Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 5 Comments

James Wight

James Wight was born in India in 1814 of Scotch-Irish parentage; he received liberal education at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated in 1836.

At 22 years of age, he went to Australian with the intention of practicing his profession as physician, but his interest was for business pursuits.  After thirteen years practicing medicine, there he abandoned the profession and migrated to Hawaiʻi.  (Hawaiian Gazette, September 5, 1905)

Wight, with the initial intent to go to the gold fields of California, came to Hawaiʻi in 1850 with his wife (Jane Tompkins Wight – formerly of Cape Colony, South Africa, now called Cape of Good Hope.)

On August 2, 1850, they went from Honolulu to Kawaihae and from there to Mahukona in an open boat.

While attempting to land ashore at Mahukona on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, the small boat was ship wrecked during a storm.  Their 13-month old daughter Ada Wight drowned during the tragedy.

Once ashore, Dr. Wight was made aware of white parishioners living close by. He made the decision to venture out and get help for his ailing family.  (Restarick)

They were given a grass house and there during the night, Jane Wight gave birth to a child while the dead one lay in the room.  (The Wights had 13 children, six of whom died before they were grown.)

The Wights were persuaded to stay in Hawaiʻi; he became an influential community leader, serving as postmaster, circuit judge (1852-1863,) representative to the territorial government (1886) and a member of the house of noble (1886-87.)  In the House, he was noted for his independent stand and those were trying times.

He enjoyed remarkably good health during his long life and Dr. Wight’s home was noted for its hospitality. His word was his bond and during his long residence he was seldom involved in litigation. Of the thousands who have been in his employ, all speak of him as a generous though firm employer.

Although he had no inclination to practice medicine, he was always ready to assist any sufferer needing the services of a physician.    (Hawaiian Gazette, September 5, 1905)

He had initially established a store with a pharmacy and carried on business until 1884, when he sold it to SG Wilder.  Wight then turned his business interest to land investments and Hawaiʻi’s emerging sugar and cattle industries.

He became interested in sugar when the Kohala Plantation was started and paid quite an interest in that concern. He established the Hālawa Plantation and conducted it for a number of years.    (Hawaiian Gazette, September 5, 1905)

Wight bought Puakea and built the first animal mill on the Island to process sugar and began raising cattle.  (Wight’s daughter Clara and her husband Howard Rattenbury Bryant continued the cultivation of sugar cane at Puakea until 1930 when the last crop was milled and the operation closed.)  Parker Ranch later leased the Puakea lands from the Estate and finally purchased the ranch in 1944.

Wight was reportedly one of the first to import orchids from England and ironwood trees from Australia.  Mrs. Wight owned the first carriage seen in Kohala. It had a single seat with a perch forward for the driver.

In approximately 1860, the family purchased a large parcel of land that looked out over the ocean on which to build their homestead.

They built a home, Greenbank, on 22-acres in Kohala; it was once a showcase home and social center of the Kohala district for many years.  (The property is reportedly haunted; a stone shark god idol at the property was later given to Bishop Museum.)

Several buildings were added to the estate, including additional residence, caretaker quarters and a carriage house for his buggy. Later years would include a greenhouse adjacent to the main house where some of the first botanical species in the state were grown.

Dr. James Wight passed away on the morning of September 2, 1905 at Kohala; he was the oldest and one of the most respected of the foreign settlers in that district.

He had been closely identified with the progress of the islands for more than fifty-five years.  (Hawaiian Gazette, September 5, 1905)  (Lots of images and information here from greenbankhawaii.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ka Paepae Kapu a Līloa

Nowhere on the island of Hawaiʻi do the palms grow taller than in the valleys of Waipiʻo, and nowhere is the foliage greener, for every month in the year they are refreshed with rains, and almost hourly cooled in the shadows of passing clouds.  (Kalākaua)

Waipi‘o (“curved water”) is one of several coastal valleys on the north part of the Hāmākua side of the Island of Hawaiʻi. A black sand beach, three-quarters of a mile long, fronts the valley, the longest on the Big Island.

For two hundred years or more, Waipiʻo Valley was the Royal Center to many of the rulers on the Island of Hawaiʻi, including Pili lineage rulers – the ancestors of Kamehameha – and continued to play an important role as one of many royal residences until the era of Kamehameha.  (UH DURP)

Royal Centers were where the aliʻi resided; aliʻi often moved between several residences throughout the year. The Royal Centers were selected for their abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.

