Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Manaiakalani

A messenger sent by Maui,
Sent to bring Kane and his set,
Kane and Kanaloa, Kauokahi,
And Maliu.
Throwing out sacred influences, uttering prayers,
Consulting oracles, Hapuʻu the god of the king.
The great fish-hook of Maui,
Manaiakalani,
The whole earth was the fish-line bound by the knot
(A Song for Kualiʻi – Kualiʻi was a celebrated chief of Oahu, who reigned in about 1700 AD. (Journal of the Polynesian Society))

The demi-god Māui is the subject of extraordinary stories throughout Polynesia. In many of the accounts he is a mischievous trickster, stealing the secret of fire and helping his mother to dry kapa by lassoing the sun to slow its progression across the sky.  (Bishop Museum)

A Manaiakalani story suggests that Maui pulled up the islands by tricking his brothers into letting him come out to fish with them.

The brothers never took him out because whenever they did he would catch a scrawny little fish.  He said he sought to prove that he is as skilled as they were.

He prepares the sacred hook, baiting it with the wing of the pet bird of the goddess Hina. Māui tells his brothers that once he starts to haul in the catch, not to look back until he is finished.

Māui casts the hook into the water and catches the enormous ulua fish Pimoe.

The brothers strain against the fish and soon parts of Pimoe are above the surface of the water, immediately turning to stone. The brothers cannot resist any longer and turn around to see their catch.

But when they do, the line breaks and rather than one enormous island, Māui, the earth-fisher, is only able to raise up the eight separate Islands of Hawaiʻi.

Another story related to Manaiakalani tells of Māui’s attempt to rearrange the Islands of the group and assemble them into one solid mass.”

“Having chosen his station at Kaʻena Point, the western extremity of Oʻahu, from which the island of Kauai is clearly visible on a bright day, he cast his wonderful hook, Mana-ia-ka-Iani, far out into the ocean that it might engage itself in the foundations of Kauai.”

“When he felt that it had taken a good hold, he gave a mighty tug at the line. A huge boulder, the Pōhaku O Kauai, fell at his feet.”

“The mystic hook, having freed itself from the entanglement, dropped into Pālolo Valley and hollowed out the crater, that is its grave.”  (Manaiakalani, therefore, formed Kaʻau Crater.) (Emerson)

Finally, in frustration, Māui throws his hook into the sky where it becomes a constellation, still easy to see in the spring and summer months, known by Western astronomers as the tail of Scorpio.  (Bishop Museum)

In the Hawaiian sky of Kau (summer season, May to October), Manaiakalani (The Chief’s Fishline) is visible for most of the night, just as Ke Ka o Makali‘i (The Canoe- Bailer of Makali’i) is visible for most of the night in the sky of Hoʻoilo (winter season, November to April.)

Like other stars and groups of stars, Manaiakalani is used in celestial navigation as directional clues when they rise and set. On cloudy nights, when only parts of the sky are visible, navigators may recognize isolated stars or star groups and imagine the rest of the celestial sphere around them.  The image shows a depiction of Maui and Manaiakalani.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lahaina, i ka malu ‘ulu o Lele

Lahaina, i ka malu ‘ulu o Lele

(Lahaina, in the shade of the breadfruit trees of Lele) (Pukui, 1983, No. 1936) (Lele is an earlier name for Lahaina.)

Hālau Lahaina, malu i ka ‘ulu

(Lahaina is like a large house shaded by breadfruit trees) (Pukui, 1983, No. 430).

In 1898, Albert Kaleikini, a student at Lahainaluna, went on an excursion to Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u.  (Pa‘upa‘u (lit. drudgery (servants were weary of bringing water to bathe the chief’s child)) is a hill above Lahainaluna School on Maui.)

Though David Malo did not die at Pa‘upa‘u, he wanted to be (and was) buried there (Malo died October 21, 1853).  Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u has a symbol from Malo’s school (he was one of the first students enrolled at Lahainaluna Seminary).   A large ‘L’ (standing for Lahainaluna, reportedly put there in 1929) is visible from most parts below.

