Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Hilo Railroad Company – Hawaiian Consolidated Railway

The Treaty of Reciprocity (1875) between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.  Through the treaty and its amendments, the US obtained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets for their sugar.

At the industry’s peak in the 1930s, Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

Sugar cultivation exploded on the Big Island.  As a means to transport sugar and other goods, railroading was introduced to the Islands in 1879.

On March 28, 1899, Dillingham received a charter to build the original eight miles of the Hilo Railroad that connected the Olaʻa sugar mill to Waiākea, that was soon to become the location of Hilo’s deep water port.

Rail line extensions continued.  Extensions were soon built to Pāhoa, where the Pahoa Lumber Company was manufacturing ʻōhia and koa railroad ties for export to the Santa Fe Railroad.

Although not the first railway on the Big Island, the Hilo Railroad was arguably the most ambitious.  The Olaʻa line was completed in 1900, immediately followed by a seventeen mile extension to Kapoho, home of the Puna Sugar Company plantation.

Immediately after that two branch lines were constructed (also to sugar plantations,) and then the railroad was extended north into Hilo itself.

All the sugar grown in East Hawaiʻi, in Puna and on the Hāmākua Coast, was transported by rail to Hilo Harbor, where it was loaded onto ships bound for the continent.

An early account stated that the rail line crossed over 12,000 feet in bridges, 211 water openings under the tracks, and individual steel spans up to 1,006 feet long and 230 feet in height.

Some of the most notable were those over Maulua and Honoliʻi gulches, the Wailuku River and Laupāhoehoe.  Over 3,100 feet of tunnels were constructed, one of which, the Maulua Tunnel, was over half a mile in length.

While the main business of the railroad remained the transport of raw sugar and other products to and from the mills,  it also provided passenger service.

A chiefly tourist line, branching from Olaʻa, was built inland 12.5 miles up the mountain to Glenwood where visitors to the Volcano House near Kilauea Volcano would then transfer to buses. Due to stiff competition from motor vehicles, the Glenwood extension was scaled back to Mountain View in 1932.

Between 1909 and 1913, the Hāmākua Division of the railroad was constructed to service the sugar mills north of Hilo. Unfortunately, the cost of building the Hāmākua extension essentially destroyed the Hilo Railroad, which was sold in 1916 and reorganized as the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway.

Targeting tourists to augment local passenger and raw sugar transport, the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway ran sightseeing specials under the name “Scenic Express.”

Not for the faint of heart, these trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

The Great Depression saw a decrease in business, but business picked up in the 1940s, when thousands of battle-weary troops packed the passenger cars en route to Camp Tarawa, in Waimea, to rest, recuperate and prepare for another campaign.

But the end was near for the Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway. Early in the morning of April 1, 1946, a massive tsunami struck Hawaiʻi. The railroad line between Hilo and Paʻauilo suffered massive damage; bridges collapsed, trestles tumbled and one engine was literally swept off the tracks.

The expensive option of rebuilding the railway was rejected. Hawaiʻi Consolidated offered the rights-of-way, tracks and remaining bridges, trestles and tunnels to the Territory of Hawaiʻi, but the offer was refused, and finally the company sold the entire works to the Gilmore Steel and Supply Company.

Shortly thereafter, realizing its error, the Territory bought it all back.  Much of the current highway along the coast follows the route of the old railroad; five original railroad trestles have been converted into highway bridges.  (This route averaged better than one bridge per mile over its 40-mile length.)

At the time of the tsunami, plantations were already phasing out rail in favor of trucking cane from the field to the mill. It was inevitable that trucking would also replace rail as the primary means of transporting sugar to the harbor. The tsunami accelerated that transition.

Most sugar from Hāmākua was trucked to Hilo Harbor, although the Hāmākua Sugar Company continued to use its offshore cable landing at Honokaʻa until 1948.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. Hawaiʻi Consolidated’s yards were in the Waiākea district of Hilo, where the roundhouse still stands today, next to the county swimming pool on Kalanikoa Street.

In Laupāhoehoe, a concrete platform remains where Hula dancers once performed for tourists. And the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is housed in the former home of Mr. Stanley, the superintendent of maintenance.

