Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

‘Where America’s Day Really Begins’

An island is a body of land surrounded by water.  (Continents are also surrounded by water, but because they are so big, they are not considered islands.) An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or series of islets. The atoll surrounds a body of water called a lagoon. (National Geographic)

Wake is a small tropical coral atoll in the Pacific Ocean consisting of three islands (Peale, Wake, and Wilkes) enclosing a shallow, central lagoon and surrounded by a narrow fringing reef.

From reef to reef, the atoll is approximately 5 miles long and 2.5 miles wide.  The atoll is about 2,460-miles west of Hawaiʻi, 1,600-miles east of Guam and 700-miles north of Kwajalein in the Marshall Islands.

Oral traditions claim that the Marshallese knew of Wake Atoll prior to contact with European navigators. The Marshallese name for the atoll was Eneen-Kio or Ane-en Kio, “Island of the kio flower.”

The atoll was a source of feathers and plumes of seabirds. Prized were the wing bones of albatross, from which tattooing chisels could be made.  In addition, the rare kio flower grew on the atoll.

Bringing these items to the home atolls implied that the navigators had been able to complete the feat of finding the atoll using traditional navigation skills of stars, wave patterns and other ocean markers.  (Spennemann)

Today, it is more commonly referred to as ‘Wake Island’ or ‘Wake Atoll’ (rediscovery of Wake and its naming is usually credited to Captain William Wake of the British trading schooner Prince William Henry, enroute from Port Jackson, Australia to Canton in China in 1792). (NPS)

Wake, to the west of Honolulu, Hawaii, is the northernmost atoll in the Marshall Islands geological ridge and perhaps the oldest living atoll in the world. Wake Atoll was claimed by the United States in 1898; formal possession of Wake was made by the US on January 17, 1899.

Pan American Airways applied in 1935 for permission to establish a seaplane base at Wake for its “Clipper” flying boats, the pioneer trans-Pacific air route: San Francisco, Hawaii, Midway, Wake, Guam, Manila, and later, Hong Kong.

Pan Am commenced its profitable transpacific airmail delivery service on November 22, 1935, and its transpacific passenger service nearly a year later on November 4, 1936.  (HALS UM-1)  The flight across the Pacific then took six days. (NPS)

Pan Am the blasted over one hundred coral heads from within Wake’s lagoon to prepare a suitable landing area for its “Clippers”. Pan Am passengers debarked at the lagoon-end of a long docking pier and passed through a pavilion on the shore side of the pier on their way to the Pan Am hotel. (HALS UM-1)

Just as a prefab hotel was built on Midway, a prefabricated hotel building was built on Wake.  The hotel was Y-shaped, with the lounge and dining room in the center and 20 rooms in each of the two flanking wings.  It was sited to take advantage of views across the lagoon.

Between 1935 and 1941, the Pan Am seaplane station on Peale Island consisted of a landing docking and shelter, a single-story hotel, crew and personnel quarters, recreation building, sick bay, shop and warehouse buildings, utility structures and communication facilities. (HALS UM-1)

The location of Wake Island made it a strategic location for both the US and Japan. It was recognized that if war broke out between Japan and the US, Wake could: …

… provide for a defensive outpost; enable long range reconnaissance deep into enemy territory; enable the disruption of shipping; serve as staging ground for offensive operations; and be utilized as an emergency air station.  (Butowsky)

Wake was substantially modified by the US to create a military base before WWII.  As part of the WWII build-up, by mid-1941, construction of the Naval Air Station seaplane base included a seaplane ramp and parking area on the lagoon side of central Peale Island.

The Japanese declared war on the US with its attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, and the same day in another time zone attempted to seize Wake Island.

The Japanese opening attack of Wake came swiftly by air at 11:58 am (local time) on December 8, 1941; Wake was defended by about 500-military personnel (about one-quarter of its intended size.)  In addition, there were about 1,200-civilian workers on the atoll.

