Prominent People | Page 110 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 25, 2018 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

Watumulls

Jhamandas Watumull, originally from Hyderabad, Sindh (in what became Pakistan), the son of a brick contractor, was one of the first people of Indian descent to come to Hawai‘i.

Jhamandas left his home as a young boy of 14 to earn a living and help his disabled father. His mother sold her jewelry to buy his passage to the Philippines.

Jhamandas stayed with an older brother and worked in Manila’s textile mills. He opened a small import shop in Manila that specialized in imports from the Orient with his partner Rochiram Dharamdas. The shop attracted American troops stationed in the Philippines and business was good.

In 1913, when the troops were withdrawn from the Philippines and moved to Hawai‘i, the two partners decided to follow them and explore business opportunities.

A year later, Dharamdas opened a branch of ‘Dharamdas and Watumulls’ on Hotel Street in Honolulu. Unfortunately, two years later, Dharamdas died of cholera and the store became Jhamandas’ responsibility.

Unable to leave the Manila business for long, he decided to send his younger brother, Gobindram (GJ), to take care of the Honolulu store, which was renamed ‘East India Store’

GJ settled in Hawaii and, in 1922, married Ellen Jensen, an American music teacher. (IPAHawaii and Sharma)

Ellen’s sister, Elsie Jensen, traveled to Hawaii in 1928 to visit her. Elsie then started working at Watumull’s East India Store as a window display designer.

Watumull’s later commissioned Elsie to create hand-painted floral designs on silk for interior decoration. Her clothing designs would come later. (Honolulu)

During the following years, Jhamandas spent much time travelling looking for merchandise and visiting his family in Sind. Though he returned to Hawaii often, he could not make it his home as his wife Radhibai did not want to live in a foreign country.

The initial years in Hawaii were difficult and trying. As the first Indian businessmen in Hawaii, they faced many setbacks, discrimination and daunting immigration laws, including denial of citizenship to GJ although he was married to an American. His wife, Ellen, lost her American citizenship because she had married a British East Indian subject.

As time passed, the East India Store flourished, selling raw silk goods and ‘aloha shirts’ on the island, turning into a major department store, before eventually opening additional branch stores in Waikiki and the downtown Honolulu area.

They opened the Leilani Gift Shop, and introduced their coordinated Hawaiian wear for the entire family – men’s and boys’ shirts and women’s and girls’ muumuus in matching authentic island prints. The shop also sold Hawaiian gifts and souvenirs and imported goods from the Far East.

After the Partition of India in 1947, Jhamandas and his family left Sind and moved to Bombay, India. The family celebrated India’s independence in faraway Hawaii by serving refreshments at an extended Open House and offering a 10 per cent discount on all purchases at the Waikiki branch of the East India Store.

The proceeds of the day’s business were donated to Indian charities. Later the Watumulls helped install a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Kapiolani Park on Waikiki beach in Honolulu.

In 1954, there were a total of eight Watumull stores. Rejecting a consultant’s advice to change the “tourist-oriented” names of his stores like Leilani Gift Shop and focus on mainland-type goods, they opened more “tourist-oriented’ stores.

During the next 20 years, the number of stores increased to 29 and included East India Stores, Aloha Fashions, Malihini Gifts and Leilani Gift Shops.

The business became among the top 250 businesses of Hawai‘i. Over time, the Watumull stores have all closed down; one remains at the Ala Moana Center.

The Watumull family also set up several local philanthropic and educational institutions, including the Rama Watumull Fund, the J. Watumull Estate, and the Watumull Foundation.

The Watumulls are also involved in considerable charitable work in India — a hospital and an engineering college in Mumbai, a school in Pune and the funding of a Global Hospital in Mt. Abu. . (Lots of information here is from Hope, Honolulu, Watumull, Allen and Sharma.)

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East India Store window decorated for Indian independence-SAADA

Photograph of window display of one of the Watumull stores. Image credited to Salart Studios-SAADA

Gulab Watumull speaking with customers. Photo credited to Honolulu Star-Bulletin.-SAADA

Gulab Watumull, the son of Jhamandas Watumull-SAADA

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‘Watumull’s Might’ in Indian Home magazine-SAADA

Watumull’s Advertisement (1987)-SAADA

April 18, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Joe the Statue Worshipper

“Honolulu like other and larger cities, has its street characters. They are, fortunately, but few, which fact renders them perhaps all the more familiar to residents and noticeable to strangers.” (Thrum)

“Jose de Medeiros, 1880(?)-1932, popularly known as ‘Joe the Statue Worshipper,’ kept an almost daily vigil in front of the Honolulu statue for about 35 years. In tattered clothes he would shuffle back and forth in front of the South Iolani Palace gate.”