Beholding the spectacular view from Pu‘u Pa‘upa‘u, Kaleikini was moved to write “Lahainaluna”, which became the school’s Alma Mater. (Lahainaluna 150th reunion) It’s first verse is:

O ka Malu ‘ulu o Lele (Nō e ka ‘oi)

Nā kualono nani ē (kū kilakila)

Me ka ua kilikilihune (Aʻo Hālona)

Hoʻopulu  i ke oho o ka palai

Oh, the land of shadow of the flying breadfruit

The wonder of lands

With the every spraying delightful showers (of Halona)

Wetting the foliage of the ferns

“Lahaina District was a favorable place for the high chiefs of Maui and their entourage for a number of reasons: the abundance of food from both land and sea; its equable climate and its attractiveness as a place of residence …”

“… it had probably the largest concentration of population, with its adjoining areas of habitation; easy communication with the other heavily populated area of eastern and northeastern West Maui, ‘The Four Streams,’ and with the people living on the western, southwestern and southern slope of Haleakala; and its propinquity to Lanai and Molokai.” (Handy and Pukui)

“The southern shores of western Maui were perhaps second only to Puna, Hawaii, as a favorable locality for breadfruit culture. … Puna on Hawaii was the district most famous for its breadfruit.” (Handys and Pukui) At Puna in 1823, Ellis noted “Groves of cocoa-nut and bread-fruit trees are seen in every direction, loaded with fruit, or clothed with luxuriant foliage.”

“Brigham (in 1911) wrote that ‘at Lahaina on Maui, were as fine trees forty years ago as any I have seen in Samoa or Fiji.’ …  Lahaina is referred to in chants as Ka malu ‘ulu o Lele, ‘The breadfruit-shade of Lele.’” (Handys and Pukui)

In ancient Hawai‘i, most of the makaʻāinana (‘common people’) were farmers, a few were fishermen.  Tenants cultivated smaller crops for family consumption, to supply the needs of chiefs and provide tributes.

“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. … The soil is most fertile, being formed from the decay of recent lava flows.”

“There the natives found their chief means of subsistence, and, in good seasons, were sufficiently fed.  In bad seasons there were droughts, and more or less of ‘wī,’ or famine.”  (Bishop)

The food plants of Hawaiʻi can be divided into three groups: those known as staple foods (the principal starchy foods – kalo (taro,) ʻuala (sweet potato,) ʻulu (breadfruit,) etc;) those of less importance (to add nutrients and variety to the diet;) and those known as famine foods.  (Krauss)

In 1819, Arago noted, “The environs of Lahaina are like a garden. It would be difficult to find a soil more fertile, or a people who can turn it to greater advantage; little pathways sufficiently raised, and kept in excellent condition, serve as communications between the different estates. …”

“The space cultivated by the natives of Lahaina is about three leagues in length (~9-miles), and one (~3 miles) in its greatest breadth. Beyond this all is dry and barren; everything recalls the image of desolation.” (Arago)

Ellis noted (about 1823), “we found ourselves within about four miles of Lahaina, which is the principal district in Maui, on account of its being the general residence of the chiefs, and the common resort of ships that touch at the island for refreshments.”

“The appearance of Lahaina from the anchorage is singularly romantic and beautiful. A fine sandy beach stretches along the margin of the sea, lined for a considerable distance with houses, and adorned with shady clumps of kou trees, or waving groves of cocoanuts.”

“The level land of the whole district, for about three miles, is one continued garden, laid out in beds of taro, potatoes, yams, sugar-cane, or cloth plants. The lowly cottage of the farmer is seen peeping through the leaves of the luxuriant plantain and banana tree, and in every direction white columns of smoke ascend, curling up among the wide-spreading branches of the bread-fruit tree.”

“The sloping hills immediately behind, and the lofty mountains in the interior, clothed with verdure to their very summits, intersected by deep and dark ravines, frequently enlivened by glittering waterfalls, or divided by winding valleys, terminate the delightful prospect.” (Ellis, Polynesian Researches)

“The settlement is far more beautiful than any place we have yet seen on the islands.  The whole district, stretching nearly three miles along the sea-side, is covered with luxuriant groves, not only of the cocoanut, but also of the bread-fruit and of the kou”  (American Missionary, CS Stewart was resided in the Hawaiian Islands from 1823 to 1825)

For thousands of years, Ulu (Breadfruit) was a staple food in Oceania.  It is believed to have originated in New Guinea and the Indo-Malay region and was spread throughout the vast Pacific by voyaging islanders.

