Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hotel Fairview

“I remember the sign out there said Fairview. And then father changed it to Lihue Hotel and then to the Kauai Inn.”  (William Harrison Rice II)

An 1890 newspaper article noted, “A resort for Tourists and Travelers situated about a mile from Nawiliwili, upon the slope of a hill.  The location is specially fortunate.”

“The Hotel is 40×26 an 8ft. veranda round the house. On the first floor is a large reception room, light and airy dining room and a cosy billiard room.”

“In the rear of these rooms is the culinary department, which is fitted up with all the conveniences.  The second floor is devoted to sleeping rooms. Six in all. Bath room with hot and cold water.”

“The Hotel is one of the most convenient resorts for tourists, and reflects great credit on the architect Mr PA Anderson. [C]onnected with the hotel is a livery stable where you can get saddle horses or teams for excursion parties.”

“Mr CW Spitz the proprietor has not spared money or pains to make ‘The Fairview’ the best on the Islands.” (Hawaiian Gazette, April 29, 1890)

A native of Hungary, Charles W. Spitz (1854-1942) immigrated to Hawai‘i in 1880, following a long voyage around Cape Horn, and soon found employment at Kilauea Sugar Plantation on Kauai.

The Fairview Hotel (initially opened by Charles W Spitz in 1890) was the first full-fledged hotel on Kauai providing rooms and a restaurant.  However, a year later, the newspaper reported, ‘Bankruptcy of CW Spitz’.

This was followed in an 1891 newspaper advertisement noted “For Sale!” “Fairview Hotel” by Theo J Lansing, Assignee Bankrupt Estate of CE Spitz. (Daily Bulletin, June 26, 1891) (Spitz later branched into the automobile business.)

Spitz sold the Fairview Hotel in 1894 William H Rice.  Rice is a descendant of a missionary teacher who came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1841; he was also the sheriff of Lihue for forty-three years. (Watumull Oral History)

Rice renamed it Lihue Hotel. In 1926, Rice rebuilt the original building to include a number of rooms and suites of various sizes.  An additional building was constructed to house the hotel lobby, dining room and kitchen. The capacity of the hotel rose to 100 people.  (Soboleski)

In those days, an operation had to be self-sufficient and a farm behind the hotel raised cattle, pigs and chickens along with fruits and vegetable grown for the restaurant.   After Rice’s death in 1946, the family sold the hotel to Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company.  (Kauai Museum)

In 1948, Lihue Hotel was renovated and renamed Kauai Inn, which remained in operation on Rice Street until 1963. (Soboleski)

Later, Inter-Island “made an effort to sell the Inn, without much success. … [I]ts location was fine.  But most visitors to Hawaii want to be on the beach, no matter what Island they’re on.”  (Dudley Child, Inter-Island Resorts, Advertiser, Oct 17, 1965))

In 1960, a new ten-story hotel, Inter-Island’s Kauai Surf, opened, thus signifying the beginning of Kauai’s commitment to tourism. (Salazar)

Inter-Island Resorts then moved “five of the double-deck hotel buildings from Kauai Inn to the Kauai Surf. … [They] cut each building in half, move it down to the beach area and reassemble it there. …”

“[T]he buildings will eventually surround the Kalapaki Beach lagoon which fronts the hotel.” (Advertiser, Nov 22, 1963)

“With the old site of the Inn cleared, Inter-Island negotiated its exchange with American Factors for 60 acres of plantation property surrounding Kauai Surf.” (Advertiser, Oct 17, 1965)

By 1970, the annual visitor count for Kauai was up to 426,000 and tourism workers outnumbered those on Kauai sugar plantations for the first time. Resorts at Po‘ipu, Hanalei, and Wailua were built to host these visitors.

The Coco Palms served as the setting for Elvis Presley’s, “Blue Hawaii,” which, along with other films, helped to popularize the island. (Strazar)

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Mānā, Kauai

Mānā is a coastal plain with an ancient sea cliff at its inner edge, which extends from Waimea in the south to Barking Sands in the north on the western shores of Kauai.

This region has been identified as a leina-a-ka-uhane (paths-for-leaping-by-the-spirit). These were almost always on bluffs looking westward over the ocean, from which the spirits of the dead were believed to plunge in order to enter the spiritual realm.

Throughout prehistory, large areas of the Mānā Plain were covered by the great Mānā swamp, allowing the ancients to canoe as far south as Waimea.

