Place Names | Page 123 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 27, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Yuimaaru

Yuimaaru is seen when communities support one another, especially in times of need. It is a reminder for all of us to live yuimaaru, in both small and big endeavors and decisions. (Haworth)

Uchinanchu is the term used by Okinawan immigrants and their descendants in Hawai‘i to identify themselves as an ethnic group distinct from the Naichi of Japan’s four main islands. Seven such were …

… Ryoshin Agena (native of Uruma City,) Yasuo Uezu (native of Uruma City,) Shinei Shimabukuro (native of Uruma City,) Yoshio Yamashiro (native of Uruma City,) Genbi Tonaki (native of Nanjo City,) Ushikichi Nakama (native of Itoman City) and Shohei Miyazato (native of the town of Motobu)

They are also referred to as the ‘seven heroes’ – a monument and musical, Umi Kara Buta ga Yatte Kita (Pigs from the Sea,) commemorate them.

Uruma City Mayor Toshio Shimabukuro commented, “We would like to show the bond between Hawai‘i and Uchinanchu to future generations through the monument and the musical performance.” (Ryukyu Shimpo)

Okinawa is located approximately 350 miles south of mainland Japan. It is the largest island in the Ryukyu Island chain, the southernmost prefecture of the then-Japanese Empire.

In WWII, the Pacific campaign started December 7, 1941 after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The campaign crossed all over the Pacific; the Japanese initially had the upper hand in the air and on sea and land.

After almost 4 years of naval, air, and land battles the tide had turned and by March 1945 the campaign had nearly reached its culminating point with American domination of the sea and air. It was now just Japanese territory that needed to be seized before the Japanese would admit defeat.

In a time when an invasion of mainland Japan was necessary to end the war, Okinawa was an essential preparation ground and jumping-off point for the impending invasion. (SSgt Frame)

The bombardment of Okinawa commenced on March 23, 1945 and lasted until the morning of the land invasion (codenamed Operation Iceberg) on April 1.

On June 23, 1945, all major combat operations ended on the island of Okinawa. Over the 3-month battle more than 8- million artillery and mortar rounds were fired, the equivalent of more than 1-round per second.

More than 12,000-American servicemembers were killed and more than 38,000-wounded or missing. The Japanese military lost more than 110,000, but the greatest loss of life by the Okinawan people.

Anywhere from 40,000 to 150,000 of the Okinawans perished during the battle. Even with all the carnage, it was at Okinawa that the largest number of Japanese soldiers were taken prisoner (more than 7,000 – an unprecedented number). (SSgt Frame)

“The ravages of the Pacific War (of WWII) brought disaster and catastrophic damage to the island of Okinawa. Under these harsh conditions, the people of the island were forced to eke out a living, even as they struggled to find food amidst the scorched landscape.”

“An indispensable source of food, Okinawa contained over 100,000 pigs in the prewar period. After the war, this number had plummeted to just 7,731 (according to the Ryukyu Government’s 1946 records), leaving Okinawa in a dire situation.” (Monument Text)

The above named seven Uchinanchu (Okinawan immigrants) stepped forward to help those from their homeland. They raised over $47,000 from Hawai‘i’s Uchinanchu community, purchased 550 pigs in Oregon and took them to Okinawa after World War II.

The ship that they contracted for the journey was called the USS John Owen; it departed for Okinawa on August 31, 1948, and the voyage became a life and death struggle as the ship was assaulted by raging storms and battered by tall waves.

The journey was further delayed by the need to take a roundabout route in order to avoid sea mines left over from the war. By the 3 week mark, the passenger’s water supply and the feed for the pigs was almost completely depleted.

After 28 grueling days at sea, the passengers finally caught sight of the Okinawan islands on September 27. The Owen made landfall on White Beach, in the Katsuren Heshikiya region of Uruma City. (Okinawa-jp)

These pigs helped revive the Okinawan pig farming industry and were a source of nourishment for the Okinawan people, who were starving in the aftermath of the war.

The pigs, which are easy to breed because of their high fertility rate, are believed to have helped ward off starvation and provided a steady food source for many Okinawans. (Japan Times)

This movement which began in Hawai‘i eventually spread to the American mainland and South America, and in time aid began to pour into Okinawa from all across the globe. (Okinawa-jp)

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Hawaii Pigs arriving at Okinawa

7 from Hawaii who brought pigs

Pigs from the Sea-Memorial

Pigs from the Sea Memorial

September 25, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kōloa Landing

Hawaiians along the Kōloa shore were the first to see the white man in Hawaiʻi. It was in 1778, along Kauai’s South Shore, that Captain James Cook first traveled, landed and made “contact”, introducing Hawaiʻi to the rest of the world.