The Hawaiian court was mobile within the districts or kingdom the aliʻi controlled. A paramount’s attendants might consist of as many as 700 to 1000-followers made of kahuna and political advisors (including geologists, architects, seers, messengers, executioner, etc.); servants which included craftsmen, guards, stewards; relatives and numerous hangers-on (friends, lovers, etc.).

Although thinly populated now, Waipiʻo was for many generations in the past a place of great political and social importance, and the tabus of its great temple were the most sacred in all Hawaiʻi. It was the residence of the kings of that island, and was the scene of royal pageants, priestly power and knightly adventure, as well as of many sanguinary battles.  (Kalākaua)

Waipiʻo valley was first occupied as a royal residence by Kahaimoelea, near the middle or close of the thirteenth century, and so continued until after the death of Līloa, about the end of the fifteenth century.  (Kalākaua)

Līloa, the son of Kiha and father of ʻUmi, had become the peaceful sovereign of Hawaiʻi; Kahakuma, the ancestor of some of the most distinguished families of the islands, held gentle and intelligent sway in Kauai; Kawao still ruled in Maui, and Piliwale in Oʻahu.  (Kalākaua)

The reign of Kiha was long and peaceful. He was endowed not only with marked abilities as a ruler, but with unusual physical strength and skill in the use of arms. In addition to these natural advantages and accomplishments, which gave him the respect and fear of his subjects.  (Kalākaua)

The reign of his son Līloa was as peaceful as that of Kiha, his distinguished father (Līloa ruled about the same time that Columbus crossed the Atlantic.) He did not lack ability, either as a civil or military leader.

Līloa’s wife, Pinea, was the younger sister of his mother from a line of chiefs on O‘ahu. They had a son, Hākau. From another wife, Haua, a Maui chiefess, he had a daughter, Kapukini. Both of these marriages established ties between high-ranking families outside the Kingdom of Hawai‘i Island.  (MalamaWaipio)

Līloa was much given to touring through the districts of his kingdom, by which means he acquainted himself with the needs of his people and was able to repress the arbitrary encroachments of the chiefs on the rights of the land-holders under their authority. In this way he gained popularity with the common people.  (Malo)

The story of another of Līloa’s sons, ʻUmi, suggests that while Līloa was on a journey across Hāmākua he met a beautiful woman, Akahiakuleana (Akahi.) They spend the night together and conceive a child. Līloa told Akahi that if she has a son, to name him ʻUmi.

Līloa left his malo (loincloth), his niho-palaoa (whale-tooth necklace) and laʻau palau (club) to be given to the child as proof of ancestry.  ʻUmi later united with Līloa and ultimately ruled the Island of Hawaiʻi (he moved the Royal Center from Waipiʻo to Kailua (Kona.))

At Waipiʻo, Pakaʻalana was the name of Līloa’s heiau. It is not known by whom the Pakaʻalana heiau was built, but it existed before Kiha’s time and so did the sacred pavement leading to the enclosure where the chief’s Royal Center – called Haunokamaahala – stood, though its name has come down to our days as Paepae-a-Liloa.  (Fornander)

“It was a large enclosure, less extensive, however, than that at Honaunau….In the midst of the enclosure, under a wide-spreading pandanus, was a small house, called Ke Hale o Riroa (The House of Līloa), from the circumstance of its containing the bones of a king of that name…..”

“We tried, but could not gain admittance to the pahu tabu, or sacred enclosure. We also endeavored to obtain a sight of the bones of Riroa, but the man who had charge of the house told us we must offer a hog before we could be admitted”.  (Ellis 1826)

Līloa carried a long stone on his shoulder and placed it at the side door of his house. He called this stone “The Sacred Slab of Līloa,” (Ka paepae kapu o Līloa). No one, not even a chief was allowed to stand or walk on this stone. Only two people were allowed to step on “The Sacred Slab of Līloa:” Līloa, the ruler, and Chief Laea-nui-kau-manamana. (Williams)

“The expression ‘Ka Paepae Kapu a Liloa’ as at present used, whether in speaking or writing, refers to the reigning sovereign as to the sacredness of trust imposed upon and reposed to him, and as to the dignity and honour of the position where no intruders are supposed to trespass.  It also refers to the pavement and the way that leads up to royalty, and as to the footstool of sovereignty and power.”  (Bacchilega)

Although the glory of the old capital departed with its abandonment as the royal residence, the tabus of its great temple of Pakaʻalana continued to command supreme respect until as late as 1791, when the heiau was destroyed, with all its sacred symbols and royal associations, by the confederated forces of Maui and Kauai in their war with Kamehameha I.  (Kalakaua)