“Sometimes he would cross the street to stare fixedly at the statue and go through various obeisances.” (Adler)

He “began his strange veneration in 1896, when he was sixteen. Daily he would appear in early morning before the monument.”

“He would shuffle back and forth or stand in apparent rapture staring at the bronze figure. He would depart in late afternoon.” (The Bend Bulletin, August 19, 1932)

“Once a reporter asked him if he liked to see Kamehameha every day, and he answered: ‘He step down some day. Then I see him.’”

“Joe became a familiar sight to townspeople, many of whom gave him gifts of clothes or food or cigars.”

“Former Mayor John H. Wilson remembered seeing him in front of the statue as early as 1896. By 1930 Joe was missing from his usual post, and it turned out he was sick. He died in July, 1932.”

“How account for his strange behavior? As a child of two, Joe came to Honolulu in 1882 with his Portuguese immigrant parents on the Earl of Dalhousie, the same ship that brought the damaged original statue. He may have been influenced by the awed superstition of the immigrants toward it, or by remarks of his parents.” (Adler)

“Old Joe, who truly was one of the extraordinary characters of the Pacific, possessed an endurance record that put in the shade the activities or such persons as marathon dancers, pole sitters, pie-eating champions and the like.”

“He stood voluntary guard before the gilded statue of Kamehameha the Great in the plaza between ‘Iolani Palace and the Judiciary Building, Honolulu for thirty-four years.”

“As to way he stood there day after day, year after year, no one ever found out.”

“That was the mystery of Joe.”

“All that the oldest residents of Honolulu ever knew Joe to say was that ‘Someday he step down – then we talk.’ The ‘he’ was the great bronze Kamehameha effigy of the first of the line of Hawaiian kings, the ‘Napoleon o’ the Pacific’ who united the group in government and whose intellect was said to have been proportionate to his mighty stature of seven feet.”

“Kamehameha reigned about the time the American Colonies were setting their faces against kings in general.”

“The gilt statue of the great king stands today in the middle of Honolulu and is the tribute of this age to a man whose tactful efficiency made a true golden one of his reign a century and a half ago.”

“Hence, the legend rose that perhaps Joe Medeiros. Whose family came from the Azores, was the reincarnation of some far-wandering Portuguese seaman who landed in Hawaii when Kamehameha was king and remained there to live and love as his heart dictated.”

“Some, however, said that the reason poor Joe stood there before the statue was that he in his youth on the Island of Hawai‘i had been kicked on the head by a calf.”

“For some years, Riley H. Allen, Editor of The Honolulu Star-Bulletin, as a test of ingenuity, would send new members of the staff from the mainland to interview old Joe.”

“But with one exception, there was uniform failure.”

“Joe would accept a cigar or maybe a half dollar, regard the donor tolerantly and return to his ‘job.’”

“Old Joe lived with his sister in that section of Honolulu between the palace and the Ala Moana, and, contrary to general opinion, he never married. He was fifty-two years old.” (Noted within Goodrich)

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April 16, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bishop Restarick Takes Over Episcopal Church

“Not only did (the influence of Captain Vancouver) with Kamehameha lead the latter to consider the possibility of England’s protective and developing hand in the future of the Islands, but he was also led to welcome Vancouver’s promise that upon his approaching return to England he would use his influence to have Christian teachers sent to the Islands.”

“Vancouver made an effort to fulfill this promise; but on his return he found England occupied with European troubles, and he himself died soon after.”

The Islands were not left entirely without the ministry of the Church. Vancouver had discovered an English chaplain, one John Howell, whom he could commend to Kamehameha along with Isaac Davis and John Young. However, Howell’s stay in the Islands proved brief; he left in 1795.

Other English chaplains visited the Islands from time to time and it was one of these who, early in the 19th Century, celebrated the first Christian marriage according to the form of the Episcopal Church between James Young, the second son of John Young, and a daughter of Isaac Davis.

Vancouver’s promise was not forgotten; in November, 1823, Liholiho (Kamehameha II) sailed for England one of his purposes was to remind George IV of the English promise. Unfortunately, he contracted measles and died in England before he had even seen King George.

