Hawaii | Page 400 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

August 30, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Tahitians to Hawai‘i

Archaeologists and historians describe the inhabiting of the Hawaiian Islands in the context of settlement which resulted from canoe voyages across the open ocean. Some believe the first Polynesians to arrive at Hawai‘i came ashore at Kahikinui, Maui.

They have proposed that early Polynesian settlement happened with voyages between Kahiki (Tahiti – the ancestral homelands of the Hawaiian gods and people) and Hawai‘i, with long distance voyages occurring fairly regularly through at least the thirteenth century.

It has been generally reported that the land-sources of the early Hawaiian population – the Hawaiian “Kahiki” – were the Marquesas and Society Islands. The moku (district) of Kahikinui is named because from afar on the ocean, it resembles a larger form of Kahiki, the ancestral homeland. (Maly)

Some believe that along Kahikinui were given names that referred to Hawaiʻiloa, an ancient navigator. These included fishing koʻa, and astronomical and navigational sites on the mountain. (Matsuoka)

Kealaikahiki channel is the channel between Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe. It literally means “the road to Tahiti;” if one takes a bearing in the channel off of Kealaikahiki Point on Kahoʻolawe and heads in that direction, you arrive, more or less, in Tahiti.

One of the important cultural sites on Kahoʻolawe is located at the center point or piko of the island at Moaʻula iki; here, kahuna conducted training in astronomy and navigation. Moaʻula is a place name associated with a place in Tahiti. (Aluli/McGregor)

Lae O Kealaikahiki, the western-most point of Kahoʻolawe, is located on the Kealaikahiki Channel. Just above the high water mark, inland from Lae O Kealaikahiki, is a traditional compass site comprised of four large boulders. The lines formed by the placement of the stones are paved with coral and mark true north, south, east and west.

Jutting out from the shoals, just south of Lae O Kealaikahiki, is another key traditional and contemporary navigational marker, Pōhaku Kuhi Keʻe I Kahiki (“the rock that points the way to Tahiti;” now, generally referred to as Black Rock.)

Two known accounts also place Kealaikahiki as a point of landing in Hawaiʻi after the long journey from Kahiki. Placing Kealaikahiki as a point of arrival would coincide with the oral tradition related in the chant from Harry Kunihi Mitchell, “Oli Kuhohonu O Kahoʻolawe Mai No Kupuna Mai.” (Aluli/McGregor)

The Tahitian connection to the Islands is not just associated with the early migration of Polynesians to Hawai‘i. Several Tahitians collaborated with the American Protestant missionaries at the early part of the 1800s.

Toketa, a Tahitian, arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1818; he probably landed on the island of Hawaiʻi. He was a member of the household of the chief (Governor) John Adams Kuakini, at that time a prominent figure in the court of Kamehameha I in Kailua, Kona.

A convert to Christianity (he likely received missionary instruction in his homeland – the first Europeans arrived in Tahiti in 1767; in 1797 the London Missionary Society sent 29 missionaries to Tahiti,) he became a teacher to Hawaiian chiefs. (Barrere)

Shortly after (February 8, 1822,) “Adams (Kuakini) sent a letter to Mr B (Bingham) written by the hand of Toleta the Tahitian, which Mr. B answered in the Hawaiian language. – ‘This may be considered as the commencement of epistolary correspondence in this language.’” (Missionary Herald, 1823)

Kuakini’s interest in learning to read had not stopped, and he continued to study under Toketa. Kuakini later requested that the missionaries send him more books and teachers. In response, Elisha Loomis was sent to Kailua-Kona in mid-October to organize a school.

By early November 1822, that school had fifty students under Kuakini and Toketa, the latter being “sufficiently qualified to take charge of it for a season till a teacher could be sent from Honolulu.” Within a few weeks Thomas Hopu, a Hawaiian youth trained as a teacher by the American missionaries and part of the Pioneer Company, was sent to Kailua and put in charge of the school. (Barrere)

Later, Toketa moved to Maui and entered the service of Hoapili, a high chief of great note and foster father of the princess Nahiʻenaʻena (sister to Liholiho and Kauikeaouli.)

