Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings | Page 21

January 24, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Fever

“The first symptoms of the fever is a restless sensation – an excited state of the system – a wild expression of the eye – and a light and elastic tread. These symptoms are followed with a desire to obtain implements for digging and washing …” (Polynesian, July 15, 1848)

There are “fearful ravages of a terrible fever which has nearly depopulated all the seaport towns and caused general rush to the interior. It is not exactly the yellow fever, but a fever for a yellow substance, called gold.”

“An exceedingly rich gold mine has been discovered in the Sacramento Valley, and all class all sexes have deserted their occupation and rushed en masse to the mines to make their fortune.”

“The gold taken from this newly discovered mine is not gold ore, but pure virgin gold. It is procured by the simple process of digging and washing, and is obtained at the rate of from two to four ounces per day by each laborer.” (Polynesian, June 24, 1848)

The great California gold rush began on January 24, 1848, when James W Marshall discovered a gold nugget in the American River while constructing a sawmill for John Sutter, a Sacramento agriculturalist. News of Marshall’s discovery brought thousands of immigrants to California from elsewhere in the United States and from other countries.

At first, there were only two routes. The first entailed a six-month sea voyage from New York around the tip of South America to San Diego or San Francisco. Rampant seasickness, bug-infested food, boredom, and high expense made this route unattractive for many would-be prospectors.

The second route brought travelers over the Oregon-California Trail in covered wagons—over rugged terrain and hostile territory. This journey also averaged six months’ duration.

By 1850, the length and difficulty of both routes had inspired the construction of the Panama Railway, the world’s first transcontinental railroad. Built across the isthmus of Panama by private American companies to speed travel to California, the railroad helped to shave months off of the long voyage around South America.

In addition to massive emigration from the eastern US, the California gold rush triggered a global emigration of ambitious fortune-seekers from China, Germany, Chile, Mexico, Ireland, Turkey, and France. The number of Chinese gold-seekers was particularly large, though many Chinese did not intend to settle in the United States, which they called “the Gold Mountain.” (harvard-edu)

It is estimated that not less than two hundred foreigners have left the Sandwich Islands for the gold mines in California.— Others it is rumored will soon follow. At the latest intelligence from the gold region there was no falling off in the amount of gold that rewarded the labors of the miner …” (the Friend, September 1, 1848)

“The rush, to that part of the world, flows in unabated. One hundred and eight vessels, are reported to have left the Atlantic States, for San Francisco, during the month of December. … The mines continue to yield the usual amount of gold, and no sign of being exhausted. The freshet and overflowings of the numerous streams and rivers, are reported to increase the amount of gold in the ‘diggings.’” (The Friend, April 1, 1850)

And, they came from Hawaiʻi … hundreds of Hawaiians came to California to work in the mines. Remaining place names, Kanaka Creek and Kanaka Bar remind us of their early presence in the gold country.

Others from Hawaiʻi, even some of the missionaries, joined in the quest for gold.

“Several other vessels left port some for California, which has become a very interesting quarter, since the reports have reached us of the gold mines.” (August 1, 1848) “Comore. Jones has gone to St. Francisco and it is said he will put a stop to the private operations in the gold district, and will claim the district & the gold for the U. S. government.” (Levi Chamberlain, August 8, 1848)

“There is at present a great excitement here about digging gold in California. … Mr. Douglass and Mr. Lyman of whom you have heard as former assistants in our school are both there, also — Mr. Ricord, the former attorney general. … Men, women, and children are all absorbed in it, the one great thing Gold.” (Julia Cooke, September 21, 1848)

Reverend Damon of the Seamen’s Bethel Church and publisher of The Friend travelled the area – not as a miner, but an observer of the activities there.

“In travelling through the country I have met scores of seamen with whom I had become acquainted while at Honolulu. I was cordially welcomed, although in more than a single instance they exclaimed ‘you are the last man that we expected to see at the mines.’ A few words of explanation were however sufficient to set the matter right.” (Damon, The Friend, December 1, 1848)

Thomas Hopu and William Kanui, who returned to the islands with the Pioneer Company of missionaries in 1820, joined the gold rush. Damon saw them in Sacramento on his journey through the area.

John Thomas Gulick, son of the Gulick missionary family, joined the rush after seeking his parents’ permission. By June 1849, his prospecting was reasonably successful, but after having his money stolen, he returned to Hawaii a few months later after having recovered his finances through various trading ventures. (Bennett)

Likewise, the Reverend Lowell Smith, the first minister of Kaumakapili Church, sailed to San Francisco for a rest because of poor health. He visited the California gold fields.

