Place Names | Page 100 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 6, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Rail’s Impact

“The science of transportation, as demonstrated by the railroad and steamboat promoters of this age, has been clearly shown to be the principle upon which the astounding commercial progress of the United States is founded.”

“The vast trans-continental systems, with their ramifications, have carried millions of people from Europe and the Atlantic states into the unbroken west, tapped the treasures of mine, forest and farm, developed a hundred industries where none was known twenty-five years ago, built cities and added to the nation’s wealth a hundred fold.”

“Within the past year Hawaii has started in the footsteps of America by projecting a railroad around the island of Oahu, and actually perfecting, within the period from April 1st, 1889, to January 1st, 1890 …”

“… a well equipped railroad in running order, extending from Honolulu along the southern shore of the island to a temporary terminus at Ewa Court House, a distance of twelve miles.”

“It was five years ago that Mr BF Dillingham advanced the idea of building a steam railroad that should carry freight and passengers, and conduct business on the most improved American methods.”

“A hundred men told him his scheme was infeasible where one offered encouragement. He believed he was right, and so put forth every endeavor to secure a franchise, which was granted to him only after vigorous legislative opposition to the measure.”

“Chief among the ends secured by facilitating the shipment of produce from the interior to the seaboard is the conjunction of ship and car, a principle that Mr. Dillingham had in view when he launched his railroad venture. This project, involving the construction of a wharf from the present railroad terminus at Iwelei to deep water in Honolulu harbor, is being carried out.”

“Only three or four cities in the United States claim this superior arrangement for rapid and economic transfer of freight, and it certainly becomes a progressive movement on the part of Honolulu when our railroad cars bring sugar, bananas and rice from plantations on the northwest side of the island directly to ship’s tackles.”

“Its usefulness will be appreciated when, in 1892, the first crop of Ewa Plantation will, with only a nominal cost of handling, be placed in the hold of out-bound packets.”

“Banana and rice planters along the line of the railroad will not be slow to avail themselves of the shipping advantages provided by the meeting of ship and car. Bananas can be cut from the plant on the morning a vessel sails, and will arrive in the California market in a much better condition than those heretofore transported by horse and mule back from the interior.”

“Hawaiian rice, which commands a higher price in American markets than the South Carolina product, can be placed in San Francisco at a lower figure than formerly.”

“While the banana and rice traffic will be stimulated to a greater extent here than in any other country on the globe, the advantage given to sugar, the staple commodity of the Kingdom, will be heightened to an extraordinary degree.”

“In no other country have we the spectacle of sugar being taken from the mill directly to ship’s tackles. In Manila, Jamaica and Cuba, and even in Louisiana and Mississippi, the process of transportation is slow, laborious and expensive, reducing the profits of the planter to a minimum.”

“Market gardening, dairying and the raising of poultry can be made lucrative to the industrious, while fruit culture, embracing a large variety of products, offers other liberal inducements.”

“Along the line of the railroad there are now 7,500 acres in rice, yielding 10,000 tons annually, and 150 acres in bananas, yielding 100,000 bunches annually, and besides these prolific plantations there are, in close proximity to the several stations, thousands of mellow acres untouched, capable of bearing all the multifarious fruits and flowers of the tropics.”

“Repeated successes in the past give some assurance that the railroad will succeed in this laudable project. … The Oahu Railway & Land Company are nothing if not progressive.”

“It is difficult at this stage of the corporation’s history to convey an idea of what will be accomplished at the close of the year 1890.”

“The projection of branch roads, the importation of locomotives and cars, the improvements around Pearl Harbor and the track laying beyond Ewa are circumstances of the present that indicate preparations for an enormous business.”

“The branches or spurs now under way are, one extending into the Palama suburb, having its terminus at a stone quarry, and the other is a line running along the peninsula at Pearl City.”

“The enterprise shown by the Oahu Railway and Land Company from the very commencement of its great undertaking, and in every branch of its service, is worthy of special note and commendation.”

“Every month witnesses the opening of some new plan, or the completion of some noteworthy object, in which all will be more or less interested.”

“Of what may be termed the Pearl Harbor Section of the Oahu Railway there will be sixteen miles of track from the city to the mill of the Ewa Plantation, located near the shores of the west loch of the lagoon.”

“Of this, twelve miles are completed and in excellent order to Pearl City Depot, improving, however, with each month’s service and use by daily freight and passenger trains, and with the additional ballasting which the road receives from time to time, wherever and whenever wanted.”

