Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Rodney James Tadashi Yano

Born December 13, 1943 on Hawaii’s Kona coast, Rodney James Tadashi Yano’s ancestry included Japanese, Hawaiian and Portuguese. He attended Konawaena High in his hometown of Kealakekua. (Vachon)

“His father, a commercial fisherman for more than 20 years, [grew] coffee on acreage near Kealakekua Bay. Rodney graduated from Konawaena High School in 1961, and while in school served as president of the Konawaena chapter of the Future Farmers of America.”

“Rodney’s school records show that his longtime ambition was to be a soldier, and he volunteered in the Regular Army following his graduation from high school in 1961.”

Mr. Ichiro Shikada, one of his former teachers at Konawaena High School, described young Yano as a student who showed signs of both leadership and courage when he was in school. He recalled that even then Rodney “had the habit of coming through when the chips were down.” (Tribute by Spark Matsunaga)

In 1961 Rodney joined the Army; he was affectionately called ‘Pineapple’ by his fellow soldiers. Known as a fun-loving guy with a serious side, Yano rose to the rank of Sergeant First Class.

Rodney’s younger brother Glenn had later enlisted with the Hawaii National Guard. They mobilized 4,000 men for Vietnam in early 1968, becoming one of the few National Guard units to participate in the war. Army policy at the time prohibited the involuntary simultaneous deployment of immediate family members to the war.

Rodney spent a year in Vietnam, but then volunteered to extend. Glenn said, “Rodney felt that since he had just completed a year in Vietnam he was more experienced than me. He said his chances were better than mine.”

“Sergeant Yano was only a few days away from completing his second voluntary year of combat in Vietnam [when tragic events occurred. Because of his heroism] Rodney [was] the second serviceman from Hawaii to receive the Medal of Honor in the Vietnam war”.   (Tribute by Spark Matsunaga)  (The Medal of Honor was presented posthumously to parents, Mr and Mrs Richard Yano, by President Nixon, April 7, 1970.)

On January 1, 1969, Yano was out on the flight line at Bien Hoa, Vietnam. One of the unit’s helicopters was supposed to make an easy run to pick up an officer in Saigon and return to base. It’s roughly a 70 km trip over the calmest part of South Vietnam.

SP4 Carmine Conti, a crewman on the Huey, said that Yano picked up that Conti’s door gunner was nowhere to be found. Yano immediately ran over and volunteered. Conti said, “Yano loved to fly but, as a technical inspector, wasn’t getting much time in the air. . . . like everyone else in the troop, I liked the guy…a lot. He didn’t have to ask twice.”

Yano performed his duties of crew chief aboard the command and control helicopter.  The aircraft commander was then-Major John “Doc” Bahnsen.  Bahnsen was alerted to a nearby friendly force that was attacking a well-entrenched enemy position.

Bahnsen was diverted to provide fire support, to mark the enemy positions for other close air support aircraft and artillery, and act as the airborne command and control element.

Arriving over the fighting on the ground, the crew went to work. Yano, from his position at the door gun on the side of the aircraft, fired the machine gun and was tossing smoke grenades out the door onto the enemy positions. Once marked, Major Bahnsen could then call-in supporting fire more accurately. (Valor Guardians)

“While marking enemy positions with smoke and white phosphorous grenades for field artillery units, a grenade went off prematurely inside of the helicopter, covering Yano with burning phosphorous and leaving him severely wounded. Ammunition and other supplies began to ignite, and white smoke began filling the helicopter.”

“Although partially blind and unable to use of one of his arms, Yano displayed extreme bravery by hurling blazing ammunition from the helicopter. In taking such action, Yano inflicted additional wounds upon himself to protect his crew from further injury and avert any deaths.” (Veterans Memorial Court Alliance)

Conti said immediately after the explosion, “I tumbled to the cabin floor, unable to hear or see anything but white smoke. I thought I was dead.” Yano was covered in burning White Phosphorus, his left hand nearly blown completely off.

Yano didn’t miss a beat though, he grabbed a first aid kit, pulled out a tourniquet and told Conti that he should tie his left arm off above the elbow.  “By all rights,” Conti recalled, “Yano should have sat down and remained still to avoid aggravating his ghastly wounds. He didn’t.”