Cook named the archipelago the Sandwich Islands in honor of his patron, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Earl of Sandwich. Cook’s crew first sighted the Hawaiian Islands in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778.

His two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, were kept at bay by the weather until the next day when they approached Kauai’s southeast coast.

On the afternoon of January 19, native Hawaiians in canoes paddled out to meet Cook’s ships, and so began Hawai‘i’s contact with Westerners. The first Hawaiians to greet Cook were from the Kōloa shore.

The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass that were lowered down from Cook’s ships to the Hawaiians’ canoes. Cook continued to sail along the coast searching for a suitable anchorage.

His two ships remained offshore, but a few Hawaiians were allowed to come on board on the morning of January 20, before Cook continued on in search of a safe harbor.

As they stepped ashore for the first time, Cook and his men were greeted by hundreds of Hawaiians who offered gifts of pua‘a (pigs), and mai‘a (bananas) and kapa (tapa) barkcloth.

Cook went ashore at Waimea three times the next day, walking inland to where he saw Hawaiian hale (houses), heiau (sacred places of worship), and agricultural sites.

At the time, the region was thriving with many thatched homes as well as lo‘i kalo (taro patches) and various other food crops such as niu (coconuts) and ‘ulu (breadfruit).

After trading for provisions, gathering water and reading for sail, Cook left the island and continued his search of the “Northwest Passage,” an elusive (because it was non‐existent) route from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean.

From the time of contact, until the end of the century, ships called at Waimea nearly every year for water and provisions. For a time, it was the favored port of call on the island.

However, captains learned that the exposed anchorage at Waimea was dangerous with ‘kona’ winds came up ((south‐westerly, versus the typical north‐easterly tradewinds,) threatening to ground the moored ships.

Ultimately, it was this occasional weather pattern that caused the decline of Waimea as the favored port on the Island of Kauai and the rise of Kōloa Landing to take its place.

Goods and people were transferred by hand and small boat to ships in Hanakaʻape Bay. The cove is at the mouth of the Waikomo (entering water) Stream on Hanakaʻape (headstrong) Bay.

Between about 1810 and 1820, the major item of Hawaiian trade was sandalwood. King Kaumualiʻi held the sandalwood monopoly on Kauai and Niʻihau, Kōloa Landing served as a prominent port of export. Kamehameha I held the monopoly for the rest of the island chain.

Ships calling to Kōloa Landing steadily increased and by 1830 it became widely recognized as the major port on the island. Ships had the ability to maneuver in and out of the anchorage, whatever the wind direction.

Whalers, seeking water and food supplies, called at Kōloa Landing, the Island’s foremost port. Kōloa was a center for agriculture and, as such, became the center of activity for Kauai. The whaling industry was the mainstay of the islands’ economy for about 40 years.

Likewise, Kōloa Landing was situated near a source of good water, near crops grown in the Kōloa field system, close to salt beds and had an abundance of firewood and beef from mauka regions.

In the mid-1800s, Kōloa Landing was the third largest whaling port in all of Hawai‘i (behind Honolulu and Lāhainā) and the only port of entry for foreign goods.

The first commercially‐viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kauai. On July 29, 1835, Ladd & Company obtained a 50‐year lease on nearly 1,000‐acres of land and established a plantation and mill site in Kōloa.

It was to change the face of Kauai (and Hawai‘i) forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of mono-cropping that lasted for over a century. A tribute to this venture is found at the Kōloa Sugar Memorial in Old Kōloa Town,

Traveling salesmen, also known as drummers (‘drumming up business,’) who worked for large mercantile agencies on O‘ahu would arrive at Kōloa Landing after an often rugged ocean trip by steamer and rowboat.

The would take their samples to each plantation camp store and sometimes even fan out from house to house in outlying communities.

Kōloa Landing was the trans‐shipment point from which ships were off‐loaded with mercantile goods and livestock for Kauai, and where trade‐goods, fresh produce and livestock were loaded on ships from Kauai. It was also linked to Kōloa Town, two miles inland, by the purveyor’s cart path (Hapa Road.)

Shipping in and out of Koloa Landing increased until 1912 (up to 60 ships a year anchored there to stock provisions and take on passengers.) However, better facilities became available at Nāwiliwili and Port Allen.

