Prominent People | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

May 17, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lydia Panioikawai Hunt French

“’We are fortunate; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ These were her last words. She did not say anything until the day she left, then she said clearly: Aloha, three times, and her body’s work was done.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

Let’s look back …

Lydia Panioikawai Hunt French (Panio) was born in Waikele, Ewa, on the 15th of July, 1817. She married her husband, Mr. William French (Mika Palani) in 1836 at Kailua, Hawai‘i. Governor Kuakini was the one who married them.

William French arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1819 and settled in Honolulu. He became a leading trader, providing hides and tallow, and provisioning the whaling ships that called in Honolulu. Financial success during the next decade made French known as “the merchant prince.”

It “was with this husband who she lived in aloha with until death separated them. The two of them had three children—a daughter that is still living, and a mother that is admired along with her husband and four children—and twin sons, one who has died, and one who is living in China.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

French had property on the Island of Hawaiʻi, with a main headquarters there at Kawaihae, shipping cattle, hides and tallow to Honolulu; he hired John Palmer Parker (later founder of Parker Ranch) as his bookkeeper, cattle hunter and in other capacities. (Wellmon)

When French made claims before the Land Commission regarding one of the properties (identified as “slaughter-house premises” that he bought from Governor Kuakini in 1838,) testimony supporting his claim noted it was “a place for a beautiful house which Mr French would not sell for money. … It was enclosed by a stone wall. There were two natives occupying houses on his land.” (Land Commission Testimony)

The 2.8-acre property is in an area of Waimea known as Pu‘uloa; French built a couple houses on it, the property was bounded by Waikoloa Stream and became Parker’s home while he worked for French. (In addition, in 1840, this is where French built his original home in Waimea. (Bergin))

At Pu‘uloa, Parker ran one of French’s stores, which was nothing more than a thatched hut. Although this store was less grandiose than the other one at Kawaihae, it became the center of the cattle business on the Waimea plain.

French, like other merchants in the Islands at the time, grew concerned about decisions and laws that started to be made that affected their ability to trade. These changes also affected French citizens, especially the French Catholics.

On July 21, 1838, the French minister of the navy dispatched orders to Captain Cyrille-Pierre-Theodore Laplace, who at the time was already en route to the Pacific on a voyage of circumnavigation. Laplace received these orders, along with supporting documents, at Port Jackson, Australia, in March 1839.

The plight of French Catholics in Hawai‘i being distressingly similar to that of French Catholics in Tahiti, these orders read: “… What the English Methodists are doing in Tahiti, American Calvinist missionaries are doing in the Sandwich Islands.”

“They have incited the king of these islands, or rather those who govern in his name, to actions that apply to all foreigners of the Catholic faith – all designated, intentionally, as ‘Frenchmen.’”

“They found themselves prohibited from practicing their religion, then ignominiously banished from the Island … You will exact, if necessary with all the force that you command, complete reparation for the wrongs that they have committed and you will not leave those shores until you have left an indelible impression.”

In addition to the religious persecution, “Our wines, brandies, fabrics, and luxury goods find ready purchasers in Honolulu as well as in Russian, British, and Mexican settlements; but these articles are imported by American merchants (or replaced by substitutes of American manufacture).”

“French wines and brandies are subject to excessively high duties, on the grounds that bringing them into the Sandwich Islands would be harmful to the morals of the native population. American rum, on the other hand, is brought in—whether legally or illegally, I do not know—and consumed in prodigious quantities.” (Laplace; Birkett)

Captain Laplace and his fifty-two-gun frigate L’Artemise arrived in the Hawai‘i in July 1839. Laplace was the first Frenchman to visit the Islands with specific instructions from Paris to enter into official diplomatic relations with the Hawaiian government.

“It was my task to end this prohibition so detrimental to our commercial interests. I succeeded in doing so through a convention with the king of the Islands where he agreed that in the future French wines and brandies would be subject to no more than a 6 percent ad valorem duty when imported under the French flag.”