Up until the mid-1880s, the great Mānā swamp, east of the plain, covered large areas of the lowlands.  Approximately 1,700-acres of permanent, semi-permanent and seasonal wetlands were present on the Mānā Plain.

It is believed that these wet conditions encouraged the independent invention of aquaculture on Kauai and the construction of stone and earthen ponds for growing staples such as taro, yam and sweet potatoes.

Historically, native Hawaiians constructed four different types of fishponds – freshwater taro ponds, other freshwater ponds, brackish water ponds and seawater ponds.

Aquaculture was employed to supplement their other fishing activities, and permanent fishponds guaranteed a stable food supply for populations in lean times.  Tended ponds provided fish without requiring fishing expertise, and harvesting the pond, unlike fishing at sea, was not weather dependent.

Evidence suggests that Hawaiian fishponds were constructed as early as AD 1000, if not earlier, and continued to be built until the 1820s.

After the arrival of Europeans to the island, aquaculture transitioned to agriculture through the eventual draining of the swamp and the cultivation of sugar cane and rice.

One of the first successful sugar plantations to export from the islands was established at Kōloa in 1835, and by the 1930s, nearly all of the Mānā swamp had been filled to produce this crop.

Up until the mid-1880s, the great Mānā swamp covered large areas of the lowlands.  One of the first European settlers, Valdemar Knudsen, drained a portion of the Mānā swamp by excavating a ditch through to the ocean at Waiele.  The first sugarcane was planted in Kekaha in 1878.

Hans Peter (HP) Faye was a Norwegian immigrant (arriving in 1880) who started a small plantation at Mānā and eventually helped form Kekaha Sugar, incorporated 1898, and became its first manager.

It was his vision that created the Kekaha and Kokeʻe Ditch Systems and the intricate drainage canals that drain the large swamps of Mānā.

To keep the groundwater table below the root zone of the sugar cane, thousands of feet of canals were excavated to drain excess water from the soil.  The water is then pumped into canals such as the Nohili Ditch for release into the ocean.

The drainage system, with two pumps at the Kawaiele and Nohili pumping stations, was constantly running to lower the groundwater table, which made possible for sugarcane cultivation.

Rice was planted in the drained swamplands from the mid-1860s to 1922.  By the 1930s, nearly all of the Mānā swamp had been filled in and planted in sugarcane.

The need to keep the area drained continues today.  These pumping stations must continue running to keep the groundwater table from rising too high, which could result in root rots and hence low crop yields. During storm season, with five inches of rain in one day would result in flooding.

Nearby wetlands form the Kawaiele Sand Mine Sanctuary (a State Waterbird Refuge for Hawaii’s four endangered waterbird species – Hawaiian duck, coot, stilt and moorhen;) this was created during a sand removal program.

When I was at DLNR, we authorized the sale of sand licenses to allow contractors to remove sand for construction projects (golf courses, concrete mix and beach replenishment) within the waterbird sanctuary that, in turn, created a beneficial mixed terrain and expanded the waterbird habitat.

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Ka Haku O Hawaiʻi

The marriage of Alexander Liholiho and Emma was one of mutual love.  They had common interests in literature, music, opera, religion and theater.  According to Emma, “Our happiest hours were spent reading aloud to each other.”

On May 20, 1858, the king and queen were blessed with the birth of a son, Albert Edward Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa a Kamehameha.

He was named Albert Edward, after the husband of Queen Victoria of England, and Kauikeaouli Kaleiopapa, after his hānai grandfather Kamehameha III.

However, the Hawaiian people called young Albert “Ka Haku O Hawaiʻi,” “The Lord of Hawaiʻi.”

His mother and father affectionately called him “Baby.”

He was an honorary member of the Fire Engine Company Number Four and was given his own red Company Number Four uniform.

In 1860, Robert Crichton Wyllie, hosted his friends King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their two-year-old son, Prince Albert at his plantation estate for several weeks.

In honor of the child, Wyllie, founder of the plantation, named his estate the “Barony de Princeville,” the City of the Prince (Princeville on Kauaʻi.)

Alexander Liholiho and Emma had hoped to have Albert christened by a bishop of the Church of England.

The prince became ill.  As Albert became sick, and the bishop’s arrival was delayed; he was baptized on August 23, 1862 by Ephraim W. Clark, the American minister of Kawaiahaʻo Church.

