Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Jean François de Galaup, comte de LaPérouse

“… the island of Mowhee (Maui) looked delightful …. We could see waterfalls tumbling down the mountainside into the sea …  the trees crowning the mountains, the greenery, the banana trees we could see around the houses, all this gave rise to a feeling of inexpressible delight.”

“… the waves were breaking wildly against the rocks and, like new Tantaluses, we were reduced to yearning, devouring with our eyes what was beyond our reach.”  (The first sight of Maui, as described by LaPérouse, May 30, 1786)

What LaPérouse saw, sailing down the coast from Hāna, and where he eventually landed, was known to the ancients as Keoneʻōʻio (“bonefish sand.”)

In this area, permanent Hawaiian occupation was based on use of marine resources and dryland crops (primarily ʻuala (sweet potato)) in mauka areas. Fish and other marine resources were important staples – as the name suggests, ʻōʻio (bonefish) were once abundant.  (DLNR)

In 1786, La Perouse noted as many as five villages in the area, each with 10 to 12 thatched houses. Those living at the shore focused primarily on fishing and had comparatively easy access to potable water at shoreline springs. The residents traveled between the uplands and the coast to trade products.

By the mid-1840s land use in Honuaʻula transitioned from primarily traditional subsistence to agricultural business activities.  An estimated 150-people were living at Keoneʻōʻio in 1853.  (DLNR)

The Bay is now more commonly called LaPérouse Bay, named after the first foreign visitor to the island of Maui.

Jean François de Galaup, comte de LaPérouse was born August 22, 1741, the eldest son of a well-to-do middle-class family of landowners from Albi in Southern France (Lapérouse was the name of a family property that he added to his name.)  (Dunmore)

After an early education at the Jesuit College in Albi, at the age of 15, he joined the French Navy.  Almost immediately, he was engaged in the struggle between France and England in Canada and was taken prisoner by the British at the disastrous naval battle of Quiberon Bay; he spent two-years in captivity.

Repatriated from England, he was posted again to sea duties; for five years he was engaged in defense of the French possessions in the Indian Ocean – again, in the rivalry between France and England.

Then, the American Revolutionary War began (1775–1783.)  In 1778, the French, through Treaty of Alliance, entered on the side of the Americans and provided military support to the Colonies.

As part of this support, in 1782, LaPérouse was given a commission to destroy British installations in the Hudson Bay compounds in Canada.  He captured three ships and conquered the forts.  However, in doing so, as a sign of his benevolent intentions, he did not destroy their food supply (providing the means for the conquered British to survive the Canadian winter.)

After the signing of the Treaty of Versailles (ending the American Revolutionary War for the foreign allies,) France’s King Louis XVI supported a French expedition around the world.  Interested in geography, and eagerly following the voyages of Captain Cook, he decided to send an exhibition on a voyage of discovery that would rival the achievements of Cook.  (LaPerouse Museum)

LaPérouse left the French port of Brest in August 1785 and headed south.  In the next 2 ½-years, his ships L’Astrolabe and La Boussole would sail many thousands of miles and cross the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans several times.

Two of the King’s personal instruction read as follows:
“On all occasions, Sieur de LaPérouse will act with great gentleness and humanity towards the different peoples whom he will visit during the course of the voyage.”

“His majesty will consider it as one of the happiest events of the expedition if it should end without costing the life of a single man.”

LaPerouse’s journal while at Maui notes he honored the first instruction: “Although the French are the first to have stepped onto the island of Mowee (Maui) in recent times, I did not take possession of it in the King’s name.”

“This European practice is too utterly ridiculous, and philosophers must reflect with some sadness that, because one has muskets and canons, one looks upon 60,000 inhabitants as worth northing, ignoring their rights over a land where for centuries their ancestors have been buried, which they have watered with their sweat, and whose fruits they pick to bring them as offerings to the so-called new landlords.”

“Modern navigators have no other purpose when they describe the customs of newly discovered people than to complete the story of mankind. Their navigation must round off our knowledge of the globe, and the enlightenment which they try to spread has no other aim than to increase the happiness of the islanders they meet”.  (LaPérouse)

LaPérouse stayed at Maui for only two days. He then sailed westward passing between Kahoʻolawe and Lānaʻi and into the channel between Molokaʻi and Oʻahu.

