Sailing, Shipping & Shipwrecks | Page 19

September 13, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Endeavour

A ship now simply known as RI 2394 lies wrecked on the muddy seabed of Newport Harbor. It had been sunk by the British military in an American harbor.

Its location was forgotten for over two centuries until Australian maritime archaeologists worked with a team in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, to hunt for clues that confirmed its identity.

Then, … “it is with great pride that after a 22-year program of archival and archaeological fieldwork that, based on a preponderance of evidence approach, I have concluded that an archaeological site known as RI 2394, located in Newport Harbor, Rhode Island, USA, comprises the shipwreck of HM Bark Endeavour.” (Kevin Sumpton, Australian National Maritime Museum)

However, the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project, reportedly the lead organization for the study in Newport harbor, says “the report that the Endeavour has been identified is premature.”

Let’s look back …

In the late-1700s, the small seaside village of Whitby was known as a ‘nursery’ for mariners, where expert shipbuilders and the most competent seafarers completed their apprenticeships. This center for commercial trade bred colliers – sturdy ships capable of carrying heavy loads, including coal, across the Baltic Sea and beyond.

They were steady workhorses that could be relied upon. Their solid, flat-floored hulls were adept in navigating shallow harbors and estuaries.

Earl of Pembroke was one such vessel, built by Thomas Fishburn for Thomas Milner in 1764. The ship was used as a coal carrier.

One of its rare and distinguishing features was a ‘deadwood’ or ‘rider’ keelson that ran along the inside bottom of the hull. This reinforcing centerline timber prevented the vessel from breaking its back when loading or unloading cargo in shallow tidal waters.

A March 27, 1768 letter from The Yard Officers, Deptford to The Royal Navy Board stated, “We have surveyed and measured the undermentioned ships recommended to your Honours to proceed on Foreign Service and send you an account of their quantities, condition, age and dimensions …”

“The Earl of Pembroke, Mr Thos. Milner, ownes was built at Whitby, her age three years nine months, square stern bark, single bottom, full built and comes nearest to the tonnage mentioned in your warrant and not so old by fourteen months, is a promising ship for sailing of this kind and fit to stow provisions and stores as may be put on board her.”

A subsequent letter from The Royal Navy to the Secretary of the Admiralty on March 29, 1768 stated, “We desire that you will inform their Lordships that we have purchased a catbuilt bark, in burthen 368 tons, and of the age of three years and nine months, for conveying such persons as shall be thought proper to the southward …”

“… for making observations of the passage of the planet Venus over the disc of the sun, and pray to be favoured with their Lordships’ directions for fitting her for this service accordingly … and that we may also receive Their commands by what name she shall be registered on the list of the Navy.”

An April 5, April 1768 response stated, “We do hereby desire and direct you to cause the said vessel to be sheathed, filled, and fitted in all respects proper for that service, and to report to us when she will be ready to receive men. And you are to cause the said vessel to be registered on the list of the Royal Navy as a bark by the name of the Endeavour”.

Captain James Cook’s first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on May 27, 1768. It had three aims; establish an observatory at Tahiti to record the transit of Venus (when Venus passes between the earth and the sun – June 3, 1769;) record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks; and continue the search for the Great South Land.

When Captain Cook set sail on the first of three voyages to the South Seas, he carried with him secret orders from the British Admiralty to seek ‘a Continent or Land of great extent’ and to take possession of that country ‘in the Name of the King of Great Britain’.

While each of the three journeys made by Captain Cook into the Pacific had its own aim and yielded its own discoveries, it was this confidential agenda that would transform the way Europeans viewed the Pacific Ocean and its lands. (State Library, New South Wales)

Endeavour voyaged to the South Pacific, mainly to record the transit of Venus in Tahiti in 1769. After that, the ship sailed around the South Pacific searching for the “Great Southern Land.” (Wall Street Journal)

After heading west from England, rounding Cape Horn beneath South America and crossing the Pacific, Cook landed the Endeavour in Australia’s Botany Bay on April 29, 1770. To the British, Cook went down in history as the man who ‘discovered’ Australia – despite Aboriginal Australians having lived there for 50,000 years and the Dutch traversing its shores for centuries. (Ward)

When Endeavour sailed around the coast of Australia, on June 11, 1770, she became stuck in a reef, now known as Endeavour Reef (part of the Great Barrier Reef). Cook ordered that all extra weight and unnecessary equipment be removed from the ship to help her float.

