“The so-called city of Honolulu of to-day is in every particular a very different place from the village of that name, when I arrived here on the 8th of March, 1846, after a voyage of 116 days around Cape Horn from Boston, in the clipper-schooner Kamehameha III., Captain Fisher A. Newell.”
“There were over one hundred whale ships in the harbor, closely packed, three and four side by side, coopering oil, discharging into homeward bound whalers or merchant vessels, and preparing for the summer’s cruise in the northern seas.”
“The whaling business was much more generally successful in those days than it ever has been since. Seventeen hundred barrels was an ordinary season’s catch, while frequently twenty-five hundred and as high as three thousand barrels was reported.”
“The port, as may be supposed, presented a busy scene. Each of these 100 and more ships had on an average thirty persons attached to it as seamen and officers, amounting in the aggregate to some 3,000 persons …”
“… about one half of whom were always on shore “on liberty,” and they gave the town quite a lively appearance. The grog-shops were particularly lively, and the police-court presented an animated spectacle every morning.”
“The streets of the town – or village, as the foreign residents appropriately termed it – were dusty or muddy thoroughfares, according to the weather, with no pretense to sidewalks. Indeed, there were no necessity for the latter, for there were no horse teams and hardly a carriage to be seen.”
“When ladies – and sometimes gentlemen – went out to an evening party or to church on Sunday, they were conveyed in a sort of handcart with four wheels, drawn by one kanaka and pushed from behind by another.”
“To a new-comer, the sight was grotesque and a forcible reminder of the partially civilized state of the country, to see a well-dressed white lady thus pulled and propelled along the street by two bareheaded and barefooted natives, whose only clothing consisted of a malo and a very short denim frock.”
“Goods were transported from the wharves to stores on heavy trucks, drawn by a dozen natives, sweating and tugging through the yielding soil and sand of the streets. Horses were plentiful and cheap, and most foreign residents kept one or more for riding.”
“Then most of the houses were of thatch, even down to the business part of the village, with here and there a stone, or more frequently an adobe structure, but generally with a thatched roof, for shingles brought around Cape Horn were costly, and Oregon lumber was as yet unknown.”
“It cannot be denied that the thatched house, when sufficiently high between joints, was a much more comfortable lodging in this climate than our modern clapboard and shingled houses.”
“The largest foreign-built structure at this date, – with the exception of the King’s palace – was the Bethel church, where the Rev. Dr. Damon officiated, having succeeded the Rev. Mr. Deill in 1843.”
“With the large number of seamen visiting the port at that time we may be assured that “Father Damon” – as he was generally but quite respectfully entitled – had no idle time on his hands, but was often to be seen visiting from ship to ship. The Sailor’s Home was not built until some years after this.”
“What is now Nu‘uanu Avenue, was then little else than a bridle-path through the taro patches up the valley and leading to the Pali.”
“There were no pretty cottages such as now line both sides of that fine thoroughfare, but only here and there a hut of thatch, squatting on the edge of a patch of taro or sweet potatoes.”
“Ornamental trees had not been introduced, and the only ones to be seen in the village and suburbs were an occasional kukui or the unsightly hau.”
“There were no water-works, the supplies for domestic use and for shipping being obtained from wells, of which there was one in almost every house-lot.”
“In some of these wells – particularly those near the harbor – the water rose and fell with the ocean tides. It was more or less brackish, and what housewives denominate as peculiarly ‘hard.’”
“Gentlemen’s linen was not so immaculately white in those days as now. There was no Fire Department, and fortunately no fires of any consequence, until when a Department was organized some years after.”
“Among the prominent natives of that time, I remember, beside the noble King Kamehameha III, and his Queen Kalama, A. Paki and Konia his wife, Keliiahonui, John Young, M. Kekuanaoa, Kanaina, Leleiohoku, Kapeau, Kaiminaauao, Kaliokalani, J. Piikoi, B. Namakaeha, Hooliliamanu, L. Haalelea, Kekauonohi, and many others, all now dead.”
“The Commerce of Honolulu, as gathered from official sources, was in those days rather insignificant when compared with the record of to-day.”
“The gross value of imports at the Custom House, for the year ending Dec. 31, 1846, was $598,382.24; the exports of domestic produce for the same period, (more than half of which represented supplies to whalers) amounted to $763,950.74. The custom receipts for that year were $36,506.64.”
“Sugar figures in the exports to the amount of 300,000 lbs., and molasses, 16,000 gallons. Among the imports the whalers brought goods free of duty to the value of $11,142.68, and the American Mission to the value of $5,896.15, also duty free.”
“Lahaina, which was a favorite port of call and roadstead anchorage for whalers, returned in 1846 for harbor dues, duties, etc., the sum of $4,874.62.”
“The American Missionaries, then and for many years subsequently under the direction and supported by the ABCFM. of Boston, held their general meeting in Honolulu in June, 1846.”
“As I had read a great deal in boyhood about the Sandwich Islands Mission, I naturally was curious to see these men who had devoted their lives to the work of Christianizing the heathen people.”
“And so I was gratified by a sight and in some instances with a personal acquaintance with those I herewith name, some of whom have gone to rest, while some yet remain”. (Sheldon, 1881)
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