’s Quarantine and Immigration Depot built in 1879 on what was popularly called Fisherman’s Point.

King Kalākaua, who personally initiated Japanese immigration in a visit to the Emperor, visited the station to greet the initial group of Japanese laborers arriving in 1886. After a hospitable welcome which included entertainment of hula dancers, he invited some of the group to the Palace to display their skill at fencing. (NPS)

The United States government took over immigration matters after annexation and built new structures out over the mud flats (which opened July 4, 1905.)

September 29, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Maui No Ka Oi

Several have asked about historical information on Lahaina and West Maui. Here is a repeat of something I posted a while ago – its focus is on West Maui.

West Maui was considered a ‘window to the world’ because this area has seen the comings and goings of rival chiefs, kings, missionaries, whalers, government officials, the military, sugar and pineapple plantation owners, early labor immigrants, celebrities and travelers for centuries.

This ‘window’ is a metaphor. As a ‘window to the world,’ the stories of West Maui give a bigger perspective of the world, than we would otherwise have, and helps us to expand our view and broaden our understanding of the world.

History tells us much about a community – what it is and where it has come from. West Maui has a rich history dating back to the times of: Pre-contact Hawaiʻi; Hawaiian Monarchy; American Protestant Missionaries; Whaling industry; Sugar and Pineapple Plantations; and Evolution of the West Maui Community.

Each successive passage of an era has added to the cultural richness of the community. And through the tireless efforts of numerous organizations and individuals in the community, much has been done to preserve the historic character of West Maui town and to restore historic sites.

The island of Maui is divided into twelve moku; Kāʻanapali, Lāhainā, Wailuku, Hāmākuapoko, Hāmākualoa, Koʻolau, Hāna, Kīpahulu, Kaupō, Kahikinui, Honuaʻula and Kula. Two of these, Kāʻanapali and Lāhainā make up West Maui.

Probably there is no portion of our Valley Isle, around which gathers so much historic value as West Maui. It was the former capital and favorite residence of kings and chiefs.

After serving for centuries as Royal Center to ruling chiefs, West Maui was selected by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to be the seat of government; here the first Hawaiian constitution was drafted and the first legislature was convened.

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands. Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai’i.

Although Honolulu was originally the port most favored by the whalers, West Maui often surpassed it in the number of recorded visits, particularly from about 1840 to 1855.

Lāhainā Roads, also called the Lāhainā Roadstead is a channel between the islands of Maui and Lānai (and to a lesser extent, Molokai and Kahoʻolawe) making it a sheltered anchorage.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between the continent and Japan whaling grounds brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Between the 1820s and the 1860s, the Lāhainā Roadstead was the principal anchorage of the American Pacific whaling fleet. One reason why so many whalers preferred West Maui to other ports was that by anchoring in a roadstead from half a mile to a mile from shore they could control their crews better than when in a harbor.

Another factor to affect the change, growth and social structure of West Maui was the arrival of the first missionaries in the islands during 1820.

The first missionaries to be established at Lāhainā, the Rev. CS Stewart and the Rev. William Richards, arrived in 1823. They came at the request of Queen Mother Keōpūolani, who moved to live in Lāhainā that year.

The great event of 1823 was the death of Keōpūolani at Lāhainā. Within an hour before “joining the Great Majority” she had been baptized as a Christian, an occurrence which proved a great stimulus to increasing the influence of the missionaries. King Kaumuali’i of Kauai, at his special request, was buried beside Keōpūolani in 1824. (NPS)

In 1831, classes at the new Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (Upper Lahaina)) began. The school was established by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions “to instruct young men of piety and promising talents” (training preachers and teachers.) It is the oldest high school west of the Mississippi River.

Per the requests of the chiefs, the American Protestant missionaries began teaching the makaʻāinana (commoners.) Literacy levels exploded.

From 1820 to 1832, in which Hawaiian literacy grew by 91 percent, the literacy rate on the US continent grew by only 6 percent and did not exceed the 90 percent level until 1902 – three hundred years after the first settlers landed in Jamestown – overall European literacy rates in 1850 had not been much above 50 percent.

Centuries ago, the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully.

It was not until 1823 that several members of the West Maui Mission Station began to process sugar from native sugarcanes for their tables. By the 1840s, efforts were underway in West Maui to develop a means for making sugar as a commodity.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for a contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000-workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix. Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places.

