Maui | Page 35 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

September 8, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Hawaiian, American missionary, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean & Filipino

Hawaiʻi is the world’s most-isolated, populated-place; the Islands are about: 2,500-miles from the US mainland, Samoa & Alaska; 4,000-miles from Tokyo, New Zealand & Guam, and 5,000-miles from Australia, the Philippines & Korea.

Using stratigraphic archaeology and refinements in radiocarbon dating, studies suggest it was about 900-1000 AD that “Polynesian explorers first made their remarkable voyage from central Eastern Polynesia Islands, across the doldrums and into the North Pacific, to discover Hawai‘i.” (Kirch)

Then, in the dawn hours of January 18, 1778, on his third expedition, British explorer Captain James Cook on the HMS Resolution and Captain Charles Clerke of the HMS Discovery first sighted what Cook named the Sandwich Islands (that were later named the Hawaiian Islands.)

At the time of Cook’s arrival, the Hawaiian Islands were divided into four chiefdoms: (1) the island of Hawaiʻi under the rule of Kalaniʻōpuʻu, who also had possession of the Hāna district of east Maui; (2) Maui (except the Hāna district,) Molokaʻi, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, ruled by Kahekili; (3) Oʻahu, under the rule of Kahahana; and (4) Kauaʻi and Niʻihau, Kamakahelei was ruler.

Four decades later, inspired by ʻŌpūkahaʻia, a Hawaiian who wanted to spread the word of Christianity back home in Hawaiʻi, on October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries, from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from the northeast United States, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Sandwich Islands (now known as Hawai‘i.)

Then, something more significant in defining the social make-up of Hawaiʻi took place.

Sugar changed the social fabric of Hawai‘i. Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the planet.

The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i in 1835. It was to change the face of Hawai‘i forever, launching an entire economy, lifestyle and practice of monocropping that lasted for well over a century.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.

What encouraged the development of plantations in Hawaiʻi? For one, the gold rush and settlement of California opened a lucrative market. Likewise, the Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s, enabling Hawai‘i to compete with elevated prices for sugar.

In addition, the Treaty of Reciprocity-1875 between the US and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US gained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into US markets.

However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

Several waves of workforce immigration took place (including others:)
• Chinese 1852
• Portuguese 1877
• Japanese 1885
• Koreans 1902
• Filipinos 1905

The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000-workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

The Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens is a peaceful place to experience various cultural buildings; it was created as tribute and a memorial to Maui’s multi-cultural diversity.

Started in 1952, the park contains several monuments and replica buildings commemorating the Hawaiian, American missionary, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Filipino cultures that make up a significant part of Hawaiʻi’s cultural mix.

Attractions include an early-Hawaiian hale (house), a New England-style missionary home, a Portuguese-style villa with gardens, native huts from the Philippines, Japanese gardens with stone pagodas and a Chinese pavilion with a statue of revolutionary hero Sun Yat-sen (who briefly lived on Maui.)

It is situated near the entrance to ʻIao Valley in the West Maui Mountain, just above Wailuku. It is open daily from 7 am to 7 pm; admission is free.

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Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens- Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Banyan

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Hawaiian Hale

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens missionary house

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-missionary house

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – New England

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Chinese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Sun Yat-sen

Kepaniwai-Japanese_sugarcane_workers-Statue

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Japanese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Portuguese

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens – Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Korean

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens Korean Garden

Kepaniwai Park and Heritage Gardens-Filipino

June 27, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

West Maui

Maui captured “Best Island in the World” honors in the annual Conde Nast Traveler Readers’ Choice Awards Poll nearly twenty-years in a row. Readers rave about this “veritable paradise,” calling it a “combination of tropical ambience and American comforts.”

Maui is known for its beaches and water activities, and the west side boasts some of the most beautiful shores in Hawaiʻi, and it also has the distinction of having some of the most beautiful sunset views on the planet.

West Maui is the second most visited place in Maui – (behind the beaches) – a combination of natural scenic beauty, white sandy beaches, lush green uplands, and near-perfect weather, rich culture and a good serving of Hawaiian history in its sunny shores.

