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December 27, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Heʻeia

The nine ahupuaʻa of Kāneʻohe Bay, beginning at the boundary between Koʻolauloa and Koʻolaupoko Districts (west) and moving eastward, are Kualoa, Hakipuʻu, Waikāne, Waiāhole, Kaʻalaea, Waiheʻe, Kahaluʻu, Heʻeia and Kāneʻohe.

The ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia and Kāneʻohe also included portions of Mōkapu Peninsula (Heʻeia runs from the mountains to the sea, but also crosses over a portion of the water in Kāneʻohe Bay and includes a portion of a Mōkapu peninsula across the Bay.)  Heʻeia also includes Moku-o-Loʻe (Coconut Island,) Kahaluʻu includes Kapapa Island and Kualoa includes Mokoliʻi.

The name of the land of Heʻeia is traditionally associated with Heʻeia, the handsome foster son of the goddess Haumea and grandson of the demigod ʻOlopana, who was an uncle of Kamapuaʻa.

Heʻeia was named in commemoration of a tsunami-type wave that washed Haumea and others into the sea – a great tidal wave that “washed (he‘e ‘ia) … out to sea and back” (Lit., surfed, or washed (out to sea,) or swept away.)

They swam until they were exhausted and were finally washed ashore at Kapapa Island in Kāneʻohe Bay. It was the handsome Heʻeia who fell in love with Kaohelo, a younger sister of Pele and Hiʻiaka, whom he met in Koʻolau, Oʻahu.  (Devaney)

In ancient Hawai‘i, fishponds were an integral part of the ahupua‘a food source.  Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures in near shore waters to raise fish for their communities and families.  Loko iʻa (fishpond) were used for fattening and storing of fish for food and also as a source for kapu (forbidden) fish.  Walled, brackish-water fishponds were usually constructed on the reef along the shore and one or more mākāhā (sluice gate.)

Heʻeia Fishpond’s wall was one of the longest, extending nearly a mile.  As a large pond, it is subject to considerable evaporation, increasing salinity in the pond; as such, fresh water is added.  Heʻeia is somewhat unique in that it has mākāhā gates on the mauka wall to control the flow of fresh water.

Kalo (taro) was a main staple in the diet of nearly all Hawaiians prior to European contact and was extensively cultivated.  As early as 1789, Portlock described this area:

“… the bay all around has a very beautiful appearance, the low land and valleys being in high state of cultivation, and crowded with plantations of taro, sweet potatoes, sugar-cane, etc. interspersed with a great number of coconut trees ….”

The region had a considerable amount of land cultivated in taro up through the early-1800s.  “Southeastward along the windward coast, beginning with Waikāne and continuing through Waiāhole, Kaʻalaea, Kahaluʻu, Heʻeia and Kāne’ohe, were broad valley bottoms and flatlands between the mountains and the sea which, taken all together, represent the most extensive wet-taro area on Oʻahu.” (Handy, Devaney)

The rains that sweep through here have been memorialized in poetry and song.  A traditional mele honoring Kaumuali‘i suggests “the sound of heavy rain drops on dry leaves, or dry thatching of the pandanus leaf, … of the rain accompanying the koʻolau wind, which calms the troubled waters”.

This “heavy-sounding rain” of the Koʻolau has been transformed into a poetical saying, “Ka ua kani koʻo o Heʻeia, The rain of Heʻeia that sounds like the tapping of walking canes”.  (Fornander)

During the early historic times, many of the ruling chiefs favored this area as their place of residence. Kahahana the ruler of Oʻahu sometimes resided there. Kahekili after defeating Kahahana lived in Kailua, Kāneʻohe and Heʻeia.

The Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu was founded by the Catholic mission at Ahuimanu, Heʻeia in 1846.  “Outside the city, at Ahuimanu, Maigret has now a country retreat that he refers to by the Hawaiian word māla.  It is a combination garden, orchard and kitchen garden. …”

“The venerable bishop has built his own vineyard and planted his own orchard … His retreat in the mountain, his “garden in the air” as he terms it, is a pleasant and profitable sight … When the pressure of events allows it, Maigret takes refuge there.” (Charlot)

One of its students, Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy.  Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of the schooling at the College of Ahuimanu.  Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in 1864 and later assigned him to Molokaʻi.  In 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

The earliest of the modern large commercial agricultural ventures started with the cultivation of sugar cane in Kualoa in the 1860s. By 1880, three more sugar companies had emerged in Kahaluʻu, Heʻeia and Kāne’ohe. Heʻeia Sugar Company (also called Heʻeia Agricultural Co. Ltd) operated from 1878 to 1903.

In 1880, the region reported 7,000-acres available for cultivation; in 1883 a railroad was installed at Heʻeia, and by the summer of that year it was noted that the railroad had allowed a much greater amount of land to be harvested, even allowing cane from Kāneʻohe to be ground at Heʻeia; however, the commercial cultivation of sugar cane was short-lived.  (Devaney)

Rice cultivation did not occur in earnest until the decline of sugar, and in 1880 the first Chinese rice company started in the nearby Waineʻe area. Abandoned systems of loʻi kalo were modified into rice paddies. The Kāneʻohe Rice Mill was built around 1892-1893 in nearby Waikalua.

Another commercial crop, pineapple, was also grown here, starting around 1910.  By 1911, Libby, McNeill & Libby gained control of land here and built the first large-scale cannery with an annual capacity of 250,000-cans at nearby Kahaluʻu; growing and canning pineapples became a major industry in the area for a period of 15 years (to 1925.)

The US military first established a presence on the Mōkapu peninsula in 1918 when President Woodrow Wilson signed an executive order establishing Fort Kuwaʻaohe Military Reservation (the western portion of Mōkapu is within the Heʻeia ahupuaʻa.)

Today, Marine Corps Base Hawaiʻi continues to serve as a fully functional operational and training base for US Marine Corps forces. The Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) here operates a 7,800-foot runway (on the ahupuaʻa of Heʻeia) that can accommodate both fixed wing and rotor-driven aircraft.

With World War II underway, the Navy recognized the need to be able to communicate across the Pacific.  In 1942, a group of radio experts determined a superpower radio station with across-the-Pacific range might be built provided that the antenna could be raised high enough above the ground.

The solution was to find a topographic feature that would act like the “unbuildable” tall tower.  Using technology developed pre-World War I, they strategically positioned four Alexanderson Alternators; one was located in Haiku Valley in Heʻeia.  Haiku Valley with its horseshoe shape and sheer side-walls filled the prescription perfectly.

To build it, mountain climbers pounded spikes into the vertical cliff, then added wooden stairs up the mountain.  A lift to haul up materials was added and they strung cables across the valley.  The Alexanderson Alternator radio system, transmitting Morse code across the Pacific, was operational in 3-months.  A reminder of that facility is the Haiku Ladder, Haiku Stairs – the Stairway to Heaven (a 3,922-step ladder/stairway ascending the summit of the Koʻolau mountain range.)

Today, Windward Mall, portions of Windward Community College, Valley of the Temples, Tetsuo Harano Tunnels (H3,) Hawaiʻi Institute for Marine Biology, MCBH, Heʻeia Kea Small Boat Harbor and a bunch of other folks call Heʻeia home.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

Filed Under: Military, Place Names, Schools Tagged With: Heeia, Koolaupoko, Marine Corps Base Hawaii, Moku O Loe, Windward, Ahuimanu, College of Ahuimanu, H3, Hawaii, Mokapu, Oahu, HIMB, Haiku

December 26, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Sisters of Charity

Appropriately, we read a lot about the good work of Father Damien and Mother Marianne (both, now Saints.) But we don’t seem to hear of the many others who worked with them in ministering to those in need.

Here, we look at only a few (some of the earliest Sisters that worked with Mother Marianne,) and the hard work and hardship they endured.

The first shipment of lepers landed at Kalawao (Kalaupapa) January 6, 1866, the beginning of segregation and banishment of lepers to the leper settlement.

