Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Three Contemporary Leaders

While not the three amigos, these were three concurrent warriors and leaders of their respective parts of the planet – Kamehameha, Washington and Napoleon.

Each came into prominence through war and each left a mark in history in civil governance.

Kamehameha I (ca. 1758 – May 8, 1819)

Kamehameha was initially known as Paiʻea, which means “hard-shelled crab;” Kamehameha means “The Lonely One.”

Raised in the royal court of his uncle, Kalaniʻōpuʻu, Kamehameha achieved prominence in 1782, upon Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s death.

While the kingship was inherited by Kalaniʻōpuʻu’s son Kiwalaʻo, Kamehameha was given the prominent position of guardianship of the Hawaiian god of war, Kūkaʻilimoku.

In 1785, Kamehameha married Ka‘ahumanu, the daughter of one of his most trusted advisors. In 1790, he attained control of Hawai‘i Island, then he successfully invaded the Islands of Maui, Lāna‘i, Moloka‘i and O‘ahu, by 1795.

Ultimately, in 1810, Kauai‘i’s Kaumuali‘i decided to peacefully yield and unite with Kamehameha and join the rest of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.

Kamehameha instituted the Kānāwai Māmalahoe, the Law of the Splintered Paddle. The law, “Let every elderly person, woman and child lie by the roadside in safety,” is enshrined in the state constitution, Article 9, Section 10, and has become a model for modern human rights law regarding the treatment of civilians and other non-combatants.

George Washington (February 22, 1732 – December 14, 1799)

The first president of the United States, George Washington, serving from 1789 to 1797, is often referred to as the Father of Our Country.

He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783.

After victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to the emerging American political ideology of republicanism. Washington was elected as the first president in 1789, and re-elected 1792.

Dissatisfied with the weaknesses of Articles of Confederation, in 1787, Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention that drafted the United States Constitution.

Napoleon Bonaparte (August 15, 1769 – May 5, 1821)

Napoleon was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.

As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. He is remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars.

His legal reform, the Napoleonic Code (with enhanced civil rights, property rights and class privileges were extinguished,) has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide.

After a streak of victories, France secured a dominant position in continental Europe and Napoleon maintained the French sphere of influence through the formation of extensive alliances. Ultimately, in June 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo; he spent the last six years of his life in confinement by the British.

I find it interesting to see what these three notable leaders were doing at the same time in disparate and unconnected parts of the world.

I don’t know about you, but I am curious and fascinated in looking at similar timeframes and comparing histories of different parts of the world.

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Lord Mayor of London

“Ship traps” describes a phenomenon where northern and southern swells, strong channel currents, strong consistent trade winds and fringing reefs force unsuspecting vessels into areas of harm – resulting in concentrated shipwrecks.

The north shore of the Island of Lānaʻi, locally referred to as “Shipwreck Beach,” is the best example of this phenomenon. Here, the channel acts as a funnel, depositing material directly onto Shipwreck Beach.

Any vessel that broke its moorings at Lāhainā would end up there; sometimes ship owners intentionally abandoned worn-out vessels there by simply casting them adrift upwind from the treacherous shore. (Naval Historical Center)

The first reported wreck occurred in 1824 when a British vessel named the Alderman Wood ran into the reef there.  It was said to be carrying a “cargo of liquors” and “became a total wreck.” (PCA, Nov. 16. 1905)

Well, maybe the liquor was lost, but the ship’s figurehead was saved …

“At first glance the figure-head presents a ludicrous picture, for upon the head has been nailed an old derby hat, entirely out of joint and time with the figure-head, which wears carved clothing of the kind prevailing in the latter part of the eighteenth century.”

“From between the wooden lips of this odd statue, once the proud monument of a time British ship’s prow, projects a cheap corn-cob pipe, placed there by a waterfront wag.”

“But a closer view shows that the figure-head must possess a history.  No figure-head of this type has adorned a ship in the nineteenth century.”

“It belonged to century when the United States was young, when George Washington was the President, and the Hawaiian Islands little known, except that some years before Captain Cook had been slain on one of them.”

“The figurehead wears a long cape, caught over the breast with a buckle.  Around the neck is a chain, hanging from this against the breast is what appears to be a large medal, but which really was the symbol of one of the highest offices in England – that of Lord Mayor of London.”

