Kauai Island History, part 2

KAUAI ISLAND HISTORY BY HANK SOBOLESKI AS PUBLISHED IN KAUAI’S THE GARDEN ISLAND NEWSPAPER FROM 2006 TO 2015 PART 2

Ronald von Holt’s Curse

Ronald von Holt In 1931, the Big Island’s Kahua Ranch cofounder and Hawaiian artifact collector Ronald von Holt (1898-1953) led an expedition by sampan into Nualolo Valley on Kaua‘i’s Na Pali Coast for the purpose of discovering ancient burial caves and commandeering their treasures.

With him were fellow Kahua Ranch cofounder Atherton Richards and others, but when a burial cave was located that contained an idol, many spears, calabashes and stone implements of great value, only von Holt and Richards entered.

Later, it was rumored that both men had been cursed for entering the cave.

Richards, on the one hand, always scoffed at the idea of being cursed, despite being stricken for 20 years from a progressive condition of palsy before dying of a heart attack at age 79 in 1974.

On the other had, von Holt was convinced he was cursed. From the time of the Nualolo expedition, which occurred when he was 33, until his unexpected death after a brief illness at age 55, he was the victim of many mishaps, including the crippling accident that brought about the illness that caused his death.

However, the worst effect of the Nualolo curse von Holt experienced was not one of his many accidents, but was, instead, the torment he suffered at being unable to discover the site of a “disappearing cave” on the slopes of Kahua Ranch that was said by von Holt’s Hawaiian paniolos to change its location and which was thought to contain great treasure.

Regardless, von Holt, whose mother, Ida, was a daughter of Kaua‘i konohiki Valdemar Knudsen (1820-1898), continued to enter other burial caves and remove artifacts for many years after Nualolo.

At the time of his death, his Kahua Ranch Hawaiiana collection was, outside of

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Bishop Museum’s, one of the largest.

The Aepo Reservoir Dam Collapse

At noon on Friday, Nov. 14, 1947, McBryde Sugar Company’s Aepo Reservoir Dam, which was located about two miles north of Kukui‘ula, Kaua‘i, collapsed, causing millions of gallons of water to rush downhill toward Kukui‘ula.

However, a combination of three factors prevented the destruction of Kukui‘ula.

First, the Aepoalua Reservoir and Aepoekolu Reservoir dams, which were located below the Aepo Reservoir Dam, although overflowing with floodwaters released from the Aepo Reservoir Dam’s collapse, held.

Later, water was diverted from Aepoalua and Aepoekolu reservoirs, which prevented more flooding.

Second, Aepoeha Reservoir, which was situated below Aepoalua Reservoir and Aepoekolu Reservoir, and about 3/4 of a mile immediately above Kukui‘ula, having been filled before the dam break with only 38 feet of its 48-foot water capacity, was able to absorb the shock of the rushing water. It overflowed, but its dam also held.

Thirdly, a 50-foot high railway embankment between Aepoeha Reservoir and Kukui‘ula acted as a dam by holding back floodwater that rose behind it to track level.

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In fact, the dam’s collapse caused only slight damage to just five houses, and only the homes of Mr. Yamasaki, Mrs. Seki Yamamoto, Junzo Mashita, Mrs. Tsuneo Sugano, Shizu Kawamoto, and Kenishi Funamura were evacuated.

The raging waters did, however, sweep chicken coops and miscellaneous debris across the highway and into Kukui‘ula Bay. Telephone lines were knocked out, so Miss Shizuno Yamasaki, a clerk in McBryde’s Kukui‘ula branch store managed by her father, Mr. Isuke Yamasaki, rushed to the Lawa‘i Kai residence of Mr. Robert Allerton to phone the McBryde Sugar Co. office.

S. Nishi, a retired McBryde employee, calmed panic-stricken neighbors after the first rush of water.

The Kaua‘i Red Cross provided assistance, and McBryde Sugar Co. performed cleanup duties and repairs.

Fr. Robert Arsenius Walsh

Father Walsh’s Rectory Built In 1854 On December 22, 1841, twenty-one years after the first American Protestant missionaries, Messrs. Samuel Whitney and Samuel Ruggles, had arrived at Waimea, Kauai, Irish-born Fr. Robert Arsenius Walsh (1804-1869) stepped ashore at Koloa Landing to become the first Roman Catholic missionary on Kaua‘i.

When Hawaiians learned of Walsh’s arrival, they took him to the home of Jakopo Pehu near the beach at Poipu, where Walsh quickly established a school with Pehu in charge and celebrated the first Catholic Mass on Christmas Day, 1841.

Yet Walsh was coldly received by Governess Amelia Kekauonohi, for the governess, like practically all of the Hawaiian monarchy, was a staunch 276

Protestant adamantly set against the establishment of a competing religion.

In January, when Fr. Barnabe Castan arrived, Walsh assigned him to Moloa‘a.

There, Laupela, the konohiki, welcomed him, but the kahu kula (school agent) punished parents who sent their children to the school Castan started by forbidding them to fish in the ocean, cut wood in the mountains and harvest taro. When Walsh appraised the governess of this situation, she claimed ignorance.

Castan was once confined to his quarters, and on Ni‘ihau, where Walsh’s missionary work eventually failed after initial success, chapels were torn down or vandalized.

Elsewhere in Hawai‘i, Catholic converts were sentenced to hard labor, fined or jailed, and children were removed from Catholic schools and forced to attend Protestant schools.

Nevertheless, during 1842, Walsh built a small stone chapel at Koloa and he and Castan baptized at least 196 souls.

In 1854, St. Raphael’s Church was built by Walsh, carpenter John Neal and several Hawaiian converts with timber and with coral cut from the reef at Koloa on land deeded by Kamehameha III. Fr. Walsh continued missionary work on Kaua‘i until 1859. He died in Honolulu.

Plantation Manager William Danford

Born and educated in Ireland, William Danford (1878-1935) immigrated to Hawai‘i by ship around Cape Horn in 1894 with his stepfather, retired Scottish businessman and Magistrate for the County of Dublin Sir Robert Herron, and his mother, Lady Anna Danford Herron, and settled in Honolulu.

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When Sir Robert died in 1898, Danford, ambitious and also somewhat compelled to rely upon his own resources, found work as a sugar boiler first on O‘ahu, and later at Hawaiian Sugar Co., Makaweli, Kaua‘i.

At Makaweli, Danford advanced to supervisor. In 1907, he was hired as head overseer of the Mana section of Kekaha Sugar Co. by manager HP Faye.

Danford had proved so popular as a supervisor at Makaweli that laborers who had finished their contracts there followed him to Mana in order to continue working for him.

He was promoted to assistant manager of Kekaha Sugar Co. and became its manager after HP Faye died in 1928, a position he then held until he died.

In those days, the sugar plantation hierarchy was stratified by race. Caucasians were managers and top supervisors, Portuguese dominated the lower-ranking supervisory class, while Asian workers, for the most part, occupied the lowest echelon.

Socializing between the plantation elite and Asians was practically unheard of.

Yet Danford was apparently an exception, as evidenced in the 1990s, when Kaua‘i doctor Thomas B. Williamson, a great grandson of William Danford, met an old Japanese woman who recalled that as a young girl she was routinely invited to the movies with Danford’s children.

Koke‘e’s Danford house was designed and built in the 1930s in a distinctive 19th-century, hip-roofed cottage-style by architect and Waimea Sugar Co. manager Alan Faye as a Danford family retreat.

William Danford and his wife, Jean, had two children: daughter Alys L. and son William Harwood Danford.

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WWII Veteran Jiro Yukimura

Following his graduation from Kaua‘i High School, Lihu‘e born and raised Jiro Yukimura attended the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa and was in Honolulu on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when he witnessed black smoke and enemy aircraft in the sky during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

After college in 1943, he enlisted in the Army’s 442nd Regimental Combat Team, was assigned to the Military Intelligence Service and sent to Camp Savage, Minnesota for Japanese language training.

Yukimura later translated captured Japanese documents in Brisbane, Australia, was commissioned a 2nd Lt., and was assigned to the Army press corps in Manila.

While in Manila following the initial announcement of Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, Yukimura was ordered to cover the formal surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay, Japan aboard the battleship “USS Missouri” on Sept. 2, 1945.

Prior to the surrender, Yukimura met General Douglas MacArthur at Atsugi Airfield upon the general’s arrival in Japan on Aug. 30, and on Sept. 2, he was among the 150 reporters, photographers, motion-picture cameramen and radio broadcasters who boarded the “Missouri” from the destroyer “USS Taylor” to report the proceedings.

Yukimura was positioned behind a railing about 50 feet above the surrender table where MacArthur sat, while allied officers lined the decks.

“Of course, MacArthur made sure he had good coverage. He took care of the news people, and fortunately, I was attached to them. We were right up there on the deck. It was a solemn affair. The ceremony wasn’t very long. It was held at a simple table. General MacArthur was in his usual attire with his corncob pipe,”

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Yukimura recalled.

After the war, Yukimura completed graduate studies at UH, married Jennie Yoshioka and returned to Kaua‘i to work and raise five children. He now lives in Hanama‘ulu.

Bishop Museum’s Grass House

Bishop Museum Grass House, 1902 The grass house on exhibit in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum — the only authentic Hawaiian grass house in existence — was built at the museum in 1902 with posts and rafters made of naio, kauila and uhiuhi wood taken from an abandoned house located in Miloli‘i Valley, Kaua‘i, that had been built with stone tools prior to 1800.

Other native building materials needed to construct the house were obtained on Kaua‘i at Kalalau, Hanakapi‘ai, Haena, Hanalei, Kealia, Kapa‘a, Lihu‘e, Waimea and Kekaha, and also from the Big Island.

Over the years since 1902, several repairs were made and the house was restored in 2008.

William Brigham, director of Bishop Museum from 1898 to 1920, conceived the idea of displaying a grass house in the museum, and William Deverill of Hanalei was indispensable in procuring building materials.

In 1900, after Brigham received permission from Eric Knudsen, manager of Valdemar Knudsen Estate, which owned Miloli‘i Valley, to remove the frame of the abandoned house, Deverill shipped its 20 posts and rafters to Honolulu aboard the “Waialua.”

Deverill also obtained pili grass thatching from Mr. Brandt of Waimea in 1901 that was transported to Honolulu on the “Iwalani,” while hundreds of lama wood sticks, upon which the pili grass would be tied, were taken by Deverill’s workmen around Hanakapi‘ai, hauled out and sent to Honolulu from Haena on the “Malolo.”

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Ukiuki leaves, used to make cordage, were obtained on the Big Island by Keawe, the man charged with building the house.

Keawe also procured additional pili grass and competed its construction in 1902.

During restoration in 2008, pili grass, ukiuki leaves and scraps of ukiuki wood were gathered from throughout Hawai‘i with difficulty due to their scarcity, and Pomaikai Kaniaupio-Crozier, knowledgeable of building a traditional grass house, ensured authenticity.

WWII Veteran Captain Richard Betsui

Lt. Richard Betsui Standing Third From Left With Other Members Of Office Of Strategic Services, Detachment 101, During Ranger Training At Catalina Island, Calif., In 1944.

Born and raised in Hanapepe, Kauai, and educated at Mid-Pacific Institute and the University of Hawaii, Army Captain Richard Betsui (1909-1994) served with the OSS (Office of Strategic Services), Detachment 101 in the China-BurmaIndia Theater during WWII. Created as a United States intelligence agency during WWII with the mission of carrying out espionage activities behind enemy lines and led by William “Wild Bill” Donovan, the OSS was the forerunner of the CIA. In the China-Burma-India Theater, Detachment 101 soldiers parachuted behind Japanese enemy lines into remote areas to organize resistance groups that ambushed patrols, rescued downed American pilots, cleared jungle landing strips, blew up bridges, rail lines and supply dumps and cut off supply and communication lines. Detachment 101 also interrogated prisoners.

Betsui’s introduction to OSS began with a talk given to him and over 100 other 442nd Regimental Combat Team volunteers by Dr. Daniel Buchanan at Camp 281

Shelby, Mississippi in July 1943.

Buchanan asked, “You are being recruited for a special dangerous mission in the Far East…. A mission more hazardous than combat, so hazardous that it may be a oneway street. Do you still want to volunteer?” Not one soldier wavered.

Of those 100 Nisei volunteers, Betsui was among 23 selected to undergo OSS training in Illinois, Minnesota and Catalina Island, California. The training included Morse code, radio operation and repair, Japanese language, and Ranger tactics and techniques.

Only Betsui and 13 others successfully completed training and were sent to India, where they were assigned classified missions with Detachment 101 in China, Burma and India, with Betsui serving in India and Burma.

After WWII, Betsui married Doris Mikasa and they raised three daughters. He taught high school math on Oahu and was Vice Principle of Waialua High School and Leilehua Intermediate and High School.

Hanapepe School

Missionaries Samuel And Nancy Ruggles The forerunner of Kauai’s Eleele School was Hanapepe School, established by missionary Samuel Ruggles and his wife, Nancy, sometime between 1820, when the couple first arrived at Waimea with missionary Samuel Whitney and his wife, Mercy, and 1824, when the Ruggleses temporarily transferred to the Hilo mission station.

Ruggles’ school, abandoned in early 1824, was situated near one of the pali within Hanapepe Valley about a mile from the ocean.

By 1837, a new school to replace Ruggles’ school was started at Hanapepe by Samuel Whitney that was located on the Waimea side of the road leading to the Salt Pond area. In 1847, this school’s teachers were Kapihenui, Iese, and Kaiwi.

Thirteen years later, in 1860, there were three schools in Hanapepe: Hanapepe Uka (back in the valley), Hanapepe Kai (in the lower valley), and Puulima 282

(location unknown). Only Uka and Kai remained in 1865, when school official Valdemar Knudsen ordered them joined at a new location in the middle of the valley.

Hanapepe School listed 58 students in 1886: 12 male and 11 female Hawaiians, 1 male and 3 female part-Hawaiians, 5 male and 2 female Germans, and 15 male and 9 female Portuguese.

When Hugh H. Brodie became principal in 1897, the school had 122 students taught by Miss Saint Clair F. Nickelson and Joaquin Vicente.

Courses taught at the school in 1906 included language, arithmetic, nature study, geography, physiology, writing, art, music and calisthenics.

In 1911, the Commissioners of Public Education decided to build a new school to be named Eleele School at its current location atop the bluff at Eleele overlooking Hanapepe Valley on 7 1/2 acres secured from McBryde Sugar Co. Ltd. Eleele School opened in 1912, and Hanapepe School closed after serving generations of west side students since the early 1800s.

WWII Veteran Toshiharu Yama

Toshiharu Yama (1908-1976) was born and raised on Kaua‘i and had attended Hanama‘ulu School and Kaua‘i High School and worked for Lihu‘e Plantation before serving in the Army’s Military Intelligence Service during WWII as a Japanese language interpreter.

The MIS to which T/5 Yama belonged was comprised primarily of Nisei Japanese Americans trained in the Japanese language who served in the Pacific Theater of WWII with United States and Allied Armed Forces.

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Their duties included translating captured Japanese documents, interrogating enemy POWs, persuading Japanese soldiers to surrender, and monitoring and intercepting enemy radio communications.

In August and September of 1945, Yama, who had recently arrived in the Philippines, recorded his experiences there in letters home to Kaua‘i.

He wrote that after disembarking his ship in Manila Harbor, Filipino children ran alongside calling out, “Hey, Joe, want banana, mango, coconut, pineapple?”

When GIs yelled back, “How much?” the youngsters replied, “One pack cigarette.”

Yama also noted that his guide in Manila was Army Cpl. Andres Cariaso, who had fought in defense of Manila during the Japanese invasion in 1941-1942 and had later evacuated to the mountains to join guerilla forces.

Another highlight Yama wrote of was his purchase in Manila of a souvenir handkerchief for his wife on Kaua‘i embroidered with “Philippines 1945.”

At camp outside Manila, Yama also mentioned he had met T/4 Natalio Artacho of the Army’s 1st Filipino Regiment, who had known Yama’s father during 1924-1926, when the elder Yama had been a luna with Lihu‘e Plantation and Artacho had worked in Kealia for Makee Sugar.

After the war, Yama attended Southern Methodist University, served in the Territorial House of Representatives (1952-1956), and retired as Kaua‘i manager of the Hawai‘i Housing Authority.

He and his wife, Kikue “Kay” Tamayose, had two children, Karen and Eric.

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Lindemann’s Coconut Grove

Lindemann’s Coconut Grove, 1933 Among the hundreds of trees planted in Wailua Valley, Kaua‘i, in the 1800s by German immigrant E. Lindemann is the grove of coconut trees he planted in 1896 on leased land that would later become the property of the Coco Palms Resort.

The grove, still to be seen to this day, was the first coconut grove planted on Kaua‘i .

Lindemann’s intent was to produce copra for profit, so he imported a variety of coconut from Samoa to plant that was bigger than the native Hawaiian variety and therefore potentially more profitable.

Some of his trees began to bear nuts after only five years, a testament to his having dug holes as deep as six or seven feet, which he filled with top soil and manure prior to planting. Still, Lindemann’s copra venture proved to be commercially unprofitable.

E. Lindemann had come to Kaua‘i directly from Germany in 1864 to manage the 1,000-acre Wailua Ranch for Hoffschlaeger & Co. and took residence in Thomas Brown’s “Wailua Mansion” — an English-style manor house built with a wooden frame, shipped unassembled from England via China, which was situated on the bluff above the junction of the north and south forks of the Wailua River.

In the late 1870s, King David Kalakaua ordered the mansion disassembled and moved into the valley, intending to rebuild it at Kapahi, but his plans went nowhere and Brown’s mansion decayed and vanished.

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Some years afterwards, Lindemann resided in a grass house behind the present coconut grove. It was destroyed by fire.

Lindemann also planted cotton on 10 acres at Konolea, located just beyond the Fern Grotto, another commercial failure.

Ever industrious, in 1870 he planted 100 acres of sugarcane mauka of the present coconut grove, after which he raised sheep, cattle and horses in Wailua Valley.

Navy Lt. Cdr. Cedric Baldwin Killed In Action During WWII

On Jan. 17, 1945, Navy Lt. Cdr. Cedric Baldwin (1901-1945), manager of Kaua‘i’s McBryde Sugar Co. Ltd. from January, 1938 to November, 1942, was killed in action while directing landing operations during the battle of Iwo Jima.

Baldwin was born on Maui, a fourth generation descendant of American Protestant missionary Dwight Baldwin, and was educated at the University of California, Berkeley.

He was survived by his wife, Jessie, and three children.

The Battle of Iwo Jima in which Baldwin was killed was one of the most fiercely fought battles of WWII. Japanese soldiers and attacking United States Marines supported by American sailors fought each other savagely for 35 days ( Feb. 19 - March 26, 1945) on an eight sq. mi. island.

When the battle ended, 6,812 Americans were killed or missing, two were captured and killed and 19,217 were wounded. 21,844 Japanese were killed or committed suicide; only 216 were captured.

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Iwo Jima was invaded to destroy its air base and to provide a landing and refueling site for American bombers and a staging area for the planned invasion of the Japanese mainland.

Another secret reason for taking Iwo Jima was that it was designated as an emergency landing point for B-29 bombers that would drop atomic bombs on Japan.

After Iwo Jima’s capture, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, USN noted: “The battle of Iwo Jima has been won. Among the Americans who served on Iwo, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Twenty-two marines and five sailors were awarded the Medal of Honor for their actions on Iwo Jima, 13 of them posthumously.

American photographer Joe Rosenthal’s historic picture of the raising of the American flag atop Iwo Jima’s Mount Suribachi by five Marines and one Navy corpsman is possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time.

Coco Palms Lodge Opens

Coco Palms Lodge, 1951 On Saturday night, May 5, 1951, the Coco Palms Lodge opened in Wailua with a steak dinner and dancing to the music of Louise Kaneakua’s Hawaiian Orchestra on the outdoor pavilion by the lagoon.

Shannon Walker was the lodge manager, Norma Thompson supervised its dining room and Earl Rader served as chef.

Alfred Hills, its owner, had bought the lodge property in 1913, because its coconut grove reminded him of Tahiti, the place of his birth.

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Hills then built his home between the lagoon and the ocean, which during WWII was opened to military personnel stationed on Kauai, and by 1951, he’d renovated his home and property into the Coco Palms Lodge.

The grove that Hills so admired had been created by E. Lindemann in the 1890s by planting coconuts he’d imported from Samoa in deeply-dug holes filled with good soil and manure.

Many years earlier, during the 1830s and well into the 1840s, Lindemann’s and Hills’ property had been the site of Queen Deborah Kapule’s (1798?-1853) home, which also served as an inn for travelers. Behind her home lay taro patches, walled fish ponds and pastures.

If travelers were heading north, they’d stop at the southern shore of the river and call across for a canoe, and one of Deborah’s men would ferry them across, while horses swam behind or walked over the sandbar.

A fleet of canoes at the river’s edge was also available for upriver travel.

Once ashore, travelers would walk to Deborah’s home, where she welcomed them with much aloha.

One year after Hills died in 1953, his wife sold the lodge to Lyle Guslander.

Guslander’s wife, Grace Buscher Guslander, would transform Hills’ 24-room lodge with five employees into the best-known resort in all Hawai‘i — the Coco Palms Hotel.

The Lydgate’s Grass House

Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate (1854-1922), the pastor of Lihu‘e Union Church from 1898 through 1919, and the man for whom Lydgate Park is named, spent many a happy day with Mrs. Helen Lydgate and their young sons, John Mortimer Jr., Theodore Homer, Elwell Percy and Lloyd William Anthony, at their beloved grass house situated at the base of Mt. Kahili.

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Their outings to the grass house would begin at home in Lihu‘e, where Lydgate would hitch his horse, Clara, to his carriage and then, with reins in hand and with his wife and boys aboard, he would drive out to Halfway Bridge on the old macadam road from Lihu‘e.

At Halfway Bridge, Lydgate would turn mauka, passing over rough terrain, streams and upland meadows toward Mt. Kahili.

Not far from their grass house stood the grass house of the Hawaiian married couple who’d built much of Lydgate’s grass house.

In the Hawaiian language, Lydgate had asked them to build the grass portions of his house, a price was set and an agreement was reached. But first, a wooden frame and paper roofing was constructed by a Japanese carpenter.

Then the Hawaiian couple tied bamboo poles with bark twine over the outside of the frame, until it looked somewhat like a giant birdcage. Next, they tied rushes and grass under the bamboos, working from the bottom up. After they’d applied a trimming of dried ferns at the corners and a braided finish around the windows, they were done.

Inside, there was a long punee bed. Cooking was done just outside the house with a Japanese stove on an open hearth. Close by were easy chairs.

Then one day, a Kona gale destroyed the house. After seeing its wreckage lodged in trees below, Lydgate commented forlornly in Latin, “Sic transit gloria mundi,” which in English means “Worldly things are fleeting.”

Townsley’s Pig Hunters

Paul Townsley Front Row Left With His Officers

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Paul H. Townsley (1889-1956), the office manager of Lihue Plantation from 1929 to 1954, was commissioned a colonel in the Army during WWII and was charged with the responsibility of selecting, organizing and commanding a local militia to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard in defense of Kauai.

Townsley’s efforts resulted in the formation of the Kauai Volunteers, a regimental-sized militia composed of three battalions numbering about 2,400 men, 90 percent of whom were Filipinos employed by Kauai’s sugar plantations.

Their duties included beach defense, guard duty, and scouting in support of regular Army soldiers unfamiliar with Kauai’s rugged interior.

One of Townsley’s officers was Captain Alan Faye Sr. whose mounted troops patrolled the highlands.

Faye’s men, mainly Portuguese and Hawaiian paniolos, were expert pig hunters and Faye saw no reason not to integrate military maneuvers and pig hunting -- with pigs being the enemy.

In the morning, two of Faye’s paniolos on horseback with their best tracking dogs would take the lead as scouts to locate pigs.

Following the scouts at some distance would be a mounted squad of eight men and the remainder of the hunting dogs. Their duty was to support the scouts and act as liaison with the main troop riding behind them.

Faye personally led the main troop, which carried camp equipment on spare horses and mules.

As the hunt progressed, Faye would receive dispatches from the front such as, “Captain Faye, sir, a large force of the enemy is heading toward Halemanu!”

Once the enemy was given chase, most hunters would rush forward in pursuit, yet a few would form a rearguard and bring up the pack horses and mules.

After a successful day of maneuvers, Faye would issue his report to regimental headquarters: “Met the enemy, captured him, ate him.”

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Capt. Carl H. Carlsen

Captain Carlsen Seated Left, 1932 Capt. Carl H. Carlsen’s (1900-1961) seagoing career began in 1916 when he enlisted in the Navy and chased German raiders during WWI aboard the battleship USS Oregon, after which he joined the Coast Guard and went to sea on board the cutter Mojave.

Following his Coast Guard service in the late 1920s, he moved to Honolulu and signed on as 3rd Mate with Inter-Island Steam Navigation Co., which ran steamship service between the main Hawaiian islands until 1947.

Then there was a spell in Washington, his home state, during which he bought and captained a steam tugboat on Puget Sound.

In the 30s, Carlsen returned to Hawai‘i and Inter-Island as Chief Mate and then advanced to Captain. His first command was SS Haleakala.

Over the years, “Big Swede” (his nickname on the waterfronts) also skippered SS Wai‘ale‘ale and SS Hualalai.

One time during the 30s, Capt. Carlsen was docking Hualalai at Nawiliwili while Hualalai’s motor lifeboat ran lines to the dock.

When the lifeboat operator decided to run aft between the ship and the dock — as he’d been ordered not to do — and the lifeboat’s motor then conked out, Carlsen leaned over Hualalai’s port bridge wind dodger and proceeded to chew him out.

Meanwhile, Hualalai’s 250 passengers were leaning on the rails, witnessing all that had transpired.

Carlsen’s blast continued unabated, when out of the shadow of the dock warehouse stepped Dot Eldon, wife of Jack Eldon, an engineer at McBryde Sugar Co., and good friends of both Carlsen and his wife, Ida.

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Upon seeing her, Carlsen abruptly stopped. A moment of expectant silence occurred. Then Dot said, “Why Carl, I never knew you swore,” and the passengers exploded in laughter.

Capt. Carl “Big Swede” Carlsen and Ida Carlsen had two children, Pauline and Ehrling.

Delaney’s Old Kentucky Minstrels Play In Lihue

The greatest attraction of the Kamehameha Carnival held Nov. 6 to13, 1926 at the Lihu‘e ballpark (then located in the area now occupied by the Pi‘ikoi building and the adjoining parking lot) was Delaney’s Old Kentucky Minstrels.

Delaney’s was one of a number of African-American minstrel tent shows that toured with carnivals mostly in the American South during the teens and ‘20s.

Featuring 16 highly talented Black singers, dancers, comedians and musicians, Delaney’s minstrels presented several tent shows at the Kamehameha Carnival — the likes of which had not been seen before on Kaua‘i.

Performing before Kaua‘i folks from all over the island, who filled their show tent to capacity, was the Wild Cat Jazz Band, a six-musician jazz ensemble playing trumpet, saxophone, trombone and drums; the “Kentucky Song Bird,” La Verne Porter; the stylish male dance team of Go Paul & Stewart; the “The Black Al Jolsen,” comedian Nat De Loach; and the male and female singing and dancing duo of Ruffin & Ruffin.

Another favorite of the thousands who attended the weeklong Kamehameha Carnival was the R. E. Homer’s Circus, a pony show “with some of besteducated horses in the business.”

The Ferris wheel, merry-go-round and the whip were big hits, also.

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Concessions manned by members of the Kaumuali‘i Chapter of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, wearing yellow lodge hats, sold hot dogs, ice cream, lemonade and soda.

Dr. L. L. Patterson of Hanalei drew the number to win a brand new Pontiac.

And on Saturday, the 13th, Miss Marie Keikilani Robinson of Waimea won the popularity contest and a free round trip to Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Lorraine Fountain of Lihu‘e, Miss Victorino of Kapa‘a and Beatrice Ledesma of Koloa finished in second, third and fourth places, respectively.

WWII Veteran Hisae Shimatsu

Hisae Shimatsu Standing 4th Row, 3rd From Right, Co. F, At Camp McCoy WI., 1942.

Kekaha, Kaua‘i-born-and-raised Hisae Shimatsu (1912-2002) had attended Kekaha School and had worked in the Kekaha Sugar Co. mill before joining the Army and serving with the 100th Infantry Bn. during WWII. During the 100th Bn.’s battle on Hill 600 near Pozzilli, Italy in Nov., 1943, then platoon sergeant Shimatsu and his men, although outnumbered 4 to 1, stopped a counter-attack by about a company of German soldiers, killing half of them and dispersing the remainder.

For his leadership on Hill 600, Shimatsu was awarded a battlefield promotion to 2nd. Lt. on January 4, 1944.

Then, on Jan. 23, 1944, he was captured by German soldiers near Cassino,

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Italy and sent to Oflag 64, a German prison camp for officers located at Szubin, Poland.

In July, 1944, he was temporarily taken to Berlin for interrogation. The Germans were mainly curious to know whether he felt any allegiance to toward Japan.

“Hell no,” he replied. “I’m an American citizen. I fight for America.”

Just prior to the Russian Army’s advance on Szubin, Poland on Jan. 21, 1945, Shimatsu and the other POWs of Oflag 64 were marched by their fleeing German captors toward another camp about 20 miles to the west.

During a rest break on the march, Shimatsu and fellow POW Lt. Samuel M. Sakamoto of Honolulu went into a barn and hid in the hay, and the Germans, terrified of being taken prisoner by the approaching Russian soldiers, wasted no time searching for them. Instead, they quickly marched off with the other POWs. Shimatsu and Sakamoto were free.

Lt. Shimatsu returned home to Kekaha in June 1945, where he and his wife, Tomoe, raised a family and where he eventually retired from Kekaha Sugar as a harvesting supervisor.

Kauai School Teacher Eleanor Hobby

Born in Iowa in 1889 and educated there, Eleanor Hobby moved to Hawai‘i in 1914 with her husband, William Hobby, an engineer who had taken a job in Hilo with the Department of Public Works.

There, Eleanor taught school for a year until 1916, when her husband transferred to Honolulu.

In 1919, after three years in Honolulu, Mr. Hobby accepted another position as engineer at Lihu‘e Plantation and the Hobbys moved to Kaua‘i, where Eleanor began her long career as an educator of two generations of Kaua‘i’s school children, until 1954, when she retired.

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Her first teaching appointment on Kaua‘i was as one of three teachers assigned to the High School English Standard Annex, which was located on the grounds of Kaua‘i High School and included grades one through eight. (In 1926, the High School English Standard Annex was combined with Lihu‘e School in Pua Loke, situated in the area nowadays occupied by a park, government buildings and M. Kawamura Enterprises.)

Mrs. Hobby taught for three years at the High School English Standard Annex, then taught for one year at Lihu‘e School, where the principal was Mrs. Edith Troeller.

She then succeeded Mrs. Dora Ahana for a year as principal of Huleia School, which at that time during the 1920s was a fair-sized school with about 155 pupils.

Huleia School was located not far down the dirt road beginning just to the left of the William Hyde Rice Monument at the end of Kipu Road.

From Huleia School, Eleanor served as principal of Makaweli School for four years, followed by 19 years service as principal of ‘Ele‘ele School.

Mrs. Hobby’s last principalship, from 1952 to 1954, was at Lihu‘e School, once again succeeding Mrs. Dora Ahana.

Eleanor and William Hobby had three children: Ruth, William and Richard.

The Waimea Fire Of 1939

In the early morning hours of Sunday, July 2, 1939, the worst fire in the history of Waimea, Kaua‘i was ignited by a short circuit in a truck inside a garage on C. B. Hofgaard Co. property located on the northwest corner of La‘au and Moana roads.

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The fire soon erupted into a blaze that quickly spread to an adjacent warehouse that had formerly been used as the Waimea Theater, also on Hofgaard Co. property. From there it leapt makai across La‘au Rd. into the Hofgaard lumber yard.

It was Gosuku Seto who first noticed smoke issuing from the garage while fishing on Waimea Pier, and who immediately turned in an alarm, and when County Supervisor Noboru Miyake of Waimea was informed of the fire, he ordered county fire equipment brought from Hanapepe, Koloa and Lihu‘e.

The Waimea Fire Department, joined later by the other firemen, reacted quickly by hosing streams of water on the flaming garage, warehouse and lumber yard.

They also hosed other buildings, threatened yet untouched by fire, located in the block bordered by Pokole, La‘au, Moana and the main road running through Waimea to Kekaha — work that prevented the fire from consuming them and spreading farther into Waimea.

The Waimea and Kekaha sugar plantations contributed by sending men in trucks to the scene to assist in fighting the fire, and volunteer firefighters, attracted by the flames, fought the fire by clearing a wide firebreak in the lumber yard to stop the fire from traveling further to nearby buildings.

Fire damage that destroyed the garage, the storage warehouse, seven trucks and a portion of the lumberyard was estimated at $40,000.

Grateful merchants, whose stores were saved by the firefighters’ efforts, expressed their thanks in the morning by providing them with food.

Don Francisco de Paula Marin Visits Kauai

Don Francisco de Paula Marin (1774–1837), the Spanish adventurer who

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settled in Hawaii in 1793 or 1794 and became the confidante, adviser, interpreter, physician and bookkeeper to Kamehameha I, visited Kaua‘i at least twice during his more than forty-year residence in Hawai‘i.

Marin’s first visit occurred on Jan. 30, 1816, while he was in route to California from Honolulu aboard Captain Ebbets’ “Enterprise.”

After “Enterprise” had anchored off Waimea, Kaua‘i, Marin and others went ashore to trade with King Kaumuali‘i, but since a kapu was in effect, they could do no business, and the “Enterprise” soon sailed away.

Don Francisco’s second known Kaua‘i visit took place between March 18th and March 24, 1818. His ship was of Boston, Massachusetts origin, but its name and its captain’s identity is unknown.

The purpose of the ship’s visit was to obtain tribute for Kamehameha from Kaumuali’i, who at that time ruled Kaua‘i as a vassal of Kamehameha.

When Marin’s ship anchored off Waimea on the 18th, a canoe came off to inquire whether it be friend or foe. Then Marin, along with Kamehameha’s emissary, Ka‘aimoku, and others went ashore to see Kaumuali’i and his minister, Kamaholelani.

Not long after, Kaumuali’i informed Ka‘aimoku through Kamaholelani that he was delighted that Kamehameha had sent for sandalwood, and he would be pleased to give it.

Later that day, Kalaiupa, Kahua and Kaihi got drunk ashore before being returned on board, and on the 23rd, the day before the ship departed for California, rum was brought aboard for Minister Kalanimoku at Honolulu.

Marin was also a hotelier, a storekeeper and a horticulturist who introduced many plants to Hawai‘i, including the olive, peach and grape. Hawai‘i’s first pineapples, cotton and mango were grown by him, and he produced Hawai‘i’s first wine.

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Kauai’s Revolutionists

United States Marines Ashore During the Overthrow Three men with Kaua‘i roots — Sanford Ballard Dole, Albert Spencer Wilcox and William Owen Smith — were among the revolutionists that deposed Queen Lili‘uokalani and overthrew the Hawaiian Monarchy in Honolulu on Jan. 17, 1893.

Sanford Ballard Dole, an attorney, legislator and judge, the second son of missionary parents Rev. Daniel & Mrs. Emily Dole, although born at Punahou, O‘ahu, was raised in Koloa.

On the day of the overthrow, Dole and Kaua‘i sugar planter Albert Spencer Wilcox, also raised on Kaua‘i at Wai‘oli, and a son of missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox, along with about 20 other revolutionists, took possession of the undefended Ali‘iolani Hale, the government building on King Street.

Armed volunteers followed, and at about 2 p.m., a proclamation was read at Ali‘iolani Hale that declared Queen Lili‘uokalani deposed, the end of the monarchy, and the establishment of a provisional government.

Just after sunset that day, Lili‘uokalani yielded her sovereignty, not to the newly formed Provisional Government headed by Dole, but “to the superior force of the United States of America,” her statement made tangible by the landing in Honolulu on Jan. 16th of a 162-man company of mostly United States Marines and some U. S. Navy sailors from the U.S.S. Boston, then in Honolulu Harbor, at the request of U. S. Minister Stevens.

Lawyer and legislator William Owen Smith, born and raised in Koloa, the eldest son of Kaua‘i missionaries Dr. and Mrs. James W. Smith, was one of the most

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influential members of the Committee of Safety that planned the overthrow.

Smith’s law office in Honolulu was the Committee of Safety’s headquarters.

Sanford Dole became president of the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands, the first president of the Republic of Hawai‘i, and the first governor of the Territory of Hawai‘i.

WWII Veteran 1st. Lt. “Oley” Olaf Olsen

On July 11, 1944, while serving as navigator-gunnery officer of the B-24 bomber Flak Alley II, Kaua‘i-born-and-raised 1st. Lt. “Oley” Olaf Olsen (1916-1971) became the first Kaua‘i serviceman wounded in the European theater air forces, when his bomber was hit by flak over Munich, Germany, and was forced to ditch in the English Channel.

Flak hit the bomber just prior to its bomb release, damaging all four of its engines, but Flak Alley II was still able to drop its bombs and hold flight formation on its return flight to base in Colgate, England, until approximately one hour before reaching the coast of Europe.

At that time, the bomber’s pilot, 1st. Lt. Bonnet, realizing the bomber would not make it to England, informed his P-38 escort fighters and Colgate air base of his decision to ditch. He then jettisoned equipment and ordered his crew to ditching stations.

By the time the bomber reached the English Channel, its engines had failed and Bonnet and copilot Van Dyke were trying to slow its descent.

Despite their efforts, the bomber hit the channel at 100 mph and broke in two, killing engineer Kushinski. Gunners McCandless, Butler, Belsky and Banning

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were drowned.

Three of the four survivors, Bonnet, Van Dyke, and Olsen, his left leg shattered, managed to climb aboard a dinghy in icy waters with 18-foot-high waves, while badly injured radio operator Garvey was weakening as he alternately surfaced and sunk alongside.

Garvey was at the moment of death when Olsen, in great pain, reached over, grabbed his epaulets and held him until the four were rescued by an English destroyer.

Lt. “Oley” Olsen’s leg was operated on in England and in the United States, where he recovered. Kaua‘i’s “Oley” Olsen eventually settled in California.

The Wreck Of The Nettie Merrill

A Seagoing Schooner On a breezy February afternoon in 1888, the schooner “Nettie Merrill,” Captain Ezra D. Crane (1831-1898), came to anchor off Waimea, Kaua‘i laden with a cargo of lumber scheduled for delivery to the Kekaha Sugar Mill the next day.

Southerly breezes began to pick up later on, so Crane prudently ordered a second anchor dropped for safety’s sake, and soon after, while winds quickly strengthened, he directed his men to tie a mooring line to a buoy as an added precaution.

But to no avail, for by evening, storm winds and tremendous waves were battering “Nettie Merrill,” dragging its anchors along the sea floor and tossing it helplessly onto the reef.

Then, while the crew prepared to abandon ship and swim to shore, they discovered the mooring line had been cut with a knife.

Soon, only Captain Crane remained on board, clinging to the useless helm.

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On shore, when crewmen told spectators of the captain’s plight, one of them, a sturdy, young Ni‘ihau woman named Pale Kapahee (1868-1925) walked into the surf without hesitation, waded into deeper water and began swimming to the floundering schooner.

Upon reaching the then half-submerged vessel, she made her way to the forward mast, where she could see Captain Crane at the helm.

“Come!” she yelled.

“But, I can’t swim!”

Pale then inched her way across the pitching deck, grabbed Crane and jumped overboard with him just a few moments before the mainmast fell.

Once ashore, he offered her a token of his thanks, which she refused and then walked away.

It was later learned that two deserting crewmen had cut the schooner’s mooring line.

“Nettie Merrill” was salvaged but never sailed again, and Captain Crane left his seafaring life to join the Honolulu Water Works.

Chiefess Kamakahelei

Artist Karen Lucas Sculpted The Statue Of Chiefess Kamakahelei In 1779, Kamakahelei (unknown - 1794), who was a chiefess of the highest ali‘i rank, a descendent of the earliest rulers of O‘ahu, and the hereditary ruling chief of Kaua‘i, married Kaeokulani, her second husband and a high chief of Maui.

Shortly thereafter in that same year, Kamakahelei and her new husband

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became king and queen of Kaua‘i by leading a revolt that deposed King Kaneoneo, Kamakahelei’s first husband.

Also in 1779, Kamakahelei placed Keawe, her young son by Kaneoneo, on the throne.

But, when Kaumuali‘i (1780 - 1824), her son from Kaeokulani, was born in the following year, Kaeokulani replaced Keawe with Kaumuali‘i, and then became regent for Kaumuali‘i.

William Ellis, Capt. James Cook’s surgeon, described Kamakahelei as “short and lusty … and very plain with respect to person,” which is in contrast to historian Samuel Kamakau’s description of her son, Kaumuali‘i.

Kamakau wrote of Kaumuali‘i, who would become Kaua‘i’s last king, as being “a handsome man, light in complexion and with a nose and general features like a white man’s. He was rather light in build, but he had a good carriage.”

Kamakahelei was also believed to possess a secret, most powerful and sacred prayer, greatly feared throughout Hawai‘i, called the “Aneekapuahi,” which could cause an enemy’s immediate incineration.

In 1794, the year Kamakahelei died and Kaeokulani was killed fighting against Kamehameha I in battle on O‘ahu, Kaumuali‘i and a chief named Inamoo were acting as Kaeokulani’s regents on Kaua‘i in his absence.

Two years later, a civil war was fought between the forces of Kaumuali‘i and Keawe, with Keawe being victorious.

Keawe then placed Kaumuali‘i under house arrest, but when Keawe died about a year later, 16-year-old Kaumuali‘i was restored to the throne.

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Kauai’s Whaling History

The major Hawaiian ports of call for hundreds of whalers during the 19th century were Honolulu and Lahaina, where whalers restocked provisions, replenished crews and transshipped whale oil cargoes following whale hunts in the Japan Sea, the South Pacific or the Arctic.

Whalers visiting the lesser Kaua‘i ports of Hanalei, Waimea and Koloa for like purposes benefited Kaua‘i’s economy.

Kaua‘i farmers grew potatoes and other vegetables to supply whalers.

Paniolos sold them beef. Fresh water was in demand, and new businesses that serviced whalers — blacksmiths, bakers, boarding houses, carpenters, laundries, sailmakers and shops — flourished.

In the late 1840s, for instance, Hanalei rancher and former French consul for Hawai‘i, Jules Dudoit, packed salt beef for whalers at Hanalei.

And during the mid 1800s at Koloa, businessman George Charman sold wood, sheep, goats, butter, salt beef, oranges, coffee, bananas, Irish and sweet potatoes, melons, molasses and other supplies to whale-ship captains.

The dangers of whaling became apparent on Kaua‘i on several occasions. To cite two examples: In June 1842, the whaler “Jefferson” was wrecked on the reefs off Waimea with a loss of 2,560 barrels of whale oil.

Another whaler, the “William Thompson,” was sailing about 45 miles northwest of Kaua‘i on April 18, 1847, when a fire was discovered in its hold. When it reached Waimea on the 19th, holes were bored into its deck and water was poured down its hold, actions that contained the fire well enough for its return to Honolulu for repairs.

Life aboard a whaler was harsh and discipline was severe, as was illustrated aboard the whaler “Hillman” off Waimea on 20 March, 1852, when its captain

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ordered his prisoners — two or three deserters captured on the Big Island — tied to the whaler’s rigging and given 12 lashes each.

Old-Timers Reminisce In 1948

Old Hanamaulu Sugar Mill In August of 1948, Hanama‘ulu residents Joe Sa and Sakichi Higashi, both recently retired employees of Lihu‘e Plantation, reminisced about the old days.

Born in Madeira, Portugal in 1881, Sa remembered that jobs were hard to come by when he was a young man there. When there was no work to be found, he made wooden chairs, spending long hours crafting them.

“And what did you get for one chair?” he said. “Only 35 cents.”

He decided to seek a better life. In 1909, he and his wife, Antonia Jesus, set sail for the Hawaiian Islands on a large boat.

The Panama Canal had not yet been completed, so the boat sailed the stormy, dangerous passage around Cape Horn on its 48-day voyage to Hawai‘i.

“Sometimes, we were lucky to make a mile during the day, trying to buck our way past Cape Stiff,” he said.

Sa went to work for Kealia’s Makee Sugar Co. as a cane cutter. Later, he became a carpenter for Lihu‘e Plantation. The Sas had five children and many grandchildren.

Sakichi Higashi, who also retired as a carpenter, was born in Yamaguchi-Ken, Japan, in 1881 and was educated there.

In 1903, he immigrated to Kaua‘i, where he married Kiku Morita of Kilauea, with whom he had seven children.

Thinking of the old days and pointing to the main Macadam road running through Hanama‘ulu, he said, “The roads were something after it had rained.

Why, the road here used to get so muddy that buggies had trouble moving. Mud 304

came up to the hubs of the wheels. It was a day’s journey to get from Hanama‘ulu to Kealia, and if you lost a wheel on the buggy, it took a day to get help.”

Liliuokalani’s Kauai Visits

In midsummer of 1889, Princess Lili‘uokalani made the second of at least three visits to Kaua‘i.

Her first trip to Kaua‘i occurred in September 1881, when she’d been the guest of Paul Puhiula Kanoa, Kaua‘i’s governor from 1881 to 1886.

She stayed at Kanoa’s Niumalu home, and at Kilauea, she visited the newly built Kilauea Sugar Plantation railroad.

Lili‘uokalani would also tour Kaua‘i as queen in January 1891 in the company of William Hyde Rice, whom she would appoint to govern Kaua‘i in 1892.

During her stay, Lili‘uokalani toured the island, and at a grand farewell lu‘au prepared for her by Rice at Kalapaki, Rice brought her drinking water from a now-vanished sacred spring at Kipukai.

On her 1889 visit, Lili‘uokalani stayed once again at Kanoa’s residence, toured Kaua‘i and paid a special visit to Francis Gay’s home outside Waimea.

New Zealand-born Gay had immigrated to Hawai‘i in 1863 with his grandmother, Eliza Sinclair, and other members of the Sinclair, Robinson and Gay families.

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By 1865, his grandmother had purchased Ni‘ihau from Kamehameha IV and the Makaweli ahupua‘a from Victoria Kamamalu.

On those Makaweli lands, the Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation, formed in 1889 as a partnership between Gay and his cousin, Aubrey Robinson, produced sugar until 2009.

Lili‘uokalani was particularly interested in learning from Gay the fate of three pairs of Hawai‘i O‘o birds (Moho nobilis) she’d previously sent to Gay. The yellow feathers of the Hawai‘i O‘o, endemic to the Big Island, had been used by Hawaiians in making feathered cloaks and capes.

Two pairs had been lost, but the third was thriving near Gay’s home.

All four species of ‘O‘o — the Kaua‘i ‘O‘o (Moho braccatus), O‘ahu ‘O‘o (Moho apicalus), Bishop’s ‘O‘o (Moho bishopi) and the Hawai‘i ‘O‘o — are now extinct.

Government Surveyor William DeWitt Alexander

As a consequence of surveys and maps of the Hawaiian Islands being largely inaccurate or nonexistent prior to 1870, the Hawaiian judicial system had been clogged with boundary and land ownership litigation, which hindered real estate sales, tax collections and economic development.

To address the need for accurate survey maps, the Bureau of Government Survey, under the direction of William DeWitt Alexander (1833-1913), surveyed the lands and waters of Hawai‘i between 1870 and 1898, compiling approximately 2,000 maps in the process and acquiring data that continues to be consulted.

The maps, field books and copies of land descriptions, grants and awards collected by the survey have also preserved numerous ancient Hawaiian place-

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names that would otherwise have been lost.

Born in Honolulu and educated at Punahou and Yale, Alexander resided at Wai‘oli, Kaua‘i, with his missionary parents from 1834 to 1843.

A historian, publisher, writer and teacher as well, Alexander became a member of the Privy Council of Kalakaua and Lili‘uokalani and Surveyor-General of the Territory of Hawai‘i.

Another individual with Kaua‘i ties who participated in the Hawaiian Government Survey was John M. Lydgate.