In West Maui, you can head to the beach, be captivated by the beauty of its natural scenes and marine life, visit the different historical attractions, and immerse yourself in the local art and culture.

West Maui has experienced six major historical eras, from its days as an ancient Hawaiian Royal Center, capital and home of the Hawaiian Monarchy, home to Missionaries, Landing/Provisioning for Whalers, the Sugar and Pineapple Plantation era and now Tourism.

All of these historical eras are still visible in West Maui today.

West Maui has played an important role in the history of Maui and the neighboring islands of Molokai, Lānaʻi and Kahoʻolawe, with West Maui serving as the Royal Center, selected for its abundance of resources and recreation opportunities, with good surfing and canoe-landing sites being favored.

Probably there is no portion of the Valley Isle, around which gathers so much historic value as West Maui. It was the former capital and favorite residence of kings and chiefs.

After serving for centuries as home to ruling chiefs, West Maui was selected by Kamehameha III and his chiefs to be the seat of government; here the first Hawaiian constitution was drafted and the first legislature was convened.

Hawai‘i’s whaling era began in 1819 when two New England ships became the first whaling ships to arrive in the Hawaiian Islands. Over the next two decades, the Pacific whaling fleet nearly quadrupled in size and in the record year of 1846, 736-whaling ships arrived in Hawai’i.

West Maui was the port of choice for whaling ships. Central among the islands, West Maui was a convenient spot from which to administer the affairs of both Hawaiian and foreigner.

Since the anchorage was an open roadstead, vessels could always approach or leave it with any wind that blew. No pilot was needed here. Vessels generally approached through the channel between Maui and Moloka‘i, standing well over to Lanai, as far as the trade would carry them, then take the sea breeze, which would set in during the forenoon, and head for the town.

In November 1822, the 2nd Company from the New England missionaries set sail on the ‘Thames’ from New Haven, Connecticut for the Hawaiian Islands; they arrived on April 23, 1823 (included in this Company were missionaries Charles Stewart, William Richards and Betsey Stockton – they were the first to settle and set up a mission in West Maui.)

The Christian religion really caught on when High Chiefess Keōpūolani (widow of Kamehameha I and mother of future kings) is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the islands, receiving baptism from Rev. William Ellis in West Maui on September 16, 1823, just before her death.

In 1831, classes at the new Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (‘Upper Lahaina’)) began. The school was established by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions “to instruct young men of piety and promising talents” (training preachers and teachers.) It is the oldest high school west of the Mississippi River.

Per the requests of the chiefs, the American Protestant missionaries began teaching the makaʻāinana (commoners.) Literacy levels exploded.

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 – overall European literacy rates in 1850 had not been much above 50 percent.

Centuries ago, the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully.

It was not until 1823 that several members of the West Maui Mission Station began to process sugar from native sugarcanes for their tables. By the 1840s, efforts were underway in West Maui to develop a means for making sugar as a commodity.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for a contract-labor system, labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures.

Of the nearly 385,000-workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix. Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places.

Historically Maui’s second largest industry, pineapple cultivation has also played a large role in forming Maui’s modern day landscape. The pineapple industry began on Maui in 1890 with Dwight D. Baldwin’s Haiku Fruit and Packing Company on the northeast side of the island.

One of the first hotels in West Maui was the Pioneer Hotel – founded in 1901. George Freeland arrived in the Lahaina roadstead on a ship that had just come from a long voyage through the south seas; he noted a need for a hotel.

It remained the only place for visitors to stay on Maui’s west side until the early-1960s. Tourism exploded; West Maui is a full-fledged tourist destination second only to Waikīkī.

Lahaina’s Front Street, offering an incredible oceanfront setting, people of diverse cultures, architecture and incredible stories of Hawaiʻi’s past, was recognized as one of the American Planning Association’s 2011 “Great Streets in America.”

