Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaname Yonamine

A shy young man, he was Nisei (second generation) born on June 24, 1925, in Olowalu, Maui, where his father Matsusai, an Okinawan, had moved to find work in the sugar cane fields and met his mother Kikue, whose family was from Hiroshima. He is considered one of the greatest athletes to come out of Hawaii. (Weber)

He starred at Lahainaluna before he attracted the attention of Honolulu’s football coaches and transferred to Farrington, starring on the baseball and football teams – and led the Governors to their first football championship in 1944.

It was there when Kaname Yonamine changed his first name to Wallace – he was then known as Wally.

Yonamine graduated from Farrington in 1945 and was drafted into the US Army the next morning. Stationed at Schofield Barracks, he was supposed to be shipped to Europe to support the 442nd Regimental Combat Team. However, within two months, World War II was over. (Hawai‘i Tribune Herald)

He never went to college, though he turned down at least one football scholarship, to Ohio State. In the period after the war, Yonamine remained at Schofield, where he joined the Lei-Alumns, a football team comprised of former Leilehua High School players.

During a fateful game against Portland University, he scored several touchdowns and caught the eye of a San Francisco 49ers scout, who was there to evaluate Portland’s quarterback.

In 1947, Yonamine signed with the San Francisco 49ers of the All-America Football Conference, a post-World War II rival to the National Football League. This was the 49ers’ second season, three years before the team joined the NFL. Yonamine inked a two-year deal worth $14,000. (AP)

He was the first Asian-American to play professional football. This was at a time in San Francisco when emotions were still raw as thousands of Japanese – most of them American citizens – who had been rounded up and forced from their homes and businesses in The City’s thriving Japantown returned from desolate internment camps. (Chapman)

Therefore, Yonamine’s signing with the 49ers took on special significance in the Asian American community. In 12 games (three starts), he rushed for 74 yards on 19 carries, caught three passes for 40 yards and recorded one interception for a 20-yard return. (49ers)

Yonamine’s football career was cut short after fracturing his wrist playing baseball in 1948. He then turned his sole focus to baseball. (49ers)

His baseball talents were immediately noticed by the legendary Lefty O’Doul, a former National League batting champion, who had been instrumental in promoting the professional game in Japan. He signed Yonamine and sent him to the Salt Lake City Bees, where Wally did well.

One of O’Doul’s contacts was Matsutaro Shoriki, owner of the Yomiuri Giants, the premier professional franchise in Japan. A deal was worked out, and, in 1951, Wally Yonamine found himself the starting center fielder of the Giants (or, “Kyojin,” as they are called in Japan.) (Gillespie)

In 1951, he arrived in Japan as the first American to play baseball after World War II. At first he was met with much adversity for being American, but also for his hard hitting style of baseball. This proved to be the introduction of a new style of baseball in Japan. (Fitts)

In his debut for the Giants, he bunted for a hit in his first at-bat, a show of daredevilry that became his trademark. To the orderly and respectful game as the Japanese played it, Yonamine brought what was considered bad behavior: beating out a sacrifice bunt, sliding hard to take out the pivot man on a double play, expressing outrage at the umpire. (Weber)

Without speaking the language, he helped introduce a hustling style of base running, shaking up the game for both Japanese players and fans. Along the way, Yonamine endured insults, dodged rocks thrown by fans, initiated riots, and was threatened by yakuza (the Japanese mafia). (Fitts)

Yonamine was a gifted athlete. He was a great left-handed contact hitter and was a Gold Glove-level defender, and a very aggressive base runner. In fact, Yonamine changed Japanese pro baseball forever, when he started thrilling crowds by stealing third base and home.

Before Wally, this was not a part of the Japanese style of play. Yonamine stole home 11 times in his career, a record for Japan’s major leagues. (Gillespie)

He also won batting titles, was named the 1957 MVP, coached and managed for twenty-five years, and was honored by the emperor of Japan. Overcoming bigotry and hardship on and off the field, Yonamine became a true national hero and a member of Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame. (Fitts)

In 1957 he received the MVP award and led the Tokyo Giants to the Japan World Series title. Today, he still holds the highest batting average ever for a Giant.

Wally went on to play for and manage the Chunichi Dragons, and succeeded as the first foreign manager to win the Central League title (beating the Giants.) (Yonamine Pearls)

Yonamine went on to coach or manage various professional teams in Japan for 26 years. He was inducted into the Japanese Baseball Hall of Fame in 1994.

