Kainalu Elementary (my alma mater, grades K-2) recently held a community session where Dr Paul Brennan spoke of the history of Kailua, Oʻahu.
I taped the presentation and posted it on YouTube – Click HERE to seen the video.
He includes several old photos and maps to help tell the Kailua story.
Moku O Keawe – The Island of Keawe recalls and honors a 17th-century chief, Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku (Keawe the One Chief of the Island,”) whose reign was ascribed “such peace and prosperity as the island of Hawai‘i had not enjoyed since the time of his ancestor Līloa”. (Barrere, deSilva)
James Cook (1778) and George Vancouver (1793) both referred to the island as “Owhyhee.” Today, we more commonly call it Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi Island or the Big Island.
The following is a portion of Kūaliʻi’s chant (he was a chief from Oʻahu.)
Ua like; aia ka kou hoa e like ai,
‘O Keawe‘īkekahiali‘iokamoku,
‘O Keawe, haku o Hawai‘i
There is a comparison; here, indeed, is the one you resemble,
Keawe-i-Kekahi-alii-o-ka-moku,
Keawe, Lord of Hawaiʻi.
(Ka Inoa O Kūaliʻi, The Chant Of Kūaliʻi; Fornander; deSilva)
“Kūaliʻi’s chant devotes over a hundred lines in its own closing section to extolling his superiority; nothing on land, sea, or sky can compare to him; he is not like the hala, ‘ōhi‘a, or ʻaʻali‘i; nor is he like the porpoise, shark, or līpoa; nor is he like the ʻōʻō, nāulu rain, or mountain wind.”
“He can be compared to one thing only, the chant finally concedes; he finds an equal in his Hawai‘i island counterpart, the Hōnaunau-based chief Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku.” (deSilva)
Keawe was believed to have lived from 1665 to 1725. He is sometimes referred to as King Keawe II, since prior to him there was already a King Keawenuiaumi. He was son of Keākealaniwahine, the ruling Queen of Hawaiʻi and Kanaloa-i-Kaiwilena Kapulehu. Keawe was the great-grandfather of Kamehameha I.
Keākealaniwahine ruled from what is referred to as the Hōlualoa Royal Center, in Kona; it is split into two archaeological complexes, Kamoa Point/Keolonāhihi Complex and Keākealaniwahine Residential Complex.)
The Hōlualoa Royal Center had three major occupation sequences with various aliʻi: AD 1300 (Keolonāhihi), AD 1600 (Keākealaniwahine and Keakamahana (her mother)) and AD 1780 (Kamehameha I) – it appears very likely that the Hōlualoa Royal Center grew and changed over time. (DLNR)
Prominent aliʻi in the Kona District who also may have resided at Hōlualoa include Keakealani-kane (father of Keakamahana,) Keawe, Keʻeaumoku-nui (son of Keawe) and Alapaʻi-nui (nephew of Keawe.) (DLNR)
Keawe ruled along with his half-sister wife Kalanikauleleiaiwi who inherited their mother’s kapu rank. After his death, a civil war broke out over succession between his sons, Keʻeaumoku and Kalaninuiʻamamao, and a rival chief known as Alapaʻinuiakauaua (his nephew.)
Hale O Keawe, at the northern end of the eastern wing of the Great Wall at Puʻuhonua O Honaunau, was named after and either built by or for Keawe around 1700.
In ancient times the Heiau served as a royal mausoleum, housing the remains of deified high chiefs. The powerful mana (divine power) associated with these remains served to sanctify and validate the existence of the Puʻuhonua.
