Queen’s Hospital

April 25, 2025 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Queen Emma

In 1836, Honolulu wasn’t really a city; it was just a large village with only one main street, King Street, and less than 6,000 people – about 500 were white foreigners.

It was a major port for whaling ships, and as one writer put it, one of the most “unattractive” places in the world.

Emma, the future queen, was born “Emma Naea” in Honolulu on January 2, 1836 to Fanny Kekelaokalani Young, daughter of John Young, King Kamehameha I’s counselor, and Kaʻoanaʻeha, Kamehameha’s niece. Her father was high chief George Naea.

As was the custom, she was offered to her mother’s sister, Grace Kamaikui Rooke and her husband, Dr. T.C.B. Rooke as hānai daughter. Unable to have children of their own, the Rookes adopted Emma.

Emma grew up speaking both Hawaiian and English, the latter “with a perfect English accent.” She began formal schooling at age 5 in the Chief’s Children’s School, where she was quick and bright in her studies.

At age 13, Dr. Rooke hired an English governess, Sarah Rhodes von Pfister, to tutor young Emma. He also encouraged reading from his extensive library. As a writer, he influenced Emma’s interest in reading and books.

At 20, Emma became engaged to the king of Hawai‘i, Alexander Liholiho, (Kamehameha IV,) a 22-year-old who had ascended to the throne in 1855. The couple had known each other since childhood.

At the engagement party, accusations were made that Emma’s Caucasian blood made her not fit to be the Hawaiian queen, and her lineage was not suitable enough to be Alexander Liholiho’s bride.

However, the wedding was held as planned however, and the new queen soon became involved in the business of the kingdom, particularly that of saving the Hawaiian people from extinction.

In his first speech as King, Kamehameha IV stated the need for a hospital to treat the native population. Due to introduced diseases, the Hawaiian population had plummeted since the time of Captain Cook’s arrival to 70,000, with extinction a very real possibility.

The treasury was empty, so the king and his queen undertook the mission of soliciting enough funds to establish a proper hospital in Honolulu. Within a month, their personal campaign had raised $13,530, almost twice their original goal.

To recognize and honor Emma’s efforts, it was decided to call the new hospital “Queen’s.”

The King and Queen rejoiced at the birth of their son, Albert Kauikeaouli Leiopapa a Kamehameha, on May 20, 1858. The entire populace welcomed the new heir to the throne with joy, only to be stricken by utter grief four years later when the little boy died suddenly of “brain fever.”

Just 15 months later, Alexander Liholiho, (Kamehameha IV,) weakened by chronic asthma, died at age 29. In her grief, Queen Emma took a new name, Kaleleonalani, which means “flight of the heavenly chiefs.”

To ease her pain, Emma dedicated herself to many worthy causes, among which was organizing a hospital auxiliary of women to help with the ill. She also helped found two schools, St. Andrews Priory in Honolulu and St. Cross on Maui.

Her work included the development of St. Andrews Cathedral. She journeyed to England where she and her friend, Queen Victoria, raised $30,000 for the construction or the cathedral.

“Queen Emma, or Kaleleonalani, the widowed queen of Kamehameha IV … refined by education and circumstances … is a very pretty, as well as a very graceful woman. She was brought up by Dr. Rooke, an English physician here, and though educated at the American school for the children of chiefs, is very English in her leanings and sympathies …”

“… an attached member of the English Church, and an ardent supporter of the “Honolulu Mission.” Socially she is very popular, and her exceeding kindness and benevolence, with her strongly national feeling as an Hawaiian, make her much beloved by the natives.” (Bird)

When King Lunalilo died in 1874, Emma became a candidate for the throne (the Kingdom had become a constitutional democracy). Lunalilo had wanted her to succeed him, but he failed to make the legal pronouncement before he died.

An election for a new sovereign was held. Although she campaigned actively, she lost the throne to David Kalākaua.

Politics was not her strong suit — humanitarianism was. Queen Emma was much loved by the people and hundreds of mele have been composed in her honor. Her humanitarian efforts set an example for Hawaii’s royal legacy of charitable bequests.

After her death on April 25, 1885 at age 49, she was given a royal funeral and laid to rest in Mauna ʻAla beside her husband and son.

