Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Gay Queen Of The Waves

A 2020 Proclamation issued by Governor Ray Cooper of North Carolina states, “Whereas, North Carolina was a pioneer of East Coast surfing;”

“the April 2, 1910 edition of Colliers Weekly includes a letter from Wrightsville Beach resident Burke Haywood Bridgers describing surfing activity in our state as early as 1909;”

“an announcement in the Wilmington Morning Star on June 30, 1910 includes mention of one of the earliest surfboard riding competitions in the mainland United States and direct communications with Alexander Hume Ford”.

However, that claim appears to be suspect, given other publications that predate the 1900s claim.  In the summer of 1888, several newspapers report a girl surfing at Ashbury Park, New Jersey – they refer to her as the “Gay Queen of the Waves.”

“A group of summer loungers on the beach at Ashbury park were watching the extraordinary antics of a dark-eyed bronzed-faced girl in the sea this morning. The object of all this interest and solicitude was beyond the line of breakers and standing on a plank that rose and fell with the swelling waves.”

“Her bathing dress was of some dark material, fitting close to the figure, the skirts reaching scarce to the knee. Her stockings wore of amber hue, adorned with what from the shore seemed to be vines and roses in colored embroidery. She wore no hat or cap.”

“Her hair, bound across the forehead and above the ears by a silver fillet, tumbled down upon her shoulders or streamed out upon the wind in black and shining profusion.  Her tunic was quite sleeveless , and one could scarcely fail to observe the perfect development and grace of her arms.”

“As a wave larger than those which had gone before slowly lifted the plank upon its swelling surface, she poised herself daintily upon the support, her round arms stretched out and her body swaying to and fro in harmony with the motion of the waters.”

“As the wave readied its fullest volume she suddenly, quick as a thought, and with a laugh that rang full into shore, drew herself together, sprang into the air, and, her hands clasped together and clearing her way, plunged into the rolling sea.”

“There was a little cry from timid feminine watchers on the sand, but the smiling face was above water again while they cried, and the daring Triton was upon the plank again in another moment and waiting for a second high roller.”

“So she has been amusing herself and interesting the mob for three mornings. She is as completely at ease in the sea as you or I on land, and the broad plank obeys her slightest touch.”

“When she has had enough of it she will bring the plank into shore, she riding upon the further end and guiding it like a goddess over the erects and through the foam of the biggest breakers.”

“She comes from the Sandwich Islands and is making a tour of the country. Her father is an enormously rich planter. She arrived in the park a week ago with the family of a wealthy New York importer. She is at a fashionable hotel and is one of the most charming dancers at the hotel hops, as well as the most daring swimmer on the Jersey coast.”

“She is well educated and accomplished, and, of course, speaks English perfectly, and with a swell British accent that is the despair of all the dudes.”

“She learned to be mistress of the waves in her childhood at her native home by the sea, where, she modestly says, all the girls learn swimming as a matter of course, quite as much as girls in this country learn tennis and croquet.” (Morning News from Philadelphia Press, August 17, 1888)

Although she is not identified, historian Vincent Dicks has apparently suggested that the young first-ever East Coast surfer was Emma Claudine Spreckels, the only daughter of Hawai‘i sugar baron Claus Spreckels.

Claus Spreckels (1828-1908), a German-born immigrant, made his fortune by starting a brewery and later founding the California Sugar Refinery. When he went to Hawaii in 1876 he managed to secure sole supply of sugar cane and with it much of the West Coast refined sugar market. In 1899 he founded the Spreckels Sugar Company, Inc.

The businessman gave over $25 million to his five grown children but his favorite child was the only daughter, Emma Claudine Spreckels.

He gifted an entire city block in Honolulu to her and an endowment worth almost $2 million. However, in 1893, when Emma eloped with Thomas Watson, many years her senior, she failed to tell her father. (House and Heritage)

Then, Emma “returned to her father all property, bonds, etc., which he had placed in her name. These gifts amounted to nearly $2,000,000, and were, it is said, relinquished by a single stroke of the pen by Mrs. Watson after her marriage.”

“It is reported that Mr. Spreckels was opposed to his daughter’s union with Watson, and that upon his chiding her for her seeming ingratitude in marrying against his wishes, she decided to give up her fortune, and did so, it is understood, upon the advice of her husband.” (Mount Holly News, Jan 12, 1897)

Emma ultimately married three times: after Watson died in 1904 she later married John Ferris (with her father’s blessing) and then Arthur Hutton in 1922.  Emma died on May 2, 1924 at Nuffield England.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nāhiku Rubber Company

Nāhiku comes from “Na Ehiku” meaning “the Seven” and it relates to the seven stars of the constellation Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters – suggesting seven lands.  This area is just outside of Hāna.

