Prominent People | Page 134 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 10, 2017 by Peter T Young 7 Comments

Lau Yee Chai

Three notable restaurants in Honolulu before World War II were Sun Yun Wo and Wo Fat in Chinatown and Lau Yee Chai in Waikiki.

Sun Yun Wo was reportedly started in 1892 by Hee Cho. A two-story restaurant, it was one of the most popular places. Customers ordered plates of dim sum or other dishes as they talked and conducted business.

The second restaurant, Wo Fat, prided itself on being the oldest Chinese restaurant in Hawai‘i. It opened in 1882 and was rebuilt twice after fires burned down Chinatown in 1886 and 1900.

A Chinatown fixture by the 1920s, it was famous for its noodles and Chinese dishes. In 1937 the wooden structure was torn down and a three-story building that still stands today took its place. (CHSA)

Lau Yee Chai (that translates to ‘House of Abundance’) was built in 1929 by Chong Pang Yat, and its elaborate, classical Chinese architecture stood out in the Waikiki landscape, effectively attracting mainland tourists to its door.

The original landmark restaurant featured a moon gate entryway, fishpond filled with carp, waterfalls, and a rock garden. (Smithsonian APA) Lau Yee Chai was the first Chinese restaurant in Honolulu to use elaborate Chinese architecture and decorations to attract customers.

It featured expensive paintings and scrolls, fancy lacquered screens, waterfalls and ponds with carp, and attractive plants. Its advertisements claimed that Lau Yee Chai was “the most beautiful Chinese restaurant in the world.”

Tourists viewed it as a scenic landmark, while local Chinese found its spacious and luxuriant interior suitable for large parties and celebrations. (Ng, CHSA) Lau Yee Chai was a place for locals to dine at on special occasions.

Chong was quite a businessman and marketed the restaurant widely by promoting himself with Creole pidgin slogans such as “Me, PY Chong!” on radio and newspapers. (Smithsonian APA)

Chong also opened a Waikiki steakhouse – House of PY Chong. During WWII, soldiers were housed in Waikiki. Chong set up his steak house where the Ilikai Hotel now stands – broiling steaks into the wee hours.

“We designed, supplied and set up a steak house located where the Ilikai Hotel now stands. PY was a great host. Trailer Mercer of the Star-Bulletin’s advertising department prepared a lot of his ads, all featuring ‘Me PY Chong Number One China Cook!’ PY was a friend of all and had his steak house broiling steaks in his charcoal broiler into the wee hours.”

“At one time he had trouble getting meat so located several small calfs that he had grazing behind the steak house. When the Board of Health heard the report, he was instructed to have them removed.”

“PY and I loaded them in our flatbed truck with the side gates up for the trip to Woodlawn where he owned property. With PY sitting along side me early on a Sunday morning with the cows mooing, we cruised the quiet residential Manoa area en route to Woodlawn Meadows.” (Lind)

William (Bill) KH Mau took over the original Lau Yee Chai restaurant in 1948. Back in the 40s and 50s Lau Yee Chai, at the corner of Kalākaua and Kūhiō Avenues, was one of the premier restaurants and nightspots in Waikiki. (ExPat)

In 1972, Mau was the owner and operator of a car lot along Kapiʻolani Boulevard known as Aloha Motors, which for a time was the largest General Motors dealership in Hawaii. In 1987, Mau sold the property to Japanese investors. Today, it is the site of the Hawai‘i Convention Center. (StarAdv)

The Lau Yee Chai restaurant was razed by Mau and he developed the Ambassador Hotel on the site. Mau later developed the Waikiki Shopping Plaza and the Waikiki Business Plaza.

Lau Yee Chai reopened in 1978 on the 5th floor of the Waikiki Shopping Plaza; “Every floor in the building has 15-foot ceilings,” Mau said. “But only the fifth floor has 20-foot ceilings.” (HnlAdv)

But its décor was no longer as impressive and it lost its dominating presence on the Chinese culinary scene. (Ng) Lau Yee Chai closed.

