Hawaii | Page 526 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 27, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Protecting a Forest, Preserving a Culture

Envision a child helping to plant a seedling; then, while standing before a 100-year old tree, asking him about what he thought life was like in the islands when that tree was once a seedling.

More importantly, imagine him wonder what life will be like in the islands when his planted seedling turned 100-years old.

This was part of the vision for a forest management plan; let’s look back …

Native koa ecosystems serve as watershed recharge areas while providing recreational opportunities and important wildlife habitat. Koa is considered a vital species for healthy populations of endemic birds and insects. The tree itself has myriad uses in Hawaiian culture and traditions.

In making Hokuleʻa, the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) wanted to use traditional materials (koa wood hulls, lauhala sails, sennit lashing) and traditional tools (adzes, bone gouges, coral files and sharkskin for sanding) in building the canoe.

Instead, the hulls were constructed out of plywood, fiberglass, and resin, and the sails were made from canvas; the lashings were done with synthetic cordage. (PVS)

It takes 125 years or more to grow a koa log large enough for a canoe, which generally needs to be 35 to 45 feet long with a diameter of 48 inches or more (voyaging canoes require larger logs.)

That period may be shortened if specific koa logs are identified for canoes now, and forestry prescriptions (e.g. thinning, pruning) are applied to favor the growth of those trees for canoe logs. (DLNR)

Unless committed efforts were made to grow koa for canoe logs on a sustainable basis now, no Hawaiian voyaging canoes would be built in the future using traditional methods (i.e. from a single large log.)

Likewise, racing and smaller style canoes will need to be fabricated from smaller koa logs joined or spliced together.

While I was Chair at DLNR, I remembered how folks could not find appropriately sized/shaped native trees in Hawai‘i to build the Hokule‘a and subsequent voyaging canoes.

Likewise, I knew of the interest canoe clubs and others had for koa racing canoes. Without protection of our koa forests, we may never have the trees for future canoes.

In 2004, we then initiated the formal designation of the Kapapala Koa Canoe Forest Management Area on land set-aside in 1989, near the Volcano National Park, in Kaʻu, on the Big Island. The designated area consists of approximately 1,200-acres of mature koa-ʻohiʻa forest.

The 1,257-acre property extends from the 3,640-foot elevation of Mauna Loa to 5,100 feet. It is next to the state-managed Kapapala and Ka’u Forest Reserves, and is covered with young and old koa trees, although the trees aren’t yet suitable for canoe building.

Here, koa trees grow tall and straight – necessary traits for core material in canoe shaping. It was the first Forest Management Area specifically designated for nurturing and harvesting koa canoe logs.

A broad, multi-faceted focus was envisioned, dealing with cultural & historical, technical forestry (planning, measurements, theory,) applied forestry (plant, weed, thin, prune, harvest) and wood working (canoe building, as well as crafting of excess/scrap material.)

Seven major goals of the project included:

Preserve Hawaiʻi’s unique natural and cultural inheritance for future generations, by fostering knowledge and respect for Hawaii’s native forests, in a way that inspires better care of its natural environment.
Protect threatened tropical forest habitat and promote environmental policies and practices, that address biological sustainability and human well-being, by identifying and integrating relevant traditional Hawaiian natural resource stewardship models with current Western management strategies.
Develop natural resource stewardship models that involve a wide range of constituent groups.
Involve youth through cooperative programs with the Department of Education, University of Hawaiʻi, and other school and education institutions.
Provide wood workers with portions of harvested trees that are not processed as canoe logs.
Involve other constituency groups (i.e. canoe clubs, forest management entities and cultural organizations).
Provide compatible opportunities for public uses such as hunting and recreation.

Protecting trees for canoes is great; but, for me, the plan was not just about trees – we envisioned greater benefit by getting school children into the forests to help with the management and monitoring of its progress – and help them wonder.

At the outset, we envisioned that trees in the forest would be ‘designated’ to schools and canoe clubs across the state, with students and paddlers from each school/club periodically visiting and nurturing their respective tree. Ultimately, the school/club would get a log for a school/club koa canoe.

Likewise, the intent was to make the excess wood available to wood workers, so nothing would be wasted and crafters would have material to work with.

As part of the project implementation, Hawaiʻi Forest Institute worked with the Hawai‘i Forest Industry Association (HFIA,) DLNR’s Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW,) Imi Pono and the Three Mountain Alliance to develop a plan for bringing youth to the Kapapala Canoe Forest for cultural and environmental education. (I am proud to now serve as an HFI Board member)

The dream of assuring future koa logs for canoes is apparently working toward reality through partnerships with DLNR and others. I am hopeful the needs for future koa canoe logs will be filled, DOE and children across the state can also participate in these activities, and a healthy forest will be protected.

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Kapapala-forest-hfia

Kapapala-forest

Example of Koa_Tree

Example of Koa_Canoe_log-moving

Example of Koa_Canoe_log-hauling

Example of Koa_Canoe_log

Example of Koa_Canoe-shaping

Koa Canoes

Koa Canoe

hokulea-PVS-circa_1975

September 24, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Shaloha

“What dignity in its appearance! How lordly in its bearing!”

“When full grown it rises about twenty feet from the ground without branches. Then for about ten feet more it throws forth beautiful and finely curved branches in all directions, and on the very top stands forth a straight stalk pointing upward.”

“That tree (royal palm) preaches a sermon to all mankind; those branches, spreading on all sides, manifest the people on this earth, settled in every clime …”

“… the stalk, projecting from the midst of these branches, and shooting upwards, is Israel, the connecting link between earth and heaven. Israel’s mission is to link the people of this earth to their Father in Heaven.”

“It is a powerful sermon that this royal palm teaches. May the moral not be lost on us.” (Rabbi Rudolph Coffee, in the Islands in 1902)

Shaloha is a conjunction of Shalom and Aloha – (the former is Hebrew, the latter Hawaiian) they each can mean peace, completeness, prosperity and welfare and can be used idiomatically to mean both hello and goodbye.

The conjunctive word is used by many of the Jewish faith in Hawaiʻi, and the word serves as the basis for the website of Temple Emanu-El (a synagogue community and a center of Jewish life in Hawaiʻi.)

Recorded history notes that the 1798 diary entries of Enbenezer Townsend are indicated as the first references to Jews in Hawaiʻi. Townsend, the principal owner of the ‘Neptune’ was at the time one of the most extensive ship owners in New Haven. They were on a sealing voyage under the command of Daniel Greene and were in Hawaiʻi from August 12, 1798, to August 31, 1798.

“At about sunrise, the king, whose name is Amaiamai-ah (Kamehameha) came on board in quite handsome style in a double canoe, paddled by about five and twenty men. … While we lay there I proposed learning him the compass, which I had some reason to regret, for he kept me at it continually until he learned it.”

“One of his wives (Kaʻahumanu) came on board with him; she was a large woman, with a great deal of the cloth of the country around her … He also brought a Jew cook with him, and if he remains here I think it will be difficult to trace his descendants, for he is nearly as dark as they are.” (Diary of Ebenezer Townsend, Jr, August 19, 1798)

It is believed that Jewish traders from England and Germany first came to Hawaiʻi in the 1840s. Jews from throughout the world were attracted to California and in most cases they tried it there before they came to the Islands. (Glanz)

The first Jewish mercantile establishment was a San Francisco firm, which opened a branch in Honolulu. As with many other Jewish families of merchants in California, it was a large family which could well afford to staff the branch of the firm in the islands with a partner, while other family members remained in San Francisco. Subsequently other Jewish firms in California did the same thing.

AS Grinbaum is to be regarded as the first founder of a firm of this kind; he arrived in Honolulu in 1856, where he remained for about seven years. At the end of this time, after having acquired a small fortune through carrying on a general merchandise business, he returned to the United States, and later to Europe.

Grinbaum’s success led him to induce one of his nephews to settle in the Islands. Encouraged by the financial success of Grinbaum, another German Jew, Hirsch Rayman, went to engage there in business in the early 1860s. He was also successful and after a sojourn of five years, he returned to Posen. (Coffee)

The firm of M. Phillips and Company was founded in 1867 by Michael Phillips of San Francisco, who owned an importing and jobbing firm there. The Honolulu branch of the firm was headed by Phillips’ brother-in-law, Mark Green. The Phillips Company was mainly active in the export of sugar, rice and coffee. (Glanz)

Another firm founded in the 1860s was that of the Hyman Brothers. There were five brothers, one of whom was Henry W Hyman, who engaged in a mercantile business with his brothers as “Hyman Bros., Importers of General Merchandise and Commission Merchants,” filling orders to the sale of Consignments of Rice, Sugar, Coffee and other Island Produce.”

The Grinbaum, Hyman and Phillips firms were the outstanding Jewish-owned companies prior to the annexation of the islands by the US in 1898. (Glanz)

The Odd Fellows had been established in the Sandwich Islands in 1846, and Jewish names can be seen in their membership rosters. The report of a picnic held on April 25, 1885 in Waikiki, by the Excelsior Lodge, noted among others, the presence of the “following brethren with their lady guests:” L. Adler, I. S. Ginsbergh and M. Louisson.

There was at least one Jew who played a prominent role in the political history of the islands; Paul Rudolph Neumann, lawyer and diplomat, was one of the Jewish leaders in Hawaiʻi. He served as Attorney General under King Kalākaua (1883–1886) and Queen Liliʻuokalani (1892,) became a member of the House of Nobles, and later became Liliʻuokalani’s personal attorney.

About 1901, the Hebrew Benevolent Association was formed, the purpose of which was to acquire a cemetery. It numbers forty members, and represents the male population of Honolulu, with the exception of about ten men, who have refused to affiliate.

Immediately subsequent to annexation, the islands began to do a very large mercantile business, and the Jewish community was enlarged. But, by 1902, business was at a standstill and lots of folks returned to the mainland – with just about 100-staying; they are engaged chiefly in mercantile pursuits. (Coffee)

“This community of one hundred, which is found in a city whose population numbers forty-five thousand people, represents more wealth, as far as I am able to judge, than any other Jewish community with ten times the number of people in this country.” (Coffee)

In the years before World War I, the growing importance of the islands as a military base brought Jewish members of the American armed force in numbers which created an entirely new picture for the Jewish community there. (Glanz)

To care for Jews in the military stationed in the Islands, the National Jewish Welfare Board (JWB) established the Aloha Center in 1923. The community began to flourish and the Honolulu Jewish Community was established in 1938.

Today, there are at least 9 congregations serving the Jews of the Hawaiian Islands. According to The American Jewish Year Book (2012,) there are approximately 7,000 Jews residing in the state of Hawaii. (NJOP)

Lasting legacies of early Jewish presence in the Islands are gifts from Elias Abraham Rosenberg (Rabbi ‘Rosey,’ Holy Moses) to King Kalākaua: a Sefer Torah (Pentateuch) and Pointer; they were brought to Hawaiʻi in 1886 by Rosenberg, who came here from San Francisco.

“The king received the Torah scroll and yad … over the years that followed, the scroll and yad gradually made their way to Temple Emanu-El, where they remain to this day, safely ensconced in a glass cabinet.” (Canadian Jewish Chronicle, August 4, 2011) Rosenberg left the Islands June 7, 1887 and returned to San Francisco; he died a month later.

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September 23, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Student Farmers

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries from the northeast US, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Islands. There were seven couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity.

These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

They quickly reduced the Hawaiian language to written form and established schools in which the native Hawaiians were taught to read and to write.

Their instruction was not confined, however, to the ‘three R’s.’ Included in the original band of missionaries was a New England farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, indicating the importance they attached to giving some instruction in western agriculture to the native Hawaiians.

Effectively, they were teaching to the Head, Heart and Hand. Let’s look at some examples.

In 1823, Kalākua Kaheiheimālie (ke Aliʻi Hoapili wahine, wife of Governor Hoapili) offered the American missionaries a tract of land on the slopes surrounding Puʻu Paʻupaʻu for the creation of a high school.

Betsey Stockton from the 2nd Company of Protestant missionaries initially started a school for makaʻāinana (common people) and their wives and children on the site.

Later, on September 5, 1831, classes at the Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (Upper Lāhainā)) began in thatched huts with 25 Hawaiian young men.

Each scholar was expected to furnish himself with food and clothing by his own industry. Accompanying the work in the fields, a small amount of organized instruction in western agriculture was given. (History of Agricultural Education)

In September 1836, thirty-two boys between the ages of 10 and 20 were admitted as the first boarding students, from the neighbor islands, as well as from the “other side of the island” thus, the beginning of the boarding school at Lahainaluna.

It soon was apparent to the missionaries that the future of the Congregational Mission in Hawaiʻi would be largely dependent upon the success of its schools. The Mission then established “feeder schools” that would transmit to their students’ fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and religious training, before admission to the Lahainaluna.

In 1835, they constructed the Hilo Boarding School as part of an overall system of schools (with a girls boarding school in Wailuku and boarding at Lahainaluna.)

On January 6, 1835 “our children’s school commenced, eighty children present, sixty knew their letters. A number of the more forward children are employed as monitors to assist the less forward. (ie. advanced)” (Sarah Lyman)

The school was operated to an extent on a manual labor program and the boys cultivated the land to produce their own food. (The boys’ ages ranged from seven to fourteen.)

“Mr. Lyman who was brought up on a farm had an abiding faith in the value of manual labor; and his work in Hilo had convinced him that such activity in both primitive and introduced vocation was as necessary as book learning during the period of transition from one culture to another.” (Lorthian)

Rev. William Brewster Oleson had served as principal of the Hilo Boarding School for 8 years. Then, on November 4, 1887, Kamehameha School for Boys opened with 37 students and four teachers – Oleson was appointed its first principal and helped organize the school on a similar model.

Manual labor has a regular feature of the activities of the Kamehameha Boys’ School. Between 1889 and 1893 the school experimented with the raising of cows, pigs, chickens, and vegetables.

Later, the Kamehameha School flocks and herds were improved, and they began the production of forage crops, vegetables, and fruits on a larger scale, and strengthened the classroom work. (History of Agricultural Education)

Punahou, another boarding school, formed in 1841, required that “All students who entered the Boarding department were required to take part in the manual labor of the institution, under the direction of the faculty, not to exceed an average of two hours for each day.” (Punahou Catalogue, 1899)

“We had a dairy, the Punahou dairy, over on the other side of Rocky Hill. That was all pasture. We had beautiful, delicious milk, all the milk you wanted.” (Shaw, Punahou)

Later, in January 1925, Punahou 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. (The Honolulu Military Academy was originally founded by Col LG Blackman, in 1911.)

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 Kaimuki 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)

While the programs of ‘manual labor’ and farming have been dropped by almost all of the respective school’s curriculums, a lasting legacy and reminder of the prior farming is seen in the Lahainaluna Time Clock.

Between 1941 and 1976, Lahainaluna boarders punched in their “in” and “out” times (according to their assigned student number) to keep track of their daily hours worked for their room and board. (It stopped when the only repairman familiar with the clock passed away.)

While Lahainaluna still has farming activity (raising pigs and cultivating dryland taro, corn, butter lettuce, beans, ti and other crops (Advertiser,)) they don’t punch in/out with the clock.

However, according to the Boarder’s Handbook (2014-2015,) every weekday afternoon and Saturday morning, boarders are to “Check in at the time clock” before they start their 3 ½ hours of work. Likewise, “All Boarders must report to the Time Clock every day and sign out with the Farm Manager when working Overtime until all hours are cleared.”

“Boarders will be evaluated on their dorm and farm work performances; farm and school attendance records; dorm, school, and farm discipline records; school academic effort and achievements; and their overall attitude and behavior in the Boarding Program.” (Lahainaluna High School Boarder’s Handbook, 2014-2015)

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Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Kahu Earl Kukahiko (right), teaches students about farming -1980s-(mauinews)

Lahainaluna boarding student Josh Arata, 16, a senior from Ha’iku, tends to the 5-month old pigs-(advertiser)

Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Chef Paris Nabavi-Sangrita Grill+Cantina-donated $1,200 to Lahainaluna High School’s Agriculture Program-(mauitime)

Hilo_Boarding_School_and_Gardens-from_Haili_Hill-(Lothian)-1856

Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)

Kamehameha-Campus of the three historical schools-(KSBE)-1932

Kamehameha [Dormitory Row]-(KSBE)

Kamehameha School for Boys, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class–1924

Punahou-Campus-from-the-air-1939

September 20, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

‘Aim High to Reach the Heaven’

“Hawaiian Birdman Wins His Pilot License.”

“There will soon be a new sound to mingle with the music of the plaintive ukuleles in Hawaiʻi. It will be the roar of an aeroplane motor, for Hawaiʻi now has its first and only aviator”.

“(H)e made his ‘solo’ flight (on October 2, 1916) for his official pilot’s license, which is issued by the Aero Club of America. The flight was successfully executed in every respect and he was given his diploma.” (Pilot Certificate Granted: No. 600) (Buffalo Evening News; Star Bulletin, October 20, 1916)

He “travelled 6,000-miles from Honolulu to make the necessary solo flight at the Curtiss training field, Buffalo, NY, recently. His name is Sen Yet Young.” (He was also known as Yang Xianyi.)

Born in the Islands (1891,) he studied and graduated from ʻIolani School and received his higher education at College of Hawaiʻi (later named University of Hawaiʻi) and Harry University of California, majoring in mechanical engineering.