“Kamae went immediately to speak to the Hawaiians in other places to come so we might be together for the week. I witnessed their work in the gold fields …. They were not able to obtain much on account of the scarcity of water. Some made a dollar a day, others two dollars, and still others, nothing.” (Smith; Kenn, HHS)

The California Gold Rush drawing Hawaiians to the continent was not its only effect on the Islands; the Hawaiian economy was affected in several ways – good and not-so-good.

Prior to the Gold Rush, supporting the Pacific whaling and trading fleets and trade between the West Coast and Hawaiʻi was the scale of the Hawaiʻi participation. The scale of that significantly changed with the Gold Rush.

Hawaiʻi was only three to five weeks away, and with the growing population drawn to the gold fields, in addition to provisioning ships, Hawaiʻi farmers were feeding the gold seekers on the continent.

There were some down sides; this also brought a marked increase in the prices of consumer goods, especially food, caused by the great increase in agricultural exports to California, which offered very profitable new markets. (Rawls)

Likewise, the exodus to the continent created a critical labor shortage in Hawaiʻi, where a sizeable number of sugar plantation workers migrated to the California gold fields.

The parting of workers from the plantations between 1848 and 1853 was so large, Hawaiʻi sugar producers began to seek Chinese immigrants to fill the gap. (Rawls)

January 14, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kohala Ditch

Central to Hawaiʻi’s use of water has been agriculture, sugar in particular.

Initially brought to the islands by early Polynesians, the first successful commercial sugar plantation started in 1835. And, with it, Hawai`i’s environmental, social and economic fabric changed. Hawaiʻi’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

What encouraged the development of plantation centers? For one, the American settlement of California opened lucrative avenues of trade in the Pacific. In addition, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai’i to compete in a California market that paid elevated prices for sugar.

The Pacific whaling trade collapsed after 1860, pushing Honolulu merchants into the sugar trade. About the same time, the closing of the Hawaiian mission left the previously supported missionaries in search of new means of income.

The 1876 Treaty of Reciprocity between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai`i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US received a station at Pearl Harbor and Hawaiʻi’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets for their sugar.

For nearly a century, agriculture was the Island’s leading economic activity. It provided Hawai`i’s major sources of employment, tax revenues, and new capital through exports of raw sugar and other farm products.

Sugarcane requires a lot of water to grow. Pioneer sugar planters solved water shortages by diverting stream water and building irrigation systems that included aqueducts (the first in 1856), artesian wells (the first in 1879), and tunnels and mountain wells (the first in 1898). These irrigation systems enabled the planters to expand their sugar production.

These irrigation systems were modeled largely after the elaborate and extensive diversion and ditches developed by the ancient Hawaiians. Unlike the traditional Hawaiian system, which never diverted more than 50% of stream flow, the sugar plantations diverted large quantities of water from perennial streams and moved water from one ahupuaʻa to another.

Boston missionary Reverend Elias Bond sailed with the Ninth Company of Protestant Missionaries, arriving in the Islands in 1841. He was then assigned to Kohala.

As a means to provide employment to the people in the region and support his church and schools, in 1862, Reverend Bond founded Kohala Sugar Company, known as “The Missionary Plantation;” it produced its first sugar crop in 1865. Bond gave all his dividends and profits beyond his living expenses to the Board of Missions.

Bond included the following in a letter: “So this was the ‘Missionary Plantation’, and the prophecies were many and loud that it would not live five years”. But in the goodness of God we came through.” (Schweitzer)

From the mid-1800s, the sugar industry developed and commercial centers sprung up around the processing mills, especially in Kapaʻau and Hawi. The construction of the railroad and the Kohala Ditch acted to encourage the further development of these more centrally-located communities.

Seven sugar mills operated in Kohala: Kohala, Union, Niuliʻi, Hawi, Halawa, Hōʻea and Star. With the exception of Star, which existed for only a brief period of time, each was the nucleus of a community of plantation managers, supervisors, and laborers. (In 1937, all of the mills were consolidated into Kohala Sugar Company.)

To water the crop, John Hind first conceived of an irrigation system tapping into the abundant, wild and inaccessible rivers that ribbon the Kohala Mountains. In 1904, JS Low acquired a license from the Territory of Hawaiʻi to “enter upon, confine, conserve, collect, impound and divert all the running natural surface waters on the Kohala-Hāmākua Watershed;” he assigned the license to the Kohala Ditch Company.