As a young man, Lydgate assisted in Alexander’s survey of Haleakala and laid out the first wagon road from Hilo to Kilauea. He eventually became pastor of Lihu‘e Union Church and a prominent figure on Kaua‘i.

Two maps resulting from government surveys on Kaua‘i that show excellent detail include one of Kaua‘i made by Charles Kittredge in 1878, and another of Koloa done by M. D. Monsarrat in 1891. Also notable are former British naval officer G. E. G. Jackson’s charts of Nawiliwili Harbor 1881, Hanalei Bay 1885 and Waimea Bay 1885.

The book “Mapping the Lands and Waters of Hawai‘i” by Moffat and Fitzpatrick, 2004, includes illustrations taken from Alexander’s government surveys.

Sugar Mill Engineer Olaf R. Olsen

The son of immigrant Norwegian homesteaders, Olaf R. Olsen was born in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i on the Big Island in 1881.

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As a teenager, he completed a four-year machinist apprenticeship at the Honolulu Iron Works and joined Kahuku Plantation, O‘ahu. By 1903, at age 22, his experience at making repairs and overhauling Kahuku’s sugar mill led to his promotion to chief engineer.

In 1919, Ole accepted the position of mill engineer at Lihu‘e Plantation and moved into a plantation house on German Hill, Lihu‘e.

Three years later, he set out from Waimea on horseback with a party of men that included Kaua‘i kama‘aina Eric Knudsen to measure rainfall atop Mt. Wai‘ale‘ale, the wettest spot on earth.

At Koke‘e, they dismounted and began a rugged hike toward Wai‘ale‘ale under continuous, heavy rainfall. Only Ole and Eric were able to reach the summit, taking their measurement inside a viewless, wet cloud.

In 1935, Lihu‘e Plantation dismantled its Makee sugar mill in Kealia and transported it by railroad to Lihu‘e, where Ole directed its reassembly and designed the expansion of the mill. Incredibly, he and his men accomplished the job while grinding operations continued unabated.

During WWII, Ole supervised the blackout of the Lihue mill, completing the work after Army planes flew over the mill at night and spotted lights shining through nail holes.

Among his outstanding engineering achievements was the invention of an efficient mill washing plant using “Olsen Rollers” to extracted trash, leaves, dirt and rocks from harvested sugarcane before processing.

He also redesigned mill rollers without keys, saving time and labor. Both inventions were adopted by other plantations.

Ole Olsen and his wife, Fanny, had two children, Thelma and Olaf. He died in 1966. His posthumous autobiography, “Norwegian Aloha,” was published in 2011.

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Filipino Immigrants Tomas and Mercedes Beralas

In 1927, sugar plantation contract laborer Tomas Beralas (1899-1984), his wife Mercedes (1899-1982), and their four-year-old son, Alfonso, of Abra Province, Philippines, arrived by steamship in Hawaii and were assigned to Lihue Plantation on Kauai.

Their home was in the old Lihue Camp, which was comprised of about 54 plantation houses situated immediately south of Poinciana Street, and another 20 houses located in the remaining part of the camp, which extended southward nearly to the sugar mill. In that home, Tomas and Mercedes raised eight children.

Tomas, a man of few words, worked mainly as a “kalai man,” hoeing weeds around irrigation ditches and in the cane fields, until he retired in 1967.

He would listen to the Filipino language program on KTOH radio in the early morning. Then a plantation labor truck would pick him up, along with other workers, and drive them to assigned cane fields, where he worked 10 hours a day, six days a week, for a dollar a day in the early years, with Sunday being his day of rest.

By the 1950s, plantation workers were given Saturday and Sunday off, and this was when he had more time to go fishing on weekends in the mountains or at the ocean.

His wife, Mercedes, never worked a job outside of her home. Her household chores and raising her children consumed most of her time.

Mercedes would beat Tomas’s dirt-stained work clothes with a wooden paddle, boil them in an iron barrel, scrub, rinse and dry them.

Her babies were rocked in “indayons” -- hammocks strung across beds for safety’s sake.

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She made delicious cancanen from mochi rice, brown rice, sugar and grated coconut.

Every-so-often, as was customary, she’d put the lit end of her homegrown, rolled tobacco in her mouth.

Inventor Henry Ginaca

During the 1900s, three pineapple canneries operated on Kaua‘i.

Hawaiian Canneries, which canned pineapples from 1913 to 1962, was located in Kapa‘a where Pono Kai now stands.

Another, Hawaiian Fruit Packers, operated its cannery on Kawaihau Road in Kapahi from 1932 to 1973. Only its warehouses remain standing.

And in Lawa‘i, at the present Old Lawa‘i Cannery location, Kaua‘i Pineapple Company produced canned pineapple from 1907 to 1964.

In each of these canneries, pineapples were processed by inventor Henry Ginaca’s amazing pineapple processing machines.

Comprising a marvelously complex assortment of gears, chains, cams, cutters, and corers, Ginaca’s machines sized pineapples, cut off their ends, peeled them, retained crushed pineapple and juice from the skins and removed the fibrous cores.

The earliest Ginaca machines increased production to about 50 pineapples per minute, a rate that eliminated hand-operated pineapple processing machines by which skilled workers cored, peeled, juiced, and sliced pineapples at a rate of 10 to 15 per minute. Improvements later increased production to 100 per minute.

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With Ginaca machines, entrepreneurs were able to process increased quantities of pineapple, making it practical to build canneries equipped for large-scale production and profit.

Born either in California or Nevada in 1876, Henry Ginaca, the son of an Italian civil engineer father and a French mother, became a machinist apprentice at the Union Iron Works in San Francisco as a teenager.

He was designing engines at Honolulu Iron Works in 1911, when James Dole, founder of Hawaiian Pineapple Company, hired him to develop a machine that could quickly prepare pineapples for canning.

Within a year, Ginaca had created his first successful design and made improvements until 1914, when he went to California to become a gold miner, a venture at which he failed.

Henry Ginaca died of influenza in California in 1918.

Kauai’s Kiawe Corps

Barking Sands Water Carriers During WWII, from June 1942 through 1944, the Kaua‘i Kiawe Corps, a volunteer civilian labor battalion overwhelmingly composed of able-bodied persons of Japanese ancestry, assisted the Army in defense of Kaua‘i.

Volunteers cut fields of fire with cane knives through trees and brush so that guns could cover possible landing beaches along Kaua‘i’s west side shorelines.

They also cleared kiawe thickets that could provide cover for possible invaders, strung barbed wire, built trails, opened areas for military camps, and helped build evacuation centers.

During the first six months of operations, several hundred to over 1,000 volunteers would assemble at designated locations on the west side and at Lihu‘e and Koloa each Sunday morning to be picked up by a convoy of anywhere from 25 to 88 trucks that would transport them to various worksites.

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Working an average of three Sundays a month during the two-year period, volunteers accumulated about 58,000 man-days of labor.

Men did the heavy labor, which was not too difficult due to the large turnout, while women and girls performed lighter tasks such as carrying drinking water to the men. Workdays ended around 1 p.m.

In December 1942, Maj. Gen. Rapp Brush, the Army’s Commanding Officer of Kaua‘i, commented that “the work being done by the Kiawe Corps is of extreme importance in the plan of defense of the island of Kauai and has been of material assistance to the Army. I sincerely commend the good people who are giving up their Sundays in behalf of the program. Their service is greatly appreciated.”

On Dec. 20, 1942, at H. P. Faye Park in Kekaha, Maj. Gen. Brush presented certificates of commendation to 49 Kiawe Corps volunteers. Among them were 14-year-old Akira Tsuruya of Waimea and Myrna Mieko Ishikawa of Port Allen.

Lydgate’s 1870 Lanai Expedition

Besides having been a minister, plantation manager, journalist, surveyor and historian, as well as the namesake of Kaua‘i’s Lydgate Park, John M. Lydgate (1854-1922) was an outstanding amateur botanist.

During the summer of 1870, while he was a student at Punahou, Lydgate assisted German physician and botanist Dr. William Hillebrand (1821-1886) on a botanical expedition to Lana‘i.

Their four-hour voyage from Moloka‘i to Lana‘i was made in an open sailboat with a Hawaiian crew that landed at Halepalaoa, a hamlet of a few grass houses on Lana‘i’s eastern coast.

There they were able to secure saddle and pack horses for the ride inland to 312

the ranch of Walter Murray Gibson (1822-1888) at Palawai in south central Lana‘i.

Gibson, who had swindled Mormons to purchase half of Lana‘i in his own name, would later become premier and minister of foreign affairs under King Kalakaua.

In 1887, when his plans to make Kalakaua “Emperor of the Pacific” failed, he would barely escape being lynched before fleeing the Islands.

But, in his grass house on that first evening, Gibson regaled Lydgate and Hillebrand with an incredible firsthand account of adventure and romance set in the East Indies, which reached its climax when he told of his imprisonment in Java and how a beautiful princess who loved him arranged his escape.

Among the plants Lydgate and Hillebrand would find on Lana‘i was a new Lobellia that Hillebrand named “Cyanca Gibsonii,” in honor of Gibson.

Another plant they discovered was a small gardenia tree — “gardenia brijhamii.”

Lydgate’s and Hillebrand’s stay on Lana‘i was cut short after two weeks when a boat’s crew from Lahaina informed them that Hillebrand was urgently needed on Maui to treat a seriously ill woman. They departed and did not return to Lana‘i.

Queen Deborah Kapule At Waimea

When San Francisco newspaperman William Baker had the honor of meeting the former queen of Kaua‘i, Deborah Kapule (1798 - 1853), at Waimea in 1853, she was near the end of her life.

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The alluring physical beauty by which she’d captivated men in her youth had long since vanished. She appeared older than her years, and although she was no longer as immense as she’d been in middle-age, she still probably weighed about 300 pounds.

Baker interviewed Deborah in Waimea at her neat one-room, stone house, furnished with a finely matted floor, and later noted that there was also something intangible about the place that implied dignity, peace and comfort.

While they talked, he was charmed by her good-natured facial expressions and cheerfulness.

With her were her maids of honor, who Baker described as the most beautiful women he’d seen in Hawai‘i.

On the following Sunday, Baker observed Deborah sitting among the congregation in front of Rev. George Rowell’s pulpit at the Waimea Church, at that time a dilapidated, thatched, formerly private dwelling located by the ocean.

The present-day, coral-block Waimea Church, which Deborah helped build, was then being constructed and would not be completed until 1858.

An ali‘i born on Kaua‘i, Deborah Kapule (Kekaihaakulou) was the queen and favorite wife of King Kaumuali‘i, Kaua‘i’s last king.

Her storied life is perhaps best-remembered for the time she lived in a great thatched house, enclosed by a stake fence, on what is today the grounds of the former Coco Palms Resort.

During the 1830s and 1840s, that house was a natural stopping place for travelers, who were welcomed with much aloha by Deborah.

A fleet of canoes at the river’s edge was available for upriver travel, and behind her house lay taro patches, walled fishponds, and pastures.

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McBryde Sugar Co. Engineer John A.M. “Jack” Eldon

Brooklyn, New York-born John A.M. “Jack” Eldon (1896-1959) was McBryde Sugar Co.’s chief engineer at its Numila, Kaua‘i sugar mill from 1929 to 1939.

Jack’s previous background had been in marine engineering, with experience acquired aboard U.S. merchant ships and warships of the U.S. Navy.

But his knowledge of ship engines, electrical power and steam generation systems, pneumatics, hydraulics, chemistry, turbines and other ship systems and machinery was adaptable to the intricacies of milling sugar.

At the McBryde mill, he found himself at home among a profusion of rollers, pressure feeders, shredders, rotary screens, boilers, steam turbine generators, heaters, evaporators, vacuum pans, crystalizers, centrifugals and other machinery.

Jack became recognized as a clever design and process engineer. One example was his money-saving design of a cane-car unloader that expedited cleaning of cane before it was ground.

While he worked at the McBryde mill, his wife, Dorothy, taught at ‘Ele‘ele Grammar School.

In 1939, Jack left McBryde for Honolulu to work as a consultant to sugar mills throughout Hawai‘i. When WWII ended, he continued consulting in Taiwan to direct the recovery of sugar mills damaged during the war.

But, as this poem of his indicates, the sea was calling him: “You can talk about your sugar mills, And cane fields by the sea, Your pineapples and palm trees, They make a hit with me, But there’s a steamer whistle blowing, like a whisper in a dream,

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There’s a freighter getting loaded lying out there in the stream.”

Semi-retired, Jack went back to sea as a marine engineer, while Dorothy taught school in Honolulu.

Jack Eldon also served as an Army infantryman in Europe during WWI, where he was gassed.

The Eldons had two sons, Bud and Larry.

Captain Yuri Lisianski

In August 1803, Imperial Russian naval officer Yuri Lisianski (1773-1837), captain of the sloop-of-war “Neva,” and Admiral Adam Johann von Krusenstern, commander of the frigate “Nadezhda,” embarked from Kronstadt, Russia, on the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth.

The ships then sailed westward across the Atlantic Ocean, around Cape Horn and into the Pacific, reaching the Hawaiian Islands in June 1804.

While the ships drifted off the Big Island’s southeastern coast between June 8 and June 11 without dropping anchors, Hawaiians boarded the “Nadezhda,” but little trading was done.

Then, on June 11, the ships separated, with “Nadezhda” sailing to Kamchatka, Russia, for repairs, and with “Neva” entering Kealakekua Bay on that same day.

Following a six-day visit to the Big Island, “Neva” set sail for O‘ahu, where Lisianski hoped to meet Kamehameha I. However, he bypassed that island upon learning of a deadly epidemic raging there and sailed on to Kaua‘i instead.

When “Neva” reached Waimea on June 19, King Kaumuali‘i came on board and was elated to learn from Lisianski that Kamehameha’s army, which had 316

been preparing to invade Kaua‘i, had been stricken by the epidemic.

Kaumuali‘i then told Lisianski he was determined to defend Kaua‘i with 30,000 warriors, cannon, and powder, yet as a precaution, he also asked Lisianski for materials to complete his escape vessel, which Lisianski refused.

Likewise, Lisianski also declined Kaumuali‘i’s appeal for protection from Kamehameha in return for a promise to supply food to Russian settlements at Kamchatka and Alaska.

But, Kaumuali‘i did not need to have been concerned, for the epidemic on O‘ahu that Lisianski had informed him of had destroyed Kamehameha’s army, thus ending Kamehameha’s ambition of ever conquering Kaua‘i by force.

“Neva” departed Kaua‘i the following day and completed its circumnavigation, with “Nadezhda” at Kronstadt in 1806.

Old Kilauea School

When Kilauea school was established in 1882, during the reign of King David Kalakaua, it had no home of its own.

So its students, then mostly Portuguese and German children of Kilauea Sugar Co. workers, were taught in the Hawaiian Congregational Church located on the present site of Christ Memorial Episcopal Church.

They were also taught in an old building belonging to the Board of Education.

Not until 1894 was the Board able give the school a home by acquiring a twoacre plot from Kilauea Sugar upon which it built a two-room schoolhouse and a teacher’s cottage for Mr. Mueller.

This school was situated near the top of Kalihiwai Road, between what is now 317

the giant banyan tree on the right side (heading downhill) and the bridge a short distance below.

In 1982, William Mahikoa remembered its wooden school buildings: “The old school building was more like a barracks building, three rooms in a row. The third room was added in 1896. The first room was for the first and second grades, the next was for third, fourth and fifth grades, and the principal’s room was for the sixth, seventh and eighth grades.”

By 1888, there were 24 boys and 30 girls attending Kilauea School; but by 1920, attendance — 239 students taught by seven teachers — had outgrown the school’s physical capacity.

Consequently in 1921, the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors approved the purchase of 6.5 acres from Kilauea Sugar at the present site of Kilauea Elementary School.

Construction of new school buildings was completed by July 1922, and the school opened for instruction on Sept. 11, 1922.

Three hours of English instruction daily was given to newly arrived immigrant children of plantation workers, while the curriculum for other children focused on reading, writing and arithmetic.

Emele Of Nomilu Fishpond

Nomilu Fishpond Circa 1853 In 1853, newspaperman George Washington Bates and his Hawaiian interpreter visited Nomilu Fishpond on Kaua‘i’s South Shore while touring the Hawaiian Islands.

Bates first saw the pond on horseback from atop the pali that rises above it 318

and, having been told beforehand that it was fathomless, was anxious to test its depth.

Below the pond by the beach was a small fishing camp, which was temporarily deserted when Bates entered it, except for two Hawaiian women, the others having gone fishing.

When Bates’ interpreter informed the women of his wish, one of the women, a good-natured mother of nine children named Emele, assured them she could easily take a sounding of the 20-acre pond.

Emele soon found a light wiliwili log about 6 feet long by 6 inches wide for use as a floater and with it and a sounding line in hand, waded into the pond.

She then proceeded to swim across the pond while holding the log under her chest with one hand and the sounding line in the other, and at intervals she would pause to let down the line and knot it on the surface when she felt bottom.

When she was finished, Bates examined her sounding line and discovered the depth of the pond varied from 30 to 66 feet.

Although Emele hadn’t asked for compensation, Bates, in admiration of her feat, paid her.

Bates also learned that her youngest child, Lapouli, had recently been sick.

Frantic with grief one evening, Emele had walked five miles from her home over rugged terrain in darkness and rain to the Koloa Mission Station for medicine.

Dr. Smith begged her to remain overnight, but she returned home with her medicine that evening in the rainstorm.

Weeks later, Emele’s self-sacrifice and devotion was rewarded when little Lapouli recovered.

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L. David Larsen, Namesake Of Kauai’s Larsen’s Beach

Larsen Seated First Row, Fourth From Left Kaua‘i’s Larsens Beach — situated immediately north of Moloa‘a Bay between Amana and Kulikoa points — is named after Laruentsius David Larsen (18861944), the manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation Co. from 1918 to 1930, whose beach house stood for many years behind the beach’s shoreline sand strip.

Larsen’s main residence for nearly four of those years, the former Kilauea Sugar Plantation manager’s house located on Kuawa Road in Kilauea, was designed and built by Larsen at a cost of $17,000 in 1926 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

A two-story structure with a living area of over 6,000 square feet sitting on a knoll of 13 landscaped acres, it was the first stone residence built on the plantation and is a fine example of the bungalow/craftsman style of Hawaiian architecture.

Born in Stockholm, Sweden, Larsen immigrated to the United States with his family in 1892 and was educated in Peekskill, N.Y., Bridgeport, Conn. and at the Massachusetts Agricultural College at Amherst, Mass.

Following his graduation with a bachelor’s degree in 1908, he went to Honolulu to work as a plant pathologist at the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association’s experiment station.

There, Larsen spent “a decade of special research work with a view to discovering means of increasing the yield and decreasing production costs on sugar plantations of Hawai‘i,” and made a careful study of pineapple diseases

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on the islands.

He was appointed chief agriculturist at HSPA prior to his appointment in 1918 as manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation Co. Larsen left his managership at Kilauea for Honolulu to eventually become C. Brewer and Co. vice president of plantation and ranch operations.

L. David Larsen and his wife, Katherine, had six children: Ingrid, David, Katherine, Norma, Margit and Richard.

WWII Veteran Vernon Kiyoshi Saiki

Vernon Kiyoshi Saiki (1919-1964) was born in Kapa‘a and attended Kapa‘a High School and the University of North Dakota prior to being inducted into the Army at Fort Snelling, Minn., in October 1941 and assigned to the Medical Corps.

Then, in 1942, he was accepted into the Army Specialized Service Training Program at Harvard, a course designed to train students for military government work in occupied countries.

When the school was disbanded about a year later, Saiki was reassigned to the 328th Infantry Regt. of the 26th “Yankee” Division.

His record as a Japanese-American soldier during WWII is unusual, because he was one of only a few Americans of Japanese ancestry to serve as an infantryman in a unit other than the Army’s 100th Battalion and 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The 26th Division entered combat in France in October 1944, fought in the Battle of the Bulge and the Ardennes breakthrough and continued advancing into Germany and Austria. In May 1945, it liberated the Nazis’ brutal Gusen

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concentration camp.

As an infantryman with the 26th Division, Pfc. Saiki was awarded the silver star for gallantry in action, the bronze star for bravery and the purple heart after being wounded in Metz, France.

After WWII, Saiki earned a teaching certificate from the University of Hawai‘i and a master’s degree from Harvard.

He then taught for five years in Hawai‘i public schools and worked for five years in Hawai‘i in personnel positions in government and industry before he and his wife, Violet, and their children, Cheryl and Kathleen, moved to Japan in 1963, where he became educational director at Misawa Air Force Base.

He died suddenly on May 22, 1964, of a cerebral problem and is buried at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Honolulu.

Sandy Brodie’s Pineapple Days

Ginaca Pineapple Processing Machine Hawai‘i born-and-raised Kaua‘i resident and retired Coast Guard Reserve Captain Sandy Brodie worked at the Del Monte pineapple cannery in Iwilei, Honolulu, as a high school student during the summers of 1955, ‘56 and ‘57 — one of thousands of Hawai‘i high schoolers, who over many years spent their summer vacations working in Hawai‘i’s pineapple canneries.

Sandy’s father, Alexander “Lex” Brodie, who was born in Kekaha, Kaua‘i, also worked in the pineapple industry, at that time as superintendent of Dole’s Iwilei cannery.

Lex, by the way, would later become famous for over 1,000 Lex Brodie Tire Co. TV commercials he produced between 1964 and 1990, featuring his “Thank you … very much!” slogan and his “Little Joe” caveman mascot.

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Sandy’s great grandfather was Kaua‘i Judge C. B. Hofgaard.

At Del Monte, Sandy was trained to make and maintain knives for Ginaca pineapple processing machines, of which Del Monte had 22 or 23. His wages were $1.15 an hour.

Sandy recalled, “Sometimes I was called upon to be a relief feeder — taking the pine from the conveyor and setting them in the Ginaca’s feed chain. The standard speed was about 50 per minute. Handling pine all day required gloves, but somehow we all still got rashes on our arms from the juice.

Feeding next to a Ginaca preempted any conversation, because the machine was so loud you had to shout at the top of your lungs. The trimmers, on the quieter back side of the machine, also had to deal with monotony, but at least were able to chat among themselves.”

On Kaua‘i, three pineapple canneries employed high school summer hires: Kapa‘a’s Hawaiian Canneries (1913-1962), Hawaiian Fruit Packers in Kapahi (1932-1973) and Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. in Lawa‘i (1907-1964).

The last remaining Hawaiian pineapple cannery closed on Maui in 2007.

Harvesting Superintendent Fred Mendes

Fred Mendes On Horseback Fred Mendes was born in Kumukumu Camp, Kealia, Kaua‘i, in 1884 to Portuguese immigrant parents, John and Albina Mendes, and was educated at Saint Louis College on O‘ahu.

By 1950, when he retired as harvesting superintendent of Lihu‘e Plantation’s Makee section, he’d worked a total of 51 years for both Kealia’s Makee Sugar Co. and Lihu‘e Plantation, which had acquired Makee in 1916.

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He recalled that in 1899, there were many camps scattered all over Makee plantation that housed laborers, who walked to their jobs in nearby fields. But by 1950, plantation workers and their families were concentrated in just a few main camps.

He also noted that Col. Zephaniah Spalding owned Makee Sugar Co. and at one time, his son Rufus was its manager, while another son, Jimmy, was assistant manager.

Col. Spalding’s three daughters had married Italian counts, Senni, Bonzi and Bodrero, and each became a division overseer under Rufus and Jimmy.

With Rufus, Jimmy and the three counts in charge of the plantation, Makee Sugar Co. was known as the “racehorse plantation,” because these men spent most of their working hours at their polo field, playing polo or training racehorses and polo ponies, an unproductive arrangement that ceased when Gaylord Wilcox became manager.

Harvesting workers were paid 17 cents per ton for loading cut sugarcane by hand onto railroad cars in the fields. A good man could load 10 tons during a 10-hour workday. He would pick the cane off the ground and carry it up an inclined plank and stack it in a cane car. Oftentimes, his wife would stack the cane on the ground beforehand.

Fred Mendes also served as a member of the Kaua‘i Police Commission and the Board of Supervisors.

He and his wife, Amelia, had three sons.

Inventor David M. Weston

In 1851, two years after Honolulu businessman Henry A. Peirce and partners William L. Lee and Charles R. Bishop founded Lihu‘e Plantation with $16,000 in capital, Peirce was in Boston, Mass. to conduct business that included the 324

purchase and shipment of Lihu‘e Plantation’s milling machinery to Kauai.

While in Boston, he also convinced an ingenious expert machinist named David M. Weston (1819-1890) to accompany the shipment and assemble and erect the Lihue mill.

When Weston’s job at Lihu‘e Plantation mill was finished, he joined East Maui Plantation where, later in 1851, he invented a centrifugal machine that quickly separated molasses from sugar during the milling process.

Weston’s machine, named the “Centrifugal Separator,” was basically a perforated cask into which a mixture of sugar and molasses was thrown and spun very fast. While spinning, molasses was forced out of the cask through the perforations, leaving only sugar.

Centrifugal separators revolutionized sugar manufacturing in Hawai‘i by reducing the time needed to separate sugar from molasses from weeks to minutes, while at the same time producing a superior sugar that could be sold at much higher prices.

A year later, Weston, with financial backing from Peirce, established Honolulu Iron Works, a machine shop and foundry that produced the equipment, tools and machine components of sugar mills for many years, including the centrifugal separators Lihu‘e Plantation used in milling its first sugarcane crop in 1853.

During that first harvest, teams of oxen hauled harvested sugarcane in wooden carts to the mill Weston had built. There, granite rollers made in China ground the sugarcane to extract its juice, which was then cleaned and boiled at precise temperatures to produce a mixture of sugar and molasses that was then spun in Weston’s centrifugals to separate sugar ready for shipment in wooden kegs to Honolulu.

The Old Iron Waimea Bridge

At 11 a.m. on Friday, April 19, 1940, Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors Chairman William Ellis opened the present Waimea Bridge to the public by cutting a ceremonial ribbon stretched across the Waimea end of the bridge.

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Built of reinforced concrete, Waimea Bridge is 360 feet long with four spans.

Two spans are 75 feet long, and the other two are 105 feet long. It has a 24-foot roadway and two 3-foot wide sidewalks.

It was built by EE Black Construction beginning in May 1939 at a cost of $85,000, along with one mile of roadway at a cost of $60,000, and the tearing down of the old iron bridge it replaced for $5,000, for a total cost of $150,000.

Construction, which was financed by the federal government, also included 4foot wide sidewalks with concrete curbs through Waimea town.

Before the first Waimea Bridge, which was made of wood, was built across the Waimea River at Waimea in the early 1880s, people crossed the river at a ford located about a half mile above the present bridge location.

But, they only did so provided that the river was not flooded, a more common occurrence then, since the river had not yet been diverted upriver for irrigation purposes and a greater volume of water flowed downriver.

People also crossed the river in a scow that traversed the river a short distance upriver of the present concrete bridge, but the scow would often become stuck on many sandbars that formed then.

Then in 1904, the wooden bridge was taken down and an iron bridge was built across the river at the scow crossing.

The iron bridge, which led into Waimea Road, then the main street of Waimea, stood until it was demolished shortly after the concrete bridge opened.

Novelist O. A. Bushnell

O. A. (Oswald Andrew) Bushnell (1913-2002), the distinguished historical 326

novelist and professor of medical microbiology and medical history at the University of Hawai‘i-Manoa, was a third-generation kama‘aina born in Kaka‘ako and educated at the UH and the University of Wisconsin, where he earned his Ph.D. in bacteriology.

Upon his return to Hawai‘i in 1940, he worked on Kaua‘i with the Territorial Department of Health. Following service in the Army during WWII, Bushnell began his professorship at UH, retiring in 1970.

Bushnell’s pioneering first historical novel, “The Return of Lono” (1955), a fictionalized account of Captain Cook’s discovery of Hawai‘i, was published when practically all Hawai‘i literature had been written by visitors like Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jack London, W. Somerset Maugham and James Jones.

His next novel, “Moloka‘i,” portrayed the banished sufferers of Hansen’s Disease at Kalaupapa.

“Ka‘a‘awa” set on O‘ahu in the 1850s, is a tale of Hawaiian culture besieged by foreign influence. “Stone of Kannon” and “Water of Kane” describe the lives of immigrant Japanese contract laborers.

O. A. Bushnell’s other historical work includes “Hawai‘i: A Pictorial History,” a collaborative effort with Joseph Feher and Edward Joesting, “A Walk Through Old Honolulu,” and “A Song of Pilgrimage and Exile: The Life and Spirit of Mother Marianne of Moloka‘i,” with Sister Mary Laurence Hanley.

“Gifts of Civilization: Germs and Genocide in Hawai‘i” is the definitive study of Native Hawaiians ravaged by exposure to foreign diseases.

Over the years, O. A. Bushnell provided encouragement and advice to many authors, playwrights, and filmmakers.

Private and retiring, he and his wife, Elizabeth, had two sons and a daughter.

One son is Andrew “Andy” Bushnell, a Kaua‘i resident and longtime professor of history at Kaua‘i Community College, now retired.

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The Hawaiian Fishing Canoe, Ka‘ulupe‘elani

Kaulupeelani The revival of canoe racing on Kaua‘i began in 1955, when members of the newly organized Kaua‘i Canoe Racing Association (KCRA), led by association president William Ellis, began training under the direction of coach Ray Mant at Nawiliwili with two purchased canoes.

Inaugural races were held at Nawiliwili on Kamehameha Day, June 11, 1955, and Kaua‘i’s first annual regatta took place there on September 25.

That same year, coach Mant acquired a dilapidated 34-foot long, six-person Hawaiian fishing canoe named Ka‘ulupe‘elani from John Nishi of ‘Ele‘ele.

The canoe had been built by the Puaoi family at Lawa‘i Kai around 1850 from a single koa log taken from a forest that once grew in the hills above Lawa‘i.

Then in about 1893, Ka‘ulupe‘elani, which means “wild growth hidden by the heavens,” became the property of Alexander McBryde.

By the time it was given to John Nishi’s father in the early 1900s, it had lain halfhidden for a long time in McBryde’s Lawa‘i Kai canoe house.

John Nishi’s father had used it for fishing, but Ka‘ulupe‘elani had been unused for many years when Ray Mant heard about it and tracked it down to John Nishi, who kindly donated it to the KCRA. Many people who saw the broken-down canoe told Mant it was beyond repair, but not Tetsuo Sato of Hanama‘ulu, who agreed with Mant that it could indeed be restored.

Sato did a magnificent job of precise cutting and fitting in overhauling Ka‘ulupe‘elani, and in the process, discovered that its outrigger needed no replacement.

A year later, in 1956, Ka‘ulupe‘elani, the pride of the KCRA, was in seaworthy 328

condition and in use as a training canoe.

During the intervening years between Ka‘ulupe‘elani’s restoration in 1956 and today, the old fishing canoe deteriorated with age and is now no more.

Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. Manager John Graves Watkins

A direct descendant of early 17th-century Massachusetts settlers, John Graves Watkins (1892-1982), the manager of Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. (Kaua‘i Pine), in Lawa‘i from 1943 until his retirement in 1957, was born in Boston, Massachusetts and educated at Boston English High School.

His ancestors were Minutemen, who’d fought the British at the Battle of Concord, Mass. during the Revolutionary War. One forefather, Captain Jotham Watkins, served in the Continental Army throughout the American Revolution.

Years later, Willard Wesley Watkins, Watkins’ father, took up arms for the Union in the American Civil War, and Watkins himself was an Army captain and veteran of WWI. John Graves Watkins began his career in Hawai‘i in 1919 as timekeeper at Ola‘a Sugar Company on the Big Island.

Prior to joining Kaua‘i Pine as field superintendent in 1931, he’d also worked for Libby, McNeill and Libby on Moloka‘i, and had served as assistant manager of Koloa Sugar Co. Among the changes Watkins oversaw during his long tenure at Kaua‘i Pine was the evolution of cultivating with mule-drawn plows to plowing with tractors, and the replacement of laborers harvesting pineapple by hand and loading sacks on their backs with workers picking the fruits and placing them on a conveyor belt leading to a truck for transportation.

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As manager, Watkins was not only respected; his employees considered him their friend.

On Saturday evening, May, 11, 1957, some 250 well-wishers attended Mr. and Mrs. Watkins’ Aloha Party at the Kaua‘i Pine gym in Lawa‘i.

Kenneth Arashiro’s Green Garden Restaurant prepared the buffet dinner.

Territorial Miss Puerto Rico Linda Agosto honored the couple with a hula and then draped them with lei, and Beatrice Almeida presented them with an autograph album inscribed in gold letters: “Aloha to Our Manager and Friend, John G. Watkins, May 1957.”

Watkins and his wife, Marie, had three children: Martha Haskell, John Graves Jr. and Henry Norman.

The 165th Infantry On Kauai

Assault Troops Of The 165th Infantry Regiment At Makin Atoll A U.S. Army unit with roots dating back to the Revolutionary War, the 165th Infantry Regiment — originally designated the 69th Infantry Regiment and nicknamed “The Fighting 69th” — was one of several Army units stationed on Kauai during WWII. Other Army units based on the Garden Isle during the war were the 298th and 299th Infantry regiments, elements of the 27th Div., of which the 165th was a part, the 33rd Div., the 40th Div., and two regiments of the 98th Div. On March 16, 1942, the 165th arrived on Kaua‘i at Port Allen and was immediately trucked to Barking Sands, where it built and manned beach defenses in the vicinity of Barking Sands Airfield against a possible invasion by Japan.

Then, in October 1942, the regiment commenced combat training at Koke‘e in preparation for offensive operations in the Pacific Theater against Japan.

Beginning in May 1943, this training included exercises in amphibious

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operations in which the regiment spent weeks disembarking from troop transports at sea onto landing craft that formed into waves and assaulted Kaua‘i, O‘ahu and Maui beaches.

The regiment’s baptism of fire took place on Makin Atoll in Nov. 1943., when the 165th and other Army units captured the atoll by squeezing the Japanese garrison into a pocket and destroying it.

Its next combat occurred during the battle for Saipan in June-July 1944, where it was involved in brutal and bitter fighting. The 165th eliminated the last resistance on Saipan, thus ending the battle.

In fighting on Okinawa from April to June 1945, the 165th took heavy casualties battling a fanatical enemy occupying rugged terrain in formidable defenses, yet it always achieved its objectives.

Longtime Kaua‘i resident C. P. “Duke” Curran (1921-2011) was stationed on Kauai with the 165th Infantry Regt during WWII. Kekaha Sugar Co. Best-Yard Contest Winners, The Asuncions

The Asuncions At Work In Their Mana Yard Each December, for a number of years beginning in 1948, Kekaha Sugar Co. held employee best-yard contests for which it awarded cash to competitors, who took pride in their yards and would work year-round to ensure they were at the peak of perfection by contest time.

In 1957, the yard of Mr. and Mrs. Telesforo Asuncion and their son, Rosario, was chosen “best yard on the whole plantation” for the fourth consecutive year by a unanimous decision of four judges: Mrs. Ernest Bertram, Mrs. Howard Wagoner, Mr. Toshi Hirabayashi and the Rev. George Kiyabu.

The Asuncions’ beautiful yard, which encircled their Mana home, was awarded a grand prize of $30 and was complimented for its neatly trimmed borders, 331

colorful flowers, plants and flawless lawn.

Mana, where the Asuncions lived, was for decades a thriving community located just off the Waimea side of Kaumualii Highway about midway between the Pacific Missile Range Facility on the west and Kamokala Ridge to the east.

Its few remaining houses were torn down in the 1980s.

Another winner at Kekaha Sugar Co. in 1957 was Placido Tango, also of Mana, for which Tango won $30. A perennial contest winner, Tango had won a total of $180 for his prize-winning yards during his six years of competition.

First-place winners in Kekaha were Rizalino Parbo and Raymundo Viluan, who’d won “best yard on the whole plantation” in 1952.

Hermogenes Pantorilla, also of Kekaha, the biggest money-winner in the history of the best yard contest, failed to place in 1957. His yard received Honorable Mention.

Other award-winners were William Kimokeo, Yoshito Ando, Tom Moreno, Masao Chikahiro, Fedor Brandt Jr., Donato Miranda, Toshiaki Fukumoto, Adrean Tacub, Jack Bisano, Lawrence Martin, Donato Sakulit, Serverino Sagun, and Anastacio Debutiaco.

Tommy Kono’s Kauai Weightlifting Exhibition

Tommy Kono, 1952 On Saturday evening, Feb. 26, 1956, Tamio “Tommy” Kono of Honolulu established two world weightlifting records at Waimea High School’s Clem Gomes gym before some 350 onlookers during an exhibition sponsored by the Kekaha Strength & Health Club.

Kono, a middleweight weighing in at 165 pounds, pressed 300 pounds that night to exceed the middleweight world record of 295.5 pounds he’d set a week

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earlier at the Nu‘uanu YMCA in Honolulu.

He also broke his world record mark of 903 pounds for the combined total of three lifts — press, snatch and clean-and-jerk — with lifts totaling 925 pounds.

Afterwards, Kono completed his exhibition by driving two nails through a one inch plank with his hands and blowing up a hot water bottle with his mouth until it burst.

Born in California in 1930, he is considered the greatest Olympic weightlifter, pound-for-pound, of all time.

He won gold medals as a lightweight in the 1952 Olympics, and as a light heavyweight at the 1956 Olympic Games, and a silver medal in the 1960 Olympics as a middleweight, setting seven Olympic weightlifting records in the process.

Kono also set 26 world weightlifting records and was crowned world champion eight times in four different body weight classes during a competitive career that began in 1948 and ended in 1963.

As a bodybuilder, he won Mr. Universe titles at Munich, Germany in 1955, Teheran, Iran in 1957, and at Vienna, Austria in 1961.

He once offered the advice that “We should all strive to keep improving ourselves no matter what happens. Adversities and objects are there to challenge our mettle and to make us better, stronger persons.

Making excuses or looking for excuses get you nowhere, but finding the solution to a problem is what weightlifting and life is all about.”

Kekaha Sugar Co.’s Pah On Camp Residents

Pah On Camp Residents, 1937 In 1937, a community of about fifty elderly Chinese men, who’d immigrated to Hawaii in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, were residing at Kekaha Sugar Co.’s

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Pah On Camp, which was situated at Mana, Kauai by Niu Valley.

One old-timer was Lau Ning, who could recall when Kekaha had only two small houses. Although quite old, he continued to work every day as a yardman cleaning parks and grounds in Kekaha.

Another, Ah Lui, age 78, was the luna of several camp residents, whom he did not actually supervise. Instead, he merely recorded their time after they’d labored independently at weeding, hoeing or cleaning limu from canals.

Lau San’s job was picking up sugar cane that had fallen from loaded cane cars. In spite of the fact that he’d suffered a broken back as a horse-breaker when he was young that caused him to stoop, he took pride in working at a pace that exhausted others.

Strongman Lum Chow had been a wrestler long ago in China and enjoyed telling of the numerous victories he’d won over his opponents.

The scholar of Pah On Camp was Ah Ho. Educated in China, he was in charge of the camp’s Confucius religious ceremonies and the charities of the Chinese society.

He was also knowledgeable of the uses of Chinese herbs, with which he cured common illnesses. Ah Ho still found time to raise vegetables that he sold door to door in nearby plantation camps.

Lun Ping, at 85, the oldest resident of Pah On Camp, had worked full-time, until he became ill at 84 and was pensioned, yet on days when he felt better, he would put in a full day’s work on the plantation.

Pah On Camp’s spokesman was Ah Ton, the yardman of E. F. Shackleton, Kekaha Sugar Co.’s office manager.

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Anthropologist Dr. Peter H. Buck Speaks On Kauai

During February 1937, anthropologist Dr. Peter H. Buck (1880-1951), the director of Honolulu’s Bishop Museum and an authority on Polynesian culture, presented three lectures at the Lihu‘e Parish House in Pualoke and Waimea High School.

In these lectures, Buck, a native New Zealander whose Maori name was Te Rangi Hiroa, said that to fully understand the significance of native Hawaiian culture, it should not be studied apart, but must be included in a study of comparative Polynesian culture.

Later, in answer to the question, “Who were the Menehunes?” Buck stated his belief that they were real people, not brownie or fairy-like creatures of abnormally small stature capable of performing prodigious overnight miracles of engineering and building, as is accredited to them in Hawaiian folklore.

Instead, according to Buck, they were probably an early wave of people who crossed the ocean to Hawai‘i long before the Tahitians arrived in the 12th century.

Perhaps they were Marquesans who’d settled Hawai‘i as early as the 8th century, whose physical records, except for stone works attributed to them, have been lost.

Buck also spoke of the ancestors of the Polynesians, who ages ago were oppressed and driven to the islands of Indonesia.

They then became a seafaring people, moving ever eastward across the vast reaches of the Pacific in their canoes, discovering and inhabiting new islands in the process.

Tahiti became a hub or distribution point. From there more long voyages were 335

made, including those that resulted in the settling of the Hawaiian Islands.

A medical doctor, Buck had served as a medical officer in New Zealand and in the Gallipoli Campaign during World War I prior to joining Bishop Museum in 1926.

He was visiting professor of anthropology at Yale in the 1930s and was knighted in 1946.

Singer And Actress Harriet Yamasaki

Kaua‘i born-and-raised singer and actress Harriet Yamasaki played the female leading role of Linda Low, the bold and brassy nightclub singer and dancer in the Rogers and Hammerstein musical comedy “Flower Drum Song,” for 464 performances at London’s Palace Theater beginning on March 24, 1960.

“Flower Drum Song,” which is based on the novel written by Chinese-American author C. Y. Lee, is a three-fold romance set in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

In one of these love affairs, actor Kevin Scott’s character, the naive Wang Ta, is smitten by Harriet’s vivacious Linda Low. While growing up on Kaua‘i, Yamasaki, a graduate of Kaua‘i High School, Class of 1951, developed her natural singing talent in the Lihu‘e Christian Church choir.

And later, while attending Oberlin College, she traveled through many states giving concerts with the college choir.

Upon her return to Hawai‘i, Harriet taught voice and piano at Punahou and played the lead in the musicals “Kiss Me Kate,” “Kismet,” and “Thirteen

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Daughters” produced by the Honolulu Community Theater.

In 1959, after two years of studying singing in Paris with Professor Pierre Bernac and at the Ecole Normale de Musique, she received her concert artist’s diploma, which qualified her to successfully audition for “Flower Drum Song” director Jerome Whyte.

Harriet, whose stage name was Yama Saki, had been recommended for the role by Honolulu-born singer and actor Ed Kenney, who’d played the part of Wang Ta in the original 1958 Broadway production of “Flower Drum Song.”

Among her performances during her longtime residence in Montreal, Canada, was the lead in another Rogers and Hammerstein musical, the “The King And I,” and in the comic opera “Boccaccio” by Franz von Suppé.

Lihu‘e resident Harriet Yamasaki was married to Canadian engineer Joseph W. Coyle and they had four children.

The Keoniloa Beach Petroglyphs

Located just east of Po‘ipu on Kaua‘i’s South Shore, Keoniloa Beach is a popular bodyboarding site known also as Shipwrecks, a designation derived from the wreckage of a wooden boat that once rested for many years on its shoreline.

The western end of this approximately one-half mile long beach is the location of historic petroglyphs carved upon the surface of a sandstone ledge of about 110 feet by 25 feet in size.

It becomes only partially exposed at low tide following infrequent, exceptionally severe winter storms that wash away its covering of sand.

Koloa resident Joseph Kendall Farley first saw the petroglyphs at Keoniloa Beach in 1887, and once again in June 1897, when they’d been exposed for about 10 days.

At that later time, he was able to observe 67 pictures and markings on the 337

ledge that varied in size from 1 foot to 61⁄2 feet in length.

Although worn by abrasion, the engravings were from 1⁄4-inch to 3⁄4-inch deep, and from 1⁄2 to 11⁄2 inches wide.

On June 16, 1897, Farley spoke with a 62- year-old Hawaiian woman named Kauila, who had lived near Keoniloa for many years.

She told him that she’d first seen the petroglyphs in 1848, when she was about 13 years old.

Kauila went on the say that there had been a second ledge visible at that time, located about 50 to 100 feet farther inland. On it were carved pictures of birds, fish, a canoe and strange animals.

The old woman also stated that her father, grandfather and a number of the oldest people living at Keoniloa in 1848 had said the petroglyphs had always been there and they did not know who had cut them or why they were cut.

Princeville Plantation Ranch Manager Walter Foss Sanborn

Born in Massachusetts and educated at Burdette Business College, Walter Foss Sanborn (1877-1956) had played professional baseball before sailing to Hawai‘i in 1901, where he first found work as a luna for McBryde Sugar Co., Kaua‘i.

Then in 1905, Albert S. Wilcox hired him to manage his Princeville Plantation cattle ranch, which at that time extended eastward from Hanalei Bay to Kalihiwai and provided beef to the Hanalei district and Honolulu.

Its headquarters — which included Sanborn’s home named Mauka House and built in 1845 — was situated on the hillside a short distance east of and just above the site of the present Hanalei Bridge, not erected until 1912.

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During Sanborn’s residence at Mauka House, it deteriorated. Sanborn therefore designed and built a new home on Weke Road by Hanalei Bay in 1910 that still stands.

Sanborn managed Princeville Plantation until 1927, after which he grew taro in Hanalei Valley and owned a poi mill located across Weke Road from his Hanalei home — the Sanborn Poi Mill — in operation until the mid-1950s.

In May 1915, after attending a lu‘au at John Coney’s home in Niumalu, Sanborn spoke with visiting writer Jack London, who was staying with the Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate in Lihu‘e.

They discussed Ko‘olau, a Hawaiian paniolo from Kekaha who’d contracted Hansen’s disease and had fled into Kalalau Valley to prevent his deportation to the leper colony on Molokai — about whom London, six years earlier, had published “Ko‘olau the Leper,” a fictionalized account of the true story of Ko‘olau.

During their talk, Sanborn provided London with confirmation of Ko‘olau’s ultimate fate — the truth of which had long been a matter of speculation — that Ko‘olau’s remains had been discovered by Coney and police officer John I in a grave in Kalalau Valley.

Walter Foss Sanborn and his wife, Lena, had four children: Walter, John, Percy and Helen.

Lihue Airport

Lihue Airport Terminal Under Construction, 1949 Immediately prior to the opening of the present Lihue Airport in September, 1949, there were four airports in operation on Kauai.

They were located at Barking Sands, Port Allen, Hanalei, and at Lihue’s first airport site, an 1,800-foot airstrip situated just north of Hanamaulu Bay that would close with the opening of the new airport.

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The Port Allen, Hanalei, and the original Lihue airstrips were too small to accommodate large passenger aircraft. And, the Barking Sands field, although long enough was, like Port Allen and Hanalei, far from the center of Kauai’s population.

With the opening of Lihue Airport, Kauai at last possessed a large, modern, centralized airport.

Construction of Lihue Airport had commenced less than a year earlier, in November, 1948, on a 250-acre site purchased from Lihue Plantation that had long been planted in sugarcane.

The first plane landed at the new airport on September 1, 1949 carrying Civil Aeronautics Administration inspectors.

Four months later, on the morning of Sunday, January 8, 1950, the day the airport was to officially open, the biggest rain storm in East Kauai in many years prevented two planes carrying special guests from Honolulu from landing and caused the cancellation of formal opening-day ceremonies.

But by afternoon, the weather cleared, and the first commercial passengers arrived at Lihue from Honolulu at 2:55 p.m. aboard a nonscheduled TransPacific Airlines aircraft.

Although the airport had formally opened, taxiways and parking areas for planes and automobiles still needed to be paved. Ahukini Road had not yet been rerouted, a freight terminal hadn’t been built, and landscaping around the new airport terminal was absent.

John Batchelder, who’d served as an Army Air Corps bomber pilot during WWII, became Lihue Airport’s first manager.

In May, 1984, the current large Lihue Airport terminal replaced the terminal opened in 1949.

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Comedian Arthur Godfrey Visits Kauai

On Monday, April 6, 1959, when radio and television comedian Arthur Godfrey (1903-83) — arguably the most famous American TV entertainer of the 1950s — stepped onto the tarmac at Lihu‘e Airport from the Hawaiian Airlines charter plane he’d piloted from Honolulu, he was presented with a Hawaiian cape by Neal Schimmelfennig, Kuhina Nui of the Aloha Week Court.