The breadfruit is multipurpose, it may be eaten ripe as a fruit or under-ripe as a vegetable – it is roasted, baked, boiled, fried, pickled, fermented, frozen, mashed into a puree, and dried and ground into meal or flour.

It was a canoe crop – one of around 30 plants brought to the Hawaiian Islands by the Polynesians when they first arrived in Hawaiʻi.

“This tree, whose fruit is so useful, if not necessary, to the inhabitants of most of the islands of the South Seas, has been chiefly celebrated as a production of the Sandwich Islands; it is not confined to these alone, but is also found in all the countries bordering on the Pacific Ocean.”  (Book of Trees, 1837)

“If a man plant ten breadfruit trees in his life, which he can do in about an hour, he would completely fulfil his duty to his own as well as future generations.” (Joseph Banks, 1769)

“Breadfruit is spoken of as ‘ai kameha‘i, meaning that it is a food (‘ai) that simply reproduces itself ‘by the will of the gods,’ that is, by sprouting. It is not planted by means of seeds or slips.” (Handys and Pukui)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Makawao

Makawao (literally ‘forest beginning’) is an ahupuaʻa in Hāmākuapoko, Maui.  It’s an area with both wet and dry forests.

Growing here were koa, sandalwood and ʻōhiʻa lehua; maile and ferns thrived in these forests.  In the drier regions of Makawao, sweet potato was cultivated extensively, as it was in Kula.

The landscape began its transformation following the gift of (and subsequent kapu on killing) cattle and sheep from Vancouver to Kamehameha in 1793.

The cattle numbers increased, in places to the point of becoming a dangerous nuisance.  Roaming wild cattle destroyed gardens, scared the population and were a general nuisance.

Then, on June 21, 1803, Captain William Shaler (with commercial officer Richard Cleveland,) gave Kamehameha a mare and a stallion at Lāhainā.   Soon the horses, like the cattle, were roaming freely across the Islands.

Kamehameha I employed “a varied crew with unsavory reputations who had immigrated to the islands to escape their pasts” as bullock hunters to capture the animals.  (DLNR)  The earliest Hawaiian bullock hunters hunted alone, on foot, and used guns and pit traps.  (Mills)

Most histories credit Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) with the idea of hiring vaqueros to manage the cattle.   Joaquin Armas arrived in Hawai‘i on April 4, 1831 and stayed in Hawai‘i at the bequest of the King.

Armas had grown up in Monterey, where undoubtedly he learned how to rope cattle and process hides.  He and others began working for the Hawaiian monarchy and teaching the Hawaiians their techniques.  (Mills)

Hawaii’s cowboys became known as paniolo, a corruption of español, the language the vaquero spoke. The term still refers to cowboys working in the Islands and to the culture their lifestyle spawned.

Missionary Hiram Bingham noted, “several striking exhibitions of seizing wild cattle, chasing them on horseback, and throwing the lasso over their horns, with great certainty, capturing, prostrating, and subduing or killing these mountain-fed animals, struggling in vain for liberty and life.”

By the 1800s, agriculture in the region had transitioned from a subsistence activity to a commercial one.  A market was developed to supply whalers who stopped to replenish their supplies; Upcountry Maui provided vegetables, meat and fruit.

In the early days only sweet potatoes had been obtainable at the Islands, but after 1830, if not sooner, cultivation of the Irish potato was taken up and during the 1840s and 1850s became of great importance.

It was shortly before 1840 that Irish potatoes were first grown in Upcountry, which proved to be so well adapted to them that it soon came to be called the ‘potato district.’ (Kuykendall)

“I had here the first glimpse at the extensive Irish potatoe region. It ranges along the mountain between 2,000 and 5,000 feet elevation, for the distance of 12-miles. The forest is but partially cleared, and the seed put into the rich virgin soil.  The crop now in the ground is immense.”  (Polynesian, July 25, 1846)

Despite claims that “the soil in this area of Maui grows rocks” due to the many areas of exposed bedrock and scattered boulders and gravels in the surrounding fields, crop production expanded exponentially in the first half of the nineteenth century with sweet potato, potatoes, corn, beans and wheat.  (DLNR)

In addition to the changing landscape, there were changes in land tenure.