Queen Victoria of England had previously sent a silver christening vessel used at his christening.  The British Queen and her husband, Prince Albert, were the godparents of the young prince.

On the 27th of August, 1862, Prince Albert, the four-year-old son of Alexander Liholiho and Emma died, “leaving his father and mother heartbroken and the native community in desolation”. (Daws)  

The actual cause of death is not known.

Initially thought to have been “brain fever,” now called meningitis, today, some believe the prince may have died from appendicitis.  Whatever the cause, the young prince suffered for ten days and the doctors could not help him.

The King then ordered the construction of the Royal Mausoleum, Mauna ʻAla, in Nuʻuanu Valley to house his son’s body, since Pohukaina had become too full.

After Prince Albert, no child was born to a reigning Hawaiian monarch.  “The last of the line of Kamehameha the Great is at rest with his fathers.”  (Hawaiian Gazette, March 17, 1903)

“The king and queen had the sympathy of all parties in their bereavement; but Kamehameha IV completely lost his interest in public life, living in the utmost possible retirement until his death.”  (Liliʻuokalani)

The king became a recluse, suffering from asthma and depression. He died on St. Andrew’s Day, November 30, 1863, two months’ short of his 30th birthday.

Following her son’s death and before her husband’s death, Emma was referred to as “Kaleleokalani”, or “flight of the heavenly one”.

After her husband also died, it was changed into the plural form as “Kaleleonālani”, or the “flight of the heavenly ones”.

Mauna ‘Ala (fragrant mountain) was completed in January 1864 and a State funeral was held for Kamehameha IV on February 3, 1864.

Mauna ‘Ala is the resting place for many of Hawai‘i’s royalty.  On October 19, 1865, the Royal Mausoleum chapel was completed.

Emma ran unsuccessfully for the throne in 1874, losing to David Kalākaua. In 1883, Emma suffered the first of several small strokes and died two years later on April 25, 1885 at the age of 49.

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August Dreier

“Every country is proud of its self-made men, and the Hawaiian Islands today furnish several examples of what can be done by a man of indomitable will and steadfastness of purpose, when these desirable attributes are backed up by sound business judgment and a determination to succeed in his undertakings.”

“Perhaps no more striking example of this class of citizen could be recognized in the islands than Mr. August Dreier …. From boyhood he learned the greatest lesson of life — self-dependence …”

“… and although he has encountered obstacles which would have discouraged an ordinary man he has by sheer force of character risen above all disappointments and his ultimate triumph only reflects the more credit upon himself.”

“In the world of today but very little credit is given the man who inherits a fortune and who is surrounded by the best of legal and commercial talent which combine to keep the inheritance intact.”

“It is to the man who starts out with nothing but his brains and a good name and who, by the use of them, builds up a fortune and a place of honor and respect in his community, that the world gives credit. Such a man is August Dreier ….”   (Logan, 1907)

“He is a native of the province of Hanover, Germany, and was born in 1841 at Gronau. When he was but 13 years of age he was apprenticed to learn the trade of machinist, and after serving his full time, during which he mastered the trade in all its details, he secured a certificate of ability as a machinist and engineer.”

“He at once entered into his trade, and for seven years was employed in several of the large cities in Germany. His ability was soon recognized, and in 1866 he entered into a contract with Hoffschlaeger & Co of Honolulu to erect a cotton mill at Waialua Falls, Kauai.”

“He at once started for the islands, but in the meantime the project had been abandoned” (Logan), “the combination of a cool temperature with rain and red dust proved too much for successful cotton growing, but many wild bushes of it are still found in Kapaia valley.” (Damon)

“[O]n his arrival here he found himself in a strange land, without friends, and to make matters worse he could not speak the English language.”

“For the ordinary young man the situation would have been desperate, but not so with Mr. Dreier. He had been accustomed to depending on his own efforts, and he soon secured a situation on the Lihue plantation as engineer, and for the next six years he worked hard and faithfully in this position.”

“A part of this time he also worked as sugar boiler and did other work around the plantation. By so doing he acquired a thorough knowledge of sugar growing and extracting, and the knowledge so acquired has stood him in good stead ever since.”

“At the end of six years he had acquired a good knowledge of English and Hawaiian and had also saved about $3,000 from his earnings. Being of an ambitious temperament he decided to engage in the business of sugar planting on his own account, and in partnership with a Mr. A. Conrad went to Koloa and purchased the lease of a tract of land.”