Today, the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum and Visitors Center keeps the memory of Hawaiʻi Consolidated Railway alive.  Although the Laupāhoehoe Train Museum is among the state’s smallest museums, it attracts an estimated 5,000 visitors a year. The admission fee is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors, and $2 for students. Special rates for tours are also offered.

The museum is open weekdays from 9 am to 4:30 pm and on weekends from 10 am to 2 pm. The address is 36-2377 Māmalahoa Highway, Laupāhoehoe, Hawaiʻi 96764.  (Lots of information here for Laupāhoehoe Train Museum and Ian Birnie.)

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

“The Prophet”

The headline in the October 24, 1868 Pacific Commercial Advertiser boldly stated “Insurrection on Hawaiʻi.”

“For several years past, one (Joseph Ioela) Kaʻona … imbibed the idea that he was a prophet sent by God to warn this people of the end of the world. For the three years he has been preaching this millerite doctrine on Hawaiʻi, and has made numerous converts.”    (PCA, October 24, 1868)

Kaʻona was born and brought up in Kainaliu, Kona on the island of Hawaiʻi. He received his education at the Hilo Boarding School and graduated from Lahainaluna on Maui.

Following the Māhele, Kaʻona was employed surveying kuleana (property, titles, claims) in Kaʻū and Oʻahu. He was well-educated and was later employed as a magistrate, both in Honolulu and in Lāhainā. (Greenwell)

Then, he felt possessed with miraculous powers.

“By the mid-1860s, Kaʻona claimed to have had divine communications with Elijah, Gabriel, and Jehovah, from whom he’d received divine instructions and prophetic.”  (Maly)  Followers called him ‘The Prophet;’ his followers were referred to as Kaʻonaites.)

“Some months ago he was arrested and sent to the Insane Asylum in this city as a lunatic, but the physician decided that he was as sane as any man, and he was therefore set at liberty again.”  (PCA, October 24, 1868)

“He returned to Kona, and the number of his followers rapidly increased, till now it is over three hundred. They are mostly natives, but some are probably foreigners, as we received a letter a few weeks ago from one of them ….”

“These fanatics believe that the end of the world is at hand, and they must be ready. They therefore clothe themselves in white robes, ready to ascend, watch at night, but sleep during the day, decline to cultivate anything except beans, corn, or the most common food.”

“They live together in one colony, and have selected a tract of land about half way between Kealakekua Bay and Kailua, which the prophet told them was the only land that would not be overrun with lava, while all the rest of the island is to be destroyed.”  (PCA, October 24, 1868)

“Kaʻona was received by (Reverend John Davis) Paris and congregation at Lanakila Church, and he once again drew many people to him with his powerful doctrine. But his claims of prophetic visions, unorthodox methods of teaching, questionable morality, soon caused the larger congregations from Kailua to Kealakekua to become suspicious of his intentions.”  (Maly)

“Some three years ago, the neat little church at Kainaliu was built, by subscription …. Paris, the Pastor preached on certain Sundays, and Kaʻona … one of the Lunas, would preach on others.”

“For a time, all went on smoothly enough, until Kaʻona began to introduce some slight innovations in the form of worship, which were opposed by Mr. Paris and minority of the congregation and the church became split into two factions. … The feud continued to increase …” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 18, 1868)”

When asked to leave Lanakila Church, Kaʻona and his followers refused, Governess Keʻelikōlani was forced to intercede and called upon local sheriff Richard B. Neville.  In September 1867, Kaʻona and followers vacated Lanakila, and moved to an area below the church.  (Maly)

The Kaʻonaites settled on the kula and coastal lands at Lehuʻula, south of Keauhou (near present-day Hokuliʻa.)  “There they built a number of grass houses, erected a flag, and held their  meetings, religious and political … he and his adherents were claiming, cultivating and appropriating to themselves the products of the lands leased and owned by others….”  (Paris; Maly)

Neville was sent to evict them from there.

Kaʻona was arrested and returned to O‘ahu for a short time, but by March 1868, he, again, returned to Kona.

On April 2, 1868, a destructive earthquake shook the island, causing significant damage and tidal waves, and numerous deaths (the estimated 7.9 magnitude quake was the strongest to hit the Islands.)

Kaʻona described it as the final days.

