Hawaii | Page 3 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

October 30, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

“Call the little baby Kīna’u.”

“I was born in the ‘Old Mission House’ in Honolulu on the 5th day of July, 1831. When I was but a few hours old, ‘Kīna’u,’ the Premier, came into the bedroom with her crowd of ‘kahus,’ took me into her arms and said that she wanted to adopt me, as she had no girl of her own.”

“My mother, in her weak state, was terribly agitated, knowing that the missionaries were unpopular and entirely dependent on the good-will of the natives, so feared the consequences of a denial. They sent for my father in haste, who took in the state of affairs at a glance.”

“’We don’t give away our children,’ he said to Kīna’u. ‘But you are poor, I am rich, I give you much money,’ replied the Chiefess. ‘No, you can’t have her,’ my father answered firmly. Kīna’u tossed me angrily down on the bed and walked away, leaving my poor mother in a very anxious frame of mind.” (Wilder; Wight)

“She accordingly went away in an angry and sullen mood, and was not heard from until the infant was being christened a few weeks later, when she again appeared, elbowed the father to one side, and exclaimed in the haughtiest of tones, ‘Call the little baby Kīna’u.’”

“Fearing that a second refusal would result disastrously, the parents agreed, and the child was accordingly christened Elizabeth Kīna’u Judd.” (The Friend, May 1912)

Kīna’u “seemed somewhat appeased after the (christening) ceremony, and, as I was the first white girl she had ever seen, deigned from that time on to show a great interest in me, either visiting me or having me visit her every day.” (Wright, Wight)

Kīna’u, daughter of Kamehameha I, became a Christian in 1830. She succeeded her aunt Kaʻahumanu as Kuhina Nui upon the latter’s death in 1832.

She acted as the Regent for her brother Kauikeaouli when he became King Kamehameha III, from June 5, 1832 to March 15, 1833. She would rule with him until her death. She was responsible for enforcing Hawaiʻi’s first penal code, proclaimed by the king in 1835.

Gerrit and Laura Judd were in the 3rd Company of missionaries. In 1839, at the request of King Kamehameha, Judd, a physician, looked after the royal children in the Chiefs’ Children’s School.

Judd left the mission in 1842 and for the next 10+ years served the Kingdom in various positions, including translator, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Interior and Commissioner to France, Great Britain & US.

The Judd’s child was not the only missionary child named for Hawaiian Chiefs or Chiefesses.

Maria Kapule Whitney was born October 19, 1820 to the Pioneer Company missionaries/teachers, Samuel and Mercy Whitney. She was “the first haole girl to be born in the Hawaiian archipelago,” and named for Kauai Chiefess Kapule, wife of Kauai’s King Kaumualiʻi.

Maria went to the mainland at the age of six to be educated; she returned to the Islands with the 11th Company. She married bachelor missionary Reverend John Fawcett Pogue of the 11th Company.

Reportedly, the daughter of Samuel and Nancy Ruggles (missionaries/teachers of the Pioneer Company) born on December 22, 1820, was named Sarah Trumbull Kaumuali’i Ruggles. (Some suggest her Hawaiian name was Ka‘amuali‘i.)

The Whitneys and Ruggles escorted Humehume (Prince George,) King Kaumuali‘i’s son, back to Kauai, where they set up a missionary station.

Lucia Kamāmalu Holman was daughter of Thomas and Lucia Ruggles Holman of the Pioneer Company (Lucia was Samuel Ruggles sister.) Holman was the mission’s first physician and was stationed in Kona. She was born March 2, 1821 on Kauai and named after Queen Kamāmalu, King Kamehameha II’s wife.

Elisabeth “Lizzie” Kaahumanu Bingham was born March 8, 1829 in Honolulu to Reverend Hiram and Sybil Bingham, leaders of the Pioneer Company of missionaries. She was named after Queen Kaʻahumanu, favorite wife of King Kamehameha I and a friend of the mission.

