Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Rycroft

Robert Henry Rycroft (April 27, 1843 – February 3, 1909) emigrated to the United States from Leeds, England, when he was 16 years old. After serving 16 months in the U.S. Cavalry during the Civil War, he arrived in Honolulu.

He first went to work in the Honolulu Iron Works and afterwards went into the plumbing business, which was his profession. He was also proprietor of the Fountain restaurant and Temperance saloon on Fort Street in an old one story frame building

Failing in the restaurant and saloon business on Fort Street in Honolulu he went to Brisbane, Australia, to establish an ice works and was nearly successful in establishing his system on steamers to carry frozen mutton to Europe.

“(H)e erected an ice machine at Brisbane, which was the first ammonia machine there using a pump to compress the gas. After remaining, there about two years he returned to Honolulu and soon after removed to the Island of Hawaii in 1877.”

“There he went into the ‘awa shipping business. The trade in ‘awa at that time was so large that many tons were handled each year, much of it going to foreign ports, mostly to the United States, for medical purposes.”

“About the year 1881 Mr. Rycroft went into the cattle business, having purchased the Pohoiki and Keahialeka tracts in Puna, Hawaii, containing about nine thousand acres.”

“He also erected a large saw mill at Pohoiki and furnished the Government with all of the hard wood used in the public works. He also furnished the wood supply of Honolulu for several years by the Allen & Robinson line of schooners. The ties of the O. R. & L. Co. came from this mill.”

“Soon after things were running smoothly Mr. Rycroft again branched out and was one of the first, if not the very first, who went into the systematic cultivation of coffee, upon a large scale.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 9, 1900)

Rycroft launched a boom in coffee production during the late 19th century; between 1896 and 1906, most of the 300 land grants made to speculators were for coffee.

In the Puna District in 1880, Hawaiians maintained small-scale traditional farms, and other settlers invested in commercial properties like coffee plantations on approximately three dozen land grants. (ORNL)

He constructed a coffee mill in 1891 to process the coffee then being planted in Puna. However, for some unknown reason, the coffee boom ended in 1899, leaving the mill basically without a product to process. Then, probably, the Rycrofts had to find an alternate crop to process in the new coffee mill.

Presumably, then, the Rycroft guava business in Puna was started in about 1900 to use the coffee mill, and possibly was abandoned after 1910.

Rycroft and his son, Walter, should be credited with the first commercial production of guava at Pohoiki in Puna; they produced guava jam and jelly in the ‘coffee mill.’ (Shigemura & Bulloock)

Rycroft also funded improvements at Pohoiki Landing to support his commercial ventures, although the original landing was destroyed by a tsunami in August 1885. (DLNR)

The Pohoiki area has remained mostly undeveloped except for the 23-year period of commercial development under Robert Rycroft. Rycroft’s ventures between 1877 and 1899 included ‘awa, cattle, sawmill, coffee and guava. The Pohoiki commercial activity appears to have ended when Rycroft moved to Honolulu in 1899. (DLNR)

When he sold out in 1899 he had in lower Puna sixty-five acres and in Ola‘a 170 acres of bearing coffee. This venture, however, did not prove as profitable as most of Mr. Rycroft’s enterprises. Messrs. H. Hackfeld & Co purchased his Olaa property.

“Last year upon the formation of the Puna Sugar Co. an offer was made Mr. Rycroft for his 9,000 acres of land in lower Puna and he determined to sell out and remove to Honolulu.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 9, 1900)

Rycroft returned to Honolulu in 1899, starting the Fountain Soda Works. “Since coming to Honolulu Mr. Rycroft has purchased six lots in the old base ball ground, where he is now erecting a fine residence, which will be competed as rapidly as the work can be done.”