Despite the earlier preparations, none of the defensive installations were sufficiently completed by the time of the Japanese attack.  (The facilities were estimated to have been only 65-percent finished.)

The island finally fell on December 23, 1941; with the fall of Wake Island to the Japanese in late-December 1941, Midway became their westernmost US outpost in the central Pacific.  More than 700-Japanese were killed during the attacks, while only 52-US military personnel lost their lives.

The Japanese took approximately 1,600 prisoners of war (POWs), 450 of whom were military personnel. The American POWs were sent to Japanese prison camps, mostly in China but some in Japan. Of these 1,600, 360 were retained by the Japanese to work as forced laborers for the Japanese.

In September, 1942, all were removed from the island except for ninety-eight of the prisoners (all civilian heavy equipment operators, except for one doctor) who were kept on Wake to assist the Japanese in developing their defensive positions on the atoll. (HALS UM-1)

(A sad side story notes that on October 7, 1943 when the Japanese saw subsequent invasion of Wake, Rear Admiral Shigematsu Sakaibara ordered the execution of the 98-American civilian prisoners. They were taken to one side of the island and shot with machine guns.)

(One prisoner escaped and carved a memorial into a large rock “98 US PW 5-10-43;” it’s still there. This prisoner was caught and also executed shortly after.  After the war, Sakaibara and his subordinate, Lieutenant-Commander Tachibana, were sentenced to hang for this massacre.) The memory of their sacrifice is sustained by the inscription on “POW Rock” on Wilkes Island.

During their almost 4-year occupation of Wake, the Japanese constructed elaborate shoreline defenses. The Japanese widened and lengthened the US-built runway on the eastern side of the south arm of Wake Island and built two additional runways.

From 1941 to 1945, the Japanese stationed as many as 4,000 troops on the atoll at any given time, and they continued their development of Wake Island unabated until June of 1943.

In July of 1943, American bombers, who had begun bombing and shelling Wake since February of 1942, attacked Japanese coastal defense positions. On August 13, 1945, Marine planes conducted their last attack on Japanese positions on Wake, and on September 4, 1945, Admiral Sakaibara surrendered Wake Island back to the US.

Today, Wake serves as a trans-Pacific refueling stop for military aircraft and supports Missile Defense Agency test activities. Wake is currently managed by the Pacific Air Force Support Center located at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Anchorage, Alaska, and falls under 11th Air Force.  (15th Wing)

https://api.dvidshub.net/hls/video/536620.m3u8?api_key=key-55f197190d6a3

A little personal side story … When Pan Am used Midway and Wake as stopping points for flights across the Pacific, my grandmother (Laura Sutherland) was Assistant Head Librarian for the Library of Hawai‘i in charge of the “Extension Department.”

My grandmother took advantage of these flights and expanded the reach of her “Extension Department” by supplying reading material to residents on Midway and Wake, with the cooperation of Pan Am.  Each week, a new supply of books was added to the flights in what is believed to be America’s only Flying Library Service.

Oh, the title to this piece? … Guam, a US Territory, adopted a de facto motto is “Where America’s Day Begins”; but that’s not technically true.  Wake is 1,500-miles further east, right next to and west of the International Date Line. Given that placement with the Dateline, while most in America are experiencing a new day, folks on Wake are already into tomorrow.

“The dawn’s earliest light — the first rays of sun on US soil – shine upon Wake Island. Every morning America wakes up on Wake Island.” The sign on the Wake airstrip terminal building reads “Where America’s Day REALLY begins.” (CBSNews)

© 2025 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Mikimiki

Tugs and barges first began to appear on the East Coast during the late-nineteenth century. This was the time when steam ships and the developing railroads began displacing the slower and less reliable sailing vessels in the coastal trades.