For many, it’s more simply stated … Maui No Ka Oi (Maui is the best)

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Whales from McGregor Point-(cphamrah)

Olowalu-Petroglyphs

Port-of-Lahaina-Maui-1848

Lahaina,_Maui,_c._1831

Bathing scene, Lahaina, Maui, watercolor, by James Gay Sawkins-1855

Lahaina,_West_Maui,_Sandwich_Islands2,_watercolor_and_pencil,_by_James_Gay_Sawkins-1855

Whale-ships at Lahaina-(vintagehawaii)-1848

Lahaina as seen from Lahainaluna

Edward_T._Perkins,_Rear_View_of_Lahaina,_1854

Lahaina Courthouse-fronting beach-(now Lahaina Small Boat Harbor)

Lahaina_from_offshore_in-1885

Lahaina_Boat_Landing

Lahaina Harbor before harbor perimeter retaining wall built-ca 1940

Pioneer Mill

Baldwin Packers Cannery (kapalua)

Lahaina, Front Street 1942

Lahaina Roads

McGregor_Point-Norwegian-Monument

Lahaina Tunnel Dedication (1951)

Banyan Tree located in courthouse square in the center of Lahaina

Humpback_Whale-Maui-(Stan_Butler-NOAA)-WC

1837 Map of the Islands; made by students at Lahainaluna School (Mission Houses)

May 12, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pulehunui

Pulehunui is an ahupuaʻa in central Maui; it extends from the peak of Kilohana on the rim of the crater of Haleakala, at an altitude of 10,000 feet, in a nearly west direction for about fifteen miles. The eastern or mountain portion is comparatively narrow, often less than half a mile wide.

The western portion reaches to the low land of the Island and grows broader up to the western boundary joining the lands of Waikapu, being at this end from three to four miles wide. It includes about 2,000 feet along the sea coast from a sand spit known as Kihei to a point of rocks called Kalaepohaku. (Supreme Court Records)

During pre-contact times, agricultural uses were basically wetland or dryland. River valleys typically provided the right conditions for wetland kalo (taro) cultivation in loʻi (pond fields,) with water supplied through ʻauwai (irrigation ditches.)

Where sufficient water was not available for irrigation (from rivers or springs,) then dryland farming took place; ʻuala (sweet potato) was the primary crop in those regions.

Due the height and size of Haleakala, Pulehunui does not have regular streams or springs. It is in the area known as Kula. Kula was always an arid region, throughout its long, low seashore, vast stony kula lands, and broad uplands. Kula was widely famous for its sweet-potato plantations. ‘Uala was the staple of life here. (Handy; Maly)

The ahupuaʻa of Pulehunui extended across the Kula plain; its name, literally “large pulehu,” might refer to the degree of broiling one could receive from the sun in this area. Kula was always an arid region, throughout its long, low seashore, vast stony kula lands and broad uplands. (Maui Planning)

Kula makes up most of the central plain of Maui, created by the joining of Haleakala and West Maui volcanoes. Kula means open country, or plain – as distinct from valley or stream bottom, and has long been used as a term to distinguish between dry, or “kula land,” and wet-taro land. This is an essential characteristic of Kula, the central plain of Maui which is practically devoid of streams. (Maly)

“On the coast, where fishing was good, and on the lower westward slopes of Haleakala, a considerable population existed, fishing and raising occasional crops of potatoes along the coast, and cultivating large crops of potatoes inland”. (Handy; Maly)

In 1793, Vancouver noted, “The appearance of this side of Mowee (Maui) was scarcely less forbidding than that of its southern parts, which we had passed the preceding day. The shores, however, were not to steep and rocky, and were mostly composed of a sandy beach…”

“… the land did not rise to very abruptly from the sea towards the mountains, nor was its surface so much broken with hills and deep chasms; yet the soil had little appearance of fertility, and no cultivation was to be seen. A few habitations were promiscuously scattered near the water side…”

A couple decades later (1817,) Peter Corney sailed this area and noted, “We now made sail towards Mowee … we passed Morokenee (Molokini,) and made sail up Mackery bay (Maʻalaea;) here we lay until the 6th, and took on board a great quantity of hogs, salt, and vegetables.”

