Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Keʻanae Prison Camp

In June, 1925, Governor Wallace Farrington and the County Board of Supervisors Chairman Samuel Kalama led a grand procession of cars on the official opening of the road from Kailua to Hana.

The road was called the Belt Road and would link the isolated communities of East Maui with the rest of the island. By December, 1926, the governor and the board chairman were able to drive all the way to Hana on the dream road that was fast becoming a reality.

Wait … Let’s step back a bit.

Handy, Handy & Pukui report that in ancient times there were several major population centers on the Island of Maui: Kahakuloa (West Maui) region; the deep watered valleys of Nā Wai ‘Ehā (Waiheʻe, Wai‘ehu, Wailuku and Waikapū;) the ‘Olowalu to Honokōhau region of Lāhainā; the Kula – ʻUlupalakua region and the Koʻolau – Hāna region.

They note the importance of the Koʻolau region in this discussion: “On the northeast flank of the great volcanic dome of Haleakala…the two adjacent areas of Keʻanae and Wailua-nui comprise the fourth of the main Maui centers and the chief center on this rugged eastern coast”

“It supported intensive and extensive wet-taro cultivation. Further eastward and southward along this windward coast line is the district of Hāna…” (Maly)

Settlement in the watered valleys along the Koʻolau coast consisted primarily of permanent residences near the shore and spread along the valley floors. Residences also extended inland on flat lands and plateaus, with temporary shelters in the upper valleys.

Handy, Handy and Pukui further note that “…Ke‘anae lies just beyond Honomanu Valley. This is a unique wet-taro growing ahupua‘a… It was here that the early inhabitants settled, planting upland rain-watered taro far up into the forested area.”

“In the lower part of the valley, which is covered mostly by grass now, an area of irrigated taro was developed on the east side. A much larger area in the remainder of the valley could have been so developed.”

“However, we could find no evidence of terracing there. This probably was due to the fact that the energies of the people were diverted to create the lo‘i complex which now covers the peninsula.” (Maly)

In modern times, when Hāna was without a road, and the coastal steamer arrived on a weekly schedule, Hana-bound travelers unwilling to wait for the boat drove their car to the road’s end at Kailua, rode horseback to Kaumahina ridge, then walked down the switchback into Honomanu Valley. (Wenkam, NPS)

Friends carried them on flatbed taro trucks across the Keʻanae peninsula to Wailua cove. It was a short ride by outrigger canoe beyond Wailua to Nāhiku landing where they could borrow a car for the rest of the involved trip to Hana. Sometimes the itinerary could be completed in a day. Bad weather could make it last a week. (Wenkam, NPS)

It was not until 1847, that the historic and modified trail and road alignments became a part of a system of “roads” called the “Alanui Aupuni” or Government Roads. Work on the roads was funded in part by government appropriations, and through the labor or financial contributions of area residents, or prisoners working off penalties. (Maly)

The law (Sec 1536DD. Warden, Deputy, Duties, Powers) allowed a warden to have “the immediate charge and direction of all Territorial prisons and prison camps and the administration thereof.”

“The warden shall be responsible for the safekeeping of all prisoners and persons who may be committed to said prisons and for the enforcement of proper order and discipline among and concerning prisoners and prison officers and employees.” (Attorney General)

Neighbor Island prison camps were set up, there were 4: Maui had three, the other was on the Big Island (outside Hilo.) Keʻanae camp had 22-prisoners and 3-guards; Olinda camp had 31-prisoners, with Jailer and 3-guards and Paukakulo camp had 27-prisoners, with 1-jailer and 3-guards. The three camps on Maui are engaged in road work and forest lines.

A large part of the road to Hāna was constructed by prison labor based at the Keʻanae Prison Camp. The camp was built in 1926 to house the prisoners who would construct the road, including several bridges from Kailua to Hana.