In 1840, Lizzie returned to the mainland with parents and, after graduating from Mount Holyoke, taught on the continent. Lizzie returned to Hawai‘i in 1868 to work at Kawaiahaʻo Seminary (until 1880.) She died November 27, 1899 in Honolulu.

Mary Kekāuluohi Clark was born to Ephraim and Mary Clark (from the 3rd Company of missionaries) on September 20, 1829. She was named for Kekāuluohi, who later became Kuhina Nui (as Kaʻahumanu III;) Kekāuluohi was mother of King Lunalilo.)

Harriet Keōpūolani Williston Richards was born in 1829 to Reverend William and Clarissa Richards of the 2nd Company of missionaries. (Harriet was sent to the continent and lived with the Willistons; when her father died, she was adopted by the Willistons and took their name.)

Harriet was named for the mother of King Kamehameha II and III. When the 2nd Company arrived in the Islands (1822,) Richards and others escorted Keōpūolani to Lahaina where Richards was stationed. William Richards left the mission in 1838 at the request of King Kamehameha III to become the King’s translator, counselor and political advisor.

Douglass Hoapili Baldwin was son of Reverend Dwight and Charlotte Baldwin of the 4th Company of missionaries. He was born in 1840 and died in 1843; Hoapili was Governor of Maui and lived in Lahaina (where the Baldwins were stationed at the time of Douglas’ birth.

October 29, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kīlauea

“A little farther on we entered groves of hala, through which we continued to ride for the rest of our journey. We turned from the road to see the falls of the Kāhili River.”

“Though not large they are beautiful. Here the river falls in a jet of foam over a precipice of about 40 feet into a broad clear basin below….” (Alexander, 1849; (Kīlauea Stream is universally referred to as “Kāhili Stream;”) Cultural Surveys)

Pukui suggests “Kīlauea means “spewing, much spreading;” associated references relate to volcanic eruptions at the place of like name on the Island of Hawaiʻi – typically referring to the rising smoke clouds.

Wichman explains the name as referring to “spewing many vapors” and traces it rather generically to the streams of Kīlauea that flow between the Makaleha Mountains and the Kamo‘okoa Ridge. The name may have originally been in reference to Kīlauea Falls itself. (Cultural Surveys)

The relatively large volume of water flowing over a relatively wide and high drop against the prevailing trade winds (blowing approximately straight up the lower stretch of the valley) can create a large volume of diffuse mist that may have inspired the name of the land. (Cultural Surveys)

In the Māhele, all of Kīlauea ahupuaʻa was retained as government lands; apparently no claims were made by native tenants, although there were several in a low, wide terrace along the stream in the adjoining Kāhili ahupuaʻa.

In January 1863, the approximate 3,016-acres of the Kīlauea ahupuaʻa were purchased by a former American whaler named Charles Titcomb. Titcomb already had land holdings at Kōloa and Hanalei. He was cultivating silkworm, coffee, tobacco, sugarcane and cattle.

Adding other leased land, he and partners Captain John Ross and EP Adams formed the Kilauea Plantation (1863,) and by 1877 the started a sugar plantation, “one of the smallest plantations in the Hawaiian Islands operating its own sugar mill”. (Cultural Surveys)

Hawaiʻi’s earliest history with railroads is often credited to Kīlauea Plantation, whose first system opened in 1881 on three miles of narrow-gauge track to haul sugar cane. Princess Lydia Kamakaeha (Lili‘uokalani) drove in the first spikes for the railroad bed. The plantation infrastructure grew over the next twenty years.

“The transportation system consists of twelve and a half miles of permanent track, five miles of portable track, 200 cane cars, six sugar cars and four locomotives.”

“(Kīlauea) is situated three miles from the landing at Kāhili, with which it is connected by the railway system. Sugar is delivered to the steamers by means of a cable device at the rate of from 600 to 800-bags an hour.” (San Francisco Chronicle, July 18, 1910) The town of Kīlauea originated as the center of the sugar plantation operation; Kīlauea Sugar Plantation closed in 1970.