Yano, partially blinded by the initial explosion, had his vision fully obscured by the resultant smoke, with the use of only one arm and despite unimaginable pain, started tossing and kicking out munitions that were still exploding unpredictably. (Valor Guardians)

“Fire was burning all around him and the cabin was still full of white smoke,” Conti described. “It was a surreal sight but the most selfless and courageous act of heroism that I saw during the war, and I saw a lot of heroic actions.”

The aircraft’s pilot recovered control and immediately flew Yano to a nearby medical evacuation hospital, where they landed safely. “Our survival that day,” Conti concludes, “was assured only by Yano’s extraordinary courage and calm amid crisis while he personally teetered on death’s door.” (Valor Guardians)

Yano’s colleagues were not surprised that he died putting others before himself. During his second tour in Vietnam, Yano was served as a crew chief in the Air Cavalry Troop, 11th Armored Cavalry, the famed Blackhorse Regiment. (Veterans Memorial Court Alliance)

“SFC Yano distinguished himself while serving with the Air Cavalry Troop. SFC Yano was performing the duties of crew chief aboard the troop’s command-and-control helicopter during action against enemy forces entrenched in dense jungle.”

“From an exposed position in the face of small-arms and antiaircraft fire he delivered suppressive fire upon the enemy forces and marked their positions with smoke and white phosphorous grenades, thus enabling his troop commander to direct accurate and effective artillery fire against the hostile emplacements.”

“By his conspicuous gallantry at the cost of his life, in the highest traditions of the military service, SFC Yano has reflected great credit on himself, his unit, and the US Army.” (Medal of Honor Citation)

Yano’s other awards include a Bronze Star Medal, Air Medal (11th award), Army commendation medal, Purple Heart, good conduct medal, Vietnam service medal and Vietnam campaign medal. (Pacific Citizen, JACL)

Rodney Yano is the namesake of the USNS Yano (T-AKR-297), a Shughart class cargo ship. She is a ‘roll-on roll-off’ non-combat United States Navy designated a “Large, Medium-speed, roll-on/roll-off” (LMSR) ship.

Yano Multipurpose Range at Fort Knox, Yano Fitness Center at Camp Zama, Japan, Sgt. Yano Library at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii and Yano Hall Helicopter Maintenance Facility at Fort Novosel, Alabama, Yano Street, Fort Carson, Colorado and Yano Hall Recreational Public Facility (that opened in December 1970), Captain Cook, Kona, Island of Hawaii are also named in his honor.

Sergeant First Class Rodney JT Yano is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii section W plot 614.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hualālai (as viewed by Isabella Bird)

“If all Hawaii, south of Waimea, were submerged to a depth of 8000 feet, three nearly equidistant, dome-shaped volcanic islands would remain, the highest of which would have an altitude of 6000 feet.”  (Isabella Bird)

Hualālai (“the offspring of the shining sun”) is the third youngest and third-most historically active volcano on the Island of Hawai‘i. (USGS)

It is considered to be in the post-shield stage of activity. Six different vents erupted lava between the late 1700s and 1801, two of which generated lava flows that poured into the sea on the west coast of the island.  (USGS)

The Ellison Onizuka Kona International Airport at Keāhole, located only 7 miles north of Kailua-Kona, is built atop the larger flow. The oldest dated rocks are from about 128,000 years ago and it probably reached an elevation above sea level before 300,000 years ago. (USGS)

“I very soon left the languid life of Kona for this sheep station, 6000 feet high on the desolate slope of the dead volcano of Hualalai, (“offspring of the shining sun,”) on the invitation of its hospitable owner, who said if I ‘could eat his rough fare, and live his rough life, his house and horses were at my disposal.’”

“This house is in the great volcanic wilderness of which I wrote from Kalaieha, a desert of drouth and barrenness. There is no permanent track, and on the occasions when I have ridden up here alone, the directions given me have been to steer for an ox bone, and from that to a dwarf ohia.”

“There is no coming or going; it is seventeen miles from the nearest settlement, and looks across a desert valley to Mauna Loa. … A brisk cool wind blows all day; every afternoon a dense fog brings the horizon within 200 feet, but it clears off with frost at dark, and the flames of the volcano light the whole southern sky.”