“At each station convenient buildings have been erected, with two good depots at Honolulu and Pearl City. A commodious turn-table building has been erected near the Honolulu Depot, where the engines may be housed when not in use, and another smaller one at Pearl City.”

The freight business of the read is increasing with each new enterprise, that is being developed at or near the present western terminus.”

“And it is also a noticeable fact that business along the line of road between Honolulu and Ewa has already received a stimulus that is helping to increase the passenger and freight traffic and to develop the resources of those fertile plains.” (Whitney; Tourist Guide, 1890)

And their attitude/outcome in 1890? … “From what we have learned from all sources we have greater faith than ever in the success of … the Oahu Railway and Land Company”. (Whitney; Tourist Guide, 1890)

Rail about 130 years ago; what about today (you can include SuperFerry in those thoughts, as well)? Back then, private enterprise “came forward at the right time and purchased enough stock and bonds to set the enterprise on foot.” And today …

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OR&L Railroad Station 1890

OR&L Station

OR&L Alakea Street Honolulu

pulls into the Honolulu Depot to pick up and dispatch passengers. Photo taken in 1890.

OR&L Honolulu Depot-1901

OR&L Honolulu Depot-1914

OR&L_Waianae

Railroad along Pearl Harbor-1890

Train turning into Fort Kamehameha, Oahu, 1923

Waianae Train Station

OR&L Steam Locomotive-Leahi

January 3, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘In Celestial Slums’

“A Health Inspection In Chinatown … Cholera’s Breeding Grounds and Fever’s Spawning-Beds Vile Sights and Smells Abound” as reported in the Hawaiian Star in 1893 …

“This morning a Star reporter accompanied Health Officer McVeigh on his daily trip through Chinatown. The Board of Health has been insisting on the observance of sanitary regulations as laid down in the Code, and of late, has been making raids on Chinese who were not obeying them.”

“‘Now the first place I will take you to is the public washhouse,’ said the officer. ‘Here is the worst cholera breeder there is in this city. Look through the cracks in this floor.’ The reporter looked through and saw a mass of green mud which the tide could not wash away.”

“‘We are expecting to get a new washhouse soon,’ said the officer, ‘but as it is now we are doing the best we can. The Board is looking for ways and means to erect a structure near the new market at the foot of Alakea street. But the way affairs are now only about half the laundrymen use this place as we have no room for any more.’”

“The stench that arises from under and around this washhouse is something terrible and the waters of the Nu‘uanu stream seem to have no effect upon the mass of slops that falls through the floor cracks into it.”

“The next place visited was Leleo Lane, just off King street, near the washhouse. Although the Health officer visits these pest holes every day, it is almost impossible to get the Chinese, (Japanese) and natives who live in them to recognize in the least any necessity for cleanliness.”

“Over sixty eight new cesspools have been built in the last few months and hundreds of ventilator pipes erected where there were none before, but it doesn’t half fill the bill.”

“Decayed poi, the sewage from outhouses and the slops thrown out by inmates have made the places underneath some of these tenements simply unbearable. These places are chiefly owned by Akana, a Chinaman.”

“The next place visited was the notorious ‘Bay View’ resort. This property, until lately overhauled by the health officers, was in a disgusting state. It is under lease to a Chinese procurer named Sam Kow.”

“Kekaulike street is another offshoot from King street and is environed by some of the broken down Chinese tenements, the yards of which smell to heaven.”

“The microbes and bacteria could be caught floating around in the air, while the effluvia was loathsome. These tenements are owned by Low Chung, of the Wing Wo Tai Co.”

“Coming through on Maunakea street the eye, as well as the nose, is assailed by the most loathsome sights and smells. The wash houses and vegetable shops are rivals as to which can emit the foulest odors. This property is owned by JF Colburn.”

“When the officer went into a tenement the other day in this locality, he ran across a trap and opened it and found a cesspool. Lighting a match he threw it into the pool when an explosion took place and blue flames mounted to the roof.”

“There are some exceptions to the rule of poor buildings in this place for ES Cunha is putting up on Maunakea street a one story brick block, with plenty of drains and cesspools, and he thinks it will pay better than the old ramshackle buildings that are around him.”

“Kikihale district was next taken in by the officer. This is the resort of the worst of Honolulu’s submerged classes.”

