Kamehameha III | Page 10 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

June 27, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hale Ali‘i

When the seat of government was being established in Lāhainā in the 1830s, Hale Piula (iron roofed house,) a large two-story stone building, was built for Kamehameha III to serve as his royal palace.

But, by 1843, the decision was made to permanently place a palace in Honolulu; Hale Piula was then used as a courthouse, until it was destroyed by wind in 1858 – its stones were used to rebuild a courthouse on Wharf Street.

In Honolulu, Kekūanāo‘a (father of two kings, Kamehameha IV and V) was building a house for his daughter (Princess Victoria Kamāmalu.)

The original one story coral block and wooden building called Hanailoia was built in July 1844 on the grounds of the present ‘Iolani Palace.

But, in 1845 Kamehameha III took possession of it as his Palace; from then on, Honolulu remained the official seat of government in Hawai‘i.

At the time when Kekūanāo‘a erected the old Palace, the grounds were not so spacious as they are at present. On the western corner was Kekūanaō‘a’s house, which he had named Hali‘imaile.

Kekauluohi, a premier, erected her house in the vicinity. When John Young was premier, he built and lived in Kīna‘u Hale. Also, on the premises was Pohukaina.

The site of the Palace was once a section of the important heiau (temple,) Ka‘ahaimauli; other heiau were also in the vicinity of the Palace, including Kanela‘au and Mana.

The Palace was used mainly of official events and the structure had mainly offices and reception areas, since smaller buildings on the grounds served as residences for the rulers and their court; it was only one-third the floor area of the present Palace.

Kamehameha III built a home next door (on the western side of the present grounds, near the Kīna‘u gate, opening onto Richards Street;) he called the house “Hoihoikea,” (two authors spell it this way – it may have been spelled Hoihoiea) in honor of his restoration after the Paulet Affair of 1843. (Taylor and Judd)

(In 1843, Paulet had raised the British flag and issued a proclamation annexing Hawai‘i to the British Crown. This event became known as the Paulet Affair. Queen Victoria sent Rear Admiral Richard Thomas to restore the Hawaiian Kingdom. That day is now referred to as Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea, Sovereignty Restoration Day.)

“Hoihoikea” was a large, old-fashioned, livable cottage erected on the grounds a little to the west and mauka side of the old Palace. This served as home to Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V: the Palace being used principally for state purposes. (Taylor)

The palace building was named Hale Ali‘i meaning (House of the Chiefs.)

During the reign of Kamehameha V, cabinet councils were frequently held there. This was where the council called the Constitutional Convention, the result of which was the abolition of the constitution of 1852 and the creation of a new one.

Hale Ali‘i was renamed ‘Iolani in 1863, at the request of King Kamehameha V (Lot Kapuāiwa.) The name “‘Iolani” was chosen by King Kamehameha V to honor his deceased brother, the former king, Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho ‘Iolani.)

“‘Io” is the Hawaiian hawk, a bird that flies higher than all the rest, and “lani” denotes heavenly, royal or exalted.

The Palace served as the official state structure for five Kings: Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV, Kamehameha V, Lunalilo and the first part of Kalākaua’s reign.

Theodore Heuck, who had earlier designed the new Mausoleum, designed a building called ‘Iolani Barracks, completed in 1871, to house the royal guards. Over time the various other houses on the grounds were removed and replaced with grass lawns.

Although the old palace was demolished in 1874, the name ʻIolani Palace was retained for the building that stands today.

The construction of the present ‘Iolani Palace began in 1879 and in 1882 ‘Iolani Palace was completed and furnished.

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Pohukaina-in_front_of_Hale_Alii-original_Iolani_Palace-1850s

White building in the front is old royal Mausoleum-Pohukaina. Wooden building behind it is original ʻIolani Palace

Hale_Aliʻi_with_Royal_Guards_(before 1879

Old_Iolani_Palace_and_adjacent_premises,_ca._1850s

Palace_of_King_Kamehameha_III,_from_the_harbor_(c._1853)

The old palace, which was built in 1845 and was replaced by Iolani Palace in 1882

Hale_Alii-front_and_Floor_Plan-(Judd-Palaces_and_Forts)

No._2._View_of_Honolulu-Emmert-c._1854)-(portion-Hale_Alii_is to the right - flag in front-Kawaiahao Church behind)

June 19, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Privy Council

A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a nation, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government.