The reef had created a hole in the hull which, if removed from the reef, would cause the ship the flood. After several attempts, Cook and his crew successfully freed Endeavour but she was in a dire condition. She sailed to Batavia, part of the Dutch East Indies, to properly repair her before the voyage home.

Captain Cook’s charting of Australia’s east coast paved the way for the establishment of a penal colony. In 1788, British settlers landed in what is now downtown Sydney.

At the time Captain Cook was sailing in the Pacific and bumped into Hawai’i (January 18, 1778) recall that back in the Atlantic, the American Revolutionary War was still ongoing with the Americans (with support from the French) fighting the British.

After returning to Britain in 1771, the Endeavour was sent to Woolwich to be refitted to be used as a naval transport and store ship, frequently operating between Britain and the Falklands. In 1775 she was sold out of the navy to a shipping company Mather & Co. She was refitted and renamed Lord Sandwich.

Lord Sandwich was also contracted by the British navy to transport soldiers in 1776 to fight against the American colonists who sought to break free from British control.

In 1776, Lord Sandwich was stationed in New York during the Battle of Long Island that led to the British capture of New York. In August 1778, the British scuttled the Lord Sandwich and four other vessels at Newport Harbor to try to create a blockade to stop a fleet of French warships that had sailed in to support the American forces. (VOA News)

Cook’s second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aboard Resolution and Adventure aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

Cook’s third and final voyage (1776-1779) of discovery was an attempt to locate a North-West Passage, an ice-free sea route which linked the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Cook commanded the Resolution while Charles Clerke commanded Discovery. (State Library, New South Wales)

Cook’s crew first sighted the Hawaiian Islands in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778. His two ships, the HMS Resolution and the HMS Discovery, were kept at bay by the weather until the next day when they approached Kauai’s southeast coast.

On the afternoon of January 19, native Hawaiians in canoes paddled out to meet Cook’s ships, and so began Hawai’i’s contact with Westerners. The first Hawaiians to greet Cook were from the Kōloa south shore.

The Hawaiians traded fish and sweet potatoes for pieces of iron and brass that were lowered down from Cook’s ships to the Hawaiians’ canoes.

The Island “were named by Captain Cook the Sandwich Islands, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich, under whose administration he had enriched geography with so many splendid and important discoveries.” (Captain King’s Journal; Kerr)

Hawaiian lives changed with sudden and lasting impact, when western contact changed the course of history for Hawai’i.

At the time of Cook’s arrival (1778-1779), the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four kingdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokai, Lanai and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and at (4) Kauai and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Throughout their stay, the ships were supplied with fresh provisions which were paid for mainly with iron, much of it in the form of long iron daggers made by the ships’ blacksmiths on the pattern of the wooden pāhoa used by the Hawaiians.

After a month’s stay, Cook got under sail again to resume his exploration of the Northern Pacific. Shortly after leaving Hawaiʻi Island, the foremast of the Resolution broke. They returned to Kealakekua. On February 14, 1779, Cook was killed. (Information here is from Australian National Maritime Museum, Ward, RIMAP, MuSEAum).)

September 4, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Broken Leg

In 1834, John Paty sailed for the first time to Hawai‘i in the brig Avon, of which he was master and part owner, accompanied by his wife and brother, and arrived at Honolulu in June of that year. (They had three children while in Hawaiʻi, John Henry Paty (1840,) Mary Francesca Paty (1844) and Emma Theodora Paty (1850.)

In 1860, “Capt John Paty, as a ship master out of Honolulu, and the valuable assistance rendered by him in the furtherance of commercial intercourse between the Hawaiian Islands and adjacent ports in foreign countries, as evidenced by the accomplishment of his one hundredth passage across the Pacific.” (The Friend, November 1, 1860)

In 1865, Paty, on another run to the Islands, hired Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham as first mate on the bark Whistler, on the San Francisco/Honolulu run.