“(The Kaʻonaites) have taken oath, that they will all be killed before they surrender. I am ready to start from here at any time, with quite a company of men. If we hear that there is need for more help. We are badly off for good firearms here.”

“Kaʻona’s party have threatened to burn all the houses in Kona & to take life. It may not be as bad as it is represented”.  (Governor Lyman of Interior Minister Hutchinson, October 25, 1868; Maly)

On October 19, Sheriff Neville, his deputy and policemen, approached Kaʻona once again to evict them, and Kaʻona encouraged his followers to fight. A riot took place.

“Neville was felled from his horse by a stone, which struck him on the head … (an assistant) tried to get Neville, but the stones were too many, and so he fled likewise, and was pursued ….” (Hawaiian Gazette, June 23, 1869)  Neville and another were both brutally killed.  The event has been referred to as Kaʻona’s Rebellion, Kaʻona Insurrection and Kaʻona Uprising.

Kaʻona eventually surrendered; he and sixty-six of his followers were arrested, and another 222 were released after a short detention.  Kaʻona was returned to O‘ahu, convicted and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

But in 1874, shortly after David Kalākaua (he and Albert Francis Judd had been appointed Kaʻona’s defense attorneys in 1868) became King, he pardoned Kaʻona. By 1878, Kaʻona had once again taken up residence at Kainaliu vicinity, and undertook work with the poor.  Kaʻona died in 1883.  (Maly)

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Grand Old Man of the Pacific

“The grand old man of the Pacific,” “the dean of American shipping,” and “self-made shipping magnate” are a few of the phrases often used in reference to Captain Robert Dollar.  (Museum of History and Industry)

Robert Dollar was born at Falkirk in Scotland in 1844. At the age of 13, in 1857, he emigrated to Canada with his family and soon began working in a lumber camp as a cook’s helper.

Dollar used his time at the lumber camp to learn French and to learn how to keep the camp’s accounts. By the age of 22 he was placed in charge of the lumber camp, and in 1872 he was able to purchase his own lumber camp.

 Though his first venture was a failure, Dollar persevered and achieved great success in the lumber business, first in Canada, then in Michigan, and finally in northern California. There, in 1888 at San Rafael, Robert Dollar settled with his wife Margaret Proudfoot, whom he had married in 1874.

From his base in San Rafael, Dollar began buying lumber tracts and camps up the coast to Oregon and as far north as British Columbia. In 1895 Dollar purchased a steam schooner to transport his lumber down the Pacific coast to San Francisco. And so began his second career as a shipping magnate. (Takao Club)

But 1888 had actually been the momentous year for Robert Dollar, Scottish emigrant and owner-operator of a redwood lumber mill at Usual in northern California. Disturbed with the exorbitant tariffs charged by marine carrier that transported his forest yield, this shrewd lumberman decided that the answer lay in owning his own vessel.

Fitting action to thought, Dollar purchased the 218 gross ton steam schooner Newsboy April 19. 1895. The Newsboy paid for itself in less than one year, appealing to the Scotch in a man who was to become one of America’s “Fifty Greatest Business Men.”

“If one tupenny could be so profitable,” he reflected, “why not buy more vessels?” Dollar again dovetailed idea with deed, to start what became the famous Dollar Steamship Lines.

Launching of the Grace Dollar, on May 7, 1898, marked Robert Dollar’s entry into the world of trans-Pacific ships and one year later the canny businessman followed the Grace with the 199 foot Robert Dollar.

Ship followed ship, vessels of wood then steel, each larger and more modern than their predecessors. Within a decade Captain Dollar had the nucleous or a substantial fleet of ocean going sailing vessels and steamers, most carrying family names and all operating under the Robert Dollar Company’s house flag. (Saga, Scott)

At its height in the 1920s, the Dollar Steamship Company was the largest and most successful United States shipping firm, and its signature white dollar sign mounted on red-banded stacks was known around the world.

In the early 1920s, Dollar began a successful strategy of buying shares in his competitors in order to achieve controlling interests. His influence and accomplishments continued to grow.

In 1920 he established a round-the-world cargo service, and in 1924 he established the first round-the-world passenger service to publish scheduled departure and arrival times. (Peaceful Sea)

 In 1925 the Dollar Steamship Company took over its chief competitor, Pacific Mail, which gave it a near-monopolistic share of U.S. Pacific coast shipping.