“There are many references to this famous place (Pakaʻalana) … the tabus of its (Waipi‘o) great heiau were the most sacred on Hawaiʻi, and remained so until the destruction of the heiau and the spoliation of all the royal associations in the valley of Waipi‘o by Kāʻeokūlani, king of Kauai, and confederate of Kahekili, king of Maui, in the war upon Kamehameha I, in 1791 …” (Stokes)

King Kalākaua moved the slab (Ka Paepae Kapu a Liloa) to Honolulu.  It sits silently and often unnoticed, outside the Archives Building on the grounds of ʻIolani Palace.  The stone holds the historical and cultural significance of a Royal Center in Waipiʻo associated with Līloa; he was “sacred in the eyes of his people for his many good qualities.”  (Bacchilega)

An ancient chant, later put to music, notes: Aia i Waipiʻo Pākaʻalana e; Paepae kapu ʻia o Līloa e (There at Waipiʻo is Pākaʻalana; And the sacred platform of Līloa.)

The March 10, 1899 issue of the Hawaiian Gazette noted that Līloa (1500s,) Lonoikamakahiki (late-1500s) and Alapaʻi (1700s) are among the reburied at Mauna ʻAla.

It is believed that the corner stones used in the construction of Mokuaikaua Church (1837) and Hulihee Palace (1838) were Līloa and ʻUmi stones.

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Suiter Field

In 1779, Captain Cook explored the North Kohala area and noted:  “The country, as far as the eye could reach, seemed fruitful and well inhabited … (3 to 4-miles inland, plantations of taro and potatoes and wauke are) neatly set out in rows.”

“The walls that separate them are made of the loose burnt stone, which are got in clearing the ground; and being entirely concealed by sugar-canes planted close on each side, make the most beautiful fences that can be conceived …”  (Cook Journal)

Fast forward 150-years to a property in this area within two traditional Hawaiian ahupuaʻa (land divisions.) The eastern half of the property is located within the ahupuaʻa of Kealahewa (wrong way) and the western half is located within the ahupuaʻa of Opihipau (opihi (limpets) all gone.)  The property was used by the Hawi Mill and Plantation Company in its sugar operations.

Later, on June 25, 1927, an Executive Order set aside nearly 38-acres of the property for an airplane landing field for the US Air Service to be under the management and control of the War Department.

The airfield is about three miles northwest of the town of Hawi on the northern tip of the coast of the Big Island of Hawaiʻi.  In 1933, the Army named it Suiter Field, in honor of 1st Lieutenant Wilbur C Suiter who was killed in action serving in 135th Aero Squadron.

Suiter was posthumously issued the Distinguished Service Cross and Silver Star Citation for extraordinary heroism in action.  He and his observer (Guy E Morse) fearlessly volunteered for the perilous mission of locating the enemy’s advance unit in the rear of the Hindenburg line.

Disregarding the hail of machine gun fire and bursting anti-aircraft shell, they invaded the enemy territory at a low altitude and accomplished his mission, securing information of the greatest importance.

They at once returned to the lines and undertook another reconnaissance mission, from which they failed to return.  (Morse Field, the military’s air field that was once at South Point was named after 2nd Lieutenant Guy E Morse.)

Suiter Field was first licensed in 1928.  It was also alternatively referred to as Upolu Point Military Reservation, Upolu Landing Field, Upolu Airplane Landing Field and Upolu Airport.

In the early days of aviation in Hawaiʻi, the US Signal Corps maintained a communication station at Suiter Field.  Inter-Island Airways (later known as Hawaiian Air,) which began passenger service in 1929, used the field as an emergency stop on its route to Hilo, as well as to provide air service to the district of Kohala.

On June 26, 1929, Governor’s Executive Order No. 363 added 57-acres to Upolu Airplane Landing Field to be under the control and management of the War Department.  Shortly thereafter, December 16, 1929, the Territorial Aeronautics Commission sought to have the property returned to the Territory for the Upolu aeroplane landing field.

In January 1930, the War Department granted the Territory concurrent use of the Army landing field for official and commercial aviation use.  Within 7-months later, about 97-percent of the land was restored to the Territory.  A couple of months later, about 95 acres were dedicated to establish the Upolu Airport under control of the Territory.

Upolu field was grass on a sandy soil and partially graded.  The Army maintained a barracks and radio station at the field on Federal property. The Upolu Point Airport consisted of one large runway in the shape of an hour glass 3,500 feet long.