“Depraved native women without pretention of moral or physical cleanliness are lying about in one-story whitewashed tenements, disputing possession with the mangy curs that flock around them.”

“The outhouses are in the customary Cape Horn condition and the officer warns the occupants to use ‘more lime,’ which he forces them to have continually on hand. Ching Wa of the Sing Chong Co. is the principal owner of tenements in this district.”

“On the corner of Smith and Pauahi streets there are a lot of dives that have got to be watched continually by the officer. They are owned by Ho Sam, a wealthy rice planter at ‘Ewa, and A Aio, a Chinese merchant.”

“The officer was now approaching the sacred precincts of Kaumakapili Church, and quite within its shadow, descending a few steps near Nu‘uanu stream, off Beretania street, he presented to the reporter an opium den in full blast.”

“Officer McVeigh had evidently intended this as his last scene. Here were fully thirty Chinamen and natives sucking away at the demon pipe right in the shadow of Kaumakapili!”

“Near this place, seated on the ground, was an emaciated Chinaman in the last stages of berri berri, swollen beyond recognition.”

“This ended the journey for this day.” (Hawaiian Star, May 27, 1893)

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Honolulu-Chinatown-1893

December 29, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nu Kaliponi

“During the pre-contact and early contact periods, Kula was primarily an area for farming. Dryland taro patches grew in elevations up to 3,000 feet.”

“Farmers were reliant on growth of sweet potatoes and when crops failed due to caterpillars, blight, frost or sun, people in Makawao and Kula suffered from famine.”

“The arrival of whalers in the 1840s stimulated great demand for Irish and sweet potatoes. Potatoes were taken to Lahaina and sold aboard ships.”

“The California gold rush also resulted in great demand from prospectors for potatoes, other vegetables, sugar, molasses and coffee.”

“Farmers were doing so well that many Hawaiians were going into business for themselves, shipping their goods to San Francisco.” (DHHL)

“The call for [potatoes] is loud and pressing, as some vessels bound for California have taken as many as a thousand barrels each. The price is high, and the probability is that the market can not be supplied this autumn.”

“Kula, however, is full of people. Strangers from Wailuku, Hāmākua and Lahaina are there preparing the ground and planting, so that if the demand from California shall be as urgent next spring as it is now the people will reap a rich harvest.”

“They often repeat the saying of a foreigner, who, after having visited the mines of California, came back to Maui quite satisfied, and said to his neighbors at Waikapu, ‘California is yonder in Kula.’”

“‘There is the gold without the fatigue and sickness of the mining country.’ True, true.” (Polynesian, November 24, 1849)

“The foreigner’s remark caught the fancy of the Hawaiians and they were soon referring to Kula as ‘Kalifonia’ or ‘Nu Kalifonia’ (Nu Kaliponi) and working with great diligence to extract the wealth from the rich pay dirt on the slopes of Haleakala. “

“To encourage the spirit of enterprise which had been thus awakened among the native people, the privy council voted to have the government lands in Kula surveyed and divided into small lots of from one to ten acres and offered for sale to the natives at a price of three dollars per acre.”

“Rev. WP Alexander, one of the teachers at Lahainaluna, was employed to do the surveying and arrange the sales, and he devoted six weeks or more to this work in the spring of 1850. Other districts of the kingdom produced potatoes, but in lesser quantities than Kula.”

“The demand for potatoes continued strong all through 1850 and the first half of 1851. In the former year the exports of Irish potatoes amounted to 51,957 barrels, of sweet potatoes, 9,631 barrels.”

“In 1851 Irish potatoes were exported to the amount of 43,923 barrels, sweet potatoes to the amount of 56,717 barrels. Eighteen fifty-one was a year of disasters in California and of drought and depression in Hawaii.”

“The potato trade was the only branch of industry that presented a cheerful aspect, and by the fall of the year the potato boom was over. Mrs. Judd reports that in August the market was over-stocked, and there were no purchasers or ships to take [Hawaiian produce] to California.”

“Irish potatoes rotted in the ground, and onions and other vegetables scarcely paid the expense of digging. This was very discouraging to the agriculturists, who had expected to realize fortunes speedily by turning over the soil.”

“From this time, except for a slight revival in 1853 due to floods in California, the export trade in Irish potatoes rapidly dwindled away, but sweet potatoes continued to be exported in small quantities for many years longer.”