“This bay is very deep and wide, and nearly divides the island, there being but a narrow neck of land and very low, keeping the two parts of the island together. There is good anchorage; and the only danger arises from the trade winds, which blow so strong at times as to drive ships out of the bay with two anchors down…”

“The neck of land is so low, and the land so high on each side, that the N.E. wind comes through like a hurricane. On this neck of land are their principal salt-pans, where they make most excellent salt.”

The early Polynesians brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands. The first commercially-viable sugar plantation, Ladd and Co., was started at Kōloa on Kaua‘i in 1835. Others followed, including on Maui.

Sugar is a thirsty crop; in order to irrigate, in 1876 the initial Hamakua Ditch was built, bringing water from streams from the windward and wet East Maui. A total of ten ditches were constructed between 1879 and 1923; this system makes up what is known today as East Maui Irrigation (EMI.)

Sugar became part of the Maui landscape – including at Pulehunui. More than 30-plantations of various sizes popped up on Maui. Over time, consolidations and closures gradually reduced the number to fewer, but larger, plantations. Today, only one sugar producing mill remains in the Islands – Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company – on the island of Maui. (Sugar Museum)

On June 15, 1938, a few hundred acres of land at Pulehunui was set aside for a Maui Airport; it was opened on June 30, 1939 (the new Maui Airport replaced a smaller airfield at Māʻalaea.) Inter-Island Airways, Ltd (to be later known as Hawaiian Air) constructed airport station improvements.

Immediately after December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack, the military took control of all air fields in the Territory and began the expansion of Maui Airport at Pulehunui. An expansion lengthened and widened the runways.

Under Navy control, the facility was renamed Naval Air Station Puʻunene, the airport served as a principal carrier plane training base. By the end of the war, Puʻunene had a total complement of over 3,300-personnel and 271-aircraft. A total of 106-squadrons and carrier air groups passed through during WW II.

Following the war, the Territory took back various airfields and converted them back into full-scale commercial operation of airports. In December 1948, the Navy declared the Puʻunene Airport land surplus to their needs and the airport reverted to the Territory under Quitclaim Deed from the US Government.

It was later abandoned and the old runway was used for drag races and time trials in May 1956; it remains in use as Maui Raceway Park as an automobile “drag strip” and park for such activities as go-kart racing and model airplane flying.

Other uses of the former site include the Maui Regional Public Safety Complex and prison facility to alleviate overcrowding at the existing 7-acre Maui Community Correctional Center facility in Wailuku.

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Pulehunui-Google Earth

Pulehunui-Maui-DAGS-0770-Monsarrat-1879

Puunene Airport, Maui, 1948

NAS Pu`unēnē looking westward, Maalaea Bay-(Maui Historical Society-NOAA)

Maui_Airport-Puunene-USGS-UH_Manoa-(4807)-1965

Maui_Regional_Public_Safety_Complex-Prison-Site_Plan-Puunene

Maui-Dodge-DAGS-(1268)-1885-noting Sugar Planatations and Pulehunui

EMI_System-map

April 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin (grandson of the Rev Dwight Baldwin) was born at Kohala, Hawaii, April 12, 1868, son of David D and Lois M Baldwin. He attended Fort Street School and Oʻahu College (Punahou.)

He married Louise Theresa Voss in Honolulu on April 11, 1893; they had three sons, Douglas Elmer, Paul Frederick and Cedric Benjamin. (Nellist)

Baldwin began his career in the sugar cane industry on Haiku Sugar Co plantation, Hamakuapoko, Maui, on January 1, 1889.

Then, “Mr Benjamin D Baldwin, head luna of Hamakuapoko plantation has accepted the position of assistant manager of the Hawaiian Commercial Company, thus filling the vacancy caused by the death of Mr. David Center.”