Standing nearby and traveling with Godfrey during his two-day stay on Kaua‘i were his wife, Mary, the legendary Duke Kahanamoku and Duke’s wife, Nadine, and Haleloke Kahauolopua, a Hawaiian singer and dancer in his troupe.

Born in Hilo, Haleloke Kahauolopua had been a vocalist beginning in 1945 with the popular radio program “Hawai‘i Calls.” Hosted by Webley Edwards, the show featured live Hawaiian music conducted weekly by Harry Owens from 1935 to 1975, most often from the courtyard of the Moana Hotel in Waikiki.

Haleloke also performed on the “Arthur Godfrey TV Show” for several years during the 1950s. On the show, she would sing and dance hula while Godfrey strummed his ‘ukulele.

By the way, during one of Godfrey’s frequent guest-host appearances on “Hawai‘i Calls,” Kaua‘i’s renowned singer and songwriter Larry Rivera sang his compositions “Wai‘ale‘ale” and “The Whole World Looks to Hawai‘i” at the Waikiki Shell.

And, another Kaua‘i born-and-raised musician, Larry Ramos, lead singer with the band The Association, first garnered national attention as a child when he performed on Godfrey’s radio and TV programs in 1950 and 1951.

Godfrey was among the many celebrated guests of Kaua‘i’s Coco Palms Hotel.

During his stay, Godfrey became the 87th of 127 people or organizations to plant a tree in the Coco Palms coconut grove during an elaborate tree-planting ceremony created by manager Grace Buscher Guslander.

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Before Godfrey flew back to Honolulu, he presented Willie Duarte, the outgoing and energetic owner of Duarte’s U-Drive, which handled Godfrey’s transportation, an extra-large ‘ukulele he’d designed and inscribed.

The Kauai County Building

By August, 1912, the Honolulu architectural firm of Ripley, Reynolds & Davis had completed its architectural plans for a Kaua‘i County Building, and a call for construction bids was issued in The Garden Island newspaper on August 13, 1912.

Ripley, Reynolds & Davis were highly qualified and accomplished architects.

Clinton Ripley had designed several notable buildings in the territory, Pauahi Hall on the Punahou School campus being one fine example. His partner, Arthur L. Reynolds, would go on design Honolulu’s Aloha Tower, among other buildings, and Louis E. Davis designed Honolulu’s McKinley High School.

Their plans called for a two-story frame structure modeled in the neoclassical revival style and fitted with modern offices that would combine all the county’s offices beneath its roof, and when executed, would leave Kaua‘i County in possession of the finest county seat in the territory.

By April 21, 1914, construction was nearly complete. Then on the 24th, Ripley and Davis performed an inspection, and beginning on the 27th and continuing for about 10 days, county personnel moved into the new building.

A grand ball conducted by Judge L. A. Dickey was held on Saturday, May 9, 1914, the date the Kaua‘i County Building was officially opened to the public.

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“Judge Dickey’s Dance,” as it was called, was a great society event. Among its guests were members of prominent Kaua‘i families of the time, such as the Rices and the Isenbergs.

Concert music on the grounds early in the evening and later in the building was performed by the Kapaia Band, while string music was supplied by the Ilima Glee Club of Waimea.

The courtrooms of Judge Dickey and Judge Sanford B. Dole and the assembly room of the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors were used for dancing. Refreshments and food were served in abundance.

Kauai Country Treasurer K. C. Ahana

Born in Hule‘ia Valley, Kaua‘i, and educated at Lihu‘e Grammar School and Saint Louis College (precursor to Saint Louis School and Chaminade University), K. C. (Koon Chong) Ahana (1893-1964) was Kaua‘i County’s elected treasurer for 39 1/2 continuous years, from 1919 to 1958.

Following his graduation from Saint Louis College in 1911, Ahana was hired on Kaua‘i by Frank Crawford, the Lihu‘e branch manager of Bank of Hawai‘i and the Lihu‘e Postmaster.

To get to work at the bank and post office in Lihu‘e, Ahana would ride one of his father’s horses from his home in Hule‘ia, and he’d return home on horseback at pau hana each evening.

In 1912, after Sheriff William Rice appointed him Kaua‘i weights and measures inspector on a contract basis, Ahana would travel around Kaua‘i by horse and buggy, checking the accuracy of scales, yardsticks and other measures. (In 1914, he bought his first car, a secondhand Buick from J. B. Fernandes.)

A year later, Ahana became clerk to both Kaua‘i County Auditor Carl Maser and Kaua‘i County Clerk J. M. Kaneakua, as well as a court reporter and Chinese interpreter, first under Judge Lyle M. Dickey and later Judge William C. Achi Jr. 343

Then in 1919, Ahana was elected county treasurer, defeating Abraham G. Kaulukou, who went on to a long career as county attorney.

While campaigning, Ahana became the first-ever Kaua‘i candidate for public office to go house-to-house to meet voters — at that time, less that 2,000 on the island.

Ahana sometimes began speeches in the Hawaiian language to garner Hawaiian votes. “‘Oia‘i‘o no, a‘ole wau he Hawai‘i maka poko aka, he Hawai‘i no wau maka pu‘uwai, pu‘uwai hamama,” he’d tell Hawaiians at community political rallies, which in English meant, “It is true that I am not Hawaiian by blood, but I am Hawaiian at heart, openhearted.”

Coffee Planter Godfrey Rhodes

Godfrey Rhodes And Daughter In 1842, British sea captain Godfrey Rhodes (1815-97) and his partner, Frenchman John Bernard, established the first commercial coffee plantation in the Hawaiian Islands at Hanalei, Kaua‘i, on 150 acres of government-leased land along the banks of the Hanalei River.

They then subleased a portion of their land to fellow coffee planters Gottfried Wundenberg and Archibald Archer.

Rhodes, known to Hawaiians as Kepena Loke (Captain Rose), also captained Jules Dudoit’s bark “Clementine” during this time, making numerous voyages to South America and the Pacific Northwest. Dudoit would later become the French consular agent in Hawai‘i.

Rhodes’ coffee mill was situated low on the hillside a short distance east of and just above the site of the present Hanalei Bridge, which was not erected

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until 1912.

He also built a stone house by his mill that he named Kikiula, while Wundenberg built a small wooden house at Limanui across the river from the mill.

Assisting Rhodes in building his coffee plantation of about 750 acres was English horticulturist Thomas Brown.

By 1846, Rhodes’ plantation and Yankee Charles Titcomb’s neighboring plantation had more than 100,000 coffee trees in cultivation.

Yet, beginning in the late 1840s, coffee production suffered. Flooding damaged the coffee crop in 1847, workers were lost to the California Gold Rush beginning in 1848, a severe drought struck in 1851, and sadly, epidemics killed Native Hawaiian laborers.

By the time the rains finally returned and immigrant Chinese had eased the labor shortage, a blight caused by aphids ruined the coffee crops in Hanalei.

Consequently, in 1853, Rhodes sold out to Hawaiian Foreign Minister Robert Crichton Wyllie.

Godfrey Rhodes was also vice president of the Royal Hawaiian Agricultural Society and a member of the House of Representatives and the House of Nobles of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i.

Kapiolani Visits Kauai

Esther Kapiolani (1834-1899), a granddaughter of Kaumuali‘i, Kaua‘i’s last king, made her first visit to Kaua‘i during 1860 in the company of King

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Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma and their son, Prince Albert, at a time when she was serving as Albert’s nurse.

The royal party visited Foreign Minister Robert Crichton Wyllie’s Hanalei plantation, while residing at the home of another planter, Charles Titcomb, whose house was located alongside the road to Hanalei town about 1 mile downstream of the Hanalei Bridge (built in 1912).

Two years later, Kapiolani was Prince Albert’s governess in Honolulu when he suddenly became ill and died, leaving Kapiolani grief-stricken and blaming herself for his death.

At first, Queen Emma tried to comfort Kapiolani by telling her that she could not possibly have been at fault since she’d loved Albert so deeply, but eventually Emma did hold Kapiolani responsible.

Much later, Queen Lili‘uokalani blamed Albert’s father, instead, whom Lili‘uokalani said had put Albert under a cold-water faucet as punishment for throwing a tantrum immediately prior to his illness.

Yet, Honolulu medical doctors and British naval doctors at the time could not determine the cause or the treatment of Albert’s illness, which is nowadays suspected of being appendicitis.

In 1874, Kapiolani became Queen Consort of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, when her husband, David Kalakaua, was elected king.

As queen, Kapiolani sailed with Kalakaua to Kaua‘i that same year aboard the steamship “Kilauea,” making stops at Hanalei, Waimea, Koloa, Lihu‘e and Nawiliwili.

Ten years later, when her sister, Princess Kekaulike, died, Kapiolani and Princess Po‘omaikelani, her other sister, adopted Kekaulike’s sons — David Kahalepouli, Edward Keliiahonui and Jonah Kuhio, who was born on Kaua‘i in the area now known as Prince Kuhio Park.

In 1890, Queen Kapiolani established the Kapiolani Maternity Hospital in Honolulu, now named Kapiolani Medical Center.

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Marines Storm Barking Sands Beach

All told, more than 10,000 U.S. Marines and Sailors, 18 Navy ships, 100 Fury and Crusader jet aircraft and numerous helicopters from Pearl Harbor and Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, O‘ahu took part in a three day exercise code named Clear Ridge on west Kaua‘i between Sept. 20 and Sept. 23, 1959.

The first assault units of the 3,000 Marine landing force stormed ashore from landing craft at Barking Sands right on time on Sunday at 8:35 a.m. to kick off the beach assault portion of Clear Ridge.

Simultaneously, while the landing force attacked Barking Sands, 24 assault helicopters from the aircraft carrier “Princeton” deployed a battalion of Marines to a position in the mountains east of Polihale and below Pu‘ukapele to commence the aerial assault phase of Clear Ridge.

The tactical mission of the force attacking at Barking Sands was to proceed inland against enemy forces opposing them — the enemy forces being a battalion of Camp Pendleton, Calif. Marines that had debarked earlier at Port Allen, Kaua‘i and had been deployed as defenders in the area between the beach and the high uplands prior to the amphibious assault.

While the Marines that had landed on the beach pushed inland against the enemy Pendleton Marines, the tactical mission of the Marines deployed in the mountains below Pu‘ukapele was to advance into the lowlands to prevent the enemy from retreating mauka.

Clear Ridge ended on Wednesday, the 23rd, when the Barking Sands force and the helicopter-borne force, each pushing towards each other, met and joined forces.

Of course, the attacking and defending forces did not actually engage in combat. Instead, Marine umpires in the field judged the effectiveness of both sides.

During the operation, Kekaha Sugar Co. employees at work in cane fields sometimes found themselves being challenged by marines to determine if they

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were friend or foe. And, in Koke‘e, sightings of Marines became temporarily commonplace.

Lady Jane Franklin And Sophia Cracroft Visit Kauai

Lady Jane Franklin And Sophia Cracroft From May 30 to June 15, 1861, Englishwomen Lady Jane Franklin (1791-1875) and her deceased husband’s niece, Sophia Cracroft (1816-1892), visited Kaua‘i during their tour of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

The women were guests of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Princeville Plantation owner Robert Crichton Wyllie at Kikiula.

After arriving at Hanalei aboard the schooner “Odd Fellow,” Wyllie’s manager, Godfrey Wundenberg, welcomed them aboard his whaleboat at the anchorage and steered them into the Hanalei River.

Upriver on their port side they passed Wyllie’s sugar mill, and after landing below Kikiula, they walked uphill to Wundenberg’s whitewashed and redroofed house.

Sophia Cracroft wrote, “We passed here twelve delightful days of unbroken repose, free from bustle, interruption, and fatigue.”

But not without some excitement, for among their experiences they observed an argument between missionaries Mrs. Lois Johnson and Mrs. Lucy Wilcox following Sunday services held by missionary Rev. Edward Johnson at the Waioli church — a quarrel about which woman’s home Lady Franklin should visit first.

Later, while touring Kaua‘i on horseback and by horse-drawn carriage, the women stayed overnight in dairy farmer Ernest Krull’s thatched-grass home at Kumukumu above Kealia Beach.

They were also impressed by the machinery of the Lihu‘e Plantation mill — then managed by former missionary William Harrison Rice — and Rice’s

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teakwood-paneled home at Koamalu, which stood next to and on the Lihue side of today’s Aloha Church.

Later, the Englishwomen met gentlemanly, gray-haired Gov. Paul Kanoa at Herman Widemann’s thatched-grass Grove Farm residence.

Following a trip to Wailua Falls, they also visited future sugar planter Paul Isenberg’s residence in the Thomas Brown mansion situated on the high pali above the juncture of the north and south forks of the Wailua River.

On June 15, Lady Jane Franklin and Miss Cracroft departed Nawiliwili by steamer for Honolulu.

Ginger’s Summer Work At Hawaiian Fruit Packers

Ginger Beralas Soboleski During the summer between her junior and senior years at Kaua‘i High School, which was in the summer of 1966, Ginger Beralas (Soboleski) of Lihu‘e, Kaua‘i, worked at the Hawaiian Fruit Packers cannery on Kawaihau Road in Kapahi to earn money for college.

Her work days and hours were Monday through Friday from 6 a.m. until the cannery whistle blew at 4 p.m., with time off for a 15 minute break at 9:30 a.m. and a half hour lunch beginning at noon.

“My job title was canning packer, assigned to operate a canning machine on an assembly line that released chunks of pineapple into aluminum cans,” Beralas recently recalled. “That machine and many others made the working environment quite deafening and the air was filled with the odor of pineapples.”

Inside the Kapahi cannery, which was in operation from 1932 to 1973, Ginaca

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machines would first skin and core harvested pineapples at the rate of 50 per minute on regular sized fruit and 65 pineapples per minute on small fruit.

Then the Ginacas slid the pineapples onto conveyor belts, where workers quickly inspected the fruit for its color, firmness and ripeness and sliced out the eyes and damaged portions by hand.

Next, machines cut the selected pineapples into slices or chunks.

From there, the fruit went to a canning machine like the one Beralas operated, where rows of empty cans were filled with chunks or slices of pineapple, or crushed pineapple, and the cans were then topped with lids.

Meanwhile, the juicer machine filled cans with pineapple juice, and these cans were also topped.

Other machines placed filled cans into frames that were stacked and stored for shipment.

When an order was received, cans were labeled, packed, crated, trucked and shipped.

All the while, quality control workers tested pineapples for color, acidity, texture and sugar content.

Kauai County Attorney Abraham Gilbert Kaulukou

From left to right, Abraham Gilbert Kaulukou, S. K. Kaeo And Lyle A. Dickey Outside The Lihu‘e Hawaiian Church in 1921 Abraham Gilbert Kaulukou (1880-1957), Kaua‘i County Attorney for 29 years,

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from 1924 to 1953, was born in Honolulu, attended Kamehameha School and Iolani and graduated from O‘ahu College (the name of Punahou from 1859 to 1934).

In 1902, he was awarded a scholarship from O‘ahu’s Yale alumni to attend Yale. He graduated from Yale with a law degree in 1905, and began his legal practice in Honolulu that same year in partnership with William H. Heen.

Two years later, he started a law practice on Kaua‘i. Then from 1910 until 1915, he served as the county’s tax collector.

Thereafter, he was elected Kaua‘i County Treasurer for two terms, after which he was elected County Attorney and was reelected each time afterward until his retirement in 1953.

During his early years on Kaua‘i he edited a Hawaiian language column for The Garden Island newspaper, called Lei Mokihana.

Kaulukou was born into a distinguished Hawaiian family.

His father, John L. Kaulukou (1852-1917), for one, had been the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i from 1880 to 1886 during the reign of King David Kalakaua.

As an ardent Royalist, he’d been a strong supporter of Kalakaua and was outspoken in his opposition to the “Bayonet Constitution” of 1887, which weakened Kalakaua’s power to rule and restricted voting rights only to Hawaiian, American, and European men, provided they met prescribed economic and literacy tests.

John L. Kaulukou’s other posts in the kingdom included Postmaster General, Attorney General, and Marshall of the Kingdom. He also served in the Republic of Hawai‘i led by President Sanford B. Dole as an attorney, judge and member of the House of Representatives. He called Hawai‘i’s annexation to the United States “the best thing that could happen for Hawai‘i.”

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Princeville Ranch Manager Fred B. Conant

Fred B. Conant (1896-1980), the manager of Princeville Ranch from 1927 to 1958, was born at Waimea, Kaua‘i into a well-established kama‘aina family.

His mother, Surreney Ann Kananiopuna Conant, born in Koloa, Kaua‘i, was of Hawaiian ancestry, and his father, Elmer E. Conant, was at the time of his birth the manager of Waimea Sugar Mill Company.

In 1899, the elder Conant would become the first manager of McBryde Sugar Co., Kaua‘i, and would later manage the Big Island’s Parker Ranch and Moloka‘i Ranch.

When Fred B. Conant first joined Princeville Ranch, rice growing was a big money crop in the Hanalei area.

Bagged rice harvested in Hanalei Valley was floated down the Hanalei River on flat-bottomed barges to be stored inside a warehouse by the Hanalei pier to await shipment to Honolulu.

Then, following the arrival at Hanalei of a steamer such as the “Likelike,” rice bags would be loaded into open boats called lighters, and the lighters would then be rowed to the steamer anchored offshore, where the bags would be transferred aboard ship. The process of transferring cargo between vessels in this manner is called lightering.

In those days, ranch cattle were also shipped from Hanalei. Cattle would be tied to the sides of lighters, which would then be rowed out to a steamer.

Once the lighters came alongside the steamer, the cattle would be hoisted aboard in rope slings.

During Conant’s 31 years as manager of Princeville Ranch, its cattle herd grew from 1,400 to 2,200 animals. Large areas of former rice growing wetlands were drained and converted into cattle pastures. Mauka lands were acquired and cleared for additional pasture, and Pangola, an outstanding, fast-growing 352

pasture grass was introduced.

Fred B. Conant and his wife, Phelina, had two children: Fred Blakeslee and Surreney Ann Conant.

The Ladder At Alapii Point

For hundreds of years, people traveled between the fishing village at Nualolo Kai on Kaua‘i’s Na Pali Coast and Nualolo Valley, which is situated above and inland of Nualolo Kai and is cut off from Nualolo Kai and the ocean by sheer cliffs.

They did so by traversing a steep and narrow cliff side trail, which deteriorated after the village was abandoned in the early 1900s and is now impassable.

But, in the old days, the upward trek to Nualolo Valley from Nualolo Kai began at the base of the approximately 300-foot high Alapi‘i Point on the northeastern boundary of Nualolo Kai. Following a climb of about 15 feet of perpendicular rock face, there was a 20 to 25 foot tall ladder lashed to the cliff that carried climbers higher.

Honolulu merchant Gorham D. Gilman (1822-1909) wrote of his failed attempt to climb the trail in August, 1845, during a boat trip from Hanalei to Waimea along the Na Pali Coast.

“There I was, my chief support a little projecting stone, not sufficient a hold for my whole foot, and my hands clinging with a death grasp to the rock … which would have proved my death place if I had made the least mistake or slip. I had strong curiosity to go forward, but discretion prevailed and I returned. I was then told that few white men had gone as far as I had, and none had ever passed

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the ladder.”

Yet, Gilman noted that Hawaiians easily traversed the ladder and the trail.

Fifty years later, in 1895, Kaua‘i kama‘aina Eric Knudsen (1872-1957) climbed the ladder made of two long olopua sticks lashed to the cliff with olona ropes and crawled along a narrow ledge high above the ocean.

Hand holds cut into the rocks aided his further ascent to a trail cut in the rock that led up and around the base of the roughly 1,500-foot tall Mount Kamaile and into Nualolo Valley.

Soldier And Educator Domingo Los Banos

Born on O‘ahu in 1925, but raised in Kalaheo, Kaua‘i, the son of Filipino immigrants, Domingo Los Baños attended Kaua‘i High School and studied at the University of Hawai‘i before enlisting in the U.S. Army in 1944 during WWII. While in the Army, Los Baños served as a infantryman with the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment — comprised almost entirely of Filipino-Americans — in action against enemy Japanese soldiers on Samar, Philippine Islands in 1945.

In early-August 1945, while First Sergeant Los Baños was behind enemy lines on a scouting mission, he suddenly came face-to-face with an armed Japanese soldier. Reacting more quickly than his foe, he killed the soldier with his carbine.

The act of having looked into the eyes of death, and having overcome it by taking a human life, profoundly impressed upon Los Baños the terrible brutality of war and his own inescapable vulnerability.

Los Baños vowed that if he survived the war he would teach the next generation the need for peace and understanding among people, the antithesis of conflict and war.

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Following his military discharge, Los Baños prepared himself to fulfill his pledge by earning a B.S. in physical education from Springfield College and a M.S. in physical education at Teacher’s College, Columbia University.

During his many years as a teacher, coach, principal and school superintendent in Hawai‘i, and thereafter, he kept his promise.

On Kaua‘i, early on in his career, Los Baños taught at Waimea Elementary and Kapa‘a School, and was the principal of Anahola School.

He also attended Stanford University for a year, was a Fulbright Lecturer in Thailand and helped produce “An Untold Triumph,” the documentary of the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments.

Domingo Los Baños and his wife, Mary Louise, reside in Honolulu. They have four children.

Kauai’s First Lady Of Fashion Guadalupe Ledesma Bulatao

Born in Iloilo City, Philippine Islands, Guadalupe Ledesma Bulatao (19181994) immigrated to Kaua‘i in 1930 in the company of her uncle, the Rev. Catalino Cortezan, then an associate pastor at Koloa Union Church, following a visit of his to his native Philippines.

At home in Cortezan’s Koloa household, Guadalupe’s precocious talent for creating hand-stitched clothing attracted the admiration of both her uncle and her aunt, Josefina Cortezan.

Accordingly, approximately a year after her arrival on Kaua‘i, Rev. Cortezan enrolled her in a clothing design class being taught locally by a visiting 355

California fashion designer named Helen B. Stanley.

In 1934, not long after her marriage to Jose Bulatao (1906-1959), at that time a police officer with the Kaua‘i Police Department, Bulatao launched her first dress shop in Judge Henry Blake’s garage, across from Koloa School.

During WWII, Guadalupe opened “The Rendezvous Dress Shop” in Waimea, where her flair for fashionable attire went from head to toe, with her shop providing hats, accessories, jewelry and shoes for complete ensembles.

Among her clientele at that time were military officers stationed on Kaua‘i, who purchased her dresses for their wives on the Mainland.

Plantation socialites ordered dresses for the weekend parties of their circle, and her bridal gowns and evening wear were in demand throughout the Garden Island.

Celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, Shirley Temple Black, the wives of Bing Crosby, John Wayne, Neil Armstrong, Rory Calhoun and the spouses of Governors Quinn and Ariyoshi were among her upscale customers.

To this day, former customers of Guadalupe still marvel at and have kept their “Originals by Guadalupe” as tributes to her impeccable workmanship and timeless design.

Guadalupe Bulatao, “Kauai’s First Lady of Fashion,” was adored by her children Millicent Wellington, Mabel Jean Odo, Jose Bulatao Jr. and Roselind Bulatao-Franklin.

Kauai Civic Leader Jose Bulatao

Jose And Gaudalupe Bulatao

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In 1931, nine years after he’d emigrated from Villasis, Pangasinan, Philippine Islands to the U. S. Mainland, and two years after earning a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree at Lincoln University in San Francisco, Jose Bulatao (19061959) moved to Honolulu, where he published his own newspaper, “The Filipino Advocate.”

Then in 1933, he accepted a position as a police officer with the Kaua‘i Police Department, initially being stationed in Koloa.

Four years later, in 1937, officer Bulatao so impressed Kekaha Sugar Co. Manager Lindsay A. Faye with his cool and authoritative manner in defusing a potentially violent confrontation among Kekaha Sugar Co. laborers, that Faye not only offered him the post of Camp Police Officer at Kekaha Sugar, but promised to build him and his wife, Guadalupe, a new house as well. Bulatao accepted.

While employed as Kekaha Sugar’s camp policeman, Bulatao also assisted laborers with legal matters and paperwork. He was eventually promoted to Housing Administrator.

During World War II, Lt. Bulatao served with the Kaua‘i Volunteers, formed to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard in defense of Kaua‘i.

In 1945, as president of the Territorial Filipino Council, he and Ayson, Los Banos Sr., Regala, Teho, Ligot, Pablo and Mr. and Mrs. Gamponia traveled to Washington to successfully plead with Congress to allow what would become the last major organized Filipino migration to the U.S. As chairman of the mission, the document he’d written and submitted to Congress, which was accepted and passed into law, resulted in the immigration of around 6,000 men, 446 women and 915 children to Hawai‘i — the 1946 Sakadas.

Bulatao was also active with the West Kaua‘i Lions Club, the Kekaha School PTA, the Kekaha Methodist Church and other organizations. He spearheaded the formation of the Kaua‘i Filipino Civic Association, which evolved into the United Filipino Council of Hawai‘i of today.

Sadly, Jose Bulatao died in an automobile accident in 1959, leaving behind his wife and four children.

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Kauai Musician And Bandleader Charlie Kaneyama

Charlie Kaneyama And His Merrie Melodiers, Circa 1940s.

Kekaha, Kaua‘i-born musician and bandleader Charlie Kaneyama (1907-2007) is perhaps best-known for his 17-piece orchestra, Charlie Kaneyama and his Merrie Melodiers, which dominated the music polls on Kaua‘i and O‘ahu during the 1940s big band era.

As a child, Kaneyama was overwhelmed by the sounds of the harmonica.

When his father finally bought him one — his first musical instrument — for 25 cents in Honolulu when he was 7, he was so overwhelmed that he ran joyfully down the street with it. To his surprise, he found himself playing “Thus Pounds The Poi.” When Kaneyama was 18, he landed his first job as a musician, playing the banjo with Ernest Silva’s “Makaweli Orchestra” on Kaua‘i. In time, he would also master the clarinet, saxophone, guitar and ‘ukulele.

Formed by Kaneyama in 1941, Charlie Kaneyama and his Merrie Melodiers, with their theme song “Jungle Drums,” were Kaua‘i’s best known professional musicians during the big band era, featuring such vocalists as Francisco Ledesma Jr., Joe Waiwaiole, Annie Holt, Yoshie Masumoto and Louis Jacinto Jr. In 1949, Kaneyama and his Merrie Melodiers traveled to Honolulu 55 times to

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play with the best dance bands in the Territory in the Battle of the Bands. Two of the big-name Honolulu bands at that time were Ray Tanaka’s Esquires and the Torchers. The Merrie Melodiers topped them all.

“For what I am today, I owe to music,” Kaneyama once said. “To me, it has been a wonderful means of communication and when I make people happy, I am also happy.”

Charlie Kaneyama was also an accomplished magician and photographer and over many years taught at least 1,000 children to play the ‘ukulele.

A 50-year employee of Kekaha Sugar Co., he retired as the company’s safety director.

He and his wife, Hiroko, had three sons and two daughters.

Kauai Educator Bernice Hundley

Bernice Emilie Laniuma Hundley (1882-1965), for whom the Bernice Hundley Gym at Kaua‘i’s Kapa‘a High School is named, was born in Anahola, Kaua‘i, the daughter of Emmalia Williams Hundley, a Hawaiian woman who was a friend and attendant to Queen Emma.

Her father, Samuel Napoleon Hundley, was a Virginian who’d served as a Confederate cavalry officer under Gen. Stonewall Jackson during the American Civil War. Samuel Hundley had come to Kaua‘i in 1878, and in 1885, set up Kaua‘i’s first sugar diffusion process at Col. Zephaniah Spalding’s Makee Sugar Co. mill in Kealia.

In the sugar diffusion process, sugar is extracted by repeated hot water washings of sugarcane that has been cut into small pieces.

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Mr. Hundley went on to become head luna at Makee.

A graduate of Punahou, Miss Hundley continued her education at the Washburn School in San Jose, Calif., Stanford University and Heald’s Business College.

Upon her return to Kaua‘i, she became secretary to the manager of Makee Sugar Co. for a time before beginning her long career in education as a substitute teacher at Kapa‘a School in 1908. She taught at Kapa‘a School until 1915, when she was appointed principal.

A year later, she was promoted to supervising school principal of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, a position she held until her retirement in 1947.

Miss Hundley noted that when she first became a teacher in 1908 there were 17 schools in Kaua‘i County, with 55 teachers and 2,558 students. Schools were located at Ha‘ena, Hanalei, Kilauea, Ko‘olau, Anahola, Kapa‘a, Hanama‘ulu, Lihu‘e, Hule‘ia, Koloa, Kalaheo, Hanapepe, Makaweli, Waimea, Kekaha, Mana and Ni‘ihau.

At that time there were also three private schools on Kaua‘i, two in Lihu‘e and one at Koloa, with a total of four teachers and 142 students.

When Miss Hundley retired 39 years later, Kaua‘i had 20 schools, about 300 teachers and 7,000 pupils.

Sheriff Wilcox Arrests Limaloa’s Attackers

Sheriff Wilcox Back in the late 1800s, when Samuel W. Wilcox (1847-1929) was sheriff of Kaua‘i, an old man named Limaloa was found by his family lying unconscious and badly beaten on the ground by his awa patch, located in one of the little side valleys on the slopes of the Ha‘upu Range above Hule‘ia Valley.

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Limaloa’s family notified Sheriff Wilcox in Lihu‘e. After Wilcox examined Limaloa, he sent for Dr. James W. Smith (1810-1887) of Koloa, who arrived later by horse and treated Limaloa, but offered little hope for his recovery.

Wilcox soon learned from another Hule‘ia resident named Ukauka that about a month earlier a man from Anahola had visited Hule‘ia and had asked for the location of Limaloa’s awa patch.

Sheriff Wilcox arrested that man and locked him up in the old Lihu‘e jail, located where the big Nawiliwili bulk sugar warehouse now stands.

At first, Wilcox could get nothing out of him, but after Wilcox warned him it would be “pilikia” for him should Limaloa die, the man’s resolve weakened and he confessed.

While admitting no involvement in the crime himself, he told Wilcox that he suspected a group of 10 men, who drank awa at Kiaipaa’s house near Homaikawaa Beach, situated north of Kealia and just south of Ahihi Point.

He went on the say that these men — but not himself — had planned to raid Limaloa’s awa patch, but had panicked and had run off without stealing any awa after witnessing the severe beating three of them had given Limaloa.

Wilcox then obtained warrants to arrest the suspects and, with several policemen accompanying him, apprehended them in Keapana Valley, where he had summoned them without telling them of his purpose.

Limaloa recovered from his injuries and two of the suspects, convicted in court of attacking Limaloa, were jailed.

Thoroughbred Race Horse Jockey Roy Yaka

Originally from Hanama‘ulu, Roy Yaka (1931-2007) was a perennial top 10 professional thoroughbred racehorse jockey in Northern California from 1959 to 1981, and a thoroughbred racehorse trainer from 1981 to 1991.

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Since jockeys are required to meet horse carrying weight limits set by racing authorities, a small stature is a prerequisite to being a jockey. In the case of the Kentucky Derby, for example, the weight limit is 126 pounds, which includes a jockey’s equipment.

In this regard, Roy Yaka was naturally well-qualified, being one of the smallest jockeys in the western United States. Yaka weighed only 105 pounds, 10 pounds lighter than the average jockey’s weight and stood just 5 feet tall in his riding gear.

Following his apprenticeship in 1958, for which he was voted the outstanding apprentice rider for all the major U.S. race tracks, Yaka’s first mount as a journeyman in 1959 was “Forever Darling,” owned by musician and actor Dezi Arnez and his wife, comedian Lucille Ball. Although Yaka lost, he said he got a “big kick” out of the race.

He was known as a “hoop-de-do” rider, one of those jockeys who breaks quickly out of the gate and keeps a fast pace throughout the race.

A hard worker, Yaka averaged six to eight mounts a day and would turn out for workouts in the morning, whether required, or not.

Some of the top jockeys he competed against were Eddie Arcaro, Willie Shoemaker, Ray York, Bill Bolling, Don Pierce and George Taniguchi, whose mother was born in Kekaha, Kaua‘i.

His career statistics as a jockey from 1959 to 1975 are unavailable, but from 1976 to 1981, records show Yaka had 3,743 starts, 404 first-place finishes, 421 second-place finishes, 441 third-place finishes and earnings of $2,671,455.

Yaka’s statistics as a trainer consist of 1,375 starts, 125 firsts, 139 seconds, 148 thirds, with earnings totaling $1,093,536.

He and his wife, Atsuko, had one son, Royce.

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Lihue Plantation’s Radio-Controlled Train Dispatching System

Lihu‘e Plantation Locomotive “Lei Ilima” With Its Crew, Circa 1950s.

In 1951, Kaua‘i’s Lihu‘e Plantation replaced its radio-less train dispatching system with a new radio-controlled system.

The new system more efficiently ensured that trains traveling toward each other on the same track at the same time would not meet, causing an impasse or crash.

To prevent such a mishap under the plantation’s radio-less system, locomotive engineers were required to stop their trains at every siding along the track, get off the train and telephone their location to the dispatcher at the Lihu‘e Mill marshaling yard.

Engineers would then be told over the phone by the dispatcher — the employee who controlled the movement of plantation trains — either to remain at the siding for an oncoming train to pass, or proceed ahead.

The new radio-controlled system worked differently.

Since radios were installed aboard each locomotive, engineers were able to radio the dispatcher their positions while on the move at half-mile markers placed along the track.

The engineers would then only stop their trains at an upcoming siding if advised by the dispatcher to do so. Thus, stopping and starting a train, which took several minutes, would be done only when needed.

Radios were also installed in trailers beside harvesting fields, which harvesting supervisors would use to communicate with the dispatcher.

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of a string of railroad cars with sugarcane was completed. Then, the dispatcher would direct a locomotive engineer to proceed to the harvesting field for hookup.

The advantage of this procedure was that the locomotive engineer would not — as was the case under the old radio-less system — need to wait incommunicado by a harvesting field until a string of railroad cars was loaded, but would be free instead for other duties in the meantime, such as picking up empty cane cars at the Lihu‘e Mill or Kealia marshaling yards.

Bandmaster Henri Berger On Kauai

Henri Berger (1844-1929), the longest-serving conductor of the Royal Hawaiian Band, visited Kaua‘i with his band several times during his 44-year tenure as Hawai‘i’s bandmaster.

On the shore of Hanalei Bay on the morning of March 18, 1874, as the steamer “Kilauea” with King David Kalakaua on board glided slowly toward the Hanalei landing, Berger and the band commenced playing “Hawai‘i Ponoi,” the Kingdom of Hawai‘i’s national anthem and the present Hawai‘i state song.

Suddenly, the band’s music was silenced by a thunderous salute fired from a battery of wooden cannon lined in a row upon the nearby bluff.

Lacking proper iron cannon, the residents of Hanalei had manufactured these improvised wooden cannon by boring thick ohia logs and charging them with gunpowder. When the cannon were fired, they were blown to smithereens.

Shortly thereafter, a good-sized gathering on the beach cheered and children tossed flowers at Kalakaua’s feet as he walked along a path covered with rushes and lined with red and yellow lehua branches.

Sixteen years later, in 1890, when William Hyde Rice superintended the first big 364

fair in Lihu‘e, held on the grounds of his Hale Nani home (located at about the center of today’s Ewalu Street), Kalakaua sent Henri Berger and the Royal Hawaiian band to entertain the fairgoers.

The following year, at noon on July 8, 1891, Rice’s Hale Nani once again came alive with the music of Berger conducting the Royal Hawaiian Band, while 300 to 400 children of various nationalities passed before Queen Lili‘uokalani as she sat on Rice’s lanai.

Later that January, hotel owner W. E. H. Deverill met Lili‘uokalani at his home on Hanalei Bay and noted in his diary that “Her Majesty arrived a little before twelve and so far all has gone nicely. The ball came off fine and lasted till 12 o’clock, when the Royal Band played ‘Hawai‘i Ponoi.’”

Col. Spalding’s 1918 Valley House Christmas Celebration

Valley House On a December day in 1918, Col. Zephaniah Spalding (1837-1927) — the commanding officer of the 27th Ohio Infantry during the American Civil War, and the owner of Kaua‘i’s Makee Sugar Co. from 1879 to 1916 — invited Kapa‘a School principal Katherine Burke, along with the approximately 20 teachers and 600 students of the school, to his home, Valley House, for a Christmas celebration.

Located beyond Haua‘ala Road in Keapana Valley, until it was destroyed by fire in 1950, Spalding’s Valley House featured a great central hall with a wide staircase leading upstairs.

Also gracing the interior was an eye-catching crystal chandelier, imported

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European furniture and a dining room spacious enough for 24 guests.

Outside, visitors could play tennis on the estate’s courts or swim in the pool.

When Spalding’s Kapa‘a School Christmas guests arrived at Valley House by plantation train from Kealia, they were greeted by singers and band music being played on the grounds by his tennis courts.

A lunch of sandwiches, cookies, cake, ice cream and cold drinks was served to the children, followed by the appearance of Santa Claus, who presented each child with the gift of a paper bag containing fruit and sweets.

Afterwards, the children swam in Spalding’s swimming pool, played games and roamed about his estate under the supervision of Spalding’s employees.

Meanwhile, Miss Burke and her teachers went to Countess Senni’s bedroom on the second floor of Valley House to freshen up.

The Countess was one of Spalding’s three daughters, all of whom had married Italian counts.

Then a cake, ice cream and cold drink dessert for Spalding, his family, Miss Burke and her teachers was served downstairs, with Miss Burke sitting next to Spalding at a table covered with immaculate linen.

In the afternoon, at the close of Spalding’s Christmas celebration, his Kapa‘a School guests road the plantation train through cane fields back to Kealia.

Keoike’s Lost Treasure

Gold Slugs During the 1870s, a man named Keoike lived most of the time on the coast at Nukoli‘i, Kaua‘i, about halfway between Hanama‘ulu and Wailua. The rest of the time he lived at Kawailoa, the area of Nukoli‘i where Kaua‘i Beach Villas is now located.

Keoike had earned the reputation of being a hard worker and a thrifty saver, and

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was reputed to possess a large cache of money hidden away at several secret spots in Nukoli‘i.

His good friend Josia Keawe had once confided to Kaua‘i Sheriff Samuel W. Wilcox — Kaua‘i’s sheriff from 1872 until 1897 — that Keoike had $10,000 stashed away, an enormous amount of money in those days.

Keawe went on to tell Wilcox that a portion of Keoike’s cache was in the form of old coins, some of which were eight-sided gold slugs (similar to that seen in the picture accompanying this story).

Keawe also informed Wilcox that Keoike had actually shown him and others one of the eight-sided gold slugs.

One day, two women, each about 20 years old, rode their horses to Nukoli‘i to go fishing. While they were looking for a place to tie the horses among some rocks, one of the women uncovered a bag filled with money.

Overjoyed, they took the bag home and told everyone they met about their lucky find. When Keoike heard the news, he came to claim the bag, but the women refused to hand it over.

Keoike then contacted Sheriff Wilcox, who ordered the women to give the money back to Keoike, which they did.

Some time later, when Keoike became ill and was near death, Sheriff Wilcox’s brother, sugar planter Albert S. Wilcox, who was the guardian of Keoike’s adopted daughter, Helen Keoike, asked Keoike where the money was hidden, so that Helen could have it when the time came.

Keoike kept putting Albert Wilcox off and died not long after without ever divulging his secret.

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Miss Helen Elwell At Malumalu School

Miss Helen Elwell Born in Kansas in 1874 and raised and educated in California, Miss Helen Elwell taught at the Kaua‘i Industrial School for Hawaiian boys at Malumalu from July 1896 until the fall of 1897, when she resigned to marry Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate, the pastor of Lihu‘e Union Church and the namesake of Kaua‘i’s Lydgate Park.

Founded in 1890 by Dr. Jared Smith and his sister, Juliette Smith, the Kaua‘i Industrial School — also known as Malumalu School — was housed in a large, three-story building situated on a 30-acre farm at Malumalu, a now deserted place on the south side of Hulemalu Road, about 400 yards east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads, in an area known also as Grove Farm Field No. 10.

In 1898, Malumalu School closed due to lack of funding.

When Helen arrived at Malumalu School, about 40 to 45 boys boarded there during the school year, along with their teachers.

The school’s acting principal was Miss Malone, pending the arrival of Miss Alexander from the Mainland in November.

Helen was initially assigned by Miss Juliette Smith to teach the older boys in class work, while Mrs. Clara Smith taught the little boys.

Later, Helen transferred to teach juniors, about a dozen boys ages 6 to 10. She taught reading, writing, arithmetic and Hawaiian geography, a subject in which she was taught the proper pronunciation of Hawaiian words by her students.

One of their textbooks was “Robinson’s Arithmetic.”

Emma Blake was the school’s matron for a while and the manual training shop was run by a blacksmith named Mr. Askew.

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Askew also served as gardener and groundskeeper, providing the school with peas, corn, potatoes, tomatoes and other vegetables. The lawn and school grounds about the school were always neat and trim.

Helen Elwell Lydgate (1874-1950) and Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate were the parents of four sons.

Judge Henry Kawahinehelelani Blake

A member of one of Kaua‘i’s oldest kama‘aina families, Henry K. Blake was born in Wailana, Koloa on July 31, 1874 — the 18th day of the Hawaiian lunar month — one of four children of Alva and Kaonohiulaokala Kuaalu Blake.

Blake was educated at Koloa School, Hilo Boarding School and Malumalu School, Kaua‘i, which was founded by Dr. Jared Smith and his sister, Juliette Smith, in 1890.

Until it was razed in 1920, Malumalu School stood on the south side of Hulemalu Road, about a quarter-mile east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads.

Blake also attended Kamehameha Schools and graduated with its second graduating class in 1893. Since that time, four successive generations of his descendants have attended Kamehameha Schools.

Following his graduation, Blake taught school at Keone‘ula Correctional School in Kapalama, O‘ahu for one year before returning to Kaua‘i, where he was appointed Deputy Tax Assessor and Collector in Koloa (1894-1904) and Superintendent of Koloa Water Works (1900-1912).

From 1906 to 1916, he was elected to successive terms as Deputy Sheriff of Koloa District. In 1919 he was elected as auditor of the County of Kaua‘i.

Thereafter, he successfully petitioned the courts to grant him an attorney’s license and subsequently became a longtime judge for the Koloa District.

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Throughout his life, Blake was a member of the old Koloa Hawaiian Church.

His father was one of the carpenters who built the original church in 1859.

Henry K. Blake was also a lifelong friend and confidant of Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Piikoi. He and Prince Kuhio would spend many an afternoon on the spacious lanai of Blake’s Koloa home, talking, smoking cigars and drinking ale.

He and his first wife, Eunice Kameeualani Manoi, had one daughter, Kealoha Blake.

His second marriage was to Margaret Kahaipiilani Miller of Koloa in 1902.

They had six children: Eleanor Kaaikauilani, Emma Kaleimakalii, Juliette Kaonohiulauokala, Bernard Kahikonamoku, Hartwell Kawahinehelelani and Charles Kaumualii.

Judge Henry K. Blake died in September of 1948.

Makaweli Community Hall

Makaweli Community Hall Circa 1920s Makaweli Community Hall, which was constructed in 1917 on the site now occupied by the Kaumakani Recreation Center, was for many years a mecca for indoor sports on Kaua‘i’s Westside.

During Kaua‘i’s sugar plantation basketball league heyday of the 1920s, indoor basketball games were played at Makaweli Hall by competing plantation men’s teams from Waimea, Makaweli, Lihu‘e and Kapa‘a.

A team from Kaua‘i High School also competed in this senior league, since Kaua‘i High’s basketball team had no local scholastic competition. Waimea High School wasn’t established until 1936 and Kapa‘a High School dates from 1941.

Willie Opio was the tallest basketball player in those days at 6 feet 4 inches.

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Another was Douglas Magers, who later taught at Waimea High School before becoming Rev. Magers at the Lihu‘e Union Church, now Lihu‘e United Church.

Team rosters were filled with local surnames like Jardin, Aguiar, Rodrigues, Ferreiro, Lizama, Souza, Victorino, Dias, Panui, Palama, Lydgate, Camara, Montgomery, Nagai, Ishii, Malina, Arakawa and Seto.

Makaweli Hall also served as the training headquarters of the Makaweli boxing team during the 1920s and 1930s, regarded as the “Golden Age” of boxing on Kaua‘i.

Among the outstanding amateur Makaweli boxers of that era were Jose Omakanim, Robert Riola, Benny Mactagone, Placido Valenciano and Johnny Dias.

Kaua‘i professional boxers of the time, such as Little Pancho, Yasu Yasutake, Lefty Kondo, Kid Ventura, Kid Short, Filipe Papac and Kapa‘a’s Javellana brothers, earned $20 for winning a preliminary bout and $10 for losing.

The purse for a main event could be as high $100 at a time when a dollar was considered good money.

Before Hanapepe’s Aloha Theater and the Waimea Theater were built in the 1930s, Westsiders would travel to Makaweli Hall to see the weekly movies.

In May 1974 the dilapidated Makaweli Community Hall was razed.

Papalinahoa And George Wilcox’s Banyan Tree

Prior to the construction of Nawiliwili Harbor in 1930, the original shoreline at Nawiliwili ran directly from Kalapaki Beach to the base of the cliff upon which the bulk sugar warehouse now stands.

Papalinahoa, an old kuleana, bordered that stretch of shoreline and extended inland to the bluff on Kuhiau Ridge, the location of Kaua‘i High School.

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In 1886, Grove Farm Co. owner George Wilcox (1839-1933) bought Papalinahoa — at that time barren of vegetation — from Kamahalo and built a beach house on it in 1887.

He later constructed Papalinahoa Road — a horse and buggy road — that ran down from Kuhiau Ridge to his beach house.

Part of Papalinahoa Road still exists. It forms the upper boundary of Banyan Harbor Resort and runs downhill past a Chinese banyan tree that Wilcox planted in 1895 on the inside of a sharp curve in the road, which can still be seen to this day. The road then continues onward into the neighboring Kailikea property.

The tree now stands about 110 feet high, is 250 feet wide, covers about two acres of Banyan Harbor Resort property and has over 1,000 air roots.

On April 6, 1967, when Mabel and Gaylord Wilcox — George Wilcox’s niece and nephew — took a walk on Papalinahoa Road, Mabel, in referring to the sharp curve, asked her brother, “Do you remember this sharp turn?” She went on to recollect horse and buggy trips they once took along the road to their uncle’s beach house.

Native Hawaiian hula master, chanter and composer Sarah Kailikea (1911-2004), whose home — now the residence of her son, Malcom — borders Banyan Harbor Resort, was a guardian of Wilcox’s banyan tree for many years.

In 1976, she was successful in having the tree declared exceptional by Kaua‘i County authorities, thereby giving it legal protection.

School Teacher Michie Tanaka

Born in Lihu‘e, Kaua‘i in 1891, the eldest of seven children of Japanese immigrant parents Sieji and Nami Tanaka, Michie Tanaka was the first Japanese woman to graduate, in 1910, as an elementary school teacher from a normal school in Hawai‘i — the Territorial Normal and Training School.

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Normal schools were sub-collegiate educational institutions established in Hawai‘i to train students to become elementary school teachers upon graduation.

The Territorial Normal and Training School, originally named the Government Normal School, was founded in Honolulu in 1895.

In 1896, the Government Normal School moved from Honolulu High School (later renamed McKinley High School), at its Princess Ruth Keelikolani mansion and Royal School locations on Queen Emma Street, to Victoria and Young streets, and was designated Honolulu Normal and Training School.

Honolulu Normal and Training School relocated to Lunalilo and Quarry streets in 1905 and was given a new name — Territorial Normal and Training School.

Finally, in 1931, Territorial Normal and Training School advanced to the collegiate level by merging into the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa system.

Miss Tanaka attended Lihu‘e School in Pua Loke until the sixth grade, when her family moved to Honolulu.

A bright student, she was able to skip a portion of lower grade work and enrolled in the Territorial Normal and Training School shortly thereafter, determined to be a teacher.

Following her graduation from Territorial Normal and Training School with honors, she became a teacher at Kaahumanu School in Honolulu, where she was noted for her popularity.