Rather than scrapping all of these sailing ships, folks took advantage of their sound hulls and the new steam technology by converting the steam ships into barges and towing them behind steam tugs. (However, by 1950, tug-barges became practically extinct on the East Coast.) (Marcus)

Not so in the Islands …

The Youngs went to Hawaiʻi from San Diego. Good seafaring men of Maine stock, whose parents went to California in Forty-nine, they followed a natural inclination, and the application of Yankee methods soon built up a business which has grown to be one of the most important in the Islands. (Rogers)

In 1929, the tug Mikimiki ((‘to be quick, to be on time’) designed by Leigh H Coolidge and built by the Seattle-based Ballard Marine Railway Co) was launched.

The original wood-constructed Mikimiki was powered by twin Fairbanks-Morse diesels developing a total of 1,200 horsepower. At the time of completion, this power made her the most powerful tug in the US.

She made the voyage to Hawaiʻi from the West Coast, towing a 140-foot steel barge, in eleven days, sixteen hours and ten minutes. This worked out to an average speed of 8.5 knots, bettering the record of the earlier Seattle-built Mahoe by almost three days.

The Mikimiki spent her entire career working in the Hawaiian Islands, with an occasional tow to the West Coast included. (YB-100)

The design of the Mikimiki tugboat, although devised for commercial use, had a major influence on World War II tugboats and the post-war towing industry, particularly in the Pacific Northwest. (Port of Anacortes)

The excellent performance of the original Mikimiki led to the adoption of her basic design for a large fleet of tugs produced for the US Army Transport Service in West Coast shipyards for World War II service. (YB-100)

At the beginning of 1942, more ships were needed for the war effort. Folks recognized the Mikimiki design “could be used as it was a proven, reliable tug that has already been drawn and lofted, and was available with only slight design changes”.

Miki-class tugs were built for the US Army during World War II to haul supplies and rescue stalled ships. They were designed to move barges with supplies and equipment as efficiently as possible. But that they ‘did more than they were built for’’ a Miki-class tug landed men on the beach in Normandy during World War II. (Benthien; Port of Anacortes)

These tugs were classed as LTs (large tug) with an overall design length of 126 feet and a beam of 28 feet. They were heavily constructed with 15-inch square fir keels.

Bulwarks were solid with iron bark rail. Although they were constructed of wood, the tugs were at least ‘one-third iron.’ Although the tugs were built “heavy” meaning that they were of solid construction, they retained their graceful lines and they were fast. (Jones; Port of Anacortes)

The Army contract for construction of the vessels was written so that the shipyards could use local wood for building the tugs. Those Miki-class tugs built on the West Coast were constructed from fir, oak and cedar, while those on the East Coast were composed of oak for the structure with white pine. Inside sheathing was ¾- inch waterproof plywood. (Port of Anacortes)

Of the 61 Mikis built for the Army, most of the tugs were built on the West Coast; however, 10 tugs were built on the East Coast, 38 were built at various yards in Washington State.

Actually, there were Mikis, which had a single main engine, and the Mikimikis, which had two main engines. Each tug had about 1,500 total horsepower. (Towingline)

After World War II the Miki class tugs worked in the commercial tug and barge industry, and filled the gap and became the backbone of the towing industry after they were surplused by the US Army.

They also played a major role in the commerce that aided the development of the Territory of Alaska, and bolstered the tug and barge trade between the West Coast and Hawaii.

They were instrumental in the expansion of several Pacific Northwest tug and barge companies. No class of tugs contributed more to the success in the postwar era than the Miki-class tugs built for US Army service. And it all started in Hawaiʻi, with Young Brothers. (Jack Young, the youngest brother of the Young Brothers, is my grandfather.)

© 2025 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Doubtful Island of the Pacific

“In the early dawn of the second day out, the steamer rounds Kalae Point, the extreme southern cape of Hawaiʻi – a locality noted for the wreckage and drift logs occasionally thrown ashore, and which often line the beach for miles, consisting mostly of timber and trunks of trees and occasionally wreckage of vessels.”

