Auguste Marques | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 5, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Marquesville

James Campbell, who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1850, ended up in Lāhainā and started a sugar plantation there in 1860 (later known as Pioneer Mill.) He also started to acquire land in Oʻahu, Maui and the island of Hawaiʻi.

In 1876, James Campbell purchased 41,000-acres of ranch land at Honouliuli. Many critics scoffed at the doubtful value of his Honouliuli purchase. But Campbell envisioned supplying the arid area with water and commissioned California well-driller James Ashley to drill a well on his Honouliuli Ranch.

In 1879, Ashley drilled Hawaiʻi’s first artesian well; James Campbell’s vision had made it possible for Hawaiʻi’s people to grow sugar cane on the dry lands of the ʻEwa Plain. When the first well came in at Honouliuli the Hawaiians named it ‘Waianiani’ (crystal waters.) (Nellist)

“After the success of the first artesian well at Honouliuli, Ewa District. Another group of men organized a company in Honolulu. … the new company began work on their first well in Honolulu proper, on the property of Hon. A Marques …”

“This site is located on what was called ‘The Plains,’ near Punahou College. On April 28, 1880, they struck a flowing well, the second well on the island of Oahu and the first well in Honolulu proper.” (McCandless)

A plaque commemorating Honolulu’s pioneer well notes Kalakaua saying, “This Means the Promise of Beauty and Fertility For Thousands of Acres.”

While not at that scale, Marques was seeking water to supply his growing Marquesville complex on Manoa Valley Road (also known as ‘Stonewall Road and later known as Wilder).

In 1879 he bought 27 acres from Alfred Sumter and other purchases in the next few years in the same area were small, usually along ‘Beckwith also to become Wilder, Metcalf, Dole Streets, & Marquesville.’

Marques lived much of his Hawaiian life at 1928 Wilder Avenue (now the site of a small apartment building); Marquesville was generally on the slope below Vancouver Place.

His father was French and Spanish and was a general in the French Army. His mother, of English and Scotch descent, was the daughter of General Cooke of the British Army. Auguste’s boyhood was spent in Morocco, Algiers and the Sahara.

“When asked to what nationality he belongs, Dr. A. Marques replies that he Is a true cosmopolitan”. (Hawaiian Star, March 9, 1899) Marques Auguste Jean Baptiste Marques was born in Toulon, France, on November 17, 1841.

He championed the introduction of Portuguese laborers and “was instrumental in bringing a colony of Portuguese to Honolulu . . . and sold lots on long term credit to encourage them to become home owners.”

The eventual tract (of about 30 acres) was complete by 1880, at a cost of about $10,000. The Bureau of Conveyances shows his selling lot-sized tracts from 1882 to 1899. Between 1885 and 1894, he sold 22 lots, 18 to persons with Portuguese names: from 1895 to 1899, 21 more.

He organized the Theosophical Society in Honolulu in 1883 but allowed a Catholic Church to serve the Portuguese population. Father Clement Evrard, SS.CC., built a wooden chapel dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus located at the corner of Wilder Avenue and Metcalf Street.

At the time, Sacred Heart Parish was an outlying mission (Marquesville mission) of Our Lady of Peace Cathedral in Honolulu. (Sacred Heart Church)

On January 24, 1887, Marques petitioned the Minister of the Board of Education for a school in the Seaview and Metcalf Streets area. He mentioned the area as ‘Marquesville’. He counted 66 children, of whom 37 were of school age.

He noted that ‘a village has been developing at the corner of Beckwith and Metcalf Street[s],’ where there were 22 house owners. At the end of the petition and continuing on a second page are the signatures of all the parents.

Marques was a doctor of science, philanthropist, scientist, musician, teacher, diplomat, and capitalist; and his wife Evelyn (Oliver) was the owner-manager of a downtown shop that encouraged Hawaiian crafts, a suffragette, and occasionally French consul.

He edited the Portuguese language newspaper O Luso Hawaiiano 1885-1888 and taught French at Punahou School. In 1886, Marques went to Russia on a diplomatic mission for King David Kalakaua.

In 1890-1891, he served in the last year of the King’s legislature. He was the Russian consul from 1908 to 1917, the Panamanian consul in 1909, French consul from 1910 to 1929, and of Belgium in 1914. He continued to be Russian consul long after the revolution.

From so much diplomatic representation came many awards and orders of merit, including one from Kalakaua for work on leprosy and one even from Samoa. In 1883, ‘Marquis’ became a Companion of the Loyal Order of Kapiolani.

Marques Street near Punahou School, Honolulu, named for August Jean Baptiste Marques (1841-1929). As with her husband, Mrs. Marques is also remembered by a street name or two.

Across from their home on Wilder Avenue is Artesian Street, commemorating the “pioneer artesian well.” East of Artesian is Evelyn Way, then Oliver Lane. (Lots here is from Bouslog.)