Missionaries did come … American Protestant missionaries were the first to arrive (in 1820). Then, early in July 1827, there arrived at Honolulu the French ship La Comete with a band of Roman Catholic missionaries. In 1852, the desire for the Episcopal Church was still alive.

Admirable as these efforts were in ministering to the foreign residents of Honolulu and in maintaining interest in the Church, no really effective or permanent work could be done without a resident Bishop.

Then, the Rev. Thomas Nettleship Staley, fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford, and a tutor of St. Mark’s College, Chelsea, was consecrated on December 15, 1861, as Bishop for Honolulu.

Bishop Staley reached Honolulu on Saturday, October 11, 1862. The Mission inaugurated by Bishop Staley was almost immediately incorporated as the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church.

A continual source of encouragement to Bishop Staley was the steadfast devotion of Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma to the Mission. Confirmed on November 28, 1862, the sovereigns gave generously of their time and influence.

Not infrequently they were sponsors in Baptism, and the King prepared an Hawaiian translation of the Book of Common Prayer. He also rendered invaluable service in assisting Bishop Staley in the preparation and delivery of his sermons in Hawaiian. (Anglican History)

“The establishment here of the Reformed Catholic Church was one of the visionary schemes of the late R. C. Wyllie and never met with the cordial support of English or American Episcopalians for the main object appeared transparent from the first to be political rather than religious.” (Restarick) Finally, in 1870. after seven years of effort, Bishop Staley felt obliged to resign.

When Kamehameha IV died on St. Andrew’s Day, 1863, it seemed fitting that the proposed Cathedral should be erected in his memory and dedicated to St. Andrew. On March 5, 1867, Kamehameha V laid the cornerstone

Unfortunately, Bishop Staley’s return to England brought the work to an end with only the choir and tower foundations completed. Nothing further was done for about a decade.

The stone which had been sent out from England was allowed to remain crated on the ground. The congregation seemed satisfied to continue worshipping in the small frame Pro-Cathedral which had served them since 1866.

Failing to secure an American Bishop, the English authorities then turned to a successful parish priest, the Rev. Alfred Willis, who accepted the call and was consecrated February 2, 1872, in Lambeth Chapel. In 1901, Bishop Willis resigned as the Bishop of Honolulu.

Then, “On April 16, 1902, there flashed across the Pacific a message for the House of Bishops, then meeting, which read: ‘Transfer made. Good feeling prevails. Cathedral unified.’”

“‘Seldom better property or promise to start Missionary District. Movement to provide house for new Bishop. Young Bishop would rally young lay helpers. Disastrous to delay election.’”

“In response to this urgent appeal, there was elected the next day, as the first American Bishop of the Hawaiian Islands, the Rev. Henry Bond Restarick, then rector of St. Paul’s Church, San Diego, California.”

“This event, as intimated by the cablegram, was not the beginning of the Church in Hawaii. Something had gone before”. (Protestant Episcopal Church, Department of Missions, 1927)

In 1920, Bishop Restarick, having undergone two serious operations and being quite ill, determined to resign. The House of Bishops accepted his resignation and chose as his successor the Rev. John D. La Mothe. Bishop La Mothe was consecrated on June 29, 1921, in the Church of the Ascension, Baltimore, and arrived in Honolulu on August 16.

Initially the church was called the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church but the name would change in 1870 to the Anglican Church in Hawai‘i.

In 1902 it came under the Episcopal Church of the US. Initially the church was called the Hawaiian Reformed Catholic Church but the name would change in 1870 to the Anglican Church in Hawai‘i. In 1902 it came under the Episcopal Church of the US.

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April 15, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Missed the Boat

“Mrs Charles A Hellwig was hostess at a tea in honor of Miss Ruth Waller, a Honolulu girl who will leave shortly for England where she will be married to Hugh Clegg, a wealthy manufacturer.”

“Miss Waller has been abroad for the last six years studying music and languages and returned to California to spend the winter with her parents and took a house in Central avenue, Alameda. The wedding will take place in London.” (Hawaiian Star, January 27, 1912)

“At a pretty home ceremony, witnessed by half a hundred relatives and close friends, Miss Ruth Waller of Alameda became the bride of John Hugh Clegg of England … The bride was given in marriage by her father Gilbert Waller … formerly prominent residents of Honolulu.”