“Some time in the 20’s the British ship Alderman Wood was wrecked on the island of [Lanai]. The news was brought to Honolulu and James Robinson, father of Mark P Robinson, then head of the firm of James Robinson & Co, ship chandlers and carpenters went to Molokai to save what he could of the ship.”

“She was filled with beautiful mirrors, and was in those days reckoned a magnificent type of the merchant ships built by the British. The captain made a present of the figure-head to Mr. Robinson and he brought it to Honolulu.”

“When the new warehouse was built in the beginning of the ‘30’s, below what is now Queen street, Mr Robinson raised the figure-head up and placed it on the pulley beam as a pedestal, and there it has remained through all the vicissitudes of the elements for nearly three quarters of a century.”

“Often a workman is sent up on the building with putty, nails and pieces of wood to repair the figure-head.”

“The ship Alderman Wood was named after its owner, who was a London alderman in the latter part of the eighteenth century and Mark Robinson is of the opinion that he also became Lord Mayor of London.”

“The wooden statue evidently shows the owner in his mantle of office, either as alderman or Lord Mayor The old warehouse, too, has a history.”

“It is one of the oldest in Honolulu, and the loft was considered very large in the days when it was built and Honolulu was in its Infancy. It was a sail loft and used for general ship chandler work.”

“When Admiral Thomas, the British naval officer, restored the Hawaiian Kingdom its independence and flag in July, 1843, having been unlawfully deprived of both by the British some time previous …”

“… a grand ball was given to celebrate the event, and the sail loft of the Robinson warehouse was the place where the ball was given.  It was grand affair, attended by the elite of the city, including royal personages.”

“The old figure-head was then in position. The doors immediately below the beam and figure-head … open out from this old time ball room, now used as a storage loft.” (PCA, Feb 8, 1903)

Thrum noted that in 1911 as a “Disappearing Landmark”, “The old Robinson warehouse with its seaward-end adornment of the figure-head of Alderman Wood, from an English ship of that name which was wrecked on the Island of Lanai in 1824 …”

“… and has, as it were, welcomed the incoming and sped the outgoing shipping of Honolulu ever since the erection of the building a few years later, has fallen in decay.”

“The appearance of our waterfront will seem unnatural to many frequenters of the port who will miss the old familiar figure and once prominent building.”  (Thrum, 1912) It is not known where the figurehead is now.

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Frank Lloyd Wright

“The mission of an architect is to help people understand how to make life more beautiful, the world a better one for living in, and to give reason, rhyme, and meaning to life.” (Frank Lloyd Wright, 1957)

Frank Lloyd Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, on June 8, 1867, the son of William Carey Wright, a preacher and a musician, and Anna Lloyd Jones, a teacher whose large Welsh family had settled the valley area near Spring Green, Wisconsin.

His early childhood was nomadic as his father traveled from one ministry position to another in Rhode Island, Iowa, and Massachusetts, before settling in Madison, Wis., in 1878.

Wright’s parents divorced in 1885, making already challenging financial circumstances even more challenging. To help support the family, 18-year-old Frank Lloyd Wright worked for the dean of the University of Wisconsin’s department of engineering while also studying at the university.

He knew he wanted to be an architect. In 1887, he left Madison for Chicago, where he found work with two different firms before being hired by the prestigious partnership of Adler and Sullivan, working directly under Louis Sullivan for six years.

In 1911, he began construction of Taliesin near Spring Green as his home and refuge.  There he continued his architectural practice and over the next several years received two important public commissions: the first in 1913 for an entertainment center called Midway Gardens in Chicago; the second, in 1916, for the new Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan.

Wright always aspired to provide his client with environments that were not only functional but also “eloquent and humane.” Perhaps uniquely among the great architects, Wright pursued an architecture for everyman rather than every man for one architecture through the careful use of standardization to achieve accessible tailoring options to for his clients.

Over the course of his 70-year career, Wright became one of the most prolific, unorthodox and controversial masters of 20th-century architecture, creating no less than twelve of the Architectural Record’s hundred most important buildings of the century.

Realizing the first truly American architecture, Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses, offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels and museums stand as testament to someone whose unwavering belief in his own convictions changed both his profession and his country.