The places the expedition visited between 1785 and 1788 included Alaska, California, Hawaiʻi, Korea, Japan, Russia, Tahiti, Samoa and finally the east coast of Australia.

Unfortunately, the King Louis XVI’s second instruction was not met.

The last official sighting of the LaPérouse expedition was in March 1788 when British lookouts stationed at the South Head of Port Jackson saw the expedition sail from Botany Bay. The expedition was wrecked on the reefs of Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands during a cyclone sometime during April or May 1788.

A monument to LaPérouse stands at Keoneʻōʻio reads:
On May 30th, 1786
French Admiral Jean-Francois Galaup Comte De LaPérouse,
Commanding The Two Frigates La Boussole And L’astrolabe,
Was The First Known European Navigator To Land
At Keoneʻoʻio Also Called LaPérouse Bay On The Island Of Maui.
Donated By The Friends Of LaPérouse On May 30th 1994

Other memorials in other parts of the Pacific also honor LaPérouse; in addition, there are many places named for LaPérouse, including LaPérouse Bay, Maui, and two other LaPérouse Bays in Canada and the Easter Islands – and, even a crater on the moon.

The area near Keoneʻōʻio is now the ʻAhihi-Kinaʻu Natural Area Reserve, the first designated Natural Area Reserve in Hawaiʻi in 1973. The 1,238 acres contain marine ecosystems (807-submerged acres – the only NAR that includes the ocean,) anchialine ponds and lava fields from the last eruption of Haleakala 200-500-years ago.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Military Units on the Mōkapu Peninsula

At present, the Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH) on Mōkapu peninsula at Kāne‘ohe Bay maintains and operates the airfield and other training facilities in support of the readiness and global projection of DoD and military operating forces. (MCBH)

The Base has trained countless carrier pilots for combat, provided logistical support for naval aviation forces throughout the Pacific, and supported airborne early warning and antisubmarine patrol operations. (Marines)

But the Marines weren’t there first, and they aren’t alone. Let’s look back …

On February 6, 1901, the US Army artillery corps divided into separate field and coast artillery components by General Order 9, War Department, implementing the Army Reorganization Act (31 Stat. 748), February 2, 1901.

Tactical artillery districts, each consisting of one or more forts and accompanying mine fields and land defenses, were established by General Order 81, War Department, June 13, 1901, to protect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States and the coasts of Hawai‘i and Puerto Rico.  (US Archives)

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

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

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

Renamed Headquarters Coast Defenses, following World War I and until the end of World War II additional coastal batteries were constructed throughout the Island.

President Woodrow Wilson’s signing of Executive Order No. 2900 established a military reservation on July 2, 1918 and set aside 322 acres of public land on the Mōkapu peninsula for military use. The first name for the Army installation on the east side of the Mōkapu peninsula was Kuwa‘ahohe Military Reservation.

In 1927, the Oahu contingent of the Army’s Coast Artillery Corps, based at Fort Kamehameha since 1908, established a coast defense position at Ulupau.

It began after WWI, when the Army expanded its ideas of how the Coast Artillery units of Fort Kamehameha should be protecting Pearl Harbor. Army planners realized that in addition to providing protection against a naval bombardment of Pearl Harbor, it was also necessary to prevent enemy forces from landing anywhere on Oahu.

This was to thwart a possible land attack on the naval base.  In 1922, upon the signing of the Washington Naval Treaty, the US diverted twelve 240mm howitzers to Hawai‘i from shipments originally bound for the Philippines.

Article XIX of the treaty prohibited new fortifications or upgrading of coastal defenses of US, British, and Japanese bases in their small island territories in the Pacific. The treaty allowed expansion at the US bases in Hawai‘i, Alaska, Panama Canal Zone, and the mainland. (HABS 311-P)

Between WWI and WWII, ranchers leased some portions of the Kuwa‘aohe Military Reservation.  Army usage at Kuwa‘aohe began to increase in anticipation of war. Although the Army did not man the former 240mm howitzer battery, they formed various coast artillery batteries and activity increased at the installation.

