Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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“The Prophet”

The headline in the October 24, 1868 Pacific Commercial Advertiser boldly stated “Insurrection on Hawaiʻi.”

“For several years past, one (Joseph Ioela) Kaʻona … imbibed the idea that he was a prophet sent by God to warn this people of the end of the world. For the three years he has been preaching this millerite doctrine on Hawaiʻi, and has made numerous converts.”    (PCA, October 24, 1868)

Kaʻona was born and brought up in Kainaliu, Kona on the island of Hawaiʻi. He received his education at the Hilo Boarding School and graduated from Lahainaluna on Maui.

Following the Māhele, Kaʻona was employed surveying kuleana (property, titles, claims) in Kaʻū and Oʻahu. He was well-educated and was later employed as a magistrate, both in Honolulu and in Lāhainā. (Greenwell)

Then, he felt possessed with miraculous powers.

“By the mid-1860s, Kaʻona claimed to have had divine communications with Elijah, Gabriel, and Jehovah, from whom he’d received divine instructions and prophetic.”  (Maly)  Followers called him ‘The Prophet;’ his followers were referred to as Kaʻonaites.)

“Some months ago he was arrested and sent to the Insane Asylum in this city as a lunatic, but the physician decided that he was as sane as any man, and he was therefore set at liberty again.”  (PCA, October 24, 1868)

“He returned to Kona, and the number of his followers rapidly increased, till now it is over three hundred. They are mostly natives, but some are probably foreigners, as we received a letter a few weeks ago from one of them ….”

“These fanatics believe that the end of the world is at hand, and they must be ready. They therefore clothe themselves in white robes, ready to ascend, watch at night, but sleep during the day, decline to cultivate anything except beans, corn, or the most common food.”

“They live together in one colony, and have selected a tract of land about half way between Kealakekua Bay and Kailua, which the prophet told them was the only land that would not be overrun with lava, while all the rest of the island is to be destroyed.”  (PCA, October 24, 1868)

“Kaʻona was received by (Reverend John Davis) Paris and congregation at Lanakila Church, and he once again drew many people to him with his powerful doctrine. But his claims of prophetic visions, unorthodox methods of teaching, questionable morality, soon caused the larger congregations from Kailua to Kealakekua to become suspicious of his intentions.”  (Maly)

“Some three years ago, the neat little church at Kainaliu was built, by subscription …. Paris, the Pastor preached on certain Sundays, and Kaʻona … one of the Lunas, would preach on others.”

“For a time, all went on smoothly enough, until Kaʻona began to introduce some slight innovations in the form of worship, which were opposed by Mr. Paris and minority of the congregation and the church became split into two factions. … The feud continued to increase …” (Hawaiian Gazette, November 18, 1868)”

When asked to leave Lanakila Church, Kaʻona and his followers refused, Governess Keʻelikōlani was forced to intercede and called upon local sheriff Richard B. Neville.  In September 1867, Kaʻona and followers vacated Lanakila, and moved to an area below the church.  (Maly)

The Kaʻonaites settled on the kula and coastal lands at Lehuʻula, south of Keauhou (near present-day Hokuliʻa.)  “There they built a number of grass houses, erected a flag, and held their  meetings, religious and political … he and his adherents were claiming, cultivating and appropriating to themselves the products of the lands leased and owned by others….”  (Paris; Maly)

Neville was sent to evict them from there.

Kaʻona was arrested and returned to O‘ahu for a short time, but by March 1868, he, again, returned to Kona.

On April 2, 1868, a destructive earthquake shook the island, causing significant damage and tidal waves, and numerous deaths (the estimated 7.9 magnitude quake was the strongest to hit the Islands.)

Kaʻona described it as the final days.

“(The Kaʻonaites) have taken oath, that they will all be killed before they surrender. I am ready to start from here at any time, with quite a company of men. If we hear that there is need for more help. We are badly off for good firearms here.”