“Mr. Baldwin and family will remove to Spreckelsville during the first part of April upon the return of Manager HA Baldwin from California.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, March 26, 1901)

Then on January 15, 1903, he headed to Kauai. “Benjamin D Baldwin, formerly assistant manager of Puʻunene, is now permanently settled as manager of Makaweli plantation of Kauai. Mr and Mrs Baldwin will be much missed by Maui friends.” (Hawaiian Gazette, May 19, 1903)

“Makaweli is the banner plantation of Kauai since the Olokele ditch system enabled it to put a large additional area under cultivation.”

The Hawaiian Sugar Company, Ltd was headquartered at Makaweli, where the first cane was planted. The total land area was 7,000-acres held under lease from Gay & Robinson, extending from Waimea gulch to Hanapepe valley, a distance of several miles.

“The water supply for irrigation purposes is obtained from the Olokele and Hanapepe valley streams, the water flowing to all of the lands by gravity.”

“Work upon the Olokele ditch, which is the largest engineering scheme of the kind ever undertaken in the Islands, was begun for the Hawaiian Sugar Company by MM O’Shaughnessy and his assistants, Mr McLennan, HC Smalley and Guy P Rankin in 1902 and was completed in 1904.” (Evening Bulletin, March 25, 1909)

By the end of Baldwin’s management, in 1928, the annual yield increased to 27,057-tons of raw sugar and the company was noted as one of the most profitable and progressive in the Territory. (Faye)

“In the development of the property 2,250 skilled and unskilled laborers are employed who occupy several camps adjacent to their work. Better houses and better camps than are found on main plantations for the accommodation of men and their families have been erected.”

“The laborers receive in addition to their wages, which averages $20 per month, house room, fuel, water and medical attendance and have little patches of land where they raise vegetables.”

“The labor incident to the successful operation of this plantation is handled under two systems, one-third of the labor working under a or profit sharing system, and known as company men or contractors, the balance are day laborers, paid a regular rate per month of twenty-six working days.” (Evening Bulletin, March 25, 1909)

The Makaweli management takes much interest in the sports of the employes. A baseball diamond and land for tennis courts are provided. The Makaweli baseball team, by the way, secured the 1911 Kauai championship and in so doing gained three cups.”

“A club house for the skilled employes, which is equipped and supplied with reading matter and appliances, and a billiard and pool table, is supported by the company.” (Wright, Mid-Pacific Magazine, June 1914)

Baldwin died on April 27, 1928; a decade later, a substantial monument was erected by Makaweli Japanese sugar workers and dedicated to the memory of Baldwin, a highly respected plantation manager.

There are two circular metal medallions embedded in the column. The upper medallion has a bust of Baldwin surrounded by the words ‘Benjamin Douglas Baldwin 1867 – 1928,’ and the lower medallion has the words ‘Erected In Loving Memory by the Makaweli Japanese 1938.’ (Dorrance)

Baldwin was not just a sugar planter; he was commissioned as a major in the Hawaii National Guard (3rd Battalion, 4th Regiment) on Kauai and also commanded the Third Battalion of the Fifth Division during World War I. (Nellist) He was also postmaster at Makaweli.

A World War II ammunition magazine was located next to the monument (1942-1945.) Called ‘Battery Monument,’ it was armed with two old 7-inch/45 naval guns on pedestal mounts capable of hurling a 165-pound shell 16,500 yards (9.4 mi.) at 15° elevation. (Bennett)

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Ben D Baldwin-(EveningBulletin-1909)

Ben D Baldwin-(Men of Hawaii)

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin Monument-Faye

Managers Residence (Faye)

DE_Baldwin-(Faye)

CB_Baldwin_and_Luna-(Faye)

CB_Baldwin-(Faye)

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin Monument-Eleele

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin Monument-Dorrance; Bennett

USGS-Hanapepe-1963-portion-Baldwin Monument

USGS-Hanapepe-1996-portion-Baldwin Monument

Benjamin Douglas Baldwin grave marker

April 9, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Wailuku Female Seminary

Back in the beginning of the 19th-century, it was believed that women should be educated to understand domestic economy, because they were to play the major role in educating the young, primarily in their homes, and later (as the school population grew and there was a shortage of teachers) as school teachers. (Beyer)

Gender segregated schools were established. Although schools for upper-class women were in existence prior to the 19th-century, the female seminary for middle-class women became the prevailing type of institution from 1820 until after the Civil War.

