Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Tauʻā

William Ellis (August 24, 1794 – 1872) applied to train as a Christian missionary for the London Missionary Society and was accepted to the school.  After attending Homerton College he was ordained in 1815; later that year, he married Mary Mercy Moor (November 9, 1815.)  He served the London Mission in the Society Islands, Hawaiian Islands and Madagascar.

From 1816, when he first entered on his missionary career, until 1825, he devoted himself to “service of the Lord as a missionary” among the South Pacific Islands.

“It was the morning of the Sabbath when we embarked.  Our friends in Gosport were preparing to attend public worship, when we heard the report of a signal-gun. The sound excited a train of feeling, which can be understood only by those who have been placed in similar circumstances. It was a report announcing the arrival of that moment which was to separate, perhaps for ever, from home and all its endearments, and rend asunder every band which friendship and affection had entwined around the heart.”  (Ellis on departing for the South Pacific)

First landing in Eimeo (Moorea,) and travelling throughout the area, he served the London Mission for the next 6-years in the Society Islands (so named by Captain James Cook in honor of the ‘Royal Society,’ “as they lay contiguous to one another.”)

After an initial brief visit in 1822 to Hawaiʻi, arrangement were made between the American Board of Commissions for Foreign Mission, London Missionary Society and local chiefs, Ellis returned to Hawaiʻi to join the American mission there.

On April 16, 1822, the schooner Mermaid, arrived at Honolulu from Tahiti; on board were Ellis, other English missionaries and Auna and Matatore, Tahitian chiefs and teachers. After providing support for a few months to the American missionaries in the Islands, they returned to Tahiti, giving up their original plan of visiting the Marquesas Islands.

February 4, 1823, Ellis returned to the Islands, bringing his wife with him as well as Tahitian teachers, including Tauʻā. (Ellis remained at this time for about eighteen months; then returned to England, with his family.)

Tauʻā, originally known as Matapuupuu, was born in about 1792 and was by birth a raʻatira or landowner.  He had been a principal Arioi (secret religious order of the Society Islands,) and succeeded his elder brother as chief priest of Huahine.  (Gunson)

In August 1813 he joined John Davies’s school at Papetoʻai, and later accompanied Ellis to Huahine, where he became a prominent church member and was appointed deacon. He was also appointed first Secretary of the Huahinean Missionary Society.  His speeches at prayer meetings and May meetings were reported with some pride.  (Gunson)

Shortly after Ellis and Tauʻā arrived in Hawaiʻi, the Second Company of American missionaries arrived, bringing the Reverend William Richards and the Reverend Charles Stewart (April 1823.)

About this time, Queen Mother Keōpūolani (mother of Kamehameha II and III) began to accept many western ways.  She wore western clothes, she introduced western furniture into her house and she took instruction in Christianity.

But her health began to fail, and she decided to move her household from the pressures of the court circle in Honolulu to the tranquility of Waikīkī. With her she took Hoapili (her husband) and Nahiʻenaʻena (her daughter.)

Each Sunday the missionaries walked across the hot plain from Honolulu to Waikīkī to hold divine service and to instruct the Queen Mother in Christian doctrine. Keōpūolani decided, however, that these Sunday meetings did not suffice; she asked that a religious instructor be attached to her household. Her choice was Tauʻā; the mission approved.  (Sinclair)

In May of 1823, Keōpūolani decided to make her last move, this time back to the island of her birth, Maui.  She chose Lāhainā, with its warm and sunny climate – another place traditionally a favorite with the chiefs.  (Sinclair)

Before leaving, Keōpūolani requested the Americans to assign teachers to go with her. She wanted a mission established in Lāhainā, and further instruction in reading and writing for herself; she also wished to have a man of God to pray with her. The Honolulu mission selected Charles Stewart and William Richards to accompany the queen.  (Sinclair)

Immediately on their arrival in Lāhainā, she requested them to commence teaching, and also said, “It is very proper that my sons (meaning the missionaries) be present with me at morning and evening prayers.”

They were always present, and sung a hymn in the Hawaiian language.  Often in conversation she would introduce the subject which had been discussed, and ask important questions respecting it.  (Memoir of Keōpūolani)

She became more attentive to the Gospel as she was resting. It was Tauʻā who became the teacher she relied on as perhaps they were able to converse with each other in the Polynesian language.  (Mookini)

Tauʻā proved a faithful teacher, and he did much to establish her in the Christian faith.  He answered several of her questions on the subject of Christianity.

