Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pearl Lochs

The island of Oʻahu is divided into 6 moku (districts), consisting of: ‘Ewa, Kona, Koʻolauloa, Koʻolaupoko, Waialua and Waiʻanae. These moku were further divided into 86 ahupua‘a (land divisions within a moku.)

‘Ewa was divided into 12-ahupua‘a, consisting of (from east to west): Hālawa, ‘Aiea, Kalauao, Waimalu, Waiau, Waimano, Mānana, Waiʻawa, Waipi‘o, Waikele, Hōʻaeʻae and Honouliuli.

‘Ewa was at one time the political center for O‘ahu chiefs. This was probably due to its abundant resources that supported the households of the chiefs, particularly the many fishponds. (Cultural Surveys) ʻEwa was the second most productive taro cultivation area on Oʻahu (just behind Waikīkī.)  (Laimana)

The salient feature of ‘Ewa, and perhaps its most notable point of difference, is its spacious coastal plain, surrounding the deep bays (“lochs”) of Pearl Harbor, which are actually the drowned seaward valleys of ‘Ewa’s main streams, Waikele and VVaipi’o.

The Hawaiian name for Pearl Harbor was Ke-awa-lau-o-Pu‘uloa, The-many (lau)-harbors (awa)-of-Pu‘uloa. Pu‘uloa was the rounded area projecting into the sea at the long narrow entrance of the harbor.  Another and more poetic name was Awawa-lei, Garland (lei)-of-harbors.

The English name ‘Pearl’ was given to it because of the prevalence of pearl oysters (pipi) in the deep harbor waters.  (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

In Hawaiian traditions, Pu‘uloa (Pearl Harbor) consists of three distinct awalau, or lochs, including Kaihuopala‘ai (West Loch), Wai‘awa (Middle Loch) and Komoawa (East Loch).  (Nohopapa, KSBE)  For some time, Pearl Harbor was also known as Pearl Lochs and Pearl River.

These bays offered the most favorable locality in all the Hawaiian Islands for the building of fishponds and fish traps into which deep-sea fish came on the inflow of tidal waters. (Handy, Handy & Pukui)

In Hawaiian traditions, Pu‘uloa (Pearl Harbor) consists of three distinct awalau, or lochs, including Kaihuopala‘ai (West Loch), Wai‘awa (Middle Loch) and Komoawa (East Loch).  (Nohopapa, KSBE) 

‘Loch’ is a Scottish and/or Irish term that refers to a lake or bay that is nearly landlocked. So, when and why did the term ‘loch’ come in as names these awalau?

Let’s look back …

Liholiho was the son of Kamehameha I.  Upon his father’s death Liholiho became Kamehameha II. Liholiho’s reign was also noted for his efforts to ensure the lasting independence of the Hawaiian kingdom.

In 1823, Liholiho and his favorite wife, Kamāmalu, sailed to England to meet with King George IV, the first Ali‘i to travel to England.  King George IV scheduled a meeting for June 21, but it had to be delayed; Liholiho and Kamāmalu became ill.  The Hawaiian court had caught measles, to which they had no immunity.

It is believed they probably contracted the disease on their visit to the Royal Military Asylum (now the Duke of York’s Royal Military School).

Virtually the entire royal party developed measles within weeks of arrival, 7 to 10 days after visiting the Royal Military Asylum housing hundreds of soldiers’ children. On the 8th of July the Queen died, a few days later, King Liholiho died.  His reign was approximately 5-years.

In 1824, Great Britain sent the bodies of Kamehameha II and his Queen back to Hawai‘i on the HMS Blonde, under the command of Lord Byron.

The British Government took advantage of this opportunity to acquire more detailed information concerning the islands; and to that end, included in the personnel of the ship a party of scientists.

Among these was a Lieut. Charles Malden, a surveyor, who during the stay of the ship, made a comprehensive and extensive survey of several harbors and roadsteads (offshore ship mooring areas).

One of these surveys was a fairly complete charting of the whole of Pearl Harbor, with soundings taken throughout the entrance channel and the three main lochs. The chart resulting from this survey was printed in 1841 by the British Hydrographic Office. (Navy)

Today, that map is also identified as Registered Map #437, Honolulu Harbor, South Coast of O‘ahu. (A copy of it is included in the album associated with this post.) It seems others replicated the names of the lochs of that 1825 map in what we now refer to as Pearl Harbor.