“Mr. Rycroft will go into business in Honolulu and will become a permanent resident. He has not as yet thoroughly settled upon his future plans, but will make his debut in business circles in the near future.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 9, 1900)

For some years his eldest son conducted the soda business (in the vicinity of what is now Rycroft Street) while Rycroft attended to his investments in general. (Hawaiian Star, February 3, 1909)

“Robert Rycroft, one of the oldest residents of the Hawaiian Islands, died of heart trouble early this morning at his home on Wilder avenue. He leaves a wife, three sons, Henry, Mark and Walter, and two daughters Sophia and Gladys. Mrs. Rycroft is a sister of AN Campbell, Treasurer of Hawaii, and was married to Mr. Rycroft in 1872.” (Hawaiian Star, February 3, 1909)

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Three Rivers

The Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers have a unique confluence in Pittsburgh. The Allegheny River from upstate New York ends here, as does the Monongahela from the mountains of West Virginia.

The Allegheny River is a young river formed from the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, and its waters tend to be faster and colder than those of the slower moving Monongahela, an ancient, wider river from a million years ago.

The Ohio River begins here; the name Ohio comes from the Iroquois word oyo. The Ohio River, called the beautiful river (la belle riviere) by French explorers, was the start of the watery road west for countless immigrants and settlers in the nineteenth century.

The Ohio drains westward into the Mississippi a thousand miles away, and then travels southward to reach New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico [America]. (RiversOfSteel)

Wait … This isn’t about those three rivers, this is about the flows from the Makiki, Mānoa, and Pālolo valleys, what are named the Pi‘inaio, ‘Āpuakēhau, and Kuekaunahi.

Three main valleys Makiki, Mānoa, and Pālolo are mauka of Waikīkī and through them their respective streams (and springs in Mānoa (Punahou and Kānewai)) watered the marshland below.

As they entered the flat Waikīkī Plain (and merge and separate,) the names of the streams changed; the Mānoa became the Kālia and the Pālolo became the Pāhoa (they joined near Hamohamo (now an area mauka of the Kapahulu Library.))

While at the upper elevations, the streams have the ahupuaʻa names, at lower elevations, after merging/dividing, they have different names, as they enter the ocean, Pi‘inaio, ‘Āpuakēhau and Kuekaunahi.

The Pi‘inaio (Makiki) entered the sea at Kālia (near what is now Fort DeRussy as a wide delta (kahawai.))

The ‘Āpuakēhau (Mānoa and Kālia,) also called the Muliwai o Kawehewehe (“the stream that opens the way” on some maps,) emptied in the ocean at Helumoa (between the Royal Hawaiian and Moana Hotels.)

The Kuekaunahi (Pālolo) once emptied into the sea at Hamohamo (near the intersection of ‘Ōhua and Kalākaua Avenues.)  The land between these three streams was called Waikolu, meaning “three waters.”

The early Hawaiian settlers, who arrived around 1000 AD, gradually transformed the marsh into hundreds of taro fields, fish ponds and gardens.  Waikīkī was once one of the most productive agricultural areas in old Hawai‘i.

Beginning in the 1400s, a vast system of irrigated taro fields and fish ponds were constructed.  This field system took advantage of streams descending from Makiki, Mānoa and Pālolo valleys which also provided ample fresh water for the Hawaiians living in the ahupua‘a.

By the time of the arrival of Europeans in the Hawaiian Islands during the late eighteenth century, Waikīkī had long been a center of population and political power on O‘ahu.

Following the Great Māhele in 1848, many of the fishponds and irrigated and dry-land agricultural plots were continued to be farmed, however at a greatly reduced scale (due to manpower limitations.)

In the 1860s and 1870s, former Asian sugar plantation workers (Japanese and Chinese) replaced the taro and farmed more than 500-acres of wetlands in rice fields, also raising fish and ducks in the ponds.

By 1892, Waikīkī had about 550-acres planted in rice, representing almost 12% of the total 4,700-acres planted in rice on O‘ahu.

Nearly 85% of present Waikīkī (most of the land west of the present Lewers Street or mauka of Kalākaua) were in wetland agriculture or aquaculture.

However, drainage problems started to develop in Waikīkī from the late nineteenth century because of urbanization, when roads were built and expanded in the area (thereby blocking runoff) and when a drainage system for land from Punchbowl to Makiki diverted surface water to Waikīkī.

During the first decade of the 20th century, the US War Department acquired more than 70-acres in the Kālia portion of Waikīkī for the establishment of a military reservation called Fort DeRussy.

