General | Page 79 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 17, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Territorial Penitentiary

The history of Hawai‘i’s Euro-American criminal justice system can be traced back to the first constitution of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i promulgated on October 8, 1840, by Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) at the advice of foreign political advisors. (ASM)

The Preamble of the Kingdom of Hawai`i Constitution of 1840 (the Declaration of Rights, Both of the People and Chiefs) stated, “Protection For The People Declared.”

“‘God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth,’ in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.”

“These are some of the rights which He has given alike to every man and every chief of correct deportment; life, limb, liberty, freedom from oppression; the earnings of his hands and the productions of his mind, not however to those who act in violation of the laws.”

“God has also established government, and rule for the purpose of peace; but in making laws for the nation it is by no means proper to enact laws for the protection of the rulers only, without also providing protection for their subjects;”

“neither is it proper to enact laws to enrich the chiefs only, without regard to enriching their subjects also, and hereafter there shall by no means be any laws enacted which are at variance with what is above expressed, neither shall any tax be assessed, nor any service or labor required of any man, in a manner which is at variance with the above sentiments.”

“The above sentiments are hereby published for the purpose of protecting alike, both the people and the chiefs of all these islands, while they maintain a correct deportment; that no chief may be able to oppress any subject, but that chiefs and people may enjoy the same protection, under one and the same law.”

“Protection is hereby secured to the persons of all the people, together with their lands, their building lots, and all their property, while they conform to the laws of the kingdom, and nothing whatever shall be taken from any individual except by express provision of the laws.”

“Whatever chief shall act perseveringly in violation of this constitution, shall no longer remain a chief of the Hawaiian Islands, and the same shall be true of the Governors, officers, and all land agents.” (Preamble of the First Constitution of Hawaii, October 8, 1840)

The First Act of Kamehameha III, An Act to Organize the Executive Ministry, signed by the King on October 29, 1845, established the position of Minister of the Interior and made him responsible “for the faithful and lawful execution of the duties comprised in the first part of”.

The Second Act of Kamehameha III, An Act to Organize the Executive Departments of the Hawaiian Islands, signed on April 27, 1846. Among the duties assigned to the Minister of the Interior were those in Chapter III “Of Internal Improvements,” Article IV “Of Prisons and Houses of Correction” to manage the prisons of the Kingdom.

In Part V, Chapter I “Of the Executive Judicial Officers,” of the same act, the post of Marshal of the Kingdom was established. The Marshal was made responsible for the safekeeping of all prisoners. (HSA)

In the mid-1850s, Honolulu had approximately 10,000-residents. Foreigners made up about 6% of that (excluding visiting sailors.) Laws at the time allowed naturalization of foreigners to become subjects of the King (by about that time, about 440 foreigners exercised that right.)

The majority of houses were made of grass (hale pili,) there were about 875 of them; there were also 345 adobe houses, 49 stone houses, 49 wooden houses and 29 combination (adobe below, wood above.)

The city was regularly laid out with major streets typically crossing at right angles – they were dirt (Fort Street had to wait until 1881 for pavement, the first to be paved.)

Sidewalks were constructed, usually of wood (as early as 1838;) by 1857, the first sidewalk made of brick was laid down on Merchant Street.

At the time, “Broadway” was the main street (we now call it King Street;) it was the widest and longest – about 2-3 miles long from the river (Nuʻuanu River on the west) out to the “plains” (to Mānoa.) What is now known as Queen Street was actually the water’s edge.

To get around people walked, or rode horses or used personal carts/buggies. It wasn’t until 1868, that horse-drawn carts became the first public transit service in the Hawaiian Islands.

Honolulu Harbor was bustling at that time. Over the prior twenty years, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846; 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

At the time, Honolulu Harbor was not as it is today and many of the visiting ships would anchor two to three miles off-shore – cargo and people were ferried to the land.

To accommodate the growing commerce, from 1856 to 1860, the work of filling in the fringe reef to create an area known as the “Esplanade” (where Aloha Tower is now situated) and building up a water-front and dredging the harbor was underway.

