Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

1849

In 1789, Congress created three Executive Departments: Foreign Affairs (later in the same year renamed State), Treasury, and War. It also provided for an Attorney General and a Postmaster General. Domestic matters were apportioned by Congress among these departments. (DOI)

In the decade of the 1840s the cry of Manifest Destiny expanded the vision of Americans to continental dimensions. In quick succession came the annexation of Texas in 1845, the resolution of the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain in 1846, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo concluding the Mexican War in February 1848.

In three years the United States enlarged its domain by more than a million square miles, reaching nearly its present size between Canada and Mexico. Widely applauded, this remarkable national aggrandizement also prompted sectional controversy over the extension of slavery.  (NPS)

The idea of setting up a separate department to handle domestic matters was put forward on numerous occasions. It wasn’t until March 3, 1849, the last day of the 30th Congress, that a bill was passed to create the Department of the Interior to take charge of the Nation’s internal affairs.

Creation of the Home Department consolidated the General Land Office (Department of the Treasury), the Patent Office (Department of State), the Indian Affairs Office (War Department) and the military pension offices (War and Navy Departments).

Subsequently, Interior functions expand to include the census, regulation of territorial governments, exploration of the western wilderness, and management of the D.C. jail and water system. (DOI)

“Everything upon the face of God’s earth will go into the Home Department,” US Senator John O. Calhoun had prophesied.  Later, it became known as the Department of Interior.

As Interior took shape under its early leaders and in response to congressional mandates, it came more and more to deserve the appelation of “Great Miscellany” often given it.  Some suggested it was the Department of Everything Else. (NPS)

In the Islands …

French Invasion of Honolulu – 1849

On August 12, 1849, French admiral Louis Tromelin arrived in Honolulu Harbor on the corvette Gassendi with the frigate La Poursuivante.  Upon arrival, de Tromelin met with French Consul Dillon.

Dillon immediately initiated a systematic and irritating interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom, arising largely out of personal hostility to RC Wyllie, minister of foreign affairs, picking flaws and making matters of extended diplomatic correspondence over circumstances of trifling importance.

This continued until the French Admiral Tromelin arrived, and after a conference with Dillon the celebrated “ten demands” were formulated and presented to the Hawaiian Government with the commanding request for immediate action.

Sensing disaster, King Kamehameha III issued orders: “Make no resistance if the French fire on the town, land under arms, or take possession of the Fort; but keep the flag flying ‘till the French take it down. … Strict orders to all native inhabitants to offer no insult to any French officer, soldier or sailor, or afford them any pretext whatever for acts of violence.”

The marines broke the coastal guns, threw kegs of powder into the harbor and destroyed all the other weapons they found (mainly muskets and ammunition).  They raided government buildings and general property in Honolulu, including destruction of furniture, calabashes and ornaments in the governor’s house.  After these raids, the invasion force withdrew to the fort.

On the 30th, the admiral issued a proclamation, declaring that by way of “reprisal” the fort had been dismantled, and the king’s yacht, “Kamehameha III,” confiscated (and then sailed to Tahiti,) but that private property would be restored. He also declared the treaty of 1846 to be annulled, and replaced by the Laplace Convention of 1839. This last act, however, was promptly disavowed by the French Government.

Alexander Liholiho and Lot Kamehameha travel abroad – 1849

Alexander Liholiho and Lot Kapuaiwa, grandsons of Kamehameha I through his daughter Kīnaʻu, later ruled Hawai’i as Kamehameha IV and V. While still teenagers, 9n 1849, they traveled to the United States and Europe accompanied by their guardian Dr. Gerritt Judd.

Alexander Liholiho celebrated his 16th birthday in Paris where he learned to fence and speak French. He and Lot met with French President Louis-Napoleon, with Prince Albert in London, and with President Zachary Taylor and Vice President Millard Fillmore in Washington, DC.

Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation and Extradition with US – 1849

On December 20, 1849, the US and the Kingdom of Hawaii signed a Treaty of Friendship, Commerce, and Navigation and Extradition. The treaty, negotiated by US Secretary of State John M. Clayton and the Hawaiian special Commissioner to the Government of the United States James Jackson Jarves, was signed in Washington, D.C. (US State Department)

H Hackfeld & Co and BF Ehlers (Amfac and Liberty House) started – 1849

On September 26, 1849, sea captain Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers.  Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

In 1850 he moved to a larger location on Fort Street. This store was so popular, it became known as “Hale Kilika” – the House of Silk (because it sold the finest goods available.) As business grew, the nephew took over management of the store while Hackfeld traveled the world for merchandise. The company took BF Ehlers’ name in 1862.