While on Maui Toketa taught classes for the chiefs and helped in the translating of the Scriptures. Early in 1824, “The most interesting circumstance of the day, is an application for baptism from Kaikioewa and wife, from another chief and wife, Toteta, a Tahitian in the family of our patron Hoapili …”

“Every thing in the characters of these persons, as far as we can ascertain, sanctions the hope, that, through the knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, they have been turned from darkness to light … and are proper subjects for the administration of the ordinance, the benefits of which they are desirous of receiving.” (Stewart, February 24, 1824)

On April 16, 1822, the schooner Mermaid, arrived at Honolulu from Tahiti; on board were William Ellis and other English missionaries and Auna and Matatore, Tahitian chiefs and teachers. After providing support for a few months to the American missionaries in the Islands, they returned to Tahiti.

William Ellis of the London Missionary Society returned on February 4, 1823, travelled from Tahiti to Hawai‘i, bringing his wife with him as well as Tahitian teachers, including Tauʻā.

Tauʻā, originally known as Matapuupuu, was born in about 1792 and was by birth a raʻatira or landowner. He had been a principal Arioi (secret religious order of the Society Islands,) and succeeded his elder brother as chief priest of Huahine. (Gunson)

In August 1813 Tauʻā joined John Davies’s school at Papetoʻai, and later accompanied Ellis to Huahine, where he became a prominent church member and was appointed deacon. He was also appointed first Secretary of the Huahinean Missionary Society. His speeches at prayer meetings and May meetings were reported with some pride. (Gunson)

Shortly after Ellis and Tauʻā arrived in Hawaiʻi, the Second Company of American missionaries arrived, bringing the Reverend William Richards and the Reverend Charles Stewart (April 1823.)

About this time, Queen Mother Keōpūolani (mother of Kamehameha II and III) began to accept many western ways. She wore western clothes, she introduced western furniture into her house and she took instruction in Christianity.

But her health began to fail, and she decided to move her household from the pressures of the court circle in Honolulu to the tranquility of Waikīkī. With her she took Hoapili (her husband) and Nahiʻenaʻena (her daughter.) Keōpūolani asked that a religious instructor be attached to her household. Her choice was Tauʻā; the mission approved. (Sinclair)

In May of 1823, Keōpūolani decided to make her last move, this time back to the island of her birth, Maui. She chose Lāhainā, with its warm and sunny climate – another place traditionally a favorite with the chiefs. (Sinclair)

Before leaving, Keōpūolani requested the Americans to assign teachers to go with her. She wanted a mission established in Lāhainā, and further instruction in reading and writing for herself; she also wished to have a man of God to pray with her. The Honolulu mission selected Charles Stewart and William Richards to accompany the queen. (Sinclair)

Immediately on their arrival in Lāhainā, she requested them to commence teaching, and also said, “It is very proper that my sons (meaning the missionaries) be present with me at morning and evening prayers.” (Memoir of Keōpūolani)

She became more attentive to the Gospel as she was resting. It was Tauʻā who became the teacher she relied on as perhaps they were able to converse with each other in the Polynesian language. (Mookini)

Tauʻā proved a faithful teacher, and he did much to establish her in the Christian faith. He answered several of her questions on the subject of Christianity. After her death, Tauʻā joined the household of Hoapilikane and remained with that chief until his death in 1840. He then joined the household of Hoapiliwahine. (Tauʻā died in about 1885.)

Another Tahitian teacher of Christianity in Hawaii was Tute (Kuke), who came in 1826 as a missionary upon the request of the prime minister Kalanimoku. In 1827 he became the tutor and chaplain of the young king Kauikeaouli and remained as such until the latter’s death in 1854. Tute died in 1859 after 33 years of service to the Hawaiian chiefs. (Barrere & Sahlins)

Among others, “eight (American Protestant) missionaries translated the Bible into Hawaiian – Messrs. Bingham, Thurston, Richards, Bishop, Andrews, Clark, Green, Dibble.”

