Nuʻuanu
In 1872, some referred to it as “Missionary Street,” although the Missionary Period had ended about 10-years earlier (the Missionary Period was from 1820 – 1863.)
You might more accurately call it the home of the elite, and that is not limited to folks of the Caucasian persuasion – both Kauikeaouli and Emma had summer residences here and included in the list of successful business people who called it home were the Afongs and others.
But you can’t help concluding the strong demand to live there based on early descriptions – even Realtors, today, would be envious of the descriptors Ellis used in 1831: “The scenery is romantic and delightful.”
“Across this plain, immediately opposite the harbour of Honoruru, lies the valley of Anuanu (Nuʻuanu,) leading to a pass in the mountains, called by the natives Ka Pari (Pali,) the precipice, which is well worth the attention of every intelligent foreigner visiting Oahu.” (Ellis, 1831)
“The mouth of the valley, which opens immediately behind the town of Honoruru, is a complete garden, carefully kept by its respective proprietors in a state of high cultivation; and the ground, being irrigated by the water from a river that winds rapidly down the valley, is remarkably productive.” (Ellis, 1831)
Over sixty years later (1897,) Stoddard keeps the demand momentum going by adding, “The way lies through shady avenues, between residences that stand in the midst of broad lawns and among foliage of the most brilliant description. An infinite variety of palms and tropical plants, with leaves of enormous circumference, diversify the landscape.”
Today, the descriptors of the past hold true – and the place is high in the demand (and price,) just as it was nearly two centuries ago.
So, who were some of the people who called this place home?
As noted, an early resident of Nuʻuanu was Kauikeaouli, Kamehameha III. Consistent with tradition, his home had a name, Kaniakapūpū (sound or song of the land snail;) it was located back up into the valley at Luakaha.
Ruins today, the structure, modeled on an Irish stone cottage, was completed in 1845 and is reportedly built on top or in the vicinity of an ancient heiau. It was a simple cottage, a square with four straight walls.
Another royal, Queen Emma, had a “mountain” home, Hānaiakamālama (Lit., the foster child of the light (or moon,)) now known as the Queen Emma Summer Palace. In 1857, she inherited it from her uncle, John Young II, son of the famous advisor to Kamehameha I, John Young I.
The ‘Summer Palace’ was modeled in the Greek Revival style. It has a formal plan arrangement, wide central hall, high ceilings and floor-length hinged, in-swinging shuttered casement window. The Daughters of Hawaiʻi saved it from demolition and it is now operated as a museum and open to the public (a nominal admission fee is charged.)
On the private side, the following are only a few of the several notable residences (existing, or long gone,) in Nuʻuanu Valley.
A notable home is the “Walker Estate;” one of the few intact estates that were built in the upper Nuʻuanu Valley before and after the turn of the century (built in 1905,) it is a two story wood frame structure of Classical Revival style. (NPS)
The home on the 5.7-acre estate was initially built for the Rodiek family, a leading businessman in Honolulu. Due to war time pressures on the family, who were German citizens, the home was sold in 1918 to Wilcox who lived there into the 1930s, when it was taken over by Henry Alexander Walker, president and chairman of the Board of Amfac (one of the Hawaiʻi Big Five businesses.)
The grounds were originally used for orchards and vegetables, although the Japanese garden was put in shortly after the house was built and is thought to be the oldest formal Japanese garden in Hawaiʻi, the stones, lamps and images specially brought from Japan for it. (NPS)
Another notable home is former Governor George Carter’s “Lihiwai” (water’s edge.) In the late-1920s, Carter built his 26,000-square feet home; it is reportedly “the largest and finest private residence ever constructed in Hawaiʻi (with the exception of ʻIolani Palace.)” (NPS)
The entire building is built of shaped bluestone set in concrete and steel reinforced cement, and all the perimeter walls are 2 – 3-feet thick with the exception of the end walls, which are 6-feet thick. It is constructed entirely of bluestone, concrete, steel, copper, bronze and teak.