By 1855, Hackfeld operated two stores, served as agent for two sugar plantations, and represented the governments of Russia, Sweden and Norway. (Later the firm or its principals also represented Austro-Hungary, Belgium and Germany.)  When Hackfeld left on a two-year business trip to Germany and Pflueger took charge in his absence.  (Greaney)

In 1881, Hackfeld and Paul Isenberg became partners.  Isenberg, who had arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1858, had extensive experience in the sugar industry, previously working under Judge Duncan McBryde and Rev. William Harrison Rice in Kōloa and Līhu‘e.

From that time on Mr. Isenberg was a factor in the development of the Hackfeld business, which became one of the largest in Hawaiʻi.  When the partnership was incorporated in 1897, a new building was erected at the corner of Fort and Queen Streets; it stood there for 70-years.

A few years later, with the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co. and BT Ehlers.

In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government seized H Hackfeld & Company and ordered the sale of German-owned shares.  (Jung)

The patriotic sounding “American Factors, Ltd,” the newly-formed Hawaiʻi-based corporation, whose largest shareholders included Alexander & Baldwin, C Brewer & Company, Castle & Cooke, HP Baldwin Ltd, Matson Navigation Company and Welch & Company, bought the H Hackfeld stock.  (Jung) 

At that same time, the BF Ehlers dry goods store also took the patriotic “Liberty House” name.  In 1937 a second store was opened in the Waikiki area. Eventually there would be seven stores on Oahu, and several more on the other islands.

Judd Trail – 1849 – 1859

At its May 23, 1849 meeting, the Privy Council of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (a private committee of the King’s closest advisors to give confidential advice on affairs of state) sought to “facilitate communication between Kailua, the seat of the local government, and Hilo, the principal port.”

They resolved “that GP Judd and Kinimaka proceed to Kailua, Hawaiʻi, to explore a route from that place to Hilo direct, and make a road, if practicable, by employing the prisoners on that island and if necessary taking the prisoners from this island (Oʻahu) to assist; the government to bear all expenses”. (Privy Council Minutes, Punawaiola)

(In 1828, Dr Gerrit Parmele Judd came with the Third Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi. A medical missionary, Judd had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician; by 1842, he left the mission and served in the Hawaiian government.)

In planning the road, the words of the Privy Council’s resolution were taken literally, and the route selected ran to the high saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on a practically straight line between the terminal points.

What became known as the “Judd Road” (or “Judd Trail”) was constructed between 1849 and 1859; construction began at the government road in Kailua (what is now known as Aliʻi Drive) and traversed through a general corridor between Hualālai and Mauna Loa. (Remnants of perimeter walls can still be seen at Aliʻi Drive.)

When the road had been built about 12-miles from Kailua into the saddle between Hualālai and Mauna Loa, the project was abandoned – an 1859 pāhoehoe lava flow from the 11,000 foot-level of Mauna Loa crossed its path. Though incomplete (it never reached its final destination in Hilo,) people did use the Judd Road to get into Kona’s mauka countryside.

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John Coffin Jones Jr

John Coffin Jones Jr was the only son of a prominent Boston businessman (in mercantile and shipping business) and politician. (John C Jones Sr served as speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was legislative colleague of John Quincy Adams (and one of the signors for Massachusetts of the Ratification of the US Constitution for that State.))

Young Jones was born in 1796 in Massachusetts and seems to have gone to sea at an early age.  He left to work in the sandalwood trade under Captain Dixey Wildes.   (Kelley)

Jones (also known in Hawaiian documents as John Aluli) was appointed US Agent for Commerce and Seamen on September 19, 1820. When he acknowledged his commission as Agent for Commerce and Seamen, he mentioned two previous voyages he had made to Canton and an extended visit to the Sandwich Islands.  (State Department)

He began to serve in October of 1820, at the port of Honolulu.   As Agent for Commerce and Seamen, Jones became the first official US representative in the Hawaiian Islands.  His role was to help distressed American citizens ashore, both seamen and civilians, serving without salary from the US government and required to report on commerce in Hawai‘i.