“I came up to within eight miles of this house with a laughing, holiday-making rout of twelve natives, who rode madly along the narrow forest trail at full gallop, up and down the hills, through mire and over stones, leaping over the trunks of prostrate trees, and stooping under branches with loud laughter, challenging me to reckless races over difficult ground …”

“… and when they found that the wahine haole was not to be thrown from her horse they patted me approvingly, and crowned me with leis of maile. I became acquainted with some of these at Kilauea in the winter, and since I came to Kona they have been very kind to me.”

“I thoroughly like living among them, taking meals with them on their mats, and eating ‘two fingered’ poi as if I had been used to it all my life. Their mirthfulness and kindliness are most winning; their horses, food, clothes, and time are all bestowed on one so freely, and one lives amongst them with a most restful sense of absolute security.”

“They have many faults, but living alone among them in their houses as I have done so often on Hawaii, I have never seen or encountered a disagreeable thing.”

“But the more I see of them the more impressed I am with their carelessness and love of pleasure, their lack of ambition and a sense of responsibility, and the time which they spend in doing nothing but talking and singing as they bask in the sun, though spasmodically and under excitement they are capable of tremendous exertions in canoeing, surf-riding, and lassoing cattle.”

“I sat for an hour on horseback on a rocky hill while they hunted the woods; then I heard the deep voices of bulls, and a great burst of cattle appeared, with hunters in pursuit, but the herd vanished over a dip of the hill side, and the natives joined me. …”

“I have made the ascent of Hualalai twice from here, the first time guided by my host and hostess, and the second time rather adventurously alone.”

“Forests of koa, sandal-wood, and ohia, with an undergrowth of raspberries and ferns clothe its base, the fragrant maile, and the graceful sarsaparilla vine, with its clustered coral-coloured buds, nearly smother many of the trees, and in several places the heavy ie forms the semblance of triumphal arches over the track.”

“This forest terminates abruptly on the great volcanic wilderness, with its starved growth of unsightly scrub. But Hualalai, though 10,000 feet in height, is covered with Pteris aquilina, mamane, coarse bunch grass, and pukeave to its very summit, which is crowned by a small, solitary, blossoming ohia.”

“For two hours before reaching the top, the way lies over countless flows and beds of lava, much disintegrated, and almost entirely of the kind called pahoehoe.”

“Countless pit craters extend over the whole mountain, all of them covered outside, and a few inside, with scraggy vegetation. The edges are often very ragged and picturesque. The depth varies from 300 to 700 feet, and the diameter from 700 to 1,200.”

“The walls of some are of a smooth grey stone, the bottoms flat, and very deep in sand, but others resemble the tufa cones of Mauna Kea. They are so crowded together in some places as to be divided only by a ridge so narrow that two mules can scarcely walk abreast upon it.”

“The mountain was split by an earthquake in 1868, and a great fissure, with much treacherous ground about it, extends for some distance across it. It is very striking from every point of view on this side, being a complete wilderness of craters, and over 150 lateral cones have been counted.”

“The object of my second ascent was to visit one of the grandest of the summit craters, which we had not reached previously owing to fog.”

“This crater is bordered by a narrow and very fantastic ridge of rock, in or on which there is a mound about 60 feet high, formed of fragments of black, orange, blue, red, and golden lava, with a cavity or blow-hole in the centre, estimated by Brigham as having a diameter of 25 feet, and a depth of 1800.”

“The interior is dark brown, much grooved horizontally, and as smooth and regular as if turned. There are no steam cracks or signs of heat anywhere. Superb caves or lava-bubbles abound at a height of 6000 feet. These are moist with ferns, and the drip from their roofs is the water supply of this porous region.”

“Hualalai, owing to the vegetation sparsely sprinkled over it, looks as if it had been quiet for ages, but it has only slept since 1801, when there was a tremendous eruption from it, which flooded several villages, destroyed many plantations and fishponds, filled up a deep bay 20 miles in extent, and formed the present coast.”

“The terrified inhabitants threw living hogs into the stream, and tried to propitiate the anger of the gods by more costly offerings, but without effect …”

“… till King Kamehameha, attended by a large retinue of priests and chiefs, cut off some of his hair, which was considered sacred, and threw it into the torrent, which in two days ceased to run. This circumstance gave him a greatly increased ascendancy, from his supposed influence with the deities of the volcanoes.”

“I have explored the country pretty thoroughly for many miles round, but have not seen anything striking, except the remains of an immense heiau in the centre of the desert tableland, said to have been built in a day by the compulsory labour of 25,000 people …”.