“The American missionaries raged and fumed at me, claiming that I was anti-Christian. They brought down on me all the curses of New and Old World Bible societies, to whom they depicted me as championing drunkenness among their converts …”

“… as if the way in which they were running things allowed these poor people to earn enough to buy Champagne, Bordeaux, or even Cognac brandy. Despite these diatribes, as unjust as they were treacherous, I carried my project to completion.” (Laplace; Birkett)

Here’s a portrayal of Panio by Danielle Zalopany during a presentation at Mission Houses– she gives some background on the family, as well as the ‘Laplace Affair.’
https://youtu.be/cCc8dQk1YmQ

William French died at Kawaihae on November 25, 1851. “Many who have made their fortunes in these Islands have owed their rise in the world to the patronage of Mr French.” (Polynesian, December 6, 1851)

“On the 24th of February past (1880,) Panio left this life, at the home of her daughter in Ka‘akopua, after being in pain for several weeks. In her sickness, her great patience was made clear, along with her unwavering faith in the goodness of the Lord, her Redeemer, and her Savior; and she was there until the victorious hour upon her body.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

May 16, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiian Colonization

“The question of colonization in the Hawaiian Islands has, during the last few months, virtually absorbed all smaller issues touching our material welfare, and at present is justly made the leading topic of public thought and newspaper discussion.”

“While colonization has long been talked of, it has never before been put into practical working shape by practical responsible men, in whom the people at home have entire confidence.”

“The status and practicability of the present scheme, backed as it is by our largest capitalists and business men generally, will be a guarantee of the good faith of the promoters and the practical utility of the scheme, which will attract and retain the support of both home and foreign capital.”

“The present colonization scheme is too large an investment to be entirely handled by home capital. It is not only too large for our present population, but it is large enough to satisfy the standard idea of both American and English capitalists.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

Let’s look back …

On August 5, 1885, Honolulu businessman James Campbell offered Benjamin F Dillingham a one-year option to purchase his Kahuku and Honouliuli ranches on Oahu, ‘including no fewer than nine thousand cattle for the sum of $600,000.’

Shortly afterward, Dillingham issued a ‘preliminary prospectus’ for what was to be called the Hawaiian Colonization Land and Trust Company.

The prospectus proposed the formation of a joint stock company to buy and then divide the properties. The lands totaled 63,500-acres in fee, and 52,000-acres of leased land; and 15,000 head of cattle and 260 head of horses. (Forbes)

Dillingham was the chief promoter; others involved were James Campbell (owner of Honouliuli and Kahuku estates;) John Paty of Bishop Bank (primary owners of Kawailoa and Waimea estates; and M Dickson and JG Spencer (part owners of Kawailoa and Waimea ranches.) Those properties made up the bulk of the land in the offering. (Forbes)

“The ‘Preliminary Prospectus of the Hawaiian Colonization Company’ has already attracted a good deal of notice and has been widely, but by no means exhaustively discussed in the columns of every paper in Honolulu.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 15, 1885)

“The inducements which are offered to settlers under the present scheme that be briefly summed up as follows : There will be a sure market for all products raked ; there are 17,000 acres of fine sugar land in the Honouliuli ranch alone, which includes the 10,000 acres set aside for colonization purposes.”

“Seven thousand acres of this tract forms an alluvial plain lying along the seashore; abundant water can be obtained, by sinking artesian wells, as has already been practically illustrated, the 7,000 acres, one half of which nowhere lies more than 35 feet above the sea level …”

“… cheap and practical dams, as have already been constructed on the Kawailoa ranch, can be thrown across the gulches of the foothills of the Waianae mountains, which will drain immense watersheds into perpetual reservoirs, and will do away with the possibility of droughts …”

“… the land will be offered to responsible cultivators in lots of from 5 to 500 acres, for sugar cane cultivation ; it is proposed that the cane shall be raised upon shares, as set forth in the Colonization Company’s circulars ; the cane land will yield an average of from five to seven tons to the acre.”

“The Company proposes to furnish the land and give small cultivators five-eighths of the profit, which, at a low estimate for five-acre lots of cane land, will net the cultivator $1,500 per year, after all deductions are made and expenses paid. This amount is the practical result of the figures given by practical sugar men.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

“The company proposes to build the mills, furnish the water supply and build tramways for transporting the cane and sugar. For this work the Company will lay out at least $300,000.”

“This will put the scheme in working order and will give the cultivator immediate returns upon his labor without the outlay of capital. It is a scheme for the development of Hawaii and the up-building of the labor interests.”

“The scheme, however, is not confined to sugar raising, and those colonists who prefer can take up land for stock raising in lots of 200 to 1,000 acres, or even more. The land could be either bought or leased.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

“‘The Hawaiian Colonization, Land and Trust Company,’ and a preliminary prospectus issued, which has been given enormous circulation through the newspapers, the Planters’ Monthly, and detached pamphlets by the thousand.”

“These efforts to present the scheme to the public at home and abroad have already yielded good promise of ultimate success. Letters of enquiry have crossed continents and oceans to reach the promoters.”

“Friends and agents of the kingdom in foreign lands arc encouraging the project, and looking about them for capital to start it, and for settlers to occupy the available territory and build up the nation.”