The legislature adopted a resolution directing the minister of the interior to remove Fort Kekuanohu (Fort Honolulu – then serving as a prison) and use the material obtained thereby “in the construction of prisons, and the filling up of the reef.” (Kuykendall)

Fort Street is named after this fort; it is one of the oldest streets in Honolulu. Today, the site of the old fort is the open space called Walker Park, a small park at the corner of Queen and Fort streets (also fronting Ala Moana/Nimitz.)

However, the prison could not be removed until a new prison was built; construction for the new prison began in 1855, but not entirely completed until more than two years later. The Fort was then removed in 1857. (Kuykendall)

Prisoners from Molokai (“nearly every man in the village”) who were implicated in a cattle-stealing program; they were tried and sentenced to jail. These, along with other prisoners, cut the coral blocks and constructed the prison. (Cooke)

On the opposite side (ʻEwa) of Nuʻuanu stream was a fishpond, identified as “Kawa” or the “King’s fish pond.” Iwilei at that time was a small, narrow peninsula, less populated than the Honolulu-side of Nuʻuanu stream.

The new prison was on a marshy no-man’s land almost completely cut off from the main island by two immense fishponds. The causeway road (initially called “Prison Road,” later “Iwilei Street”) split Kawa Pond into Kawa and Kūwili fishponds.

Sometimes called the “Oʻahu Prison,” “King’s Prison,” “Kawa Prison” or, simply, “The Reef,” it was a coral block fortress built upon coral fill at the end of a coral built road over the coral reefs and mudflats of Iwilei.

“As one enters the heavy front gates one stands in a long, but narrow, inclosure that forms the front yard of the prison proper. Here a few of the prisoners are sometimes allowed to take their exercise.”

“The only difference in the cells occupied by the women is that they have a mattress on the floor instead of a hammock to sleep on. They wear blue denim dresses, while the men wear a combination of brown and blue.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 15, 1894)

In 1886, Mark Twain visited the prison and wrote: “… we presently arrived at a massive coral edifice which I took for a fortress at first, but found out directly that it was the government prison.”

“A soldier at the great gate admitted us without further authority than my countenance, and I supposed he thought he was paying me a handsome compliment when he did so; and so did I until I reflected that the place was a penitentiary”. (Twain)

“When I was at Honolulu, I had occasion to visit the reef. That is, the island prison of Oahu, where all classes of offenders, murderers, felons, and misdemeanants are confined at hard labor.”

“While I was there my attention was drawn to thirty-seven Galicians, subjects of Austria, who were confined because they had refused to fulfil their contracts to labor for the Oʻahu plantation. They were dressed in stripes like the other prisoners.”

“They were made to do the same labor in the quarries and on the roads. They were conveyed about the islands in a public vehicle, accompanied by armed guards.” (Dr Levy; Atkinson, 1899)

The overall responsibility for prisons remained with the Minister of the Interior until 1890, when it was transferred by Act 3 to the Attorney General, along with authority over the Marshal. (The Marshall was later renamed High Sheriff.)

Meanwhile, an intervening supervisory level, the Board of Prison Inspectors, also under the Minister of the Interior, had been created in 1888 to “supervise the discipline and government” of the prisons.

In 1914 under the Territory of Hawai‘i, a 9.8-acre site in Kalihi-Kai was identified as the new location for Oahu Prison. Construction for the new prison was underway the following year, and by 1918, the prison was completed and renamed the Territorial Penitentiary.

The Territorial Penitentiary served as the main detainment center for convicted felons, misdemeanants, and inmates awaiting trial. By the mid-1970s, the former Territorial Penitentiary came under the control of the City and County of Honolulu and subsequently renamed to the present Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC).

By the late 1970s, most of the buildings constructed for the Territorial Penitentiary were demolished. The redesign was dramatically different from the previous penitentiary as it replaced the large single structure with multiple wings design, to one with multiple interdependent structures.

Since its establishment, OCCC has expanded to the current 16-acres and is the largest jail facility in Hawai‘i with a capacity of 628 beds and an operational capacity of 954 beds, however OCCC consistently operates above these capacities.