“I left Hualalai yesterday morning, and dined with my kind host and hostess in the wigwam. It was the last taste of the wild Hawaiian life I have learned to love so well, the last meal on a mat, the last exercise of skill in eating ‘two-fingered’ poi.”

“I took leave gratefully of those who had been so truly kind to me, and with the friendly aloha from kindly lips in my ears, regretfully left the purple desert in which I have lived so serenely, and plunged into the forest gloom.”

“Half way down, I met a string of my native acquaintances, who, as the courteous custom is, threw over me leis of maile and roses, and since I arrived here, others have called to wish me good bye, bringing presents of figs, cocoa-nuts and bananas.”  (Isabella Bird, 1894)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Thomas James King

Thomas James King was born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, Nov. 8, 1842, the son of Richard and Elizabeth King. His father was a contractor and builder.  The family moved from New Brunswick, when he was a boy; his father set up a planing mill in San Francisco.

His school days were finished in San Francisco, and when only fourteen years old he went to work, trying his hand at ranching before entering the mill.

On December 13, 1870 in Vallejo, Calif., he married Josephine Wundenberg and they had two sons and three daughters, Thomas V. and L. C. King, Mrs. C. M. V. Forster and Mrs. Clifford Kimball of Honolulu and Mrs. Charles A. Rice of Kauai.

Mr. King’s training for the organization of his own business began upon his arrival in Honolulu in 1883. He immediately went to work for the Union Feed Co. as manager of the hay and grain departments, remaining there until he and his brother-in-law, J. N. Wright, organized the California Feed Co., which was incorporated in 1895 under the same name, California Feed Co., Ltd.

“Messers TJ King and JN Wright have formed a partnership under the name of the ‘California Feed Co.’” (Evening Bulletin, Sep 23, 1890) in a newspaper notice  …

“To Live Stock Owners The California Feed Co has formed for the purpose of selling hay, grain, etc, at a price so low that you will be astonished. …”

“We have had 7 years experience in the business with the Union Feed Co, and we think we know the people’s wants in our line, as well as the prices they ought to pay”

“All we want is the patronage of the consumers, and in a very short time they will find out that we are working in their interest as well as our own.”

“We do not want you to think we are going to do all this for love, such is not the case; but we intend to do a large business, and by strict attention to it, on very close margins make good fair wages.” Signed TJ King and JN Wright (Evening Bulletin, Sept 22, 1890)

Opening his office and warehouse in the old stables of the former monarch,  King Kalākaua, in 1890, Mr. King’s business remained there until growth of the  city brought about its removal to the old Custom House, at the foot of Nuuanu St., and in 1912 a site at Alakea and Queen streets was purchased and a warehouse erected in the center of a grove of coconut palms.

Architect HL Kerr managed bids for construction of “the big concrete warehouse and office building to be erected at Alakea and Queen streets by the California Feed Co, Ltd.” (Evening Bulletin, June 15, 1912) The California Feed Co warehouse and office on Queen and Alakea streets was built for $15,000. (Star Bulletin, Dec 31, 1912)

At first the store dealt only in hay and grain, but gradually poultry food, wholesale groceries, provisions and canned goods were added, and the company, under the direction of Thomas V. and L. C. King, sons of Thomas J. King, handled all these commodities.

Mr. King was always keenly interested in the organization of new lines of endeavor, and aided many struggling new industries and concerns. Throughout his career as a businessman he was constantly called upon to make investments to assist new companies.  Many of these were successful, and at the time of his death Mr. King had extensive business interests.

He was vice-president and director of the Hawaiian Pineapple Co. from its organization until the time of his retirement from business; treasurer of the Oahu Lumber & Building Co., and manager of the People’s Ice Co. He was a Mason, Shriner, Odd Fellow, and an active member of the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce.

Thomas James King died in Honolulu, April 6, 1919.  After his death, his son, Lewis Churchill King, succeeded his father and was elected president of California Feed Co (SB, April 22, 1919), a position he held until the California Feed Co was sold to the Honolulu Dairymen’s Association in April, 1925. (Nellist)

King’s son, Thomas Victor King, built a home in 1918 designed by Emory & Webb in Nu‘uanu.  Emory & Webb designed several other local landmarks, Hawaii Theatre, the old Honolulu Advertiser building and the Hongwanji Mission Temple on Pali Highway. (The house was in a scene in ‘The Descendants’ movie.) (Lots here from Nellist)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Paper Star Lei

“We therefore recommend again and again, to the curious investigators of the stars to whom, when our lives are over, these observations are entrusted, that they, mindful of our advice, apply themselves to the undertaking of these observations vigorously.”

