Hawaii | Page 210 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

January 19, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Frederick C Ohrt

Honolulu’s public water system is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, under the American flag west of the Mississippi River. The first unit, installed, paid for and operated by the government, was in service on March 31, 1848. (Nellist)

At that time, whale products were in high demand; whale oil was used for heating, lamps and in industrial machinery; whale bone was used in corsets, skirt hoops, umbrellas and buggy whips. Rich whaling waters were discovered near Japan and soon hundreds of ships headed for the area.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between America and Japan brought many whaling ships to the Islands. Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands. Another thing the early whalers wanted was water.

The first ships to visit Honolulu obtained their fresh water by sending small boats with casks up Nuʻuanu stream above the salt water tidal area.

With the threat of competition from California and Mexico, it is quite clear that it was a desire to serve and hold the trade of the whaling ships that caused Honolulu to initiate its water system. (Nellist)

Then, in 1848, in his annual report to King Kamehameha III and the Legislature of Hawaii, Keoni Ana (John Young), Minister of the Interior, made this notation:

“A water tank, for the convenience of the shipping (New England whaling ships,) is placed in the basement story of the new Master and Pilots’ Office, near the wharf (Nuʻuanu Street.) And it was supplied through a leaden pipe from a reservoir at ‘Pelekane’ …” (Schmitt)

After the completion of the Bates Street reservoir in 1851, nearby businesses and homes were connected with the main. The system was further expanded in 1860-1861, eventually covering most of the city. (Schmitt)

Over the years, the fledgling water system expanded. Then, on April 29, 1925, Governor Wallace Rider Farrington formed and appointed members to the original Honolulu Sewer and Water Commission.

Their first meeting was held May 14, 1925 and the organization was completed on July 1 with the appointment of Frederick C Ohrt as Chief Engineer (Ohrt resigned from Libby, McNeill & Libby to take the position.) (Nellist)

In his report to the Commission, Chief Engineer Ohrt added this observation: “… the first duty of whomever may be held responsible for correct solution of the water problem is to insist upon an aggressive policy of conservation and reasonable use of Honolulu’s most valuable resource. Most valuable, because the measure of value is necessity; and the growth of every city is rigidly conditioned by its water supply.”

Then, on July 1, 1929, Governor Farrington appointed members to the first Board of Water Supply (BWS;) they immediately appointed Ohrt Manager and Chief Engineer.

Ohrt established the principle that the construction necessary to support a utility need not spoil the landscape. Many examples of this can still be found around Oahu such as the pumping stations, which were designed by the respected architect CW Dickey. (Engineers & Architects of Hawaiʻi)

The semi-autonomous Board of Water Supply (BWS,) under the administration of Frederick Ohrt, had been established in 1930 to replace the mismanaged and scandal-ridden City Waterworks Department, which had brought the city to the verge of a water shortage.

Flush with federal funds flowing from the Works Projects Administration (WPA) during the Great Depression, the Board assigned four projects to architect Hart Wood during the period 1933-1936. (Historic Hawaiʻi)

Some of these lasting legacies under Ohrt’s leadership include the Pacific Heights Reservoir (1933,) the Makiki–Mānoa Pumping Station (1935,) the Kalihi Uka Pumping Station (1935) and the Nuʻuanu Aerator (1936, its purpose was to purify surface waters drawn from Nuʻuanu stream.)

Perhaps the crowning achievement of Board of Water Supply designs is the Administration Building fronting Beretania Street. Wood began the design of this project in 1947 and completed the design by about 1951, but the building was not completed until after 1952 (the year Frederick Ohrt retired from the Board of Water Supply.) (Historic Hawaiʻi)

One of the early facilities of the fledgling Water Department (before Ohrt’s involvement there) was the Kalihi Pumping Station, on the corner of Waiakamilo and North King Street.

The initial building was constructed in 1899 (it has since been replaced.) The pump in the plant was an EP Allis Vertical Triple Expansion Triplex Single Acting Pump.

There are three wells at Kalihi Pumping Station. Two of these wells were bored in 1899 and the third in 1900. The wells are cased with steel casing 3/8” thick. These wells are of 12” bore. (Hawaiʻi Dept. of Public Works, 1913)

It is now home to the Water Department’s Fred Ohrt Water Museum, named in honor of BWS’s first Manager and Chief Engineer. The museum is located at the Kalihi Pumping Station, 1381 North King Street.