The existing main OCCC jail building opened in 1980 and was fully occupied by 1982. From 1978 to 1987, OCCC served as both local jail and State prison. In 1987, the Halawa Correctional Facility was completed, after which OCCC assumed its current primary function as a detention facility.

December 13, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaii Geologic Setting

Tiny dots upon a map of the Pacific, the Hawaiian Islands are in reality the tops of a range of mighty mountains, perhaps the greatest mountain range on earth, built up from the sea floor by thousands upon thousands of volcanic eruptions. The average depth of the floor of the ocean on the two sides of the island chain is about 15,000 feet.

Thus the lowest of the islands are mountains more than 15,000 feet high; and Mauna Kea, on the island of Hawaii, rises some 30,000 feet above its base. It is certainly the highest island peak in the world, and quite probably is the world’s highest mountain in terms of elevation above the ocean floor.

Fifteen hundred miles across the central Pacific stretches the line of islands that we call the Hawaiian Archipelago. From Ocean (Kure) Island at the northwest, we pass southeastward by Midway and Gardner Islands, French Frigates Shoal, Necker, Nihoa, and Kaula Islands, all of which are small low islands, until at Niihau we reach the first of the large islands of the Hawaiian group.

There are eight of these major islands. In order southeastward they are: Niihau, Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Lanai, Kahoolawe, Maui, and Hawaii. Most of the larger islands are well watered and clothed in tropical vegetation—green jewels set in a hand of sparkling white surf, and laid in the blue plush of the ocean.

The small islands northwest of Niihau—the so-called Leeward Islands—are too small to collect a toll of moisture from the passing winds. They are barren and waterless. Lanai and Kahoolawe also are dry, because the high islands to windward of them extract the water from the wind before it reaches them.

The Hawaiian mountains were born when a fissure opened in a northwest-southeast direction across the floor of the Pacific Ocean. How long ago this happened we have no way of knowing.

We believe the oldest rocks of the major islands now visible above sea level may date from the late Tertiary period of geologic time, some 30 or 40 million years ago. Obviously the oldest rocks, at the base of the heap on the ocean floor, must be very much older, perhaps 60 million years old, or even more.

Through most of the period of the islands’ growth upward through the ocean water the building force of volcanism met little opposition.

But as the top of the mountain reached into shallower water near the surface of the sea first currents and then waves began to attack the growing mass, knocking fragments of lava rock loose and washing them away into deeper water. When eventually the volcanoes thrust their heads above the sea their struggle for existence became still more intense.

Then began the great battle between the constructive forces of volcanism, ever striving to build the island upward and outward with flow upon flow of new lava, and the destructive forces of wave, stream, wind, and even ice erosion, carving away the land and carting away the debris to dump it into the ever-hungry abysses of the ocean.

So long as volcanism continued fully active the islands continued to grow, but when volcanic activity weakened and finally died out the powers of erosion seized control. Great canyons were carved into the slopes by streams, waves battered away at the shores, cutting them back into high cliffs with broad shallowly submerged platforms at their bases, and the whole land mass was gradually worn away.

The ultimate end of this process is a broad, nearly flat platform cutting across the volcanic cone a few tens of fathoms below sea level. All that is left of the former islands is a shoal.

Before this final stage of erosion is reached, however, a new agent of construction appears. On the shallowly submerged platforms, organisms such as corals start to grow in abundance, and secrete their limy skeletons to form reefs. In early stages these reefs surround a central volcanic island, and are known as fringing reefs.

In later stages the volcanic island may disappear entirely leaving only a limestone reef, slightly submerged to form a shoal, or projecting slightly above the water to form an island. Such “coral” islands are ring-shaped and are known as atolls.

Volcanism appears to have progressed southeastward along the great fissure in the ocean floor. At least, the volcanoes at the northwestern end of the Hawaiian chain ceased activity long before those at the southeastern end.

The northwesternmost volcanic mountains have been eroded away until no more volcanic rock can be seen. The visible parts of Ocean (Kure) and Midway Islands are formed entirely of organic limestone and calcareous sand, the remains of lime-secreting sea animals and plants.