The Army started filling in the fishponds which covered most of the Fort – pumping fill from the ocean continuously for nearly a year in order to build up an area on which permanent structures could be built. Thus the Army began the transformation of Waikīkī from wetlands to solid ground.

In accordance with the law, a reclamation project was proposed and conducted under the pretext of doing sanitation. This project aimed to dig a canal (Ala Wai Canal of today) in the center of Waikiki and reclaim all these swamps by earth and sand dug out from the construction of the canal.

During the 1920s, the Waikīkī landscape would be transformed when the construction of the Ala Wai Drainage Canal, begun in 1921 and completed in 1928, resulted in the draining and filling in of the remaining ponds and irrigated fields of Waikīkī.

Soon after, in 1928, the construction of the Royal Hawaiian Hotel was completed (joining the Moana Hotel (1901,) marking the beginning of Waikīkī as a world-class tourist attraction.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Laupāhoehoe

The northeastern coast of the island of Hawaiʻi presents an almost continuous succession of valleys, with intervening uplands rising gently for a few miles, and then more abruptly toward the snows of Mauna Kea and the clouds.

The rains are abundant on that side of the island, and the fertile plateau, boldly fronting the sea with a line of cliffs from fifty to a hundred feet in height, is scored at intervals of one or two miles with deep and almost impassable gulches.

The streams reach the ocean either through rocky channels worn to the level of the waves, or in cascades leaping from the cliffs and streaking the coast from Hilo to Waipiʻo.

In the time of Līloa, and later, this plateau was thickly populated, and requiring no irrigation, was cultivated from the sea upward to the line of frost. A few kalo patches are still seen, and bananas grow, as of old, in secluded spots and along the banks of the ravines. (Kalākaua)

“Lapahoi (Laupāhoehoe – leaf of lava) is a small stony flat with a few huts and sweet potatoes and taro patches scattered over it. It lies at the extremity of a deep ravine, the declivities on either side nearly 500 feet in height and extending to the sea beach, terminating in a rocky precipice.”

“The coast all the way to Lapahoi was intersected by many deep ravines, many of which had large rivers forming beautiful waterfalls that fell over the outward cliffs into the ocean, the angry surf of which broke a long way up upon the rocks underneath.” (Macrae, 1825)

“The country, by which we sailed, was fertile, beautiful, and apparently populous. The numerous plantations on the eminences and sides of the deep ravines or valleys, by which it was intersected, with the streams meandering through them into the sea, presented altogether a most agreeable prospect.”

“The coast was bold, and the rocks evidently volcanic. We frequently saw the water gushing out of hollows in the face of the rocks, or running in cascades from the top to the bottom.”

“After sailing very pleasantly for several hours, we approached Laupāhoehoe: although we had come upwards of twenty miles, and had passed not less than fifty ravines or valleys, we had not seen a spot where we thought it would be possible to land without being swamped”.

“(A)lthough we knew we had arrived at the end of our voyage, we could discover no place by which it seemed safe to approach the shore, as the surf was beating violently, and the wind blowing directly towards the land.” (Ellis, 1823)

In January 1834, David Douglas (a fir tree was named after him) visited the island of Hawai‘i, traveled around the base of Mauna Kea – including the upper Laupāhoehoe forest zone – and ascended Mauna Kea; while on his second visit to the island, he died at a location near the mauka boundary of Laupāhoehoe and Humuʻula.

In 1859, Abel Harris and FB Swain entered into a partnership and secured a section of land on the Laupāhoehoe peninsula and lower plains; they ran a trading station and attempted to undertake several business ventures, including, collection of pulu (down) from hāpuʻu tree ferns, hunting bullocks in the upper forest lands, and cultivation of sugar cane on the lowlands.

The lowlands of the Laupāhoehoe region became the focus of sugar plantation efforts as early as the 1850s. But it was not until 1876, that a full-scale plantation was incorporated, and a mill established.

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.

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

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.

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, rail trips included a stop on the trestles, where passengers disembarked to admire the outstanding scenery.

But the end was near for the 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.

