Nawiliwili | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

December 31, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

ʻAlekoko Fishpond (Menehune Fishpond)

ʻAla ke kai o ka ʻanae.
Fragrant is the soup of a big mullet.
(A prosperous person attracts others. (ʻŌlelo Noʻeau))

‘Anae (ʻamaʻama – mullet) and awa (milk fish) were popular fish raised in Hawaiian walled fishponds. The cultivation of fish took place in Hawaiian agricultural pondfields, as well as in specialized fresh and brackish water fishponds.

Ponds were built to catch and hold fish; the ponds grew algae that fed the fish. A natural food chain can be expected to produce a ratio of 10:1 in terms of the conversion of one link by another (10,000-kg of algae make 1,000-kg of tiny crustaceans, which in turn make 100-kg of small fish. (Kelly)

The Hawaiian walled fishpond stands as a technological achievement unmatched elsewhere in island Oceania. Hawaiians built rock-walled enclosures to raise fish for their communities and families. It is believed these were first built around the fifteenth century. (Kelly)

These fishponds were symbols of chiefly status and power, and usually under the direct control of aliʻi or konohiki. The fish from these ponds often went to feed chiefly households. (Handy)

One significant fishpond on the southeast side of Kauaʻi is known as ʻAlekoko Fishpond (one of the rarest and most significant cultural and archaeological sites on Kauaʻi.)

Just outside Līhuʻe and Nāwiliwili Harbor on the Hulēʻia River, a Scenic Overlook is located just off of Hulemalu Road, about ½-mile from the entrance to the Nāwiliwili small boat harbor.

The fishpond is located in the Hulēʻia National Wildlife Refuge, 238-acres of river valley that is a habitat for thirty-one species of birds, including endangered Hawaiian birds: aeʻo (Hawaiian stilt,) ʻalae keʻokeʻo (Hawaiian coot,) ʻalae ʻula (Hawaiian moorhen,) nēnē (Hawaiian goose) and koloa maoli (Hawaiian duck.)

Although you can see the fishpond and the refuge from the road, the area is not open to the public. Small boats, kayaks, jet skis, windsurfers and water-skiers use the river.

ʻAlekoko Fishpond is located near the mouth of the Hulēʻia River, in the ahupuaʻa of Niumalu; it was formed by walling off a large bend in the river; the stone-faced, dirt wall is over 900-yards long.

The dirt wall is 5-feet above the water level, 4-feet wide on top and the dirt slants out on both sides. The facing wall begins with a single row of stones and then becomes double-thickness as it gets further out into the river and the current.

The stones also become larger until the double layer is 2-feet thick. The stone facing on the outside is five feet high in most places and is quite perpendicular. The stones are very carefully fitted together; the stone facing runs for about two-thirds of the total length of the wall. (NPS)

“That pond, of course, is monumental, monumental stone work. To me this is the ultimate fishpond. What makes it kind of special here on Kauaʻi is the way the stones are fitted.” (David Burney, paleoecologist; star-bulletin)

Ancient Hawaiians often used lava rock to build walls, but they typically shaped them to fit together instead of cutting them into blocks. “Hawaiians didn’t typically cut rock to build something, (as they did at ʻAlekoko).” (Michael Graves, US archaeology professor; star-bulletin)

The pond did not just hold fish. In the 1800s, two of the three gaps in the levee were filled in and the pond was used by rice farmers.

In the 1940s, after a tidal wave, the wall was repaired by the man who had the lease at the time. He put bags of cement in the weak spots and now longish “rocks” are visible where the bags deteriorated and the cement hardened.

According to legend, Chief ʻAlekoko asked the Menehune to build two ponds – one for him and one for his sister Hāhālua. (Menehune, while small in size, were the mythical masters of stone work and engineering; they agreed to build the ponds – with one stipulation: neither should look out of their houses on the night of construction.)

Hāhālua, content with the idea of being able to eat fish from her own pond, did not look; however, her brother could not stand the temptation and he peered out. Immediately, the Menehune stopped work and washed their bleeding hands in the water – hence the name of the pond, ʻAlekoko (bloody ripples.)

Built by the Menehune, it is also known as Menehune Fishpond.

“Today the lush vegetation on the wall and banks of the pond and the calm blue waters of the Hulēʻia River combine to make Menehune Fishpond an impressive sight, an ideal picture of Polynesia.”

“It is an important historical reminder of the past and a contemporary source of pride for the people of Kauaʻi.” It was added to the National Register in 1973. (NPS) (Unfortunately, it has also been overgrown with invasive plants and silt has filled parts of the pond.)

June 9, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Nāwiliwili

A pua ka wiliwili,
A nanahu ka mano;
A pua ka wahine uʻi,
A nanahu ke kanawai.

When flowers the wiliwili,
Then bites the shark;
When flowers a young woman.
Then bites the law. (Emerson)

Most sources suggest Nāwiliwili, Kauai takes its name from the wiliwili tree (nā is the plural article, as in “the wiliwili trees” or “place of the wiliwili trees.”) A native tree, its flowers and pods are used for lei, and its light wood was once used for surfboards, outriggers and net floats …”

“… somewhat as Honolulu was originally called Ke Awa o Kou, or Kou Landing, from the groves of that seaside tree known there in primitive times, so not only this southeasterly bay of Kauai, together with the stream emptying into … took their name from the blossoms of the wiliwili trees which grew in great numbers on the rocky slopes above the bay.” (Damon)

One of the first things that William Hyde Rice saw on landing in this bay in 1854, as a boy of eight, was the orange-red flash of wiliwili blossoms on trees clinging to the cliff above the beach. And one of the last things he did for his beloved home-island was to plant young wiliwili trees above the bay that the significance of its name might be kept in fresh remembrance. (Damon)

Handy suggests a kaona (hidden meaning) for the name Nāwiliwili based on a reduplication of the word wili, which means “twisted,” as in the meandering Nāwiliwili Stream. (Cultural Surveys)

The ahupuaʻa of Nāwiliwili and the surrounding area was permanently inhabited and intensively used in pre-Contact times. The coastal areas were the focus of permanent house sites and temporary shelters, heiau, including koʻa and kūʻula (both types of relatively small shrines dedicated to fishing gods) and numerous trails.

There were fishponds and numerous house sites and intensive cultivation areas within the valley bottoms of Nāwiliwili Stream. The dryland areas (kula) contained native forests and were cultivated with crops of wauke (paper mulberry,) ‘ʻuala (sweet potatoes) and ipu (bottle gourd.)

The archaeological record of early Hawaiian occupation in the area indicates a date range of about 1100 to 1650 AD for pre-contact Hawaiian habitations. A land use pattern that may be unique to this part of the island, or to Kauai, in general, in which lo‘i (irrigated terraced gardens) and kula lands in same ʻāpana (portion of land,) with houselots in a separate portion. (Cultural Surveys)

Hiram Bingham, walking from Waimea toward Hanalei in 1824 noted, “a country of good land, mostly open, unoccupied and covered with grass, sprinkled with trees, and watered with lively streams that descend from the forest-covered mountains and wind their way along ravines to the sea, – a much finer country than the western part of the island”.

In the 1830s, Governor Kaikioʻewa founded a village at Nāwiliwili that eventually developed into Līhuʻe. The name Līhuʻe was not consistently used until the establishment of commercial sugar cane agriculture in the middle 19th century; and from the 1830s to the Māhele, the names Nāwiliwili and Līhuʻe were used interchangeably to refer to this area. (McMahon)

Līhuʻe (literally translated as ‘cold chill’) dates to when Kaikioʻewa moved his home from the traditional seat of government, Waimea, to the hilly lands overlooking Nāwiliwili Bay on the southeastern side of Kauai.

He named this area Līhuʻe, in memory of his earlier home on Oʻahu. The name, Līhuʻe, was unknown on Kauai before then; the ancient name for this area was Kalaʻiamea, “calm reddish brown place.” (Līhuʻe on Oʻahu is in the uplands on the Waianae side of Wahiawa; Kūkaniloko is situated in Līhuʻe.) (Fornander)

In early sailing ship history, Nāwiliwili Bay was deemed to be virtually the only natural harbor on Kauai. However, since the bay opened directly to the tradewinds, other protected anchorages at Kōloa and Waimea Bay, on the west side of the island, were used.

“It is doubtful that anywhere on earth, in a supposedly usable landing place, have ladies and children – and even men – been subjected to so much nerve-wrecking hardship and danger as they have met with here during and immediately following the holiday season. It has been necessary to toss passengers from gangways into small boats (hit or miss) as the waves surged; and to take them aboard in the same dangerous fashion.”

“Baggage and valuables have been overturned into the bay, and have been lost. It seems like a miracle that, not a few, but many, lives have not been sacrificed; and this can only be accounted for, perhaps, by the fact that the sailors of the ships are expert in manipulating their landing boats and handling passengers in turbulent waters.”

“In the winter months passenger traffic at Nāwiliwili is paralyzed and there is no such thing as freight business on account of the exposed condition of one of the most beautiful and serviceable harbor prospects of which we have knowledge. The great sugar industry has to draw away from its largest, most natural and most convenient port, and carry on its shipping in a “catch-as-catch-can” sort of fashion, in small bays.” (The Garden Island, January 9, 1917)

“Nāwiliwili Bay, situated on the south eastern coast of the island of Kauai, is divided naturally into an outer and inner harbor by a reef extending north and south. Inside of the reef is a basin of considerable area, which consists of several deep water channels with shoals between, but is not accessible to vessels under present conditions, as harbor improvements have never been undertaken.”

“The present anchorage, which has been used for many years, is in the outer harbor, about a mile from the landing, which is the passenger traffic terminal of the island, in former years this also was the shipping point of Lihue and Grove Farm plantations, also of the merchants and farmers of the surrounding country.”

“Owing to the difficulties and delays encountered through the necessity of vessels lying at such a great distance from the landing, Nāwiliwili was abandoned as a shipping point by the plantations.” (Forbes; The Garden Island, December 7, 1915)

Then, in the early 1920s, (largely financed and directed by GN Wilcox) a breakwater was built making for a safer passage. Later, a seawall was built and wooden landing jutted out into the Bay.

After agriculture became an important industry with the growing of sugar cane at Līhuʻe Plantation, the development of a modern harbor facility at Nāwiliwili began. Congress approved funds for a breakwater and dredging of a turning basin and on July 22, 1930, thousands celebrated the arrival of the “Hualālai” to the new facilities at Nāwiliwili.

Other improvements by the Territorial government were subsequently carried out. After Statehood, the State government continued to make additional improvements. (Okubo)

December 8, 2023 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Building Breakwaters

In 1899, Herbert, William, Jack and Edgar Young were at Catalina Island; the year before they started taking fishing parties out daily and conducting excursions to the coral gardens.

Then the Hawaiian Islands attracted their attention, and, as William put it, they “went with high hopes and the spirit of a pioneer toward strange lands and all the beauty of sky and sea in the blue Pacific.” (Herb and William were headed to Hawai‘i.) “On January 9, 1900, we sailed out of Golden Gate toward the Great adventure …”

“For years we had heard tales of Hawaii; now at last we were to see it for ourselves. Every passing hour, every wave curling under our bows brought us so much nearer, and the eyes of youth, straining ahead of the ship, seemed almost to glimpse a palm-fringed shore where life was gay and living carefree.”

“At last, on January 19, after a fine voyage, we sighted Honolulu. The green shores. the white beach and coral formations, the boats of the Kanakas, the town rising at the harbor edge to be lost in the verdure of the tropical plants …”

“… the great forest of masts and spars in the harbor, the clear water and brilliant coloring of everything within eyeshot made a picture that the years could not dim. Here at last was the land of my dreams, the real El Dorado, the place which one may leave, but to which he will always return, the enchanting isles where there is no good-bye, but only Aloha.”

“We dropped anchor at quarantine and stood on deck, silently, in wonder at the natural beauty of the island. Would our dreams come true here?”

Most associate Young Brothers as an inter-island barge company. But, in their early years in the Islands, Young Brothers did a lot of things. Young Brothers was given a contract to help with the original dredging of Pearl Harbor. They engaged to tow mud scows out to sea and dump them.

They also got involved in the construction of a couple substantial breakwaters that continue to protect some significant bays.

In the late 19th century, the growing sugar industry in East Hawai’i demanded a better and more protected port, and a breakwater was constructed on Blonde Reef in Hilo Bay to shield ships from rough waters as they entered Hilo Harbor.

In 1911, Young Brothers contracted with the Lord Young Construction Co. to tow barges to build the breakwater at Hilo harbor on the Big Island.

They bought the tug Mikiala and went to work towing barges of huge rocks from the Hamakua coast and dumping them to build the long breakwater which protects the harbor today. Building it took many long months.

Jack Young was in charge of the work at Hilo and spent the better part of a year skippering the Brothers (the name of their tug) as it towed a scow loaded with rock to be dumped on the breakwater extension.

Dangerous conditions that developed during the Hilo breakwater construction were somewhat inevitable, given the unpredictable ocean swells and enormous load carried by the rock scow.

A news article appearing in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on December 25, 1911, provides some insights into the job of building the breakwater as the Young Brothers’ crew experienced it:

“The sea had been rough for several days, and finally made it impossible to work. On Monday, the … scow was taken out in tow of the Hukihuki, having on board about 125 tons of rock, which it was to dump on the bottom ….”

“Here the substructure, which has been laid by Lord & Young, forms a kind of artificial reef over which the waves break in stormy weather. On the day in question, the breakers were thundering in at a great rate, and great combers were continually sweeping the deck of the scow.”

“Nevertheless, the Hukihuki bucked through the swirling water, and she had just brought the scow over the substructure, though not in the exact place where the load was to be dumped, when trouble began.”

“The heavy scow was let down, in the trough between two big waves, to such a depth that one of her edges struck the rock of the substructure with such a force that the timbers were splintered and broken, and the water began to pour in through the leak.”

“All thought of depositing the load had to be abandoned, and the Hukihuki maneuvered the disabled craft out of the breakers. The scow was sinking so rapidly that it was impossible to save the load, and good Kapoho rock was jettisoned.”

“By good seamanship the scow was towed to safety, where she is being repaired.”

Contrary to urban legend, the Hilo breakwater was built to dissipate general wave energy and reduce wave action in the protected bay, providing calm water within the bay and protection for mooring and operating in the bay; it was not built as a tsunami protection barrier for Hilo.

It was while they were engaged in building the Hilo breakwater that Captain Jack Young met and fell in love with Alloe Louise Marr. She had come to Hilo from Oakland, California, in 1909 with her father, Joseph Thomas Marr, to visit his cousin, Jack Guard.

John Alexander (Jack) Young and Alloe Louise Marr were married in a double wedding ceremony with her cousin, Stephanie Guard and John Fraser on September 20, 1911 at Hilo. They returned to Honolulu to live. The couples remained friends and co-workers in shipping.

In 1922, Young Bros. Ltd. contracted the towing to build the breakwater at Nawiliwili harbor hauling by barge the 6-ton rocks from the quarry on the coast of Maui to build the base of the breakwater.

The waterfront community was shocked when Captain Jack Young died of a heart attack at his home on October 23, 1946. Alloe Louise Young was afflicted with a brain tumor in 1945 and died October 9, 1947 at her home on McKinley Street.

I am the youngest brother of the youngest brother of the youngest brother of Young Brothers. Jack and Alloe Young are my grandparents.

We never met them, and they never knew they had grandchildren from their son Kenny; they both had died before they knew my mother was pregnant with my older brother. (Lots of information here is from Young Brothers: 100 Years of Service and a Young family background and genealogy.)

December 8, 2019 by Peter T Young 4 Comments

After December 7, 1941 – Submarines Continue Attack on Hawaiʻi

Most are very aware of the December 7, 1941 attacks by the Japanese on military installations on Oʻahu.

Their targets were Pearl Harbor; Hickam, Wheeler and Bellows airfields; Ewa Marine Corps Air Station; Kaneohe Bay Naval Air Station and Schofield Barracks.

However, the attacks by the Japanese on Hawaiʻi did not end on December 7th.

A group of about nine Japanese submarines were kept in the vicinity of Hawaiʻi until mid-January – they were stationed there to find out just how much damage had been done to the American military.

In addition, they tried to do what damage they could, as well as stir up concern in the civilian population about the war.

Before December was over, the Japanese submarines brought war home to the neighbor islands. Not by air attacks, but with periodic shelling from their submarines.

Over the next few weeks, on several occasions, they shelled more targets in Hawaiʻi – and, those attacks were not isolated to military targets; later in the month, civilian facilities were the intended targets.

Just before dusk on December 15th, a submarine lobbed about ten shells into the harbor area of Kahului on Maui, and three that hit a pineapple cannery caused limited damage.

Over a 2½-hour period during the night of December 30 – 31, submarines engaged in similar and nearly simultaneous shellings of Nawiliwili on Kauaʻi, again on Kahului, Maui and Hilo on the Big Island.

Damage at all three points was slight, and no one was hurt. The principal result of these shellings was to stir up the war consciousness of all the Hawaiian Islands.

A report of the Kauaʻi shelling states, “At around 1:30 a.m. on the moonlit night of December 30, 1941, an enemy Japanese submarine estimated to be about 4 miles offshore shelled Nawiliwili Harbor with least 15 three-inch shells in what was the only attack on Kauai during WWII.” (kalapakibeach-org)

“The shrapnel from one shell riddled every room in the home of CL Shannon, which was located over the Kauaʻi Marine & Machine Works, Shannon’s business, then situated along the stretch of harbor between what are today the Matson and Young Brothers terminals.”

On the bluff above the harbor, where the bulk sugar storage warehouse stands today, a shell started a small cane fire. Most of the shells were duds. One punctured a gasoline storage tank, others created water plumes in the bay.

Merchant Marine William S. Chambers, on a cargo ship docked in Kahului, noted. “We were shelled by a Japanese submarine in Kahului Harbor on December 30th, 1941, shortly before we left for San Francisco.” No damage was reported at Kahului.

Ten rounds were fired at ships docked at Kahului piers. Two shells fell harmlessly into the harbor. Four rounds hit the Maui Pineapple Company cannery, doing some damage to the roof and smokestack. One fell on the driveway of the Maui Vocational School, another in a waste lumber pile on Pier I, and one broke a few windows at the Pacific Guano and Fertilizer building. Army guns unsuccessfully returned fire.

The second attack on Kahului, on December 31, took place after General Order No. 14 established wartime censorship in Hawai’i and therefore received limited coverage.

The News did, however, mention in its first edition of 1942 that Maui police, navy and marine forces, as well as “HC & S Co. cowboys,” were patrolling on horseback to prevent looting. The death toll from the attacks: one unfortunate chicken.

None of the damage was considered major. Some frightened Kahului residents started to flee, but police and Boy Scouts persuaded them to return home.

In Hilo, residents were roused when a submarine surfaced about three miles offshore and open fired on Hilo Bay. Ten rounds, with high explosive shells hit a seaplane tender, the pier and started a small fire in the vicinity of Hilo Airport.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger

June 6, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Ahukini Landing

By report dated November 25, 1910, Major Eveleth Winslow of the Corps of Engineers provided “a report upon the preliminary examination of the ‘harbors of the island of Kauai, with a view to determining the best location for a port, Hawaii.’”

That report concluded, “it is believed that the present and prospective commercial importance of Kauai is sufficient to justify the United States in developing one good and commodious harbor, if this can be done at a reasonable cost.”