“She was different from any of her contemporaries. Emma is Emma is Emma. There’s no one like her. A devout Christian who chose to be baptized in the Anglican church in adulthood, and a typically Victorian woman who wore widow’s weeds, gardened, drank tea, patronized charities and gave dinner parties, she yet remained quintessentially Hawaiian.” (Kanahele)

“In a way, she was a harbinger of things to come in terms of Hawaii’s multi-ethnic, multi-cultural society. You have to be impressed with her eclecticism — spiritually, emotionally and physically. She was kind of our first renaissance queen.” (Kanahele)

Queen Emma left the bulk of her estate, some 13,000 acres of land on the Big Island and in Waikiki on Oahu, in trust for the hospital that honors her. (Lots of good information here came from Queen’s Hospital)

April 3, 2024 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Mabel Leilani Smyth

Pālama, a sleepy neighborhood of neat little cottages and taro patches, was home to mostly working-class Hawaiian families; on June 1, 1896, a chapel was built and presented to Central Union Church.

Social worker James Arthur Rath, Sr and his wife, Ragna Helsher Rath, turned Pālama Chapel into Pālama Settlement (in September 1906,) a chartered, independent, non-sectarian organization.

The Raths established a day-camp for children with tuberculosis, a pure milk depot, a day nursery, a night school, low-rent housing and the Territory’s first public nursing department.

Public health nursing was started in Hawaiʻi by the Free Kindergarten and Children’s Aid Association in 1897, when Mrs. Alice (Haviland) Thompson, nurse at Kamehameha School, volunteered her services to work in the Kindergartens in Honolulu.

In 1900, as Honolulu health officials attempted to rid the nearby Chinatown area of bubonic plague, fire destroyed a four-block section. The Pālama chapel’s staff located housing for many of the displaced and took care of the injured and children. It also ministered to the needs of immigrants who moved into the Pālama area soon after arriving in the Islands.

In 1908 the College Club (a voluntary civic association) became interested in the tuberculosis problem and employed a nurse to do tuberculosis work in the City of Honolulu. Because it was thought that the nurse would have easier access to the district homes, she was given a Board of Health badge.

When the Tuberculosis Bureau was established in the Board of Health in 1910, the College Club nurse worked under the direction and supervision of that bureau until the latter part of 1910, when Pālama Settlement established itself as the centralized organization for public health nursing activities in Honolulu.

Shortly after, Pālama assumed the direction and supervision of all nurses and nursing activities in the city, including the two nurses employed in the Board of Health to do tuberculosis nursing.

By 1910, nine nurses were employed in the city: two by the Legislature, or Board of Health, one by the College Club, one by the Chinese Consul, one by the United Chinese Society, and four by Pālama Settlement. (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

Mabel Smyth, sometimes referenced as “Hawaiʻi’s Florence Nightingale” was Hawaiʻi’s first native Hawaiian public health nurse in the territory of Hawaii.

The daughter of a part-Hawaiian mother, Julia Goo Smyth (1867-1948,) and an Irish Ship Captain father, Halford Hamill Smyth (1851-1907,) Mabel was born in 1882 in Kona (some say she was born in Honolulu.) Halford Smyth died in 1907 leaving his wife with 5 children ranging in age from 8 to 16 (Mabel, the second oldest, was 15 at the time.) (Connerton)

The family then moved to Honolulu where Smyth was involved with the Pālama Settlement, and she worked as a helper in the home of Pālama Head Worker, James Rath.

In 1912 Smyth traveled to the mainland with the Rath family, and in Springfield, MA she left them to begin her nursing training at the Springfield Hospital Training School. (Connerton)

Smyth graduated from the Springfield Hospital training school in 1914, and returned to Hawaiʻi to begin work at the Pālama settlement in 1915.

When she applied for her position on the Pālama nursing service she explained her interest in district health nursing “One can do more good for humanity by working among the people district nurses do, and I naturally like to work among that class of people.”

In 1917 when the Board of Nursing established a licensure requirement – Smyth was #52 granted on August 30, 1917.

When Smyth took over as Pālama’s head nurse in 1918 there were seven Pālama dispensaries in the city, each with a nurse assigned to that district. Nurses spent about 45-minutes of their day in the office, and the rest was divided between school visits, home visits and dispensary hours. (Connerton)

Smythe went on to lead two of the most influential public health nursing services in the territory. She was a charter member of the Hawaiʻi Nursing Association (called the Honolulu Nurses’ Club). She joined the Honolulu chapter of the American Red Cross, and she served on the Hawaiʻi Board of Nursing.