The earliest western accounts indicate that in the 1820s the structure was largely intact with thatched hale, wooden palisade, and multiple kiʻi (wooden images of gods.) (NPS)
The only heiau allowed standing by Kaʻahumanu after the breaking of the kapu were Hale O Līloa (built by the High Chief Līloa in the 16th century) in Waipiʻo Valley and Hale O Keawe at Hoʻonaunau in Kona. These two edifices were the sacred repositories of the iwi of Hawai`i’s greatest chiefs. (Parker)
However, in December of 1828, Kaʻahumanu visited Hale O Keawe. She found to her dismay that someone had left hoʻokupu (gifts) inside to honor dead ancestors. She was so angry that she ordered the dismantling and destruction of both Hale O Keawe and Hale O Līloa in Waipiʻo. (Parker)
Hale O Keawe was dismantled by Ka‘ahumanu in 1829; its bones were removed to Kaʻawaloa, its large timbers were used in the construction of a school and government house, and smaller pieces of its kauila wood framework were given as souvenirs to the missionaries. (deSilva)
The pu‘uhonua was deeded to Miriam Kekāuluohi, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, in the Māhele of 1848, and it was inherited, upon her death, by Levi Ha‘alelea, her second husband. In 1866, the property was auctioned by Ha‘alelea’s estate to Charles Kana‘ina, the father of William Charles Lunalilo.
Kana‘ina, however, did not pay the $5000 bid, and Charles Reed Bishop stepped in to purchase Ha‘alelea’s land for that same amount on April 1, 1867. In 1891, six years after Pauahi’s death, Bishop deeded the land to the trustees of the Bishop Estate who leased it to one of their members, SM Damon.
Damon was responsible for the 1902 restoration work on the Great Wall and the stone platforms of two heiau, Hale o Keawe and ‘Ale‘ale‘a. The County of Hawai‘i took over Damon’s lease in 1921. That lease expired in 1961 when the then County Park was acquired by the US National Park Service. (deSilva)
Further reconstruction consisted of four terraces and a passage between the southern end of the platform and the northern end of the Great Wall. In 1966-67 Edmund J Ladd directed the excavation and re-stabilization of the Hale o Keawe platform.
Ladd’s excavations in addition to historical accounts indicated that the platform did not originally have multiple tiers; therefore, the 1967 work restored the platform to its more authentic form that joins the Great Wall on its south side.
After the platform was restored, the thatched hale, wooden palisade, and kiʻi were also rebuilt on the site. Since the time of Ladd’s initial reconstruction, the Hale o Keawe structure and carved wooden kiʻi have been replaced on two occasions with the most recent efforts being completed in 2004. (NPS)
The image shows the ahupuaʻa of Moku O Keawe. In addition, I have added other images to a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.
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“A little farther on we entered groves of hala, through which we continued to ride for the rest of our journey. We turned from the road to see the falls of the Kāhili River.”
“Though not large they are beautiful. Here the river falls in a jet of foam over a precipice of about 40 feet into a broad clear basin below….” (Alexander, 1849; (Kīlauea Stream is universally referred to as “Kāhili Stream;”) Cultural Surveys)
Pukui suggests “Kīlauea means “spewing, much spreading;” associated references relate to volcanic eruptions at the place of like name on the Island of Hawaiʻi – typically referring to the rising smoke clouds.
Wichman explains the name as referring to “spewing many vapors” and traces it rather generically to the streams of Kīlauea that flow between the Makaleha Mountains and the Kamo‘okoa Ridge. The name may have originally been in reference to Kīlauea Falls itself. (Cultural Surveys)
The relatively large volume of water flowing over a relatively wide and high drop against the prevailing trade winds (blowing approximately straight up the lower stretch of the valley) can create a large volume of diffuse mist that may have inspired the name of the land. (Cultural Surveys)
In the Māhele, all of Kīlauea ahupuaʻa was retained as government lands; apparently no claims were made by native tenants, although there were several in a low, wide terrace along the stream in the adjoining Kāhili ahupuaʻa.
In January 1863, the approximate 3,016-acres of the Kīlauea ahupuaʻa were purchased by a former American whaler named Charles Titcomb. Titcomb already had land holdings at Kōloa and Hanalei. He was cultivating silkworm, coffee, tobacco, sugarcane and cattle.
