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October 23, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaʻahumanu Wall

In the early 1800s, the city of Honolulu went as far as South Street; Kawaiahaʻo Church and Mission Houses (on King Street, on the Diamond Head side of town) were at the edge and outskirts of town.

The flat area between Mānoa and Honolulu was known as Kulaokahu‘a – the “plains.” It was the comparatively level ground below Makiki Valley (between the mauka fertile valleys and the makai wetlands.) This included areas such as Kaka‘ako, Kewalo, Makiki, Pawaʻa and Mōʻiliʻili.

Queen Kaʻahumanu was Kamehameha’s favorite wife. When he died on May 8, 1819, the crown was passed to his son, Liholiho, who would rule as Kamehameha II. Kaʻahumanu created the office of Kuhina Nui (similar to premier, prime minister or regent) and ruled as an equal with Liholiho.

On December 4, 1825, Queen Kaahumanu was baptized into the Protestant faith and received her new name, Elizabeth, then labored earnestly to lead her people to Christ.

In 1829, at the suggestion of Queen Kaʻahumanu (with the likely support of Hoapili), Boki and Liliha gave the lands of Ka Punahou to Hiram and Sybil Bingham, leaders of the first missionary group to Hawaiʻi. Bingham then gave the land to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) to establish Punahou School.

The Binghams built their home there; Kaʻahumanu wanted to be close to them and built hers nearby (the Binghams later built an adobe house, with thatched roof.) A memorial boulder near Old School Hall and the Library marks the location of the makai door of the Bingham home.

Just as in other outlying areas around the islands, roaming cattle became a nuisance. Recall that in the early-1790s Captain George Vancouver gave Kamehameha I gifts of several cattle (a new species to the islands) and Vancouver strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a 10‐year kapu on them to allow the herd to grow.

In the decades that followed, cattle flourished and turned into a dangerous nuisance. Vast herds destroyed natives’ crops, ate the thatching on houses, and hurt, attacked and sometimes killed people. (Kamehameha III later lifted the kapu in 1830.)

To protect the Bingham’s property and surrounding areas, in 1830, Queen Ka‘ahumanu ordered that a wall should be built from Punchbowl to Mōʻiliʻili. “The object of the structure was to keep cattle grazing on the plains from intruding upon the cultivated region towards the mountains.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“Kaahumanu’s wall came from “the reef” (suggesting it was made of coral.) It is an Interesting fact many of the prisoners who built it were serving time for religion’s sake. After the native’s had cast down their idols and been converted, they turned against all forms of idolatry with the zeal new proselytes.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“When the Roman Catholic worship came in, the chiefs mistook the use of images’ for idolatry and threw a great many Catholics into prison. The labor which went into the Kaahumanu wall included theirs.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

“Years afterwards when Curtis Lyons went into the Survey office and laid the streets on the plains he named the thoroughfare which ran alongside the great wall, Stonewall street.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

The wall followed a trail which was later expanded and was first called Stonewall Street. It was also known as “Mānoa Valley Road;” later, the route was renamed for the shipping magnate, Samuel G. Wilder (and continues to be known as Wilder Avenue.)

While the street was initially called “Stonewall Street,” it does not necessarily immediately suggest the wall was made of rocks.

A decade later the Kawaiahaʻo Church was constructed, it was commonly called the “Stone Church.” However, it is made of giant slabs of coral hewn from ocean reefs, as were other structures, at the time.

Likewise, “(s)uch blocks still appear in the Kawaiahao structure. In the ancient parsonage back of it and in the old house of government next door to the Postoffice and the material for the fence which fronted the “Hale” on Merchant street.” (Hawaiian Gazette October 29, 1901)

However, a later reference suggests the wall, at least at Punahou, may have been made of “stone.” The Friend, in a summary on Punahou history stated, “To protect the Manoa land from grazing cattle she (Kaʻahumanu) called on the governor, Kuakini, to build a long stone wall at its makai side. To mark the boundary, at the makai entrance, two large stones were set up.” (Damon, The Friend, March 1924)

The ‘Pōhaku’ book (Cheevers) suggests this same rock wall configuration, rather than the coral construction noted in the 1901 Hawaiian Gazette article. Pōhaku notes, “About 2,000 men worked on it as each chief was responsible for building one fathom (six feet) of its almost two-mile length (or approximately six-feet of dry laid rock wall, five feet high, per man).”

Irrespective of The Friend’s reference to the “reef,” the rock material in the Kaahumanu stone wall appears the most plausible. The disappearance of the Queen Kaʻahumanu wall is due to the street widening order of the Board of Public Works.

