Kawaiahao Church | Page 5 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

June 29, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Waikīkī Church

By the time the first company of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Protestant missionaries arrived in 1820, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished. The Hawaiian people had already dismantled their heiau and had rejected their religious beliefs.

The missionaries, less the group left on the Big Island, landed at Honolulu on April 19, 1820. On the sabbath (April 23,) Hiram Bingham, the leader of the group, preached the first formal Protestant sermon in the Islands. Initial services were in thatched structures. Later, a more permanent church was built.

In July, 1821, they began to build a 22 by 54-foot building, large enough to seat 300. This first church building was built of thatch and lined with mats; however, it had glass windows, doors, a wooden pulpit and 2-rows of seats, separated by an aisle. In August of that year, Captain Templeton presented a bell from his ship to be used at the church.

Within a year, Hiram Bingham began to preach in the Hawaiian language. 4-services a week were conducted (3 in Hawaiian and 1 in English.) Congregations ranged from 100 – 400; by the end of the year, the church was expanded.

On May 30, 1824, the church burned to the ground. Within a couple of days after the fire, Kalanimōkū ordered a new church to be built at public expense. A new thatched building (25 by 70 feet) was placed a short distance from the old; it was dedicated July 18, 1824.

Interest in the mission’s message outgrew the church and services were held outside with 3,000 in attendance; efforts were underway to build a larger facility, to accommodate 4,000.

In December, 1825, the third Meeting House building was opened for worship; however, shortly afterward a violent rain storm collapsed the structure. In 1827, Kaʻahumanu stepped forward and “caused a temporary house to be erected which is 86 feet by 30, with 2 wings each 12 feet wide extending the whole length of the building. … It is not large enough to accommodate all who attend the service on Sabbath mornings, many are obliged to sit without.” (Mission Journal – Damon)

The last of the thatched churches served for 12-years. It measured 63 by 196 feet (larger than the present Kawaiahaʻo Church) – 4,500 people could assemble within it.

Then, between 1836 and 1842, Kawaiahaʻo Church was constructed. Revered as the Protestant “mother church” and often called “the Westminster Abbey of Hawai‘i” this structure is an outgrowth of the original Mission Church founded in Boston and is the first foreign church on O‘ahu (1820.)

Kawaiahaʻo Church was designed by its first pastor, Bingham. Following five years of construction, Kawaiahaʻo was ready for dedication ceremonies on July 21, 1842. The grounds of Kawaiahaʻo overflowed with 4,000 to 5,000 faithful worshippers. King Kamehameha III, who contributed generously to the fund to build the church, attended the service.

There were ten ‘āpana, or branches, of the Kawaiahaʻo Church. One of them was the Waikīkī Church (the others included Kalihi, Palama, Nuʻuanu, Pauoa, Moʻiliʻili, Pālolo, Kaimuki, Puaikalani (Kakaʻako) and Kawaiahaʻo itself. (Damon)

Across Kalākaua Avenue in front of the Moana Hotel, on the present site of the shops and Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, was the first grammar school in Waikīkī, a small graveyard and the church. (Cultural Surveys)

“The Little Church at Waikīkī … The congregation which has worshipped in this church is numerous but poor …. The pretty little church among the cocoanuts is besides a prominent ornament to the neighborhood”.

The church was damaged by a thunderbolt … “It seems that the house was badly shattered – in fact rendered untenable in wet weather, and that it will cost in the neighborhood of five hundred dollars to put it again in good condition …”

“We beg to suggest a concert or other public entertainment to raise funds for the repair of the Waikīkī Church building.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 18, 1875)

It turns out the Waikīkī Church was a venue for many concerts, to raise money for the Waikīkī property, as well as Kawaiahaʻo in downtown – and they had frequent royal guests.

“A concert was given on Wednesday evening, commencing at half past seven o’clock, at the Waikīkī Church in aid of Kawaiahao Church. Their Royal Highnesses Princess Liliʻuokalani and Princess Likelike took an active part in promoting the furtherance of this good object, and both of these good ladies also took part in carrying out the programme.”