“(They would) translate from the original Hebrew the Old Testament, and from the original Greek the New Testament, into the Hawaiian language.” (Judd; Bible Society Record, October 17, 1889) Instrumental in that process were Ellis and the Tahitian converts to Christianity that came to the Islands.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Hiram Bingham I preaching to Queen at Waimea, Kauai, in 1826

August 29, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Siloama Protestant Church

In 1832, twelve years after initiation of the American Protestant Mission, a young New England Protestant minister, the Reverend Harvey R Hitchcock, was sent with his wife to Christianize the people of Molokai. They settled at Kalua‘aha. The first Protestant church at Kalua‘aha was built of thatch in early 1833.

A school soon followed, and it was not long before a small community was forming around the church buildings. It became the social center of the entire island, with people coming from as far away as the windward valleys, over the pali and by canoe, just to attend church sermons on Sunday. (Strazar)

Despite Kalaupapa’s distance from that station, its residents often climbed the pali or came by sea to attend church meetings. (NPS)

The Kalua‘aha Mission Station Report (1836-37) notes, “At Kalaupapa a populous district on the windward side of the island and about thirty miles from the station a school of 160 scholars might be collected immediately were there a teacher to superintend it.”

Hitchcock held a three-day meeting at Kala‘e, on the cliffs above Kalaupapa, in 1838, which was attended by many from the peninsula and the northern valleys. (An out-station of the Kalua‘aha mission was established there around 1840.) In 1839 a Hawai’ian missionary teacher named Kanakaokai was stationed on the peninsula.

Hitchcock noted on a tour of the island in August of that year that a large stone meeting house had been constructed at Kalaupapa with a thatched house for the missionary.

Adjacent to the house was a field where cotton was planted to be used at a missionary spinning and weaving school at Lahaina, Maui. Hitchcock also mentioned that people living in Pelekunu were part of the Kalaupapa congregation. (NPS)

In 1841 the population of Kalaupapa, probably including Waikolu Valley, was about 700 persons, of which 30 were church members. Hitchcock noted that “There are considerable comfortable accommodations for a family there, a large native house walled in – The meeting house is large.” (Kalau‘aha Mission Station Report, 1841)

By 1847 the first Kalaupapa stone meetinghouse had been replaced with a more substantial structure measuring twenty-eight by seventy feet. Also another missionary, the Reverend C. B. Andrews, had been assigned as assistant to Hitchcock on Molokai. (NPS)

“The People at Kalaupapa who have but recently finished a stone house – 60 by 30 feet, are now engaged in collecting funds for a new and more durable one intending to devote the old one to the use of the school.” (Kalau‘ahu Mission Station Report, 1851)

Then, life in the Islands, and the peninsula, changed. In 1865, the Legislative Assembly passed, and King Kamehameha V approved, ‘An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy,’ which set apart land to isolate people believed capable of spreading the disease. (NPS)

On January 6, 1866, the first group of patients including nine men and three women arrived. Of the twelve who arrived on that day, two men and a woman – Kahauliko, Lono and Nahuina – would go on to become founding members of the first church to be established in the settlement. (Keawelai)

During the first year of patients arriving at Kalawao in 1866, church members came together and formed a Congregational church, they named it Siloama, Church of the Healing Spring.

“Thrust out by mankind, these 12 women and 23 men, crying aloud to God, their only refuge, formed a church, the first in the desolation that was Kalawao.”

Despite being hungry, cold, and, at times, neglected, the people of Kalawao worked hard from the very beginning to build their own community, establishing a church the very first year. Siloama Church – the Church of the Healing Spring – gave residents something to cling to, a refuge in God. (HCUCC)

The Protestant patients organized a congregation and saved $125.50 for a church building. Additional funds were donated in Honolulu and lumber shipped to Kalawao. (NPS)

Siloama Protestant Church was the first church to be erected at Kalawao Settlement at Kalaupapa, it was originally constructed and dedicated on October 28, 1871 by the Protestant Congregational Church.