Frank, the son of Benjamin Clark Dillingham, a shipmaster, and Lydia Sears (Hows) Dillingham, was born on September 4, 1844 in West Brewster, Massachusetts. Frank left school at 14 and shipped on his uncle’s vessel for a voyage around the Horn to San Francisco.

“A brief sojourn in the city enabled me to realize that I had no training in any other vocation, save that of the sea, and learning that Capt. Paty of the bark Whistler plying between the coast and Honolulu was in need of officers, I applied and obtained the position of first mate without delay.” (Dillingham; Chiddix & Simpson)

Dillingham wrote that he felt at home the first time he came ashore in Honolulu: “After my tempstuous experiences in rounding Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope, the trip seemed to me like a pleasure excursion.”

“It felt as if I had anchored in a home port; the cordiality I experienced from all those whom I met removed at once the feeling of being in a foreign land though the streets were filled with several nationalities. The luxuriant foliage, the balmy breezes, the tropical fruits, all afforded such delights that I felt sure I should return.”

He would indeed return, and on his third trip aboard the Whistler, he rented a horse. “Sailors are notoriously unfamiliar with horses” he later wrote—describing his collision with a carriage. Ships and sailors were of economic import in the Islands, and on July 29, 1865, the Pacific Commercial Advertiser ran a short piece on his accident:

“The first officer of the bark Whistler Mr Dillingham, whose leg was broken last Friday night by being thrown from a horse, in a collision with a carriage on the vally road, is now at the American Marine Hospital, where he receives every care and attention, and is in a favorable condition for recovery.”

The Whistler could not wait and sailed without him. Ultimately, and unknown to anyone at the time, this changed to course of economic history in the Islands and resulted in lasting legacies.

While recovering, Dillingham had a long time to reflect upon his options. This time he was more serious about staying ashore. Already in love with these Islands, he had met Emma Louise Smith on an earlier visit.

Despite tales of her nursing him back to health, she was away in New England while Frank was recuperating. She was also engaged to another man whom by all accounts she did not love. Dillingham’s patience in slowly courting Emma demonstrated a determination for which he later became known.

He accepted a job as a clerk in a hardware store called H. Dimond & Son for $40 per month. The store was owned by Henry Dimond, formerly a bookbinder in the 7th Missionary Company. In 1850 Dimond had been released from his duties at the Mission and had gone into business with his son.

Dillingham later bought the company with partner Alfred Castle (son of Samuel Northrup Castle, who was in the 8^th Company of missionaries and ran the Mission business office;) they called the company Dillingham & Co (it was later known as Pacific Hardware, Co.)

On April 26, 1869, Dillingham married Emma Smith, daughter of 6^th Company missionaries Reverend Lowell and Abigail Smith.

But hard times came on Dillingham with the collapse of whaling and the rise of sugar. Large suppliers pulled Dillingham’s credit lines, and his accounts were paid late. Then Dillingham was given the opportunity to buy the James Campbell lands in Ewa.

While he couldn’t raise the money to buy it, Campbell leased the land for 50-years. Dillingham realized that to be successful, he needed reliable transportation.

On September 4, 1888, Frank Dillingham’s 44^th birthday, the legislature gave Dillingham an exclusive franchise “for construction and operation on the Island of O‘ahu a steam railroad … for the carriage of passengers and freight.”

They laughed at him and called it ‘Dillingham’s Folly.’ But Benjamin Franklin Dillingham’s dream of a railroad into the wilderness of West Oahu carried the promise of a sugar industry and major developments that would change Hawaii forever. (Wagner)

Dillingham formed O‘ahu Railway and Land Company (OR&L,) a narrow gauge rail, whose economic being was founded on the belief that O‘ahu would soon host a major sugar industry.

“Among the most important works now in process of rapid construction, is the Oahu railway to Pearl Harbor, which is already approaching completion, so far as grading is concerned. Eleven miles of this line will have the grading completed in two weeks; and of this length ten miles are already finished.”