The late 1920s would turn out to be the peak of Dollar’s shipping fortunes. The Merchant Marine Act of 1928 established generous subsidies for carrying mail. The Act, however, had strict performance requirements and Dollar would need new ships.

The company began an ambitious plan of building six luxurious ocean liners. Before the first ships rolled off the line, the onset of the Great Depression sent the global economy into chaos. Only two of the ships would be completed, the President Hoover and the President Coolidge, which famously set out on their respective maiden voyages at less than half capacity.  (Peaceful Sea)

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected the Dollar Steamship Line (renamed that same year), and though the ships were luxurious and state-of-the-art rivaling the best hotels of the era, the ships only carried half their capacity.

On May 16, 1932, Robert Dollar died at the age of 88, and though his son Robert Stanley Dollar took over their shipping business, the company began a steady decline. (Calisphere)

The US Maritime Commission’s mounted pressure on the Dollar Steamship Lines to turn over controlling stock in the company to the Commission upon threat of enforced bankruptcy.

The Maritime Commission accused the old captain’s heirs of using the holding companies to set up a “milking system” to pay themselves fat salaries while the line was drained of its assets. In addition, the line owed the Government $7,500,000, and $2,000,000 to other creditors. Its net current liabilities exceeded assets in 1938 by $46,367.

With the rocks of bankruptcy dead ahead, Stanley Dollar turned 93% of the voting common stock over to the Maritime Commission and bowed out. No cash consideration was involved, but in return, Dollar was absolved of personal liability for the line’s debts.

The Government changed the company’s name to American President Lines, Ltd., ran the line as a US-supervised private corporation, and pulled it off the rocks within a year.

After pouring in $4,500,000 to slick up the ships, the Government cashed in on the wartime shipping boom. By 1943 the line was able to pay off both the new financing and the $7,500,000 Dollar Line debt, most of it, says American President, out of earnings.

By war’s end the Maritime Commission had done so well that buyers became interested. In 1945 a syndicate headed by Charles U Bay, now Ambassador to Norway, bid the flattering sum of $8,600,000. But Stanley Dollar, who had been enviously watching the line’s balance sheets throughout the war, had different ideas.

Even though the Government’s profitable operation was paying $5 a share on the preferred stock, the majority of which is held by the Dollar family ($1,369,720 has been paid out, in all, under Government operation), that was not enough.

Dollar filed suit and stopped the sale. His claim: the Maritime Commission did not own the line. Dollar said that when he transferred the controlling stock to the Maritime Commission in 1938, he did not transfer title.

He had merely posted the stock as collateral for the debt that had now been paid off. Thus, APL belonged to him, Dollar argued, and the Government should hand it back.

The commission countered that Dollar had described himself in writing as “former owner” of the line and, in fact, had written off the stock as a capital loss on his income-tax return.

The commission won the first round in federal district court in Washington, which ruled that Dollar had sold his company.

So the commission confidently continued to build up the line, acquired virtually a new fleet of ships, including two 23,515-ton passenger liners, the President Cleveland and President Wilson.

Under President George Killion, onetime chain-store executive and former treasurer of the Democratic Party, the line’s operations were streamlined and costs cut. 1949’s profit after taxes: $2,517,989.

But in July 1950 the commission got another rude shock; the circuit court of appeals upheld Dollar.  Later, the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case, thus, in effect, ruling that the line should be handed back to Dollar.  (Time)

Dollar settled with the commission. Rather than the Dollar family taking back the company, it was sold to a group of investors led by Ralph K. Davies for $18.3 million.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaʻahumanu’s Coffin

While on a trip to the continent, Queen Kamāmalu (age 22) died on July 8, 1824; King Kamehameha II (Liholiho, age 27) died six days later on July 14, 1824.  (Prior to his death he asked to return and be buried in Hawai‘i.)

Upon their arrival in Hawai‘i, in consultation between the Kuhina Nui (former Queen Kaʻahumanu) and other high chiefs, and telling them about Westminster Abbey and the underground burial crypts they had seen there, it was decided to build a mausoleum building.

