Prominent People | Page 55 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 11, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘She was a friend of John Brown.’

The words on the tombstone of Mary Ellen Pleasant only tell a part of her story.

Like Brown, she “was an ardent Abolitionist, and she determined to assist Brown. She met him at Chatham, Canada West, over the line, and gave him a purse of gold she had taken from California. Brown used the money in the cause.” (Tripp)

Some called her ‘Mammy’, but she asserted, “I am Mammy to no one.”

According to Pleasant, she was born free on August 19, 1814 in Philadelphia. She claimed her father was Louis Alexander Williams, a native Hawaiian (‘a Kanaka from the Pacific Islands’) and her mother, Mary (her namesake) was a “full blooded Negress from Louisiana.” (Ball etal)

Her father was a businessman who imported silk from India. While she believed he had some education, she knew her mother had none and was likely illiterate.

When she was 6-years old her parents sent her to Nantucket, MA, to work for a white family as a domestic servant. Pleasant also worked for a Quaker woman, ‘Grandma Hussey.’

Pleasant believed her father had given Hussey a considerable amount of money for her to get an education, but she never received one. Pleasant learned to read and write, and described herself as “a girl full of smartness.” (Ball et al)

Nantucket proved an ideal locale for an ambitions, headstrong girl to learn business, Indeed, Nantucket Town was overrun with woman-owned shops because of the abundance of so-called whaling wives who ran the town while the men were at sea. (Hudson)

When she ended her work on the island of Nantucket, the family who owned the store helped Pleasant become established in Boston. It was there that she met and married her first husband, Cuban planter and abolitionist Alexander Smith. He died in 1848 and left her with $45,000, a substantial legacy, to be used to support abolitionist causes.

Soon after, she married John Pleasant (or Pleasants), who had been an overseer on the Smith plantation. She reportedly was involved in the Underground Railroad, and was so successful in assisting escaping slaves that she had “a price on her head in the South.” (Encyclopedia)

Accounts relate that the Pleasants went to California in 1849, during the gold rush, but her husband apparently did not figure very significantly in her life after the journey.

Pleasant moved to San Francisco and put her business acumen and entrepreneurial skills, not to mention her reputation as a noteworthy cook, to work. There was much wealth circulating in the heady days of the gold rush, but few luxuries in the area to spend it on.

Miners and merchants were clamoring for services, and Pleasant, according to San Francisco newspapers, rejected many offers of employment as a cook from people with means. Instead, with her name now well known, she opened a boarding house that provided lodging and food, both of which were scarce.

She expanded her business dealings by lending money to businessmen and miners at an interest rate of 10%, while also investing wisely on the advice of her influential boarders and other associates. During this time, she gained a reputation as “The Fabulous Negro Madam,” acting as a procurer for her male associates. (Encyclopedia)

She invested her money wisely: Her businesses in San Francisco included laundries, dairies and exclusive restaurants — all of which were quite lucrative in a city filled with miners and single businessmen.

In the 1890 census she listed her occupation as ‘capitalist.’ (Curbed SFO) Beltane Ranch in Glen Ellen, once owned by Mary Ellen Pleasant, has been recognized as a Black historical site by the National Park Service. (Sonoma-Index-Tribune)

Between the years of 1830 and 1927, as the last generation of blacks born into slavery was reaching maturity, a small group of industrious, tenacious, and daring men and women broke new ground to attain the highest levels of financial success. (Wills)

Concerned about racial equality, she became increasingly involved in helping others and in civil-rights activities during the 1850s and 1860s. Mary Ellen Pleasant, used her Gold Rush wealth to provide financial assistance for these causes; she also sought out and rescued slaves being held illegally in the California countryside.

(California had entered the Union as a free state under the Compromise of 1850, but the legal status of slaves brought there by their owners from slave states was vague.)

Pleasant also found jobs in wealthy households for runaway slaves and developed an information network. One of the most widely circulated, albeit unsubstantiated, reports on Pleasant concerns her role in abolitionist John Brown’s raid on the U.S. arsenal at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, in 1859.

She reportedly sailed to the East in 1858 and in Canada gave Brown $30,000 to finance his battle against slavery. Among Brown’s belongings when he was captured was a note that read: “The ax is laid at the foot of the tree. When the first blow is struck there will be more money to help. (signed) W.E.P.”