The answer to the previous question of when and why the awalau were called ‘lochs’ comes from the Diary of James Macrae, who was aboard the Blonde and sailed with Malden.  Macrae wrote,

“Pearl River is about seven miles west of Hanarura, and is improperly called a river, being rather inlets from the sea, branching off in different directions.  There are three chief branches, named by the surveyors, the East, Middle and West Lochs.” (Macrae)

While we are familiar with the East, Middle and West Lochs, there were other areas within Pearl Harbor that were also referred to as lochs: Southeast Loch, West Loch Branch and, later, Magazine Loch, Quarry Loch and Merry Loch.

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Empress of China

In the aftermath of the Revolutionary War, the new and nearly bankrupt US viewed the China trade as a way to settle war debts.

February 22, 1784, “the Empress of China cleared the wharf … launching America’s trade with China.” (Dolins)

She carried the hopes of a newly independent nation. Backers “of the Empress of China were all the signatories of the Independence agreement … This was a private enterprise but a national priority.” (Libby Chan Lai-pik)

With clearance from Bellona won
She spreads her wings to meet the Sun,
Those golden regions to explore
Where George forbade to sail before.

To countries placed in burning climes
And islands of remotest times
She now her eager course explores.
And soon shall greet Chinesian shores.

From thence their fragrant teas to bring
Without the leave of Britain’s king;
And Porcelain ware, enchased in gold.
The product of that finer mould.
(A Poem about the Empress of China, Philip Freneau)

Originally fitted as a privateer (privately owned armed vessel commissioned to attack enemy ships, usually vessels of commerce) and refitted as a trading ship, the Empress of China was the first American merchant ship to sail for China; the three-masted sailing vessel sailed from New York harbor on February 22, 1784 (George Washington’s birthday).

This was less than a year after the Treaty of Paris was signed (September 3, 1783 – ending the American Revolutionary War), and several years before George Washington took office as America’s first president on April 30, 1789.

It was a private venture that had national overtures. And marked the historical beginning of ties between China and the United States, and the assertion of the United States’ power as a sovereign nation.  (Schimdt)

The Empress of China also carried 30-tons of ginseng and other trading goods. Ginseng was the most important herb of the Chinese.

In the 18th century ginseng was also popular in America.  It is estimated that American colonists discovered it in the mid-1700s in New England.

“The history of human interaction with ginseng lurks in the language of the land … on the north-facing, ‘wet’ sides of depressions”. Look at a detailed map of almost any portion around the Colonies and ginseng is registered somewhere, often in association with the deeper, moister places, named ‘Hollows’. (LOC)

After trading, the Empress of China arrived in New York, May 11, 1785.

She carried 800 chests of tea, 20,000 pairs of nankeen trousers and a huge quantity of porcelain.

Stores up and down the East Coast sold her cargo. The voyage earned a 25% return on investment – enough to spawn a new era of commerce with China.

The Americans learned how to make real money in the China trade: sale of Chinese goods to Americans.

John Jay, the US foreign minister, shared the success with Congress.

Congress responded with ‘a peculiar satisfaction in the successful issue of this first effort of the citizens of America to establish a direct trade with China.’

The Empress of China proved that trade with China could enrich backers, funnel customs duties into the national treasury and make the US a competitor on the world stage. (NY Historical Society)

Post-Revolutionary direct trade with Asian countries allowed Americans to trade for their own luxuries. Americans would ship goods such as ginseng (used for medicinal and aphrodisiac purposes), tobacco, pitch, tar, turpentine, furs, and silver to China and East India.

Export of commodities such as ginseng and tobacco was acceptable, even necessary, according to Jeffersonian political doctrine, in order to expand the agricultural basis of the new nation.

In return, traders would receive tea, cotton nankeen cloth, silk, porcelain (which was so inexpensive in China that it was often shipped as ballast), pepper, and Chinese cinnamon. (Weyler)

For the next 60 years, the China trade would make New England merchants very, very wealthy.  (NE Historical Society)

Other US merchants were quick to see the value of the China trade. At first, however, they flooded the Chinese market with ginseng. Chinese demand for the root dropped, and so did its price.

But the Chinese did want sea-otter pelts, which Yankees traded from Indians in the American Northwest. Sandalwood, found in the Sandwich Islands (Hawai‘i), also brought a high price from Chinese merchants. (Monroe Columbia University)

Click the following links to a general summary about the Empress of China:

Click to access Empress-of-China.pdf

Click to access Empress-of-China-SAR-RT.pdf

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Polar Bears and Reindeer

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.  The fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water.