Kameʻeleihiwa stated that Makawao District was the first area in Hawai‘i to experiment with land sales. In January 1846, land was made available for eventual ownership to the makaʻāinana (commoners.)

Makawao land was reportedly sold for $1-per acre; this would mark the beginning of land grants. Experimental lots purchased by Hawaiians ranged from 5 to 10-acres, with a total land area of approximately 900-acres of grant lands purchased in Makawao.  (DLNR)

Today, Makawao continues the Paniolo tradition and proudly proclaims its community as Paniolo Country.

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Alexander & Baldwin

In 1843, Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin, sons of early missionaries to Hawaiʻi, met in Lāhainā, Maui. They grew up together, became close friends and went on to develop a sugar-growing partnership.

Alexander was the idea man, more outgoing and adventurous of the two. He had a gift for raising money to support his business projects.

Baldwin was more reserved and considered the “doer” of the partners; he completed the projects conceived by Alexander.

After studying on the Mainland, Alexander returned to Maui and began teaching at Lahainaluna, where he and his students successfully grew sugar cane and bananas.

Word of the venture spread to the owner of Waiheʻe sugar plantation near Wailuku, and Alexander was offered the manager’s position.

Alexander hired Baldwin as his assistant, who at the time was helping his brother raise sugar cane in Lāhainā. This was the beginning of a lifelong working partnership.

In 1869, the young men – Alexander was 33, Baldwin, 27 – purchased 12-acres of land in Makawao and the following year an additional 559-acres.  That same year, the partners planted sugar cane on their land marking the birth of what would become Alexander & Baldwin (A&B.)

In 1871, they saw the need for a reliable source of water, and to this end undertook the construction of the Hāmākua ditch in 1876.

Although not an engineer, Alexander devised an irrigation system that would bring water from the windward slopes of Haleakala to Central Maui to irrigate 3,000 acres of cane – their own and neighboring plantations.

Baldwin oversaw the Hāmākua Ditch project, known today as East Maui Irrigation Company (the oldest subsidiary of A&B,) and within two years the ditch was complete.

The completed Old Hāmākua Ditch was 17-miles long and had a capacity of 60-million gallons per day.  A second ditch was added, the Spreckels Ditch; when completed, it was 30-miles long with a capacity of 60-million gallons per day.

Before World War I, the New Hāmākua, Koʻolau, New Haiku and Kauhikoa ditches were built. A total of ten ditches were constructed between 1879 and 1923.

Over the next thirty years, the two men became agents for nearly a dozen plantations and expanded their plantation interests by acquiring Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company and Kahului Railroad.

In 1883, Alexander and Baldwin formalized their partnership by incorporating their sugar business as the Paia Plantation also known at various times as Samuel T Alexander & Co, Haleakala Sugar Co and Alexander & Baldwin Plantation.

By spring of 1900, A&B had outgrown its partnership organization and plans were made to incorporate the company, allowing the company to increase capitalization and facilitate expansion.

The Articles of Association and affidavit of the president, secretary and treasurer were filed June 30, 1900 with the treasurer of the Territory of Hawaiʻi. Alexander & Baldwin, Limited became a Hawaiʻi corporation, with its principal office in Honolulu and with a branch office in San Francisco.

Shortly after, in 1904, Samuel Alexander passed away on one of his adventures. While hiking with his daughter to the edge of Victoria Falls, Africa, he was struck by a boulder. Seven years later, Baldwin passed away at the age of 68 from failing health.

After the passing of the founders, Alexander & Baldwin continued to expand their sugar operations by acquiring additional land, developing essential water resources and investing in shipping (Matson) to bring supplies to Hawaii and transport sugar to the US Mainland markets.

A&B was one of Hawaiʻi’s five major companies (that emerged to providing operations, marketing, supplies and other services for the plantations and eventually came to own and manage most of them.)  They became known as the Big Five.

Hawaiʻi’s Big Five were: C Brewer (1826;) A Theo H Davies (1845;) Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and Alexander & Baldwin (1870.)

What started off as partnership between two young men, with the purchase of 12 acres in Maui, has grown into a corporation with $2.3 billion in assets, including over 88,000 acres of land.

(In 2012, A&B separated into two stand-alone, publicly traded companies – A&B, focusing on land and agribusiness and Matson, on transportation.)