Receiving and detention centers were established on Oʻahu. Kalihi Hospital was the first hospital for leprosy patients in Hawaiʻi opening in 1865. Kapiʻolani Home opened in Kalihi Kai in 1891 adjacent to the Kalihi Hospital and Receiving Station; Kalihi Plague Camp (1900-1912) and Meyers Street, Kalihi Uka (1912-1938.) (NPS)

In January 1883, Walter Gibson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Board of Health, appealed to Hermann Koeckemann, Bishop of Olba, head of the Catholic Mission in Hawai’i, to obtain Sisters of Charity from one of the many sisterhoods in the US to come and help care for leprous women and girls in the Islands.

Father Leonor Fouesnel, with a royal commission from King Kalākaua, was designated as agent to go on this mission. Landing in San Francisco and traveling East, Father Leonor petitioned more than fifty different sisterhoods before a favorable reply was obtained, from the Franciscan Convent of St Anthony at Syracuse, New York.

The reply to the King’s emissary was not made lightly, but only after a long, serious debate among the sisterhood. One of the prime supporters of this action was the Mother Superior, Mother Marianne Cope. (Greene; NPS)

“I am hungry for the work and I wish with all my heart to be one of the chosen Ones, whose privilege it will be, to sacrifice themselves for the salvation of the souls of the poor Islanders… I am not afraid of any disease, hence it would be my greatest delight even to minister to the abandoned ‘lepers.’” (Mother Marianne; NPS)

Mother Marianne consulted with all the sisters and, to her credit they felt free to voice their concerns. Responded one: “I am very honest with you. I am afraid. I have heard too much about these poor people. I heard also that there are no rules and regulations. That everyone does as he pleases.”

Another stated: “If it is not a suitable place for any woman how can it be for the Sisters.” (NPS) With calmness, good sense, firmness, and a kind heart she was able to get cooperation from all around her. Her religious life was a series of administrative appointments, culminating in her being placed in charge of missions in Hawai’i.

Only six sisters could be spared to go with Mother Marianne, who insisted that as superior of the convent it was her duty to go with the first group of sisters and help them get established. It was not the intent of the convent that she stay in Hawai’i permanently. (Greene; NPS)

On October 23, 1883, Mother Marianne and her companions set off for Hawai’i, arriving on November 9. These were: Sister M Bonaventure Caraher, Sister Crescentia Eilers, Sister Ludovica Gibbons, Sister M Rosalia McLaughlin, Sister Renata Nash and Sister Mary Antonella Murphy.

Three of the sisters and Mother Marianne went to work at the branch hospital for leprosy victims at Kaka’ako in Honolulu on January 11, 1884, and spent almost five years there. Three others were put in charge of the new hospital at Wailuku on the island of Maui.

“For us it is happiness to be able to comfort, in a measure, the poor exiles, and we rejoice that we are unworthy agents of our heavenly Father through whom He deigns to show His great love and mercy to the sufferers.” (Mother Marianne, 1884)

Queen Kapi‘olani had visited Kalaupapa in 1884 to learn how she could assist those who were diagnosed with leprosy and exiled there, and she raised the funds to build the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (KCC) She and others also recognized the need for a home for the non-infected children of the leprosy patients.

On November 9, 1885, the healthy girls living in Kalawao moved into Kapiʻolani Home on the grounds of the sisters’ convent at the Kaka’ako Branch Hospital. (Hawaii Catholic Herald)

On April 22, 1885, a second group of sisters arrived from Syracuse as reinforcements. This included Sister Leopoldina Burns, Sister Carolina Hoffmann, Sister Martha Kaiser and Sister Benedicta Rodenmacher. Shortly after, Sister Antonia Brown, Sister M. Vincentia McCormick, Sister M. Irena Schorp and Sister Ephrem Schillinger. (More came later.)

News continually filtered back to Kaka’ako about conditions at the Moloka’i settlement. The children on the island were in desperate need of care and the venerable Father Damien himself had been diagnosed as having leprosy and obviously had few years left in which to continue his work.

