Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

John Adams Cummins

John Adams Kuakini Cummins was born March 17, 1835 in Honolulu. He was a namesake of island governor John Adams Kuakini (1789–1844), who had taken the name of John Quincy Adams when Americans first settled on the islands in the 1820s.

His father was Thomas Jefferson Cummins (1802–1885) who was born in Lincoln, England, raised in Massachusetts and came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1828. His mother was High Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaliʻaiʻaina (1810–1849) who was a distant relative of the royal family of Hawaiʻi.

In the 1840s, his father first developed a cattle ranch and horse ranch. Facing diminishing returns in the cattle market, in the 1880s, John began to grow sugar cane in place of cattle. This plantation was known as the Waimanalo Sugar Company.

He married Rebecca Kahalewai (1830–1902) in 1861, also considered a high chiefess, and had five children with her, four daughters and one son.

Cummins was elected to the House of Representatives in the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1874. King Kalākaua appointed him to the Privy Council on June 18, 1874 shortly after Kalākaua came to the throne.

Even though Cummins voted against former Queen Emma in the election, she asked him to manage a trek for her around the islands in November 1875.

He had staged a similar grand tour the year before for Kalākaua. Emma was not disappointed.

Although many ancient Hawaiian customs had faded (due to influence of conservative Christian missionaries, for example), Cummins staged great revivals of ceremonies such as traditional hula performance.

In the legislature he advocated for the Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 with the United States, which helped increase profits in the sugar industry, and his fortunes grew.

The sugar industry became a huge success and gave way to other innovations in the area. For instance, the use of railway tracks and locomotive were due to the boom of the sugar business.

Cummins left the sugar business to William G Irwin, agent of Claus Spreckles, and developed a commercial building called the Cummins Block at Fort and Merchant streets in Downtown Honolulu.

In 1889, he represented Hawaiʻi at the Paris exposition known as Exposition Universelle. On June 17, 1890 Cummins became Minister of Foreign Affairs in Kalākaua’s cabinet and thus was in the House of Nobles of the legislature for the 1890 session.

When Kalākaua died and Queen Liliʻuokalani came to the throne in early 1891, she replaced all her ministers. Cummins resigned February 25, 1891.  He was replaced by Samuel Parker who was another part-Hawaiian.

Cummins was elected to the 1892 session of the House of Nobles, on the Hawaiian National Reform Party ticket. He also organized a group called the Native Sons of Hawaii which supported the monarchy.

After the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi in early 1893, Liliʻuokalani asked Cummins to travel to the continent to lobby for its help in restoration of the monarchy.

The task, which included Parker and Hermann A Widemann, ended in failure. However, on the voyage to the west coast, William T Seward, a former Major in the American Civil War who worked for Cummins and lived in one of his homes, smuggled guns and ammunition for the failed 1895 counter-revolution.

Thomas Beresford Walker, Cummins’ son-in-law (married to his eldest daughter Matilda,) was also implicated in the plot. Cummins was arrested, charged with treason and convicted. He was sentenced to prison, but released after paying a fine and agreeing to testify against the ones actively involved in the arms trading.

He died on March 21, 1913 from influenza after a series of strokes and was buried in Oʻahu Cemetery. Well liked, even his political opponents called him “the playmate of princes and the companion and entertainer of kings”.  The territorial legislature had tried several times to refund his fine, but it was never approved by the governor.

His funeral was a mix of mostly traditional symbols of the Hawaiian religion, with a Christian service in the Hawaiian language, attended by both royalists and planners of the overthrow.

Cummin’s great-grandson (through his daughter Jane Piikea Merseberg) was Mayor Neal Blaisdell.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Kaluaokau

Kaluaokau, an ʻili in Waikīkī, has been interpreted with several possible meanings.  Henry Kekahuna, a Hawaiian ethnologist, pronounced Kaluaokau as ka-lu‘a-o-ka‘u, which translates as “the grave of Ka‘u” (lu‘a means “heap, pile or grave.”)