Nāhiku is a fertile ahupuaʻa that was cleared and terraced with irrigated taro cultivation by the Hawaiians. To the east of Nāhiku out to Hamoa, the land slopes gently down to the ocean. No large gulches or streams run through the ahupua’a, although there is plenty of rain.

Along the shore there was a hala forest that extended from ʻUlaʻino to Hāna. The forests above Nāhiku were traditionally forested with native trees such as koa, ʻōhiʻa lehua and sandalwood. Many plants that were used for native medicine also grew there.

 In modern times, when Hāna was without a road, and the coastal steamer arrived on a weekly schedule, Hāna-bound travelers unwilling to wait for the boat drove their car to the road’s end at Kailua, rode horseback to Kaumahina ridge, then walked down the switchback into Honomanu Valley. Friends carried them on flatbed taro trucks across the Keʻanae peninsula to Wailua cove. (Wenkam, NPS)

By outrigger canoe it was a short ride beyond Wailua to Nāhiku landing where they could borrow a car for the rest of the involved trip to Hāna. Sometimes the itinerary could be completed in a day. Bad weather could make it last a week.  (Wenkam, NPS)

Today, Nāhiku is located off Hāna Highway (360) on Nāhiku Road between Wailua and Hāna.  Just past the 25-mile marker, you head makai on Nāhiku Road about three miles down to the bay. Nearby is the Pua’a Ka’a State Wayside for picnicking, as well as the Kopilula and Waikani Falls. The lower Hanawi Falls is located in Nāhiku.

Nāhiku is the site of an attempt to create a rubber plantation on Maui. The need for automobile tires made rubber a valuable product in the late-1800s.  In 1898, Mr. Hugh Howell, of Nāhiku, obtained some seeds of the Manihot glaziovii (Brazilian) and planted them in Nāhiku. These seem to be the first trees of any commercial species that have been tried.

After some initial experimentation in producing rubber, the company was not started until it was definitely ascertained that rubber trees of the best quality would grow at Nāhiku, and the yield of rubber from these trees was sufficient to make it a profitable investment. A number of trees of the Ceara variety have been growing at Nāhiku for six years, and when these were tapped it was found that the rubber obtained was equal to the best.  (Thrum)

The first Hawai’i rubber company incorporated in 1905 and on February 4, 1907, the Nāhiku Rubber Plantation was officially established. It was the first rubber plantation on American soil.

There are many thousands of acres of land on the Islands where it is rainy and not too windy, where rubber will thrive, and if this first rubber company proves a success, it is hoped that many other rubber companies will be started.

As this is the first rubber plantation ever started on American soil the officials of the Department of Agriculture at Washington arc greatly interested in its success, and are doing everything they can to help it along. (Thrum, 1905)

According to ‘Rubber World’ 7 (1913,) rubber was steadily becoming an important Hawaiian product.  On the island of Maui many trees have been planted and these are tapped in large numbers.  Steady efforts are being made to improve the methods of preparation in order to increase the marketable value: 35,000-trees were tapped during 1912, and altogether some 8,000-pounds of rubber were produced, most of which was exported.  For 1913, an output of 20,000-pounds is anticipated.  (Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 1913)

Attention has been directed to an indigenous rubber tree (Euphorbia lorifolia) which grows in several localities; one place in particular on the Island of Hawaiʻi has 6,000-trees averaging 75-trees to the acre, whose product is 14-17 per cent of rubber and 60 per cent resin (chicle.)  It is reported that the latex contains 42 per cent of solid material and that one man can collect 16-30 pounds of crude product per day.  (Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 1913)

Others followed the Nāhiku Rubber Company, each were in the area around Nāhiku:
Company………………Founded…Acres
Nāhiku Rubber Co……..1905…….480
Hawaii-American Co…..1903…… 245
Koʻolau Rubber Co…….1906……..275
Nāhiku Sugar Co……….1906……..250
Pacific Development…1907……..250
(Journal of Industrial and Engineering Chemistry, 1913)

Cultivation grew with companies and individuals controlling nearly 5,600-acres of land on Maui, Kauai, Oahu and the Big Island.