Mother Marianne, however, was being kept busy in Honolulu all this time. At one point she had suggested to Walter Gibson that a home for children of leprous parents be built near the sisters’ residence in Honolulu. This establishment opened in November 1885 as the Kapiʻolani Home for Girls. (Green; NPS)

Then, Mother Marianne Cope and Sisters Leopoldina Burns and Vincentia McCormick of the Third Order of St. Francis, Sisters of Charity arrived on November 14, 1888. They managed the Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls and Women, which opened at Kalaupapa in 1888. (NPS)

Sister Leopoldina describes the place: “One could never imagine what a lonely barren place it was. Not a tree nor a shrub in the whole Settlement only in the churchyard there were a few poor little trees that were so bent and yellow by the continued sweep of the birning wind it would make one sad to look at them.” (Voices of Kaulapapa; SanDiego-gov)

While there was no cure for the residents of Molokai, the sisters tried to bring dignity to their lives. Before the sisters arrived, patients dressed in rags. The sisters gave the girls proper clothes and taught them embroidery, sewing and gardening. They also gave them music lessons.

Father Damien himself succumbed to leprosy on April 15, 1889. Upon the death of Damien, Mother Marianne agreed to also head the Boys Home at Kalawao. The Board of Health had quickly chosen her as Saint Damien’s successor and she was thus enabled to keep her promise to him to look after his boys.

A traveler on a steamer that later (May, 1889) brought Sisters Crescentia and Irene to Kalaupapa noted, “When I was pulled ashore one early morning there sat with me in the boat two sisters bidding farewell (in humble imitation of Damien) to the lights and joys of human life. One wept silently and I could not withhold myself from joining her.” (The Messenger)

The workload was extremely heavy in that Bishop Home alone provided shelter for 103 girls in 1893. There were times when the burden seemed overwhelming. In a moment of despair, Sister Leopoldina reflected, “How long Oh Lord must I see only those that are sick and covered with leprosy?” (Sister Leopoldina: NPS)

The Baldwin Home, which opened in May of 1894, replaced the Boys’ home built by Father Damien. Mother Marianne Cope and the Sisters of Saint Francis managed the Baldwin home until they turned over jurisdiction to Joseph Dutton and the Sacred Hearts Brothers in 1895.

While at Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne predicted that no Franciscan Sister would ever contract leprosy. Additionally she required her sisters use stringent hand washing and other sanitary procedures. No sister has ever contracted the disease. Mother Marianne died in the summer of 1918 at the age of 80.

Mother Marianne was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012, making her the first Franciscan woman to be canonized from North America and only the 11th American saint. Forevermore, she will be known as St Marianne Cope, with the title “beloved mother of outcasts.” (Lots of information here is from NPS and Hawaii Catholic Herald.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Gibson with the Sisters of St. Francis and daughters of Hansen’s disease patients, at the Kakaako Branch Hospital-1886
Gibson with the Sisters of St. Francis and daughters of Hansen’s disease patients, at the Kakaako Branch Hospital-1886
Sr. M. Rosalia, Sr. M Martha, Sr M. Leopoldina, Sr. M Charles, Sr. M. Crescentia, and Mother Marianne rear-Walter Murray Gibson-1886
Sr. M. Rosalia, Sr. M Martha, Sr M. Leopoldina, Sr. M Charles, Sr. M. Crescentia, and Mother Marianne rear-Walter Murray Gibson-1886
Mother Marianne Cope (in wheelchair) with other nuns and the women and girls of Bishop Home in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, shortly before her death in 1918.
Mother Marianne Cope (in wheelchair) with other nuns and the women and girls of Bishop Home in Kalaupapa, Hawaii, shortly before her death in 1918.
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth
Mother_Marianne_Cope_in_her_youth
Sisters (Mother Marianne center) and patients at the Bishop Home in Kalaupapa
Sisters (Mother Marianne center) and patients at the Bishop Home in Kalaupapa
Kakaako Branch Hospital-Patients' Cottage-Hanley&Bushnell-1886
Kakaako Branch Hospital-Patients’ Cottage-Hanley&Bushnell-1886
Beginnings of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony
Beginnings of the Kalaupapa Leprosy Colony
Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai
Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai
Rebuilt-Kapiolani_Home
Rebuilt-Kapiolani_Home
Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Girls and Women-Kalaupapa, Molokai-1900
Charles R Bishop Home for Unprotected Girls and Women-Kalaupapa, Molokai-1900
Old Settlement at Kalawao
Old Settlement at Kalawao
Mother_Marianne_Cope,_Kalaupapa,_1899
Mother_Marianne_Cope,_Kalaupapa,_1899
Malulani_Hospital-women's_ward-(MauiNews)
Malulani_Hospital-women’s_ward-(MauiNews)
Kapiolani_Home
Kapiolani_Home
Kalawao-Kalaupapa
Kalawao-Kalaupapa
Kalaupapa home for unprotected girls
Kalaupapa home for unprotected girls
Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls
Bishop Home for Unprotected Leper Girls
Edward_Clifford_–_Damien_in_1888
Edward_Clifford_–_Damien_in_1888