The term Kaluaokau can also be divided as ka-lua-o-Kau, which literally translates as ka (the) lua (pit) o (of) Kau (a personal name), or “the pit of Kau.”  There are others.

Whatever the purpose of the prior naming and its meaning, this portion of Waikīkī (including Helumoa, Kaluaokau and adjacent ‘ili) was important in the lives of the Hawaiian Ali’i.

The ‘ili of Kaluaokau was eventually granted to William Lunalilo (the first democratically elected King, who defeated Kalākaua in 1873.)

The first structure on the property was a simple grass hut; Lunalilo later built and referred to his Waikīkī home as the “Marine Residence;” it consisted of a residence, a detached cottage and outbuildings, surrounded by a fence. The estate included a small section that extended makai to the sea and included several small outbuildings and a canoe shed.

Following Lunalilo’s death in 1874, his Kaluaokau home and land were bequeathed to Queen Emma, the widow of Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho – who had died in 1863.)

Queen Emma had Papaʻenaʻena Heiau on the slopes of Diamond Head dismantled, and she used the rocks to build a fence to surround her Waikīkī estate.

Later litigation confirmed that the Queen Emma parcel included access to the water (ʻĀpuakēhau Stream) and the taro growing on the ‘Marine Residence” property.  Queen Emma is known to have resided occasionally on the Waikīkī property before her death.

Her will stated that her lands be put in trust with the proceeds to benefit the Queen’s Hospital in Honolulu, which Queen Emma, along with her husband, Kamehameha IV, had helped to found.

Records indicate Henry Macfarlane, an entrepreneur from New Zealand who had settled on O‘ahu owned and/or leased property within the Kaluaokau ʻili.

Reportedly, it was Macfarlane and his wife who planted the banyan tree currently growing in the center of the property. They lived on this property for a while, eventually raising six children, some of who became financiers for sugar plantations and for the early tourist industry in Waikīkī.

The site was also used by immigrant Japanese workers.  During the construction of hotels (Moana Hotel, Royal Hawaiian Hotel) in the early twentieth century (and later the Surfrider in 1952) by the Matson Navigation Company, cottages were built for housing the mostly Japanese immigrant workers and their families, and called “Japanese Camps.”  More buildings were built.

By the mid-1950s, there were more than fifty hotels and apartments from the Kālia area to the Diamond Head end of Kapiʻolani Park. The Waikīkī population by the mid-1950s was not limited to transient tourists; it included 11,000 permanent residents, living in 4,000 single dwellings and apartment buildings.

On January 16, 1955, entrepreneur Donn Beach (Don the Beachcomber) announced plans for a “Waikīkī Village” that was to be called “The International Market Place.”

The International Market Place first opened in 1957. Envisioned as a commercial center with the Dagger Bar and Bazaar Buildings, and featuring the arts, crafts, entertainment and foods of Hawaiʻi’s multicultural people, it may have been one of the earliest cultural tourist attractions in the Islands.

Designed originally to encompass 14-acres between the Waikīkī Theater and the Princess Kaʻiulani Hotel, extending from Kalākaua Avenue halfway to Kūhiō Avenue, the International Market Place was to be a “casual, tropical village with arts, crafts, entertainment, and foods of Hawai‘i’s truly diverse people … including Hawaiian, South Sea islander, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, and Filipino…” (Queen Emma Foundation)

By the late-1950s, a row of retail shops had been constructed along Kalākaua Avenue.  Other elements of the International Market Place included the Hawaiian Halau, Japanese Tea House and Esplanade buildings. The banyan tree, which still remains to this day, was also once home to Don’s tree house.

Matson sold all of its Waikīkī hotel properties to the Sheraton Company in 1959 and no longer required housing for its hotel staff. Additionally, properties were likely cleared in anticipation of the extensive development that occurred throughout Waikīkī in the 1960s and 1970s.