This wasn’t the Islands’ only significant cattle wall. Between 1830 and 1840, Governor Kuakini built a 6-mile wall (from Kailua to Keauhou, on Hawaiʻi Island) that separated the coastal lands from the inland pasture lands (Ka Pā Nui o Kuakini – the Great Wall of Kuakini.)

Punahou’s dry stack rock wall along Punahou Street was constructed in 1834. The night-blooming cereus (known in Hawaiʻi as panini o kapunahou) that today continues to cover the Punahou walls (that back in 1924 was noted to have “world-wide reputation and interest”) was planted in 1836 by Sybil Bingham (Hiram’s wife) from a few branches of the vine she received from a traveler from Mexico. (The Friend)

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Kaahumanu Wall is on the left in this drawing of Punahou School-(MasonArchitects)-1848
Punahou Street looking toward Round Top-(HSA)-PPWD-17-3-027-1900
Oahu College scene of driveway to Old School Hall and E Building, c.1881
Bingham_house-plaque
Bingham_house-marker
Bingham_house-marker-library_in_background
Pohakuloa-Entry
Pohakuloa-Punahou
Punahou_Preparatory_School,_Honolulu-(WC)-(1909)
Oahu_College-Old_School_Hall_at_Punahou_School
Ka Punahou (the new spring) Robert Shipman Thurston, Jr. Memorial Chapel, designed by Vladimir Ossipoff in 1967-(MasonArchitects)
Great_Wall_of_Kuakini-in Kona-WC

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings Tagged With: Hawaii, Oahu, Hiram Bingham, Punahou, Queen Kaahumanu, Manoa

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)

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.)

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.”

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.)

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
Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Schools Tagged With: Hawaii, Punahou, Oahu College

May 6, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Head, Heart & Hand

Click HERE for more information on Head, Heart & Hand.

In the early years, after the arrival of the first American Protestant missionaries, the Hawaiian language came to be the universal mode of education.

Common schools (where the 3 Rs were taught) sprang up in villages all over the islands. In these common schools, classes and attendance were quite irregular, but nevertheless basic reading and writing skills (in Hawaiian) and fundamental Christian doctrine were taught to large numbers of people. (Canevali)

It soon was apparent to the missionaries that the future of the Congregational Mission in Hawaii would be largely dependent upon the success of its schools.

Recognizing there were a limited number of missionaries to teach the chiefs and maka‘āinana (common people), the missionaries effectively set up a school in Lāhainā to teach teachers.

With the main facility at Lahainaluna, the Mission then established “feeder schools” that would transmit to their students’ fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and religious training, before admission to the Lahainaluna.

In many of the mission schools the focus was educating the head, heart and hand. In addition to the rigorous academic drills (Head), the schools provided religious/moral (Heart) and manual/vocational (Hand) training.

This method of learning started with the training of the missionary ministers. While they had extensive training in academics and religious studies, because missionaries were often in isolated locations without services, the early missionary ministers had training in manual arts, as well – this philosophy continued into the schools the missions formed.

Foreign Mission School

The object of the Foreign Mission School was the education, in the US country, of heathen youth (those that do not know God), so that they might be qualified to become useful missionaries, physicians, surgeons, schoolmasters or interpreters, and to communicate such knowledge in agriculture and the arts, as might prove the means of promoting Christianity and civilization. (ABCFM)

Once enrolled, students spent seven hours a day in study. Students studied penmanship, grammar, arithmetic, Latin, Greek, rhetoric, navigation, surveying, astronomy, theology, chemistry, and ecclesiastical history, among other specialized subjects.

Academics were balanced with mandatory outdoor labor. Students were tasked with the maintenance of the school’s agricultural plots and assigned to labor in the fields “two (and a half) days” a week and “two at a time.” Additionally, the school enforced strict rules for students’ social lives and study times.

They were also taught special skills like coopering (the making of barrels and other storage casks), blacksmithing, navigation and surveying. When not in class, students attended mandatory church and prayer sessions and also worked on making improvements to the school’s lands. (Cornwall)

Lahainaluna

Under the leadership of Reverend Lorrin Andrews, Lahainaluna was established by the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions “to instruct young men of piety and promising talents”. It is the oldest high school west of the Mississippi River.

The Mission then established “feeder schools” that would transmit to their students’ fundamental reading, writing, and arithmetic skills, and religious training, before admission to the Lahainaluna.

Hilo Boarding School

In 1835, the mission constructed the Hilo Boarding School as part of an overall system of schools (with a girls boarding school in Wailuku and boarding at Lahainaluna.) The school was operated to an extent on a manual labor program and the boys cultivated the land to produce their own food. (The boys’ ages ranged from seven to fourteen.)

More than one-third of the boys who had attended the school eventually became teachers in the common schools of the kingdom. In 1850 the Minister of Public Instruction, Richard Armstrong, reported that Hilo Boarding School “is one of our most important schools. It is the very life and soul of our common school on that large island.”

O‘ahu College – Punahou 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.” (Report of the Superintendent of Public Education, 1900)

The school was officially named in 1859 and it was initially called the Oʻahu College. It is not until 1934 that the school name was changed to Punahou School, the name we know it as today.

The curriculum at Punahou under Daniel 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)

Kamehameha Schools

The head, heart and hand education continued. On April 1, 1886, Reverend William Brewster Oleson was hired from Hilo Boarding School to become the first principal of the Kamehameha School for Boys.

At Kamehameha, “Each student will be allowed to carry out 12 hours a week of manual labor. For industrial arts, two hours a day, and five days a week. Military drilling and physical education will be a portion of the curriculum everyday.”

“Arithmetic, English Language, Popular Science (Akeakamai,) Elementary Algebra (Anahonua,) Free-hand and Mechanical Drawing (Kakau me Kaha Kii,) Practical Geometry (Moleanahonua,) Bookkeeping (malama Buke Kalepa,) tailoring (tela humu lole,) printing (pai palapala,), masonry (hamo puna,) and other similar things, and blacksmithing.” (Kuokoa, June 28, 1887)

Missionary ‘Head, Heart & Hand’ Model Makes it Back to the Continent

Hilo Boarding School was the model for educating students at Hampton Institute in Virginia and Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. (KSBE)

With the help of the American Missionary Association, Samuel Armstrong, son of missionary Richard Armstrong, established the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute – now known as Hampton University – in Hampton, Virginia in 1868.

The Institute was meant to be a place where black students could receive post-secondary education to become teachers, as well as training in useful job skills while paying for their education through manual labor.

Hampton University’s most notable alumni is Booker T. Washington. “I was born a slave on a plantation in Franklin County, Virginia. … As nearly as I have been able to learn, I was born near a cross-roads post-office called Hale’s Ford, and the year was 1858 or 1859.”

After coming to Hampton Institute in 1872, Washington immediately began to adopt Armstrong’s teaching and philosophy. Washington described Armstrong as “the most perfect specimen of man, physically, mentally and spiritually the most Christ-like….” Washington also quickly learned the aim of the Hampton Institute.

Washington rose to become one of the most influential African-American intellectuals of the late 19th century. In 1881, he founded the Tuskegee Institute, a black school in Alabama devoted to training teachers.

Click HERE for more information on Head, Heart & Hand.

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Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901
Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901
Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901-400
Hilo Boarding School and Mission Houses
Hilo Boarding School and Mission Houses
Hilo_Boarding_School_and_Gardens-from_Haili_Hill-Lothian-1856
Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)
Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)
Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835
Cornwall-home_of_the_Foreign_Mission_School-by_Barber-(WC)-1835
Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School
Cornwall’s Foreign Mission School
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Punahou-Girls-Court-of-the-E-Building-1877
Punahou-Girls-Court-of-the-E-Building-1877
Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866-E bldg to left-Old School Hall right
Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866-E bldg to left-Old School Hall right
Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924
Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Punahou-Gardens-1880
Kamehameha School for Boys campus-(KSBE)-before 1900
Kamehameha School for Boys campus-(KSBE)-before 1900

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Schools Tagged With: Lahainaluna, Hilo Boarding School, Foreign Mission School, Schools, Head, Heart, Hawaii, Hand, Kamehameha Schools, Missionaries, Punahou, Hampton Normal and Agricultural School

October 9, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

The Mansion

“(I)n 1893, a placard was discovered hanging on one of the now padlocked gates of the property, the warning consisting of a skull and cross-bones, across which, written in red ink, were the words …”

“’Gold and Silver Cannot Stop Lead.’”

“This, added to the chagrin of being thwarted politically, resulted in the departure on the next Oceanic liner to leave for San Francisco of the whole Spreckels family.” (Advertiser, December 27, 1893) He vowed “not to return until Lili‘uokalani was seated upon the throne”. (Advertiser, April 3, 1904)

“Claus Spreckels, the Sugar King,… was for many years, intimately connected with the political and industrial history of Hawaii.”

“He was … connected in many important ways with the commercial and industrial life of the Islands, and he had, during the thirty-two years since he first extended his interest to the Mid-Pacific, rendered great services to the leading industry of this Territory.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 29, 1908)

The career of the “sugar king” of California, Hawaiʻi and the American West consisted of building and breaking monopolies in sugar, transport, gas, electricity, real estate, newspapers, banks and breweries.

His first business venture was beer brewing, founding the Albany Brewery, together with his brother Peter Spreckels and Claus Mangels, among others; it was the first large-scale producer of beer in San Francisco.

He sold his beer operation in 1863 and switched to sugar, starting the Bay Sugar Refining Company. After selling that, he constructed the California Sugar Refinery in 1867 to process sugar, introducing the European process of packaging granulated sugar and sugar cubes (so customers could more easily divide the portions.)

In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he acquired the fee simple title to the Wailuku ahupuaʻa. He then founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.

Needing transportation to move his Hawaiʻi sugar for refining on the continent, his sons formed JD Spreckels & Bros. shipping line in 1879, which was incorporated as the Oceanic Steamship Company in 1881. (It became a subsidiary of Matson in 1926.)

It was the first line to offer regular service between Honolulu and San Francisco, and his sons managed to reduce travel time immensely. While the sailing ship Claus Spreckels made a record run of less than ten days in 1879, by 1883 the new steam vessel Mariposa needed less than six days.

Claus Spreckels was a controversial figure. For friends, he was a man “with a fine presence, an open, pleasant countenance and a cheerful word for everybody.” Others, however, characterized him as impatient, implacable and ruthless, driven by “Dutch obstinacy.” (Spiekermann)

Hawaiʻi served as only one of the venues for the Spreckels holdings. During the 1880s and early 1890s, he bought and built up several blocks of office buildings in San Francisco.

Back in the Islands, “Claus Spreckels was advocating the restoration of the monarchy, after the formation of the Provisional Government in 1893. He was a warm Royalist, and some one suggested in a joking manner that it would help the cause if Spreckels was put out of the way.”

“The sugar magnate heard the story and became alarmed at the threat. His alarm was intensified a few days later when, coming out of the gate of his Punahou street residence, he found a warning signal staring him in the face.” (Advertiser, April 3, 1904)

“In leaving Honolulu as he did, Mr Spreckels demonstrated his own faith in the belief that the condition he named for his return might be some day met with, by simply closing up his beautiful mansion on Punahou street and refusing to either sell or lease it.”

“The house has been opened since that time, however, once on the occasion of a visit here of his son, John D Spreckels, and later, a few years ago, when the Sugar King and his wife returned to pay a visit to Honolulu.”

“The mansion, erected on a tract of Punahou property purchased from O‘ahu College (Punahou,) was for many years the finest private residence in the city, being the only second to that of the King’s palace.”

“For years, until the hundreds of palms and other trees set out by the owner grew so as to practically hide the residence, the white three-story house of the Sugar King was one of the things pointed out to, tourists as a Honolulu landmark.” (Advertiser, December 27, 1893)

This wasn’t Spreckels’ only mansion, “Claus Spreckels has just bought a large block pf property on the swell part of Van Ness avenue and intends to build a magnificent mansion there (in San Francisco.)”

“Every one who knows Mr. Spreckels knows that he has long been casting his eye on Van Ness avenue with a view to buying a fine place of residence property.”

“It has taken him a long time to make up his mind, but he has made it up now, and as a result frontage on the owns the largest avenue of any property owner from Market to Union, and where ex-Alcalde Burr has blocked the march of progress.”

“When Mr. Spreckels does a thing he does it – and that’s what has happened in this case. He has gone in for residence property on Van Ness avenue, and has gone in for it heavily.” (Hawaii Holomua, January 11, 1894)

“One of the most valuable holdings, apart from the Claus Spreckels building, at Third and Market streets, is the family mansion at Van Ness avenue and Clay street.”