“The Misses Cleghorn and other young ladies also assisted. A drive to Waikīkī on a beautiful moonlight night is of itself a treat, which was greatly enhanced, by the anticipation of hearing good vocal and instrumental music on arrival there.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 15, 1883)

“A musical entertainment was given at Waikīkī Church on Wednesday evening. Their Royal Highnesses the Princesses Liliuokalani and Likelike had taken a great interest in the affair and many of their friends from town took the opportunity to indulge in a moonlight drive and be present at the concert.”

“The church was filled and there was a not inconsiderable audience that preferred the open air and the soft grass of the churchyard to the accommodations provided for them inside … “It is to be hoped that this is not the last time that the people of Waikīkī will invite their town friends to come and hear them sing.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 15, 1883)

In an interview for the Oral History Project conducted by the Social Science Research Institute, University of Hawai‘i, interviewee Mary Paoa Clarke (born in 1902) recalls the Waikīkī School:

“We (Mary and her siblings) went to Waikīkī School – that’s across the Moana Hotel – which is (where) the (Princess) Kaʻiulani Hotel (is) now. We walked from our home to school”. Mary also noted that the Waikīkī School only went up to third grade. “We started in the fourth grade at Kaʻahumanu”. (Social Science Research Institute)

“… I had gone to the Waikīkī (Elementary) School for three years. There was Mrs Henry, Mrs Perry and Mrs Ontai. (The) first Waikīkī School was opposite the Moana Hotel – across the street. (There were) three rooms, first, second and third. In one corner of the property there was a graveyard and an old Hawaiian church.) (Lemon Wond “Rusty” Holt, Sr; Social Science Research Institute)

In 1916, Kawaiaha‘o sold the cemetery land around the Waikīkī ‘āpana (branch) church to the Territorial Hotel Co, Ltd, owners of the Moana Hotel.

A new lot was obtained from the Lili‘uokalani Trust; plans for the construction of a new church began immediately, as the church contracted for the construction of a one-story frame building in 1916 on a new lot, near the corner of Kūhiō Avenue and ʻOhua Lane (in the area now occupied by the Waikīkī Banyan Condominium, which was built in 1979.)

Owing to the sale of the Waikīkī Church premises for the extension of the Moana Hotel accessories, some fifty or more bodies which had been interred in its grounds were exhumed and removed to the cemetery of the mother church, Kawaiahaʻo. (Thrum, 1916)

Kawaiahaʻo Church took the responsibility “to remove all remains and coffins buried in the church yard (so far as practical) and re-inter them in some cemetery or cemeteries in the district of Honolulu,” with the costs of the removal to be borne by the Territorial Hotel Co.

Those interred in the Protestant cemetery ranged from as young as 2 weeks to 80 years of age and were noted as having passed away from a variety of causes such as “consumption”, “constipation”, “meningitis”, “diabetes”, “whooping cough”, the most common cause being “old age.” With perhaps one exception, all of the names appear to be Hawaiians who died between 1880 and 1907. (Cultural Surveys)

“Then the Moana (Hotel) built a lot of cottages in there. Of course then years later they were torn down and they built the Princess Ka‘iulani Hotel.” (Leslie Fullard-Leo (born 1909;) Social Science Research Institute)

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Cottages moved in 1953-Princess Kaiulani Constructed after that

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March 18, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiʻi Statehood Address – Aloha ke Akua

“(P)ress reports circulating the reactions of the people of Hawaii to the final passage of S. 50 by the House of Representatives (concerning Hawaiʻi statehood) indicated that the people of Hawaii quite naturally demonstrated their exuberance in many ways.”

(The Hawaiʻi Admission Act was signed into law on March 18, 1959; Hawaiʻi became the 50th State on August 21, 1959.)

“However, in justice, it should be told that a great many people of Hawaii reacted in an entirely different way.”

“For according to numerous reports received, the most immediately spontaneous reaction of the people of Hawaii was one of prayerful thanksgiving to the Almighty and of seeking His Guidance in meeting new responsibility.”