At the height of the rubber production, Nāhiku had a Chinese grocery and post office, a plantation general store; Protestant, Mormon and Catholic churches and a schoolhouse attended by twenty children. One visitor to the area in 1910 said, “Every place has its peculiarities and characteristics; so with Nāhiku. It is rubber, first, last and all the time there.”

However, the quality and quantity of rubber produced by these plantations, despite the hard work of the laborers (who were paid 50 cents for a ten-hour day with a 30-minute lunch break) was not good enough to make a substantial profit for the investors. The companies began to phase out production as early as 1912. The oldest of the rubber companies, the Nāhiku Rubber Plantation, closed on January 20, 1915.

After the rubber plantations closed, some residents moved out of Nāhiku. Those who stayed resumed cultivating bananas and taro for food. Some tried growing bananas as a cash crop and when this didn’t work began growing roselle for jelly. Eventually these attempts also failed. The exodus out of Nāhiku to the “outside” continued.

 According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, in 1930 there were only 182 people living in Nāhiku. Of them, 101 were Hawaiian. By 1941 only fifteen families and two non-Hawaiian families lived there, clustered around a one-room school and the churches.

In December, 1942, Territorial Governor Ingram Stainback tried to help the World War II effort by sending 40 prisoners from Oʻahu Prison to the Keanae Prison Camp (now the YMCA camp) to revive the old Nāhiku rubber plantation. The plan was to produce 20,000 to 50,000 pounds of crude rubber annually. The plan did not work.  Now, rubber trees left over from that time line the roads of Nāhiku.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

For the Birds

“The spread of civilization and the utilization of wild lands, added to the destruction of animals for food, adornment, clothing, and sport, threaten the very existence of many species of native birds and mammals.”

“The necessity of regulating the killing of game was perceived early in our colonial history, and even the need of caring for our insectivorous birds found recognition about 1850.”

“Only in comparatively recent years, however, has the importance been recognized of protecting the large class of birds which, although they do not destroy insects or other creatures inimical to agricultural interests, are nevertheless worthy of preservation because of their beauty, grace, and harmlessness.”

“If such birds add nothing to our material wealth, they beautify the world and greatly increase the joy of living.”

“Though by no means the first to recognize the importance of protecting its wild life, the United States has taken a leading place among the nations of the world in this respect”

“One of the most efficient of the conservation measures adopted by the Government is the setting apart here and there of islands and sterile tracts of land, worthless for other purposes, upon which our native wild birds and mammals may live and perpetuate their kind for the pleasure and profit of our own and future generations.” (Yearbook of the US Dept of Agriculture, 1911)

“The National bird reservations under the care of the Department of Agriculture already number 51 and play a very important part in the preservation of our wild game and birds.”

“One of the most unique and interesting of these is the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation in the mid-Pacific, which, at certain seasons of the year, harbors millions of sea fowls that repair thither to establish rookeries and rear their young.”

“The following is the executive order setting apart this refuge:”

Executive Order No. 1019. It is hereby ordered that the following islets and reefs, namely: Cure Island, Pearl and Hermes Reef, Lysianski or Pell Island, Laysan Island, Mary Reef, Dowsetts Reef, Gardiner Island, Two Brothers Reef, French Frigate Shoal, Necker Island, Frost Shoal and Bird Island …”

“… situated in the Pacific Ocean at and near the extreme western extension of the Hawaiian Archipelago between latitudes 23° and 29° north, and longitudes 160° and 180° west from Greenwich, and located within the area segregated by the broken lines …”

“… are hereby reserved and set apart, subject to valid existing rights, for the use of the Department of Agriculture as a preserve and breeding ground for native birds.”

“It is unlawful for any person to hunt, trap, capture, wilfully disturb, or kill any bird of any kind whatever, or take the eggs of such birds within the limits of this reservation except under such rules and regulations as may be prescribed from time to time by the Secretary of Agriculture.”

“Warning is expressly given to all persons not to commit any of the acts herein enumerated and which are prohibited by law. This reservation to be known as the Hawaiian Islands Reservation.”  Signed by Teddy Roosevelt, February 3, 1909.

The names have changed, a bit, but the place remains the same.

“This refuge consists of a dozen or more islands, reefs, and shoals that stretch westward from the archipelago proper for a distance of upwards of 1,500 miles toward Japan. The average distance between them is something like 100 miles.”

