Oahu College | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

March 18, 2022 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Daniel Dole

Daniel Dole was born in Bloomfield (now Skowhegan,) Maine, September 9, 1808. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1836 and Bangor Theological Seminary in 1839, and then married Emily Hoyt Ballard (1807-1844,) October 2, 1840 in Gardiner, Maine.

The education of their children was a concern of missionaries. There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

During the first 21-years of the missionary period (1820-1863,) no fewer than 33 children were either taken back to the continent by their parents. (Seven-year-old Sophia Bingham, the first Caucasian girl born on Oʻahu, daughter of Hiram and Sybil, was sent to the continent in 1828. She is my great-great-grandmother.)

On July 11, 1842, fifteen children met for the first time in Punahou’s original E-shaped building. The first Board of Trustees (1841) included Rev. Daniel Dole, Rev. Richard Armstrong, Levi Chamberlain, Rev. John S Emerson and Gerrit P Judd. (Hawaiian Gazette, June 17, 1916)

By the end of that first year, 34-children from Sandwich Islands and Oregon missions were enrolled, only one over 12-years old. Tuition was $12 per term, and the school year covered three terms. (Punahou)

By 1851, Punahou officially opened its doors to all races and religions. (Students from Oregon, California and Tahiti were welcomed from 1841 – 1849.)

December 15 of that year, Old School Hall, “the new spacious school house,” opened officially to receive its first students. The building is still there and in use by the school.

“The founding of Punahou as a school for missionary children not only provided means of instruction for the children, of the Mission, but also gave a trend to the education and history of the Islands.”

“In 1841, at Punahou the Mission established this school and built for it simple halls of adobe. From this unpretentious beginning, the school has grown to its present prosperous condition.” (Report of the Superintendent of Public Education, 1900)

The curriculum at Punahou under Dole combined the elements of a classical education with a strong emphasis on manual labor in the school’s fields for the boys, and in domestic matters for the girls. The school raised much of its own food. (Burlin)

Some of Punahou’s early buildings include, Old School Hall (1852,) music studios; Bingham Hall (1882,) Bishop Hall of Science (1884,) Pauahi Hall (1894,) Charles R. Bishop Hall (1902,) recitation halls; Dole Hall and Rice Hall (1906,) dormitories; Cooke Library (1908) and Castle Hall (1913,) dormitory.

Dole Street, laid out in 1880 and part of the development of the lower Punahou pasture was named after Daniel Dole (other nearby streets were named after other Punahou presidents.)

Emily died on April 27, 1844 in Honolulu; Daniel Dole married Charlotte Close Knapp (1813-1874) June 22, 1846 in Honolulu, Oʻahu.

Daniel Dole resigned from Punahou in 1855 to become the pastor and teacher at Kōloa, Kauai. There, he started the Dole School that later became Kōloa School, the first public school on Kauai. Like Punahou, it filled the need to educate mission children.

The first Kōloa school house was a single room, a clapboard building with bare timbers inside and a thatched roof. Both missionary children as well as part-Hawaiian children attended the school. (Joesting)

Due to growing demand, the school was enlarged and boarding students were admitted. Reverend Elias Bond in Kohala sent his three oldest children to the Kōloa School, as did others from across the islands. (Joesting)

Charlotte died on Kauai in 1874 and Daniel Dole died August 26, 1878 in Kapaʻa, Kauai. Dole’s sons include Sanford Ballard Dole (President of the Republic of Hawaiʻi and 1st Territorial Governor of Hawaiʻi.) Daniel Dole was great uncle to James Dole, the ‘Pineapple King.’

October 30, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

College Hill

In 1829, Hiram Bingham was given the lands of Kapunahou – he subsequently gave it to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) – to establish Punahou School.

Founded in 1841, Punahou School (originally called Oʻahu College) was built at Kapunahou to provide a quality education for the children of Congregational missionaries, allowing them to stay in Hawaiʻi with their families, instead of being sent away to school. The first class had 15 students.

The land area of the Kapunahou gift was significantly larger than the present school campus size. Near the turn of the last century, the Punahou Board of Trustees decided to subdivide some of the land – they called their subdivision “College Hills.”

Inspired by the garden suburb ideals then becoming popular both in North America and Europe, and especially England, College Hills was initiated as a way of raising revenue for the school.

College Hills was one of several enclaves for Honolulu’s wealthier residents and marked the true beginning of park-like suburban developments in Hawaiʻi.

Following upon earlier subdivisions, such as the 1886 Seaview Tract in the area now known as “lower Manoa,” the College Hills Tract was an important real estate development in the history of Honolulu.

Using nearly 100 acres of land previously leased out as a dairy farm, Punahou subdivided the rolling landscape into separate parcels of from 10,000- to 20,000-square feet.

The “Atherton House” was built on one of the most attractive of these parcels (actually six lots purchased together.) Situated on a slight rise, and protected by the hillside of Tantalus rising to the west (Ewa) side, the Atherton House, part of the new wave of Mānoa residences. It represented the move of one of Hawaiʻi’s elite families into an area thought before to be countryside.

College Hills soon became a desirable residential area served by a streetcar, which traveled up O‘ahu Avenue and made a wide U-turn around the Atherton home on Kamehameha Avenue.

The Atherton House was the residence of Frank C Atherton and his wife Eleanore from 1902 until his death in 1945. (Mrs. Atherton continued living in the house until the early-1960s.)

Designed by architect Walter E Pinkham, the shingled two-story wood-framed house reflects the influence of the late Queen Anne, Prairie and Craftsman styles, but its lava rock piers, ʻōhia floors and large lanai denote it as Hawaiian.

The house was a gift to Atherton from his father, Joseph Ballard Atherton, the family patriarch in Hawaiʻi, who was one of a small group of North Americans and Europeans that became prominent in Hawaiʻi’s business and political life toward the end of the 19th century.

Arriving in Honolulu from Boston in 1858, JB Atherton worked first for the firm of DC Waterman, before taking a position with the larger company of Castle and Cooke.

In 1865, JB Atherton married Juliette Montague Cooke, a daughter of the Reverend Amos Starr Cooke, one of the islands’ early missionaries. Together they had six children (including Frank.)

JB Atherton became a junior partner of Castle and Cooke; by 1894, as the sole survivor of the firm’s early leadership, he became president.

He worked closely with the Pāʻia Plantation and the Haiku Sugar Company on Maui, and in 1890 was one of the incorporators of the ʻEwa Plantation Company. Together with BF Dillingham, he organized the Waialua Agricultural Company, Ltd and became the first president

Atherton served for many years the president of Castle and Cooke, one of the “Big Five” companies in Hawaiʻi. At Castle and Cooke, he distinguished himself as an energetic and progressive leader, who helped transform Hawaii’s economy away from the single agricultural crop of sugar toward greater diversity.

Eventually, Frank C Atherton would become vice-president and then president of Castle and Cooke.

For 60 years the “Atherton House” was the home of the Atherton family; the Atherton’s children donated it to the University of Hawaiʻi in 1964 to serve as a home for the University of Hawaiʻi president – the University named the home “College Hill.”

While it is the designated home for the University of Hawaiʻi president, and now bears the name “College Hill,” it didn’t get its name because the UH president lives there. (The Mānoa residence was built five years before the University was founded.)

Oʻahu College – as Punahou School used to be called – was located nearby. Thus, the Mānoa Valley section where Frank and Eleanore Atherton had their country home was called “College Hills Tract.”

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July 15, 2019 by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Punahou School – Oʻahu College

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 184-men and women in twelve Companies served in Hawaiʻi to carry out the mission of the ABCFM in the Hawaiian Islands.

One of the first things the first missionaries did was begin to learn the Hawaiian language and create an alphabet for a written format of the language. Their emphasis was on preaching and teaching.

The missionaries established schools associated with their missions across the Islands. This marked the beginning of Hawaiʻi’s phenomenal rise to literacy. The chiefs became proponents for education and edicts were enacted by the King and the council of Chiefs to stimulate the people to reading and writing.

However, the education of their children was a concern of missionaries.

There were two major dilemmas, (1) there were a limited number of missionary children and (2) existing schools (which the missionaries taught) served adult Hawaiians (who were taught from a limited curriculum in the Hawaiian language.)

“During the period from infancy to the age of ten or twelve years, children in the almost isolated family of a missionary could be well provided for and instructed in the rudiments of education without a regular school … But after that period, difficulties in most cases multiplied.” (Hiram Bingham)

Missionaries were torn between preaching the gospel and teaching their kids. “(M)ission parents were busy translating, preaching and teaching. Usually parents only had a couple of hours each day to spare with their children.” (Schultz)

“(I)t was the general opinion of the missionaries there that their children over eight or ten years of age, notwithstanding the trial that might be involved, ought to be sent or carried to the United States, if there were friends who would assume a proper guardianship over them”. (Bingham)

“This was the darkest day in the life history of the mission child. Peculiarly dependent upon the family life, at the age of eight to twelve years, they were suddenly torn from the only intimates they had ever known, and banished, lonely and homesick, to a mythical country on the other side of the world …”

“… where they could receive letters but once or twice a year; where they must remain isolated from friends and relatives for years and from which they might never return.” (Bishop)

Resolution 14 of the 1841 General Meeting of the Sandwich Islands Mission changed that; it established a school for the children of the missionaries (May 12, 1841.) Meeting minutes note, “This subject occupied much time in discussion, and excited much interest.”

The following report was adopted: “Whereas it has long been the desire of many members of this mission to have a school established for the instruction of their children, and this object received the deliberate sanction of our last General Meeting; and”

“(W)hereas the Providence of God seems to have opened the way for this undertaking, by providing a good location for the school, suitable teachers to take charge of it, and a sufficiency of other means for making a commencement. Therefore,”

“Resolved 1, That the foundation of this institution be laid with faith in God, relying upon his great and precious promises to believing parents, in behalf of their children, commending it to his care and love from its commencement, and looking unto him to build it up, cherish it, and make it a blessing to the church and the world.”

“Resolved 2, That the location of the school be at Punahou, in the vicinity of Honolulu.”

“Resolved 3, That $2,000 be appropriated from the funds of the mission, to aid in erecting the necessary buildings, and preparing the premises for the accommodation of the school, as soon as possible; but as this sum is inadequate to the wants of the school, even in its commencement, that it be commended to the private patronage of the brethren of the mission.”

“Resolved 4, That a Board of five Trustees be chosen, of whom the teacher shall be one, ex officio, whose duty it shall be to devise a plan for the school, carry it into operation, as soon as possible, watch over its interests, and regulate its affairs generally.” (Resolution of the General Meeting of the Sandwich Islands Mission, 1841)

A subsequent Resolution noted “That Mr (Daniel) Dole be located at Punahou, as teacher for the Children of the Mission.”

By 1851, Punahou officially opened its doors to all races and religions. (Students from Oregon, California and Tahiti were welcomed from 1841 – 1849.)

December 15 of that year, Old School Hall, “the new spacious school house,” opened officially to receive its first students. The building is still there and in use by the school.

“The founding of Punahou as a school for missionary children not only provided means of instruction for the children of the Mission, but also gave a trend to the education and history of the Islands. In 1841, at Punahou the Mission established this school and built for it simple halls of adobe. From this unpretentious beginning, the school has grown to its present prosperous condition.” (Report of the Superintendent of Public Education, 1900)

Dole Street, laid out in 1880 and part of the development of the lower Punahou pasture was named after Daniel Dole (other nearby streets were named after other Punahou presidents.)

Click HERE to View/Download an expanded discussion on Oʻahu College/Punahou School.

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Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866

July 12, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Plain Living and High Thinking

“For while the pros and cons of a local school for mission children were still being eagerly discussed, the mission in general assembly that year, 1831, resolved prayerfully that the time was not yet ripe and that recourse must still be had for an indefinite period to the long separations and the generosity of friends on the other side of the world.”

“The first recorded hint of Punahou as a possibility is given in that same year in the name of Brother Tinker who, one day, when riding past the scene of Mrs (Sybil) Bingham’s activities, remarked to Brother Baldwin, ‘That, sir, is the site of the future college.’”

“The year 1840 … was the year of visible beginnings. At the General Meeting of the Mission it was voted to establish a school for boys and girls at Punahou …. A committee consisting of Brethren Judd, Castle and Powell Smith was appointed to execute the plans.”

“Three Armstrong children were waiting for that first class at Punahou, four Chamberlains, two Emersons, two Forbes, five Gulicks, one Hall, three Hitchcocks, three Judds, three Parkers and two Richards.”

“For lack of a teacher, no further step was taken until the spring of the following year when Mr and Mrs (Daniel) Dole arrived. Miss Marcia Smith was appointed to assist them”. (Damon, The Friend, March 1924)

Dole brought ‘plain living and high thinking’ as the rule of the school; and by common consent, in retrospect from the present time, the work of those early teachers was nobly done. (Portraits of Missionaries)

George Ripley, a Unitarian minister, conceived a plan of plain living and high thinking. He and his associates became the founders of what is known now as “The Great Experiment.”

He had as his associates such able men as Nathaniel Hawthorne and Charles A. Dana, who afterwards became Assistant Secretary of War in the Cabinet of the President of the United States. This “Great Experiment” came to an end in 1846. (McKay)

“The vital principle which ought to reside in the brain is called away … to assist in … digestion and no mental energy is apparent.”

“Let a mother send a child to school with a basket of food sufficient for a laborer’s dinner, and she must expect nothing else than the return of her child at night with no increase of intellectual wealth.” (Dole, Punahou)

“From a long and somewhat intimate acquaintance I can state that I have rarely met a minister who did not have the best interests of his profession first in his thoughts, and did not abhor necessity which forces him even to think of the material side.”

“’Plain living and high thinking’ is the rule amongst them: few care for more than the average comforts and conveniences of life, and these more for the sake of an often over-burdened wife than for themselves.” (Unitarian Register)

“On July 11, 1842 fifteen of the mission children took their seats in the first session of Kapunahou School. Before the end of the year thirty-four were in attendance, thus more than justifying the estimate for accommodations.”

“In 1844 four new rooms were added, and two much beloved teachers, Mr and Mrs Rice from the station at Hana, Maui, came to make their home at Punahou.”

“Many are the stories that are told, – of wearing three pairs of pants when a whipping was judged imminent; of the old green desks in the school room between the two courts …”

“… of the tamarind tree planted near the house in 1842, which is still standing near Bingham Hall; of Father Dole’s red ruler; of Father Damon spelling down the whole school in the annual “exhibition” on the word “separate” …”

“… of the love letters passed behind books; of secret expeditions to Rocky Hill caves … of the talks on stars; of the ‘little birds who can sing and won’t sing, but must be made to sing’ …”

“… of the intense joy over letters and bundles from homes on other islands, — stories which would take a lifetime to re-tell.”

“It was a happy, busy life, a ‘unique experiment in education,’ which drew to itself the notice of strangers in California and Oregon so that many a child was sent across the Pacific to Punahou from those pioneer settlements as yet touched by no railroad and dignified by no schools other than the few scattered ones for Indians.”

“The first decade of the school was, as well as many of the later ones, filled with ‘plain living and high thinking.’ The journals and letters of those early pupils throb with the eager endeavor to be worthy of all that was being done for them …”

“… some, showing the natural result of isolated and over-stimulated childhood, refer to the writers themselves, all under twelve years of age, as ‘vile worm and thrice black-hearted sinner.’”

“But all of them are wide awake, delighted in their work as a rule, and taking keen pleasure in the rare joy of a Saturday’s tramp among the hills.” (Damon, The Friend, March 1924)

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Miss Marcia M. Smith, Teacher

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September 14, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Pleasanton Hotel

“The premises of the late (Henry) Alexander Isenberg, at the corner of Punahou and Wilder avenue are to be opened today by Mrs JW Macdonald as a family hotel, to be called the Pleasanton.”

