Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Oklahoma

The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson on May 28, 1830, authorizing the president to grant unsettled lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for Indian lands within existing state borders.

This generally involved the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chicasaw and Seminole; the Indians were to give up their lands east of the Mississippi (typically in the southeast) in exchange for lands to the west. (LOC)

After 11-million acres of Choctaw land was acquired, the Choctaw were to be removed from Mississippi. It was determined that the best method of handling the removal was to move about one-third of the Choctaws per year in each of the years 1831, 1832 and 1833.

The first one-third of the Choctaws started to be removed on November 1, 1831. Overall, nearly 15,000 Choctaws made the move to what would be called Indian Territory (later known as Oklahoma.) (Green)

When the first wagons reached Little Rock, in an interview with an Arkansas Gazette reporter, one of the Choctaw Chiefs (thought to be either Thomas Harkins or Nitikechi) was quoted as saying that the removal to that point had been a “trail of tears and death.”

In the Choctaw language, okla means ‘people;’ homma or humma means ‘red.’ ‘Okla Homma’ translates to ‘Red People’ in Choctaw. On November 16, 1907, Oklahoma was admitted as the forty-sixth of the United States.

In 1911 Congress authorized the building of two battleships, the Nevada and the Oklahoma, to be a modern symbol of the power of the United States (These two battleships were to be the first to burn oil as fuel instead of coal.)

Oklahoma (BB-37) was laid down October 26, 1912 by New York Shipbuilding Corp, Camden, NJ. The ship was christened in March 23, 1914 by Lorena Jane Cruce, daughter of Oklahoma’s Governor, Lee Cruce. Ms. Cruce struck the ship with a bottle of champagne while stating, “In the name of the United States, I christen thee ‘Oklahoma.’”

The Navy had earlier convinced Governor Cruce that it was tradition to use champagne in christening ships.  (The Governor had not liked the idea of using champagne to launch a ship named for his state)

The USS Oklahoma was commissioned at Philadelphia on May 2, 1916 with Captain Roger Welles commanding; the commissioning statement noted “that the Oklahoma might never become a mere instrument of destruction nor of strife, but a minister of peace and a guardian of rights and interests of mankind, protecting the weak against the strong.”

Attending the commissioning was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D Roosevelt. (As president, Roosevelt would later declare war on Japan in 1941 after the attack at Pearl Harbor.) (Oklahoma Genealogical Society Quarterly)

The Oklahoma, a 27,500-ton Nevada class battleship, needed 2,166 sailors and marines to function properly. She could travel 20,000 miles without refueling. She carried ten 14-inch guns.

The guns on battleships are so big, that they rate them on how large their ammunition is in diameter. A 14-inch gun has shells that are 14 inches in diameter and weigh about 1,400 pounds each. Each of the Oklahoma’s guns could fire almost twelve miles. That’s farther than anyone could see, even with binoculars or a telescope. (OKHistory)

Joining the Atlantic Fleet with Norfolk her home port, Oklahoma trained on the eastern seaboard until sailing 13 August 1918 with sister ship Nevada to join in the task of protecting Allied convoys in European waters.

She then joined the Pacific Fleet for six years highlighted by the cruise of the Battle Fleet to Australia and New Zealand in 1925. She joined the Scouting Fleet in early 1927, Oklahoma was modernized at Philadelphia between September 1927 and July 1929 and conducted exercises in the Caribbean.

In August 1940, the Oklahoma had been in drydock in Puget Sound, Washington after participating in Army/Navy exercises. She was backing down Puget Sound in the fog and hit a tow line of a barge carrying railroad cars which sent railroad cars into the water. A Navy ship had never before collided with a train. (Oklahoma Genealogical Society Quarterly)

She was based at Pearl Harbor December 6, 1940 for patrols and exercises, and was moored in Battleship Row on December 7, 1941 when the Japanese attacked.

Outboard alongside Maryland, Oklahoma took 3 torpedo hits almost immediately after the first Japanese bombs fell. As she began to capsize, 2 more torpedoes struck home, and her men were strafed as they abandoned ship.

