Hawaii | Page 176 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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.’)

September 2, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lili‘uokalani Childhood

“Very near to (the site of Queen’s Hospital,) on Sept. 2, 1838, I was born. My father’s name was Kapaʻakea, and my mother was Keohokālole; the latter was one of the fifteen counsellors of the king, Kamehameha III., who in 1840 gave the first written constitution to the Hawaiian people.”

“My great-grandfather, Keawe-a-Heulu, the founder of the dynasty of the Kamehamehas, and Keōua, father of Kamehameha I., were own cousins, and my great-grandaunt was the celebrated Queen Kapiʻolani, one of the first converts to Christianity. “

“She plucked the sacred berries from the borders of the volcano, descended to the boiling lava, and there, while singing Christian hymns, threw them into the lake of fire.”

“This was the act which broke forever the power of Pele, the fire-goddess, over the hearts of her people. Those interested in genealogies are referred to the tables at the close of this volume, which show the descent of our family from the highest chiefs of ancient days.”

“Naihe, the husband of Kapiʻolani, was the great orator of the king’s reign; his father, Keawe-a-Heulu, was chief counsellor to Kamehameha I; while had it not been for the aid of the two chiefs, Keʻeaumoku and Kameʻeiamoku, cousins of the chief counsellor, the Hawaiian Islands must have remained for a long time”.

My grandfather, ʻAikanaka, had charge of the guns of the fort on Punch-Bowl Hill, which had been brought from the larger island of Hawaii; as the chiefs, their families, and followers had settled here from the time of the final battle, when all the forces contending against Kamehameha I were driven over the Pali.”

“But I was destined to grow up away from the house of my parents.”

“Immediately after my birth I was wrapped in the finest soft tapa cloth, and taken to the house of another chief, by whom I was adopted. Konia, my foster-mother, was a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, and was married to Paki, also a high chief; their only daughter, Bernice Pauahi, afterwards Mrs. Charles R. Bishop, was therefore my foster-sister.”

“In speaking of our relationship, I have adopted the term customarily used in the English language, but there was no such modification recognized in my native land.”

“When I was taken from my own parents and adopted by Paki and Konia, or about two months thereafter, a child was born to Kīna‘u. That little babe was the Princess Victoria, two of whose brothers became sovereigns of the Hawaiian people.”

“While the infant was at its mother’s breast, Kīna‘u always preferred to take me into her arms to nurse, and would hand her own child to the woman attendant who was there for that purpose.”

“So she frequently declared in the presence of my adopted mother, Konia, that a bond of the closest friendship must always exist between her own baby girl and myself as aikane or foster-children of the same mother …”

“… and that all she had would also appertain to me just as if I had been her own child; and that although in the future I might be her child’s rival, yet whatever would belong to Victoria should be mine.”

“This insistence on the part of the mother was never forgotten; it remained in the history of Victoria’s girlhood and mine until her death, although Kīna‘u herself never lived to see her prophetic predictions fulfilled. Kīna‘u died on the 4th of April, 1839, not long after the birth of her youngest child, Victoria.”

“I knew no other father or mother than my foster-parents, no other sister than Bernice. I used to climb up on the knees of Paki, put my arms around his neck, kiss him, and he caressed me as a father would his child …”

“… while on the contrary, when I met my own parents, it was with perhaps more of interest, yet always with the demeanor I would have shown to any strangers who noticed me.”

“My own father and mother had other children, ten in all, the most of them being adopted into other chiefs’ families; and although I knew that these were my own brothers and sisters, yet we met throughout my younger life as though we had not known our common parentage.”

“This was, and indeed is, in accordance with Hawaiian customs. It is not easy to explain its origin to those alien to our national life, but it seems perfectly natural to us.”

“As intelligible a reason as can be given is that this alliance by adoption cemented the ties of friendship between the chiefs. It spread to the common people, and it has doubtless fostered a community of interest and harmony.”

“At the age of four years I was sent to what was then known as the Royal School, because its pupils were exclusively persons whose claims to the throne were acknowledged. It was founded and conducted by Mr Amos S Cooke, who was assisted by his wife.”

“It was a boarding-school, the pupils being allowed to return to their homes during vacation time, as well as for an occasional Sunday during the term.”