“The depot itself will be of imposing size and made as ornamental in appearance as convenience and traffic requirements will allow. … The progress of this important work has been so rapid during the month of July that we give it first place among the works in progress during the past month.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 27, 1889)

“Mr BF Dillingham, promoter of the Oahu Railway and Land Company [OR&L], on his birthday a year previous, was accosted by an acquaintance with the remark: ‘Well, Mr. Dillingham, you have got your franchise: when are you going to give us the railway?’”

“Mr. Dillingham replied that on his next birthday, that day one year, he hoped to treat his friends to a railway ride. … with a strong company now at his back, the originator of the enterprise, having taken the contract to build the road, resolutely pushed operations to their present advanced stage.”

On September 4, 1889, Mr. Dillingham’s forty-fifth birthday, the first train to run out of Honolulu took an excursion party one-half mile into the Palama rice fields.

‘Dillingham’s Folly’ had now become the greatest single factor in the development of O‘ahu and Honolulu. (Nellist)

“With a shrill blast from the whistle and the bell clanging, the engine moved easily off with its load. Three rousing cheers were given by the passengers, and crowds assembled at the starting point responded.” (Daily Bulletin, September 5, 1889)

The rail line was extended, reaching Waianae in 1895 and, with Waialua plantation enormously expanded under Mr. Dillingham’s driving leadership, the railroad eventually was extended there and on to Kahuku. (Nellist)

Ultimately, OR&L sublet land, partnered on several sugar operations and/or hauled cane from Ewa Plantation Company, Honolulu Sugar Company in ‘Aiea, O‘ahu Sugar in Waipahu, Waianae Sugar Company, Waialua Agriculture Company and Kahuku Plantation Company, as well as pineapples for Dole.

By the early-1900s, the expanded railway cut across the island, serving several sugar and pineapple plantations, and the popular Haleʻiwa Hotel. They even included a “Kodak Camera Train” (associated with the Hula Show) for Sunday trips to Hale‘iwa for picture-taking.

When the hotel opened on August 5, 1899, guests were conveyed from the railway terminal over the Anahulu stream to fourteen luxurious suites, each had a bath with hot-and-cold running water.

Thrum’s ‘Hawaiian Annual’ (1900,) noted, “In providing so tempting an inn as an adjunct and special attraction for travel by the Oahu Railway – also of his (Dillingham’s) creation – the old maxim of ‘what is worth doing is worth doing well’ has been well observed, everything about the hotel is first class …”

The weekend getaway from Honolulu to the Haleʻiwa Hotel became hugely popular with the city affluent who enjoyed a retreat in ‘the country.’

In addition, OR&L (using another of its “land” components,) got into land development. It developed Hawai‘i’s first planned suburban development and held a contest, through the newspaper, to name this new city. The winner selected was “Pearl City” (the public also named the main street, Lehua.)

The railway owned 2,200-acres in fee simple in the peninsula. First they laid-out and constructed the improvements, then invited the public on a free ride to see the new residential community. The marketing went so well; ultimately, lots were auctioned off to the highest bidder.

“Mr. Dillingham, besides creating the O‘ahu Railway, a line for which he struggled twenty-seven years against a public prejudice that would not see its financial possibilities, established Olaʻa plantation on the Island of Hawai‘i and McBryde plantation on Kauai.” (Sugar, May 1918)

On his death in 1918 at age 74, Dillingham was hailed as a “master builder” and Honolulu’s financial district closed its doors out of respect. (Wagner) The Islands would have been different, if not for a sailor breaking his leg riding a horse.

The Dillingham Transportation Building was built in 1929 for Walter F Dillingham of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, who founded the Hawaiian Dredging Company (later Dillingham Construction) and ran the Oahu Railway and Land Company founded by his father, Benjamin Franklin Dillingham. (Information in this post taken, in part, from ‘Next Stop Honolulu.’)

August 26, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

James Colnett

Captain James Cook set sail on three voyages to the South Seas. His first Pacific voyage (1768-1771) was aboard the Endeavour and began on May 27, 1768. It had three aims; go to Tahiti to record the transit of Venus (when Venus passes between the earth and sun – June 3, 1769;) record natural history, led by 25-year-old Joseph Banks; and search for the Great South Land.