The church was named for the pool of Siloam (the Hebrew word ‘Siloam’ means ‘sent,’ Pool of the Sent.) It was where Jesus told a blind man, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam”. So the man went and washed and came back seeing. (John 9:7)

Kana‘ana Hou Church (New Canaan church) was a branch of Siloama’s church; it was built in Kalaupapa in 1878 and enlarged in 1890. In 1881, the congregations of Kalawao and Kalaupapa united as Kanaana Hou. Siloama Church was rebuilt in the 1960s.

Belgium-born Joseph De Veuster arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864. There he was ordained a Catholic Priest in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace on May 31 and took the name of Damien.

His first calling was on the big island of Hawai‘i, where he spent eight years, serving in Puna, Koala and Hāmākua. He learned of the need for priests to serve the 700 Hansen’s disease victims confined at Kalawao; he arrived on May 10, 1873 (following the Protestants and Mormons to the isolated peninsula.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Siloama Protestant Church-DMY-400

Siloama Protestant_Church-HMCS

Siloama Protestant Church, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County, HI-LOC

Siloama Protestant Church-HMCS

Siloama Protestant Church-PPWD-11-6-012

Siloama Protestant Church-general view, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County, HI-LOC

Siloama Protestant Church-from Southwest, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County, HI-LOC

Siloama Protestant Church-facing, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County, HI-LOC

Siloama Protestant Church-entrance to alter, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County, HI-LOC

Kanaana Hou Calvinist Church, Moloka’i Island, Kalaupapa, Kalawao County-LOC

Kalawina Church is the oldest religious, built in 1854-now used as Ranger Station

Siloama Protestant Church plaque

August 28, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hung Wai Ching

“This is a very interesting story that I have never heard before and I have never heard of this man. He is a great leader who rises above the fear, prejudices and anger to pick up a cause to do the right thing for humanity.”

“One wonders if there was never a Hung Wai Ching, where would the Japanese Americans be today?” (Mae Kimura; Yoshinaga)

Hung Wai Ching was born on August 1, 1905, in Hawai‘i. His parents, Yei and Un Fong Ching, came to Hawaii in 1898 from the Chung Shan district of Guangdong province, China. (Ng)

At an early age, his father was killed in an accident, leaving his mother to bring up the six children under circumstances of extreme financial hardship, forcing Hung Wai to sell papers and do odd jobs to help his way through school.

He lived in the predominantly immigrant neighborhood around the Nuʻuanu YMCA. He attended Royal School and graduated in 1924 with the famous McKinley Class of ‘24, which included Hiram Fong, Chinn Ho, Masaji Marumoto and Elsie Ting (to whom he was married for 60 years.)

He graduated from the University of Hawai‘i in 1928 with a degree in civil engineering, earned a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary and graduated from Yale Divinity School in 1932.

He worked at the Nuʻuanu YMCA as a boys’ secretary and served as secretary of the Atherton YMCA from 1938 to 1941. (Tsukiyama)

In December 1940, he was invited to attend a meeting with the FBI, Army and Navy intelligence, and community leaders present to form the Council on Interracial Unity to prepare the people of Hawaii against the shock of imminent war and to preserve the harmonious race relations among Hawaii’s multiracial population.

When the Japanese bombs fell on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the military governor appointed a Morale Division composed of Charles Loomis, Shigeo Yoshida and Hung Wai to put into effect the plans prepared by the Council of Interracial Unity.

The Morale Division served as bridge between the military government and the civilian community, in particular with the Emergency Service Committee composed of leaders of the Japanese American community.

Ching reported to Col. Kendall J. Fielder of Army Intelligence charged with the internal security of Hawai‘i and also reported to FBI Chief Agent Robert L. Shivers.

There were any number of Japanese in Hawaii who unbeknownst to them were either not detained or were released from internment because of Hung Wai Ching’s intervention on their behalf.

In the first few weeks of the war, the military governor assigned Col. Fielder a quota of Japanese to be picked up each day, but upon consultation with Ching, Fielder refused to make indiscriminate quota arrests, even at the risk of court-martial and his military career.