Pioneer Mill Company was one of the earliest plantations to use a steam tramway for transporting harvested cane from the fields to the mill. Cane from about 1000‐acres was flumed directly to the mill cane carrier with the rest coming to the mill by rail. (The Sugar Cane Train is a remnant of that system.)

In 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry.

By 1862, the whaling industry was in a definite and permanent decline. The effect of West Maui was striking. Prosperity ended, prices fell, cattle and crops were a drag on the market, and ship chandleries and retail stores began to wither.

Historically Maui’s second largest industry, pineapple cultivation has also played a large role in forming Maui’s modern day landscape. The pineapple industry began on Maui in 1890 with Dwight D. Baldwin’s Haiku Fruit and Packing Company on the northeast side of the island.

West Maui’s roots in the historic pineapple industry began in 1912, when of Honolua Ranch manager, David Fleming began growing pineapple there; almost overnight the pineapple industry boomed.

The ranch was soon renamed Baldwin Packers; at one time they were the largest producer of private label pineapple and pineapple juice in the nation.

One of the first hotels in West Maui was the Pioneer Hotel – founded in 1901. George Freeland arrived in the Lāhainā roadstead on a ship that had just come from a long voyage through the south seas; he noted a need for a hotel.

It remained the only place for visitors to stay on Maui’s west side until the early-1960s. Tourism exploded; West Maui is a full-fledged tourist destination second only to Waikīkī.

Lāhainā’s Front Street, offering an incredible oceanfront setting, people of diverse cultures, architecture and incredible stories of Hawaiʻi’s past, was recognized as one of the American Planning Association’s 2011 “Great Streets in America.”

The following link is to a larger discussion on West Maui – it was prepared a few years ago, before the fires.

Click HERE to view/download for more information on West Maui’s place in the Islands and world.

To see and read about the many structures that were lost in the Lahaina fire, I encourage you to download an App developed by the Lahaina Restoration Foundation that was put together as a ‘Walking Tour’ through Lahaina (you will see images and information on the pre-fire structures):

https://lahainarestoration.org/lahaina-historic-trail/

The tragic fire in Lahaina destroyed many of the physical structures of the community. Some of the historic buildings may be rebuilt; something else will take the place of others.

But the fires did not take away the memory we share of this area. Do what you can to help those that have been impacted and share your memories of West Maui and Lahaina. Maui No Ka Oi (Maui is the best).

Humpback_Whale-Maui-(Stan_Butler-NOAA)-WC

Olowalu-Petroglyphs

Bathing scene, Lahaina, Maui, watercolor, by James Gay Sawkins-1855

Port-of-Lahaina-Maui-1848

Whale-ships at Lahaina-(vintagehawaii)-1848

Edward_T._Perkins,_Rear_View_of_Lahaina,_1854

Whales from McGregor Point-(cphamrah)

Pioneer Mill

McGregor_Point-Norwegian-Monument

Lahaina_from_offshore_in-1885

Lahaina_Boat_Landing

Lahaina,_West_Maui,_Sandwich_Islands2,_watercolor_and_pencil,_by_James_Gay_Sawkins-1855

Lahaina,_Maui,_c._1831

Lahaina, Front Street 1942

Lahaina Tunnel Dedication (1951)

Lahaina Roads

Lahaina Harbor before harbor perimeter retaining wall built-ca 1940

Lahaina Courthouse-fronting beach-(now Lahaina Small Boat Harbor)

Banyan Tree located in courthouse square in the center of Lahaina

Baldwin Packers Cannery (kapalua)

1837 Map of the Islands; made by students at Lahainaluna School (Mission Houses)

September 18, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Shirakawa Motel

“A kupua, a spirit came from Kahiki and lived below the Ha‘ao springs. He married a Ka‘u woman, and had a son named Kupa. They killed many people, and hid their bodies among tall weeds by the springs.”

“A cloudburst would bring grease from the corpses into the stream of Wai-o-hinu. With a ruse the people caught the boy and his father in a net and burned them in an imu. Some people credit this story for the name Waiohinu or “water shining like oil”. (Wilson Okamoto)

“Quite distinct from the rest of Ka-‘ū is the valley of Wai‘ōhinu, which is flanked in such a way by the mountainside that it escapes the violence (and evaporation power) of both trade and southernly winds, while receiving a generous share of rainfall. This was the locality chosen by the chiefs (ali‘i) for their residence.” (Handy & Pukui)

Wai‘ōhinu was a favored location within Ka‘ū Ahupua‘a by Hawaiian ali‘i (royalty). An upland forest of ‘ōhi‘a lehua, a permanent stream watered from Hā‘ao Springs, moderate rainfall, and a sheltered valley created a comfortable environment with fertile soils. (Wilson Okamoto)

In the 1800s, Wai‘ōhinu was the main village in Ka‘ū District. The nearest port for small vessels was in Ka‘alu‘alu which joined the village by a cart road built in 1852.