She said to Tauʻā, “My heart is much afraid I shall never become a Christian.” He replied, “Why, what is in the way?”  She said, “I think I am likely to die soon.”  He replied, “Do you not love God?” She answered, “O yes, I love – I love him very much.”  Tauʻā then communicated farther instruction to her. At the close of the conversation she said, “Your word, I know, is true.  It is a good word; and now I have found, I have obtained a Saviour, and a good King, Jesus Christ.”

She asked him for advice about her having two husbands (at the time she was married to Kalanimōku and Hoapili.) Tauʻā  answered: “It is proper for a woman to have one husband, man to have one wife.”   She then said: “I have followed the custom of Hawaiʻi, in taking two husbands in the time of our dark hearts. I wish now to obey Christ and to walk in the right way. It is wrong to have two husbands and I desire but one. Hoapili is my husband, hereafter my only husband.”  (Memoir of Keōpūolani)

To Kalanimōku she said: “I have renounced our ancient customs, the religion of wooden images, and have turned to the new religion of Jesus Christ. He is my King and my Savior, and him I desire to obey. I can have but one husband. Your living with me is at an end. No more are you to eat with my people or lodge in my house.”  (Mookini)

She was asked, “How do you feel, as you are about leaving the world?”  She answered, “I remember what my teachers told me.  I pray much to Jesus Christ to be with me and take me to himself.  I am now about to leave my three children, my people and my teachers.  But it is not dark now.  It would have been, had I died before these good times.  You must pray for me, and all the missionaries must pray for me. I love you. I love them. I think I love Jesus Christ, and I trust he will receive me.”  (Memoir of Keōpūolani)

In Keōpūolani’s earnest inquiries after truth, and the increasing experience of its power on the heart, Mrs. Ellis had, in common with other members of the Mission, ever taken a lively interest, and she shared with her companions at Lāhainā in the hallowed joy which was felt by the growing meetness for heaven which the first convert in Hawaiʻi had manifested, as the signs of her approaching dissolution became more frequent and decisive.  (Mary Mercy Ellis Memoir)

In the presence of the royal family and the chiefs, Ellis delivered a short address to explain the meaning of baptism; he sprinkled Keōpūolani with water in the name of God – Ellis administered the rite of baptism to Keōpūolani. She had earlier chosen Harriet, the name of Mrs. Stewart, to be her baptismal name.  (Sinclair)

The King (Liholiho, her son) and all the heads of the nation listened with the most profound attention, and when they saw that water was sprinkled on her in the name of God, they said, “Surely she is no longer ours, she formerly gave herself to Jesus Christ.  We believe she is his, and will go to dwell with him.”  (Memoir of Keōpūolani)

The ceremony was performed at five in the afternoon of September 16, 1823; at six o’clock the Queen was dead.

The funeral ceremonies, after the Christian manner, were held two days later with chiefs, missionaries and foreigners surrounding the corpse. (Mookini)

It was a season of much spiritual enjoyment to all present, it was peculiarly solemn and impressive; especially from the number of native chiefs and others who were present, some of whom were among the most earnest inquirers after truth, and all of whom seemed much affected, and anxious to ask the meaning of an observance to them so new and strange.  (Mary Mercy Ellis Memoir)

After her death, Tauʻā joined the household of Hoapilikane and remained with that chief until his death in 1840. He then joined the household of Hoapiliwahine.  (Tauʻā died in about 1855.)

The image shows the initial burial tomb for Keōpūolani; she was later reburied there in Waineʻe Church cemetery (now known as Waiola Church) in Lāhainā.

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Alfred Stedman Hartwell

“Who would be free themselves must strike the blow…. I urge you to fly to arms and smite to death the power that would bury the Government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave. This is your golden opportunity.” (Frederick Douglass; NPS)

“Organization directed by cautious aggression and manly defense will do for the race infinitel more than the policy of eternally stretching forth our hands without doing anything toward filling them, and of complaining because others are not watching our interest while we are asleep.”  (Washington Bee, April 1, 1899)

The American Civil War (1861-1865) started because of uncompromising differences between the free and slave states over the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in the territories that had not yet become states.

The event that triggered war came at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay on April 12, 1861. Claiming this United States fort as their own, the Confederate army on that day opened fire on the federal garrison and forced it to lower the American flag in surrender.