Adding other leased land, he and partners Captain John Ross and EP Adams formed the Kilauea Plantation (1863,) and by 1877 the started a sugar plantation, “one of the smallest plantations in the Hawaiian Islands operating its own sugar mill”. (Cultural Surveys)
Hawaiʻi’s earliest history with railroads is often credited to Kīlauea Plantation, whose first system opened in 1881 on three miles of narrow-gauge track to haul sugar cane. Princess Lydia Kamakaeha (Lili‘uokalani) drove in the first spikes for the railroad bed. The plantation infrastructure grew over the next twenty years.
“The transportation system consists of twelve and a half miles of permanent track, five miles of portable track, 200 cane cars, six sugar cars and four locomotives.”
“(Kīlauea) is situated three miles from the landing at Kāhili, with which it is connected by the railway system. Sugar is delivered to the steamers by means of a cable device at the rate of from 600 to 800-bags an hour.” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 1910) The town of Kīlauea originated as the center of the sugar plantation operation; Kīlauea Sugar Plantation closed in 1970.
The Kīlauea School was founded in 1882 as an ‘English School.’ Its 54-pupils were primarily workers’ children from Kīlauea Sugar Plantation. As the Board of Education of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi owned no land in the district, school was held in a Protestant Church and partly in an old building that belonged to the Board.
In 1894, the Board of Education of the Republic of Hawaiʻi was able to obtain a two-acre parcel of land from the plantation and a two-room school and teacher’s cottage were erected (it was situated near Kūhiō Highway and Kalihiwai Road.)
By 1920, the educational facilities were greatly strained as the school boasted 239-students and 7-teachers for grades one through eight. At the end of 1921, Kauai County purchased the present school site and the new school opened September 11, 1922; it has been in use since that time. (NPS)
By the 1890s, much of the old kalo-growing areas of this portion of Kaua‘i were now producing rice, farmed by Chinese immigrants. There were 55-acres of land in rice production in the Kīlauea-Kāhili area in 1892 and eventually a rice mill on Kīlauea Stream.
The mill is known to have been on the stream terrace east of Kīlauea Stream. Rice and vegetable cultivation was also noted along the banks of Kīlauea Stream, circa 1925. (Cultural Surveys)
Built in 1913 as a navigational aid for commercial shipping, the Kīlauea Lighthouse was credited with saving lives, not only of countless sailors lost at sea, but of two fliers on a historic trans-Pacific flight.
When Lt Albert Hegenberger and Lt Lester Maitland were on the first trans-Pacific airplane flight in history (June 29, 1927,) they overshot their course to Oʻahu and became lost.
They heard a strange signal and interpreted it as a radio beacon originating in the Islands. They used the signal to calculate their exact position and made the necessary adjustments to put them on course, thus enabling them to land the ‘Bird of Paradise’ safely at Hickam Field on Oʻahu. (NPS)
Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, surrounding the Lighthouse, was established in 1985 to preserve and enhance seabird nesting colonies and was expanded in 1988 to include Crater Hill and Mōkōlea Point. The refuge is home to some of the largest populations of nesting seabirds in in the main Hawaiian Islands.
Nearby, Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) added to an existing preserved property to form the Kāhili Coastal Preserve. The property provides public access to Kāhili Beach while safeguarding the shoreline ecosystem. (HILT)
The image shows Kīlauea Falls, Kauaʻi. In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.
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Two mature brush-tailed rock wallabies escaped August 20, 1916 from the home of Richard H Trent; they came from Australia for Trent’s private zoo, which was “practically a public institution maintained at his personal, private expense for the public’s pleasure.”
“Dogs frightened the two animals brought from Australia for Trent’s private zoo and they jumped against their cage with enough force to break through it … A young one, thrown from its mother’s pouch, was killed by the dogs, but the pair of old ones managed to get away and have not been seen since.” (Star-Bulletin, August 21, 1916)
“Richard H. Trent, Honolulu’s animal impresario, issues a call to all citizens of Oahu today to join in a mammoth, personally conducted wallaby hunt, the first of its kind ever held in the Hawaiian archipelago.”
