Punahou | Page 8 | Images of Old Hawaiʻi

February 25, 2016 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Winne Units

“These halls, this learning environment, launched the academic careers of tens of thousands of Punahou students.” (Punahou President Jim Scott – speaking at an event at the Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units)

The Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units, built between 1950 and 1955, were designed by the renowned architect Vladimir Ossipoff.

Ossipoff was a prominent architect in the Islands, working between the 1930s and 1990s. He was recognized locally, nationally and internationally for his designs. He is best known for his contribution to the development of the Hawaiian Modern movement.

This style is characterized by the work of architects who “subscribed to the general modernity of the International Style while attempting to integrate the cultural and topographical character of the (Hawaiian) region.” (Sakamoto)

This very frequently included an attempt to integrate the interior of buildings with the outdoors, and minimizing the dividing line between the building and the site.

In 1954, Ossipoff told the Star Bulletin, “Modern facilities comparable to contemporary Mainland school construction can be built for considerably less in Hawai‘i.” He was referring to the construction of the Winne Units.

Back then cost of construction averaged $15 per square foot nationally, the first phase of the Winne Units was built for $8.27 per square foot. In the article, Ossipoff credited the lack of heating and insulation as factors in the lower costs. (Leong, Punahou)

But, there were other cost savings.

According to Shaver F. “Jack” Stubbart who was a teacher of Mechanical Drawing, Industrial Arts (1948-1965) and the Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds (1965-1982.) The Navy offered, and Punahou accepted, surplus heart redwood water tanks that were milled for use in the construction. (Gartley, Punahou74)

The first of three building phases originally contained Damon Library, with its own working fireplace that children could gather around for storytelling, replicating the fireside tales of centuries past. Then-Junior School Principal Donald Reber called it the “living room of the school.”

Reber and his faculty worked closely with Ossipoff to create a complex of elementary school buildings that departed sharply from the idea of the traditional school building (with its self-contained, enclosed environment where seats and desks were often fixed to the floor.)

Two design principles, “unity with the outdoors” and “adaptability to progress,” shaped what the elementary school became: a place that felt safe, where it was hard to say where the classroom stopped and the rest of the world began.

The first phase of this new elementary school inspired a new term: it wasn’t a building or a hall, but a “unit” – the Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units, a name that eventually extended to include the entire complex.

Phases two and three followed, incorporating improvements suggested by the faculty who had taught in the first wings (such as bug-proof lunchbox storage.)

The Winne Units housed 25-classrooms in 9-single story wings that radiate from the main entrance that accommodated 625 students (K through 5.) The units are structure by steel-pipe columns and steel I-beams. (Support facilities/offices were included.) (Sakamoto)

The office became a daily gathering place for teachers in the days before there were phones and computers in every classroom, and the intercom system meant that not only could every classroom hear a speaker in the office, but the office could hear what was going on in the classrooms.

Each class had reversible blackboards, its own lanai with a wall of sliding doors and its own garden. (Lanais were used as classroom extensions for messy or outdoor work, where students practiced art on easels.)

Born in 1876 in Carson City, Nevada, Miss Mary Persis Winne had ties Punahou as the granddaughter of Reverend Asa and Lucy Goodale Thurston.

The Thurstons were in the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in Kailua-Kona on the Thaddeus in 1820.

Winne came to Punahou as a second grade teacher in 1898, and rose to become the principal of the then newly formed Punahou Elementary School in 1918.

The Winnes lived in the old Mcintosh house on Nuʻuanu near Judd Street. Miss Jane Winne has charge of the chorus singing at Punahou, and Mr. James Winne is with Alexander & Baldwin. (HMCS, 1917)

Miss Winne was the first Punahou faculty member to serve 25 years. By the time she retired in 1941 she had served generations of Punahou students for 42 years.

“At no time did I ever see her overlook the emotional, spiritual or academic needs of individual children. She embraced the best in modern philosophies and practices, giving freely of herself ….”

“Hours meant nothing to her when dealing with both parents and children. In return she received the greatest loyalty from people of all ages or races that I have ever witnessed.”

During her tenure Miss Winne was instrumental in introducing the best of new educational methods. Of particular interest was the implementation of new practices for teaching children to read and write.

Miss Anna Gillingham and Miss Bessie Stillman, recognized experts from New York, were brought to the school to train teachers and provide remedial tutoring to students. It was from these efforts that pioneering contributions were made in the treatment of dyslexia.