At Laupāhoehoe Point, waves destroyed teachers’ residences and flooded school grounds, killing twenty-five people, including sixteen students and five teachers of Laupāhoehoe School.

(The 1946 tsunami killed 159-people and caused $26-million in property damage throughout the islands. To prevent such widespread loss of life and property, the territory-wide Tsunami Warning System was put in place in 1948 and successfully utilized for the 1952 and 1957 tsunamis.) (hawaii-edu)

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.

A few remnants of the railway are still visible. 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.

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by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kūlou

Hawaiian chronology counts by generations, neither by reigns nor by years. In computing long genealogies, thirty years to a generation is approximately correct. (Fornander)

When ʻUmi died he was succeeded as Mōʻī of Hawaiʻi by his oldest son, Kealiʻiokaloa; he is remembered as an unpopular king, and the only event of note connected with his reign is the arrival on the coast of Kona of some shipwrecked white people.

Arrival of the shipwrecked foreigners – white people – took place between the years 1521-1530 AD. (Fornander)

“In the time of Kealiʻiokaloa, king of Hawaii and son of ʻUmi, arrived a vessel at Hawaii. Konalihoa was the name of the vessel, and Kukanaloa was the name of the foreigner (white man) who commanded, or to whom belonged the vessel. His sister was also with him on the vessel.”

“As they were sailing along, approaching the land, the vessel struck at the pali of Keʻei and was broken to pieces by the surf, and the foreigner and his sister swam ashore and were saved, but the greater part of the crew perished perhaps; that is not well ascertained.”

“And when they arrived ashore they prostrated themselves on the beach, uncertain perhaps on account of their being strangers, and of the different kind of people whom they saw there, and being very fearful perhaps.”

“A long time they remained prostrated on the shore, and hence the place was called Kūlou, and is so called to this day. The white rock there is called Pohakukea, and the cliff above ‘Mauna-kapu,’ or Sacred Mountain, for there the Spaniards are said to have worshipped.”

“And when evening came the people of the place took them to a house and entertained them, asking them if they were acquainted with the food set before them, to which they replied that they were; and afterwards, when breadfruit, ohis and bananas were shown them, they expressed a great desire to have them.”

“The strangers cohabitated with the Hawaiians and has children with they became ancestors of some of the Hawaiian people, and also of some of the chiefs”

They were known as Lala kea, meaning white branch of the tree. To the Hawaiians the white man was termed kekea, while haole meant any foreigner, irrespective of color. (Fornander; Taylor)

In Burney’s ‘Discoveries in the South Seas,’ on October 31, 1527, three vessels left a port called Zivat Lanejo, said by Galvaom to be situated lat. 20° N. on the coast of New Spain, for the Moluccas or Spice Islands.

The vessels were called the ‘Florida,’ with fifty men, the ‘St. Iago,’ with forty-five men, and the ‘Espiritu Santo,’ with fifteen men. They carried thirty pieces of cannon and a quantity of merchandise, and they were under the command of Don Alvaro de Saavedra.

These vessels sailed in company, and when they had accomplished 1000 leagues from port, they were overtaken by a severe storm, during which they were separated. The two smaller vessels were never afterwards heard of, and Saavedra pursued the voyage alone in the ‘Florida,’ touching at the Ladrone Islands. (Fornander)

“It seems certain that a foreign vessel which was wrecked about this time on the Kona coast of Hawaii must have been one of Saavedra’s missing ships.” (Alexander; Westervelt)

From this ship a white man and woman escaped. After reaching the beach they knelt for a long time in prayer. The Hawaiians, watching them, waited until they rose, and received welcome.

The place was at once named ‘Kūlou’ (kneeling.) Through all the succeeding years the name kept the story of the wrecked white chiefs before the Hawaiian people.

The Hawaiians received their white visitors as honored guests, and permitted them to marry into noted chief-families. In the Hawaiian legends the man and woman are called brother and sister. The man was named Kukanaloa. (Westervelt)

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Beauty Hole

Laniloa Point (or Lāʻie Point) is a protrusion of rock separating Lāʻie Beach to the south from Laniloa Beach to the north. Laniloa, literally means “tall, majesty.”