“And for them we desire and pray for all good luck, especially that they be not deprived of this coveted spectacle by the unfortunate obscuration of cloudy heavens, and that the immensities of the celestial spheres, compelled to more precise boundaries, may at last yield to their glory and eternal fame.” (Sir Edmond Halley (1656-1742))

Venus orbits the Sun within Earth’s orbit, so it occasionally happens that as seen from Earth, the disk of Venus passes across the Sun. It appears as a diminutive black spot, barely 1/30th the diameter of the Sun. With the right atmospheric conditions to soften the intense sunlight, an unobstructed horizon, and enough advance warning, a keen eye can spot the transit at sunrise or sunset. (LOC)

There have been fifty-two transits of Venus across the face of the Sun since 2000 B.C., but until 1643 A.D., no human was known to have observed this astronomical rarity. (LOC)

“History says that Jeremiah Horrocks was the first human to ever witness a transit by Venus in 1639, but could other more ancient people have also seen it too?” (Odenwald)

In 1769 Benjamin Franklin published an article in the journal of the Royal Society of London presenting the transit of Venus observations of Messrs. Biddle and Bayley.

Some historians credit this account from pre-revolutionary America as the first occasion on which American science went on display before the international community. (LOC)

Astronomers quickly discovered that by measuring the transit, the distance from the Sun to Earth could be calculated.

In 1761, the exact value of this number was still unknown; estimates ranged from 5 million to over 150 million miles. Without its precise value, astronomers could not deduce the physical size of our solar system, or the dimensions of the universe beyond the solar system’s outer reaches. The size, mass, and radiant power of our Sun were also left ill-defined. (LOC)

In May 1768 James Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and given command of the bark Endeavour. He was instructed to sail to Tahiti to observe the transit of Venus and also to ascertain whether a continent existed in the southern latitudes of the Pacific Ocean. (National Library of Australia)

On June 3, 1769, Cook, naturalist Joseph Banks, astronomer Charles Green and naturalist Daniel Solander recorded the transit of Venus from the island of Tahiti.

Then, “Early in 1869, one hundred years after British transit of Venus observations were made by James Cook and Charles Green from Tahiti George B. Airy, the seventh astronomer royal at Greenwich, wrote to the secretary of the Admiralty: ‘It appears from the calculations of Astronomers that there will occur, on 1874 December 8 and 1882 December 6, Transits of the planet Venus over the Sun’s Disk.’” (Chauvin)

“Eight American expeditions were fitted out in 1874, organized by the Transit of Venus Commission, with Simon Newcomb (1835-1909) as the official Secretary of the Commission. The US Congress appropriated funds totaling an astounding $177,000 for the expeditions.” (Harbster, LOC)

On September 9, 1874, fewer than seven months after the ascension to the throne of Hawai‘i King David Kalakaua, a ship from England, H.M.S. Scout, arrived in Honolulu carrying an expedition of seven astronomers.

“They came, as Captain Cook had come almost 100 years earlier, as the beneficiaries and instruments of a rich astronomical heritage that had found its visible embodiment in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich …”

“… and it was from Greenwich that Western astronomy had reached out to touch Hawai‘i in 1778, and was to do so again in 1874.”

“The mission of the 1874 expedition was to observe a rare transit of the planet Venus across the sun for the purpose of better determining the true value of the Astronomical Unit”.  (Chauvin)

“King Kalakaua manifested a personal interest in the transit of Venus operations in his kingdom. And although he was absent from the islands when the much-awaited event occurred, he visited the transit of Venus observatory, as did other members of Honolulu’s society, both before and after ‘Transit Day.’”  (Chauvin)

The King allowed the British Royal Society’s expedition a suitable piece of open land for their viewing area; it was not far from Honolulu’s waterfront in a district called Apua (mauka of today’s Waterfront Plaza.)