Punahou is replacing the Winne Units with new facilities for grades 2-5. Re-use Hawai‘i has been contracted to lead the deconstruction of the Mary Persis Winne Elementary Units where the buildings will be taken apart using hand-tools so that over 70% of the interior and exterior materials can be recovered. Lots of information here is from Punahou, Leong and Gartley.)

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Mary Persis Winne-Punahou

Winne Units-Punahou74

Opening ceremony for the Winne Units, held in April of 1950 with then-Junior School Principal Donald Reber-Punahou

Mary_Persis_Winne-Punahou74

Winne_Units-Punahou

Winne Units-sign-Punahou74

Winne Deconstruction-2014-Punahou

Mary Persis Winne-grave stone Oahu Cemetery

September 23, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Student Farmers

On October 23, 1819, the Pioneer Company of missionaries from the northeast US, set sail on the Thaddeus for the Islands. There were seven couples sent by the ABCFM to convert the Hawaiians to Christianity.

These included two Ordained Preachers, Hiram Bingham and his wife Sybil and Asa Thurston and his wife Lucy; two Teachers, Mr. Samuel Whitney and his wife Mercy and Samuel Ruggles and his wife Mary; a Doctor, Thomas Holman and his wife Lucia; a Printer, Elisha Loomis and his wife Maria; a Farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, his wife and five children.

They quickly reduced the Hawaiian language to written form and established schools in which the native Hawaiians were taught to read and to write.

Their instruction was not confined, however, to the ‘three R’s.’ Included in the original band of missionaries was a New England farmer, Daniel Chamberlain, indicating the importance they attached to giving some instruction in western agriculture to the native Hawaiians.

Effectively, they were teaching to the Head, Heart and Hand. Let’s look at some examples.

In 1823, Kalākua Kaheiheimālie (ke Aliʻi Hoapili wahine, wife of Governor Hoapili) offered the American missionaries a tract of land on the slopes surrounding Puʻu Paʻupaʻu for the creation of a high school.

Betsey Stockton from the 2nd Company of Protestant missionaries initially started a school for makaʻāinana (common people) and their wives and children on the site.

Later, on September 5, 1831, classes at the Mission Seminary at Lahainaluna (later known as Lahainaluna (Upper Lāhainā)) began in thatched huts with 25 Hawaiian young men.

Each scholar was expected to furnish himself with food and clothing by his own industry. Accompanying the work in the fields, a small amount of organized instruction in western agriculture was given. (History of Agricultural Education)

In September 1836, thirty-two boys between the ages of 10 and 20 were admitted as the first boarding students, from the neighbor islands, as well as from the “other side of the island” thus, the beginning of the boarding school at Lahainaluna.

It soon was apparent to the missionaries that the future of the Congregational Mission in Hawaiʻi would be largely dependent upon the success of its schools. 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 1835, they constructed the Hilo Boarding School as part of an overall system of schools (with a girls boarding school in Wailuku and boarding at Lahainaluna.)

On January 6, 1835 “our children’s school commenced, eighty children present, sixty knew their letters. A number of the more forward children are employed as monitors to assist the less forward. (ie. advanced)” (Sarah Lyman)

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.)

“Mr. Lyman who was brought up on a farm had an abiding faith in the value of manual labor; and his work in Hilo had convinced him that such activity in both primitive and introduced vocation was as necessary as book learning during the period of transition from one culture to another.” (Lorthian)

Rev. William Brewster Oleson had served as principal of the Hilo Boarding School for 8 years. Then, on November 4, 1887, Kamehameha School for Boys opened with 37 students and four teachers – Oleson was appointed its first principal and helped organize the school on a similar model.

Manual labor has a regular feature of the activities of the Kamehameha Boys’ School. Between 1889 and 1893 the school experimented with the raising of cows, pigs, chickens, and vegetables.

Later, the Kamehameha School flocks and herds were improved, and they began the production of forage crops, vegetables, and fruits on a larger scale, and strengthened the classroom work. (History of Agricultural Education)

Punahou, another boarding school, formed in 1841, required that “All students who entered the Boarding department were required to take part in the manual labor of the institution, under the direction of the faculty, not to exceed an average of two hours for each day.” (Punahou Catalogue, 1899)

“We had a dairy, the Punahou dairy, over on the other side of Rocky Hill. That was all pasture. We had beautiful, delicious milk, all the milk you wanted.” (Shaw, Punahou)

Later, in January 1925, Punahou bought the Honolulu Military Academy property – it had about 90-acres of land and a half-dozen buildings on the back side of Diamond Head. (The Honolulu Military Academy was originally founded by Col LG Blackman, in 1911.)