Designing 1,114 architectural works of all types – 532 of which were realized – he created some of the most innovative spaces in the United States. With a career that spanned seven decades before his death in 1959, Wright’s visionary work cemented his place as the American Institute of Architects’ “greatest American architect of all time.” (Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation)

Two of his designs are in Hawai‘i; one, an unbuilt plan done in 1954, originally conceived for the Cornwell Family in Pennsylvania, was constructed in 1995 in Waimea on Hawai‘i Island.

It envisioned to be part of master-planned community that would include many unbuilt Wright designs within a 450 acre plot on Hawai‘i Island.  The “Hawai‘i Collection” development never got off the ground.

The other Hawai‘i Frank Lloyd Wright design was also an unbuilt design for a prior client of Wright’s that he designed in 1949.  This was originally a home called Crownfield; but the couple who commissioned the home never built it.

When Wright was approached in 1952 to design a home for the cliffs of Mexico’s Acapulco Bay, he began with the Crownfield plans, and added a covered terrace and lower level. Unfortunately, the plans were shelved once again.

Again, after further modification in 1957, Crownfield almost became the home of Marilyn Monroe and her husband Arthur Miller.  Monroe and Miller separated the next year and the home was never built.

For several decades the plans for the Crownfield House were archived in Taliesin West, Wright’s former winter camp near Scottsdale, Arizona, which became the headquarters for the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation.

There they remained until, in 1992, owners of the Ted Robinson-designed Waikapu Valley Country Club looked for a Wright design for the golf clubhouse.

The Crownfield House’s various reincarnations were reworked and expanded yet again . The finished building, now called the King Kamehameha Golf Clubhouse, is 74,788 square feet. The concrete and steel building was completed in 1993 and is split into three levels with two-thirds of the structure underground. It is the largest golf clubhouse on Maui.

Many of the interior touches reiterate other famous Wright design triumphs. The focus of the main banquet room is a 32-foot diameter dome with a convex chandelier made of one-and-a-half-inch acrylic tubing that echoes the concave chandelier in the Johnson Wax Building’s executive suite (1944) in Racine, Wisconsin.

The art glass on the front double doors was adapted from the Johnson Wax Building as well. The etched design on the glass of the main stairwell’s koa railing, the foyer’s six-foot-diameter art glass window, and the brass elevator doors can all be traced to Wright’s Avery Coonley House (1907) in Riverside, Illinois.

The ten-foot diameter art glass in the foyer ceiling was translated from a 1957 woven living room carpet at Taliesin West and the skylight above the main stair recalls the curved ransom over the Susan Lawrence Dana House’s entrance (1902) in Springfield, Illinois.

Six years after it was built the country club shut down during an economic downturn. The property was pretty much neglected and abandoned. However, the clubhouse stayed open and was used for special events. In 2004 a buyer bought the place and refurbished it. It was reopened in 2006 as the King Kamehameha Golf Clubhouse.  (Maui 24/7, King Kamehameha Golf Course)

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Georges Phillipe Trousseau

Georges Trousseau was born in Paris on May 1, 1833 to a prominent Parisian family. His father, Armand Trousseau, a distinguished physician and surgeon, was also the author of medical books used throughout the world.  (Greenwell)

He received the usual education of a wealthy Frenchman and entered the ecole de medicine in Paris at the early age of 15.  (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

From the days in 1848 and 1852, when he as a student fought in the streets of Paris, he has unswervingly believed in the rights of the people – and early or late was he found ready to serve them as a physician as a friend or simply as a fellow-man.  (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

Trousseau married Edna Vaunois, who was also from Paris; they had two children, Armond and Rene in 1856 and 1857.  In 1865, the couple was legally separated (but never divorced.)

He followed his father’s footsteps and graduated from the Paris School of Medicine as a physician in 1858.  He became an army surgeon, seeing service in Algiers early in the fifties. He also served at Solferino and Magenta, Italy.  (Greenwell)

For personal reasons, he left France and went to Australia and New Zealand.  In part, he was at the Australian gold mines, but did not strike it rich; in fact, his estranged wife loaned him money while he was there.  (Greenwell, Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

He left there and arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1872.  Almost immediately upon his arrival, he was appointed by the Board of Health to serve as Port Physician for Honolulu (there was no salary attached to the office; fees for services were worked out between the Port Physician and the ship/agent the usual charge was $25.)  (Greenwell)

He soon gained great fame as a doctor.  He served on the Board of Health for 20-years, serving as a Board member and as President.   He took an interest in Leprosy and supervised the leper treatment center in Kalihi.