“(A)n unplanned service (was) held at Kawaiahaʻo Church. This church is the denomination of the missionaries who came to Hawaii in 1820. A crowd of more than 1,000 people, including the Honorable Neal Blaisdell, mayor of the city and county of Honolulu, gathered and paid respect to the Divine Providence within minutes of the news being received that the bill was passed by the House.”

“The next morning, thanksgiving services were held at this same church. The Reverend Dr. Abraham Akaka, pastor of Kawaiahaʻo Church, gave the sermon, which is included here.” (John A Burns, Delegate to US House of Representatives))

By Reverend Abraham K Akaka; Given on: Friday, March 13, 1959:

“One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all” – these words have a fuller meaning for us this morning in Hawaii. And we have gathered here at Kawaiahaʻo Church to give thanks to God, and to pray for his guidance and protection in the years ahead.

Our newspapers lately have been full of much valuable historical data concerning Hawaii’s development, growth, and aspirations. I will keep these stories as long as I live, for my children and their children, for they call to mind the long train of those whose sacrifices were accepted, whose prayers and hopes through the years were fulfilled yesterday. There yet remains the formal expression of our people for statehood, and the entrance of our Islands into the Union as a full-fledged member.

I would like today to speak the message of self-affirmation: that we take courage to be what we truly are, the Aloha State.

On April 25, 1820, one hundred and thirty-nine years ago, the first Christian service conducted in Honolulu was held on this very ground. Like our Pilgrim Fathers who arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, so did the fathers of a new era in Hawaii kneel in prayer after a long and trying voyage to give thanks to God who had seen them safely on their way.

Gathered around the Reverend Hiram Bingham on that day were a few of our “kupunas” who had come out of curiosity. The text of the sermon that day, though it was April and near Easter time, was from the Christmas Story.

And there our people heard words for the first time: “Mai maka’u ‘oukou, no ka mea, eia ho’i, ke ha’i aku nei au ia ‘oukou i ka mea maika’i, e ‘oli’oli nui ai e lilo ana no na kanaka apau. No ka mea, i keia la i hanau ai, ma ke kulanakauhale o Davida, he ola no ‘oukou, aia ka Mesia ka Haku” — “Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord.”

Although our grandfathers did not realize it fully then, the hopes and fears of all their years through the next century and more were to be met in the meaning and power of those words, for, from that beginning, a new Hawaii was born.

For through those words, our missionaries and people following them under God became the greatest single influence in Hawaii’s whole development – politically, economically, educationally, socially, religiously. Hawaii’s real preparation for statehood can be said to have truly begun on that day and on this spot one hundred and thirty-nine years ago.

Yesterday, when the first sound of firecrackers and sirens reached my ears, I was with the members of our Territorial Senate in the middle of the morning prayer for the day’s session. How strange it was, and yet how fitting, that the news should burst forth while we were in prayer together. Things had moved so fast. Our mayor, a few minutes before, had asked if the church could be kept open, because he and others wanted to walk across the street for prayer when the news came.

By the time I got back from the Senate, this sanctuary was well filled with people who happened to be around, people from our government buildings nearby. And as we sang the great hymns of Hawaii and our nation, it seemed that the very walls of this church spoke of God’s dealing with Hawaii in the past, of great events both spontaneous and planned.

There are some of us to whom statehood brings great hopes, and there are some to whom statehood brings silent fears. One might say that the hopes and fears of Hawaii are met in statehood today. There are fears that Hawaii as a state will be motivated by economic greed …

… that statehood will turn Hawaii (as someone has said) into a great big spiritual junkyard filled with smashed dreams, worn-out illusions; that will make the Hawaiian people lonely, confused, insecure, empty, anxious, restless, disillusioned – a wistful people.

There is an old “mele” that reminds me of such fears as these, and of the way God leads us out of our fears. “Haku’i i ka uahi o ka Lua, pa i ka lani, ha’aha’a Hawai’i moku o Keawe i hanau’ia … po Puna, po Hilo, po i ka uahi o ku’u ‘aina … ola ia kini, ke’a mai la ke ahi”.