The most prominent female seminaries on the continent were Troy Seminary (1821,) Hartford Seminary (1823,) Ipswich Seminary (1828,) Mount Holyoke Seminary (1837) and Oxford Seminary (1839.)

The seminary’s primary task was professional preparation: the male seminary prepared men for the ministry; the female seminary took as its earnest job the training of women for teaching and motherhood. (Horowitz, Beyer)

Western-style education did not begin in Hawai’i until after members of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) arrived in 1820.

Because the primary educators responsible for developing the education system of Hawai’i were Americans, the educational practices for Hawaiian girls tended to mirror, but not necessarily duplicate, what was taking place on the continent. (Beyer)

In 1835, at the general meeting of the Mission, a resolution was passed to promote boarding schools for Hawaiians; several male boarding schools and two female boarding schools were begun (Wailuku Female Seminary on the island of Maui and the Hilo School for Girls on the island of Hawai’i.)

Wailuku Female Seminary (or the Central Female Seminary, as it was first called) was the first female school begun by the missionaries. It received support at a time when the missionaries were experimenting with both boarding schools and a manual labor system.

In 1837 the missionaries opened the Wailuku Female Seminary to educate girls to be “good Christian wives” for the graduates of Lahainaluna a school for boys at Lahaina. A boarding school, they thought, would have a deeper influence than day classes.

The opening of the school raised some concern by the Wailuku missionaries: “It will be remembered that our station is really on West Maui, and now may be considered as having only one man to attend to the appropriate missionary work of the station.”

“The Seminary about to go into operation is for the benefit of the islands generally & will occupy the whole time of its teacher. So that E Maui with a population of some 20,000 has really no missionary”. (Wailuku Station Report, 1837)

Rev. Jonathan Green, his wife Theodosia and Miss Maria Ogden were the first teachers, followed by Edward Bailey and his wife Caroline.

Green noted, “the object of our Seminary is to impact to the pupils, and through them to the entire population of Hawaii, a thorough going Christian education.”

The missionaries felt that in order to run “a good Christian household”, the girls needed to learn domestic skills: housekeeping, washing and ironing, sewing and mending. They also learned how to spin cotton and weave cloth.

A strict schedule was considered to be an important part of their education. An hour of gardening before breakfast, each girl having her own little plot, was added to relieve the stress. (MHS)

As to their studies, “They have attended to Reading, Writing, Mental and Written Arithmetic, Geography Sacred and Civil, Exhibition of Popery, Gallaudet’s Book on the Soul, and Natural Theology.” (General Meeting Minutes, 1841)

The plan for the school included a two story stone building, used for classes but including a room for a chapel and a dining room, which was completed in 1837; and an adobe building, used as a dormitory, also completed in 1837.

An additional building was added before the end of 1839. It was made of stone, attached to the original two story building, and used as a dining hall. It is the only building of the Wailuku Female Seminary that is still standing today (part of what is now known as the Bailey House.)

No sooner was the Seminary open than a letter arrived from the Missions’ headquarters asking that no more money be spent on the school. By 1849, however, the Mission Board was unable to raise money, and the Wailuku Female Seminary was closed after its 12th year. (MHS)

Edward Bailey and his wife Caroline Hubbard Bailey arrived in Honolulu April 9, 1837. Not long after their arrival, the couple was transferred to Wailuku to head the Wailuku Female Seminary.

Bailey worked at the Wailuku Female Seminary until its closure in 1849. At that time he purchased the fee simple title to the Girls’ boarding school, the house and lot, and began his interest in what was to become Wailuku Sugar Company.

Edward and Caroline lived in their Wailuku home for 50-years; at the time of his death in 1903 Edward Sr was the oldest living missionary sent to Hawaiʻi.

The Bailey House is now the Maui Historical Society’s Hale Hō‘ike‘ike (House of Display) showcasing Hawaiian history and culture, as well as paintings and furnishings from nineteenth-century Maui.

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