Tours their include an introduction to our island’s water cycle, discussion on water conservation, and walking tour of the museum showcasing “The Old Man of Kalihi”, the original 1899 steam pump, and history of the BWS.

The Honolulu BWS is the largest municipal water utility in the state, serving one-million customers on O‘ahu with 55-billion gallons of water every year, which includes 95-active drinking water facilities, 166-storage tanks and more than 2,000-miles of pipeline servicing nearly every community on O‘ahu.

Another Wood design was Fred Ohrt’s residence on Pali Highway. In 1987, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places as representative of the Tudor–French Norman Cottages Thematic Group of homes in Honolulu (between Hānaiakamālama (Queen Emma Summer Palace) and Oʻahu Country Club; on the golf course side of the highway.)

January 16, 2022 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiʻi And The Selma Voting Rights March

“They oughta be comin’ pretty soon now,” somebody said, looking west and into the sun where the two-lane highway curves to the right. “They oughta be here any time.” (Saturday Evening Post)

Folks lined the 54-miles of roadway between Selma and Montgomery, Alabama. Thousands of others joined the march.

There were actually three marches, collectively called the Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery. A catalyst was the killing of Jimmie Lee Jackson, who, while attempting to protect his mother from the troopers’ billy clubs while attending a voting rights rally, was shot point blank by two of the troopers. Seven days later, on February 25, 1965, Jackson died from his gunshot wounds.

The first march (March 7) was known as “Bloody Sunday,” as a result of the beatings upon marchers by state troopers and the local posse on horseback. The second march, the following Tuesday, resulted in 2,500 protesters being turned back after attempting to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge (“Turnaround Tuesday.”)

The third march started after receiving a court order granting them the right to protest without police interference, and with protection from federalized National Guard troops.

The marchers arrived in Montgomery on March 24; that night, a “Stars for Freedom” rally was held. Singers Harry Belafonte; Peter, Paul and Mary; Tony Bennett; and comedian Sammy Davis Jr. entertained the marchers.

At the final leg of the march, 25,000 people gathered at the steps of the Alabama State Capitol Building, on Thursday, March 25, 1965.

The marchers were protesting the hostile conditions, discrimination, and unequal rights to vote, adequate housing and education. One of the leaders said this was not a show, but a war against the social structure of America.

They came from everywhere. Charles Campbell, a Negro high-school teacher, came from Hawaiʻi where, he said, there is proof that the races can live together. (Saturday Evening Post)

Campbell and other Hawaiʻi marchers were not this event’s only ties to Hawaiʻi.

Lead marcher in the third march was Dr Martin Luther King. A photo and caption of the event noted, “During part of the famous Selma to Montgomery Freedom March in 1965, Martin Luther King and fellow civil rights leaders wore the Hawaiian necklace of flowers – the lei – to symbolize their peaceful intentions.” (AkakaFoundation)

The lei were gifts from Rev Abraham Akaka as noted in this excerpt from Jet Magazine, “… Pastor emeritus of a Honolulu Church (Kawaiahaʻo,) Rev Abraham Akaka, 74, gained worldwide attention when he sent flower leis used by Dr Martin Luther King in the Selma march …” (Jet, June 3, 1991)

This wasn’t King’s only tie to Hawaiʻi.

King came to Hawaiʻi a month after statehood and on Thursday, September 17, 1959 delivered a speech to the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives at its 1959 First Special Session. His remarks included the following.

“As I think of the struggle that we are engaged in in the South land, we look to you for inspiration and as a noble example, where you have already accomplished in the area of racial harmony and racial justice, what we are struggling to accomplish in other sections of the country …”

“… and you can never know what it means to those of us caught for the moment in the tragic and often dark midnight of man’s inhumanity to man, to come to a place where we see the glowing daybreak of freedom and dignity and racial justice.”

“And these are the things that we must be concerned about – we must be concerned about because we love America and we are out to free not only the Negro. This is not our struggle today to free 17,000,000 Negroes. It’s bigger than that. We are seeking to free the soul of America. Segregation debilitates the white man as well as the Negro.”