There is a fire underground, but the firepit gives forth only smoke, smoke that bursts upward, touching the skies, and Hawaii is humbled beneath its darkness – it is night over Hawaii, night from the smoke of my land – but there is salvation for the people, for now the land is being lit by a great flame.”

We need to see statehood as the lifting of the clouds of smoke, as an opportunity to affirm positively the basic Gospel of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. We need to see that Hawaii has potential moral and spiritual contributions to make our nation and to our world.

The fears Hawaii may have are to be met by men and women who are living witnesses of what we really are in Hawaii, of the spirit of Aloha, men and women who can help unlock the doors to the future by the guidance and grace of God.

This kind of self-affirmation is the need of the hour. And we can affirm our being, as the Aloha State, by full participation in our nation and in our world. For any collective anxiety, the answer is collective courage. And the ground of that courage is God.

We do not understand the meaning of Aloha until we realize its foundation in the power of God at work in the world. Since the coming of our missionaries in 1820, the name for God to our people has been Aloha. One of the first sentences I learned from my mother in my childhood was this from Holy Scripture: “Aloha ke Akua” – in other words, “God is Aloha.”

Aloha is the power of God seeking to unite what is separated in the world – the power that unites heart with heart, soul with soul, life with life, culture with culture, race with race, nation with nation. Aloha is the power that can reunite when a quarrel has brought separation; aloha is the power that reunites a man with himself when he has become separated from the image of God within.

Thus, when a person or a people live in the spirit of Aloha they live in the spirit of God. And among such a people, whose lives so affirm their inner being, we see the working of the Scripture: “All things work together for good to them who love God… from the Aloha of God came his Son that we might have life and that we might have it more abundantly.”

Aloha consists of this new attitude of heart, above negativism, above legalism. It is the unconditional desire to promote the true good of other people in a friendly spirit, out of a sense of kinship. Aloha seeks to do good, with no conditions attached.

We do not do good only to those who do good to us. One of the sweetest things about the love of God, about Aloha, is that it welcomes the stranger and seeks his good. A person who has the spirit of Aloha loves even when the love is not returned. And such is the love of God.

This is the meaning of Aloha. I feel especially grateful that the discovery and development of our Islands long ago was not couched in the context of an imperialistic and exploitive national power, but in this context of Aloha.

There is a correlation between the charter under which the missionaries came -namely, “To preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, to cover these islands with productive green fields, and to lift the people to a high state of civilization” – a correlation between this and the fact that Hawaii is not one of the trouble spots in the world today but one of the spots of great hope.

Aloha does not exploit a people or keep them in ignorance and subservience. Rather, it shares the sorrows and joys of people; it seeks to promote the true good of others.

Today, one of the deepest needs of mankind is the need to feel a sense of kinship one with another. Truly all mankind belongs together; from the beginning all mankind has been called into being, nourished, watched over by the love of God.

So that the real Golden Rule is Aloha. This is the way of life we shall affirm.

Let us affirm ever what we really are – for Aloha is the spirit of God at work in you and in me and in the world, uniting what is separated, overcoming darkness and death, bringing new light and life to all who sit in the darkness of fear, guiding the feet of mankind into the way of peace.

Thus may our becoming a State mean to our nation and the world, and may it reaffirm that which was planted in us one hundred and thirty-nine years ago: “Fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.”

The image shows Rev. Abraham Akaka and the Rev. Glen Balsley leading a procession of dignitaries and Hawaiian civic groups from ʻIolani Palace (where the legislature got the call that Congress had approved admission) to Kawaiahaʻo Church on March 13, 1959.

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December 31, 2014 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Richard Armstrong

By the time the Pioneer Company of American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) Protestant missionaries arrived in 1820, Kamehameha I had died and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished.

The missionaries first lived in the traditional Hawaiian hatched house, the hale pili. In addition to their homes, the missionaries had grass meeting places and, later, churches. One of the first was on the same site as the present Kawaiahaʻo Church.