When the road was completed in 1927, men from Keʻanae to Hāna town were hired to maintain the road, especially during the rainy season. (McGregor)

Later, an announcement in the Maui News (January 20, 1934) carried the headline, “Conservation Program Will Be Launched Within Week or 10 Days.” Sub-headlines were “$421,000 Is Provided” and “…To be Located at Keʻanae’s Old Prison Site.”

No longer needed, the Keʻanae prison camp was converted into quarters for the Civilian Conservation Corps. This federal program, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to provide jobs to get the US through the depression, brought in men from other parts of Maui and other islands to plant thousands of eucalyptus and other introduced trees throughout the Hana coast. (McGregor)

In December 1942, during World War II, Governor Ingram Stainback tried to assist the war effort by sending forty inmates from Oʻahu Prison to the former Keʻanae Prison camp to revive the old Nāhiku rubber plantations in the hope of yielding 20,000 to 50,000-pounds of crude rubber annually. The venture was no more successful than the earlier ones had been.

Eventually, the YMCA operated the facilities as Camp Keanae; part of the land area continues to be used as a roadway base yard. Na Moku Aupuni O Ko‘olau Hui are now the stewards of Camp Keanae.

© 2013 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Māla Wharf

“(T)he citizens of Maui in particular, and of the Territory or Hawaiʻi in general, as well as many strangers who, in the past, have visited Maui, up to the present time have been required to submit to the most unsatisfactory, antiquated, and often dangerous methods of landing”.

“After years of patient and persistent effort on the part of the citizens of this Island there has been constructed and brought to completion at Māla , one of the most modern and up to date wharves”. (Maui Chamber Resolution 1922)

Māla Pier, dedicated in 1922, planned to eliminate the inconvenience of light freighters to load/unload steamers anchored in Lāhainā Roadstead.

The Maui Chamber of Commerce went on record as strongly opposed to the use at Māla Wharf of small boats from and to the steamers Mauna Kea and Kilauea.

Nearby was the Baldwin Packers pineapple cannery, it was hoped that this new pier would facilitate transporting the pineapple.

Likewise, sugar from the upslope Pioneer Mill was expected to be run out the wharf to be loaded directly onto large ocean voyaging cargo vessels.

Building the massive wharf in those days was no minor undertaking and the army corps of engineers developed the design and erected the wharf.

It was noted at the time that Hawaiians familiar with the local tides, coastline and ocean activity recommended against its construction in that location.

The ill-fated structure was built anyway and on the very first attempt to pull a cargo ship alongside the wharf for loading the vessel crashed into Māla Wharf causing serious damage to the structure.

It was soon discovered that the ocean currents at Māla Wharf were too treacherous for the ships to navigate safely.

Strong currents and heavy surf damaged many others when they tried to tie-up there. (Reportedly, only a handful of steamers ever landed there successfully.)

Produce had to be taken by barge to awaiting ships. By 1932, the roads had been improved enough to transport the fruit by truck to Kahului Harbor.

The State closed the wharf in the 1950s. Several subsequent plans have been discussed to the pier and adjoining lands.

In 1971, proposals by the Xanadu Corp to construct a restaurant, museum, shops, offices, park, parking lot and small marina at the site were announced. (Lahaina Sun)

Initial plans called for a 193-space parking lot situated at the Kaʻānapali side of the foot of the pier. A park was planned between the parking lot and the shoreline which would block the parking area from sight while on the pier. (Lahaina Sun)

Four buildings, housing 18 shops and 10 offices would be staggered on alternate sides of the pier. Park and fishing areas would be located between the buildings. Some of the shops would be cantilevered over the water. (Lahaina Sun)

The bulk of the four buildings would be one story, with two sections of each building rising another story. Near the end of the pier, a bait and tackle shop is planned. Plans also call for construction of a one-story Hawaiiana Museum. (Lahaina Sun)

At the pier’s end would be a two-story restaurant which could seat 200. Behind the restaurant would be an art gallery. Plans also include a 40-ship marina. The marina would be situated close to shore and would require dredging operations. (Lahaina Sun)

In 2012, principals of Harbor Quest LLC discussed plans for another boat harbor at Māla.