In 1964, Waikīkī’s entertainment hub was International Market Place; and it’s where the first Crazy Shirts shop was born (initially known as Ricky’s Crazy Shirts.) T-shirts with a message sold. Some were silly (“Suck ’em Up!”), some were logos (“Surfboards Hawaii”), and some were political (“Draft Beer Not Students”). (Crazy Shirts)

The famous Duke Kahanamoku’s (Duke’s,) where Don Ho gained fame, was once housed there. Don the Beachcomber, one of Waikīkī’s long-gone landmark restaurants, as well as Trader Vic’s also called it home.

Hawaiʻi radio icon, Hal Lewis (the self-named “J Akuhead Pupule,” best known to Island radio listeners as “Aku,”) once broadcast his popular morning talk show from the tree house in the Banyan tree.

However, over the last half-century, as the rest of Waikīkī evolved, the Market Place kept its 1960s look, as visitors wind through the carts and kiosks, hawking T-shirts, plastic hula skirts, volcano-shaped candles, and other tiki and tacky souvenirs.

Landowner Queen Emma Foundation changed that. Working with the Taubman Company, the International Market Place, Waikīkī Town Center and Miramar Hotel were demolished, and new structures took their place.

Aiming to restore “a sense of Hawaiianness,” the new International Market Place features low-rise structures, open-air shops and restaurants, paths, gardens, a storytelling hearth, a performance amphitheater and, yes, parking. And the banyan tree stays.

Today, as successor to The Queen’s Hospital, The Queen’s Medical Center is the largest private nonprofit hospital in Hawaiʻi, licensed to operate with 505 acute care beds and 28 sub-acute beds. As the leading medical referral center in the Pacific Basin, Queen’s has more than 3,500 employees and over 1,100 physicians on staff.

The royal mission and vision of The Queen’s Health Systems is directly supported through revenues generated by the lands bequeathed by Queen Emma when she passed away in 1885, including the International Market Place.

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Honolulu House

The Consular Corps is in charge of looking after their own foreign nationals in the host country; a Consul is distinguished from an Ambassador, the latter being a representative from one head of state to another.

A Consul is used for the official representatives of the government of one state in the territory of another, normally acting to assist and protect the citizens of the Consul’s own country, and to facilitate trade and friendship between the peoples of the two countries.

Former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Abner Pratt, resigned from the bench in 1857, when President James Buchanan appointed him the first US Consul to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi,) with headquarters in Honolulu, a post he held until 1862.

Prior to Pratt’s arrival in Honolulu, the federal government had changed how Consuls at important posts were compensated. The position of US consul to Honolulu became a salaried position, and Pratt earned $4,000 a year.  (von Buol; archives-gov)

Abner Pratt was born on May 22, 1801, at Springfield, Otsego County, New York. He had no formal schooling but eventually read law at Batavia, New York, later practicing in Rochester, New York, as District Attorney. He liked what he saw of Michigan on a business trip in 1839, and resigned his post in New York to move to Marshall, Michigan.  (Michigan Supreme Court)

He was a man of peculiar traits of character. His views, impulses, likes and dislikes were of the most decided kind and assumed the control of his conduct. He gave his whole energy to whatever principle or policy he espoused. This made him a bitter opponent or an unflinching friend.

There was no compromise in him. He always had the courage of his opinions, and gave them without stint on every occasion. He probably never uttered a doubtful sentiment in his life, or took back one he had uttered.   (Michigan Historical Commission)

Laid out in the 1860s, the Marshall community had hoped to be Michigan’s State capitol; however, prosperity came in the form of railroad activity and later a patent medicine trade.  With a cross-section of 19th- and early 20th-Century architecture, the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places referred to Marshall as a “virtual textbook of 19th-Century American architecture.”

One of these was the home of Pratt.  This mid-nineteenth century mansion is believed locally to be a replica of the royal palace of Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.  The home is known as “Honolulu House.”