The real fighting began in 1862.  For three long years, from 1862 to 1865, Robert E Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia staved off invasions and attacks by the Union Army of the Potomac commanded by a series of ineffective generals until Ulysses S Grant came to Virginia from the Western theater to become general in chief of all Union armies in 1864.     (McPherson)

In the early years, African Americans were not permitted to fight in the war.  In early 1863, President Lincoln wrote to Andrew Johnson (military governor of Tennessee and later Lincoln’s vice president) that, “The colored population is the great available yet unavailed of force for restoring the Union.”

“The bare sight of fifty thousand armed and drilled black soldiers upon the banks of the Mississippi would end the rebellion at once; and who doubts that we can present that sight if we but take hold in earnest.”

Two months later, War Department General Order #143 sanctioned the creation of the United States Colored Troops (USCT,) and African American units began to be integrated into the Union Army.   (civilwar-org)

In Massachusetts, on January 26, 1863, Governor John Albion Andrew received permission to begin recruitment of African-Americans to man regiments of volunteer infantry. The 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was formed; because of excessive enlistments, a second regiment, the 55th, was formed.

The USCT were commanded by white officers.  Captain Alfred Stedman Hartwell was assigned to the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry; when the 55th was formed, Hartwell was made its lieutenant colonel.  In the fall of 1863, Hartwell earned the rank of colonel of the 55th.

Hartwell was born at Dedham, Massachusetts.  He graduated from Harvard in 1858; was a tutor at Washington University, St Louis, 1858-61, and in the latter year enlisted in the Army.

The 55th fought in many battles, serving primarily in South Carolina and Florida.  However, throughout his leadership, Hartwell had growing concern about the inadequacy of pay given to the African American soldiers.

“They felt their manhood was at stake. They were regarded as good enough to be killed and wounded, and to work in the trenches side by side with white soldiers, so they said they would wait until they got their dues.”  (Hartwell; Soodalter)

Hartwell pressured his superiors on behalf of his troops. “I can hardly write, talk, eat or sleep,” he wrote, “I am so anxious and indignant that pay is not forthcoming … for my men. Can anything be done to hasten this thing? No man staying at home can imagine how great and terrible is the wrong done these men, and the distress they suffer.”  (Soodalter)

Finally, on August 22, 1864 the War Department sent word that all African American troops would be compensated with equal pay, retroactive to their date of enlistment.  That year, when he was twenty-eight years old, Hartwell was brevetted for gallantry and promoted to Brigadier-General.

Hartwell was wounded three times and had his horse blown out from under him. He was removed from the field, treated and sent home to recuperate.  He rejoined his regiment in January of 1865 and served for the remainder of the war. (Fisher)

By the spring of 1865, all the principal Confederate armies surrendered, and when Union cavalry captured the fleeing Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Georgia on May 10, 1865, resistance collapsed and the war ended. The long, painful process of rebuilding a united nation free of slavery began.   (McPherson)

By the end of the Civil War, roughly 179,000 black men (10 percent of the Union Army) served as soldiers in the US Army, and another 19,000 served in the Navy.  (National Archives)

When the war was over, Hartwell left the Army and returned to Harvard where he received his law degree the following year. He then began private practice in Boston.

In 1868, King Kamehameha V was offered Hartwell the position of “First Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and Vice Chancellor of the Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands.”

“After some weeks of deliberation I decided to come, and on August 15, 1868 started on the long trip, intending an absence of two or three years only, to obtain the new experience, not then knowing that I was making a permanent change of my home.”  (Hartwell)

“After we had rounded Diamond Head and were beginning to take in the wonderful beauty of Honolulu, ever fresh and young … As we neared the wharf, we saw the crowd which was waiting to greet friends returning from abroad.”  (Hartwell )  He arrived in the Islands on September 30, 1868.

“I began at once to study the Hawaiian language with such success that in holding the circuit court at Lahaina at the December term of 1868 I charged the native jury in their own language, briefly to be sure, but I believe they understood the charge, which is more than can always be said of the juries who listen to the elaborate present day instructions.”

“…  the charm of the semi-tropical life was in the hospitality and friendliness of the people, native as well as foreign, shown to the stranger within their gates no less than to each other.”