We feel quite certain, however, that at some comparatively small depth the limestone rests on the truncated summits of great volcanic mountains.

At French Frigates Shoal, La Perouse Rock is a tiny remaining pinnacle of volcanic rock projecting through the limy reefs. Necker and Nihoa Islands are remains of once much larger volcanic islands, and Niihau has lost a great slice of its eastern slope through marine erosion.

Kauai and Oahu Islands were deeply eroded by streams and waves before a renewal of volcanic activity buried much of their lowlands beneath floods of late lavas. On Maui, the volcanic mountain comprising the western part of the island has been deeply dissected by streams, with the formation of huge valleys such as Iao.

Haleakala Volcano, forming the eastern part of Maui, also had great valleys cut into it by stream erosion before renewed volcanism partly buried the work of the streams.

Hawaii is the southernmost and largest of the islands and also the youngest. Of the five great volcanoes that built this largest of deep-sea islands, Kohala Volcano at the northern end of the island is the oldest.

Streams have cut huge spectacular canyons into its rainy northeastern slope, and waves driven by the nearly constant trade winds have cut high cliffs along its northeastern shore.

Next to the south, Mauna Kea has not been active since the arrival of the Hawaiian people, but has erupted since its summit was covered by a small glacier during the last great period of glaciation, perhaps within the last 15,000 years.

Hualalai, on the western part of the island, has erupted once in historic time, in 1801. The two southernmost volcanoes, Mauna Loa and Kilauea, are still in their full vigor of activity and for the most part are almost unmarred by erosion. (All here is copied from Hawaii Nature Notes, Hawaii National Park, May 1951)

December 9, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Scorching Post Cards

According to Thrum, the first white man to stay overnight in Kilauea Caldera was CS Bartow, the postmaster of Lahaina on Maui, visiting Hawaii. Bartow suggested the nighttime excursion to his fellow travelers, and while they decided against the idea, the postmaster could not be dissuaded.

In 1898, Lorrin Thurston owner of Volcano House and head of the Hawai‘i Promotion Committee (forerunner to the Hawai‘i Visitors and Convention Bureau) worked closely with the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company to create an excursion business from Honolulu to his hotel at Kīlauea.

Although he sold his interest in Volcano House to hotelier George Lycurgus (1858–1960) in 1904, Thurston continued to promote Kīlauea and Hawai‘i’s other natural sites.

Thurston helped with the establishment of the Hawaiʻi National Park, an entity to encompass both Kīlauea and Haleakalā. Hawai‘i’s new National Park, established August 1, 1916, was the thirteenth in the new system and the first in a US territory. (Chapman)

Visiting Hawaii’s volcanoes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – both before and after their designation as a National Park in 1916 – was an adventurous experience.

From Hilo, travelers had the choice of two routes to the volcanic craters; they could travel the entire thirty miles via automobile or take the railroad for twenty-two miles and a car for the remaining eight. The tourists’ destination at the crater was often Volcano House.

The majority of guidebooks from the late nineteenth century list the best time to hike the caldera as midafternoon because it provided visitors with both safe sightseeing in daylight and a closer look at Halema‘uma‘u Crater’s lava glowing in the evening.

Most travelers preferred visiting the crater in guided groups, and – armed with food, supplies, and postcards provided by Volcano House – trekked down the caldera’s well-marked trail and enjoyed lava-formed wonders. (Chisholm)

“Visitors to Kilauea Caldera used to take sport in lowering sticks with food or souvenirs into the fissures. Some enjoyed a dinner of eggs and potatoes cooked by the volcano, while others scorched postcards to mail back home.” (Alice Kim)

“A unique entertainment tendered us was a dinner served within five feet of the pit. Lumber to build table and benches had been brought down on the backs of horses.”