By 1913 she’d saved enough of her salary to purchase a home for herself and her parents and siblings on Philip Street, Honolulu. She also taught at Ewa School.

In 1925, she graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of Science in Education and continued her teaching career.

Michie Tanaka passed away in Honolulu in 1968.

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Kukaua, The Isenberg’s Mountain House

In 1899, Rev. Hans Isenberg (1855-1918) — the pastor of the Lihu‘e Lutheran Church on German Hill from 1887 until 1918 — built a mountain house he named Kukaua, once situated on the rim of Kilohana Crater above the old German Forest, at an elevation of about 1,000 feet.

The German Forest, by the way, was planted in Koa, Cassia and Eucalyptus on the Lihu‘e side of Kilohana Crater by Lihu‘e Plantation beginning in 1882 for the purpose of obtaining a supply of firewood and retaining rainwater.

From the commanding heights of Kukaua, Rev. Isenberg, his wife, Dora Rice Isenberg, and their guests enjoyed a panoramic view of Kaua‘i from Anahola to Knudsen’s Gap. The Isenbergs could easily observe Kukaua from the lanai of their large plantation-style residence on their Molokoa estate, once located above the Lutheran church, approximately 400 yards north of the end of today’s hardtop road.

Rev. and Mrs. Isenberg, along with family and friends, would ride up to Kukaua from Molokoa on horseback or in horse-drawn buggies on warm summer days for afternoon teas or for weekend lunch parties.

The Rev. Isenberg could well-afford to maintain two homes and an estate, for besides his duties as pastor, he was also engaged in the profitable business affairs of Hackfeld & Company, Lihu‘e Plantation and Koloa Plantation.

In 1914, Molokoa and Kukaua were deeded to Rev. and Mrs. Isenberg by the stockholders of Lihu‘e Plantation.

Mrs. Isenberg continued to live at Molokoa for some years after Rev. Isenberg’s death.

It was demolished by Lihu‘e Plantation in the 1970s.

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Kukaua was eventually deeded back to Lihu‘e Plantation, which in turn, leased it to Grove Farm from 1946 to 1970 as a mountain retreat for members of the Wilcox family and their Grove Farm employees.

In 1976, Kukaua was torn down by Lihu‘e Plantation.

Honolulu Harlot Jean OHara

In mid-1938, Jean O’Hara (1916-1973), alias Jean Norager, arrived in Honolulu from San Francisco for the purpose of making money by plying her trade in the world’s oldest profession.

After a few months work in a Hotel Street brothel, she achieved her goal in the form of a sizable bankroll.

O’Hara then decided to take a vacation away from the seedy living conditions of Honolulu’s red-light district by leasing a house near Waikiki Beach with her friend Betty — in violation of a Honolulu Police Department rule that specified prostitutes were not to live outside the red-light district.

When a vice squad officer reminded her of the violation, O’Hara moved into the Pacific Heights neighborhood.

Following her removal a second time, O’Hara chose to rid herself of Honolulu’s restrictions in late-1938 by sailing to Kaua‘i, where she and Betty were soon at work in a little house servicing mostly single plantation workers.

The house was one of three houses of ill repute in Olohena, Kaua‘i at that time, which were allegedly shielded from police interference by a high-ranking county official.

All of the women were from the Mainland — the madam was a woman named Jackie, and her chauffeur and bouncer was a very large individual whose name 375

was Bruno.

Following a short stint on Kaua‘i, O’Hara worked on Maui for a spell before returning to Honolulu in late-1939, where she was charged with assault and battery on a police officer, when in fact it was she that had been beaten by that very same cop.

She then garnered notoriety in the press by filing a lawsuit against the officer and the chief of police, which resulted in the police dropping the charge.

In 1944, O’Hara attained celebrity status in Honolulu during her trial for attempting to kill the husband of one of her coworkers, for which she was found not guilty.

Afterwards she vanished from the public eye.

Kalalau Lookout Park

Eric Knudsen During World War II, the steep, twisting old Hawaiian trail that wound upwards through dense forests to the Kalalau Lookout in Koke‘e was replaced by a dirt and gravel Army road that made the lookout available to automobile traffic.

Then, in 1947, the Territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry regraded the Army road, covered it with macadam and built a parking area at the end of the road with an arched gateway and a sign marking the way to the Kalalau Lookout just ahead.

At the lookout itself — which was previously just a small clearing in the forest — the board constructed a park fitted out as a picnic area with tables and benches.

The tabletops were made of lehua, with legs fashioned of sugi pine (Japanese cedar).

Two grills and a play swing for kids were also furnished, and a safety railing of juniper and sugi pine was built along the brink of the precipice.

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Opening ceremonies held at the park on Jan. 30, 1947, featured kama‘aina Eric Knudsen (1872-1957), who gave a talk on the historical and legendary background of the Koke‘e area.

Knudsen, a Kaua‘i rancher, hunter, lawyer and legislator who grew up speaking English and Hawaiian at Waiawa, near Kekaha, had blazed a trail to the summit of Mount Wai‘ale‘ale and knew the mountainous regions of Kaua‘i better than anyone in his day.

His book, “Teller of Hawaiian Tales,” available at Kaua‘i public libraries, contains many of his charming stories of old Hawai‘i.

The Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors were represented by Chairman William Ellis and supervisors David K. Luke, Yutaka Hamamoto, Anthony C. Baptiste Jr. and George K. Watase.

During Ellis’ chairmanship, by the way, Kaua‘i government was marked by an unsurpassed degree of decorum and harmony.

Kaua‘i territorial senators Clem Gomes and J. B. Fernandes were present, as well as representatives George Aguiar, Matsuki Arashiro and Manuel S. Henriques.

The Haupu Range Tunnel

In January 1948, following the merger of Koloa Plantation and Grove Farm Plantation, Grove Farm was confronted with a serious transportation problem in that the Ha‘upu Range separated most of its newly-acquired Koloa Plantation cane fields from its existing Grove Farm fields.

Unless Grove Farm came up with a viable solution, trucks hauling harvested sugarcane from Grove Farm fields to the Koloa sugar mill would be required to travel around the Ha‘upu Range through Knudsen’s Gap, a distance of anywhere

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from 15 to 25 miles per round trip — an expensive proposition.

Grove Farm’s general manager at the time, William P. Alexander, and his operations manager, William M. Moragne, decided to shorten that distance by linking the cane fields with a tunnel dug through the Ha‘upu Range.

For $26,000, Moragne purchased a complete set of surplus military tunneling equipment worth about $250,000, which had been stored in a tunnel at Mokule‘ia, O‘ahu.

Workers then began taking core samples by drilling into the top of the Ha‘upu Range along the projected route of the tunnel.

The core samples proved to be composed of solid rock, instead of a loose mix of dirt and rock, which meant that Grove Farm would be spared the expense of building structural supports in the tunnel and sealing dirt pockets with cement.

Significantly, from the standpoint of safety, drilling the tunnel through hard rock would minimize the danger of cave-ins.

Moragne then delegated the tunneling project to longtime Koloa Plantation civil engineer and Maha‘ulepu Beach resident Elbert T. Gillin, assisted by supervisors Charles Peterson and Carl Minium.

Drilling from the Koloa side of the Ha‘upu Range began on a half-mile long, 20foot-wide by 20-foot-high tunnel in September 1948.

In April 1949 — just seven month later — the tunnel was finished without a single fatality, at a cost of only $200,000.

It was an outstanding feat of engineering.

The Murder Of Dr. Jared K. Smith

Dr. Smith

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At about 10 p.m. on Sept. 24, 1897, Dr. Jared K. Smith of Koloa, a physician and the Republic of Hawai‘i’s Board of Health agent for Kaua‘i, was shot and killed at his home by a 20-year-old man named Kapea.

Kapea murdered Smith to prevent him from making a report to the Board of Health indicating that a young female relative of Kapea’s — whom Smith had recently examined and whom Kapea deeply cared for — was afflicted with Hansen’s Disease.

Smith’s report would have resulted in the girl’s banishment from Kaua‘i to the leper colony at Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i, for the remainder of her life, as was required by the Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy — an action Kapea would not accept.

Dr. Smith was shot at close range through the left side, heart and both lungs with a .38-caliber pistol in the outside doorway of his office and collapsed to the floor.

His sister, Emma, ran from her bedroom in time to see Smith die within minutes of the shooting. Another sister, Juliette, heard the murderer galloping away on horseback.

A criminal investigation was launched, and Kapea was arrested, tried and found guilty of Smith’s murder on Nov. 13, 1897, and was executed by hanging on April 11, 1898.

Born in Koloa in 1849, a son of Protestant missionaries Dr. James William Smith and Milicent Knapp Smith, Smith was held in high esteem by native Hawaiians and foreigners.

Also, the Kaua‘i Industrial School for Hawaiian Boys at Malumalu was founded by Smith and his sister, Juliette Smith, in 1890 and remained in operation until 1898.

Until it was razed in 1920, its three-story school house stood on the south side of Hulemalu Road, about a quarter-mile east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads.

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Princess Kekauonohi, Kauai’s Fourth Governor

Princess Kekauonohi (1805-1851) of Maui, a granddaughter of Kamehameha I, as well as a wife of his son, Kamehameha II, and later, the wife of Kealiiahonui, a son of Kaua‘i’s last king, Kaumuali‘i, was the fourth governor of Kaua‘i from 1842 until 1844.

She was also governor of Maui, Moloka‘i and Lana‘i from 1823 to 1826, and a member of the House of Nobles and the Privy Council of Hawai‘i.

Kaua‘i’s first governor during 1824 was Kahalaia, a chief known for his cruelty, who was replaced by Kaikioewa, the governor of Kaua‘i from 1825 to 1839.

Kaikioewa’s capital was Waimea, and the residence he built there in 1826 still stands. It now serves as the parsonage of the pastor of the Waimea United Church of Christ.

In 1835, Gov. Kaikioewa was instrumental in the birth of sugar on Kaua‘i when he and Kamehameha III leased 980 acres of land at Koloa to Hooper, Ladd and Brinsmade, who then founded Ladd & Company, Hawai‘i’s first successful sugar plantation.

Kaikioewa also established the town of Lihu‘e sometime between 1835 and 1838 for the purpose of growing sugar cane.

When he died in 1839, his wife, Keaweamahi, became governor. In 1842, Keaweamahi was replaced by Kekauonohi.

During his visit to Hawai‘i in 1846, British Admiral Henry Byam Martin described Kekauonohi as follows: “She sailed into the room with all the pomp and majesty of Q. Elizabeth. Her dress — evidently got up for the occasion — was a very

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transparent muslin shirt — through which those parts of her person, which in most countries are covered, were very visible. A green crape shawl — and a band of red and yellow (the royal colours) round her head — completed her costume.”

When Kekauonohi died it was noted that she was “the last of the old stock of chiefs — one of the best of them — good natured, benevolent, liberal and generous.”

Minehaha, The Rice-Growing Region Of Hanapepe Valley

In the accompanying photograph of Hanapepe Valley, taken from Hanapepe Lookout around 1900, the Hanapepe River can be seen snaking upwards through rice paddies into the highlands.

The big waterfall was created when Makaweli Sugar Plantation spilled its excess irrigation water into the valley from its mauka irrigation flumes, as was its practice in those days.

Whenever this waterfall appeared, passersby would stop their vehicles to watch it.

In the early 1900s, rice paddies extended for about three miles into the valley from those seen in the picture. They also continued down the valley toward Hanapepe town.

Twenty-three Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Hawaiian families farmed in this rice-growing region that was then called Minehaha.

The 3,000-plus bags of rice they harvested for sale annually were refined at rice mills owned by Morioka, Sakata, Mori and Achi, and then marketed.

When the heads of the rice grains formed on the rice stalks, hungry birds were attracted to them. To protect their crops from these birds, farmers would chase the birds away with noise all day long, starting early in the morning. They’d shoot guns and fix long ropes upon which were tied tin cans that would clang when they pulled the ropes.

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The Japanese families in the valley organized and supported a Japanese language school. Giichi Nakao from the Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan, was the school’s teacher in 1913.

In 1905, a Chinese rice farmer named Lum Choy moved with his family into Hanapepe Valley to farm three leased acres located about 6 miles within the valley.

The family’s home was a shack without running water or electricity.

While Lum Choy worked the paddies, his wife, Chang Shee cooked, cared for their farm animals and sewed her family’s clothes from white sugar bags or purchased cloth.

With the exception of store-bought cloth, soy sauce, salt and the like, they were self-sufficient.

Arthur Kailua Kinney, Grand Master of The Royal Order of Kamehameha I

Born in ‘Ele‘ele and raised at the McBryde Sugar Co. Mill Camp, Arthur Kailua Kinney Sr. (1904-1986) was the Grand Master of The Royal Order of Kamehameha I from 1959 to 1964.

Established by King Kamehameha V in 1865, the Royal Order of Kamehameha I is a knightly order of Native Hawaiian men of good moral character.

From its beginnings until the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893, four sovereigns of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i were its Grand Masters: Kamehameha V, Lunalilo, Kalakaua and Lili‘uokalani.

Thereafter, Grand Masters were elected, with Sir Arthur Kailua Kinney Sr. being the sixth of 12 elected Grand Masters to date.

Kinney, active in community affairs, also served as Kaua‘i District President of

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the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was a commercial fisherman.

During his childhood, his father owned a dairy in Wahiawa Valley, just above where the present bridge spans the valley.

In the early morning hours before school, he and his brothers would ride horseback to the dairy from McBryde Mill Camp to help milk his father’s 17 cows and store the milk in a cooling room.

Then they would walk to Hanapepe School in Hanapepe town, or to ‘Ele‘ele School, following Hanapepe School’s closing in 1911.

After school, they’d assist their father’s dairyman, John Rita, in delivering fivegallon cans of milk in a horse-drawn wagon to Hanapepe and Makaweli, where they sold milk to housewives for 5 cents a quart.

As a boy, Kinney saw the inter-island steamships S. S. Kinau and S. S. Claudine at Port Allen anchored in deep water, while lighters transported goods and passengers between the steamers and shore.

He also recalled eating shave ice covered with strawberry syrup at the horse racing track in Kukuiolono Park, Kalaheo.

Kinney and his first wife, Lei Watt Kinney, had three children. After Lei Watt died, he married Bessie Wiebke.

Scientist Robert Perkins On Kauai

In 1892, English entomologist, ornithologist and naturalist Robert Cyril Layton Perkins (1866-1955) was sent to Hawai‘i by the Royal Society and the British Association for the Advancement of Science to investigate the land fauna of the Hawaiian Islands.

For nearly 10 years thereafter, he conducted field research mainly on birds, insects and snails on O‘ahu, Hawai‘i, Moloka‘i, Lana‘i, Maui and Kaua‘i.

The results of his scientific explorations in Hawai‘i remain to this day a foundation

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of facts and information for Hawaiian biologists.

Afterwards, in 1902, he joined the Agricultural Department of the Hawaiian Islands.

Then, as the director of the Experimental Station of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association’s insect department, from 1904 to 1912, he accomplished groundbreaking research on controlling sugarcane pests and weeds with their natural parasites.

During Perkins’ first expedition to Kaua‘i (May through June, 1894), he obtained land owner Francis Gay’s permission to collect specimens and make observations for a few days in the mountains above Makaweli.

As was his habit, he walked everywhere, rather than travel by horseback or carriage.

He continued his work in the area of Gay’s mountain house at Kaholuamano, east of Waimea Canyon at 3,500-foot elevation, before moving on to Hanapepe Valley, where he observed Akialoa and Oo — two Hawaiian forest birds now extinct.

He also seemed particularly interested in Carbides, Hawaiian ground beetles.

Perkins stayed at rancher Valdemar Knudsen’s cabin in Halemanu, Koke‘e, for a time during his second Kaua‘i expedition (April through May, 1895), collecting specimens thereabouts.

Insects were sparse at Barking Sands and Perkins recorded that the “barking sands would not bark at all.”

He also revisited Kaholuamano, noting numerous wild cattle in the area, and remarked that just prior to his arrival, President Sanford Ballard Dole and his hunting party had shot 18 of the beasts in one day.

On his third and fourth expeditions to Kaua‘i in 1895 and 1896, Perkins once again went to Kaholuamano and Halemanu, and also surveyed the mountainous region west of Lihu‘e.

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WWII Veteran Pvt. Hideshi Muraoka

Pvt. Hideshi Muraoka (1910-1991) of Koloa was the first discharged soldier of the Army’s renowned 100th Infantry Battalion to return home to Kaua‘i during World War II. He arrived to the Garden Isle in June 1944 from combat duty in Italy.

While taking it easy at home in Koloa following his welcome back by family, friends and relatives, the former private said, “There’s no place like home,” and that it was good being a civilian again.

He’d noticed, too, that Kaua‘i had changed somewhat since he’d been gone — a new bakery had opened in Koloa and several military training camps had been built on the island.

While in Italy, Muraoka participated in three battles — Santa Maria Olivetto, Mt. Marrone and Cassino — as an infantryman, medic and litter bearer.

Among the decorations he’d been awarded were the Bronze Star Medal and the Medical Badge.

He recalled a day on the battlefield when he and seven other litter bearers looking for wounded soldiers were ambushed by German machine gun fire.

Luckily, none of them were hit.

Muraoka also said that the German prisoners he saw were not unhappy about being taken captive, as it got them out of the fighting.

He was saddened by the poor living conditions of many Italian civilians and by their shortages of food.

Prior to going into combat, Muraoka, who’d entered the Army in 1941, received military training with the 100th Battalion in Camp McCoy in Wisconsin and at Camp Shelby in Mississippi.

He then spent two months with the 100th Battalion, training on maneuvers in

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Louisiana before returning the Camp Shelby and then sailing for North Africa.

In September 1943, the 100th went ashore in North Africa and on Sept. 22, 1943 it landed at Salerno, Italy. By the end of September, the 100th was engaged in its first battle.

Attorney and Kaua‘i County Clerk John Mahiai Kaneakua

Attorney and Kaua‘i County Clerk John Mahiai Kaneakua (1860-1936) was born on Maui and was educated at Honolulu’s Royal School — an institution whose distinguished alumni include the likes of Queen Lili‘uokalani, Queen Emma, King David Kalakaua, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, King Kamehameha IV, King Kamehameha V, Princess Victoria Kamamalu and King Lunalilo.

After graduating in 1877, Kaneakua studied law while clerking for Judge Edward Preston in Honolulu, and was consequently admitted to practice law in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i in 1884.

From 1886 to 1887 he served as an officer in the Queen’s Own, a volunteer company of the military forces of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

At that time, the Kingdom’s main military force was the King’s Guard, which was reinforced by five volunteer companies — the Honolulu Rifles, the King’s Own, the Queen’s Own, the Prince’s Own and the Leleiohoku Guards.

In June 1893, following the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani on January 17, 1893, Kaneakua was one of 19 members of the Hawaiian Patriotic League that signed a memorial given to U.S. Special Commissioner James Blount, requesting that President Grover Cleveland reinstate Queen Lili‘uokalani to the throne.

Blount had been sent to Hawai‘i by Cleveland to investigate the overthrow and later wrote the Blount Report, which was critical of it.

The memorial reads in part, “ Since the fate of our little kingdom and its inhabitants is in your hands, we do humbly pray that a speedy solution may be

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reached to avoid impending calamities, and so that we may once more enjoy the blessings of peace, prosperity, and a proper government.”

Kaneakua was appointed Clerk of Kaua‘i County in 1906 and held that office by election until 1934, when he retired.

He was the father of several adopted and natural children with his first wife, Esther Kamakolu, and his second wife, Lucy Cummings.

Civil Engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne

Longtime Kaua‘i civil engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne (1864-1937) was born in Alabama and educated at Jacksonville State Normal School and Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College in Auburn, Ala. Prior to coming to Hawai‘i in 1898, Moragne had worked in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee and Idaho, and had served in the U.S. 2nd Regiment, 5th Engineer Battalion during the Spanish-American War. His first jobs in Hawai‘i were with the Territorial Survey Department on the Big Island and with Public Works and Survey Department of the Territory until 1907, when he became a Kaua‘i County engineer and road supervisor.

As Kaua‘i County engineer, Moragne engineered and paved the previously unpaved Kaua‘i Belt Road — the roadway that encircles Kaua‘i for about 75 miles from Ha‘ena to Mana — beginning in 1910 and finishing in 1920.

In 1912, the productive and versatile engineer prepared plans and specifications for a number of bridges on the Belt Road, including the Waikoko, Waipa and Wai‘oli bridges, which were built by local contractors that same year.

The Hanalei Bridge, prefabricated by the firm of Hamilton & Chambers Co., New 387

York City, was also constructed in 1912 while Moragne was county engineer.

Among his other accomplishments as county engineer was the building of the Hule‘ia Cane Haul Bridge in 1909 — the first reinforced concrete bridge built in Hawai‘i.

With Lihu‘e Plantation from 1919 until his retirement in 1937, Moragne engineered a vast, complex system of plantation irrigation tunnels and ditch systems.

He designed the Kapahi Tunnel, the 6,028-foot Hanalei Tunnel in 1926 and the 3,558-foot Ka‘apoko Tunnel in 1928.

Other structures and systems of which Moragne was architect include the ‘Opaeka‘a Road Bridge, Pu‘uopa‘e Bridge, Koke‘e irrigation system, Wailua River Arch Bridge built in 1919, Hanapepe Bridge constructed in 1911, the Ahukini to Kealia railroad and the Lihu‘e Plantation mill to Nawiliwili railroad.

Joseph Hughes Moragne married Mary Chalmers and they had three children: Josephine, William and Catherine.

Grove Farm Manager William Middleton Moragne Sr.

Born in Hilo, Hawai‘i, the son of engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne and Mary Chalmers Moragne, William Middleton Moragne Sr. (1905-1983) graduated from the University of Hawai‘i and joined Grove Farm Plantation on Kaua‘i as an engineer in 1928.

Grove Farm owner George Norton Wilcox then put him to work modernizing the plantation’s irrigation system, a task he successfully completed in 1934.

A few years later, during World War II, Moragne served as assistant director of Kaua‘i’s Office of Civilian Defense.

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After an enemy Japanese submarine shelled Nawiliwili Harbor on the night of Dec. 30, 1941, Moragne directed firefighters in putting out a blaze started by a star shell in a cane field, then located where the bulk sugar storage warehouse stands today.

Moragne also mechanized Grove Farm’s harvesting operation during the war years.

Along the way, he invented a “liliko rake,” which, when mounted on a tractor, gathered up valuable small pieces of sugar cane missed by push rakes during harvesting.

In 1948, when Grove Farm acquired Koloa Plantation, Moragne integrated the operations of the two plantations.

That same year, he led a Grove Farm team that built the Ha‘upu Range Tunnel.

Work began on the half-mile long tunnel in September of 1948 and was finished in April of 1949.

Moragne was promoted to vice president and manager of Grove Farm in 1953, positions he held until his retirement in 1969.

In 1955, he and mechanical engineer Victor Vargas combined their engineering talents to design a new factory sugarcane cleaning system. Cane field rocks removed in the process were then used to build roads. Likewise, mud and cane trash were utilized to create new acres of productive cane land.

William Middleton Moragne Sr. was also an expert amateur horticulturist — one of the first to hybridize plumeria.

He and his wife, Jean, had four children: Bill, Mary, Sally and Katie.

Wailua Bridge History

Moragne’s Wailua Arch Bridge The first bridge built across Kaua‘i's Wailua River — a three-span, wrought-iron, 389

Warren truss bridge, erected between 1894 and 1895, that traversed the mouth of the river — was fabricated in 1890 by Alexander Findlay & Co. of Motherwell, Scotland and shipped to Kaua‘i in sections.

In 1919, the wrought-iron bridge was dismantled by Kaua‘i County Engineer and Road Supervisor Joseph H. Moragne and replaced by a reinforced concrete arch bridge he'd designed.

Part of the disassembled wrought-iron bridge was then used in the construction of the ‘Opaeka‘a Road Bridge, which was also designed and built by Moragne in 1919, and remains in use in Wailua Homesteads.

The third Wailua River bridge — the Wailua Cane Haul Bridge — was built to enable Ahukini Terminal and Railroad Co. to haul sugar by train from the Make‘e sugar mill in Kealia and pineapples from Hawaiian Canneries in Kapa‘a to the shipping terminal at Ahukini Landing.

Lihue Plantation also used the Wailua Cane Haul Bridge to haul sugarcane by rail to its Lihue Mill.

Erected in 1921, downriver of Moragne's 1919 reinforced concrete arch bridge, it initially had one lane and a roadway length of 395 feet, supported by seven intermediate piers and two end piers.

When Lihu‘e Plantation switched from trains to cane haul trucks in the 1950s, the Wailua Cane Haul Bridge was converted to a roadway for the cane haul trucks.

Then, in the 1990s, the State Department of Transportation acquired the Wailua Cane Haul Bridge for use as a third lane over the Wailua River. It was repaired and resurfaced in 2003, and work converting it to a two-lane bridge was completed in 2011.

The fourth Wailua River bridge is the two-lane Wailua River Highway Bridge, built in 1949 upriver of the Wailua Cane Haul Bridge and the 1919 concrete arch bridge it replaced.

Only the abutments and parapet walls of Moragne's 1919 bridge now remain.

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The Moragne Plumerias

In 1953, at his home in Lihu‘e, Grove Farm Manager William Middleton Moragne Sr. (1905-1983) made the first recorded controlled cross-pollinations between plumerias that produced new hybrids.

Prior to Moragne’s successful cross-pollinations, Hawai‘i’s introduced plumerias — the yellow, red and white — had been hybridized naturally by small insects, resulting in many variations.

But, in 1950, when Moragne began his research, there was no literature available on how to cross-pollinate plumerias artificially.

Undaunted, he began on his own by observing that the plumeria’s pistil, which contains the flower’s female reproductive parts he would need to pollinate, was located at the base of a deep trumpet of petals that was inaccessible from the top of the blossom.

Tearing away petals to reach the pistil only flooded the pistil with milky latex.

The solution lay in carefully snipping off the petals at the base of the blossom, which caused the latex to flow away.

With the problem of flooding solved, Moragne proceeded to attempt a crosspollination.

He brushed away the existing pollen in the pistil of a mother flower, introduced pollen of a male parent on top of the pistil and covered the pollinated areas with tape to prevent unwanted pollination by insects.

However, his attempt failed and other efforts at cross-pollination continued to be unsuccessful until 1953, when he tried introducing pollen, not only on the top of the pistil, as he’d done previously, but also on the pistil’s sides and bottom. He 391

achieved success.

By using a dark red “Scott Pratt” male to pollinate four light pink “Daisy Wilcox” female blossoms, Moragne produced enough seeds to grow 283 hybrid seedlings.

Of those, he kept 35 of the best, which grew into flowering trees.

From among the 35, he selected and named his favorite blossoms for the women in his family.

His hybrid plumerias can be seen along Nawilwili Road.

Kapahi’s Hawaiian Fruit Packers Closes

Hawaiian Fruit Packers Cannery Workers, 1972 On Friday, Oct. 12, 1973, Hawaiian Fruit Packers, Ltd. of Kapahi ceased operations after 41 years in business — the last of three pineapple planting, harvesting and processing companies to close on the Garden Island.

One of the other two, Hawaiian Canneries of Kapa‘a, had been in operation from 1913 to 1962, while Lawa‘i’s Kaua‘i Pineapple Company produced canned pineapple from 1907 to 1964.

Wayne Gregg, manager of Hawaiian Fruit Packers, stated that the reasons for the closure were heavy losses due to rising labor and production costs and the increase in cheap foreign competition in the U.S. domestic market from places such as Taiwan.

Friday was the last day of work at the Kapahi cannery for 45 employees, while about 25 workers would continue shipping pineapple at the cannery until the end of 1973, when the final shipment of canned pineapple from Kaua‘i was expected.

About 90 part-time workers were also let go and around a dozen independent farmers growing pineapple on a contract basic for Hawaiian Fruit Packers on 392

their 5- to 12-acre farms would lose their market.

Among those farmers were Alex Youn, John Vilela, Danny Hiranaka, Kioto Miyashiro, Tommy Miyashiro, Nobu Tokashiki, Albert Bettencourt and Hideo and Mamo Wakuta.

Hawaiian Fruit Packers originated in 1932 when a group of Kapa‘a farmers formed a cooperative for processing their pineapple.

By 1937, the company’s profits enabled it to lease additional lands.

Then, in 1942, Stokely Van Camp of Indianapolis purchased an interest in Hawaiian Fruit Packers and became its sales agent.

A couple of years later, Stokely Van Camp acquired a majority of the company’s stock.

At its peak in 1962, Hawaiian Fruit Packers was growing pineapple on 2,175 acres in Wailua, Kapa‘a, Kealia, Anahola and Moloa‘a, of which 1,000 acres were leased from Lihu‘e Plantation.

Baseball’s Early Days On Kauai

Kilauea Baseball Team, 1912 There was only one baseball league on Kauai in the early 1900s, a men’s league that in 1911 was comprised of six teams: Lihue, KAA (Kauai Athletic Association), Kilauea, Makaweli, Eleele and Homestead.

The league’s playing season ran from April to Oct. 15, during which each team played two rounds, with the championship teams from each round then playing for the league championship.

Sugar plantation managers prized their players and consequently allowed them the special privilege of leaving their regular jobs an hour or two before their usual pau hana time to practice baseball.

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Games attracted crowds in the several hundreds from all over Kauai.

One Sunday, 20 cars filled with drivers and passengers set off to travel all the way from Kekaha to watch a game at Kilauea — home of the perennial league champion Kilauea team — but were stopped by deep mud on the unpaved highway of the time, two miles short of their destination.

On another occasion, Makaweli team backers booked rooms for Saturday night at the Lihue Hotel — located about where the banyan trees now stand at Kalapaki Villas on Rice Street — to help ensure that their players would get a good night’s rest prior to playing the Lihue team the next day.

However, the Makaweli ball players had no rest that evening, since Lihu‘e supporters organized a brass band to serenade them all night long. It’s unknown which team won.

Kauai Railway Co., which serviced McBryde Sugar Co., Makaweli Plantation, Kaua‘i Fruit and Land Co. and Koloa Sugar Co., would regularly transport Makaweli Plantation’s baseball fans from Makaweli all the way to Koloa, and back, to watch their team play away games against Koloa.

League rosters included the names of many outstanding, very tough, baseball players. One of them, Benjamin Tashiro, a star short stop for the McBryde team, would later become Judge of the Fifth Circuit Court on Kauai.

Princess Elizabeth Kahanu Kalanianaole Visits Kauai

Princess Elizabeth Kahanu Kalanianaole (1879-1932), the widow of Kauai-born Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole (1871-1922), visited Kauai for the first time during August 1922 to organize Hawaiian women into auxiliary clubs of the Republican Party.

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At Waimea, following a luau given in her honor by the Kaumualii Chapter of the Royal Order of Kamehameha, and after Judge A. G. Kaulukou’s introduction, she gave a speech in the Hawaiian language — speaking the language perfectly as it had been spoken long ago — that warmed the hearts of the many Hawaiians present.

In her speech, she advised her listeners that the criteria for selecting primary candidates should be the candidates’ honesty, courage and prestige. Once a candidate was nominated, all should work together for the success of the nominee in the general election.

A Waimea Republican club of Hawaiian women was subsequently formed with these officers chosen: Mrs. W. O. Crowell, Mrs. Lucy Wright, Mrs. Frank Cox, Mrs. Koani and Mrs. George Huddy.

In Kapaa, another luau was prepared for the Princess that was attended by the entire Hawaiian community.

A Republican club was formed in Kapaa, as well, with Mrs. Keliinoi, Mrs. C. L. Kelekoma, Mrs. I. K. Kauuwai, Mrs. Lily Cummings and Mrs. John Hano elected as officers. Mrs. Amalu, Mrs. Werner and Mrs. Henry Blake were elected presidents of the Kilauea, Anahola and Koloa clubs, respectively.

Club officers chosen at the Lihue Hawaiian Church were Mrs. Emma Wilcox, Mrs. Mileka Kahele, Mrs. Kalei Montgomery, Mrs. C. H. Keahi and Mrs. Wm. Kaiawe. “Aloha and unity” was the motto of the clubs.

While on Kauai, the princess was the guest of Mrs. Emma Wilcox at Kilohana, a big house surrounded by lawns that was torn down in the mid-1930s and replaced by the mansion standing at Kilohana today.

Merchants And Postmasters John I. Silva And Jose Gomez

Jose Gomez And John Silva

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During the late 1800s and early 1900s, two Portuguese immigrants to Hawaii, John I. Silva and Jose Gomez, established themselves in the towns of Eleele and Hanapepe, Kauai as merchants and postmasters.

Born at Ponta Delgada, San Miguel, Azores, Portugal in 1868, and educated at Laupahoehoe on the Big Island and at St. Louis College, Honolulu, John I. Silva began his business career as a clerk in P.A. Dias Store at Kapaau, Kohala, Hawaii in 1885.

He then held a number of other jobs — livestock dealer for A. Enos & Co. on Maui, salesman for Gonsalves & Co., also of Maui, and traveling photographer with Gonsalves in Honolulu — prior to establishing a general merchandize store in Eleele with Joseph Frias in 1894.

Silva bought out Frias’ interest in Eleele Store in 1896, and beginning in 1901, he was for many years the postmaster at Eleele.

John I. Silva was also a representative of Kauai in the Territorial Legislature, 1907-1908.

He and his wife, Maria Martins Gouveia, were married at Eleele in 1903.

Jose Gomez was born at Madeira, Portugal in 1877 and was educated at Lihue School in Pua Loke. He worked as a laborer at Lihue Plantation for 18 years before taking a job as a clerk at John I. Silva’s Eleele Store in 1900, where he was promoted to assistant manager.

In 1907, he established Hanapepe Store and Gomez Garage with four others.

Two years later, he bought out his business partners and became the sole proprietor of his general merchandize store and a fleet of three cabs.

For a number of years, beginning in 1914, he was the postmaster at Hanapepe.

He and Helen Nunes were married at Eleele in 1900 and had six children: Jose, Jr., Mary, John, Francis, Glory and Antone.

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Teacher And School Principal Gladys Brandt

Gladys Kamakakuokalani Ainoa Brandt (1906-2003) was born in Honolulu to parents David and Esther Ainoa.

Her father had been a member of the counter-revolution of 1895, led by Prince Kuhio, Robert Wilcox and others on Oahu, which failed to overthrow the government of the Republic of Hawaii.

Its defeat ended hopes of restoring the monarchy and returning Queen Liliuokalani to the throne she had lost in 1893.

At age four, Brandt’s parents hanai’d her to Ida May Pope, principal of Kamehameha School for Girls, and she lived at Ms. Pope’s home until Pope’s death in 1914.

Brandt graduated from McKinley High School in Honolulu and earned a teaching certificate from the Territorial Normal and Training School in Honolulu in preparation for her first teaching assignment at Keanae School on Maui in 1927.

She also taught on Oahu before moving to Kauai in 1937 to teach at Eleele School.

In 1943, she became principal of Kalaheo School after receiving her bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Hawaii.

Ms. Brandt later served as a longtime principal of Kapaa High School, where she was noted for being strict, but fair.

In 1962, she was named District Superintendent of Schools for Kauai.

Brandt left Kauai in 1963 to become principal of Kamehameha School for Girls.

In 1969, she was promoted director of Kamehameha Schools high school division.

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As a regent of the University of Hawaii during the 1980s, Brandt successfully lobbied the legislature to fund construction of the university’s Center for Hawaiian Studies, which is named Kamakakuokalani after her.

In 1997, she co-authored the “Broken Trust” essays that criticized Kamehameha Schools trustees for financial mismanagement. As a result, offending trustees were expelled and reforms were implemented.

Ms. Brandt married Isaac Brandt in 1927. They had two children.

Reverend Catalino Cortezan And Josefina Cortezan

Following his graduation from Iloilo High School, Panay, Philippine Islands, in 1913, Rev. Catalino Cortezan (1893-1973) immigrated to Hawaii, where he continued his education at Mills School in Honolulu.

Afterwards, he prepared for the Christian ministry at the Honolulu Theological Seminary and the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif.

In 1925, Cortezan was with the Hawaiian Evangelical Association on Oahu, when he and his wife, Josefina Abaya Cortezan, a nurse at Ewa, moved to Kauai.

On the Garden Isle, he served as pastor of the Koloa Filipino Congregational Church until 1946, and was a minister of the Hawaiian Board of Missions until 1953.

For 15 years, Cortezan was also employed by Koloa Sugar plantation as a welfare worker.

During World War II, Cortezan directed the Kauai USO, and helped organize and became Chaplain of the Kauai Volunteers, formed on Kauai to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard.

After the war, he was instrumental in sending a delegation to Washington, D.C.,

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whose petition to Congress resulted in the immigration to Hawaii of about 7,400 Filipino men, women and children — the 1946 Sakadas.

Cortezan was a director and chairman of several Kauai volunteer community organizations, and over many years he acted as an interpreter and English teacher to thousands of Filipino men and women.

Josefina Abaya Cortezan (1896-1991) was born in Candon, Ilocos Sur, Philippine Islands, and was educated at Mary Johnston Hospital School of Nursing in Manila and the University of Washington.

She was recruited from the Philippines by the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association in 1921 to provide healthcare to workers at Ewa Sugar Plantation on Oahu.

From 1925 until 1948 she gave medical care to Filipino workers at Koloa Sugar Plantation and also worked as a court interpreter, social worker, special probation officer, child care adviser and family mediator. She later served as a public health nurse on Kauai and was active in community affairs.

The Rev. and Mrs. Cortezan had four children.

Kauai Banker James B. Corstorphine

Scotsman James B. Corstorphine (1894-1976) was employed by Bank of Hawaii on Kauai for 33 years, beginning in 1926 as an assistant cashier at the Lihue Branch on Rice Street, and retiring in 1959 as vice president and manager of the Lihue and Hanapepe branches.

He immigrated to Hawaii from Scotland with his mother and sister in 1911 to unite with the father of the family, David Corstorphine, who left Scotland for Hawaii four years earlier and had found work as a luna at the Big Island’s Waiakea Mill Co. James B. Corstorphine joined his father at Waiakea Mill Co. as an office worker soon after his arrival on the Big Island, and was later hired in the office of the

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Hamakua Mill Company.

When World War I broke out in Europe, Corstorphine quit the plantation to sign up with the Canadian Army. He eventually became a night fighter pilot in the Royal Naval Air Service.

Corstorphine was once asked what the difference was between day and night flying, and he replied with a Scottish burring of the r’s that remained with him throughout his life, “Oh yes. The difference is you’re scared oftener at night than in the day time.”

In aerial combat he flew a Sopwith Camel — a single-seat, British biplane with twin, synchronized 30-caliber machine guns.

“The truth is they wouldn’t shoot very far,” he explained. “We had to fly in close to our targets.”

When asked how close, he glanced out the window of his office on Rice Street in the direction of the nearby Lihue Post Office and replied, “Well, closer than that post office across the street.”

After the war, Corstorphine was employed by Kealia’s Makee Sugar Co. for a spell before joining Bank of Hawaii, then named Bishop National Bank of Hawaii.

Banker James B. Corstorphine and his wife, Elsie, had three sons: David, John and James Corstorphine.

Hippies Jailed On Kauai

Hippies Jailed On Kauai At Lihue District Court, on April 8, 1969, Judge Norito Kawakami found 13 hippies guilty of vagrancy at Hanamaulu Beach Park and sentenced each of them to 90 days in jail.

Additionally, Kawakami directed that their sentences be suspended for one year at any time they chose to leave Kauai.

The people sentenced were Victor and Sandy Schaube, Webb and Carol Ford, John and Teri Ann Rush, Kirby and Wendy Nunn, George Berg Jr., Penelope 400

Berg, Thomas Carver, Jackie Dixon and Gail Pickolz.

On April 18, after serving 10 days in the old Wailua jail across from the golf course, the hippies were freed on bail of $1 each set by Kawakami, pending a May 6 hearing on a request to change their original pleas from guilty to not guilty.

Their release followed an informal meeting between Kawakami and Honolulu American Civil Liberties Union official Richard P. Schulze Jr., during which Schulze made the request.

While free on bail awaiting the hearing, they stayed on Howard Taylor’s private property at Haena.

At the May 6 hearing before Kawakami, ACLU attorney Brook Hart pled their case, while assistant attorney and future mayor of Kauai, Eduardo Malapit, represented Kauai County.

Hart informed the court that the defendants were asking to change their plea because they had not been represented by an attorney when they pled guilty.

Malapit argued that they had been afforded the opportunity to be represented by counsel prior to pleading guilty, but had chosen not to avail themselves of one.

In June 1969, when Kawakami decided that all but one of the 13 hippies had the right to withdraw their guilty pleas, only two — Victor and Sandy Schaube — were present in court.

The other 11 hippies had left Kauai.

Victor Schaube, who said he knew what he was doing when he had pled guilty, was denied this right. Kawakami then suspended the balance of Schaube’s sentence for six months.

Wailua Golf Course History

Wailua Golf Course Founder Charlie Fern 401

Kauai's Wailua Golf Course was established in the fall of 1920 by The Garden Island newspaper editor Charlie Fern, Jim Corstorphine, James Spalding and Dan Arcia, following their survey of a Lihue Plantation Dairy pasture as a possible golf course site.

The site they chose for their new golf course, located in the area presently occupied by the 10th, 11th, and 12th fairways, was large enough for three holes.

Greens were selected on the basis of having a good growth of Bermuda grass and being easily accessible for trimming.

To keep cows off the greens, the men set up two-strand, low-wire fences around them, while grazing cows kept the fairways adequately trimmed.

Curiously, a special course rule was enacted that allowed a golfer to lift his ball without penalty within one club length of fresh cow dung.

Another peculiarity occurred during the yearly sugarcane harvesting season, when sugar trains ran on the railroad track that crossed the fairways.

When more golfers began using the course, the Wailua Golf Club was formed.

Arcia became the course's first pro.

Two of the club’s board members were the managers of Lihue Plantation and Makee Sugar Co., which was a great benefit to the fledgling club, since the managers assigned sugar workers to maintain the course and clear and grade new golf holes during their plantation’s off-seasons at no charge to the club.

The number of holes on the course tripled by 1930, when Hawaii golf legend Francis H. I'i Brown expanded the course to nine holes — and the cows were finally off the course.

Later, in the 1930s, the county began operating the course.

In 1962, Wailua opened as an 18-hole course, with longtime course pro Toyo Shirai taking the lead on reshaping the original 9-hole course and designing the additional front nine.

Shirai, who played in two U.S. Opens, was inducted into the Hawaii Golf Hall of Fame in 1989.

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WWII Veteran Terasu “Terry” Yoshimoto

Marines On Bougainville, Where Terry Yoshimoto Served During World War II, Lihue born-and-raised Terasu “Terry” Yoshimoto (19171987) served with the Army’s Military Intelligence Service as a Japanese POW interrogator in the Pacific Theater of Operations.

His first overseas assignment with MIS was at the Allied military base in New Caledonia.

Next came Guadalcanal, followed by his first amphibious landing and duty with the First Marine Amphibious Corps at Bougainville, beginning in Nov. 1943.

Sgt. Yoshimoto then made another beach assault with the 4th Marine Raiders on Emirau.

Yoshimoto also took part in mopping-up operations on Shortland, New Georgia and Green Island, before participating in the invasion of the Philippines at Lingayen Gulf in Jan. 1945.

While serving in the Philippines, Yoshimoto was constantly accompanied by three bodyguards to protect him from excited Filipino guerillas who might have mistaken him for a Japanese soldier and taken a potshot at him.

Japanese POWs were first given food, clothing and medical treatment before being turned over to Yoshimoto for interrogation.

They were always surprised to find themselves face-to-face with Yoshimoto. At first glance, they would presume he was one of them. One even asked him when they first met, “When were you captured?”

Initially, Yoshimoto would chat with them to gain their confidence, after which he would begin his interrogation.

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Japanese enlisted POWs, Yoshimoto learned, were surprisingly willing to give away their gun positions, troop dispositions and other military information, which was usually accurate.

Officers, on the other hand, preferred suicide to capture. In fact, the only officers captured were those who couldn’t commit suicide due to wounds or illness.

From May through Aug. 1945, Yoshimoto, speaking through a loudspeaker in the Philippines, saved untold lives by successfully convincing about 700 Japanese soldiers to surrender.

Among his decorations was the Bronze Star Medal.

Terasu “Terry” Yoshimoto is buried in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, Honolulu.

Wayne Ellis And Hale Kauai

Wayne And Helen Ellis Before founding Hale Kauai in 1945 with partners Sam Wilcox and William Moragne of Grove Farm, San Jose State graduate Wayne Ellis (1915-1991) had taught technical arts at Kauai High School and had also managed the Lihue Hotel, owned by his father-in-law, former Kauai Sheriff William Henry Rice.

Sheriff Rice’s hotel was situated on Rice Street about where the banyan trees stand at Kalapaki Villas.

Hands-on partner Ellis opened his first Hale Kauai retail store in the one-time Lydgate family residence at the back of the Lydgate estate on Rice Street.

The store carried woodcarvings, sporting goods, small appliances and records, and provided electrical wiring services.

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A year later, Ellis moved his business into a new building on the front portion of the Lydgate property, a site currently occupied by the Transportation Security Administration.

By 1954, he’d expanded his selection of retail merchandize to include major appliances, paints, and hardware, and had purchased Lihue Store’s milling and lumber operations in Nawiliwili.

Ready-mix concrete and concrete block manufacturing were added to Hale Kauai’s product line during the 1960s.

Then, in 1974, the retail store was relocated from Rice Street to a brand new building at Papalinahoa on property that was once the location of sugar planter George Wilcox’s (1839-1933) beach house.

The building is now the home of the Kauai Athletic Club.

Hale Kauai’s lumber and concrete block operations were centralized behind its Papalinahoa store in 1975.

It also operated corrugated roofing and wood pressure treatment plants and another retail store in Koloa.

In the 1980s, Wayne Ellis’ son, Rick, became president of Hale Kauai. Wayne’s son, Michael, headed the company following Rick’s retirement in 2002.

Between 2003 and 2005, Hale Kauai liquidated its building supply business through sales and closures and became a real estate investment and development firm.

Wayne and Helen Rice Ellis also had a daughter, Helen.

Kauai Mail Routes During the 19th Century

Hawaiian Kingdom Stamp During the early years of the 19th century, schooners delivered mail from 405

Honolulu directly to the ports of Nawiliwili, Koloa, Eleele, Waimea and Hanalei.

But by 1856, all mail was shipped from Honolulu to Herman Widemann’s store in Nawiliwili, which had by then become Kauai’s mail distribution hub, and would remain so until about 1866, when Lihue Store replaced it.

Mail was initially delivered around Kauai over two, once-weekly, overland mail routes.

Mail carriers were able to cross bridges over most Kauai streams along their routes, but other watercourses needed to be forded aboard scows, or on foot, wagon or horseback. Dusty and muddy roads also hindered the carriers’ progress, since a paved roadway encircling Kauai was not completed until 1920.

On the Hanalei route, carriers traveled north from Nawiliwili or Lihue to drop off mail at Kapaa, Kealia, Anahola, Kilauea and Hanalei.

At Hanalei, the postmaster hired local carriers for Lumahai, Wainiha and Haena.

Until at least 1889, the Hanalei postmaster also engaged carriers to deliver mail from Hanalei along the Napali Coast to Kalalau Valley, where a schoolmaster distributed mail.

Kealia replaced Kapaa on the Hanalei mail route in 1892, and a Makee Sugar Co. train subsequently delivered mail from Kealia to Kapaa.

Mail deliveries to west Kauai proceeded from Nawiliwili or Lihue through Koloa, Eleele and Hanapepe to Waimea.

At Waimea, a boat delivered mail to Niihau, usually weekly, beginning as early as 1863.

In 1892, when Makaweli’s Hawaiian Sugar Co. moved its headquarters from Hanapepe to Makaweli, it took the post office with it.

Consequently, a new post office was established at Hanapepe in 1894 at Kwong Hing Store.

Kekaha Plantation extended the western route past Waimea in the late 1880s to Kekaha Store, where the post office was located. Mana became the terminus of this route in 1893.