Within 20 minutes after the attack began, she had swung over until halted by her masts touching bottom, her starboard side above water, and a part of her keel clear.

The Oklahoma capsized in a position parallel to the shore. Righting and refloating started with the first pull March 8, 1943, the final pull was on May 20, 1943 – it took 74-days to turn the ship over. She was floated by pumping air into air-tight compartments and pumping water out of the hull.

Too old and badly damaged to be worth returning to service, Oklahoma was formally decommissioned in September 1944. She was later sold to the Moore Drydock Co of Oakland, California, for scrapping. On May 17, 1947, while under tow, the Oklahoma sank 540-miles out of Pearl Harbor with no one on board.

In the attack on Pearl Harbor, there were 2,402 US deaths from the attack. 1,177 of those deaths were from the USS Arizona, while 429 of the deaths were from the USS Oklahoma (14 Marines and 415 Sailors.)

Thirty-five crew members were positively identified and buried in the years immediately after the attack. By 1950, all unidentified remains were laid to rest as unknowns at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

The Defense Department recovered for identification and return to families the last of 388 sailors and Marines killed on the battleship USS Oklahoma on December 7, 1941, and later buried as “unknowns” in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Punchbowl. (Lots of information here is from Navy.)

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US Marine Hospital

“Lāhainā (anciently called Lele, from the short stay of Chiefs there) is pleasantly located on the western shore of West Maui … It may be considered as the second port of the Hawaiian Islands, as, next to Honolulu, it is most generally frequented by the whaling fleet which touch at the islands in the spring and fall for recruits and refreshments.”

“This town was selected by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to lie the seat of government of the group … It has two churches, a hospital, a “palace,” which from the anchorage looms up and appears a stately building … There are three ship chandlery stores, some fifteen retail stores, and three practicing physicians.”  (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“As near as we can ascertain, the first whale ships that visited these islands and touched at this port were the “Bellina,’ Capt, Gardner, and (unknown) Capt. Worth, which was some where about 1819.”

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.

Several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour ‘on Japan,’ ‘on the Northwest’ or into the Arctic.   (Thrum)

Between the 1820s and the 1860s, the Lāhainā Roadstead was the principal anchorage of the American Pacific whaling fleet.  During that time, up to 1,500 sailors at a time were on the streets of the small town.

One reason why so many whalers preferred Lāhainā 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.

“To whale ships no port at the islands offers better facilities for all their business (with the exception of heavy repairs) than does Lāhainā.  As it is on this island, and but a short distance that the extensive potato fields are located that have furnished an almost inexhaustible supply … and fine herds of cattle …”    (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

About this same time (1831,) Joaquin Armas came to Islands from Mexico (California) to catch cattle for Kamehameha III.  His later reward for years of service to the King was several parcels of land, including a site in Lāhainā.  (Pyle)

It is suggested that in 1833 Kamehameha III commissioned the construction of a two-story stone building on a property left to Armas, about a mile from the central core of Lāhainā, to serve as a store and inn to cater to visiting sailors.  (Lāhainā Restoration Foundation)

During Armas’ occupation, on January 24, 1841, the first Catholic mass on Maui was celebrated in the house.  (Bergin)  Armas left the Islands in 1844.

On February 4, 1844, Milo Calkin was appointed US Vice Commercial Agent for the port of Lāhainā by William Hooper, acting United States Commercial Agent.  One of his duties was to arrange for medical care for sick sailors.

In the beginning, sick and destitute sailors were being boarded out at some private establishment and being given medical care by a physician hired by the Agent.  Calkin soon requested the ability to contract for a hospital to attend to the growing numbers.  (HABS)

By August 1844, the US Marine Hospital was opened on the Armas site.  Back then, the hospital business was divided into three major sections. The Commercial Agent (Calkin was the first) was responsible for recommending seamen to the hospital, keeping necessary papers and books, and handling the financial transactions.

A physician of the hospital (the first in Lāhainā was Dr Charles Winslow) had a contract with the US States Government which guaranteed him exclusive treatment of American seamen at US expense.