“On January 10, 1872, my wedding day (to Miss Charlotte Elizabeth Smith, daughter of James W Smith of Kauaʻi,) my father died, but I did not know of his death until we got to San Francisco in the latter part of February, on our wedding journey to South Natick.”    (On June 11, 1872, his birthday, his sister died.)

The Hartwells had seven daughters and one son: Bernice Hartwell, Mabel Rebecca Hartwell, Edith Millicent Hartwell, Madeline Perry Hartwell, Charlotte Lee Hartwell, Juliette Hartwell, Charles Atherton Hartwell and Alice Dorothy Hartwell.

He served as editor of the Hawaiian Gazette, member of the Board of Trustees for the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company, and president of the Pacific Cable Company. He supported the idea that the United States should acquire a permanent lease with Hawaiʻi for a naval base at Pearl Harbor.

After the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in January of 1893, Hartwell served on the Annexation Commission. When Hawaiʻi was annexed by the US on July 7, 1898, he traveled to Washington to advise Secretary of State John Hay regarding Hawaii’s future.

On June 15, 1904, he was appointed Associate Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Hawaii. He served in that capacity until August 15, 1907 when he was sworn in as Chief Justice.

In February 1911, he resigned and set sail for Europe. His vacation was cut short by illness and he returned to Hawaiʻi. He died at his home in Honolulu on August 30, 1912. His grave is the westernmost grave of a Civil War general on American soil (at Oʻahu Cemetery.) (Fisher)

The image shows Alfred Stedman Hartwell in his US Army uniform.  In addition, I have included other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Kīlauea

 “A little farther on we entered groves of hala, through which we continued to ride for the rest of our journey. We turned from the road to see the falls of the Kāhili River.”

“Though not large they are beautiful. Here the river falls in a jet of foam over a precipice of about 40 feet into a broad clear basin below….”  (Alexander, 1849; (Kīlauea Stream is universally referred to as “Kāhili Stream;”) Cultural Surveys)

Pukui suggests “Kīlauea means “spewing, much spreading;” associated references relate to volcanic eruptions at the place of like name on the Island of Hawaiʻi – typically referring to the rising smoke clouds.

Wichman explains the name as referring to “spewing many vapors” and traces it rather generically to the streams of Kīlauea that flow between the Makaleha Mountains and the Kamo‘okoa Ridge. The name may have originally been in reference to Kīlauea Falls itself.  (Cultural Surveys)

The relatively large volume of water flowing over a relatively wide and high drop against the prevailing trade winds (blowing approximately straight up the lower stretch of the valley) can create a large volume of diffuse mist that may have inspired the name of the land.  (Cultural Surveys)

In the Māhele, all of Kīlauea ahupuaʻa was retained as government lands; apparently no claims were made by native tenants, although there were several in a low, wide terrace along the stream in the adjoining Kāhili ahupuaʻa.

In January 1863, the approximate 3,016-acres of the Kīlauea ahupuaʻa were purchased by a former American whaler named Charles Titcomb.  Titcomb already had land holdings at Kōloa and Hanalei.  He was cultivating silkworm, coffee, tobacco, sugarcane and cattle.

Adding other leased land, he and partners Captain John Ross and EP Adams formed the Kilauea Plantation (1863,) and by 1877 the started a sugar plantation, “one of the smallest plantations in the Hawaiian Islands operating its own sugar mill”.  (Cultural Surveys)

Hawaiʻi’s earliest history with railroads is often credited to Kīlauea Plantation, whose first system opened in 1881 on three miles of narrow-gauge track to haul sugar cane.  Princess Lydia Kamakaeha (Lili‘uokalani) drove in the first spikes for the railroad bed. The plantation infrastructure grew over the next twenty years.

“The transportation system consists of twelve and a half miles of permanent track, five miles of portable track, 200 cane cars, six sugar cars and four locomotives.”

“(Kīlauea) is situated three miles from the landing at Kāhili, with which it is connected by the railway system. Sugar is delivered to the steamers by means of a cable device at the rate of from 600 to 800-bags an hour.”  (San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 1910) The town of Kīlauea originated as the center of the sugar plantation operation; Kīlauea Sugar Plantation closed in 1970.

The Kīlauea School was founded in 1882 as an ‘English School.’  Its 54-pupils were primarily workers’ children from Kīlauea Sugar Plantation.  As the Board of Education of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi owned no land in the district, school was held in a Protestant Church and partly in an old building that belonged to the Board.