On December 31, 1820, Levi Sartwell Loomis, son of Elisha and Maria Loomis (the first white child born in the Sandwich Islands) and Sophia Moseley Bingham, daughter of Hiram and Sybil Bingham (the first white girl born on Oʻahu) were baptized.

Between 1836 and 1842, Kawaiahaʻo Church was constructed. Revered as the Protestant “mother church” and often called “the Westminster Abbey of Hawai‘i” this structure is an outgrowth of the original Mission Church founded in Boston and is the first foreign church on O‘ahu (1820.)

Kawaiahaʻo Church was designed and founded by its first pastor, Hiram Bingham. Hiram left the islands on August 3, 1840 and never saw the completed church. Reverend Richard Armstrong replaced Bingham as pastor of Kawaiahaʻo.

Richard Armstrong was born in 1805 in Pennsylvania, the youngest of 10-children; he attended three years at Princeton Theological Seminary. He married Clarissa Chapman, September 25, 1831; was ordained at Baltimore, Maryland, October 27, 1831; and sailed from New Bedford, Massachusetts, November 26, 1831 for Hawaiʻi.

Armstrong was with the Fifth Company of missionaries (which included the Alexanders, Emersons, Forbes, Hitchcocks, Lymans, Lyons, Stockton and others. They arrived on May 17, 1832.

Shortly after arrival, Clarissa wrote about a subject most suspect was not a part of the missionary lifestyle … On October 31, 1832, she noted, “Capt Brayton has given me a little beer cask – it holds 6 quarts – Nothing could have been more acceptable.”

“I wanted to ask you for one, but did not like to. O how kind providence has been & is to us, in supplying our wants. The board have sent out hops – & I have some beer now a working. I should like to give you a drink.”

Armstrong was stationed for a year at the mission in Marquesas Islands; he then replaced the Reverend Green as pastor of Kaʻahumanu Church (Wailuku) in 1836, supervised the construction of two stone meeting houses one at Haiku, and the other at Wailuku. Reverend Green returned to replace Armstrong in 1840.

He was pastor of the Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu from 1840 to 1848. “Mr. Armstrong preached to congregations of twenty-five hundred and often three thousand people. The ground about the church looked like an encampment when the people came from valley and shore on horseback and spent their noon hour in the rush-covered basement awaiting the afternoon session.” (The Friend, July 1932)

Following the re-raising of the Hawaiian flag above the Islands on July 31, 1843 for Ka La Hoʻihoʻi Ea – Sovereignty Restoration Day, religious services were held that evening in Kawaiahaʻo Church.

A sermon apropos of the occasion was preached by Rev. Richard Armstrong, the text being taken from Psalms 37, 3 – ‘Trust in the Lord and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.’ There could have been no question but that his hearers had been fed on that day. (Thrum)

In 1848 Armstrong left the mission and became Minister of Public Instruction on June 7, 1848, following the death of William Richards. Armstrong was to serve the government for the remainder of his life. He was a member of the Privy Council and the House of Nobles and acted as the royal chaplain.

He set up the Board of Education under the kingdom in 1855 and was its president until his death. Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

The government-sponsored education system in Hawaiʻi is the longest running public school system west of the Mississippi River. To this day, Hawaiʻi is the only state to have a completely-centralized State public school system.

Armstrong helped bring better textbooks, qualified teachers and better school buildings. Students were taught in Hawaiian how to read, write, math, geography, singing and to be “God-fearing” citizens. (By 1863, three years after Armstrong’s death, the missionaries stopped being a part of Hawaiʻi’s education system.)

The Armstrongs had ten children. Son William N Armstrong (King Kalākaua’s Attorney General) accompanied Kalākaua on his tour of the world, one of three white men who accompanied the King as advisers and counsellors (Armstrong, Charles H Judd and a personal attendant/valet.)