The third person involved in the hospital management was the purveyor (the first at Lāhainā was John Munn,) supplying food, clothing, shelter, maid service, laundry service and assorted other necessities.  All of these services were charged to the US government.  (Pyle)

The hospital (sometimes referred to as the ‘Seamen’s Hospital’) continued until 1862.  A couple things caused it to close – (1) demand was dwindling (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) and (2) a festering scandal surfaced accusing misuse of government funds.

Part of the scandal started with some questions about the exorbitant amounts charged by Dr Winslow.  Winslow evidently made his fortune in Lāhainā and left.  In a November 19, 1847 letter (Rev Baldwin to EB Robinson, “…. tomorrow morning they (Winslow) embark … for the U. States. Dr. W. came out four years since from Nantucket—has had the Seamenʻs hospital here and other practices who have probably yielded him $20,000 or more, and now feels rich enough to go home.”

Calkin was not only Commercial Agent, he was a successful ship chandler; however, he abruptly dissolved his business in February, 1846 and departed from Hawaiʻi in November of that same year.  “It seems unlikely that Calkin was actually involved in the fraud, but he must have known about it.”  (Pyle)

After Charles Bunker of Massachusetts arrived as US consul to Lāhainā in 1850 (which had recently been elevated to a Consulate from an Agent) costs at the consulate skyrocketed. By 1852, officials at the Treasury Department had become suspicious. The costs to care for seamen at Lāhainā were nearly double per person than those in Honolulu.  (US Archives)

The situation continued for a few more years, but when the total amount spent for the hospitals in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo reached more than $150,000 per year, an investigation was demanded by the Treasury Department.

US Commissioner in Hawaii, James W Borden, investigated the workings of the United States hospital and consular system in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo.

In part, Borden reported, “A careful examination of the evidence will, I believe, satisfy you that the Physician as well as the Purveyor, in this respect, and also in that of obtaining from the seamen blank receipts, have been engaged in defrauding the Government, and I have therefore no hesitation in recommending the removal of them both …” (Borden, April 27, 1860; US Archives)

“It is a notorious fact that … many of our citizens deprecated the system which has been so long pursued by the consuls in the expenditures of the fund so wisely appropriated by Congress for the relief of sick and disabled American seamen, and the exaction of illegal fees and unjust charges from the seamen…”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 28, 1861)

“The testimony disclosed the long mooted fact, that the consulates of Honolulu and Lāhainā have a large patronage and that therefore the temptation to illegal practices is consequently very great; that the offices of physician and purveyor, highly lucrative positions …”

“…they possessed power to embarrass the operations of the merchants and shipmasters … therefore, the corrupt and unwarranted practices of the consuls has been heretofore winked at by them…”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 28, 1861)

The US Marine Hospital (Seamen’s Hospital) in Lāhainā officially closed on September 10, 1862.

In 1865 the Anglican sisters founded St. Cross School for Girls at the Marine Hospital premises, at first leasing the property and finally purchasing it in 1872. The Sisterhood opened a similar school – St Andrew’s Priory – on May 30, 1867.  The Lāhainā school continued to operate until 1877.

After the school closed, the building was used for many years as a vicarage for the Anglican ministers and was later exchanged with Bishop Estate for another piece of property in 1909.  (HABS)  It has also been used as a private home and a meeting room for civic groups.  (Lāhainā Restoration Foundation) The structure was impacted by the Lahaina Fire.

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Flying the American Flag

“Twenty-eight members of the crew of the American armed steamer Aztec, 3,808 tons, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine are missing …”  (Mercury, April 5, 1917)

Before we expand on this, let’s look back – both in Hawaiʻi and elsewhere.

Captain John Dominis was an Italian-American ship captain and merchant from New York who had been trading in the Pacific since the 1820s.  In the 1840s, he purchased property on Beretania Street; he built a home for his family, Mary Lambert Dominis (his wife) and John Owen Dominis (his son.)

In 1847, on a voyage to China, Captain Dominis was lost at sea. To make ends meet, the widowed Mary then rented spare bedrooms; one of her tenants was American Commissioner Anthony Ten Eyck.  Impressed with the white manor and grand columns out front, Ten Eyck said it reminded him of Mount Vernon (George Washington’s mansion) and that it should be named “Washington Place.”