“Some of them, like Necker, Bird Island, and French Frigate Shoal, are masses of volcanic rock thrust up out of the ocean and so steep and rugged as generally to be inaccessible to anything without wings.”

“Others are little more than diminutive sand spits, snatched from the grasp of ocean by the aid of coral animals. Still others are larger, and a few, like Laysan, being covered with sandy soil, are clothed with a more or less flourishing growth of shrubs, vines, and grasses.”  (Yearbook of the US Dept of Agriculture, 1911)

“As the islands are part of our National possessions and have been set apart as a bird reserve, the care and the protection of their avian inhabitants would seem clearly to devolve upon the Federal Government. It is true that their remoteness and inaccessibility render it difficult to guard them properly.”

“An effort, however, will be made to secure from Congress sufficient funds to provide for the services of a warden for Laysan and for an assistant. It is hoped also to secure a small power boat of adequate size to enable trips to be made between Laysan and the other islands and Honolulu.”

“These measures, if supplemented by an occasional visit from one of the Government cutters during the height of the breeding season, will insure the continued safety of the nesting colonies. From a variety of causes sea birds are being reduced in numbers almost everywhere, chiefly as the result of plumage hunting and of the growing scarcity of breeding sites.”

“Hence these island bird colonies, one of the wonders of the world, will become of increasing importance with each succeeding year. They should be regarded as a National heritage, and the birds be adequately protected, not only for the sake of our own citizens, but for those of other countries whose people go down to the sea in ships.”

“Otherwise these birds will suffer the fate that overtook those on Marcus Island, also one of our possessions, where, as reported by Bryan, in six years a colony of albatrosses almost as large as that of Laysan was reduced to less than a score of birds through the unchecked activities of feather hunters.” (Yearbook of the US Dept of Agriculture, 1911)

Unlike all other islands and atolls in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Kure Atoll is the only land area owned by the state of Hawaiʻi – all of the other Northwestern Islands are owned by the US government.

While I was at DLNR, we created Refuge rules that established “a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.“ 

This started a process where several others followed with similar protective measures.  The BLNR unanimously adopted the State’s Refuge rules, President George W Bush declared it a Marine National Monument and UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site. 

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

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

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Daguerreotype

Prior to photography, portraits were painted. A first connection to Hawai‘i in this was through the son of Jedidiah Morse (Jedidiah was an abolitionist New England preacher who some consider “the father of American geography” – he compiled and published the first American geography book).

His son Samuel showed enough artistic promise for Jedidiah to send Samuel abroad to study painting after he graduated from Yale University in 1810.

Painting provided Samuel with pocket money to help pay his term bills at Yale. He became one of the small handful of important American painters in his generation, and many famous depictions of notable Americans are his work.

The portrait of Noah Webster at the front of many Webster dictionaries is his, as are the most familiar portraits of Benjamin Silliman, Eli Whitney, and General Lafayette.  (Fisher)

Prior to the departure of the first missionaries to Hawai‘i, a portrait of each of the company had been painted by Samuel Morse; engravings from these paintings of the four native “helpers” were later published as fund-raisers for the Sandwich Islands Mission and thereby offer a glimpse of the “Owhyhean Youths” on the eve of their Grand Experiment.  (Bell)

The portrait of Noah Webster at the front of many Webster dictionaries is his, as are the most familiar portraits of Benjamin Silliman, Eli Whitney, and General Lafayette.  (Fisher)

Morse showed great promise as a painter, but he offered Americans grand paintings with historical themes, when all his paying patrons really wanted were portraits of themselves.  Eventually Morse accepted many portrait commissions, but even they did not bring the steady income he needed to support himself and his family.

Oh, one more thing about Samuel Morse, while he did not invent the telegraph, he made key improvements to its design, and his work would transform communications worldwide. First invented in 1774, the telegraph was a bulky and impractical machine that was designed to transmit over twenty-six electrical wires. Morse reduced that unwieldy bundle of wires into a single one.

Along with the single-wire telegraph, Morse developed his “Morse” code. He would refine it to employ a short signal (the dot) and a long one (the dash) in combinations to spell out messages.

Morse the artist also became known as “the Father of American photography.” He was one of the first in the US to experiment with a camera, and he trained many of the nation’s earliest photographers.  (Fisher)

While doing art and developing code, Morse was also deeply involved in trying to make a go of his newfound vocation as a daguerreotypist. Morse enthusiastically embraced this new technology and became one of the first to practice photography in America.  (LOC)

Daguerreotype was the first successful form of photography; it was named for Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre of France, who invented the technique in collaboration with Nicéphore Niépce in the 1830s.