(The post of commercial agent was raised to Consul effective July 5, 1844, and held by Peter A. Brinsmade, who had already been appointed commercial agent on April 13, 1838.)

Jones was already agent for the prosperous Boston firm of Marshall and Wildes (one of four American mercantile houses doing business in Honolulu,) and by accepting the additional responsibility from his country, the firm and he might hope that through his reports to Washington the voice of commerce in the Pacific would be heard more clearly by the US Government.  (Hackler)

When Jones arrived in 1821 the sandalwood trade with China was still thriving. King Kamehameha I had monopolized, the cutting and exporting of sandalwood during his reign, but after his death in 1819, Kamehameha II was unable to enforce the conservation policies of his father, and unrestricted cutting of sandalwood soon threatened to deplete the hillsides of this rare wood.

But, while the wood lasted and the market held up in Canton, the American merchants in Honolulu competed fiercely with each other for the valuable cargoes, and pressed on the Hawaiians all sorts of goods which were to be paid for in sandalwood.  (Hackler)

He was considered an advocate for commercial interests in Hawaiʻi and immediately collided with the missionary group led by Rev. Hiram Bingham.  For the next couple of decades he contended for commercial advantages for the US. He set up his own trading firm in 1830 and made many voyages to California during the next ten years.  (Kelley)

“Since the discovery of the whale fishery on the coast of Japan, and the independence of the republics of the western coasts of North and South America, the commerce of the United States at the Sandwich islands has vastly increased.”

“Of such importance have these islands become to our ships which resort to the coast of Japan for the prosecution of the whale fishery, that, without another place could be found, possessing equal advantages of conveniences and situation, our fishery on Japan would be vastly contracted, or pursued under circumstances the most disadvantageous.”  (Jones, to Captain Wm B Finch, October 30, 1829)

As US Agent for Seamen, Jones had a burdensome responsibility.  Many seamen were put ashore because of illness, and they became the special concern of Jones. This was a responsibility and an expense.

In his first report to the Secretary of State on December 31, 1821, Jones complained of the commanders of American ships who were in the habit of discharging troublesome seamen at Honolulu and taking on Hawaiian hands.  (Hackler)

In addition, Jones reported to the Department that 30,000 piculs of sandalwood were sent to China in American ships that year, and estimated that the price for this wood in Canton should be about $300,000. The Hawaiian chiefs were becoming increasingly indebted to the American merchants in Honolulu and payment was slow in coming.

To add to his burden, in 1822-23 the crews of three wrecked American vessels were brought to the islands; in 1825 he explained his disbursements at Honolulu on behalf of seamen as being very heavy, as many men were put ashore without funds.  (Hackler)

“The number of hands generally comprising the Company of a whale ship will average Twenty Five; and owing to the want of discipline, the length and the ardourous duties of the voyage, these people generally become dissatisfied and are willing at any moment to join a rebellion or desert the first opportu(nity) that may offer;”

“- this has been fully exemplified in the whale ships that  have visited these islands, constant disertions have taken place and many serious mutinies both contributing to protract and frequently ruin the voyage.”  (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

He wrote that the only solution was the posting of a US naval vessel at Honolulu, at least during the periods between March and May, and October and December, when the whalers gathered at the port.  (Hackler)

The service of Jones as consular agent in Honolulu put him in the middle of a number of commercial and political causes. Both as government representative and private trader during a formative period, he was an energetic figure and is credited with leadership in opening trade between Hawaiʻi and Spanish California.

By 1829, Jones seemed to have fallen out of favor with the Hawaiian rulers. At that time the King and the principal chiefs addressed a protest to Captain Finch of the USS Vincennes, accusing Jones of maltreating a native and lying about royal morals.  (Hackler)

Jones’ several marriages caused additional concern. He married Hannah Jones Davis, widow of his partner, William Heath Davis Sr, in 1823.  His younger stepson, William Heath Davis, Jr, became a prominent California businessman.

Jones continued to live with Hannah but also lived with Lahilahi Marin, daughter of Don Francisco Marin, and had children by both. In 1838, he married Manuela Carrillo of Santa Barbara, California and deserted Hannah and Lahilahi.

