Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue
The Wailuku is the longest river in Hilo (twenty-six miles.) Its course runs from the mountains to the ocean along the divide between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. The Wailuku is the boundary between Hilo Palikū in the north and Hilo One on the south.
The earliest recorded bridge in Hawai‘i was a crude footbridge across the Wailuku River in Hilo and was reported by missionary C. S. Stewart in 1825. (The first major bridge on O‘ahu appears to have been one extending North Beretania Street across Nuʻuanu Stream, erected in 1840.) (ksbe)
“About a hundred yards above the beach, it (the stream) opens into a still deep basin, encircled by high cliffs. Into this basin the whole stream is projected by two cascades … A rude bridge crosses the stream just above the falls; and it is a favorite amusement of the natives to plunge from it, or from the adjoining rocks, into the rapids, and pass head foremost over both falls, into the lower basin.” (Stewart, Schmitt)
The Wailuku River bridge must have existed for only a short time, and it was quickly forgotten. Sereno Bishop, born on the Big Island in 1827, later recalled, “There were no bridges in these islands until after 1840.” Titus Coan, the pioneer missionary who settled in Hilo in 1835, wrote, “For many years after our arrival there were no roads, no bridges, and no horses in Hilo”. (Schmitt)
Hilo’s Wailuku River was finally spanned again in September 1859, this time by a 196-foot-long suspension bridge. Less than seven weeks after it was opened, this bridge collapsed while a party of eight or ten persons and their horses were attempting to cross. The group narrowly averted drowning and death by falling timbers.
This was not the first disaster or near-disaster at the site of the Wailuku Bridge. Weakened by earthquakes and a tsunami, the railroad bridge over the Wailuku River collapsed on March 31, 1923 – immediately after a loaded passenger train had crossed and another was approaching.
Two of the largest bridges on the Hawai‘i Consolidated Railway were destroyed by the 1946 tsunami, a disaster which effectively put that railroad out of business. (ksbe)
Waiānuenue Avenue (rainbow (seen in) water) in Hilo town is named for the most famous waterfall in Hilo, Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue, Rainbow Falls. There is a legend about this falls, the goddess Hina, her son Māui and the lizard-man Kuna.
Hina once lived in the cave beneath and behind the waterfall. Kuna would throw logs and boulders over the edge of the falls to try to cause harm to Hina. She called to her son Māui and he came quickly to her aid. He chased Kuna upland along the river, where they engaged in many battles.
Finally, Māui emerged the victor, though only because he was aided by the volcano goddess Pele. Hina was now safe. Many places along the Wailuku were named to commemorate different parts of the story so that the legend would not be forgotten. (Zane)
The local utility Hawaii Electric Light Co (HELCO) owns and operates two hydroelectric facilities arranged in tandem along the lower reach of the Wailuku River near Hilo. The Waiau plant was constructed in 1920 and upgraded in 1947. The Puʻueo plant downstream was built in 1910 and upgraded in 1941. The Wailuku River Hydroelectric Power Company plant began commercial operation in 1993. It is located at the junction of the Wailuku River and the Kaloheahewa Stream.
A 6-foot-diameter intake pipe for HELCO is located about 100 feet above Ka Wailele ʻO Waiānuenue. The intake feeds the utility’s Puʻueo Hydroelectric Plant located down on Wainaku Street, several blocks from the ocean.
About a mile upstream is a section of river called Boiling Pots, as well as the Peʻepeʻe Falls.
Matson Navigation Company
John Ena
Shortly after the arrival of Captain James Cook and his crews in 1778, the Chinese found their way to Hawaiʻi. Some suggest Cook’s crew gave information about the “Sandwich Islands” when they stopped in Macao in December 1779, near the end of the third voyage.
As more ships came, crewmen from China were employed as cooks, carpenters and artisans; and Chinese businessmen sailed as passengers to America. Some of these men disembarked in Hawaiʻi and remained as new settlers.
The growth of the Sandalwood trade with the Chinese market (where mainland merchants brought cotton, cloth and other goods for trade with the Hawaiians for their sandalwood – who would then trade the sandalwood in China) opened the eyes and doors to Hawaiʻi. The sandalwood trade lasted for nearly half a century – 1792 to 1843. (Nordyke & Lee)
The Chinese pioneered another Hawaiʻi industry – sugar. Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.
Among the Chinese in the Hawaiian Islands before the importation of sugar labor in 1852, there was a group who settled in Hilo. They were all sugar manufacturers or “sugar masters”; they all married Hawaiian women.
