Hawaii | Page 246 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

Elizabeth_Kinau_Judd-WC

Gerrit and Laura Judd

Elizabeth_Kinau-1836

Kinau-Returning from Church-PP-98-2-007-1837

Samuel and Mercy Whitney-1819

Maria Kapule Whitney Pogue

Samuel and Nancy Ruggles-1819

Thomas and Lucia Holman

Hiram and Sybil Bingham-1819

Queen_Kaahumanu

Elizabeth Kaahumanu Bingham gravestone

Douglass Hoapili Baldwin-headstone

January 26, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Moanalua Community Church

Built in 1958, it’s still pretty young in terms of “historic property” (50+ years old.) But in 2004, in my role as State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO,) I weighed in on the importance of keeping the structure intact.

You see, back then, the Navy was looking to redevelop the Moanalua Shopping Center – in it is Moanalua Community Church (originally built as Pearl Harbor Memorial Community Church.)

The church had its start as a chapel for sailors in World War II and now serves the surrounding community, including military personnel.

Its feature is a stained-glass window that covers one whole wall of the A-frame building; it’s described as the “largest connected stained-glass window in Hawaiʻi” and one of the largest stained glass panels in the United States.

Once you see it, you immediately recognize and appreciate its importance.

You get no sense of the uniqueness of the window from the outside; but once inside … Wow!

The unique stained glass window was designed in 1957 by John Wallis, formerly of the Wallis-Wiley Studio located in Pasadena, California. John Wallis was a prolific and notable stained glass artist who worked in the medium for over 70 years.

Designer John Wallis of California wove the ideas of the 1950s congregation into his creation. People from a variety of cultures surround a large figure of Christ over the quotation “For You Are All One in Christ Jesus.”

The artist describes it as, “The central feature of this window is a majestic figure of Christ drawing unto Himself people of all nations. They are shown coming to Him from all parts of the world as indicated by the varying landscapes, the streams and oceans of water and the different forms of architecture.”

“At His feet is shown the Anchor, traditional Christian symbol, representing the thought that Christ is the ‘anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.’” (Wallis)

A map of Pearl Harbor, aircraft and ships depicting battles from the Revolutionary War to World War II and military insignia are there, along with Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and Confucian symbols.

An article in the Honolulu Advertiser dated October 26, 1959 called the window: “… a tribute to all of the men and women of our military services – both dead and living who have defended American freedom in times of national emergency”.

Stained glass in the window consisted of 140 separate sections, each filled with 12 to 20 individual pieces of hand painted imported and domestic glass. The entire A-frame front consists of the stained glass wall panel including the double entrance doors. The only other stained glass window in Hawaiʻi designed by Wallis is located in Saint Andrews Episcopal Cathedral.

The first service in the church was held on July 20, 1958; although the stained glass window was not it place at that time.

After the stained glass window was in place; a dedication ceremony for the church took place on Sunday August 24, 1958. On September 3, 1958, at a celebratory dinner, an elongated hexagonal-shaped “time capsule” was sealed in the pavement at the front entrance to the church and marked with the date 1958.

From 1941 through 1945, prior to the establishment of the Pearl Harbor Memorial Community Church, the congregation met at a WWII Navy chapel located in the Pearl Harbor Housing Area 1, later known as Hale Moku.

The congregation was officially organized on April 28, 1946 when the twenty-five member church council drew up a commemorative scroll and a Navy chaplain was installed as pastor.

The scroll, which currently hangs in the church, is entitled Navy Housing Congregation and lists the original twenty-five council members and over eighty signatures of the original members of the congregation. Approximately 250 attended the dedication service in a large Quonset hut, in addition to 200 children attending the Sunday school.

In 1948, the name of the church was changed from Navy Housing Congregation to the Pearl Harbor Community Church. The original congregation consisted of military families from the nearby Pearl Harbor Naval Base and the Marine, Army, and Air Force installations as well as civilians who were employed at these installations.

The church was the only Protestant church in the Pearl Harbor area serving the five major Protestant denominations. In the 1950s, approximately 15,000 people resided in the area including over 4,000 military families.

In the 1950s, Congress did not appropriate Navy funds for churches to employ chaplains or build houses of worship. As an alternative, the Navy offered 25-year lease terms for a plot of land in the amount of $1 to several religious groups.

In 1954, Rear Admiral CE Olsen referred to the church as the “Pearl Harbor Memorial Church.” The first formal suggestion to call the church the Pearl Harbor Memorial Community Church, in honor of those who died during the attack on Pearl Harbor, was made by WM Adams, Chairman of the church Building Committee.