“It was here that … one of the masts of the United States sloop-of-war Levant, which was lost in the winter of 1860, while on the passage from Hilo to the mainland (was found.) After leaving Hilo the ship was never heard from.” (Hawaiian Planters Monthly, January 1900)

“A ship’s mast has drifted ashore, just below the harbor of Kawalunalu (Kaʻaluʻalu,) in Kaʻu (near Kamilo.) It is seventy-six feet long. The lower part of the mast, which was in between decks, is squared and finished, as if it had been used as a rack for guns, while on one side are large spikes driven in, as though it had been used for a raft.” (New York Times, August 4, 1861)

“… the fact of the entire mast having been used as a raft would go far to sustain the belief that the ship had been wrecked on some shoal, reef, rock or island, and not foundered, as is more generally believed; and in the former case there is still a chance that some of the ill-fated crew may yet survive or be heard of.” (New York Times, August 4, 1861)

Let’s look back a bit.

By the 1850s, both Honolulu and Lāhainā, on the island of Maui, had become the busiest ports for American whaling ships sailing in the Pacific Ocean. Hilo, on the Island of Hawaiʻi, was another important port.

Before the widespread use of petroleum oil, whale oil was the main source of fuel oil for illumination. At the time, it was also the best industrial lubricant for machinery.

Most whaling ships regularly sailed between New England and the Sea of Japan off the coast of Asia, then the prime hunting ground for sperm whales. Sperm oil was considered the finest whale oil and it often sold double or triple the value of other whale oils.

At the Hawaiian ports, incapacitated or sick sailors and whalers would disembark to recover. It was the duty of a Consul or an Agent to provide for their care or to send a destitute seaman home to America. (US Archives)

Hospitals had been established to serve sick and destitute sailors. The US Commercial Agent was responsible for recommending seamen to the hospital, keeping necessary papers and books, and handling the financial transactions.

A physician of the hospital had a contract with the US States Government which guaranteed him exclusive treatment of American seamen at US expense. The purveyor supplied food, clothing, shelter, maid service, laundry service and assorted other necessities. All of these services were charged to the US government. (Pyle)

The Levant, an 18-gun second-class sloop-of-war, had been sent to Hawaiʻi at the request of the State Department. Commodore William E Hunt, the ship’s captain, had been appointed to serve as a special commissioner to investigate charges of fraud among the US consular service and its employees at the US seamen’s hospitals in Hawaiʻi. (US Archives)

In addition, the US Commissioner in Hawaiʻi, James W Borden, participated in the investigations of the workings of the US hospital and consular system in Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo.

The investigators were blunt in terms of specific charges of fraud that were alleged to have taken place at the Honolulu consulate.

In part, Borden reported, “A careful examination of the evidence will, I believe, satisfy you that the Physician as well as the Purveyor, in this respect, and also in that of obtaining from the seamen blank receipts, have been engaged in defrauding the Government, and I have therefore no hesitation in recommending the removal of them both …” (Borden, April 27, 1860; US Archives)

After Hunt and Borden concluded their investigation, their reports were sent to the State Department. Hunt’s official report to the Secretary of State never arrived in Washington.

After spending four months in the Hawaiian Islands investigating at Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo and receiving a state visit by King Kamehameha IV at Honolulu on May 7, 1860, Levant sailed for Panama on September 18, 1860, about 4,500 miles away to the south and east.

Unfortunately, that was the last day anyone ever saw the 23-year-old sailing ship intact or any of its 150 crew members alive. The ship never arrived at its destination.

The US Navy conducted a search for the vessel in early 1861, but no trace of the ship or its crew was found at that time. “The disaster must have been so sudden that no time was given to save the lives of those on board by taking to the boats or building a raft.” (US Archives)

Meantime, shortly after the failure of the Levant to arrive at Panama, and long before the finding of the above wreckage, two vessels of the US Navy (Saranac and Wyoming) had been sent from that port to the Hawaiian Islands.