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Lau Yee Chai night

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March 8, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nor’west John

Of the ships that visited the islands, all but a small fraction were American. The commerce of the US, which calls at the Sandwich islands, may be classed under five categories:

vessels which trade direct from the US to the islands
vessels which are bound to the NW coast, trading for furs
vessels which, on their passage across the Pacific, stop at these islands to replenish or repair
Hawaii-resident. American resident-owned vessels trading in the Pacific
vessels which are employed in the whale-fishery on the coast of Japan, which visit semi-annually (John Coffin Jones Jr, US Consulate, Sandwich Islands, October 30th, 1829)

The little community of respectable traders and missionaries, with a disreputable fringe of deserters from merchantment and whalers, was so predominantly Bostonian that “Boston” acquired the same connotation in Hawaii as along the Northwest Coast. It stood for the whole United States.

Hawaii had, in fact, become an outpost of New England. The foreign settlement at Honolulu, with its frame houses shipped around the Horn, haircloth furniture, orthodox meeting house built of coral blocks, and New England Sabbath, was as Yankee as a suburb of Boston.

As early as 1823 there were four mercantile houses in the Islands: Hunnewell’s, Jones’s, ‘Nor’west John’ D’Wolf’s (from Bristol, Rhode Island) and another from New York (possibly that of John Jacob Astor & Son, represented by John Ebbets (Kuykendall.)) (Morison)

“Their storehouses are abundantly furnished with goods in demand by the islanders; and at them, most articles contained in common retail shops and groceries in America, may be purchased.”

“The whole trade of the four probably amounts to one hundred thousand dollars a year – sandal wood principally, and specie, being the returns for imported manufactures.”

“Each of these trading houses usually has a ship or brig in the harbor, or at some one of the islands; besides others that touch to make repairs and obtain refreshments, in their voyages between the north-west, Mexican and South American coasts, and China.”

“The agents and clerks of these establishments, and the supercargoes and officers of the vessels attached to them, with transient visiters in ships holding similar situations, form the most respectable class of foreigners with whom we are called to have intercourse.” (Stewart)

On August 13, 1804, a young sea captain named John D’Wolf sailed from his native port of Bristol, Rhode Island aboard the Juno, rounding South America’s Cape Horn and sailing northward to acquire furs along the Pacific Coast.

“The Juno at that day was considered a crack ship, and her outfit embraced all that was needed for both comfort and convenience. She mounted eight carriage guns, and was otherwise armed in proportion …”

“… and when hauled into the stream presented quite a formidable and warlike appearance. Such an equipment was essential in her time for the dangerous business for which she was destined.” (D’Wolf)

The Juno dropped anchor in Newette Harbor on the northwest coast of Vancouver Island on April 10, 1805. Having been unsuccessful in trade at various ports in Canada, Captain John then set sail for the Russian settlement at Norfolk Sound in Alaska, arriving in port on May 7th.

The Juno conducted successful trades in Norfolk Sound, Port Retreat and in several other locations. Their enterprise was aided by the Russian Governor Baranoff, with whom John had become friends.

After acquiring a full cargo, John had the bulk of the furs transferred to the Mary, another American ship in company with Juno and on October 5th sold the Juno and the remainder of his cargo to the Russian American Company (and the Yermerk, a small Russian vessel of 40 tons.)

John dispatched the Yermerk and her cargo of otter skins under the command of his first mate, George W. Stetson to Canton, China and then wintered over with his newfound Russian friends.

He traveled westward the following year and spent his second winter on the Kamchatka Peninsula. John then traveled across Siberia by horseback, buggy and boat, arriving at Moscow on October 8, 1807 and at St. Petersburg, Russia on October 21st.

Before Napoleon entered Moscow, before Lewis and Clark crossed the American mainland, D’Wolf became the first American, and perhaps the first non-Russian, to travel by land from the Pacific to the Baltic, across the empire of the tsars. (Howe, American Heritage)

Captain John departed the Russian port of Kronstadt aboard a small Dutch vessel in November for England. At a port call in Elsinore, Denmark, they encountered the ship Mary out of Portland, Maine, Captain Grey in command.