“Applications in large number have already been received for apportionments of land. That all these gratifying results should have been obtained within so short a period speaks well for the intelligent devotion of the gentlemen who have assumed the undertaking”. (Daily Bulletin, January 2, 1886)

While, initially, things went well, eventually the project ‘fell flat.’ (Forbes) While Dillingham couldn’t raise the money to buy the Campbell property, he eventually leased the land for 50-years. Dillingham realized that to be successful, he needed reliable transportation.

Dillingham formed O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L,) a narrow gauge rail, whose economic being was founded on the belief that O‘ahu would soon host a major sugar industry.

Ultimately OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples for Dole.

May 15, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Winne Units

OK, this one brings back some memories …

“These halls, this learning environment, launched the academic careers of tens of thousands of Punahou students.” (Punahou President Jim Scott – speaking at an event at the Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units)

The Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units, built between 1950 and 1955, were designed by the renowned architect Vladimir Ossipoff.

Ossipoff was a prominent architect in the Islands, working between the 1930s and 1990s. He was recognized locally, nationally and internationally for his designs. He is best known for his contribution to the development of the Hawaiian Modern movement.

This style is characterized by the work of architects who “subscribed to the general modernity of the International Style while attempting to integrate the cultural and topographical character of the (Hawaiian) region.” (Sakamoto)

This very frequently included an attempt to integrate the interior of buildings with the outdoors, and minimizing the dividing line between the building and the site.

In 1954, Ossipoff told the Star Bulletin, “Modern facilities comparable to contemporary Mainland school construction can be built for considerably less in Hawai‘i.” He was referring to the construction of the Winne Units.

Back then cost of construction averaged $15 per square foot nationally, the first phase of the Winne Units was built for $8.27 per square foot. In the article, Ossipoff credited the lack of heating and insulation as factors in the lower costs. (Leong, Punahou)

But, there were other cost savings.

According to Shaver F. “Jack” Stubbart who was a teacher of Mechanical Drawing, Industrial Arts (1948-1965) and the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds (1965-1982), the Navy offered, and Punahou accepted, surplus heart redwood water tanks that were milled for use in the construction. (Gartley, Punahou74)

The first of three building phases originally contained Damon Library, with its own working fireplace that children could gather around for storytelling, replicating the fireside tales of centuries past. Then-Junior School Principal Donald Reber called it the “living room of the school.”

Reber and his faculty worked closely with Ossipoff to create a complex of elementary school buildings that departed sharply from the idea of the traditional school building (with its self-contained, enclosed environment where seats and desks were often fixed to the floor.)

Two design principles, “unity with the outdoors” and “adaptability to progress,” shaped what the elementary school became: a place that felt safe, where it was hard to say where the classroom stopped and the rest of the world began.

The first phase of this new elementary school inspired a new term: it wasn’t a building or a hall, but a “unit” – the Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units, a name that eventually extended to include the entire complex.

Phases two and three followed, incorporating improvements suggested by the faculty who had taught in the first wings (such as bug-proof lunchbox storage.)

The Winne Units housed 25-classrooms in 9-single story wings that radiate from the main entrance that accommodated 625 students (K through 5.) The units are structure by steel-pipe columns and steel I-beams. (Support facilities/offices were included.) (Sakamoto)

The office became a daily gathering place for teachers in the days before there were phones and computers in every classroom, and the intercom system meant that not only could every classroom hear a speaker in the office, but the office could hear what was going on in the classrooms.

Each class had reversible blackboards, its own lanai with a wall of sliding doors and its own garden. (Lanais were used as classroom extensions for messy or outdoor work, where students practiced art on easels.)

Born in 1876 in Carson City, Nevada, Miss Mary Persis Winne had ties to Punahou as the granddaughter of Reverend Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston.

The Thurstons were in the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in Kailua-Kona on the Thaddeus in 1820.

Winne came to Punahou as a second grade teacher in 1898, and rose to become the principal of the then newly formed Punahou Elementary School in 1918.

The Winnes lived in the old Mcintosh house on Nuʻuanu near Judd Street. Miss Jane Winne has charge of the chorus singing at Punahou, and Mr. James Winne is with Alexander & Baldwin. (HMCS, 1917)

Miss Winne was the first Punahou faculty member to serve 25 years. By the time she retired in 1941 she had served generations of Punahou students for 42 years.

“At no time did I ever see her overlook the emotional, spiritual or academic needs of individual children. She embraced the best in modern philosophies and practices, giving freely of herself ….”