Notable engineers and other professionals became involved in the construction of irrigation ditches that were the forerunners of large irrigation projects in the Western US. Among the engineers was Michael Maurice O’Shaugnessy; he was both an investor in the Kohala Ditch Company and the Chief Engineer for the aqueduct. (ASCE)

The Kohala Ditch, built by the Kohala Sugar Company, diverted water from the Honokāne Nui Stream to Hikapoloa, west of Hawi. 600-Japanese laborers worked on its construction; in the process, 17 lost their lives.

The laborers were housed under corrugated iron roofs. The raised floors “nearly always two-feet above the ground and higher if practicable” provided “a place for drying the men’s clothes in wet weather.” Additionally, “a hospital and medical department was also provided for the men, who were assessed 50-cents a month apiece for this object.” (ASCE)

The Honokāne section of Kohala Ditch was opened on June 11, 1906; waters of Honokāne began flowing to the Kohala, Niuliʻi, Halawa, Hawi and Union mills. The Awini section was finished in 1907; it started from the Waikoloa stream and traveled over 8-miles, mostly in tunnel, to the Awini weir where the water dropped 900-feet in a manmade waterfall into the Honokāne section.

The ditch carried the water for 23-miles northwest, mostly as tunnel, toward Hawi. The capacity was originally 70-mgd, later reduced to 50-mgd, when the original flumes were replaced with smaller ones.

The ditch drops about 80-feet in elevation from 1,045-feet at the bottom of the intake at the first large stream (Honokāne) to 956-feet at the terminus in the plantation fields.

Prosperity came to Kohala. At the peak of its production, the Sugar Company had 600-employees; 13,000-acres of land produced 45,000-tons of raw sugar a year.

As with other sugar operations, it didn’t last. 1975 saw the last harvest at Kohala Sugar Company. The district’s economy struggled. Almost one-third of the workforce now commutes to South Kohala to work in the hotels and resorts located there. However, the Ditch remained open for other agricultural needs.

Vulnerability and the risks associated with reliance on the Kohala Ditch were made evident on October 15, 2006, when two earthquakes struck off Kiholo and caused extensive damage to the Kohala Ditch. In that instant, rockslides and other damage to the ditch stopped the water from flowing through the Ditch.

Two years later, on November 25, 2008, after extensive community involvement and public/private funding ($2-million in federal money, $500,000 from the state, $500,000 from Hawai`i County, $342,000 from Kamehameha Schools and $100,000 from AT&T), water was released back into the Kohala Ditch after repairs to the damage caused by the 2006 quakes.

Agricultural and hydroelectric users continue to benefit from the Ditch; in addition, entrepreneurs saw an opportunity for recreational/visitor industry uses of the ditch with kayak and raft rides through the flumes and tunnels of the Kohala Ditch.

December 26, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Sisters of Charity

Appropriately, we read a lot about the good work of Father Damien and Mother Marianne (both, now Saints.) But we don’t seem to hear of the many others who worked with them in ministering to those in need.

Here, we look at only a few (some of the earliest Sisters that worked with Mother Marianne,) and the hard work and hardship they endured.

The first shipment of lepers landed at Kalawao (Kalaupapa) January 6, 1866, the beginning of segregation and banishment of lepers to the leper settlement.

Receiving and detention centers were established on Oʻahu. Kalihi Hospital was the first hospital for leprosy patients in Hawaiʻi opening in 1865. Kapiʻolani Home opened in Kalihi Kai in 1891 adjacent to the Kalihi Hospital and Receiving Station; Kalihi Plague Camp (1900-1912) and Meyers Street, Kalihi Uka (1912-1938.) (NPS)

In January 1883, Walter Gibson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Board of Health, appealed to Hermann Koeckemann, Bishop of Olba, head of the Catholic Mission in Hawai’i, to obtain Sisters of Charity from one of the many sisterhoods in the US to come and help care for leprous women and girls in the Islands.

Father Leonor Fouesnel, with a royal commission from King Kalākaua, was designated as agent to go on this mission. Landing in San Francisco and traveling East, Father Leonor petitioned more than fifty different sisterhoods before a favorable reply was obtained, from the Franciscan Convent of St Anthony at Syracuse, New York.