Supporters of this theory suggest that the “M” in Pleasant’s initials may have been misread as a “W.” Skeptics of her account of the Brown connection, however, say that Brown had already left Canada by the time of her visit there, and that she produced no evidence to prove she had given him any money.

Pleasant returned to San Francisco around 1859 and continued both her business activities and her activism. In 1863, she was integral in winning African-Americans the right to testify in court in California (previously, neither African-Americans nor Native Americans were allowed to speak in court in civil or criminal cases, even ones in which they were directly involved).

She also fought to win the right of African-Americans to use San Francisco’s streetcars. In 1868, she brought two railroads to court and successfully sued them for refusing her passage.

By mid-1899, however, claiming to be drained financially by her legal entanglements, Pleasant filed for bankruptcy, and requested food and other necessities from acquaintances. (It is thought, nonetheless, that she retained a considerable amount of money even at that time.)

She lived her last few months in the San Francisco home of a family named Sherwood who had befriended her, dying on January 11, 1904, and was buried in their burial plot in Napa, California. (Encyclopedia)

While the corner of Bush and Octavia Streets in San Francisco is home to the city’s smallest park (it’s just a small stretch of sidewalk without a patch of grass or spot for picnicking), it is dedicated to a larger-than-life figure: Mary Ellen Pleasant (1817-1904).

A round floor plaque in the park reads, “Mother of Civil Rights in California. She supported the western terminus of the underground railway for fugitive slaves 1850-1865. This legendary pioneer once lived on this site and planted these six trees.” (SF Heritage) (An image of Queen Emma is sometimes mistaken/ mislabeled as Mary Ellen Pleasant.)

January 9, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Henry Poor

Henry French Poor was the eldest son of Henry Francis Poor and Caroline Paakaiulaula Bush; he was born here June 8, [1857].

“Poor received his early education under Mr. Gulick, Sr., father of the late Charles T. Gulick of Honolulu. He afterwards attended Punahou College, at that time under the direction of Professor Church.”

“He left school, however, at the age of 13 and entered the banking house of Bishop & Co. as a clerk, where he remained about eight years.”

“At that time, owing to ill health, Mr. Poor first visited the United States, where he spent some three months. When he returned to Honolulu he entered the mercantile house of Castle & Cooke.”

“At this time he was selected by the Government to act as secretary to Hon. C P. Iaukea, the head of the Hawaiian Embassy to the coronation of Alexander III of Russia.”

“Continuing from there he made a tour of the world, visiting the greater part of Europe, India, Japan, Egypt, the United States and England and meeting many great personages there. His visit to India was immediately connected with the question of securing a labor supply for the plantations of Hawaii.” (PCA, Nov 29, 1899)

“Henry F Poor was one of the most brilliant Hawaiians whose cradle ever rocked in these beautiful Islands. … He possessed the generous spirit of his race and the keen intelligence of his New England’s forebears.”

“As secretary to Colonel Iaukea on the Kalakaua embassy to the rulers of the world he covered himself with honors and his bright letters were published in the local papers.” (The Independent, Nov 29, 1899)

“While abroad Mr. Poor received several foreign decorations, among which were the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan, the Order of Simon Bolivar of South America, an Austrian and a Russian order and several others. He also held the Hawaiian Order of Crown of Hawaii and Order of Kapiolani.” (PCA, Nov 29, 1899)

“Later on he went to Samoa with Governor Bush and to his tact and gentlemanly action was due the fact that the Kaimiloa incident did not end in an international scandal.” (The Independent, Nov 29, 1899)

“In 1887 [Kaimiloa] was purchased by King Kalakaua, and after being fitted up as a man-of-war, was sent on a mission to Samoa. This mission was a failure …”

“King Kalakaua had just returned from a trip around the world. Sundry people, at all the places he stopped filled him with hot air, and he wanted to be emperor of the Pacific. On his return to Honolulu he promptly set about the work of trying to get control of all the islands which had not yet been seized by European rulers.”

“[Kalakaua’s] Prime Minister, Gibson, induced him to fit out the Kaimiloa as a war ship and send it on a diplomatic mission to Samoa, where Ambassador ‘Ned’ Bush was instructed to either annex the place or induce the King of Samoa to make a treaty acknowledging that Kalakaua was the supreme ruler of a Pacific Island confederacy.”

“On board the warship was ‘Admiral’ Jackson, Ambassador Bush, Henry Poor, secretary of the legation, a big crew, an enormous quantity of gin, a band, and plenty of the King’s dreamy ideas of a Pacific confederacy.”