In 1825, Pohukaina (translated as “Pohu-ka-ʻāina” (the land is quiet and calm)) was constructed on what is now the grounds of ʻIolani Palace to house the remains of Kamehameha II (Liholiho) and Queen Kamāmalu.

The mausoleum was a small 18 x 24-foot Western style structure made of white-washed coral blocks with a thatched roof; it had no windows.   Kamehameha II and Queen Kamāmalu were buried on August 23, 1825.

About this same time, April 25, 1825, Richard Charlton arrived in the Islands to serve as the first British consul. He had been in London during Kamehameha II’s visit in 1824.

Nearly 10-years later, in 1832, Kaʻahumanu died; her death took place at ten minutes past 3 o’clock on the morning of June 5, “after an illness of about 3 weeks in which she exhibited her unabated attachment to the Christian teachers and reliance on Christ, her Saviour.”  (Hiram Bingham)

The Kaʻahumanu services were performed by Bingham.  After the sermon in Hawaiian, he addressed the foreigners present and the mission family.  After the close of the services, the procession was again formed and walked to Pohukaina, where the body was deposited, with the remains of others in the Royal family.  (The Friend, June 1932)

The above helps set the stage for subsequent events that happened there.

Nearly 10-years later, in 1840, Charlton made a claim for several parcels of land in Honolulu.   At the time the lease was made, Kaʻahumanu was Kuhina Nui and only she and the king could make such grants.  The land was Kaʻahumanu’s in the first place, and Kalanimoku certainly could not give it away.  (Hawaiʻi State Archives)  The dispute dragged on for years.

This, and other grievances purported by Charlton and the British community in Hawai‘i, led to the landing of George Paulet on February 11, 1843.

He noted in a letter to the King, “I have the honor to notify you that Her Britannic Majesty’s ship Carysfort, under my command, will be prepared to make an immediate attack upon this town at 4 pm tomorrow (Saturday) in the event of the demands now forwarded by me to the King of these islands not being complied with by this time.”

On February 25, the King acceded to his demands.  Under the terms of the new government the King and his advisers continued to administer the affairs of the Hawaiian population.

It soon became clear that Paulet had no intention of limiting his rule to the affairs of foreigners.  New taxes were imposed, liquor laws were relaxed.   Paulet refused to restore the old laws.  After raising multiple objections to the actions by Paulet, Judd resigned from the commission on May 11.  (Daws)

Fearing that Paulet would seize some of the archives and other national records, Gerrit P Judd took them from the government house, and secretly placed them in the royal tomb at Pohukaina.  He used the mausoleum as his office.

By candlelight, using the coffin of Kaʻahumanu for a table, Judd prepared appeals to London and Washington to free Hawaiʻi from the illegal rule of Paulet.

Dispatches were sent off in canoes from distant points of the island; and once, when the king’s signature was required, he came down in a schooner and landed at Waikīkī, read and signed the prepared documents, and was on his way back across the channel, while Paulet was dining and having a pleasant time with his friends.  (Laura F Judd)

For about five months the islands were under the rule of the British commission set up by Lord George Paulet.  Queen Victoria, on learning these activities, immediately sent an envoy to the islands to restore sovereignty to its rightful rulers.  Finally, Admiral Richard Thomas arrived in the Islands on July 26, 1843 to restore the kingdom to Kamehameha III.

Then, on July 31, 1843, Thomas declared the end of the Provisional Cession and recognizes Kamehameha III as King of the Hawaiian Islands and the Islands to be independent and sovereign; the Hawaiian flag was raised.  This event is referred to as Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day, and it is celebrated each year in the approximate site of the 1843 ceremonies, Thomas Square.

Nearly 20-years later, Pohukaina was the final resting place for the Hawaiʻi’s Kings and Queens, and important chiefs of the kingdom.  Reportedly, in 1858, Kamehameha IV brought over the ancestral remains of other Aliʻi – coffins and even earlier grave material – out of their original burial caves, and they are buried in Pohukaina.