The landing left and Hanakaʻape Bay is now a popular dive site, especially for SCUBA instruction. Further out is an offshore reef that provides several surf breaks that are quite popular with local surfers.

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September 17, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pua‘aiki

“The truth here stated, that there is evermore a law of compensation and equipoise running through all things, has its comment and corroboration in the character and history of a remarkable man, through the earthly scene of whose labours I once passed, in order to reach the eastern extremity of the Island of Maui.” (Cheever)

“He is poor and despised in his person, small almost to deformity; and in his countenance, from the loss of sight, not prepossessing.”

“Still, in our judgment he bears on him the image and superscription of Christ; and if so, how striking an example of the truth of the Apostle’s declaration …”

“‘God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen: yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence!’” (Cheever)

The Pioneer Company of missionaries arrived in the Islands “early found among the thousands of their degraded inhabitants, a poor blind man, almost destitute of clothing, habitation, and friends. He was born at Waikapu … probably about the year 1785.”

“His barbarous mother, following many of her unnatural and murderous countrywomen, attempted to bury him alive in his infancy; but he was rescued by a relative; and surviving the ravages of pestilence, war, and private violence, he reached the years of maturity.”

“Like many of his countrymen of that dark period, he received a diminutive, degrading name, and was called Pu-a-a-i-ki, (Poo-ah-ah-ee-kee, little hog,) no faint shadow of his gross mind, his neglected childhood, and unrestrained youth.”

“In some of the Hawaiian arts he was, before the loss of his sight, more skilled than many of his countrymen. He was taught the lua – an art professed by a small class, by which a proficient, it was believed, could, without weapons or bonds, seize and hold a lonely traveller unacquainted with this art, break his bones, and take the spoil.”

“He learned also the hula … In the rehearsal or cantilation of these songs he excelled, and he often employed his skill in singing, drumming, and dancing for the amusement of the king and chiefs, by which he procured the means of subsistence”. (Bingham)

“Having a shagged head of black hair, unshielded by a hat from tropical suns and showers, and, at middle age, a beard growing at full length under the chin, the rest being plucked out, he roamed shoeless, without moral or mental culture, without hope, and without a Saviour.” (Bingham)

“In these circumstances, he attracted the notice of Kamāmalu, the favourite Queen of LIholiho, or Kamehameha II., who afterwards died in England.”

“His skill in the hula, or native dance, his being a hairy man, and other reasons not easily known at present, recommended him to the favour of the chiefs; not, indeed, as a companion, but as a buffoon. When sent for, he made sport for the Queen and other chiefs, and received in return a pittance of food and of his favourite awa.”

“On the arrival of the pioneers of the mission at Kailua, in the spring of 1820, Puaaiki was there with the chiefs, but he probably knew nothing of them or of their errand.”

“Having given permission to the missionaries to remain at the Islands for a season, the King and chiefs sailed for Oahu. Mr. Bingham accompanied them, and the blind dancer followed in their train.”

“On arriving at Honolulu, he had a severe fit of sickness. In addition to this, his disease of the eyes became much aggravated; so that, shut up in darkness, and unable to make his accustomed visits to the Queen, he was well nigh forgotten, and in danger of perishing.” (Cheever)

“He was visited by John Honolii, a native youth educated at Cornwall, Connecticut; who, seeing Puaaiki lying in this pitiable situation, was touched with.”

“Christian compassion, and spoke to him of the great and good Physician, who alone could heal his maladies and restore his sight. Puaaiki seemed to rouse up on hearing tidings of so unwonted a character, and he eagerly inquired, ‘What is that?’”

“On being again directed to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Physician of souls, he said at once that he would go and hear of him. As soon as he was able to crawl out of the house, he accompanied Honolii to the place of worship, and heard for the first time the glad tidings of great joy to all people, that the Son of Man had come to seek and to save that which was lost.” (Cheever)

“As the claims and proffers of the gospel were made known to this man, he was led to see that not only his life of idolatry and the indulgence of heathen passions and appetites was a course of heinous sin, but that when the forms of idolatry and the love of it were laid aside, his heart was still vile, and that he needed the washing of regeneration and the blood of Christ for cleansing.”

“This poor man did not wait for the king and chiefs to mark out for him his new and wiser course; but he took it contrary to their choice. He took it, in his poverty and weakness, at the hazard of offending them, of losing his maintenance, and encountering the sneers of his associates.”