In 1857, an Agricultural Society was formed and agricultural pursuits in Wai‘ōhinu were improved; “farming has actually commenced in Kau during the past year. Within this time the first plow has been brought in and the first ground ploughed.”

“There are a dozen houses at Waiohinu, and they have got sound roofs, which is well, because the place is tolerably high upon the mountain side and it rains there pretty much all the time. The name means ‘sparkling water,’ and refers to a beautiful mountain stream there, but they ought to divide up and let it refer to the rain also.”

“A sugar plantation has been started at Waiohinu, and 150 acres planted, a year ago, but the altitude ranges from 1,800 to 2,500 feet above sea level, and it is thought it will take an other year for the cane to mature.” (Mark Twain, 1866)

“From 1859 to 1885, pulu fiber from the Hawaiian tree fern (hāpu‘u) was gathered and sold to American traders. The pulu was typically shipped to California and used to fill pillows and mattresses.

Through the mid-1800s to early 1900s, commercial sugarcane cultivation dominated the Ka‘ū landscape. The need for an increase in field workers let to an influx of contracted laborers from around the world, including China, Portugal, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. In 1850, Native Hawaiians accounted for 97 percent of the population, but only 33 percent by 1899. (Wilson Okamoto)

The Hawaiian Agricultural Company started between the years 1876 and 1880 and became the largest plantation company in Hawai‘i. It was also locally referred to as the Pahala Plantation, as the laborers housing was located in Pāhala. Mills were built in Nā‘ālehu and Pāhala. Wharves were built at Honu‘apo and Punalu‘u to ship out all the Ka‘ū sugar.

In 1900, Wai‘ōhinu became the county seat of Ka‘ū within the territory of the United States. The courthouse, jail, post office and school were all situated in Wai‘ōhinu until the 1930s

Sales people would take the long journey to Wai‘ōhinu to stock plantations and stores and then need a place to spend the night. They found such a place in Wai‘ōhinu.

“The original building, opened in 1926 as a way stop for salesmen, [was later] home to the family of Takumi Shirakawa.” (NY Times) It was a family-operated lodging house.

During WWII, the military took over the hotel. The Shirakawa family then ran a motel of thirteen rooms “amid trees dripping red and yellow hibiscus flowers”. (Wilson-Okamoto)

“The signboard of the Shirakawa Motel is partly hidden in lush greenery, and the motel itself is nearly in the shadow of Mark Twain’s Monkeypod Tree, planted by Twain during visit to the islands in 1866.” (NY Times)

“In a wonderful juxtaposition of then and now, guests who want to call him at his nearby nursery farm just press the button on a portable telephone buzzer in the foyer.

“There was no food service at the Shirakawa [some rooms had kitchenettes]; the nearest grocery and restaurant are two miles down a slight curve of the road to Naalehu, the southernmost town in the United States.” (NY Times)

Later, Pacific Quest, incorporating an outdoor-based, integrated therapy program for teens and young adults, took over the property and had its Ka‘ū facilities in the former Shirakawa Motel. (Pacific Quest left Ka‘ū in 2019.) (Ka‘ū Calendar)

September 17, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

United in a Song of Praise

The Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in giving instructions to the pioneer missionaries of 1819 said:

“Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (ABCFM)

Their message was simple, “As ambassadors of the King of Heaven, having the most important message to communicate, which he could receive, we made to him the offer of the Gospel of eternal life, and proposed to teach him and his people the written, life-giving Word of the God of Heaven.” (Bingham)

One of the first things Bingham and his fellow missionaries did was begin to learn the Hawaiian language and create an alphabet for a written format of the language. Their emphasis was on teaching and preaching.

These missionaries taught their lessons in Hawaiian, rather than English. In part, the mission did not want to create a separate caste and portion of the community as English-speaking Hawaiians. In later years, the instruction, ultimately, was in English.