Originally, the building was connected to two smaller structures — by a breezeway on the eastern side and by the porte-cochere on the western side (these structures were separated in 1957.) The property was originally 10-acres, but portions were subdivided and sold in 1945 after the death of Helen Strong Carter. Today, the property includes the original house on a little over 1-acre. (The home is undergoing restoration.)
A home long gone, but we are repeatedly reminded of it in on-the-air marketing for senior living in Nuʻuanu, is “Craigside.” This was the home of Theophilus Harris Davies. Not only was Davies’ firm, Theo H Davies, one of the Hawaiʻi Big Five, he personally served as guardian to Princess Kaʻiulani while she was studying in England (Davies had another home there – “Sundown.”)
Likewise, just up the hill, was the Paty house “Buena Vista;” it’s now gone and part of the Wyllie Street interchange with Pali Highway. (Look for the parallel palms in the yard of the immediately-makai ‘Community Church of Honolulu.’ They used to line the Paty driveway, with the house off to the left (mauka.)
During the Spanish American War, the military took over Buena Vista and turned it into the Nuʻuanu Valley Military Hospital (also known as “Buena Vista Hospital.”)
Just mauka of Buena Vista (now also part of the Wyllie-Nuʻuanu interchange) was Robert Crichton Wyllie’ “Rosebank.” Wyllie first worked as acting British Consul. Attracted by Wyllie’s devotion to the affairs of Hawaiʻi, in 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 (he was in Hawaiʻi from 1844 until his death in 1865.) Wyllie served as Minister of Foreign Relations from 1845 until his death in 1865, serving under Kamehameha III, Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V.
Finally, a home of a missionary, Dr. Gerrit Parmele Judd, “Sweet Home” was located at the intersection of Nuʻuanu and Judd. Judd was in the 3rd company of missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (he was in Hawaiʻi from 1828 until his death in 1873.) After serving the mission for 15-years, Judd was translator and later Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the House of Nobles and Privy Council, and Minister of Finance under Kamehameha III.
Wife Laura Judd once noted, “we were supposed to be rich,” but insisted they had never been so poor, being obliged to borrow money to pay for carpenters and masons. (Scott, Saga) The house was torn down in 1911 and the property became part of what is now Oʻahu Cemetery.
Big Five (plus 2)
“By 1941, every time a native Hawaiian switched on his lights, turned on the gas or rode on a street car, he paid a tiny tribute into Big Five coffers.” (Alexander MacDonald, 1944)
The story of Hawaii’s largest companies dominates Hawaiʻi’s economic history. Since the early/mid-1800s, until relatively recently, five major companies emerged and dominated the Island’s economic framework. Their common trait: they were focused on agriculture – sugar.
They became known as the Big Five:
C. Brewer & Co.
Founded: October 1826; Capt. James Hunnewell (American Sea Captain, Merchant; Charles Brewer was American Merchant)
Incorporated: February 7, 1883
Theo H. Davies & Co.
Founded: 1845; James and John Starkey, and Robert C. Janion (English Merchants; Theophilus Harris Davies was Welch Merchant)
Incorporated: January 1894
Amfac
Founded: 1849; Heinrich Hackfeld and Johann Carl Pflueger (German Merchants)
Incorporated: 1897 (H Hackfeld & Co;) American Factors Ltd, 1918
Castle & Cooke
Founded: 1851; Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke (American Mission Secular Agents)
Incorporated: 1894
Alexander & Baldwin
Founded: 1870; Samuel Thomas Alexander & Henry Perrine Baldwin (American, Sons of Missionaries)
Incorporated: 1900
Some suggest they were started and run by the missionaries. Actually, only Castle & Cooke had direct ties to the mission – Castle ran the ‘depository’ and Cooke was a teacher.
Alexander & Baldwin were sons of missionaries, but not a formal part of the mission. Brewer was an American sea captain and merchant; the founders of Davies were English merchants and the founders of Amfac were German merchants.