The word “privy” means “private” or “secret”; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the monarch’s closest advisors to give confidential advice on affairs of state.

As a private council, the Privy Council is distinguished from a modern cabinet of the executive; in the monarchical tradition, a Privy Council lent legislative powers to the monarch and served judicial functions.

The Privy Council is an institution of European monarchies. The English Privy Council developed out of the royal court of ecclesiastics and high officials that advised the Crown.

The Hawaiian government was a constitutional monarchy comprised of three branches: Executive (Monarch and Privy Council), Legislative (House of Nobles and Representatives) and Judicial (Supreme Court and lower courts).

During the Hawaiian monarchy, local affairs were administered through the Privy Council, the Minister of the Interior and the governors appointed by the king for each island.

The adoption of this western institution by the Kingdom of Hawai‘i reflected the effort of the time to conform the organization of the government to the norms of the community of nations with which Hawai‘i was having increasing economic and diplomatic relations.

Every member of the Privy Council of State, before entering upon the discharge of his/her duties as such, takes an oath to support the Constitution, to advise the Monarch honestly, and to observe strict secrecy in regard to matters coming to his/her knowledge as a Privy Counselor.

While the first official record of the Privy Council began in July 1845, the body existed previously as the council of chiefs (the House of Nobles similarly comprised of the members of the council of chiefs.)

Under the leadership of King Kamehameha III, the Privy Council was authorized by the Act to Organize the Executive Ministries on October 29, 1845.

The Kingdom of Hawai‘i’s Privy Council was a body comprised of five ministers and the four governors along with other appointed members that served to advise the King.

With the King in Council, it received foreign policy documents and approved the declaration of embargoes, orders of nobility, cutting of timber and use of coral reefs, prices for the sale and leases of government land, audit of internal taxes, the budget, assessment and minting of coins, regulations, compensation of teachers and diplomatic agents, granting of patents and appointments of the local officials.

The Cabinet Council, by Act I of Kamehameha III in 1845, acted as a consulting body for policies of the executive ministries. It also received and directed the publication of diplomatic correspondence, directed the accreditation of Hawaiian diplomatic agents and commission of consular agents, approved departmental seals.

Kingdom of Hawai‘i Constitution of 1852, Article 49 noted, “There shall continue to be a Council of State for advising the King in the Executive part of the Government, and in directing the affairs of the Kingdom, according to the Constitution and laws of the land, to be called the King’s Privy Council of State.”

Article 41 of the 1864 Constitution, issued during the reign of Kamehameha V, reasserts the continuing need for a Council of State “…for advising the King in all matters for the good of the State …”

“… and for assisting him in administering the Executive affairs of the Government, … which Council shall be called the King’s Privy Council of State, and the members thereof shall be appointed by the King …”

Article 42 of the 1864 Constitution further specifies that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, and Finance and the Attorney General would be ex officio members of the Privy Council.

The duties of the Privy Council lapsed when the monarchical government was repealed by the Proclamation of the Committee of Safety on January 17, 1893.

Act 1 of the Executive and Advisory Councils of the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands (approved on January 20, 1893,) vested the powers and duties of the Cabinet of the Hawaiian Kingdom in the Executive Council of the Provisional Government.

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Kamehameha_III_conveys_with_Privy_Council_during_the_Paulet_Affair-KWilliam-Richards-and-Gerrit-P.-Judd-sitting-across-from-Robert-Crichton-Wyllie

May 16, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Fort Vancouver

Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) was a fur trading company that started in Canada in 1670; its first century of operation found HBC firmly focused in a few forts and posts around the shores of James and Hudson Bays, Central Canada.

Within ten years after Captain Cook’s 1778 contact with Hawai‘i, the islands became a favorite port of call in the trade with China. The fur traders and merchant ships crossing the Pacific needed to replenish food supplies and water.

The maritime fur trade focused on acquiring furs of sea otters, seals and other animals from the Pacific Northwest Coast and Alaska. The furs were mostly sold in China in exchange for tea, silks, porcelain and other Chinese goods, which were then sold in Europe and the US.

In 1821, HBC merged with North West Company, its competitor; the resulting enterprise now spanned the continent – all the way to the Pacific Northwest (modern-day Oregon, Washington and British Columbia) and the North (Alaska, the Yukon and the Northwest Territories.)