The reply to the King’s emissary was not made lightly, but only after a long, serious debate among the sisterhood. One of the prime supporters of this action was the Mother Superior, Mother Marianne Cope. (Greene; NPS)

“I am hungry for the work and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen Ones, whose privilege it will be, to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders… I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’” (Mother Marianne; NPS)

Mother Marianne consulted with all the sisters and, to her credit they felt free to voice their concerns. Responded one: “I am very honest with you. I am afraid. I have heard too much about these poor people. I heard also that there are no rules and regulations. That everyone does as he pleases.”

Another stated: “If it is not a suitable place for any woman how can it be for the Sisters.” (NPS) With calmness, good sense, firmness, and a kind heart she was able to get cooperation from all around her. Her religious life was a series of administrative appointments, culminating in her being placed in charge of missions in Hawai’i.

Only six sisters could be spared to go with Mother Marianne, who insisted that as superior of the convent it was her duty to go with the first group of sisters and help them get established. It was not the intent of the convent that she stay in Hawai’i permanently. (Greene; NPS)

On October 23, 1883, Mother Marianne and her companions set off for Hawai’i, arriving on November 9. These were: Sister M Bonaventure Caraher, Sister Crescentia Eilers, Sister Ludovica Gibbons, Sister M Rosalia McLaughlin, Sister Renata Nash and Sister Mary Antonella Murphy.

Three of the sisters and Mother Marianne went to work at the branch hospital for leprosy victims at Kaka’ako in Honolulu on January 11, 1884, and spent almost five years there. Three others were put in charge of the new hospital at Wailuku on the island of Maui.

“For us it is happiness to be able to comfort, in a measure, the poor exiles, and we rejoice that we are unworthy agents of our heavenly Father through whom He deigns to show His great love and mercy to the sufferers.” (Mother Marianne, 1884)

Queen Kapi‘olani had visited Kalaupapa in 1884 to learn how she could assist those who were diagnosed with leprosy and exiled there, and she raised the funds to build the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (KCC) She and others also recognized the need for a home for the non-infected children of the leprosy patients.

On November 9, 1885, the healthy girls living in Kalawao moved into Kapiʻolani Home on the grounds of the sisters’ convent at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

On April 22, 1885, a second group of sisters arrived from Syracuse as reinforcements. This included Sister Leopoldina Burns, Sister Carolina Hoffmann, Sister Martha Kaiser and Sister Benedicta Rodenmacher. Shortly after, Sister Antonia Brown, Sister M. Vincentia McCormick, Sister M. Irena Schorp and Sister Ephrem Schillinger. (More came later.)

News continually filtered back to Kaka’ako about conditions at the Moloka’i settlement. The children on the island were in desperate need of care and the venerable Father Damien himself had been diagnosed as having leprosy and obviously had few years left in which to continue his work.

Mother Marianne, however, was being kept busy in Honolulu all this time. At one point she had suggested to Walter Gibson that a home for children of leprous parents be built near the sisters’ residence in Honolulu. This establishment opened in November 1885 as the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (Green; NPS)

Then, Mother Marianne Cope and Sisters Leopoldina Burns and Vincentia McCormick of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sisters of Charity arrived on November 14, 1888. They managed the Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls and Women, which opened at Kalaupapa in 1888. (NPS)

Sister Leopoldina describes the place: “One could never imagine what a lonely barren place it was. Not a tree nor a shrub in the whole Settlement only in the churchyard there were a few poor little trees that were so bent and yellow by the continued sweep of the birning wind it would make one sad to look at them.” (Voices of Kaulapapa; SanDiego-gov)

While there was no cure for the residents of Molokai, the sisters tried to bring dignity to their lives. Before the sisters arrived, patients dressed in rags. The sisters gave the girls proper clothes and taught them embroidery, sewing and gardening. They also gave them music lessons.

Father Damien himself succumbed to leprosy on April 15, 1889. Upon the death of Damien, Mother Marianne agreed to also head the Boys Home at Kalawao. The Board of Health had quickly chosen her as Saint Damien’s successor and she was thus enabled to keep her promise to him to look after his boys.

A traveler on a steamer that later (May, 1889) brought Sisters Crescentia and Irene to Kalaupapa noted, “When I was pulled ashore one early morning there sat with me in the boat two sisters bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. One wept silently and I could not withhold myself from joining her.” (The Messenger)

The workload was extremely heavy in that Bishop Home alone provided shelter for 103 girls in 1893. There were times when the burden seemed overwhelming. In a moment of despair, Sister Leopoldina reflected, “How long Oh Lord must I see only those that are sick and covered with leprosy?” (Sister Leopoldina: NPS)

The Baldwin Home, which opened in May of 1894, replaced the Boys’ home built by Father Damien. Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of Saint Francis managed the Baldwin home until they turned over jurisdiction to Joseph Dutton and the Sacred Hearts Brothers in 1895.