“The Royal Hawaiian Quintette furnished the wedding music, and Miss Gladys Kaighin, a friend of the bride, sang several appropriate songs prior to the ceremony. An elaborate wedding supper followed. The bride’s table was decked in pink roses and pink shaded candles, with water colored name cards of cupids and miniature brides marking places for fifteen.”

“The bride is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Gilbert Waller of Central avenue, formerly prominent residents of Honolulu, and is well-known in the social circles of the Encinal City. She is charming, accomplished, a talented violinist.”

“She met Clegg when studying music in Leipsic. Clegg is a wealthy English merchant, and their wedding trip will include a tour of the world. On March 1 they will sail for Honolulu, from there to Australia and India, eventually reaching London, their future home.”

“The ceremony was originally set for the 14th, but was hastened on account of the imperative departure today of the bride’s father for Honolulu, necessitated by business affairs.” (Hawaiian Star, March 11, 1912)

Their travels did not go as planned …

“Clegg and his bride (had) expected to return on the Titanic. Clegg’s business delayed his return and he was unable to sail on the Titanic. He probably owes his life and the life of his bride to this press of business.”

“Clegg was personally acquainted with Captain Smith, the commander of the ill-fated Titanic. Smith was in command of the Olympic on the voyage to Liverpool, leaving the Olympic at the end of that trip to take over the Titanic.” (Hawaiian Star, June 1, 1912)

“(I)n the cold, dark, early morning hours of 15 April 1912, the new and magnificent White Star liner RMS Titanic sank after colliding with an iceberg, approximately 365 nautical miles east-northeast of the Newfoundland coast.”

“The ship, en route to New York on her maiden voyage, was at the time the largest passenger liner in the world, but certainly not the fastest.”

“Although touted as nearly unsinkable by many, the great ship foundered some two hours and forty minutes after striking an iceberg, sending her approximately two and a half miles down to the bottom of the North Atlantic.”

“The loss of life was horrific and, for many, totally unnecessary and was the greatest maritime disaster of the time. No one was ever held accountable for the negligence, gross negligence, or criminal acts that resulted in the needless deaths of this tragedy.” (Paton; The Final Board of Inquiry)

For context, in 1912, “In England, Winston Churchill announced that the Royal Navy would be enlarged and the British War Staff is established. Scott’s Antarctic expedition reached the South Pole only to discover that Amundsen had arrived there first. Coal miners throughout England went on strike and the Titanic commenced her sea trials in Belfast Lough on 2 April 1912.”

“The Royal Air Force was formed and England informed Germany that it would aid France in the event of attack by Germany. The clouds of war were already forming.”

“In other maritime news three unrelated sea disasters took place. The SS Kichemuru sank in a violent storm off the coast of Japan with a loss of 1,000 lives, the Spanish SS Principe de Asturias sank with 500 dead, and two steamships collided on the Nile resulting in 200 deaths.”

“The Titanic left Southampton for Cherbourg on 10 April and later commenced her maiden transatlantic voyage from Queenstown (now Cobb), Ireland, to New York. The Titanic subsequently sank on 15 April at 0227, approximately 365 nautical miles off the Newfoundland coast, with great loss of life.”

“In the United States the first lady, Mrs. Taft, planted the first cherry tree in Washington, D.C. The Dixie Cup was invented and U.S. Marines invaded Nicaragua and re-invaded Cuba. The Beverly Hills Hotel opened.”

“This is the backdrop against which the world, while still at peace, witnessed the worst maritime disaster it had ever experienced. It was a loss that was suffered by not only immigrants and middle-class professionals but by the elite of high society and wealth on both sides of the Atlantic as well.” (Paton; The Final Board of Inquiry)

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April 13, 2018 by Peter T Young 9 Comments

Pszyk

Geologic evidence suggests that the modern caldera of Kīlauea formed shortly before 1500 AD. Repeated small collapses may have affected parts of the caldera floor, possibly as late as 1790. For over 300-400 years, the caldera was below the water table.

Kīlauea is an explosive volcano; several phreatic eruptions have occurred in the past 1,200 years. (Phreatic eruptions, also called phreatic explosions, occur when magma heats ground or surface water.)

The extreme temperature of the magma (from 932 to 2,138 °F) causes near-instantaneous evaporation to steam, resulting in an explosion of steam, water, ash and rock – the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens was a phreatic eruption.