Before the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, a contract had been let and work was ready to start on the new airport – the war stopped that.

During World War II, the Navy occupied Upolu Airport establishing a weather and communication station there.  The facility was used as an auxiliary field to the Naval Air Station, Hilo, for field-carrier-landing practice and other training of carrier pilots.

The Upolu Point Military Reservation included facilities for naval purposes and for the operation and maintenance of military airplanes and airships. These facilities included a 150-foot-wide by 4,000-foot long surfaced runway, an aircraft parking area, a catapult deck, administration buildings, personnel quarters and a bunch of support buildings.

A simulated deck of an aircraft carrier was installed and air-group pilots completed their training by qualifying in day and night deck landings before going aboard the carriers for combat duty.  From July 1944 to May 1947 the facility was used exclusively for naval and other military purposes.

Upolu Airport was returned to the Territory after the war, and air service was provided by scheduled and non-scheduled operators.  Buildings formerly occupied by the Navy were rehabilitated for use as a terminal and for other purposes.

It was used for a time by Inter-Island Airways, Ltd. for small Sikorsky amphibians, but could not be used for large aircraft.  A 1946 Master Plan for Upolu included a 4,000 foot by 150 foot runway.  By 1948, the paved runway was 4,000 feet in length and Upolu was the only airport in that part of the island which met the requirements for scheduled airline operation.

Hawaiian Airlines was the principal user of the airport and made one stop a day en route from Honolulu to Hilo, and one stop en route from Hilo to Honolulu.

A new Master Plan was completed in March 1999. The airfield included a single runway (7-25), taxiway and an aircraft parking apron.  Runway 7-25 was 3,800 feet long and 75 feet wide and aligned in an east-northeast to west-southwest direction.

There has been no scheduled commuter service at the airport since 1986.  There are no cargo facilities at Upolu Airport, no control tower, and no aircraft rescue and firefighting facilities (nor fuel storage facility.)  There are only infrequent aircraft at Upolu Airport; airport management is under the Kona International Airport manager.  (Lots of info here from hawaii-gov.)

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Kawaihae

Kamehameha had granted Kawaihae Komohana ahupua‘a (present Kawaihae 1) to Kalanimōku, his “prime minister;” Kawaihae Hikina (present Kawaihae 2) was one of several ahupuaʻa on Hawai‘i and other islands allocated to John Young by Kamehameha.

Kamehameha had a house here.  Following his death and the succession of Liholiho to rule as Kamehameha II, Kawaihae served as the initial Royal Center for Liholiho, who sought consolidation of his forces and consecration of his leadership role, there.  (Kelly)

Then, as now, the area was relatively barren and people typically lived near the shore, not up the hill.   As noted in 1832, by missionary Lorenzo Lyons in his journal, “about as desolate a place as I have ever seen, nothing but barrenness, with here and there a native hut”.

The area is also generally referenced as Pelekane, which means ‘British,’ possibly named after the Young and Isaac Davis families that lived there (when Davis died in 1810, his friend and co-advisor to Kamehameha, John Young, looked after Davis’ children.)

These were not the only high-ranking people associated with Kawaihae during the first decades of the 19th century. Kamāmalu, daughter of Kamehameha and Kaheiheimālie was born at Pelekane (ca 1802.)

She would later become the wife of her half-brother Liholiho (Kamehameha II,) the son of Kamehameha and the high chiefess Keōpūolani (Kamāmalu died of measles in London with Liholiho in 1825.)  Some suggest Queen Emma (granddaughter of John Young) was also born here.

Over time, Kawaihae and Waimea (up the hill) developed a synergistic relationship.  The area was a canoe landing area, whether for commerce or combat.  (This is where Maui’s chief Kamalālāwalu landed in his assault against Lonoikamakahiki’s Hawaiʻi forces (Lono won.)  But Kawaihae’s presence was really focused on commerce as a landing site.

Archibald Menzies, reporting on Vancouver’s third layover at Kawaihae Bay in March 1793 after leaving Kealakekua Bay, recorded that Young and Davis had accompanied “us thither (i.e. to Kawaihae) on purpose to make presents of hogs and vegetables…from their plantations, which lay near this part of the island…”  (Menzies, Cultural Surveys)

Young built a storehouse in his family compound.  During the sandalwood trade, Young supervised royal warehouses that were the central depository for the wood brought in from the surrounding district.