A&B is the State’s fourth largest private landowner, and is one of the State’s most active real estate investors.  It’s portfolio includes a diversity of projects throughout Hawaiʻi, and a significant commercial property portfolio in Hawaiʻi and on the US Mainland. (Information here is from Alexander & Baldwin.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Lāhainā Banyan

“The places in the garden where I find myself lingering and staring with unsoundable pleasure are those where it looks to me as though, with the shafts of light reaching and dividing through the trees, it might be deep in the forest.” WS Merwin

“The Banyan (Ficus Indica) is indigenous to India only. I call it one of the ‘kings of the forest,’ because no other of the vegetable giants ever measured a tithe of five acres in circuit, or afforded shelter from the torrid sun at one time to one-tenth of an army of ten thousand men.”

“No one who ever spent the long noontide of an Indian day under the capacious shadow of a banyan-tree, or slept uninjured during successive nights under the protection from dews and rains of its shingled foliage, or strolled leisurely for hours along avenues and foot-paths bordered by flowering shrubs and cooled by gurgling streamlets …”

“… all within the boundaries of the repeating branches of a single tree, will be disposed to dispute the claims of the banyan to be counted as one of the three monarchs of the woods.” (Dodge, Alama News, Mar 19, 1873)

The word “banyan” comes from the Gujarati language meaning merchant. The Portuguese used the word for Hindu traders selling their wares under the shade of the tree. Then English writers adopted the word in starting in the 16th century, when “banyan” became the term for the trees themselves.

Banyan trees are unique in that they not only grow vertically, but also horizontally. Thin roots grow to the surface of the ground and then can extend forming a new trunk. Here, it can thicken and weave along the original trunk and continue to branch out. A banyan is a kind of fig tree. (Panda)

Some context to the Lahaina Banyan …

The 1806 “Haystack Prayer Meeting” by “the Brethren,” a group of several students at Williams College, Williamstown, MA is credited as the informal beginning of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).

The Board was officially chartered June 20, 1812 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Four fields of missionary activity were identified: (a) peoples of ancient civilizations, (b) peoples of primitive cultures, (c) peoples of the ancient Christian churches, and (d) peoples of Islamic faith.

The first mission of the ABCFM was in 1813 to Marathi of western India, headquarters in Bombay. (Congregational Library)  “If ever I see a Hindoo a real believer in Jesus, I shall see something more nearly approaching the resurrection of a dead body than anything I have yet seen.” (Henry Martyn, American Board in India and Ceylon, Bartlett)

“But God knows how to raise the dead. And it was on this most hopeless race, under the most discouraging concurrence of circumstances, that he chose to let the first missionaries of the American Board try their fresh zeal. The movements of commerce and the history of missionary effort naturally pointed to the swarming continent of Asia.” (Bartlett)

In 1870, the work of the American Board of Foreign Commissioners in western India was transferred to the Board of Foreign Missions. Thereafter, that field was known as the West India Mission.

In addition to the inherited station at Kolhapur, succeeding stations were opened at Ratnagiri in 1873, in Sangli in 1884, in Miraj in 1892, in Vengurla in 1900, in Kodoli in 1893, in Islampur in 1906 and in Nipani in 1910. (Gale)

The ABCFM mission to Hawai‘i …

In the Islands, over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period,”) the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) sent twelve Companies of missionaries – 184-missionaries; 84-men and 100-women – to the Hawaiian Islands.

By the time the Pioneer Company arrived (1820,) Kamehameha I had died (1819) and the centuries-old kapu system had been abolished, through the actions of King Kamehameha II (Liholiho, his son,) with encouragement by his father’s wives, Queens Kaʻahumanu and Keōpūolani (Liholiho’s mother.)) Keōpūolani later decided to move to Maui.

The Second Company of missionaries arrived in the Islands on April 27, 1823.  “On the 26th of May (1823) we heard that the barge (Cleopatra’s Barge, or “Haʻaheo o Hawaiʻi,” Pride of Hawaiʻi) was about to sail for Lahaina, with the old queen (Keōpūolani) and princess (Nāhiʻenaʻena;) and that the queen was desirous to have missionaries to accompany her”.

“A meeting was called to consult whether it was expedient to establish a mission at Lahaina. The mission was determined on, and Mr S (Stewart) was appointed to go: he chose Mr R (Richards) for his companion … On the 28th we embarked on the mighty ocean again, which we had left so lately.”  (Betsey Stockton Journal)

Keōpūolani is said to have been the first convert of the missionaries in the Islands, receiving baptism from Rev. William Ellis in Lāhainā on September 16, 1823.  Keōpūolani was spoken of “with admiration on account of her amiable temper and mild behavior”.  (William Richards)   She was ill and died shortly after her baptism.

Commemorating the mission in Lahaina …

On April 24, 1873, while serving as Sheriff on Maui, William Owen Smith (a missionary son) planted Lāhainā’s Indian Banyan to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first Protestant mission in Lāhainā. 

Later, when not filling public office, Smith had been engaged in private law practice and was affiliated with various law firms during his long career.  Smith and his firm wrote the will for Princess Pauahi Bishop that created the Bishop Estate.

As a result of this, Pauahi recommended to Queen Liliʻuokalani that he write her will for the Liliʻuokalani Trust (which he did.)  As a result, Liliʻuokalani and Smith became lifelong friends; he defended her in court, winning the suit brought against her by Prince Jonah Kūhiō. (KHS)

Speaking of his relationship with the Queen, Smith said, “One of the gratifying experiences of my life was that after the trying period which led up to the overthrow of the monarchy and the withdrawal of Queen Liliʻuokalani, the Queen sent for me to prepare a will and deed of trust of her property and appointed me one of her trustees”.  (Nellist)

Smith was also a trustee of the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate from 1884-1886 and 1897-1929, the Lunalilo Estate, the Alexander Young Estate and the Children’s Hospital.

Back to the Lahaina Banyan …

The tree was apparently a gift from the missionaries in India to the missionary descendants in Hawai‘i; it was about 8-feet when it was planted.

 After settling in, the tree slowly sent branches outward from its trunk. From the branches, a series of aerial roots descended towards the earth. Some of them touched the ground and dug in, growing larger until eventually turning into trunks themselves.

Over the years, Lahaina residents lovingly encouraged the symmetrical growth of the tree by hanging large glass jars filled with water on the aerial roots that they wanted to grow into a trunk. In time, what was once a small sapling matured into a monumental behemoth. (Lahaina Restoration Foundation)

Today, shading almost an acre of the surrounding park and reaching upward to a height of 60 feet, this banyan tree is reportedly the largest in the US.

Its aerial roots grow into thick trunks when they reach the ground, supporting the tree’s large canopy. There are 16 major trunks in addition to the original trunk in the center.

Other notable Banyans in Hawai‘i include the Indian Banyan tree on the mauka side of the Iolani Palace grounds.  The tree was a gift from Indian Royalty to King Kalākaua.  Reportedly, Queen Kapiʻolani planted the tree there.  Cuttings from the tree were planted at each end of Kailua Bay in Kona.

Starting on October 24, 1933, notable politicians, entertainers, religious leaders, authors, sports figures, business people, adventurers and local folks planted Banyans along Hilo’s Walk of Fame.

Filmmaker Cecil B DeMille was in Hilo filming scenes for ‘Four Frightened People.’  The Hilo Park Commission asked him and some of the actors from the film (Mary Boland, William Gargan, Herbert Marshall’s wife (Edna Best Marshall) and Leo Carillo) to plant trees to commemorate their visit.  (Pahigian)

Shortly after (October 29, 1933,) George Herman ‘Babe’ Ruth added a tree; he was in town for an exhibition baseball game against the Waiākea Pirates.  In an earlier game in Honolulu, “Babe Ruth hit the first ball pitched to him for a home run when the visiting major league players defeated the local Wanderers here yesterday, 5 to 1.” (UP, El Paso Herald, October 23, 1933)

Initially, eight trees were planted in October 1933; there have been over 50-trees planted at what is now known as Banyan Drive on the Waiākea peninsula, traditionally known as Hilo-Hanakāhi.

At the time, Banyan Drive was a crushed coral drive through the trees. Forty trees were planted between 1934 and 1938, and five more trees were planted between 1941 and 1972. In 1991, a tree lost to a tsunami was replaced.  (Hawaiʻi County)

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