In 1894, the Board of Education of the Republic of Hawaiʻi was able to obtain a two-acre parcel of land from the plantation and a two-room school and teacher’s cottage were erected (it was situated near Kūhiō Highway and Kalihiwai Road.)

By 1920, the educational facilities were greatly strained as the school boasted 239-students and 7-teachers for grades one through eight.  At the end of 1921, Kauai County purchased the present school site and the new school opened September 11, 1922; it has been in use since that time.  (NPS)

By the 1890s, much of the old kalo-growing areas of this portion of Kaua‘i were now producing rice, farmed by Chinese immigrants. There were 55-acres of land in rice production in the Kīlauea-Kāhili area in 1892 and eventually a rice mill on Kīlauea Stream.

The mill is known to have been on the stream terrace east of Kīlauea Stream. Rice and vegetable cultivation was also noted along the banks of Kīlauea Stream, circa 1925.  (Cultural Surveys)

Built in 1913 as a navigational aid for commercial shipping, the Kīlauea Lighthouse was credited with saving lives, not only of countless sailors lost at sea, but of two fliers on a historic trans-Pacific flight.

When Lt Albert Hegenberger and Lt Lester Maitland were on the first trans-Pacific airplane flight in history (June 29, 1927,) they overshot their course to Oʻahu and became lost.

They heard a strange signal and interpreted it as a radio beacon originating in the Islands. They used the signal to calculate their exact position and made the necessary adjustments to put them on course, thus enabling them to land the ‘Bird of Paradise’ safely at Hickam Field on Oʻahu.  (NPS)

Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, surrounding the Lighthouse, was established in 1985 to preserve and enhance seabird nesting colonies and was expanded in 1988 to include Crater Hill and Mōkōlea Point.  The refuge is home to some of the largest populations of nesting seabirds in in the main Hawaiian Islands.

Nearby, Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) added to an existing preserved property to form the Kāhili Coastal Preserve.  The property provides public access to Kāhili Beach while safeguarding the shoreline ecosystem.  (HILT)

The image shows Kīlauea Falls, Kauaʻi.  In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Charles Brewer

Charles Brewer was born in Boston in 1804. His father was Moses Brewer, his mother Abigail May Brewer.  After his father died in 1813, his mother moved to her family home in Jamaica Plain, where she remained until she died in 1849 at 79 years.

“At a very early age (he) had a strong desire to be a sailor, but, being an only son, (his) mother strongly objected, and sent (him) to a woman’s school at East Sudbury. (He) remained there two summers.  During the year following (he) attended the East Sudbury Academy.”  (Brewer; Reminiscences)

Then, “One day, my mother, without my knowledge, called on several of her old friends to consult with them about my going to sea … each of whom had been a sailor in his youth, and afterwards had been engaged in shipping business from Boston for many years.”  (Brewer)

“Their advice … was that, if I was so anxious to become a seaman when I was twenty-one, she had better give her consent for me to go when I was seventeen, so that perhaps I might become an officer by the time I was twenty-one.”

“Their advice proved good, for (he) was second officer of the ship” Paragon” when (he) was twenty-one, and first officer of the same ship when was twenty-two.”  (Brewer)

After some sailing experience, Brewer had an interest in going to the Sandwich Islands.  “(He) learned that the ship ‘Paragon’ was going to the Sandwich Islands and to China, so (he) made application at once, and was shipped on board as an ordinary seaman at eight dollars a month.”  (Brewer)

They left Boston on February 23, 1823 with two passengers, Thomas Crocker. Esq., US consul for the Hawaiian Islands, and Robert Elwell, consul’s clerk.  Second officer (and also acting sail-maker) on board was John Dominis (father of John Owen Dominis who was later the husband of Queen Liliʻuokalani.)

After arriving in Honolulu and ongoing attempts to gather sandalwood for trade, the King asked to charter the Paragon for the funeral of Queen Keōpūolani.

“The king, with all his officers, together with all the foreign consuls, was on board the ‘Paragon.’ On the arrival of the fleet at Lāhainā, minute-guns were fired, and it was continued all the day.”

“There were nearly 12,000 natives at the landing at Lāhainā to witness the funeral; and they expressed their deep grief and sympathy for the king by a loud wailing and wringing of hands.  The next day the fleet returned to Honolulu.”  (Brewer)

After serving on several other ships trading between the Northwest, Hawaii and China, Brewer headed for Honolulu (on his third voyage for the Islands,) arriving in November, 1830.