From 1940 to 1941, the military reservation had a different Hawaiian name – Camp Ulupau. The change in 1942 to Fort Hase honored Major General William Frederick Hase. He was the Chief of the Army Coast Artillery Corps from 1934 until his death. He received the Army Distinguished Service Medal for his service in France during WWI.

Fort Hase was the headquarters for the Army’s Harbor Defenses of Kāne‘ohe Bay (HDKB), created about 1940 to defend NAS Kāne‘ohe. Prior to and during World War II, Fort Hase grew from a humble beginning as a defense battalion to a major unit of the Windward Coastal Artillery Command.

About this time, Navy planners began eyeing the Mōkapu peninsula as the home of a strategic seaplane base.  They liked the isolated location, the flat plains for an airfield and the probability of flights into prevailing trade winds.

The Navy acquired 464 acres of the peninsula for use by the PBY Catalina Patrol seaplanes [PB representing ‘Patrol Bomber’ and Y being the code assigned to Consolidated Aircraft as its manufacturer] for long-range reconnaissance flights. One year later, the Navy owned all of the Mōkapu peninsula except for Fort Hase. (Marines)

The Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station was established following a recommendation by the Hepburn Board in 1938 to develop a base for squadrons of seaplanes to support the Pearl Harbor fleet.  Construction of NAS Kāne‘ohe started in September 1939.  By the end of 1941 the air station had approximately 90 permanent and 60 temporary buildings. (HABS 311-M)

The initial design for NAS Kāne‘ohe was to support five seaplane patrol squadrons. The first work was dredging seaplane lanes and using the spoils to fill shallow bay areas (about 280 acres total of filled land) for building sites.

Extensive dredging of Kāne‘ohe Bay and its entrance channel enabled ships and seaplanes to utilize the bay, and, of equal importance, provided the large amount of fill needed to enlarge the buildable area of Mōkapu peninsula. (HABS HI-311-P)

On December 7, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy attacked the air station minutes prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Of the 36 Catalinas stationed at the base, 27 were destroyed, six others were damaged, and 18 sailors perished in the attack.

The first Japanese aircraft destroyed in action were shot down at Kāne‘ohe, and Aviation Ordnanceman Chief Petty Officer John Finn, stationed at Kāne‘ohe Bay, was awarded one of the 1st Medals of Honor for valor on that day. (Marines)

The naval air station’s Search and Rescue Crash Facility (SAR) was responsible for the rescue of any boats in distress in Kāne‘ohe Bay, or any planes which might crash into these waters. Their charge was to save lives and attempt any possible salvage.

By August 1946 the SAR at Kāne‘ohe Naval Air Station managed twenty one boats, including three crash boats, each 63 feet long.  Crews were responsible to check the permits of privately owned boats in Kāne‘ohe Bay waters. (HABS 311-M)

The first permanent Coast Guard aviation unit in Hawai‘i became reality in 1945 when a unit was located at the Naval Air Station Kāne‘ohe. The Coast Guard Air detachment was established to provide air-sea rescue services.

Coast Guard Air detachment runs went from Kāne‘ohe to Hickam Field, then Johnson Island, Majuro, Kwajalein, Guam, Sangley Point to Japan and then back through Wake, and Midway.  The trip took between 20 and 28 days.

In 1949 the Navy decommissioned the Kāne‘ohe air station and the Coast Guard air detachment moved to NAS Barbers Point on the west coast of O‘ahu and was established as a Coast Guard Air Facility.  (Coast Guard Aviation Association)

After WWII ended, Fort Hase “became a skeleton outpost” for the Army. It remained under Army jurisdiction until 1952 when the land became part of Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe. (HABS HI-311-P)

The Marine Corps assumed control of both Fort Hase and the air station after landowner, Mr. Harold K. Castle, refused to take back the property in 1951.  Castle believed it was important to maintain a military base on the windward side of Oahu for defense and economic continuity.  (MCBH)

On January 15, 1952 the Marine Corps re-commissioned the idle airfield Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe Bay, making it a training site for a combined air/ground team.