William Ellis, in 1831 wrote, “Before daylight on the 22d, we were roused by vast multitudes of people passing through the district from Waimea with sandalwood, which had been cut in the adjacent mountains for Karaimoku (Kalanimōku,) by the people of Waimea, and which the people of Kohala, as far as the north point …”

“… had been ordered to bring down to his storehouse on the beach, for the purpose of its being shipped to Oahu.  There were between two and three thousand men, carrying each from one to six pieces of sandalwood, according to their size and weight.”

Another early foreign visitor to Kawaihae was Frenchman, Louis Claude Desaulses de Freycinet, in 1819; he met Liholiho here.  Following closely in the wake of Freycinet’s visit of 1819 were the American missionaries, who stopped first at Kawaihae on April 1, 1820 (before heading down to Kailua-Kona.) They were met by Kalanimōku and his wives and two of Kamehameha’s widows (Kalākua and Namahana.)

During subsequent decades, other missionaries visiting Hawai‘i Island would record their impressions of the life and landscape of the 19th-century Kawaihae region. According to Rev. William Ellis, who, along with other missionaries, stopped at Kawaihae in 1823, the village in the early 1820s contained one hundred houses.

Ellis noted the same salt pans mentioned by Archibald Menzies in 1793 and described the salt-making operations he witnessed:  “The natives of this district manufacture large quantities of salt, by evaporating the sea water. We saw a number of their pans, in the disposition of which they display great ingenuity.”

“(T)he Sandwich Islanders eat (salt) very freely with their food, and use much in preserving their fish. … The surplus … they dispose of to vessels touching at the islands, or export to the Russian settlements on the north-west coast of America, where it is in great demand for curing fish, &c.” (Ellis)

The salt also came in handy with the region’s supplying whalers with fresh and salt beef that called to the Islands, as well as the later Gold Rushers of America.  Here is where Samuel Parker (of the later Parker Ranch fame) started out as a cattle hunter to fill those needs.

Increasing demand for meat, hides and tallow prompted Kuakini, governor of Hawai‘i Island, to establish a residence (and corrals) at Waimea in 1830. After having difficulty traversing the rocky trail from Waimea to Kawaihae, he “wisely sentenced forty persons guilty of violating the seventh commandment (committing adultery”) to construct a road connecting the two.

About this time, 2-wheeled Mexican ox carts started to appear; they were used to transport the meat and other goods between Waimea and Kawaihae (lots of white and sweet potatoes were grown in Waimea for export to California during the Gold Rush.)

As the area continued to grow and develop, most of the residential and commercial buildings that comprised Kawaihae Town continued to be located close to the shoreline of the bay; the uplands of the Kawaihae region remained undeveloped pasture land.  (Cultural Surveys)

The WWII years brought dramatic change.  The vast isolated plains of Waimea were viewed as an ideal location for a troop training center and in the spring of 1942 an army recruit camp was built there. The recruits were followed by the Second and Fifth Marine Divisions that recuperated and trained at Waimea. At its height, the Waimea camp (later dubbed Camp Tarawa,) consisting of tents and Quonset huts set on thousands of acres, housed up to 40,000 men.

Troops were shipped in and out through Kawaihae. At the southern end of the bay, in Kawaihae 2, amphibious landing exercises were conducted and military emplacements were set up in the area of Puʻukohola Heiau.

The war in the Pacific had been over less than a year when on April 1, 1946, an earthquake off the Aleutian Islands caused a tsunami that devastated the Hawaiian Islands.  Although no lives were lost at Kawaihae, its effects wiped out commercial fishing activity there and it was reported that the tsunami “…was the beginning of the end for the Kawaihae Fishing Village. People left.”  (Cultural Surveys)

By the 1950s, the need for improved harbor facilities at Kawaihae was apparent. The old landing had been destroyed in the 1946 tsunami and the one built in 1937 had proven unsafe in high seas. The Kawaihae Deep-Draft Harbor project was authorized by the US Congress in 1950 and finally dedicated on October 5, 1959.

The harbor’s construction was hailed as an “economic shot in the arm,” for sugar planters in the Kohala region of the island would no longer have to ship their crops overland to Hilo or to Kailua-Kona. The harbor would serve military needs as well. The Army was about to acquire a 100,000-acre training site nearby and could unload supplies at Kawaihae Harbor.  (Cultural Surveys)

On August 17, 1972, the US Congress authorized the designation of Puʻukohola Heiau as a National Historic Site. This site also encompasses Mailekini Heiau; Hale O Kapuni Heiau (a submerged “shark” heiau;) Pōhaku o Alapaʻi ku palupalu mano (a stone on the beach where chief Alapaʻi leaned against while watching sharks circling around offerings placed at the submerged heiau;) Pelekane (Kamehameha’s Kawaihae residence) and the site of John Young’s house.