“Kaʻona’s party have threatened to burn all the houses in Kona & to take life. It may not be as bad as it is represented”.  (Governor Lyman of Interior Minister Hutchinson, October 25, 1868; Maly)

On October 19, Sheriff Neville, his deputy and policemen, approached Kaʻona once again to evict them, and Kaʻona encouraged his followers to fight. A riot took place.

“Neville was felled from his horse by a stone, which struck him on the head … (an assistant) tried to get Neville, but the stones were too many, and so he fled likewise, and was pursued ….” (Hawaiian Gazette, June 23, 1869)  Neville and another were both brutally killed.  The event has been referred to as Kaʻona’s Rebellion, Kaʻona Insurrection and Kaʻona Uprising.

Kaʻona eventually surrendered; he and sixty-six of his followers were arrested, and another 222 were released after a short detention.  Kaʻona was returned to O‘ahu, convicted and sentenced to ten years of hard labor.

But in 1874, shortly after David Kalākaua (he and Albert Francis Judd had been appointed Kaʻona’s defense attorneys in 1868) became King, he pardoned Kaʻona. By 1878, Kaʻona had once again taken up residence at Kainaliu vicinity, and undertook work with the poor.  Kaʻona died in 1883.  (Maly)

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What a beautiful day for fishing …

In March 1865, Brigham Young (President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877,) in a letter to King Kamehameha V, requested permission to locate an agricultural colony in Lāʻie. The king granted his request.

That year, Mormon missionaries (Francis Asbury Hammond and George Nebeker) purchased about 6,000-acres of the ahupuaʻa of Lāʻiewai to Lāʻiemaloʻo (in Koʻolauloa) from Mr. Thomas T Dougherty for the Mormon Church.  The missionaries hoped to create a gathering place for converts to their faith to settle in.

On April 5, 1882, King Kalākaua visited the village of Lāʻie as guest of honor for the ceremonial placement of four cornerstones for a new chapel being built by the Mormons.

The chapel remained until 1915 when the Hawaiʻi Temple was started and the chapel was moved. Unfortunately, the historic chapel burned down during renovations on July 11, 1940.

1945 saw the end of World War II. With the end came the return of the simple island life.

To replace the church they needed to raise funds.   After a few unsuccessful attempts at fundraising, the decision was made in 1947 to pull together a hukilau as a fundraising event. (PCC)

Hukilau (Huki = pull; lau = leaves, specifically, ki (ti) leaves) is a community fishing technique with long ropes, with dried ti leaves attached to frighten the fish.

The net was taken out and surrounds fish out in the water; then, the ends of the net are pulled into shore, corralling the fish.  The fish are either caught in the nets or picked up by hand.  This operation in the old days brought together men, women and children of the whole community.  (Maly)

A well-known expert fisherman, Hamana Kalili supplied the nets for fishing.  (Kalili is credited for starting the ‘shaka’ hand sign (but that is the subject of another story.))

Beatrice Ayer Patton (Mrs. George S Patton – her husband was stationed on Oʻahu during the mid-1920s) described Kalili as “a magnificent example of the pure Hawaiian. A man in his sixties, with white hair and a deeply carven face, he had the body and reactions of a teenager. He lived and fished on the windward side of the island”.  (Patton-Totten)

“… they would go out in the ocean, in a semicircle and pull the nets to shore, and that was the hukilau, part of it.  After the fish was all caught and so on, then they would go to the luau part.  And the luau, as you know, is a place where you can have lots of food, and have lots of entertainment.” (Roland Maʻiola “Ahi” Logan; Kepa Maly)

January 31, 1948, members of the Lāʻie Ward started the hukilau. (PCC)  A $5 fee was charged to enjoy the hukilau, food and hula show. Two hundred and fifty people arrived for the first fundraiser and the church raised $1,250.