Armstrong and Judd were Kalākaua’s schoolmates at the Chiefs’ Children’s School in 1849. (Marumoto) “Thirty years afterward, and after three of our schoolmates had become kings and had died (Kamehameha IV & V and Lunalio) and two of them had become queens (Emma and Liliʻuokalani,) it so happened that Kalākaua ascended the throne, and with his two old schoolmates began his royal tour.” (Armstrong)

Another Armstrong son, Samuel Chapman Armstrong, became a Union general in the American Civil War and was founder of Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School (later called the Hampton Institute, then Hampton University.) (King Kalākaua visited Hampton Normal and Agricultural School on one of his trips to the continent.)

Among the school’s famous alumni is Dr Booker T Washington, who became an educator and later founded Tuskegee Institute. President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation was read to local freedmen under the historic “Emancipation Tree,” which is still located on the campus today.

Richard Armstrong’s home was a stone building on Beretania adjoining Washington Place (called “Stonehouse,” named after the residence of Admiral Richard Thomas in England. It later served as temporary facilities at different times for what became St. Louis and Punahou Schools.

Reverend Richard Armstrong died on September 23, 1860; on his way to preach in Kāneʻohe “he had been thrown from his horse and seriously hurt. He was a good rider, but the horse had been suddenly startled and a girth gave way.”

He is buried “in the shadow of the great Kawaiahaʻo church where he had preached for so many years.” Clarissa, moved to California in 1880; she died in 1891 (the reverse of her tombstone says “Aloha.”)

The image shows Richard Armstrong. In addition, I have added others similar images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

December 16, 2013 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Gerrit P Judd

In 1828, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) sent 20-people in the Third Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi, including four ministers and their wives.

A physician and his wife accompanied the ministers, Dr. Gerrit Parmele Judd and Laura Fish Judd. Dr. Judd was sent to replace Dr. Abraham Blatchely, who, because of poor health, had left Hawaiʻi the previous year.

Judd, a medical missionary, had originally come to the islands to serve as the missionary physician, intending to treat native Hawaiians for the growing number of diseases introduced by foreigners. He immersed himself in the Hawaiian community, becoming a fluent speaker of Hawaiian. Judd soon became an adviser to and supporter of King Kamehameha III.

In May 1842, Judd was asked to leave the Mission and accept an appointment as “translator and recorder for the government,” and as a member of the “treasury board,” with instructions to aid Oʻahu’s Governor Kekūanāoʻa in the transaction of business with foreigners.

Up to that time there was no real financial system. The public revenues were received by the King and no distinction was made between his private income and that which belonged to the government or public. Judd, as chairman of the treasury board, was responsible to organize a public accounting system. (Hawaiian Mission Centennial Book)

As chairman of the treasury board he not only organized a system, he also helped to pay off a large public indebtedness and placed the government on a firm financial footing. (Hawaiian Mission Centennial Book)

In early-1843, Lord George Paulet, purportedly representing the British Crown, overstepped his bounds, landed sailors and marines, seized the government buildings in Honolulu and forced King Kamehameha III to cede the Hawaiian kingdom to Great Britain.

Paulet raised the British flag and issued a proclamation formally annexing Hawaii to the British Crown. This event became known as the Paulet Affair.

Judd secretly removed public papers to the Pohukaina mausoleum on the grounds of what is now ʻIolani Palace to prevent British naval officers from taking them. He used the mausoleum as his office; by candlelight, and using the coffin of Kaʻahumanu as a writing desk, Judd wrote appeals to London and Washington to free Hawaiʻi from the rule of Paulet.

His plea, heard in Britain and the US, was successful, and after five-months of occupation, the Hawaiian Kingdom was restored and Adm. Thomas ordered the Union Jack removed and replaced with the Hawaiian kingdom flag.

Judd stood beside the King on the steps of Kawaiahaʻo Church to announce the news, translating Admiral Thomas’ declaration into Hawaiian for the crowd.

In November 1843, Judd was appointed secretary of state for foreign affairs, with the full responsibility of dealing with the foreign representatives. He was succeeded by Mr. RC Wyllie, in March 1845, and was then appointed minister of the interior.

