Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 26, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Carrollton

The coal industry was a major foundation for American industrialization in the nineteenth century. As a fuel source, coal provided a cheap and efficient source of power for steam engines, furnaces and forges across the US.

The influence of coal was so pervasive that by the advent of the twentieth century, it became a necessity of everyday life. In an era where smokestacks equaled progress, the smoky air and sooty landscape of industrial America owed a great deal to the growth of the availability of coal. (Adams)

A peculiar feature of 1907 was that in spite of the coasting laws, foreign vessels were chartered to bring domestic coal from the Atlantic ports of the US for the use of the American battleships ordered to the Pacific.

The coal trade of San Francisco was practically in the hands of one firm. Coal was always dear in California, as no supply is produced locally, but since the formation of this combination it has doubled in price. … 80,000-tons were on the way from Australia. (Great Britain, Trade & Commerce Report, 1908)

Coal was first discovered in Australia in 1791 by an escaped convict near the site of Newcastle. Mining began in 1799 with the collection of coal from outcrops near Newcastle for sale in Sydney; the cargo resulted in Newcastle becoming Australia’s first commercial export port. (Australia Bureau of Statistics)

Fast forward about a century … the three-masted bark Carrollton was en route from “New South Wales” Australia to San Francisco, via Honolulu, with a load of coal.

The Carrollton was built in 1872 by the Arthur Sewall Shipyard in Bath, Maine. Bath-built down-easters were some of the most celebrated commercial sailing vessels of their day.

Sewall ships, though not the fastest, were proven economic winners in the long-haul maritime trades of the mid- and late-19th century.

In the midst of her career in the Pacific lumber, grain, and coal business, the Carrollton under the command of Captain Hinrichs was accidentally lost on December 26th, 1906, when she ran bow-on onto the reef on the southern side of Sand Island at Midway. (PMNM)

Here’s a link to a Google Earth ‘Street View’ on the southern part of Sand Island at Midway:
https://goo.gl/WVhYhb

All of her crew were saved (rescued by the cable ship Restorer,) but the vessel was a total loss.

Typical of wooden ship wreck sites, all exposed hull and superstructure have vanished. But the heavier elements (anchor, chain, stanchions, fasteners, deck machinery, donkey boiler, lead scuppers, pintles and gudgeons etc.) remain scattered in an area near the reef.

The confused path of the anchor chain on the bottom adds to the story of the wreck. The chain locker, its wooden sides long gone, is now a fused mass of iron almost indistinguishable from reef. The windlass has grown corals. The ship remains will ultimately be ‘recycled’ as reef substrate in this fashion. (Van Tilburg)

A large variety of artifacts from the shipwreck lie scattered over an area almost 1,000 feet long. A portion of the ship’s cargo of coal testify to the sea’s power to break apart what the best wooden shipwrights once created. (PMNM)

December 12, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

About 250 Years Ago … John Kendrick – American Patriot Who Died in Honolulu

Sea Captain John Kendrick was born in 1740 in Cape Cod; he followed his father and went to sea by the time he was fourteen.

Kendrick fought in the French & Indian War in 1762. Like most Cape Codders of the time, he served for only eight months and did not re-enlist.

Family tradition holds that on the rainy night of December 16, 1773, John Kendrick had taken part in the Boston Tea Party band that boarded two East India Company ships at Griffin’s Wharf in Boston and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

Kendrick later fought in the American Revolutionary War and commanded three different ships, the Fanny, Count D’Estaing and Marianne.

After the victorious Revolution, an economic depression had settled across the new nation.

The US needed to turn to trade to raise the necessary funding and shipping was a critical component of early commerce.

Kendrick and Robert Gray were selected to lead an expedition to establish new trade with China, settle an outpost on territory claimed by the Spanish and find the legendary Northwest Passage.

In September 1787, Kendrick in the Columbia and Gray in the Lady Washington, along with fifty other men – sailors and tradesmen alike – set sail from Boston.

They became the first citizens of the new nation to sail into the Pacific and lay eyes on the lush and resource-rich Northwest Coast of North America.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were to be mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods that were sold in the US.

Trading ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water; traders realized they could get these in Hawai‘i.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China.

Kendrick provisioned in Hawai‘i a number of times and is also credited for initiating the sandalwood (‘iliahi) trade there (Hawai‘i’s first commercial export).

Sandalwood became a source of wealth in the islands, trade in Hawaiian sandalwood began as early as the 1790s; by 1805 it had become an important export item.

Unfortunately, the harvesting of the trees was not sustainably managed (they cut whatever they could, they didn’t replant) and over-harvesting of ‘iliahi took place. By 1830, the trade in sandalwood had completely collapsed.

On December 3, 1794, Kendrick returned to Fair Haven (Honolulu Harbor) Hawaiʻi aboard the Lady Washington; a war was waging between Kalanikupule and his half-brother Kaʻeokulani (Kaʻeo.)

Also in Honolulu were British Captain William Brown (the first credited with entering Honolulu Harbor) in general command of the Jackall and the Prince Lee Boo, Captain Gordon.

Kalanikupule sought and obtained assistance from Captain Brown. Brown furnished guns and ammunition, and, as Kaeo continued to advance, the mate of the Jackall, George Lamport, and eight sailors from the English ships volunteered to fight for the Oahu king.”