Their testimony before the council described the details: “A channel approximately 650 feet long and 125 (feet) in width would be constructed through what is now Māla Wharf access road. The channel would transect Front Street, opening into a harbor basin with a surface area approximately three times the size of Lahaina Small Board Harbor.” (Lahaina News)

The vision is for a mixed-use, inland harbor village situated on 24-plus acres of land on the south side of Kahoma Stream between the ocean and Honoapiilani Highway. (Lahaina News)

The proposed plans for the private venture are still on the drawing board but include 143 fifty-foot slips, three anchor restaurants, 160 retail establishments, 16 residential condominiums, haul-out facility and a four-story parking garage. (Lahaina News)

Nearby, Kahoma Village, an affordable workforce housing project was recently constructed. However, the Hawaii State Supreme Court upheld a decision by a lower court invalidating a permit for Kahoma Village.

The Supreme Court agreed with the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals that the Maui Planning Commission should have allowed a group of neighboring residents to intervene on Kahoma Village, a 203-unit, $60 million fast-track affordable housing project that was approved in 2014.

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lāhainā Roads

It’s not about automobiles – this is the area where ships anchor off Lāhainā.

Lāhainā Roads, also called the Lāhainā Roadstead is a channel of the Pacific Ocean in the Hawaiian Islands. The surrounding islands of Maui and Lānaʻi (and to a lesser extent, Molokaʻi and Kahoʻolawe) make it a sheltered anchorage.

The central location of the Hawaiian Islands between the continent and Japan whaling grounds brought many whaling ships to the Islands.  Whalers needed food and the islands supplied this need from its fertile lands.

Between the 1820s and the 1860s, the Lāhainā Roadstead was the principal anchorage of the American Pacific whaling fleet.  During that time, up to 1,500 sailors at a time were on the streets of the small town.

One reason why so many whalers preferred Lāhainā to other ports was that by anchoring in a roadstead from half a mile to a mile from shore they could control their crews better than when in a harbor.

“This mountain barrier (West Maui Mountains) shuts off the trade wind, and Lahaina roadstead is as smooth as the proverbial millpond, though a brief time may bring the sailor to a wind-tossed portion of Neptune’s domain of a very different finality.”  (The Friend, April 1903)

“Four channels lead into this inland sea, from the north, from the west, from the south, and from the southeast, and each has its own significant name. The islands which make these channels are seen most comprehensively from the hill back of the town -“

“Molokai on the right, stretching westward; Lanai directly in front, blocking the ocean on the southwest; and Kahoolawe, long and low, on the left, running southwestward.”  (The Friend, April 1903)

“The anchorage being an open roadstead, vessels can always approach or leave it with any wind that blows.  No pilot is needed here.”

“Vessels generally approach through the channel between Maui and Molokai, standing well over to Lanai, as far as the trade will carry them, then take the sea breeze, which sets in during the forenoon, and head for the town.”  (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“The anchorage is about ten miles in extent along the shore and from within a cable’s length of the reef in seven fathoms of water, to a distance of three miles out with some twenty-five fathoms, affording abundant room for as large a fleet as can ever be collected here.”  (The Friend, April 30, 1857)

“I shall never forget the finest sight of ships under sail I ever saw. It was a beautiful Sabbath morning at Lahaina. A very few ships were anchored off our place. The familiar cry of “Kail O!” was early heard and a glance towards the point towards Molokai revealed a ship under full sail coming down the channel.”  (Paradise of the Pacific, 1906 – referring to 1851-1861)

“It was soon followed by another and another until the increasing numbers ceased to be numbered. It was a fine sight as they came into view.  As if some common agreement they had all agreed to make the port the same time.  They had come from the Arctic and the Okhotsk sea”.  (Paradise of the Pacific, 1906 – referring to 1851-1861)

After whaling ended, the Roadstead continued to be used.