Jack Owens enjoyed this Hukilau. That night, suffering sunburn, aches and pains, he was inspired to write this song. Introduced publicly at a Methodist lūʻau in Honolulu, it became an instant hit.  (Our Honolulu, Bob Krauss, Advertiser, April, 1998)

“So that became the Church fund raiser.  After the success of the first one.  That was done. … Hukilau gave the people of Lāʻie the impact of economic growth.  Next thing you knew, the ladies went into making crafts, the children were making coconut hats … the Hukilau was something that strengthened the people in the community.”  (Logan; Maly)

During that time, it was one of the most popular visitor attractions. To actually pull in the hukilau nets, feast on the lau lau and watch as the ʻama ʻama went swimming by was truly a Hawaiian activity. (PCC)  (The Hukilau continued to 1971.)

In 1959 students and faculty at the Church College of Hawaiʻi (BYU-Hawaiʻi) organized the “Polynesian Institute” (later renamed “Polynesian Panorama”) and took the show on the road.  Students performed first at the International Market Place, then put on larger performances in the Kaiser Hawaiian Dome in Waikīkī.

Two years of shuttling Church College students back and forth to Waikīkī for performances convinced decision-makers that a spirited, tourist-oriented Polynesian revue with a student cast was definitely marketable.

And although some argued that Lāʻie was too far from Honolulu, others insisted that the success of the hukilau demonstrated that they could draw audiences large enough to make the venture profitable.  (Webb)  Thus, the Polynesian Cultural Center was born.

Click HERE for a link to Owen’s Hukilau Song.

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1620 … 1820 … Today

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England on September 6, 1620 with 102 passengers and about 25 carefully selected crew, arriving in the New World 67 days later.

She was a ‘sweet’ ship in that she had been engaged in the wine trade in the Mediterranean since 1616. She had also been engaged in fur trade with Norway and had experienced the storms of the North Sea, a most treacherous body of water.

The dimensions of the Mayflower were 90 feet in length (12 Feet more than a tennis court), 26 feet in width, with a tonnage of 180. Small as she was she was larger than the Discovery, which landed at Virginia in 1607. (NCMayflower-org)

Most of the passengers were of English origin seeking a new home free from religious persecution where they might retain their English identity and customs.

Not all the Mayflower passengers were Separatists. The Merchant Adventurers recruited a number of colonists seeking financial opportunity in the New World.

Others, such as Myles Standish, had been hired by the Separatists specifically for their expertise in certain areas. Standish was an English military officer hired by the Pilgrims as a military advisor for Plymouth Colony for military professional; he did not travel for religious reasons.

The roots of Congregational churches in America go back to the Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

The Pilgrims came from England to the New World seeking religious freedom at the time of the 16th century Protestant Reformation. The churches they established in New England became known as Congregational churches. (First Congregational Church Nantucket)

The coming of Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and other young Hawaiians to the continent had awakened a deep Christian sympathy in the churches and moved the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to establish a Foreign Mission School and a mission to the Hawaiian Islands.

Among the other Hawaiian students at the Foreign Mission School were four Hawaiians, Thomas Hopu, William Kanui, John Honoliʻi and Prince Humehume (son of Kauai’s King Kaumuali‘i.)

When asked “Who will return with these boys to their native land to teach the truths of salvation?” Hiram Bingham and his classmate, Asa Thurston, were the first to respond and offer their services to the Board. (Congregational Quarterly)

“It is for no private end, for no earthly object that you go. It is wholly for the good of others, and for the glory of God our Saviour. … Your mission is a mission of mercy, and your work is to be wholly a labor of love. … “

“Your views are not to be limited to a low, narrow scale, but you are to open your hearts wide, and set your marks high. You are to aim at nothing short of covering these islands with fruitful fields, and pleasant dwellings and schools and churches, and of Christian civilization.” (Instructions to the Pioneer Company)

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries from the northeast US set sail from Boston on the Thaddeus for the Hawaiian Islands.

There were seven American couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity in this Pioneer Company. These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; and a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

With the missionaries were the four Hawaiians.

After about 160 days at sea, on March 30, 1820, the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries first see the Islands. Later that day, they learned the kapu was abolished, Kamehameha died and Liholiho was now King. They landed at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820.

Bingham designed the Kawaiaha‘o Church in Honolulu; it was constructed between 1836 and 1842 in the New England style of the Hawaiian missionaries and is one of the oldest standing Christian places of worship in Hawaiʻi.