In 1899, thrice-weekly mail service began along both mail routes.

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Actress France Nuyen On Kauai

Actress France Nuyen first achieved movie success in the 1958 musical “South Pacific,” which was filmed on Kauai at Hanalei Bay in 1957.

In “South Pacific,” Miss Nuyen plays the part of Liat, the Vietnamese daughter of Bloody Mary, portrayed by Juanita Hall.

On the island of Bali Hai, when Bloody Mary introduces Liat to Marine Lt. Joe Cable, performed by John Kerr, the couple are instantly charmed by one another and embark upon an enchanting romance.

However, when Bloody Mary urges Cable to marry Liat, he declines, despite his love for her.

Among the other characters in “South Pacific” were Rossano Brazzi as Emile de Becque and Mitzi Gaynor as Ensign Nellie Forbush.

During filming, Nuyen, who was born in Marseille, France in 1939, stayed at the Coco Palms Resort.

Later, in 1958, Nuyen starred opposite William Shatner in the leading role of Chinese prostitute Suzie Wong in the Broadway stage production of “The World of Suzie Wong.”

Miss Nuyen returned to Kauai in 1962 for the filming of “Diamond Head” in her role as Mai Chen.

Among her fellow actors and actresses in “Diamond Head” were Charlton Heston as Richard Howland, Yvette Mimieux playing the part of Sloan Howland, George Chakiris in the roll of Dr. Dean Kahana, and James Darren as Paul Kahana.

Kipu Ranch was the setting for much of the film, while the now decrepit Grove Farm manager’s house on Nawiliwili Road served as the residence of Heston’s character.

Nuyen also appeared in a number of other films and in television shows.

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Nuyen began a second career in the 1980s as a psychological counselor in Los Angeles, after earning a master’s degree in clinical psychology.

She was married and divorced twice. Actor Robert Culp was her second husband. Nuyen has one child, a daughter, Fleur.

Supreme Court Justice Philip L. Rice

Rice As An Officer During WW I Born and raised in Lihue, the youngest son of William Hyde Rice — the governor of Kauai during the reign of Queen Liliuokalani — Philip L. Rice (1886-1974) was the last chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Hawaii. He held the position from April 7, 1956, until July 27, 1959.

Rice attended Punahou, graduated from Anderson Academy in Irvington, Calif. and completed a course of study at Heald’s Business College, San Francisco, before joining Koloa Sugar Co., where he worked as overseer, timekeeper and harvesting field superintendent for about three years.

In 1910, he was appointed clerk of the Fifth Circuit Court at Lihue. While working as clerk, he studied law in his spare time and, in 1913, was licensed to practice law as an attorney in the district courts.

A year later, in 1914, Rice and his wife, Flora Benton Rice, moved to Chicago, where he entered the Law School of the University of Chicago and completed its three-year course in 1916.

Upon his return to Kauai, he was admitted to practice law in the Supreme Court and all courts in the territory, and opened a law office in Lihue.

During World War I, he served as a first lieutenant of infantry, and as a captain in

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command of the 47th Machine Gun Battalion, until his honorable discharge in 1918.

Rice presided as circuit court judge on Kauai from 1943 to Feb. 15, 1955, when he was named associate justice of the Territorial Supreme Court. In April of the following year, he became chief justice.

During the 1946 Hawaiian sugar strike, he issued a widely publicized and controversial restraining order against the International Longshore and Warehouse Union for mass picketing at Lihue Plantation — a ruling upheld by the United States Supreme Court in 1949.

Longtime Librarian Thelma Hadley

Thelma Hadley (1902-1987) was a public librarian on Kauai for 44 years, from 1927 to 1971, first at the Kauai Public Library situated in the Albert Spencer Memorial Building on Rice Street, and later at the Lihue Public Library on Hardy Street.

Hadley was born in Honolulu, the daughter of Kenneth and Gertrude Hopper, and was raised on Kauai — a real tomboy and crack shot with a hunting rifle — and attended Lihue Grammar School and Kauai High School.

Her father managed the Garden Island Publishing Co. from 1907 to 1929. During his 22-year tenure, The Garden Island newspaper assumed a position of importance on Kauai. Published weekly, it grew to 10 pages and included world and local news, photographs, sports, Hawaiian language and social sections.

In 1927, after Ms. Hadley had earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at the University of Nevada and completed a course of study at the Library School of the Los Angeles Public Library, she returned home to Kauai to commence her long career as a librarian and library administrator.

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In summing up her life’s work following her retirement, she said, “I have loved the work and it has been a wonderful experience. My career has been enriched by the people with whom I worked. I have tried to utilize each person to her advantage and to the growth of the library.”

Reflecting on Kauai’s past she noted, “I am happy I have lived life on Kauai when it was still slow and when we had time to enjoy our beautiful surroundings. I’ll always remember the horse and buggy pace and the quiet evenings when we sat around just reading.”

In 1951, Hadley and Margaret S. Williams wrote the original “Kauai, the Garden Island of Hawaii: Guide Book,” published by Garden Island Publishing Co. She and her husband, William, had three children: Joseph, William and Barbara.

The Garden Island Newspaper Manager Kenneth C. Hopper

Born in California, and a printer by trade, Kenneth C. Hopper (1880-1961) first came to Hawaii in 1901 by ship from California on his honeymoon with his wife, Gertrude. There to greet them in Honolulu was his stepfather, at that time in charge of dredging Honolulu Harbor.

The couple subsequently settled in Honolulu, where Hopper found employment in the mechanical department of the “Hawaiian Gazette” newspaper.

Then in 1907, his work at the “Hawaiian Gazette” and his previous experience as manager of the “Los Alamos Central” and as owner of the “Guadalupe Moon” newspaper, both in Santa Barbara County, CA, attracted the notice of the directors of the Garden Island Publishing Co.

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They offered him the post of manager of the company, which he accepted and thus launched what would become a 22-year career with the “The Garden Island” newspaper – as business manager, secretary, managing editor, president and director.

His predecessor at the newspaper was its founder, in 1902, and its publisher and editor, Sometaro Sheba.

By often working 14-16 hours a day, Hopper grew the weekly newspaper to 10 pages with over 800 inches of advertising, news and sports of Kauai, a Hawaiian language section and a social section.

One of Hopper's editors was Charlie Fern, whom Hopper hired in 1922. The former barnstorming aviator would remain at the newspaper for 44 years, retiring in 1966.

Kenneth Hopper was also an outstanding amateur athlete, setting records and winning championships in Honolulu and on Kauai in the running broad jump, running high jump and in tennis.

He and Mrs. Hopper made their home at Grove Farm, Kauai. They had three children: Thelma, Kenneth and Glenn.

When Mr. and Mrs. Hopper decided to return to California in 1929, his resignation was accepted “with genuine regret” by the directors of Garden Island Publishing Co. Lt. Col. Farrant Turner Speaks On Kauai

Hilo, Hawaii-born Lt. Col. Farrant Turner (1895-1959) was the first commanding 411

officer of the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion, a World War II combat unit comprised almost entirely of Nisei soldiers from Hawaii.

Turner commanded the battalion from the time of its formation in Hawaii in 1942, through its training in Wisconsin, Mississippi and Louisiana, its deployment overseas to Africa, and during the battalion’s first weeks of battle in Italy.

On Oct. 29, 1943, Turner was relieved of his command and ordered to a hospital for rest, the reason being that his superior officers wanted a younger commanding officer, more able to withstand the intense mental and physical strain of warfare.

On the evenings of Friday, June 16 and Saturday, June 17, 1944, Turner spoke to packed audiences in the auditoriums of the Lihue and Eleele schools, respectively, about the battalion’s wartime experiences.

Among a number of noteworthy points he made was his statement that the Army had initially planned to use the 100th to guard railways in Africa, but he had protested, insisting the battalion had the right to fight.

Turner also said that the 100th was part of the 34th Division’s 133rd Regiment, which was the leading element of General Mark Clark’s 5th Army.

In response to a false rumor that 100th soldiers had been put out in front to protect other soldiers in Italy, causing them unnecessarily high causalities, he explained that it was true that the 100th had suffered 80 percent casualties, with between 200 and 300 killed and hundreds wounded, but that every fighting outfit in Italy had casualties just as high.

Col. Turner concluded with words of caution. When the men come back home, he said, they’ll be changed.

Living from minute-to-minute, day-to-day, changes men. Those to whom they come back to must be patient and understanding.

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Kauai Boat-Builder Masakichi Yotsuda

Born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1888, Masakichi Yotsuda emigrated from Japan to Kauai in 1907.

On Kauai, he worked first as a sugar plantation surveyor’s helper and later as an independent sugar grower on 300 acres of leased land, prior to landing jobs as a carpenter with McBryde Sugar Co. and Lihue Plantation.

During his early years on Kauai, Yotsuda became concerned about the dangers and challenges involved in his pastime of exploring in small boats the often rough seas surrounding the island.

Consequently, he began experimenting by trial and error with various hull designs he fashioned at home in his spare time — his ultimate objective being the creation of a sturdy, seaworthy craft that would not rock in heavy seas.

Yotsuda’s practical knowledge of Kauai waters qualified him in 1928 to become the skipper of the tug-boat “Lihue I” out of Nawiliwili Harbor, which he captained many times to and from Oakland, Calif.

Nine years later, in 1937, he returned to Lihue Plantation, retiring there as head carpenter in 1953.

All told, Yotsuda built over 150 boats -- many of them while working from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily -- in his home garage-workshop in Lihue’s Isenberg tract, taking about three months to complete each boat.

He constructed all of his boats without the use of technical drawings to guide him, except for pencil sketches he made on the sides of his boat hulls.

Patented by him in 1965, his 27-foot “Kauai Sampan” has a high, sharply-pointed bow, a broad beam and a deep hull, with a cabin situated in the hull about a third of the way between the bow and the stern.

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Yotsuda sold his hand-crafted sampans to buyers in the Hawaiian Islands and to Mainland boaters as well.

Master boat-builder Masakichi Yotsuda and his wife, Tomoyo, had 10 children.

Kauai Missionary Teachers Miss Marcia Maria Smith And Miss Maria Ogden

Missionaries Smith And Ogden Kauai missionary teacher Miss Marcia Maria Smith (1806-1896) arrived in Honolulu aboard the barque “Mary Frazier� out of Boston on April 9, 1837 as a member of the Eighth Company of American Protestant missionaries and was initially stationed at Kaneohe, Oahu.

Around 1840, she was transferred to the Koloa, Kauai Missionary Station, led at that time by the Rev. Peter Gulick.

There, she ran a school for the children of missionaries. Among them were the older Gulick boys, and two of the oldest Alexander boys from the Waioli Missionary Station of their father, Rev. William Patterson Alexander.

When Punahou School was organized in 1842, Miss Smith, the Rev. Daniel Dole and his first wife, Emily, were its first teachers. Miss Smith also served as matron of Punahou until 1852, when she returned to the United States.

Another relatively obscure missionary teacher who taught on Kauai was Miss Maria Ogden (1792-1874), a member of the Third Company of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions that arrived in Honolulu from Boston on March 30, 1828.

Miss Ogden was first assigned to the Waimea, Kauai Missionary Station to assist the Rev. Peter Gulick, who served at Waimea until 1835, when he transferred to Koloa.

She remained at Waimea for a year, during which time she commenced her 414

study of the Hawaiian language and taught Hawaiian women and girls to write in the Hawaiian language, as well as to sew. At Waimea, she also devoted herself to nursing sick Hawaiians.

Miss Ogden later taught in Lahaina, Maui and at the Wailuku Female Seminary, Maui. On Oahu, she served as manager of domestic affairs at Punahou and established the Makiki Female Seminary.

She passed away in Honolulu after steadfastly serving others in the Hawaiian Islands for 46 years.

McBryde Sugar Co. Manager John Sandison

Born, raised and educated in Aberchirder, Scotland, John Sandison (18971970) was the manager of McBryde Sugar Co. on Kauai from 1942 to 1959.

Sandison only attended school until the age of 14, when poverty forced him to quit and go to work for a living.

In 1914, while World War I erupted in Europe, Sandison, then 16 years old, joined the world-famous British infantry regiment, the Gordon Highlanders.

Incredibly, Sandison fought and survived 20 months of trench warfare on the Western Front with the Gordon Highlanders.

He was commissioned a lieutenant and was twice wounded.

In 1921, two years after leaving the British Army, he suddenly and inexplicably abandoned Britain to settle in Hawaii, where he went on to a successful 38year career in the Hawaiian sugar industry.

Sandison’s first job was cutting cane luna at Kohala Sugar Co. on the Big Island. Following his promotions to timekeeper and head luna at Kohala, he joined Koloa Sugar Co. on Kauai in 1925.

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That same year, McBryde Sugar Co. hired him as its timekeeper. By 1938, he’d advanced to section luna, then division luna and later, assistant manager at McBryde.

When McBryde manager Cedric A. Baldwin was called to active U.S. Naval service in 1941 during World War II, Sandison was appointed acting manager.

He became manager in 1942.

As McBryde’s manager, Sandison was noted for his good judgment and integrity.

Production at McBryde rose from 20,000 tons per year to 30,000 tons during his 17-year tenure, and McBryde paid a dividend in each of those years.

During the time he managed McBryde, Sandison also served as manager of Kauai Electric Co., increasing its capitalization from $50,000 to $1,000,000, while integrating into one unit a number of small electric companies from Koloa to Mana, as well as Kilauea.

John Sandison and his wife, Grace, made their home at Kahala, Oahu, following his retirement from McBryde and Kauai Electric in 1959.

Grove Farm’s Robert W. T. Purvis

Born of English parents in Indonesia and educated in Belgium and in England, Robert W. T. Purvis (1856-1941) served as a bookkeeper and secretary to Grove Farm Plantation owner George Norton Wilcox from 1883 until he retired in 1916.

Wilcox had hired Purvis as his bookkeeper on a trial basis at $100 per month, and Purvis quickly secured permanent employment by earning Wilcox’s confidence and trust.

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While managing Wilcox’s accounting books in the course of his duties at Grove Farm, Purvis was familiar with Wilcox’s great generosity.

In 1884 alone, Wilcox discreetly donated over $17,000 to schools and churches to assist Hawaiians in getting an education — a value of about $410,000 in today’s dollars.

Years later, in 1915, Purvis calculated that Wilcox had, up to that time, unobtrusively given $1,500,000 to charity — a sum equal to approximately $35,400,000 in 2013.

Purvis first arrived in Hawaii at Honolulu in December 1877 after several years experience in business and banking in London and three years of military service in the London Scottish Regiment.

On Kauai, he was engaged in sugar planting in 1878 and was employed by Kilauea Sugar Company from 1881 to 1883 as head luna and bookkeeper.

While employed at Grove Farm, Purvis also worked as an auditor at Hawaiian Sugar Company at Makaweli from 1894 to 1896, attended to the duties of clerk in the Kauai Circuit Court from 1885 to 1899, served as acting Kauai sheriff for short periods during 1887, 1888 and 1891, and obtained a license to practice law in the district courts of the Territory from 1906 to 1916.

In no small part due to his marriage to Mary McBryde, the sister of Walter Duncan McBryde, one of the co-founders with W. A. Kinney of McBryde Sugar Co., the meticulous and energetic Englishman was also a director of McBryde Sugar Co. for many years.

He and Mary McBryde had two children.

Hawaii Calls Radio Program Broadcasts From Kauai

Hawaii Calls Entertainers With Webley Edwards At Waikiki In 1951

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On Sunday, March 28, 1971, beginning at 2 p.m., Webley Edwards (1902-1977) — the master of ceremonies of the popular Honolulu radio show “Hawaii Calls” — broadcast a musical salute to Kauai-born Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole at the Kauai Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue.

Performers from Honolulu honoring Prince Kuhio included Danny Kaleikini, Boyce Rodrigues, Lani Custino and Ed Kenney, who now resides on Kauai.

Well-known musicians making appearances were Ben Kalama, Pua Almeida, Alec Among, Joe Custino, David Kupele, Barney Isaacs, Norman Isaacs, Sonny Kamahele, Jimmy Kaopuiki, Gregg Molina and Bob Kauahikaua.

Vocalists Nina Kealiiwahamana Rapoza, Mariam McWayne, Leilani Kuhau and Pat Lei Anderson, as well as dancers Hula Nicolet, Jackie Ben and John Albao also entertained.

“Hawaii Calls,” created by Webley Edwards in 1935 and hosted by him until 1972, broadcasted free, live Hawaiian music every Saturday afternoon, usually from under the old banyan tree in the courtyard of Waikiki’s Moana Hotel.

The cheerful broadcaster also took “Hawaii Calls” on the road each year to one of the outer islands.

With Hawaiian instrumental music softly playing in the background, Edwards would open each show by grandly proclaiming, “Our Aloha, as Hawaii calls!”

Conductor, composer and songwriter Harry Owens (1902-1986) and his Royal Hawaiian orchestra were regular headliners on the show, as were Alfred Apaka, Haunani Kahalewai, Nina Kealiiwahamana, Boyce Rodrigues, Lani Custino, and Pua Almeida.

Also starring on “Hawaii Calls” were Martin Denny, Hilo Hattie, Beverly Noa, Ed Kenney and Arthur Lyman.

Harry Owens, best known for his song “Sweet Leilani,” is credited with writing about 300 Hapa Haole songs.

What’s more, Owens preserved many traditional Hawaiian songs and tunes by writing them down using Western musical notation for the first time.

In 1987, Harry Owens was awarded the Na Hoku Hanohano Lifetime Achievement Award from The Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts for his substantial contributions to the entertainment industry in Hawaii.

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Princess Victoria Kuhio Kinoiki Kekaulike

Princess Victoria Kuhio Kinoiki Kekaulike’s (1843-1884) mother was Princess Kinoiki Kekaulike I, a daughter of Kaumualii, the last king of Kauai, and her father was Kuhio Kalanianaole, a high chief of Hilo.

Her husband, whom she married in 1861, was high chief David Kahalepouli Piikoi of Kauai. They would have three royal sons — David Kahalepouli Kawananakoa, Edward Keliiahonui and Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole.

Princess Victoria Kekaulike’s brother-in-law was King David Kalakaua, who had married her eldest sister, Esther Kapiolani, in 1863.

When Kalakaua was elected king in 1874, Esther Kapiolani became Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Six years later, in 1880, Kalakaua named Princess Kekaulike the Governor of Hawaii Island, a title she would hold until her death.

In 1883, during Kalakaua’s coronation ceremony at Iolani Palace, Kalakaua granted Kekaulike the additional title of Princess of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Princess Kekaulike’s duty at the coronation was to carry Kalakaua’s feather cape and hand it to Chief Justice Albert Francis Judd, who then placed it upon Kalakaua’s shoulders.

King Kalakaua also granted each of Princess Kekaulike’s sons the title of Prince of the Kingdom of Hawaii at the coronation and declared one of them, Prince Kawananakoa, the third heir to the throne after Princess Liliuokalani and Princess Kaiulani.

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Another son, Prince Kuhio, was born on Kauai in 1871 at the fishing village of Hoai in a grass house that once stood in the area now known as Kuhio Park.

He would later participate in the failed counterrevolution of 1895 that was aimed at restoring the monarchy. From 1903 until his death in 1922, he served as Hawaii’s delegate to the United States Congress.

When Princess Kekaulike died in 1884, Queen Kapiolani and Princess Poomaikelani, her other sister, adopted Kekaulike’s sons.

Princess Kekaulike is interred in the Kalakaua crypt at the Royal Mausoleum of Hawaii on Nuuanu Avenue in Honolulu.

1946 Harlem Globetrotters On Kauai

Goose Tatum When Abe Saperstein founded the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team in Chicago in 1926, he adopted the name Harlem — a New York City district with a large African-American population — to indicate its players were AfricanAmerican, and he chose Globetrotters to create the illusion that the Chicagobased team had traveled the world.

Throughout its history, the Harlem Globetrotters, made up almost entirely of African-American players, have played over 25,000 games in 118 countries.

On the evenings of April 9 and 10, 1946, at the Kauai High School Gym, the Globetrotters played a two-game series against the Rainbow All Stars of Honolulu before 1,500 and 1,200 fans respectively, which was considered to be the best basketball show ever on Kauai.

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Their two-night Kauai performance was part of a 17-game, first-ever visit to the Territory of Hawaii.

At that time, the Globetrotters were a serious competitive team that would clown around only after gaining a safe lead, whereas nowadays they are strictly an exhibition team focusing on basketball tricks and comedy routines.

World War II Army Air Corps veteran, 6-foot-4-inch Reece “Goose” Tatum was the Globetrotters’ star attraction. His amazingly accurate hook shots and “baseball play” on the court as batter, runner and scorer thrilled Kauai fans.

“Goose” Tatum was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.

He and Louis “Babe” Pressley, Zachary Clayton, Tom Sealy, John Scott, Sam “Boom Boom” Wheeler and Ted “Big Jeep” Strong outscored a good Honolulu team 47-30 and 44-30, while bringing the house down both nights with their showmanship.

Outstanding players for the All Stars were Frank Maestri, Bob Kahana, Tom Eberle, Pickles Banks, George Lee, Frank Fitzgerald and Walter Wong.

Prior to Thursday’s game, County Chairman William Ellis presented plaques to the players on behalf of Kauai’s basketball fans.

Hawaii Con Man And Newspaper Columnist Sammy Amalu

Sammy Amalu (1917-1986), Hawaii con man and longtime columnist at The Honolulu Advertiser, was born in Kauai’s Koolau District, the son of Charles and Ethel P. Amalu, and the grandson of Kilauea Lighthouse keeper Samuel Apollo Amalu.

Amalu, who professed to be a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, was also known — among his other aliases — as High Chief Kapiikauinamoku, the Prince of Keawe, the Duke of Konigsberg and Samuel Crowningburg-Amalu.

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In 1967, while incarcerated at Folsom Prison for writing bad checks, he mailed articles he’d written in prison about Hawaii and the Hawaiian people to his former Punahou classmate, Thurston Twigg-Smith, then publisher and president of the Advertiser.

Twigg-Smith liked what the newspaper’s editor Buck Buchwach once described as a “beautiful writing style that sends out flashes of the erudite historian, the articulate socialite, the master put-on artist and the cheeky observer” and published Amalu’s work until 1984.

Years earlier, a patriotic Amalu had enlisted in the Army on Dec. 7, 1941, only to discredit himself two weeks later by being caught impersonating an officer.

Similarly, he once achieved notoriety throughout Japan by posing as a Hawaiian prince.

In San Francisco, he likewise played a credible role as an Indian maharajah and persuaded two San Francisco auto dealers that his bogus checks for $99,000 were good to cover the purchase of several expensive cars.

Then there was the infamous Mystery Hui scam of 1962, for which he is best known.

Incredibly, Amalu and his confederates, while falsely representing themselves as pro regents of a Swiss presidium that did not actually exist, were able to convince several Hawaii businessmen that they were the genuine article and offered the entrepreneurs about $50 million to purchase five Waikiki hotels and lands on Oahu and Molokai.

The hoax ended after Amalu — who really had no money — wrote two checks backed by insufficient funds in connection with the Mystery Hui and consequently landed himself in prison.

Dr. Edward Goodhue

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Born in Canada of American parents, Dr. Edward Solon Goodhue (1863-1935) was educated at McGill University, Montreal and at Rush Medical College, Chicago, which granted him his medical degree in 1892.

From 1895 to 1900, Dr. Goodhue served the Republic of Hawaii and the Territory of Hawaii as the government physician and medical superintendent of the Koloa Government Hospital, as well as the attending surgeon at the Eleele Hospital.

While practicing medicine on Kauai, Goodhue initiated the first campaign against tuberculosis in the Hawaiian Islands and organized the Hawaii AntiTuberculosis Association, with officers from all islands participating.

He also came in contact with many sufferers of Hansen’s Disease, which sparked his intense interest and study of this dreaded affliction.

His numerous articles on the subject of leprosy led to his appointment by President William Howard Taft, in 1909, as a delegate to attend the International Congress on Leprosy in Norway.

Territorial Governor Walter Frear also appointed Dr. Goodhue to this Congress as the special representative of Hawaii.

From 1900 until his death, Dr. Goodhue continued his medical practice in Honolulu and on Molokai.

Active in civic and political affairs, Dr. Goodhue was a longtime member of the Republican Party. As a delegate to his party’s national convention and a member of the platform committee, he was the first person to advocate and draft a provision for women’s suffrage.

Dr. Goodhue was an accomplished poet as well. The following verses are from his book, “Verses From The Valley.”

“Stretching myself upon a bed, of beaten sand and withered moss. I lay full length and watched the red, sun send its rays the waves across.

“A charm I held within my palm, and clasped it tightly, as a dream. With Various fancies, fair and calm, did soon my wandering thoughts redeem.”

He and his wife, Lulu Mae, had two children.

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Banker And Grove Farm Plantation Executive Samuel W. “Sam” Wilcox II

Banker and Grove Farm Plantation executive Samuel W. “Sam” Wilcox II (19101975), the son of Charles Henry and Marion Wilcox, was born at Koloa, Kauai into a family long-prominent in the affairs of Kauai.

Among them were his great-grandparents, American Protestant missionary teachers Abner and Lucy Wilcox, who arrived at the Waioli Mission Station in 1846 and served there until 1869.

Sam Wilcox’s grandfather and namesake, Samuel Whitney Wilcox, was a deputy sheriff at Hanalei prior to becoming Kauai Sheriff in 1872, a post he held for 25 years.

Sugar pioneer and Grove Farm Plantation owner and philanthropist, George Norton Wilcox, was Sam’s grand-uncle.

In 1938, his two aunts, Elsie and Mabel Wilcox, and his uncle, Gaylord Wilcox, with funding from a trust created by their uncle, George Norton Wilcox, established Lihue’s G. N. Wilcox Memorial Hospital (now Wilcox Memorial Hospital), Kauai’s first general hospital.

Following his graduation from Princeton, Sam Wilcox was employed by Oahu Sugar Co. for a spell and then entered banking with Bishop Trust Company, Honolulu.

From there, he moved on to a long career with Bishop National Bank — now First Hawaiian Bank — opening the bank’s Lihue branch as bank manager in 1942.

Sam Wilcox was president of Grove Farm in 1973, when Grove Farm shut down its failing sugar operations and leased its 10,000 acres of sugarcane growing lands to McBryde Sugar Co. and Lihue Plantation Co., effective Jan. 1, 1974.

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While Sam Wilcox was president, Grove Farm also gifted 200 acres of prime sugar land in Puhi to the University of Hawaii upon which to build Kauai Community College.

The Samuel W. Wilcox II Learning Resource Center on the college’s campus is named in his honor.

For many years, Sam Wilcox was also president of the board of directors of G. N. Wilcox Hospital.

He and his wife, Edith, had three daughters: Deborah, Pamela and Judith.

Molokoa House

Rev. And Mrs. Isenberg Are Seated At Molokoa House Molokoa, the home of Lutheran pastor Rev. Hans Isenberg (1855-1918) and his wife, Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg (1862-1949), was located in Lihue above the Lutheran Church on German Hill, approximately 400 yards north of the end of today’s hardtop road.

Actually an estate, Molokoa was comprised of a rambling plantation-style house, a swimming pool, gardens, a small dairy, a stable for horses and a poultry yard, all of which vanished when Lihue Plantation demolished Molokoa in the 1970s.

Likewise, little 60-foot-deep Molokoa Valley — situated nearby and alive with mango and orange trees, and through which Molokoa Stream wound southward to become a tributary of Nawiliwili Stream — was filled-in with earth also during the ‘70s.

Rev. Isenberg called Molokoa home from 1886 until his death, and Mrs.

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Isenberg occupied the Molokoa house for some years afterward.

Missionary Mary Sophia Hyde Rice, the widow of missionary William Harrison Rice — whose daughter, Hannah Maria, had married Kauai sugar planter Paul Isenberg, the brother of Rev. Hans Isenberg — also lived for a time at Molokoa.

Paul Isenberg built Lihue Plantation into a profitable business and became a partner in Honolulu sugar factory Hackfeld & Company. He then retired to Germany in 1878, but stayed at Molokoa on his biennial visits to Hawaii during the following 22 years.

Kauai historian Ethel Damon spent three years at Molokoa writing her magnum opus titled “Koamalu” — 976 pages in length and indexed by over 1,530 references.

Privately published in two volumes in Honolulu in 1931, “Koamalu’s” value to researchers is inestimable, and it remains to this day essential reading for anyone earnestly interested in the history of Kauai.

Old-timers may remember Molokoa house when they were children growing up in nearby plantation camps. They refer to it as “Isenberg House” and recall visiting Molokoa during Christmas time, when they were given never-to-beforgotten brown paper bags filled with then hard-to-come-by oranges, apples and Christmas candies.

Kauai Legislator Rosalie Keliinoi

With her election in 1925 to the Territorial House of Representatives as a Republican from Kauai, Rosalie Keliinoi (1875-1952) became the first woman elected to serve in the Territorial Legislature.

Born at Wailuku, Maui, the daughter of Augustine Enos, a Portuguese immigrant merchant and rancher, and Kininia Makaokatani Enos, the daughter of a Koloa, Kauai farmer, Rosalie Keliinoi was educated at St. Anthony’s School

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for Girls on Maui and Sacred Hearts Convent in Honolulu.

In 1917, Keliinoi and her second husband Samuel Keliinoi — a successful Maui politician who’d been sent by Queen Liliuokalani to be educated at Oberlin College, Ohio — moved from Maui to Kauai to homestead land at Kapaa.

On Kauai, Samuel Keliinoi became clerk to Territorial Senator Charles Rice (1876-1964), of whom longtime The Garden Island Newspaper editor Charlie Fern once said, “If you had Charlie Rice behind you, you were elected. That was it.”

With the support of her politically active husband and with Charles Rice’s backing, Rosalie Keliinoi entered the political arena herself in 1924 and was elected to the 1925 Territorial Legislature.

In her one term in office — during which she was the only woman serving in the Legislature — she proposed 16 bills and is credited with the passage of 4 bills.

One of the bills she introduced, Act 274, a landmark piece of legislation that granted property rights to women by allowing them to sell property without their husbands’ approval, was signed into law by Gov. Wallace Farrington in May 1925.

Lively, animated and devoted to her family, Rosalie Keliinoi loved meeting people and entertaining.

She spoke Hawaiian fluently and was an accomplished pianist and Hawaiian quilt maker. At public functions her typical dress featured a black holoku with a Portuguese comb decorating her hair.

She and her first husband, Maui politician Thomas Benjamin Lyons, with whom she was divorced in 1916, had seven sons.

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Henry Wishard, Chairman Of The Kauai County Board of Supervisors

Henry Dickerson Wishard (1866-1952) was the first chairman of the Kauai County Board of Supervisors — the governing body of Kauai from 1906, when the first board of supervisors took their oaths of office, until 1969, when the mayor and county council form of government replaced it and Antone Kona Vidinha was elected Kauai’s first mayor.

Prior to the formation of county-level boards of supervisors throughout the Hawaiian Islands in 1906, no county-level governmental organizations existed in Hawaii.

From 1898, the year in which the United States annexed the Republic of Hawaii — through 1905, the governance of the Hawaii Islands was carried out in Honolulu at the territorial level.

Leading members of the Kauai County government that Henry Wishard headed and served as Supervisor Lihue District in 1906 were: Arthur Rice, treasurer; Olaf Omstead, clerk; John Willard, attorney; William Henry Rice, sheriff; J. Mahiai Kaneakua, clerk; L. M. McKeague, interpreter; S. K. Kaeo, attorney; Walter D. McBryde, supervisor Koloa District; T. Brandt, supervisor Waimea District; D. Kanealii, supervisor Hanalei District, and R. Puuike, supervisor Kawaihau District.

Henry Wishard would continue as chairman of the Kauai Board of Supervisors for nearly 25 years, until 1930.

Born in Indiana and educated at Central Normal College, Indiana, Henry Wishard arrived at Lihue in 1889 as a schoolteacher. By 1899, he’d become principal of Waimea School.

Besides teaching on Kauai for four years, Wishard was employed by the W. H.

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Rice ranch for 13 years and worked as the bookkeeper of Lihue Plantation Co. for 15 years.

He and his wife, Agnes, had two children, Leslie and Blanche Wishard.

Incidentally, Wishard was a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, a lineage society in which members have traced their family tree back to a point of having an ancestor who supported the cause of American Independence during the years 1774 to 1783.

Kekaha Sugar Company Office Manager Ernest F. Shackleton

Born in England, Ernest F. Shackleton (1894-1972) emigrated from London to Hawaii in 1912 in search of good health. He found it in Hawaii Nei and went on to a 42-year career in the Hawaiian sugar industry.

He was first employed as a statistician at Oahu Sugar Co., but left Hawaii in 1915 to serve in the British Army in Europe during World War I. In 1919, he returned to work at Oahu Sugar until 1925, when he moved to Kauai to accept the position of office manager for Koloa Sugar Co. Six years later, in 1931, he joined Kekaha Sugar Co. as office manager, a position he held until his retirement in 1954.

During the early years of Shackleton’s long residence in Kekaha, an elderly Chinese employee of Kekaha Sugar Co. named Ah Ton worked as his yardman.

Ah Ton resided in Pah On Camp, now long gone, but formerly located alongside the old “Government Road” about a mile from, and on the Kekaha side of, Mana Reservoir.

Over time, Ah Ton transformed Shackleton’s backyard into a good-sized poultry ranch and vegetable garden, which produced many more birds, eggs and vegetables than Shackleton’s household required.

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The enterprising Ah Ton then sold the surplus to neighbors and local merchants for profit.

Each work day at noon, when Shackleton came home for lunch, and regardless of whether visitors were present, or not, Ah Ton would stride into Shackleton’s house and submit his daily report to his boss.

He’d inform Shackleton in a barrage of pidgin English spoken so vigorously that one might imagine he was telling news of some enormous catastrophe, instead of relating an account of the number of ducklings or the progress of a sick turkey.

Shackleton’s relationship with Ah Ton extended beyond the realm of his backyard and into the area of finance.

Whenever Ah Ton’s friends needed an occasional $5 advance in pay, Shackleton would grant it, with Ah Ton acting as his trusted go-between.

Mr. And Mrs. Bishop’s Kauai Honeymoon

At 8 p.m. on the evening of Tuesday, June 4, 1850, Princess Bernice Pauahi Paki (1831-1884) and Hawaii businessman Charles Reed Bishop (18221915) were married in a private Congregational ceremony performed by former missionary Rev. Richard Armstrong in the parlor of the original Royal School for alii children, located in Honolulu about where Iolani Barracks now stands.

Present at the wedding were missionary teachers in charge of the Royal School, Amos Starr Cooke — who would later co-found Castle & Cooke with S. N. Castle — and his wife, Juliette Montague Cooke.

Also in attendance were a few witnesses that included Mrs. Armstrong and

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Elizabeth Kekaaniau, a schoolmate of Princess Pauahi’s.

Missing were Pauahi’s parents, High Chiefs Abner Paki and Laura Kanaholo Konia, who’d hoped Pauahi would have married Prince Lot Kamehameha (the future Kamehameha V) instead.

Following the ceremony, the newlyweds sat down to tea, and at 9 p.m. they set off by wagon to Judge Lorrin Andrews’ downtown Honolulu home, where they planned to reside after their Kauai honeymoon.

The next day, Mrs. and Mrs. Bishop — who first met in Honolulu in 1847 — sailed to Koloa, Kauai aboard the inter-island boat “Kalama.”

On Kauai, the Bishops likely stayed at the Koloa home of Rev. Dr. James W. and Mrs. Melicent Knapp Smith, situated makai of the present Koloa Missionary Church.

While honeymooning, Mr. Bishop also looked over the affairs of H. A. Pierce & Co. (later renamed Lihue Plantation), which was then managed by James F. B. Marshall, and which Bishop had established in 1849 with fellow investors Judge William L. Lee and Henry A. Pierce.

Three weeks later, on July 2, the Bishops returned to Honolulu.

Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop was the great-granddaughter of Kamehameha I. The revenues from her estate fund Kamehameha schools.

Mr. Bishop founded the bank now known as First Hawaiian Bank and the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.

Evangelist Billy Graham’s Kauai Crusade

Billy Graham And Hartwell K. Blake When world-renowned Christian evangelist Dr. Billy Graham arrived at the 431

Lihue Airport from Honolulu on Sunday afternoon, Feb. 28, 1965, he was greeted by Hartwell K. Blake, chairman of the Kauai Board of Supervisors, who presented Graham with a koa bowl on behalf of Kauai County.

Then, beginning that day at 3 p.m. in the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall, 46-year-old Graham preached to an audience that filled all of the hall’s 1,100 seats, and overflowed by several hundred more into standing room only at the back of the auditorium and in the lobby.

Following his sermon, 338 people came forward to make their “Decision for Christ” — a conscious decision to accept and commit themselves to Jesus Christ.

Graham, who at the time of his visit to Kauai had already preached to more people than any other person in history, had come to Kauai from an eight-day crusade in Honolulu and meetings on the Big Island and Maui.

His Kauai appearance was the finale of a five-day Kauai crusade that had begun on the previous Wednesday.

Prior to Graham’s arrival on Kauai, his associate evangelist, Dr. Akbar AbdulHaqq — a former Muslim who had converted to Christianity — had preached to audiences at the convention hall each evening from Wednesday through Saturday beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Accompanying Abdul-Haqq during the week was the talented blues, jazz and gospel vocalist Ethel Waters.

Gospel singer and hymn composer George Beverly Shea, organist Don Hustad and music and program director Cliff Barrows also assisted Abdul-Haqq.

Kauai’s 250-voice Crusade-Choir performed in all five crusade meetings.

The Protestant churches of Kauai sponsored Graham’s crusade, with Kauai clergyman Rev. Ken Daugherty serving as Chairman of the Executive Committee for the Billy Graham Kauai, Hawaii Crusade.

Billy Graham returned to Honolulu Sunday evening.

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Prima Donna Inga Orner Performs On Kauai

Inga Orner (1876-1963), internationally known Norwegian soprano and prima donna of New York’s Metropolitan Opera Company and London’s Royal Covent Garden, made two concert appearances on Kauai in 1915, the first at the Waimea Community Hall on Dec. 18, and the other at the Lihue Social Hall on Dec. 20.

Never before had a singer of Miss Orner’s distinction performed on Kauai.

Stage decorations for Orner’s 8 p.m. recital at the Waimea Community Hall on Ola Road were arranged by Mr. and Mrs. Eric and Cecilie Knudsen. Potted ferns and flowers seemed to grow out of the stage, giving it the appearance of a fern bank in a shady place.

Orner, who had performed on hundreds of platforms and stages, had never seen anything like it, noting that “It is most beautiful.”

Accompanying her on piano was Mrs. Helen Grote, the best pianist on the island and the wife of William Henry Grote, manager of Kealia Store.

Orner’s songs included an aria by Faust and an aria from “Carmen,” in which she demonstrated wonderful agility along the scale.

Best liked was the final section of the concert, composed of Scandinavian songs that drew a great round of applause. In response, Orner sang an extra Norwegian song while accompanying herself at the piano.

One concertgoer commented with satisfaction that Orner’s audience was there on time. No annoyance was caused by people coming into the hall during her recital, nor were noisy automobiles to be heard parking outside.

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Miss Orner’s concert at the Lihue Social Hall (then located on Rice St., where the Lihue Chevron now stands) at 8 p.m. Dec. 20 was also enthusiastically applauded.

Following her Kauai recitals, Miss Orner sailed for Maui and Hawaii aboard the steamer “Kinau.”

Spark Matsunaga In Combat On Hill 600

Spark Matsunaga Front Center Born and raised on Kauai, former U.S. Congressman and Sen. Spark Masayuki Matsunaga (1916-1990) graduated from the University of Hawaii in June, 1941, and was commissioned 2nd Lt. in the Army Reserve.

During World War II, “Sparky” served in combat in Italy with the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion, nicknamed “One Puka Puka” by its soldiers, which was comprised almost entirely of Nisei Japanese-Americans from Hawaii.

His decorations included two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star for exemplary conduct in ground combat.

On Nov. 5, 1943, the 100th Battalion attacked German positions occupying the heights of hills 590, 600 and 610 above the village of Pozzilli, south of Cassino.

Company D commanding officer Capt. Jack Mizuha, along with the battalion command group and part of his company, advanced about three-quarters of the way up Hill 600.

Then 1st Lt. Matsunaga and the rest of Company D at the bottom of the hill, while being guided through a minefield by a mysterious volunteer AWOL paratrooper named Pvt. Thompson, proceeded to join up with Mizuha.

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On the hike uphill, Thompson was blown to bits by a mine and several of Sparky’s men were lost to mine explosions. Sparky was also wounded in the neck by an explosion that mortally wounded his radioman, Yasuo Kawano, and blinded Yoshinao Omiya.

An hour later, Sparky was badly wounded in the leg when someone tripped another mine.

He was carried off Hill 600, given medical treatment at Pozzilli and sent to a hospital in Naples.

After being released from the hospital in April 1944, Sparky, by then unfit for combat, served with the 7th Replacement Battalion.

Later, from October 1944 to June 1945, he commanded Company I at the Military Intelligence Service Language School, Fort Snelling, Minn.

Cpt. Matsunaga was honorably discharged on Dec. 27, 1945.

Sports On Kauai In 1938

1938 Kauai 125-pound Barefoot Football League Champions — Kauai Pine AA. In 1938, the umbrella organization for practically every competitive sporting activity on Kauai was the Kauai Athletic Union (KAU), founded in 1937 by a group headed by Kekaha Sugar Co. Manager Lindsay A. Faye.

During 1938, men of Japanese ancestry competed in the AJA Baseball League, while the 11-team Senior Baseball League was open to men of all races and nationalities.

KAU men also battled in the ring as amateur and professional boxers that year. Other sports that Kauai men engaged in competitively were football, volleyball, soccer, basketball, track and field, softball, tennis, badminton, swimming, golf and the Filipino game of sipa.

Women participated in volleyball, basketball, softball, badminton and 435

swimming leagues.

In those days, football was extraordinarily popular with players and fans.

Most of it was played in the barefoot football leagues, where men wore no shoes, not even slippers.

The Kauai Pine AA (Kauai Pineapple Co., Lawai) team coached by Stanley Kawakami won the 1938 Kauai 125-pound Barefoot League crown with a perfect 7-0 record.

Other teams competing in 125-pound Barefoot League were: Waimea, Kekaha, Lihue Townies, Koloa, Lihue Plantation, Pono AC (Hawaiian Canneries, Kapaa), McBryde and Makaweli.

There was also a seven-team, 115-pound barefoot league comprised of adults and older teenagers that was sponsored by The Garden Island newspaper.

With Bill Chu as coach, Pono AC won all six of its games in 1938.

Kauai's “Big League� of football was the Senior League. Its players competed in full football uniform and were required to weigh in at more than 150 pounds.

In 1938, teams entered in the Senior League were Pono AC, Kekaha AA, Lihue PAA and McBryde AC. Pono AC, led by coach and halfback Ben Lizama, took the title that year with a record of 5 wins and 1 tie.

There were no kids sports leagues within the KAU. Kauai High School competed in sports with schools from Oahu and Maui on a limited basis.

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The Invasion Of Kauai In 1260 A.D.

Battle Map In 1260 A.D., Kauai’s King Kukona led an army in defense of Kauai that defeated a sea-borne invading army commanded by Kalaunui, the King of Hawaii, in battles at Mahaulepu, Kauai and inland between Mahaulepu and Lawai.

Kalaunui’s invasion of Kauai began when his army of perhaps 15,000 warriors sailed for Kauai from Oahu aboard a fleet of about 2,500 war canoes, which reached Mahaulepu the following morning at daylight.

Opposing Kalaunui in defense of Kauai were two separate armed forces.

One, under King Kukona’s personal command, consisted of 10,000 Kauai warriors concealed in the wooded hillsides west of Mahaulepu.

A second Kauai force of uncertain size lay in wait aboard a fleet of nearly 1,000 canoes at Hanapepe Bay. As Kalaunui’s invasion force advanced westward toward Lawai, it became stretched into a narrow line.

Kukona’s men then swept down from their cover in the hills, cut the line into pieces, and surrounded and overpowered each isolated segment.

Meanwhile, Kukona’s second force, the one that had been lying in wait in Hanapepe Bay, sailed eastward to attack Kalaunui’s rear area at Mahaulepu.

To meet Kukona’s counterattack from the sea, Kalaunui dispatched one of his ablest commanders, a chief named Kualu, with a detachment of 3,000 warriors to defend his canoe fleet and cover his flank.

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At Mahaulepu, Kualu’s force attacked Kukona’s canoes in the surf along 300 to 400 yards of beach.

Kukona’s canoe-borne force was annihilated, but only 300 soldiers of Kualu’s detachment survived. They and their leader then lost their nerve and fled to Oahu.

By this time, Kalaunui had been captured, and his remaining force of about 1,000 warriors continued fighting desperately in retreat back to Mahaulepu, where all but a few were slaughtered. The survivors were later sacrificed to the gods.

Practically all of Kalaunui’s 15,000 invading warriors had been killed in battle or perished while fleeing to Oahu in stormy seas.

UFOs Reported Over Kauai

In its Wednesday, Nov. 29, 1961 edition, Kauai’s The Garden Island newspaper reported four sightings of UFOs over Kauai.

The first sighting occurred during the week of Nov. 19, 1961, when Masa Arita of Lihue snapped a picture of a UFO above Kalapaki Beach.

Then, on Sunday afternoon, the 26th of November, Ed Roberson of Lihue reported seeing a UFO in the sky between the KTOH radio tower on Ahukini Road and Lihue town.

He said it was a shiny object that appeared to hover for several seconds, but since it was very high, he could not distinguish its shape.

Roberson supposed it could have been a weather balloon, yet he commented 438

that he’d never observed a balloon hover like the UFO. The following day, Monday, another sighting was made by Charles Blake of Koloa near Knudsen’s Gap. Blake noted that the UFO moved off toward Lihue, circled for a while, and then disappeared high in the sky. The UFO was round and shiny, Blake said, but he could not determine its size.

During that week, George Kawakami of Lihue was playing golf at the Wailua Golf Course when he spotted a round UFO in the sky near the golf course that zigzagged back and forth for a few seconds over the area between Wailua and Hanamaulu.

It suddenly shot upwards and vanished behind a cloud bank.

Kawakami reckoned the UFO was about 10 or 12 feet in diameter. He was sure it was not a weather balloon because it was very shiny.

At the time the UFO story was published, there were those on Kauai who suspected that the report was a hoax.

Yet, these were not the first sightings of UFOs over Kauai reported by The Garden Island newspaper. During October 1950, Hawaiian Canneries manager Albert Horner of Wailua, Ben Iida of Lihue, Ben Ohai in Kapaa and Kumanosuke Fujita at Knudsen’s Gap also reported seeing UFOs. Lihue Plantation Manager Keith Tester

Born in England and educated in Canada, Keith Bedwell Tester (1900-1979) managed Lihue Plantation Co., Kauai during the 1950s and later ran Pioneer Mill Co., Maui in the early 1960s.

In his monthly column, “Through My Eyes,” printed in the Lihue Plantation bulletin, L.P. Co. Progress, Tester reported his opinions and concerns as manager. Excerpts from the September through December, 1956 issues follow: “Accidents are wasteful — they are wasteful of time, money and 439

materials. More than that, they cause a great deal of human suffering. Our greatest assets are our lives, and we owe it to ourselves and our fellowmen to do all in our power to preserve this asset by the observance of safety rules and regulations everywhere.

“It is clear also that our standard of living far exceeds any other sugar producing area in the world. By comparison, we are living ‘high off the hog,’ and we can be proud that we are.

“We commemorate Thanksgiving every year. We express our thanks for our spiritual and material blessings. We have so much to be thankful for. Not the least of these is our American Heritage.

“The people of Lihue Plantation can look back on 1956 with a mixture of feelings. It was a poor year financially. Our yields were far below what we expected. Nature hit us with just about everything she had. But it could have been a lot worse.”

Tester’s Kauai home, where he and his wife, Mary, and their three sons lived, was the old Lihue Plantation manager’s house, built in 1916, which can still be seen standing (in disrepair ) at Koamalu next to the Aloha Church off Kaumualii Highway.