Hawaiʻi’s industrial plantations began to emerge at this time (1860s;) they were further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market. Through the treaty, the US obtained Pearl Harbor and Hawai‘i’s sugar planters received duty-free entry into U.S. markets for their sugar.
As the sugar industry pushed ahead, something else new was introduced into the economic scheme of things. In Honolulu two or three new firms began business solely to handle the affairs of the scattered plantations.
They began by acting as selling agents for the planters. Gradually they took over other functions: financing crops, importing labor, purchasing machinery for the planters and serving in all ways as their business agents. The new businesses soon found themselves running the sugar industry.
By the 1880s, five of these concerns, called factors, eventually dominated the field. How effectively the Big Five could band together as one against outside forces whether the enemy was foreign capital, insects, labor, competing products or disease was well demonstrated by their Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, more familiarly known as the HSPA. (MacDonald)
This group organization for Hawaii’s sugar industry was founded in 1882 as the Planters’ Labor and Supply Company when the planters found they had common problems in irrigating the sugar lands, growing the cane, and finding labor. That was its immediate official purpose.
“Everything that comes into the territory comes through a large corporation. The independent businessman who attempts to enter business here immediately finds that even nationally advertised lines from the mainland are tied up by the Big Five. It is almost impossible to get an independent line of business as they have everything – lumber paint, right down the line.” (Edward Walker, High Sheriff of Hawaiʻi, 1937; Kent)
Acting as agents for thirty-six of the thirty-eight sugar plantations, the Big Five openly monopolized the sugar trade. Twenty-nine firms, producing seven out of every eight tons of sugar exported from the Islands, refined, markets and distributed through the Big Five’s wholly owned California and Hawaiian Sugar Company, whose refinery, the largest in the world, was on San Francisco Bay. (Kent)
They branched out into other businesses. To squeeze additional profits out of the sugar trade, they started their own refinery in California; it was to become the largest in the world. They built up a fleet of ships, the Matson line, to carry the sugar away and to bring back goods and passengers.
They developed inter-island shipping, built hotels, put capital into insurance, cattle, pineapples, banking. They took over bodily the wholesaling of goods coming into the Islands; ninety percent of retail stock came from their warehouses.
Their capital started the public utilities. Their street railway transported Hawaiians, their gas and electric plants lighted the city, they acquired the communications systems. (MacDonald)
The sugar industry was the prime force in transforming Hawaiʻi from a traditional, insular, agrarian and debt‐ridden society into a multicultural, cosmopolitan and prosperous one. (Carol Wilcox)
With statehood in 1959 and the almost simultaneous introduction of passenger jet airplanes, the tourist industry began to grow rapidly.
The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar. (That plummeted to 492,000-tons in 1995.)
A majority of the plantations closed in the 1990s. As sugar declined, tourism took its place – and far surpassed it. Like many other societies, Hawaii underwent a profound transformation from an agrarian to a service economy.
There were a couple other associated entities that were associated with the Big 5” Dillingham (Benjamin Franklin Dillingham) and Campbell (James Campbell) and their associated companies.
Click HERE to view/download for more information on Hawai‘i’s Big 5 (plus 2).
Downtown Honolulu In 1950
A picture is worth a thousand words; they (and maps) tell stories. This map tells lots of stories … and brings back some great memories.
OK, I wasn’t even born when the map was printed. But a few years later, when I was a kid, there are a lot of familiar places (and associated stories) depicted on this map.
Take some time looking at the ownership and operations up and down the streets. There have been lots of changes since then – but the memories are still here.
Back then, Bishop only went to Beretania – with no further mauka extension (it finally popped through and extended/ connected to the Pali Highway and became the windward gateway into “Town.”)
Bishop Street was the home of the Big 5. Bishop Street was and continues to be the center of Hawai‘i commerce and banking (in the center of the map, running up/down.)
Did you notice their placement on Bishop Street (and to each other) back then (as well as the battling banks across Bishop Street from each other?)