The Kīlauea School was founded in 1882 as an ‘English School.’ Its 54-pupils were primarily workers’ children from Kīlauea Sugar Plantation. As the Board of Education of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi owned no land in the district, school was held in a Protestant Church and partly in an old building that belonged to the Board.

In 1894, the Board of Education of the Republic of Hawaiʻi was able to obtain a two-acre parcel of land from the plantation and a two-room school and teacher’s cottage were erected (it was situated near Kūhiō Highway and Kalihiwai Road.)

By 1920, the educational facilities were greatly strained as the school boasted 239-students and 7-teachers for grades one through eight. At the end of 1921, Kauai County purchased the present school site and the new school opened September 11, 1922; it has been in use since that time. (NPS)

By the 1890s, much of the old kalo-growing areas of this portion of Kaua‘i were now producing rice, farmed by Chinese immigrants. There were 55-acres of land in rice production in the Kīlauea-Kāhili area in 1892 and eventually a rice mill on Kīlauea Stream.

The mill is known to have been on the stream terrace east of Kīlauea Stream. Rice and vegetable cultivation was also noted along the banks of Kīlauea Stream, circa 1925. (Cultural Surveys)

Built in 1913 as a navigational aid for commercial shipping, the Kīlauea Lighthouse was credited with saving lives, not only of countless sailors lost at sea, but of two fliers on a historic trans-Pacific flight.

When Lt Albert Hegenberger and Lt Lester Maitland were on the first trans-Pacific airplane flight in history (June 29, 1927,) they overshot their course to Oʻahu and became lost.

They heard a strange signal and interpreted it as a radio beacon originating in the Islands. They used the signal to calculate their exact position and made the necessary adjustments to put them on course, thus enabling them to land the ‘Bird of Paradise’ safely at Hickam Field on Oʻahu. (NPS)

Kīlauea Point National Wildlife Refuge, surrounding the Lighthouse, was established in 1985 to preserve and enhance seabird nesting colonies and was expanded in 1988 to include Crater Hill and Mōkōlea Point. The refuge is home to some of the largest populations of nesting seabirds in in the main Hawaiian Islands.

Nearby, Hawaiian Islands Land Trust (HILT) added to an existing preserved property to form the Kāhili Coastal Preserve. The property provides public access to Kāhili Beach while safeguarding the shoreline ecosystem. (HILT)

October 28, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Arthur L Andrews Outdoor Theatre

Cornell-educated core faculty was brought in during the early days of the College of Hawai‘i to help build a foundation for the University of Hawai‘i’s future.

One such was Arthur Lynn Andrews; He was born in 1871 in McLean, New York and received a MA and his doctorate from Cornell University.

When he arrived in the islands in 1910, he first joined the College of Agriculture and Mechanic as an English professor. College classes were held in a remodeled residence in the backyard of a high school at Beretania and Victoria; the entire student enrollment was 17.

Andrews was active in all aspects of university life. He did not play football but is said to have introduced the famous Statue of Liberty feint play to island teams.

In 1913, he produced the University’s first play, “The Revolving Wedge,” and engaged students in playwriting. He organized the first campus newspaper and the first annual, sang in the glee club and played third base on the baseball team. (UH)

Andrews became the first Dean of the College of Arts and Science, when the College of Hawai‘i was transformed into the University in 1920.

Debate was once a major part of the university. Andrews founded the debate and forensics program in 1924, modeling it after the world famous Oxford Union.

He then became Dean of Faculties from 1930 until 1936, when he retired. From 1941 to 1943, he was a member of the board of Regents. (NPS)

Construction of the Manoa Campus almost stopped during the great depression in the 1930s. Exceptions were projects for which the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA – under the ‘New Deal’) provided the manpower.

One such project at the University was an Outdoor Theater. The University provided $5,213 (cost of materials) and $50,000 was provided by the FERA.

The Outdoor Theatre was designed by Ralph Fishbourne and Professor Arthur R. Keller served as the consulting engineer. The landscape designer was a noted UH graduate and landscape architect in Hawaiʻi, Richard Tongg.