Fur traders working for the HBC traveled an area of more than 700,000 square miles that stretched from Russian Alaska to Mexican California and from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean.

Ships sailed from London around Cape Horn around South America and then to forts and posts along the Pacific Coast via the Hawaiian Islands. Trappers crossing overland faced a journey of 2,000 miles that took three months.

In selecting a new fort and trading post site for the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) on the Columbia River in Oregon, they picked a location about 100-miles from the mouth at an opening in the forest called Jolie Prairie.

The new facility was to serve as the chief supply center for the company’s regional operation.

On March 19, 1825, the HBC opened Fort Vancouver on a bluff above the north bank of the Columbia River where the city of Vancouver, Clark County, is now located (named for British Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver (1757-1798.))

Yes, this is the same George Vancouver how first visited the islands as midshipman with Captain James Cook in 1778 and later led the expedition around the globe (and introduced the first cattle in Hawai‘i with a gift to Kamehameha I – he also discovered the Columbia River.)

Fort Vancouver became part of the expansion and establishment of forts and trading posts along the Pacific Northwest. Then, in 1829, HBC landed its first trading ship in Honolulu.

One of its primary ‘missions’ of that trip was that HBC was looking for a labor pool to help with its operations (they were also there to establish a trade business, as well as test the market for its primary products – lumber and salmon.)

A goal of the trip was to recruit a few seasoned seamen for HBC on the Northwest Coast, including “two good stout active Sandwich Islanders who have been to sea for 1, 2, or 3 years.”

At that time, Hawaiians had already played an important part in establishing the economic institutions of the Pacific Northwest. They provided the food and built the shelters of the fur traders and the early missionaries.

They had worked on many of the merchant ships plying between Hawaii, China, Europe and the Northwest. From the earliest Hawaiians who came as seamen or contract workers, to the ones who worked at Fort Vancouver and elsewhere along the Pacific Coast, they all made an important contribution to the development of the area.

As early as 1811, HBC had already hired twelve Hawaiians on three year contracts to work for them in the Pacific Northwest. By 1824, HBC employed thirty-five Hawaiians west of the Rocky Mountains.

Over the years, HBC’s Fort Vancouver had a unique relationship with the Hawaiian or “Sandwich” Islands, the nineteenth century trade hub of the Pacific.

During peak season, when the fur brigades returned to rest and re-supply, the settlement contained upwards of 600 inhabitants. For many years, the village was the largest settlement between Yerba Buena, (present day San Francisco, California) and New Archangel (Sitka, Alaska).

In the late-1830s Fort Vancouver became the terminus of the Oregon Trail. When American immigrants arrived in the Oregon Country during the 1830s and 1840s, and despite the instructions from the Hudson’s Bay Company that the fort should not help Americans, John McLoughlin, supervisor of the Columbia District, provided them with essential supplies to begin their new settlements.

Not only was the village one of the largest settlements in the West during the fur trade era, it was also unmatched in its diversity. The Hudson’s Bay Company purposefully hired people from different backgrounds, thus providing opportunities in the fur trade business to a variety of people from both the Old World and the New.

Few of the village spoke English, though French, Gaelic, Hawaiian and a variety of Native American languages were often heard. In order to communicate with one another, most villagers learned Chinook Jargon, a mix of Chinook, English and French.

Hawaiians worked as trappers, laborers, millers, sailors, gardeners and cooks; however HBC employed more people at agriculture than any other activity. The daily routine was work from sun up to sun down, with only Sundays off.

In 1840, Kamehameha III, faced with the seeming threat of racial extinction due to depopulation by both emigration and disease, enacted a law that required captains of vessels desiring to hire Hawaiians to obtain the written consent of the island governor and sign a $200 bond to return the Hawaiian back to Hawai‘i within a specified time.

HBC Governor Simpson, on a visit to Hawaii in 1841, reported, “About a thousand males in the very prime of life are estimated annually to leave the islands, some going to California, others to the Columbia, and many on long and dangerous voyages, particularly in whaling vessels …”

“… while a considerable number of them are said to be permanently lost to their country, either dying during their engagements, or settling in other parts of the world.”

In December 1845, the Oregon Government considered an act providing, “that all persons who shall hereafter introduce into the Oregon Territory any Sandwich Islanders … for a term of service shall pay a tax of five dollars for each person introduced.”