While at Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne predicted that no Franciscan Sister would ever contract leprosy. Additionally she required her sisters use stringent hand washing and other sanitary procedures. No sister has ever contracted the disease. Mother Marianne died in the summer of 1918 at the age of 80.

Mother Marianne was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012, making her the first Franciscan woman to be canonized from North America and only the 11th American saint. Forevermore, she will be known as St Marianne Cope, with the title “beloved mother of outcasts.” (Lots of information here is from NPS and Hawaii Catholic Herald.)

Gibson with the Sisters of St. Francis and daughters of Hansen’s disease patients, at the Kakaako Branch Hospital-1886

Sr. M. Rosalia, Sr. M Martha, Sr M. Leopoldina, Sr. M Charles, Sr. M. Crescentia, and Mother Marianne rear-Walter Murray Gibson-1886

Mother Marianne Cope (in wheelchair) with other nuns and the women and girls of Bishop Home in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, shortly before her death in 1918.

Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth

Sisters (Mother Marianne center) and patients at the Bishop Home in Kalaupapa

Kakaako Branch Hospital-Patients’ Cottage-Hanley&Bushnell-1886

Beginnings of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony

Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai

Rebuilt-Kapiolani_Home

Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Girls and Women-Kalaupapa, Molokai-1900

Old Settlement at Kalawao

Mother_Marianne_Cope,_Kalaupapa,_1899

Malulani_Hospital-women’s_ward-(MauiNews)

Kapiolani_Home

Kalawao-Kalaupapa

Kalaupapa home for unprotected girls

Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls

Edward_Clifford_–_Damien_in_1888

December 20, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Three Volcano Pioneers of the Mid-19th Century Hawaii

“Keep and publish careful records, invite the whole world of science to co-operate, and interest the business man.” (Jaggar)

The efficiency of an institution which is essentially educational and not commercial, productive of ideas rather than dollars, must be measured by its effect on productive men of learning in stimulating them to production; that is, to new discovery, experiment investigation and publication.

The founding of the Volcano Observatory and the formation of the group of subscribers here called the “Research Association,” were themselves evolved productions of the inspiring work of early investigators, as well as of the natural intellectual stimulus created in man by the unexplained Kilauea lake of boiling nebulous flux.

Three names stand out above all others as recorders of the work of the Fire Goddess in Hawaii in the middle decades of the nineteenth century : Titus Coan, James Dwight Dana, and William Lowthian Green.

Coan the missionary, earnest seeker after truth, for more than a third of the century watched every detail of the evolution of the volcanoes, pondered their meaning, and moreover made truthful record in scores of letters which were promptly published.

This genius for recording is rare among men, and is an all-important requirement in science; many men are good observers, but millions of valuable observations are forever lost, because of a lack of appreciation of the value of a jotting down – day, hour, minute, event, stages, appearances.

All science is no more than a categoric jotting-down, and the grouping of facts into new categories, until some of these reach the dignity of “theory.”

Coan without apparatus or endowment was an institution, a first Hawaiian volcano observatory, and in actual output he was a better observer and recorder than some institutions which have been elaborately equipped.

Professor Dana of Yale, foremost American geologist, was with the Wilkes Expedition at Kilauea in 1840, revisited Hawaii later, and wrote in 1891 a book, “Characteristics of Volcanoes,” which stands preeminent among volcano memoirs.

It was inspired by Kilauea and Mauna Loa, but is broad and sane, and presents a most painstaking and thoughtful summary of the progress of Hawaiian volcanic events, and their bearing on geology. Dana published in New Haven Coan’s letters, and it was doubtless Dana who stimulated much of Coan’s recording.

Green, the man of business, in his leisure moments student of volcanic life and of the inspiring heights and depths of the globe, conceived: to scale, with its film of waters and its blanket of gas, wrote a remarkable book in two volumes, “Vestiges of the Molten Globe.”

His second volume deals especially with the volcanoes, which he visited many times, and of it Professor Daly of Harvard writes: “It is certainly a pity that the second part of Green’s work is not more generally known. The book is almost as remarkable a contribution to the philosophy of vulcanism as Part 1, ‘On the Tetrahedral Theory of the Earth,’ is important in cosmogonic philosophy.”