“Two of the three small kangaroos … escaped from the Trent zoological garden on ʻAlewa Height Saturday night and at latest reports last night were roaming at will in the Oahu forests.” (Hawaiian Gazette, August 22, 1916)
The paper had a premonition (or bachi;) “Unless the animals are caught they may become permanent denizens of the mountain districts and, like their distant cousins, the Australian rabbits, may propagate and produce eventually a breed of Hawaiian wallabies.” (Hawaiian Gazette, August 22, 1916)
The brush-tailed rock wallaby, native to Australia, was once common throughout that continent; now it’s confined to tiny parts of Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. The Victoria population, in particular, is near extinction.
The shy animals have long, bushy tails and small ears; average-size adults weigh between 13 and 18-pounds. Its head and body measure just less than 2 feet long, and its tail is slightly longer. Its color is predominantly brown, with gray fur on its shoulders and reddish brown on its rump.
Richard Henderson Trent, born in Somerville, Fayette County, Tennessee, September 14, 1867, only attended public school until he was 12-years of age, and is a self-educated and self-made man. He began his career in Hawaiʻi as a printer for the Evening Bulletin in 1901, having learned the newspaper trade in Tennessee.
He later affiliated with Henry Waterhouse Trust Co., Ltd., until 1904, then headed one of the largest trust companies in Hawaiʻi that beared his name. He served as first treasurer of Oʻahu County from 1905 to 1910, being twice re-elected to this office.
Active in community welfare and church work, he served as president of the YMCA from 1908 to 1915 and was a member of the Territorial Board of Public Lands from 1910 to 1914.
Trent was a member of the Board of Regents, University of Hawaiʻi, for several years, as well as served as a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate and the Bishop Museum.
In 1928, while Trustee of the Kamehameha Schools (1917-1939,) a junior division was created for the Kamehameha School for Boys annual song contest; Trent donated the contest trophy. The original school for boys contest cup, the George A Andrus cup, was designated as the trophy for the senior division winner and the Richard H Trent Cup for the junior division winner.
While the wallabies once roamed from Nuʻuanu to Hālawa, they are now known to live in only one valley, the ʻEwa side of Kalihi Valley, which has a series of sheer cliffs and narrow rocky ledges. (earlham-edu)
The Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DLNR-DOFAW) no longer keeps track of the population, since they believe the animals are nonthreatening.
Wallabies are designated as protected game mammals by DLNR (§13-123-12,) which means no hunting, killing or possessing, unless authorized. (The same rule applies to wild cattle.) In 2002, a wallaby was captured in Foster Village; DLNR released it back into Kalihi Valley.
The last state survey of Kalihi wallabies was in the early-1990s; at the time, the estimated population was as high as 75-animals.
The image shows a brush-tailed rock wallaby (kristoforG.) In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.
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Along the coastal area between Lēʻahi (Diamond Head) and Kūpikipikiʻō (Black Point) several small neighborhoods are sometimes identified by the names of the main roads in the area Kaikoo, Papu Circle and Kulamanu. However, the historic name for this area of Oʻahu’s is Kaʻalāwai.
Kaʻalāwai literally means ‘the water (basalt) rock’ and is probably named for the springs on the beach and among the rocks at the east end of the beach.
It is a narrow, white-sand beach with a shallow reef offshore, which generally has poor swimming conditions. There are only a few scattered pockets of sand on the nearshore ocean bottom. Lots go surfing outside.
At the east end of the beach near Black Point is a mansion turned museum, built by Doris Duke, the daughter of James Duke, the founder of the American Tobacco Company, and her husband, James Cromwell. (It’s their name that is attributed to the “Cromwell’s” Cove and Beach references.)
In the late-1930s, Doris Duke built her Honolulu home, Shangri La, on five acres overlooking the Pacific Ocean and Diamond Head. Shangri La incorporates architectural features from the Islamic world and houses Duke’s extensive collection of Islamic art, which she assembled for nearly 60 years.
Through an Exchange Deed dated December 8, 1938 between the Territorial Land Board of Hawai‘i and Ms Duke, two underwater parcels (totaling approximately 0.6-acres) were added to the Duke property.