In January 1942, when all soldiers of Japanese ancestry were discharged from the Hawai‘i Territorial Guard, comprised of UH ROTC students, Ching met, counselled and persuaded these confused, bitter and disillusioned Nisei dischargees to offer themselves to the Military Governor for war time service as a non-combat labor battalion.

The petition of 170 Nisei volunteers was accepted by the Military Governor who assigned this group to the 34 Combat Engineers at Schofield Barracks as a labor and construction corps, popularly to become known as the ‘Varsity Victory Volunteers.’ As Father of the VVVs, Ching showed off the VVVs at every opportunity to military, intelligence and governmental officials.

In late-December 1942, Ching was asked to escort Assistant Secretary of War John J McCloy around military installations on O‘ahu and made certain that McCloy witnessed the VVV volunteers at work in the field.

A few weeks later in January 1943, the War Department announced its decision to form a volunteer all Nisei combat team. This is exactly what the VVV had been working for, so its members disbanded so that they could volunteer for the newly conceived 442nd.

Ching then adopted the 442nd in place of the disbanded VVV and thereafter dedicated himself to seeing that the Nisei got every fair opportunity to prove their loyalty.

“Who knows if we would’ve had a 442nd if it wasn’t for all the things Hung Wai did.” (Tsukiyama)

Through his Morale Division job, Ching met with some very high and influential people, including President Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt, but he never used these contacts to benefit himself.

During a 1943 visit to the White House, Ching used the occasion to brief the president on the wartime situation in Hawaii, how well Sen. Emmons and the FBI were handling the “Japanese situation” and assuring him that there was no necessity for a mass evacuation of Japanese from Hawai‘i.

Ching had no question about the loyalty of Japanese he had known all of his life, but he knew that the general American public would never be convinced of the loyalty of Japanese Americans until they could shed their 4-C (enemy alien) status, get back into military service and fight and even die for their country.

The greatest contributions made by Hung Wai Ching were his outspoken affirmation of the loyalty of Japanese Americans and the direct part he played in the long struggle of Japanese Americans to regain that opportunity to bear arms and to prove their ultimate loyalty to America. (Tsukiyama)

After the war Ching became a real estate broker and land developer, as well as continuing to be a leader in the community, serving on several community and company boards. He, along with his brother Hung Wo Ching, helped found Aloha Airlines. (Ng) (Lots of information here from Tsukiyama, Yoshinaga, Gee and Ng.)

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

Hung Wai Ching

August 27, 2017 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Titusville

Oil was used more than five thousand years ago in Mesopotamia; bitumen was mined by the Sumerians, Assyrians, and Babylonians, who used it in architecture, building roads, caulking ships, and medicines. Later, knowledge of oil and its uses declined.

Oil seeps to the surface in many parts of the world, so the knowledge of oil did not disappear. This is true in northwestern Pennsylvania, where the Seneca tribe, part of the Iroquois nation, collected seep oil for hundreds of years, using it as a salve, insect repellent, and tonic.

Europeans called the dark, gooey substance Seneca Oil and found it effective for treating sprains and rheumatism. It also burned, but was unappealing as a lamp oil due to its unpleasant odor and smoke.

In the 1840s, scientists in Britain began producing an illuminant from the distillation of coal. Dr. Abraham Gesner, a Canadian geologist, made the first successful coal oil in North America, using a bituminous mineral found in New Brunswick. Gesner called it “keroselain” from the Greek word for ‘wax’ and ‘oil,’ which soon became kerosene. (American Chemical Society)

Then, Edwin L. Drake demonstrated practical oil recovery by applying salt-well drilling techniques, including the use of the derrick, and invented the modern method of driving iron pipe.

On August 27, 1859, Drake struck oil 69-feet down in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The well yielded an average of 1,000-gallons daily for three years. The first export was in 1866, relieving the first glut in the market. (American Society of Mechanical Engineers)

So, what does this have to do with Hawai‘i? Let’s look back …

Candles and whale oil provided most of the artificial light in the decades before the Civil War. Whale oil was also used for heating and lubrication in industrial machinery; whale bone was used in corsets, skirt hoops, umbrellas and buggy whips.