In 2002, the San Francisco 49ers honored Yonamine’s football legacy during an exhibition game on August 3 at Japan’s Osaka Dome. Serving as an honorary team captain, Yonamine was greeted with a standing ovation. (49ers) Wally Yonamine died February 28, 2011.

Here’s a short video on Wally Yonamine:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lp5j1upTWw

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Hilo Teachers School

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawai­ʻi in 1820 marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The missionaries were the teachers and the chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

Reverend David Belden Lyman and his wife, Sarah Joiner Lyman arrived in Hawai‘i in 1832, members of the fifth company of missionaries sent to the Islands by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

When the arrived in Hilo … “there were no foreign residents, save the Missionaries who proceeded us. There was but one frame building in this region, that built by Mr. [Joseph] Goodrich.”

“There were no roads, only footpaths, no fences and the Wailuku River was crossed on a plank … I might add that there were no trees except the breadfruit, which were abundant and flourishing. Coconut trees fringed the beach. The people were numerous and had a healthy look … very friendly.”

“A few schooners, owned by the chiefs, came here occasionally, not to bring blessings to the natives, but to levy contributions of tapa, nuts, dried fish, pigs, etc …” (Sarah Joiner Lyman; Lothian)

The missionaries soon saw that the future of the Congregational Mission in Hawaii would be largely dependent upon the success of its schools. 

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the printing of 140,000 copies of the pī­ʻāpā (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers.  (Laimana)

In 1830 “Mr. [Lorrin] Andrews left Lahaina to go to the aid of the Hilo Station and he started a school for the improvement of the teachers.” (Lothian)

In 1831, Lahainaluna Seminary, was created in Maui to be a school for teachers and preachers so that they could teach on the islands. The Mission then established “feeder schools” that would transmit to their students’ fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and religious training, before admission to the Lahainaluna.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built 1,103 schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 52,882 students.  (Laimana)

In 1832, “The school system was admirable for the times; there being school buildings through the two districts at convenient distances for all to attend, and they did pretty generally attend. And all whose eyes were not dim with age learned to read.”

“Each school had two sets of teachers, and whilst one was teaching, the other was here attending the teachers school, which was taught by the missionaries.” (Sarah Joiner Lyman; Lothian)

On January 6, 1835, “our children’s (Station) school commenced, eighty children present, sixty knew their letters. A number of the more forward (ie. advanced) children are employed as monitors to assist the less forward.”

In 1836, “For several years the forming of a boy’s boarding school had been discussed at the Annual Meetings and while they were all in favor of said venture they were not sure of its success; no one had offered to start a school.”

“At the 1836 meeting it was decided that the school should be in Hilo ….. ‘leaving it for the brothern to decide as to who should develop the much desired thing. The great object in view was to train more intelligent teachers for the common schools. So we were given carte blanche for the Island of Hawaii.’” (Sarah Joiner Lyman Journal; Lothian)

“Mr. Abner Wilcox, who had arrived with the recent Company that spring [1836], was assigned to Hilo to take charge of the teachers school and the educational department of the boarding school [Hilo Boarding School].”

In October 1836, two thatch houses were constructed near Lyman’s house and on October 3 the school opened with eight boarders, but the number soon increased to twelve.

The school was operated to an extent on a manual labor program and the boys cultivated the land to produce their own food. (The boys’ ages ranged from seven to fourteen.)

“Mr. Lyman who was brought up on a farm had an abiding faith in the value of manual labor; and his work in Hilo had convinced him that such activity in both primitive and introduced vocation was as necessary as book learning during the period of transition from one culture to another.”  (Lothian)

Hilo Boarding School, under the leadership of the Lymans, was an immediate success. In 1837, six graduates were sent to Lahainaluna Seminary.

At first, greater emphasis was placed upon producing teachers and preachers than upon molding farmers or craftsmen.  However, with the loss of Lahainaluna to the government, the Hilo school became reoriented to stress vocational training.

Hilo Boarding School was never a purely vocational institution, however, its founder’s focus of educating the head, heart and hand carried throughout its history (rigorous academic drills (Head), religious/moral (Heart) and manual/vocational (Hand) training).

In 1839, the old thatch buildings were torn down and Lyman purchased the entire first shipment of lumber to arrive in Hilo to build a new school building, as well as a cookhouse and infirmary which would accommodate sixty to seventy boys.