Before any of us regarded him as a true Christian, and, as I think, before he believed himself to be such, like many of his countrymen in later years, hopefully converted, and like the early converts at Jerusalem, as he beheld and admired the new and heavenly light, he began early to recommend to others a serious attention to the word and kingdom of God.” (Bingham)

“While he cherished a desire to be a doer of the word, the grandeur of the objects and the force of the truths presented to him in the gospel, helped him successfully to cultivate his mental powers. Unattracted by the objects of sight in public worship, he heard perhaps better than others; and having more leisure through the week, he reflected more.” (Bingham)

“That man was the first convert to Christianity at these Islands, and the first who received the Christian ordinance of baptism, formally introducing him to the fellowship of the universal Church, under the Christian name of Bartimeus, on the tenth day of July, 1825.”

“His name is on heavenly records, and it is familiar to the ear of Protestant Christendom, as the Blind Hawaiian Preacher, or Bartimeus L Pua‘aiki.”

“Though derided, it does not appear that he was opposed in any way, or prevented from seeking instruction; and some of the chiefs themselves, for whom he had made sport, soon after became kindly disposed to the new religion, and all of them, at length, friendly to the Mission.” (Cheever)

“Regarding himself as a sinner, and relying alone on the merits of Christ for justification, Bartimeus was distinguished for uniform humility, notwithstanding the deference of the people, the esteem of his brethren, the confidence of the missionaries, and the respect of the chiefs, that were shown him.” (Bingham)

“Residing chiefly at Wailuku for some two years, he itinerated and preached at many villages around the island, generally about three Sabbaths in a month at out-stations from five to twenty miles distant.”

“In the early part of 1842, our collective mission … say, “Bartimeus the blind preacher of Maui is regularly licensed as a preacher, and labors both abundantly and successfully in the wide and destitute regions of that island.”

“As a preacher generally solemn in his manner, Bartimeus made free use of the very language of Scripture with striking appositeness, quoting verbatim, and often book, chapter, and verse, with great accuracy and astonishing facility.”

“The verse-system, so useful to the Hawaiians, of committing to memory a verse a day of the sacred oracles, and reciting seven verses a week at the Sabbath-school, doubtless contributed materially to his familiarity with the Bible, and his readiness to aid in Sabbath-school labors, and more generally to instruct and guide those who were ready to hear him.”

“Grace, that had rescued, sanctified, and borne him thus far, sustained him as he was stepping down into the valley of the shadow of death. His conversation was in heaven.”

“Calmly and peacefully he leaned upon his Saviour, whom for twenty years he had endeavored to serve; and on Sabbath evening, September 17, 1843, he surrendered his liberated spirit into his gracious hands.” (Bingham)

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Bartimeus of the Sandwich Islands-Bingham

September 13, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

South Side of East Maui

“The high lands all along the south side of East Maui … are very fine for farming. It is the region in which most of the Irish potatoes are raised for the ships at Lāhainā, and all the wheat raised at the Islands is grown here.”

“Its climate, also, is highly salubrious, and it will yet be the garden of the Sandwich Islands, from which not only whale-ships, but the hotels of San Francisco, shall obtain their supplies.” (Cheever, 1851)

The first written description of the region was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

“I coasted along its shore at a distance of a league (three miles) …. The aspect of the island of Mowee was delightful. We beheld water falling in cascades from the mountains, and running in streams to the sea, after having watered the habitations of the natives …”

“… which are so numerous that a space of three or four leagues (9 – 12 miles, about the distance from Hāna to Kaupō) may be taken for a single village.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

“But all the huts are on the seacoast, and the mountains are so near, that the habitable part of the island appeared to be less than half a league in depth.”

“The trees which crowned the mountains, and the verdure of the banana plants that surrounded the habitations, produced inexpressible charms to our senses…”

“… but the sea beat upon the coast with the utmost violence, and kept us in the situation of Tantalus, desiring and devouring with our eyes what it was impossible for us to attain … After passing Kaupō no more waterfalls are seen, and villages are fewer.” (La Pérouse, 1786; Bushnell)

“Two days and nights of continued mule-riding and canoeing from Wailuku, through the bishopric of Mr Green and the Blind Preacher (Pua‘aiki – Bartimeus) have brought us, worn and weary, to the quiet station of Hana, East Maui, where visitors, or haoles of any sort, seldom make their way.”

“It is too inaccessible, and far from any port, for sailors to get to; and the way is too rough and long for common travellers and explorers.” (Then Rev Henry T Cheever describes the Alaloa (long trail) in southeast Maui, built by Kihapi‘ilani and improved by Hoapili.)