Since the 1930s, the US Navy had been using the Lāhainā roadstead between Maui and Lānaʻi as a protected deepwater anchorage for fleet deployment.

While the support facilities were limited on land, the location offered a convenient alternative to the crowded Pearl Harbor for temporary fleet basing.

Through the 1940s, Lāhainā Roads was as an alternative anchorage to Pearl Harbor.

While planning for the attack on the US Pacific Fleet, Japanese planners hoped that some significant units would be at anchor there because with Lāhainā’s deep water, those elements of the Pacific Fleet in all likelihood would never have been recovered.

The possibility that the Pacific Fleet would be at Lāhainā anchorage was taken seriously in the plan of the Japanese naval strike force for the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Scout planes were dispatched from the fleet, and submarines were sent to Lāhainā Roads to inspect the anchorage.  (The ships were at Pearl Harbor.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Kaʻahumanu Church

The church began on August 19, 1832; the first services were held under a thatched roof.

The present Kaʻahumanu Church is actually the fourth place of worship for the Wailuku congregation. The original congregation, under the leadership of the Reverend Jonathan S Green, was forced to hold their meetings in a shed.

During its first year, Queen Kaʻahumanu, the Kuhina Nui of the Kingdom and convert to Christianity, visited the congregation and asked that when the congregation built an actual church, it be named for her.

Queen Kaʻahumanu was Kamehameha’s favorite wife.  She was, at one time, arguably, the most powerful figure in the Hawaiian Islands, helping usher in a new era for the Hawaiian kingdom.

When Kamehameha died on May 8, 1819, the crown was passed to his son, Liholiho, who would rule as Kamehameha II.

Kaʻahumanu created the office of Kuhina Nui (similar to premier, prime minister or regent) and would rule as an equal with Liholiho.  She ruled first with Kamehameha II until his departure for England in 1823 (where he died in 1824) and then as regent for Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III).

Ka‘ahumanu assumed control of the business of government, including authority over land matters, the single most important issue for the Hawaiian nation for many generations to come.  She later married Kauaʻi’s chief, Kaumualiʻi, who Kamehameha I had made a treaty with instead of fighting and thereby put all the islands under single control.

On December 4, 1825, Queen Kaʻahumanu was baptized and received her new name, Elizabeth, then labored earnestly to lead her people to Christ.

The congregation’s small shed meeting house soon proved too small as the service held there attracted as many as 3,000 worshippers. In 1834, a larger meeting house with a thatched roof was erected by the congregation.

The Reverend Richard Armstrong who had replaced the Reverend Green as pastor in 1836, supervised the construction of two stone meeting houses one at Haiku, and the other at Wailuku. The new Wailuku Church, completed in 1840, was 100 feet by 52 feet, and was two stories (actually one story and a gallery) in height.  Reverend Green returned to replace Armstrong in 1840.

In 1843, the Reverend Green was replaced by the Reverend EW Clark. Five years later, Clark was transferred to Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu, and the Reverend Daniel Conde took over the pastorate at Wailuku.  Later, Reverend WP Alexander became pastor.

Active fundraising under Pastor William Pulepule Kahale led to the opportunity to finally build a permanent church.  Under the direction of Reverend Edward Bailey, in May, 1876, the new church, finally named the Kaʻahumanu Church, was completed.

Only a rock retaining wall that borders High Street in Wailuku is what remains of the old church.

The Kaʻahumanu Church is a large blue stone structure with wall more than two feet thick. It has a high-pitched gable roof with no overhang, but the eave terminates in a small molding adjacent to the top place along the wall.

The exterior is finished in plaster.  The church tower was not added until 1884 with a “fine tower clock from the U.S. costing $1,000.”  In 1892 the chandeliers were added to the interior.

The structure is four bays in depth with each bay having a single tall Gothic arched window with the interior of the window opening splayed.  Windows are multi-paned, double-hung wood frame with simple pattern in the upper part of the arch.