Following the reactivation of the Mōkapu installation in 1952 as a Marine Corps Air Station, the Crash Boat operations were manned by an all-Navy unit, and organizationally was attached to the Airfield Operations Department as a Waterfront Operations Branch.

Station Operations and Headquarters Squadron supported flight operations until June 30, 1972, when Station Operations and Maintenance Squadron (SOMS) was created to take its place.

SOMS served until it was disbanded on July 30, 1994. Marine Corps Air Facility, Kāne‘ohe Bay was formed on that date. Following the Base Realignment and Closure Committee’s decision to close NAS Barbers Point, the Kāne‘ohe base acquired 4 Navy P-3 patrol squadrons and one SH-60 Anti-Submarine squadron in 1999.

Under the 1994 Base Realignment and Closure the Marine Corps consolidated all of its installations and facilities in Hawai‘i under a single command, identified as Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH); Marine Corps Air Facility (MCAF) and Headquarters Battalion (HQBN) are subordinate commands. The 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade was also deactivated. (MCBH)

On May 22, 2009, a redesignation ceremony was held renaming Marine Corps Air Facility to Marine Corps Air Station Kāne‘ohe Bay and the commemorative naming of the Airfield to Carl Field in Honor of Major General Marion Eugene Carl USMC.

Major General Carl, the Marine Corps’ first air ace who downed 10 enemy aircraft during the battle for Guadalcanal, was twice awarded the Navy Cross, and who finished World War II with 18 kills to his credit, was killed June 28, 1998 during a robbery at his home in Roseburg, Oregon. 

A Memorandum of Agreement between MCBH and Coast Guard Sector Honolulu calls for MCBH to provide rescue vessels and waterfront operation resources, and to coordinate with the Coast Guard Sector Honolulu’s Command Center (SCC) for SAR efforts in the vicinity of MCBH / Windward Oahu. (MCBH)

Known today as the Marine Corps Base Hawai‘i (MCBH), Kāne‘ohe Bay, this facility occupies virtually the entire peninsula and houses thousands of military personnel and their dependents. (HASS HI-311-C) Today there are almost 10,000 active-duty Navy and Marine Corps personnel attached to the base.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

‘Father of Japanese Immigration to Hawaiʻi’

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully.

Sugar cultivation/processing started as early as 1802 and it continued to grow that about a century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, it eventually dominated the landscape.

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge.  The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.)  The sugar industry grew, so did the Chinese population in Hawaiʻi.  Between 1852 and 1884, the population of Chinese in Hawai’i increased from 364 to 18,254, to become almost a quarter of the population of the Kingdom (almost 30% of them were living in Honolulu.)  (Young – Nordyke & Lee)

Concerned that the Chinese had secured too strong a representation in the labor market, the government passed laws reducing Chinese immigration.  Further government regulations introduced between 1886 to 1892 virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration.

In 1868, an American businessman, Eugene M Van Reed, sent a group of approximately 150-Japanese to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam. This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas.  (JANM)

However, for the next two decades the Meiji government prohibited the departure of “immigrants” due to the slave-like treatment that the first Japanese migrants received in Hawaiʻi and Guam.  (JANM)

About this time (1866,) Robert Walker Irwin, at the age of 22, arrived in Japan to head the Yokohama office of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. In 1867 the company launched the first regular trans-Pacific steamship service fulfilling a contract with the US government to provide monthly mail service between San Francisco and Hong Kong via Yokohama.

Irwin (January 4, 1844 – January 5, 1925,) great-great grandson of Benjamin Franklin, was born in Copenhagen, Denmark to former Pennsylvania politician (Mayor of Pittsburgh and member of the US House of Representatives) and United States Chargé d’affaires to Denmark William W. Irwin and Sophia Arabella Bache Irwin.

He was later hired to work for the Mitsui business conglomerate and cultivated a number of business and government contacts in Japan becoming acquainted with Japanese Finance Minister Masuda Takashi in 1872.

He also became good friends with Japanese Count Kaoru Inouye, who had toured the United States with Irwin in 1876 and became a major force for modernization within Japan.

Later (1880,) the Hawaiian consul general to Japan, Harlan P Lillibridge, took a leave of absence and Irwin was appointed to replace him; the appointment soon became a permanent one.