“An excellent meal was served, everything being cooked at the hot cracks on the crater. This is a favorite method of visitors, many of whom make steaming hot coffee over the cracks …” (Congressional Party in Hawaii, May 1907)

“[T]he sulphur and steam cracks in the crust were especially hot, prompting tourists to lower sticks holding food and souvenirs into the fissures. Many tours enjoyed a dinner of eggs and potatoes cooked by the volcano’s heated vents, while others brewed coffee”. (Postal Museum)

“These cracks can be found at many places for some distance around the pit. … Nothing quite so elaborate had ever been attempted here before.”

“The desolate grandeur of the place was impressive and the weird surroundings made a scene such as one will seldom look upon in a lifetime.” (Congressional Party in Hawaii, May 1907)

“In letters written about his own experience at Kilauea in 1907, Pennsylvania Representative Ernest Acheson remarked that, ‘An excellent meal was served, everything being cooked at the hot cracks on the crater … and the weird surroundings made a scene such as one will seldom look upon in a lifetime.’” (Postal Museum)

December 4, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Church of the Ali‘i

One of the earliest names for the church at Kawaiaha‘o was the King’s Chapel. Kawaiahaʻo Church was commissioned by Queen Kaʻahumanu during the reigns of Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III.

The current building replaced previous thatched churches and was designed by Rev. Hiram Bingham. The church was constructed between 1836 and 1842 of 14,000 slabs of coral rock quarried from an offshore reef on the southern coast of Oʻahu. (Kawaiaha‘o)

Perhaps the greatest occasion of all occurred on June 5, 1825 when ten Hawaiians made “a full declaration of their desire to be numbered among the disciples of Christ.”

These were Kalanimōku, Ka‘ahumanu, Kapule, Kapi‘olani, Keali‘iahonui, Kalakua, Namahana (or Opi‘ia,) Kaiu, La‘anui and Richard Kala‘aia‘ulu (who had arrived from the Cornwall School in 1823.)

A probation period of six months was set for these candidates. (Damon)

By the time a newly constructed thatched church was nearly finished, “Sabbath Decr. 4th. This has been a day of uncommon interest; and the transactions of it form an era in the Sandwich Island Church.”

“Eight persons who have for more than six months stood as candidates for admission and who have given as satisfactory evidence of personal piety as the nature of their circumstances will admit, came forward & united themselves to our number …”

“… and entered into a solemn covenant to walk in all the ordinances of the Gospel; and subscribed with their own hands unto the Lord, binding themselves by the most solemn engagements to be his forever.”

“Seven of the candidates received baptism – Karaimoku having been baptized a number of years ago by a French Chaplain, only brought forward his little son, which it was a pleasing sight to witness in the arms of his father to be presented for Christian baptism – He received the name of Joseph Leleohoku.”

“Ka‘ahumanu was baptised by the Christian name of Elizabeth. – Opi‘ia by that of Lydia; Tapule Deborah; Keri‘iahonui – Aaron; La‘ahui – Gideon; Kaiu – Simeon. Kara‘aiaulu – Richard.” (Levi Chamberlain Journal)

The Kawaiaha’o Church register lists the names of those who, beginning on December 4, 1825, took their vows, and were baptized. Their signatures are on the church charter.

These were not just any Hawaiians, they represented the high chiefs at the time. They were the Ali‘i Founders of Kawaiaha‘o.

Kalanimōkū was a trusted and loyal advisor to Kamehameha I, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) and Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III.) “Kalanimōku was prime minister of the king, and the most powerful executive man in the nation.” (Lucy Thurston) (Kalanimōku died February 7, 1827 at Kamakahonu, at Kailua-Kona.)

Kaʻahumanu, the favorite wife of Kamehameha I, was one of the most powerful people in the Islands at the time of the arrival of the missionaries. There were those who were higher by birth, and there were those who were higher by title, but there was probably none who held greater influence. (Ka‘ahumanu died June 5, 1832 at her home, Puka‘oma‘omao in Mānoa.)

Namahana (or Opi‘ia or Pi‘ia) was Ka‘ahumanu’s sister and former wife of Kamehameha I. When the missionaries first arrived in the Islands, they stopped at Kawaiahae. Namahana boarded the Thaddeus and sailed with them to Kailua-Kona. (She died in 1829.)