“Yet it is a way not devoid of interest and novelty, especially that part of it which runs from Honuaula to Kahikinui and Kaupo; for it is a road built by the convicts of adultery, some years ago, when the laws relating to that and other crimes were first enacted, under the administration of the celebrated chief Hoapili, in whom was the first example of a Christian marriage.”

“It is altogether the noblest and best Hawaiian work of internal improvement I have anywhere seen. It is carried directly over a large verdureless tract, inundated and heaved up by an eruption from the giant crater of Hale-a-ka-la …”

“… and when it is considered that it was made by convicts, without sledge-hammers, or crowbars, or any other instrument but the human hands, holding a stone, and the Hawaiian Oo, it is worthy of great admiration. It is as great a work for Hawaiians, as digging the Erie Canal to Americans.”

“A Yankee engineer, to stand on either side of that vast field and yet, by reason of its pits, and ravines, and blown-up hills, and dislocations, not a field, but a chaos of blackened lava-would be confounded and put to his wit’s end to know where to begin and carry a road.”

“Were the waves of the ocean, in a tempest, when wind and current, or the former swell, were in conflict, to be suddenly congealed to the depth of twenty or thirty feet, and the water below to be then in a moment let off, or vanish, the bed of old Ocean would not exhibit such a rugged, confused, and unnavigable waste as these tracts of broken lava.”

“Or, as I have seen it somewhere illustrated, if the furious rapids of a mighty river had been turned into ink, and the cold of a winter’s day at the poles applied, and every part had become instantaneously congealed in the position …”

“… where it was just then whirling, tossing, foaming, and tumbling, while millions of flint-like particles, shivered from the mass by the suddenness and intensity of the operation, lay scattered about, it might perhaps present an aspect like that of this old current from a volcano.” (Cheever, 1851)

“Straight over such a tract, crime itself, under the energetic management of Hoapili, has built a commodious road from Honolulu to Kaupo. Like the old man in ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ we almost ‘blessed it unawares,’ as our mules safely trotted or cantered by moonlight over the path it had made.”

“It is made by running two parallel walls about twenty feet apart, then partially macadamizing the space between, and covering it with grass or stubble.”

“For fifteen or twenty miles it runs almost like a railroad, only turning a little now and then to avoid some gigantic boulder, or forced into a zigzag to get over some precipitous ravine, which it would seem as if an impetuous after-stream of devouring fire from the mountain had ploughed and eaten through, till it reached the sea.” (Cheever)

Because Haleakalā creates a rain shadow effect, the leeward lands at Kahikinui are quite arid. They typify what the Hawaiian scholar David Malo called the “dry lands,” the ‘āina malo‘o.

In such areas the sweet potato was the principal crop of the Hawaiian inhabitants, although dryland taro might also have been grown in the higher elevations. In Malo’s words, farming such an ‘āina malo‘o “was a laborious occupation and called for great patience, being attended with many drawbacks”. (Pacific Legacy)

A little farther north is Kaupo. Historic records note that this region was identified as “the greatest continuous dry planting area in the Hawaiian islands,” both in ancient times and well into the 1930s. But this old culture was vanishing due to a combination of economic and climatic circumstances.

Oral traditions state that sweet potatoes were cultivated from sea level up to about 2,000 feet elevation and great quantities of dry taro were planted in the lower forest belt from one end of the district to the other.

Using high-resolution color aerial photographs of Kaupō and then confirming their findings on the ground, archaeologists identified grid patterns over significant parts of the landscape, confirming the existence of a major dryland field system, the first to be identified for Maui Island.

The field system a closely spaced grid of east-west embankments and small field plots bisected at right angles by longer north-south trending walls; it covered an area of 3,000 to nearly 4,000-acres and could have supported a population of 8,000-10,000 people. (Kirch)

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Photo of Naholoku Fan at Kaupo Gap-(Kirch)

Map of Features and Soil Age-(Kirch)

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Hoapili Trail

Hoapili Trail-(NPS)

September 8, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

George Paul Cooke

Born in Honolulu, December 2, 1881, George Paul Cooke was grandson of missionaries Amos Starr and Juliette Montague Cooke and son of Charles Montague Cooke and Anna Charlotte (Rice) Cooke.

After preliminary schooling in Honolulu and at Hotchkiss in Lakeville CT, Cooke attended Yale University (his roommate was Sophie’s brother, Charles S Judd Sr.) He received his BA degree in 1905, returning to Honolulu to take the position of stock and bond clerk for the Hawaiian Trust Co, Ltd, continuing with that institution until 1908.