The new school building lodged fifty-five pupils in its first year, most of them coming from outside Hilo.  In 1840, sugar cultivation commenced on adjacent mission land, and was worked entirely by the boys of the school along with a “monthly concert” of labor by all members of the parish. The cane was probably ground in a Chinese-owned mill in Hilo.

Lahainaluna was transferred from being operated by the American missionaries to the control of the Hawaiian Monarchy in 1849.  (By 1864, only Lahainaluna graduates were considered qualified to hold government positions such as lawyers, teachers, district magistrates and other important posts.)

“The fact that Lahainaluna became a Government and the public schools starting high schools started the Hilo Boarding school moving into a new era. The Boarding School began as an academic institution whose purpose was to teach boys and young men and prepare them so they could attend Lahainaluna School and … come out as teachers and ministers”. (Lothian)

More than one-third of the boys who had attended Hilo Boarding School eventually became teachers in the common schools of the kingdom. In 1850 the Minister of Public Instruction, Richard Armstrong, reported that Hilo Boys School “is one of our most important schools. It is the very life and soul of our common school on that large island.”

Common schools (where the 3 Rs were taught) sprang up in villages all over the islands.  In these common schools, classes and attendance were quite irregular, but nevertheless basic reading and writing skills (in Hawaiian) and fundamental Christian doctrine were taught to large numbers of people.  (Canevali)

The Hilo Boarding School closed in 1925, although its facilities were used for several years thereafter.  It first became a community center.

Then, in 1947, it was the first home of the Hilo Branch of the University of Hawaiʻi a center of the University Extension Division.  UH programs expanded there with a permanent summer school in 1948 – then, in 1949, the institution changed its name to University of Hawaiʻi, Hilo center (which later moved to its present site on Lanikāula Street, in 1955.)

All of the Hilo Boarding School buildings are gone; in 1980 the Hilo Center affiliated with the Boy’s Clubs of America – Hilo Boys and Girls Club now occupies the site.

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Education in Hawaiʻi

Before the foreigners arrived, Hawaiians had a vocational learning system, where everyone was taught a certain skill by the kahuna.  Skills taught included canoe builder, medicine men, genealogists, navigators, farmers, house builders and priests.

The arrival of the first company of American missionaries in Hawaiʻi in 1820 marked the beginning of Hawaiʻiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The missionaries were the teachers and the chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

By 1831, in just eleven years from the first arrival of the missionaries, Hawaiians had built 1,103 schoolhouses. This covered every district throughout the eight major islands and serviced an estimated 52,882 students.  (Laimana)

The proliferation of schoolhouses was augmented by the printing of 140,000 copies of the pīʻāpā (elementary Hawaiian spelling book) by 1829 and the staffing of the schools with 1,000-plus Hawaiian teachers.  (Laimana)

The word pīʻāpā is said to have been derived from the method of teaching Hawaiians to begin the alphabet “b, a, ba.” The Hawaiians pronounced “b” like “p” and said “pī ʻā pā.”  (Pukui)

In 1831, Lahainaluna Seminary, started by missionary Lorrin Andrews, was created in Maui to be a school for teachers and preachers so that they could teach on the islands. The islands’ first newspaper, Ka Lama Hawaii, was printed at this school.

Hilo Boarding School opened in 1836, built by missionary David Lyman, a missionary. Eight boys lived there the first year. This school was so successful a girls’ boarding school was created in 1838.

Oʻahu’s first school was called the Chiefs’ Children’s School (Royal School.)  The cornerstone of the original school was laid on June 28, 1839 in the area of the old barracks of ʻIolani Palace (at about the site of the present State Capitol of Hawaiʻi.)

The school was created by King Kamehameha III, and at his request was run by missionaries Mr. and Mrs. Amos S. Cooke; the main goal of this school was to groom the next generation of the highest ranking chief’s children of the realm and secure their positions for Hawaiʻi’s Kingdom.

The Chiefs’ Children’s School was unique because for the first time Aliʻi children were brought together in a group to be taught, ostensibly, about the ways of governance.  The School also acted as another important unifying force among the ruling elite, instilling in their children common principles, attitudes and values, as well as a shared vision.

Kamehameha III called for a highly-organized educational system; the Constitution of 1840 helped Hawaiʻi public schools become reorganized.

William Richards, a missionary, helped start the reorganization, and was later replaced by missionary Richard Armstrong.  Richard Armstrong is known as the “the father of American education in Hawaiʻi.”