“To this day the mystery of how the vessel ever reached Samoa has not been solved, and it is a wonder that she ever got there at all, for gin and other drink never flowed freer on a private craft than it did on the Kaimiloa. …”

“Then wild with the dissipation or the voyage, the crew mutinied, and capturing Secretary Poor, chained him to the deck.” (PCA Aug 8, 1902)

“The officers and crew of the Kaimiloa began to go ashore almost nightly to carouse in the streets of Apia. One night gunner William Cox, on returning to the ship, got into a fight with other officers.”

“He rushed the powder magazine, threatening to blow up the ship. Lt. Frank J. Waiau and ship’s carpenter John Galway stopped him, but the brawling went on. Lt. Sam I. Maikai, nominally in command, went ashore with Waiau to report to the Hawaiian legation.”

“They wanted to resign but Bush would not hear of it. He ordered them back on board and sent along his secretary, H. F. Poor. Jackson also went along with them. He and Poor, revolvers in hand, found the mutineers trying to take over the armory.

“They drove the mutineers out on deck. Waiau over-powered Cox and put him in irons on the bridge.” (Adler)

“The German warship Olga was in the harbor at the time, and her captain, noticing the row on the Hawaiian vessel, sent a longboat over … and threatened to tow the whole outfit bark to Hawaii unless the trouble subsided. …”

“On arrival [back in Honolulu] here [Kaimiloa] was dismantled, and never again used for war purposes. No one knows how many sins were committed aboard the vessel while trading in the South Seas, but many people have heard something of the story of her remarkable cruise as a man-of-war to Samoa.” (PCA Aug 8, 1902)

Poor hosted Robert Louis Stevenson on his visit to the Islands. On January 24, 1889, Stevenson arrived in Honolulu and spent the first six months of that year in the Hawaiian Islands (he later settled and lived in Samoa.)

“For the first few days the Stevenson party stayed with Henry Poor and his mother Mrs Caroline Bush, at 40 Queen Emma Street, Honolulu (24-27 January).”

“Then on 27 January 1889 they moved to Poor’s bungalow, Manuia Lanai, at Waikiki, three miles east of Honolulu. In early February Stevenson decided to send the Casco back to San Francisco and stay on to work in Hawaii.”

“As a result he rented the house next to Henry Poor’s. This too was a one-storey ‘rambling house or set of houses’ in a garden, centred on a lanai, ‘an open room or summer parlour, partly surrounded with venetian shutters, in part quite open, which is the living room’”. (RLS Website)

Henry French Poor died in Honolulu on November 28, 1899 and is buried at O‘ahu Cemetery.

January 6, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaua Kūloko (Civil War 1895)

Following the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893, the Committee of Safety established the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi as a temporary government until an assumed annexation by the United States.

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

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

This has frequently been referred to as the “Counter-revolution”. It has also been called the Second Wilcox Rebellion of 1895, the Revolution of 1895, the Hawaiian Counter-revolution of 1895, the 1895 Uprising in Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian Civil War, the 1895 Uprising Against the Provisional Government or the Uprising of 1895.

In their attempt to return Queen Liliʻuokalani to the throne, it was the last major military operation by royalists who opposed the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. The goal of the rebellion failed.

The chief conspirators who conducted the planning were four: CT Gulick, a former Cabinet Minister of Kalākaua, an American; Samuel Nowlein, a hapa haole, former Captain of the Queen’s Guard; WH Rickard, an Englishman long resident in Hawaiʻi; and Major Seward, an American long domiciled with John A Cummins, a wealthy hapa haole.

For three months, these four held frequent meetings at Gulick’s house and settled upon a plan for the capture of the city and public buildings.

Capt. Nowlein was to be commander of the rebel forces. Major Seward was to procure arms, Rickard was generally useful and Gulick was the statesman of the party.

Gulick, with the others, drew up a new Constitution, wrote a Proclamation restoring the Queen’s Government and prepared written Commissions for a number of chief officials.

On December 20th, after several days watching by five of Seward and Cummins’ men on Mānana (Rabbit Island, near Waimānalo,) the schooner signaled and was answered. The men gave the pass word “Missionary.”

They received two cases containing eighty pistols and ammunition which they first buried on the islet, but afterwards carried to Honolulu. The schooner then lay off outside for twelve days.