“We are to free all men, all races and all groups. This is our responsibility and this is our challenge, and we look to this great new state in our Union as the example and as the inspiration.”

“As we move on in this realm, let us move on with the faith that this problem can be solved, and that it will be solved, believing firmly that all reality hinges on moral foundations, and we are struggling for what is right, and we are destined to win.”

At Selma, King delivered the speech “How Long, Not Long.” “The end we seek,” King told the crowd, “is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience. … I know you are asking today, How long will it take? I come to say to you this afternoon however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long.”

The Selma to Montgomery March effected great change; it led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act, signed by President Lyndon B Johnson on August 6, 1965.

Martin_Luther_King-others-wearing_lei_in_Selma

Civil rights demonstrators, led by Dr Martin Luther King (5th R), civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy (5th L), John Lewis (3rd L) and other civil and religious leaders, make their way from Selma to Montgomery on March 22, 1965 in Alabama, on the third leg of the Selma to Montgomery marches. The Selma-to-Montgomery March for voting rights ended three weeks and represented the political and emotional peak of the modern civil rights movement. The first march took place on March 07, 1965 (“Bloody Sunday”) when 600 civil rights marchers were attacked by state and local police. (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images)

Martin Luther King others wearing lei Selma to Montgomery on March 22, 1965

Martin Luther King and others wearing lei Selma to Montgomery on March 22, 1965

Alabama state troopers attack civil-rights demonstrators outside Selma, Alabama, on Bloody Sunday, March 7, 1965

Bloody_Sunday-officers_await_demonstrators

Marchers Crossing the Edmund-Pettus Bridge, 1965

Martin Luther King, Jr., addressing the marchers at the Alabama State Capitol in Montgomery-(NPS)

Selma_to_Montgomery_marches_-_historic_route

Lyndon_Johnson_and_Martin_Luther_King,_Jr._-_Voting_Rights_Act

January 15, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Interstate

Planning for what is now known as the Dwight D Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways (“The Interstate System”) began in the late-1930s. They then studied the feasibility of a toll-financed system of three east-west and three north-south superhighways – the subsequent report concluded a toll network would not be self-supporting.

Later, Section 7 of the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 provided for the designation “within the continental United States of a National System of Interstate Highways not, exceeding, forty thousand miles … to connect by routes, as direct as practicable, the principal metropolitan areas, cities, and industrial centers, to serve the national defense, and to connect at suitable border points with routes of continental importance in the Dominion of Canada and the Republic of Mexico.” (Bureau of Public Roads, 1960)

Although the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1944 authorized designation of a “National System of Interstate Highways,” the legislation did not authorize an initiating program to build it. After taking office in January 1953, President Eisenhower made revitalizing the Nation’s highways one of the goals of his first term.

As an army Lieutenant Colonel in 1919, Eisenhower had accompanied a military convoy across the US and saw the poor condition of our Nation’s roads. Later, during World War II, as Commander of the Allied Forces, his admiration for Germany’s Autobahn network reinforced his belief that the US needed first-class roads.

President Eisenhower continued to urge approval and worked with Congress to reach compromises that made approval possible. The President signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 on June 29, 1956. The feds provided a 90/10 math – 90% of the funds for the Interstate Highway System from the feds; each state was required to match the remaining 10%.

The numbering of the interstate highways on the system was developed in 1957 by the American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO). The numbering pattern of Interstates is the reverse of US Highways; for example US Route 10 is in the North of the USA, while Interstate 10 is in the South.

In the numbering scheme for the primary routes, east-west highways are assigned even numbers and north-south highways are assigned odd numbers. Odd route numbers increase from west to east, and even-numbered routes increase from south to north.

Major north–south arterial Interstates increase in number from I‑5 between Canada and Mexico along the West Coast to I‑95 between Canada and Miami along the East Coast. Major west–east arterial Interstates increase in number from I‑10 between Santa Monica, California and Jacksonville, Florida to I‑90 between Seattle, Washington and Boston, Massachusetts.

On one- or two-digit Interstates, the mile marker numbering almost always begins at the southern or western state line; the exit numbers of interchanges are either sequential or distance-based so that the exit number is the same as the nearest mile marker.