“Hours meant nothing to her when dealing with both parents and children. In return she received the greatest loyalty from people of all ages or races that I have ever witnessed.”

During her tenure Miss Winne was instrumental in introducing the best of new educational methods. Of particular interest was the implementation of new practices for teaching children to read and write.

Miss Anna Gillingham and Miss Bessie Stillman, recognized experts from New York, were brought to the school to train teachers and provide remedial tutoring to students. It was from these efforts that pioneering contributions were made in the treatment of dyslexia.

Punahou replaced the Winne Units with new facilities for grades 2-5. (Lots of information here is from Punahou, Leong and Gartley.)

May 11, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaii 50th Staters

“In basketball’s storied history, there may be no single organization more synonymous with the game than the world-famous Harlem Globetrotters.” (Basketball Hall of Fame)

The Harlem Globetrotters began in 1926 under the banner of the South Side’s Giles Post of the American Legion and then became known as the Savoy Big Five after Chicago’s Bronzeville’s Savoy Ballroom hired the team to play as pre-dance entertainment. Most of the players were from Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago’s South Side.

They started touring small farm towns in the Midwestern US. For Midwest audiences, the game of basketball was still novel and, from early on, this team brought an entertaining style of play to the sport. (History)

Seizing on a golden opportunity, sports promoter Abe Saperstein purchased the team and became the manager and coach. Saperstein, a short-statured Jewish man from Chicago’s North Side, even pitched in as a player from time to time when a team member was ill or injured.

At a time when only whites were allowed to play on professional basketball teams, Saperstein decided to promote his new team’s racial makeup by naming them after Harlem, the famous African American neighborhood of New York City.

On January 7, 1927, the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team traveled 48 miles west from Chicago to play their first game in Hinckley, Illinois. (History)

Before they became known for their on-court antics, the Globetrotters were highly competitive in professional basketball and introduced a flashy, schoolyard style of play. They popularized the slam dunk, the fast break, emphasized the forward and point guard positions, and the figure-eight weave.

The Globetrotters won 101 out of 117 games that first season and introduced many Midwestern audiences to a game they had not seen played before.

By 1936, they had played more than 1,000 games and appeared in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Washington and North and South Dakota. (The Globetrotters didn’t actually play a game in Harlem until the late 1960s.) (History)

“The world-famous Harlem Globetrotters were the first professionals to play in Hawaii. Coach Abe Saperstein’s team made their debut at Honolulu’s Civic Auditorium in April of 1946 against the Coca-Cola Athletic Club. The Cokes were no match for the Trotters …”

“Island players gained revenge the following year when [the] Hawaii All-Stars, led by the scoring of Red Rocha, broke the Globetrotters’ 128-game winning streak with a 44-41 win at the Civic.” (Ephraim ‘Red’ Rocha, a graduate of Hilo High, was Hawaii’s first player to play in the National Basketball Association.) (Cisco, Hawai‘i Sports)

Then, “Coach Art Kim and his Honolulu Surfriders will open their ninth annual basketball tour with the famed Harlem Globetrotters October 28, at Des Moines, Iowa.”

“The Surfriders, who will be publicized as the Hawaii 50th Staters this year, will play a 130-game schedule in most of the major cities on the Mainland and also in Canada during the next five-and-a-half months.” (SB, Oct 11, 1958)

“America’s sporting scene once more is being graced by the colorful Honolulu Surfriders basketball team and its accompanying troupe of hula dancers and entertainers, all scheduled to be part of the big show at Greenwood YMCA. … They are part of the 4-team show featuring the Globe Trotters.”

“These annual tours of the islanders have come to be looked forward to by mainlanders, who find in the visitors from the Paradise of the Pacific a refreshing sports tonic. The add considerably to every program, they grace with stylish basketball playing, interesting appearance and the enchanting presentation of the entertainers.”

“Hawaiian teams have been coming over to the mainland for some years now … Again at the helm is coach and manager Art Kim, veteran mentor formerly cage coach at the University of Hawaii, who has brought over the last half dozen or so teams from the islands. …”

“They come from various islands of the Hawaiian group and for a veritable all-star team of the best players.” (Index-Journal, South Carolina, Feb 22, 1954)

“Coach Kim said last night that the Surfriders will be playing against fabulous Wilt (The Stilt) Chamberlain, the Kansas Jayhawk All-American who has left school to headline the Harlem Globetrotters.” (SB, Oct 11, 1958)

“The 7-foot Chamberlain, twice an All-America at the University of Kansas, quit school as a junior to turn pro for Abe Saperatein’s Globetrotters. He made his first appearance as a pro in this area Thursday night and scored 30 points as the Globetrotters defeated the Hawaii 50th Staters 69-59.” (Herald-Palladium, Michigan, Oct 31, 1958)

The Harlem Globetrotters have historically used various designated opponents that toured with them to stage their exhibition games. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the “Hawaii 50th Staters” made the tour; they became the New York Nationals, and the Washington Generals. (Association for Professional Basketball Research)

Over the years, the team losing to the Globetrotters was called the Boston Shamrocks, the New Jersey Reds, the Atlantic City Gulls, the New York Nationals, International Elite, and Global Select.