John transferred to the Mary and after a stopover in Liverpool, he arrived in Portland on March 25th and finally returned to Bristol on April 1, 1808 almost 4 years after he had sailed away on the Juno. (The initial fur trading venture of Captain John and the Juno netted the D’Wolf family $100,000.) (Rhode Island Historical Society)

His travels in the region earned him the nickname of Nor’west John. He was born in Bristol, Rhode Island on September 6, 1779 to Simon and Hannah May D’Wolf and was married to Mary Melville in 1817.

He had a profound influence on Mary’s young nephew, Herman Melville, who spent his summer vacations with D’Wolf’s family at Bristol, Rhode Island.

The seafaring tales of ‘Nor’wester John’ stirred the boy’s imagination, encouraging him eventually to seek his own adventures at sea, culminating in the novel Moby Dick.

In Moby Dick, Melville describes a whale that John D’Wolf had encountered in the Russisloff in the Sea of Okhotsk. ‘A whale bigger than the ship set up his back and lifted the ship three feet out of the water.’

‘The masts reeled and the sails fell all together, while we who were below sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding we had struck upon some rock; instead of which we saw the monster sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity, leaving the ship uninjured.’

“Captain Dwolf, one of the most compassionate and benevolent of men, who often made me the sharer of his joys and sorrows”. (Langsdorff) He died in Dorchester, Massachusetts at the home of his daughter on March 8, 1872. He was inducted into the Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 1967.

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John D’Wolf

March 7, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Timeline Tuesday … 1890s

Today’s ‘Timeline Tuesday’ takes us through the 1890s – Kapi‘olani Hospital is formed, Kalākaua dies, Overthrow, Annexation, Pali Road is completed and the first Beachboys organization is formed. We look at what was happening in Hawai‘i during this time period and what else was happening around the rest of the world.

A Comparative Timeline illustrates the events with images and short phrases. This helps us to get a better context on what was happening in Hawai‘i versus the rest of the world. I prepared these a few years ago for a planning project. (Ultimately, they never got used for the project, but I thought they might be on interest to others.)

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Timeline-1890s

March 6, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

‘The Hope of the Nation’

“On the eve of the 14th inst, at 7:30 o’clock Frank James Woods and Eva Kalanikauleleiaiwi Parker were married at the Parker residence at Mana by the Rev CH Tompkins, the parson of the Anglican Church of Hāmākua.”

“Members of the families of the contracting parties and a few intimate friends had been invited to attend the ceremony and the fine residence was filled with the guests who were cordially welcomed by the genial host and hostess.”

“Among the guests were noticed the Princess Kaʻiulani, Prince Cupid and wife, Prince David J H Wodehouse, Captain John Ross, Miss K Vida, and a few other Honolulu friends. …”

“It was nearly 6 o’clock in the morning and the dawn was breaking when the young couple bade good bye and drove away among showers of rice, tears, laughter, flowers and old shoes.”

“At Waimea Mr and Mrs Woods stopped at the Parker residence at Puopelo to see the venerable Mrs Hauai Parker and after a short rest they proceeded on their journey to their beautiful home at Kahua. …

“The bridegroom is the second son of the late James Woods a prominent rancher and planter on Hawaii. He is the owner of the Kahua ranch in the Kohala district and is a worthy young man an honor to his race and to his family.”

“The bride is the oldest daughter of the Hon Samuel Parker who since her return from England where she received her education has been a favorite in society in Honolulu as well as in San Francisco.” (Independent, December 19, 1898)

The future seemed uncertain for Princess Kaʻiulani when she headed to the Island of Hawai‘i for the wedding of her friend Eva Parker.

Disillusioned by life in Americanized Honolulu, saddened by the injustice of circumstance, she expressed herself in letter to Lili’uokalani, written as 1898 drew to a close, feelings alive in most Hawaiian hearts.

“They have taken away everything from us and it seems there is left but a little, and with that little our very life itself. We live now in such a semi retired way, that people wonder if we even exist any more. I wonder too, and to what purpose?” (Kelley)

Even with Kaʻiulani’s attempts to gain support for the monarchy, the US Congress voted for annexation, and on August 12, 1898, Hawai‘i officially became an American territory.

Then, the sad news, “Princess Ka‘iulani is dead.”