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 mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the United States.

Needing supplies in their journey, the traders soon realized they could economically barter for provisions in Hawai‘i; for instance any type of iron, a common nail, chisel or knife could fetch far more fresh fruit meat and water than a large sum of money would in other ports.

A triangular trade network emerged linking the Pacific Northwest coast, China and the Hawaiian Islands to Britain and the United States (especially New England).

Foreign vessels had long recognized the ability of the Hawaiian Islands to provision their ships with food (meat and vegetables,) water, salt and firewood.

Salt was Hawaiʻi’s first export, carried by some of the early ships in the fur trade back to the Pacific Northwest for curing furs.  Another early market was provided by the Russian settlements in Alaska.

On January 21, 1821, the Thaddeus (the brig that carried the Pioneer Company from Boston to Hawai‘i) was sold to Liholiho (Kamehameha II).  Liholiho put her into service in the Northwest trade. On July 12, 1821, William Sumner sailed the Thaddeus to Maui to gather a load of salt to trade for goods at Kamchatka.  (Mills)

In Kamchatka, “Salt is at present issued, but not in sufficient quantities; were that article more liberally distributed, the people might in some years prepare fish to last them several successive ones.”

“From the quantity now supplied by the king of the Sandwich islands, it is to be hoped that the first productive season will be taken advantage of.” (Cochrane)

“The principal riches of Kamtchatka may be said to consist in the animals of the chase, of which there are so prodigious a number, that there are not sufficient inhabitants to take them. The most valuable are foxes of various colours, a few sea and more river otters, with an immense number of sables.”

“Bears, wolves rein-deer and mountain-sheep, and sometimes a few lynxes, are also to be found. The number of skins annually exported and consumed in the peninsula is about thirty thousand, of which sables and foxes form the principal part.” (Cochrane)

On behalf of the Hawaiian government Alexander Adams “brought home a couple of deer the last time with a view of their thriving in the islands, but they had not long been suffered to go at large in Hanarura valley …”

“… when Pitt [Kalanimōku] happening to be unwell, fancied that the flesh of the deer would do him good, and one of them was killed for him to taste. This he found so much to his liking that he ordered the other one to be killed, thus ending the life of poor Adams’ deer.” (Macrae)

“Deer were not the only kind of wild animals introduced into Honolulu during the reign of Liholiho. [T]hat monarch dispatched his American-built brig, the Sunbeam [likely the Thaddeus], commanded by an Englishman, Captain John Bowles, and manned by Sandwich Islanders …”

“… to St. Peter and St. Pauls (Petropaulovski), Kamtschatka, with a cargo of salt as a present to his imperial brother, the Czar of Russia.”

“In return for this gift on the part of the Sandwich Islands king, the governor of St. Peter and St. Paul’s, who was then Captain Ricord, an Englishman, gave such articles as seemed most desirable, including some animals, with a view of propagating the breed.” (Macrae, footnote)

“[T]he beautiful clipper entered the harbour of Peter and Paul in Kamchatka.  She flew a flag which to the watchers on shore was absolutely unknown; blue, white, and brown.”

“She seemed to be full of men, and saluted the fort with seven guns.  In those days Petropavlovsk was practically the only Russian port on the Pacific, for the Amur River belonged as yet to the Chinese, and Vladivostok was still a desert.”

“The arrival of any ship in that God-forsaken port was a rare and great event, much more that of a vessel so mysterious. The whole population – about three hundred souls – gathered on the foreshore.”

“All the authorities were there, with the Governor at their head. This was Captain Ricord, an English naval officer who, with numerous compatriots, was in the Russian service, and had received, after many adventures, the governorship of Kamchatka as a reward for his distinguished services. …”

“Captain John Bowles [was] commanding the clipper Sunbeam of His Majesty Kamehameha II, King of the Sandwich Islands. The Sunbeam’s cargo consisted of salt, intended by His Majesty as a present to the Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias …”

“… in return for which His Majesty hoped that his ‘dear brother’ would send him animals fit to be bred in His Majesty’s islands – and especially bears!” (Poliakoff)