During the 1950s, little Ginger Beralas (Soboleski) of Lihue Camp-A, and her grandma, Rita Sadang, from Stable Camp, Kapaa, sometimes visited Tester’s house, where Rita would repair the Testers’ lauhala floor mats while Ginger played with the Tester boys outside.

Laruentsius David Larsen’s 1942 Niihau Visit

Larsen Seated Center 1910 In June, 1942, Laruentsius David Larsen, former manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation from 1918 to 1930, spent several days on Niihau as the guest of the

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island’s owner and manager, Aylmer Robinson.

On June 17, 1942, the day Larsen arrived, a detachment of soldiers of the 165th Infantry Regiment that had been stationed on Niihau pulled out and returned to Kauai.

These soldiers, all of them Caucasians, had been ordered to Niihau on June 2, 1942, to defend it against a possible Imperial Japanese attack.

A few days after their arrival and following the U. S. Navy’s victory in the Battle of Midway (June 4 to June 7, 1942), the threat of imminent invasion of the Hawaiian Islands ended, and the 165th Infantry was therefore no longer needed on Niihau.

During the 165th Infantry’s short stay on Niihau, there had been practically no fraternization between its soldiers and Niihau’s native Hawaiian residents, who had little previous contact with strangers to their island.

One way Niihau women avoided contact with the soldiers was by refraining from going to the beaches to pick shells, from which they made necklaces.

Elsewhere, girls would run inside their homes whenever soldiers appeared in Puuwai village.

Larsen also met Benehakaka Kanahele who, along with his wife, Ella, had killed Shigenori Nishikaichi, the Japanese Navy Air Service fighter pilot who had crash-landed on Niihau on Dec. 7, 1941, following his participation in the attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, and had then terrorized the people of Niihau until he was dispatched on Dec. 13.

When Larsen observed Kanahele effortlessly lifting 130-pound cases of honey at the Nonopapa warehouse, it was obvious to Larsen that Kanahele had fully recuperated from the gunshot wounds he’d suffered during his fight with Nishikaichi.

Enormously strong, Kanahele could easily carry two cases at a time down to the beach some 500 feet away for shipping.

What’s more, his younger brother could carry three all at once.

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Kumu Hula, Dancer And Chanter Iolani Luahine

On the evening of July 14, 1977, Iolani Luahine (1915-1978) — esteemed Native Hawaiian teacher, dancer and chanter of ancient hula — performed during a rare public appearance at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall in Lihue.

Born on the Big Island, Iolani was raised by her great aunt, Kauai-born Keahi Luahine (1877-1937), who began teaching her the chants, dances and legends of the ancient Kauai form of hula when Iolani was four years old.

When Keahi Luahine was herself a child many years earlier, Queen Kapiolani had brought her to Honolulu to be reared by Kapiolani’s sister, Poomaikelani, and it’s probable that Keahi performed there in the presence of King Kalakaua.

Iolani Luahine attended Kamehameha Schools, St. Andrew’s Priory and the University of Hawaii, where her other mentor, hula master Mary Kawena Pukui (1895-1986), continued instructing her in traditional hula.

Dorothy Thompson (1921-2010), a co-founder of Hilo’s annual Merrie Monarch Festival, once described Iolani as “an extraordinary dancer. She seemed like she would go into a trance. And her movements were like nobody else’s.”

Miss Thompson also spoke of a demonstration of Iolani’s apparent mystical powers that she’d witnessed one rainy day at the 1969 Merrie Monarch Festival.

Thompson asserted that during a pouring rain, Iolani had accurately predicted the precise times when continuous showers would actually stop, and then resume two hours afterward.

Another of Iolani’s friends, hula master George Naope (1928-2009), told the tale of a very windy day, when “Iolani turned around, chanted, and the wind stopped.”

When Iolani died, Mainland and local newspapers declared that she was “regarded as Hawaii’s last great exponent of the sacred hula ceremony,” and 442

“the foremost hula dancer of the 20th century.”

Also performing at the Kauai War Memorial Convention Hall were Kauai dancers and teachers Kuulei Punua, Henry Taeza, and Naomi Yokotake, as well as visiting dancers from Oahu.

Author, Illustrator Isabella McHutcheson Sinclair

Isabella McHutcheson Sinclair (1840-1890) is not to be mistaken for her aunt and mother-in-law, Elizabeth McHutcheson Sinclair (1800-1892), who immigrated to Hawaii from New Zealand in 1863 with 12 members of her family — all with surnames of Sinclair, Gay or Robinson — and subsequently purchased Niihau from Kamehameha V and the Makaweli Ahupuaa on Kauai from Princess Victoria Kamamalu.

Isabella Sinclair is, instead, best known for her book, “Indigenous Flowers of the Hawaiian Islands,” the first book published with color pictures of Hawaiian flowering plants.

Born in Scotland, where she was privately educated, Sinclair immigrated to New Zealand with her family in 1861.

Four years later she married her cousin, Francis Sinclair Jr., a son of her aunt Elizabeth McHutcheson Sinclair, during his visit to New Zealand from Niihau.

The newly married couple then sailed for Hawaii, where they resided at Kiekie, Niihau and later lived at Makaweli, Kauai.

For a number of years, Isabella explored Niihau, Waimea Valley, Olokele Valley, Kokee and places thereabouts on Kauai, painting the wildflowers she discovered and obtaining information about them from Native Hawaiians.

She also collected botanical specimens of these flowering plants, which she sent to Dr. Joseph D. Hooker, director of the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew,

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England, for scientific identification.

Dr. Hooker provided her with each flower’s botanical name, while she furnished the Hawaiian names, natural habitats and blossoming seasons of the flowers, and incorporated them into a portfolio of 44 full-page color plates she’d painted.

The resultant book, published in London in 1885, was dedicated by her with the words, “To the Hawaiian Chiefs and People who have been most appreciative friends, and most lenient critics, this work is affectionately inscribed.”

Isabella and Francis Sinclair Jr. had no children. After her death, Francis married her widowed sister.

In 1891, he sold his property on Niihau to his sisters, Jane Gay and Helen Robinson, and his nephew Aubrey Robinson, and moved to England.

Hawaiian Electric Co. President And CEO Harwood Danford Williamson

Born at the Waimea Dispensary, Kauai, and raised on the Garden Isle, Harwood Danford “Dan” Williamson (1932-2013) was the son of T. B. Williamson, a U.S. Navy officer stationed at Pearl Harbor at the time of his birth.

A graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., T. B. Williamson was awarded the Navy Cross during World War II — the Navy and Marine Corps’ second highest decoration for valor — while serving as an aircraft carrier captain, and retired as a Vice Admiral.

Dan’s mother, Alys Williamson, also born in Waimea, was the daughter of William Danford, who’d immigrated to Hawaii from Ireland in 1894, started off as a sugar boiler on Oahu, and advanced in the sugar industry to become the manager of Kekaha Sugar Co. from 1928 to 1935.

Growing up on Kauai, Dan Williamson enjoyed an outdoor life of activities, such as goat hunting along the Na Pali Coast with Waimea friends Alan Faye Jr. and 444

Alan’s cousin, Tony Faye, as well as fishing on the beach and camping.

In 1950, he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps.

When he learned that his mother had asked his father, then Admiral Williamson, to use his influence to get him a non-combat assignment, he wanted no part of it, and served instead in combat in Korea during the Korean War as a machine gunner.

Following his military service he attended Stanford University, where he graduated in 1956 with a B.S. in electrical engineering, and joined Hawaiian Electric Co., Honolulu soon after as a design engineer.

At HECO, he worked his way up to the top just as his grandfather had done in the sugar business years earlier, and retired in 1995 as the president and CEO of his company.

Dan Williamson and his wife, Nancy, had three children: Warren, Julie and Binney Williamson. th 19 Century Kauai Commercial Agriculture

Sugarcane, which was first cultivated commercially in Hawaii with success at Koloa beginning in 1835, and continued to be raised as such on the Garden Isle until Gay & Robinson ceased sugar production in 2009, was by far Kauai’s most successful agricultural product.

Several agricultural commodities other than sugar were also produced commercially on Kauai during the 1800s.

At Koloa, starting in 1836, Sherman Peck and Charles Titcomb leased land

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upon which they planted thousands of mulberry trees to feed silkworms from which silk is made.

Their enterprise failed, however, in 1840, first when a drought hit Koloa and aphids subsequently covered the mulberry trees, and later, when a plague of spiders and strong Kona winds destroyed the surviving trees.

A small kukui nut oil factory was also started at Koloa in 1836 by D. H. Goodale that produced 50 gallons a day as a substitute for linseed oil, but paint manufacturers still preferred linseed oil and Goodale’s factory closed.

Coffee was grown successfully at Hanalei during the 1840s and 1850s until a blight caused by aphids wiped out over 100,000 coffee trees.

Wailua Ranch, owned by the German firm of Hoffschlaeger & Stepenhorst, made a profit in the 1850s by provisioning whalers with salted beef and butter, and with pigs and cattle that were not slaughtered until the whalers had reached their Arctic whaling grounds.

However, the cotton crop planted by Hoffschlaeger & Stepenhorst in Wailua Valley in 1860 was eventually abandoned when the warm, moist climate in the valley damaged cotton blossoms.

Sheep were raised at Waioli beginning in 1847, and in the 1860s, Lihue Plantation raised them, not for consumption, but to be turned out in the cane fields to keep down the weeds.

At Waiawa, just west of Kekaha, and in the vicinity thereabouts, Valdemar Knudsen raised cattle for many years during the mid to late-1800s.

Janet Sebastian Cox, First Female Member Of The Kauai National Guard

In February 1973, Janet Sebastian Cox (1938-2009) of Hanapepe broke the male barrier of the Hawaii National Guard on Kauai — specifically the 150th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron — by becoming the first female 446

accepted into the unit.

“I don’t know if the squadron was ready for me, but I know I was ready to see if I could compete in a man’s world of ACW operations,” she said at the time of her pioneering achievement.

She also noted that “The National Guard is like any other kind of part-time job, and we are beginning to see that women are interested in this kind of work.”

After her swearing-in ceremony, led by Hawaii Adjutant General Benjamin J. Webster, Master Sgt. Lawrence Sugihara – her immediate supervisor in the 150th ACW — commented enthusiastically: “Terrific! She’s going to be a fine addition to our team. I understand she’s an extremely organized worker and a fantastic typist. We are happy to have her with us.”

Staff Sgt. Cox then went on to complete Air National Guard training at the Basic Radar Operators School at Keesler AFB, Mississippi to qualify as an administrative specialist/radar operator technician.

Over the years, her duties with the Hawaii Air National Guard also included temporary assignments in the Continental United States and Korea.

Born on Oahu and raised on Kauai by her grandparents, Basilio and Pastora Sebastian, Cox enlisted in the Women’s Army Corps after graduating from Waimea High School in 1956 and served in the Army administration field on the Mainland and in Japan.

Following her service in the Army, she returned home to Kauai in 1959 and was eventually hired on a full-time basis at Barking Sands by the Navy Air Systems Command as a classified documents clerk.

Janet Sebastian Cox and her husband, Clyde Cox, had two children: Clyde Jr. and Susan Cox.

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Prince Kuhio And The Counter-Revolution Of 1895

Prince Kuhio Following the revolution of 1893 that deposed Queen Liliuokalani, Kauai-born Prince Kuhio joined a group of counter-revolutionists in Honolulu seeking to dismantle the recently formed Republic and restore the monarchy, and he subsequently participated in the counter-revolution of 1895.

The counter-revolution was scheduled to commence on the evening of Jan. 3, 1895, but was delayed after Kuhio was informed that officers of the Republic had discovered that a secret shipment of counter-revolutionary weapons and ammunition was lying offshore of Oahu aboard the steamer “Waimanalo,” ready to be smuggled ashore.

Kuhio, along with Robert W. Wilcox and John Wise, then hastily paddled out to sea from Waikiki at dark in a canoe to warn William Davies, captain of the “Waimanalo.”

When they came alongside, the munitions had already been transferred into two boats the steamer had in tow.

Wilcox took command of the boats and proceeded to Kahala, where the three men secretly buried the cargo.

The counter-revolution was then postponed to the evening of Sunday, Jan. 6, when the counter-revolutionists planned to seize all public buildings and take all officers of the Republic into custody.

That evening, while Kuhio, Wise and others assembled munitions at Kahala, a traitor in their ranks reported their activity to officials of the Republic.

When the Republic reacted soon after by declaring martial law and calling out Citizen Guards to patrol streets, Kuhio and Wise withdrew to Honolulu and were subsequently prevented from returning to Kahala by armed supporters of the Republic at Waikiki.

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Skirmishing ensued, and at dawn, after Kuhio determined once again that he could not get through to Kahala, he returned to Honolulu, where he was soon arrested along with 200 others, including Queen Liliuokalani.

Robert W. Wilcox’s counter-revolutionary forces clashed with the Republic at Diamond Head on Jan. 6 and 7, and later on the Jan. 7 at Moiliili, and were finally defeated at Manoa on Jan. 9.

Prince Kuhio was tried and jailed for a few months in 1895.

Capt. William Shaler And Richard Cleveland, Kamehameha I’s Messengers

Richard Cleveland In May of 1803, Capt. William Shaler (1773-1833) and his supercargo, Richard Cleveland (1773-1860), of the American merchant-vessel “Lelia Byrd,” acquired three horses in Mexico: a stallion, a mare and a mare with foal.

Their purpose in doing so was to present them as a gift to King Kamehameha I in Hawaii in the hopes that the king would then grant them a trading concession or monopoly in the Hawaiian Islands.

When “Lelia Byrd” anchored in Kealakekua Bay on June 21, 1803, Shaler and Cleveland learned that Kamehameha was on Maui, and instead met with Kamehameha's advisor and business agent, John Young, who provided them with supplies.

They also agreed with Young to leave the mare with foal in Young’s care at Young’s residence at Kawaihae Bay, which was done on June 24 — the first horse ever to trod the soil of Hawaii.

Shortly thereafter, at Lahaina, Maui, the American seafarers gave their two remaining horses to Kamehameha, but the usually astute king was unimpressed by the animals and no trading privileges materialized.

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While on Maui, Kamehameha entrusted the “Lelia Byrd’s” captain and supercargo with a message to deliver to King Kaumualii of Kauai — at that time a kingdom independent of Kamehameha’s government.

His communiqué demanded that Kaumualii send an ambassador to Oahu within one month’s time — acknowledging Kamehameha as Kaumualii’s sovereign — or risk invasion by Kamehameha’s armed forces.

When “Lelia Byrd” arrived off Kauai on July 6, Kaumualii did not come aboard, nor did “Lelia Byrd” land, so the message was given to one of Kauai’s European residents, who promised to convey it to Kaumualii, while adding that it would be disregarded.

On July 7, 1803, “Lelia Byrd” left the Hawaiian Islands for Guam.

A year later, in 1804, Kamehameha’s threatened invasion ended in disaster on Oahu, when his splendid army was destroyed by foreign disease, most likely typhoid.

Honolulu Publisher Thomas G. Thrum

Honolulu publisher Thomas G. Thrum (1842-1932) spent five years working in the Hawaiian sugar industry during the 1860s, including a spell at Kauai’s Koloa Plantation, when Robert W. Wood, the first entrepreneur to succeed financially in the Hawaiian sugar industry, was its owner.

Born in Australia, Thrum had immigrated to Hawaii with his parents in 1853 and had gone to sea on a whaler and clerked at stores in Honolulu and Hilo before taking over Black & Auld’s Honolulu stationary and news business in 1870.

Then in 1875, Thrum began publishing the “Hawaiian Almanac and Annual,” known also as “Thrum’s Hawaiian Annual,” a standard reference work he

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edited for the remainder of his life.

Packed with interesting information, the 1875 almanac, for example, lists Waimea, Kauai’s population as 1,269, with 1,220 being Native Hawaiians, while Kauai’s total population was 4,961.

Mail left Lihue for Hanalei on Mondays, and departed Lihue for Koloa and Waimea on Thursdays. And, one of the holidays of the Hawaiian Kingdom was His Majesty’s Birthday, Nov. 16.

From 1881 to 1886, Thrum published the “Saturday Press,” and with J. J. Williams launched “Paradise of the Pacific” in 1888, which in 1966 became “Honolulu Magazine.”

Thrum also did extensive archaeological fieldwork on the Big Island, Maui, Oahu and Kauai, where he located and then listed over 500 heiau.

In his research of Hawaiian mythology, he recorded over 400 Hawaiian gods and goddesses.

Thrum also translated into English, revised and edited the “Fornander Collection of Hawaiian Antiquities and Folklore,” known as the single greatest source of Hawaiian folklore, published by Bishop Museum between 1916 and 1920. Among his many other published works are: “Hawaiian Folk Tales: A Collection of Native Legends,” “Stories of the Menehunes,” and “More Hawaiian Folk Tales.”

Plantation Doctor Francis Anderson Lyman

Francis Lyman Left, Lyman Museum, Hilo, Hawaii From 1913 until 1917, Dr. Francis Anderson Lyman (1863-1917) was the government physician for the Waimea District, Kauai, the superintendent of the

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Waimea Hospital and the plantation physician for Waimea and Kekaha sugar companies.

During his four years of medical practice at Waimea, Dr. Lyman made many friends. Not only was he a fine physician, he also possessed personal qualities that endeared him to his patients — kindheartedness, compassion, honesty and an unassuming disposition.

He was born in Honolulu, the son of Frederick S. and Isabella (Chamberlain) Lyman, in the Chamberlain house at the rear of the Kawaiahao Church, on the grounds of what is now the Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives.

Built in 1831, Chamberlain House is named after missionary Levi Chamberlain, who arrived in Hawaii in 1823 to become the accountant and superintendent of Secular Affairs for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in Hawaii.

Levi Chamberlain arranged to build the house — constructed of coral blocks cut from a nearby ocean reef and lumber salvaged from ships — to serve as his headquarters, where he would disburse provisions for fellow missionaries throughout the Hawaiian Islands.

The missionary Chamberlains — Levi and his wife, Maria — were Dr. Lyman’s grandparents, as were missionaries Rev. David Beldon Lyman and his wife, Sarah, who came to Hawaii in 1832.

Dr. Lyman attended Beloit College in Wisconsin and Western Reserve University in Ohio, graduating in 1885, after receiving his early education in Hilo and at Punahou.

Following his graduation from Rush Medical College in Illinois in 1889, he practiced medicine in Illinois, Wisconsin and Colorado, but returned to Hawaii with his family in 1912 to begin practicing in Waimea the next year as a replacement for Dr. Bruno Sandow, when Sandow resigned.

Dr. Lyman and his wife, Mamie Aldrich Lyman, had two sons, Francis and Howard.

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Plantation Manager Alan Faye Sr.

Waimea Sugar Co. manager Alan Faye Sr. (1905-1968) was born in Waimea, Kauai, one of eight children of Kauai sugar pioneer and Kekaha Sugar Co. manager H. P. Faye and his wife, Margaret Lindsay Faye.

He attended Choate, graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1928 with a degree in architecture, and looked forward to continuing his studies at the Sorbonne in Paris.

However, his plans were interrupted later that year, when he was called home to Kauai by his mother to take over the management of Waimea Sugar Co. — the Faye family sugar plantation.

His father had died, he was told, and he was needed on Kauai to replace his brother, Lindsay Faye, as manager, since Lindsay was required at Kekaha Sugar Co. to assist William Danford, who’d succeeded H. P. Faye as manager there.

Although he’d sacrificed his plans to study architecture abroad, Alan Faye did not abandon the profession.

During the 40 years he managed Waimea Sugar Co., as well as the Fayes’ Waimea Dairy for nearly that long, he designed several buildings, notably the Grove Farm office in Puhi, Danford House in Kokee and the Kilauea Sugar Plantation office building.

As an officer in the Kauai Volunteers — a local militia formed to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard in defense of Kauai during World War II — Alan Faye commanded Troop A, a mounted unit that patrolled ranch lands.

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What’s more, he was active in the Boy Scouts. Camp Alan Faye in Kokee is named after him.

Incidentally, the Fayes closed Waimea Sugar Co. after Alan Faye passed away in 1968.

They’d previously sold Waimea Dairy to Meadow Gold in the early 1960s.

Alan Faye and his first wife, Janet Byrnes Faye, had two children — Sally and Alan Faye Jr. — and Michael and Maren Faye are his children from his marriage to Jean Burns Faye.

Plantation Manager Lindsay A. Faye Sr.

Kekaha Sugar Co. manager Lindsay A. Faye Sr. (1898-1979) was born in Mana, Kauai, one of five sons and three daughters of pioneer Kauai sugar planter H. P. Faye and Margaret Lindsay Faye.

He was educated at Choate, graduating in 1917 during World War I, but rather than immediately moving on to Yale, as he’d planned, he chose instead to enlist in the U.S. Army, serving with the Field Artillery in France as a second lieutenant.

With the Army behind him, he entered Yale, earned his degree in 1921, and returned home to start off in the sugar business as a section boss at Kekaha Sugar Co., then managed by his father.

The following year, he became manager of Waimea Sugar Co. — his father’s solely owned sugar plantation — and managed there until 1928, when his father died and he took over the assistant manager’s job at Kekaha Sugar Co. under William Danford.

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Seven years later, he was promoted to manager of Kekaha Sugar Co. and remained at that post until his retirement in 1963 — overseeing major changes over the years, including the mechanization of field operations and the unionization of non-supervisory employees.

Under his leadership, Kekaha Sugar Co. fostered many delightful community events, such as 4th of July and Christmas celebrations, and numerous competitive sporting activities.

Plantation resources were used to build the Kekaha and Mana public swimming pools, and he was instrumental in promoting the construction of the Kikiaola Small Boat Harbor.

Most notable was his fight against the Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall’s recommendation, in 1960 to create a national park out of about one-fourth of Kauai’s land area.

Leilani Scott Faye was his first wife. They had four children: Mary, Anna, Linda and Lindsay “Tony” Faye Jr., who, like his father and grandfather before him, also managed Kekaha Sugar Co. Lindsay Faye’s second wife was Roberta Irvine Faye.

Captain William Shaler Meets Kauai King Kaumualii

Captain William Shaler In 1803, Capt. William Shaler and supercargo Richard Cleveland of the American merchant-vessel “Lelia Byrd” visited Hawaii, where they delivered a message from Kamehameha I — at that time, the ruler of all the Hawaiian Islands, except Kauai and Niihau — to King Kaumualii on Kauai.

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In his message, Kamehameha proposed that Kaumualii at least acknowledge him as his sovereign, but with the added caveat — or risk invasion.

Kamehameha’s reason for sending the message was no doubt motivated by his disastrous attempt to conquer Kauai in 1796. Rather than risk another failed invasion, he now wished to pursue peaceful means — if possible — of gaining sovereignty over Kaumualii and Kauai.

When “Lelia Byrd” arrived off Kauai, Kaumualii would not meet with the Americans, but a European resident of Kauai promised to deliver their message, while adding that it would be disregarded.

Thereafter, “Lelia Byrd” set sail for Guam.

In 1804, while Kamehameha’s army prepared on Oahu for the second invasion of Kauai he’d threatened would occur, his army was destroyed by foreign disease — yet he remained undeterred in his ambition to conquer Kauai peacefully or, if necessary, by armed force.

Consequently, in 1805, when Capt. Shaler of “Lelia Byrd” returned to Hawaii and met with Kamehameha once again, Kamehameha asked Shaler to sail again to Kauai to deliver essentially the same message he’d sent to Kaumualii in 1803.

This time, Shaler met Kaumualii, who was described by Hawaiian historian S. M. Kamakau as being “a handsome man, light in complexion and with a nose and general features like a white man’s. He was rather slight in build, but he had good carriage and dressed well.”

Kaumualii promised Shaler that he would comply with whatever terms Kamehameha would dictate, but it would not be until 1810 that Kaumualii actually acceded to become a vassal king of Kamehameha.

Following his meeting with Kaumualii, Capt. Shaler made way for the Marianas Islands.

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George Norton Wilcox’s Ascent Of Mt. Waialeale

George Norton Wilcox Born in Hilo, Hawaii, and raised at Waioli, Kauai, the son of American Protestant missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox, George Norton Wilcox (18391933) became a pioneer Kauai sugar planter and a generous philanthropist, who also served as a legislator of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Republic of Hawaii.

Yet, away from Grove Farm Plantation — which he purchased from Judge Herman Widemann in 1870 and built into a profitable enterprise — George Wilcox took delight in hiking in the mountains of Kauai on the old trails Hawaiians had used since time immemorial.

In 1870, he climbed to the summit of Kauai’s greatest mountain, Mt. Waialeale, by following an ancient trail that Hawaiians had climbed annually in earlier times to make offerings to their god, Kane.

The Hawaiian trail ascended Waialeale’s forbidding eastern face, and when George climbed it, the trail was rarely used and was obstructed by vegetation – yet passible – which is not the case today.

With George were four Hawaiian men, one Hawaiian woman (their names are not known) who acted as guides, and Heinrich Wawra, an Austrian botanist.

If you look carefully at Waialeale’s northeastern face on a clear day, you can see their route. It followed the sharp spine of a long ridge that rises steadily upward from northeast to southwest, and then turns more steeply westward toward the summit.

The route is terribly steep and narrow with fearsome drop-offs on either side.

Plants uproot when they’re grasped and pitons will not hold in the crumbly soil.

George repeated the climb in 1874 with George Dole and Fred Smith.

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About 100 years later, Valdemar Knudsen, with Kauai helicopter pilot Jack Harter aloft in radio contact, made a dauntless attempt, but was turned back at about 3,000 feet by impassable terrain.

No one has scaled the eastern face of Waialeale to the summit since the Wilcox, Dole and Smith ascent.

Waimea Dairy

In 1848, under the auspices of his friend, Kauai’s last queen, Deborah Kapule (1798?-1853), missionary Rev. George Rowell (1815-1884) of the Waimea Mission Station was awarded a sizable land grant at Waimea to “pasture his dairy cattle.”

At first, Rowell’s “Waimea Dairy” — where he pastured 20 milking cows in 1853 — only supplied the needs of his family and other missionaries at Waimea, but he later expanded it for commercial purposes.

His pastures consisted of sand lands, swamp and other land grant properties of marginal quality.

Meanwhile, Rowell’s productive, soil-rich lands were leased to various sugarcane planters.

A year after Rowell’s death in 1884, the Rowell family leased the dairy itself and its pasture lands to E. E. Conant.

Then, about ten years later, sugar planter H. P. Faye (1859-1928) convinced his wife Margaret Lindsay Faye’s family to move their Moloaa dairy to Waimea to consolidate with Waimea Dairy.

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When Conant moved to Maui in 1899, the Rowells re-leased Waimea Dairy to T. Brandt and E. Olmstead.

In 1904, Faye, by then manager of Kekaha Sugar Co., purchased the dairy from then owner Olmstead, and the dairy pastures from the Rowells, to ensure milk supplies for Kekaha Sugar Co. By 1923, Waimea Dairy was milking 25 cows and selling 200 quarts daily to the public, with its employees filling positions such as office worker, herdsman, milk plant operator and deliveryman.

Alan Faye Sr., one of H. P. Faye’s sons, oversaw the management of Waimea Dairy for 36 years, from 1928 until 1964, which included acquisition of the Lihue William Hyde Rice Dairy herd and equipment, when it shut down in 1940.

The Fayes sold their Waimea dairy — but not their pastures — to Meadow Gold in 1964, and Meadow Gold continued operating the dairy at its location makai of Kaumualii Highway between Waimea and Kikiaola Harbor until 1989, when it moved dairy operations to Moloaa.

It closed the Moloaa dairy — Kauai’s last dairy operation — in 2000.

Kauai’s First Mayor And County Council

Mayor Antone Kona Vidinha On Thursday, Jan. 2, 1969, Kauai’s first mayor, Antone Kona Vidinha, and its first county council, comprised of Ralph Hirota, Masao Seto, Shigeomi Kubota, Louie Gonsalves, Raymond Souza, Joe Shiramizo and Tony Arzadon, were sworn in to replace the Board of Supervisors form of government in place on Kauai since 1906.

A year before, in 1905, the territorial government had enacted legislation allowing for the creation of five county governments within the Territory of Hawaii — one each for Kauai, Oahu, Maui, Hawaii and Kalawao counties.

Thereafter, local elections were held to choose the five boards of supervisors that would govern each of the five counties. On Kauai, the Board of Supervisors

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consisted of five members.

Earlier, between 1898 — when the United States annexed the Hawaiian Islands and Hawaii embarked upon its 61-year history as a territory of the United States — and 1905, no island-level governmental organizations existed in the Islands. The governance of Hawaii was carried on in Honolulu at the territorial level.

Even earlier, from 1894 to 1898, during the years when Hawaii was governed by the Republic of Hawaii, island-level governments were likewise nonexistent.

The same applies to the one-year period of the Provisional Government (18931894) that succeeded the Kingdom of Hawaii, following Queen Liliuokalani’s overthrow in 1893.

During Liliuokalani’s reign (1891-1893), the administrative affairs of the Islands were presided over by the Privy Council, the Minister of the Interior, and four Governors — one for Hawaii, one for Maui and adjacent islands, one for Oahu, and one for Kauai and Niihau.

Kauai Judge Benjamin Tashiro administered oaths of office to Mayor Vidinha and the Kauai County Council. Afterwards, the Council met for its first session in the County Building, with Mayor Vidinha present.

Also in attendance at this inaugural meeting were Deputy County Clerk Tatsuo Kato, Administrative Assistant Tad Miura and Clerk Gilbert Carvalho. Later that day, Mayor Vidinha appointed Francis Ching to the Police Commission. Ching would become Kauai’s second mayor in 1972.

Kauai’s Marine Camp

Marine Camp, Circa 1950s Marine Camp — the section of Kauai situated between Wailua Golf Course and Kauai Beach Villas — was the site of a military base to units of the United States Marine Corps during World War II.

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Several units had originally been Defense Battalions, charged with the mission of coastal defense, but were later re-designated Anti-aircraft Artillery Battalions at Marine Camp between April 1944 and September 1944.

Their arms and equipment included coastal gun batteries, anti-aircraft batteries, searchlights and radar, machine guns and rifles.

The Marines abandoned their Kauai base after the war, but its structures remained standing for many years thereafter.

Second Defense Battalion was deployed to Hawaii in December 1941, sent to Tarawa in November 1943, re-designated 2nd AAA Battalion at Marine Camp, Kauai in April 1944, and was subsequently stationed on Guam and Okinawa.

Fourth Defense Battalion had been deployed to Cuba, Pearl Harbor, and several South Pacific locations before becoming 4th AAA Battalion in May 1944 at Marine Camp. Afterwards, it went to Guadalcanal, and later Okinawa.

Fifth Defense Battalion, had been in Iceland and the South Pacific until April 1944, when it became 5th AAA Battalion at Marine Camp. Later, it participated in the Okinawa campaign.

Formed in California in 1940, the 7th Defense Battalion had also been deployed to the South Pacific prior to being re-designated 7th AAA Battalion on Kauai in April 1944. It finished the war in Palau.

After duty in Samoa and in the Gilberts, the 8th Defense Battalion was shipped to Marine Camp and re-designated 8th AAA Battalion. It was later deployed to Okinawa.

Tenth Defense Battalion was stationed in the Solomons, the Russells, New Georgia, and in the Marshalls, before being deactivated at Marine Camp in November 1944.

Sixteenth and 17th Defense Battalions, re-designated as AAA Battalions and stationed at Marine Camp in 1944, had similar histories.

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Kaumualii’s Likenesses

The only likeness of King Kaumualii (1780?-1824) taken from life in existence appears in a 1823 watercolor sketch that missionary William Ellis (1794-1872) made of the funeral procession of Keopuolani, in which Kaumualii is depicted as a small figure dressed in top hat, coat and tails, as shown in Likeness 3.

However, there is a reliable written description of Kaumualii’s appearance penned by Hawaiian historian S. M. Kamakau (1815-1876) in his book “Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii.”

“Kaumualii was a handsome man, light in complexion and with a nose and general features like a white man’s,” Kamakau wrote. “He was rather light in build, but he had a good carriage and dressed well.”

In referring to Kaumualii’s personal characteristics, Kamakau stated: “He was gentle in temper, spoke English well, was kind and simple in his ways.”

James Jarves (1818-1888), Hawaii’s first historian, also wrote of Kaumualii: “He was remarkable for his personal beauty and dignified and gentlemanly manners,” while missionary Rev. Hiram Bingham (1789-1869) said that “he was sedate, dignified, courteous in his manners, honorable in his dealings, respected by foreigners, esteemed by the missionaries, and beloved by his people.”

Since Kaumualii’s death, artists Stickney, Laka Morton and Brook Kapukuniahi Parker have created portraits of Kaumualii with the written descriptions of Kaumualii’s appearance and Ellis’s sketch available to guide their imaginations.

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Likeness 1 in the accompanying picture is from a painting by Stickney that once hung in Kauai’s Coco Palms Hotel.

Likeness 2 is from a painting by Morton, and Likeness 5 is from a painting by Parker.

Lastly, Likeness 4 is from an engraved painting taken from life of Kaiana (1756?-1795) in 1787 that reveals some measure of Kaumualii’s appearance, since Kaiana was a first cousin to Kaumualii’s father, Kaeo, and since the drawing corresponds with Kamakau’s description.

Valdemar Knudsen And The Russian Fort

Valdemar Knudsen In July 1816, Kauai’s King Kaumualii and Georg Anton Schaffer, a German physician in the employ of the Russian-American Company, formed an alliance for the purpose of conquering the Hawaiian Islands.

Their alliance ultimately came to naught, but one stipulation that materialized was the building of a fort at Waimea, with construction being completed either in November or December of 1816.

The Russian Fort (also known as Fort Elizabeth or Fort Hipo) served as Kaumualii’s home, his chiefs’ residence and quarters for about 150 of his warriors while he was sovereign of Kauai and Niihau.

When his sovereignty ended on May 26, 1824, the day he died, Kamehameha II thenceforth ruled Kaumualii’s dominions.

Accordingly, on Aug. 1, 1824, Prime Minister Kalanimoku, along with a contingent of soldiers, arrived at Waimea to occupy the fort and to look after the affairs of Kauai — but not without resistance.

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and other Kauai chiefs in rebellion against their new rulers, but were beaten back, and not long afterwards were finally defeated in battle near the Hanapepe Lookout.

Years passed, while the Russian Fort fell into disrepair, and in 1853, it was abandoned.

In 1862, the fort’s buildings and small munitions were dismantled by Kauai sugar pioneer and rancher Valdemar Knudsen at the request of the Kingdom of Hawaii.

His report of September 1862 listed the following war material at the fort — 62 muskets with flint-locks, 216 bayonets, 15 swords no scabbards, 20 swords without handles, 61 old cartridge boxes, 6 heavy guns, 12 18-pound heavy guns, 26 4- and 6-pounders, and 24 little guns.

Knudsen either sold the muskets, etc., on Kauai or forwarded them to Oahu.

In 1864, he removed the cannon from the fort and shipped to Oahu all but one that fell into Waimea Bay during the process and was lost.

H. P. Faye And The Ghost Of Louis Stolz

H. P. Faye Kauai sugar pioneer, Kekaha Sugar Company manager, and Waimea Sugar Company owner H. P. (Hans Peter) Faye (1859-1928) played a part in a true Kauai story that was later fictionalized and made famous by writer Jack London in “Koolau The Leper.”

In 1892, a Kauai cowboy named Koolau had refused to be sent to the isolated leper settlement on Molokai after he’d contracted Hansen’s disease, unless his wife, Piilani, who would never be afflicted, and their son, Kaleimanu, who would later become afflicted, could accompany him.

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and Koolau, Piilani and their son fled into Kalalau Valley.

A year later, when Deputy Sheriff Louis Stolz set out to bring Koolau in, he stopped by H. P. Faye’s house in Mana on his way to Polihale.

There, H. P. warned Stolz that Koolau was a great hunter and a crack shot with a rifle, and he advised Stolz to be careful.

Before Stolz left H. P., Stolz joked that if he was killed, he would send his ghost to tell H. P. Stolz never took Koolau’s threat seriously — that he would kill anyone trying to take him to Molokai — and Stolz did not heed H. P.’s advice.

When Stolz confronted Koolau in Kalalau Valley, Koolau shot and killed him.

Later, one of the men who went with Stolz came by H. P.’s house at night to tell him what had happened to Stolz.

H. P.’s dogs began barking like crazy, and H. P. heard a voice saying: “E Paia, Ua make O Lui,” which in English meant “Faye, Louis is dead.”

Due to the cloudiness of the sky and the darkness, H. P. could not see anybody under the trees where the voice sounded from and — for an eerie moment — it seemed to H. P. as if Stolz had carried out his promise.

Henry’s Pearl Harbor Days

Henry Soboleski, Hawaii, Circa 1942 Right after Japan attacked Oahu on Dec. 7, 1941, and the United States

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entered World War II, my father, an 18-year-old native of Brooklyn, N.Y., tried to enlist in the Navy, and then the Army and the Marines.

Henry had been a fine athlete, so he was both surprised and disappointed when all three branches rejected him as being physically unfit for military duty due a heart murmur detected during his physicals.

When he learned soon after that the Navy was contracting civilians to work at Pearl Harbor — and that his physical defect would not disqualify him — he signed up immediately.

In Waikiki — at that time a predominately residential area — he shared a house with co-workers, while his warehouse job at Pearl Harbor often kept him busy seven days a week.

Still, there was time for surfing at Waikiki — where he met Duke Kahanamoku — and playing baseball and barefoot football, a sport he admired.

Years later, when he coached youth football, he’d sometimes impress onlookers by punting a football barefooted — high and with a perfect spiral — a skill he’d picked up in Hawaii.

He once confided to me that he’d found romance with a girl of Chinese ancestry he’d known in Honolulu, but she would not marry him.

When his Pearl Harbor contract expired, he returned to Brooklyn.

On Kauai in 1984, he and my mother, Helen, visited me and my Kauai-born wife Ginger — for whom Henry had a special fondness — and our teenaged children, Michelle and Brett.

In Nawiliwili he noted that the Haupu Range looked pretty much the same as he recalled, as did the breakwater and the seawall, but the hotel on Kalapaki Bay wasn’t there when he first saw Kauai.

A house had stood there instead, the Kalapaki residence of kamaaina sugar planter, rancher and politician Charles Rice.

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Civil Engineer Ralph L. Garlinghouse

Following his graduation in 1912 from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York — which was founded in 1824 and is the oldest engineering school in the United States — civil engineer Ralph L. Garlinghouse (1889-1982) held several engineering positions on the U.S. Mainland.

He started off as a structural steel designer and inspector with the New York Central Railway in Cleveland, Ohio in 1912.

Afterwards, he worked as location engineer and resident engineer of the California Highway Commission on the Yosemite Valley Road, and as a structural engineer with Great Western Power Co. in San Francisco.

During World War I, following training as a U.S. Navy marine engineer and steam engineer, Garlinghouse served as a naval officer at several stations on shore and at sea.

Then, in 1921, he came to Hawaii to take charge of military road construction at Schofield Barracks, Oahu with the United States Army Corps of Engineers.

Later that year, the Corps transferred him to Kauai to direct construction of the Nawiliwili Harbor breakwater, a post he held for three years, after which he became Kauai County Engineer.

As County Engineer, Garlinghouse carried on the design and building work begun by civil engineer Joseph Hughes Moragne on the Kauai Belt Road — the roadway that partially encircles Kauai from Haena to Mana.

Other designers of the Belt Road included Hamilton and Chambers of New York. County employees and private contractors like George Mahikoa actually built the Belt Road.

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drinking water for the Lihue area, located about one and a half miles mauka of Lihue.

In 1934, he joined Lihue Plantation as plantation engineer, where he was responsible for a number of engineer projects until his retirement in 1954.

Born and raised in Colorado, Garlinghouse married Betty Davison in 1919 and they had three children.

Dr. Marvin Brennecke

Norman Brennecke And Dr. Marvin Brennecke Brennecke Beach, a popular bodyboarding and bodysurf site at Poipu, is named after longtime Kauai physician Dr. Marvin Brennecke (1906-1994), whose house once stood above the beach.

Originally from Missouri, and educated at Missouri University and Washington University Medical School in St. Louis, Missouri, Dr. Brennecke arrived on Kauai in 1931, where he acquired his Hawaii medical license and became assistant physician to Dr. J. M. Kuhns at Lihue Plantation Co. Two years later, he took over from Dr. A. H. Waterhouse as plantation doctor for McBryde Sugar Co., Koloa Sugar Plantation and Lihue Terminals.

During 1935 to 1937, he also served with the United States Public Health Service at Eleele Dispensary.

In 1942, when Dr. Burt Wade was called to active duty in the U. S. Navy for the duration of World War II, Dr. Brennecke replaced him at the Waimea Dispensary as plantation doctor for Waimea Sugar Co., Kekaha Sugar Co., Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation and Olokele Sugar Co., and he remained in that position until his retirement in 1972.

Dr. Brennecke bought his Poipu beachside house lot in 1934 from Antone Kona Vidinha, who would later serve one term as Chairman of the Kauai Board of Supervisors during 1967-1968 and two terms as Kauai’s first mayor – 1969 through 1970, and ‘71 through ‘72.

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Brennecke built a small beach house on his lot in 1936, and finished work on its extension and renovations on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941 — the day Imperial Japanese air and naval forces attacked Oahu.

From 1944 until his death, his main residence on Kauai was on Ola Road, Waimea.

His beach house — which he occupied occasionally and ultimately rented — stood until it was destroyed by Hurricane Iwa in 1982, after which Brennecke deeded the lot to his alma mater, Washington University Medical School.

Dr. Brennecke was married to India Brasel, a nurse who worked at Eleele Dispensary. There were no children.

The Wreck Of The Bark George N. Wilcox

The Bark George N. Wilcox Built in Scotland in 1892 for H. Hackfeld Co. of Honolulu, the bark “George N. Wilcox” was named for Grove Farm Plantation owner, legislator and philanthropist George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933).

“George N. Wilcox” had already completed one successful voyage when it sailed from Middlesbrough, England on May 10, 1894, bound for Honolulu around Cape Horn, carrying a cargo of 1,000 tons of coal, 1,200 tons general merchandise and 500 cases of liquor.

The ship had been tacking at 3 mph about one-quarter mile off the coast of Molokai on Sept. 18, 1894, at about 4 p.m., when its stern bumped into some rocks.

Waves then sent the vessel shoreward, where it struck a rocky coastline.

There, more waves smashed it onto shore rocks that pierced its hull, quickly flooding it.

Thus, at about 4:30 p.m., “George N. Wilcox” was shipwrecked broadside on rocks in three fathoms of water in a small cove with cliffs rising behind it about one-half mile from Ilio Point, Molokai.

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Capt. Wolters and his crew of nine men abandoned ship at 6:30 p.m. and set sail for Honolulu in two open boats, arriving there on the 20th, where Wolters reported to Mr. Suhr of H. Hackfeld Co. Following an inspection of the shipwreck by underwriters, it was determined that the “George N. Wilcox,” valued at about $75,000, was a total loss, and nothing could be saved of its cargo, and no attempt would be made to haul it off the rocks.

Wolters, a native of Germany, had been sailing in the islands since 1871, and was considered to be the commodore of the H. Hackfeld Co. fleet.

“George N. Wilcox” was the first ship he’d lost.

He was criticized for allowing the ship too close to the coast and for not dropping anchors to prevent it from drifting shoreward.

Dr. Alsoberry Kaumu Hanchett

Lihue, Kauai-born Dr. Alsoberry Kaumu Hanchett (1885-1932) was the first person of Hawaiian ancestry to graduate from a medical school in the United States and practice medicine in Hawaii.

His grandfather, Salem Hanchett of Massachusetts, went to sea as a teenager aboard a Pacific whaler, settled on Kauai around 1815 during the reign of King Kaumualii, and in due course married Aluhua, a daughter of Kaumualii.

In 1848, he was granted citizenship in the Kingdom of Hawaii, and seven years afterward, in 1855, he obtained a license to operate a Wailua River ferry at a time when no bridges spanned the river.

For many years thereafter, he could be seen on horseback, his wooden leg strapped beside him, ferrying passengers across the river aboard his scow.

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Salem Hanchett’s son, Salem Panole Hanchett, a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker, and Julia Malaea Palaile Hanchett, were Dr. Alsoberry Hanchett’s parents.

Following his graduation from Kamehameha Schools in 1908, Dr. Hanchett was off to Harvard, where he received his A.B. degree in 1911 and his M.D. degree in 1914 — the first Hawaiian to do so.

After Harvard, he practiced medicine at Providence, Rhode Island before returning to Hawaii in 1916 to become the city and county physician of Honolulu, specializing in surgery.

During World War I, Major Hanchett served in the Medical Corps at Schofield Barracks and Fort Shafter, and later entered private practice with Dr. Pekelo in an office on the corner of Beretania and Punchbowl.

In 1929, he acquired a homestead on Molokai and became a full-time doctor and part-time farmer on the Friendly Isle — raising peanuts, tomatoes, asparagus and strawberries, while accepting chickens, pigs and bags of sweet potatoes in exchange for his medical services.

Dr. Alsoberry Hanchett and Mary Hazel McGuire — a nurse at Queens Hospital — were married in Honolulu in 1917 and had eight children.

Sugar Plantation Civil Engineer Elbert T. Gillin

Dick Tom, Left, And Elbert Gillin, Right, Are Pictured Circa 1965 Longtime Koloa Sugar Co. and Grove Farm Plantation civil engineer Elbert T. Gillin’s (1892-1978) first job was rod and chain man on land surveys while he was a teenager attending Oroville High School in California.

By 1916, he’d gained enough on-the-job training working on various construction jobs in California and Hawaii to have helped engineer Oheo Bridge — a lovely concrete, solid-spandrel arch, open parapet structure that spans Oheo Gulch and the Seven Sacred Pools of Maui’s Hana Coast.

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Meanwhile, he taught himself civil engineering in his spare time, passing a civil engineering correspondence course in 1917 offered by International Correspondence Schools.

Gillin joined Koloa Sugar Co. as a civil engineer responsible for all survey and land matters in 1925 and retired as civil engineer at Grove Farm with practically identical duties in 1967.

Among the engineering projects he completed at Koloa Sugar Co. and Grove Farm were the construction of miles of wide, heavy ballasted, durable cane haul roads.

He also engineered the two-and-a-half mile long Kuia-Waita water tunnel.

Finished in 1966, it was dug under the Haupu Range to deliver irrigation water from upper Haiku to Waita Reservoir.

Another of his engineering achievements was his design and construction of the 2,200-foot long, 20-foot wide by 20-foot high Wilcox vehicular tunnel drilled and cut through the solid rock of the Haupu Range.

Supervised by Charles Peterson and Carl Minium, Gillin’s workmen commenced drilling from the Koloa side of the Haupu Range in September 1948.

Tunnel construction was completed in April 1949 — only seven months later — without a single fatal accident at a cost of only $200,000.

In 1946, Gillin built a single-story, white beach house set in a coconut grove on a three-quarter-acre parcel he acquired at Mahaulepu — the only house on the entire Mahaulepu coast — and in 1950, he and his wife, Adena, made it their full-time residence.

Elbert and Adena Gillin had three children— Elbert, Virginia and Dorothy.

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Episcopal Bishop E. Lani Hanchett

Bishop And Mrs. Hanchett Bishop E. Lani Hanchett (1919-1975) was the first priest and bishop of Hawaiian ancestry of the Episcopal Church.

His father, Dr. Alsoberry Hanchett, born on Kauai in 1885, had distinguished himself previously as the first person of Hawaiian descent to graduate from a medical school in the United States and practice medicine in Hawaii.

Great-grandfather Salem Hanchett of Massachusetts arrived on Kauai around 1815 aboard a whaling ship, married Aluhua, a daughter of King Kaumualii, and later operated a ferry on the Wailua River.

Born in Honolulu, Bishop Hanchett was educated at Iolani School, the University of Hawaii and Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California.

During World War II, he supervised the naval aircraft supply department at Pearl Harbor, and from 1945 to 1950, worked in the Territorial Tax Office, Lihue.

While on Kauai, he served as lay reader and read for orders at Christ Church, Kilauea, and was ordained deacon there in 1952.