Cook’s second Pacific voyage (1772-1775) aboard Resolution and Adventure aimed to establish whether there was an inhabited southern continent, and make astronomical observations.

“Every Fighting Service has, and must have, two main categories – ‘Officers’ and ‘Men.’ The Royal Navy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was no exception. The distinction existed: was indeed more than ordinarily marked. It was not only a naval distinction, but a sharp social one too.”

“‘Officers’ as contemporary society used that word, came from one walk of life, ‘Men’ from another: and, as it was not easy in Society to pass from a lower stratum to a higher, so in the Navy, it was not easy for a ‘Man’ to become an Officer. But it was possible.” (Captain Cook Society)

“Cook had chosen his subordinates well or had been lucky. The officers of the third voyage were a remarkably intelligent group of men.” (Captain Cook Society)

“All the great remaining voyages of the eighteenth century drew on Cook’s officers. Bligh, Portlock, Vancouver, Colnett, Riou, and Hergest all got their commands and served with great distinction. These men then passed on their skills to a second generation of men such as Flinders and Broughton.” (Mackay, Captain Cook Society)

James Colnett was born in 1753 at Plymouth, England; the Colnett family was originally from the Stepney district of East London.

His father, James Colnett senior, was in the Royal Navy and this took him and the family to Plymouth and Portsmouth. His father died in 1760. James Jr’s mother, Sarah, was left to bring up the four children alone.

The younger James began his naval career on June 28, 1770 as an able seaman on the Hazard, a small sloop. On September 4, 1771, he became a midshipman on HMS Scorpion under James Cook and transferred to the Resolution when Cook was readying for his second Pacific voyage.

Colnett served as midshipman throughout Cook’s second voyage from 1772 until 1775. Colnett was the first European to sight New Caledonia, and Cook named Cape Colnett and Mount Colnett commemorated that sighting.

One of his midshipman colleagues, John Elliott, later described Colnett as ‘Clever and Sober’.

After Cook’s voyage, Colnett was appointed to the Juno, a 5th rank, as gunner on January 1, 1776. He was then appointed master of the Adventure during the War of American Independence before passing for lieutenant on February 4, 1779. Ten days later he was appointed third lieutenant of the Bienfaisant, a 3rd rank, remaining on that ship until 1783.

In one of his journals, he provides advice on passage around Cape Horn (south of South America), “I have doubled Cape Horn in different seasons …”

“… but were I to make another voyage to this part of the globe, and could command my time, I would most certainly prefer the beginning of winter, or even winter itself, with moon-light nights; for, in that season, the winds begin to vary to the Eastward; as I found them, and as Captain, now Admiral, Macbride, observed at the Falkland Isles.”

“Another error, which, in my opinion, the commanders of vessels bound round Cape Horn commit, is, by keeping between the Falkland Isles and the main, and through the Straits Le Maire …”

“… which not only lengthens the distance, but subjects them to an heavy, irregular sea, occasioned by the rapidity of the current and tides in that channel, which may be avoided, by passing to the Eastward.”

“At the same time, I would recommend them to keep near the coast of Staten Land, and Terra del Fuego, because the winds are more variable, in with the shore, than at a long offing. …”

“If the navigation round Cape Horn should ever become common, such, a place we must possess; and agreeable to the last convention with Spain, we are entitled to keep possession of it, and apply it to any purpose of peace or war. Great advantages might arise from such a settlement.” (Colnett)

In 1785, a London merchant, Richard Cadman Etches, had formed the King George’s Sound Company to send ships to the Northwest coast of North America to exploit the sea otter pelt trade.

Two ships, the King George and the Queen Charlotte, had already been dispatched in 1785 under the command of Nathaniel Portlock and George Dixon and it was now proposed to send another two ships.

Colnett had been in discussions with Etches and, having obtained permission from the Admiralty for extended leave of absence, he took command of the expedition and the Prince of Wales, the larger ship. Charles Duncan was appointed to command the Princess Royal consort vessel.