Part of the cargo was plants, including night-blooming cereus.  They looked dead and he was ordered then thrown overboard; one looked survivable and he nursed it back and when they arrived in Honolulu the flowers were in full bloom and “was a great curiosity.”

“When I was at Honolulu in 1879, I found the plant no longer a curiosity, for the walls in many parts of the town were covered with it.”  (Brewer)

(Punahou School’s dry stack rock wall along Punahou Street was constructed in 1834.  The night-blooming cereus (known in Hawaiʻi as panini o kapunahou) that today continues to cover the Punahou walls (that back in 1924 was noted to have “world-wide reputation and interest”) was planted by Sybil Bingham (Hiram’s wife.))

As Brewer was sailing back and forth to the Islands, James Hunnewell was doing the same.  On one trip, on the Thaddeus, Hunnewell returned to the Islands in 1820.

“This was the memorable voyage when we carried out the first missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands (including Hiram and Sybil Bingham.”)  He stayed … “it was urged by some of the chiefs that knew me on my previous voyage that I should remain instead of a stranger to trade with them.”  (Hunnewell)

Later, in 1825, Hunnewell negotiated with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, “to take the missionary packet out, free from any charge whatever on (his) part for sailing and navigating the vessel—provided the Board would pay and feed the crew, and allow (him) to carry out in the schooner to the amount (in bulk) of some forty to fifty barrels”.  (Hunnewell)

He then purchased the premises of John Gowen for the sum of $250, to which I added some land by exchange in 1830.  “As soon as I secured this place, I landed my cargo, and commenced retailing it…”  (Hunnewell)  This was the beginning of a company that would later carry the Brewer name.

Hunnewell first partnered with Henry A Peirce.  Peirce then took Thomas Hinckley as a partner; but Hinckley soon retired due to his health.  Next, in steps Brewer; he commanded Peirce’s trading vessels on their voyages to China and the Russian possessions.

In December, 1835, a co-partnership was formed by Peirce and Brewer.  Under this partnership, the firm of Peirce & Brewer conducted a general merchandise and commission business at Honolulu.  (Peirce)

“When I was received as a partner in business with Mr Henry A Peirce, I continued the firm name of Peirce & Brewer until Mr Peirce retired, in 1843.  I then continued the business as C Brewer & Co., with my nephew C Brewer, 2d, until the year 1845.”  (Brewer)

After various partnerships and name changes, it was not until 1859 that the firm again and finally resumed the name of C Brewer & Co., when in September of that year, Charles Brewer II, a nephew of Captain Brewer, engaged in partnership with Sherman Peck and took over the business.  (Nellist)

Brewer returned to Boston.  “We arrived in Boston on March 26, 1849, and from that time, my sea life may be said to have ended.”  (Brewer)

However, “I continued my business alone for about one year, and then joined with Mr. James Hunnewell and Mr. Henry A. Peirce in the Sandwich Islands and East India trade, as well as general freighting in various parts of the world. Our Partnership consisted only in our ships, and we were one third owners each of our several vessels.”  (Brewer)

In reminiscing of life in the Islands, Brewer noted, “My life at the Sandwich Islands during a period of nearly twenty-six years was a very pleasant one, and I shall always remember with gratitude the kindness I received from the many friends in Honolulu, and especially from his majesty King Kamehameha III, who, from his boyhood to his death, was always my firm friend.”

The image shows Charles Brewer.

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Kaʻalāwai

Along the coastal area between Lēʻahi (Diamond Head) and Kūpikipikiʻō (Black Point) several small neighborhoods are sometimes identified by the names of the main roads in the area Kaikoo, Papu Circle and Kulamanu. However, the historic name for this area of Oʻahu’s is Kaʻalāwai.

Kaʻalāwai literally means ‘the water (basalt) rock’ and is probably named for the springs on the beach and among the rocks at the east end of the beach.

It is a narrow, white-sand beach with a shallow reef offshore, which generally has poor swimming conditions. There are only a few scattered pockets of sand on the nearshore ocean bottom.  Lots go surfing outside.

At the east end of the beach near Black Point is a mansion turned museum, built by Doris Duke, the daughter of James Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Company, and her husband, James Cromwell.  (It’s their name that is attributed to the “Cromwell’s” Cove and Beach references.)