By 1849, the Hawaiian population at Fort Vancouver exceeded that of the French Canadians, due to the declining importance of furs and the rising export business of Fort Vancouver’s agricultural production and the consequent larger use of Hawaiian workers.

The number of Hawaiians working as contract laborers for the Company grew steadily. The large number of Hawaiian workers in the village led to the name “Kanaka Town” in the early 1850s – “Kanaka” is the word for “person” in the Native Hawaiian language. (At its peak, the village was home to around 535 men, 254 Indian women and 301 children.)

Several circumstances combined to bring an end to HBC’s activities at Fort Vancouver. The decline of the fur trade, the arrival of numerous American settlers to the newly organized Oregon Territory, the settlement of the boundary dispute with Great Britain which put the area under American sovereignty, all combined to hasten the decision to move the headquarters to Victoria, British Columbia.

In 1859, Hudson’s Bay Company withdrew from Fort Vancouver, the same year the decision was made to close the HBC trading facility in Honolulu.

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Fort_Vancouver-LOC-1850

Fort_Vancouver_and_Village-1846

Fort_Vancouver_1825

Fort_Vancouver_1841

Fort_Vancouver_1845

George Gibbs’ illustration of Kanaka Village and stockade, 1851

Fort_Vancouver_1855_Covington_illustration

Fort Vancouver by H. Warre (1848)

Detail of map of Fort Vancouver-Columbia River,

Detail of map of Fort Vancouver-Columbia River, Surveyed 1825

April 30, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Hawaiian Dynasties

The Kamehameha Dynasty ruled for nearly a century from the late-1700s to the late-1800s, while the Kalākaua Dynasty ruled from 1874 to 1893.

Kamehameha Dynasty

Kamehameha I, Paiʻea, Kamehameha the Great (1758-1819)
Born in North Kohala on the Big Island, Kamehameha united all the major islands under one rule in 1810.

The king traded with foreign ships arriving in the islands and enlisted some of the foreigners into his service. During his reign, the export of sandalwood to the Orient brought about the ability for island chiefs to purchase merchandise from abroad.

Kamehameha II, Liholiho – (1796-1824)
The son of Kamehameha and his sacred wife Keōpūolani, Liholiho overthrew the ancient kapu system by allowing men and women of the court to eat at the same table. At the same time, he announced that the heiau (temples) should be destroyed with all the old idols.

Believing like his father that the islands were under the protection of Great Britain, Liholiho and his favorite wife Kamamalu traveled to England in May of 1824, where they were received by the government of King George IV. However, measles afflicted the royal party and Kamāmalu died on July 8 followed by Liholiho on July 14, 1824.

Kamehameha III, Kauikeaouli (1813-1854)
The younger brother of Liholiho had the longest reign in Hawaiian history. He was 10 years old when he was proclaimed king in 1825 under a regency with Ka‘ahumanu, his father’s favorite queen, as joint ruler.

Realizing the need for written laws to control growing problems brought about by increasing numbers of foreigners settling in the kingdom, the declaration of rights, called the Hawaiian Magna Charta, was issued on June 7, 1839. The rights of residents were repeated in the Constitution of 1840.

The Great Mahele (division), the first legal basis for land ownership in the kingdom, was enacted and divided the land between the king, his chiefs and others.

Kamehameha IV, Alexander Liholiho (1834-1863)
The nephew of Kauikeaouli, Alexander Liholiho was the son of Kekūanāoʻa and his wife Kīna‘u, the grandson of Kamehameha I, younger brother of Lot Kapuāiwa and elder brother of Victoria Kamāmalu.

He ascended to the throne after the death of his uncle in December of 1854. On June 19, 1856, he married Emma Rooke.

Concerned about the toll that foreign diseases were taking on his subjects, the king signed a law on April 20, 1859 that established a hospital in Honolulu for sick and destitute Hawaiians. He and Emma personally solicited funds to erect Queen’s Hospital, named in honor of Emma.

Kamehameha V, Lot Kapuāiwa (1830-1872)
Four years older than his brother Kamehameha IV, Lot would also rule for just nine years. In 1864, when it appeared that a new constitution could not be agreed upon, he declared that the Constitution of 1852 be replaced by one he had written himself.

Known as “the bachelor king,” Lot Kamehameha did not name a successor, which led to the invoking of the constitutional provision for electing kings of Hawai`i.