King Kamehameha III, who concurred, Proclaimed as ‘Official Notice,’ “It has pleased His Majesty the King to approve of the name of Washington Place given this day by the Commissioner of the United States, to the House and Premises of Mrs. Dominis and to command that they retain that name in all time coming.”  (February 22, 1848)

In 1862, John Owen Dominis married Lydia Kamakaʻeha (also known as Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī.)  Lydia Dominis described Washington Place “as comfortable in its appointments as it is inviting in its aspect.”  Reportedly, the American flag flew at the residence until Mary Dominis’s death, when Liliuokalani had it removed.  (Mary Dominis died on April 25, 1889, and the premises went to her son, John Owen Dominis, Governor of Oʻahu.)

Lydia was eventually titled Princess, and later became Queen Liliʻuokalani, in 1891.  John Owen Dominis died shortly after becoming Prince consort (making Liliʻuokalani the second widow of the mansion;) title to the home then passed to Queen Liliʻuokalani.

On the continent, former Princeton University president and governor of New Jersey, Woodrow Wilson was elected President in 1912; under him, the US proclaimed its neutrality from the beginning of World War I (in the summer of 1914.)

After the German sinking of the British passenger ship Lusitania in May 1915 (which killed 1,201 people, including 128 Americans,) Wilson sent a strongly worded warning to Germany.  After attempts to broker peace, then sinking of the American cargo ship Housatonic, Wilson broke off diplomatic relations with Germany.

With German submarine warfare continuing unabated, the final straw came on April 1, 1917, when the armed merchant ship Aztec was sunk off the northwest coast of France by U-boat 46 under the command of Leo Hillebrand. The Aztec was on its way from New York to Le Havre, France with a cargo of timber, copper, steel, chemicals and machinery.

All twenty eight members of the crew were killed, including Boatswain’s Mate First Class John I Eopolucci, a Naval Armed Guard – the first US Navy sailor killed in action in World War I.  The attack on the Aztec was the final straw and led to America’s intervention into World War I.

On April 2, 1917, President Wilson appeared before Congress to deliver his historic war message and asked for a declaration of war against Germany.  (history-com)  Then as Congress convened, two more ships were sunk, the large freighter Missourian and the schooner Marguerite, with no casualties aboard either ship.  On April 6, 1917, after twenty-nine months of official neutrality, the US declared war on Germany, formally entering World War I.

The passage of the war resolution by Congress, April 5, 1917, and the issuance of the President’s proclamation the next day declaring that “a state of war exists between the United States and the Imperial German Government,” was the signal for Hawaiʻi once more to declare its loyalty and pledge its unfaltering support of the nation’s cause. Appropriate resolutions were adopted by the legislature and by numerous clubs and organizations.  (Kuykendall)

On the very day on which President Wilson delivered his memorable war message to Congress, the ground for his indictment of the German government was brought home to the people of this territory by news that five youths from Hawaiʻi had lost their lives in the sinking of the Aztec.  (Kuykendall)

When the American steamer Aztec was sunk a few days ago by a German submarine, five Hawaiians … lost their lives …. Two of these Hawaiians were residents of Honolulu, the other three of Hawaiʻi.  (Hawaiian Gazette, April 3, 1917).

The five Hawaiian merchant marines that were part of the Aztec crew were: John Davis, Charles Kanai, Eleka Kaohi, Julian R Macomber and Henry Rice (they were all civilians.)