In December, 1838, returning from one of his periodic business trips to California, he introduced Manuela as his wife. This apparently enraged Hannah Holmes Jones, who promptly petitioned the Hawaiian Government for a divorce on grounds of bigamy.

The charge was upheld by the King and led to his writing Jones on January 8, 1839, that “… I refuse any longer to know you as consul from the United States of America.”  (Kamehameha III; Hacker)

Jones left the Islands and settled in Santa Barbara in 1839 and continued as a merchant both in California and Massachusetts. He died on December 24, 1861, leaving his wife and six children.  (Kelley)

The image shows Honolulu Harbor in 1826 (with the Dolphin in the harbor. (Massey))

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaluaokau

Kaluaokau, an ʻili in Waikīkī, has been interpreted with several possible meanings.  Henry Kekahuna, a Hawaiian ethnologist, pronounced Kaluaokau as ka-lu‘a-o-ka‘u, which translates as “the grave of Ka‘u” (lu‘a means “heap, pile or grave.”)

The term Kaluaokau can also be divided as ka-lua-o-Kau, which literally translates as ka (the) lua (pit) o (of) Kau (a personal name), or “the pit of Kau.”  There are others.

Whatever the purpose of the prior naming and its meaning, this portion of Waikīkī (including Helumoa, Kaluaokau and adjacent ‘ili) was important in the lives of the Hawaiian Ali’i.

The ‘ili of Kaluaokau was eventually granted to William Lunalilo (the first democratically elected King, who defeated Kalākaua in 1873.)

The first structure on the property was a simple grass hut; Lunalilo later built and referred to his Waikīkī home as the “Marine Residence;” it consisted of a residence, a detached cottage and outbuildings, surrounded by a fence. The estate included a small section that extended makai to the sea and included several small outbuildings and a canoe shed.

Following Lunalilo’s death in 1874, his Kaluaokau home and land were bequeathed to Queen Emma, the widow of Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho – who had died in 1863.)

Queen Emma had Papaʻenaʻena Heiau on the slopes of Diamond Head dismantled, and she used the rocks to build a fence to surround her Waikīkī estate.

Later litigation confirmed that the Queen Emma parcel included access to the water (ʻĀpuakēhau Stream) and the taro growing on the ‘Marine Residence” property.  Queen Emma is known to have resided occasionally on the Waikīkī property before her death.

Her will stated that her lands be put in trust with the proceeds to benefit the Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, which Queen Emma, along with her husband, Kamehameha IV, had helped to found.

Records indicate Henry Macfarlane, an entrepreneur from New Zealand who had settled on O‘ahu owned and/or leased property within the Kaluaokau ʻili.

Reportedly, it was Macfarlane and his wife who planted the banyan tree currently growing in the center of the property. They lived on this property for a while, eventually raising six children, some of who became financiers for sugar plantations and for the early tourist industry in Waikīkī.

The site was also used by immigrant Japanese workers.  During the construction of hotels (Moana Hotel, Royal Hawaiian Hotel) in the early twentieth century (and later the Surfrider in 1952) by the Matson Navigation Company, cottages were built for housing the mostly Japanese immigrant workers and their families, and called “Japanese Camps.”  More buildings were built.

By the mid-1950s, there were more than fifty hotels and apartments from the Kālia area to the Diamond Head end of Kapiʻolani Park. The Waikīkī population by the mid-1950s was not limited to transient tourists; it included 11,000 permanent residents, living in 4,000 single dwellings and apartment buildings.

On January 16, 1955, entrepreneur Donn Beach (Don the Beachcomber) announced plans for a “Waikīkī Village” that was to be called “The International Market Place.”

The International Market Place first opened in 1957. Envisioned as a commercial center with the Dagger Bar and Bazaar Buildings, and featuring the arts, crafts, entertainment and foods of Hawaiʻi’s multicultural people, it may have been one of the earliest cultural tourist attractions in the Islands.