The structure was designed with a 5,500 person seating capacity with some of the stone material for the seating coming from Fort Ruger.

The approximate size of the space is 200 feet wide by 300 feet long. The curve of the Outdoor Theatre portion has a sweeping 60-foot radius. The Outdoor Theatre seating is partially sunken into the ground, with the stage area set below grade. The 25 foot by 35 foot concrete surface at the center of the raised stage gives way to lawn, used as an extension of the formal stage.

It opened on June 20, 1935. Originally the structure was called Andrews Amphitheatre (named after Andrews,) but President Gregg Sinclair renamed it “Arthur L. Andrews Outdoor Theatre” in an attempt to use the proper descriptive vocabulary, since ‘Amphitheatre’ refers to a structure that wraps all of the way around the stage.

The graduating class of 1935 was the first to hold commencement ceremonies in the Outdoor Theatre. The theatre was dedicated at the Annual Commencement on June 12, 1945, to Dr Andrews who had died a month earlier.

In the 1970s there was discussion of adding a retractable roof in order to guarantee dry events, but these ideas were terminated in favor of keeping the garden design preserved and open to daylighting. Andrews served as a venue for graduation ceremonies, speeches, and concerts.

The University has two programs dedicated to Andrews: Arthur Lynn Andrews Distinguished Visiting Professor of Asian Studies to promote Asian and Pacific studies at UH through the selection of outstanding visiting professors each year and Arthur Lynn Andrews Award for Fiction awarded to the top entry from undergraduate and graduate students – entries not to exceed 10,000 words. (UH)

October 26, 2026 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Aliʻiolani College

The school seemed to change names, and locations; but, for the most part, it was run by the same person, Leopold Gilbert Blackman.

Born on July 4, 1874 in Cheltenham, England, Blackman was the son of Thomas and Harriet (Sutherland) Blackman. He was an associate of Saint Nicholas College, Lancing, England, and was principal of the preparatory school of Ardingly College before coming to Hawaiʻi. (Builders of Hawaiʻi)

At the request of the Bishop Willis, Blackman arrived in the Islands in 1900 to take charge of ʻIolani School. He served as head of school at ʻIolani for one year; then, he was an assistant at Bishop Museum 1901-09 (also serving as editor of the Hawaiian Forester and Agriculturist.)

Then, he went back to school.

It started with Aliʻiolani College, in Pālolo. “Aliʻiolani College was an offshoot from the ʻIolani (school.)” (Thrum)

“Aliʻiolani College, started a few years ago in a cottage, has now quite arrived as a respectable acquisition to Honolulu’s fine array of public and private schools. It appears to supply a distinct want for its neighborhood, besides aiding to solve the problem of school congestion for the city.” (Hawaiian Star, June 21, 1910)

“(T)hrough the generosity of Mrs Mary E Foster, foundress of the college, permanent buildings had been erected sufficient for all present needs and in many other ways progress had been made toward making Aliʻiolani an efficient unit of the splendid Honolulu family of educational institutions.” (Hawaiian Star, June 21, 1910)

(Daughter of James Robinson, Mary Robinson married Thomas Foster, an initial organizer of the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company. That company founded a subsidiary, Inter-Island Airways, that later changed its name to Hawaiian Airlines. Their home later became Foster Botanical Garden.)

“Among our many well equipped establishments we believe that Aliʻiolani has a definite destiny as a boys’ boarding school, offering at moderate fees a substantial education soundly based upon the elementary branches of Instruction, an education in which habits of discipline cheerful obedience to constituted authority, courtesy and loyalty are given a recognized place as adjuncts to true manhood.” (Blackman, Hawaiian Star, June 21, 1910)

However, that school on that site had a short stay.

The building and grounds of the Aliʻiolani College was offered to the board of education “for the establishment of vocational schools … rent free for four months or until the legislature provides ways and means for maintaining the schools.”