Filed Under: General, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Molokai, Saint Damien, Kalaupapa, Kalawao, Saint Marianne, Catholicism

December 23, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Animal Drawn Streetcars

In the quarter century from 1872 to 1896 the population just about doubled in the kingdom from 57,000 to 109,000; Honolulu doubled from 15,000 to 30,000.

The increase of the population of Honolulu was taken care of in two ways: (1) more people crowded into Chinatown (the area between Fort Street and Nuʻuanu stream makai (seaward) of Beretania Street and (2) area of settlement was pushed outward and “downtown” enlarged.  (Kuykendall)

This extension of settlement combined with the growing attraction and popular resort use in Waikīkī meant transportation became more of a problem.

People who could afford them had horses and buggies; independent buggy served as available on a limited basis and mass production of the gas automobiles didn’t get underway until the turn of the century, so a more organized public transportation system was needed.

The earliest public transit was the Pioneer Omnibus Line, with a horse-pulled vehicle serving parts of Honolulu for a few years beginning in the spring of 1868.  (Schmitt)

In 1884, the legislature passed a law “granting to William R. Austin and his associates the right to construct and operate a street railroad upon certain streets of the city of Honolulu.” Later amended, the law granted authority the Hawaiian Tramways Company, Limited (from England.)  (Kuykendall)

An April 14 1888 London public offering prospectus to raise £130,000 by selling 26,000 shares at £5 each noted, “The following are the routes of the proposed lines of Tramway, viz.;

(1) From Nuuanu Street, the chief residential quarter, through the business part of the City skirting the Docks and Custom House, to the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and thence along Beretania Street, touching the extensive Portuguese quarter, to a point where at several closely populated Avenues converge.

(2) Starting from the densely-populated Chinese quarter, past the King’s Palace, the Legislative Chambers, the Opera House, and the Native Church, to the principal pleasure resorts and residential district of the well to-do classes in the southern suburbs.

The total length of the above lines, including sidings and crossings will be about 12 miles.”

On May 19, 1888, ground was broken and track laying started for a street railway system.  On New Year’s Day 1889, a mule or horse-drawn tram along King Street between Pālama and Pawaʻa became the first streetcar in Honolulu with four open cars, bringing what was later described as “Honolulu’s first real transit service.”  (Schmitt)

The Pacific Commercial Advertiser grumbled that it was “a very unsatisfactory service for the public, however, as hundreds waited at the corners for the belated cars …. The company should have had double the cars on the line that it had.”  (Kuykendall)

The tramcars were well patronized, first as a novelty and then as a proven convenience. The speed limit for the cars was eight miles per hour. By July 1889, the trams speeded along King Street from Kalihi to Waikīkī, Beretania from Nuʻuanu to Punahou.

The streetcar tracks added to the traffic problem on Honolulu’s main streets, none of which were wide enough. As far back as 1880, a newspaper article gave an entertaining description of traffic conditions then existing.