“His thorough knowledge of the business made the venture a paying one from the start, and after three years he bought his partner out. In 1876 he bought a half interest in the leasehold of what is now the Eleele plantation.”

“The ground was covered with rocks and all of his friends tried to persuade him not to embark in this enterprise, but Mr. Dreier knew what he was doing, and he was thoroughly familiar with the character of the soil and other advantages the place had to offer.”

“Here is the strong point in his character. Had he accepted the advice of his friends he would probably to-day occupy a mediocre position in the islands instead of being one of the leaders.”

“His self-reliance came to the front and he developed one of the finest plantations in the islands.”  (Logan)  Dreier added Hawai‘i’s first electric locomotive on a 4-mile plantation railway; it was rated to haul ten 3.5-ton cars up a 4.5% grade. (Kauai Trains)

“Mr. Dreier put $20,000 into the Eleele venture, forming a partnership with Mrs McBryde, who owned the land. Twenty years afterward, when it was reorganized by BF Dillingham as McBryde Plantation, Mr Dreier sold out for half a million dollars.”  (Damon)

“In 1876 Mr. Dreier married Miss Emma Titcomb and she has since presided over his house. They have five children; Emil, Adele Puanani, Juanita, now deceased, August and Edward.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dreier and his family are very popular in society. He is recognized as a forceful man and withal one with kind heart, and his sterling qualities have endeared him to all who know him.”

“He is charitable and delights in doing things which will give pleasure to others, and in his magnificent home a gracious hospitality is always extended. The islands are proud of Mr. Dreier and he numbers his friends by the hundreds.”

“No man is more thought of nor more deservedly popular and he certainly deserves extended recognition in the history of the islands. Mr. Dreier was a member of the upper house of the legislature in the last period of the monarchy.”  (Logan, 1907)

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Charles Titcomb

Charles Titcomb was a practical Yankee of considerable ability (born in Boston, July 24, 1803), a watchmaker by trade, who had reached the Hawaiian Islands as a sailor on the bark Lyra that was wrecked in the ‘false passage’ (apparently around Maui) in 1830.  (Damon and PCA March 31, 1883) He lived/worked at various places on Kauai.

Koloa

He initially settled at Koloa, Kauai.  At the time, “Clusters of native dwellings are scattered on the plain, but the principal village is situated a mile from the beach, at a short distance from the missionary buildings.”

“Fields of sugar cane, taro, yams, and other vegetables, bespeak a more than usual attention to agriculture. The population of Koloa, which is about three thousand, is increasing rapidly by emigrations from other districts. But the principal attractions here are the estates of Messrs. Ladd & Co. and Messrs. Peck & Titcomb, American gentlemen.”

“From Ladd and Company Messrs. Peck and Titcomb subleased about 400 acres on which, from 1836 to 1840, they conducted careful experiments in raising cotton, coffee and silk.”

“Their mulberry trees throve so that one of the little hills on their land was soon called Mauna Kilika, or Silika, as it still is on old maps. …  Beset by one difficulty after another, such as drought, blight and failure of the silkworm eggs to hatch even when taken in bottles to the mountain tops for a lower temperature, silk culture was abandoned about 1840.”

“Mr. Titcomb then transferred his equipment across the island to Hanalei to begin similar attempts there. And sugar thus remained the one active commercial enterprise in Koloa.” (Damon)

Hanalei

“In the course of time other white settlers were attracted to the fertile and well-watered region of Hanalei and Waioli, among whom the first to undertake a business venture systematically was this same Charles Titcomb of Koloa.”

“While his interests were frankly commercial, and it was of course essential that his silk worms should be fed on Sunday, as on every other day, it is not true, as has sometimes been alleged, that the missionaries of Hanalei attempted to thwart his industrial efforts.”

“The refutation of this charge is made on the indisputable authority of Mr. G. N. Wilcox, who grew up in one of the two mission homes at Waioli and knows the history of Kauai as it is known to no other living person today.”

The missionaries at Hanalei, as at Koloa, rejoiced that Hawaiians had now some means of profitable labor by which they could free themselves from the restrictions of the konohiki, or overlord. And while the missionaries regretted that a certain amount of labor was necessary on the Sabbath, it came to be regarded as an inevitable accompaniment of economic change.”