Designed originally to encompass 14-acres between the Waikīkī Theater and the Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, extending from Kalākaua Avenue halfway to Kūhiō Avenue, the International Market Place was to be a “casual, tropical village with arts, crafts, entertainment, and foods of Hawai‘i’s truly diverse people … including Hawaiian, South Sea islander, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Filipino…” (Queen Emma Foundation)

By the late-1950s, a row of retail shops had been constructed along Kalākaua Avenue.  Other elements of the International Market Place included the Hawaiian Halau, Japanese Tea House and Esplanade buildings. The banyan tree, which still remains to this day, was also once home to Don’s tree house.

Matson sold all of its Waikīkī hotel properties to the Sheraton Company in 1959 and no longer required housing for its hotel staff. Additionally, properties were likely cleared in anticipation of the extensive development that occurred throughout Waikīkī in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1964, Waikīkī’s entertainment hub was International Market Place; and it’s where the first Crazy Shirts shop was born (initially known as Ricky’s Crazy Shirts.) T-shirts with a message sold. Some were silly (“Suck ’em Up!”), some were logos (“Surfboards Hawaii”), and some were political (“Draft Beer Not Students”). (Crazy Shirts)

The famous Duke Kahanamoku’s (Duke’s,) where Don Ho gained fame, was once housed there. Don the Beachcomber, one of Waikīkī’s long-gone landmark restaurants, as well as Trader Vic’s also called it home.

Hawaiʻi radio icon, Hal Lewis (the self-named “J Akuhead Pupule,” best known to Island radio listeners as “Aku,”) once broadcast his popular morning talk show from the tree house in the Banyan tree.

However, over the last half-century, as the rest of Waikīkī evolved, the Market Place kept its 1960s look, as visitors wind through the carts and kiosks, hawking T-shirts, plastic hula skirts, volcano-shaped candles, and other tiki and tacky souvenirs.

Landowner Queen Emma Foundation changed that. Working with the Taubman Company, the International Market Place, Waikīkī Town Center and Miramar Hotel were demolished, and new structures took their place.

Aiming to restore “a sense of Hawaiianness,” the new International Market Place features low-rise structures, open-air shops and restaurants, paths, gardens, a storytelling hearth, a performance amphitheater and, yes, parking. And the banyan tree stays.

Today, as successor to The Queen’s Hospital, The Queen’s Medical Center is the largest private nonprofit hospital in Hawaiʻi, licensed to operate with 505 acute care beds and 28 sub-acute beds. As the leading medical referral center in the Pacific Basin, Queen’s has more than 3,500 employees and over 1,100 physicians on staff.

The royal mission and vision of The Queen’s Health Systems is directly supported through revenues generated by the lands bequeathed by Queen Emma when she passed away in 1885, including the International Market Place.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

James Robinson

James Robinson came to the islands from London, his birthplace, arriving here in 1820, before the first missionaries (while rounding Cape Horn his ship passed the “Thaddeus,” which was bringing the first missionaries from New England.)

He was carpenter on the whaling ship “Hermes.”  In 1822, sailing from Honolulu for Japan the Hermes was wrecked on the reef of Holoikauaua (what is now referred to as Pearl and Hermes.)

This seeming disaster turned into a new industry for Honolulu and proved to be the foundation of his subsequent business and of his fortune.

The combined crews (totaling 57) made it safely to one of the small islands and were castaway for months with what meager provisions they could salvage.

He and the crew built a small schooner (the Deliverance) from the wreckage and the survivors of the wreck sailed back to Honolulu to remain permanently.

After his arrival, Robinson was befriended by Kamehameha II and John Young.  He and a ship-mate, Robert Lawrence (a cooper (barrel maker,)) sold the Deliverance for $2,000 and found employment in repairing schooners owned by the king and chiefs.

They received the assistance of Kamehameha II and, in 1827, established their shipyard in Honolulu harbor at Pākākā, or “the Point,” on land obtained from Kalanimoku. They were later joined as a full partner by James Holt, “a very respectable man from Boston.”

In 1840, the Polynesian commended the partners and their shipyard:  “Honest, industrious, economical, temperate, and intelligent, they are living illustrations of what these virtues can secure to men. …”

“Their yard is situated in the most convenient part of the harbor has a stone butment and where two vessels of six hundred tons burthen can be berthed, hove out, and undergo repairs at one and the same time. There is fourteen feet of water along side of the butment.”