Support grew for an event to mourn the loss of Hawaiʻi’s first war dead.  In a memorial service for the five, held April 22, 1917, “The dead were eulogized as heroes who lost their lives while maintaining the right of the principle that the seas are free to all.  About a pavilion platform that was decorated with the Star Spangled Banner and the flag of Hawaiʻi … more than 2000 gathered …”

“That the Hawaiians died in the service of their country in upholding American right of legitimate commerce at sea was emphasized by the presence on the platform of the heads of the military and naval service in Hawaiʻi, and there was a solemn martial atmosphere to the gathering to remind even casual spectators that this was a memorial service in war time.”  (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 23, 1917)

“Senator HL Desha speaking in Hawaiian delivered an oration appropriate to the occasion. He spoke of the five brave men who died doing their duty and declared that for all we know on this earth, these men might have sacrificed their lives for the peace of the whole world.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, April 24, 1917)

Lorrin Andrews delivered an oration on what the American flag represents, “There is a Flag floating over this building which symbolizes to all of us that which we hold most dear. It was conceived in a struggle for liberty against oppression. It presided over the birth of the greatest republic that the world has ever seen, and it has always represented honor, freedom and justice.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, April 24, 1917)

Not long before her death in 1917, Queen Liliuokalani nobly expressed support of the United States in World War I by ordering that the American flag be flown over Washington Place.  (hawaii-gov)

“For the first time in its long and picturesque history, Washington Place, home of Queen Liliʻuokalani, was decorated today with an American flag.”

“It was the occasion of the visit of the legislators to pay their respects to the aged queen and in view of the extraordinary crisis in international affairs and the prospect of patriotic war action by congress …”

“… the queen allowed the flag to be flown in honor of the government which years ago was responsible for her loss of a monarchy.”  (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 3, 1917)  (Reportedly, the American flag continued to fly over Washington Place.)

Liliʻuokalani continued to occupy Washington Place until her death later that year (November 11, 1917.)

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Battery French

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

Artillery districts, each consisting of one or more forts and accompanying mine fields and land defenses, were established to protect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and the coasts of Hawai‘i and Puerto Rico.  (US Archives)

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

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

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

In 1918, President Woodrow Wilson designated 322 acres in the central portion of Kāne‘ohe’s Mōkapu Peninsula as the Army’s Kuwa‘ahohe Military Reservation. Deactivated at the end of World War I, the reservation was leased for ranching until 1939, when it was reactivated as Fort Kuwa‘aohe.

In December 1940, Fort Kuwa‘aohe was renamed Fort Hase, in honor of Major General William F Hase, who served as Chief of Staff of the Army’s Hawaiian Department from April 1934 to January 1935. It served as headquarters of the Harbor Defenses of Kāne‘ohe Bay.

On the western side of the peninsula, Naval Air Station Kāne‘ohe was established in 1939; a base for squadrons of seaplanes to support the Pearl Harbor fleet was developed.

The work included dredge and fill operations that added 280 acres to the Kāne‘ohe Bay side of the peninsula, as well as filled low-lying areas for runway and hangar construction.

The great bulk of all reef material dredged in Kāne‘ohe Bay was removed in connection with the construction at Mōkapu of the Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station (now Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i) between 1939 and 1945.

Dredging for the base began on September 27, 1939, and continued throughout World War II.  A bulkhead was constructed on the west side of Mōkapu Peninsula, and initial dredged material from the adjacent reef flat was used as fill behind it.

In November 1939, the patch reefs in the seaplane take-off area in the main Bay basin were dredged to 10-feet (later most were taken down to 30-feet.)

It appears that a fairly reliable total of dredged material is 15,193,000 cubic yards. (Do the Math … Let’s say the common dump truck load is 10 cubic yards … that’s a million and a half truckloads of dredge material.)

The Air Station’s runway was about half complete at the time of the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941. Construction was begun on a modern-design gun battery located on a bluff above North Beach.

Battery Construction Number 301 was a single bombproof reinforced-concrete structure that housed projectile and powder rooms with an earth/sand cover. The plotting room, generator, and storage rooms were also contained within the structure.

This structure of steel reinforced concrete was covered with several feet of earth and was partially dug into the crest of the bluff.  It was set atop the bluffs overlooking the beach.  Located below the bluff to the front of the battery were the dormitory, mess-hall, recreation rooms, and latrine. 

Battery 301’s guns covered the seaward approaches to Kāne‘ohe Bay from this location, 100 yards inland from the Mōkapu shoreline. It was one of the three initial batteries authorized for the Permanent Harbor Defense Project approved for Kāne‘ohe Bay.