In 1865, the remains of 21-Ali‘i were removed from Pohukaina and transferred in a torchlight procession at night to Mauna ‘Ala, a new Royal Mausoleum in Nu‘uanu Valley.  In a speech delivered on the occasion of the laying of the Cornerstone of The Royal Palace (ʻIolani Palace,) Honolulu, in 1879, JH Kapena, Minister of Foreign Relations, said:

“Doubtless the memory is yet green of that never-to-be-forgotten night when the remains of the departed chiefs were removed to the Royal Mausoleum in the valley.”

“Perhaps the world had never witnessed a procession more weird and solemn than that which conveyed the bodies of the chiefs through our streets, accompanied on each side by thousands of people until the mausoleum was reached, the entire scene and procession being lighted by large kukui torches, while the midnight darkness brought in striking relief the coffins on their biers.”

“Earth has not seen a more solemn procession what when, in the darkness of the night, the bodies of these chieftains were carried through the streets”.  (Hawaiian Gazette, January 14, 1880)

In order that the location of Pohukaina not be forgotten, a mound was raised to mark the spot.  After being overgrown for many years, the Hawaiian Historical Society passed a resolution in 1930 requesting Governor Lawrence Judd to memorialize the site with the construction of a metal fence enclosure and a plaque.

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Room 120

Amasa Leland Stanford was born and grew up in New York; he was a lawyer.  Stanford married Jane Eliza Lathrop on September 30, 1850; they first lived in Port Washington, Wisconsin, then New York, and then they moved West after the gold rush, like many of his wealthy contemporaries.

Stanford made his fortune in the railroads; he co-founded and was president of the Central Pacific Railroad (it formed part of the “First Transcontinental Railroad” in North America; It is now part of the Union Pacific Railroad.) He served as California Governor and US Senator.

In 1868, the Stanfords had their only child, a son, Leland DeWitt Stanford (later known as Leland Stanford Jr.)  In 1876, Stanford purchased the Rancho San Francisquito for a country home and began the development of his famous Palo Alto Stock Farm.

Tragically, in 1884, while travelling in Italy, young Leland died of typhoid fever (2-months before his 16th birthday.)

Within weeks of his death, the Stanfords decided that, because they no longer could do anything for their own child, “the children of California shall be our children.” They quickly set out to find a lasting legacy to memorialize their beloved son.

Ultimately, they decided to establish two institutions in Leland Jr’s name.  The ‘Leland Stanford Junior University’ was founded in 1885; on October 1, 1891, it opened its doors with 15 faculty and more than 400 students (David Starr Jordan served as president.)  The Leland Stanford Junior Museum opened in 1894.

They were built on the 8,000-acre Palo Alto Farm; a provision in the school’s founding grant stipulated that the land could never be sold.  The campus still carries the nickname ‘the Farm,’ it is more commonly called, ‘Stanford.’

The university was coeducational, in a time when most were all-male; non-denominational, when most were associated with a religious organization; and avowedly practical.

The Founding Grant states the university’s objective is “to qualify its students for personal success, and direct usefulness in life” and its purpose “to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization.”

On June 21, 1893, Leland Stanford died at his Palo Alto home at the age of 69.  For a decade following her husband’s death, Jane Stanford was the sole trustee of the University; she doted on the fledgling institution with “the commanding meddlesome love which an unbridled maternal instinct thrusts upon an only child.”  (Wolfe)

Jane involved herself in Stanford’s daily management, corresponding with Jordan on every operational matter. When she disapproved of a faculty member, she told Jordan to oust him. And when she began to second-guess some of Jordan’s decisions, she found a faculty confidant, German professor Julius Goebel, to keep a paper trail on him.  (Wolfe)

On June 1, 1903, Jane granted control of the university’s endowment and management to the Board of Trustees, although she remained a member of the board and continued to be involved in its operation.

By 1904, it appears that Mrs Stanford had lost her toleration for Jordan. In June, Goebel had reported in a letter to her that Jordan’s favoritism and political patronage were endangering faculty recruitment. In a letter to trustee Horace Davis, who was another in her inner circle, Goebel wrote that she had reached the point of “final remedy … the removal of the President.”  (Wolfe)

Then a small story appeared in a couple out-of-town papers, reporting on a January 14, 1905 incident, “… private detectives are working on an alleged attempt to murder Mrs Jane Stanford … in her home here, by placing poison in mineral water.”