At water’s edge below the estate, Duke then dynamited a small-boat harbor and a seventy-five-foot salt-water swimming pool into the rock. The harbor was built to protect Duke’s fleet of yachts, including Kailani Lahilahi, an ocean-going, 58-foot motor yacht and Kimo, the 26-foot mahogany runabout that Duke sometimes used to commute into Honolulu.
Part of the deal was that the transfer gave the Territory (now State) a perpetual easement of a four-foot right-of-way for a pedestrian causeway along the coastline. It’s a popular swimming area (ongoing media reports note the hazards here, so be careful.)
Today, Shangri La is open for guided, small group tours and educational programs. In partnership with the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art – which owns and supports Shangri La – the Honolulu Museum of Art serves as the orientation center for Shangri La tours.
Another stretch of beach here had some other interesting ownership/use issues.
In the old days, a Beach Road ran right next to the water at Kaʻalāwai. When some of the private property mauka of the road was subdivided into seven lots and conveyed in 1885, the makai boundaries of these seven lots were specified “along the road”.
However, in 1959, folks adjoining the then-abandoned road soon made claims to it – most extended their landscaping (and even put in improvements (patio, walls, etc)) out over the old beach road.
Some of the abutting owners succeeded in their title claims and subsequent legal battles, obtaining declaratory judgments in their favor and they gained title to the road remnant real estate. Subsequently, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court ruled that the State owns the road.
The last property made application to the State to acquire the road remnant, however, after following discussions, they ended up seeking a long-term easement over the old roadway.
Oh, one more Kaʻalāwai story … following the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani in 1893, the Committee of Safety established the Provisional Government of Hawaiʻi as a temporary government until an assumed annexation by the United States.
The Provisional Government convened a constitutional convention and established the Republic of Hawaiʻi on July 4, 1894. The Republic continued to govern the Islands.
From January 6 to January 9, 1895, in a “Counter-Revolution,” patriots of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi and the forces that had overthrown the constitutional Hawaiian monarchy were engaged in a war that consisted of battles on the island of Oʻahu.
It has been called the Second Wilcox Rebellion of 1895 (named after Robert William Wilcox.) In their attempt to return Queen Liliʻuokalani to the throne, it was the last major military operation by royalists who opposed the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.
Wilcox’s headquarters was at Kaʻalāwai. (Daily Bulletin, January 19, 1895) Shortly after the fighting began, losing the element of surprise and seeing no tactical importance in remaining at Diamond Head, Wilcox ordered his men to retreat to Waiʻalae.
Wilcox and his men then escaped to the Koʻolau up a trail on the precipice to the ridge separating Mānoa from Nuʻuanu. On that ridge his men dispersed into the mountain above; Wilcox and a few others crossed Nuʻuanu that night, eluding the guards. They were later captured.
Queen Liliʻuokalani was put under arrest on the 16th, and confined in a chamber of ʻIolani Palace. A tribunal was formed and evidence began to be taken on the 18th. Nowlein, Wilcox, Bertelmann and TB Walker all pleaded guilty, and subsequently gave evidence for the prosecution.
Wilcox was court-martialed and sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to thirty-five years. In January, 1896, he was given a conditional pardon and became a free man; in 1898, President Dole gave him a full pardon. (Wilcox later served as the first delegate and representative of Hawaiʻi in the US Congress.)
Convicted of having knowledge of a royalist plot, Liliʻuokalani was fined $5,000 and sentenced to five-years in prison at hard labor. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment in an upstairs bedroom of ʻIolani Palace.
She spent 8 months in this room. After her release from ʻIolani Palace, the Queen remained under house arrest for five months at her private home, Washington Place. For another eight months she was forbidden to leave Oʻahu before all restrictions were lifted. Liliʻuokalani died of a stroke on November 11, 1917 in Honolulu at the age of 79.
The image shows Kaʻalāwai and Black Point area prior to development. In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.
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