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawaiʻi marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

Within five years of the missionaries’ arrival, a dozen chiefs had sought Christian baptism and church membership, including the king’s regent Kaʻahumanu. The Hawaiian people followed their native leaders, accepting the missionaries as their new priestly class. The process culminated in Hawaiian King Kamehameha III’s adoption of Christianity and a Biblically-based constitution in 1840. (Schulz)

The missionaries left many other lasting legacies in the Islands, including their songs. Some songs were translations of Western songs into Hawaiian. Some were original verse and melody.

Oli (chant) and mele (song) were already a part of the Hawaiian tradition.

“As the Hawaiian songs were unwritten, and adapted to chanting rather than metrical music, a line was measured by the breath; their hopuna, answering to our line, was as many words as could be easily cantilated at one breath.” (Bingham)

Missionaries used songs as a part of the celebration, as well as learning process. “At this period, the same style of sermons, prayers, songs, interrogations, and exhortations, which proves effectual in promoting revivals of religion, conversion, or growth in grace among a plain people in the United States, was undoubtedly adapted to be useful at the Sandwich Islands. … some of the people who sat in darkness were beginning to turn their eyes to the light”. (Bingham)

“The king (Kamehameha III) being desirous to use his good voice in singing, we sang together at my house, not war songs, but sacred songs of praise to the God of peace.” (Bingham)

One of the unique verses (sung to an old melody) was Hoʻonani Hope – Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau. Bingham translated it to Hawaiian and people sang it to a western melody that dates back to the 1600s.

The melody may sound familiar to many – it was originally called ‘Old 100th‘ and is attributed to Louis Bourgeois (he penned the melody in the mid-1500s.)

It was later attached to a verse of Thomas Hen’s ‘All People That On Earth Do Dwell,’ written in about 1674. It had many verses (I have been able to find a version that has 11-verses; some versions had fewer.)

While most people may not recall the initial verses, what appears as his last is likely widely remembered. Many people suggest that Bingham’s verse is merely a translation of Hen’s last verse. It appears that is not the case.

I had the opportunity to attend the Hawaiian Mission Houses’ program “Ke Ala O Ka Hua Mele” – a four-part discussion and musical series on the evolution of Hawaiian music. One part focused on Himeni (Hawaiian Hymns.)

We were in Kawaiahaʻo Church, the Church choir sang several hymns; one was Hoʻonani Hope (Ka Buke Himeni – Bingham’s translation.) This was waaay cool.

A handout given by the Church shows Hoʻonani Hope – the Hawaiian was Bingham’s translation and the English verse was printed next to it.

Here is Bingham’s Hoʻonani Hope:
Hoʻonani i ka Makua mau
Ke Keiki me ke ka ʻUhane nō
Ke Akua mau, hoʻomaikaʻi pū
Ko kēia ao ko kēlā ao
ʻĀmene

This translates to:
Let us give praise to the eternal Father
To the Son and to the Holy Ghost
To God everlasting, let there ring praise
Both in this world as well as the kingdom beyond
Amen

“In his first efforts at translation, while still groping in the darkness of Polynesian thought patterns so foreign to his own, his mind must have fastened upon one of the shorter forms of the 100th Psalm which cannot have been very different from those used in the Bethel Chapel by the foreign congregation and appearing in 1840 in probably the earliest hymnal printed in English at the American mission press in Honolulu.” (The Friend, May 1935)

Bingham’s Hoʻonani Hope is also referred to as the ‘Hawaiian Doxology.’

Here is a rendition of Hoʻonani Hope – Hoʻonani I Ka Makua Mau, the Hawaiian Doxology:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eUFK03l8MI

(It was the only rehearsal this ‘combined school choir’ had – Aaron Mahi conductor. They were students from schools associated with the Mission – Punahou, Lahainaluna, Mid-Pacific Institute and Kamehameha Schools.)

The words of the ‘traditional’ Doxology are:
Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him, all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly hosts;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost
Amen

Bingham did not translate the ‘Doxology’ verse we are accustomed to. (He may have even made up some or all of the English verse, in addition to the translation into Hawaiian.) (A second verse written by Haunani Bernadino was added in 2005.