June 20, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Theosophy

The Celtic Revival emerged in late nineteenth-century Scotland and Ireland from a desire for a distinct national identity and a rise in academic interest in history and folklore.

As artists and writers were exploring themes of Celtic mythology and mysticism, a spiritual sect called the Theosophical Society was also quickly gathering steam. Among the many people attracted to the tenets of Theosophy were Celtic Revivalists. (Willamette)

The various forms of theosophical speculation have certain common characteristics. The first is an emphasis on mystical experience. Theosophical writers hold that there is a deeper spiritual reality and that direct contact with that reality can be established through intuition, meditation, revelation or some other state transcending normal human consciousness.

In addition, most theosophical speculation reveals a fascination with supernatural or other extraordinary occurrences and with the achievement of higher psychic and spiritual powers. Theosphists maintain that knowledge of the divine wisdom gives access to the mysteries of nature and humankind’s inner essence. (Britannica)

Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, a Russian woman of noble birth, and Henry Steel Olcott, an American lawyer and newspaperman, founded the modern Theosophical movement in New York City in 1875.

“As a system of thought, however, Theosophy (derived from the Greek theos and sophia, meaning ‘divine wisdom’) has roots in the thought of Greek philosophers such as Pythagoras and Plato and early Indian philosophy dating from the Vedas and Upanishads.” (Karpiel)

When Theosophy emerged in New York as an innovative transnational religious movement represented by the Theosophical Society it was not based on any particular religious tradition, but on the idea of an ancient universal wisdom religion that had been largely buried for centuries and was to be revived and spread under the guidance of the theosophists and their mysterious masters.

From its US American beginnings and even more so after the shift of its headquarters to Adyar, Theosophy was no more “at home” in Europe than in other parts of the world. Like elsewhere, special efforts, e. g. translation work, the reinterpretation of native traditions and the reshaping of Theosophy according to diverse local contexts were necessary to gain a foothold there. (Baier)

The basic goals of the Theosophical Society are enunciated in the so-called Three Objects: ‘to form a nucleus of the universal brotherhood of humanity, without distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color; to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; and to investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in human beings.’ (Britannica)

By the late 1890s, the Theosophical Society had more than six hundred branches worldwide, primarily on the Indian subcontinent and in Europe and the United States, with membership ranging from dozens to a few hundred in each chapter.

Not a mass movement, the society instead acted as a catalyst in the revival of Buddhism in Asia and a primary vehicle for the introduction of Asian religious ideas to the West.

Theosophy was often perceived by critics as identical to Buddhism after Blavatsky and Olcott relocated the Society to India in 1880 and took up a pro-Buddhist and anticolonial position. (Karpiel)

Theosophy made it to the Islands; Mary Foster organized the first Hawaiian Theosophical study group, the ‘Aloha Branch,’ in February 1894, along with Auguste Marques. Subsequently they established several other study groups: the Hawai‘i and Lotus branches. (Karpiel)

Mary (Robinson) Foster was the oldest child of James Robinson, an early English immigrant who founded Honolulu’s first shipbuilding concern, and Rebecca Prever, the half-Hawaiian descendent of a line of Maui chiefs.

In 1860 Mary Robinson married Thomas Foster, a young shipyard owner from Nova Scotia who founded the Interisland Steam Navigation Company, one of two main interisland shipping concerns during the last two decades of the nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

Foster inherited considerable property from both her father, who died in 1876, and her husband and became responsible for managing a wide range of business interests and large tracts of land in rural O‘ahu (including Kahana valley) and in Honolulu.

Auguste Marques was a doctor of science, philanthropist, scientist, musician, teacher, diplomat, and capitalist. In 1890-1891, he served in the last year of the King’s legislature. He was the Russian consul from 1908 to 1917, the Panamanian consul in 1909, French consul from 1910 to 1929, and of Belgium in 1914. He continued to be Russian consul long after the revolution.

Marques hosted weekly Theosophical classes at his house on Wilder Avenue with membership fluctuating between seven and twenty-five in the first decade of the group’s existence.

Despite the sparse number of members, Foster and Marques brought a succession of visiting lecturers and prominent personalities to Honolulu during the same period, drawing large crowds and press attention.

Marques also penned a series of articles for The Theosophist, the journal of the Theosophical Society published in Adyar, India. Expounding on Hawaiian mythology and symbolism, he documented chants and prayers that connected families and communities with the land, sea, and ancestral gods.

Foster shared this intense interest in Hawaiian culture, fusing it in later years with Theosophical and Buddhist beliefs. It was perhaps at this juncture that the independently wealthy Marques and Foster met and became friends and allies.

Marie de Souza Canavarro, the wife of the Portuguese consul, was another early Theosophist in Honolulu, finding kindred spirits within the group following her disillusionment with Roman Catholicism.