Deacon Hanchett then went to Holy Innocents’ at Lahaina, where he was ordained priest by Bishop Harry Kennedy on Sept. 19, 1953.

He later presided as vicar of St. George’s, Pearl Harbor during 1960-1961, and as rector of St. Peter’s, Honolulu, beginning in 1961.

Rev. Hanchett was elected suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Church in Hawaii in 1967, and became diocesan bishop at Saint Andrew’s Cathedral in 1969.

When cancer claimed his life in 1975, Rev. James Long, canon of the diocese noted, “We all loved him so and we loved him for what he was — a great friend, a great priest and great bishop and, above all, a man of great spirituality.”

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Roman Catholic Bishop John Scanlan said, “The entire Hawaiian community has lost a valiant and gentle Christian man in the passing of Bishop Lani Hanchett.”

Episcopal Bishop E. Lani Hanchett and his wife, Puanani Akana Hanchett of Kalihiwai, Kauai, had four children: Carolyn, Suzanne, Stuart and Tiare.

Philanthropist Anna Rice Cooke

Founder and benefactor of the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Anna Rice Cooke (1853-1934) was a daughter of American Protestant missionaries William Harrison Rice and Mary Sophie Hyde Rice, who made their home at Koamalu, Kauai on what is now the site of the old Lihue Plantation manager’s house.

Although born in Honolulu, Anna was raised on Kauai and educated at Punahou (then called Oahu College) and at Mills College, Oakland, California.

In 1874, she married businessman Charles Montague Cooke, a son of Amos Starr Cooke, who along with Samuel Northrup Castle founded the firm of Castle & Cooke in Honolulu in 1851.

Charles Montague Cooke started off in business as a clerk in his father’s firm, but made his fortune as a co-founder of Lewer’s & Cooke, a lumber and hardware business, and by lucrative investments in Hawaii sugar plantations.

He was also a founder of Bank of Hawaii in 1893, becoming its president in 1898. In the following year, he became president of C. Brewer & Co. Over the years, Anna and Charles Cooke amassed an extensive fine arts collection in their Victorian-style home on Beretania Street across from Thomas Square Park.

Then, in 1911, two years after the death of her husband, Anna opened the Cooke Art Gallery at Punahou, with most of its paintings and sculptures on loan from her private collection.

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In 1925, she donated the square block of land upon which her home stood, a beautiful art museum building to replace her home, a collection of several thousand works of art, and an endowment of over $1 million — all of which came to fruition in 1927 with the opening of the Honolulu Academy of Arts.

The Honolulu Academy of Arts, now called the Honolulu Museum of Art — one of the finest art museums in the country with over 50,000 pieces — is Anna Rice Cooke’s legacy.

Detective John Richard Kellett

Honolulu Detective, Circa Early 1900s As Captain of Detectives of the Honolulu Police Department during the early 1900s, John Richard Kellet (1883-1931) was for several years the supervisor of detective Chang Apana (1871-1933) — the man who was the inspiration for American novelist and playwright Earl Derr Biggers’ famous fictional detective character, Charlie Chan.

Detective Kellett’s grandfather, Englishman John Kellett (1792-1869), arrived on Kauai as a sailor in 1836, and for nearly 40 years, resided in a house named Lanihuli atop the Hanalei River Ridge near the mouth of the Hanalei River.

During those years, grandfather Kellett served as the pilot of the Port of Hanalei and the health officer, customs collector and postmaster for Hanalei, while he and his wife, Kaui Kawekau, supplemented their income by provisioning ships and renting rooms in one wing of Lanihuli.

In 1909, when John Kellett joined the Honolulu Police Department as a special detective, Chang Apana’s exploits as an 11-year veteran of the HPD as a patrol officer had already brought him notoriety.

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Born in Waipio, Oahu, Chang Apana was highly successful in solving many criminal cases due to his mastery of disguises as an undercover officer, his wide-ranging network of informants, his courage, shrewdness and scrupulous attention to detail, and his fluency in Hawaiian, Chinese and of course, English.

Kellett and Apana worked as equals in the HPD detective bureau from 1916, the year Apana transferred to the detective bureau, until 1923, when Kellett was appointed captain of detectives and became Apana’s boss.

Earl Derr Biggers first learned of Chang Apana’s daring police work while reading Honolulu newspapers in a New York library in 1924.

He thereafter wrote six mystery novels featuring his fictional detective Charlie Chan, whose detective work was based on the real-life adventures of Chang Apana.

Several popular Charlie Chan films — original screenplays founded on the character Biggers created — were produced in Hollywood between 1932 and 1949.

Ernest Krull’s Dairy

Krull’s Dairy And Ahupuaa In 1854, German immigrant Ernest Krull purchased a tract of land at Kealia, Kauai from the Hawaiian Government for $200 (about $5,720 in 2013 dollars), which extended westward from the area where the Spalding Monument would later be built to nearly the vicinity of the Waipahee Slippery Slide.

Then, about six years later, Krull began operating a dairy on his land for the purpose of selling visiting whaling ships and Honolulu merchants beef and dairy products — mainly hides, tallow and butter. He sold firewood to ships anchored off Anahola as well.

During the 1860s and early 1870s, large herds of cattle could be seen roaming over Krull’s broad pastures.

While touring Kauai in 1863, American visitor Mary E. Anderson described

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Krull’s dairy homestead at Kalualihilihi as follows: “Mr. Krull has a large dairy, which in part supplies the Honolulu market with butter. He has a well-conducted, elegant and tasteful establishment; indeed, it was difficult to imagine that no lady’s hand was employed in it.

“The grounds about the house are prettily laid out, and two walks lead to a picturesque summer-house, called “Bellevue,” from which one looks off over an extensive plain to the sea. We slept in a nice grass house with matting on the side instead of paper. Familiar engravings adorned the walls, and the beds, with their pretty muslin mosquito-curtains, looked inviting enough to the weary traveler.

“We saw many kinds of tea-roses with their delicate tints. The garden abounded in a variety of vegetables, and we feasted on strawberries which were hanging on their stems in the morning. Within sight was a fine bluff extending down to the sea.”

Krull sold his dairy and ranch lands to sugar planters Capt. James Makee and his son-in-law, Col. Z. S. Spalding, in 1876 for the sum of $30,000 ($673,000.00 in today’s dollars) — lands that would later become part of Makee Sugar Company and eventually, Lihue Plantation.

The Rice Monument At Lihue Cemetery

Located within the Lihue Cemetery is the Rice Monument, a memorial to the kamaaina Rice and Isenberg families that was created in Paris in 1910 by Norwegian-Danish sculptor Stephan Sinding.

Christened by Sinding “The Blessed Souls Wandering Toward Light,” the Rice Monument is a shaft of white marble weighing 10 tons, upon which are carved in bas-relief many nondescript shrouded figures with faces turned heavenward.

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Also carved upon it is the figure of a woman representing Hannah Maria Rice Isenberg (1842-1867) that has turned to look earthward upon statues carved in bronze on the monument’s steps depicting her two grieving children – Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg and Paul Rice Isenberg.

Born at Hana, Maui, Hannah Maria Rice was the eldest of five children of American Protestant missionary teachers William Harrison and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice, who served at Hana, Lahaina and Punahou from 1840 until 1854, the year Mr. Rice retired from mission support to become manager of Lihue Plantation.

In 1861, Hannah Maria married sugar planter Paul Isenberg, who got his start in the sugar business at Lihue Plantation while Mr. Rice was manager.

Hannah Maria’s son, Paul, had first envisioned the monument as a memorial to his mother. But, as plans progressed, Paul’s original idea gave way to a monument that would memorialize all the beloved dead of the Rice and Isenberg families.

Paul and his wife were accordingly joined by his aunt, Anna Rice Cooke, and his uncle and aunt, the Rev. and Mrs. Hans Isenberg, in commissioning Sinding.

When Sinding completed his work, it was exhibited in Paris and Bremen before being shipped around Cape Horn to Kauai, where it was set up in the Lihue Cemetery by W. Schrieber, the head mason of Lihue Plantation.

On Sept. 1, 1911, the Rice Monument was unveiled by Anna Rice Cooke in the presence of relatives and friends.

The Waioli Tea Room

In January of 1922, Grove Farm Plantation owner and philanthropist George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933) donated $32,000 ($439,906.16 in today’s dollars) to the Salvation Army toward the building of a public restaurant in Manoa Valley to be named the Waioli Tea Room in honor his boyhood home at Waioli, Kauai.

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Robert W. T. Purvis, Wilcox’s secretary and bookkeeper from 1883 to 1916, had known of his employer’s generosity long before this donation to the Salvation Army.

In 1915, Purvis calculated that Wilcox had, up to that time, discreetly given around $1.5 million to charity — a sum equal to over $35.4 million in 2013 dollars.

With the acceptance of Wilcox’s funding, the Salvation Army built the Waioli Tea Room later in 1922 to offer vocational training in a tea room setting for girls living at the adjacent Salvation Army Children’s Home — an orphanage established by the Salvation Army in 1909.

Profits would be used to pay the girls’ salaries and provide a source of income to the Salvation Army.

Designed by the architectural firm of Emory & Webb, the Waioli Tea Room is constructed of lava rock and shiplap wooden siding with wide lanais that fit into the natural landscape.

On its grounds grow a variety of flowering plants and fruit and nut trees in a tropical setting. A bamboo forest covers the back gardens.

Within the gardens stands the Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Grass House — a replica of the guest house the author occupied when he visited Princess Kaiulani in 1889 at the princess’s royal estate, Ainahau, in Waikiki.

And, not far from the tea room, the Waioli Chapel presents a wedding site for couples from around the globe.

Although vocational training at the Waioli Tea Room ceased in 1960, the tea room is still owned by the Salvation Army.

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rd The 33 Infantry Division On Kauai During World War II

U.S. Army units based on Kauai during World War II were the 298th and 299th Infantry Regiments, elements of the 27th Infantry Division, the 40th Infantry Division, two regiments of the 98th Infantry Division, and the 123rd and 130th Regimental Combat Teams of the 33rd Infantry Division.

In July of 1943, the 33rd Infantry Division deployed to Oahu from the Mainland with the mission of guarding installations in the Hawaiian Islands and training for combat operations in the Western Pacific.

Soon after its arrival, the division’s 123rd RCT was sent to Kauai for a tour duty that would last until April of 1944, when it transferred to New Guinea prior to engaging in combat in the Philippines.

Its first assignment on Kauai was to man over 100 concrete pillboxes that had been constructed along Kauai’s shoreline in defense against invasion by Imperial Japanese military forces.

In December of 1943, it was joined on Kauai by the 130th RCT, which had previously been stationed on the Big Island and would complete its training on Kauai with the 123rd RCT in April 1944.

By Jan. 1, 1944, the mission of the two RCTs had shifted almost entirely from defense to combat training.

Camps were established at Barking Sands and at Wailua, and both RCTs commenced training in jungle warfare — with stress placed on night exercises.

A ranger training school was conducted near Knudsen’s Gap. Soldiers completing the grueling course then trained other soldiers in the RCTs in 480

commando tactics.

Beginning in February of 1944, the RCTs trained for amphibious operations at Port Allen, which was followed by exercises in assaulting fortified positions, and tank and infantry tactics.

During their free time, the units’ soldiers visited Kauai’s towns and scenic spots — pleasant duty for GIs far away from home. A few were even privileged to spend a week on Niihau as guests of the Robinson family and the residents of Niihau.

Filipino Radio Program Announcer Catalino Suero

Catalino Suero And His Daughter, Charlmaine Beginning in 1960 and continuing well into the 1980s, Catalino Suero (19101993) could be heard over the airwaves hosting the popular Filipino program he broadcast in the Ilocano dialect on Kauai radio station KTOH. Along with Andres Baclig’s program on the Big Island, and A. B. Sevilla’s on Maui, Catalino Suero’s program was one of the longest running Filipino radio programs in the Islands.

It aired daily, from 4 to 6 a.m. Mondays through Saturdays and from 4 to 7 a.m.

Sundays, featured world and Philippine news, commentaries, interviews, and Filipino songs and music, and was particularly popular with Filipino plantation laborers, who listened while cooking breakfast and preparing for work.

Born, raised and educated in the province of Ilocos Sur on the Philippine island of Luzon, Suero immigrated to Hawaii in 1931 and went to work on Oahu sugar and pineapple plantations.

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In 1934, he was hired at Waipahu, Oahu by HSPA — the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association — which conducted scientific studies and gathered accurate statistical records for Hawaii’s sugar industry beginning in 1895.

While with the HSPA, Suero completed courses in sugar technology, taught adult education in Waipahu and became a member of the Hawaii Sugar Technologists.

He was transferred to Kauai in 1956 to take charge of initiating experiments of sugar varieties on several Kauai sugar plantations and retired from HSPA in 1972.

Suero’s daughter, Charlmaine Bulosan, noted that her father was also active in community affairs.

“My father’s involvement in the community was to help the immigrants who came to Hawaii and Kauai, and if they needed help translating documents or easing into the island life and the American way, he was there to help,” she said.

Catalino Suero and his wife, Castora, had five children: Catalino, Andrita, Carmencita, Kathleen and Charlmaine.

Henry Birkmyre And The Birkmyre Estate

Born and educated in Scotland, Henry Birkmyre (1867-1944) was a son of Henry Birkmyre Sr., a wealthy manufacturer and seller of rope, canvas and other ship supplies.

When his father retired, he and his brother, William, became co-managers of Henry Sr.’s business. But, not for long, for in 1888 — for some inexplicable reason — Henry Birkmyre left the management of the firm to his brother, 482

boarded a ship at Liverpool, England and sailed off to Hawaii, where he forged a long, successful career for himself in the sugar industry.

Soon after his arrival, Birkmyre joined Kilauea Sugar Plantation, Kauai as an overseer and was promoted to head overseer there before moving on to Kipahulu Sugar Co., Maui in 1894.

A year later, he was with Pioneer Mill Co. on Maui as a section overseer and supervisor of fertilizer operations.

Then for five years, beginning in 1901, he worked as a self-employed commercial fisherman at Hanalei, Kauai, prior to returning to Kilauea Sugar Plantation.

He retired from the sugar business in 1920.

In 1912, he and his first wife, Maude, purchased acreage from Paalua Danson Kellett atop the Hanalei River Ridge near the mouth of the Hanalei River.

They then built a home on their property that, in 1957, served as the fictional residence of middle-aged expatriate French planter Emile De Becque (played by actor Rossano Brazzi) during filming of the musical “South Pacific.”

The Birkmyre estate was sold by Henry’s second wife, Miriam, to make way for the Hanalei Plantation Hotel, which opened in 1961.

During the 11 years that Hanalei Plantation Hotel was in operation, the Birkmyre home was relocated twice on its property.

Club Mediterranean occupied the property from 1972 to 1979, when Stark Development took over.

Stark Development then leveled the area — including the Birkmyre home — in anticipation of building condos, but its venture failed in 1982.

Today, brush, ironwood and abandoned concrete foundations cover the old Kellett and Birkmyre estates.

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Comedian Joe E. Brown Visits Kauai During World War II

Joe E. Brown, Center, On Kauai, 1943 During World War II, from Jan. 17 through 19, 1943, American comedian and actor Joe E. Brown (1892-1973) toured Kauai at his own expense to entertain military personnel with several performances at troop camps throughout the island.

Brown, who’d made his big mouth and his enormous smile his trademark in motion pictures, was then in the midst of a grand tour to entertain soldiers, sailors and marines throughout the entire Pacific area — a tour that was a memorial to his son, Capt. Don E. Brown, who was killed when his military plane crashed in 1942.

One of the highlights of Brown’s Kauai tour was being interviewed on KTOH radio on Jan. 18, beginning at 9 p.m., by Army Sergeant “Scotty” Campbell, the editor of Kauai’s soldier newspaper during World War II, the Cow-Eye Sentinel.

Campbell took a lot of good-natured kidding from Brown during the interview, while Brown revealed that he’d been making motion pictures since the silent film era and had managed minor league baseball games.

During the war, Brown traveled many thousands of miles to entertain American military personnel across the globe.

Overseas, he took the trouble to carry sacks of soldiers’ mail with him back to the United States, where he could ensure letters would be delivered by the Post Office more quickly to parents and loved ones.

Bad weather never prevented Brown from performing for the troops, some of whom were convalescing in hospitals, and many times he gave an entire performance for a dying soldier.

Autograph seekers always found him ready and willing to sign his “John Henry” on their keepsakes.

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In the U. S., he entertained and met with servicemen at the Hollywood Canteen.

Brown was one of only two civilians to be awarded the Bronze Star Medal in World War II. Lihue Plantation Camp A Street Names

A residential neighborhood that had once been the property of Lihue Plantation, Camp A is located on the mauka side of Kuhio Highway, behind the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant.

Five of the streets were named after soldiers who died while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II and had been employees of Lihue Plantation before going off to war. They were Yoshimitsu Nakamura, William C. Jerves, Satoru Hiraoka, Kazuyoshi Inouye and Yutaka Fujii.

The cross streets in Camp A were named Poinciana and Oxford.

Sgt. Yoshimitsu Nakamura served in the 100th Infantry Battalion and was killed in action in Italy on Oct. 10, 1944. He was awarded the Purple Heart (PH), Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal (AP), American Campaign Medal (A), European-African-Middle Eastern Campaign Medal (EAME), and the World War II Victory Medal (WW II V).

Private First Class William C. Jerves was killed in action in Belgium on Jan. 15, 1945 while serving with the 134th Infantry Regiment of the 35th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Bulge. The Purple Heart is one of his decorations.

Private First Class Satoru Hiraoka of Hanamaulu served with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and was killed in action in Italy on June 26, 1944.

His awards include the PH, Combat Infantryman Badge (CIB), A, EAME, and the WW II V. Technician Fourth Grade Kazuyoshi Inouye of Lihue died on Okinawa on Aug. 13, 1945, while serving as an interpreter with the 11th Airborne Division. He

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was awarded the AP, A, and the WW II V. Private First Class Yutaka Fujii of Lihue served with the 100th Infantry Battalion and was killed in action in Italy on Jan. 24, 1944. Awards: the PH, CIB, AP, A, EAME, and WW II V. Kauai Governor Keaweamahi

Sketch Drawn By William Ellis In 1823 Although high chiefess Keaweamahi (?-1848) — known also by her Christian name of Amelia — was initially opposed to foreign ways and the Christianity that American Protestant missionaries first introduced into Hawaii in 1820, she nevertheless eventually became an early Christian convert.

Both she and her husband, Kaikioewa — the governor of Kauai from 1825 to 1839 — assisted Waimea missionary Rev. Samuel Whitney in proselytizing the people of Kauai.

They made tours of the island to instruct and encourage people in the Protestant religion, and gave support to Whitney’s schools where Scriptures were taught, one of which was conducted by Keaweamahi herself.

Their residence at Waimea was a thick stone house built for Kaikioewa in 1826 that presently serves as the parsonage of the pastor of the Waimea United Church of Christ.

At Waimea, Kaikioewa also directed the construction of a 90 by 30-foot chapel for Rev. Whitney, which Kaikioewa described as “the best built chapel in the islands.”

When Kaikioewa died, Keaweamahi became the island’s interim governor, a post she would retain until she was replaced by Princess Kekauonohi in 1842.

On Oahu in July 1842, Francis Warriner, a midshipman from the United States frigate “Potomac” in port at that time, described Keaweamahi and the tapa cloth

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she gave him.

“Amelia Keaweamahi possessed an open countenance, and a frank and cheerful disposition. She made numerous inquiries about my friends in America, and was very desirous to know whether I had parents and brothers and sisters living.

“She presented me with a generous donation of tapa cloth, and one garment entirely whole, with a black pelerine and cap ribbon. The cloth was quite handsome, made from the inner bark of the paper mulberry, and much taste and fancy were displayed in the variety of patterns with which it was painted.

The whole is done with sticks dipped in paint and guided by the eye, and the colors are extracted from vegetable substances.”

Julie’s Plantation Laundry

This Photo, Taken In 1962, Shows Ginger Beralas (Soboleski), Julie Beralas And Camellia Ditch Standing, Along With Debbie, Yolanda And Clayton Beralas.

During the early 1960s, Julie Beralas of Lihue Camp A, assisted by her eldest daughter, Ginger, and her niece, Camellia Ditch, earned extra income by doing the laundry for five single Filipino men who worked for Lihue Plantation.

Dirty laundry from each man generally consisted of a rice bag filled with three khaki work pants, three long-sleeve shirts, five boxer shorts and five handkerchiefs.

Julie charged 50 cents to launder each pair of pants. Shirts were 25 cents each, a pair of shorts cost 10 cents, and handkerchiefs were 5 cents apiece.

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On Friday afternoons at about 4 p.m., they would collect the laundry from the men by car, beginning by picking up Tata Tabocol’s and Tata Louie’s laundry in Lihue Camp, situated immediately south of Poinciana Street.

Then they’d head up to Tata Nicholas’ house in Kealia Camp, located across from Kealia Beach.

Next, they’d drive to Tata Matias’ place in Kapaa, and lastly, to Willy Azevedo’s house in Kapaa Stable Camp on Kaapuni Road.

At home, the clothing was marked with its owner’s name and pre-soaked with detergent overnight in a cement tub to loosen grime and dirt from the sugar cane fields.

On Saturday morning, they would take the pre-soaked laundry out of the cement tub and separate it into two bundles — one bundle of work pants and a second bundle of the remaining dirty laundry.

The two bundles would be washed separately in a washing machine that had a clothes-wringer on top consisting of hard rubber rollers.

Following the wash, the whites were soaked in a tub filled with “Mrs. Stewart’s Bluing” diluted with water. Afterwards, clothes to be starched went into a soaking tub containing starch and water. Finally, the laundry was hung outside to dry.

By Saturday afternoon, unless it rained, all laundry had dried and was taken off the clotheslines. On Sunday morning, they ironed all laundry by noon and delivered it by car.

Teacher Waldemar Muller

Makaweli House, 1993, Muller Inset In 1865, a year after she’d purchased Niihau from Kamehameha V for $10,000, Scotswoman Eliza Sinclair bought the Ahupuaa of Makaweli on Kauai from 488

Princess Victoria Kamamalu, paying $15,000 for its 21,844 acres that extended from Mount Waialeale down to the sea.

She then moved with most of her clan of Sinclairs, Gays and Robinsons from Kiekie, Niihau, to a new home within the ahupuaa she’d built at an elevation of 1,800 feet in the highlands above Pakala called Makaweli House.

There, from 1872 to 1876, her grandchildren — Aubrey Robinson and Alice and Francis Gay — were tutored by a former Prussian army officer-turned-teacher named Waldemar Muller (1846-1924).

Five years earlier, in 1867, Muller had been wounded in battle in Mexico while serving with the imperialist forces of Emperor Maximilian at war with republican forces led by Benito Juarez.

But by 1871, his advertisement in Honolulu’s Hawaiian Gazette, which proclaimed that he’d “established himself in this city as a teacher of piano, vocal music, and languages …,” had paid off with a position teaching languages and music at Punahou.

During his tenure at Makaweli House, Muller taught Eliza Sinclair’s grandchildren English, Greek and German language, music and mathematics.

He also entertained the Makaweli household with music he played on their Erhard piano, and being a staunch Christian, Muller occasionally conducted Sunday services for the family.

Muller left Makaweli House in 1876 to open a manual training school on Kauai for Hawaiians that failed, and soon after, he began growing arrowroot at Koloa.

The year 1882 found him on the Big Island, where he and Douglas Ackerman founded the Kona Fruit Preserving Co. — the first pineapple cannery in Hawaii — an enterprise that also failed due to the lack of strong market for canned pineapple on the American Pacific Coast.

Waldemar Muller married Mary Ann Kekaula Palaualelo in 1885 and they had ten children.

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Judge Benjamin Tashiro

The son of immigrant sugar plantation field laborers, Judge Benjamin Tashiro (1904-1996) was born at McBryde Sugar Co. Camp 3, once located in Wahiawa Valley, mauka of Halewili Road, about midway between Eleele and Numila.

Following his graduation from Eleele School in 1917, Tashiro went on to graduate, in 1921, from the Territorial Normal & Training School in Honolulu — a sub-collegiate educational institution established to train students to become elementary school teachers in Hawaii.

Thereafter, he taught at Kalaheo School for four years, before attending Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and UCLA, where he worked his way through college by taking jobs as a butler, kitchen helper and fruit picker.

Tashiro then earned his law degree from the University of Francisco’s Hastings College of Law in 1932, after which, also in 1932, he became the first American of Japanese ancestry to open a law office on Kauai.

From 1934 to 1936, he served one term in Territorial House of Representatives.

Then, during World War II, Army Master Sergeant Tashiro taught Japanese language at the Military Intelligence School, Camp Savage, Minnesota.

In 1952, Territorial Governor Samuel Wilder King appointed him district court magistrate and, in 1953, assistant attorney general.

Two years later, Judge Tashiro became the first AJA to be appointed to a permanent judicial position by a United States president, when President Dwight Eisenhower named him 5th Circuit Judge of the Territory of Hawaii for Kauai.

When Hawaii became a state in 1959, Gov. William F. Quinn reappointed him judge of the 5th Circuit Court, a post he held until his retirement in 1969.

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Judge Tashiro was perhaps best known for his 1968 initial landmark decision in the Hanapepe Valley water rights case, in which he determined the water entitlements of contesting parties Gay & Robinson and McBryde Sugar Co. He and his wife, Gladys Tashiro, had five daughters: Ora, Alma, Lynn, Lani and Mimi.

Dr. Alfred Herbert Waterhouse

In 1907, following his graduation from Princeton, medical training at Rush Medical College in Chicago, and post graduate work at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, Dr. Alfred Herbert Waterhouse (1877-1948) began a long career as a medical doctor on Kauai, first as resident physician for Koloa Sugar Co. and government physician for the Koloa District, and later, in private practice.

Dr. Waterhouse’s grandparents, John Thomas and Eleanor Waterhouse, had emigrated to Hawaii from Tasmania in 1851. Their youngest son, William Waterhouse, was Dr. Waterhouse’s father.

His mother, the former Melicent Phelina Smith, was a daughter of Kauai missionaries Dr. James W. Smith and Melicent Knapp Smith.

For many years during the 1800s, Dr. Waterhouse’s grandfather, Dr. Smith, was Kauai’s only doctor, on call day and night, and it was a familiar and reassuring sight to see him dressed in his distinctive black frock coat, riding his horse over rough trails on the way to treat the sick and injured at villages scattered to the farthest ends of the island.

A number of medical milestones were established on Kauai by Dr. Waterhouse. Among them was his securing the first resident dentist, as well as the first eye, ear, nose and throat specialist at Koloa.

Dr. Waterhouse also established Kauai’s first medical laboratory and was one of the first physicians to set up prenatal care and baby clinics on Kauai.

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In 1910, Waterhouse saw to it that the Koloa Plantation hospital was built and that physiotherapy equipment was installed there in 1926.

Furthermore, he served on the Board of Trustees of the Koloa Union Church, was appointed Commissioner of Public Instruction from Kauai in 1934, served as trustee of Mahelona Hospital, and was the first president of the TB Association on Kauai, among other community activities.

Dr. Waterhouse and his wife, Mabel, had three children: William, Florence, and Marjorie.

Architect Hart Wood

Hart And Jessie Wood Hart Wood (1880-1957), a noted architect of Hawaii’s Territorial years of 1898 to 1959 — which is considered the “Golden Age” of Hawaiian architecture — was renowned for his distinctive “Hawaiian Style” architectural designs that incorporated elements reflective of Hawaii’s unique multicultural society.

For example, Wood artfully utilized Asian, Hawaiian and Western motifs, employed locally available materials such as lava rock, where appropriate, and even took into consideration the direction of Hawaii’s predominately northeast trade winds in his designs.

Among the prominent buildings Wood designed in Honolulu are the First Church of Christ Scientist (1923), the Gumps Building (1929) and the Chinese Christian Church (1929).

Many of Oahu’s exclusive private residences are also products of Wood’s creativity.

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He co-designed a number of buildings in Honolulu with architect Charles W. Dickey as well — notably the Alexander & Baldwin Building (1929) — and worked in collaboration with several Honolulu architects to design Honolulu Hale (1927).

In addition, he was awarded contracts for building designs on Kauai, Molokai, Maui, Lanai and the Big Island.

On Kauai in 1921, he restored the Waioli Mission Hall, built in 1841, and the neighboring Waioli Mission House, constructed in 1837, which had once been the home of American Protestant missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox.

Another of Wood’s Kauai designs, the Wilcox Memorial Parish Hall in Pua Loke (1922), features a local lava rock bell tower. He also designed the adjacent Lihue United Church (1951).

The Albert Spencer Wilcox Memorial Library Building (1924), housing the Kauai Museum since 1970, combines rustic materials in classical fashion. Nearby, the Territorial Office Building, commonly known as the Kauai County Annex (1930), is likewise a product of Wood’s design.

At Waimea and Kekaha, Wood designed the Waimea Community Center (1933) and houses for the Waimea Plantation doctor and Kekaha Plantation skilled workers (1934).

Highlights of Wood’s Sloggett Beach House on Hanalei Bay (1930) are steep gables and an inset, ocean-facing lanai.

Rita Sadang’s Lauhala Mats And Baskets

Rita And Agapito Sadang For nearly 50 years — from the early 1920s until 1972 — Rita Esquirra Sadang (1902-1976) made her home in the now long since vanished Kapaa Stable 493

Camp on Kaapuni Road, Kauai, where she cultivated about an acre of fruit trees, vegetables and useful plants.

From her hala (pandanus) trees she would weave lauhala (hala leaf) living room mats and baskets for sale.

First, Rita would cut the lauhala off the trees and place them in a pile on her lanai.

Then she would strip the thorns off the edges of the lauhala on the wooden railing of her lanai, upon which she’d inserted two upright razor blades parallel to each other, with each blade separated by a width that was a bit less than the width of a typical leaf.

By running the leaves between these blades by hand, the thorns would be shorn off and, at the same time, the leaves would be cut to uniform widths.

Next, she would roll and then dry the leaves on the roof of her house until they turned brown, when she would undo the rolls and wipe them clean.

She was then ready to weave her mats and baskets, but first, she would share her lauhala with her second husband, Agapito Sadang, who would cut his portion into thinner strips for his hats.

In 1947, following the death of her first husband, Bernadino Esquirra — with whom she had 11 children — Agapito Sadang had joined her at Stable Camp from Camp 35 on Olohena Road near the bridge below Stable Camp, and the couple remained there until Agapito retired from Lihue Plantation 25 years later.

Rita’s lauhala weaving skills eventually even garnered the attention of Lihue Plantation manager Keith Tester during the 1950s.

With her granddaughter Ginger Beralas’s (Soboleski) assistance, Rita once installed a finely made mat in the Tester family home at the old Lihue Plantation manager’s house at Koamalu, much to the Testers’ satisfaction.

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Christmases At Hale Nani

Hale Nani, Mr. And Mrs. William Hyde Rice Inset For many years during the early 1900s, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924) — the governor of Kauai during the reign of Queen Liliuokalani — and his wife, Mary Waterhouse Rice (1847-1933), invited family members and friends to a traditional Christmas celebration at Hale Nani — their Lihue home situated off Rice Street, not far from today’s west entrance into Ewalu Street.

A one-story house built with native woods set within a marvelously landscaped garden and featuring deep lanais and a welcoming porte-cochere, Hale Nani was famed as a center of hospitality.

Its spacious interior was comprised of a large living room, a hall, a dining room, music room, two kitchens, pantries and six bedrooms.

On Christmas Day, three white damask-covered tables, one each in the dining room, hall and on the lanai, where children ate, were set with porcelain dinner plates and decorated with crystal bowls filled with red carnations and sweetscented vines and ferns.

At noon, the Rice’s talented daughter-in-law, Mrs. William Henry Rice, began singing the blessing, and soon everyone joined her in song.

Oranges or red apples filled with fruit cocktail made up the first course.

Oyster soup followed, prepared from live oysters shipped from San Francisco in barrels of brine mixed with oatmeal that the oysters consumed en route to Nawiliwili, where they arrived fattened and fresh.

The main course of roast turkey with chestnut dressing, mashed potatoes, creamed onions, canned peas and asparagus, and cranberry jelly and sauce was then served at each table.

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Plum pudding dessert complemented the Christmas feast, after which diners strolled to the music room and its Norfolk pine alight with candles and sparkling ornaments.

Gifts were exchanged and children ran outside to play in the surrounding gardens. Little ones took their naps, while grownups spent time talking.

Later, Hawaiian serenaders arrived — four or five men in a choral group — to sing old Hawaiian melodies in the Hawaiian language, a fitting way to end a merry Christmas Day. Secret Agent Arthur Komori

In March 1941 Arthur Komori (1915-2000) was recruited on Oahu by the U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps for the purpose of covertly investigating subversive activities and espionage within Manila’s Japanese business community.

And, in April 1941, the Maui-born University of Hawaii graduate with strong Japanese language skills arrived in Manila posing as an American merchant seaman and Japanese sympathizer who’d jumped ship without passport.

The future Kauai attorney and district court judge then secured a post as a reporter with the city’s leading Japanese newspaper and set about successfully gaining the friendship and trust of the Japanese consul general and the chiefs of Manila’s Japanese business organizations.

He passed on intelligence information he gleaned from his Japanese contacts to CIC officials by way of a locked post office box and through secret rendezvouses.

Among his reports was a November 1941 alert that Manila’s Japanese residents were surreptitiously returning to Japan — an indication that a Japanese invasion of the Philippines was imminent.

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When Japan struck the Philippines on Dec. 8, 1941, Komori was arrested along with Japanese nationals and jailed for a few days in Bilibid Prison by the Filipino Constabulary.

Upon his release by the CIC, his mission as a secret agent came to a close.

Komori then participated in the evacuation of Manila and the battles of Bataan and Corregidor as a front-line Japanese prisoner of war interrogator and translator, until Gen. Jonathan Wainwright ordered his evacuation by aircraft to Australia on April 13, 1942.

In Australia, he supervised Military Intelligence Service personnel and continued work in the intelligence field, and later taught at the MIS Language School in Camp Savage, Minnesota.

On Sept. 2, 1945, he witnessed the Japanese surrender ceremonies aboard the battleship “USS Missouri� in Tokyo Bay. First Lt. Komori resigned from the Army in 1952, graduated from the University of Baltimore law school in 1954 and settled on Kauai.

Arthur Komori and his wife, Marie, had a daughter, Rosemary. His second wife was Rosa V. Komori.

About The Author Of Kauai Island History

Born and raised in Connecticut, longtime Kauai resident Hank Soboleski first came to Hawaii in 1966 as an 18 year old United States Marine.

Two years later, he married Ginger Beralas of Kauai, and they have two children: Michelle and Brett, and five grandchildren: Nalanimae, Nohealani, Brett Jr., Bradshaw, and Brock Soboleski.

Hank is a disabled Vietnam War veteran and a graduate of Quinnipiac College, Hamden, Connecticut. His two other books are History Makers of Kauai (2003) and History Makers of Kauai Volume Two (2004).

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Judge Lyle A. Dickey

Judge Lyle A. Dickey (1868-1946) was the son of Charles Henry Dickey, a lawyer and general business agent in Honolulu who served as a lieutenant in the Fourth Illinois Cavalry during the American Civil War. His mother, Anne Elizabeth Dickey, was the daughter of Rev. William Patterson Alexander and Mary Ann Alexander, American Protestant missionaries to the Kingdom of Hawaii who were stationed at Waioli, Kauai, from 1834 to 1843.

Dickey graduated from Yale in 1891, earned his law degree from the Chicago School of Law in 1894 and practiced law in Chicago for a year before returning home to Hawaii in 1895 to continue his practice of law in Honolulu.

He served as judge of the District Court of Honolulu from 1901 until 1904, and was the judge of the Fifth Circuit Court on Kauai from 1912 to 1919, after which he went into private practice in Lihue until his retirement in 1941.

In the aftermath of the bloody confrontation between striking Filipino sugar workers and police at Hanapepe on Sept. 9, 1924, in which 16 strikers and 4 policemen were killed, Dickey served as the defense attorney for 72 strikers indicted for riot.

Of those defendants, 56 were convicted by a jury in Judge William C. Achi’s court in November 1924 and were imprisoned.

Dickey, an authority on Kauai history, collected and studied Hawaiian string figures, and was the author of “String Figures from Hawaii.”

These string figures, called “hei,” which predate Captain Cook’s arrival in Hawaii in 1778, are made by looping string around and between one’s fingers to form complex patterns.

By 1928, Dickey had amassed a fairly complete collection of 115 Hawaiian string figures representing love affairs, animal life, turtles, shrimp, fish, crabs, 498

geography, mountains, springs, places, potatoes, stars, bridges, houses, fishnets, calabash nets, eyes, navels, breasts and people in well-known stories and legends.

Kauai And The American Civil War

James Marshall And William Reynolds In 1862, during the American Civil War, support on Kauai for the Union found expression in the formation of a paramilitary unit called the Koloa Volunteers.

By 1863, it could field a 15-man troop of cavalry led by Capt. Sanford Dole armed with antiquated muskets and a sword taken from the Waimea Russian Fort by sugar pioneer Valdemar Knudsen.

Dole would become one of the leaders of the 1893 revolution that deposed Queen Liliuokalani, the president of the provisional government that replaced the monarchy, the first president of the Republic of Hawaii, and the first governor of the Territory of Hawaii.

Two former residents of Malumalu, Kauai served as officers of the North — William Reynolds as a Union Navy officer and James Marshall, the first manager of Lihue Plantation, as a Union Army brigadier general.

Malumalu, by the way, is located on the Haupu Range side of Hulemalu Road, about 1/4 mile east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads.

Kauai was not, however, without its southern sympathizers.

Scotsman Robert C. Wyllie, the foreign minister of the Hawaiian Kingdom and owner of Princeville Sugar Plantation, believed that the South had the right to secede from the United States.

Another southern supporter was Godfrey Wundenberg, Wyllie’s first manager at Princeville Sugar Plantation.

Outspoken in his backing of the South’s cause was Grove Farm Plantation founder and Kauai Circuit Court Judge Herman Widemann.

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During the Civil War, numerous whaling ships were pressed into service by the federal government, while other whalers were sunk by Confederate privateers.

Consequently, there were fewer whale ships visiting Hawaiian ports of call for provisions.

While 549 whaling ships visited the Hawaiian Islands during the 1859 whaling season, only 73 appeared in 1862.

Business fell at the whaling ports of Hanalei, Waimea and Koloa, and Kauai suffered accordingly.

For instance, Kealia rancher Ernest Krull reported 500 barrels of unsold butter in 1865, while Koloa businessman George Charman’s potato crop rotted for lack of whalers to provision.

The Garden Island Newspaper Back In The Old Days

Staff Of The Garden Island Newspaper, Circa 1920s. Editor Charlie Fern Wearing hat.

The founder — in 1902 — and the publisher and editor of Kauai’s The Garden Island newspaper was Sometaro Sheba, who was succeeded in 1907 by Kenneth Hopper, who went on to a 22-year career with Garden Island Publishing Co. as its business manager, secretary, managing editor and, later, as its president and director.

One of Hopper’s editors was former barnstorming aviator Charlie Fern (18921995), whom Hopper hired in 1922 as a sportswriter.

Fern would personally report the main baseball game of the week, assigning reporters to cover ball games he couldn’t for $1 a story. Charlie would then edit 500

the copy his reporters would mail to the newspaper, write his story and make up the sports page for the weekly paper. He also reported local news (the newspaper printed only local news in those days) — news of the courts, police reports, government meetings and stories on location.

Other news came from women around the island who mailed in notes of weddings, births and parties for $1 a note — Makaweli Notes, Waimea Notes, Eleele Notes, etc. Passengers embarking and debarking inter-island boats at Nawiliwili and Ahukini were yet another news source.

When Charlie was promoted to editor in 1924, circulation totaled about 3,000 for a 10-page newspaper that came out once a week on Tuesdays, later on Wednesdays, with all distribution done by mail.

Editorials were Charlie’s kuleana. The outspoken and fearless editor had words of praise for old-time Kauai Board of Supervisors Charles A. Rice, Walter McBryde, Eric Knudsen, Manuel Aguiar and Henry Wishard, because “they ran a good, tight ship. They never had a deficit, they never had high taxes, they always lived within their budget, and they knew what their budget was.”

But he made enemies, also, by “showing up the phonies,” as he put it.

Charlie Fern would remain at the newspaper for 44 years, retiring in 1966 as owner of the paper.

Hawaii Aviation Pioneer Bertram James “Jimmy” Hogg

Born and raised in Lihue, Kauai, aviation pioneer Bertram James “Jimmy” Hogg (1908-1992) was utterly fascinated as a boy watching pilots make landings and takeoffs with their amphibian aircraft on Nawiliwili Bay and, by age 12, determined that he, too, would become an airplane pilot.

About that time, former barnstormer and longtime editor of The Garden Island

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newspaper, Charles Fern, gave young Hogg his first taste of flight by taking him aloft over Kauai in his Curtiss “Jenny” biplane, and the lad was thenceforth hooked on flying.

Hogg then went to work in a local garage to earn money for flying lessons and for tuition to obtain training as an airplane mechanic at Oakland Technical School, California.

It paid off, for, in 1930, he was hired as a mechanic’s helper by Inter-Island Airways, the forerunner of Hawaiian Airlines.

He advanced to mate the following year — a combination copilot, mechanic and all-around-handyman, whose duties encompassed baggage handling and cleaning the cabins of the Sikorsky S-38, eight-seat, amphibious aircraft of that time.

Inter-Island Airways promoted him to co-pilot in 1936 and to captain in 1937.

By the time he retired in 1968, he was flying trans-Pacific jet airliners carrying more than 100 passengers.

The Civil Aeronautics Authority honored Hogg in 1957 as one of the pioneers of Hawaii aviation by designating the three-letter code of Kahului Airport, Maui as OGG. Princeville resident Alan Faye Jr., who was born and raised at Waimea, Kauai and is a retired airline pilot, recently said, “My first flying lesson was sitting in Jimmy’s lap en route from Burns Field at Port Allen to Honolulu. I recall it was the summer of 1940 in the old Sikorsky S-43.

“He had me making turns, climbs and descents. Wheel only. No rudder pedals.

And most gentle with the controls. I was then bit by the flying bug! Jimmy Hogg was my cousin.”

James “Jimmy” Hogg and his wife, Barbara, had a daughter, Lynne.

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Jack Harter’s Na Pali Rescue

On April 9, 1966, University of Hawaii students Donald Coolidge, Daniel Hotchkiss and Robert Peyton set out from Kokee in an attempt to hike to Haena by way of Kalalau Valley.

Ten days later, when they were reported missing, Kokee park maintenance foreman George Niitani, along with Tsutomu Yamamoto, Richard Sugawa and Ford Okada went looking for them.

After finding their tracks, campsite and discarded shoes in the area of Hanakoa Falls, the searchers were able to determine that the hikers had been attempting a treacherous descent into Kalalau Valley from about 4,000 feet in elevation.

Jack Harter, who’d opened Kauai’s first helicopter tour company in 1962, then volunteered to enter the search with his Bell Ranger helicopter and his mechanic, Louis Galaza.

“I had a hunch they might have descended to the edge of the Na Pali Coast where further descent is absolutely impossible. Once they reached the edge, return up the slippery fern jungle slopes would be equally impossible. This proved to be what happened,” Harter later said.

Aloft just as fog was closing in, Harter and Galaza spotted one of the lost trio sitting on the edge of a narrow ridge around 2,300 feet above Hanakoa Falls.

Harter approached, and by balancing one skid at an angle against the ridge in strong winds, while Galaza helped the hiker into the helicopter, he effected a safe rescue.

He then continued his search and found the other hikers about 100 yards away in the bottom of a narrow gorge.

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Since a landing there was impossible, he returned to Kokee to find Marine Corps Capt. E. T. Forster ready to assist with his big Marine helicopter equipped with a winch and a cage.

With Harter leading the way to the rescue site, Forster hovered over the gorge and pulled the students out with the winch.

Harter later said that he received thank you letters from the trio’s parents, but got no acknowledgment from the young men he and Forster had rescued.

Hawaii Music Great Alice “Auntie Alice” Namakelua

On Friday evening, May 9, 1975, renowned slack key guitarist and Hawaiian music composer Alice “Auntie Alice” Namakelua (1892-1987) performed at a concert held in the Lihue Convention Hall.

Other slack key guitarists featured that night were Raymond Kane, Gabe Kila, the Nanakuli Sons, Manu and Ipo Kahaialii and the William Panui family.

Serving as master of ceremonies was future member of the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, Daniel K. Akaka.

The Hawaiian slack key guitar style, of which Auntie Alice was an expert, originated in Hawaii in the 1800s, and refers to a technique of tuning a guitar, as well as the characteristic music a slack key guitarist creates.

Basically, a slack key guitarist changes the standard tuning of a guitar to slack key tuning by loosening, or “slacking,” the guitar’s strings.

Born on the Big Island a year before the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani, the teenaged Namakelua serenaded the deposed queen on several occasions by playing guitar in the manner of the 19th century and by singing for her in the Hawaiian language.

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Auntie Alice was also thought to be the first woman to play the Hawaiian steel guitar, first developed in Hawaii during the late 1800s.

A Hawaiian steel guitarist plucks strings with one hand, while simultaneously changing the pitch of the strings with the other hand by sliding a bar or slide — called a steel — over the strings.

Besides being a talented guitarist, Namakelua was a kumu hula, a gifted leimaker and a master of the Hawaiian language.

During her long life, she wrote nearly 200 Hawaiian songs and taught countless young people singing, hula and slack key guitar.

In 1959, she spent nearly five months on Kauai teaching hula, singing and the ukulele. While on Kauai, she stayed at the home of Francis Ching (Kauai’s second mayor, from 1972 to 1974) and his wife, Ruth Ching.

Kapaa High And Intermediate School Principal Ron Martin

Born and raised in Honolulu, Ronald Peter Martin (1933-1976) — the man for whom the Kapaa High School Athletic Field is named — excelled as a foursport athlete at Kamehameha Schools, Class of 1951.

He went on to serve in the U.S. Coast Guard before earning a B.Sc. degree in education from Oregon College of Education in 1958.

While in Oregon, he coached football, basketball, softball, swimming and track at several schools, prior to returning home to Hawaii in 1966 to accept the position of vice principal of Kapaa Elementary School.

Later, he became principal of Waimea Elementary School, and from 1969 to 1976 — the year of his untimely death from cancer at age 42 — he served as principal of Kapaa High and Intermediate School.

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His home, where he and his wife, Jill Martin, and their children, Pualani and Peter Martin, and his stepdaughters, Pamela and Darcy lived, was a lovely teacher’s cottage overlooking the bluff above Kealia Beach near where the Kapaa High School football field is now located.

“He was so loved by his students,” his daughter, Pualani Rezentes, recently recalled.

“He was firm but had such a soft heart to help students succeed. There were so many stories of people telling me how they would get into trouble at school and he would help them out and turn them around just by showing them he cared.”

For the 10 months he lived after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer — all the while knowing that his days were truly numbered — he continued to devote his time to his students.

When his illness got the best of him and he could no longer walk, he could be seen driving a golf cart around campus, taking the time to stop and speak with students until his very last days.

Ron Martin loved life and loved people. When he died in the prime of life, he was deeply mourned by many.

Cecil And Pat Gates’ Ships

Cecil And Pat Gates And USS Arizona Born and raised on Kauai and educated at Kauai High School, Cecil Gates (1924-2011), assisted by his wife, Pat Gates, designed and built seven scale model, outboard engine-driven ships at their Los Angeles home between 1974 and 1991.

The models included four 18-foot battleships, one 20-foot aircraft carrier, the 506

23-foot RMS Titanic and the 36-foot battleship USS Arizona.

Made principally of fiberglass and marine plywood, each miniature ship was navigated from within superstructures containing room for a captain, usually Cecil, and one passenger.

Their USS Arizona was powered by two OMC Sail Drive engines capable of 9 knots, while the 18-foot battleships — USS Alabama, USS South Dakota, USS Indiana and USS Bicentennial — were equipped with Johnson outboards, as were the aircraft carrier USS Bunker Hill and RMS Titanic.

For several adventurous years, the couple sailed their ships upon thousands of miles of America’s inland waterways and along the U.S. East Coast.