In 1923, by act of the Legislature, the title of all nurses employed by the Board of Health, who were known as tuberculosis or school nurse, was changed to “public health nurse.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

What is public health nursing? “Public health nursing is an organized community service rendered by graduate nurses to the individual, family and community. This service includes the interpretation for the correction of defects, prevention of disease and the promotion of health, and may include skilled care for the sick in their homes.”

“Our service is divided into four distinct divisions, namely, maternity, health supervision, morbidity (which includes non-communicable and communicable diseases) and social service.” (Smyth; The Friend, September 1, 1932)

In 1926, Smyth joined with other public health nurses to initiate the University of Hawaiʻi course on public health nursing. This program was vital for local nurses whose only other option for public health training was to go to the mainland to study. (Connerton)

When the Bureau of maternal and Child Health was organized in 1926, the nurse services expanded island wide. Miss Claira Figely was the first supervisor of nurses, followed by Mabel Smyth who was Director of the Bureau of Maternal and Infant Hygiene.

Hawaiʻi was the first, and at times the only, US Territory or State that required formal Public Health training for employment as Public Health nurse. (Tabrah)

In 1936 Smyth was scheduled for a small surgery. She prepared her staff for a planned absence, but she never returned. Smyth died at age 43, after 21 years of service to the public health community of Hawaii.

Smyth was widely mourned in the territory, and after her death a committee formed to establish a memorial to the “Hawaiian Florence Nightingale.” Over $110,000 raised for her memorial building, with over 4,000-people making contributions.

On January 4 1941, the CW Dickey-designed ‘Mabel Smyth Memorial Building’ was dedicated on the Queens Hospital grounds at the corner of Punchbowl and Beretania Streets in Honolulu. The new building was the headquarters for Hawaii’s professional nursing and medical organizations.

In 1991, ownership of the building and property passed from the Queen’s Medical Center to the State of Hawaiʻi, in an exchange for nearby undeveloped land (Miller Street Triangle) that was needed by the hospital expansion.

In 1998, DLNR sold the building and adjacent grounds at a public auction for $5 million to the Queen Emma Foundation. (PBN) Queen’s later renamed it ‘Queen’s Conference Center’ and relegated the Smyth name to the ‘Mabel Smyth Auditorium.’

November 6, 2019 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Foster Botanical Garden

In 1853, Queen Kalama leased 4.6 acres of land to William Hillebrand, a botanist as well as a physician; he and his wife built a home in the upper terrace area of the present garden. The magnificent trees which now tower over this area were planted by him.

Six years after his arrival, he and nine other Honolulu physicians petitioned to charter an organization called the Hawaiian Medical Society. Today, it is the Hawaii Medical Association.

Appointed physician to the royal family at The Queen’s Hospital (now The Queen’s Medical Center), Hillebrand also served as chief physician at the hospital from 1860 to 1871.

While on a mission for the King to bring Chinese immigrants to work in the islands’ sugar fields, Hillebrand introduced Common Myna birds to Honolulu (as well as “carrion crows, gold finches, Japanese finches, Chinese quail, ricebirds, Indian sparrows; golden, silver and Mongolian pheasants; and [two] axis deer from China and Java”.)

After 20 years, Hillebrand returned to Germany, where he published Flora of the Hawaiian Islands in 1888.

In 1884, the Hillebrand property was sold Thomas R. Foster and his wife Mary E. Foster, who continued to develop the garden at their homesite.

In 1919, Foster leased two-acres to the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association for its experiment station, under the direction of Dr. Harold L. Lyon, a botanist and plant pathologist.

Lyon proceeded to build on the work of plant conservation and landscape architecture which Dr. Hillebrand and Mrs. Foster had initiated. By 1925, his plant nursery had produced over a million trees, most of them exceptional varieties which were not grown elsewhere.

Hundreds of new species of trees and plants had been imported, cultivated and distributed throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

Upon Mrs. Foster’s death in 1930, the 5.5 acre site was bequeathed to the City and County of Honolulu as a public garden and was opened to the public on November 30, 1931, with Lyon as its first director.

Over a span of 27 years, Dr. Lyon introduced 10,000 new kinds of trees and plants to Hawaiʻi. The Foster Garden orchid collection was started with Dr. Lyon’s own plants.