He married Sophie Boyd Judd (granddaughter of missionaries Gerrit Parmele Judd and Laura Fish Judd, daughter of Albert Francis Judd and Agnes Hall Judd) (April 4, 1906.) (They had six children, Dora, George Paul, Jr., Francis Judd, Thomas Hastings, Stephen Montague and Phoebe Cooke.)

In 1897, a group of Honolulu businessmen (including Judge Alfred S Hartwell, Alfred W Carter, and AD McClellan) purchased 70,000 acres from the trustees of the Bishop Estate and leased another 30,000 acres from the Hawaiian government. Molokai Ranch was formed.

At that time, American Sugar Company began sugar cane production on the lands. Cooke became bookkeeper for the American Sugar and Molokai Ranch.

About 10-years later (December 1908,) the land was bought out by Cooke and his father; George Cooke took over the operation; George, Sophie and daughter Dora moved into the former manager’s house, composed of ‘three plantation houses put together’.

“The development of this property as a sugar cane plantation failed for the reason that the pumps, which had been installed in surface wells to irrigate the cane fields, were of such large capacity that they soon exhausted the sweet water, and pumped water with such a high salt content that it could not be used for cane culture.” (Cooke) The sugar plantation was abandoned.

“My father and I determined upon a policy to increase the revenue of Molokai Ranch and to improve its value. We planned to pay off the debt incurred when the sugar plantation failed; to develop water sources and extend pipe lines; …”

“… construct new buildings and a new camp; raise fodder; prevent overstocking by dividing the range into smaller pastures and increase the planting of trees in the forest area.” (Cooke)

“The first attempts at dry-land agriculture were made at the nine hundred foot elevation at Kualapuʻu. Here, Father CB Andrews of the Sandwich Islands Mission raised wheat and Irish potatoes to supply the miners of the California Gold Rush days. Here also, Kamehameha V had planned a sugar plantation. Our first attempts at agricultural experiments were in the same locality.” (Cooke)

“In keeping with our policy of development, an arrangement was made in 1909 with the U.S. Experiment Station in Honolulu to find crops suitable to our conditions. We were to supply the land, provide the labor and retain the crops. The Station was to furnish all seeds and planting material and report their findings of all crops obtained.” (Cooke)

Three types of corn were planted (they succumbed to the weevil;) three grains (they to cut worms;) three cottons (they to the boll-worm;) and three types of legumes (they to the aphis.)

“Alfalfa was grown there successfully for many years. Alfalfa hay made in our fields invariably was awarded first prize at many County of Maui Fairs and Territorial Fairs on Oahu because of its fine green color and its leaf-holding quality and length of stem. This hay received very favorable comments from the Judges.” (Cooke)

They raised cattle, planted sweet potato and wheat crops and produced honey. It became the second largest cattle ranch in Hawaiʻi and a major producer of beef.

In the early days, the focus was on raising beef cattle for market, plus horses and mules for use and for sale elsewhere. Over time, other ventures were tried, with varying degrees of success. Some of these included raising sheep for market, honey production, a small dairy, and various grains and row crops.

Cooke was a Representative from Maui to the Legislature, 1911 to 1913, and served Hawaiʻi as a Territorial Senator for 34-years (becoming President of the Senate.)

The Molokai Ranch was out of debt and on a paying basis. The Cookes moved to Honolulu to aid in war work (World War I) and to educate their children. They started Hanahauʻoli School (happy, joyous work) in 1918 for their six children and those of many of their friends (it started with 16-children from ages 6 to 11 years old.)

It was a small school, from kindergarten through sixth grade where all the children cooperated as in a large family; it’s in the same location on the corner of Nehoa and Makiki Streets.

Cooke was first in the movement to make the island of Molokai a source of food supply for Honolulu. He established a model dairy ranch at Mapulehu, Molokai, in 1920, and constructed the “Leleiona” and later the “Pualele,” motor propelled sampans, to make deliveries of crops and milk to Honolulu, proving beyond question his theory that such an undertaking was feasible.

He was also the first Executive Secretary of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, where he was empowered to execute the Act; he “initiated leases and regulations, prepared the lands for settlement, distributed domestic and irrigation water and helped to select the first homesteaders.” (Cooke)

He also encouraged research into water resource development and management, geological knowledge and the cataloguing of native and exotic plants, all with an eye to finding crops that would improve the economy of Molokai.

Cooke was manager of Molokai Ranch for 40 years; when he left, he took with him a reputation as an honest and fair businessman, and the respect of the Hawaiian cowboys with whom he worked from the saddle. (hicattle)

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