But these and all similar efforts to solve the fatal mystery proving fruitless, Congress, by resolution duly adopted, fixed the date of June 30, 1861 to be reckoned as the day on which the Levant had foundered at sea, with the loss of all on board. (National Geographic Magazine, December, 1904, and March, 1907)

All ships that vanish at sea gather rumors in death as they collect barnacles afloat. But since Levant disappeared just prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, an unusual number of intriguing yarns surround her last voyage. Bits of evidence, too scanty to solve her mystery, have multiplied the myths. ((navy-mil)

Commodore Montgomery reported that a violent hurricane had occurred in September in a part of the Pacific Ocean which Levant was to cross. Some rumors had her running aground on an uncharted reef off California (or some other doubtful island of the Pacific.)

Others had her defecting to the Confederacy. Whatever her real fate, this ghostly heroine of colorful episodes in American naval history still sails the seas of imagination and legend. (navy-mil)

The disappearance of the Levant, with 210 aboard, was the second worst marine disaster in Hawaiian history. The greatest marine disaster in Island history was the loss of the Kamehameha, in 1829 or 1830, with High Chief Boki, Governor of Oʻahu, and 250 others that went down in a storm seeking sandalwood.

© 2025 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Spanish Lake

While there is only one global ocean, the vast body of water that covers 71 percent of the Earth is geographically divided into distinct named regions. The boundaries between these regions have evolved over time for a variety of historical, cultural, geographical, and scientific reasons.

Historically, there are four named oceans: the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and Arctic. However, most countries – including the United States – now recognize the Southern (Antarctic) as the fifth ocean. The Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian are the most commonly known. (NOAA)

The first Europeans to arrive in North America were likely the Norse, traveling west from Greenland, where Erik the Red had founded a settlement around the year 985. In 1001 his son Leif is thought to have explored the northeast coast of what is now Canada and spent at least one winter there.

While Norse sagas suggest that Viking sailors explored the Atlantic coast of North America down as far as the Bahamas, such claims remain unproven. In 1963, however, the ruins of some Norse houses dating from that era were discovered at L’Anse-aux-Meadows in northern Newfoundland, thus supporting at least some of the claims the Norse sagas make.

Portuguese mariners built an Atlantic empire by colonizing the Canary, Cape Verde, and Azores Islands, as well as the island of Madeira. Merchants then used these Atlantic outposts as debarkation points for subsequent journeys.

From these strategic points, Portugal spread its empire down the western coast of Africa to the Congo, along the western coast of India, and eventually to Brazil on the eastern coast of South America.

It also established trading posts in China and Japan. While the Portuguese didn’t rule over an immense landmass, their strategic holdings of islands and coastal ports gave them almost unrivaled control of nautical trade routes and a global empire of trading posts during the 1400s.

The history of Spanish exploration begins with the history of Spain itself. During the fifteenth century, Spain hoped to gain advantage over its rival, Portugal. The marriage of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile in 1469 unified Catholic Spain and began the process of building a nation that could compete for worldwide power.

Their goals were to expand Catholicism and to gain a commercial advantage over Portugal. To those ends, Ferdinand and Isabella sponsored extensive Atlantic exploration. Spain’s most famous explorer, Christopher Columbus, was actually from Genoa, Italy.

Columbus (who was looking for a new route to India, China, Japan and the ‘Spice Islands’ of Indonesia to bring back cargoes of silk and spices (ginger, turmeric, and cinnamon)) never saw the mainland United States.

Spain’s drive to enlarge its empire led other hopeful conquistadors to push further into the Americas, hoping to replicate the success of Cortés and Pizarro.