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaii’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi.

As noted in Nupepa-Hawaiʻi, 1881, “His Majesty the King of Hawaiʻi arrived here yesterday morning at 8 am in the Oceanic. As the steamer moved up to her anchorage, the men-of-war in harbour dressed ship and manned yards, the crews of the Russian and Japanese vessels also cheering heartily as the Oceanic passed them. … He subsequently embarked in the Emperor’s State barge.”

Kalākaua’s meeting with Emperor Meiji improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government, and an economic depression in Japan served as an impetus for agricultural workers to leave their homeland.  (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

Irwin married Takechi Iki on March 15, 1882. This was the first legal marriage between an American and Japanese citizen and was arranged by Kaoru Inouye, then the Japanese Foreign Minister.  (Irwin had six children. The eldest, Bella, founded the Irwin Gakuen School in Tokyo.)

Focused on Japanese immigration to support Hawaiʻi’s sugar labor needs, and not wanting to repeat the mistakes of the gennenmono episode, Irwin’s friendship and close relationship with Inouye smoothed negotiations; and in 1885 and the first legitimate Japanese immigration to Hawaiʻi occurred.

Irwin arranged for and accompanied the first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi who arrived in Honolulu aboard the Pacific Mail Steamship Company City of Tokio on February 8, 1885. After returning to Japan, Irwin received government approval for a second set of 930 immigrants who arrived in Hawaiʻi on June 17, 1885.

The laborers were selected “from the farming class with particular attention given to physical condition, youth, and industrious habits.”  They were predominantly unskilled male workers from Hiroshima and Yamaguchi, two neighboring prefectures in the Chugoku district of southwest Japan, and they were accustomed to rural village patterns of early marriage, high birth rates and large families.  (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

With the Japanese government satisfied with treatment of the immigrants, Irwin was able to conclude a formal immigration treaty between Hawaiʻi and Japan on January 28, 1886. The treaty stipulated that the Hawaiʻi government would be held responsible for employers’ treatment of Japanese immigrants.

Irwin was the single most important figure in starting the official labor migration from Japan to Hawaiʻi in 1885. The Kanyaku Imin immigration system that Irwin negotiated concluded in June 1894 with 29,339 Japanese nationals having immigrated to Hawaiʻi. This government-sponsored immigration was quickly replaced with private immigration.

He later became a Japanese citizen and received both the “Order of the Rising Sun” and the “Order of the Sacred Treasure.” In Japan, he is called the “Father of Japanese Immigration to Hawaiʻi.”

In 1891, Irwin purchased a summer home in Ikaho. The residence is a designated Historic Place and is open to the public as a small museum to the Irwin family and Japanese immigration to Hawaiʻi.  Irwin died January 5, 1925 and is buried at Aoyama Cemetery, Tokyo.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Newton Kulani Purdy

“The ‘Polynesian Registry’ is a kind of who’s who and where of Hawaiians in New York”. (Lois Taylor, SB, Jan 9, 1963)

“In 1958 [Newton Kulani Purdy] founded the Polynesian Registry to help locals and expats keep up with each other, and has watched it grow from 50 names to more than 1,000, and his newsletter, which started out at two pages, is now more than 30.” (Donnelly, SB Dec 13, 2002)

“Newton Kulani Purdy was born Oct. 15, 1928, in Kalaupapa, Molokai. His father, Robert Waipa Purdy, was a leprosy patient who lived in Kalaupapa with Kulani’s mother, Marcy Kepalai Kinney. Kulani’s mother did not have leprosy but had volunteered to accompany his father to Kalaupapa to care for him as a family helper.”

“State law at the time required the separation of all children at birth from their parents. Most of the children grew up with other relatives or were taken to an orphanage. Immediately after Kulani was born, he was taken from his parents and was raised outside the Kalaupapa settlement by an aunt.”