The Chinese names of the men in this group were Hawaiianized; one of them, Zane (or Tseng) Shang Hsien (pronounced In) became known as John Ena. (Chinese ‘Shang’ sounds like John; the last name Ena is pronounced as a long e; he also went by Keoni Ina and a couple other variations of the name.)
John Ena was one of the group of Chinese men who had a sugar plantation and mill on Ponahawai hill; he may have been in Kohala before coming to Hilo.
This early sugar mill was started in 1839 by Lau Fai (AL Hapai,) Zane Shang Hsien (John Ena Sr) and Tang Chow (Akau) along Alenaio stream by today’s Hilo Central Fire Station. Zane Moi (Amoi) had the plantation producing 20,000-lbs of sugar by 1851. But the mill burned down in 1855 and they abandoned the property. (Narimatsu)
In addition to John Ena’s association with the other Chinese in the Ponahawai sugar plantation, he was also associated at various times with Chinese groups in the plantations at Paukaʻa, Pāpaʻikou and Amauʻulu. (Kai)
It is not known how much influence these early sugar plantations had upon the later development of the sugar industry in Hawaiʻi, but it is known that they were the pioneers, struggling with the problems of labor, droughts, fluctuating prices, water supplies, and probably insects, rats and other difficulties that plague the commercial growing of sugar. (Kai)
Sometime before 1842, Ena married Kaikilani “Aliʻi Wahine O Puna;” she is said to be part of the Kamehameha line, going back to Lonoikamakahiki. The Enas had three children: daughters, Amoe Ululani Kapukalakala, born in 1842 (later married to High Chief Levi Haʻalelea and Laura Amoy Kekukapuokekuaokalani, born in 1844 or 1845 (later, Laura Coney.)
An interesting insight into John Ena’s attitude toward the education of his children is noted in a letter written by the Reverend Titus Coan to Dr Charles H Wetmore in 1850, when Dr Wetmore was away from Hilo: “Keoni Ina is anxious to get a strip of land 8 fathoms wide on the makai side of your makai field running from Punahoa Street (formerly Church Street, now Haili) to More’s fence. He says he only wishes to put a dwelling house … (so) that his children may be nearer school.” (Kai)
Dr. Wetmore was apparently not interested in selling this land, but John Ena did get land near to the school. In 1851, he leased almost an acre from a Hawaiian man named Kalakuaioha for twenty years. This was on the Puna side of the present Haili Street, between Kinoʻole and Kilauea Streets. (Kai)
These Chinese settlers were written about by the editor of the Polynesian in 1858 (possibly referring to Amoe Ululani Ena): “In Hilo, I was told, over and over again, the girls of half-Chinese and half-Hawaiian origin were the best educated, the most fluent in the English language, the neatest housewives, and the most likely young ladies. …”
“One young lady of such origin … was married just before I arrived to a chief of considerable wealth, and if all that is said about her is true, he ought to be looking upon himself as one of the happiest and luckiest of men, for besides being possessed of the usual attractions, the bride, they say, is sensible.”
“The gossip in the village Hilo … was that she laid down some most excellent conditions, and only upon receiving a promise that they would be observed, did she consent to renounce her parents care. …”
“But fancy a young country girl, whose world had been the village of Hilo, with an ardent, not to say remarkably well-off lover at her feet, dictating the terms upon which she would consent to become rich, dress handsomely and live in a large house in the metropolis! Ah, John Chinaman, your pains were not thrown away.” (Kai)
A son to John Ena Sr and Kaikilani, John Ena Jr, was born November 18 1845 in Hilo. He is the subject of the rest of this summary.
John Ena Jr worked at various trades until at the age of thirty-four he became a clerk for TR Foster & Co of Honolulu.
This firm owned a fleet of seven schooners plying among the islands and soon acquired its first steamer in 1883 as the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co, and Ena invested heavily in the stock. He became president of Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co in 1899.
Inter-Island’s ships traveled to Kauai and the Kona and Kaʻū Coasts of the island of Hawai‘i. The Wilder Company served the island of Maui and the windward port of Hilo.
In 1905, Ena merged Inter-Island with the Wilder Company, under the Inter-Island name. (Later, Inter-Island became Inter-Island Airways (1941,) then Hawaiian Airlines (1947.))
Ena was a member of the House of Nobles and the Privy Council under the Kalākaua and Liliʻuokalani and was decorated in 1888 by King Kalākaua.
He served with the Board of Health under the Provisional Government and was a member of the constitutional convention that set up the Republic of Hawaiʻi. He reportedly circulated and published the newspaper Ka Naʻi Aupuni in 1905.
Ena died on December 12, 1906 in Long Beach, California.
When Henry J Kaiser planned and developed his Waikīkī resort in 1954, he and his partner purchased 7.7-acres of Waikīkī beachfront property from the John Ena Estate and several adjoining properties.