William Charles Lunalilo (1835-1874)
The grandson of a half-brother of Kamehameha I, Lunalilo was the son of Charles Kanaina and Kekauluohi, a sister of Kīnaʻu.

He defeated David Kalākaua in 1873 to become the first king to be elected (therefore, technically, not a part of the Kamehameha Dynasty, although he was related.) He offered many amendments to the Constitution of 1864, such as abolishing the property qualifications for voting.

Lunalilo died of tuberculosis on February 3, 1874, a little more than a year after his election. He became the first Hawaiian to leave his property to a work of charity, creating the Lunalilo Home, which accommodates elderly Hawaiians who are poor, destitute and infirm.

Kalākaua Dynasty

David Kalākaua (1836-1891)
After the death of Lunalilo, Kalākaua (married to Kapiʻolani) ran against and defeated the queen dowager, Emma. Kalākaua was the first king in history to visit the United States.

“The Merry Monarch” was fond of old Hawaiian customs, and he attempted to restore the people’s lost heritage – such actions gave rise to anti-monarchy movements, such as the Reform Party.

In 1887, Kalākaua signed the “Bayonet Constitution,” (signed under threat of an armed uprising) that stripped the king of most of his power and gave foreigners the right to vote. Kalākaua died while on a trip to San Francisco on January 20, 1891, leaving his younger sister Liliuokalani to ascend the throne.

Queen Lili‘uokalani, Lydia Kamakaʻeha Pākī (1839-1917)
Liliʻuokalani (married to John Owen Dominis and living at his mother’s home, Washington Place) inherited the throne from her brother, King Kalākaua, on January 29, 1891.

Two years later, a group composed of Hawaiian Nationals, Americans and Europeans formed a Committee of Safety seeking to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom, depose the Queen and seek annexation to the United States; the Queen was deposed on January 17, 1893.

Queen Lili‘uokalani flew the US flag over her personal residence, Washington Place, in 1917 to mourn and honor Hawaiians killed in World War I.

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Kamehameha-Kalakaua_Dynasties

Collage of Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties-HSA

Collage of images of Kamehameha and Kalakaua dynasties-HSA

April 12, 2019 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Catholicism in Hawaiʻi

The first church in Hawaiʻi was built by the New England Protestant missionaries who arrived in Hawaiʻi in 1820. However, Western religious services had been held in the islands prior to that.

Some would suggest that Catholicism started in Hawaiʻi with the arrival of Don Francisco de Paula Marin (Manini) to the Hawaiian Islands in 1793 or 1794 (at about the age of 20.)

While Marin was reportedly a Spanish Catholic, he did live a polygamous life while in Hawaiʻi. Never-the-less, there are several reports of him baptizing Hawaiian chiefs and others (over three hundred) into the Catholic religion.

In 1819, Kalanimōkū was the first Hawaiian Chief to be formally baptized a Catholic, aboard the French ship Uranie. “The captain and the clergyman asked Young what Ka-lani-moku’s rank was …”

“… and upon being told that he was the chief counselor (kuhina nui) and a wise, kind, and careful man, they baptized him into the Catholic Church” (Kamakau). Shortly thereafter, Boki, Kalanimoku’s brother (and Governor of Oʻahu) was baptized.

It wasn’t until July 7, 1827, however, when the pioneer French Catholic mission arrived in Honolulu. It consisted of three priests of the Order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary; Father Alexis Bachelot, Abraham Armand and Patrick Short. They were supported by a half dozen other Frenchmen.

Their first mass was celebrated a week later on Bastille Day, July 14, and a baptism was given on November 30, to a child of Marin.

The American Protestant missionaries and the French Catholics did not get along.

The Congregationalists encouraged a policy preventing the establishment of a Catholic presence in Hawaiʻi. Catholic priests were forcibly expelled from the country in 1831. Native Hawaiian Catholics accused King Kamehameha III and his government of imprisoning, beating and torturing them.

Later that year, Commodore John Downes, of the American frigate Potomac, made a plea for freedom of religion, telling the Hawaiian court that civilized nations did not persecute people for their religion.

While his intervention brought about a brief let-up, the king continued to forbid the presence of Catholic priests.

Finally, on September 30, 1836, the captain of the French Navy ship La Bonté persuaded the king to allow a Catholic priest to disembark in Honolulu. The king restricted the priest’s ministry to foreign Catholics, forbidding him to work with Native Hawaiians.