The ships left Britain in October 1786 and spent the summer of 1787 trading in the Queen Charlotte Islands and the adjacent mainland. The two ships then sailed in August 1788 for Hawai‘i. The traders had usually wintered at the Hawaiian islands.

It was then, in what appears is the first reference and suggestion that Pacific captains should hire Hawaiians to their crew. In his journal, Colnett suggested, “If you can procure a hardy willing fellow from Isles [Hawai‘i] to embark with you to increase your strength …”

He also provides other observations about the Hawaiian, “You will in the winter Season send what Vessels you Judge proper to the Sandwich Isles for Provisions …”

“… and in their return we imagine that some of the Natives of those Isles both men and women may be embark’d and transplanted to America and made useful in our employ. This must be done by their own consent and with every precaution with regard to their health as well as happiness.” (Colnett)

Colnett had been away for five and a half years during which time his mother had died in 1790. A codicil to her will was witnessed by Nathaniel Portlock, who had led the other Etches expedition to the Pacific.

The Pacific sperm-whaling industry began with the 1789–90 voyage of the Emelia out of England. Prompted by that voyage’s success, the Emelia’s owners commissioned James Colnett in 1793 to take the Rattler to the Pacific Ocean to discover exactly where and when sperm whales congregated and to discover suitable ports and anchorages that British whalers could use.

Colnett’s narrative of the voyage was published in 1798 together with a series of charts. Colnett’s voyage opened up the South Pacific whale fishery.

Sperm oil, used in lamps, and spermaceti (a waxy substance found in the head cavities of the sperm whale), used in candles, fueled the eighteenth-century lighting revolution, inside homes and outside on public thoroughfares.

James Colnett died on September 1, 1806, at his lodgings in Great Ormond Street, London. He was buried on September 6 in St Dunstan and All Saints, Stepney. (Information here is from A Voyage to the South Atlantic and around Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean, Colnett; New Histories of Pacific Whaling, Jones & Wanhalla; Captain Cook Society)

August 18, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John M Kaukaliu

The lighthouse has no special friends,
No special foes when night descends,
In all the earth the only place,
Though statesmen talk and kings embrace,
Where man becomes one common race.
(“The Lighthouse;” Douglas Malloch, 1934)

The earliest lighthouse in Hawaiʻi was one built at Keawaiki, Lāhainā, and put into operation on November 4, 1840. It was described as a “tall looking box-like structure, about nine feet high and one foot wide … facing the landing.”

Other early lighthouses were constructed at Kawaihae in 1859, at Keawaiki in 1866, and on Kaholaloa Reef at the entrance to Honolulu Harbor in 1869.

Then, the Diamond Head Lighthouse was built.

A 40-foot open frame tower was constructed at Honolulu Iron Works (due to concerns about the stability of the structure, the open framework was enclosed with walls constructed of coral.)

Its light was first lit on July 1, 1899. The light had a red sector to mark dangerous shoals and reefs.

John M Kaukaliu was the first keeper of the Diamond Head Lighthouse.

“(N)o keeper’s dwelling was provided, he lived at a private residence about a quarter of a mile from the lighthouse (about where the Lēʻahi Beach Park is now situated.)” He was paid $75 per month. (US Lighthouse Board)

When the Lighthouse Board took control of all aids to navigation in the Hawaiian Islands in 1904, it reported that the Diamond Head Lighthouse was the only first-class lighthouse in the territory.

In 1904, a floor was added to the tower, 14’ above ground level. Windows were placed in 2 existing openings in the tower walls and telephone lines were installed in the tower.

Then tragedy struck …

“Lighthouse Keeper is Found Stricken at Top of Tower – John Kaukaliu, the aged and well known lighthouse keeper at the Diamond Head lighthouse, was found Friday morning in a helpless paralyzed condition by his assistant and was removed to his home in Waikiki Friday afternoon in the emergency hospital ambulance.”