“Laʻanui was the paramount chief of the Waialua division from 1828 to his death in 1849, as well as the particular ‘lord’ (hakuʻāina) of Kawailoa, the district (ahupuaʻa) corresponding to the Anahulu River valley.” (Kirch) Laʻanui and Namahana (Piʻia) were one of the first couples to be married by Hiram Bingham. (La‘anui died September 12, 1849.)

Kauai Chiefess Kapule was wife of Kauai’s King Kaumualiʻi. Kaumuali‘i died May 26, 1824; she then married Kaʻiu, Kaumualiʻi’s half-brother. When Humehume’s (Kaumualiʻi’s son) men arrived at the Russian Fort to try and reinstate the Kingdom of Kauaʻi, Kapule fought against them. She was the most prominent person of rank to remain on Kauai after the rebellion. (Joesting) (She died on August 26, 1853.)

Ka‘iu was a devout Christian; he joined a delegation to the Marquesas Islands to determine the possibilities for missionary expansion there. (Joesting) (Ka‘iu died on September 11, 1835.)

Keali‘iahonui was a son of Kaumuali‘i; he first married Kapule, but then Ka‘ahumanu took him as husband, but when she became a Christian, she gave up Keali‘iahonui to conform with her new religious beliefs. Keali‘iahonui later married Kekauōnohi. (He died June 23, 1849.)

“Kalākua, (was daughter of Keʻeaumoku, a chief from Hawaiʻi Island and) a widow of Kamehameha (joined Namahana in boarding the Thaddeus at Kawaihae when the missionaries first arrived.) (On board, she) asked (the missionary women) to make a gown for her in fashion like their own.” (Bingham) “(She) was told that it was the Lord’s day, and that they would make it tomorrow.” (April 2, 1820, Thaddeus Journal) (Kalākua died January 16, 1842.)

Kala‘aia‘ulu had been in American and was a student at the Foreign Mission School at Cornwall Connecticut. He came back to the Islands with the Second Company of missionaries, arriving on April 27, 1823. Back in the Islands, he served as an assistant teacher and interpreter.

The image shows a portion of the page of Hiram Bingham’s Baptismal Book (written by Bingham on December 4, 1825,) noting these names, the first members of Kawaiaha‘o Church: Kalanimōku, Ka‘ahumanu, Namahana, La‘anui, Keali‘iahonui, Kapule, Kaiu and Kala‘aia‘ulu (from Kawaiaha‘o Church)

Hiram Bingham Baptismal Book-Noting Dec 4, 1825

First_Christian_Church-Honolulu-(Damon)-1822

kawaiahao-church-1885-loc

kawaiahao_church_honolulu_in_1857

kawaiahao_church-1900

kawaiahao_church-2007

Kawaiahao_Church_at_Honolulu_illustration-Bingham

kawaiahao_church-king-punchbowl-dirt-roads-pp-15-11-015-00001

Kawaiahao interior

kawaiahao_church_-_memorial_for_hiram_bingham

Kaahumanu Commemorative plaque

November 29, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kalaniana‘ole v Lili‘uokalani

On the November 30, 1915, Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole, on his own behalf filed a bill in equity averring mental weakness on the part of Queen Lili‘uokalani. (Hawaii Supreme Court)

“In his petition to set aside the queen’s trust deed, Kūhiō claims that Lili‘uokalani, who was seventy-seven years old last September, is a widow without issue and that by virtue of a royal proclamation of February 10, 1883, issued by ‘His Majesty Kalākaua, then King of the Hawaiian Islands …’”

“‘… the said Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole was created a prince, with succession to the throne, and that since the death of his brother, Prince David Kawānanakoa, on the second day of June, 1908, the said prince had been next in succession to said queen and the heir preemptive.’”