I am a direct descendant of Myles Standish from the Mayflower.

I am a direct descendant of Hiram Bingham from the Thaddeus.

So, now, another 200 years later … What’s up for today?

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Daniel Dole

Daniel Dole was born in Bloomfield (now Skowhegan,) Maine, September 9, 1808. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1836 and Bangor Theological Seminary in 1839, and then married Emily Hoyt Ballard (1807-1844,) October 2, 1840 in Gardiner, Maine.

The education of their children was a concern of missionaries. There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

During the first 21-years of the missionary period (1820-1863,) no fewer than 33 children were either taken back to the continent by their parents. (Seven-year-old Sophia Bingham, the first Caucasian girl born on Oʻahu, daughter of Hiram and Sybil, was sent to the continent in 1828. She is my great-great-grandmother.)

On July 11, 1842, fifteen children met for the first time in Punahou’s original E-shaped building. The first Board of Trustees (1841) included Rev. Daniel Dole, Rev. Richard Armstrong, Levi Chamberlain, Rev. John S Emerson and Gerrit P Judd. (Hawaiian Gazette, June 17, 1916)

By the end of that first year, 34-children from Sandwich Islands and Oregon missions were enrolled, only one over 12-years old. Tuition was $12 per term, and the school year covered three terms. (Punahou)

By 1851, Punahou officially opened its doors to all races and religions. (Students from Oregon, California and Tahiti were welcomed from 1841 – 1849.)

December 15 of that year, Old School Hall, “the new spacious school house,” opened officially to receive its first students. The building is still there and in use by the school.

“The founding of Punahou as a school for missionary children not only provided means of instruction for the children, of the Mission, but also gave a trend to the education and history of the Islands.”

“In 1841, at Punahou the Mission established this school and built for it simple halls of adobe. From this unpretentious beginning, the school has grown to its present prosperous condition.” (Report of the Superintendent of Public Education, 1900)

The curriculum at Punahou under Dole combined the elements of a classical education with a strong emphasis on manual labor in the school’s fields for the boys, and in domestic matters for the girls. The school raised much of its own food. (Burlin)

Some of Punahou’s early buildings include, Old School Hall (1852,) music studios; Bingham Hall (1882,) Bishop Hall of Science (1884,) Pauahi Hall (1894,) Charles R. Bishop Hall (1902,) recitation halls; Dole Hall and Rice Hall (1906,) dormitories; Cooke Library (1908) and Castle Hall (1913,) dormitory.

Dole Street, laid out in 1880 and part of the development of the lower Punahou pasture was named after Daniel Dole (other nearby streets were named after other Punahou presidents.)

Emily died on April 27, 1844 in Honolulu; Daniel Dole married Charlotte Close Knapp (1813-1874) June 22, 1846 in Honolulu, Oʻahu.

Daniel Dole resigned from Punahou in 1855 to become the pastor and teacher at Kōloa, Kauai. There, he started the Dole School that later became Kōloa School, the first public school on Kauai. Like Punahou, it filled the need to educate mission children.

The first Kōloa school house was a single room, a clapboard building with bare timbers inside and a thatched roof. Both missionary children as well as part-Hawaiian children attended the school. (Joesting)

Due to growing demand, the school was enlarged and boarding students were admitted. Reverend Elias Bond in Kohala sent his three oldest children to the Kōloa School, as did others from across the islands. (Joesting)

Charlotte died on Kauai in 1874 and Daniel Dole died August 26, 1878 in Kapaʻa, Kauai. Dole’s sons include Sanford Ballard Dole (President of the Republic of Hawaiʻi and 1st Territorial Governor of Hawaiʻi.) Daniel Dole was great uncle to James Dole, the ‘Pineapple King.’

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Marianne Cope

“I am hungry for the work. … I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister the abandoned ‘lepers.’”

Farmers Peter and Barbara Koob had five children in Germany and five children in the United States.  On January 23, 1838, their daughter, Barbara Koob (variants: Kob, Kopp and now officially Cope,) was born in the German Grand Duchy of Hess-Darmstadt.   The next year, the family immigrated to the United States to seek opportunity.