They made the trade and “Amongst the animals were two Siberian bears, but what became of them when landed at Honolulu is now forgotten.” (Macrae, footnote) (This summary was inspired and informed by Peter Mill’s recent book ‘Connecting the Kingdom;’ it’s a good read on sailing vessels in the early Hawaiian monarchy.)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kamehamehas Acquired Western Ships

Before European open ocean exploration began, Eastern Polynesia had been explored and settled.  (Herb Kane)

Voyaging vessels were double-hull; hulls were deep enough to track well while sailing across the wind or on a close reach into the wind. The round-sided V hulls provided lateral resistance to the water while under sail.  (Herb Kane)

The most widely distributed and presumably most ancient sail was a triangle made up of strips of fine matting sewn together and mounted to two spars, one serving as a mast; the other, as a boom, usually more slender and either straight or slightly curved.

Throughout Eastern Polynesia, the same basic design probably persisted throughout the era of long distance two-way voyaging. (Herb Kane)

The double-hulled voyaging canoes were seaworthy enough to make voyages of over 2,000 miles along the longest sea roads of Polynesia, like the one between Hawai‘i and Tahiti.

Fast forward to post-‘contact’ and the time of the Islands’ unification; a new style of boat was in the islands and Kamehameha started to buy and build them.

Following the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778, more “ships were coming into the harbor at Honolulu – merchant vessels, war ships and ships out to discover new lands.”

“Of these the chiefs and people bought arms and gunpowder. Kamehameha had several storehouses well stocked with foreign arms, but nobody wanted money or clothing.”

“On the part of the foreigners potatoes and yams were in great demand. The chief accordingly went into the cultivation of these foods, and grew potatoes on the hill of ‘Ualaka‘a between Manoa and Makiki, and yams at Ka‘akopua, and sold them to the foreigners.”

“Canoeloads of provisions from Hawaii and the other islands were distributed among the chiefs, counselors, lesser chiefs, warrior chiefs, soldiers, followers, cultivators, paddlers, runners, canoe makers, and craftsmen; no one was left out. And in the same way distribution was made to the households of the chiefs.” (Kamakau)

Then, in 1790, Kamehameha acquired his first Western boat, the Fair American. It was not bought or built by Kamehameha: one of Kamehameha’s ‘Kona Uncles,’ Kame‘eiamoku, overpowered the ship and turned it (and its weapons) and its only survivor, Isaac Davis, over to Kamehameha.

In 1795, Kamehameha had a fleet of 20 vessels, tonnage of from 20 to 40 tons. Each vessel was well armed and manned. (US Naval Institute)  “In the late 1700s and early 1800s, Kamehameha I methodically acquired all the materials and crafts needed to construct ships locally, and he purchased larger foreign brigs and schooners when good opportunities arose.” (Mills)

“Kamehameha and successive high chiefs purchased most foreign vessels with sandalwood harvests by maka‘āinana from Hawai‘i’s forests, which Chinese coveted for incense and medicine.” (Mills)

By 1805, Kamehameha had a sizable navy, consisting of more than 40 large ships and several hundred peleleu, all equipped with guns of various caliber. (The peleleu was a long and deep double canoe with a covered platform and foreign sail, and was built for Kamehameha by his foreign friends.)  (US Naval Institute)

The first Western-style vessel built in the Islands was the Beretane (1793.)  Through the aid of Captain George Vancouver’s mechanics, after launching, it was used in the naval combat with Kahekili’s war canoes off the Kohala coast.  (Thrum)

Encouraged by the success of this new type of vessel, others were built.  The second ship built in the Islands, a schooner called Tamana (named after Kamehameha’s favorite wife, Kaʻahumanu,) was used to carry of his cargo of trade to the missions along the coast of California.  (Couper & Thrum, 1886)

From 1796 until 1802 the kingdom flourished. Several small decked vessels were built.  (Case) According to Cleveland’s account, Kamehameha possessed at that time twenty small vessels of from twenty to forty tons burden, some even copper-bottomed.  (Alexander)

Kamehameha eventually built at least three shipyards, at Kealakekua Bay and Kawaihae on Hawai‘i Island and another on O‘ahu at Waikiki.  (Mills)

“What holds the king’s attention more than any other subject, though, is shipbuilding. Already, it is said, he can accurately and with true discernment spot the strengths and weaknesses in any ship’s construction.  All equipment and tools relating to shipbuilding, he regards as particularly valuable.”