Daguerre and Niépce found that if a copper plate coated with silver iodide was exposed to light in a camera, then fumed with mercury vapour and fixed (made permanent) by a solution of common salt, a permanent image would be formed. (Britannica)

The daguerreian era in Hawai’i began in the summer of 1845 when Theophilus Metcalf, an engineer and French scholar living in Honolulu, advertised that he was prepared to ‘take likenesses by the daguerreotype’.

The first surviving portraits, however, were made in January 1847, when an artist who called himself Senor Lebleu arrived from Peru and set up a studio.

Daguerreians continued to arrive and practice their art until approximately 1860. During this period there were almost a dozen artists working in the islands, for periods varying from one month to several years.

The most prolific Hawai‘i daguerreian whose work can be fairly well documented was Hugo Stangenwald (1829–99). He operated a studio in Honolulu from 1853 to 1858.

Dr. Hugo Stangenwald, the “student revolutionist, Austrian émigré, able practicing physician, and recognized early-day daguerreotype artist,” left Austria in March 1845. After living in California, he arrived in Honolulu in 1853. He married the former Mary Dimond in 1854. (HABS)

He opened a shop in late-1854 in a one-story frame structure on the site of the present Stangenwald building. His advertisement was well-known: “To send to them that precious boon, And have your picture taken soon, And quick their weeping eyes they’ll wipe To smile upon your daguerreotype.” (HABS)

His competitor for a year and a half (from 1855 to 1856) was Benajah Jay Antrim. Antrim left a memoir that, in a somewhat rambling and self-promoting fashion, recorded his success in the art in the Hawaiian Islands. (Davis & Forbes)

Before heading West, Antrim was a professional maker of mathematical instruments in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  In the 1830s he apprenticed under Edmund Draper. (Complete Surveyor)

Antrim was one of the forty men of the Camargo Company who went to California via Mexico on January 1849, after the successful termination of the War with Mexico.  From 1852 to 1854 Antrim was noted in Sierra County, California.

From 1855 to 1856 he operated in Honolulu, Hawaii.  He operated under his own name, B. Jay Antrim, as well as Role Lane Gallery (based on its location on Rose Lane) and Excelsior Gallery.  (Polynesian, Nov 17, 1855)

He ran an advertisement noting, “Prices Reduced at the Excelsior Gallery, located on Rose Lane, east side of King-street opposite the Bethel Church. Thankful for past favors, the undersigned takes this method of soliciting for a limited time, the patronage of the citizens and visitors of Honolulu …”

“… assuring them that strict application has been made to every new feature of the Art, calculated to finish first class Portraits, Miniatures, and Views for all who may desire them, by the latest and most satisfactory mode of operating in the United States.”

“Gallery open from 8 AM to 4 PM.  Cloudy weather no detriment.  Call and examine the specimens of Rose Lane Gallery.  B Jay Antrim” (Polynesian, Dec 22, 1855)

Then Antrim announced a change in his business, “To the Citizens of Honolulu. This is to inform the citizens Honolulu, that Mr. Benson, will continue the Daguerrean Art on Rose Lane, after April 14th, 1856.  We would return our sincere thanks to our patrons, and recommend Mr. B, as worthy of their patronage.  B. Jay Antrim” (Polynesian, April 5 & 12, 1856)

Antrim went back to California and set up shop there; he advertised, “Three Pictures for $3.00! B. Jay Antrim & Co would respectfully intimate to the residents of North San Juan and vicinity their intention of closing their Photographic operations in this town in a short time.”

“Hence all persons who may be desirous of securing a cheap and elegant picture for transmission to their friends in the Atlantic States, will see the necessity of an early visit to their Gallery, adjoining the Sierra Nevada Hotel. They have just completed the necessary arrangements for taking the new style of Canvas Pictures!”

“These Pictures possess a soft and elegant tone, and can be mailed with little additional postage. North San Juan, Oct. 1.” (Hydraulic Press, Oct 16, 1858)

The newspaper reported, “Mr. Antrim, the Ambrotypist, is now prepared to take portraits on canvas, having so far perfected his invention that he is willing to make it public. These pictures have an exquisite softness of color, a fine, clear relief, and are protected from the injurious effects of moisture by a trans parent varnish of the artist’s own invention.”