Demand for whale oil intensified – and prices skyrocketed – with the development of mechanized transportation and industrialization. (American Chemical Society)

The over-fishing of “on shore” New England whales in the 1700s forced local whalers to venture “offshore”, journeying further out in search of their lucrative prey.

The first New England whalers rounded Cape Horn into the Pacific in 1791, and fished off both the Chilean and Peruvian coasts. Many sailed around South America and onward to Japan and the Arctic.

Edmond Gardner, captain of the New Bedford whaler Balaena (also called Balena,) and Elisha Folger, captain of the Nantucket whaler Equator, made history in 1819 when they became the first American whalers to visit the Sandwich Islands (Hawai‘i.)

A year later, Captain Joseph Allen discovered large concentrations of sperm whales off the coast of Japan. His find was widely publicized in New England, setting off an exodus of whalers to this area.

These ships might have sought provisions in Japan, except that Japanese ports were closed to foreign ships. So when Captain Allen befriended the missionaries at Honolulu and Lāhainā, he helped establish these areas as the major ports of call for whalers. (NPS)

The whaling industry had a major effect upon Hawaiian commerce and trade. As the Northwest fur trade decreased and sandalwood supplies and values dropped, the whaling industry began to fill the economic void.

By 1822 there were 34-whalers making Hawaiʻi a base of refreshment. The whaling industry was the mainstay of the island economy for about 40 years. For Hawaiian ports, the whaling fleet was the crux of the economy. More than 100 ships stopped in Hawaiian ports in 1824.

From that time the number increased rapidly. Over time, several hundred whaling ships might call in season, each with 20 to 30 men aboard and each desiring to resupply with enough food for another tour “on Japan,” “on the Northwest,” or into the Arctic.

The effect on Hawaiʻi’s economy, particularly in areas in reach of Honolulu, Lāhainā and Hilo, the main whaling ports, was dramatic and of considerable importance in the islands’ history.

Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

Then, whaling came swiftly to an end.

Within a few years of the successful 1859 oil well in Titusville, this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the whaling industry.

By 1862, the whaling industry was in a definite and permanent decline. The effect in the Islands was striking. Prosperity ended, prices fell, cattle and crops were a drag on the market, and ship chandleries and retail stores began to wither.

Sugar soon took its place.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

EarlyOilField-Titusville-WC

First_Oil_Well-Drake-Titusville-WC

This is the well near Titusville, Pennsylvania which pumped the petroleum industry into existence 100 years ago. The picture was taken four years after Col. Edwin L. Drake struck oil on August 27, 1859 near Titusville, Pennsylvania. Seated in the foreground is “Uncle” Billy Smith, Drake’s drilling foreman, who was first to notice a dark green liquid bubbling at the top of the hole. His cry of “Oil, struck oil.” Signaled success of the world’s first oil well and set off the world’s first oil book. The Drake well with a depth of 9½ feet, pumped 3 barrels a day. (AP Photo)

Drake_Well

Titusville, Crawford County, Pennsylvania 1871

Drake_Well-Park-sign

Welcome_to_Titusville-WC

August 26, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mānoa – Home of Hawai‘i’s Commercial Agricultural Ventures

Mānoa translates as “wide or vast” and is descriptive of the wide valley that makes up the inland portion of the ahupuaʻa of Waikiki. The existence of heiau and trails leading to/from Honolulu indicate it was an important and frequently traversed land.

Mānoa Valley was a favored spot of the Ali‘i, including Kamehameha I, Chief Boki (Governor of O‘ahu), Ka‘ahumanu, Ha‘alilio (an advisor to King Kamehameha III), Princess Victoria, Kana‘ina (father of King Lunalilo), Lunalilo, Ke‘elikōlani (half-sister of Kamehameha IV) and Queen Lili‘uokalani.

In early times Mānoa Valley was socially divided into “Mānoa-Aliʻi” or “royal Mānoa” on the west, and “Mānoa-Kanaka” or “commoners’ (makaʻāinana) Mānoa” on the east. The Ali‘i lived on the high, cooler western (left) slopes; the commoners lived on the warmer eastern (right) slopes and on the valley floor where they farmed.