In 1865, the legislature of the Hawaiian Islands had passed “An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy.” This law called for a place to be set aside for the isolation of those found to have leprosy in order to curb the spread of the disease.  It was not until 1873, however, on Doctor Trousseau’s recommendation, that a vigorous effort was made to segregate lepers.  (Greenwell)

“Trousseau strongly urging that the only method, at all likely to be successful, was the immediate, energetic, and to a certain extent, unsympathetic isolation of all who were afflicted with the disease, and even that would require a generation in all probability to prove successful.”  (Board of Health, March 1, 1873)

He diagnosed Father (now Saint) Damien’s leprosy.  “… In January, 1885 Damien visited Honolulu … (and accidentally) scalded his left foot. Father Leonore, the provincial of the mission, phoned for Dr George Trousseau, whose examination of the priest’s foot and leg proved they were devoid of feeling … this discovery indicated that the peroneal nerve and its branches were dead due to leprosy.”  (Mouritz; Bushnell)

Though not an official title, Trousseau served as royal physician.  He was called on as a consultant by Doctor Ferdinand W Hutchison, Minister of the Interior, during Kamehameha V’s last illness and was at the King’s bedside when he died.

In August 1873, when it was apparent that King Lunalilo was ill, Trousseau accompanied the King and stayed with Lunalilo at Huliheʻe Palace in Kailua- Kona, from mid-November to the middle of January 1874.  After it became apparent that Lunalilo was not going to recover, and the royal party returned to Honolulu where Lunalilo died on February 3.  (Greenwell)

The rulers of Hawaiʻi honored him.   Lunalilo made him a major in his staff and his personal physician. Kalākaua befriended him and appointed him the executor of his will and the administrator of his estate.  (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

“(H)e was always ready to promote any now industry that might prove a source of benefit to his adopted country.”  This got him involved in sheep, sugar and ostriches.  (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

In 1875, he gave up his Honolulu medical practice and moved to Kona, Hawaiʻi, where he purchased a sheep and cattle ranch at Kanahaha high on the slopes of Mauna Loa.  Wool was baled at Kanahaha and transported by cart to Kainaliu Beach, from where it was shipped. (Greenwell)

A road was constructed which ran from Kanahaha on Mauna Loa, to the beach at Kainaliu (where he also had a home.) (This old cart road is used by jeeps today and is known as the Trousseau Trail.)  Early in 1879, Trousseau sold all of his holdings in Kona to Henry N Greenwell.

After selling the sheep ranch, Trousseau bought out two sugar planters at Kukuihaele on the Hāmākua coast. He became partners in the Pacific Sugar Mill with the Purvis family. Trousseau had an excellent relationship with John Purvis and his son Herbert.  (Greenwell)

The plantation thrived for a time.  However, defects in the furnace caused difficulties.  In 1881, Trousseau suddenly and unexpectedly sold his half in the plantation to his partners.  He moved back to Honolulu and resumed his medical practice.

He tried one last agricultural venture there.  “The doctor started a new industry for these islands a few years ago (1890) by establishing an ostrich farm at Kapiʻolani Park. Many young birds have been bred from the original stock, and some of the feathers have gone into domestic exports. The farm was under the management of Captain John Morriseau (Trousseau’s nephew.)”  (Daily Bulletin, May 5, 1894)

The 1,000-acre farm (purchased from the Lunalilo Estate) was located in the Kapahulu area near the present zoo; Paul Isenberg, who owned a nearby cattle ranch, later purchased the farm (Trousseau Street notes the general location.)

Though Trousseau never divorced, he did have a mistress, Makanoe; Makanoe was also married (to Kaʻaepa.)  (This relationship is referred to as ‘punalua;’ an association in which, typically, two women, often sisters, share one husband, or, as in Makanoeʻs case, two men share the affection of one woman.)  (Greenwell)

Trousseau died May 4, 1894, shortly after Kaʻaepa’s death.  Makanoe buried her husband and Trousseau side by side in a wrought iron fenced plot at Makiki Cemetery on Oʻahu.  Trousseau left all of his estate to Makanoe (she eventually moved to Salt Lake City, Utah.)

Trousseau faithfully supported the Hawaiian Monarchy and stood up for the royalists which caused bitter feelings among many of his associates who backed the annexationists.