None of these were real teams: Just costumes the Generals wore to give the appearance that they were playing a slew of opponents rather than just the same retreads. (SB Nation)

May 10, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!

We can first thank our mothers on this Mother’s Day.

Then we can thank Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis for their efforts in making it a holiday.

It dates back to 1870, when Howe wrote a Mother’s Day Proclamation of Peace.

After witnessing the carnage of the American Civil War and the start of the Franco-Prussian War, Julia Ward Howe, a prominent American abolitionist, feminist and poet wrote the original Mother’s Day Proclamation calling upon the women of the world to unite for peace.

Arise, then, women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts,
Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly: We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies.

Howe was influenced by another peace activist, Anna Reeves Jarvis, a West Virginia woman who organized Mother’s Day Work Clubs before the Civil War.

Women in the clubs raised money for medicine and inspected bottled milk and food. They also hired helpers for families in which the mothers had tuberculosis.

During the Civil War, the Mother’s Day Work Clubs declared their neutrality, cared for the wounded and fed and clothed soldiers on both sides of the conflict.

After the Civil War, Jarvis staged a Mother’s Friendship Day at the courthouse in Pruntytown, W.Va., to bring together people who supported the Confederacy and people who supported the Union. (New England Historical Society)

Anna Reeves Jarvis died at 72 in Pennsylvania on May 9, 1905. Julia Ward Howe died five years later, at age 91 in Portsmouth, R.I., Four years after her death, President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother’s Day a national holiday. But not for peace.

Anna Reeves Jarvis’ daughter, Anna Jarvis, finally succeeded in founding the Mothers’ Day holiday. She held a memorial for her mother on May 10, 1908, at Andrews Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, W.Va.

Anna Jarvis continued to campaign for a Mother’s Day holiday until President Woodrow Wilson issued the proclamation on May 8, 1914.

Although Jarvis had promoted the wearing of a white carnation as a tribute to one’s mother, the custom developed of wearing a red or pink carnation to represent a living mother or a white carnation for a mother who was deceased.

Over time the day was expanded to include others, such as grandmothers and aunts, who played mothering roles. What had originally been primarily a day of honor became associated with the sending of cards and the giving of gifts.

However, in protest against its commercialization, Jarvis spent the last years of her life trying to abolish the holiday she had brought into being. (Britannica)

We typically don’t recognize Howe for her Mother’s Day Peace Day; rather, we acknowledge other accomplishments of hers including writing a song during the Civil War.

By November 1861, the early enthusiasm of the Civil War had faded into a grim appreciation of the magnitude of the struggle.

Julia Ward Howe joined a party inspecting the condition of Union troops near Washington DC. To overcome the tedium of the carriage ride back to the city, Howe and her colleagues sang army songs, including “John Brown’s Body.”

One member of the party, Reverend James Clarke, liked the melody but found the lyrics to be distinctly un-elevated. The published version ran “We’ll hang old Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree,” but the marching men sometimes preferred, “We’ll feed Jeff Davis sour apples ‘til he gets the diarhee.”

The next day, Howe awoke to the gray light of early morning. As she lay in bed, lines of poetry formed themselves in her mind. When the last verse was arranged, she rose and scribbled down the words with an old stump of a pen while barely looking at the paper.

She fell back asleep, feeling that “something of importance had happened to me.” The editor of the Atlantic Monthly, James T. Fields, paid Howe five dollars to publish the poem. (The Atlantic)

“It’s a good march,” says Sparky Rucker. A folk singer and historian who performs a show of Civil War music with his wife, Rucker says it rallies with its rhythm: “It’s just the right cadence to march along, if you’re marching at a picket line or marching down the street carrying signs. … It really gets your blood going [so] that you can slay dragons.” (NPR)

On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. rose to speak in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee (his I’ve been to the Mountaintop speech). “I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land,” King announced.

“And I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man.” And then he closed in his lyrical voice: “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir won the Award for Best Pop Performance by a Vocal Group or Chorus singing this song in 1959 (not this rendition).