They built a wooden fence enclosure and soon a well-equipped nineteenth-century astronomical observatory took shape, including a transit instrument, a photoheliograph, a number of telescopes and several temporary structures including wooden observatories.

Subsequently, auxiliary stations – though not so elaborate as the main station in Honolulu – were established in two other island locations: one at Kailua-Kona and the other at Waimea, Kauai.

In addition, Hawai‘i was not the only site to observe the transit; under the British program, observations were also made in Egypt, Island of Rodriquez, Kerguelen Island and New Zealand.  (Other countries also conducted Transit observations.)

On Dec. 8, 1874, the transit was observed by the British scientists; however, the observation at Kailua-Kona was marred by clouds.  But the Honolulu and Waimea sites were considered perfect throughout the event, which lasted a little over half a day.

After the Transit of Venus observations, Kalākaua showed continued interest in astronomy, and in a letter to Captain RS Floyd on November 22, 1880, he expressed a desire to see an observatory established in Hawai‘i.  He later visited Lick Observatory in San Jose.

An outcome of the Transit event in Hawai‘i was the ‘Transit of Venus lei’ … “Old residents may recall the white paper star lei that was in vogue here in the ’70s, commemorating the Transit of Venus of 1874.”

“They were appropriately called Hoku (star), and were made of stiff, white paper, forming many points, to convey the idea of scintillation. They were fashionable for some time, for hair or hat decoration, and were known to foreigners as Venus leis.” (Thrum HAA, 1922)

They came under other names, as well … “We have seen men, women, and children greatly engrossed in decorating their hats with this kind of lei. These are the names we have heard, “the hooulu lahui lei of Kalakaua,” “the Astronomer lei,” and “paper star lei.” (Ka Lahui Hawaii, Buke I, Helu 1, Aoao 1. Ianuari 1, 1875)

(International expeditions and observers soon refined this astronomical unit (an “astronomical unit” is the scientific term for a unit of measure equal to the average distance from Earth to the Sun) to 95 million miles by 1769, and then to 92.79 million miles by 1891.)

(During the twentieth century, the same radar technology that astronomers use to map the face of Mercury, or study the rings of Saturn, has yielded a precise value for the distance between the Sun and Earth of 92.9558203 million miles, with a margin of error of less than a few miles.) (LOC)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kanaka Pete

“It is my painful duty to report to you that the extreme sentence of the law has been carried out upon a native born Hawaiian, who had been in this Colony for many years, and who was convicted at the last assizes of the murder of his wife and child, and his wife’s father and mother.” (Henry Rhodes, Hawaiian Consulate, Victoria, May 18, 1869; Hawaiian Gazette, July 7, 1869)

Today, there is a place known as Kanaka Bay, named after Kanaka Pete on the east side of Newcastle Island, off Nanaimo, Vancouver Island, British Columbia.  Let’s look back.

Peter Kakua (‘Kanaka Pete’) left his home in Honolulu in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi for Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, in 1853.  He travelled to Victoria in 1854 but soon departed for Fort Rupert in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company.

Pete remained at Fort Rupert for five years, then returned to Victoria where he “worked for Sir James Douglas (Governor of both Vancouver Island and British Columbia) for a year.”  He left and took a job with the Vancouver Coal Company at Nanaimo.  (Illerbrun)

Kakua’s aboriginal wife, Que-en (his ‘common law’ wife of about six years, known as Mary,) told him, via her brother, that she was leaving her husband. Kakua returned home to find Mary, their young child, plus Mary’s parents, packing up her things.  (Fryer, BC Local News)

Then, on December 4, 1868, four bodies were found in Peter Kakua’s home and the Hawaiian was missing.  They didn’t have to look far, however, to find him; he was sitting beside a fire on Newcastle Island.

December 5, 1868, he was arrested and charged with the murders of his Indian wife, Que-en (known as Mary;) their infant daughter and his wife’s parents (Squash-e-lik and Shil-at-ti-Nord.)  (Cunningham, BC Local News)

At the Coroner’s Inquest, Pete willingly offered the following statement, “My wife had gone away and left me for some days, and had sent me a message by her brother to say that she did not intend living with me anymore.”

“I began drinking and continued up to the night of Thursday the 3rd Decr. About 12 o’clock on that night I returned to my house with the intention of going to bed.”

