Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaname Yonamine

A shy young man, he was Nisei (second generation) born on June 24, 1925, in Olowalu, Maui, where his father Matsusai, an Okinawan, had moved to find work in the sugar cane fields and met his mother Kikue, whose family was from Hiroshima. He is considered one of the greatest athletes to come out of Hawaii. (Weber)

He starred at Lahainaluna before he attracted the attention of Honolulu’s football coaches and transferred to Farrington, starring on the baseball and football teams – and led the Governors to their first football championship in 1944.

It was there when Kaname Yonamine changed his first name to Wallace – he was then known as Wally.

Yonamine graduated from Farrington in 1945 and was drafted into the US Army the next morning. Stationed at Schofield Barracks, he was supposed to be shipped to Europe to support the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. However, within two months, World War II was over. (Hawai‘i Tribune Herald)

He never went to college, though he turned down at least one football scholarship, to Ohio State. In the period after the war, Yonamine remained at Schofield, where he joined the Lei-Alumns, a football team comprised of former Leilehua High School players.

During a fateful game against Portland University, he scored several touchdowns and caught the eye of a San Francisco 49ers scout, who was there to evaluate Portland’s quarterback.

In 1947, Yonamine signed with the San Francisco 49ers of the All-America Football Conference, a post-World War II rival to the National Football League. This was the 49ers’ second season, three years before the team joined the NFL. Yonamine inked a two-year deal worth $14,000. (AP)

He was the first Asian-American to play professional football. This was at a time in San Francisco when emotions were still raw as thousands of Japanese – most of them American citizens – who had been rounded up and forced from their homes and businesses in The City’s thriving Japantown returned from desolate internment camps. (Chapman)

Therefore, Yonamine’s signing with the 49ers took on special significance in the Asian American community. In 12 games (three starts), he rushed for 74 yards on 19 carries, caught three passes for 40 yards and recorded one interception for a 20-yard return. (49ers)

Yonamine’s football career was cut short after fracturing his wrist playing baseball in 1948. He then turned his sole focus to baseball. (49ers)

His baseball talents were immediately noticed by the legendary Lefty O’Doul, a former National League batting champion, who had been instrumental in promoting the professional game in Japan. He signed Yonamine and sent him to the Salt Lake City Bees, where Wally did well.

One of O’Doul’s contacts was Matsutaro Shoriki, owner of the Yomiuri Giants, the premier professional franchise in Japan. A deal was worked out, and, in 1951, Wally Yonamine found himself the starting center fielder of the Giants (or, “Kyojin,” as they are called in Japan.) (Gillespie)

In 1951, he arrived in Japan as the first American to play baseball after World War II. At first he was met with much adversity for being American, but also for his hard hitting style of baseball. This proved to be the introduction of a new style of baseball in Japan. (Fitts)

In his debut for the Giants, he bunted for a hit in his first at-bat, a show of daredevilry that became his trademark. To the orderly and respectful game as the Japanese played it, Yonamine brought what was considered bad behavior: beating out a sacrifice bunt, sliding hard to take out the pivot man on a double play, expressing outrage at the umpire. (Weber)

Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). (Fitts)

Yonamine was a gifted athlete. He was a great left-handed contact hitter and was a Gold Glove-level defender, and a very aggressive base runner. In fact, Yonamine changed Japanese pro baseball forever, when he started thrilling crowds by stealing third base and home.

Before Wally, this was not a part of the Japanese style of play. Yonamine stole home 11 times in his career, a record for Japan’s major leagues. (Gillespie)

He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame. (Fitts)

In 1957 he received the MVP award and led the Tokyo Giants to the Japan World Series title. Today, he still holds the highest batting average ever for a Giant.

Wally went on to play for and manage the Chunichi Dragons, and succeeded as the first foreign manager to win the Central League title (beating the Giants.) (Yonamine Pearls)

Yonamine went on to coach or manage various professional teams in Japan for 26 years. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

In 2002, the San Francisco 49ers honored Yonamine’s football legacy during an exhibition game on August 3 at Japan’s Osaka Dome. Serving as an honorary team captain, Yonamine was greeted with a standing ovation. (49ers) Wally Yonamine died February 28, 2011.

Here’s a short video on Wally Yonamine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lp5j1upTWw

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by Peter T Young 9 Comments

Kalihi Air Crash

The European coast from Norway to northern Spain was defended by a series of concrete constructions armed with machineguns, barbed wires and minefields: the Atlantic Wall.