After his graduation, he was enrolled at the Curtiss Aviation School in New York for further study of aircraft manufacturing and driving skills and got the pilot’s license (for land and seaplane.) (Zhongshan Municipal Government)

“As the only Hawaiian who has mastered the art of flight, he remained to study the mechanics of the aeroplane at the Curtiss factory, before returning to Honolulu, where he will have to act as his own mechanician.” (Popular Mechanics, February 1917)

“Air Pilot Young’s father (Yang Zhukun (aka Young Jeu Kwun & Young Ahin)) is the owner of a fish farm that is one of the attractions for visitors at Honolulu. He grows all sorts of fish that are common to those visitors. He also has 4 large sugar plantations and deals in real estate.”

“If there is one thing that Mr Young takes more pride in than his flying school diploma – which he traveled more than 6,000 miles to get, it is the fact that he is an American citizen.” (Buffalo Evening News; Star Bulleting, October 20, 1916)

While proud of his accomplishment of becoming Hawaiʻi’s first licensed flyer, it was subsequent actions that earned Sen Yet Young even higher honors.

Young’s father was a friend of Sun Yat-sen. As a youth, Young listened to Sun Yat-sen talk about the revolution in China and was impressed and decided to join. (Lum)

After a successful coup in 1911, Sun Yat-sen served as the provisional president of the Republic of China (January 1, 1912.) With varying changes in leadership, Sun Yat-sen and others sought national unity which could only be brought about by the abolishment of warlordism.

Shortly after attaining his pilot’s license, Sen Yet Young went to China and joined the Revolutionary Alliance.

In the revolutionary cause of overthrowing the Qing dynasty, Sun Yat-sen saw that the aircraft would become a new type of military weapon and be greatly helpful to the nation’s revolution. Seeing the lack of effective weapons, Sun Yat-sen coined the phrase, ‘Aviation saves the nation.’ (Pike)

In 1917, Sen Yet Young organized the airplane fleet, and went back to Guangzhou to support the campaign to protect the republic. He was appointed Captain of the airplane fleet by Sun Yat-sen.

A landmark event during this campaign was the first use of military air power by the fledgling Guangdong Air Force. On the night of the Mid-autumn Festival (September 26) in 1920, Sen Yet Young and another flew two planes over the warlord headquarters in Guangzhou and released three crude bombs.

The display of air power played a role in hastening warlord departure from Guangzhou by early October. As the warlord’s army retreated westward, Sun supporters pressed their air superiority by strafing from above.

Young later went to Hawaiʻi and the continental US to raise funds from the overseas Chinese and purchased 12 airplanes, including 4 donated by his father. He also actively campaigned for the Kuomintang and raised funds for flying lessons for the young Chinese he recruited. (Lai)

In December, he was commissioned by Sun Yat-sen as Head of Aviation Bureau and also the director of Guangdong Aircraft Manufactory in Guangzhou.

On July 1923, the factory made China’s first self-designed military airplane, named “Rosamonde,” after Sun Yat-sen’s wife’s (Soong Ching Ling) English name. (Zhongshan Municipal Government)

Sen Yet Young, with Chinese-built and foreign-built airplanes, helped the Nationalist government beat the warlords in the Kwantung province.

In order to destroy the Huizhou City Wall, he went to Meihu of Boluo to check bomb facilities, and died September 20, 1923 from an accidental explosion at the age of 32. (Zhongshan Municipal Government) The Kuomintang government later designated that date as Air Force Day. (Lai)

Sun Yat-sen (also known as Sun Wen) conferred on him posthumously the rank of general and also wrote a scroll, “To the family members of Yang Xian-yi; Aim High to Reach the Heaven; Sun Wen” (Lum)

Young (Yang Xianyi) is buried at Huanghuagang Mausoleum to commemorate the 72 martyrs who died in Guangzhou uprising on April 27, 1911. (It was later determined that there were 86 martyrs, including 30 who were overseas Chinese, including Yang Xianyi.) (72 Martyrs)

Sun Yat-sen called him, the ‘Father of China’s air force.’ (Lum) A middle school was named after him, the Xianyi Middle School, which was renamed No 2 Middle School during the “cultural revolution.” In 1980 the school won back its original name and Young’s son came over from the US to attend the ribbon-cutting ceremony. (China Daily)

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1st Hawaii resident to earn a pilot’s license, stands with Chinese fliers & first airplane manufactured in China. The Honolulu born son of wealthy Chinese, Young soloed at Curtiss Flying School in Buffalo, NY on 10-2-1916. He later worked for Dr Sun Yat-Sen.