“One cannot do better, therefore, than to use such tools as articles of trade when going to Owaihi. Any sailor wo is at the same time, a ship’s carpenter is particularly welcome there, and is straightaway presented with a piece of land and almost anything else that he may want.” (Georg Langsdorff in Mills)

“As to his navy, Kamehameha had the largest naval force in the entire Pacific during his time. Japan had gone into seclusion from 1638 to 1852, during which time she forbade anyone from leaving the country or from building ships, under penalty of death. America acquired the Louisiana Territory during this time, and had not yet reached her Pacific boundaries.”

“Lisiansky, a Russian naval officer, was much impressed by Kamehameha’s might and in comparing his army and navy with those of other South Sea Islands, styled them ‘invincible.’ He noted that they included some 7,000 warriors and about 60 Europeans, a large arsenal of modern weapons, and a fleet of many war canoes and ships.”  (US Naval Institute)

Kamehameha was the greatest Polynesian Commander in Chief that ever lived. He placed the art of warfare on a scientific basis, and to insure peace to his people, he built the largest navy in the entire Pacific region, in spite of the fact that he did not have occasion to test its strength.

He believed in security, and he achieved his grand and favorite object, so that before he died, he was able to issue the following challenge to his friends and advisors: ‘Strive as ye may to undo that which I have established in righteousness, ye will never reach the end.’ (US Naval Institute)

Interest and acquisition of Western ships must have run in the family …

Not to be left out, Liholiho (Kamehameha’s son who reigned as Kamehameha II) bought the Thaddeus on January 21, 1821.  (The Thaddeus brought the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries to the Islands and arrived at Kailua-Kona on April 4, 1820.)

Shortly thereafter, she sailed to the Northwest Coast for seal and otter skins; she arrived back to the Islands on October13, 1820 and shortly thereafter Liholiho purchased the Thaddeus for 4,000 piculs of sandalwood.  (Mills)

Another of Kamehameha’s sons, Kauikeaouli (who later reigned as Kamehameha III), was, as a child, “chiefly occupied with his toy boats rigged like warships and with little brass cannon loaded with real powder mounted on (their] decks. The firing off of these cannon amused him immensely.  …”

“As he grew older, perhaps eight or nine years old, he used to go out with a boatload of boys, generally in the sail boats … and he would haul the sails and do any of the work without trying to assume command, for even up to the time when he became king he was simple in his ways.” (Kamakau)  Liholiho and Kauikeaouli each acquired several Western ships.

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Young Brothers Come to Hawaii

John Nelson Young was born April 15, 1839 in St. Andrews, New Brunswick, the third child of John Alexander Young and Lucy Baldwin.  John grew up in St. Andrews, a small but busy port on the shore of Passamaquoddy Bay, just across the international border from Maine.

His father was a chair and cabinetmaker, and John followed in his father’s footsteps.  He also learned the art of trading and shipping for profit. In 1859, when he was twenty years old, he and his brothers, James and Alexander, left St. Andrews to go to California.

They sailed to Panama, crossed the Isthmus, and from there sailed up the west coast to San Francisco. John bought the schooner Champion and sailed between San Francisco and Sacramento carrying trade goods and passengers. (He may also have traded as far north as Portland, OR, or Eureka, CA, and as far south as San Diego.)

In San Francisco on April 15, 1868, John N. Young married Eleanor Annie Gray, daughter of Robert and Mary K Gray, emigrants from Robbinston, Maine.  Shortly thereafter, John and Eleanor moved to San Diego.

In 1868, with his brothers James, Alexander, and William, John started a furniture business, one of the first commercial enterprises in San Diego. After James and Alex left the firm in 1869, John and William continued the firm of Young Brothers Carpenters and Furniture Builders, and added undertaking as a sideline.

William Young, John’s brother and business partner, died in 1873. John then reorganized the Young Brothers business as the Pioneer Furniture Company.

John and Eleanor had a growing family with five children. Annie Edith Young was born December 28, 1868 (in San Francisco), then in San Diego, Herbert Gray Young, on March 21, 1870; William Edward Young, on April 24, 1875; John Alexander ‘Jack’ Young, on January 2 1882; and Edgar Nelson Young, on July 21, 1885.

The family supplemented their income with produce from their garden John often took the older boys fishing mackerel and bottom fish in San Diego Bay.

Eleanor Young developed rheumatoid arthritis when she was in her early forties.  She died on February 16, 1894 at age forty-five, leaving minor children Jack, 12, and Edgar, 10, and granddaughter Belle, 8.