It served as the “Punahou Farm” to carry on the school’s work and courses in agriculture. “We were picked up and taken to the Punahou Farm School, which was also the boarding school for boys. The girls boarded at Castle Hall on campus.” (Kneubuhl, Punahou) The farm school was in Kaimuki between 18th and 22nd Avenues.

In addition to offices and living quarters, the Farm School supplied Punahou with most of its food supplies. The compound included a big pasture for milk cows, a large vegetable garden, pigs, chickens, beehives, and sorghum and alfalfa fields that provided feed for the cows. Hired hands who tended the farm pasteurized the milk in a small dairy, bottled the honey and crated the eggs. (Kneubuhl, Punahou)

While the programs of ‘manual labor’ and farming have been dropped by almost all of the respective school’s curriculums, a lasting legacy and reminder of the prior farming is seen in the Lahainaluna Time Clock.

Between 1941 and 1976, Lahainaluna boarders punched in their “in” and “out” times (according to their assigned student number) to keep track of their daily hours worked for their room and board. (It stopped when the only repairman familiar with the clock passed away.)

While Lahainaluna still has farming activity (raising pigs and cultivating dryland taro, corn, butter lettuce, beans, ti and other crops (Advertiser,)) they don’t punch in/out with the clock.

However, according to the Boarder’s Handbook (2014-2015,) every weekday afternoon and Saturday morning, boarders are to “Check in at the time clock” before they start their 3 ½ hours of work. Likewise, “All Boarders must report to the Time Clock every day and sign out with the Farm Manager when working Overtime until all hours are cleared.”

“Boarders will be evaluated on their dorm and farm work performances; farm and school attendance records; dorm, school, and farm discipline records; school academic effort and achievements; and their overall attitude and behavior in the Boarding Program.” (Lahainaluna High School Boarder’s Handbook, 2014-2015)

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Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Kahu Earl Kukahiko (right), teaches students about farming -1980s-(mauinews)

Lahainaluna boarding student Josh Arata, 16, a senior from Ha’iku, tends to the 5-month old pigs-(advertiser)

Lahainaluna_Time-Clock

Lahainaluna-Chef Paris Nabavi-Sangrita Grill+Cantina-donated $1,200 to Lahainaluna High School’s Agriculture Program-(mauitime)

Hilo_Boarding_School_and_Gardens-from_Haili_Hill-(Lothian)-1856

Hilo_Boarding_School-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-garden-(75-years)

Kamehameha-Campus of the three historical schools-(KSBE)-1932

Kamehameha [Dormitory Row]-(KSBE)

Kamehameha School for Boys, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class–1924

Punahou-Campus-from-the-air-1939

July 11, 2015 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

School for the Children of the Missionaries

Over the course of a little over 40-years (1820-1863 – the “Missionary Period”,) about 180-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.

“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.)

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Advertisement-Oahu-College-1895

Bingham Tablet

Punahou School, Photograph attributed to Charles Burgess-1866

Oahu College scene of driveway to Old School Hall and E Building, c.1881

Manual-Arts-Class-James-B-Castle-School-1924

Punahou-Old_School_Hall

Punahou-Lily-Pond-and-Tennis-Courts-1916

Punahou-Girls-Court-of-the-E-Building-1877

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Punahou Street looking toward Round Top-(HSA)-PPWD-17-3-027-1900

Oahu_College-Old_School_Hall_at_Punahou_School

May 15, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Vocational Training

When the missionaries established schools and seminaries (i.e. the female seminaries, as well as Lahainaluna, Hilo Boarding School, Punahou,) they included teaching of the head (‘common’ courses, the 3Rs,) heart (religious, moral) and hand (vocational training, manual labor.)

Lahainaluna was designed first, “to instruct young men that they may become assistant teachers of religion;” second, “to disseminate sound knowledge embracing literature and science;…”

“… third, to qualify native school teachers for their respective duties; fourth, “it is designated that a piece of land shall be connected with the institution and the manual labor system introduced as far as practicable.” (Westervelt)

Later, shortly after the University of Hawaiʻi started (1907,) short courses or ‘special lectures’ of education of “less than college grade” were offered in agriculture as ‘extension’ work.

Nationally, the Cooperative Extension Service was created in 1914 with the passage of the Smith-Lever Act (but it excluded Hawaiʻi.) UH developed its own version of an extension program, which was the basis of a successful appeal to Congress after several years of struggle for Hawai‘i’s inclusion in the Act in November 1928. (CTAHR)

Again, nationally, the Smith-Hughes Act (1917) was “An Act to provide for the promotion of vocational education; to provide for cooperation with the States in the promotion of such education in agriculture and the trades and industries …”

“… to provide for cooperation with the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects; and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure”. (The law wasn’t effective in Hawaiʻi until March 10, 1924.)

“That for the purpose of cooperating with the States in paying the salaries of teachers, supervisors, or directors of agricultural subjects there is hereby appropriated for the use of the States.”

“(T)hat the controlling purpose of such education shall be to fit for useful employment; that such education shall be of less than college grade and be designed to meet the needs of persons over fourteen years of age who have entered upon or who are preparing to enter upon the work of the farm or of the farm home; that the State or local community, or both”.

“(S)uch schools or classes giving instruction to persons who have not entered upon employment shall require that at least half of the time of such instruction be given to practical work on a useful or productive basis, such instruction to extend over not less than nine months per year and not less than thirty hours per week”. (Smith-Hughes Act, 1917)

Two types of full-time day classes in vocational agriculture were organized in Hawaiʻi. ‘Type A’ classes (primarily for upper elementary and intermediate grades) are those in which pupils spend approximately half of their school time in the classroom where they receive Instruction in English, mathematics, hygiene, geography, vocational agriculture and other subjects.

The remaining time was spent in the field where the pupils do all of the work on a class project in sugar cane or in pineapple production. Field work is closely supervised by the teacher of vocational agriculture, but all money earned was divided among the boys in proportion to the time they work. They also had a home project.

Under the ‘Type B’ plan (typically for high school students,) pupils did not use a portion of the school time for field work. Practical experience was gained through extensive home project programs. Classroom instruction in agriculture is under the teacher of vocational agriculture, but academic subjects were taken with other pupils of the school under regular teachers of these subjects.

Some schools incorporated the program into their curriculum. Then, the 1967 session of the 4th Hawaii State Legislature resolved that “it is of great urgency to the citizens of this State, adults as well as youths, that there be developed a comprehensive state master plan for vocational education.” A ‘State Master Plan for Vocational Education’ was prepared the next year.

Its introductory comments included, “Technologically-induced shifts in job opportunities have imposed new career training demands. The rapid opening of new fields of knowledge has changed the very nature of work itself; the priorities shifting from muscle power to mental powers.”

“We witness a tremendous shift from production-oriented jobs to service jobs; we must now have a corresponding emphasis on the development of the required communicative and social skills.” (Master Plan, 1968)

“Given the apparent inadequacies in education and the accompanying human tragedy and waste, and given the extremely tight local labor market and the desperate long-term need for more educated, more highly trained manpower, there would seem to be a good deal of prophetic wisdom in the expansion of the Community College occupational training programs.”

Recommendations for the Master Plan included: “1. The main responsibility of the DOE in the K-12 programs should be provision of basic and general education. The DOE programs should provide for exploratory and pre-vocational experiences. …”

“2. Vocational education at a secondary school level should be seen as an integral part of total education. At the Community College level, general education should be an integral component of vocational education.” (Master Plan, 1968)

The community college system was brought into being. It replaced the technical schools that had existed previously.

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Hilo_Boarding_School_Shop,_Class_of_June_1901

Hilo_Boarding_School-printing-(75-years)

Hilo_Boarding_School-shop-(75-years)

Punahou-Manual-Arts-Class-1924

Punahou-Gardens-1880

Lahainaluna-Time_Clock_for_work_on_Farm

Lahainaluna_seminary_workshop,_mechanical_printing_press_and_movable_type_in_type_case_in_background,_ca._1895

Kamehameha_School_for_Girls_sewing_class,-(WC)_late_1890s

Kamehameha_School_for_Girls nursing class-KSBE

Kamehameha_School_for_Girls cooking class c1900-KSBE

Kamehameha_School_for_Boys-Carpentry_shop_students_building_a_school_cottage_1902-1903,_(WC)

Kamehameha_School_for_Boys_Print_Shop,-(WC)_1897

Kamehameha School for Boys-Students working in the Carpentry Shop, 1890, (right) Rev. Wm. Oleson, Principal, (far left) Charles E. King-(WC)

April 19, 2015 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

“A Quiet Retreat from the Noise and Bustle of Honolulu”

In 1829, Kaʻahumanu wanted to give Hiram and Sybil Bingham a gift of land and consulted Hoapili. He suggested Kapunahou (although he had already given it to Liliha).

According to AF Judd, “Not unnaturally, Liliha objected to the proposal, but Hoapili consented. And Liliha’s resentment could avail nothing against the wish of her father, her husband, and the highest chief of the land.”

At first, the Binghams lived in a grass home erected by Kaʻahumanu beside a larger structure of her own. By 1831 the Binghams moved into a more permanent adobe cottage that stood beside a clump of hau trees.

While at Punahou, the Binghams created for themselves “a quiet retreat from the noise and bustle of Honolulu.” The building had two main rooms, a porch, a storeroom and a pantry. There was a separate cookhouse. (Punahou)

“Dear Punahou cottage, once my home sweet home, where the precious mother cherished her little ones.” (Hiram Bingham II, April 19, 1905)

The land was given to the Binghams (it was considered to be a gift from Kaʻahumanu, Kuhina Nui or Queen Regent at that time,) but by missionary rules, it was really given to the mission as a whole. (NPS) The Binghams left in 1840.

“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 trustees of Oahu College propose to set up a memorial in memory of the late Rev. Hiram Bingham, first missionary on the Island of Oahu, and a benefactor of the college.”

“The house occupied by Rev. Mr. Bingham was situated just mauka of the site now occupied by the president’s house on the college grounds and about 20 feet from the driveway.”

“The trustees will select a large bowlder and place it in position as nearly as possible on the spot where the house originally stood. One face of the rock will be trimmed off to receive a suitable inscription.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 20, 1897)

“The exact site of the cottage has since then been discovered by the unearthing of the foundation of the southern corner, and now, after the lapse of five years … we are here today to dedicate this memorial, and to witness to our belief in the propriety and usefulness of the same.” (Hiram Bingham II, April 19, 1905)

Like other missionaries who had benefitted from the generosity of the Hawaiian ali‘i, Bingham managed the land together with other mission members. As explained by fellow missionary Samuel Whitney on September 24, 1850, “The land could be received and immediately appropriated, as far as it was capable, to sustaining the missionary cause.”

“It was never my privilege to be a pupil at the Punahou Mission School but I can well remember how in summer days, when the heat was great and we were wont, for a change, to dwell in the humble cottage which stood here, an older sister and myself used to start out on foot to cross the dusty and arid plain two miles to Kawaiahao to attend the little mission school held in Dr. Judd’s back yard, the germ of this college.”

“Memory goes back sixty-six years to the delights of this refreshing spot, where, after the long weary walks of the day, I was wont to meet a mother’s welcome, and to refresh myself, not in this magnificent bathing tank so near at hand, but in an artificial pond originally constructed by my father for purposes of irrigation …”

“I remember with what delight I used to paddle about in my boat, only a box, in a fresh pond close to the spring. I remember how I was wont to stroll in the cool, shady spots so romantic to me in childhood among the banana trees which grew by the side of the taro patches”.

“… how in this cottage we children eagerly listened to the reading of “the Rollo Books” when they first appeared, and how we rejoiced over the toys as one by one they were taken from the box just arrived from around Cape Horn.”

“Finally, I remember how, in a neighboring shady grove, just a few yards makai of this cottage, not long before we went forth from it (was it prophetic?), I tried to sing with my sister the anthem ‘Daughter of Zion, awake from thy sadness,’ which we had heard sung by the choir in the old Bethel on King street.”

“Those were happy days, but they are forever gone. I would not have them back. It is enough for me, full enough that I have the memory of them, that in my oId age I hear the merry voices of the rising student generations as after school hours of faithful study they gleefully roam this campus, seeking rest and recreation”

“(M)y heart will to the last, beat with joy at the remembrance of the gift of my father and the continued prosperity of Oahu College.”

“In your walks through these shady avenues, kind friends, will you not once and again linger a moment here to reread this inscription (which I now unveil) and call to mind the labors of love which my dear father put forth in this city for the redemption of Hawaiʻi, and his parting gift, Punahou?” (Hiram Bingham II, April 19, 1905)

“The memorial tablet is a simple but beautiful affair. On a grass mound in the shape of a truncated pyramid is a pedestal of lava rock on which is a great rough lava boulder hewn out from the slopes of Rocky Hill.”

“On its rough face is an oval bronze tablet bearing in simple raised letters this inscription:” (Ceremonies In Memory of the Pioneer Missionary Rev Hiram Bingham, April 19, 1905)

“On This Spot
Stood The Home Of The
Rev. Hiram Bingham
Who Gave This Broad Estate
To The Cause Of
Christian Education”

(Hiram and Sybil Bingham are my great-great-great grandparents.)

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