Green’s work foreshadowed theoretic conceptions which modem thought has fixed more firmly, and his interest, as a business man, in the affairs of pure science was forerunner of the wider interest of many business men (and intelligent women) of Hawaii who now make up the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association.

These three men, Coan and Green resident here, Dana from an eastern university, typify the reason for the creation of an Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and their portraits should forever hang in honored place upon its walls.

Coan, the systematic observer, showed the value of record and system; Green, the merchant, fascinated by the spell of Pele and inspired by the problems of position of this mid-Pacific pinnacle, Hawaii, rising 37,000 feet above the ocean deep, adopted volcanology for avocation, and left monumental work to inspire specialist and layman alike.

While Dana the scholar, coming from a distant seat of learning, hospitably entertained in the islands by Coan, Green, Bishop, Brigham, Alexander and a host of kind friends, rewarded their kindness by making famous to the whole world the achievements of his Hawaiian scientific colleagues.

Dana added new volcano lore and illustrated what production may come from scientific hospitality. (All here is copied from Special Bulleting of Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, 1913, as stated by Thomas Jaggar.)

December 19, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Amusements

The following is a portion of a letter from William Richards to Charles Wilkes, commander of the United States Exploring Expedition, dated March 15, 1841 in Lahaina. The letter responds to questions raised by Wilkes. It comes from editors Marshall Sahlins and Dorothy Barrere.

Richards arrived in Honolulu in April 1823 in the second company of American missionaries and was stationed soon thereafter in Lahaina, home of many of the chiefs. He remained in Lahaina throughout most of his missionary career.

His knowledge of Hawaiian is known to have been excellent—he is responsible for many translations of biblical and other works into Hawaiian—and as the letter to Wilkes documents, he was friend to the famous Hoapili and other chiefs.

In 1838, Richards left the mission to become political counselor to the Monarchy. In 1842 with T. Ha‘alilio he undertook a mission to America and Europe to negotiate recognition of Hawaii’s independence. Richards was commissioned Minister of Public Instruction in 1846. He died in Honolulu in November 1847. All of the following is from that letter:

Their amusements were pretty numerous, and many of them of an athletic kind, though not requiring the severest trials of strength.

A favorite amusement of the chiefs was sliding down hill on a long narrow slead, upon which they prostratrated themselves, and then having the slead ballanced on the edge of a very steep hill they started it with the foot and were precipitated down the hill with immense velocity often to a distance of half or even a whole mile.

Thus they went from the top of Diamond Hill far out upon the plane of Honolulu, and at other places to a much greater distance.

Rolling a smooth round stone was another favorite amusement and one which tended to strengthen the arms more than any other with which I have been acquainted.

On ground where the descent was scarcely perceptable I have seen the stone rolled a hundred and thirty rods.

Throwing the spear and various other exercises with it was also an amusement as well as a military exercise. With this weapon they were very expert.

Playing on the surf board has always been and continues to be a very favorite amusement. As you have doubtless seen this, I need not describe the process.

The dance was an amusement which was practiced perhaps to a greater extent than any other. There was a great variety of dances. Some of them consisted mainly in the recital of songs accompanied with much action as was calculated to give them force. Other seemed to consist mainly in action.

Sometimes a single girl was the actress, again, a large number united. Their motions were anything but graceful. Their motions were regulated by music, which consisted of a kind of drumming on various hollow vessels, as calabashes, tubs, and a kind of drum made by drawing a piece of shark skin over a short piece of a hollow log. . . .

Every variety of song was rehearsed and acted on these occasions, from the most sentimental to the most lascivious, and the action always echoed to the sense.

Sometimes a single voice rehearsed the song—sometimes a number chanted in unison.

The first summer I spent in Lahaina scarcely a night passed in which I did not hear the noise of these assemblies, and they were uniformly scenes of lewdness and vice.

But the most numerous class of all their amusements was their games of chance.

Of these they were specially fond. These games were peculiar to themselves. The one most practiced by the chiefs was that of placing several bunches of kapas in a row, and then one man took a stone and hid it under one of the tapas. His antagonist guessed the place of the stone, and the one who was oftenest right won the game.

They never played at games of chance without a wager, nor indeed at any game of skill. The wager seemed to constitute the charm of most of their amusements. It was an accompanyment of their down hill slides – their play in the surf – their plays with the spear their rolling the stone – their flying the kite &c. . . .

They gambled away their property of every kind – their clothes – their food – the crops upon their land – the lands themselves – their wives – their husbands – their daughters, and even the very bones of their arms and legs.

At present cards is a common amusement and it is accompanied with its usual evils.