As a result of statehood for Alaska and Hawaiʻi in 1959, US Bureau of Public Roads was directed to study the needs and opportunities for Interstate routes there.

Four basic factors were used in considering the relative merit of routes: (1) national defense, (2) system integration – the value of the route as a connector between centers of population and industry which generate traffic, (3) service to industry by manufacturing, fishing, agriculture, mining, forestry, etc, as measured by value of products or by traffic data, and (4) population. (Bureau of Public Roads, 1960)

When the routes considered for Interstate designation in Hawaiʻi were studied in relation to the established criteria for selection, it was determined that routes totaling about 50 miles have factors of service that are definite characteristics of the Interstate System. (Bureau of Public Roads, 1960)

Honolulu Westerly to Barbers Point.………..19
Honolulu southeasterly to Diamond Head…7
Honolulu northeasterly to Kaneohe Base…14
Pearl City to Schofield Barracks………………..10
Total…………………………………………………………50

The result was the initial identification of three Island Interstates – H-1, H-2 and H-3. These roads also have names: H-1 is called Queen Liliʻuokalani Freeway (from exits 1-18 – about Middle Street) and Lunalilo Freeway (from exits 19-27.) H-2 is called Veterans Memorial Freeway and H-3 is called John A Burns Freeway.

H-1 runs along the southern shore of Oahu, from Kapolei, around Pearl Harbor to just past Diamond Head State Monument. H-2 extends north from H-1 and Pearl Harbor to Wahiawa and the Schofield Barracks Military Reservation. H-3 runs from northwest Honolulu at Āliamanu Military Reservation to the Hawaii Marine Corps Base on Kāneʻohe Bay.

Interstate H-1 was first authorized in as a result of the Statehood Act of 1960. Work was completed on the first segment of the new H-1 Interstate, spanning 1-mile – from Koko Head Avenue to 1st Avenue, on June 21, 1965.

A temporary westbound exit to Harding and a temporary eastbound entrance from Kapahulu Avenue allowed motorists to access the new freeway until the Kapiʻolani Interchange was completed in October 1967.

On November 1, 1989, the Federal Highway Administration approved the State’s request for a fourth Interstate route, a 4.1-mile section of Moanalua Freeway/State Route 78 between H-1 exit 13 and H-1 exit 19. It was assigned the temporary number H-1-A, but was numbered H-201 on December 8, 1990. (DOT delayed putting the signs up, thinking Hawaiʻi drivers may be confused between H-2 and H-201.)

H-4 was an idea once proposed for the city of Honolulu in the late 1960s. Interstate H-4 was to provide traffic relief for the congested Interstate H-1 through the downtown area. From the west Interstate H-4 was to begin at Interstate H-1/Exit 18 interchange, head to the waterfront to a point somewhere between Atkinson Drive and Waikīkī, then head back up to the Kapiʻolani interchange (Exit 25B) on H-1.

January 14, 2022 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Standing Bear

“A Hawaiian by the name of Frank Grouard is living as a scout in the American Army under General Crook, fighting Sioux Indians.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

Whoa, that’s getting waaay ahead of ourselves … let’s look back.

May 23, 1843, Elders Benjamin F Grouard, Addison Pratt, Noah Rogers and Knowlton F Hanks, intending for the Hawaiian Islands, set sail as the first Mormon missionaries to the Pacific Islands. Rather than Hawai’i, they ended up in the Solomon Islands. (Cluff)

In 1846, Elder Grouard married Ana, a local chieffess; a few years later, on September 20, 1850, Frank Grouard was born. A couple years later (1852,) the Grouards and Pratts left Polynesia. In California, young Grouard was turned over to Addison and Louisa Pratt, for care. (His own mother had returned to the islands and later died; Elder Grouard died in 1894.) (Trowse)

The Pratts, with Grouard, emigrated to Utah. Grouard ran away and at the age of nineteen, ended up a Pony Express mail carrier … “out West” through hostile Indian Country (between California and Montana.) (Trowse)

“During one of his trips on a lonely trail he was captured by Crow Indians and taken prisoner. The Crows took him many miles from the road, and in a lonely forest, stripped off his clothes and possessions, then released him to wander alone.”