“Her young life went out at two o’clock this morning (March 6, 1899,) at her residence, Waikiki. The sad event had been feared for more than a month, and deemed hourly imminent for a week past.”

“It was about four months ago that the Princess was first attacked with the illness that has cut her off in the springtime of life. Rheumatism induced by exposure to rain upon an excursion into a valley near Honolulu, undertaken for a short visit to a country retreat there, was the malady.”

“Relief was sought in change to the dry mountain air of Hon Saml Parker’s residence on Hawai‘i, and was gained in some degree when a fresh cold from bathing caused a relapse.”

“Ultimately, about a month ago, it was deemed necessary to have the Princess brought home. Her father and Dr St DG Walters attended her on the trip.”

“Alarming reports came from her bedside a week before the end. She was constantly attended by Dr. FL Miner and Dr Walters, but the disease had advanced beyond the power of medical skill to check.”

“Still there was hope of a favorable turn until close to the last hour. The fact that the affection was threatening the heart, however, made the case critical.”

“Half an hour before the end it was certain the Princess was dying, and intimate friends were called in to join the stricken father at the bedside. There were present in the death chamber the following:”

“Hon. AS Cleghorn, Mr. and Mrs. Jas. W. Robertson, Mr. and Mrs. Jas. H Boyd, Miss Kato Vida, Miss Helen Parker, Col. S Parker, Dr. St D. G. Walters and wife, Dr. FL Miner, Prince David Kawānanakoa, Lumaheihei, Miss EIsie Robertson and Kaʻiulani’s maid.”

“Princess Victoria Kawekiu Kaʻiulani Lunalilo Kalaninuiahilapalapa was the daughter of Hon AS Cleghorn and Princess Miriam Likelike.”

“The mother was a sister of King Kalākaua and Princess Liliuokalani afterward Queen, and died in 1887 when Kaʻiulani was but eleven years and four months old.”

“Here, from her cradle to the end of the monarchy, Princess Kaʻiulani was regarded as ‘the hope of the nation.’ Appreciating the responsibility attaching to her expectations, her widowed father sent her to England at fourteen years of age for higher education.”

“From her infancy she was known as the heir presumptive to the throne of Hawaii, and at the accession of Queen Lili‘uokalani was proclaimed as the Heir Apparent.” (Evening Bulletin, March 6, 1899)

“As a little girl here, Kaʻiulani was considered bright and beautiful and was a favorite with all the young people, of her circle. … Cultivated and charming in every way she at once gained a place in the hearts or all with whom she came in contact.”

“She was a patroness and active worker for every charitable, society and took the deepest interest in the welfare of the lowly and the afflicted. In the society here she was a bright light, was welcomed everywhere, received with the highest honors and often entertained at her home.”

“Always gracious, always thoughtful of others, she gained the strongest affection of all. She was idolized by her own people and was held in the highest esteem by the foreign population.” (Hawaiian Gazette, March 14, 1899)

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March 5, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Emma Kaili Metcalf Beckley Nakuina

“The green mountains of our Islands are still smiling in their beauty and the lovely borders of Hawaii Kuauli (a poetical appelation given to Hawaii nei by the Hawaiians), of the land known to the foreigners as the ‘Paradise of the Pacific,” still remain for us to enjoy.” (Hawaiian Gazette, January 11, 1898)

“The Hawaiian Race is universally recognized as foremost among those of the Pacific archipelagoes, and there is much in its history to arouse interest. With an unwritten record extending back 1,030 years, this people appeals to every student and observer.”

“Gifted with an imaginative faculty well developed, a capacity to clothe thought in ornate language, and adorn recital with word picture, as well as a vocabulary that lends itself to poetic expression, the meles, or historical songs, are virile and have the swing of the trade wind.” (Nakuina)

“Our newly arrived citizens are probably unaware that there are but few ladies in Hawaii nei who have wrought so much by deed, pen and words for the benefit of her race as (Emma Kaʻilikapuolono Metcalf.)”

“Full of the most accurate information as to her people their history traditions, manners and customs, she is endowed with the happy facility of wielding a pen cleverly and to the point.”