“The offer of Aliʻiolani has been made by the owner, Mrs. Nellie E. Foster, who has also offered to contribute generously towards a fund to meet running expenses.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 24, 1912)

A Department of Education Biennial Report for 1912 notes Blackman as principal of the Honolulu School For Boys, it was divided into three departments: Preparatory, Grammar School and High School. “The Honolulu School for Boys, at Kaimukī, (was) an independent boarding and training school, originally the Aliʻiolani College.” (Thrum)

“The campus comprises eighteen acres and is situated in the salubrious Ocean View district of Honolulu. Extensive views of mountain range and ocean are obtained, while continual trade breezes temper the air and render residence at the school pleasant and healthful.”

“The main building consists of a two-story edifice with two one-story wings. The ground floor is devoted chiefly to class rooms and dormitories. Of the wings, one furnishes a dining hall; the other, the matron’s residence, is chiefly devoted to the use of the smaller boys. All dormitories are upstairs, are well ventilated and lighted and open upon spacious lanais.”

“The increasing enrollments of the school necessitated an additional building to be erected in the summer of 1912, known as the Grammar School. This new structure is of two stories—the upper one being devoted to dormitory accommodations and the lower one to class rooms.” (DOE, 1912)

The school later moved into lower Kaimukī, and, again, changed its name – and the old campus was converted to a hotel.

“For some time the place (former Aliʻiolani campus in Pālolo) remained vacant but recently was run as a boarding house until take over by King, who has renovated the building and started a modern hotel. It has been renovated, remodeled and improved and will be known as Aliʻiolani Hotel.” (Honolulu Star-bulletin, September 19, 1916)

Honolulu School for Boys changed its name to Honolulu Military Academy. (Thrum, 1917) “It was controlled by a board of 10 trustees of which the president (Blackman) was a member and presiding officer ex officio.”

“It had no endowment, but owned a fine piece of property consisting of grounds and six buildings … at Kaimukī near Waiʻalae Bay, a mile from the end of the Waiʻalae street-car line.” (DOI Bureau of Education Bulletin 1920)

“The school drew its cadets from all points in the islands. The 1918-19 roster showed 64 from Honolulu, 10 from Oʻahu outside of Honolulu, 16 from Hawaiʻi, 11 from Maui, 10 from Kauaʻi, 1 from Molokai, 2 from California, and 1 each from New York State, Minnesota, and Japan.”

“It began at first with instruction only in the elementary grades; but it grew to offer a 12-grade program of studies.” (DOI Bureau of Education Bulletin 1920)

Then, in January 1925, Punahou School bought the Honolulu Military Academy property – it had about 90-acres of land and a half-dozen buildings on the back side of Diamond Head.

It served as the “Punahou Farm” to carry on the school’s work and courses in agriculture. “We were picked up and taken to the Punahou Farm School, which was also the boarding school for boys. The girls boarded at Castle Hall on campus.” (Kneubuhl, Punahou) The farm school was in Kaimukī between 18th and 22nd Avenues.

In addition to offices and living quarters, the Farm School supplied Punahou with most of its food supplies. The compound included a big pasture for milk cows, a large vegetable garden, pigs, chickens, beehives, and sorghum and alfalfa fields that provided feed for the cows. Hired hands who tended the farm pasteurized the milk in a small dairy, bottled the honey and crated the eggs. (Kneubuhl, Punahou)

The Punahou dairy herd was cared for by the students as part of their course of studies – the boys boarded there. However, disciplinary troubles, enrollment concerns (not enough boys signing up for agricultural classes) and financial deficits led to its closure in 1929.

By the mid-1930s, the property was generally idle except for some Punahou faculty housing. In 1939, Punahou sold the property to the government as a site for a public school (it’s now the site of Kaimuki Middle School.) The initial Aliʻiolani College site is the present site of Aliʻiolani Elementary School.)