“Frank Stevenson, emergency hospital assistant, says that to carry Kaukaliu from the top of the lighthouse where he had probably lain for hours it was necessary to strap him to the stretcher and carry him almost perpendicularly down the circular stairs.” (Honolulu Star-bulletin, October 7, 1916)

“Kaukaliu was born here 62-years ago and was one of the best known and most popular Hawaiians in Honolulu. He is survived by his wife and a daughter, Mrs William Meyers, by his first wife.” (Honolulu Star-bulletin, October 16, 1916)

In 1917, funds were allocated for constructing a fifty-five-foot tower of reinforced concrete on the original foundation. The old tower was replaced with the modern concrete structure, which strongly resembles the original tower.

It wasn’t until 5-years later (1921) that a home for the lighthouse keeper was constructed at the Diamond Head Lighthouse. A keeper occupied the dwelling for just three years, as the station was automated in 1924.

Subsequently, the dwelling became home to Frederick Edgecomb, superintendent of the Nineteenth Lighthouse District (my great uncle.) He lived at the lighthouse until 1939, when the Coast Guard assumed control of all lighthouses.

During World War II, a Coast Guard radio station was housed in the keeper’s dwelling, and a small structure was built on the seaward side of the tower. Following the war, the dwelling was remodeled and has since been home to the Commanders of the Fourteenth Coast Guard District.

The image shows the route John Kaukaliu walked from his home to the Diamond Head Lighthouse.

August 7, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haleakalā, Hualālai and Kīlauea

Volcanoes … yes. But that is not what this story is about.

These are some of the names of inter-island steam ships that operated between the Islands; and in the day, they were the only way to get from here to there, when you travelled inter-island.

Competitors Wilder Steamship Co (1872) and Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co (1883) ran different routes, rather than engage in head to head competition.

Inter-Island operated the Kauaʻi and Oʻahu ports plus some on Hawaiʻi. Wilder took Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Maui plus Hawaiʻi ports not served by Inter-Island. Both companies stopped at Lāhainā, Māʻalaea Bay and Makena on Maui’s leeward coast. (HawaiianStamps)

Mahukona, Kawaihae and Hilo were the Big Island’s major ports; Inter-Island served Kona ports, Kaʻū ports and the Hāmākua ports of Kukuihaele, Honokaʻa and Kūkaʻiau. Wilder served Hilo and the Hāmākua stops at Paʻauhau, Paʻauilo and Laupāhoehoe.

For Inter-Island’s routes, vessels left Honolulu stopping at Lāhainā and Māʻalaea Bay on Maui and then proceeding directly to Kailua-Kona.

From Kailua, the steamer went south stopping at the Kona ports of Nāpoʻopoʻo on Kealakekua Bay, Hoʻokena, Hoʻopuloa, rounding South Point, touching at the Kaʻū port of Honuʻapo and finally arriving at Punaluʻu, Kaʻū, the terminus of the route. (From Punaluʻu, five mile railroad took passengers to Pahala and then coaches hauled the visitors to the volcano from the Kaʻū side.)

Wilder’s steamers left Honolulu and stopped at the Maui ports of Lāhainā, Māʻalaea Bay and Makena and then proceeded to Mahukona and Kawaihae. From Kawaihae, the steamers turned north, passing Mahukona and rounding Upolu Point at the north end of Hawaiʻi and running for Hilo along the Kohala and Hāmākua coasts, stopping at Laupāhoehoe. (Visitors for Kilauea Crater took coaches from Hilo through Olaʻa to the volcano.)

Later, inter-island trade was carried almost exclusively by the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co, the successor to the firm of Thomas R Foster & Co (the original founders of the company) and which, in 1905, acquired the Wilder Steamship Co. (Congressional Record)

“The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co, established in 1883, own(ed) and operate(d) a fleet of first-class vessels engaged exclusively in the transportation of passengers and freight between ports on the islands of the Hawaiian group.” (Annual Report of the Governor, 1939)

Regular sailings of passenger vessels are maintained from Honolulu four times weekly to ports on the island of Hawaiʻi, four times weekly to Molokaʻi, twice weekly to Kauaʻi, three times weekly to Lānaʻi and daily, except Monday and Saturday, to ports on the island of Maui. Included in the fleet are 12 passenger and freight vessels.” (Report of the Governor, 1930)

During the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, Inter-Island Steam Navigation had the SS Haleakalā, Hualālai, Kilauea and Waiʻaleʻale. There were others that carried 12-passengers such as the SS Humuʻula, which was primarily a cattle boat.