“The proprietors generally keep on hand all kinds of material for repairing vessels. Also those things requisite for heaving out, such as blocks, falls, etc. On the establishment are fourteen excellent workmen, among whom are Ship Carpenters, Caulkers and Gravers, Ship Joiners, Block-makers, Spar-makers, Boatbuilders, etc.”

In mid-September 1830, Joseph Elliott moved to The Point to open a hotel with Robinson.  Lawrence and Holt, Robinson’s partners, appear to have specialized in the hotel and liquor business, which also featured a boarding house. The Shipyard Hotel had the advantage of being a “first chance – last chance” operation.

Years rolled on, and the firm of James Robinson & Co. (including Robert Lawrence and Mr. Holt) was a significant success and carried on a business that employed a large number of ship-carpenters and caulkers. More whaling ships were repaired at their establishment than at any other in the Pacific.

This partnership lasted until 1868, when Mr. Lawrence died. For many years their building was one of the sights of the town, being decorated with the figurehead from an old vessel.

Robinson became so wealthy; reportedly, he lent substantial funds to the Hawaiian government during the 1850s and maintained a close relationship with the kingdom’s leaders until his death in 1876.

Hawaiians called him Kimo (James) Pakaka as Honolulu Harbor grew up around his shipyard.

In 1843, James Robinson married Rebecca Prever; they had eight children: Mark, Mary, Victoria, Bathsheba, Matilda, Annie, Lucy and John.

Mr. Robinson died at his residence in Nuʻuanu valley August 8, 1876.  However, his legacy lived on through his children.

His descendants became a well-known island family and his fortune founded the Robinson Estate.  His son, Mark, was a member of Queen Liliʻuokalani’s cabinet (Minister of Foreign Affairs) during the chaotic last months of the monarchy as factional battles separated the royal government.  He was a founder of First National Bank of Hawai’i and First American Savings.

His daughter Lucy married a McWayne (apparently, Robinson’s ship facility eventually became McWayne Marine Supply at Kewalo Basin – some old-timers may remember that later name.)

Daughter Victoria married a Ward.  Their residence was known as Old Plantation, and included the current site of the Neil F. Blaisdell Center.  Her estate, Victoria Ward Ltd, had other significant holdings in Kakaʻako.

Daughter Mary married a Foster.  Her husband Thomas Foster was an initial organizer of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company.  That company founded a subsidiary, Inter-Island Airways, that later changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines.

Foster had also purchased the estate of the renowned botanist William Hillebrand, which was bequeathed to the city as Foster Botanical Garden at the death of his wife Mary.

The image shows Honolulu Harbor in 1854.  The Robinson facilities are on the right hand side – to the left of the Fort wall (you can see a ship being repaired at the shore.)

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Judd Trail

Road making as practiced in Hawaiʻi in the middle of the 19th-century was a very superficial operation, in most places consisting of little more than clearing a right of way, doing a little rough grading and supplying bridges of a sort where they could not be dispensed with.    (Kuykendall)

The absence of roads in some places and the bad condition of those that did exist were common causes of complaints which found expression in the newspapers. But in spite of the complaints, it is clear that in the 1860s the kingdom had more roads and on the whole better ones than it had twenty or even ten years earlier.  (Kuykendall)

At its May 23, 1849 meeting, the Privy Council of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi (a private committee of the King’s closest advisors to give confidential advice on affairs of state) sought to “facilitate communication between Kailua, the seat of the local government, and Hilo, the principal port.”

They resolved “that GP Judd and Kinimaka proceed to Kailua, Hawaiʻi, to explore a route from that place to Hilo direct, and make a road, if practicable, by employing the prisoners on that island and if necessary taking the prisoners from this island (Oʻahu) to assist; the government to bear all expenses”. (Privy Council Minutes, Punawaiola)

(In 1828, Dr Gerrit Parmele Judd came with the Third Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi.  A medical missionary, Judd had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician; by 1842, he left the mission and served in the Hawaiian government.)

(He first served as “translator and recorder,” then member of the “treasury board,” then secretary of state for foreign affairs, minister of the interior and minister of finance (the latter he held until 1853, when by resignation, he terminated his service with the government.))

In planning the road, the words of the Privy Council’s resolution were taken literally, and the route selected ran to the high saddle between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa on a practically straight line between the terminal points.