On April 10, 1944, the allied naval officers received confirmation of a landing at Normandy in the North of France; the operation was to be supervised by the commander in chief of the allied fleet: Admiral Bertram Ramsay.

After a bombardment during the night (carried out by the allied aviation) and a naval bombardment (carried out by the fleet) against the Atlantic Wall, at dawn, Tuesday, June 6, 1944, D-Day began.

By 8 am, all the first assault waves had landed on 5 Normandy beaches (codenamed Utah Beach and Omaha Beach (where the Americans land,) Gold Beach, Juno Beach and Sword Beach (where the English, Canadians and Free France soldiers land.))

The Allies landed around 156,000 troops in Normandy. The American forces landed numbered 73,000; in the British and Canadian sector, 83,115 troops were landed and 7,900 airborne troops. (Allied casualties were at least 10,000.)

On June 8, the Americans at Omaha Beach and British at Gold Beach linked up. Reinforced by the 2nd Infantry Division, at Omaha, and the 90th Infantry Division at Utah, US forces launched new offensives deeper inland.

That was in Europe … in the Islands, the then greatest number of fatalities from a single fire occurred in Kalihi on June 8, 1944.

Fires have from time to time burned down large sections of Honolulu, but loss of life had been light. Three of the largest fires – the Esplanade fire of 1877 and Chinatown fires of 1886 and 1900 – caused significant property damage, but no one was killed.

However, on that fateful day in 1944, two Army medium B-25 bombers collided in midair and plunged into a congested residential area, setting fire to 11 or 12 dwellings. Ten women and children perished in the burning buildings. All four crewmen died in the crash (including Lt James L Pauley and John H Davis.) (Schmitt)

“The women and children were trapped and fatally burned when their homes were ignited by the flaming wreckage of one bomber that crashed in the middle of an arterial route to Pearl Harbor. One other child was critically burned.”

“Witnesses said the planes collided about 1,000-feet in the air, coming together at right angles. The left wing was broken off one and the tail sheared off the other.”

“The wingless bomber plummeted to Dillingham Boulevard, its flaming wreckage setting fire to houses on both sides of the street. The tailless plane fell on a small open spot in an area of small homes.”

“All the city’s fire fighting equipment was called out. The fires blocked traffic for nearly four hours.” (Galveston Daily News Texas June 10, 1944)

Members of the Chun family were in the list of the casualties. The mother, Ester, and two children Marilyn (age 4) and Donald (age 2) died that day.

The husband and father, Kam, a 1938 graduate of President William McKinley High School, worked at Pearl Harbor shipyard in his 20s as a boiler maker (he was witness to the attack by the Japanese on December 7, 1941.)

After the death of his wife and two eldest children, he applied for a job as a police officer and served for sixteen years at the Honolulu Police Department.

He later got into acting and was a familiar face and regular on Hawaiʻi Five-O; we knew his as Kam Fong (Kam Fong Chun) who played Chin Ho Kelly. (He remarried (1949) and later died of lung cancer October 18, 2002, at the age of 84.)

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by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Sneyd-Kynnersley

I ‘ike ‘ia no o Kohala i ka pae ko
a o ka pae ko ia kole ai ka waha.

One can recognize Kohala by her rows of sugar cane
which can make the mouth raw when chewed.

The Kynnersley estate and castle in Loxley Park (near Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England) was in the possession of the Kynnersley family back to the time of Edward III (early-1300s.) In 1815, Clement Kynnersley, the last male in the line, dying, left it to his nephew Thomas Sneyd, who added the name of Kynnersley to his own, upon his accession to this estate.

Fast forward to about 1882 … brothers John (Ralph) Sneyd-Kynnersley (1860-1932) and Clement (Cecil) Gerald Sneyd-Kynnersley (1859-1909) left Uttoxeter and made their way to Kohala on the Island of Hawaiʻi.

At that time, sugar was changing the landscape. Kohala became a land in transition and eventually a major force in the sugar industry with the arrival of American missionary Elias Bond in 1841.

Bond directed his efforts to initiating sugar as a major agricultural industry in Kohala; his primary concern was to develop a means for the Hawaiian people of the district to compete successfully in the market economy that had evolved in Hawaiʻi.

What resulted was a vigorous, stable, and competitive industry which survived over a century of changing economic situations. For the Hawaiian people, however, the impact was not what Bond anticipated. (Tomonari-Tuggle; Rechtman)

Beginning in the 1850s, portions of Pūehuehu Ahupua‘a were divided and sold by the government as land grants. In 1873, the English born Robert Robson Hind moved to Kohala from Maui to invest in the booming sugar industry.