Mānoa is watered by five streams that merge into the lower Mānoa Stream: ‘Aihualama (lit. eat the fruit of the lama tree), Waihī (lit. trickling water), Nāniu‘apo (lit. the grasped coconuts), Lua‘alaea (lit. pit [of] red earth) and Waiakeakua (lit. water provided by a god). (Cultural Surveys)

In 1792, Captain George Vancouver described Mānoa Valley on a hike from Waikīkī in search of drinking water: “We found the land in a high state of cultivation, mostly under immediate crops of taro; and abounding with a variety of wild fowl chiefly of the duck kind … “

“The sides of the hills, which were in some distance, seemed rocky and barren; the intermediate vallies, which were all inhabited, produced some large trees and made a pleasing appearance. The plains, however, if we may judge from the labour bestowed on their cultivation, seem to afford the principal proportion of the different vegetable productions …” (Edinburgh Gazetteer)

The well-watered, fertile and relatively level lands of Mānoa Valley supported extensive wet taro cultivation well into the twentieth century. Handy and Handy estimated that in 1931 “there were still about 100 terraces in which wet taro was planted, although these represented less than a tenth of the area that was once planted by Hawaiians.” (Cultural Surveys)

“(T)he valley is under almost complete cultivation of taro”. “(T)he whole valley opens out to view, the extensive flat area set out in taro, looking like a huge checker-board, with its symetrical emerald squares in the middle ground.” (Thrum, 1892)

In 1825 an English agriculturist named John Wilkinson, who in his younger years had been a planter in the West Indies, arrived at Honolulu on the frigate Blonde. He had made some arrangement with Governor Boki, while the latter was in England, to go out and engage in cultivating sugar cane … and, probably, rum. (Kuykendall)

Although sugar cane had grown in Hawaiʻi for many centuries, its commercial cultivation for the production of sugar did not occur until 1825. In that year, Wilkinson and Boki started a plantation in Mānoa Valley. Within six months they had seven acres of cane growing and processing. The sugar mill was later converted into a distillery for rum. (Schmitt)

Over the years, sugar‐cane farming soon proved to be the only available crop that could be grown profitably under the severe conditions imposed upon plants grown on the lands which were available for cultivation. (HSPA 1947)

At the industry’s peak a little over a century later (1930s,) Hawaii’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe. And remember, commercial-scale sugar production started in Mānoa.

That was not the only plantation-scale agriculture started in Mānoa. In 1885, John Kidwell started a pineapple farm with locally available plants, but their fruit was of poor quality. That prompted him to search for better cultivars; he later imported 12 ‘Smooth Cayenne’ plants.

An additional 1,000 plants were obtained from Jamaica in 1886, and an additional 31 cultivars, including ‘Smooth Cayenne’, were imported from various locations around the world. ‘Smooth Cayenne’ was reported to be the best of the introductions.

Kidwell is credited with starting Hawai‘i’s pineapple industry; after his initial planting, others soon realized the potential of growing pineapples in Hawaii and consequently, started their own pineapple plantations.

The “development of the (Hawaiian) pineapple industry is founded on his selection of the Smooth Cayenne variety and on his conviction that the future lay in the canned product, rather than in shipping the fruit in the green state.” (Canning Trade; Hawkins)

The commercial Hawaiian pineapple canning industry began in 1889 when Kidwell’s business associate, John Emmeluth, a Honolulu hardware merchant and plumber, produced commercial quantities of canned pineapple.

Emmeluth refined his pineapple canning process between 1889 and 1891, and around 1891 packed and shipped 50 dozen cans of pineapple to Boston, 80 dozen to New York, and 250 dozen to San Francisco.

By 1930 Hawai‘i led the world in the production of canned pineapple and had the world’s largest canneries. And remember, the first commercial cultivation of pineapple and subsequent canning of pineapple started in Mānoa.

Other smaller scale agriculture activities across the Islands also started in Mānoa. Wilkinson, noted for starting commercial sugar in Mānoa, also started commercial coffee in the Islands in Mānoa Valley.