In the Islands, “Hoihoikea” was a large, old-fashioned, livable cottage erected on the grounds of the present ʻIolani Palace.  This served as home to Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V; the Palace being used principally for state purposes. (Taylor)

The palace building was named Hale Ali‘i meaning (House of the Chiefs.)  (The construction of the present ʻIolani Palace began in 1879 and in 1882 ʻIolani Palace was completed and furnished.)

Click HERE to a story on Hale Aliʻi.

A brochure published by the Marshall Historical Society provides a colorful description of Honolulu House: “The house is of true tropical architecture – fifteen-foot ceilings, ten-foot doors, long, open galleries with the dining room and kitchen on the ground level. A circular freestanding staircase rises from the lower level to an observation platform more than thirty feet above. The walls in the interior of the house were painted to depict scenes from the islands.”  (von Buol; archives-gov)

The house is a unique structure, not only in the Midwest, but in the entire United States.  An elaborate nine-bay porch spans the front, with its wide center bay serving as the base of its pagoda-topped tower.  Its tropical features include a raised veranda and the observation platform.  (Marshall Historical Society)

The main story is of wood, simulating an arcade whose central bay is wider than the others. This bay forms the lower part of a tower. Above the central bay is a second story, open at the front (east) through a Tudor arch and railing; the north and south sides are enclosed, having a window in each. The west side of this upper porch opens into a stair hall. (Historic-Structures)

This house occupies a large level lot at the southwest corner of Kalamazoo Avenue and West Mansion Street. The west edge is bounded by a narrow alley. The south edge and southeast corner have been cut into by a traffic circle. (Historic-Structures)

Pratt, who often wore tropical clothing more suitable for Hawaiʻi than winter in Michigan, did not get to enjoy the house for long; he died of pneumonia on March 27, 1863, after he had returned home in inclement weather from a trip to the state capital in Lansing.  At the time of his death, Pratt had been serving in the state legislature.

Each year, thousands of tourists interested in the architectural history of the 19th century visit Marshall. In a town known for architectural preservation, Pratt’s home has a unique honor of preserving not only Michigan history but also a piece of Hawaiian history.  (von Buol; archives-gov)

The Honolulu House Museum stands in the heart of Marshall’s National Historic Landmark District and is listed on the Historic American Buildings Survey.  Constructed of Marshall sandstone, the Museum is a wonderful blend of Italianate, Gothic Revival, and Polynesian architecture.  (Marshall Historical Society)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Grand Tour of Oʻahu

In October 1875, Queen Emma (widow of King Kamehameha IV) decided to take a trek around the islands.  She asked John Adams Cummins (a member of the House of Representatives, the son of an English settler and a Hawaiian mother, and also one of Kamehameha V’s closest friends) to organize the trek and to accompany her.  (Kanahele)

Called the “Prince of Entertainers” and the “entertainer of princes,” Cummins was a prominent Waimanalo sugar planter known for his generous and lavish hospitality to royalty and commoner alike and for his knowledge and love of Hawaiian traditions.

Cummins made sure meticulous arrangements were in place as twenty men safeguarded the Queen around the clock.  The Queen had a head steward who had twenty men under him, ten of whom guarded by day and ten by night.

Then on November 5, 1875, the festivities began.  Leading a vibrant procession into Waimanalo were Cummins, Queen Emma and her mother.

“The streets of Honolulu were thronged with people to witness the grand sight, and it would appear that the whole city and many from the country had turned out to see the departure. We rode down Nuʻuanu street and along King and up into Beretania and thence out towards Kamōʻiliʻili.”  (Hawaiian Gazette)

A huge celebration took place at Mauna Loke (Cummins Waimanalo home,) the first stop of a two-week “Grand Tour of Oʻahu” by the Queen.  She stayed three days, by which time the number present – both invited and uninvited – was in the hundreds.

Cummins had built two large, thatched lanai that seated 200 people. The lūʻau and hula performances were followed by fireworks and rockets fired from the surrounding Koʻolau Mountains at Waimanalo.

Along their circle-island journey, preceding the procession, posters were placed at different parts of the island noting the respective dates of arrival so that local folks would be ready with food, entertainment and accommodations.

After breakfast, everybody went sea bathing or into the mountains to gather maile, ʻawapuhi, ʻohawai and palapalai for lei. Fishermen caught honu (turtle), ʻopihi, ʻokala, uhu, palani, heʻe, lole, ʻohua, manini and kumu.  (Krauss)

As the cavalcade moved from Lanikai and Makapuʻu to Kāneʻohe, then to Waikāne, Punaluʻu and beyond, the people continued to arrive with Hoʻokupu (gifts) of food stuffs for the Queen.  (Kanahele)

At Punaluʻu, the Queen agreed to ride with Cummins in a canoe; it was tied with hundreds of feet of rope to two horses who galloped parallel to the water for four miles on the beach.

“The Queen left her shoes and stockings and got into the canoe and sat down, holding firmly by the out-rigger. The beach was crowded with people to witness the great sight of a Queen taking a perilous ride in the surf.”  (Cummins; Commercial Advertiser)

“We got away for Kahuku … This is the land of the hala tree. We had four very large houses, and all the walks around and from house to house were covered with matting called ‘ue’. Every one took care of his own horse and all were welcome. … At night I had all the torches burning, which lighted up all Kahuku.”

“Our party by this time had increased to over three hundred, and the number of visitors and friends from the neighborhood was very large. At the midnight luau I sent word around among the people that there should be no one leaving here for Waimea or Waialua who had not a wreath of hala-fruit, and that we would leave after breakfast on the morrow.”

“The inhabitants of Waialua district were exceedingly kind to the Queen and her party. … Natives from distant Waiʻanae brought to Her Majesty quantities of their famous fine-flavored cocoanuts, called poka-i. …”

“Assuredly Waialua never saw such a sight before and never will again. Every surfboard in the vicinity was in use, and there were some rare actors amongst this mass of people, who hailed from all parts of the island.” (Cummins; Commercial Advertiser)

Oxcarts loaded with hoʻokupu  arrived from the countryside. Torch bearers renewed their stock of kerosene at every Chinese store on the route.  Waialua had never seen a procession of 400 women on horseback in bright-colored costumes wearing lei and maile, every face wreathed in smiles.  (Krauss)

“(A)fter another great breakfast, the cavalcade was formed for the ride towards Honolulu. It was one of the most beautiful sights ever seen, to look back on the procession from the uplands; and Her Majesty was continually looking back at the bright colored procession which followed us, four abreast.”  (Cummins; Commercial Advertiser)

The next day, parties from Honolulu joined the group for a grand lūʻau hosted by Princess Keʻelikōlani at Moanalua. “Here all the Hawaiian luxuries were ready for a final lūʻau on an exceedingly grand scale. I never saw such an abundance of leis made of lehua blossoms, and cannot imagine where they came from.”

“Just as the party were ready to partake of the viands a very heavy shower of rain, accompanied with thunder and lightning, fell, which drenched everyone to the skin. Still we determined to sit through it. I should state that we were here joined by about two hundred people on horseback from town.”

After the lūʻau, they resumed their march towards town.  “Her Majesty and the horse were covered with leis of lehua and pikaki, and every one of the seven or eight hundred were likewise bedecked with leis.”

“We led the procession, followed by the whole cavalcade, along King street, up Richards and along Beretania to Her Majesty’s house. All dismounted and bade Her Majesty farewell”.  (Cummins; Commercial Advertiser)

“It is unlikely that such (a Hawaiian holiday) could ever be repeated.”  (Cummins)

It lasted 15 days.

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by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Robert Crichton Wyllie

Robert Crichton Wyllie was born October 13, 1798 in an area called Hazelbank in Dunlop parish of East Ayrshire, Scotland. His father was Alexander Wyllie and his mother was Janet Crichton.

He earned a medical diploma by the time he was 20.  In 1844, he arrived in Hawaiʻi and stayed in the Hawaiian Islands for the rest of his life.

Wyllie first worked as acting British Consul. During this time he compiled in-depth reports on the conditions in the islands. Attracted by Wyllie’s devotion to the affairs of Hawaiʻi, on March 26, 1845, King Kamehameha III appointed him the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Kamehameha IV reappointed all the ministers who were in office when Kamehameha III died, including Robert C. Wyllie as Minister of Foreign Relations.  Wyllie served as Minister of Foreign Relations from 1845 until his death in 1865, serving under Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V.

Within five years after taking the helm of the office he had negotiated treaties with Denmark, England, France and the United States whereby Hawaiʻi’s status as an independent state was agreed.

Wyllie eventually gave up his allegiance to Queen Victoria and became a naturalized Hawaiian subject.

In 1847, Wyllie started collecting documents to form the Archives of Hawaii.  He requested the commander of the fort in Honolulu and all the chiefs to send in any papers they might have.  Two of the oldest documents included the 1790 letter of Captain Simon Metcalf and a letter by Captain George Vancouver dated 1792.

The foundation of the Archives of Hawaiʻi today are based almost entirely upon the vast, voluminous collections of letters and documents prepared and stored away by Wyllie.

Wyllie built a house in Nuʻuanu Valley he called Rosebank. He entertained foreign visitors at the house, and the area today still has several consular buildings.

In his role in foreign affairs, Wyllie was seen as a counter to the American influence.  Wyllie wrote in the early part of 1857, “There are two grand principles that we aspire to; the first is that all nations should agree to respect our independence and consider the Archipelago strictly neutral in all wars that may arise – and the second is, to have one identical Treaty with all nations.”  (Kuykendall)

Of these two principles, the second was auxiliary to the first. Wyllie’s great ambition was to set up some permanent barrier against any possible threat to Hawaii’s national independence. He had a clear idea as to the direction from which danger was most likely to come.  (Kuykendall)

In the latter part of 1857 he wrote, “If we be left to struggle for political life, under our own weakness and inability to keep up an adequate military and naval force, in the natural course of things, the Islands must sooner or later be engulfed into the Great American Union, in which case, in time of war, the United States would be able to sweep the whole Northern Pacific.”  (Kuykendall)

Wyllie, above all other men in Hawaiʻi, succeeded in compelling the powers to maintain an attitude of “hands off”, leaving the kingdom in the list of independent nations.  (Taylor)

In March 1853, he bought a plantation on Hanalei Bay on the north shore of the island of Kauaʻi. In 1860, he hosted his friends King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their two-year-old son, Prince Albert, at his estate for several weeks. In honor of the child, Wyllie named the plantation the “Barony de Princeville”, the City of the Prince (Princeville.)

Originally the land was planted with coffee; eventually it was planted with sugarcane.  Princeville became a ranch in 1895, when missionary son Albert S Wilcox bought the plantation.

A bachelor all his life, Wyllie died October 19, 1865 at the age of 67; Kamehameha V and the chiefs ordered the casket containing his remains be buried at Mauna ʻAla, the Royal Mausoleum, adjacent to those of the sovereigns and chiefs of Hawaiʻi.

Members of Queen Emma’s family are also interred in the crypt with Mr. Wyllie: Queen Emma’s mother, Kekelaokalani; her hānai parents, Grace Kamaikui and Dr. Thomas Charles Byde Rooke; her uncles, Bennett Namakeha and Keoni Ana John Young II; her aunt, Jane Lahilahi; and her two cousins, Prince Albert Edward Kunuiakea and Peter Kekuaokalani.

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