What became known as the “Judd Road” (or “Judd Trail”) was constructed between 1849 and 1859; construction began at the government road in Kailua (what is now known as Aliʻi Drive) and traversed through a general corridor between Hualālai and Mauna Loa.  (Remnants of perimeter walls can still be seen at Aliʻi Drive.)

“This was the road that Dr. Judd … would have built from Kona in a straight line across the island of Hawaii. It was meant, of course, as a road for horsemen and pack animals. In the generation of Dr. Judd it was a great work, and the manner of its building showed that he meant it to be a monument to him for all time.”  (Ford, Mid-Pacific, 1912)

When the road had been built about 12-miles from Kailua into the saddle between Hualālai and Mauna Loa, the project was abandoned – a pāhoehoe lava flow from the 11,000 foot-level of Mauna Loa crossed its path.

Though incomplete (it never reached its final destination in Hilo,) people did use the Judd Road to get into Kona’s mauka countryside.

“Up the long slope of Hualālai we ascended to Kaʻalapuali, following the old Judd trail through fields of green cane, through grass lands, through primeval forests, over fallen monarchs, finally out on that semi-arid upland which lies between Hualālai and Mauna Loa.  Here we turned up the slope of Hualālai, climbing through a forest cover of ʻōhiʻa lehua and sandalwood carpeted with golden-eyed daisies – another picture of Hawaii, never to be forgotten.”

“And then the summit with its eight or more great craters and that strange, so-called bottomless pit, Hualālai, after which the mountain is named, and the battle of the Kona and trade wind clouds over the labyrinthean volcanic pits, gray-white spectres of vapor—all these linger in retrospection as we cast our mind’s eye back to that experience of one year ago.”

“Here on this weird summit, where the sun played hide and seek with the tumultuous clouds, the ʻiʻiwi, ʻelepaio, and ʻamakihi birds flitted and twittered from puʻu kiawe to mamani. Down the long southeast slope, beneath the white vapors, beautifully symmetrical cones arose from slopes, tree-clad and mottled by shifting clouds and sun.”

“Farther up the Judd trail, we came to that unique “Plain of Numbering”, where King ʻUmi built his heiau over four centuries ago and called his people together from all the Island of Hawaii. There is a romantic glamor hanging around those heaps of rocks which numbered the people who gathered at Ahua ʻUmi that will remain as a fond memory throughout eternity.”  (Thrum, 1924)

(ʻUmi took a census at about 1500; for this census, each inhabitant of the Island of Hawaiʻi was instructed to come to a place called the “Plain of Numbering” to put a rock on the pile representing his own district. The result, still visible today, was a three-dimensional graphic portrayal of population size and distribution.   (Schmitt))

“It is a wonderful setting up there on that arid plateau with Hualālai to the left and Mauna Loa rising majestically and deceptively to the right, with lofty Mauna Kea, snow-patched and beckoning from the distance before us. There is something sublimely massive, rugged, uplifting about that arid, wild region of the “plain of numbering-‘ hidden away from the ordinary walks of men, off to the right and near the end of the old Judd trail.”  (Thrum, 1924)

This road was not the only attempt of linking East and West Hawaiʻi.  About 100-years after the Privy Council’s resolution to connect East with West, the US military completed the link by building a vehicular access route to its Pōhakuloa Training Area during World War II.

Like earlier roads in Hawaiʻi it was not originally designed to State highway standards.  Surfacing and nominal repairs over the subsequent decades left a roadway that island rental car companies banned its customers from use.

Today, route 200, known locally as Saddle Road, traverses the width of the Island of Hawaiʻi, from downtown Hilo to its junction with Hawaii Route 190 near Waimea.  It “represent(s) both literally and symbolically … the physical bridging together of East and West Hawaii and the bridging of the bonds between people.”  (SCR 43, 2013)

Saddle Road is the shortest and most direct route across the island of Hawai‘i, linking the historical main population centers of the island in East Hawai‘i with the growing West side, where the economy is anchored by tourism.

With realignment of portions and reconstruction starting in 2004, in 2013, the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (DOT) opened the last improved segment and renamed the 41-mile upgraded length of Hawaiʻi Saddle Road the Daniel K Inouye Highway (the renaming occurred on Inouye’s birthday, September 7 (Inouye died December 17, 2012.))

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