The Koob family settled in Utica, New York and became members of St. Joseph Parish, where the children attended the parish school.

In 1848, young Barbara received her First Holy Communion and was confirmed at St. John Parish in Utica when, in accordance with the practice of the time, the bishop of the diocese came to the largest church in the area to administer these two sacraments at the same ceremony.

After her father’s death, Barbara, in August, 1862, entered the Sisters of the Third Order of Saint Francis in Syracuse, NY, and, on November 19, 1862, she was invested at the Church of the Assumption. She soon became known as Sister Marianne.

As a member of the governing boards of her religious community, she participated in the establishment of two of the first hospitals in the central New York area, St. Elizabeth Hospital in Utica (1866) and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse (1869). These two hospitals were among the first 50 general hospitals in the US.

Sister Marianne began her new career as administrator at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Syracuse, NY in 1870 where she served as head administrator for six of the hospital’s first seven years.

In 1877, Sister Marianne was elected Mother General of the Franciscan congregation and given the title “Mother” as was the custom of the time.

In 1883, she received a letter from Father Leonor Fouesnel, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, to come to Hawaiʻi to help “procure the salvation of souls and to promote the glory of God.”

Of the 50 religious communities in the US contacted, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaiʻi to care for people with Hansen’s Disease (known then as leprosy).

The Sisters arrived in Hawaiʻi on November 8, 1883, dedicating themselves to the care of the 200-lepers in Kakaʻako Branch Hospital on Oʻahu.  This hospital was built to accommodate 100-people, but housed more than 200.

The condition at the hospital were deplorable.  Each Sister-nurse learned to wash the wounds, to apply soothing ointment to the wounds, and to bring a sense of order to the lawlessness that prevails when there is abandonment of hope.

In 1884, Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of St. Francis came to Maui and with a royal bequest from Queen Kapiʻolani, established Malulani Hospital (“Protection of Heaven”) in Wailuku, next to the site of St. Anthony’s Church.  Malulani was the first hospital established on Maui.

In 1885, realizing that healthy children of leprous patients were at high risk of contracting the disease, yet had no place to live, she founded Kapiʻolani Home on Oʻahu for healthy female children of leprosy patients.  Because of her work, she was the recipient of the Royal Medal of Kapiʻolani.

In the summer of 1886, the Sisters took care of Father Damien (later Saint Damien) when he visited Honolulu during his bout with leprosy.  He asked the Sisters to take over for him when he died.

Mother Marianne led the first contingent of Sister-nurses to Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi, where more than a thousand people with leprosy had been exiled.  Upon arrival, on November 14, 1888, she opened the CR Bishop Home for homeless women and girls with Hansen’s Disease.  To improve the bleak conditions, Mother Marianne grew fruits, vegetables and landscaped the area with trees, thus creating a better environment among the residents.

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.

Upon the death of Saint Damien on April 15, 1889, Mother Marianne agreed to 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.

The Boys Home at Kalawao was completely renovated between 1889 – 1895 during her administration.  During the renovation, it was renamed Baldwin Home by the Board of Health in honor of its leading benefactor, HP Baldwin.

The two new Sisters who came to run the Home were accompanied on their boat journey by poet Robert Louis Stevenson, who stayed for a week.  During his stay, he wrote a poem for Mother Marianne and later donated a piano so that “there will always be music.”

Mother Marianne’s spirit of self-sacrifice enabled her to live and work with leper patients for 35 years.  Although there was not yet a cure, the Sisters could offer the lepers some semblance of dignity and as pleasant a life as possible.

Mother Marianne died in Kalaupapa on August 9, 1918.  The Sisters of St. Francis continue their work in Kalaupapa with victims of Hansen’s Disease.  No sister has ever contracted the disease.

On December 19, 2011, Pope Benedict signed and approved the promulgation of the decree for her sainthood and she was canonized on October 21, 2012.  (Information here is primarily from Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.)

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