Through purchases by the City and gifts from individuals, under the directorship of Paul R. Weissich (1957-89), Foster Garden expanded to over 13.5-acres and also developed four additional sites on Oahu Island to create the 650-acre Honolulu Botanical Gardens system (including, Hoʻomaluhia Botanical Garden, Koko Crater Botanical Garden, Liliʻuokalani Botanical Garden and Wahiawa Botanical Garden.)

Taken as a whole, these five gardens feature rare species from tropical environments ranging from desert to rainforest, comprising the largest and most diverse tropical plant collection in the United States.

In addition to being a pleasant place to visit, Foster Botanical Garden is a living museum of tropical plants, some rare and endangered, which have been collected from throughout the world’s tropics over a period of 150 years.

Today the garden consists of the Upper Terrace (the oldest part of the garden); Middle Terraces (palms, aroids, heliconias, gingers); Economic Garden (herbs, spices, dyes, poisons); Prehistoric Glen (primitive plants planted in 1965); Lyon Orchid Garden; and Hybrid Orchid Display.

It also contains a number of exceptional trees, including a Sacred Fig which is a clone descendant of the Bodhi tree that Buddha sat under for inspiration, a sapling of which was gifted to Mary Foster by Anagarika Dharmapala in 1913.

In 1975, the Hawaiʻi State Legislature found that rapid development had led to the destruction of many of the State’s exceptional trees and passed Act 105 – The Exceptional Tree Act.

The Act recognizes that trees are valuable for their beauty and they perform crucial ecological functions. All told, Foster Botanical Garden contains 25 of about 100 Oʻahu trees designated as exceptional.

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Bodhi_tree_foster_botanical_gardens-Genetically identical to the Bodhi Tree (original) at Sri Mahabodhi temple, India

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Daibutsu-replica of the Great Buddha of Kamakura-dedicated in 1968 for centennial of Japanese immigration to Hawaii

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False Olive Tree, Elaeodendron orientale

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June 12, 2019 by Peter T Young 1 Comment

The Queen’s Hospital (now called The Queen’s Medical Center) was founded in 1859 by Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV.

In King Kamehameha IV’s initial speech to the legislature in 1854, the King voiced his desire to create a hospital for the people of Hawaiʻi.

At that time, the continued existence of the Hawaiian race was seriously threatened by the influx of disease brought to the islands by foreign visitors.

Queen Emma enthusiastically supported the dream of a hospital, and the two campaigned tirelessly to make it a reality. They personally went door-to-door soliciting the necessary funding.

Through six generations, The Queen’s Medical Center has become a major provider of health care to the people of our State and a part of the cultural fabric of Hawaiʻi.

The Queen’s Medical Center, located in downtown Honolulu, is largest private hospital in Hawaiʻi, licensed to operate with 505 acute care beds and 28 sub-acute beds. The medical center has more than 3,000 employees and over 1,200 physicians on staff.

Its Mission Statement is, “To fulfill the intent of Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV to provide in perpetuity quality health care services to improve the well-being of Native Hawaiians and all the people of Hawaiʻi.”

The first official building of Queen’s Hospital was erected on the same site where Hawaiʻi’s leading medical center stands today. It was a two-story structure made of coral blocks and California redwood that held 124 beds.

This original building stood for more than 60 years and was called “Hale Mai O Ka Wahine Ali‘i,” or “Hospital of the Lady Chief.”

Most of the buildings on the Queen’s campus have been given Hawaiian names to honor Hawaiian Royalty or other prominent citizens in the hospital’s development.

Nalani Wing (a shortened version of Queen Emma’s name, Kaleleonalani) is all that remains of a structure built in 1922, over the spot where the original hospital stood.

The Nalani facade remains today, with its ornate crest emblazoned over the entrance to the main lobby. Still visible are the now-sealed arched windows which originally lined open walkways, welcoming the trade winds and cooling the occupants within.

The Bishop Wing was an 1893 building that was razed in 1989, making way for a new addition to the Queen Emma Tower, which now houses Hawaiʻi’s largest Magnetic Resonance Imager (MRI).

The first Pauahi Wing stood in the same location as the present-day building, which was constructed in 1971. Its name honors Bernice Pauahi Bishop, whose husband, Charles Bishop, donated the wing in memory of his wife.