“They can be rolled up as easily as velvet, and forwarded in letters a great distance without detriment. They can be taken as large as life – this is no fiction – and are as free from any blinding lustre as ordinary engravings.”

“Mr. Antrim is a man of great ingenuity. He has devoted much time and money to the perfection of this new style of sun-portraits, and offers them at such a low price that it is an object to every person to patronize him. His invention is destined to be talked about and to become popular.”  (Hydraulic Press, Oct 2, 1958)

(Ambrotype images are taken upon fine plate glass, over which is placed a corresponding glass,—the two being cemented together, so that the picture is just as permanent as the glass on which it is taken.  They are far superior, in many respects, to the best Daguerreotypes.) (Pioneer American Photographers)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Great Ocean

The Pacific is a big ocean: it covers more than one-third of the earth’s surface and more area than all of its land. It stretches more than 10,000 miles from Panama to the Philippines and almost as far from the Bering Sea to Antarctica.

The Pacific is the mother of oceans, the setting of romantic and moonlit isles, the hunting ground of explorers, buccaneers, and traders, the battleground where an empire bent upon world conquest was vanquished by a nation determined to preserve its cherished freedoms, and the home of the Polynesians, a hardy breed of people whose beginnings are obscure and full of conjecture.

Three distinct regions – Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia – make up the Pacific world.

Largest among these regions is Polynesia; the designation Polynesia is derived from the Greek nesos, an island, and poli, many.

Polynesia forms an almost perfect equilateral triangle with Easter Island at the apex, Hawaii at the left corner of the base line, and New Zealand at the right. The distance between each point of the triangle is between four and five thousand miles.

The islands of the Pacific number into the thousands and range from shoals and atolls to mighty land masses. They are commonly identified as continental or oceanic islands, depending on the geological story they tell.

Continental islands are geologically parts of the continental platforms, for their rock types and structures are similar to those of the continental land masses; oceanic islands, generally the product of volcanism, are far removed from the continents and differ in geological structure with the continental land masses.

Stretching from northwest to southeast for a distance of 1,500 miles across the Pacific lie the Hawaiian Islands, where Nature blended a forerunner to paradise.

The archipelago was built by sustained and prodigious volcanic activity that probably began some sixty million years ago through a series of fissures in the ocean floor.

The islands represent the tops of an enormous submarine mountain range. Wind, rain, surf, and other agents have eroded some of the islands into small remnants that project only a few feet above the surface of the ocean.

The Hawaiian Archipelago consists of islands, reefs, shoals, atolls, and pinnacles varying in size from 4,030 square miles to a few acres.

Largest in the group is the Island of Hawaii, which boasts two of the world’s most consistently active volcanoes, the highest insular mountain, and the largest single mountain mass. Smallest of the lot is Gardner Pinnacle, a stack of volcanic rock of three acres.

The timeless buildup of the islands continues, and if one could have a glimpse into the future he would probably see new islands thrusting their tops above the ocean to the southeast.

Plant spores and seeds borne by currents, winds, and migratory birds eventually found their way to these once barren islands and mantled them with a carpet of vegetation.

The native birds were probably blown in by strong winds; the Hawaiian bat and seal, the only native mammals, probably came in under their own power; and the pig, dog, and other animals and plants were introduced by the first settlers. The coconut may have been brought by the early voyagers or it may have been carried by ocean currents.

Into these isolated and far-flung islands came the hardy Polynesians, who had ventured into the unknown fastnesses of the vast Pacific in search of a homeland.

Their conquest of the Great Ocean and its far reaches is one of the most remarkable achievements in the pageant of life, but little is known about it.

In Hawaii, the Polynesians found an extravaganza of color – a land at once gentle and harsh, a land of freshness, primitive and untouched, of deep canyons and lofty mountains and fertile valleys and abundant forests. Nature had given generously of her best in creating such a masterpiece.

The uplands provided logs for their canoes and stone for their primitive tools; in the waters surrounding the islands they found an abundance of food, in the valleys, rich and productive lands for their agriculture.

And on the summit of a volcano they found Halemaumau – the abode of their goddess Pele.

Of it some made a shrine, a place of pilgrimage and prayer. While the homage paid to Pele was inspired essentially by fear, it was nonetheless worship, and they immortalized her in song and dance and in legend and tradition.

Hundreds of years later, a wise government set aside a part of her land as a national park, to be preserved for the benefit and enjoyment of all people for all time.  (All here is copied from Hawaii Nature Notes, Hawaii National Park, November 1953)

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