September 12, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Sake

When you drink sake
You feel like the springtime,
And the loud cries
Of impatient creditors
On the outside
Sound in your ears
Like the voices of nightingales
Singing most sweetly.
(Japanese drinking song, Burton Holmes Travelogues, 1870)

Sake is a traditional alcoholic beverage in Japan. It is made through fermentation, like beer and wine. Sake is made from rice, a staple food in Japan. (NRIB)

It is not exactly known when people began making sake in Japan; however, it is believed an alcoholic beverage made from rice was already made in the Yayoi period (300 BC- 250 AD) when rice cultivation was brought from China to Japan. (NRIB)

A Dec 18, 1910 article in the San Francisco Call notes, “It is said that 7 per cent of the entire rice crop of Japan goes to the making of this amber fluid, which contains about 13 per cent of alcohol and is characterized by five distinct tastes, according to experts – ‘sweetness, sharpness, sourness, bitterness and astringency.’”

In Hawai‘i, a century after Captain James Cook’s arrival, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Japanese came to Hawai‘i to work on the sugar plantations between 1885 and 1924, when limits were placed on the numbers permitted entry.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Most suggest the first Sake brewery outside of Japan was in Hawaii, the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co. Many people still believe that to be true, but it was likely the fourth sake brewery established in the US. The Japan Brewing Co was incorporated in Berkeley, California in June 1901. In addition, two other California sake breweries were established in 1903 and 1907. (Auffrey)

However, the Honolulu sake brewery was more successful, more long lasting, and left a much greater legacy than any other of the early Sake breweries in the US. (Auffrey)

“The Honolulu Sake Brewery and Ice Co Ltd, was built in 1908 by Tajiro Sumida and Tomokuni Iwanaga as the Honolulu Japanese Sake Brewery Co, Ltd.”

“‘The reason it was started is because of the early Japanese immigrants who came to Hawaii to work as plantation laborers,’ Emil A Nomura, the brewery’s assistant brewmaster, said the other day.”

“‘You see,’ Nomura said, ‘with the meager wages these workers earned, there was barely enough money left to indulge in the privilege of drinking sake, the Japanese people’s favorite drink. And sake from Japan was expensive, because of import duties and things.’”

“To remedy that drinking man’s urge for his favorite brew, the Sumida-Iwanaga partnership designed the world’s first warm-weather sake brewery.”

“The new brewery differed from any traditional Japanese brewery because it was refrigerated and capable of producing sake all year. ‘The factory had to be refrigerated because sake has to be made in a cool room (as cool as 43 degrees),’ Shinsaburo S Sumida, the brewery’s present president said recently.”

For a time, it was “The only brewery in the world which makes sake year round.” “Sumida explained that until the Pauoa brewery was built by his father and Iwanaga, sake had only been made in winter months, usually from the end of October through February, because its fermentation-mold stages of brewing are easily spoiled by heat.”

The Hawai‘i sake brewery faced several other challenges …

Prohibition in 1920s … However, “The booming brewery, however, didn’t let the no-booze era dampen its spirits. Instead, it froze brewing operations, turned up the brewery’s refrigerators, reopened as an ice factory and skated through the lean Prohibition (and Depression) years.”

“With repeal, in 1934, the ice house thawed itself out, increased its working capital from $150,000 to $250,000 (400 shareholders), imported five sake experts from Japan to supervise the installation of new machinery and went back into the brewing business.”

“With World War II came new problems: a rice shortage which didn’t allow rice to be used as anything but food and a sociological shakeup in Japanese American society.”

“‘It was an order,’ recalls Sumida. ‘We couldn’t use rice for making sake, so at that time we started making shoyu (soy sauce).’ And so the Pauoa brewery-factory shoyued its way through the war, and eventually resumed sake operations in 1948.” (SB & Adv Jan 17, 1971) The Honolulu Sake Brewery ceased operations in 1989.

A side story on Japan’s sake industry …

The Japanese started producing small glass floats in the early-1900s and the first Asian floats came ashore along the West Coast just before 1920.

These Japanese floats are part of early recycling efforts – initial Japanese floats we made from recycled sake bottles. Most floats are shades of green because that is the color of glass from these sake bottles (especially after long exposure to sunlight).

To accommodate different fishing styles and nets, the Japanese experimented with many different sizes and shapes of floats, ranging from 2 to 20 inches in diameter. Most were rough spheres, but some were cylindrical or “rolling pin” shaped.

The earliest floats, including most Japanese glass fishing floats, were hand made by a glassblower. Recycled glass, especially old sake bottles, was typically used and air bubbles in the glass are a result of the rapid recycling process.

By 1939, millions of Japanese glass floats were being used; although Japanese glass fishing floats are no longer being manufactured for fishing, there are thousands still floating in the Pacific Ocean.