On April 17, 1837, two other Catholic priests arrived. However, the Hawaiian government forced them back onto a ship on April 30. American, British and French officials in Hawaii intervened and persuaded the king to allow the priests to return to shore.

France, historically a Catholic nation, used its government representatives in Hawaiʻi to protest the mistreatment of Catholic Native Hawaiians. Captain Cyrille-Pierre Théodore Laplace, of the French Navy frigate “Artémise”, sailed into Honolulu Harbor in 1839 to convince the Hawaiian leadership to get along with the Catholics – and the French.

King Kamehameha III feared a French attack on his kingdom and on June 17, 1839 issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.

The King also donated land where the first permanent Catholic Church would be constructed, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace; the Catholic mission was finally established on May 15, 1840 when the Vicar Apostolic of the Pacific arrived with three other priests – one of whom, Rev. Louis Maigret, had been refused a landing at Honolulu in 1837.

On July 9, 1840, ground was broken for the foundation of the present Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, and schools and churches were erected on other islands to advance the mission.

At the end of the year 1840, Maigret jots down this balance sheet: Vicariate of Oceania: Catholics: 3,000; Heretics: 30,000 and Unbelievers: 100,000. (Charlot)

On August 15, 1843, the newly-finished cathedral of Honolulu was solemnly dedicated and 800 Catholics received Holy Communion.

From the very start, the Catholic mission also established, wherever feasible, independent schools in charge, or under the supervision, of the priest.

Maigret divided Oʻahu into missionary districts. Shortly after, the Windward coast of Oʻahu was dotted with chapels. The Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu was founded by the Catholic mission on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846.

“Outside the city, at Ahuimanu, Maigret has now a country retreat that he refers to by the Hawaiian word māla. It is a combination garden, orchard and kitchen garden.”

Nuhou describes it, “The venerable bishop has built his own vineyard and planted his own orchard … His retreat in the mountain, his “garden in the air” as he terms it, is a pleasant and profitable sight … with a small stone-walled cottage about fifteen feet by ten.” When the pressure of events allows it, Maigret takes refuge there.” (Charlot)

Although the College of Ahuimanu flourished, as apparently reported by the Bishop in 1865, “The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.”

One of its students, Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy. Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of the schooling at the College of Ahuimanu.

Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien de Veuster at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864; in 1873, Maigret assigned him to Molokaʻi. Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi. In 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

The College of Ahuimanu changed locations and also changed its name a couple of times. In 1881, it was renamed “College of St. Louis” in honor of Bishop Maigret’s patron Saint, Louis IX. It was the forerunner for Chaminade College and St Louis High School.

In 1859 the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary arrived at Honolulu to take charge of a boarding and day-school for girls. In 1883-84 the Brothers of Mary, from Dayton, Ohio, took charge of three schools for boys: St. Louis’s College at Honolulu, St. Mary’s School at Hilo and St. Anthony’s School at Wailuku.

In 1882, the mission received a considerable increase by the immigration of Portuguese imported from the Azores as laborers for the plantations.

In January 1883, Walter Gibson, Minister of Foreign Affairs and president of the Board of Health, appealed to Hermann Koeckemann, Bishop of Olba, head of the Catholic Mission in Hawai‘i, to obtain Sisters of Charity from one of the many sisterhoods in the US to come and help care for leprous women and girls in the Islands.

On October 23, 1883, Mother Marianne and her companions set off for Hawai’i, arriving on November 9. These were: Sister M Bonaventure Caraher, Sister Crescentia Eilers, Sister Ludovica Gibbons, Sister M Rosalia McLaughlin, Sister Renata Nash and Sister Mary Antonella Murphy.

Father Damien himself succumbed to leprosy on April 15, 1889. Upon the death of Damien, Mother Marianne agreed to also head the Boys Home at Kalawao. The Board of Health had quickly chosen her as Saint Damien’s successor and she was thus enabled to keep her promise to him to look after his boys.

Mother Marianne was canonized on Oct. 21, 2012, making her the first Franciscan woman to be canonized from North America and only the 11th American saint. Forevermore, she will be known as St Marianne Cope, with the title “beloved mother of outcasts.”

By 1911, Hawaiʻi had 85 priests, 30 churches and 55 chapels. The Catholic population was 35,000; there were 4 academies, a college and 9 parochial schools established by the mission, and the total number of pupils was 2,200.

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