On the 28th, the little steamer Waimānalo was chartered by Seward and Rickard, and on New Year’s Day intercepted the schooner about thirty miles NE of Oʻahu, and received from her 288-Winchester carbines and 50,000-cartridges.

Captain Nowlein had secretly enlisted Hawaiians in squads of thirty-eight. About 210 of them assembled at Waimānalo during Saturday night and Sunday, the 6th. They captured and detained all persons passing or residing beyond Diamond Head.

Robert Wilcox, of former insurgent fame, had joined the rebels, and was placed in command under Nowlein.

Beginning on the night of January 6, 1895, several skirmishes ensued, with slight victory for the Royalists. However, their benefit of surprise was now lost and they were out-numbered and out-gunned.

On January 7, 1895 martial law was declared in Hawaiʻi by Sanford B Dole.

Three major battle grounds were involved. First, Wilcox and about 40 of his men were on the rim and summit of Diamond Head firing down on the soldiers.

Seeing no tactical importance in remaining on Diamond Head, Wilcox ordered his men to retreat to Waiʻalae. The new strategy was to move north into Koʻolau mountains then west, avoiding the Government forces in the south.

On January 7, the Royalists moved into Mōʻiliʻili where they were involved with additional skirmishes. Then, on January 8, Wilcox and his men were discovered crossing into Mānoa Valley (they were hoping to get above the city, as well as rouse more supporters.)

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

Some 400 of the Government forces guarded the valleys from Nuʻuanu to Pālolo for more than a week, and scoured the mountain ridges clear to the eastern Makapuʻu point.

This resulted in the capture of all the leading rebels.

As evidence against conspirators accumulated, some forty whites and 120 Hawaiians were arrested. Four foreigners and 140 Hawaiians were taken prisoners of war. The prisons were supplemented by the use of the old Barracks.

Liliʻuokalani was put under arrest on the 16th, and confined in a chamber of ʻIolani Palace.

A tribunal was formed and evidence began to be taken on the 18th. Nowlein, Wilcox, Bertelmann and TB Walker all pleaded guilty, and subsequently gave evidence for the prosecution.

On January 24, 1895, in an effort to prevent further bloodshed, Liliʻuokalani executed a document addressed to President Sanford B Dole, in which she renounced all her former rights and privileges as Queen and swore allegiance to the Republic. The president pardoned the royalists after serving part of their prison sentence.

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

After her release from ʻIolani Palace, the Queen remained under house arrest for five-months at her private home, Washington Place. For another eight-months, she was forbidden to leave Oʻahu, before all restrictions were lifted.

Lots of the information here comes from an article in The Friend, February, 1895.

January 4, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Jonah in The Jug

Robert Wilcox defeated Kūhiō’s brother David to become the first Hawaiian Delegate in the US Congress. Kūhiō initially joined Wilcox’s Home Rule Party but grew disenchanted and eventually joined the Republican Party and ran and in 1902, Kūhiō won a landslide victory and unseated Robert Wilcox .

When President Theodore Roosevelt greeted Kūhiō in 1903, he balked at the name Kalaniana‘ole. “I shall not call him Prince Cupid, and I cannot pronounce his last name. I never would be able to remember it, anyhow,” the President complained. From then on, most Washingtonians simply referred to him as “Kūhiō” or “Prince Cupid,” after his childhood nickname.

On January 4, 1904, Kūhiō gained some unwanted notoriety when he was arrested for disorderly conduct after scuffling outside a DC bar. (House-gov)

“According to the police of the first precinct he had a misunderstanding with Charles Clarke, forty-five years old, a collector, near the corner of 13^th street and Pennsylvania avenue northwest, about 11 o’clock last night and refused to accept the kindly offices of Policeman Wolf, who attempted to smooth matters over.”

“The conduct of both men was such, the police state, that it was necessary for the officer to take both men into custody and escort them to the first precinct police station but he only suceeded in doing so by using force after he had exhausted every other means.” (Hawaiian Star, Jan 22, 1904)

He refused to pay a fine or to alert friends to his predicament and stayed overnight in jail, incorrectly claiming that, as a Member of Congress, he was exempt from arrest. The next morning the court notified friends, who bailed him out. (House-gov)

In a letter to his brother, Kūhiō explained, “On the way down from the billiard parlor, I stopped at the Stand to purchase cigarettes (this is on the ground floor and the entrance to the build On the way down from the billiard parlor …”

“… I stopped at the Stand to purchase cigarettes (this is on the ground floor and the entrance to the building), when I heard cursing coming from the rear of the building, where there is a bar, and then an order by the proprietor to his bartenders to put a man out.”