The image shows the original Aliʻiolani building, funded by Mary Foster (Maui News, July 30, 1910.) In addition, I have added other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

October 25, 2026 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Madge Tennent

She was born Madeline Grace Cook in Dulwich, England, on June 22, 1889. Her father owned a construction business; her mother was the editor of a women’s fashion magazine.

When she was five she moved with her family to Cape Town, South Africa. At the age of twelve, she entered an art school in Cape Town.

The following year, her parents, who recognized and encouraged her talent, moved to Paris to enable Madeline to study there In Paris, she studied figure drawing under William Bouguereau, an experience that laid the technical foundation for her later figural drawings and paintings. (Beebe)

Two years later they returned to Cape Town, where Madge taught art and illustrated fashion magazines. She was also an accomplished pianist, taught by her mother, and gave regular recitals in Cape Town. One such recital was attended by a visiting military officer from New Zealand, Hugh Cowper Tennent, who was in South Africa with his regiment.

They married (1915) and returned to his home, New Zealand, where she led the haphazard life of an army camp follower until their first son Arthur was born in 1916.

Madge directed an art school, having been appointed head instructor at the Government School of Art in Woodville, the village where Madge and Hugh lived while he awaited further military orders. (Wageman)

Hugh went off to war in Europe and returned with a seriously wounded hand; the young family was sent to Western Samoa, which had become a New Zealand protectorate after the war, with Hugh as the treasurer of the territory. Their second son, Val, was born there in Apia.

They spent six years in Samoa. During her stay in Samoa, Tennent became fascinated with Polynesians, and while on a leave of several months in Australia, Tennent studied with Julian Ashton “and learned to draw seriously for the first time.” (Beebe)

On a trip to London to enroll the boys in a British boarding school in 1923, the Tennents arrived in Honolulu with their two young sons, planning on a three-day stop-over.

They were introduced to members of the local artistic community, who saw her Samoan studies and asked her to stay and paint the Hawaiians. They stayed.

As a chartered accountant (the British equivalent of a CPA), Hugh was unable to work until he put in a year of residency. Madge supported the family by doing watercolor portraits, mostly of society children. She kept a studio downtown on Hotel Street.

Madge was fascinated by the Hawaiians from the beginning, but true inspiration struck when she was given a book of colored reproductions by Paul Gauguin in Tahiti. From that time on she devoted herself to the single-minded pursuit painting Polynesians.

Often referred to as Hawai‘i’s Gauguin, Tennent was unswerving in her devotion to the beauty of the Hawaiian people with pen, brush and palette knife. (Walls)

She was active in Hawai’i from the 1930s to the 1960s. “The Hawaiians are really to me the most beautiful people in the world … no doubt about it – the Hawaiian is a piece of living sculpture.” (Tennent; HPA)

Tennent portrayed Hawaiian women as solidly fleshed and majestic – larger than life. Her method of working with impasto – applying thick layers of paint to achieve a graceful, perfectly balanced composition – is evident in ‘Lei Queen Fantasia.’

The paint is applied in whirls in what might be called the ‘Tennent whirl’ – the colors bright and luminous. Tennent envisioned Hawaiian Kings and Queens as having descended from Gods of heroic proportion, intelligent and brave, bearing a strong affinity to the Greeks in their legends and persons. (HPA)

Over the years she was very active in the arts community in Honolulu, taught frequent classes at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, and wrote for publication on art-related subjects. (Walls)

Just a few days before her death in 1972, Tennent summed up her philosophy of life and art for a newspaper reporter who interviewed her, frail and blind, at a private nursing home overlooking Diamond Head. He asked her …

“How does it feel, Mrs. Tennent, to have your genius publicly recognized during your lifetime?” … “Genius, baloney,” she muttered, with all the strength she could muster. “It was nothing but darn hard work.” (Walls)

Major collections of her work are found at the Honolulu Academy of Arts and the University of Hawaii. In 2005, Hawai’i Preparatory Academy’s Isaacs Art Center was chosen by the Trustees of the Tennent Art Foundation to become the caretaker of the collection. (HPA) Tennent died February 5, 1972.