Haleakalā, a steel screw steamer, was built by Sun Ship, Chester, PA in 1923 for the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. She first arrived at Honolulu March 15, 1923 and put on the Hilo route with accommodations for 261 cabin and 90 deck passengers.

She was later laid up as a reserve vessel when the Hualālai was put into service; resold and renamed several times, Haleakala was sold for scrap and demolished February 2, 1955.

Hualālai, a twin-screw steel steamer, was built at Bethlehem Shipbuilding, San Francisco, CA in 1929. After inter-island use, she was later, sold, resold and renamed a couple of times, and later scrapped in May 1960.

Waiʻaleʻale, another passenger ship, was a twin-screw steel steamer put into service by the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company in June 1928. After the war, she was put under the Philippine flag, later returned to Honolulu in 1948 and scrapped in September 1954.

Others included Kilauea, put into passenger and freight service in 1911, Hawaiʻi in October 1924 and Humuʻula in 1929.

Once aboard, the purser collected the $5 fare. Of course, cabins were available, but more expensive at $10. Most passengers selected steerage, which was the lowest fare. (Rodenhurst)

The steerage area was a large open area aft, on the second deck. Wooden slats covered the steel deck. People would stake out their space with mats and luggage, then settle down to eat their food. (Rodenhurst)

“Twice a week the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company dispatches its palatial steamers, “Waiʻaleʻale” and “Hualālai,” to Hilo, leaving Honolulu at 4 pm on Tuesdays and Fridays, arriving at Hilo at 8 am the next morning. From Honolulu, the Inter-Island Company dispatches almost daily excellent passenger vessels to the island of Maui and twice a week to the island of Kauaʻi.” (The Mid-Pacific, December 1933)

“There is no finer cruise in all the world than a visit to all of the Hawaiian Islands on the steamers of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. The head offices in Honolulu are on Fort at Merchant Street, where every information is available, or books on the different islands are sent on request.”

“Tours of all the islands are arranged. Connected with the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company is the world-famous Volcano House overlooking the everlasting house of fire, as the crater of Halemaʻumaʻu is justly named. A night’s ride from Honolulu and an hour by automobile and you are at the Volcano House in the Hawaii National Park on the Island of Hawaiʻi, the only truly historic caravansary of the Hawaiian Islands.” (The Mid-Pacific, December 1933)

“Many steamers each week call at ports of Hawaiʻi from Honolulu. The Inter-Island company has a fine steamer on this run for tourists, and (added) a steamer with a capacity of 350 passengers, large and commodious as any ocean liner, to carry passengers on the ‘Volcano run,’ making two trips a week.” (Taylor)

When James A Kennedy joined Inter-Island in 1900 it was in an early stage of its development, and it had become a corporation when he retired from the presidency and general managership in 1924. He remained a member of the board of directors.

In 1928, his son, Stanley C Kennedy, a Silver Star Navy pilot, convinced the board of directors of Inter-Island Steam Navigation of the importance of air service to the Territory and formed Inter-Island Airways.

Young Kennedy had visions of flying for many years. But it was not until the Great War that Stanley Kennedy was to pilot an airplane. Dissatisfied with a Washington desk job, the naval officer talked his way into flight training in Pensacola, Florida. In short order, Ensign Kennedy sported wings as Naval Aviator No. 302. (hawaii-gov)

On November 11, 1929, Inter-Island Airways, Ltd introduced the first scheduled air service in Hawaiʻi with a fleet of two 8-passenger Sikorsky S-38 amphibian airplanes. The first flight from Honolulu to Hilo with stops on Molokaʻi and Maui took three hours, 15 minutes. (It was later renamed Hawaiian Airline.) (hawaii-gov)

Eventually, in 1950, the inter-island ships were sold and the business closed down as air travel took over. “It was sad to have another part of Hawaiʻi’s past fade into history. Nevertheless, these once-in-a-lifetime experiences will remain in my memory forever.” (Rodenhurst)