“After a personal inspection of the coast of the island and a careful consideration of all the papers presented by the persons interested in the development of the different harbors, I am convinced that the only ones worthy of more careful study are Nawiliwili, Koloa, and Hanapepe”.

“The improvement of any one of these places will consist merely in providing a harbor for seagoing vessels, and no water power will be created for industrial or commercial purposes.”

Not noted in the final list of prospective landing sites was, apparently, the first deep-water port to be used, and by 1898, the Lihue Plantation Company was using both Ahukini and Hanamaulu for shipping. (KHS)

The Corps report noted “Two landings have been provided in this bay – one on the north shore, formerly known as Hanamaulu, and one on the south shore, formerly known as Ahukini, though sometimes now called Hanamaulu.”

“Both of these landings were formerly in use for handling the sugar grown on their respective sides of the river, but a few years ago a long and high railroad trestle was constructed across the bay, about one-half mile from its mouth, and the sugar from both sides is now handled from the Ahukini landing, on the south side of the bay.”

“Here a warehouse has been constructed on the top of the hill, with mechanical means for handling sugar and carrying it down to a boom located on the end of a wharf and dumping it directly from the boom into the holds of the ships, which are able to come in close enough for this purpose.”

“This bay, however, opens directly onto the northeast trade winds, and the sea inside of the harbor, under ordinary conditions, is too rough to permit vessels to actually lie at a wharf, though they can moor a few feet from it.”

“Within the bay there is a channel extending a few hundred yards above the wharf and having a depth of 5 fathoms over a width of 600 feet, not large enough to handle a large vessel, though ample for smaller vessels.”

“By the use of breakwaters and at no very great expense it is undoubtedly true that a good harbor for interisland traffic could be constructed at this point, but it is believed that the construction of a harbor large enough for ocean liners is not practicable at this point.”

“As regards its location, the harbor is much more favorably situated with regard to the commercial interests of the island than any so far considered, but on account of its small size it is not considered worthy of selection as the best port for development by the United States.” (Congressional Serial Set, House, 62d Congress, 2d Session, 1912)

Nevertheless, Ahukini was chosen by Lihue Plantation, and with the signing of a 50-year lease on July 20,1920 and construction by the Ahukini Railroad Company (formed by Lihue Plantation Company to fulfill this need) supplied the site with a breakwater, concrete reinforced wharf, sugar warehouse, railhead with supporting structures. (KHS)

Lihue Plantation Company originated in 1849 as a partnership between Charles Reed Bishop, Judge William L. Lee, and Henry A. Pierce of Boston. H. Hackfeld & Co. served as agents.

The Līhu‘e Plantation became the most modern plantation at that time in all Hawai‘i. It featured a steam-powered mill built in 1853, the first use of steam power on a Hawaiian sugar plantation, and the ten-mile-long Hanamā‘ulu Ditch built in 1856 by plantation manager William H. Rice, the first large-scale irrigation project for any of the sugar plantations. (Maly)

In 1922, American Factors, Ltd., successor company to H. Hackfeld & Co., acquired control of Lihue Plantation Company with the purchase of stock. (HSPA)

The selection of Nāwiliwili as the harbor of the future on Kauai was preceded by a year’s worth of debate between advocates of Port Allen and Nāwiliwili. By 1924, a total of 1,454 feet of breakwater had been set in place. (Cultural Surveys)

With the construction of Nawiliwili Harbor, the bulk of Kauai’s cargo began moving through Nawiliwili and inter-island service to Ahukini stopped. Port operations at Ahukini closed in 1950. (Soboleski)

State Parks subsequently took over the Ahukini Landing and it now serves as a State Recreational Pier. Seaward of the pier is a Fisheries Management Area; fishing regulations around the pier allow recreational fishing; swimming at and around the pier is prohibited.

Follow Peter T Young on Facebook

Follow Peter T Young on Google+

Follow Peter T Young on LinkedIn

Follow Peter T Young on Blogger