“The traffic in ours streets has increased five-fold within the last three or four years, but the streets are no wider than before. It therefore behooves the police to keep a sharp lookout. …”

“In all great cities which we have visited, it is held to be a most important function of the police, to render locomotion as easy and safe as possible, by forbidding unnecessary stoppages, keeping drivers on their own side of the street, seeing that no heavy drays or wagons are allowed to move unless the drivers have sufficient control over their beast.”  (Kuykendall)

The animal-powered service was short-lived, making its last run on December 23, 1903; Hawaiian Tramways, Ltd. was taken over in 1900 by the Honolulu Rapid Transit & Land Co.

Honolulu Rapid Transit operated electrically powered buses on Honolulu streets.  Power came from overhead wires. Ten new buses began service on August 31, 1901, replacing the horse and mule drawn cars which had in service 33 horse cars, 113 horses and 194 mules.

Eventually more comfortable, speedy gasoline-powered buses replaced other means of mass transit for Honolulu and rural Oʻahu.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Honolulu, Oahu, Hawaiian Tramways

December 21, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Poʻo Kanaka

Traditional translations of poʻo kanaka suggest it means “human head;” however, in this case, it has a regional translation and is used to describe a flower, the pansy (folks thought the flower looked like a man’s head.)

It was also the name given to a man’s home.

He is said to have been the first to introduce the pansy flower in Hawaiʻi and he planted pansies around his house.  (Kimura)

Puapoʻo-kanaka (“The flower-that-looks-like-a-man”) eventually became the favorite of Waimea cowboys, who wore entire leis of pansies strung round their flopping vaquero hats.  (Korn)

The house stood within a level clearing at a spot called Puʻukapu, along the trail leading to the more upland forested area up Mauna Kea known as Manaiole, what we call Mānā, today.

The house, built in the 1830s, was made of rubble-and-mortar construction.  Rocks were formed into walls and plastered over with putty lime mortar (the lime obtained from ground coral.)  Rubble ruins remain of the house site, today.

The home was described as an Irish stone cottage.

It’s not clear what the man’s real name was – some suggest it was initially William Wallace.  An Irishman, he came to Hawaiʻi aboard a whaling ship that landed at Kawaihae (about 1834.)  He left the ship and went up the hill to Waimea, where he settled – there, he took the name Jack Purdy.  (Kimura)

Some suggest Purdy, along with fellow Waimea resident John Palmer Parker, can be considered the first cowboys in Hawaiʻi.  They started out as bullock hunters, selling their salt beef, hides and tallow.

In the early-1830s, trade in sandalwood slowed down as island forests became depleted.  At about the same time, whaling ships hunting in the north Pacific began wintering in Hawaiian waters.

Ships provisioning in Hawaiʻi ports provided a market for salt beef, in addition to hides and tallow.  With the economic push of providing provisions to the whaling fleets, ranching became a commercial enterprise that grew in the islands.

Parker took a more business-like approach and took advantage of the opportunities of the day and established the Parker Ranch in the fledgling livestock industry.  Purdy was a rowdy, living the rugged life, typical of his peers in the early American West.  (Bergin)

A real or tall tale of his exploits (written in 1857) tells how Jack Purdy, mighty bullock hunter and expert guide, together with his employer and hunting companion, Mr. Julius Brenchley, succeeded without firearms – in fact not even equipped with their usual lassos – in capturing a ferocious wild bull and in killing the beast when he failed to extricate himself from a mudhole; and then celebrated their victory with a deserved steak dinner fresh off the carcass.  (Korn)

In 1832, Purdy married into Hawaiian royal lineage when he took Keawe-maʻu-hili (daughter to Kewae-a-heulu and Kaʻakau) as his bride.  Several of his children from that and his second marriage were respected cowboys.   (Bergin)

His grandson, Ikua Purdy, made headlines and national fame, when he won the World’s Steer Roping Championship in Cheyenne, Wyoming – roping, throwing and tying the steer in 56 seconds (on a borrowed horse.)  Ikua had worked at Parker Ranch, he later moved to Maui to ʻUlupalakua Ranch (he died there in 1945.)

Jack Purdy (William Wallace Jack Harry Hale Purdy) died on June 22, 1886, at the age of 86; he is buried near his home, Poʻo Kanaka.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

Filed Under: Hawaiian Traditions, Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance Tagged With: Hawaii, Waimea, Parker Ranch, Kohala, South Kohala, John Parker, Ulupalakua, Poo Kanaka, Jack Purdy

December 20, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Three Volcano Pioneers of the Mid-19th Century Hawaii

“Keep and publish careful records, invite the whole world of science to co-operate, and interest the business man.” (Jaggar)

The efficiency of an institution which is essentially educational and not commercial, productive of ideas rather than dollars, must be measured by its effect on productive men of learning in stimulating them to production; that is, to new discovery, experiment investigation and publication.

The founding of the Volcano Observatory and the formation of the group of subscribers here called the “Research Association,” were themselves evolved productions of the inspiring work of early investigators, as well as of the natural intellectual stimulus created in man by the unexplained Kilauea lake of boiling nebulous flux.

Three names stand out above all others as recorders of the work of the Fire Goddess in Hawaii in the middle decades of the nineteenth century : Titus Coan, James Dwight Dana, and William Lowthian Green.

Coan the missionary, earnest seeker after truth, for more than a third of the century watched every detail of the evolution of the volcanoes, pondered their meaning, and moreover made truthful record in scores of letters which were promptly published.

This genius for recording is rare among men, and is an all-important requirement in science; many men are good observers, but millions of valuable observations are forever lost, because of a lack of appreciation of the value of a jotting down – day, hour, minute, event, stages, appearances.

All science is no more than a categoric jotting-down, and the grouping of facts into new categories, until some of these reach the dignity of “theory.”

Coan without apparatus or endowment was an institution, a first Hawaiian volcano observatory, and in actual output he was a better observer and recorder than some institutions which have been elaborately equipped.

Professor Dana of Yale, foremost American geologist, was with the Wilkes Expedition at Kilauea in 1840, revisited Hawaii later, and wrote in 1891 a book, “Characteristics of Volcanoes,” which stands preeminent among volcano memoirs.

It was inspired by Kilauea and Mauna Loa, but is broad and sane, and presents a most painstaking and thoughtful summary of the progress of Hawaiian volcanic events, and their bearing on geology. Dana published in New Haven Coan’s letters, and it was doubtless Dana who stimulated much of Coan’s recording.

Green, the man of business, in his leisure moments student of volcanic life and of the inspiring heights and depths of the globe, conceived: to scale, with its film of waters and its blanket of gas, wrote a remarkable book in two volumes, “Vestiges of the Molten Globe.”

His second volume deals especially with the volcanoes, which he visited many times, and of it Professor Daly of Harvard writes: “It is certainly a pity that the second part of Green’s work is not more generally known. The book is almost as remarkable a contribution to the philosophy of vulcanism as Part 1, ‘On the Tetrahedral Theory of the Earth,’ is important in cosmogonic philosophy.”

Green’s work foreshadowed theoretic conceptions which modem thought has fixed more firmly, and his interest, as a business man, in the affairs of pure science was forerunner of the wider interest of many business men (and intelligent women) of Hawaii who now make up the Hawaiian Volcano Research Association.

These three men, Coan and Green resident here, Dana from an eastern university, typify the reason for the creation of an Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, and their portraits should forever hang in honored place upon its walls.

Coan, the systematic observer, showed the value of record and system; Green, the merchant, fascinated by the spell of Pele and inspired by the problems of position of this mid-Pacific pinnacle, Hawaii, rising 37,000 feet above the ocean deep, adopted volcanology for avocation, and left monumental work to inspire specialist and layman alike.

While Dana the scholar, coming from a distant seat of learning, hospitably entertained in the islands by Coan, Green, Bishop, Brigham, Alexander and a host of kind friends, rewarded their kindness by making famous to the whole world the achievements of his Hawaiian scientific colleagues.

Dana added new volcano lore and illustrated what production may come from scientific hospitality. (All here is copied from Special Bulleting of Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, 1913, as stated by Thomas Jaggar.)

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Filed Under: General, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Place Names, Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Volcano, Titus Coan, James Dana, William Green

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