In ancient times this point was a moʻo (lizard-like creature,) standing upright; Lua Laniloa was a hole that was the home of the moʻo, who “menaced all travelers pausing to refresh themselves beside his pool.”

The moʻo were slain by the demi-hero Kana and his brother Nīheu. When the brothers killed the monsters, they chopped them up into the five islands off shore of Mālaekahana and Lāʻie.

The moʻo hole has been confused with a pool known as the “Beauty Hole,” which formed in the 1930s during construction of Kamehameha Highway when excavation led to the collapse of a sinkhole. (Cultural Surveys)

“The mere mention of the Beauty Hole brings tears to the eyes of those who remember it fondly. It might not have looked like much to the passerby … but to people like Phyllis Kuamoʻo, ‘it was our Natatorium.’”

“Indeed, the chance to jump into the refreshing water was a reward that had to be earned … making it all the more cherished. Phyllis remembers going directly from Lāʻie Elementary School in the afternoons to the taro patch, where she and her siblings would get hot and muddy pulling taro. It was only after she pulled her share that her dad might offer the chance to jump in the swimming hole.”

“Vatau Galeai Neria also holds happy memories of the Beauty Hole. Coming from Sāmoa in 1952, she never learned to swim. That is, until her friends encouraged her to try out the Beauty Hole, which she did by boldly jumping in the first time.”

“Thankfully, there was a ‘learner’s section,’ where you could doggie paddle from rock to rock and never stray into the center.”

“Of course there were always the dare devils. Using a hand made diving board, some adventurous young swimmers would dive down to where the water was dark and deep, fill a glass soda bottle with water that was noticeably colder, and offer proof to friends waiting on the surface of how close to the bottom they’d been.”

“Young people and families from Lāʻie would flock to the swimming hole where, inevitably, musicians would set themselves up on a nearby mound for an impromptu concert, and many would feel blissfully connected and carefree.” (Hoʻomua)

“The pond was not much more than twelve or fifteen feet in diameter. And of course, when you’re used to it, you don’t become frightened. But I learned to swim there by having someone throw me in, and that’s the way many of us swim.”

“They’d throw us in the pond and it was supposedly bottomless, but you could swim around the edges.” (Adam Forsythe, BYUH Oral Histories)

“The beauty hole … was an indentation, the origins of which are somewhat obscure, but people do remember it back as far as present memory can go. The accounts have been that it was possibly uncovered as a result of digging off the end of Lāʻie point during road construction.”

“(T)hat’s where our swimming hole was and this is where Hawaiian boys and girls – myself – learn how to swim. I’ve been living here seventy-two and I never noticed any drowning in here.”

“And this beauty hole here has produced two boys they was raised in Laie and they called themselves Kelii brothers and they were once-upon-a-time champion swimmers in 1925, ’26, ’27, ’29; they were champion swimmers. It was from the Beauty Hole they learned it from here.”

“Close to the road you cannot touch there; it’s very deep, but close to the wall, you can. It is only about twenty feet deep and this is the pool where I used to make a lot of money like diving for nickels twenty-five cents. Oh, yes especially on Sunday.”

“This one Sunday I didn’t go to priesthood meeting but I made a lot of money … When you throw the money you don’t jump on the money you jump on the side because when you jump on the money you just find bubbles coming up.”

“So that’s how I beat the other boys. So they named me Five-Cents, so today I’m still Five-Cents. Well I’m glad I’m Five-Cents because if you raised me up twenty-five cents, then the government tax me more.”

“We had three little diving boards … that’s where we learned how to dive on that high tower.” (Thomas Au (‘Uncle Five-Cents,’) BYUH)

Some say Beauty Hole got its name because a beautiful old woman with long grey hair would come to swim during each full moon, and then sit on a rock under the moonlight and comb her hair.

She had apparently found solace in that spot after losing her daughter. Whether or not the story is true is irrelevant, because for all those who long ago got to swim there, it was unquestionably a place of beauty. (Hoʻomua)

Located across from where Foodland is now, the Beauty Hole eventually got covered over in the 1960s and built on.

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