“He wandered, cold and hungry, a piece of fur for clothing, eating grasshoppers and other bugs for food. When he had given up hope of surviving, he was discovered by a group of Sioux Indians. Because of his expressions of aloha, they took a liking to him.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

There were two factions in the camp – one led by Chief Sitting Bull, the other led by Chief Crazy Horse. Grouard was held for nearly seven years, during the first two of which he was practically a prisoner.

He all but became an Indian, and, though he declared he never, as an Indian, fired upon a white man, he took part in scores of battles against other enemies of the Sioux and in hundreds of forays after game and the horses and cattle of settlers. (Trowse)

“The Sioux took him into a heavily forested area where he was cared for. Chief Sitting Bull adopted him to be his own child of his own blood but with a different language. He grew in stature to be greatly admired by the Indians for his skill and wit.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

He was given the name ‘Standing Bear.’

“In a very short time, he became one of the best riders of wild Indian horses and he became one of the best shots. For nine years he lived with the Indians, his manner becoming much like them.” (Kuakoa, September 30, 1876; Krauss)

He learned the landscape, customs and traditions – all the while constantly on alert to escape captivity. Around age 26, he eventually escaped from his Indian captors. Then, Grouard became an Indian Scout in the American Army under General George Crook, fighting Sioux Indians.

Almost every summer for nearly a dozen years, Grouard was in the field as a scout, commanding as many as 500 scouts and friendly Indians with all the Indian fighters who made reputations in subduing the Indians. He was wounded many times, suffered almost incredible hardships, saved small armies on several occasions and often saved the lives of individual men and officers.

He never led a party to disaster, was invariably chosen to head any “forlorn hope” enterprise or to make any particularly perilous ride; with Grouard, victory followed victory. Gen. Crook never wearied of telling anecdotes of Grouard and praising his favorite. (Trowes)

Crook noted, “he would sooner lose one-third of any command than lose Grouard and accredits him as the greatest scout and rider and one of the best shots and bravest men that ever lived.” (Berndt)

By February 1876, believing there was peace, many Indians were leaving the reservations in search of food. Orders had been given by the American government to return, but they did not take it seriously. General Crook began his winter march from Fort Fetterman, March 1, 1876 with many companies of troops.

When Sitting Bull learned that Grouard was the scout for General Crook, he saw the chance to kill Grouard in battle. By March 17, Grouard located Crazy Horse’s village on the Powder River in Montana. (Dodson) In May 1876, in preparation for the summer campaign, the Army was fitted out at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

Fort Laramie, founded as a local trading post in 1834 at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte Rivers, soon served as a stop for folks emigrating West on the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails (the westward migration peaked in 1850 with more than 50,000 traveling the trails annually.)

The US military purchased the post in 1849 and stationed soldiers there to protect the wagon trains. The US Civil War took soldiers away from it and other outposts. The Western migration continued. With the ending of the Civil War, soldiers came back. (Talbott)

Tension between the native inhabitants of the Great Plains and the encroaching settlers resulted in a series of conflicts … this eventually led to the Sioux Wars. The most notable fight, fought June 25–26, 1876, was the Battle of Little Big Horn (Lt Col George Armstrong Custer lost – Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and others won.) (Grouard was not involved in that fight.)

Most native Americans were confined to reservations by 1877. In September 1877, Chief Crazy Horse left the reservation and General Crook had him arrested. When Crazy Horse saw he was being led to a guard house, he resisted and was stabbed to death by a guard. (Denardo)

In the fall of 1877, Sitting Bull headed north to Canada; life there was tough and in 1881 he surrendered to the US. In 1889 Sitting Bull was shot by Police. (NPS)

Grouard continued in the service of the US government until the end of the Indian Wars. Frank Grouard died at St. Louis, Missouri in 1905 where he was eulogized as a “scout of national fame”.

“To him perhaps more than to any other one man is due the early reclamation of that rich section of the mainland embraced in South Dakota, a large part of Montana, the whole of Northern Nebraska, and the whole of Northern Wyoming. Let us, then, write him as a factor – a Polynesian factor – in the making of the nation of nations.” (Trowse)

(There is conflicting information on the ethnicity of Grouard – Kuakoa reported in 1876 that Grouard was half-Hawaiian; he, himself, claimed to be “partial Hawaiian” (Dobson) and he told Trowse that his mother was a “woman of the Sandwich Islands”. (Trowse) Several others note he was son of a chiefess from the Solomon or ‘Friendly’ Islands (Tonga.))