Adjoining the church is Honoliʻi Park.  It is believed that John Honoliʻi, a Native Hawaiian who had studied at Cornwall, Connecticut with Henry ʻŌpūkahaʻia and later sailed aboard the brig Thaddeus with the original Protestant missionaries in 1820, is buried in an unmarked grave in the Kaʻahumanu Church cemetery. (Honoliʻi died in 1838.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC

 

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Dwight Baldwin

Dwight Baldwin was born on September 29, 1798 to Seth Baldwin (1775 –1832,) (a farmer) and Rhoda Hull Baldwin in Durham, Connecticut, and moved to Durham, New York, in 1804. His father, He was the second of 12 children.  (Baldwin Genealogy)

He was employed with his father on the farm, enjoying the benefits of the common school, and generally in winter of a select school, till the age of sixteen. In the fall of 1814, he commenced the study of Latin, with a view to prepare for College.

The last of his teachers being a graduate of Williams College, he was induced to enter at Williams, where he spent two years; and then he left Williams and entered Yale College, where he graduated in September, 1821.

By the recommendation of President Day, the next two years he was employed as Principal of the Academy in Kingston, Ulster County, NY. A third year was spent in teaching a select school in Catskill, Greene county. He then devoted himself to the study of medicine, at the same time teaching a select school in Durham, NY.

Then, he got caught in the religious fervor; about the first of March, 1826, he found relief in believing in an Almighty Redeemer, a hope which has never forsaken him. Religion became the all-absorbing subject of his thought by day and by night.  (Baldwin Genealogy)

He soon came to the decision to join a mission, and September 3, of that year, he united with the Congregational Church in Durham, NY, and soon after he entered the Theological Seminary at Auburn, where he spent three years, offering his services into the American Board of Boston for a Foreign Mission … and they were accepted.

He did not have time to await official recognition of his medical degree so at direction of the Prudential Committee he took his diploma as Master of Science.  He was ordained at Utica, NY on October 6, 1830.

He was introduced by a friend to Charlotte Fowler, daughter of Deacon Solomon Fowler of North Branford, Connecticut, and a few weeks later was married to her on December 3, 1830. Twenty-five days later they set sail with the Fourth Company of missionaries to Hawaiʻi on the ship ‘New England;’ he arrived at Honolulu, June 7, 1831.  (Baldwin)

Soon after their arrival, the Missionaries were assigned to different stations over the group, wherever there seemed to be the greatest opportunity of doing good.  After a few months in Honolulu he was assigned to help Lorenzo Lyons in Waimea, Hawaiʻi Island. He remained there three years, from 1832 to 1835.  (The Friend, December 1922)

In 1835, ill health caused Baldwin to leave Waimea and seek recovery in the Society Islands. “Such was the opinion of all I consulted at Honolulu, & though I could preach & attend to other duties, & it was trying to part with my dear family, yet I was afraid I might hereafter repent, should I not go; so I came to the conclusion to go.”  (Baldwin, November 20, 1835)

“We sailed from Honolulu the 14th of July (1835) … We anchored at Papeete bay, on the NW side of Tahiti, in just one month from the time we sailed. … During the ten days we were at Tahiti, I did all I could, to visit the several stations”.  (Baldwin)

“From Tahiti we sailed to Huahine, (then) we set sail for these islands. We were favored with good winds & in 20 days saw Hawaii … I landed Sept. 20th thankful at finding wife & little ones safe & well.”  (While he was in Tahiti, his family had settled into their new home at Lāhainā.)  (Baldwin, November 20, 1835)

The Lāhainā mission was started in 1823; William Richards had been pastor for 13-years.  Lāhainā was then the favorite Royal Center of the King, and nearly all the high Chiefs of the Islands; it was the Kingdom’s capital (from the 1820s through the mid-1840s.)

It was also a thriving harbor in those days, being a port of call for the whale ships which sometimes filled the bay so full that one could jump from one deck to another.