On January 2, 1957, a lease was signed between the United States of America and the Hawaiian Evangelical Association of Congregational-Christian Churches for a 3-acre lot in the “Johnson Circle, Interim and Public Housing, Moanalua Area, on behalf of the Pearl Harbor Community,” and adjacent to the newly constructed Moanalua Shopping Center.

On October 27, 1957, an official groundbreaking ceremony was held at the church to celebrate the beginning of the construction.

Prior to 1971 only one congregation, the United Church of Christ, occupied and used the church.

Then, Lutheran Church of Pearl Harbor, Seventh Day Adventist, New Cup of Freedom Church (known today as the Samoan United Church of Christ,) New Life United Pentecostal Church, Young Rak Korean Presbyterian Church, and Kanana Fou-United Church of Christ (Samoan Congregation) began to share the facilities.

January 25, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mother Waldron

By the 1880s, residential construction began with the filling of fishponds, marshes and mudflats starting with the area closest to downtown Honolulu; Kakaʻako flourished as a residential settlement where immigrant workers joined the Hawaiian community to form areas such as Squattersville, a shantytown which sprang up along the district’s makai border. (KSBE)

The Territory saw the opportunity to drain and fill the land that “was valueless” to be “available for the growth of the business district of the city” and attain “a valuation greatly in excess of the cost of the filling and draining.”

Back then, much of the makai lands from Honolulu to and including Waikīkī were characterized with lowland marshes, wetlands, coral reef flats and farming of fishponds along with some limited wetland kalo (taro) taro agriculture (and later rice.)

However, they were also characterized as, “stretched useless, unsightly, offensive swamps, perpetually breeding mosquitoes and always a menace to public health and welfare”.

This set into motion a number of ‘reclamation’ and ‘sanitation’ projects in Kakaʻako, Honolulu, Waikīkī, Lāhaina, Hilo and others. The first efforts were concentrated at Kakaʻako – it was then more generally referred to as “Kewalo.”

The Kewalo Reclamation District included the area bounded by South Street, King Street, Ward Avenue and Ala Moana Boulevard. They filled in the wetlands.

As the area grew and developed, so did the need for public facilities. In 1909, Governor Frear helped pass the “Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Public Library of Hawaii”. On May 15, 1909 the Honolulu Library and Reading Room and the Library of Hawaiʻi signed an agreement by which the former agreed to turn over all books, furnishings and remaining funds to the latter.

The building’s final location, though, had not been selected. Several possible sites were considered. Ultimately, Governor Frear made a lot available on the corner of King and Punchbowl streets.

The site he picked had been purchased in 1872 from Lunalilo and transferred to the Board of Education. In 1874, the government-supported Pohukaina School for Girls was built on the site. Just up the street was the Royal School for Boys.

In the late-1800s to early-1900s, the Pohukaina School served as a school for the illegitimate offspring of Hawaiian women and foreign men. (KSBE)

In order to accommodate the new Library of Hawaiʻi, after 36-years at King and Punchbowl, Pohukaina School was relocated to Kakaʻako on the reclaimed land.

Pohukaina School was moved to Kaka‘ako, within the city block bounded by Pohukaina Street, Keawe Street, Halekauwila Street, and Coral Street; the new school opened in 1913.

One of the teachers at the Pohukaina School was Margaret Waldron. Mrs. Waldron taught at Pohukaina for 18 years until her retirement in 1934. They called her Mother Waldron.

Mother Waldron was an orphan. She was raised by the Judd and Castle families and educated at Kawaiahaʻo Seminary. She was 1/8-Hawaiian and 7/8-Irish. She was part saint and part cop. (Dye)

Her philosophy was simple, “Never help anybody who isn’t willing to help someone else. When I help anyone, I make him promise to pay for it. But they don’t pay me directly; they pay me by promising to do just as much or more for the next person in need.” On her 50th-birthday, she was given a bar pin inscribed with the word “Mother.” (Dye)

She was also noted for her volunteer work in Kaka‘ako, and was “generally credited with being the individual who had most influence in transforming the so-called ‘Kakaako gangs’ into law abiding groups and wiping out the unsavory reputation which at one time clung to the district”. (Honolulu Star-Bulletin; May 8, 1936)

One time she wanted to clean the school playground of rocks and needed the help of some of the children. WWI was raging at the time, so she put a picture of the Kaiser in a vacant lot across the park. The kids threw rocks at the Kaiser and thus cleared the park (Dye)

Margaret Waldron died on May 8, 1936.