“For the purpose there is no more suitable place in Honolulu and Mrs. Macdonald’s experience in catering to the better class of patrons fits her to the duties she will perform as hostess of the larger establishment.”

“The place has been leased by her for a term of years and the lower part of the house has been engaged by guests who had apartments in the Hawaiian and Moana hotels, the closing of which warranted the opening establishment and its spacious grounds.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 1, 1908)

Henry Alexander Isenberg was born “in the islands in 1872 and was sent to Bremen, Germany, to be educated. After leaving college he served in the army for one year and then entered a mercantile establishment, where he remained a short time.”

“He then went to England, also following commercial pursuits there for one year and returned to the islands in 1894. Mr. Isenberg entered the house of H Hackfeld & Co, Ltd” (Logan, 1907,) “going through every clerical position and finally becoming the head of the establishment.” (Evening Bulletin, November 7, 1905)

“As German Consul he entertained both in his consular and private capacities, in a lavish manner. In 1897 Mr. Isenberg married Miss Virginia Duisenberg of San Francisco, daughter of Chas AC Duisenberg, the first German Consul of San Francisco, who arrived there in 1849.”

“The late Hon. Paul Isenberg, formerly of H Hackfeld & Co., Ltd., who died in 1903, was HA Isenberg’s father. … Mr Isenberg came into a large estate on his father’s death and his interests in the H Hackfeld concerns were substantial.” (Evening Bulletin, November 7, 1905)

The Isenberg home-turned-hotel “is in the most beautiful residential portion of Honolulu – Punahou. Lovely grounds occupying five acres of tropical garden surround the palatial building. The O‘ahu College is close by and the entrance to the exquisite and historic valley of Mānoa is reached by the cars running past the hotel.” (CowCard)

It appears shortly after the Macdonald announcement, the Isenbergs took control of the property and planned for expansion. “Mrs. Alexander Isenberg and two sons, Rudolph and Alexander, and maid, and Miss Duisenberg, are aboard the Pacific Mail steamship Mongolia en route to Honolulu to spend the winter at the Hotel Pleasaston, after an absences of about two years.”

“Mrs. Isenberg is coming down, not only to renew old friendships, but to look over the improvements at the Pleasanton. Although many improvements are under way there under the direction of Mrs. Duisenberg, Mrs Isenberg contemplates even more additions.”

“The Pleasanton ‘s business has been increasing rapidly and there are now fifty guests, although the room space is rather limited.”

“A three-story building is in course of erection in the mauka portion of the grounds. This was planned for a bachelors’ house, but owing to the demands for rooms this will be thrown open to general business and will accommodate about fifty people.”

“A cottage on College street has been leased to house additional guests. Another building may yet be erected. The one under construction will be ready in less than a month.”

“The swimming pool is to be remodeled and the building over it enlarged to accommodate numerous bathrooms. The tennis court is to be rebuilt and surrounded by tall iron posts, so that a canvas cover can be drawn over it.”

“A pergola will connect the old building with the annex and at the center, just opposite the tennis court, a bandstand will be built. Spectators will occupy seats on the tennis court. A dancing floor, built in sections, will be built for use on the tennis court.”

“The main entrances to the grounds will be beautified by stone posts surmounted by electroliers.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, December 24, 1909)

It was promoted as, “on the car lines at Punahou Street and Wilder Avenue, within 12 minutes of the business center, pos toffice
and government buildings.”

“The pleasanton is situated in a tropical garden covering five acres on the at the foot of beautiful Mānoa valley whence it receives the delightful mountain breeze day and night.”

“in this garden are palms and other flowering plants in all the grandeur peculiar to the tropics, affording a most delightful outdoor retreat for guests.” (Hawaiian Star, December 10, 1910)

In 1950, the Lutheran Church purchased part of the old Alexander Isenberg/Pleasanton Hotel property. On another portion of the property the YWCA built ‘Fernhurst’ (in 1952,) offering nightly shared accommodations. Between them is a high-rise condominium building that retains the memory of the old hotel in its name: The Pleasanton.

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