There were explosions in 1790, the most lethal known eruption of any volcano in the present United States. The 1790 explosions, however, simply culminated (or at least occurred near the end of) a 300-year period of frequent explosions, some quite powerful. (USGS)

Keonehelelei is the name given by Hawaiians to the explosive eruption of Kilauea in 1790. It is probably so named “the falling sands” because the eruption involved an explosion of hot gas, ash and sand that rained down across the Kaʻu Desert. The character of the eruption was likely distinct enough to warrant a special name. (Moniz-Nakamura)

The 1790 explosion led to the death of one-third of the warrior party of Kaʻū Chief Keōua. At the time Keōua was the only remaining rival of Kamehameha the Great for control of the Island of Hawaiʻi; Keōua ruled half of Hāmākua and all of Puna and Kaʻū Districts. They were passing through the Kilauea area at the time of the eruption. (Moniz-Nakamura)

Camped in Hilo, Keōua learned of an invasion of his home district of Kaʻū by warriors of Kamehameha. To reach Kaʻū from Hilo, Keōua had a choice of two routes one was the usually traveled coastal route, at sea level, but it was longer, hot, shadeless and without potable water for long distances. (NPS)

The other route was shorter, but passed over the summit and through the lee of Kilauea volcano, an area sacred to, and the home of, the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele. Keōua chose the volcano route, perhaps because it was shorter and quicker, with water available frequently. (NPS)

… Fast forward … “Despite the network of Pre-Western contact trails that covered the island, Hawaiʻi lacked a comprehensive system of interior roads for overland travel before 1846.”

“In that year, the Kingdom established the Department of the Interior and the office of Superintendent of Internal Improvements (the forerunner of Public Works) to oversee the construction of piers, harbors, government buildings, roads, and bridges.” (Terry)

Like the times of Keōua, “Two routes may be taken to the crater Kilauea, on the slope of Mauna Loa, one by Puna, the other by ‘Ōla‘a. It will be advisable to combine both, by going one way and returning the other.”

“Time being an object, the trip to and from the crater via ‘Ōla‘a can be accomplished in three days, which will give one day and two nights at the volcano house.” (Whitney, 1875)

“A critical step toward developing agriculture in ʻŌlaʻa was the creation of a new road between Hilo and Kīlauea located mauka of the Old Volcano Trail.” (Terry)

Work on the road began in 1890 using mainly prison labor, and in September of 1894 the entire road was completed. As the new Volcano Road through ʻŌlaʻa was being built, the Crown made a large portion of potential agricultural lands in ʻŌlaʻa available for lease and homesteading.”

“Three hundred eighty-five ʻŌlaʻa Reservation lease lots were created mauka and makai of the new Volcano Road, as well as an additional forty homesteads.” (Terry)

The ‘Ōla‘a Sugar Company was incorporated on May 3, 1899; the promoters purchased 16,000 acres in fee simple land and nearly 7,000 acres in long leasehold from WH Shipman. The plantation fields extended for ten miles along both sides of Volcano Road as well as in the Pāhoa and Kapoho areas of the Puna District.”

‘Ōla‘a Sugar Company began as one of Hawai‘i’s largest sugar plantations with much of its acreage covered in trees. Previous to cane, coffee was the primary agricultural crop grown in the region. After purchase of these lands, the company uprooted the coffee trees and cleared it for planting sugarcane.”

“The town of Mountain View grew with the sugar trade, as immigrant laborers were imported from Japan, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to work on the sugar plantation.”

“Another lesser known group also came to ʻŌlaʻa. In 1897, the Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs approved a request by H.F Hackfeld and Company (who acted as a recruiting agency for the “Planters Association”) to bring in European laborers for a number of sugar plantations.”

“Between 1897 and 1910, a number of Ukrainian families and single workers were recruited to work for ʻŌlaʻa Sugar Company. Most Ukrainian immigrants left ʻŌlaʻa for the US mainland in 1905 and 1906, but a few remained.” (Terry)

Among those who stayed in Mountain View were Michael and Annie Pszyk. (Terry) They a fifty-acre farm and in addition to work on the plantation they began to clear some land and go into developing a small herds of cows.

It was rather isolated, about 1 ½ miles from the highway. They first blazed a path so that they were able to walk out to Volcano
road.

He then widened it into a trail, but it wasn’t very satisfactory to haul wood to the village for which there was good demand, and take milk and other products.

“My father approached the council to have them make the trail into a road, but there was little interest in such a project.”

“He, eventually, widened the trail himself and made it into a passable road. Then the council took it over and named it Pszyk Road, and rightly so …” (Helen Richardson-Pszyk; Ewanchuck)

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