“And when on, or even perhaps before, the blighting of his mulberry trees at Koloa, Mr. Titcomb started cuttings in the Hanalei river bottom, a prodigiously rapid growth was the result, even also as ratoons.”

“Mr. Jarves states that Mr. Titcomb had obtained his lease of Hanalei river lands from the king as early as 1838. A fairly good quality and quantity of silk was soon produced, the Hawaiian women proving skilful in the art of reeling the delicate threads from the tiny cocoons, and the first export was made in 1844, but profits were too slow to warrant the necessary outlay of capital.”

“Securing berries from the Kona fields of Messrs. Hall and Cummings, Mr. Titcomb gradually replaced his mulberry orchards with coffee plants, and thus opened direct competition with his immediate neighbors.”

“Another commercial venture, somewhat farther afield, was made by Mr. Wundenberg in company with Messrs. Titcomb and Widemann late in 1848, when the three gentlemen left their families on Kauai and proceeded to join the gold rush to California. The net result seems to have been chiefly in the realm of experience, for it was not long before all three had returned to their former agricultural pursuits. …”

“In 1853 [Robert Wyllie] bought the Crown lands at Hanalei which were leased by the Rhodes Coffee Plantation, and two years later Captain Rhodes sold out his financial interest in it to Mr. Wyllie.”

“After the visit of the royal personages at Hanalei in 1860, Mr. Titcomb’s plantation became known as Emmasville and Mr. Wyllie’s as Princeville Plantation, in honor of the event. And Princeville is the name which persists to this day as the title of the estate.”

“In 1862 the Princeville plantation, following Mr. Titcomb’s lead, was converted from coffee to sugar and the face of the river valley took on a materially different aspect. Mr. Wyllie added the two ahupuaas, land divisions, of Kalihikai and Kalihiwai, to his Princeville estate, and sent to Glasgow for his sugar mill.” (Damon)

“Foremost in enterprise, Mr. Titcomb was the prime mover in introducing the Tahitian variety of cane, which for so many years was the backbone of the industry.”

“The whaling captain entrusted with the importation of this new cane chanced to make port at Lahaina, whence the samples were distributed throughout the islands. Hence the name, Lahaina cane, for that staple variety which was in reality from Tahiti.”

“[T]he coffee plantation of Mr. Titcomb at Hanalei was reported, just before the drought, as in excellent order and always a model of good management and thrift.” (Damon)

Coffee was grown successfully at Hanalei during the 1840s and 1850s until a blight caused by aphids wiped out over 100,000 coffee trees.  (Soboleski, TGI)

“In 1852 Irish potatoes constituted the largest export from the islands to California, but two years later the Hawaiian planters ‘were eating potatoes from California of better quality and less price.’”

“By the process of the survival of the fittest, sugar was becoming Hawaii’s staple product. Yet even that finally proved unsuited to the cool, wet climate of Hanalei.”

“Mr. Titcomb, in the lead as usual, sold the Emmasville Plantation of over seven hundred acres to Mr. Wyllie in 1863 and moved to Kilauea, further to the eastward on the Kauai shore. Here he bought the Kilauea land grant from the king and established himself in cattle ranching.”  (Damon)

Kilauea

“He built himself a house, which until very recently was used as the Kilauea plantation hospital; and when Mr. Widemann came to Hanalei in 1864, Mr. Titcomb secured his herd of cattle from Grove Farm.”

“Capt. Dudoit and Mr. Titcomb of Hanalei also met with considerable success at Kilauea, but the former moved his family to Honolulu in 1862.”

“These two gentlemen had become discouraged with the struggles in sugar at Princeville and were attempting the somewhat drier climate to the eastward.”

“In 1877, when Titcomb sold his Kilauea ranch to English Capt. John Ross and Edward Adams for the purpose of growing sugar cane, Kilauea Sugar Plantation was founded, with Titcomb staying on to build the plantation’s first sugar mill.” (Damon)  Kilauea Plantation closed in 1971. (Soboleski, TGI)

“Having primitive works, his whole product was for many years put into syrup, during which time ‘Titcomb’s Golden Syrup’ was the choice article of our  groceries. … Titcomb was an industrious, law-abiding citizen; a neighbor to be desired, and an affectionate husband and father.” (Daily Honolulu Press, March 24, 1883)

Titcomb married Kanikele Kamalenui in 1841; they were the parents of at least 3 sons and 5 daughters.  Kanikele died January 16, 1881; Charles died March 21, 1883.

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