John Young suffered from tuberculosis in the 1890s. After Eleanor died, he traveled extensively trying in vain to find a more suitable climate. He finally returned to San Diego. There he died September 13, 1896 at age fifty-seven.

John Young’s sons, Herbert and William, were working to help support the family. Herb learned deep sea diving by accepting several salvage jobs that required underwater skills and, in the summer of 1899, all four boys ran a glass-bottomed boat excursion at Catalina Island.

After the season ended, Herb landed a berth on a schooner bound for the Hawaiian Islands, and Will decided to join him on what he would later call ‘the great adventure.’  Twenty-nine-year-old Herb had served as chief engineer during the ten-day journey from San Francisco, while Will, then age twenty-five, served as crew.

The first view of Honolulu that greeted Will and Herb on January 19, 1900 and revealed a town numbering fewer than 45,000 residents. For several days, Chinatown had been burning to what would become a smoldering ruin in an effort to rid the city of bubonic plague.

With a capital of only $86, they bought a small launch, the Billie, and started running a ‘bum boat’ service in Honolulu harbor – they called their family business Young Brothers.

Jack Young arrived later that year (October); he once reminisced about arriving in Honolulu in 1900 with a few cans of fruit, a large trunk and only twenty-five cents in cash-too little to pay to have his trunk brought ashore.  So, he rustled up a spare rowboat and rowed in his own gear.

In those days there were usually between five and twenty ships moored off Sand Island in the harbor at any one time.  Most of ships used sail and needed help to move about in the crowded harbor.

The Young brothers ran lines for the ships in the harbor. When a ship came in, the anchor line had to be run out to secure the ship. Or if the ship needed to unload, a line had to be carried to the pier.

The next year they bought the Fun from the Metropolitan Meat Market and took over the contract to deliver meat and other fresh supplies to the ships anchored in the harbor. Herb got the contract, but Jack was assigned the job every morning of picking up meat, vegetables and fruits and deliver them to the various ships in the harbor.

Herb and Will also worked as a diving team, salvaging lost anchors, unfouling propellers, or inspecting hulls of ships for repairs. A more frequently needed undersea service was to scrape the sea growth off the hulls of ships.

The launches of the Young Brothers were routinely asked to pull stranded boats or ships off the shore or reef or to rescue ships in trouble at sea. In 1902 they saved six Japanese fishermen in a sampan that had become disabled in a sudden storm off Honolulu. The sampan had gone too far out to sea searching for fish and was caught by heavy seas.

The same year, they rescued a novice seaman in a rowboat who thought he could row out of the harbor to where a battleship was anchored. If he hadn’t been seen from the boathouse, he would have been lost. On another occasion, the schooner Mokihana was towed back to harbor from twenty miles out in 1901 when she lost control from the helm.

May 1903 saw the beginning of a long association between the Young Brothers and the Customs Department. Young Brothers purchased the launch Water Witch, from AA Young (no relation) and completely renovated her.

They entered a contract to use the Water Witch launch as a revenue and patrol boat, and to take boarding officers to all incoming liners. Herb had the privilege of presenting her and flying the Custom’s flag on May 21, 1903. The Water Witch remained in service for over forty years.

ln March of 1903, the Youngs moved from their first little boathouse on a sand spit near the lighthouse to a spot near what is now Piers 1&2. The Young Brothers’ boathouse was home to Herb, Will and Jack, and was a structure well known on the waterfront as a center of information for everything going on in the harbor.

In 1903, Edith moved to the Hawaiian Islands an joined her brothers. In 1905, Herb sold his interest in the Young Brothers business and went to the mainland to look for work as a diver.  Young Brothers incorporated on May 5, 1913.

Following incorporation, Will stopped taking an active role in the operations of the company, preferring to pursue his fascination with sharks, and eventually left the islands for good in 1921 to become a well-known international shark hunter.  Jack, the last founding member of the company to remain in Hawai‘i remained as the operating manager.

I am the youngest brother of the youngest brother of the youngest brother of Young Brothers.  Jack Young is my grandfather. We never met him, and he and my grandmother never knew they had grandchildren from their son Kenny.

They both had died before they knew my mother was pregnant with my older brother. (Lots of information here is from Young Brothers: 100 Years of Service and a Young family background and genealogy.)

© 2024 Ho‘okuleana LLC