Here is a portrayal of Mother Waldron by Po‘ai Lincoln – part of the Hawaiian Mission Houses’ Cemetery Pupu Theater program:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWPViX6nJZE

The following year, when a new 1.76-acre playground was constructed across Coral Street from Pohukaina School, the Honolulu Board of Supervisors authorized the park’s designation as “Mother Waldron Playground.” The playground, designed by Harry Sims Bent, was opened in September 20, 1937 on the site of the former County stables.

In 1933, Bent was chosen as the park architect for the City and County of Honolulu. Most playgrounds in the early twentieth century consisted of large areas of pavement used to get children off of the street and had no aesthetic value.

Bent’s design went beyond the modern level and into the realm of art deco, allowing for play, as well as contact with nature. His works at Ala Moana Park include the canal bridge, entrance portals, sports pavilion, banyan courtyard and the lawn bowling green.

The Mother Waldron Playground includes a historic one-story comfort station, two basketball courts, a volleyball court, an open field and benches along the historic boundary walls.

It features a painted brick perimeter wall, approximately 3-feet high, which zig-zags down Coral Street. Brick curbing and paving is used to further embellish the corner entries and delineates the sidewalk from the parking on the Coral Street side.

The Mother Waldron Playground was then the most modern facility in the Territory. The following year, Lewis Mumford, the noted author and social scientist, was invited by the Honolulu Park Board to study the county’s parks and playgrounds.

He noted the “spirit called forth in the Mother Waldron Playground.” Mumford defined that spirit exemplified by Mother Waldron Playground and other county parks.

Pohukaina School remained in operation in Kaka‘ako until 1980, by which time it had developed into a special education facility. The buildings were demolished, and in 1981, the Pohukaina School special education program was transferred to the campus of Kaimukī Intermediate School.

January 24, 2020 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Robert Louis Stevenson

Starting in 1888, Robert Lewis Stevenson (born in Edinburgh Scotland on November 13th 1850,) the famous author of popular works such as ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde,’ began a tour of the South Pacific, visiting Tahiti and the Marquesas.

For nearly ten years his health had been declining; he was told by his doctor to travel there because the climate was good for his bad health.

On January 24, 1889, he arrived in Honolulu and spent the first six months of that year in the Hawaiian Islands (he later settled and lived in Samoa.)

Here, the renowned author found time for writing, completing The Master of Ballantrae and The Wrong Box and starting others during his short stay.

Stevenson visited Kalaupapa (shortly after Damien’s death) and later wrote of the good work of Father Damien (now Saint Damien.) He also travelled to Kona on the Big Island (the setting for most of his short story “The Bottle Imp.”)

On Oʻahu, Stevenson was introduced to the King Kalākaua and others in the royal family by fellow Scotsman, Archibald Cleghorn. Stevenson established a fast friendship with the royal family and spent a lot of time with his good friend King Kalākaua.

In 1889, Stevenson wrote a poem, “To Kalakaua:”

“The Silver Ship, my King – that was her name
In the bright islands whence your fathers came –
The Silver Ship, at rest from winds and tides,
Below your palace in your harbour rides:
And the seafarers, sitting safe on shore,
Like eager merchants count their treasures o’er.
One gift they find, one strange and lovely thing,
Now doubly precious since it pleased a king.

The right, my liege, is ancient as the lyre
For bards to give to kings what kings admire.
‘Tis mine to offer for Apollo’s sake;
And since the gift is fitting, yours to take.
To golden hands the golden pearl I bring:
The ocean jewel to the island king.”

Stevenson also befriended Princess Kaʻiulani (daughter of Princess Likelike and Archibald Cleghorn – and the King’s niece) and was a frequent guest at her home, ʻĀinahau, in Waikīkī.

It was Stevenson who first referred to Kaʻiulani as “the island rose” in a poem he wrote for her and inscribed in her autograph book – Stevenson’s poem, “To Princess Kaiulani:”

“Forth from her land to mine she goes,
The Island maid, the Island rose;
Light of heart and bright of face:
The daughter of a double race.

Her islands here, in Southern sun,
Shall mourn their Kaiulani gone,
And I, in her dear banyan shade,
Look vainly for my little maid.

But our Scots islands far away
Shall glitter with unwonted day,
And cast for once their tempests by
To smile in Kaiulani’s eye.”

When Kaʻiulani left for boarding school in England at the age of 13, Stevenson had several of his books bound specially for her (she was away from the Islands for nine years.)

Later in 1889, he and his extended family traveled to Samoa where they decided to build a house and settle. He took the native name Tusitala (Samoan for “Teller of Tales”, i.e. a storyteller).

He returned to Hawaiʻi in 1893 for a short stay at the San Souci Hotel in Waikīkī (a beachfront resort that opened in 1884 offering private cottages.) It gained fame, after he wrote about staying there for five weeks.