Five major companies emerged to provide operations, marketing, supplies and other services for the plantations and eventually came to own and manage most of them. They became known as the Big 5:
- Amfac (1849) – Hackfeld & Company – a German firm that later became American Factors Ltd (Amfac.) It was started by a young German selling goods to whalers and grew to manage and control various sugar operations.
- Alexander & Baldwin (1870) – started by Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin, sons of missionaries. It was the only Big 5 that started in sugar. Their irrigation project sent water 17-miles from Haleakala to 3,000-dry sugar cane acres in central Maui.
- Theo H. Davies (1845) – a British firm that started as a small isle trading company and expanded into other businesses including sugar, transportation and insurance.
- Castle & Cooke (1851) – founded by missionaries (Samuel Northrup Castle and Amos Starr Cooke,) which originally sold sewing machines, farm tools and medicine in Hawaii. It later bought stock in sugar plantations and focused on sugar companies.
- C. Brewer – (1826) founded by James Hunnewell, an officer on the Thaddeus that brought the original missionaries to Hawai‘i in 1820. He returned in 1826 to set up a trading company specialized in supplying whaling ships but then moved into sugar and molasses. The firm’s namesake, Capt. Charles Brewer, became a partner in 1836.
Another Hawai‘i family and company, Dillingham, started in the late-1800s, although not a “Big Five,” deserves some attention – it’s offices were down there, too (next to the Big 5.)
They played a critical role in agricultural operations through leasing land and controlling some operations, but mostly moved the various goods on OR&L.
Back in the ‘50s, Fort Street was “it” for shopping (to the left of Bishop Street, also running mauka/makai – now, it’s mostly a pedestrian mall.)
You can read the names of old Honolulu retail iconic institutions – Liberty House, McInerny, Watumull and Andrade – along with Kress, Woolworths, National Dollar and Longs Drugs.
I remember the “moving windows” during Christmas season; we’d pile in the station wagon and take a special trip over the Pali to downtown to Christmas shop (the Pali Tunnels and Ala Moana Center weren’t open until 1959.)
We’d walk up and down Fort Street and look at all the animated window displays, then stop in at a restaurant for dinner (one of our favorites was Fisherman’s Wharf at Kewalo Basin.)
‘Iolani Palace is on the site labeled Territorial Executive Grounds (we’re still nine years away from statehood;) mauka of it had different uses – it’s now the State Capitol and Hotel Street walkway.
The YWCA (just to the left of ‘Iolani Palace) is still going strong and nearby was the YMCA, now converted to the Hawai‘i State Art Museum and state offices.
The Alexander Young Hotel, opened in 1903 (on Bishop between Hotel and King,) was later converted hold offices and was demolished in 1981.
You can see some roads have changed or have been consolidated into adjoining properties. Did you notice, back then, Ala Moana/Nimitz on the map was called Queen Street?
In my early years in real estate (while still a student at UH, I used to do research in the Tax Office and Bureau of Conveyances (lower right of map.) Fifty-years later, I directed DLNR which now has the Bureau of Conveyances under its management umbrella.
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Theo H Davies & Co
Englishmen James and John Starkey and Robert Cheshire Janion founded Starkey, Janion, & Co, a trading company in Liverpool, in April 1845.
They chartered a vessel and filled it with general merchandise valued at $80,000; it set sail for Honolulu. On arrival Janion rented a room on Nuʻuanu Street near the waterfront and hung out a sign “Starkey, Janion & Co.”
Later the same year, he negotiated a lease for a Ka’ahumanu Street site from Kamehameha III for “only 299 years,” as he wrote to the Starkeys, since “this was the best I could do.” (It was part of the claim of former British Consul Richard Charlton.
The firm quickly prospered, thanks to the whaling trade and prosperity on the Pacific coast. Transactions with the Hawaiians were bartered, coins and gold dust with the whalers.
They soon had their own fleet of ships sailing the seas between Hawaiʻi, the West Coast and England. As agent for Lloyd’s of London, Janion began underwriting cargoes leaving Honolulu harbor, later introducing fire insurance into the Islands.