“In the various public positions she has held through many years she invariably brought to bear a bright intellect and a tactful experience with strict fidelity to truth and integrity.” (Independent, March 8, 1897)

Emma “challenged haole efforts to claim the right to rule by asserting genealogical connections to Hawai‘i and Hawaiians. She insisted on the primacy of indigenous genealogies and the insufficiency of their Western counterparts.” (Skwiot)

Emma Kaʻilikapulono Metcalf was born on March 5, 1847, at Kauaʻaia in Honolulu’s Mānoa Valley to Theophilus Metcalf, Hawai‘i’s first photographer, a civil engineer and sugar planter and Chiefess Kailikapuolono of Kūkaniloko. (Preface, Nakuina)

(Metcalf Street in Mānoa is named for Theophilus Metcalf; he arrived in the Islands on May 19, 1842 and became a naturalized citizen on March 9, 1846. He owned the property that most of the University of Hawai‘i campus sits on today. (Hopkins))

Emma “springs from blood lines which touch Plymouth Rock, as well as midseas islands. High priests, statesmen and warriors join hands in their descendants with pilgrims, lawmakers and jurists.”

“Broadly and liberally educated under the immediate care of her father, a Harvard man, nephew of the late Chief Justice Metcalf of Massachusetts, (she) is fitted to present legends which bring out strongly characteristics of her people. (Preface, Nakuina)

Emma attended Sacred Hearts’ Academy, Oʻahu College (Punahou School) and the Mills’ Seminary for Young Ladies in Benicia, California.

She was also privately tutored by her father in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, German, English and Hawaiian. She was also brought up with a thorough knowledge of traditional Hawaiian practices and protocol. (HHS)

In 1867, Emma married Frederick William Kahapula Beckley (eldest child of William Charles Malulani Beckley and Kahinu.) Beckley was a plantation owner and eventually chamberlain to King Kalākaua (1875) and governor of Kauai (1880). They had seven children.

While she was attached to the court of Kamehameha IV, the king had Emma trained in laws about water rights. One of the many native Hawaiian intellectuals of the 19th century, she was an expert on a wide variety of topics including water rights and laws.

She served the government of Alexander Liholiho (King Kamehameha IV) in the courts as Commissioner of Private Ways and Water Rights for Honolulu.

In 1875, King Kalākaua named her as curator for the Hawaiian National Museum, making her one of the first, if not the first, female curator of a national museum anywhere in the world. (HHS)

Beckley died in 1881 at the age of 36. “Immediately after the death of my husband I went up to the palace and stayed two or three weeks and then went home to my mother at Kalihi.” (Nakuina; Supreme Court Records) In 1887, she married Rev. Moses Keaea Nakuina.

She wrote many articles on Hawaii, including “Ancient Hawaiian Water Rights and Some Customs Pertaining to Them.” She also wrote of Hawaiian folklore and published Hawaii: Its People and Their Legends in 1904. (Scanlon) Emma Nakuina died on April 27, 1929.

Emma Nakuina lived through six monarchs and five governments. She was not a queen, but not a commoner either. She was caught somewhere in the middle: a kaukau aliʻi.

As the first child of a high-born Hawaiian chiefess and an American Sugar Planter, Emma lived in close proximity to both the Hawaiian monarchy and to those who would later overthrow it.

Like her rank, the era she lived in was also caught somewhere in the middle, between Hawaiian tradition and Western modernization. It was a time when all Hawaiians were struggling to live pono in an environment full of unfamiliar influences and importations.

Throughout her life, Nakuina chose to serve out her chiefly duties by being a teacher, historian, museum curator, water commissioner and judge, and she did so in an era when women were discouraged from holding positions of authority.

She was caught in a tumultuous world of underhanded politics, shifting governments, and the reluctant need to transition from a ‘Hawaiian’ way of life to that of the ‘civilized world.’ (Hopkins, UH)

Here is a video showing Emma Nakuina (portrayed by Kahana Ho;) it was part of a Hawaiian Mission Houses ‘Cemetery Pupu Theatre’ event at O‘ahu Cemetery, where Nakuina is buried.