“When I opened the door I found a fire burning, and my wife and her father and mother sitting round it. I asked them what they wanted, and if my wife was going to live with me again, they told me no, they had only come for her things.”

“I got some drinks from a friend. I then thought I would go and sleep in my own house on the floor. When I went in I found the old man in bed with his daughter. I thought this too bad, and took hold of him to drag him out.”

“He caught hold of my hair and pulled me down on the bed and got my finger into his mouth and called out to the old woman to come and beat me. The old woman rushed at me and began striking me on the head and body with a stick, my wife also striking me.”  (Kakua’s hand had a mangled stump, he claimed his wife’s father had bitten off his finger.)

“Being considerably intoxicated at the time, and owing to the pain I was suffering I became almost mad and laid hold of the first thing I could reach which was an axe, produced in court, and laid about me indiscriminately.”

“After a time I fell down and remember nothing more until I awoke at daylight on Friday the 4th instant when I saw my Father-in-law, Mother-in-law, my wife and child all dead.”

Those at the Inquest heard more from Dr. Klein Grant, who had examined the bodies of the victims. According to Grant, who described the condition of each corpse in detail, the wounds which brought death “were all inflicted by a heavy weapon such as the axe produced.” (Illerbrun)

After pleading not guilty to four counts of ‘wilful murder,’ Pete was tried on two counts, one heard on February 16, 1869, the other on February 17.  (Illerbrun)

“The jury, upon the first trial (murdering Que-en,) upon the testimony furnished, found the prisoner guilty of murder, and recommended him to mercy.”  (Henry Rhodes, Hawaiian Consulate, Victoria, May 18, 1869)

The mercy recommendation was made on the ground that “Kanakas (Hawaiians) are not Christians and killing men may not be such an offense in their eyes.”  (Illerbrun)

 He was then tried upon the second indictment (murdering Shil-at-ti-nord, Que-en’s mother,) and a verdict of guilty was rendered against him, without the recommendation of the first jury.”   (Henry Rhodes)

The “crime of passion” aspect of the case, though not clearly enunciated in Kakua’s own testimony, had apparently made no impact on the jurors, for Judge Needham had informed them that if Que-en was involved in “open adultery” Pete should not be found guilty of murder.  (Illerbrun)

The next day he was sentenced to be hanged “on a day to be henceforth designated by the Executive.”

The day after sentencing, Attorney General Crease wrote: “Although the murders were committed by the same person and at nearly the same time the facts the provocation and the law were different in their application to each individual case and were so stated by the Judge in his charges.”  (Illerbrun)

Henry Rhodes, Hawaiian Consulate, Victoria, noted, “I endeavored to get his sentence commuted, and for this purpose requested his Counsel to draw up a petition to the Governor praying for a commutation.”

“This petition (forwarded to the Colonial Secretary) was signed by a number of the members of the Legal profession and by a number of influential gentlemen of this city”.

“Taking all these matters into consideration, and the ignorance of the prisoner, and the uncertainty I feel as to the statement taken down by the magistrate, … I have no hesitancy in joining the prayer of the petitioners, and I sincerely hope, that taking these matters into consideration. His Excellency will find sufficient ground for exercising the prerogative of the Crown, and acceding to the prayer of the petition.” (Henry Rhodes)

Rhodes was later notified that “the Governor regrets that in this instance, he cannot interfere with, the course of the law, by acceding to the prayer of the petition.” (Hawaiian Gazette, July 7, 1869)

Peter Kakua (Kanaka Pete) was hanged at Nanaimo, “the scene of his fearful crimes,” at 7 am on the morning of March 10, 1869. “He ascended the scaffold unflinchingly, made no remarks, and struggled but slightly after the drop fell. His neck was evidently broken.”  (Illerbrun)

Being of neither Caucasian nor First Nations descent, Kakua could not be buried in any of the city’s cemeteries and was instead interred on his last place of freedom – the east side of Newcastle Island.

Unfortunately, Kakua was still not allowed to rest. Thirty years later, the Vancouver Coal Mining and Land Company unearthed Kakua’s coffin as they dug for a new coal mine. Kakua was reburied, in another unmarked grave, for good. (Nanaimo News Bulletin)

Today, the gory tale lives on in the form of ghost stories told around the fire by those camping on Newcastle Island.  (Nanaimo Daily News)  Many claim the most haunted area in the Pacific North West is Newcastle Island.

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