Armament consisted of two 6-inch shield barbette carriage long-range guns. The guns were spaced some 210 feet apart and camouflaged with a steel-lattice rooftop appearing structure that rotated with the guns. The range was about 15 miles or 27,000 yards.

The battery’s exterior walls were 6 feet thick, interior wall was 18 inches. The Battery Commander’s structure was built directly on the roof of the main structure between both gun emplacements. The roof was built with two slabs totaling nine feet in thickness, and has a downward stairway leading into the battery and an upward stairway leading to the Commander’s station.

The radar room was located in the Commander’s station with the antenna mounted on the roof of the station. This antenna was disguised as a water tank for concealment. The radar was used to provide range and elevation for targets.

The fire control system for Battery 301 consisted of three stations: Podmore Fire Control Center on Kaiwa Ridge; Station “J” on the west rim of Ulupau Crater; and Heeia Fire Control Center on Puu Maelieli.

The final target practice of Battery 301 was conducted on November 22, 1944, when a regular day target practice was fired expending sixteen rounds. Battery 301 was then placed in a reduced manning status through the end of the war.

In 1946, the battery was designated in General Order Number 96 of the War Department as Battery French in honor of Colonel Forrest J French, who died on March 8, 1944. When Fort Hase was inactivated following the war and placed in caretaking status, Battery French’s guns were placed in experimental ‘mothballs.’

Following the disarming of the battery and its abandonment in the late 1940s, the magazine service structure was taken over by the US Navy for use as a laboratory. (Gaines)

The facility now serves WETS (Wave Energy Test Site).  The Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center manages WETS. Established in 2004, WETS is located off the coast of Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i. WETS provides developers a critical real world environment for testing and advancing marine energy systems.

Key features at WETS include the 30-meter test site, deepwater wave energy test sites (comprised of 60 meter and 80 meter berths), Heeia Kea Small Boat Harbor, Dedicated Vessel Approved Mooring Area, Pyramid Rock, Battery French and the MCBH Fuel Pier. (Sea Engineering)

In 2024, marine hydrokinetics pioneer, Ocean Energy USA LLC (part of Ocean Energy Group Ireland), announced that it had successfully deployed its 826-ton wave energy convertor buoy, the OE-35, at the Wave Energy Test Site of the Marine Base (it was touted as “the world’s first electricity grid-scale wave energy device”). (Lots here is from John Bennett, William Gaines, Tomonari-Tuggle & Arakaki)

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Spring Forward

Shortly after contact, there wasn’t always agreement about what time or date it actually was … time-keeping practices varied in the 18th century, depending on circumstances.

In the 1880s, changes were being made in timekeeping practices. Several large nations still recognized prime meridians other than the one through Greenwich, and some continued to differ on the definition of a “day.”

In 1883, the US railroad industry divided the continental US into five (later four) time zones, establishing official time zones with a set standard time within each zone. (National Geographic)

The civil population nevertheless adopted ‘Railroad Time’ almost spontaneously; 85% of US towns of over ten-thousand inhabitants had done so by October 1884.

Hawaiʻi did not adopt standard time until 1896, with various notices published in the papers: “Hawaiian standard time will be ten and one-half hours slow of Greenwich.”

“The half hour is chosen for the reason that the Hawaiian group, while limited in area, is almost centrally on the line between the ten-hour and eleven-hour belt, and the inconvenience of a wide difference between standard and local time is thus avoided.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 9, 1896)

“The meridian adopted, 157 deg 30 min, is not far from central to the group. The Kauai people will be expected to set their local time ahead 8-minutes and Niihau 10-minutes; the Maui people will set back local time on an average four minutes.”

“The Hilo people, if they fall into line, will set back ten minutes, and Kona from 7 to 8 minutes.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, January 9, 1896)

It was not until 1918 that an Act of Congress set standard time all over the US, as well as daylight savings time. (Howse)

The 1918 act of Congress, ‘To save daylight and to provide standard time, for the United States’ provided for nationwide daylight saving time from March through October.