The exploits of European explorers had a profound impact both in the Americas and back in Europe. An exchange of ideas, fueled and financed in part by New World commodities, began to connect European nations and, in turn, to touch the parts of the world that Europeans conquered. (Lumen)

“On May 3, 1493, Pope Alexander VI, to prevent future disputes between Spain and Portugal, divided the world by a north-south line (longitude) 100 leagues (300 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands.”

“In 1494, by the terms of the Treaty of Tordesillas, Spain and Portugal agreed to move that line to a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands [in the Atlantic].” (Lloyd)

“Strictly speaking, there was no such thing as ‘the Pacific’ until in 1520-1 Fernao de Magalhãis, better known as Magellan, traversed the huge expanse of waters, which then received its name.” (Spate)

On November 28 1520, Ferdinand Magellan entered the “Sea of the South” (Mar Del Sur, which he later named the Pacific) and thereby opened up to Spain the possibility of an alternative route between Europe and the spices of the Orient.”  (Lloyd)

“After Magellan’s daring voyage round South America and across to the Philippines (1519-1521), the magnet of Pacific exploration was Terra Australis Incognita, the great southern continent supposed to lie between the Cape of Good Hope and the Straits of Magellan.”   (The Journal; Edwards)

With the conquest of Mexico in 1522, the Spanish further solidified their position in the Western Hemisphere. The ensuing discoveries added to Europe’s knowledge of what was now named America – after the Italian Amerigo Vespucci, who wrote a widely popular account of his voyages to a “New World.”

By 1529, reliable maps of the Atlantic coastline from Labrador to Tierra del Fuego had been drawn up, although it would take more than another century before hope of discovering a “Northwest Passage” to Asia would be completely abandoned.  (Alonzo L Hamby)

“Alvaro de Mendana, the Spanish voyager, sailed from Callao in Peru in 1567 and reached the Solomon Islands. It was not until 1595 that he went back, with Pedro Fernanadez de Quiros, found the Marquesas and got as far as the Santa Cruz Islands.”   (The Journal; Edwards)

Then, almost 50 years after the death of Christopher Columbus, Manila Galleons finally fulfilled their dream of sailing west to Asia to benefit from the rich Indian Ocean trade.

“The Spanish Galleons were square rigged ships with high superstructures on their sterns. They were obviously designed for running before the wind or at best sailing on a very ‘broad reach.’”

“Because of their apparently limited ability to ‘beat their way to windward’ (sail against the wind), they had to find trade routes where the prevailing winds and sea currents were favorable.”  (Lloyd)

Starting in 1565, with the Spanish sailor and friar Andrés de Urdaneta, after discovering the Tornaviaje or return route to Mexico through the Pacific Ocean, Spanish Galleons sailed the Pacific Ocean between Acapulco in Nueva España (New Spain – now Mexico) and Manila in the Philippine islands.

The galleons leaving Manila would make their way back to Acapulco in a four-month long journey.  The goods were off-loaded and transported across land to ships on the other Mexican coast at Veracruz, and eventually, sent to European markets and customers eager for these exotic wares.  (GuamPedia)

Spain had a long presence in the Pacific Ocean (1521–1898).  The Pacific coastline of Nueva España and Peru connected to the Philippines far to the west made the ocean a virtual Spanish Lake.

The “Spanish Lake” united the Pacific Rim (the Americas and Asia) and Basin (Oceania) with the Spanish in the Atlantic. (Buschmann etal)

The great wealth that poured into Spain triggered great interest on the part of the other European powers. With time, emerging maritime nations such as England, drawn in part by Francis Drake’s successful raids on Spanish treasure ships, began to take interest in the New World.  (State Department)

The USA is named after an Italian, Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 – February 22, 1512,) an explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer.  He sailed in 1499, seven years after Christopher Columbus first landed in the West Indies.

Columbus found the new world; but Vespucci, by travelling down the coast, came to the realization that it was not India at all, but an entirely new continent.