He purchased land in the flat plains of Pūehuehu west of Kohala Sugar Company, although rainfall was less than ideal, and established the Union Mill. Months prior to formal opening in 1874, a fire broke out destroying the mill.

The mill was rebuilt and Hind sold the mill; a January 31, 1887 ‘Partnership Notice’ in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser noted the co-partnership of the Sneyd-Kynnersley brothers and Robert Wallace organized as the Pūehuehu Plantation Company.

After several mergers with other growers, at its peak, the mill cultivated three thousand acres. The Union Mill was purchased by the Kohala Mill in 1937, the cane harvested from the former Union Mill planting fields was then transferred to Hala‘ula for processing.

Prior to the 1880s, the sugar companies hauled their product by ox-cart to landings at Hapu‘u, Kauhola Point, and Honoipu. With the completion of the North Kohala Railroad in 1883 – with its twenty-mile length, crossing seventeen trestles, and running from Mahukona to Niuli‘I – almost all sugar companies began shipping the processed sugar to the newly improved Māhukona Harbor facility.

Construction of the Kohala Ditch, which runs east/west, began in 1904 and was completed two years later. “(I)ts construction marked the virtual end of the frontier period; it was the last major effort by the sugar pioneers in fully developing their industry in Kohala”. (Tomonari-Tuggle; Rechtman)

Back to Sneyd-Kynnersleys … in 1887, King Kalākaua presented ceremonial lei to Daisy May Sneyd-Kynnersley on her baptism (daughter of Ralph Sneyd-Kynnersley.)

The discussion of American annexation of the Islands in 1893 got Clement Sneyd-Kynnersley riled up – to the point it was referred to as the ‘Kynnersley affair.’ (PCA, February 14, 1893)

“CS Kynnersley, of Kohala, does not like the new movement and his overwrought feelings may get him into trouble. Information came from to the effect that when the news about establishing the government reached Kohala he stamped around and commenced an agitation for an indignation mass meeting to be held.”

The Hawaiʻi Holomua came to his defense, “The ‘Advertiser’ has an editorial this morning in which it states that the supporters of the late government are certainly not to be consulted in regard to the future order of things in Hawaii nei.”

“As the supporters of the monarchy include all the Hawaiians and more than one-half of the foreigners in the country, the proposition of the ‘Advertiser’ to ignore this large majority indicates that it is the intention of the Provisional Government to hold the reins of the government at all hazard”.

“The ‘Advertiser’ seems to despise the feelings or sentiments of the taxpayers in the country districts, and sneers at Mr C Sneyd-Kynnersley’s letter in this morning’s issue.”

“When men like Kynnersley … openly denounce the annexation scheme and the action of the followers of the (Provisional Government) the ‘Advertiser’ will find it a more serious matter than can be disposed of in a dozen lines of editorial.”

Sneyd-Kynnersley “defied the deputy-sheriff to arrest him. The matter was before the Executive and Provisional Councils of the government … and it is now in the hands of Attorney-General Smith.” (Hawaiian Gazette, February 7, 1893) (“(T)he Government has very wisely decided to let the matter drop.” (PCA, February 14, 1893.)

A lasting Sneyd-Kynnersley legacy remains in North Kohala – the mauka-makai road through the Pūehuehu ahupuaʻa the brothers once raised sugar is named Kynnersley Road (it appears the name reverted to the older version.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lydia Panioikawai Hunt French

“’We are fortunate; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ These were her last words. She did not say anything until the day she left, then she said clearly: Aloha, three times, and her body’s work was done.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

Let’s look back …

Lydia Panioikawai Hunt French (Panio) was born in Waikele, Ewa, on the 15th of July, 1817. She married her husband, Mr. William French (Mika Palani) in 1836 at Kailua, Hawai‘i. Governor Kuakini was the one who married them.

William French arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1819 and settled in Honolulu. He became a leading trader, providing hides and tallow, and provisioning the whaling ships that called in Honolulu. Financial success during the next decade made French known as “the merchant prince.”