Coffee was planted in Mānoa Valley in the vicinity of the present UH-Mānoa campus; from a small field, trees were introduced to other areas of O‘ahu and neighbor islands.

In 1828, American missionary Samuel Ruggles took cuttings of the same kind of coffee from Hilo and brought them to Kona. Henry Nicholas Greenwell grew and marketed coffee and is recognized for putting “Kona Coffee” on the world markets.

At Weltausstellung 1873 Wien (World Exhibition in Vienna, Austria (1873,)) Greenwell was awarded a “Recognition Diploma” for his Kona Coffee. (Greenwell Farms)

Writer Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) seemed to concur with this when he noted in his Letters from Hawaiʻi, “The ride through the district of Kona to Kealakekua Bay took us through the famous coffee and orange section. I think the Kona coffee has a richer flavor than any other, be it grown where it may and call it what you please.”

By the 1930s there were more than 1,000 farms and, as late as the 1950s, there were 6,000-acres of coffee in Kona. The only place in the United States where coffee is grown commercially is in Hawaiʻi. And remember, ‘Kona Coffee’ was the same as that in Mānoa Valley.

Another commercial crop, macadamia nuts, also has its Island roots in Mānoa. Macadamia seeds were first imported into Hawaiʻi in 1882 by William Purvis; he planted them in Kapulena on the Hāmākua Coast. A second introduction into Hawaii was made in 1892 by Robert and Edward Jordan who planted the trees at the former’s home in Nuʻuanu Honolulu. (Storey)

“Brought in ‘solely as an addition to the natural beauty of Paradise’ (Hawaiian Annual, 1940,) it was not until ES (Ernest Sheldon) Van Tassel started some plantings at Nutridge in 1921 that the commercial growing of the plant began. On June 1, 1922, the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company Ltd. was formed.” (NPS)

The Van Tassel plantings were at ʻUalakaʻa on a grassy hillside of former pasture land (what we call Round Top on the western slopes of Mānoa Valley.)

Mo‘olelo (Hawaiian stories) indicate that Pu‘u ‘Ualaka‘a was a favored locality for sweet potato cultivation and King Kamehameha I established his personal sweet potato plantation here. ‘Pu‘u translates as “hill” and ‘ualaka‘a means “rolling sweet potato”, so named for the steepness of the terrain.

In order to stimulate interest in macadamia culture, beginning January 1, 1927, a Territorial law exempted properties in the Territory, used solely for the culture or production of macadamia nuts, from taxation for a period of 5 years.

In just over 10-years (1933,) “the Hawaiian Macadamia Nut Company has about 7,000 trees in its groves at Keauhou, Kona District, Hawaii, which are now coming into profitable bearing. The company has also approximately 2,000 trees growing and producing in the Nutridge grove on Round Top, Honolulu, or a total of 9,000 trees.” (Mid-Pacific, October 1933)

Macadamia nut candies became commercially available a few years later. Two well-known confectioners, Ellen Dye Candies and the Alexander Young Hotel candy shop, began making and selling chocolate-covered macadamia nuts in the middle or late 1930s. Another early maker was Hawaiian Candies & Nuts Ltd., established in 1939 and originators of the Menehune Mac brand. (Schmitt)

In 1962, MacFarms established one of the world’s largest single macadamia nut orchards with approximately 3,900-acres on the South Kona coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.

Today, about 570 growers farm 17,000 acres of macadamia trees, producing 40 million pounds of in-shell nuts, valued at over $30 million. Additionally, nuts are imported from South Africa and Australia, who currently lead the world market, with Hawai‘i at #3. (hawnnut) And remember, commercial cultivation of macadamia nut’s started at Mānoa.

One last thing, Mānoa was home to the Islands’ first dairy; William Harrison Rice started it at what was then O‘ahu College (now Punahou School.) Later, Woodlawn Dairy was the Islands’ largest dairy (1879.)

As you can see, what became significant commercial-scale agricultural ventures in the Islands – Sugar, Pineapple, Coffee and Macadamia Nuts – all had their start in the Islands, in Mānoa.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger