Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Charles Hinckley Wetmore

Charles Hinckley Wetmore was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, on February 8, 1820. He was the son of Augustus Wetmore (1784-1887) and Emily T Hinckley Wetmore (1789-1825.)

By teaching school in the winter and studying in the summer, he attained his medical degree, graduating from the Berkshire Medical Institute in Massachusetts in 1846. After graduation he practiced in Lowell, Mass., continuing to teach in school to supplement his earnings.

Wetmore married Lucy Sheldon Taylor on September 25, 1848; three weeks after their wedding, they were off to Hawaiʻi under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM) as a missionary doctor.

They were not attached to any Missionary Company; the Wetmores sailed from Boston on October 16, 1848 on the Leland and landed in Honolulu on March 11, 1849 (a voyage of 146 days).

The Wetmores were assigned to Hilo on the Island of Hawaiʻi and were at their post by May 18. “This morning Hawaiʻi was in sight. It could be distinctly seen by the bright light of the moon but it remained for the sun to reveal in all its grandeur lofty Mauna Kea.”

“We gazed at it with feelings of deep interest. We know not but this very island is to become our future home. Our prayer is that we may be stationed where we shall do the most good.” (Lucy Wetmore’; The Friend, February 1920)

As missionary doctor, his first duty was to the care of the missionary families, then the natives and after that to the foreigners.

His patients were scattered over the entire island and he travelled by canoe or foot, and on many occasions, his wife accompanied him.

When smallpox broke out in the Islands in 1853, Wetmore was appointed by the King to serve as a Royal Commissioner of Public Health. As the outbreak spread to the neighbor Islands, Wetmore was down with varioloid (a mild form of smallpox affecting people who have already had the disease or have been vaccinated against it.)

The Commissioners decided to build a hospital to deal with the anticipated illness; Wetmore, the doctor from the region, was the first to occupy it. Wetmore recovered and was able to later assist in the efforts. (Greer)

In 1855 he severed relations with the ABCFM and continued in practice upon his own account. He was appointed to be in charge of the American Hospital, where sailors from American ships and ether Americans in need were cared for.

After the hospital was given up, the building was turned over to ‘The First Foreign Church of Hilo.’ A founding member of the church, Wetmore was closely identified with it and gave it great financial assistance and much personal work. (Evening Bulletin, May 18, 1898)

Later (December 2, 1886,) Wetmore purchased and presented to the Library Association the frame building formerly occupied by the First Foreign Church. In making the gift of the building with his ‘Aloha,’ Wetmore “‘hoped it would prove very useful to our Hilo community for many many years to come.’” They moved the building to the library site on Waiānuenue street. (Hilo Tribune, October 25, 1904)

The Protestant Wetmore also had ties with the nearby St Joseph Catholic Church. Wetmore and Father Charles Pouzot developed a lasting friendship. Father Charles was tutoring the Wetmore children and Wetmore gave medical basics of caring for diarrhea, dermatitis, respiratory illness and the like.

At one time, Father Charles shocked Father Damien (now St Damien) by revealing he also learned to treat the wounds and ulcers of leprosy. Damien was much surprised since he didn’t know the infection was present in Hawaiʻi. Father Charles promised to show him a case at the next opportunity. (Hilo Roman Catholic Community)

Dr. Wetmore’s family consisted of one son and three daughters. On February 16, 1850, Wetmore administered ether to his wife, Lucy, as she was giving birth to their first child. Dr Wetmore’s subsequent account of this delivery appears to be the earliest known reference to the use of general anesthesia in the Islands. (Schmitt)

Eldest son, Charlie, was an active boy who assisted in his father’s dispensing pharmacy, the first in Hilo. (Hilo Drug Store was reportedly founded by Wetmore; it was situated on ‘Front Street’ (Kamehameha Avenue.) (Valentine)

Charlie planned to follow his father into the profession of medicine. Their first daughter, Frances (Fannie), also worked and enjoyed learning science in the pharmacy.

When Charlie died suddenly at age 14, 12-year-old Fannie (the eldest daughter) stepped up to announce that she would become the next doctor of the family, taking her brother’s place.

She was sent away to school in Pennsylvania, returning to Hilo after graduation to help her father. She eventually returned to the mainland to get her MD, and was the first woman doctor in Hawaiʻi. Frances then practiced medicine in partnership with her father. (Burke)

In the early days of sugar, Wetmore was engaged with the Hitchcocks in the establishment and management of Papaikou plantation. Wetmore was also interested in Kohala and other sugar plantations. (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, May 19, 1898)

After the death of his wife in 1883, Wetmore, serving as a delegate from the Hawaiian Board, and his daughter, Lucy, spent the entire year of 1885 in the Marshall and Caroline Islands.

Dr. Wetmore died on May 13, 1898. “He was trusted by all. Whatever he said he meant, and his word in business was as good as his bond. He was to the front in every good work, and his gospel was one of action rather than of words.”

“His generosity was proverbial and his services as a physician were constantly given to those who were too poor to pay.” (Evening Bulletin, May 18, 1898)

Several years later, the Lydgate family from Kauaʻi donated a stained glass window at the First Foreign Church in Hilo. The image represents the good Samaritan as he bends solicitously over the almost lifeless body of the man who was the victim of thieves.

“The expression on the good Samaritan’s face is a beautiful one, and the picture is typical of the life of the friend in whose memory it was given.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, September 6, 1907)

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William (Will) Joseph Arthur Goodhue

“When we pause to consider that here is a studious and altogether competent observer who has had 18 consecutive years of constant and exclusive leprosy practice among 800 to 500 patients, constituting one of the largest segregated colonies in the world, we begin to realize the value of his accumulated experience and his opinions as a leprologist.” (Report of the Governor of Hawaii, To the Secretary of the Interior, 1914)

William (Will) Joseph Arthur Goodhue was born October 4, 1868 in Quebec, Canada and graduated from Rush and Dartmouth Colleges in medicine. He went to Hawaiʻi in 1902 as an intern practicing on Kauai.

He fell in love with Alice Saburo Hayashi, aged sixteen, and she ran off with him to Honolulu where he had been offered a job, and he set up a home with her in Pālama.  A child (William Goodhue George) was born in 1903; William paid child support, but did not marry Alice.

Dr Goodhue and John D McVeigh assumed the positions of Resident Physician and Superintendent of Kalaupapa.  Goodhue was not only a surgeon in the colony, but spent a great deal of time developing new treatments and improving upon old ones; several of his findings were published in medical journals.

In October 1905, Goodhue married Christina “Tina” Meyer, daughter of Henry and Victoria (Bannister) Meyer.  Tina was grand-daughter of Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer, prior Superintendent of the Kalawao settlement (Kalaupapa) (who served with Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope.)

Will and Tina had three children, all born at Kalaupapa: William Walter Goodhue, John D. Goodhue and Victoria Goodhue. They were later divorced.

Sister Leopoldina of Kalaupapa said of Goodhue, “We had been in the work nearly fifteen years and until Dr. Goodhue came we had never been assisted by a doctor only a very few times, as they were so much in dread of leprosy.”

“Dr. Goodhue, a true American brave and fearless, plunged into the work with strong will and whole heart doing wonderful work, and it became like a different place.”

The noted author, Jack London, visited the colony, and wrote of his friend, “Dr. Goodhue, the pioneer of leprosy surgery, is a hero who should receive every medal that every individual and every country has awarded for courage and life-saving. … I know of no other place … in the world, where the surgical work is being performed that Dr. Goodhue performs daily.”

“I have seen him take a patient, who in any other settlement or lazar house in the world, would from the complication of the disease die horribly in a week, or two weeks or three – I say, I have seen Dr. Goodhue, many times, operate on such a doomed creature, and give it life, not for weeks, not for months, but for years and years.”

But that is not all.  Goodhue used Alice Ball’s treatment of using chaulmoogra oil at Kalaupapa; and out of the five hundred and twelve patients, one hundred and seventy-five have been taking regular treatment.  (London)

(Ball isolated the ethyl ester of chaulmoogra oil (from the tree native to India) which, when injected, proved extremely effective in relieving some of the symptoms of Hansen’s disease.  Although not a full cure, Ball’s discovery was a significant victory in the fight against a disease.)

Goodhue, speaking to members of the legislature visiting Kalaupapa in 1921, said, “With two years’ chaulmoogra oil treatment, I believe sixty-five per cent of the chronic cases of leprosy on Molokaʻi can be cured.  And within ten years, all cases should be cured, and Kalaupapa be abandoned as a leper settlement.”

Once known as leprosy, the disease was renamed after Dr. Gerharad Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian physician, when he discovered the causative microorganism in 1873, the same year that Father Damien volunteered to serve at Kalaupapa.

Goodhue retired in 1925.  He had contacted Hansen’s disease and left Hawaiʻi for Shanghai, China, to visit his son who was attending college there (he did not wish to be confined to the leper colony where he had worked all those years on Molokaʻi.)

He lived there on his pension and died of a heart attack on March 17, 1941. He had made the request that if he should not recover to bury him there.  (Lots of info here from NPS.)

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Maʻi Pākē

The common Hawaiian name for the disease was Maʻi Pākē, or Chinese sickness.

Its introduction to the Islands was but one of many new diseases; it was called maʻi pākē (Chinese sickness,) maʻi ali‘i (chiefly sickness) and eventually maʻi hoʻokaʻawale ʻohana (disease that separates family.) It is thought that it came to the islands in the early-1800s, but it did not attain levels of great concern until the 1850s and 1860s.  (Inglis)

One of the earliest descriptions of it in Hawaiʻi was written by the Reverend Charles Samuel Stewart, a missionary in the 2nd Company of American Protestant missionaries, who landed at Honolulu in 1823.

An entry in his journal dated May 21, 1823 notes “not to mention the frequent and hideous marks of scourge, which more clearly than any proclaims the curse, of a God of Purity, and which while it annually consigned hundreds of these people to the tomb, converts thousands while, living into walking sepulchres.”

“The inhabitants generally are subject to many disorders of the skin; the majority are more or less disfigured by eruptions and sores found many are as unsightly as lepers.”  (Schrodt)

The association of the disease with the Chinese people probably had to do either with the fact that an individual or individuals of that race were noted to have the disease or simply that the Chinese were familiar with it because they had often seen it in their own country.  (Greene)

The name “maʻi pākē” may, no doubt, have originated on the interrogation by a native of a Chinaman, “What is this disease?”  The Chinaman would probably answer, “I do not know the Hawaiian word, but there are plenty of people sick with the disease in my country.”

“It was recognized by the few Chinese, then on the islands, and this has given it the name of “Maʻi Pākē” here, and not because it has been introduced here by the Chinese.” (Hawaii Board of Health 1886)

From Eastern writings there is good evidence that India, East Asia and China are among its most ancient homes. The earliest reference appears to be rather universally accepted was written in the Chou Dynasty in 6th century B.C.

In the Chinese medical classic entitled Nei Ching there are four passages which may allude to an afflicted patient. If this classic was written by one Huang Ti, it may have been recognized in China over five thousand years ago.  (Schrodt)

Early incidences in the Islands were most often associated with Chinese immigrants to Hawai‘i and thus the name maʻi pākē. Some believed that it came with Chinese plantation workers, but many individuals and groups also arrived from other regions of the world where leprosy was endemic. It could have come from any number of sources such as the Azores, Africa, Malaysia or Scandinavia.  (Inglis)

Further statements from the Board of Health report refute that the disease was started by the Chinese, “if one Chinaman caused such an alarming spread of the disease thirty or forty years ago, there are now, comparatively speaking, so very few cases of leprosy among the seventeen or eighteen thousand Chinamen on these islands.”  (Hawaiʻi Board of Health, 1886)

“Again, if the disease had been introduced by the Chinese, and propagated by them … I should expect to find a much larger proportion of (them) affected with this loathsome malady, and yet we all know that the contrary is the fact.”

“It is much more likely that it came to these islands through the mixed crews of whale-ships, which had negroes, black and white Portuguese, and men of other races, coming from countries where leprosy was, and still is, prevalent.”  (Hawaiʻi Board of Health, 1886)

It rapidly spread on Oʻahu.  In response, the Legislative Assembly of the Hawaiian Islands passed “An Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy” in 1865, which King Kamehameha V approved. This law provided for setting apart land for an establishment for the isolation and seclusion of leprous persons who were thought capable of spreading the disease.

On June 10, 1865, a suitable location for incurable cases of leprosy came up for discussion.  he peninsula on the northern shore of Moloka’i seemed the most suitable spot for a leprosy settlement.

Its southern side was bounded by a pali – vertical mountain wall of cliffs 1,800 to 2,000 feet high, and its north, west and east sides by the sea and precipitous shores. Landings were possible in only two places, at Kalaupapa on the west side and at Kalawao on the east side of the peninsula, weather permitting.

The first shipment of lepers landed at Kalaupapa January 6, 1866, the beginning of segregation and banishment of lepers to the leper settlement.

Receiving and detention centers were established on Oʻahu.  Kalihi Hospital was the first hospital for leprosy patients in Hawaiʻi opening in 1865. Kapiʻolani Home opened in Kalihi Kai in 1891 adjacent to the Kalihi Hospital and Receiving Station; Kalihi Plague Camp (1900-1912) and Meyers Street, Kalihi Uka (1912-1938.)

Two notable people in Hawaiʻi associated with the treatment of patients with leprosy are Father (now Saint) Damien and Mother (now Saint) Marianne.)

Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864.  He continued his studies here and Bishop Maigret ordained Father Damien at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, on May 21, 1864; in 1873, Maigret assigned him to Molokaʻi.  Damien spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi; he died April 15, 1889 (aged 49) at Kalaupapa.

In 1877, Sister Marianne was elected Mother General of the Franciscan congregation and given the title “Mother” as was the custom of the time. In 1883, she received a letter from Father Leonor Fouesnel, a missionary in Hawaiʻi, to come to Hawaiʻi to help “procure the salvation of souls and to promote the glory of God.”

Of the 50 religious communities in the US contacted, only Mother Marianne’s Order of Sisters agreed to come to Hawaiʻi to care for people with leprosy.  The Sisters arrived in Hawaii on November 8, 1883.

In the summer of 1886, the Sisters took care of Damien when he visited Honolulu during his bout with leprosy.  He asked the Sisters to take over for him when he died.  Mother Marianne led the first contingent of Sister-nurses to Kalaupapa, Molokaʻi, where more than a thousand people with leprosy had been exiled.

A third person in Hawaiʻi, Alice Ball, made notable contributions in the treatment of the disease. In the fall of 1914, she entered the College of Hawaiʻi (later called the University of Hawaiʻi) as a graduate student in chemistry.   The significant contribution Ball made to medicine was a successful injectable treatment for those suffering from Hansen’s disease.

Although not a full cure, Ball’s discovery was an extremely effective in relieving some of the symptoms of Hansen’s disease and was a significant victory in the fight against a disease that has plagued nations for thousands of years.

The discovery was coined, at least for the time being, the “Ball Method.”  During the four years between 1919 and 1923, no patients were sent to Kalaupapa – and, for the first time, some Kalaupapa patients were released.

Once known as leprosy, the disease was renamed after Dr. Gerharad Armauer Hansen, a Norwegian physician, when he discovered the causative microorganism in 1873, the same year that Damien volunteered to serve at Kalaupapa.

During the third quarter of the nineteenth century incidence of the disease occurred in more than 1% of the population in Hawai`i. In 1890 Kalawao’s patient population peaked at around 1,100.

By 1900, the number of new patients in the islands began a slow decline, a trend that continued until the 1940s when it was determined that the disease was not spreading in the general population.  (NPS)

About 8,000 people have been exiled there since 1865.  The predominant group of patients were Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian; in addition there were whites, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese, Filipino and other racial groups that sent to Kalaupapa.  The law remained in effect until 1969, when admissions to Kalaupapa ended.

The image shows a view of Kalaupapa, Kalawao.

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Molokai

It used to be referred to as ʻĀina Momona (the bountiful land,) reflecting the great productivity of the island and its surrounding ocean.

It is about 38-miles long and 10-miles wide, an area of 260-square miles, making it the 5th largest of the main Hawaiian Islands (and the 27th largest island in the US.)

The island was formed by two volcanoes, East and West, emerging about 1.5-2-million years ago.  The cliffs on the north-eastern part of the island are the result of subsidence and the “Wailua Slump” (a giant submarine landslide – about 25-miles long that tumbled about 120-miles offshore – about 1.4-million years ago.)

In separate volcanic activity about 300,000-years ago, Kalaupapa Peninsula was formed.  Penguin Bank, to the west of the island, is believed to be a separate volcano that was once above the water, but submerged within the last 100,000-years.

Molokai is divided into two moku (districts,) Koʻolau on the windward side and Kona on the leeward side.  (These are common district names that are universally used across of the Hawaiian archipelago (“Koʻolau,” marking the windward sides of the islands, and “Kona,” the leeward sides of the islands.))

Archaeological evidence suggests that Molokai’s East end was traditionally the home of the majority of early Hawaiians; large clusters of Hawaiians were living along the shore, on the lower slopes and in the larger valleys.   Productive, well-kept fishponds were strung along the southern shoreline.

The water supply was ample; ʻauwai (irrigation ditches), taro loʻi (ponded terraces) and habitation sites were found in every wet valley. ʻUala (sweet potato) and wauke (paper mulberry) were cultivated in the mauka areas between long shallow stone terraces which swept across the lower kula slopes.

The windward valleys developed into areas of intensive irrigated taro cultivation and seasonal migrations took place to stock up on fish and precious salt for the rest of the year.

The drier coastal regions of the West end were sparsely populated on a year-round basis, although they were frequently visited for extended periods of fishing during the summer months.  (Papohaku on the west shore is the longest stretch of white sand beach in Hawaiʻi (3-miles long and 300-feet wide.))

East end’s Pukoʻo had a natural break in the reef, good landing areas for canoes and nearby fishponds built out over the fringe reef. Archaeological evidence suggests it was a heavily populated area; it was also destined to become the first town in the western tradition on the island of Molokai.

When the American Protestant missionaries arrived on Molokai in 1832, they settled at nearby Kaluaʻaha.  The first church was made of thatch (1833,) a school soon followed.  By 1844, a stone church was built.

It was not long before a small community was forming around the church buildings. It became the social center of the entire island, with people coming from as far away as the windward valleys, over the pali and by canoe, just to attend church sermons on Sunday and socialize.

In the 1850s, Catholic priests began to visit the island; during the 1870s, Father Damien, who had come to Molokai to serve the patients at Kalawao, traveled top-side to gather congregations of Catholics. He built four Catholic churches on the East End of Molokai, at Kamaloʻo, Kaluaʻaha, Halawa and Kumimi.

In later years they built a wharf at Pukoʻo – it became the center of activity for the island and the first County seat.  However, with economic opportunities forming on the central and west sides of the Island, Pukoʻo soon lost its appeal (there is no commercial activity there, today.)

Like Pukoʻo, Kaunakakai had a natural opening in the reef.  In 1859, Kamehameha IV established a sheep ranch (Molokai Ranch) and built his home, Malama, there.  “It is a grass hut, skillfully thatched, having a lanai all around, with floors covered with real Hawaiian mats. The house has two big rooms. The parlor is well furnished, with glass cases containing books in the English language.”

“On the north west side of the house is a large grass house, and it seems to be the largest one seen to this time. The house is divided into rooms and appears to be a place in which to receive the king’s guests.”  (SFCA)

Rudolph Wilhelm became manager of Molokai Ranch for Kamehameha V in 1864. However, Kamehameha V was probably best known on Molokai for the establishment of the Leprosy Settlement on the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa in 1865.

Meyer started to grow sugar shortly thereafter (1876.)  By 1882, there were three small sugar plantations on Molokai: Meyer’s at Kalaʻe, one at Kamaloʻo and another at Moanui.

Meyer also served as the Superintendent of the isolated Kalawao settlement (Kalaupapa) (serving with Father Damien and Mother Marianne Cope (now, both are Saints.))

Kaunakakai Harbor was an important transportation link and key to these various activities.  After 1866, it became vital to bringing in supplies for the Kalaupapa Settlement. Goods, personnel and visitors were landed at Kaunakakai then transported by mule down the pali trail.

During the 1880s, sugar and molasses from the Meyer sugar mill were loaded onto carts and taken to the harbor where they were transferred into small boats. These boats came up to the sand beach and take the sugar and molasses to larger ships anchored in the harbor.  By 1889 a small wharf had been built at Kaunakakai.

After Molokai Ranch was sold to the American Sugar Company in 1897 a new, more substantial stone mole with a wooden landing platform at the makai end, was put up next to the old wharf to service their expected sugar shipments.

Finally in 1909, a political division of the island was made incorporating Molokai into Maui County and excluding the State Health Department administered area of the Kalaupapa Settlement. This district became known as Kalawao County.

During the 1920s Kaunakakai first began to develop as the main business center of the island. Several stores were built along either side of Ala Malama Street indicating the sense of prosperity of the times. This activity continued well into the 1930s, a period that corresponded to the largest increase in population on Molokai.

At that time and into the early-1930s, Kaunakakai gradually became the main hub of activity, partially due to its central location and increased population. It was here that a larger, improved wharf had been developed for the pineapple plantations and for the shipment of cattle.

Another major change occurred when the Government passed the Hawaiian Homes Act in 1921. Seventy-nine Hawaiian homesteading families moved to Kalamaʻula in 1922 and in 1924 the Hoʻolehua and Palaʻau areas were opened for homesteading on lands previously under lease from the government to the American Sugar Company Limited. The homestead population rose from an estimated 278 in 1924 to 1,400 by 1935.

In 1923, Libby, McNeil & Libby began to grow pineapple on land leased from Molokai Ranch; their activities were focused primarily in the Kaluakoʻi section of the island.  Lacking facilities and housing, the plantation began building clusters of dwellings (“camps”) around Maunaloa.  By 1927, it started to grow into a small town – as pineapple production grew, so did the town.

In 1927, California Packing Corporation, later known as Del Monte Corporation, leased lands of Naʻiwa and Kahanui owned by Molokai Ranch to establish a pineapple plantation with headquarters in the town of Kualapuʻu.  The town takes its name from kaʻuala puʻu, or the sweet potato hill, the hill to the south where sweet potatoes were grown on its slopes.

The town was first created when Molokai Ranch (American Sugar Company) moved their ranch headquarters from Kaunakakai to Kualapuʻu after the demise of their sugar enterprise.

After the Hoʻolehua homesteads were opened up by Hawaiian Homes Commission in 1924, the ranch headquarters began to take on the character of a real town. However the real change came with the arrival of California Packing Corporation in Kualapuʻu to grow pineapple for shipment to the Oʻahu cannery.

In 1968, there were 16,800 acres of pineapple under cultivation on Molokai. The Libby plantation was sold to the Dole Pineapple Corporation in 1970, which very soon closed down the plantation when they determined it was no longer a profitable venture.  After fifty-five years of operation, Del Monte began a phased shut down operation in 1982 which terminated in 1989.

Maunaloa and Kualapuʻu were towns created expressly for agriculture. Kaunakakai came into its own due to its harbor, central location, and the shift of population from the east end of the island. It gradually became the administrative and business center of Molokai, much as Pukoʻo had been many years before.

The image shows an 1897 map of Molokai.  (Lots of information here is from Curtis.)

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Saint Louis School

On June 17, 1839, King Kamehameha III issued the Edict of Toleration permitting religious freedom for Catholics in the same way as it had been granted to the Protestants.

In 1841, Father Louis Maigret, the Vicar delegate, divided Oʻahu into missionary districts. Father Martial Jan was assigned to supervise the Koʻolau district. By the early 1850s, the windward coast of Oʻahu was dotted with chapels.

The Sacred Hearts Father’s College of Ahuimanu was founded on the Windward side of Oʻahu in 1846 by the Catholic Mission under the direction of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

One of its students, Damien (born as Jozef de Veuster,) arrived in Hawaiʻi on March 9, 1864, at the time a 24-year-old choirboy.  Determined to become a priest, he had the remainder of his schooling the College of Ahuimanu.

On May 21, Damien was ordained a priest at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu; he spent the rest of his life in Hawaiʻi.  In 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.

The College of Ahuimanu flourished; as reported by the Bishop in 1865, “The college and the schools are doing well. But as the number of pupils is continually on the increase, it has become necessary to enlarge the college. First we have added a story and a top floor with an attic; then we have been obliged to construct a new building. And yet we are lacking room.”

In 1881, the school moved to its second location in former Rev. Richard Armstrong’s home, ”Stonehouse” (named after the residence of Admiral Richard Thomas in England,) on 91 Beretania Street adjoining Washington Place. At that time, the name “College of St. Louis” was given to the institution in honor of Bishop Louis Maigret’s patron Saint, Louis IX.

Pacific Commercial Advertiser noted that “The College of St. Louis, an Hawaiian Commercial and Business Academy, offering Classical, Scientific and Commercial courses,” also offered in its curriculum courses in Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. An evening session offered adults “theoretical and, practical knowledge of commercial and business transactions.” (Soong)

Growing enrollment soon required the Mission Fathers to relocate the school, again; this time, they found a site on the banks of Nuʻuanu Stream.  The College at Aʻala was placed under the direction of five pioneer Brothers of Mary who arrived from Dayton, Ohio in 1883.

St Louis continued to be affiliated with the Society of Mary, a religious order of brothers and priests called Marianists.  The Society was founded by Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, a priest who survived the anti-clerical persecution during the French Revolution.

The Nuʻuanu Stream front campus was accessed via “College Walk” street; it’s now a linear mall/park fronting the stream (however, no school or college is there anymore.)

In the years following, it became evident that the elementary and high school departments were in need of still larger quarters. Encouraged by parents and alumni, the Marianists laid plans for a greater St. Louis College.

In 1923, they purchased 205 acres at Kalaepōhaku in Kaimuki; classes began there in 1928.

December 8, 1941 the US Government commandeered the campus for the use of the 147th General Hospital.  Elementary students attended classes at Saint Patrick School and high school classes co-located at McKinley High School.

Sharing a campus by the high schools led to a fierce rivalry. To ease some of the tension, reportedly, Saint Louis football coach (later Honolulu Mayor) Neal Blaisdell created the “poi pounder trophy,” to go to the winner of the annual Saint Louis/McKinley football game (this continued from 1942 to 1969.)

After sixty-seven-years of providing education at grade levels one through twelve, the elementary and intermediate grades were withdrawn one-grade-a-year, beginning in 1950.

In 1955, the Marianists established Chaminade College on the east end of the Kalaepōhaku campus (it was initially named the Saint Louis Junior College; with it, Saint Louis College was renamed to Saint Louis High School.)

In 1957, Saint Louis Junior College became co-educational and a four-year college and the school was renamed to Chaminade College of Honolulu (named after the Society of Mary (Marianists) founder.)

St. Louis’ high school classes continued on campus until 1979, when the school’s Board of Trustees voted to re-incorporate intermediate grades seven and eight, beginning in fall, 1980. A sixth grade was added and the intermediate grades were then converted to a middle school beginning with the fall semester of 1990.

Today, Saint Louis is an all-boys private Catholic school, grades six through twelve; they note it is a school “Where Boys Who Want to Change the World Become the Men Who Do.”

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