In spite of this, his obituary noted, “It is seldom that people of all classes, opposed to each other socially and politically can gather around the bier of a fellow-citizen and unite in saying, ‘we have lost a friend.’”  (Hawaiʻi Holomua, May 5, 1894)

“Dr. Trousseau was a strong nationalist of Hawaiʻi, who believed that none but born or naturalized subjects should have a determining voice in national affairs. The Hawaiian people, who revered and confided in him, will take his death as a sort bereavement.”  (Daily Bulletin, May 5, 1894)  (Lots of information here from Jean Greenwell.)

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Palikū

In 1837, Samuel Northrup Castle arrived in Honolulu as a missionary.  He left Hawaiʻi for a short time, then returned as a businessman for the mission.

With Amos Cooke, he founded Castle & Cooke Company, in 1851 – it grew into being one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big Five” companies.

One of his ten children would surpass him as a businessman; James Bicknell Castle was born November 27, 1855 in Honolulu to Samuel and Mary (Tenney) Castle.

Harold Kainalu Long Castle was born July 3, 1886 in Honolulu, son of wealthy landowner James Bicknell Castle and Julia White, and grandson of Castle & Cooke founder Samuel Northrop Castle.

In 1917, Harold Castle purchased about 9,500-acres of land on the windward side of Oʻahu, in what became Kāneʻohe Ranch.  Later acquisitions added several thousand acres of land, with holdings from Heʻeia to Waimanalo.  The Castle fortune was built on ranching and dairying.

The family had land in Waikīkī, as well; it was formerly called Kalehuawehe. The surf break ‘Castles’ is named after the Castle family’s three-story beachfront home; they called it Kainalu.  They later sold it to the Elks Club, who now use part of the site and lease the rest to the Outrigger Canoe Club.

With the widening and paving of Old Pali Road in 1921 (which helped to initiate the suburban commute across the Koʻolau,) the Castles realized that the Windward side of the island of Oʻahu was a beautiful place to live and could become a vibrant community.  (The Pali Highway and its tunnels opened in 1959.)

In 1927, Harold and his wife Alice Hedemann Castle built a home for themselves that overlooked much of their land holdings.  It was just below the hairpin turn, below the Pali.

They called the home Palikū (Lit., vertical cliff.)

Architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue designed it (Goodhue’s other work included Los Angeles Central Public Library, the Nebraska State Capitol and Saint Thomas Church, New York City;) there were 27 rooms with ornamental ironwork, redwood beams, plumbing and electricity – one of the first buildings on the windward side of the island to have those amenities. (Brennan, Honolulu Advertiser)

In 1946, the Castles sold the 22-acre Palikū to the Catholic Church for the Saint Stephen Seminary (the seminary closed in 1970; it’s now the St. Stephen’s Diocesan Center (the driveway is makai, just below the scenic lookout at the hairpin turn.))

St. Stephen’s Seminary was shut down for a time after a mysterious occurrence in October 1946.

Some suggest the seminary was haunted; when one night there were methodical clicking and tapping sounds; invisible pressure on a person in bed; dishes, pots and pans strewn all over – they suggest it was “diabolical obsession.”  Later, “I understand there was some kind of a blessing done,” said Bishop Joseph Ferrario, the retired bishop of Honolulu. (honoluluadvertiser)

After the seminary’s ultimate closure, the facility was transformed into a diocesan center housing various offices of the diocesan curia (a diocesan center (chancery) is the branch of administration which handles all written documents used in the official government of a Roman Catholic diocese.)

The former Castle home also serves as the residence of the Bishop of Honolulu, Clarence Richard Silva, popularly known as Larry Silva (born August 6, 1949), bishop of the Roman Catholic Church. He is the fifth Bishop of Honolulu, appointed by Pope Benedict XVI on May 17, 2005.

In 1962, Castle founded the Harold KL Castle Foundation. On his death in 1967, he bequeathed a sizeable portion of his real estate assets to the Foundation.

Throughout his life, Castle donated land for churches of all different denominations because he felt that churches would bring congregations, congregations would bring stability, and that would benefit the community that was growing around them.

Mr. Castle also donated land and money to Hawaii Loa College, Castle Hospital, ʻIolani School, Castle High School, Kainalu Elementary School and the Mōkapu peninsula land, which would become the Kāneʻohe Marine Corps Base.

His foundation has annually provided millions of dollars in support to worthy causes, a good chunk of it going to the windward side of Oʻahu.

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