“In the rush-out the crowd did not seem to know who was being put out, and I suppose I got a bit curious, too, to see the row. The first I knew some one brushed against me and another ran into me from the rear and then was rushed out by the mob.”

“Staggering forward through the entrance I felt somebody hit me from the back and a second blow knocked me down to the sidewalk. It all happened so quickly I had not the opportunity to strike back and, upon rising. I asked for an explanation.”

“Two fellows, one turned out to be an officer in citizen’s clothes, said something to this effect, ‘You shut up, you drunken nigger!’ and then made a lunge at me.”

“Three or four others, who undoubtedly knew the officer and, probably thinking they were assisting him, all jumped on me and I resisted with but little effect, however.”

“I was protesting against this men roughly took hold of me, when I again protested to the arrest being unjustified, and asked who had placed me under arrest. The officer in citizen clothes replied, he did, and showed his authority, the badge, upon my demand.”

“I requested of the uniformed officers that the fellow who struck me and also the officer that placed ‘me under arrest be taken along too; but the latter told them, ‘Never mind him; take the damned drunken nigger!’”

“On arrival at the station with the two ‘cops’ I was charged with disorderly conduct, when I then again protested and demanded the arrest of the other two without avail.”

“Then I told the clerk that I am a Congressman and that I thought a Congressman had some privileges exempting him from arrest while he is in attendance at the Capitol.”

“He replied he thought there was no help unless I put up $5 collateral, which I refused to do unless it be upon my own recognizance. The clerk again replied that I had one of two things to chose, either put up the collateral up or be locked up.”

“I had become enraged at the perpetrated outrage and I chose the latter.’” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Jan 23, 1904)

In the morning, “prince Cupid drank out of a tin cup along with persons who had been arrested for being drunk.” (Los Angeles Times, Jan 6, 1904) (The LA Times headlined their story of this experience as “Jonah in ‘The Jug.’”)

“The charge of disorderly conduct against Prince Kūhiō Kalaniana’ole, Delegate from Hawaii, was nolle prossed [dropped, abandoned or dismissed] in the police court today. The Delegate had been arrested in connection with an encounter with a Honolulu attorney named Charles Clarke.”

“A number of friends of Prince Kūhiō were present in the court room and they warmly congratulated him over the satisfactory outcome of the case.” (Hilo Tribune, Jan 22, 1904)

“The law in question is found in Section 6, Article I, of the Constitution, and reads as follows: ‘The Senators and Representatives … shall, in all cases, except treason, felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and returning from the same.’”

“Commenting on this, Paschal, in his ‘Constitution of the United States,’ says: ‘This would seem to extend to all indictable offenses, as well as those which are attended with force and violence.”

“The privilege from arrest commences from the election, and before the member takes his seat or is sworn. One who goes to Washington duly commissioned to represent a State in Congress is privileged from arrest …”

“… and though it be subsequently decided by Congress that he is not entitled to a seat there, he is protected until he reaches home, if he return there as soon as possible.’” (Hawaiian Gazette, Feb 12, 1904)

This wasn’t the first time Kūhiō had been jailed. In 1895, following the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani, Kūhiō took part in a counterrevolution led by Robert Wilcox against the Republic of Hawai‘i.

The prince was charged with misprision of treason and served his sentence of one year in prison. During his imprisonment, a Kauai chiefess, Elizabeth Kahanu Ka‘auwai, visited him each day, and after his release, the two married on October 8, 1896.

Kūhiō and his princess left Hawai‘i on a self-imposed exile and traveled extensively through Europe. In 1899, the prince served in the British Army in the Second Boer War against the independent Boer (Dutch-settled) republics of Transvaal and Oranje Vrijstaain in southeast Africa. (DHHL)

Then, Kūhiō returned home and engaged in the politics of post-annexation Hawai‘i. (The image shows Kūhiō in his initial imprisonment in Hawai‘i.)

December 28, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Edgar Young

The year was 1900 when William and Herb Young arrived in Hawai’i to enter this promising new line of business.

At the tum of the century, Honolulu’s waterfront was well known throughout the Pacific, being as the Territory of Hawai‘i had been annexed to the United States in 1898, and its largest city was the port of call for vessels east- and west-bound.

Ships came around the Horn laden with general merchandise; vessels from the West Coast might be carrying produce or livestock, while those from Australia carried coal.