Stevenson’s remarks in the guest book note: “If anyone desires such old-fashioned things as lovely scenery, quiet, pure air, clean sea water, good food, and heavenly sunsets hung out before their eyes over the Pacific and the distant hills of Waianae, I recommend him cordially to the Sans Souci.”

With turmoil at the time in the Hawaiian Islands and health concerns on his part, Stevenson returned to Samoa where on December 3, 1894, he passed away at the age of 44.

Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, 1836-1891 with Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)-(HSA)-PP-96-14-001-1889

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Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, 1836-1891 with Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894) and Lloyd Osbourne (1868-1947)-(HSA)-PP-96-14-011-1889

Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, 1836-1891 with Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)-(HSA)-PP-96-14-008-1889

Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, 1836-1891 with Robert Louis Stevenson and his family-(HSA)-PP-96-14-009-1889

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Kalakaua, King of Hawaii, 1836-1891 with Robert Louis Stevenson and his family-(HSA)-PP-96-14-010-1889

King_Kalakaua_with_Stevenson_and_his_Singing_Boys

Paina including King Kalakaua and the Robert Louis Stevenson family and friends-(HSA)-PP-98-12-004

150th_Anniversary_of_Robert_Louis_Stevenson's_Birth-Stamps

by J. Davis,photograph,circa 1891

Permit_issued_to_Robert_Louis_Stevenson_to_visit_the_leper_settlement_at_Molokai

Kaiulani_Autograph_Book-Stevenson_Original_Poem_and_Signature

Stevenson-New_Arabian_Nights-Book_to_Kaiulani

Stevenson-Treasure_Island-Book_to_Kaiulani

January 23, 2020 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Old Plantation

Curtis Ward was born in Kentucky and arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1853, when whaling in the Pacific was at its peak. Curtis worked at the Royal Custom House, which monitored commercial activity at Honolulu Harbor for the kingdom.

Victoria Robinson was born in Nu’uanu in 1846, the daughter of English shipbuilder, James Robinson and his wife Rebecca, a woman of Hawaiian ancestry whose chiefly lineage had roots in Kaʻū, Hilo and Honokowai, Maui.

Ward started a livery with headquarters on Queen Street and expanded into the business of transporting cargo on horse-pulled wagons. The size of Ward’s work force became just as big as the harbor’s other major player, James Robinson & Co. (Victoria’s father.)

When tensions began to rise between the American North and South in the late-1850s, Ward would defend his Southern heritage. As a result, Ward’s home, named “Dixie,” was often stoned by Northern sailors. (Hustace)

Curtis and Victoria married in 1865 and for many years they made their home near Honolulu Harbor on property presently occupied by the Davies Pacific Center.

Seven daughters were born during these years: Mary Elizabeth, Kulamanu, May, Einei, Lucy, Kathleen and Lani.

As was common for many young married couples of English and Hawaiian ancestry during this period, the Wards socialized comfortably with Honolulu’s expatriate British families, as well as with members of the various Royal families.

This was a period of considerable turbulence in Hawaiian political affairs, and Curtis and Victoria joined with their friends in resisting the rising power of the sugar barons and firmly opposed reciprocity with the United States. (Ward Centers)

Even in later years, Victoria Ward held to her political convictions and remained a loyal friend and supporter of Liliʻuokalani after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893. (Ward Centers)

Then, the Wards bought land on what was then the outskirts of Honolulu, eventually acquiring over 100-acres of land running from Thomas Square on King Street down to the ocean.

They built the “Old Plantation” in 1882, a stately, Southern-style home on the mauka portion of the property. It featured an artesian well, vegetable and flower gardens, a large pond stocked with fish, and extensive pasturage for horses and cattle. Self-sufficient as a working farm, Old Plantation was surrounded by a vast coconut grove.

In 1882, Curtis Ward died at age 53, leaving Victoria to raise seven daughters and manage the estate.

The Blaisdell Center has been in operation since 1964 and in 1994 was remodeled and expanded. The Blaisdell Center complex includes a multi-purpose Arena, Exhibition Hall, Galleria, Concert Hall, meeting rooms and parking structure.

In 2002, Chicago-based General Growth Properties Inc (owner of Ala Moana Center) closed on an agreement to buy Victoria Ward Ltd., giving it control of one of the state’s largest private landowners and operator of a growing retail complex in Kakaʻako.

In 2010, General Growth spun off its development properties as the Howard Hughes Corporation and is working on plans for the creation/redevelopment of an urban master planned community in Kakaʻako. (OHA and Kamehameha Schools are other large landowners in Kakaʻako.)