“The trust deed which Kūhiō would have broken by action of court was signed by Queen Lili‘uokalani on December 2, 1909 and Kūhiō claims that, although at that time he was in Honolulu, he was kept away from the queen so that she could not consult with him as to the terms of the trust deed.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 17, 1915)

The queen and her representatives fought the claims … “Queen Liliuokalani will oppose the suit institutes in her name, in the circuit court here on November 30, last, by delegates J. K. Kalaniana‘ole, as her next friend and in his name, to break the trust in which the queen’s property is held. In other words, Queen Lili‘uokalani wishes the trust to continue.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 17, 1915)

The case made it to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court and noted, the matter relates to “the execution by the Queen of a certain deed of trust, on the 2d day of December, 1909, under which the said Iaukea and Dominis were among the beneficiaries, and certain subsequently executed instruments purporting to confirm and supplement the trust deed.” (Supreme Court)

“The Queen then applied to this court for a writ of prohibition to restrain the circuit judge from taking any further steps in the case until after making an inquiry into and determining the question of her present mental capacity. (The Supreme) court held that the presumption of competency prevailed in favor of the Queen”. (Supreme Court)

The Supreme court also found, “We think it is clear, therefore, that Kalaniana‘ole, as sole complainant, may not maintain the suit since he has no interest in the subject-matter.” The queen won the case.

An interesting side note to the queen’s legal matters relate to the role and relationship she had with WO Smith.

William Owen Smith, born at Kōloa, Kauai to missionary parents, was educated at Rev David Dole’s school at Kōloa, later attending Punahou School in Honolulu; Smith left school to go to work on a sugar plantation for three years to learn the sugar industry, working in the boiling house in winter and in the fields in summer.

Smith was Sheriff of Kauai for two years and Maui for two years. He later became a lawyer and state legislator.

During the revolutionary period, Smith was one of the thirteen members of the Committee of Safety that overthrew the rule of Queen Liliʻuokalani (January 17, 1893) and established the Provisional Government.

He then served on the executive council of the Provisional Government and was sent to Washington DC when the proposed Organic Act for the Government of Hawaiʻi was pending before Congress.

When not filling public office, Mr. Smith had been engaged in private law practice and was affiliated with various law firms during his long career.

Smith and his firm wrote the will for Princess Pauahi Bishop that created the Bishop Estate. As a result of this, Pauahi recommended to Queen Liliʻuokalani that he write her will for the Liliʻuokalani Trust (which he did.)

As a result, Liliʻuokalani and Smith became lifelong friends; he defended her in court, winning the suit brought against her by Prince Jonah Kūhiō. (KHS)

Speaking of his relationship with the Queen, Smith said, “One of the gratifying experiences of my life was that after the trying period which led up to the overthrow of the monarchy and the withdrawal of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Queen sent for me to prepare a will and deed of trust of her property and appointed me one of her trustees”. (Nellist)

Smith was also a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate from 1884-1886 and 1897-1929, the Lunalilo Estate, the Alexander Young Estate and the Children’s Hospital.

On April 24, 1873, while serving as Sheriff on Maui, WO Smith planted Lāhainā’s Indian Banyan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission in Lāhainā.

Today, shading almost an acre of the surrounding park and reaching upward to a height of 60 feet, this banyan tree is reportedly the largest in the US.

Its aerial roots grow into thick trunks when they reach the ground, supporting the tree’s large canopy. There are 16 major trunks in addition to the original trunk in the center.

Back to the land that Kūhiō made claim to, it helped to form the Lili‘uokalani Trust, “a private operating foundation founded in 1909, for the benefit of orphan and destitute children with preference given to Native Hawaiian children.

“A diversified portfolio of real estate, marketable securities and private investments provides the resources to support mission-related programs and activities.” (Lili‘uokalani Trust)

Author Evelyn Cook noted in a newspaper interview related to the book she wrote about WO Smith’s father, ‘100 Years of Healing: The Legacy of a Kauai Missionary Doctor’, “Today, the prince is worshipped, and WO Smith is vilified. But who is the hero and villain? People don’t know their own history.” (Command)

Liliuokalani Trust-logo

Kalanianaole, Jonah Kuhio, 1871-1922-PP-97-2-010

JonahKuhioKalanianaole

Queen Liliuokalani in a black dress Hawaiian Monarchy Hawaii

Liliuokalani_in_1917

William_Owen_Smith