“A report to the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society in 1854 stated that the Hawaiian potato growers in 1849-1851, in their eagerness to gain all they could from the trade, shipped many inferior potatoes to California, and Hawaiian potatoes thereby got a bad reputation.”

“A more important reason for the decline of the Irish potato trade between Hawaii and California was the fact that the Californians began to raise potatoes themselves and in addition received large quantities from the neighboring Oregon territory.” (Kuykendall)

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Upcountry Potatoes-Ag Experiment Stn-1913

December 28, 2018 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Papa Koa Lumber Company

“The marketing of a quantity of koa lumber will prove a noteworthy event in the history of our exports, it is to be regretted that so little is known on the mainland of the commercial woods of these islands.”

“A complete collection of Hawaiian economic woods, is greatly to be desired. In many cases the beauty of their texture is only equalled by their possibilities of utility.”

“Not only are hard woods of beautiful grain, capable of retaining a splendid polish, well represented in Hawaii, but also others whose peculiar properties would make them valuable tor special purposes. Notable among the latter is the wood of the wili-wili tree, whose extreme lightness will no doubt some day find an economic application.”

The ‘ōhi‘a forms the major part of the forest in South Kona and in many places the trees attain good height and fairly large diameter. The ‘ōhia forest extends up to an elevation of about 4,000 feet.

“Above that the character of the forest changes, the ‘ōhi‘a being replaced by koa in fairly pure stand, with less undergrowth. The koa occurs in groves more or less connected, rather than as a dense forest cover.”

The upper part is much rougher than that lower down, but nevertheless there are many pockets and little islands of good soil in the lava in which the koa develops well and reaches good size. Where the soil is scant the trees are short and spreading. (Hawaiian Forester and Agriculturalist, 1905)

Between 1906 and 1919, Papa Koa Lumber Company, owned by Cristel Bolte, was the major supplier of koa lumber for Hawai‘i and the US. (Jenkins)

Bolte was a German national who became a naturalized Hawaiian subject. He was a merchant in the corporation of Grinbanm & Co. and was connected with the Planters’ Labor and Supply Association and a sugar shareholder; “There is hardly any person of property in this country who is not an owner of some sugar stocks.”

Bolte leased about 600-acres of koa forest lands in Papa, South Kona, and in 1906 he negotiated a contract to supply koa logs to the American-Hawaiian Mahogany Company in Petaluma, California. He shipped 30,000 feet of unsawed logs to the American-Hawaiian Mahogany Company in the first year of operation.

In 1909, Bolte purchased sawmill equipment on the mainland and entered into a partnership with EH Cant to harvest ‘ōhi‘a in Pahoa. Cant and Bolte, Ltd. had picked up part of the Santa Fe Railroad contract that the Hawaiian Mahogany Lumber Company had. but lost.

By 1914, the once large market for ‘ōhi‘a in the US had all but disappeared and by 1915 Bolte consolidated his lumber business back at Papa, South Kona, now on approximately 1,200 acres.

He added a band saw and forty-two-inch circular saw used for sawing the logs. There was also a machine shop, a complete woodworking shop, a manager’s home, and six to ten workers’ cottages on the site. It was a modern sawmill, employing whatever machinery was practical in the rugged, steep terrain.

Two old lumber wagons with ‘wood wheels’ were also used for hauling lumber down to the Ho‘opuloa Village landing for shipment

Transporting the lumber to the shipping point was as difficult and costly as it had been 100 years earlier. The tortuous roads over the rugged lava were essentially wagon trails, and the lumber vehicles were in constant need of repair.

The company was a major supplier of koa lumber to Honolulu’s largest koa furniture manufacturer, Fong Inn Company. The Papa Koa Lumber Company was in fact the main source of all commercial koa lumber during that time.

Bolte died in April 1919 at the age sixty-five; two of his sons, Ernest and Fred, continued the business as Bolte Brothers Sawmills. In September 1919, only five months after Bolte’s death, Mauna Loa volcano erupted, destroying much of the company’s forest lands, but stopped short of the sawmill.

The lava continued around and past the mill, destroying more forest lands on its way to the sea. The Bolte Brothers continued for two more years, until May 1921 when the Security Trust Company foreclosed on a loan made the year before.

In September, the sawmill and land were sold to neighboring landowner CQ Yee Hop, who also took the name of the defunct Hawaiian Mahogany Lumber Company. The new company then became the major supplier of koa lumber in the territory. (Lots of information here is from Jenkins, Daughters of Hawaii.)