“In the final battle, between Kalauao and Aiea, the Englishmen were stationed in boats along the shore inside the eastern arm of what is now called Pearl Harbor. Kalanikupule gained a decisive victory and Kaeo was killed.” (Kuykendall)

On December 12, 1794, to celebrate the victory, Kendrick’s brig fired a thirteen-gun salute. (The tradition of rendering a salute by cannon originated in the 14th century as firearms and cannons came into use. Since these early devices contained only one projectile, discharging them rendered them harmless.)

Brown answered with a round of fire. Unfortunately, one of the saluting guns on Brown’s ship was loaded with shot, killing Kendrick.

“Kendrick was buried at the place where Captain Derby was interred in 1802 and Isaac Davis in 1810.” “[T]he chiefs designated a place for the burial of a foreigner in 1794 [so] it is likely that other foreigners who died in Honolulu would be interred in the same locations.” (Restarick)

On December 12, 2022, the Hawai‘i State Organization of the Daughters of the American Revolution installed a memorial plaque in honor of Captain John Kendrick. It was placed at a spot that would have been about the shoreline when Kendrick was killed.

Click the links below for general summaries that helps explain it – the file ending with ‘SAR–RT’ is a formatting used by the Sons of the American Revolution for presentations by its members under its Revolutionary Times program:

Click to access John-Kendrick-American-Revolutionary-War-Patriot.pdf

Click to access John-Kendrick-–-American-Patriot-Who-Died-in-Honolulu-SAR-RT.pdf

December 10, 2025 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Honolulu Harbor Lights

Even in today’s high-tech environment with tools and toys with satellite support, the simple illumination from a known point continues to serve as a navigational aid, as well as warn mariners of hazardous areas.

In 1924, construction of the 10-story, 184-foot Aloha Tower (lighthouse) began; it was completed in a year and a half. For four decades the Aloha Tower was the tallest structure in Hawaiʻi. But that is getting ahead of ourselves.

The original Honolulu Harbor Light was built in 1826. (USCG) Some suggest the earliest light was a “crude oil lamp wrapped with red cloth.” (De Wire)

Some official action for more formal lighting was set in motion. The Kingdom’s ‘Second Act of Kamehameha III; An Act to Organize the Executive Ministry of the Hawaiian Islands,’ Chapter 3, Section 3, Article 3, notes:

“The respective governors shall, on receiving the king’s instructions from the Minister of the Interior, have power to cause to be erected at any designated points upon the coasts of their respective islands, lighthouses or beacons, for the guidance of vessels at night”. (April 27, 1846)

The House of Nobles had previously read and reviewed “Article III., of Chapter III., regarding to Lighthouses, Beacons and Channels. This was passed being very clearly worded.” (July 22, 1845)

However, it wasn’t until 1869 that “Harbor Wink” was built at the edge of the reef on the north side of the Honolulu Harbor entrance, near what is now Sand Island. It was a white wooden structure on piles, linked to a nearby dwelling by a pier.

Two bids were submitted for the harbor lighthouse. Honolulu Iron Works agreed to provide a lighthouse on iron pilings for $2,141, but a lower bid of $360, submitted by LL Gilbert for an all-wooden structure, was accepted.

Wooden pilings were driven into the reef that formed the small island, and atop these a keeper’s residence and a square pyramidal lighthouse topped by a lantern room were constructed. Keeper Captain McGregor first exhibited the light from whale oil lamps, concentrated by a fourth-order Fresnel lens, on August 2, 1869.

The facility didn’t go without its detractors. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser called it “an infantile structure which more resembles a birdcage than a lighthouse.” The lighthouse also served as a front range light. (Lighthouse Friends)

In 1906, plans were proposed for the transition from a simple, primitive light in Honolulu Harbor to a permanent, efficient light station. The following year, the harbor was dredged, providing a deeper port for large ships.

Material created from the dredging was added to the existing Quarantine Island (what is now called Sand Island.) It was on Sand Island that the Honolulu Harbor Light station was built. (Brown)

Plans were prepared for a concrete-block (subsequently changed to re-enforced concrete) structure, to include a combined light-keeper’s dwelling and tower, the building to rest upon twenty-four concrete foundation cylinders or piles 3 feet in diameter.

The structure was rectangular, one and a half stories high, and is surmounted by a square tower supporting a fourth-order cylindrical helical-bar lantern. The illuminating apparatus consisted of an occulting fourth-order lens, revolving on ball bearings.

The main floor contains quarters for two keepers, each provided with kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom. There are ample closets and pantries for each keeper. (Report of the Light-House Board, 1909)

The beacon went into service on February 15, 1910. After several years, the sturdy building, that had become the well-known Honolulu Harbor Lighthouse, almost resembled a home, complete with a gate and white picket fence.

The lower portion of the structure provided living accommodations for two light keepers. The 43-foot high illuminating apparatus above the dwelling housed the necessary guiding light for all ships entering the busy harbor. (Brown)

Sixteen years later, the iconic Aloha Tower was completed to replace the Sand Island facility. (The Honolulu Harbor Light was destroyed in 1934.)

The Aloha Tower navigational aid served until 1975, when the present Honolulu Harbor Light was established on a metal pole at the end of Pier 2.

November 22, 2025 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. (15^th 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)

September 30, 2025 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.)