Maluhia was the location of the first Emergency Department and means “Peace” or “Rest” in Hawaiian. Maluhia was razed in 1998 to make way for the new Emergency Room and Same Day Surgery Center.

Edward Harkness of New York donated more than half the cost of the Harkness building in 1932 for the original School of Nursing, and as a residence for nurses. It remains virtually unchanged in its appearance and is now home to many administrative offices.

Kīna‘u was the name of King Kamehameha IV’s mother. Built in 1945, it has housed a wide variety of patient services and units.

The first open heart surgery in Hawaii was performed in the Kamehameha Wing (constructed in 1954 and named for the co-founder of Queen’s, King Kamehameha IV,) which was considered the most advanced surgical center in the state for over 30 years.

Iolani means “royal hawk” in Hawaiian, and was one of King Kamehameha’s names. The Iolani Wing was completed in 1960. It houses the Pathology department, patient rooms, Emergency department and administrative offices.

The Hawaiʻi Medical Library was established in 1913 and moved to the Queen’s campus in 1916. It has served the medical community for over 83 years.

Kekela was the name of Queen Emma’s mother, and this building, built in 1973, honors her memory. The University of Hawai‘i School of Medicine occupies the upper floors and Queen’s Mental/Behavioral Health Services is on the lower floors.

Naea was the name of Queen Emma’s High Chief father. The building bearing his name is the home of the Radiation Therapy department and its three linear accelerators.

Paahana means “hard working,” and this building, built in 1981, is the site of the hospital’s utility services plant. It supplies the infrastructure services necessary to operate the facility.

Manamana was originally an apartment building; this structure now houses administrative offices and housing units for patients and their families who have traveled to Oahu for treatment.

Named in honor of Queen’s founder, the Queen Emma Tower was constructed in 1985. Its unique design features a triangular shape with an open central core.

Its ten stories are filled with patient care units and services. The top-most floor is occupied by the Maternity Department, where the charm of the birthing suite’s decor won a designation as “the most beautiful hospital room in Honolulu.”

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King Kamehameha IV & Queen Emma went door to door seeking donations to build what became the Queen’s Medical Center

The original Queen’s Hospital, shortly after being built, was sparsely surrounded in 1860

An early façade (1861) of The Queen’s Hospital

The main hospital building as it stood in 1898

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August 1, 2017 by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Queen’s Hospital Subscribers

Hawaiians called the hospital and dispensary Hale Ma‘i o ka Wahine Ali‘i (literally, sick house of the lady chief,) or Hale Ma‘i for short. Opening day was August 1, 1859. (Greer)

“The Queen’s Hospital was founded in 1859 by their Majesties Kamehameha IV and his consort Emma Kaleleonalani. The hospital is organized as a corporation …”

“… and by the terms of its charter the board of trustees is composed of ten members elected by the society and ten members nominated by the Government ….” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, July 31, 1901)

“(A) number of persons, resident in Honolulu and other parts of the Kingdom have entered into a voluntary contribution, by subscription, for the purpose of creating a fund, for the erection and establishment of a Hospital at Honolulu, for the relief of indigent sick, and disabled people of the Hawaiian Kingdom, as well as of such foreigners, and others, as may desire to avail themselves of the same …”

The “subscribers … resolved that they should associate themselves together as a Body Politic and Corporate, for the purpose of carrying into effect the objects and intentions of the said subscribers …”

“…the following on behalf of the said subscribers were elected by ballot to act as Trustees, on behalf of the said subscribers, viz, BF Snow, SC Damon, SN Castle, CR Bishop, JW Austin, EO Hall, TJ Waterhouse, WA Aldrich, WL Green and H Hackfeld …”

“His Majesty then designated the following ten persons, Trustees, on behalf of the Government, viz, His Royal Highness Prince L (Lot) Kamehameha, David L Gregg, Wm Webster, GM Robertson, TC Heuck, John Ladd, James Bissen, HIH Holdsworth, AB Baker, L John Montgomery.” (Charter of the Queen’s Hospital)

Some 250 businesses, groups, and individuals had subscribed $13,530; the king and queen headed the list of subscribers with pledges of $500 each. (Greer) The following are the initial 10-Trustees who were elected:

Benjamin Franklin Snow had “a spacious two-story coral building that stood on Merchant street, near the corner of Fort … The building was erected early in the forties,’’ and for some time was occupied by Makee & Jones, afterwards Makee & Anthon.