“Though Kulani was born in Kalaupapa, his birth certificate listed his place of birth as Honolulu. This was a common practice by the Health Department for birth certificates of the children born in Kalaupapa.  At the time it was done to spare children born at Kalaupapa the stigma of having a parent or parents with leprosy.” (Machado)

“Kulani attended Roosevelt High School but left before graduating to join the Army. He was in the Army for seven years, serving as an infantry soldier, military police officer and Army Signal Corps. At one point during his service in the Army, he served under Gen. “Ike” Eisenhower.”

“His final Army assignment was in New York City, where he was honorably discharged. He decided to stay in New York and ended up living there for more than 50 years.” (Machado)

“The Registry took five years to prepare and was originally the brain child of Honolulu born Kulani Purdy, 31, who combined his job as a cutter in New York’s garment district with his love – being with other Hawaiians and collecting lore about the Islands.”

“Kulani accidentally bumped into a cousin, Everett R Kinney, one night in New York and discovered that Everett was living nearby on Long Island.  The encounter so impressed Purdy, that he deserted his collection of more than 200 books about Hawaii and set out to compile the Registry.”

“He enlisted a number of other Island ‘exiles’ in the endeavor, principally Cousin Everett and Ed Kenney, now one of the principals in Broadway’s ‘Flower Drum Song.’ … they want no profit and plan to plough any extra receipts back into enlarging the Registry”.  (Adv, Dec 26, 1959)

“How often have you stood alone in the midst of a strange city and speculated about the people milling about you? And as you walked aimlessly along the streets, you suddenly bumped into a familiar face and miraculously, the city no longer seemed cold and unfriendly.  Or, have you idly sat alone with your thoughts, wondering if per chance your unknown neighbors could be Islanders?”

“We believe that Islanders away from home sooner or later begin a quest for people and things that serve to make them feel a little more in Hawaii-foods, Island talk, an exchange of memories. Our cultural heritage is unique and we somehow like to be able to express it wherever we may be.”

“Who can be listed in this book? Anyone who comes from Polynesia. Island Friends throughout the world or anyone in the business world who deals with things typical of Island culture and interest.”

“Those who want their names to appear in the Registry need only notify the Registry of this intention, for there is no fee attached to this privilege.” (Polynesian Registry Inro by Edward Mana Keeney, SB Feb 2, 1960 )

“Intended basically to permit homesick Islanders to locate each other, the 44-page volume contains the names and ‘off-island’ addresses of 800 individuals and a listing of scores Polynesian clubs, restaurants, gift shops and service establishments.  (SB, Dec 26, 1959)

Purdy’s newsletter, “The Polynesian Registry, kept Hawaiians who were living in the Big Apple in touch with one another. Hawaiians performing in the Hawaiian Room of the Lexington Hotel belonged to Kulani’s network. “

“They included: Mahi Beamer, Ray Kinney, Manu Kanemura Bentley, Mona Joy, Leilani Kaleikini, Betty Makia, Momi Kai Gustafson, Lei Becker, Joyce Ontai, Io Cabanos, Tutasi Wilson and Te Moana Makolo.”

“His newsletter also reached Hawaiians in Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland. ‘He also was an integral part of organizing Hawaiian luau in Central Park every May Day, and later held on June 1 as it was too cold in May,’ Hale Kaohu Rowland said.”

“‘The luaus are still being held. Kulani would have us gather at Nainoa and Pat Brett’s little restaurant called The Poi Bowl on 71st Street. Later on, we all met at Janu Cassidy’s shop called Radio Hula, in Soho, and also at The Symphony Cafe, a restaurant on 56th and 8th that my husband, Manny, and I had part-ownership,’ Hale said.” (Ben Wood)

“Kulani was a confirmed bachelor, and his ‘ohana consisted of all the ‘local’ expats in and around the New York area, extending into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.”

“He was known as the glue that held everyone together and was the first to reach out to homesick Hawaiians in Manhattan. Everyone knew him for his kindness and generosity.” (Machado)

Purdy left New York in 2006 to return home to Molokai; he died February 11, 2012 at the in Leahi Hospital at the age of 83.

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Puu ‘Ō‘ō Ranch

William Herbert (Willie – WH) Shipman (1854-1943) was born on December 17, 1854, at Lahaina, Maui to William Cornelius Shipman and Jane Stobie Shipman. Willie’s parents had signed up as missionaries destined for Micronesia.