There is more to the story … After serving with the Confederate Army during the Civil War, John Carpenter Hunton came West to work at Fort Laramie. His brother James came to join him in 1876; James’ headstone tells the rest of his history that ended later that year – “Killed by Indians”.

As noted above, the Sioux Wars military campaign provisioned at Fort Laramie, prior to heading north to South Dakota and Montana. Hunton was fort sutler (providing provisions out of the camp post) – Hunton and Grouard were at the fort at the same time, so it is likely they met.

They had closer ties than that. Hunton lived with/was married to LaLie (sister to fellow scout (and half-breed) Baptiste Garnier (Little Bat.)) LaLie later left Hunton and married Grouard – that marriage didn’t last either, and she left Grouard, too.

Oh, one other ‘rest of the story’ … John Hunton is Nelia’s Great Great Uncle. On a number of ocassions, we visited Fort Laramie and the John and James Hunton gravesites in Wyoming.

January 13, 2022 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Dwight Baldwin

Dwight Baldwin was born on September 29, 1798 to Seth Baldwin (1775 –1832,) (a farmer) and Rhoda Hull Baldwin in Durham, Connecticut, and moved to Durham, New York, in 1804. His father, He was the second of 12 children. (Baldwin Genealogy)

He was employed with his father on the farm, enjoying the benefits of the common school, and generally in winter of a select school, till the age of sixteen. In the fall of 1814, he commenced the study of Latin, with a view to prepare for College.

The last of his teachers being a graduate of Williams College, he was induced to enter at Williams, where he spent two years; and then he left Williams and entered Yale College, where he graduated in September, 1821.

By the recommendation of President Day, the next two years he was employed as Principal of the Academy in Kingston, Ulster County, NY. A third year was spent in teaching a select school in Catskill, Greene county. He then devoted himself to the study of medicine, at the same time teaching a select school in Durham, NY.

Then, he got caught in the religious fervor; about the first of March, 1826, he found relief in believing in an Almighty Redeemer, a hope which has never forsaken him. Religion became the all-absorbing subject of his thought by day and by night. (Baldwin Genealogy)

He soon came to the decision to join a mission, and September 3, of that year, he united with the Congregational Church in Durham, NY, and soon after he entered the Theological Seminary at Auburn, where he spent three years, offering his services into the American Board of Boston for a Foreign Mission … and they were accepted.

He did not have time to await official recognition of his medical degree so at direction of the Prudential Committee he took his diploma as Master of Science. He was ordained at Utica, NY on October 6, 1830.

He was introduced by a friend to Charlotte Fowler, daughter of Deacon Solomon Fowler of North Branford, Connecticut, and a few weeks later was married to her on December 3, 1830. Twenty-five days later they set sail with the Fourth Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi on the ship ‘New England;’ he arrived at Honolulu, June 7, 1831. (Baldwin)

Soon after their arrival, the Missionaries were assigned to different stations over the group, wherever there seemed to be the greatest opportunity of doing good. After a few months in Honolulu he was assigned to help Lorenzo Lyons in Waimea, Hawaiʻi Island. He remained there three years, from 1832 to 1835. (The Friend, December 1922)

In 1835, ill health caused Baldwin to leave Waimea and seek recovery in the Society Islands. “Such was the opinion of all I consulted at Honolulu, & though I could preach & attend to other duties, & it was trying to part with my dear family, yet I was afraid I might hereafter repent, should I not go; so I came to the conclusion to go.” (Baldwin, November 20, 1835)

“We sailed from Honolulu the 14th of July (1835) … We anchored at Papeete bay, on the NW side of Tahiti, in just one month from the time we sailed. … During the ten days we were at Tahiti, I did all I could, to visit the several stations”. (Baldwin)

“From Tahiti we sailed to Huahine, (then) we set sail for these islands. We were favored with good winds & in 20 days saw Hawaii … I landed Sept. 20th thankful at finding wife & little ones safe & well.” (While he was in Tahiti, his family had settled into their new home at Lāhainā.) (Baldwin, November 20, 1835)

The Lāhainā mission was started in 1823; William Richards had been pastor for 13-years. Lāhainā was then the favorite Royal Center of the King, and nearly all the high Chiefs of the Islands; it was the Kingdom’s capital (from the 1820s through the mid-1840s.)