By 1851, Janion and the Starkeys parted company. In the following year, Janion left Hawaii to return to Liverpool; to succeed him in Honolulu, Janion appointed a fellow countryman named William Green, whom he had hired two years earlier.
Then in 1856 he persuaded a Welshman, 23-year-old Theophilus Harris Davies, to go out to Hawaiʻi as a clerk for Green under a five-year contract. Eventually the Janion-Green partnership was dissolved and Davies became Janion’s partner.
In 1876, Davies incorporated Honolulu Iron Works with Janion, Janion’s wife, Green’s mother and Alexander Young. Janion died in 1881, leaving Davies in control.
Davies proved himself an aggressive promoter, playing a key role in the organization of Hāmākua, Laupāhoehoe, Niuliʻi, Kaiwiki and Union Mill plantations on the Big Island. He was adept at raising capital in London and helped finance a total of 22-plantations during his career.
Years later, Davies was a stockholder with Young in the organization of von Hamm-Young Company, forerunner of The Hawaiʻi Corporation. Principals were Young’s son Archibald, and Conrad C. von Hamm. An early project was the Alexander Young Hotel.
Toward the end of his career, Davies divided his time between Honolulu and his Nuʻuanu home, Craigside, and England, where he maintained a home at Southport called Sunset in Hesketch Park. It was there that he served as guardian to Princess Kaʻiulani during her years in English schools.
Back in the Islands, his business was thriving despite political upheavals and sugar setbacks. In 1892, the company opened a steamship department as agent for Canadian-Australasian Line, which began service in that year. Later the department represented Canadian Pacific, Cunard and many others.
In 1893 grocery, dry goods and hardware departments were set up and the following year, when the company incorporated, a Hilo branch was opened. Four years later Davies died.
Formerly organized into merchandise, insurance and shipping departments, Theo H Davies set up subsidiaries for all its activities.
Merchandise lines are primarily heavy equipment: Pacific Machinery’s Caterpillar tractors, Hawaiian Fluid Power’s hydraulic lines, Stubenberg Company’s manufacturing of field equipment, Davies Building Materials, and Hilo Iron Works.
Inter-Island Equipment handled lighter lines such as lawn mowers and air compressors while Davies Brokerage handled some grocery lines. Davies Marine Agencies operated the former steamship department.
Davies Insurance Agencies acted for underwriters Janion represented. They also acquired EH Campbell Tire, Honolulu’s Goodyear Tire distributor, and Atlas Electric, electrical equipment distributor.
Davies expanded to the Philippines in 1928, opening a Manila branch. In the 1930s the company built up a heavy investment in four Philippine sugar plantations.
One of Hawaiʻi’s Big Five (Amfac – starting as Hackfeld & Company (1849;) Alexander & Baldwin (1870;) Theo H. Davies (1845;) Castle & Cooke (1851) and C. Brewer (1826,) Davies grew to be second only to Amfac in territorial wholesaling.
It operated Honolulu’s pioneer retail grocery chain, Piggly-Wiggly, until the mid-1950s; it was also involved with Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, the Mandarin, Mercedes and Jaguar.
For a time in the 1960s Davies operated a building materials subsidiary in Spain with headquarters at Madrid but back in Honolulu the parent company was barely treading water. In the late 1960s and early-70s the company closed or sold off the drugs, dry goods, hardware and contract furnishing departments.
Mergers and consolidations reduced the company’s Big Island sugar plantations from five to three. Profits in merchandising were meager and returns on plantation investments were low. The iron works affiliate was sold to a mainland buyer that retrenched its activities drastically.
In 1967 Dillingham Corp. made a tender offer for Davies stock to the company’s 200 stockholders in Hawaii and England; the bid for control failed. In 1972, the 22-story Davies Pacific Center replaced the former Davies corporate headquarters. In 1973, Jardine, Matheson & Co., based in Hong Kong, acquired Davies. (Lots of information here is from Greaney and Engle.)
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