Canavarro, who came to Hawai’i from California, engaged in a lifelong quest for spiritual truth through esoteric traditions, gaining minor celebrity a few years later for her promotion of Buddhism nationwide through lectures and books. (Karpiel)

The Theosophical Society website notes Hawaii Island Study Center in Pahoa, Puna as one of their “lodges, study center and camps.”

April 28, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Artesian Way

Actually, a lot of streets fit into the telling of this story: Marques Street, Evelyn Lane, Oliver Street, and Artesian Way. They are all associated with Auguste and Evelyn Oliver Marques and, the drilling of the first artesian well in Makiki, Honolulu.

A plaque marks the spot – I’ve been by it too many times to count, and never noticed it – and as the plaque notes, “This Means the Promise of Beauty and Fertility For Thousands of Acres.”

Most of the early water wells were drilled in and around Honolulu. It was James Campbell who furnished the first conclusive demonstration of the practicability of artesian wells in Hawaii, when on the summer of 1879, on the plain near his ranch house in Ewa, a good flow of water was obtained. (Kuykendall)

Success of this experiment created intense interest and a group of men in Honolulu brought over from California another well-driller, AD Pierce, with better equipment, and in the spring of 1880 a flowing well was completed (April 28) on the land of Auguste Marques near Punahou.

Subsequently, many other wells were drilled, and it became evident that a large supply of water could be obtained by this method. Early in the 1880s, the McCandless brothers (James S., John A., and Lincoln L.) began their long career as artesian well drillers in the islands. (Kuykendall)

“The first artesian well bored in Honolulu was marked in appropriate ceremonies yesterday on the premises of the Marques home on Wilder avenue near Metcalf street.”

“The first shaft tapping Honolulu’s subterranean water supply was marked with a bronze plaque which reads, “Site of Honolulu’s Pioneer Artesian Well, brought in on April 28, 1880 for Dr. Augustus Marques. ‘This means the promise of beauty and fertility for thousands of acres’ —King Kalakaua. Sealed August, 1938—Board of Water Supply.” (Nippu Jiji, June 21, 1939)

Doctor Marques lived much of his Hawaiian life at 1928 Wilder Avenue (now the site of a small apartment building). He originally owned about 30 acres of land, most on the slope below Vancouver Place.

Immediately Ewa side of it is Punahou School. The eventual tract (of about 30 acres, one supposes) was complete by 1880, at a cost of perhaps $10,000.

The area was called ‘Marquesville.’ He “was instrumental in bringing a colony of Portuguese to Honolulu … and sold lots on long term credit to encourage them to become home owners.” (Bouslog) Later, there was also a Catholic Church, with services in English and Portuguese.

His father was French and Spanish and was a general in the French Army. His mother, of English an Scotch descent, was the daughter of General Cooke of the British Army. Auguste’s boyhood was spent in Morocco, Algiers and the Sahara.

His early ambition was to become a doctor, but his mother wanted him to become a scientist. As a compromise, he acquired a medical and scientific education but agreed not to take a diploma or to practice medicine.

After four years of medical training, he was valedictorian of his class at the University of Paris, but, true to his agreement, never accepted his diploma. For some years following his graduation he was connected with the Bureau of Agriculture in Paris.

Shortly after his mother’s death in 1875, Dr. Marques started on a trip around the world. Arriving in Honolulu Christmas Eve of 1878, he decided to stay over between steamers, and so liked Hawaii that he cancelled his passage and from then on made his home in Honolulu and later became a naturalized citizen.

From 1890 to 1891 Dr. Marques served in the Hawaiian legislature. In 1893 he organized the Theosophical Society in Honolulu and six years later went to Australia to serve as General Secretary of the Society for that country.

From Australia he was sent to India as a delegate to the Theosophical Society convention, representing both Australia and the United States. In 1900 he returned to Honolulu.

On June 7, 1900, Dr. Marques married Evelyn M. Oliver, manager of the Woman’s Exchange in Honolulu. (Mamiya Medical Heritage Center)

Born in Canada in 1863, Evelyn Oliver had come to Hawai’i from Canada in 1889 as a publisher’s representative. She soon became interested in providing a sales outlet and a source of income, for Hawaiian women’s handicrafts.

“This institution served a double purpose, it preserved the old arts and it enabled native women to profitably market their products.” In 1899, her store was at 215 Merchant Street, which was also her residence.

The 1905-6 Directory describes her business as “South Seas Curios, hats and calabashes.” Women of Hawaii thought her noteworthy because of her joining the struggle for women’s suffrage, as “an active worker in the Women’s League of Voters of Hawaii…” (Bouslog)

As with her husband, Mrs. Marques is also remembered by a street name or two. Across from their home on Wilder Avenue is Artesian Street, commemorating the “pioneer artesian well.” East of Artesian is Evelyn Way, then Oliver Lane.

Both first appear in the City Directory of 1914. And so for her last 25 years she lived across from street signs displaying her maiden names. (Bouslog)

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