It “was with this husband who she lived in aloha with until death separated them. The two of them had three children—a daughter that is still living, and a mother that is admired along with her husband and four children—and twin sons, one who has died, and one who is living in China.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

French had property on the Island of Hawaiʻi, with a main headquarters there at Kawaihae, shipping cattle, hides and tallow to Honolulu; he hired John Palmer Parker (later founder of Parker Ranch) as his bookkeeper, cattle hunter and in other capacities. (Wellmon)

When French made claims before the Land Commission regarding one of the properties (identified as “slaughter-house premises” that he bought from Governor Kuakini in 1838,) testimony supporting his claim noted it was “a place for a beautiful house which Mr French would not sell for money. … It was enclosed by a stone wall. There were two natives occupying houses on his land.” (Land Commission Testimony)

The 2.8-acre property is in an area of Waimea known as Pu‘uloa; French built a couple houses on it, the property was bounded by Waikoloa Stream and became Parker’s home while he worked for French. (In addition, in 1840, this is where French built his original home in Waimea. (Bergin))

At Pu‘uloa, Parker ran one of French’s stores, which was nothing more than a thatched hut. Although this store was less grandiose than the other one at Kawaihae, it became the center of the cattle business on the Waimea plain.

French, like other merchants in the Islands at the time, grew concerned about decisions and laws that started to be made that affected their ability to trade. These changes also affected French citizens, especially the French Catholics.

On July 21, 1838, the French minister of the navy dispatched orders to Captain Cyrille-Pierre-Theodore Laplace, who at the time was already en route to the Pacific on a voyage of circumnavigation. Laplace received these orders, along with supporting documents, at Port Jackson, Australia, in March 1839.

The plight of French Catholics in Hawai‘i being distressingly similar to that of French Catholics in Tahiti, these orders read: “… What the English Methodists are doing in Tahiti, American Calvinist missionaries are doing in the Sandwich Islands.”

“They have incited the king of these islands, or rather those who govern in his name, to actions that apply to all foreigners of the Catholic faith – all designated, intentionally, as ‘Frenchmen.’”

“They found themselves prohibited from practicing their religion, then ignominiously banished from the Island … You will exact, if necessary with all the force that you command, complete reparation for the wrongs that they have committed and you will not leave those shores until you have left an indelible impression.”

In addition to the religious persecution, “Our wines, brandies, fabrics, and luxury goods find ready purchasers in Honolulu as well as in Russian, British, and Mexican settlements; but these articles are imported by American merchants (or replaced by substitutes of American manufacture).”

“French wines and brandies are subject to excessively high duties, on the grounds that bringing them into the Sandwich Islands would be harmful to the morals of the native population. American rum, on the other hand, is brought in—whether legally or illegally, I do not know—and consumed in prodigious quantities.” (Laplace; Birkett)

Captain Laplace and his fifty-two-gun frigate L’Artemise arrived in the Hawai‘i in July 1839. Laplace was the first Frenchman to visit the Islands with specific instructions from Paris to enter into official diplomatic relations with the Hawaiian government.

“It was my task to end this prohibition so detrimental to our commercial interests. I succeeded in doing so through a convention with the king of the Islands where he agreed that in the future French wines and brandies would be subject to no more than a 6 percent ad valorem duty when imported under the French flag.”

“The American missionaries raged and fumed at me, claiming that I was anti-Christian. They brought down on me all the curses of New and Old World Bible societies, to whom they depicted me as championing drunkenness among their converts …”

“… as if the way in which they were running things allowed these poor people to earn enough to buy Champagne, Bordeaux, or even Cognac brandy. Despite these diatribes, as unjust as they were treacherous, I carried my project to completion.” (Laplace; Birkett)

Here’s a portrayal of Panio by Danielle Zalopany during a presentation at Mission Houses– she gives some background on the family, as well as the ‘Laplace Affair.’
https://youtu.be/cCc8dQk1YmQ

William French died at Kawaihae on November 25, 1851. “Many who have made their fortunes in these Islands have owed their rise in the world to the patronage of Mr French.” (Polynesian, December 6, 1851)

“On the 24th of February past (1880,) Panio left this life, at the home of her daughter in Ka‘akopua, after being in pain for several weeks. In her sickness, her great patience was made clear, along with her unwavering faith in the goodness of the Lord, her Redeemer, and her Savior; and she was there until the victorious hour upon her body.” (Kuokoa, March 6, 1880)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hawaiian Colonization

“The question of colonization in the Hawaiian Islands has, during the last few months, virtually absorbed all smaller issues touching our material welfare, and at present is justly made the leading topic of public thought and newspaper discussion.”

“While colonization has long been talked of, it has never before been put into practical working shape by practical responsible men, in whom the people at home have entire confidence.”