The Punahou mansion, two stories with cupola, frescoed ceilings and stained glass windows, was later purchased by Jonah Kumalae (businessman, politician and ukulele manufacturer,) who dismantled the three-story structure by sections in order to move it from Punahou Street to Mōʻiliʻili, where it was reassembled on Isenberg Street. (SB)

The St. Louis Alumni Association purchased the Kumalae home in June 1937. It was named Dreier Manor, in honor of philanthropist August Dreier, who founded Oahu Ice & Cold Storage Co. (SB) It then served as the St. Louis Alumni Clubhouse until it accidentally burned in 1954. (Mitchell)

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Claus Spreckels' mansion on Punahou Street in 1908
Claus Spreckels’ mansion on Punahou Street in 1908
Claus_Spreckels
Claus_Spreckels
Claus_Spreckels
Claus_Spreckels
Kumalae-remodeled Spreckels mansion-Kojima-SB-1950
Kumalae-remodeled Spreckels mansion-Kojima-SB-1950
Drier Mansion-former Spreckels-Kumalae (modified)
Drier Mansion-former Spreckels-Kumalae (modified)
Drier Mansion-former Spreckels-Kumalae (modified)
Drier Mansion-former Spreckels-Kumalae (modified)
Former-modified Spreckels mansion Isenberg and King
Former-modified Spreckels mansion Isenberg and King
Chunky's replaced Drier Mansion-1955
Chunky’s replaced Drier Mansion-1955
1st Hawaiian Bank at former Kumalae-Drier Mansion site
1st Hawaiian Bank at former Kumalae-Drier Mansion site
San Francisco Residence of Claus Spreckels.
San Francisco Residence of Claus Spreckels.

Filed Under: Economy, Buildings, Prominent People Tagged With: Punahou, St Louis, Spreckels, Kumalae, Dreier Manor, Hawaii

July 19, 2018 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mother Baldwin

When celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding, “Punahou pauses to pay tribute to its oldest living graduate, Mrs. Henry Perrine Baldwin (Emily Whitney Alexander) of Maui, who observed her 95th birthday in January of (that) year.”

“Mrs. Baldwin’s family has had many associations and connections with Punahou during its hundred years of existence.”

“Her father, the Rev. William Patterson Alexander, was one of the missionaries who signed the resolution passed at the general meeting in 1841 for the founding of the school. He was a trustee of Punahou when it was incorporated in 1853.”

“Mrs. Baldwin, then Emily Whitney Alexander, entered Punahou Preparatory, as the school was first known, in 1857, when she was eleven years old. She attended the school from 1857 to 1864 except for one year, and was graduated in 1864 at the age of eighteen.”

“Upon her graduation, she was appointed to the teaching staff of the school, and taught the subjects of geometry, algebra and American history.”

“At the time of her appointment, her brother, W. D. Alexander, was president of the school. He served as president from 1864 to 1870. and prior to that was acting president in 1859 and 1860.”

“Emily Whitney Alexander left Punahou in 1866, and in 1870 she was married to Henry Perrine Baldwin, at the beginning of his career as Maui’s foremost builder.”

“During the early years of their marriage, and throughout their life together, she was his constant helpmate and inspiration.”

“Mr. and Mrs. Baldwin’s first home was at Sunnyside, where the Rev. and Mrs. W. E. Rowan now reside. There their children, Harry A. Baldwin, Mrs. Maud Baldwin Cooke, Frank F. Baldwin, Arthur A. Baldwin. Dr. William D. Baldwin and the late Fred Baldwin, were born.”

“In later years, when they had moved to Haiku to live, they became parents of the late Mrs. Charlotte Baldwin Rice and Samuel A. Baldwin.”

“Before moving to Maluhia in the Makawao district, where Mrs. Baldwin now makes her home, the couple lived at Spreckelsville, where a great deal of Mr. Baldwin’s pioneering in the sugar industry took place.”

“Now known throughout the territory as ‘Mother Baldwin,’ Mrs. Baldwin is beloved by a large circle of friends throughout Hawaii.”

“Her interest in Punahou has continued down the years, and through her financial assistance many students who otherwise would not have been able to attend the school have been able to matriculate there.”

“During her entire lifetime Mrs. Baldwin was devoted herself to civic and community good. Her charities are legion, accomplished quietly and without publicity.”

“To worthy organizations throughout the territory she has been an unstinting friend, and to thousands of individuals she has given help and assistance. Deeply religious, she has been a devoted church woman all her life.”

“It is truly said of her that her life is a benediction, her friendship a blessing to all who know her.” (Maile Stevenson Kearns)

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Emily Alexander Whitney (Baldwin)-14 year old student at Punahou-The Friend

Filed Under: Economy, General, Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings, Prominent People Tagged With: Maui, Punahou, HP Baldwin, William P Alexander, William DeWitt Alexander, Emily Whitney Alexander Baldwin, Mother Baldwin, Hawaii

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