Later, it was a German clergyman and amateur geographer named Martin Waldseemüller and Matthias Ringmann, his Alsatian proofreader, who are reported to have first put the name “America” (a feminized Latin version of Vespucci’s first name) on the new land mass (April 25, 1507.)

The name ‘United States of America’ appears to have been used for the first time in the Declaration of Independence (1776.) At least no earlier instance of its use in that precise form has been found.  (Burnett)

© 2025 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mokulau Landing

“Ethnobotanical surveys provide evidence of extensive alteration of coastal and lower montane ecological zones and indicate that the entire area of East Maui from Ke‘anae to Kaupo was densely steeled prior to European contact.”  (Cusick)

“[R]esearchers agree that Kipahulu and its neighbors, Hana to the northeast and Kaupo to the southwest were historically important relative to other districts in the Hawaiian Islands because of their abundant natural and human resources”. (Cusick)

“They were coveted lands, prized by the ali’i (nobility) for their abundance of foodstuffs and all the valued products of the land and sea. Plentiful food and resources made possible a large population, and many followers meant power of the chief controlling the land.” (Cusick)

The southeastern section of the island of Maui, comprising the districts of Hāna, Kīpahulu, Kaupo and Kahikinui, was at one time a Royal Center and central point of kingly and priestly power – Piʻilani ruled from here (he built Hale O Piʻilani – near Hāna.)  This section of the island was also prominent in the later reign of Kekaulike.

Royal Centers were where the aliʻi resided; aliʻi often moved between several residences throughout the year. The Royal Centers were selected for their abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.

Long before the first Europeans arrived on Maui, Kīpahulu was prized by the Hawaiian aliʻi for its fertile land and abundant ocean.  The first written description of the region was made by La Pérouse in 1786 while sailing along the southeast coast of Maui in search of a place to drop anchor:

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

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

“But all the huts are on the seacoast, and the mountains are so near, that the habitable part of the island appeared to be less than half a league in depth.  The trees which crowned the mountains, and the verdure of the banana plants that surrounded the habitations, produced inexpressible charms to our senses…”

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

With the development of the whaling industry on the island in 1880s the southeastern Maui population started to decline as people moved to main whaling ports, such as Lāhainā.  In the early-1900s, one of the regular ports of call for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company was at Kīpahulu. Steamships provided passenger service around Maui and between the islands.

“As long as Hawaii has been inhabited, there has been intercourse between the Islands. Before the white man came, and for some years after, the mode of travel was by outrigger canoe. Kamehameha I transported whole armies by this method while engaged in his campaign of conquest of the Islands.”

“The white man introduced the sailing schooner as a means of travel which continued in vogue until the middle of the eighteenth century, at which time the time the first steamship was placed in inter-island service.”

As the needs of transportation between the Islands grew, more steamships were brought over from the Mainland. By 1900 there were two fleets of ships in inter-island service: one operated by the Wilder Steamship Company and the other by the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company.

“When these, two companies amalgamated in 1904 as the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company the combined fleet totaled 14 vessels”.  (Progress Report (1939) – Transportation)

“The Kaupo residents are delighted with the wharf and approach just completed at Mokulau.  The approach just built may be driven over by a light wagon while the old route was such that the landing could only be reached by footmen or by pack animals.” (Maui News, Dec 8, 1906)

Also known as Kaupo Landing, “the best landing place in the vicinity during trade-wind weather. The local steamer visits this place occasionally”. (Hawaiian Place Names)

“At 9:15 a.m., we arrived at Mokulau. It is a small place. There is only one building, a storehouse. The wharf is a tall rocky hill. The storehouse and around it were full of men and women. We met with friends and acquaintances.”

“At 9:50 a.m., the Kilauea anchored. When the cargo and lumber were unloaded, the passengers were called. We gave our final farewell to Joseph Marciel, Mrs. Marciel and friends and got on the final rowboat. The Kilauea left Mokulau at 12:30 p.m.” (KaupoMaui)

© 2025 Ho‘okuleana LLC