“The family life was made agreeable to us, and our instructors were especially particular to teach us the proper use of the English language; but when I recall the instances in which we were sent hungry to bed, it seems to me that they failed to remember that we were growing children.”

“A thick slice of bread covered with molasses was usually the sole article of our supper, and we were sometimes ingenious, if not over honest, in our search for food …”

“… if we could beg something of the cook it was the easier way; but if not, anything eatable left within our reach was surely confiscated.”

“As a last resort, we were not above searching the gardens for any esculent root or leaf, which (having inherited the art of igniting a fire from the friction of sticks), we could cook and consume without the knowledge of our preceptors.”

“I can remember now my emotions on entering this the first school I ever attended. I can recall that I was carried there on the shoulders of a tall, stout, very large woman, whose name was Kaikai (she was the sister of Governor Kanoa, and they were of a family of chiefs of inferior rank, living under the control and direction of the higher chiefs).”

“As she put me down at the entrance to the schoolhouse, I shrank from its doors, with that immediate and strange dread of the unknown so common to childhood.”

“Crying bitterly, I turned to my faithful attendant, clasping her with my arms and clinging closely to her neck. She tenderly expostulated with me …”

“… and as the children, moved by curiosity to meet the new-comer, crowded about me, I was soon attracted by their friendly faces, and was induced to go into the old courtyard with them. Then my fears began to vanish, and comforted and consoled, I soon found myself at home amongst my playmates.”

“We never failed to go to church in a procession every Sunday in charge of our teachers, Mr. and Mrs. Cooke, and occupied seats in the immediate vicinity of the pew where the king was seated.”

“The custom was for a boy and girl to march side by side, the lead being taken by the eldest scholars. Moses and Jane had this distinction, next Lot and Bernice, then Liholiho with Abigail, followed by Lunalilo and Emma (after the latter had joined the school), James and Elizabeth, David and Victoria, and so on, John Kīna’u and I being the last.”

“From the school of Mr. and Mrs. Cooke I was sent to that of Rev. Mr. Beckwith, also one of the American missionaries. This was a day-school, and with it I was better satisfied than with a boarding-school.” (Lili‘uokalani)

Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī, the future Queen Liliuokalani, in her youth possibly at Royal School.

September 1, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Coffin Jones Jr

John Coffin Jones Jr was the only son of a prominent Boston businessman (in mercantile and shipping business) and politician. (John C Jones Sr served as speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and was legislative colleague of John Quincy Adams (and one of the signors for Massachusetts of the Ratification of the US Constitution for that State.))

Young Jones was born in 1796 in Massachusetts and seems to have gone to sea at an early age. He left to work in the sandalwood trade under Captain Dixey Wildes. (Kelley)

Jones (also known in Hawaiian documents as John Aluli) was appointed US Agent for Commerce and Seamen on September 19, 1820. When he acknowledged his commission as Agent for Commerce and Seamen, he mentioned two previous voyages he had made to Canton and an extended visit to the Sandwich Islands. (State Department)

He began to serve in October of 1820, at the port of Honolulu. As Agent for Commerce and Seamen, Jones became the ﬁrst ofﬁcial US representative in the Hawaiian Islands. His role was to help distressed American citizens ashore, both seamen and civilians, serving without salary from the US government and required to report on commerce in Hawai‘i.

(The post of commercial agent was raised to Consul effective July 5, 1844, and held by Peter A. Brinsmade, who had already been appointed commercial agent on April 13, 1838.)

Jones was already agent for the prosperous Boston firm of Marshall and Wildes (one of four American mercantile houses doing business in Honolulu,) and by accepting the additional responsibility from his country, the firm and he might hope that through his reports to Washington the voice of commerce in the Pacific would be heard more clearly by the US Government. (Hackler)

When Jones arrived in 1821 the sandalwood trade with China was still thriving. King Kamehameha I had monopolized, the cutting and exporting of sandalwood during his reign, but after his death in 1819, Kamehameha II was unable to enforce the conservation policies of his father, and unrestricted cutting of sandalwood soon threatened to deplete the hillsides of this rare wood.