“Statute for the Regulation of Schools” passed by the King and chiefs on October 15, 1840. Its preamble stated, “The basis on which the Kingdom rests is wisdom and knowledge. Peace and prosperity cannot prevail in the land, unless the people are taught in letters and in that which constitutes prosperity. If the children are not taught, ignorance must be perpetual, and children of the chiefs cannot prosper, nor any other children”.

The creation of the Common Schools (where the 3 Rs were taught) marks the beginning of the government’s involvement in education in Hawaiʻi.  At first, the schools were no more than grass huts.

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 1840 educational law mandated compulsory attendance for children ages four to fourteen. Any village that had fifteen or more school-age children was required to provide a school for their students.

Oʻahu College, later named Punahou School, was founded in 1841 on land given to missionary Hiram Bingham by Boki (at the request of Kaʻahumanu.)  Bingham gave the land to the mission for the school.

By 1832, the literacy rate of Hawaiians (at the time was 78 percent) had surpassed that of Americans on the continent. The literacy rate of the adult Hawaiian population skyrocketed from near zero in 1820 to a conservative estimate of 91 percent – and perhaps as high as 95 percent – by 1834. (Laimana)

From 1820 to 1832, in which Hawaiian literacy grew by 91 percent, the literacy rate on the US continent grew by only 6 percent and did not exceed the 90 percent level until 1902 – three hundred years after the first settlers landed in Jamestown. By way of comparison, it is significant that overall European literacy rates in 1850 had not risen much above 50 percent. (Laimana)

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.

For more on this, click the link: Education in Hawaii.

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Sereno Edwards Bishop

Sereno Edwards Bishop was born at Kaʻawaloa on February 7, 1827; he was son of Rev. Artemas and Elizabeth (Edwards) Bishop (part of the Second Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi (arriving April 27, 1823) and first stationed at Kailua, on the Big Island.)

Mrs Bishop had been a girlhood friend of Mrs Lucy G Thurston, who had preceded her to Hawaii as a missionary, some four years earlier. Mrs Bishop died February 28, 1828 at Kailua, the first death in the mission.

Mr. Bishop, Sr subsequently married Delia Stone, who was a member of the Third Company of missionaries (December 1, 1828.)

The missionaries’ house was usually in a thickly inhabited village, so the missionary and his wife could be close to their work among the people; the missionary children were typically cooped up in their home.

With hundreds of children all about them, missionary children had no playmates except the children of other missionaries, most of whom were scattered over the Islands, meeting only a few times a year.  (Thurston)

“In the early-(1830s,) Kailua was a large native village, of about 4,000 inhabitants rather closely packed along one hundred rods of shore (about 1,650-feet,) and averaging twenty rods inland (about 330-feet.)”

“Near by stood a better stone house occupied by the doughty Governor Kuakiui. All other buildings in Kailua were thatched, until Rev. Artemas Bishop built his two-story stone dwelling in 1831 and Rev. Asa Thurston in 1833 built his wooden two-story house at Laniākea, a quarter of a mile inland.”

“The people had ample cultivable land in the moist upland from two to four miles inland at altitudes of one thousand to twenty-five hundred feet. It is a peculiarity of that Kona coast that while the shore may be absolutely rainless for months gentle showers fall daily upon the mountain slope.”  (Bishop)

Sereno Bishop was sent to the continent at age 12 for education (he graduated from Amherst College in 1846 and Auburn Theological Seminary in 1851,) he married Cornelia A Session on May 31, 1852 and returned to Hawaiʻi on January 16, 1853.

His observation of Honolulu at the time noted, “The settled portion of the city was then substantially limited by the present
Alapaʻi and River streets and mauka at School street. There was hardly anything outside of those limits and the remainder was practically an open plain.”

“Above Beretania street, on the slopes and beyond Alapaʻi street, there was hardly a building of any nature whatever.”

“At that time there was a small boarding school for the children of the missions at Punahou, under direction of Father Dole. This little structure alone intervened between the city and Mōʻiliʻili, where about the church there were a few houses.”  (Bishop)

Bishop assumed the position of Seaman’s Chaplain in Lāhainā.  The Bishops remained nine years at Lahaina, where five children were born to them (two of the boys died at a young age.)

After 10-years in Lāhainā, he moved to Hāna and later returned to Lāhainā and served from 1865 to 1877 as principal of Lahainaluna. Mr. Bishop considered the work which he did among the native students at Lahainaluna was among the most fruitful of his life.