“The status and practicability of the present scheme, backed as it is by our largest capitalists and business men generally, will be a guarantee of the good faith of the promoters and the practical utility of the scheme, which will attract and retain the support of both home and foreign capital.”

“The present colonization scheme is too large an investment to be entirely handled by home capital. It is not only too large for our present population, but it is large enough to satisfy the standard idea of both American and English capitalists.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

Let’s look back …

On August 5, 1885, Honolulu businessman James Campbell offered Benjamin F Dillingham a one-year option to purchase his Kahuku and Honouliuli ranches on Oahu, ‘including no fewer than nine thousand cattle for the sum of $600,000.’

Shortly afterward, Dillingham issued a ‘preliminary prospectus’ for what was to be called the Hawaiian Colonization Land and Trust Company.

The prospectus proposed the formation of a joint stock company to buy and then divide the properties. The lands totaled 63,500-acres in fee, and 52,000-acres of leased land; and 15,000 head of cattle and 260 head of horses. (Forbes)

Dillingham was the chief promoter; others involved were James Campbell (owner of Honouliuli and Kahuku estates;) John Paty of Bishop Bank (primary owners of Kawailoa and Waimea estates; and M Dickson and JG Spencer (part owners of Kawailoa and Waimea ranches.) Those properties made up the bulk of the land in the offering. (Forbes)

“The ‘Preliminary Prospectus of the Hawaiian Colonization Company’ has already attracted a good deal of notice and has been widely, but by no means exhaustively discussed in the columns of every paper in Honolulu.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 15, 1885)

“The inducements which are offered to settlers under the present scheme that be briefly summed up as follows : There will be a sure market for all products raked ; there are 17,000 acres of fine sugar land in the Honouliuli ranch alone, which includes the 10,000 acres set aside for colonization purposes.”

“Seven thousand acres of this tract forms an alluvial plain lying along the seashore; abundant water can be obtained, by sinking artesian wells, as has already been practically illustrated, the 7,000 acres, one half of which nowhere lies more than 35 feet above the sea level …”

“… cheap and practical dams, as have already been constructed on the Kawailoa ranch, can be thrown across the gulches of the foothills of the Waianae mountains, which will drain immense watersheds into perpetual reservoirs, and will do away with the possibility of droughts …”

“… the land will be offered to responsible cultivators in lots of from 5 to 500 acres, for sugar cane cultivation ; it is proposed that the cane shall be raised upon shares, as set forth in the Colonization Company’s circulars ; the cane land will yield an average of from five to seven tons to the acre.”

“The Company proposes to furnish the land and give small cultivators five-eighths of the profit, which, at a low estimate for five-acre lots of cane land, will net the cultivator $1,500 per year, after all deductions are made and expenses paid. This amount is the practical result of the figures given by practical sugar men.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

“The company proposes to build the mills, furnish the water supply and build tramways for transporting the cane and sugar. For this work the Company will lay out at least $300,000.”

“This will put the scheme in working order and will give the cultivator immediate returns upon his labor without the outlay of capital. It is a scheme for the development of Hawaii and the up-building of the labor interests.”

“The scheme, however, is not confined to sugar raising, and those colonists who prefer can take up land for stock raising in lots of 200 to 1,000 acres, or even more. The land could be either bought or leased.” (Daily Press, December 16, 1885)

“‘The Hawaiian Colonization, Land and Trust Company,’ and a preliminary prospectus issued, which has been given enormous circulation through the newspapers, the Planters’ Monthly, and detached pamphlets by the thousand.”

“These efforts to present the scheme to the public at home and abroad have already yielded good promise of ultimate success. Letters of enquiry have crossed continents and oceans to reach the promoters.”

“Friends and agents of the kingdom in foreign lands arc encouraging the project, and looking about them for capital to start it, and for settlers to occupy the available territory and build up the nation.”

“Applications in large number have already been received for apportionments of land. That all these gratifying results should have been obtained within so short a period speaks well for the intelligent devotion of the gentlemen who have assumed the undertaking”. (Daily Bulletin, January 2, 1886)

While, initially, things went well, eventually the project ‘fell flat.’ (Forbes) While Dillingham couldn’t raise the money to buy the Campbell property, he eventually leased the land for 50-years. Dillingham realized that to be successful, he needed reliable transportation.

Dillingham formed O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L,) a narrow gauge rail, whose economic being was founded on the belief that O‘ahu would soon host a major sugar industry.

Ultimately OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples for Dole.

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