Hawaii | Page 539 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

April 13, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

For the Sake of Public Health

Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives presents it’s highly popular Cemetery Pupu Theatre series with a new set of historical characters.

These programs are waaay cool.

Actors are dressed in period costume, telling the life events of select individuals buried at O‘ahu Cemetery, at their respective grave sites.

Each ‘stage’ is at the respective subject’s gravesite at Oʻahu Cemetery in Nuʻuanu. There was nothing ghoulish about it; rather, it was very effective storytelling.

Cemetery Pupu Theatre takes us back to our shared history and allows us to “meet” people who have influenced Hawaiian history and hear their stories.

The scripts are researched and documented, making Cemetery Pupu Theatre a unique presentation of real history.

“For the Sake of the Public Health” presents a series of people who were intimately involved with the health, care and welfare of the people of Hawaiʻi.

Hawaiʻi faced many public health crises and had many healthcare needs during the days of the Kingdom, the Republic and the Territory.

Each person has an interesting and important story to share that sheds light on the challenges faced by doctors and victims of disease.

They are: the first licensed female physician in the islands tending to the needs of women and children; a dentist turned politician; a doctor who dedicated his life to fight against the Great White Plague of Tuberculosis; a doctor who did leprosy research at Kalihi Leper Hospital; and a victim of the 1853 smallpox epidemic.

These people who shaped health care in our islands today, help us remember those who have gone before us were public servants, and witnessed history.

Dr Archibald Sinclair (portrayed by Richard Valasek,) the founding director of Lēʻahi Hospital and an important pioneer in immunology who sought a cure for Tuberculosis.

Haliʻa is a composite character (portrayed by Karen Kualana) who was a victim of the 1853 smallpox epidemic in which 6,000 people died, 8% of the Kingdom’s population.

Dr John Mott-Smith (portrayed by Adam LeFebvre,) Hawaiʻi’s first royal dentist, who also negotiated both Reciprocity Treaties and was the Kingdom’s last ambassador to the United States.

Dr Sarah Eliza Pierce Emerson (portrayed by Karen Valasek,) Hawaiʻi’s first licensed female doctor, who was on the Board of Examiners for the Oʻahu Insane Asylum.

Dr William L. Moore (portrayed by Dezmond Gilla,) a member of the board of Health and superintendent of the Hilo Hospital, and was involved in searching for a cure for Leprosy.

Mike Smola and others at Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives researched the scripts.

William Haʻo directed “For the Sake of the Public Health.” He has performed in Hawaiian Mission Houses’ A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as all four Cemetery Pupu Theatre shows.

Carlyon Wolfe was the costume designer. She is currently the staff designer for Mānoa Valley Theatre. She has earned four Hawaiʻi State Theatre Council Poʻokela design awards for her efforts.

This sold out program was presented in June 2014 (with an encore in 2015.) If you weren’t one of the fortunate ones to see it live, the links will take you to the respective performances.

Click HERE for a link to the Mission Houses Calendar.

Don’t miss the Cemetery Pupu Theatre, or any of the other great programs at Mission Houses. (Lots of info here from Mission Houses.)

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Dr Archibald Sinclair (portrayed by Richard Valasek)

Haliʻa a composite character (portrayed by Karen Kualana)

Dr John Mott-Smith (portrayed by Adam LeFebvre)

Dr Sarah Eliza Pierce Emerson (portrayed by Karen Valasek)

Dr William L. Moore (portrayed by Dezmond Gilla)

April 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin (grandson of the Rev Dwight Baldwin) was born at Kohala, Hawaii, April 12, 1868, son of David D and Lois M Baldwin. He attended Fort Street School and Oʻahu College (Punahou.)

He married Louise Theresa Voss in Honolulu on April 11, 1893; they had three sons, Douglas Elmer, Paul Frederick and Cedric Benjamin. (Nellist)

Baldwin began his career in the sugar cane industry on Haiku Sugar Co plantation, Hamakuapoko, Maui, on January 1, 1889.

Then, “Mr Benjamin D Baldwin, head luna of Hamakuapoko plantation has accepted the position of assistant manager of the Hawaiian Commercial Company, thus filling the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. David Center.”

“Mr. Baldwin and family will remove to Spreckelsville during the first part of April upon the return of Manager HA Baldwin from California.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 26, 1901)

Then on January 15, 1903, he headed to Kauai. “Benjamin D Baldwin, formerly assistant manager of Puʻunene, is now permanently settled as manager of Makaweli plantation of Kauai. Mr and Mrs Baldwin will be much missed by Maui friends.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 19, 1903)

“Makaweli is the banner plantation of Kauai since the Olokele ditch system enabled it to put a large additional area under cultivation.”

The Hawaiian Sugar Company, Ltd was headquartered at Makaweli, where the first cane was planted. The total land area was 7,000-acres held under lease from Gay & Robinson, extending from Waimea gulch to Hanapepe valley, a distance of several miles.

“The water supply for irrigation purposes is obtained from the Olokele and Hanapepe valley streams, the water flowing to all of the lands by gravity.”

“Work upon the Olokele ditch, which is the largest engineering scheme of the kind ever undertaken in the Islands, was begun for the Hawaiian Sugar Company by MM O’Shaughnessy and his assistants, Mr McLennan, HC Smalley and Guy P Rankin in 1902 and was completed in 1904.” (Evening Bulletin, March 25, 1909)

By the end of Baldwin’s management, in 1928, the annual yield increased to 27,057-tons of raw sugar and the company was noted as one of the most profitable and progressive in the Territory. (Faye)

“In the development of the property 2,250 skilled and unskilled laborers are employed who occupy several camps adjacent to their work. Better houses and better camps than are found on main plantations for the accommodation of men and their families have been erected.”

“The laborers receive in addition to their wages, which averages $20 per month, house room, fuel, water and medical attendance and have little patches of land where they raise vegetables.”

“The labor incident to the successful operation of this plantation is handled under two systems, one-third of the labor working under a or profit sharing system, and known as company men or contractors, the balance are day laborers, paid a regular rate per month of twenty-six working days.” (Evening Bulletin, March 25, 1909)

The Makaweli management takes much interest in the sports of the employes. A baseball diamond and land for tennis courts are provided. The Makaweli baseball team, by the way, secured the 1911 Kauai championship and in so doing gained three cups.”

“A club house for the skilled employes, which is equipped and supplied with reading matter and appliances, and a billiard and pool table, is supported by the company.” (Wright, Mid-Pacific Magazine, June 1914)

Baldwin died on April 27, 1928; a decade later, a substantial monument was erected by Makaweli Japanese sugar workers and dedicated to the memory of Baldwin, a highly respected plantation manager.

There are two circular metal medallions embedded in the column. The upper medallion has a bust of Baldwin surrounded by the words ‘Benjamin Douglas Baldwin 1867 – 1928,’ and the lower medallion has the words ‘Erected In Loving Memory by the Makaweli Japanese 1938.’ (Dorrance)

Baldwin was not just a sugar planter; he was commissioned as a major in the Hawaii National Guard (3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment) on Kauai and also commanded the Third Battalion of the Fifth Division during World War I. (Nellist) He was also postmaster at Makaweli.

A World War II ammunition magazine was located next to the monument (1942-1945.) Called ‘Battery Monument,’ it was armed with two old 7-inch/45 naval guns on pedestal mounts capable of hurling a 165-pound shell 16,500 yards (9.4 mi.) at 15° elevation. (Bennett)

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Ben D Baldwin-(EveningBulletin-1909)

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Managers Residence (Faye)

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Benjamin Douglas Baldwin grave marker

April 9, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Wailuku Female Seminary

Back in the beginning of the 19th-century, it was believed that women should be educated to understand domestic economy, because they were to play the major role in educating the young, primarily in their homes, and later (as the school population grew and there was a shortage of teachers) as school teachers. (Beyer)

Gender segregated schools were established. Although schools for upper-class women were in existence prior to the 19th-century, the female seminary for middle-class women became the prevailing type of institution from 1820 until after the Civil War.

The most prominent female seminaries on the continent were Troy Seminary (1821,) Hartford Seminary (1823,) Ipswich Seminary (1828,) Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837) and Oxford Seminary (1839.)

The seminary’s primary task was professional preparation: the male seminary prepared men for the ministry; the female seminary took as its earnest job the training of women for teaching and motherhood. (Horowitz, Beyer)

Western-style education did not begin in Hawai’i until after members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived in 1820.

Because the primary educators responsible for developing the education system of Hawai’i were Americans, the educational practices for Hawaiian girls tended to mirror, but not necessarily duplicate, what was taking place on the continent. (Beyer)

In 1835, at the general meeting of the Mission, a resolution was passed to promote boarding schools for Hawaiians; several male boarding schools and two female boarding schools were begun (Wailuku Female Seminary on the island of Maui and the Hilo School for Girls on the island of Hawai’i.)

Wailuku Female Seminary (or the Central Female Seminary, as it was first called) was the first female school begun by the missionaries. It received support at a time when the missionaries were experimenting with both boarding schools and a manual labor system.

In 1837 the missionaries opened the Wailuku Female Seminary to educate girls to be “good Christian wives” for the graduates of Lahainaluna a school for boys at Lahaina. A boarding school, they thought, would have a deeper influence than day classes.

The opening of the school raised some concern by the Wailuku missionaries: “It will be remembered that our station is really on West Maui, and now may be considered as having only one man to attend to the appropriate missionary work of the station.”

“The Seminary about to go into operation is for the benefit of the islands generally & will occupy the whole time of its teacher. So that E Maui with a population of some 20,000 has really no missionary”. (Wailuku Station Report, 1837)

Rev. Jonathan Green, his wife Theodosia and Miss Maria Ogden were the first teachers, followed by Edward Bailey and his wife Caroline.

Green noted, “the object of our Seminary is to impact to the pupils, and through them to the entire population of Hawaii, a thorough going Christian education.”

The missionaries felt that in order to run “a good Christian household”, the girls needed to learn domestic skills: housekeeping, washing and ironing, sewing and mending. They also learned how to spin cotton and weave cloth.

A strict schedule was considered to be an important part of their education. An hour of gardening before breakfast, each girl having her own little plot, was added to relieve the stress. (MHS)

As to their studies, “They have attended to Reading, Writing, Mental and Written Arithmetic, Geography Sacred and Civil, Exhibition of Popery, Gallaudet’s Book on the Soul, and Natural Theology.” (General Meeting Minutes, 1841)

The plan for the school included a two story stone building, used for classes but including a room for a chapel and a dining room, which was completed in 1837; and an adobe building, used as a dormitory, also completed in 1837.

An additional building was added before the end of 1839. It was made of stone, attached to the original two story building, and used as a dining hall. It is the only building of the Wailuku Female Seminary that is still standing today (part of what is now known as the Bailey House.)

No sooner was the Seminary open than a letter arrived from the Missions’ headquarters asking that no more money be spent on the school. By 1849, however, the Mission Board was unable to raise money, and the Wailuku Female Seminary was closed after its 12th year. (MHS)

Edward Bailey and his wife Caroline Hubbard Bailey arrived in Honolulu April 9, 1837. Not long after their arrival, the couple was transferred to Wailuku to head the Wailuku Female Seminary.

Bailey worked at the Wailuku Female Seminary until its closure in 1849. At that time he purchased the fee simple title to the Girls’ boarding school, the house and lot, and began his interest in what was to become Wailuku Sugar Company.

Edward and Caroline lived in their Wailuku home for 50-years; at the time of his death in 1903 Edward Sr was the oldest living missionary sent to Hawaiʻi.

The Bailey House is now the Maui Historical Society’s Hale Hō‘ike‘ike (House of Display) showcasing Hawaiian history and culture, as well as paintings and furnishings from nineteenth-century Maui.

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Wailuku Female Seminary-Mission Houses

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Illustration of Wailuku, Island of Maui, from Northern California, Oregon, and the Sandwich Islands by Charles Nordhoff-1870s

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Wailuku, Maui, looking toward ‘Iao Valley-(HHS-1946)

April 3, 2015 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Kaluaʻaha Congregational Church

Harvey Rexford Hitchcock sailed as a missionary with the Fifth Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. They sailed aboard the Averick, leaving New Bedford, November 26, 1831 and arriving in Honolulu, May 17, 1832.

He was assigned to Molokai and established the first permanent Mission Station on the Island at Kaluaʻaha in 1832. Rebecca Hitchcock noted shortly after their arrival that there was not a foreigner on the island and no horses except for a lame one belonging to a chief. (Curtis)

Hitchcock preached his first sermon in Hawaiian the last week of September 1832 in the open air.

The Hawaiian Association, meeting in Lāhainā, Maui, on June 19, 1833, adopted a resolution stating: “Resolved that the native Hawaiian members of the Church resident at Kaluaʻaha, Molokai, be a particular Church with the Reverend Harvey Rexford Hitchcock as pastor.”

In the Molokai Station Report, Hitchcock wrote, “in about two months a meeting house was finished 30 feet by 120.” It was probably built of thatch. (HABS)

“There is a delightful cluster of shade trees before our door, which was formerly a favorite resort of the chiefs; and under it, for several successive weeks, we met for the worship … On our arrival, there was no house of any importance, and few of any kind in the vicinity.”

“During the year, however, many comfortable houses have been built, with sleeping apartments, and other accommodations which give to them an air of neatness and comfort hitherto unknown on the island.” (Smith; Missionary Herald)

In 1834, the Hitchcocks received additional help with the arrival of Rev and Mrs Lowell Smith (Smith was a college mate of Hitchcock – who arrived on the Sixth Company in 1833.)

The expanding mission was growing close to 500 members and two outstations, one in the east and one in the west, had been established.

In 1835, a second meeting house was of a more permanent nature, “The meeting house … has been completed. It is built of stone laid up in mud mixed with grass. The walls are three feet thick; It is 90 feet long and 42 wide and 12 feet high plastered and whitewashed outside an in.”

“The frame of the house is of the first rate. The thatching is of the leaf of the spiral pandanus, surmounted at the ends and ridgepole by a thick border of the ki leaf. The framework inside is concealed by large light-colored mats nailed to the underside of the beams, and the floor consists of a carpet of the same material. The pulpit is three feet high made perfectly plain.”

“The base is a block of masonry. It accommodates probably between 1,200 and 1,300 hearers. It could not have been built by contract for less than $2000 but has cost the mission little more than $100. It was dedicated December 6 when Mr. Richards preached … The house was crowded and hundreds could not get in.” (HABS)

By 1836 the membership of the church had increased to 655, then doubled by 1843. The need for a larger building and the probability that repairs on the 1835 building were imminent were reported in the Molokai Station Report which continued, “it (the new building) has been commenced and the stone work about 1/4 or a little more up.” This was the third and present church. (HABS)

In the mid-1840s, they were working on building a new church; “Our main work the past year has been the erection of a permanent house of worship … Preparing most of the timber and getting it onto the ground from the distance of ten miles or more, procuring many of the stones for building …”

It was dedicated on April 3, 1844; “The house has been completed nearly two months. It is 100 feet long by 50 broad outside; walls 2-1/2 feet thick and 18 feet high”.

“The thatching is pilimaoli. It leaks but little; has 4 doors three of which are 7 feet high and about as wide…” (Hitchcock; HABS) (In 1908, it was reportedly the largest building outside Honolulu.) (Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 1908)

The structure was constructed out of fieldstone, walls plastered on both sides. A double row of 14-inch wood columns with 17-inch wood beams supported the interior trusses, and matching columns were also added along each side wall. The interior was a single large open space with raised lectern and choir platform across the east end. (NPS)

Kaluaʻaha Church, known as the Mother Church on Molokai, is the oldest Congregational Church on the island. It is also one of the largest churches built in its time in Hawaiʻi.

The dilapidated condition of the church building was reported in 1897, but it appears that it was not re-roofed and replastered until 1899. After this there was apparently a period of “disuse” until 1908 as noted by the church report for that year.

“The installation of Rev. Isaac D. Iaea as pastor of the long vacant Kaluaʻaha Church was an occasion of great joy and satisfaction to the people of this sidetracked island. The fine old church was filled.” (Hawaiian Evangelical Association, 1908)

By 1917 the membership of the church had dropped to 60. Used off and on; modestly repaired, on May 15, 1967 the steeple, which had tilted for years, fell from its base to the ground. (Remnants of the church are still there; in 2009, a new roof was built inside the walls of the existing church.)

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March 29, 2015 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Kahikolu Church

Kahikolu means three in one, or the trinity.

As is common in many Hawaiian words, this one carries two meaning. The one refers to the traditional Christian connotation of the father, son and holy ghost trinity, which the other relates to the fact that this was the congregation’s third house of worship. (PS)

In February 1824, Chiefs Kapiʻolani, Naihe and Kamakau built the first church in South Kona at Kaʻawaloa, near the site where Captain Cook was killed. They offered this thatched church and parsonage to the Reverend James Ely and his family. (Asa Thurston reportedly gave the dedication sermon for the Kaʻawaloa Church on March 29, 1824.)

“Under the auspices of the governor of the island, and the friendly influence of the present chief of the place, Naihe, and his wife Kapiʻolani, who are steady, intelligent, discreet, and one, if not both, it is to be hoped, pious persons …”

“… a missionary station has since been formed in this village, a school opened, and a house erected for Christian worship; and that the inhabitants of the neighbourhood are instructed in the elements of learning and the principles of religion.” (Ellis)

Rev Ely, the resident pastor lived with his family at Kaʻawaloa until being replaced by Rev. Samuel Ruggles four years later. Due to ill health Ruggles left in June 1833 when Rev. Cochran Forbes from Hilo assumed missionary responsibility.

In 1839, under the direction of Chiefess Kapiʻolani, Forbes moved the mission to the south side of Kealakekua Bay, in an area called Kepulu, just inland from the village now called Napoʻopoʻo.

In 1840 Forbes, oversaw the building of a grand edifice of stone and adobe block, which measured 120 feet x 57 feet. In 1841 the Kealakekua Church was finished, and used until June 1845, when Forbes resigned because of his wife’s ill health. The church had no pastor for the next six years.

Then in 1852, the third church was started by Reverend John D Paris (and completed in 1855.) Paris went on to build eight other churches in the kingdom, making him one of the most prolific builders of his time.

“The first church which I erected in South Kona was the Kahikolu, or Trinity, Church near Kealakekua Bay. This church is on the site of the immense stone and adoby building erected in 1840 under the supervision of Brethern Forbes and Ives.”

“The new Kahikolu Church was built of lava rock (with 35-inch thick walls,) taking the width of the old building for the length of the new one. For the lime, coral was cut from the bottom of the ocean by the Hawaiians. I had a hole dug and built a lime kiln where the coral was burned.”

“The lime thus obtained was of good quality and was used for making mortar as well as for finishing the interior of the building. The heavy timbers were dragged from the forest, and the koa shingles and lumber for pulpit and pews were brought from the koa forest a number of miles up the mountain side.” (Paris; The Friend May 1926) This is the church that still stands today.

Kahikolu Church was the Mother Church for the South Kona area; however, with the passage of time its significance declined as branch churches grew larger and the population of the Kealakekua Bay area dwindled.

The church was abandoned in 1953 following a series of earthquakes. The congregation later reorganized and repaired the church and in August 1984, Kahikolu Church re-opened its doors. (Kahikolu is one of two surviving stone churches on Hawaiʻi.) (NPS)

The corrugated iron roof replaced an earlier koa shingle roof. The interior walls are covered with a coral lime plaster over which a skim coat was applied in 1925. Also in that year James Acia painted stencil designs on the walls at the ceiling and over the windows. (NPS)

A memorial and burial site for Henry ʻOpukahaʻia is located on the grounds of Kahikolu Church. He was born in Kaʻu; as a teenager left the islands on a fur trading ship and eventually settled and lived in New Haven, Connecticut.

He learned to read and write, embraced Christianity and developed a commitment to its ideals and principles, and helped other Native Hawaiians who came from Hawai‘i to seek a Christian education.

He improved his English by writing the story of his life in a book called “Memoirs of Henry Obookiah” (the spelling of his name prior to establishment of the formal Hawaiian alphabet, based on its sound.)

ʻŌpūkahaʻia died suddenly of typhus fever in 1818; he was buried there in Cornwall, Connecticut. ʻOpukahaʻia’s book inspired the first Protestant missionaries to volunteer to carry his message to the Sandwich Islands.

In instructions from the ABCFM, the Pioneer Company of missionaries were told, “You will never forget ʻOpukahaʻia. You will never forget his fervent love, his affectionate counsels, his many prayers and tears for you, and for his and your nation.”

“You saw him die; saw how the Christian could triumph over death and the grave; saw the radient glory in which he left this world for heaven. You will remember it always, and you will tell it to your kindred and countrymen who are dying without hope.”

A year after his death, the Pioneer Company of missionaries, comprised of both Americans and Native Hawaiians, among them the Reverend Hiram Bingham and Reverend Asa Thurston, was dispatched to Hawai‘i to begin the work that Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia had longed to do.

On August 15, 1993, ʻOpukahaʻia’s remains were returned to Hawai‘i from Cornwall and laid in a vault facing the ocean at Kahikolu Church.

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