But, while the wood lasted and the market held up in Canton, the American merchants in Honolulu competed fiercely with each other for the valuable cargoes, and pressed on the Hawaiians all sorts of goods which were to be paid for in sandalwood. (Hackler)

He was considered an advocate for commercial interests in Hawaiʻi and immediately collided with the missionary group led by Rev. Hiram Bingham. For the next couple of decades he contended for commercial advantages for the US. He set up his own trading firm in 1830 and made many voyages to California during the next ten years. (Kelley)

“Since the discovery of the whale fishery on the coast of Japan, and the independence of the republics of the western coasts of North and South America, the commerce of the United States at the Sandwich islands has vastly increased.”

“Of such importance have these islands become to our ships which resort to the coast of Japan for the prosecution of the whale fishery, that, without another place could be found, possessing equal advantages of conveniences and situation, our fishery on Japan would be vastly contracted, or pursued under circumstances the most disadvantageous.” (Jones, to Captain Wm B Finch, October 30, 1829)

As US Agent for Seamen, Jones had a burdensome responsibility. Many seamen were put ashore because of illness, and they became the special concern of Jones. This was a responsibility and an expense.

In his first report to the Secretary of State on December 31, 1821, Jones complained of the commanders of American ships who were in the habit of discharging troublesome seamen at Honolulu and taking on Hawaiian hands. (Hackler)

In addition, Jones reported to the Department that 30,000 piculs of sandalwood were sent to China in American ships that year, and estimated that the price for this wood in Canton should be about $300,000. The Hawaiian chiefs were becoming increasingly indebted to the American merchants in Honolulu and payment was slow in coming.

To add to his burden, in 1822-23 the crews of three wrecked American vessels were brought to the islands; in 1825 he explained his disbursements at Honolulu on behalf of seamen as being very heavy, as many men were put ashore without funds. (Hackler)

“The number of hands generally comprising the Company of a whale ship will average Twenty Five; and owing to the want of discipline, the length and the ardourous duties of the voyage, these people generally become dissatisfied and are willing at any moment to join a rebellion or desert the first opportu(nity) that may offer;”

“- this has been fully exemplified in the whale ships that have visited these islands, constant disertions have taken place and many serious mutinies both contributing to protract and frequently ruin the voyage.” (Jones report to Henry Clay, Secretary of State, 1827)

He wrote that the only solution was the posting of a US naval vessel at Honolulu, at least during the periods between March and May, and October and December, when the whalers gathered at the port. (Hackler)

The service of Jones as consular agent in Honolulu put him in the middle of a number of commercial and political causes. Both as government representative and private trader during a formative period, he was an energetic figure and is credited with leadership in opening trade between Hawaiʻi and Spanish California.

By 1829, Jones seemed to have fallen out of favor with the Hawaiian rulers. At that time the King and the principal chiefs addressed a protest to Captain Finch of the USS Vincennes, accusing Jones of maltreating a native and lying about royal morals. (Hackler)

Jones’ several marriages caused additional concern. He married Hannah Jones Davis, widow of his partner, William Heath Davis Sr, in 1823. His younger stepson, William Heath Davis, Jr, became a prominent California businessman.

Jones continued to live with Hannah but also lived with Lahilahi Marin, daughter of Don Francisco Marin, and had children by both. In 1838, he married Manuela Carrillo of Santa Barbara, California and deserted Hannah and Lahilahi.

In December, 1838, returning from one of his periodic business trips to California, he introduced Manuela as his wife. This apparently enraged Hannah Holmes Jones, who promptly petitioned the Hawaiian Government for a divorce on grounds of bigamy.

The charge was upheld by the King and led to his writing Jones on January 8, 1839, that “… I refuse any longer to know you as consul from the United States of America.” (Kamehameha III; Hacker)

Jones left the Islands and settled in Santa Barbara in 1839 and continued as a merchant both in California and Massachusetts. He died on December 24, 1861, leaving his wife and six children. (Kelley)

The image shows Honolulu Harbor in 1826 (with the Dolphin in the harbor. (Massey))

August 31, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Halekūlani Hotel

Historically, Waikīkī encompassed fishponds, taro lo‘i, coconut groves and a reef-protected beach that accommodated Hawaiian canoes.

Waikīkī shifted from agricultural to residential uses, with private residences for the Hawaiian royalty and the well-to-do. Near the turn of the 20th-century, some of these homes were converted into small hotels and eventually into world class resorts.