By that time, the King had become convinced that the ancient system of land tenure was not compatible with the progress of the nation, and he resolved to provide for a division of the lands which would terminate the feudal nature of land tenure (eventually, the Great Māhele was held, dividing the land between the King, Government, Chiefs and common people.

As part of the Māhele, on Judd’s recommendation, a law was passed that provided for the appointment of a commission to hear and adjudicate claims for land. Such claims were based on prior use or possession by the chiefs and others; successful claims were issued Awards from the Land Commission.

In 1846, Judd was transferred from the post of minister of the interior to that of minister of finance (which he held until 1853, when by resignation, he terminated his service with the government.)

In 1850, King Kamehameha III sold approximately 600-acres of land on the windward side of Oʻahu to Judd. In 1864, Judd and his son-in-law, Samuel Wilder, formed a sugar plantation and built a major sugar mill there; a few remains of this sugar mill still exist next to the Kamehameha Highway.

Later, additional acreage in the Hakipuʻu and Kaʻaʻawa valleys were added to the holdings (it’s now called Kualoa Ranch.)

In 1852, Judd served with Chief Justice Lee and Judge John Ii on a commission to draft a new constitution, which subsequently was submitted to and passed by the legislature and duly proclaimed

It was much more complete in detail than the constitution of 1840, and separated the three coordinate branches of the government in accordance with modern ideas.

Judd wrote the first medical book in the Hawaiian language. Later, Judd formed the first Medical School in the Islands. Ten students were accepted when it opened in 1870, all native Hawaiians (the school had a Hawaiians-only admissions policy.)

Judd participated in a pivotal role in Medicine, Finance, Law, Sovereignty, Land Tenure and Governance in the Islands. Gerrit P Judd died in Honolulu on July 12, 1873.

“He was a man of energy, courage and sincerity of purpose. He was an able physician, and he developed great aptitude for the administration of public affairs. The benefit of his talents was freely and liberally given to a people who he knew needed and deserved assistance.” (Hawaiian Mission Centennial Book)

The image shows Gerrit P Judd. In addition, I have included other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Google+ page.

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May 13, 2013 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Honolulu – About 1850

On the continent: the Donner Party was trapped in heavy snow (1846;) California Gold Rush was underway (1848;) and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War, giving the United States Texas, California, New Mexico and other territories (1848.) Europe was in political upheaval with the European Revolutions of 1848 (aka “Spring of Nations” or “Springtime of the Peoples.”)

In Hawaiʻi, Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III, was King and the Great Māhele (1848) was taking place; it was the most important event in the reformation of the land system in Hawaiʻi that separated land title to the King, the Chiefs and the Konohiki (land agents,) and eventually the people.

At about that time, Honolulu had approximately 10,000-residents. Foreigners made up about 6% of that (excluding visiting sailors.) Laws at the time allowed naturalization of foreigners to become subjects of the King (by about that time, about 440 foreigners exercised that right.)

The majority of houses were made of grass (hale pili,) there were about 875 of them; there were also 345 adobe houses, 49 stone houses, 49 wooden houses and 29 combination (adobe below, wood above.) In 1847, Washington Place was built by future-Queen Liliʻuokalani’s father-in-law.

Kawaiahaʻo Church (Stone Church) generally marked the eastern edge of town; it was constructed between 1836 and 1842. The “Kauikeaouli clock,” donated by King Kamehameha III in 1850, still tolls the time to this day.

Honolulu Harbor was bustling at that time. Over the prior twenty years, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846; 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai‘i.

Shortly after, however, in 1859, an oil well was discovered and developed in Titusville, Pennsylvania; within a few years this new type of oil replaced whale oil for lamps and many other uses – spelling the end of the Hawaiʻi whaling industry.

At the time, Honolulu Harbor was not as it is today and many of the visiting ships would anchor two to three miles off-shore – cargo and people were ferried to the land.

What is now known as Queen Street was actually the water’s edge.