In mid-1955 the first increment of what is now the Hilton Hawaiian Village opened for business; the first self-contained visitor resort in Waikīkī. A nearby road, Ena Road, was named after John Ena (Jr.) Image shows John Ena Jr.
Hilo High School
“The American Public School system comprises in most of the states twelve grades, occupying the children between the ages of 6 and 12. These grades are thus denominated: First to Fourth Primary, Fifth to Eighth Grammar, Ninth to Twelfth High.”
“A slight departure from this scheme of classification is made in the Territory. Here, though maintaining the same twelve grades, as in the states, they are divided in six grades in the Primary School, and six grades in the High School.”
“The curriculum of the grades nine to twelve inclusive corresponds to that of the same grades in the schools on the mainland.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)
Without a high school on the Island of Hawai‘i, “It has been the habit of solicitous parents of this island during the past century to send their children to the schools of Honolulu, for whatever education they received beyond the grammar grades. It is needless to say that this necessity has entailed both anxiety and expense.”
“Thus it became an object with the teachers and parents of Hilo to secure in their midst sufficient advantages to return their children at home.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)
A High School in Hilo had a shaky start. After passage in 1903, but failing to receive the Governor’s signature, in a February, 1905 session of the legislature, “Under suspension of the rules, Senator [John T] Brown introduced a bill (S. B. No. 23) entitled ‘An Act to Provide for a High School in Hilo, Island and Territory of Hawaii, under the Department of Public Instruction of the Territory.’”
The proposed legislation, again, passed through the legislature. When presented to Governor Carter and Carter stated, “I am unable to approve”, citing that “This bill falls within that class of absolutely unnecessary legislation.” On April 18, 1905, the legislature overrode the Governor’s veto.
“A special committee of the Board of Education … held a conference with Superintendent Davis and Normal Inspector King when the plans for putting the high school in operation were discussed.”
“The problem before the Commissioners was whether they should start the High School work of Hilo at the beginning of the next school year as a separate organization or wait until the new High School building was erected and then begin the independent organization.” (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905) It was decided to start sooner than later.
“In Sept. 1905 a class of twenty pupils was excellently fitted to begin their secondary studies. … Room for its reception was made in the Union School, where, despite much painful crowding, very efficient work was accomplished.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)
“The Hilo High School began its career under that apellation on Sept. 6, 1905, under the direction of Mr. FA Richmond (‘a Stanford graduate and has been vice principal of the Honolulu High School’), CO Smith and Miss MP Potter.”
A site was needed. “At a meeting of the Board of Trade … it was decided to recommend the Riverside school site for the new Hilo High School, and to remove the present Riverside school to the Masonic Hall lot opposite”. (Hilo Tribune, July 18, 1905)
“There were in the schools of Hilo nine grades – the beginning with Ninth being the only grade entitled by usage in the States to be called High School. However, grades Seven, Eight and Nine were assembled under the High School teachers, and proceeded to work in two of the upstairs rooms of the Hilo Union School.”
“Since that time two new grades have entered the High School, and the original students no constitute grades Nine, Ten and Eleven. One year from now the present eleventh grade will graduate as the 1908 Twelfth Grade. And the curriculum of the school will be completely taught.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)
“The first class will be given (1) what is known as ‘first year Latin,’ to prepare the students to read Caesar; (2) English, comprehending correct composition, rather than criticism; (3) History-Ancient Greek and Roman; (4) Physical Geography; (5) Algebra, through quadratics, and (6), the study of some language, either French or German.” (Hilo Tribune, Aug 29, 1905)
“The work of the High School has been shaped to fit carefully local needs. Such students as feel the need of immediately getting into business will be given a Commercial Course in book keeping, typewriting, shorthand, commercial arithmetic, court reporting, etc.”
“Such students as have expectations of colleges will be given careful preparation for entrance to the best American colleges and Universities.” (Hilo Tribune, Sep 10, 1907)
The new school building opened September 9, 1907. “The Hilo high school has four good, well-lighted and ventilated rooms downstairs, capable of accommodating 160 pupils. There are six rooms upstairs there 100 additional pupils can receive instruction … The room for the commercial class is well equipped.” (Advertiser, September 7, 1907)
Hilo High’s first graduating class consisted of seven students in 1909: Richard Kekoa, Amy Williams, Eliza Desha, Frank Arakawa, John Kennedy, Annie Napier and Herbert Westerbelt. (Mangiboyat)
Hilo High Auditorium was built in 1928. It was donated to the school by the Alumni Association. It was designed by a former student (and part of the first graduates) of Hilo High School, Frank Arakawa.
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