It was moved into by Captain Snow, following his fire in the Brewer premises on Fort street in 1852. Snow was associated with the early entities that eventually formed C Brewer. Snow died December 20, 1866 on the fortieth anniversary of his arrival in Honolulu from Boston in the brig Active. (Thrum)

Samuel Chenery Damon, son of Colonel Samuel Damon, was born in Holden, Massachusetts, February 15, 1815. He was graduated from Amherst College in 1836, studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1838-39, and was graduated at Andover Theological Seminary in 1841. He was an American missionary.

He was preparing to go to India as a missionary and was studying the Tamil language for that purpose, when an urgent call came for a seaman’s chaplain at the port of Honolulu in the Hawaiian Islands. He was ordained September 15, 1841, and he decided to accept the position at Honolulu.

Damon was pastor of the Seamen’s Bethel Church, chaplain of the Honolulu American Seamen’s Friend Society and editor of the monthly newspaper The Friend. He died February 7, 1885, at Honolulu, and his funeral next day was attended by a very large congregation, including King Kalākaua his ministers. (Crane, Historic Homes, 1907)

Samuel Northrup Castle landed in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi) in 1837 as part of the 8th Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. He was assigned to the ‘depository’ (a combination store, warehouse and bank) to help the missionaries pool and purchase their supplies, to negotiate shipments around the Horn and to distribute and collect for the goods when received.

Twelve years after Castle had landed in the Islands, the American board decided that its purposes had been accomplished. It advised its representatives that their work was done and the board’s financial support would end. He needed to make a living since monetary support from Missions headquarters had been discontinued.

Castle and his good friend Amos Starr Cooke decided they would become business partners. Many of the missionaries were planning to remain; their needs must be met, so those of other residents and the crews of the whaling ships which wintered in Honolulu harbor. On June 2, 1851, they formed Castle & Cooke.

Charles Reed Bishop was born January 25, 1822 in Glens Falls, New York, and was an orphan at an early age and went to live with his grandparents on their 120-acre farm learning to care for sheep, cattle and horses and repairing wagons, buggies and stage coaches.

By January 1846, Bishop was ready to broaden his horizons. He and a friend, William Little Lee, planned to travel to the Oregon territory, Lee to practice law and Bishop to survey land. They sailed around Cape Horn on the way to Oregon. The vessel made a stop in Honolulu on October 12, 1846; both decided to stay. (Lee later became the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court for the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.)

Bishop met and married Bernice Pauahi Paki. Bishop was primarily a banker (he has been referred to as “Hawaiʻi’s First Banker.”) An astute financial businessman, he became one of the wealthiest men in the kingdom from banking, agriculture, real estate and other investments.

James Walker Austin was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, January 8, 1829. He graduated from Harvard College in 1849, and from the Law School two years later. He went in 1851 to California, and then to the Sandwich Islands and was determined to settle there. He was admitted to the Bar in that country, and in 1852 was appointed district attorney.

He was elected to the Hawaiian Parliament, and reelected for three sessions. He was speaker of the House one session. In 1868 he was appointed justice of the Supreme Court by a special act of the Legislature, and he was chosen to revise the criminal code of the islands, in connection with two other judges of the Supreme Court. He was the guardian a number of years, of Lunalilo, heir to the throne.

He returned to the US in 1872 for the education of his children, after a residence at the Sandwich Islands of twenty-one years. He went to Europe the last year of his life, with his wife and daughter; he died in Southampton, England, October 15, 1895. (New England Historic Genealogical Society)

Edwin Oscar Hall arrived with the 7th Company of American missionaries in 1835. He was a Printer and Assistant Secular Agent. He was released in 1850 and became the editor of “The Polynesian” and manager of the Government printing office, 1850-52. The business of EO Hall & Son, Limited started in 1852 at the corner of Fort and King streets.