In Honolulu, they would discharge their cargoes, then load up with sugar bound for distant ports. Interisland trade was serviced by local steamship companies with a combined fleet of eighteen vessels, plus a “mosquito fleet” of independent operators that owned interisland vessels.

The Young brothers weren’t strangers in the harbor life that awaited them. The family hailed from San Diego – four boys, Herb, William, Jack and Edgar, and older sister, Edith. The family patriarch, John Nelson Young, was a sailor.

The boys must have inherited this nautical bent because, at an early age, they were hiring themselves out for fishing trips using a small skiff that they sailed around the bay.

In the summer of 1899, all four boys ran a glass-bottomed boat excursion at Catalina Island. After the season ended, Herb landed a berth on a schooner bound for the Hawaiian Islands, and William decided to join him on what he would later call ‘the great adventure.’

They had made passage on the Surprise, a two-masted schooner engaged as an interisland carrier to serve the Kona Sugar Company. Twenty-nine year old Herb had served as chief engineer during the ten-day journey from San Francisco, while William, then age twenty-five, served before the mast.

The company that was to become Young Brothers began as a an enterprising series of small jobs utilizing skills that Herb and William added to along the way.

By the end of the year, Young Brothers was becoming established as a small but prospering harbor business. Younger brother Jack, age eighteen at the time, had arrived on October 16, 1900, to join the growing partnership.

Then steps in a fledgling Hawaiʻi company, also seeing expansion opportunities, and it was through shipment of Libby’s pineapple from Molokai to Libby’s processing plant in Honolulu that Young Brothers expanded into the freight business.

In the early years of the company, the brothers carried supplies and sailors to ships at anchor outside the harbor, as well as run lines for anchoring or docking vessels. They also gave harbor tours and took paying passengers to participate in shark hunts.

Libby’s need to ship fruit from the growing area on Molokai, to pineapple processing on Oʻahu created an opportunity for the brothers. The brothers, using their first wooden barges, YB1 and YB2, hauled pineapples from Libby’s wharf to Honolulu. “That’s how (Young Brothers) started the freight.” (Jack Young Jr)

Youngest of all, Edgar (who was born January 21, 1885 in San Diego), arrived in July 1901, but being only fifteen at the time, he attended Honolulu High School. (YB 100 yrs)

Graduating high school in 1904, Edgar then sailed aboard the ‘Alameda’ on July 27, 1904 for San Francisco to attend Cooper Medical Cooper. Newspaper accounts note that Edgar reported safe from the 1906 earthquake and fire.

(In 1908, Cooper Medical College was transferred to Stanford University. Instruction by Stanford University began in 1909 and continued in San Francisco until 1959, at which time the Stanford School of Medicine opened on the Stanford campus.)

On Marcy 9, 1907, Edgar married Eunice Mae Hilts. Then, Edgar returned to the Islands, “Dr. Young is a graduate of the Cooper Medical School of San Francisco, and while in that city he had a laboratory of his own.”

“Dr. Edgar Young, who graduated eight years ago from the Honolulu High School, and well known in Honolulu by the young people of the city, has taken up practise at Kahului.”

“He is under regular appointment by the railroad and will be given some of the work of Puunene plantation, which was too heavy for one physician to carry alone. It is likely, too, that when he can spare the time, he will be called to Wailuku to assist in that part of Maui, where the work also is unusually exacting, and demands more time than one physician can usually give.”

“His coming to Maui is much appreciated by the other physicians here as well as the people as a whole. He has brought with him his wife and child. A new house will probably be erected in Kahului on the beach on the Wailuku side of the cottage occupied by Elmer R. Bevins.” (Star Bulletin, August 12, 1912)

Edgar later substituted for Dr Durney at the Kula Sanitarium. (SB, Sept 19, 1917) Edgar went to Kauai and in addition to general medical practice, he was superintendent of the 35-bed Lihue Hospital (American Medical Directory (1921)).

“He practiced in Hawaii for many years [on Kauai (including Lihue Plantation) and Maui (including Kahului RR Co)]. He left Honolulu for California just before outbreak of war in December, 1941. Owing to ill health, he had been inactive for the past four years.” (Star-Bulletin, Dec 27, 1943)

Edgar Young died on December 23, 1943 (polio ‘finished him’ (Jack Young Jr), in San Diego, at the age of 58, and was buried in Cypress View Mausoleum And Crematory in San Diego.