Robert Lewers (whose firm Lewers & Cooke supplied much of the lumber for O‘ahu homes) built a two-story wooden frame bungalow with an open veranda overlooking a coconut grove in 1883. Then, in 1907, Edwin Irwin leased the Lewers’ house and converted it into a small hotel called the Hau Tree.

Nearby, the J Atherton Gilman family bought 3-acres and built a two-story house from a man named Hall. La Vancha Maria Chapin Gray rented the Gilman house in 1912 and converted it into a boarding house and named it Gray’s-by-the-Beach. The sandy area fronting it was soon referred to as Gray’s Beach.

In 1917, Clifford and Juliet Kimball acquired the Hau Tree Inn near Gray’s Beach and, in the late 1920s, they decided to expand and bought the Gilman property, including Gray’s-by-the-Sea and an adjacent parcel belonging to Arthur Brown.

When their expansion project was completed, the Kimballs had acquired over five acres of prime Waikīkī beachfront for their resort, which they named Halekūlani, or “house befitting heaven.”

An early guest at the Halekūlani was Earl Derr Biggers, the author of a murder mystery called ‘The House Without a Key’ (1925.) Biggers’ book title was based on his discovery that no one locked their doors there. In memory of the author and his novel, the Halekūlani named its seaside bar and lanai “House Without a Key.”

The principal character in the story was Charlie Chan, the celebrated Chinese detective, patterned after a Honolulu detective named Chang Apana.

(Born Ah Ping Chang on December 26, 1871 in Waipiʻo, Oʻahu; he eventually became known as Chang Apana (the Hawaiianized version of the Chinese name Ah Ping.) In 1898, Chang joined the Honolulu Police Department and the “shrewd and meticulous investigator” rose through the ranks to become detective in 1916.)

The beach in this area is a place of healing called Kawehewehe (the removal.) The sick and the injured came to bathe in the kai, or waters of the sea. It’s now a small pocket of sand nestled between the Halekūlani and the Sheraton Waikīkī.

Kawehewehe takes its meaning from the root word, wehe (which means to remove) (Pukui.) Thus, as the name implies, Kawehewehe was a traditional place where people went to be cured of all types of illnesses – both physical and spiritual – by bathing in the healing waters of the ocean.

There was a Kawehewehe Pond; people with a physical ailment would come to the pond in search of healing. A kahuna, or priest, would place a lei limu kala around their neck, and instruct them to submerge themselves in the healing waters of the pond.

When the lei came off and floated downstream, it was said that the afflicted ones were healed. (This area is also typically known as Gary’s Beach.)

Gray’s Channel heading out from the beach was a natural channel through the reef off the Halekūlani Hotel. It was enlarged by dredging in the early 1950s to allow catamarans to come ashore at Gray’s Beach. Popular surf sites are just off-shore.

Eventually, the Norton Clapp family of Seattle bought Halekulani, by now consisting of a large Main Building and 37 one and two-story bungalows.

In 1981 the hotel was purchased by Mitsui Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. Today the 456-room Halekūlani Hotel is one of Waikīkī’s premier resorts. (Lots of info here from Halekūlani and Clark.)

August 30, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu Sugar Company

A little over 100-years after it started, its buildings were almost refurbished and saved from demolition … to serve as a headquarters and factory for Crazy Shirts Hawaiʻi.

For nearly 50 years the mill and refinery buildings were surrounded by thousands of acres of sugar cane fields with linkages by railroad to other mills and cane field sources.

It began as the Honolulu Sugar Company, but over the years it went by a lot of names – but to most folks it was known as the ʻAiea Sugar Mill.

Let’s look back.

September 1, 1888, Bishop Estate leased about 2,900-acres for a period of twenty years, until September 1, 1908 to James I Dowsett.

At about this same time, (1898,) the Hālawa Plantation Company was organized, with 4,000-acres from the coastal plain around Pearl Harbor up the hillsides to 650 feet. A year later Hālawa Plantation Company was reorganized as Honolulu Plantation Company. (NPS)

Dowsett died and on August 1, 1898, the administrator of his estate sub-let the land to the Honolulu Sugar Company (formed in San Francisco and headed by John Buck.) That year, the Honolulu Sugar Company built a sugar mill in ‘Aiea.

Almost two months later, Honolulu Sugar Company assigned the lease to the Honolulu Plantation Company. (US District Court) Operations expanded; the plantation and mill prospered.