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Papa-Google Earth

December 26, 2018 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kauō

Kauō (Laysan Island) is the second largest land mass in the NWHI (1,015 acres) just behind Sand Island at Midway Atoll. It is about 1 mile wide and 1-1/2 miles long and roughly rectangular in shape (shaped like a poi board).

Laysan Island is a member of the Hawaiian archipelago situated 790 sea miles to the northwest of Honolulu, latitude 25” 2’ 14” N, longitude 170” 44’ 06” W.

The island has a maximum elevation of about 30 feet. A fringing reef surrounds the island protecting its shores from violent wave action. (Baldwin)

Kauō (egg) describes both the shape of this island and, perhaps, the abundant seabirds that nest here. The island also previously harbored five Hawaiian endemic land birds, of which two, the endangered Laysan finch and the endangered Laysan duck, still survive. (PMNM Management Plan)

The Laysan Millerbird, along with the Laysan Rail and Laysan Honeycreeper, went extinct in the early 20th century when Laysan Island was denuded by non-native rabbits. (PMNM)

The island’s easy access and large number of seabirds made it a base for traders of guano (bird droppings used as fertilizer) and feather harvesters in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Although the practices were declared illegal, poachers killed hundreds of thousands of birds and caused dramatic changes in the island’s ecosystem. Remnants of guano piles remain from this era.

Rabbits released in the early 1900s devastated the island’s vegetation. These events caused a public outcry which led to the creation of the Hawaiian Islands Bird Reservation by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. (Dill)

The endangered Laysan duck, is the rarest waterfowl in the Northern hemisphere and has the smallest geographic range of any duck species in the world.

It once lived throughout the Hawaiian Archipelago but vanished from the main Hawaiian Islands with the arrival of rats around 800 years ago. They later disappeared from the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands except for a small population that existed in isolation on Laysan Island for more than 150 years.

In 1911, only 11 ducks were observed on Laysan Island. Today, under present management operations, there are over 707 Laysan ducks – 40 on Kure, 290 on Midway and 377 on Laysan Island. (PMNM)

In addition, approximately two million seabirds nest here, including boobies, frigatebirds, terns, shearwaters, noddies, and the world’s second-largest black-footed and Laysan albatross colonies. (PMNM Management Plan)

Laysan has a large saltwater lagoon occupying about one-fifth of the island’s central depression. It is well vegetated (except for its sand dunes) and contains a hyper-saline lake, which is one of only five natural lakes in the State of Hawai‘i. (PMNM)

Laysan has been protected as a bird reserve since 1909, introduced mammals have been extirpated, and the island has no infrastructure besides a small field camp. (USGS)

“The Hawaiian Islands Reservation was established by Executive order in 1909 to serve as a refuge and breeding place for the millions of sea birds and waders that from time immemorial have resorted there yearly to raise their young or to rest while migrating.”

“In 1909 a party of feather hunters landed on Laysan, one of the twelve islands comprising the reservation, and killed more than 200,000 birds, notably albatrosses, for millinery purposes.”

“Through the prompt cooperation of the Secretary of the Treasury, the revenue cutter Thetis, under the command of Capt. W. V. E. Jacobs, was dispatched to the island and returned to Honolulu in January, 1910, with 23 poachers and their booty, consisting of the plumage of more than a quarter of a million birds.”

“In the spring of 1911 a cooperative arrangement was effected with the University of Iowa … whereby an expedition was sent to Laysan, the largest and most important island of the group, to ascertain the present condition of the bird rookeries and to collect a series of birds for a museum exhibit.” (Wilson & Henshaw, Expedition 1911)

Here’s a link to the Google ‘Street View’ on Laysan Island.

https://goo.gl/63WGFK

While I was Chair at DLNR, we created State Refuge rules whose intent is “To establish a marine refuge in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands for the long-term conservation and protection of the unique coral reef ecosystems and the related marine resources and species, to ensure their conservation and natural character for present and future generations.” Fishing is prohibited.

This started a process where several others followed with similar protective measures. The BLNR unanimously adopted the State’s Refuge rules, President Bush declared it a Marine National Monument and UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site.

Some ask why we imposed such stringent limitations on use in this area. For me, it ended up being pretty simple; it is the responsibility we share to future generations, to allow them to see what it looks like at a place in the world where you don’t take something.

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