They stopped over at Lahaina, Maui because his mother was due to deliver Willie within 2 months. His parents then took a mission station in Kaʻū, Hawaiʻi, based in Waiʻōhinu.

Willie Shipman was inducted into the Paniolo [Hawaiian Cowboy] Hall of Fame in 2017. (Hawai‘i Cattlemen’s Council) “Originally old man Shipman [WH Shipman] had 72,000 acres that ran from the ocean up to the National Park. … He needed money so he sold off quite a bit of that land from actually from the Puna Road up to the National Park boundary.” (Devine, Pili Productions)

Of Shipman’s four ranches, Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō was the most productive, being both large and well-watered. An estimated 5,000 head of cattle ran at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō, 1,500 at Keauhou, and only ‘a few’ at ‘Āinahou. (Langlas)

Kea‘au Ranch was once well maintained, but by about the 1930-40s it was neglected and produced few cattle. “[I]t was categorized as a ranch, but it was more like a wild cattle operation. You know, it wasn’t controlled like Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō.” (Devine, Pili Productions)

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Ranch covered 23,000 acres between the 5,000 to 6,500 feet elevation. (Tuggle) Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Ranch was first established by John T Baker, a Hawaiian-Tahitian-Caucasian protege of Kalākaua. (Langlas)

Baker came to Hawai‘i Island in 1886 when his high-ranking wife, Ululani, was appointed governess of the island. He became a successful rancher and businessman in Hilo, and in 1892-93 served as Hawai’i Island governor.

Baker obtained a lease in Pi‘ihonua in 1887 and must have started ranching at Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō some time after that. ‘He had built some fences, and about 600 head of mixed cattle, including some Longhorns, were found on the ranch at that time.’ (Henke) Baker used to go up to the ranch every September with an entourage. (Langlas)

(Baker “is best known, perhaps, as the original of the statute of King Kamehameha, for which he was asked to pose, due to the striking likeness to the ancient ruler.” (Advertiser, Sep 8, 1921) “Likeness refers to a likeness of features rather than of body.” (Charlot))

In 1899, Baker sold the ranch lease to Shipman. Shipman introduced Hereford bulls to upgrade the stock and increased the number of cattle. Shipman expanded the ranch to 23,000 acres, including the upper portions of all the ahupua’a owned by the sugar plantations north to Honohina. (Langlas)

In the early part of the century, the ranch included two government leases in Pi‘ihonua and leases of sugar plantation lands to the north in the ahupua‘a of Pauka‘a, Pāpa‘ikou, Makahanaloa, Hakalau Nui and Honohina.

Two smaller parcels were bought in fee simple, an 80-acre piece with a spring on it makai of the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō ranch house, and a 500-acre parcel in Pāpa‘ikou which contained the old Hitchcock house at Pua ‘Ākala.

In the 1940s the ranch got the lease of Kipuka ‘Āinahou in Humu‘ula, just south of the Humu‘ula Sheep Station, and ran cattle there until about 1950.

Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Ranch was part of WH Shipman’s larger operations, mostly centered in Puna. Shipman had a sugar plantation at ‘Ola‘a, with the mill at Kea‘au. He had three ranches in Puna: Kea‘au Ranch on the lava land of Kea‘au ahupua‘a, Keauhou Ranch north of Kilauea Crater, and ‘Āinahou Ranch south of Kilauea Crater. (Langlas)

There were three stations built on Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Ranch: the main Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō headquarters and the Puakala house station, which were built early, and the Saddle House, built later.

In the 1940s, there were permanent personnel (mostly Japanese) at the ranch responsible for fencing, maintaining the ranch houses, breaking horses, and watching the cattle. Many of the cowboys, who did the driving, branding, and so on, were based at Kea‘au or at Keauhou Ranch and only came up when there was a big job to do; these cowboys were mostly Hawaiian and Portuguese. (Langlas)

The Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō headquarters had a koa ranch house for the owners, a couple of bunkhouses and a cottage for the cowboys and fence-men, a stable, and barn. The Puakala station had a koa house built by Hitchcock, a couple bunkhouses, and a barn. The cowboys lived up there when they worked that end of the ranch. (Gene Olivera, Langlas)

“In Puu ‘O‘o we had one, two, three bunk houses for the cowboys. For the cowboy and the fencemen. We had the whole house. In Puakala we had another three house, you know counting the big house eh.”