In the late-1930s, Doris Duke built her Honolulu home, Shangri La, on five acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Diamond Head.  Shangri La incorporates architectural features from the Islamic world and houses Duke’s extensive collection of Islamic art, which she assembled for nearly 60 years.

Through an Exchange Deed dated December 8, 1938 between the Territorial Land Board of Hawai‘i and Ms Duke, two underwater parcels (totaling approximately 0.6-acres) were added to the Duke property.

At water’s edge below the estate, Duke then dynamited a small-boat harbor and a seventy-five-foot salt-water swimming pool into the rock.  The harbor was built to protect Duke’s fleet of yachts, including Kailani Lahilahi, an ocean-going, 58-foot motor yacht and Kimo, the 26-foot mahogany runabout that Duke sometimes used to commute into Honolulu.

Part of the deal was that the transfer gave the Territory (now State) a perpetual easement of a four-foot right-of-way for a pedestrian causeway along the coastline.  It’s a popular swimming area (ongoing media reports note the hazards here, so be careful.)

Today, Shangri La is open for guided, small group tours and educational programs. In partnership with the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art – which owns and supports Shangri La – the Honolulu Museum of Art serves as the orientation center for Shangri La tours.

Another stretch of beach here had some other interesting ownership/use issues.

In the old days, a Beach Road ran right next to the water at Kaʻalāwai. When some of the private property mauka of the road was subdivided into seven lots and conveyed in 1885, the makai boundaries of these seven lots were specified “along the road”.

However, in 1959, folks adjoining the then-abandoned road soon made claims to it – most extended their landscaping (and even put in improvements (patio, walls, etc)) out over the old beach road.

Some of the abutting owners succeeded in their title claims and subsequent legal battles, obtaining declaratory judgments in their favor and they gained title to the road remnant real estate.  Subsequently, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled that the State owns the road.

The last property made application to the State to acquire the road remnant, however, after following discussions, they ended up seeking a long-term easement over the old roadway.

Oh, one more Kaʻalāwai story … following the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893, the Committee of Safety established the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi as a temporary government until an assumed annexation by the United States.

The Provisional Government convened a constitutional convention and established the Republic of Hawaiʻi on July 4, 1894. The Republic continued to govern the Islands.

From January 6 to January 9, 1895, in a “Counter-Revolution,” patriots of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the forces that had overthrown the constitutional Hawaiian monarchy were engaged in a war that consisted of battles on the island of Oʻahu.

It has been called the Second Wilcox Rebellion of 1895 (named after Robert William Wilcox.)  In their attempt to return Queen Liliʻuokalani to the throne, it was the last major military operation by royalists who opposed the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

Wilcox’s headquarters was at Kaʻalāwai. (Daily Bulletin, January 19, 1895)  Shortly after the fighting began, losing the element of surprise and seeing no tactical importance in remaining at Diamond Head, Wilcox ordered his men to retreat to Waiʻalae.

Wilcox and his men then escaped to the Koʻolau up a trail on the precipice to the ridge separating Mānoa from Nuʻuanu. On that ridge his men dispersed into the mountain above; Wilcox and a few others crossed Nuʻuanu that night, eluding the guards.  They were later captured.

Queen Liliʻuokalani was put under arrest on the 16th, and confined in a chamber of ʻIolani Palace.  A tribunal was formed and evidence began to be taken on the 18th.  Nowlein, Wilcox, Bertelmann and TB Walker all pleaded guilty, and subsequently gave evidence for the prosecution.

Wilcox was court-martialed and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to thirty-five years.    In January, 1896, he was given a conditional pardon and became a free man; in 1898, President Dole gave him a full pardon.  (Wilcox later served as the first delegate and representative of Hawaiʻi in the US Congress.)

Convicted of having knowledge of a royalist plot, Liliʻuokalani was fined $5,000 and sentenced to five-years in prison at hard labor. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in an upstairs bedroom of ʻIolani Palace.

She spent 8 months in this room.  After her release from ʻIolani Palace, the Queen remained under house arrest for five months at her private home, Washington Place. For another eight months she was forbidden to leave Oʻahu before all restrictions were lifted.  Liliʻuokalani died of a stroke on November 11, 1917 in Honolulu at the age of 79.

The image shows Kaʻalāwai and Black Point area prior to development.  In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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