“The contents vomited from the stomach and found in the water were analyzed and showed sufficient poison to kill a dozen people.”  (Spokane Press, February 18, 1905.)

Of the incident, Mrs Stanford said: “How dreadful if I had died that time. People might have thought I committed suicide.”  (The San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)  Following the incident, she planned a trip.

“If I am not to stay in my San Francisco home, and as the wet season is coming on, rendering it inadvisable for me to go to my country residence, I prefer to go to Honolulu, as it is warmer there.” (Jane Stanford; San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)

“Mrs Stanford arrived in Honolulu … accompanied by her maid and her secretary (Bertha Berner,) and went at once to the Moana, announcing that she had come here to rest for a few weeks.”

“She seemed, however, very cheerful and received the many friends who called on her in that spirit, although to one at least of the more intimate ones she threw aside her cheerfulness and spoke of the fears that beset her (the prior poisoning attempt.)”

“Mrs Stanford went on a drive to the Pali, and down into Koʻolau, where the party had a picnic dinner. Mrs Stanford ate very heartily, and seemed to enjoy every moment of the drive. The party returned to the Moana hotel, and at dinner time Mrs Stanford went into the dining room.”

“She did not remain more than three minutes, but made no complaint of feeling ill. In fact, she said that she felt remarkably well. … Leaving the dining room, Mrs Stanford sat on the lanai talking very cheerfully until bed, time. At a little after ten o’clock … she went to her room on the second floor of the hotel, and retired.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 1, 1905)

“After Mrs. Stanford retired on February 28 I was aroused from my sleep by hearing my name called. I recognized Mrs Stanford’s voice calling out: “Bertha – May – l am so sick.’“

“We rushed out and found her clinging to the frame of her door. Mrs Stanford said: ‘Bertha, run for a doctor.’  Mrs Stanford walked two steps and then said: ‘Bertha, I am so sick.’“  (Bertha Berner; San Francisco Call, March 7, 1905)

Doctors were called; but Jane Lathrop Stanford died in room 120 of the Moana Hotel on February 28, 1905.  (The room numbering system has changed at the Moana Hotel; her room is still used in the hotel pool.)

After a 3-day Coroner inquisition, a unanimous verdict in less than two minutes was returned, “The Coroner’s jury to-night returned a verdict that Mrs Jane L Stanford died from … strychnine poisoning, the poison having been introduced into a bottle of bicarbonate of soda with felonious intent by some person or persons to the jury unknown.”  (San Francisco Call, March 10, 1905)

Dr Robert WP Cutter wrote a book, ‘The Mysterious Death of Jane Stanford,’ wherein he implies that Stanford’s President at the time, David Starr Jordan, was involved in a cover-up of the circumstances surrounding Mrs Stanford’s death.

Immediately following her death, Jordan was en route to Honolulu.  Jordan and Timothy Hopkins, Stanford Trustee, stated, “In our judgment, after careful consideration of all facts brought to our knowledge, we are fully convinced that Mrs Stanford’s death was not due to strychnine poisoning nor to intentional wrong doing on the part of any one.”  (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 16, 1905)

“We think it probable that her death was due to a combination of conditions and circumstances.  Among these we may note in connection with her advanced age, the unaccustomed exertion, a surfeit of unsuitable food and the unusual exposure on the picnic party of the day in question.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 16, 1905)

Jordan also said, “Dr Humphris (the hotel Doctor) and his associates don’t know what they are talking about.”  (Evening Bulletin, March 15, 1905) And later said, “Mrs. Stanford died a natural death in Honolulu”.  (Hawaiian Gazette, January 2, 1906)

However, Honolulu papers suggested a bribe, “Hopkins interviewed the physicians and told them that if things were satisfactory, their bills would be paid at once.”

“In different interviews it was plainly shown that it would be satisfactory … if the physicians could arrange to revise their findings and agree that poison had nothing to do with the tragedy, and, in that event the amount of the bills would not be questioned, but it happened that not one of the medical men could or would change what he had said In the first place.”  (Hawaiian Star, August 23, 1905)

The Stanford website, in telling the life story of Jane Stanford notes, while “Trace amounts of strychnine were found in her body and in her bottle of bicarbonate … Her cause of death was never conclusively determined.”  (Lots of information here from Stanford.)

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