“[W]e had all the cowboys. We had about 33, 34 cowboys at that time. Yeah, used to stay up there, live up there [at Puu ‘Ō‘ō]. But after they made the Saddle road good, most of the boys that married, they came home eh. They don’t sleep out, only us the single ones used to stay up there.”

“So the one that fencemen, ah they, most of the time they kept outside the fence line where they live to the job. So they camp out there. They stay yeah. Where had the water gulch, come down where they get water to take a bath and all that. Then when they want water they come up the house because they had spring water at Puu ‘Ō‘ō house.” (Olivera, Pili Productions)

In the early days of the ranch (probably beginning in 1903, about the time the railroad was completed up to Glenwood), the cattle were driven to market down the Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō – Volcano Trail to Keauhou Ranch, then down to Glenwood Station where they were loaded onto railroad cars and shipped down to Kea’au or Hilo. (Langlas)

“The Hilo Railroad Company was chartered May 28, 1899. The road has been constructed from Waiakea, at the east side of Hilo Harbor, to Kapoho, in the district of Puna, a distance of 24 miles.”

“On this line, and 7 miles out from Hilo, is the Olaa Sugar Company’s mill. From this point the railroad runs through Keeau and Olaa to the 22 milepost [Glenwood] on the Volcano road, 9 miles from the Volcano House. … This part of the line is nearly constructed, and will probably be finished by January 1, 1903.” (Report of the Governor, 1902)

After that, the cattle were still driven down to Volcano, but from there they were trucked down to Kea’au. Once Saddle Road was built, in 1943, Shipman trucked the cattle down that way instead. (Langlas)

Shipman also had a controlling interest in the Hilo Meat Company, which slaughtered most of the cattle from Big Island ranches (other than Parker Ranch) and which supplied the local market. The cattle were slaughtered al Kea‘au and the meat was sold at Hilo Meat Company on Front Street in Hilo.

“I managed the Hilo Meat Company for thirty-nine years. … Shipman had a controlling interest in the meat company and I was working for the meat company. But I was also, in fact Shipman paid half my salary and the meat company paid half my salary when I first started with the meat company.”

“Shipman and Kapapala [owned by Brewer] and Kukaiau, [owned by] Davies [shipped cattle to Hilo Meat], and we bought cattle from a lot of independents, little Hamakua people and all that, C.L. Chow at one time who was involved with the Standard Meat Market.”

“Parker Ranch had an interest in Hilo Meat Company’s small stock holding. And they really didn’t ship cattle here. They really set up Hilo Meat to buy cattle from everybody else. I mean this island was the only island that produced more then it could take care of itself.” (Devine, Pili Productions)

“They had to ship to Honolulu. And Parker Ranch shipped all their cattle to Honolulu. Yeah, to Hawaii Meat Company that they had a controlling interest in, in other words to, if they started dumping cattle on this island that’d be chaos.”

“Too much produced and no markets so Mr. Carter, AW Carter, who was a trustee of Parker Ranch, who was quite an astute person and he figured out that they’d better not, that it didn’t take much figuring that they’d better ship all their cattle to Honolulu.”

“Otherwise there’d be too much competition here. So he set up, he was the one was instrumental in setting up Hilo Meat Company and getting the various ranchers to take stock in it and let Hilo Meat control more or less what was sold on this side of the island”. (Devine, Pili Productions)

Within the Hakalau Forest area as the juncture of three of the big ranches of east Hawai‘i (Parker Ranch to the uplands in Humu‘ula, Kuka‘iau Ranch to the north in Maulua Nui and beyond, and Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō Ranch to the south). (Tomonari-Tuggle) However, mauka ranching here started to phase out.

In 1985, the Fish & Wildlife Service, with the active involvement and support of The Nature Conservancy, purchased Shipman Ranch lands and established the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge. Later, other nearby privately owned parcels were purchased or donated to the refuge.

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