From 1856 to 1860, the work of filling in the reef to create an area known as the “Esplanade” (where Aloha Tower is now situated) and building up a water-front and dredging the harbor was underway.

Fort Kekuanohu (Fort Honolulu) was demolished in 1857; its walls became the 2,000-foot retaining wall used to extend the land out onto the shallow reef in the harbor – some of the coral blocks are still visible at Pier 12.

The old prison was built in 1856-57, to take the place of the old fort (that also previously served as a prison.) The custom-house was completed in 1860. The water-works were much enlarged, and a system of pipes was laid down in 1861.

The city was regularly laid out with major streets typically crossing at right angles – they were dirt (Fort Street had to wait until 1881 for pavement, the first to be paved.) Sidewalks were constructed, usually of wood (as early as 1838;) by 1857, the first sidewalk made of brick was laid down on Merchant Street.

Honolulu Hale was then located on Merchant Street (now the park/vacant lot between the Kamehameha V Post Office and Pioneer Plaza.) County governance was still 50-years away (1905) and what we now know as Honolulu Hale today was 75-years away (1928.)

To get around people walked, or rode horses or used personal carts/buggies. It wasn’t until 1868, that horse-drawn carts became the first public transit service in the Hawaiian Islands.

At that time, folks were 50-years away from getting automobiles (the first gasoline-powered arrived in 1900;) that same year (1900,) an electric trolley (tram line) was put into operation in Honolulu, and by 1902, a tram line was built to connect Waikīkī and downtown Honolulu. The electric trolley replaced the horse/mule-driven tram cars.

Honolulu was to be a planned town. Kinaʻu (Kuhina Nui Kaʻahumanu II) published the following proclamation (1838:) “I shall widen the streets in our city and break up some new places to make five streets on the length of the land, and six streets on the breadth of the land… Because of the lack of streets some people were almost killed by horseback riders ….” By 1850, there was much improvement.

By the 1840s, the use of introduced horses, mules and bullocks for transportation was increasing, and many of the old traditional trails – the ala loa and mauka-makai trails within ahupua‘a – were modified by removing the smooth stepping stones that caused the animals to slip.

At the time, “Broadway” was the main street (we now call it King Street;) it was the widest and longest – about 2-3 miles long from the river (Nuʻuanu River on the west) out to the “plains” (to Mānoa.)

There were five food markets in Honolulu (in thatched sheds) one of which was more particularly a vegetable market. Irish potatoes were $2-$3 per bushel (about 50-lbs;) eggs were $0.25 to $0.75 per dozen; oranges $0.25 per dozen and turkeys and ducks were about $.05 each, chickens started at about $0.25 a piece.

Butter was mostly made on the Big Island and Kauaʻi – about 19,000-lbs produced – and sold at an average price of $0.30 per pound; milk was 12 1/2 cents a quart. Fresh beef sold for $0.06 per pound.

The fledgling sugar industry was starting to spread across the islands (with the first successful commercial sugar plantation founded in 1835 at Kōloa, Kauaʻi.) It wasn’t until 1852 that the Chinese became the first contract laborers to arrive in the islands. Of the nearly 385,000 foreign contract workers that eventually came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Founded in 1839, Oʻahu’s first school was called the Chief’s Children’s School. The school was created by King Kamehameha III to groom the next generation of the highest ranking chief’s children of the realm and secure their positions for Hawaii’s Kingdom.

Missionaries Amos and Juliette Cooke were selected by King Kamehameha III to teach the 16 royal children and run the school.

Here, Hawai‘i sovereigns (who reigned after Kamehameha III over the Hawaiian people after his death in 1854) were given Western education, including, Alexander Liholiho (King Kamehameha IV,) Queen Emma, Lot Kapuaiwa (King Kamehameha V,) King William Lunalilo, King David Kalākaua and Queen Lydia Lili‘uokalani.

Lots of information here from ‘The Polynesian’ (January 1, 1847,) Greer and Gilman. The image shows Honolulu from the Harbor in 1854. In addition, I have added some other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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