The firm continued to deal in hardware, agricultural implements, dry goods, leather, paints and oils, silver-plated ware, wooden ware, tools of all kinds, kerosene oil, etc, until about the year 1878, when dry goods were dropped, except a few staple articles. (Alexander)

On May 7, 1891 several EO Hall corporate officers, under the direction of Jonathan Austin, filed with the Hawaiian government to form a partnership to produce and supply electricity as the Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO.) (HAER) Five months later – on October 13, 1891 – the co-partnership was dissolved and Hawaiian Electric was incorporated, with total assets of $17,000 and William W Hall as its first President. (HECO)

John Thomas Waterhouse “was born in Berkshire, England, in 1816, and went to school at Wood House Grove boarding school in 1825. The school was a Methodist preacher’s son’s school. I attended that until I was 13 years of age.” He became a businessman.

“I will tell you how the spirit of trade first came upon me. A man was allowed to come on the play ground once a week, Saturdays, to sell notions, etc. I used to invest my little money in sundries which I bought from this man, and sell them again to my playmates during the week at an advance, on credit.”

“Well, I had made a little money, and had heard of the United States, and concluded to cross the Atlantic to (the US.) I had become infatuated with reading the life of John Jacob Astor, and I started out from England, April, 1833, with a determination to become a John Jacob Astor”.

Later, “My father was appointed to a position at Australia and Polynesia and he went there with our entire family, ten brothers and sisters and my wife. I was in business in Hobert Town, Tasmania, for ten years, owning a large number of vessels, and I was a very active man in business there.”

“I had very poor health and was recommended to go to Honolulu, in the Sandwich Islands. Well, I went there in one of my own vessels and purchased the property where I now live. That was in 1851, and from San Francisco I travelled backward and forward a great deal and improved very much in health …”

“… and I wish to say right here that the Sandwich Islands are really as fine islands as you can find anywhere in any part of the Pacific, and are known as the ‘Paradise of the Pacific.’” (Hawaiian Gazette, September 24, 1889)

William Arnold Aldrich was born March 27, 1824 at Westmoreland, Cheshire County, New Hampshire. In 1853, Aldrich and Charles Reed Bishop were business partners in Aldrich & Bishop, Importers and Dealers in General Merchandise.

Their building was located on the ewa-mauka corner of Queen and Kaʻahumanu Streets. They primarily sold merchandise to be shipped to supply the California Gold Rush, as well as provisioning whaling vessels.

The general store partnership of Aldrich and Bishop terminated as the whaling industry declined and they later formed a banking institution, the kingdom’s largest financial institution (1858;) this later became First Hawaiian Bank.

William Lowthian Green “was born in Doughty street, London, September 13, 1819. He received his early education in Liverpool, which was completed at King William’s College in the Isle of Man. … He was by profession a merchant. His family for two generations had been engaged in commercial pursuits in the north of England.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

He joined the rush to California to try his luck finding gold (some of his friends were fortunate, there – he wasn’t.) Green’s health failed after some time in the goldfields and in 1850 he determined to go to China. The ship called at Honolulu, and Green, unable to withstand the hardships of a sailor’s life, and having letters to prominent residents of Honolulu, presented his credentials. (Nellist)

“During the intervals of leisure in his several occupations as merchant, founder of the now prosperous iron works, sugar planter, Deputy British Commissioner, Senator and at times Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, his mind, we may be certain, was fixed upon the working out of the geological theory of the conformation of the earth’s crust.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, February 21, 1900)

Heinrich (Henry) Hackfeld arrived in Honolulu with his wife, Marie, her 16-year-old brother Johann Carl Pflueger and a nephew BF Ehlers on September 26, 1849. Having purchased an assorted cargo at Hamburg, Germany, Hackfeld opened a general merchandise business (dry goods, crockery, hardware and stationery,) wholesale, as well as retail store on Queen Street.

As business grew its shipping interest, manufacturing and jobbing lines developed a web of commercial relationships with Europe, England and the eastern seaboard. Hackfeld outfitted several whalers and engaged in the trans-shipment trade.

Hackfeld developed a business of importing machinery and supplies for the spreading sugar plantations and exported raw sugar. H Hackfeld & Co became a prominent factor – business agent and shipper – for the plantations. They also opened BF Ehlers dry goods store.

With the advent of the US involvement in World War I, things changed significantly for the worst for the folks at H Hackfeld & Co. In 1918, using the terms of the Trading with the Enemy Act and its amendments, the US government the companies and ordered the sale of German-owned shares. (Jung)

Shares in the companies were sold to American interests and the former H Hackfeld & Co took a patriotic sounding name, ‘American Factors, Ltd;’ BF Ehlers dry goods store also took a patriotic name, ‘Liberty House.’

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