He left his mark at Lahainaluna, physically, in the shape of the grand avenue of monkey pods on the road to Lahaina, which he personally planted.  (Thurston)

Bishop had a reputation as an amateur scientist with interests particularly in geology.  Bishop’s contributions as an atmospheric scientist were sufficiently prominent to be mentioned in the Monthly Weather Review.  (SOEST)

Rev. Sereno Bishop, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, was the first to provide detailed observations of a phenomenon not previously reported – he noted his observation on September 5, 1883.  It was later named for him – Bishop’s Ring (a halo around the sun, typically observed after large volcanic eruptions.)

Bishop’s observations followed the eruption at Krakatoa (August 23, 1883.)  His findings suggested the existence of the ‘Jet Stream’ (this used to be referred to as the ‘Krakatoa Easterlies.’)

“It now seems probable that the enormous projections of gaseous and other matter from Krakatoa (Krakatau) have been borne by the upper currents and diffused throughout a belt of half the earth’s circumference, and not improbably, as careful observation may yet establish, even entirely around the globe.”  (Sereno Bishop)

Bishop made other volcanic observations; a hundred years ago, he noted Diamond Head was made in less than a hour’s time and is “composed not of lava, like the main mountain mass inland, but of this soft brown rock called tuff.” (Bishop, Commercial Advertiser, July 15, 1901)

In 1887, he moved to Honolulu and became editor of “The Friend,” a monthly journal, founded in Honolulu in 1843, “the oldest publication west of the Rocky Mountains.”

Bishop was identified as “the well-known mouthpiece of the annexation party” and criticized by royalists for his comments.  He remained in Honolulu and died there March 23, 1909.

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David Malo

David Malo, one of the early native Hawaiian scholars, was the son of Aoao and his wife Heone, and was born in Keauhou, North Kona Hawai‘i; his father had been soldier in the army of Kamehameha I.

The exact year of his birth is not known, but it was about 1793, around the time of Vancouver’s second visit to the islands.

During his early life Malo was connected with the high chief Kuakini (Governor Adams,) who was a brother of Queen Ka‘ahumanu.

In 1823, Malo moved to Lāhainā, Maui where he learned to read and write. Malo soon converted to Christianity and was given the baptismal name of David.

In 1831, he entered Lahainaluna High School (at about the age of 38;) the school opened with twenty-five students, under the leadership of Reverend Lorrin Andrews – he graduated in the class of 1835.  

From about 1835, he started writing notes on the Hawaiian religion and cultural history, along with other members of the school and instructor Sheldon Dibble.

Malo came to be regarded as the great authority and repository of Hawaiian lore and was in great demand as a story-teller of the old-time traditions, mele, and genealogies, and as a master in arrangements of the hula.

The law which first established a national school system was the “Statute for the Regulation of Schools” which was enacted on October 15, 1840, and was reenacted, with some important amendments, on May 21, 1841.

Malo was appointed as the general school agent for Maui; he was then voted to be in charge of all the general school agents, therefore becoming the first superintendent of schools of the Hawaiian kingdom (where he served at least until the middle of 1845.

He was described as “tall and of spare frame, active, energetic, a good man of business, eloquent of speech, independent in his utterances.”

“He was of a type of mind inclined to be jealous and quick to resent any seeming slight in the way of disparagement or injustice that might be shown to his people or nation, and was one who held tenaciously to the doctrine of national integrity and independence.”

After being ordained to the Christian ministry, he settled down in the seaside village of Kalepolepo on East Maui where he remained until his death in October 1853.

His book, Hawaiian antiquities (Moolelo Hawaii – 1898,) addressed the genealogies, traditions and beliefs of the people of Hawai‘i.

In the “Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition,” Admiral Wilkes (1840,) commenting on books about Hawai‘i, said, “(s)ome of them are by native authors.  Of these I cannot pass at least one without naming him.”

“This is David Malo, who is highly esteemed by all who know him, and who lends the missionaries his aid, in mind as well as example, in ameliorating the condition of his people and checking licentiousness.”

“At the same time he sets an example of industry, by farming with his own hands, and manufactures from his own sugar cane an excellent molasses.”

In the introduction to his book, the trustees of Bishop Museum acknowledge they “are rendering an important service to all Polynesian scholars.”

They also suggest the book “form(s) a valuable contribution not only to Hawaiian archaeology, but also to Polynesian ethnology in general.”

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