Father and Mother Baldwin as they were often called, opened their home to all. Officers and masters of ships were the recipients of their wholehearted hospitality. Dr. Baldwin was physician for the mission families, and the government physician for Maui, Molokaʻi and Lānaʻi.  (The Friend, December 1922)

“A barrel of whale oil furnished light for a year.  The flour brought by the missionary steamer Morning Star came once a year and several times it had been so wetted in the storms off Cape Horn that it had hardened and it was necessary to chisel off the daily measure for cooking.”

“Vegetables, however, grew in their own garden and there was an abundance of fruit, such as bananas, grapes, and watermelons, and one does not hear that they suffered from their poverty.”  (Baldwin)

Baldwin preached at the Waine‘e Church (“Moving Water;”) the cornerstone was laid on September 14, 1828, for this ‘first stone meeting-house built at the Islands,’  It was dedicated on March 4, 1832.  The Hawaiian royalty attended services there.

(After fire destroyed the church in 1894, Baldwin’s son, Henry Perrine Baldwin, helped fund its restoration. Damaged and restored several times, the Church finally changed its name from Waine‘e Church, to Waiola Church (“Water of Life”) in 1954, and has safely-stood since.)

A series of epidemics swept through the Hawaiian Islands in the 1840s, whooping cough and measles, soon after followed by waves of dysentery and influenza; then, in 1853, a terrible smallpox epidemic. Although precise counts are not known, there were thousands of smallpox deaths on O‘ahu; Baldwin is credited with keeping the toll to only a few hundred on Maui.

“My journal has been long laid aside – not because I have not had thousands of things to record but mainly because press of cares has left little leisure to record what is passing in & what we are engaged. … 1853 was wonderfully taken up with our war with small pox on the islands.”  (Baldwin, October 8, 1854)

“(Baldwin) was constant in his ministrations, taxing his strength almost to its limit. He was obliged to cross the channel to Molokai and Lanai often when the weather was very stormy, and too, very dangerous.”

“He never hesitated for a moment when the call came, night or day, but hurried on with his little bag, stepped into a double canoe and was off to Lanai and from there he took a whaleboat to Molokai. It was not unusual for Dr. Baldwin to take a trip of 80 or 90 miles on horseback to visit patients in Hana.”  (The Friend, December 1922)

In 1856 the health of Father Baldwin, who had worked thirty-six years without a vacation, failed and the “American Board” granted him a year’s leave of absence. He and his wife left the Islands for a year’s visit in “the states.”  (Baldwin)

In 1859 Baldwin belatedly received an honorary medical degree from Dartmouth College, New Hampshire. Without having this he had suffered much embarrassment at the hands of the medical society of Honolulu who, despite the fact that he had been combining an exhausting medical practice for 27-years with his ministry, would not recognize him with a medical license unless he could produce documentary evidence of his medical degree. (HMCS)

It was with regret that Baldwin resigned his pastorate at Lāhainā, in September, 1868.  That year Father Baldwin became associated with Reverend Benjamin Parker in the conduct of the native Theological Seminary at Honolulu; the Baldwins moved to Honolulu in 1870.

Mother Baldwin died on October 2, 1873; the inscription on her tombstone reads, “A life of work, love and prayer;” Dwight Baldwin died on January 3, 1886.

The Baldwins had eight children: David Dwight (1831–1912), Abigail Charlotte (1833–1913), Charles Fowler (1837–1891), Henry Perrine (1842–1911), Emily Sophronia (1844–1891) and Harriet Melinda (1846–1932). A daughter, Mary Clark died at about 2½ years of age in 1838; a son, Douglas Hoapili, died at almost 3 in 1843.

The Baldwin’s coral and stone Lāhainā Home, Baldwin House, is the oldest house in Lāhainā (completed in 1835.)  It is now home to Lāhainā Restoration Foundation; they oversee and maintain 11 major historic structures in Lāhainā and provide tours of the Baldwin House.  (Lots of information here from Baldwin Journals, Baldwin Genealogy and Mission Houses.)

© 2022 Hoʻokuleana LLC