Congress also determined “That, for the purpose of establishing the standard time of the United States, the territory of continental United States shall be divided into five zones in the manner hereinafter provided. …”

“That the standard time of the first zone shall be known and designated as United States Standard Eastern Time; that of the second zone shall be known and designated as United States Standard Central Time …”

“…that of the third zone shall be known and designated as United States Standard Mountain Time; that of the fourth zone shall be known and designated as United States Standard Pacific Time; and that of the fifth zone shall be known and designated as United States Standard Alaska Time.” (Public No 106, approved by Congress March 19, 1918)

“Daylight saving plan was again agitated for these islands the early part of this year, and, in April, on official orders from Washington, the navy department here set their clocks forward an hour, but it did not last long. Cutting a foot off the end of Pat’s blanket to add to its head was found to give no greater length or warmth.” (Thrum)

The daylight saving provision was repealed in 1919, leaving intact the standard time system. (Schmitt & Cox)

Notwithstanding this official acceptance of standard time, many plantations persisted in the use of local time, or their own variations on it. The individual plantations had elected to adopt time systems that varied somewhat from the local times pertinent to the meridians at their centers.

The primary determinant of the difference between one of these plantation times and the pertinent local time was the local time of sunrise. Hence the plantation time systems were essentially daylight saving time systems.

There was no requirement that the difference between a plantation time and either the normal local time of the plantation headquarters or standard time, when that was adopted, be an even half-hour or hour, or that there be but one advance and one retardation of time in a year.

The time on a plantation was, indeed, more likely to be something like 11 minutes ahead or 14 minutes behind standard time, and changes of a few minutes might be made at intervals of only a few weeks.

Standard time was kept in Honolulu, in non-plantation towns, and at ports serving more than one plantation; and social events involving people from more than one plantation were scheduled by what was known as “Honolulu time,” “Hilo time,” etc. (Schmitt & Cox)

In 1933, the Hawaiʻi Legislature decreed daylight saving for the period between the last Sunday of each April and last Sunday of each September, but less than a month later repealed the act.

WWII brought daylight saving back to the Islands.

“(T)he standard time of each zone established pursuant to the Act entitled ‘An Act to save daylight and to provide standard time for the United States’, approved March 19, 1918, as amended, shall be advanced one hour.” (Public Law 403, approved January 20, 1942)

Year-round daylight saving time, one hour ahead of Hawaiian Standard Time, was established in the Territory during World War II by General Order No. 66 of the military governor, taking effect on February 9, 1942. The new time quickly became known as “Hawaiian War Time.” (Schmitt & Cox)

“Daylight saving has given us another hour before the nightly blackout, which begins at 7:30 pm and lasts until 7:00 am. The curfew for pedestrians has been changed from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm, but cars are still not allowed on the streets after 7:30 pm. This means no late afternoon or evening meetings of any kind.” (Journal of Nursing, 1942)

With the end of the war and the expiration of War Time on September 30, 1945, Hawai’i reverted (notwithstanding a good deal of debate) to the pre-war standard time; and it was not until 1947 that the change was made to the present system of standard time.

In 1947, the Territorial Legislature permanently returned to the pre-war standard time – however, they also advanced Hawaiian Standard Time by 30 minutes, making it 10 (instead of 10-1/2) hours slower than Greenwich Mean Time, and thus two hours (not 2½) behind Pacific Standard Time. This change became effective the second Sunday of June, 1947. (Schmitt & Cox)

The issue resurfaced in 1966, when the Uniform Time Act of that year mandated daylight saving time during the spring and summer months nationwide unless State legislative bodies specifically exempted their jurisdictions.

Reasoning that Hawai‘i already had year-round partial DST – since 1947, Hawaiian Standard Time had been 31 minutes ahead of sun time in Honolulu – the 1967 Legislature voted to exempt the Islands. (Schmitt & Cox)

In 2005, Congress passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, effective starting in 2007, that declared daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March (‘spring forward’) and ends on the first Sunday in November (‘fall back’,) with the time changes taking place at 2 am local time.

Today, most on the continent advance their clocks and watches an hour forward, as daylight savings time kicks in.

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