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Kaiopihi

Reverend Elias and Ellen (Howell) Bond sailed with the Ninth Company of Missionaries from Boston.  The Bonds arrived in Honolulu in May of 1841. They were then assigned to Kohala.

Reverend Isaac Bliss, an elderly missionary in Kohala, had already completed a main house of what is known as the Bond Homestead compound when Bond arrived in Kohala in June 1841.

The compound eventually included the Bond Homestead (1841) Kalāhikiola Church (completed in 1855) and Kohala Seminary (Kohala Girl’s School – complex founded in 1872.)

The area was described in an 1849 account (in ‘The Island World of the Pacific’) as follows: “It stands in the center of an area of some five or six acres, enclose with a neat stone wall, and having a part of it cultivated as a garden, adorned with flowering shrubs and trees, as the pineapple, guava, acacia, mimosa, tamarind, kukui, mulberry, geranium, banana, Pride of China, sugar cane, etc.”

“The house is thatched with long leaves of the hala-tree (Pandanus), and has a very pretty, neat appearance, in connection with that tasteful keeping of the walks and grounds, like the pictures we have of thatched cottages and rural scenes of Old England.”

To provide employment to the people in the region and support his church and schools, Reverend Bond founded Kohala Sugar Company, known as “The Missionary Plantation,” in 1862.

“On December 23rd, 1876 there arrived for the Kohala plantation thirty Christian Chinese, four with their wives, and two children. The following year the little Oriental colony had increased to forty-five, the second company of Christian Chinese arriving in January.”

“How eagerly Father Bond welcomed them to his fold and how he rejoiced in the greater freedom of action furnished by plantation dividends, may be seen in a letter of October 17, 1877:”

“‘I sent in August for a minister to preach to our English speaking population. …. Now I write to see if we can obtain from the coast a Chinese Evangelist for these growing numbers of Chinese among us with no possible medium through which we may speak to them of Jesus.’”

“‘The Master has wonderfully helped us in all our plans and I will trust Him. I think I have learned more and more to trust Him, of late.’”

“And soon the long anticipated arrival and labors of Kong Tet Yin were announced: ‘March, 1878. … My errand to Honolulu was to get a Chinese, Colporteur and Evangelist. It was an unexpected opening, the man with highest testimonials from China and Australia.’”

“‘The Master favored my errand. I secured the man, and secured from the Kohala Sugar Company the means for paying his salary. Thanks to God for all.’”

“‘April, 1879. …. Our Chinese work is gradually getting into shape. I am much pleased with the Evangelist, though I sorely feel the difficulty involved in our inability to communicate freely, he having no knowledge of the English.  ‘He is a good speaker and manifestly a man of character.’”

“‘We have just arranged for an independent Chinese service on the Sabbath, excepting on Communion and Monthly Concert Sabbaths when they will meet with us. This arrangement will probably draw in more of the pagan element among our Chinese population.’”

“‘My idea was to have them meet with us only on Communion Sabbaths, but they wished to meet also on Monthly Concerts, and probably, till they attain to a somewhat enlarged measure of the habit and grace of giving for religious purposes, it will do them no harm to meet with our native congregation on such Sabbaths.’”

“Thus, all went well, if slowly, with the little ‘Chinese Zion’ in Kohala. February of 1883 saw a plot of ground given by the plantation and set off for a church building for the Chinese [a chapel called Kaiopihi] the first in the Islands.” 

“In May of the same year a visit was recorded from ‘Father Damon’, who shared to the full Mr. Bond’s interest in the Chinese and was one of the first to organize Christian work among them in Honolulu.  On July 29th of this same year the Chinese church body of Kohala was formally organized.” (Damon, Father Bond)

Kohala is a good example of the development of churches in a plantation community. Kalahikiola Church was the Hawaiian church where Father Elias Bond was pastor.

When the plantation was started, a Chinese church soon came. Later Kohala Union Church came into being for English-speaking residents, followed by a Japanese church in 1894 and a Filipino church in 1933.

By 1942 all churches except the Filipino church were having services in English. The Japanese and Chinese churches merged, and a few years later all except the Filipino church merged with Kalahikiola.  (Mulholland)

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