Yang_Xianyi

Rosamonde-first plane built in China

Sun Yat-sen and Soong Ching-ling-first plane manufactured in China – ‘Rosamonde’, named after Soong’s English name

Sen Yet Young Pilot License-October_4,_1916

Yang_Xianyi

Huanghuagang_Mausoleum_of_72_Martyrs

Huanghuagang_Mausoleum_of_72_Martyrs-1974

Young_Ahin

YangXianyi-Memorial

September 18, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Myles Yotaka Fukunaga

“The fates have decided so we have been given this privilege in writing you on this important matter. We presume you will be alarmed at first. Nevertheless we hope that you will get over this surprise soon and listen to the writers namely. What is it all about?”

“Your son has been kidnapped for ransom!” (Fukunaga; Sullivan; Cool)

Speculation ran rampant in the streets, but nearly everyone was convinced that it was a racial matter. It’s more than likely, they said among themselves, that the kidnapper is Japanese. Racial tensions began to heat up between the haoles and the Japanese. (Kawatachi)

“All Honolulu became a posse today seeking Gill Jamieson, 10, son of Frederick W Jamieson, vice president of the Hawaiian Trust Company, who was kidnapped yesterday and held for ransom of $10,000 under the threat of death.”

“Twenty thousand school children were released from their classes this afternoon to join in the search.” (Schenectady Gazette, September 20, 1928)

Here is what happened … “Under pretext that the boy’s mother had been injured in an accident, a man prevailed upon a teacher at the Punahou School to allow Gill to accompany him.” (Schenectady Gazette, September 20, 1928)

On Tuesday morning, September 18, 1928, Myles Yotaka Fukunaga, dressed as a hospital orderly, picked up Jamieson at Punahou School.

Earlier, school officials had received a call indicating that Jamieson’s mother had been injured in an auto accident and that an orderly was being sent to pick him up at school.

About one hour after picking him up, Fukunaga killed the boy, choking him to death after hitting him three times with a steel chisel. His body was left in a clearing of kiawe trees near the Ala Wai canal.

Fukunaga was born on February 4, 1909 in Makaweli, Kauai. He attended ʻEleʻele and Kapaʻa schools achieving the reputation as being very bright and eager to learn.

In 1924, when he was 15, Fukunaga and his family moved to Waialua. He attended Waialua Grammar School and graduated from eighth grade, top of his class. Eventually the Fukunagas moved to Honolulu.

To help pay the rent, Fukunaga and his father worked at the Queen’s Hospital as messenger and gardener, respectively. (Kawatachi)

While he was recovering from appendicitis and unable to work, his family was unable to pay its rent on the small house they occupied near the corner of Beretania and Alapai Streets.

A rent collector from the Hawaiian Trust Company visited the family in May 1928 demanding the immediate payment of $20 the family did not have and threatened to evict them.

Feeling somewhat responsible for the family’s plight, Fukunaga developed a scheme to kidnap Jamieson, partly in revenge against the Hawaiian Trust Company. (Niiya)

“After receiving a call at around 9:00 pm, the elder Jamieson followed the instructions in the note and brought the ransom money to the indicated contact point.”

“After turning over $4,000, Jamieson demanded to see his son before paying the rest of the money. The kidnapper agreed, but disappeared into the bushes and didn’t return.” (Niiya)

Fukunaga was apprehended a few days later coming out of a Fort Street adult establishment after the serial numbers on the ransom money were traced. He was arrested and later confessed to the murder. (Song)

Fukunaga was charged, convicted and sentenced to hang despite the fact that the entire trial lasted less than a week, his court-appointed attorneys called no witnesses on his behalf, and concerns about Fukunaga’s sanity were never resolved. (Nakamura)

“Executive clemency for Myles Fukunaga, convicted of murdering little Gil Jamieson, was asked of the Governor in a petition presented to him today by Robert Murakami, attorney for the condemned man.”

“Fukunaga was sentenced to hang for the kidnapping and murder of Jamieson. The case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the verdict.”

“The petition asking for clemency was drawn up because many believed the youth to be insane. Insanity of the accused, however, was not established during the trial.” (San Jose News, November 9, 1929)

There was standing room only at Myles Fukunaga’s execution. (Theroux) He was hung at Oʻahu Prison on November 19, 1929, at 8:24 am. (Song)

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Myles Fukunaga