ʻAiea was named for a small shrub (Nothocestrum – used by ancient Hawaiians for thatching sticks (ʻaho) and fire-making) that once grew profusely there; it was plowed under to make way for sugar. The town of ʻAiea was created because of, and grew up around, the mill.

Labor for the fledgling company was problematic; many workers had to be imported: “We have some 200 Contract Japanese Laborers now on the plantation and another hundred at the Quarantine Station in Honolulu which will swell our daily labor to about 500 men, there being nearly 300 Chinese, Japanese, Native and Portuguese free laborers now on the plantation.” (Klieger)

The plantation expanded along the inshore and upland areas of Pearl Harbor – it extended from ʻAiea westward as far as Mānana and Waiawa Streams. It included lands where the present Honolulu International Airport and Hickam Base are located. (Cultural Surveys)

By 1901, Honolulu Plantation Company had started its own railroad. On the Hālawa property, the narrow-gauge rail line extended through the lower canefields (at what is now Honolulu International Airport,) crossed the OR&L at Puʻuloa Station (near the present Nimitz Gate at Pearl Harbor), skirted the southern edge of Makalapa Crater, wound its way past the fields at the confluence of Kamananui and Kamanaiki Streams, and climbed the grade up to the ʻAiea mill site. (Klieger)

In December 1914, a newspaper article reported that “Generally, the first request of a visitor to Honolulu who wishes to see the sights and has but a few hours in which to do so is to be shown a sugar mill, and in nearly every instance the sugar mill of the Honolulu Plantation Company at Aiea is the one visited.”

“Malihinis receive their first impressions of sugar-making here, and they are always lasting, for the mill of this corporation is an up-to-date and model institution, incorporating all the latest devices and improvements in the manufacture of sugar, and in some instances putting into use innovations.” (NPS)

By the early-1900s, all of the ʻEwa plains was transformed and planted in sugar; by the mid-1930s, Honolulu Plantation Company had more than 23,000-acres of land in and around ʻAiea.

In 1910 the Honolulu Plantation Company helped with the reforestation of ridges and uplands; about 125,000 trees were planted in the fall of 1910 and 1911.

In the 1930s the Honolulu Plantation Company employed about 2,500 people and refined more than 40,000 tons of sugar annually.

Pre- and post-World War II impacts and military needs affected not only the expansion, but also transformed the future of Honolulu Plantation.

The beginning of the end of ʻAiea as a plantation came in 1935 when the US government took 625-prime cane acres to build Hickam Field. With the advent of WWII, the company lost more of its best lands to military operations, roads and rapidly developing commercial and housing areas. (NPS)

In 1942, the Army built a cupola or lookout tower on top of the refinery and manned it day and night for the next three years.

In 1944 and 1945, despite having lost nearly 50% of its lands to the Army and Navy, the company supplied the mid-Pacific area with 70,000-tons of white sugar – noted as “a remarkable wartime achievement.” Two years after the war, plantation operations were discontinued and houses sprouted in ʻAiea where sugar cane once grew. (NPS)

Honolulu Plantation was forced out of business by rising labor costs, low sugar yields and military confiscation of half its canefields and went bankrupt in 1946; the plantation acreage was sold to Oʻahu Sugar Company and most of the mill equipment went to a Philippines firm.

Taking over the mill enabled C&H to refine raw sugar intended for the Hawaiʻi market in the Islands, instead of sending it to California for refining and shipping it back for use here. By 1954, the ʻAiea mill’s refined sugar output, to Hawai’i retailers, manufacturers and pineapple canneries, reach 62,000 tons. (HHF)

Alexander & Baldwin Properties bought the site in 1993 and soon added a new liquid-sugar refinery in order to satisfy an increasing demand for soft-drink sweeteners. But granulated sugar production was becoming unprofitable.

A&B sought to scrap the site and develop an industrial park. In steps Rick Ralston from Crazy Shirts to save the historic structure, restoring some to maintain the historic sugar flavor, as well as refurbish and reuse parts for the shirt production.

However, costs for clean-up mounted and forced abandonment of the restoration – Bank of Hawaiʻi took over the property. The ʻAiea Mill was demolished in 1998. The ʻAiea Sugar Mill property was bounded by Ulune Street, ʻAiea Heights Drive, Kulawea Street, Hakina Street, and ʻAiea Intermediate School.