It was also a thriving harbor in those days, being a port of call for the whale ships which sometimes filled the bay so full that one could jump from one deck to another.

Father and Mother Baldwin as they were often called, opened their home to all. Officers and masters of ships were the recipients of their wholehearted hospitality. Dr. Baldwin was physician for the mission families, and the government physician for Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi. (The Friend, December 1922)

“A barrel of whale oil furnished light for a year. The flour brought by the missionary steamer Morning Star came once a year and several times it had been so wetted in the storms off Cape Horn that it had hardened and it was necessary to chisel off the daily measure for cooking.”

“Vegetables, however, grew in their own garden and there was an abundance of fruit, such as bananas, grapes, and watermelons, and one does not hear that they suffered from their poverty.” (Baldwin)

Baldwin preached at the Waine‘e Church (“Moving Water;”) the cornerstone was laid on September 14, 1828, for this ‘first stone meeting-house built at the Islands,’ It was dedicated on March 4, 1832. The Hawaiian royalty attended services there.

(After fire destroyed the church in 1894, Baldwin’s son, Henry Perrine Baldwin, helped fund its restoration. Damaged and restored several times, the Church finally changed its name from Waine‘e Church, to Waiola Church (“Water of Life”) in 1954, and has safely-stood since.)

A series of epidemics swept through the Hawaiian Islands in the 1840s, whooping cough and measles, soon after followed by waves of dysentery and influenza; then, in 1853, a terrible smallpox epidemic. Although precise counts are not known, there were thousands of smallpox deaths on O‘ahu; Baldwin is credited with keeping the toll to only a few hundred on Maui.

“My journal has been long laid aside – not because I have not had thousands of things to record but mainly because press of cares has left little leisure to record what is passing in & what we are engaged. … 1853 was wonderfully taken up with our war with small pox on the islands.” (Baldwin, October 8, 1854)

“(Baldwin) was constant in his ministrations, taxing his strength almost to its limit. He was obliged to cross the channel to Molokai and Lanai often when the weather was very stormy, and too, very dangerous.”

“He never hesitated for a moment when the call came, night or day, but hurried on with his little bag, stepped into a double canoe and was off to Lanai and from there he took a whaleboat to Molokai. It was not unusual for Dr. Baldwin to take a trip of 80 or 90 miles on horseback to visit patients in Hana.” (The Friend, December 1922)

In 1856 the health of Father Baldwin, who had worked thirty-six years without a vacation, failed and the “American Board” granted him a year’s leave of absence. He and his wife left the Islands for a year’s visit in “the states.” (Baldwin)

In 1859 Baldwin belatedly received an honorary medical degree from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Without having this he had suffered much embarrassment at the hands of the medical society of Honolulu who, despite the fact that he had been combining an exhausting medical practice for 27-years with his ministry, would not recognize him with a medical license unless he could produce documentary evidence of his medical degree. (HMCS)

It was with regret that Baldwin resigned his pastorate at Lāhainā, in September, 1868. That year Father Baldwin became associated with Reverend Benjamin Parker in the conduct of the native Theological Seminary at Honolulu; the Baldwins moved to Honolulu in 1870.

Mother Baldwin died on October 2, 1873; the inscription on her tombstone reads, “A life of work, love and prayer;” Dwight Baldwin died on January 3, 1886.

The Baldwins had eight children: David Dwight (1831–1912), Abigail Charlotte (1833–1913), Charles Fowler (1837–1891), Henry Perrine (1842–1911), Emily Sophronia (1844–1891) and Harriet Melinda (1846–1932). A daughter, Mary Clark died at about 2½ years of age in 1838; a son, Douglas Hoapili, died at almost 3 in 1843.

The Baldwin’s coral and stone Lāhainā Home, Baldwin House, is the oldest house in Lāhainā (completed in 1835.) It is now home to Lāhainā Restoration Foundation; they oversee and maintain 11 major historic structures in Lāhainā and provide tours of the Baldwin House. (Lots of information here from Baldwin Journals, Baldwin Genealogy and Mission Houses.)