A notable highlight of their travels occurred in 1991, when Matson Navigation shipped their USS Arizona to Honolulu for the commemoration ceremonies of the 50th anniversary of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, in which they were guests of honor of the Pearl Harbor Surviver’s Association.

Ultimately, Cecil and Pat — who both retired as Los Angeles public school teachers — donated or sold their ships to military veteran organizations or individuals.

Today, USS Bunker Hill, renamed USS Lexington, is a museum anchored off Corpus Christi, Texas. The USS Alabama is also a museum in Mobile, Alabama, while USS Indiana and USS South Dakota are exhibited in museums in Auburn, Indiana and Sioux Falls, South Dakota, respectively. RMS Titanic makes appearances on the East Coast. USS Bicentennial was purchased by the American Legion and is being used in Sacramento, California. And USS Arizona is seen at Veterans Day parades in Arizona.

Most recently, in 2011, USS Arizona was displayed at the USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center in Pearl Harbor in observance of the 70th anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack.

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Dr. John W. Waughop

From 1897 to 1903, Dr. John W. Waughop (1839-1903) was the government physician on Kauai in charge of the Koloa Hospital and, later, a physician at Lihue and Kealia.

During his six years on Kauai, he also performed special work in the field of tuberculosis for the Hawaii Board of Health.

Born on a small farm in Illinois, Waughop knew from an early age that he wanted an education, and by the time he was 21, he’d studied, worked and saved enough money to enter Eureka College in Illinois in pursuit of his ambition.

He chose medicine as his profession at college, but when the American Civil War erupted, he postponed his plans to become a doctor in order to enlist as a private in the Federal Army in response to President Lincoln’s call for 75,000 men for 90 days service.

The future medical doctor was then sent off to war in Company B, 17th Regiment, Illinois Infantry with about 100 of his fellow volunteer Eureka College classmates and one of his professors.

Private Waughop subsequently re-enlisted and fought Confederate Army forces in the battles of Fort Donaldson, Shiloh and Vicksburg.

Between fighting and whatever other little free time there was available to him as a soldier, he read medical books provided to him by a friend, the brigade surgeon.

Later in the war, he was assigned to the hospital service.

When his term of enlistment ended, he entered the University of Michigan Medical School and completed his medical training at Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, New York, graduating in 1865.

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Dr. Waughop practiced medicine in Chicago for a year before moving to the Territory of Washington, where he was made Superintendent of the Western Washington Hospital for the Insane, a post he held for 17 years, after which he moved to Kauai.

He died on shipboard in 1903 while traveling from Hawaii to the Mainland.

Teacher Alice Kim Chong

Alice Kim Chong (1909-72) — an English teacher who served with the 14th U.S. Army Air Force in China during World War II — was born in Lawai Valley, Kauai, one of 10 children of Chinese immigrant rice farmers Yee Chong and Sum Kyau Liu Chong, and was educated early on at Kalaheo School.

In 1921, when Alice was 11, her aging father sold the Lawai Valley rice farm he’d leased from McBryde Sugar Co. and relocated to Honolulu with his family.

There, Alice completed her formal education at Kuhio School, McKinley High School and the University of Hawaii, where she earned a B.A. in English literature in 1933.

With teaching positions being scarce at that time in Hawaii, Alice set off to teach in China, to which her father had retired to live in his native village some time earlier.

Her first teaching position in China was at Bridgman Academy in Beijing.

Later, in August 1937, while on her way to teach at Ginling Women’s College, Nanking, she was turned back at Shanghai, then under siege by Imperial Japanese military forces that had invaded China the previous month.

Thereafter, she taught at True Light Middle School in Hong Kong and at the newly relocated Ginling Women’s College in Shanghai.

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July 1938 found her following in the wake of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s retreat into China’s western provinces, while on her way to teach at West China Union University at Chengdu.

She finally reached Chengdu after traveling 10 days by boat up the Yangtze River and was later present there when 108 enemy bombers killed 4,000 to 5,000 people in that city.

Alice Chong was commended for her work as librarian in Maj. General Claire Chennault’s 14th Army Air Force Headquarters at Kumming beginning in August 1944.

After the war, Alice graduated from Columbia University with a master’s degree in English literature and returned home to Oahu.

She taught at the elementary and high school levels until her retirement in 1970.

The Record Of All Land Transactions Of Missionary William Harrison Rice

In 1841, American Protestant missionary teacher William Harrison Rice (18131862) and his wife, Mary Sophia Hyde Rice (1816-1911), arrived in Honolulu aboard the ship “Gloucester” out of Boston and were assigned to the Hana mission.

Three years later, they were transferred to Punahou School, where Mr. Rice taught and Mrs. Rice served as matron. The Rices remained at Punahou until 1854, when Mr. Rice resigned from mission support to become manager of Lihue Planation Co. On Kauai, the Rices lived at Koamalu and were the parents of five children, one

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of whom was William Hyde Rice (1846-1924), the governor of Kauai during the reign of Queen Liliuokalani.

What follows is a correct listing of all the Hawaii land transactions of William Harrison Rice. It was obtained from the Indexes and Original Conveyances at the Office of the Registrar of Conveyances, Honolulu, and the Office of the Commissioner of Public Lands, as published in Miss Jean Hobb’s comprehensive study of land tenure in Hawaii, “Hawaii, A Pageant of the Soil,” published in 1935.

Grant 161, Vol. 1, 513 acres, Koloalii, Oahu, $513, 1849; joint deed with 32 others; sells two shares to S. C. Damon for $100, Deed Vol. 9, Pg. 92, 1857.

Grant 458, Vol. 3, 45 acres, Oahu, $45, 1850.

Grant 605, Vol. 3, 542 acres, Wahiawa, Oahu, $542, 1851; sold (Deed Vol. 5, p.

939) to A. Bishop for $642, 1853.

Deed Vol. 1, p.162, 5.88 acres, Manoa, Oahu, $10, 1850; sold (Deed Vol. 22, p.

323) for $735, 1855, to W. H. Bray.

Deed Vol. 5, p. 285, 45 acres, Waialua, Oahu, $54, 1851; reserving 3 acres.

Deed Vol. 6, p. 111, Kauai, $5,979.97, 1854; 1/16 share in Lihue Plantation from H. A. Pierce & Co., including cattle and equipment, interest in a deed of land, lease and share in land held under R.P. 188.

Deed Vol. 13, p. 283, Lihue, Kauai, $2,100, 1860; two-fourteenths of Lihue Plantation.

Deed Vol. 13, p. 420, Lihue, Kauai, $1,500, 1861; one-fourteenth of Lihue Plantation; sold to P. Isenberg (Deed Vol. 17, p. 318) for $1,500, 1862.

Deed Vol. 13, p. 422, Lihue, Kauai, $1,500, 1861; from C. R. Bishop and sold back to him by Deed Vol. 15, p. 8, for $1,500, 1862; one-fourteenth interest in Lihue Plantation.

Deed Vol. 13, p. 423, Lihue, Kauai, $1,500, 1861; one-fourteenth interest in Lihue Plantation, from E. O. Hall.

Deed Vol. 14, p. 416, a deed with others to 500 acres, Lihue Plantation, $1,500, 1861.

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Captain Crane And The Nettie Merrill

Whaleship In February 1888, the inter-island schooner “Nettie Merrill,” Captain Ezra D. Crane (1831-1898) commanding, was shipwrecked in rough seas and strong winds off Waimea, Kauai, while laden with a cargo of lumber scheduled for delivery to the Kekaha sugar mill the following day.

Its crew managed to escape the wreck by swimming ashore amidst tremendous waves, but Captain Crane, being unable to swim, remained trapped on board, clinging to the schooner’s useless helm.

Had it not been for Pale Kapahee (1868-1925), a sturdy Niihau woman who swam from shore to the floundering schooner to rescue him, Crane would certainly have been killed in the shipwreck.

Once ashore, a most grateful Crane offered Kapahee a token of his thanks, but she refused and calmly walked away.

A native of New Bedford, Massachusetts, Crane first went to sea at the age of 13 on a whale ship aboard which he first visited the Hawaiian Islands.

After spending the next 10 years cruising the Atlantic and Pacific oceans on whale ships – gaining experience and seamanship skills all the while, and eventually being promoted to whale ship captain – Crane retired from whaling in 1844 to become an inter-island schooner captain and permanent citizen of Hawaii, where he resided for remainder of his life.

As a captain of inter-island schooners, he was well known from Niihau to the Big Island and was an especially trusted friend of Native Hawaiians. In fact, members of Hawaii’s reigning families and chiefs favored traveling aboard schooners captained by Crane.

He was also appointed Sheriff of Kau, Hawaii during his inter-island schooner days.

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Following the wreck of the “Nettie Merrill,” Crane left the sea for good and took a position with the Water Works Department in Honolulu.

With his wife, Emma, Crane had three sons and a daughter. One of their sons, Charles Crane, was the mayor of Honolulu from 1938 to 1941.

Grove Farm Plantation Centralizes Operations In Puhi

Grove Farm, Puhi, 1963 During the 1920s, Grove Farm Plantation built Puhi Camp for its employees — a modern camp at that time located on what is now the campus of Kauai Community College.

Then, from 1934 to 1937, Grove Farm centralized its sugar operations away from Lihue to a site just south of Puhi Camp that had long been planted in sugar cane.

During that time, brand-new facilities were built at Puhi under the direction of manager E. W. Broadbent and chief engineer William Moragne.

First, the antiquated Grove Farm office within Grove Farm Homestead was abandoned in favor of a freshly designed office by Kauai architect and Waimea Sugar Co. plantation manager Alan Faye Sr. that is still in use.

Construction of homes for office personnel and skilled employees followed, as well as up-to-date shops, warehouses and other buildings.

The newly constructed, wood-framed, iron-sided Puhi shop housed facilities for a machine shop, carpenter shop, tractor shop and blacksmith shop.

Furthermore, railroad tracks were laid out to the shop, making the repair of locomotives possible within. (Of note is George Makaneole, Grove Farm’s only locomotive driver at the time.)

A large warehouse comprised of three rooms for general storage and supplies

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was also constructed, as was a 12-truck capacity garage.

Nearby, a service station with two 5,000 gallon diesel oil tanks was erected.

Other buildings built at Puhi were a storage shed for plows, cultivators, caterpillars and other implements, a locomotive shed for housing Grove Farm’s locomotive, a horse shoeing shop, and a scrap iron, salvaged metal and building materials storage warehouse.

Besides these buildings, a rock crusher, a crude oil storage plant, stables for 60 animals, scales for weighing trucks, etc., and a block machine for making hollow tile were built at Puhi.

The stables, by the way, were completely ventilated, cool, airy and clean.

Marine Camp Veteran Stanton Dale Romsdal

Born and raised on a farm in Nebraska, Stanton Dale Romsdal (1922-2013) enlisted in the Marine Corps on Aug. 26, 1941, less than a year after graduating from high school.

He then completed Marine Boot Camp at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina and was ordered to Camp Elliott, California for additional combat training before being deployed to the South Pacific, where he took part in the Battle of Bougainville during early November 1943.

Romsdal next participated in action in one of the bloodiest and most savagely contested battles of World War II – the Battle of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands.

Over the course of three days of bitter fighting, from Nov. 20-23, 1943, on Betio Island in Tarawa Atoll – an island measuring only 2 miles long and half mile wide at its widest point – invading 2nd Marine Division casualties totaled 1,027 killed, 2,292 wounded and 88 missing.

Of the 3,636 Japanese soldiers defending Tarawa, only 17 surrendered – the 514

rest were annihilated, while another 1,071 Korean laborers were also killed.

Following the Battle of Tarawa and treatment in Honolulu for wounds he suffered on Tarawa, Romsdal joined his victorious 2nd Marine Division on the Big Island of Hawaii, where its marines constructed Camp Tarawa near Parker Ranch as their training base for future combat operations in the Pacific.

Later, in 1944, Romsdal was transferred from Camp Tarawa to Marine Camp, Kauai – a Marine Corps base active during World War II that was located just south of today’s Wailua Golf Course.

In 1945, Sgt. Romsdal was selected by the Marine Corps to pursue college training at Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

He was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 1946, finished college, and eventually became a professor of agronomy at Colorado State University.

Upon retirement, he moved permanently to Kauai with his wife Barbara.

Kauai Marine Camp veteran Stanton Dale Romsdal and Barbara Romsdal had two daughters: Dana and Leigh.

French Consul And Kauai Rancher Jules Dudoit

In 1845, while serving as the French Consul to Hawaii, Jules Dudoit (18031866) purchased a lease to government lands on Kauai that extended from the eastern side of Hanalei Valley to Kalihiwai Valley.

These lands had previously been leased by Kauai Governor Kaikioewa to the British Consul for Hawaii, Richard Charlton, who established the first cattle ranch on Kauai upon them.

Three years later, in 1848, when Dudoit retired from his consulship, he moved from Honolulu to Kauai to personally manage his ranch lands, and resided with his family at Lanihuli, the John Kellett house located on the bluff 515

overlooking the mouth of the Hanalei River.

Kellett, an Englishman, served at that time as the pilot of the Port of Hanalei and the health officer, customs collector and postmaster for Hanalei, and with his wife, Kaui Kawekau, provisioned ships and rented rooms in one wing of Lanihuli.

Dudoit managed a herd of 1,800 head of cattle on his ranch, from which he produced fresh beef, butter and packed salt beef for visiting whale ships and for export to Honolulu aboard his brigantine “John Dunlap.”

Following an initial purchase of 450 government sheep in 1851, Dudoit also raised those critters on his ranch.

Later, he purchased a land grant to the Namahana lands in the Koolau District east of Kalihiwai Bay from Kamehameha III for $603, moved there with his family, and engaged in dairy farming.

Of special note was the rich, delicious milk yielded from his dairy cows.

He sold his Kauai property in 1862 and moved to Honolulu, where he was murdered in 1866 by his Chinese cook while he slept in his bed, apparently because he’d docked the cook’s pay for breaking some crockery.

Jules Dudoit and his wife, Anna, were the parents of five children: Maude, Adele, Blanche, Charles, and Jules.

The Old Wilcox House At Harwinton, Connecticut

Missionary teacher Abner Wilcox (1808-1869), who with his wife, Lucy Hart Wilcox, was stationed at the Waioli, Kauai Mission from 1846 until 1869, was 516

born and raised in the home of his parents, Aaron (1770-1856) and Lois Wilcox, in Harwinton, Connecticut.

Abner Wilcox's old boyhood home still stands and is now the property, since 1999, of Mr. Carl and Mrs. Martha Coppola.

Situated atop a knoll on about 12 acres on the Harwinton-Terryville Road, the Colonial-style house is considered to be one of the oldest houses in Harwinton.

The Coppola's deed indicates that their home was built in 1750 on a homestead then owned by David Wilcox (1700-1781), a farmer originally from Hebron, Connecticut, and the great-grandfather of Abner Wilcox.

David Wilcox's son, Moses Wilcox (1732-1803), also a farmer, continued to live on and farm the Wilcox homestead.

Then, on June 30, 1797, Moses deeded 43 acres to his son Aaron Wilcox.

Aaron and Lois Wilcox likewise farmed the homestead, residing in the house all their married lives and raising their 12 children within its walls, of whom Abner Wilcox was their sixth.

An elm tree planted in 1836 by Abner Wilcox, just before he set off on his missionary work to the Sandwich Islands, stood for many years at the entrance to the drive leading up from the road to the house.

When Aaron Wilcox died in 1856, his son, Charles Wilcox (1815-1896), managed the farm for a few years before selling it and part of his land in 1863 to Deloss Bristol.

A number of different owners farmed the homestead until 1937, when John M. Humphries acquired the property, restored the house as a historical residence, and sold it in 1938 to Martha S. Bartlett, who in turn sold it in 1947 to Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Rubens.

Other owners followed until the Coppola's acquisition.

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Rancher Richard Henry Sloggett Sr.

Richard Henry Sloggett Sr. (1904-1991) was born at Hanamaulu, Kauai, the son of Henry Digby Sloggett and Lucy Etta Wilcox Sloggett – a granddaughter of Abner and Lucy Hart Wilcox, missionaries stationed at Waioli, Kauai, from 1846 until 1869.

After completing agricultural studies at the University of California at Davis, Sloggett returned to Kauai to accept a position as timekeeper at Makee Sugar Co., Kealia in 1928.

One cherished memory of those early days was when his mother's uncle, George Norton Wilcox, the owner of Grove Farm Plantation, once stopped by Sloggett's house in Kapaa to leave some pineapples he'd bought and Sloggett and his wife, Susan, observed their children, Nancy and Dickie, saying, “Oh, he looks like Santa Claus coming with the pineapples (because he had a beard)."

In 1937, Sloggett resigned as division overseer at Makee Sugar to purchase Wailua Ranch – comprised of 75 acres in the vicinity of today's Hindu Monastery on Kuamoo Road, as well as adjacent pastures leased from Lihue Plantation.

During World War II, Sloggett's cattle pastures were commandeered by the U.S. Army as a training area for which Sloggett was reimbursed, and upon which the Army built a tent city for a regiment of soldiers, which the Army removed at war's end.

Sloggett gave up the cattle business in 1951 and was hired by Grove Farm as ranch manager, a position he held until 1967, the year Grove Farm decided to liquidate its ranching operations.

Over the years, Sloggett and his family enjoyed spending many happy 518

summers at the Sloggett beach house on Hanalei Bay. A two-story building built by Sloggett's parents and situated beyond the intersection of Weke and Malolo roads, the Sloggett beach house remained the property of the Sloggett family until 1968.

Richard Henry Sloggett Sr. was also a director of Grove Farm Plantation and headed the board that developed Grove Farm Homestead Museum.

He and Susan Sloggett had three children: Nancy, Richard Jr. and Sally Sloggett.

Anna Sloggett was his second wife.

Grove Farm Director Henry Digby Sloggett

Born in England, Henry Digby Sloggett (1876-1938) came to the United States in 1883 with his parents, Dr. Henry Charles and Annie Sloggett, and was educated at the University of the South in Tennessee.

Following his arrival in Hawaii in 1896, he was first employed by Lihue Plantation Co., later by Maui Agricultural Co., and when his brother-in-law, Grove Farm Plantation general manager Charles Wilcox, was killed in a car accident on Kauai in 1920, Grove Farm owner George Norton Wilcox hired Sloggett as his assistant.

On Kauai, Sloggett and his wife, Lucy Etta Wilcox Sloggett — a granddaughter of Abner and Lucy Hart Wilcox, missionaries stationed at Waioli, Kauai from 1846 until 1869 — made their residence with their children in the once stately but now derelict Grove Farm manager’s house on Nawiliwili Road.

Mr. Sloggett also served as treasurer of Grove Farm from 1922 to 1937 and director from 1924 to 1938.

In 1925, Henry Digby and Lucy Etta Sloggett donated the five acres in Kapaa upon which All Saints’ Episcopal Church was constructed -— the first Anglican 519

Church on Kauai.

That same year, the Sloggetts built a cabin in Kokee for use as a family retreat that Henry Digby’s and Lucy Etta’s children donated to the YWCA of Kauai after his death in 1938.

Since then, Camp Sloggett has been visited and enjoyed by untold numbers of campers and families from around the world.

Henry Digby Sloggett was actively interested in the history and archaeology of Kauai.

For instance, during December 1933, a team of expert volunteers led by Sloggett restored the Holoholoku Heiau located just east of the Wailua Birthstones.

Using traditional Hawaiian building techniques and native materials, Kapaa resident Charles Lono Kelekoma built an authentic 8-by-12-foot grass hut within the walls of the heiau.

An oracle tower was built and three wooden idols were carved and set nearby as well.

Mr. and Mrs. Sloggett had five children: Richard, Margaret, Dorothea, Edith and Arthur.

Lihue Theater

Lihue Theater, Circa 1970s The opening of the brand-new Lihue Theater on Sunday evening, Oct. 4, 1931, for two showings of “Min and Bill” at 6:30 p.m. and 8:45 p.m. proved to be a gala affair.

Crowds of people arrived at the theater long before the start of the first show by foot and in cars, which soon filled the free parking spaces on the Hanamaulu 520

side of the theater, as well as those along the street as far away as the Garden Island Motors building.

People were impressed with Lihue Theater’s Spanish Mission architectural style, and with its size, for it was then one of the largest movie houses in Hawaii, illuminated that evening by an accentuating series of floodlights.

Inside, the theater’s more than 880 seats were occupied by moviegoers for both shows.

“Min and Bill,” a black-and-white talkie produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer — a film for which Marie Dressler won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930 — depicts the story of Min, the owner of a waterfront hotel played by Dressler, and Bill, her fisherman friend, played by Wallace Beery, doing their utmost to protect Min’s adopted daughter, Nancy, from the wiles of Nancy’s disreputable, blackmailing natural mother, Bella.

During the 1950s and 1960s, on every Saturday except the Saturday before Christmas, kids would watch cartoons, newsreels and movies at Lihue Theater from 10 a.m. to noon for only 10 cents.

But, on the Saturday before Christmas, the shows were free, and each child was treated to an apple, an orange and Christmas hard candy in a small brown paper bag.

Lihue Theater closed in 1974 after operating continuously for 43 years, and then served as a luau hall, discotheque and roller rink before being converted to senior apartments during the 1990s.

A History Of The Kauai Police Department

Chief Darryl Perry The Kauai Police Department traces its origins back to the establishment of the Office of Sheriff in 1851, with James Marshall serving as the island’s first sheriff.

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Sheriffs succeeding Marshall were Herman Widemann, Thomas Marshall, D. K. Fyfe, William Owen Smith, Samuel Whitney Wilcox, L. M. Baldwin, Fred Carter, John Haalelea Coney, and William Henry Rice, who was elected sheriff continuously from 1905 through 1942.

When Rice first became sheriff, Kauai’s police force numbered only 15 officers and five deputies.

By 1935, it had grown to 30 officers and five deputies, while today, in 2015, the department numbers 162 officers and 60 civilians, for a total of 222 employees.

In the early days of Rice’s tenure, pay for police officers was $30 per month, while Rice earned $175 a month.

There were only about 15 cars on Kauai, but the police department owned none of them. Nor were officers provided with horses. Instead, they traveled about Kauai using their own horses and carriages. Not until 1915 did Rice get his own car.

Kauai’s last sheriff and first chief of police was Edwin K. Crowell, appointed police chief by the Kauai Police Commission, effective July 1, 1943.

With Crowell’s appointment, the elected position of sheriff was replaced by the Office of Chief of Police.

Historic incidents in the annals of the KPD include the murder of Deputy Sheriff Louis Stolz in Kalalau Valley in 1893 by Koolau, a leper who Stolz intended to take into custody.

Another is the arrest in 1920 of Kekaha Sugar Co. train robber Kaimiola Hali in Mana by Sheriff Rice and his deputies.

Yet another is the bloody confrontation in Hanapepe on Sept. 9, 1924, known as the “Hanapepe Massacre” between Deputy Sheriff William Olin Crowell and his deputized hunters and striking Filipino sugar workers.

Born and raised on Kauai, the Garden Isle’s present chief of police, Darryl Perry, was sworn in as Kauai’s seventh police chief on Oct. 1, 2007.

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Historic Preservationist Etta Wilcox Sloggett

Born on Kauai, raised at Grove Farm homestead, and educated at Wellesley College, Etta Wilcox Sloggett (1878-1933) was a granddaughter of Abner and Lucy Wilcox – American Protestant missionaries stationed at Waioli, Kauai from 1846 to 1869.

Her parents were Grove Farm ranch manager and sheriff Samuel Whitney Wilcox and Emma Lyman Wilcox.

With with her husband, Grove Farm’s Henry Digby Sloggett, Etta had five children: Richard, Margaret, Anna, Edith and Arthur.

In 1921, Etta and her sisters, Elsie and Mabel Wilcox, restored and refurnished the old Waioli Mission house of their grandparents and the nearby Waioli Church, choosing Hart Wood, a noted architect of Hawaii’s Territorial years of 1898 to 1959, to oversee the extensive restorations.

Ten years later, in 1931, the three Wilcox sisters refurbished the Lyman House in Hilo – the home of their Big Island missionary grandparents David and Sarah Lyman.

Both the Waioli Mission House and Lyman House are open to the public and are listed on the Hawaii Register of Historic Places and the National Register of Historic Places.

Back on Kauai, Etta and her husband also donated, in 1925, the five acres in Kapaa upon which All Saints’ Episcopal Church was constructed – the first Anglican Church on Kauai.

That same year, they built a cabin in Kokee for use as a family retreat that Henry Digby’s and Etta’s children donated to the Kauai YWCA after Henry’s death in 1938.

On Nov. 3, 1932, Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd appointed Etta Sloggett 523

– who’d been a Grove Farm board member since 1922 – as School Commissioner of Kauai and Mabel Wilcox as a member of the Board of Child Welfare of Kauai.

Etta had served only a year as school commissioner when she suddenly suffered a heart attack and died in December 1933.

Her family was greatly shocked, since she was just 56 years old and had appeared to have been in good health.

Court Interpreter And Judge William Luther Wilcox

The sixth of eight sons of American Protestant missionary teachers Abner and Lucy Hart Wilcox, William Luther Wilcox (1850-1903) was born and raised at Waioli, Kauai.

He was educated at Punahou, and in 1869, at age 19 — being fluent in the Hawaiian language — he secured the post of interpreter in the courts of the Hawaiian government in Honolulu.

The following year, in 1870, he took on similar duties in the Legislature.

His nearly perfect knowledge of the Hawaiian language enabled him not only to translate promptly and accurately, but to interpret — a skill greatly admired by Hawaiian and English-speaking listeners in the Honolulu courts and Legislature of his day.

Trusted by King David Kalakaua and other prominent Native Hawaiians, Wilcox was the only Caucasian member of Hale Naua, Kalakaua’s secret society that otherwise limited membership to men with Hawaiian blood.

Established by Kalakaua in 1886, Hale Naua’s constitution stated that the society was dedicated to “the revival of Ancient Sciences of Hawaii in combination with the promotion and advancement of Modern Sciences, Art, Literature, and Philanthropy.”

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Although its meetings were held in secret, its members would occasionally wear the feather capes and cloaks of chiefs in public, sponsor displays of Hawaiian artifacts, and promote the making of Hawaiian tapa, woodwork and shellwork.

Wilcox was appointed judge of the police court of Honolulu in 1897.

A few weeks before his death in Honolulu on July 12, 1903, he used a razor to remove a troublesome corn on his foot and gangrene set in shortly thereafter.

Surgeons then amputated his big toe at Queen’s Hospital, but to no avail, so they next amputated his leg below the knee, and he died soon after of complications of diseases, among them gangrene.

On the day of his funeral, a huge throng of Native Hawaiians, Hawaiian-born residents and foreigners filled Kawaiahao Church to pay their respects.

William Luther Wilcox and his wife, Mrs. Kahuila Wilcox, a Native Hawaiian of good family from Molokai, had no children.

The Hermit Of Mt. Waialeale

During the 1880s, and for some time before, an old hermit by the name of Carleton Banfill made his home in a cavern within the uninhabited and scarcely accessible recesses of Kauai’s Mt. Waialeale.

He’d come to Hawaii as a young man during the reign of Kamehameha III, and after shifting about Honolulu for a time had relocated to Kauai with his young wife.

There, he built a small house on a secluded stretch of coast out of the stones of a long-abandoned heiau, and spent his days fishing on calm days at sea in his little boat, or gathering wild taro and fruits in the mountains, oftentimes with his wife.

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Then one night, a ship was wrecked on the nearby reef in a storm, and in the morning, Banfill found a badly bruised and unconscious young sailor lying on the shore.

He kindly took the injured sailor home, where he and his wife nursed him.

It was not long afterwards that Banfill left for Honolulu to purchase needed provisions, and the sailor, still weak, was left behind in the care of his wife.

When Banfill returned home about a month later, he was shocked to discover that the place was deserted.

Although he searched frantically along the coast and in the interior of the island for quite some time, he could find no trace of his wife or the shipwrecked sailor.

Eventually, neighboring Hawaiians observed that Banfill no longer returned to his house, so they went to examine it one day, unaware that Banfill had withdrawn to the mountains.

But, before entering, they were overcome by the awful stench of decaying flesh, and when they entered, they stood aghast at the sight of the mutilated bodies of the sailor and Banfill’s faithless wife lying on the floor.

Above them, suspended from the ceiling, hung a large placard upon which was engraved a single word, “Avenged.”

The Kidnapped Manihiki Islanders

According to an article published in Honolulu’s “Polynesian” newspaper on Jan. 21, 1860, Captain Sinclair of the American schooner, “Wamp,” had recently recruited four men and six women at Manihiki Atoll in the Cook Islands — also

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known as Humphrey’s Island — and had shipped them to Koloa Plantation, Kauai, for a period of five years labor.

All of the immigrants were young and healthy and seemed to be in good spirits.

One of them had picked up some English and all were able to communicate with Hawaiians at Koloa, since their languages are somewhat similar, and since the Hawaiians were particularly interested in getting to know them.

Captain Sinclair stated that the recruits wanted to leave Manihiki, and added that all of the residents would have left if given the opportunity, because of a scarcity of food on the atoll.

The article further reported that the “Wamp” was taking on supplies and would sail again in a few days for another cargo of perhaps 25 to 30 labor recruits for Koloa Plantation.

Then, in the July 12, 1860, edition of the “Polynesian,” a second article was published that contradicted the original by revealing that the Manihiki islanders had actually been kidnapped: “From Fanning’s Island — We have received an interesting report from Capt.

Keyte, which will be found under the marine news. It appears from this that the schooner ‘Wamp’ which figured in the papers some months since, was little else than a piratical craft.

“The captain landed at Christmas Island, destroyed a structure erected there by the United States Guano Co., and took the lumber away and sold it.

“The ‘Wamp’ then managed to kidnap a cargo of natives from Humphrey’s Island, which were landed at Kauai. The natives of that island had been mourning the loss of their relatives and friends, and anxiously asked if there was no way by which they could be returned to them.”

The eventual fate of Koloa Plantation’s Manihiki islanders was not reported.

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The Steamer Iwa Visits Kauai

In July 1898, the 16-ton steamer “Iwa” out of Honolulu took on a cargo of 300 bags of taro and 60 bags of rice offshore of Kalalau Beach, Kauai, that had been produced in Kalalau Valley.

On that same voyage — “Iwa’s” first trading trip to Kalalau Valley — and in spite of rough seas, the steamer also landed lumber ashore without mishap.

Joe Puni of Honolulu, who along with Harry Crane and James White comprised the hui that operated the “Iwa,” reported that he took an order for more lumber and general merchandise at Kalalau and planned to fill it in a week’s time.

Native Hawaiian residents from Kalalau to Hanalei regarded the advent of “Iwa’s” Kauai trade with joy, since taro grown in that region not sold locally had heretofore gone to rot.

The taro — the finest grown in Hawaii — was in demand at Honolulu poi shops, whose merchants had agreed to take any amount the “Iwa” could deliver.

Consequently, Puni had recently hiked from Kalalau by way of the Na Pali trail to Wainiha and had contracted with farmers along the way to buy all the taro grown in Kalalau Valley, Hanakoa Valley, Hanakapiai Valley, Haena and Wainiha Valley.

During that trip, Puni discovered over 30 skeletons in a cave at the head of Hanakoa Valley — a burial vault for the alii of Kauai, whose bodies after death were taken there long ago by retainers and secretly interred.

While at Hanakoa, Puni also noted that Kinney’s coffee plantation was in fine shape and that Kinney expected to harvest his first crop in August.

Puni, ordinarily a good sailor, became so seasick in the Kauai Channel during “Iwa’s” return voyage to Honolulu that he requested to be rowed ashore at 528

Waianae, instead of completing the journey to Honolulu by sea.

At Waianae, he took the train to Honolulu.

The Koloa Ghost

Koloa Factory Camp, Circa 1900 A news article titled “The Kauai Ghost Walks,” published in the Nov. 15, 1898 edition of Honolulu’s “Evening Bulletin” newspaper, reads in part as follows: “For the past month or six weeks, there have been queer happenings in Koloa.

A great tall man with a flowing beard has been seen several times at night time, prowling about the plantation houses and those of others living in the place. He is a very mysterious character and has so far escaped the vigilance of the police, some of whom have come to the conclusion that the man is insane.

“His habit is to appear suddenly before a person, hold him up, and after thoroughly frightening him, making off without a word and without having taken a thing from the person ‘accosted.’ This habit is followed out when he enters houses. He has not been known to steal a thing. These peculiar habits have gained for him the name of the ‘The Koloa Ghost.’

“The police tracked him a fortnight or so ago but could not catch him. In a cave far up on one of the hills was a half bag of rice and other food believed to be that of the ‘ghost.’”

Unrelated to the ghost story, it was reported in that same article that Mr. Kruse of Kekaha had gone to Eleele to manage the plantation there in place of August Dreier, who went on a trip to Germany; Mr. Hofgaard of Waimea was just getting over a very severe siege of illness, and J. F. Scott, principal of Waimea School, was having splendid success in his work and was sending his “aloha nui” to all old friends in Honolulu.

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The article also noted that “the first lucky haul of fish in a long time in Waimea was made on the fourteenth of November when about 6,000 fish were hauled in on the beach in back of Deputy Sheriff Olmsted’s house.”

The Waipouli Polo Field And Race Track

The origins of the Waipouli Polo Field and Race Track date to about 1880, when Makee Sugar Plantation owner Colonel Zephaniah Spalding constructed a horse race track at Waipouli.

Then, around 1915, his son, James, built a polo field inside the race track.

In use until at least the mid-1920s and once located makai of today’s Plantation Hale, the Waipouli Polo Field and Race Track was the site of numerous sporting events, with Ahukini Terminal and Railroad Co. providing spectators with free transportation from Puhi, Lihue and Hanamaulu.

Among the sporting highlights at Waipouli was the polo match of Jan. 1, 1917, witnessed by more than 1,000 fans, in which a Kauai team comprised of Charles Rice, Philip Rice, James Spalding and John Malina defeated an Oahu team made up of Harold Castle, Arthur Rice, Charles Lyman and Charles Lucas.

Another high point occurred on July 4, 1919, when 10 horse races were held at Waipouli.

Skyboy, owned by Tashima, lost to Joe Marian’s Charley. J. Malina’s Halemaumau defeated J. Spalding’s Fourchette, and J. Spalding’s Mamie was victorious over Charles Rice’s Kealoha.

Other owners whose horses were entered in races that day were M. 530

Bettencourt, Momoyama, Sam Chong, Charles Wilcox and Sakamoto.

Besides polo matches and horse races, men’s baseball games were played there with teams possessing monikers like Asahi’s, All-Chinese, All-Japanese, All-Kauai, Lihue, Makee, All-Stars, P.A.C., East Side and West Side.

New Year’s Day 1920 saw the Asahi’s — an undefeated Japanese baseball team from Honolulu — defeat the All-Kauai’s by the score of 6 to 4.

In the second game, the P.A.C. (Portuguese Athletic Club) team beat the Asahi’s 2 to 1, with outstanding ball playing by J. Perreira, A. Perreira and Gabriel for the P.A.C. Lihue — the 1919 baseball champions of Kauai — also defeated the Asahi’s 2 to 1 in the final game at Waipouli.

Rodeo events were held at Waipouli, too. On Nov. 11, 1921, Hanalei cowboy Kainipau won the steer tying contest at Waipouli.

Native Hawaiian Fisherman Of Makaweli, Mokahale

Native Hawaiian Fisherman And Canoe, Late 1800s Not long after setting out to sea from Makaweli, Kauai, in his fishing canoe on Monday morning, Aug 20, 1900, a hardy old Native Hawaiian fisherman of Makaweli named Mokahale was swept far from shore by unusually strong winds.

Although he understood his danger and did his best to pull back to land, the winds proved too much for him, and he continued to be blown seaward until his canoe was below the horizon.

There, he was alone in the ocean and out of sight of land, with only a little water and some raw fish he’d brought with him to sustain himself, and with nothing to guide him other than the steady winds forcing him even farther from home.

When he didn’t return to Makaweli by late afternoon, his friends, neighbors and

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family watched in vain for his canoe from shore.

The next day, Tuesday, a search for him was made along the coastline with the assistance of police, yet no trace of him was found.

By Wednesday, Mokahale was suffering from thirst, exhaustion and exposure to the hot sun.

But, when the sun rose on Thursday, he saw the distant coast of Niihau, and by mustering all his remaining strength, he was able to paddle his canoe ashore there, where he was given water and food.

A few days later, on Wednesday, the 29th, a whaleboat from Niihau landed him at Waimea, close to those who had given him up for lost.

Afterward, at Makaweli, a luau was prepared for him in celebration of his safe homecoming.

And, Mr. Ferguson, the purser of the steamer “Kauai” — who’d met Mokahale at Waimea after his return — reported in Honolulu that the old fisherman seemed to have withstood his ordeal well, despite his advanced age, and was actually looking forward to once again fishing at sea in his canoe.

Kauai Floral Parade Princess Mrs. Libbie Kahooluhi Kula

Mrs. Libbie Kahooluhi Kula (1876-1919) of Koloa, Kauai, was the Kauai Princess of the Floral Parade seen by thousands in Honolulu on Saturday, Feb. 21, 1914.

On that day, she road a beautiful bay horse provided by Chris Holt and wore a purple velvet cape and purple satin pa‘u — a skirt worn by women horseback riders — with wreath and leis of Kauai maile and mokihana.

Her herald, Master Thomas Wright, was dressed in a purple sash and mokihana leis, and her retinue, in black capes, purple pa‘u habits and

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mokihana leis were: Misses Elizabeth Duvauchelle, Annie Robinson, Dallas Zablan, Mokihana Daniels, Lydia Martin and Olympia Franca; her aides were E. J. Gay and George Cox. “Spouting Horn,” the float representing Kauai in the Floral Parade, was designed and constructed by Kauai Representative John H. Coney of Niumalu.

By means of a concealed tank of water and a pump on the float, spray was forced into the air through a painted model of the Spouting Horn in imitation of the real Spouting Horn at Poipu.

Libbie Kula’s obituary, printed in The Garden Island newspaper on April 29, 1919, read as follows: “The death of Mrs. James K. Kula is reported from Honolulu where she died at the Queen’s Hospital, April 24th. Mrs. Kula was born and brought up in Koloa, where they lived until recently, and where they have still have a home.

“Mrs. Kula was an exceptionally capable, intelligent, attractive and winsome woman, closely identified with all matters of interest and well-being to her race, and always ready to lend a helping hand to any and every good cause.

“Richly endowed with native graces and virtue that characterize the Hawaiian race, everyone liked her that knew her, and she leaves a host of friends to mourn her departure.”

The Travels Of Mary Maihiai

At age 7, Kauai-born Mary Maihiai (1830?-1912) set out from Kauai with her uncle and five other men to “go look see” Molokai in a canoe, which was soon driven out of sight of land in a great storm.

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After 10 days and nights of drifting and suffering from thirst and hunger, Mary and her companions were seen at last by a sailor onboard a sailing ship bound for China.

They were taken aboard ship, where the captain’s wife gave Mary the task of caring for her little daughter, while her uncle and the other men were given work.

When the ship reached the Mariana Islands, the five men were put ashore at their request, and at Macao, China, Mary and her uncle were turned over to a missionary — likely the Rev. W. A. Brown.

In China, her uncle died, but Mary traveled about that great country for several years in the company of the Rev. Brown and his wife and daughter, Nellie, of whom she was made nurse.

Then around 1846, she accompanied the Browns to New York.

Two years later, Mary — now a young woman of perhaps 18 — departed New York on the ship “Hope Well” for the gold fields of California with a missionary family named Bates.

She reached Monterey, California in 1849 by way of Cape Horn and spent several months in Mexican mining towns with the Bates family before setting sail for the Hawaiian Islands, of which she had long been yearning to return.

Following her arrival in Honolulu in early 1850, Mary was reunited with her mother, sisters, brothers and relatives, who’d sailed from Kauai to Honolulu to celebrate her homecoming with a grand luau attended by hundreds of fellow Hawaiians.

Mary settled in Honolulu, married four husbands over the years, and as of 1901, could be found living alone in a little house behind a high board fence on Vineyard Street, between Nuuanu and Fort streets.

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Koolau School

Kauai’s Koolau School opened in 1889 as a one-room schoolhouse situated next to, and on the Kilauea side of the old graveyard on Koolau Road.

The schoolhouse eventually expanded to four rooms, a teachers’ cottage was built on the Kilauea side of the schoolhouse, and a white, clapboard Hawaiian Protestant church with steeple once graced the graveyard.

Most of the school’s students resided in Moloaa Camp, which once stood mauka of the former Meadow Gold Dairy buildings site off Kuhio Highway.

Their parents were employees of Hawaiian Canneries, a pineapple company that operated a cannery in Kapaa where Pono Kai Resort now stands.

Among Koolau School’s many teachers was Miss Ella Thronas, who in 1911, had the distinction of being locked out.

After Miss Thronas submitted her resignation to Kauai school agent W. E. H. Deverill at the close of the 1911 school term in order to become the bride of C. S. Christian, Deverill was initially unsuccessful in finding a successor to replace her and the school remained closed when the new term began.

Then Mrs. Christian sent a letter to superintendent Atkinson in Honolulu explaining that she was willing to temporarily resume teaching at Koolau School to fill the vacancy, which Atkinson approved.

However, Atkinson did not notify Deverill, so that when Mrs. Christian went to the schoolhouse one morning prepared to teach, she found the place locked, and Deverill, who in the meantime had finally succeeded in obtaining a teacher to replace Mrs. Christian, refused her the keys.

Happily, the dilemma was resolved when Atkinson appraised Deverill of the situation, and Mrs. Christian was able to gain access.

By 1911, 60 students instructed by one teacher attended Koolau School, but 535

attendance gradually decreased.

Forty-nine years later, in 1960, Kapaa resident Caroline Okasako’s graduating class was comprised of only three students.

Koolau School closed in June 1960 and nothing now remains of the schoolhouse, church and cottage.

Photographer Andreas Avelino Montano

Andreas Avelino Montano (1847-1913) — an early photographer of Hawaii — was born in Colombia, South America, from which he was banished in 1864 for having participated in a failed rebellion against the government.

After having spent some time in California, he arrived at Honolulu in 1870, opened a studio called Hale Paikii (“photographer’s house”) on the upper floor of a building at 87 Fort St., and became Queen Emma’s official photographer.

Other alii he photographed included Princess Miriam Likelike, King David Kalakaua, Queen Kapiolani and Virginia Kapooloku Poomaikelani, the sister of Queen Kapiolani.

He also photographed numerous scenes on Oahu, such as men fishing in Honolulu Bay, Iolani Palace, the Queen’s Hospital grounds, ships docked and anchored at Honolulu Harbor, Chinese cultivating and harvesting rice, and a group of Hawaiian school children.

In 1881, Montano traveled to Kauai, where he produced a number of outstanding photographs.

Among them were panoramic pictures of Hanalei Bay and Hanalei Valley; others were taken at Hale Nani, William Hyde Rice’s estate in Lihue, once situated alongside what is today Rice Street from Waa Street to Kalena Street.

His pictures of the Kauai countryside captured scenes of rural life, one of which 536

was of a Native Hawaiian family at dinner in front of their grass house.

When the family declined Montano’s request to take their picture, Montano informed them he would take a picture of a distant view in the opposite direction instead.

Since these backcountry people had no idea of which end of the camera produced a photo, Montano pretended to photograph the far off scene, while actually taking their picture.

By this little ruse, he succeeded in preserving their repast for posterity on film.

Montano also introduced the process of retouching photographs to Hawaii.

Later, he became the owner of the Kaaipu Diary in Manoa Valley.

Tragically, for eight years prior to his death, he was confined to his bed, a victim of internal paralysis.

The Molokans Of Kauai

On Feb. 19, 1906, 110 men, women and children members of a Russian Christian sect known as the Molokans, whose passage had been financed by Honolulu businessman James Bicknell Castle, arrived in Honolulu aboard the “S. S. China” from San Francisco.

The Molokans then boarded the steamer “Iwalani,” which landed them at Anahola, Kauai, and from there they went to Makee Sugar Company, Kapaa, where they took possession of some vacated Japanese laborer quarters.

While in California, these people had been led to believe that they could expect to purchase good sugarcane land on Kauai, upon which they would raise whatever they wished as a colony of independent farmers.

Instead, they were offered unirrigated land covered in lantana, costing $25.69 per acre — a price they could not afford, as it was $20 more than they’d 537

anticipated.

And, they were also informed, contrary to their expectations, that their labor contracts specified they were to work, not as homesteaders, but as laborers of Makee Sugar Co. at 75 cents for a 10-hour working day.

They reacted by repudiating their labor contracts and refusing to work, except only occasionally, and by complaining about the warm climate, manual labor, and their staple diet of rice.

Makee Sugar Co. owner Col. Zephaniah S. Spalding responded by stating that the Molokans had proved themselves to be the most inefficient and unreliable laborers Makee Sugar Co. had ever employed, despite having been furnished with everything necessary for their well-being and comfort — as well as an opportunity to homestead.

Consequently, in June 1906, Makee Sugar Co. manager George H. Fairchild discharged some of them, which prompted the departure to Honolulu of 34 Molokans aboard the steamer “W. G. Hall.�

Those Molokan families remaining on Kauai later joined them in Honolulu, with Mr. Castle thereafter paying their return passages to California.

The Kekaha Ditch

In April 1906, work commenced on construction of the Kekaha Ditch, designed to carry irrigation water from the upper reaches of the Waimea River down to the cane lands of Kekaha Sugar Co., then managed by sugar pioneer H.P. Faye.

Overseeing construction was civil engineer J.S. Molony, who would employ about 600 Japanese and Korean tunnelers, masons, mechanics, explosives men and laborers to complete work on the 25-mile long ditch in just over 14

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months.

On July 15, 1907, water was first admitted into the Kekaha Ditch intake on the Waimea River at the 550 feet elevation, eight miles up from the sea, and after passing through a series of 8-feet-wide by 6-feet-high tunnels inside vertical pali 600 feet high, the water was led for miles to the edge of a plateau above the river.

There, the ditch crosses Waimea Valley by means of an inverted syphon of steel pipe of 48 and 42 inches in diameter and 2,190 feet in length, by which water is delivered into tunnels 8, 9 and 10.

After emerging from those tunnels, the ditch traverses gently sloping ground, passing through tunnels 11 and 12, before reaching open ground above Waimea town, where it bends to the west and heads for Kekaha.

Thereafter, the country is broken by a series of rocky gulches, one after another, upon which water passes through tunnels 13, 14 and 15, and two inverted syphons of wooden stave pipe, each 700 feet long and 40 inches in diameter.

At Waiawa, water is dropped 280 feet to a lower ditch, nine miles long, that conveys it to Polihale at the very end of what was Kekaha Sugar Co. The Waimea Hydropower Plant and the Waiawa Hydropower Plant were later constructed on Kekaha Ditch to supply electric power for Kekaha Sugar Co. Kekaha Ditch, an engineering marvel, upgraded over the years, is still in operation, providing agricultural irrigation water as well as hydroelectric power west of the Waimea River.

The Wreck Of The Pele

At midnight on March 24, 1895, the steam schooner Pele was wrecked after striking a sunken rock named Kalanipuao about three-quarters of a mile from land midway between Koloa and Eleele off the coast of Kauai.

Prior to the shipwreck, Pele had encountered heavy rain squalls after leaving Koloa for Makaweli shortly after noon on Saturday with a cargo of 200 tons of 539

coal and general freight, and at the time of the wreck, no traces of land could be seen on account of darkness.

Luckily, no lives were lost.

A few minutes after striking Kalanipuao, Pele began filling with water and it was decided to abandon ship.

Two of the ship’s boats were lowered, with Capt. Walter McAllister in charge of one and Chief Engineer H. T. Walker commanding the other.

Boarding the boats with McAllister and Walker were four passengers, two men and two women, Norwegians and Portuguese, and the remaining crew of 15 officers and men.

The boats stayed by the steamer for about 15 minutes, until she began to keel over, after which it was decided to row to Eleele in the darkness.

After reaching Eleele at 4 a.m. and landing the passengers and crewmen, the captain and several officers returned to the ship to save all they possibly could.

They succeeded in recovering some personal effects, ropes, sails and provisions, and then they went ashore into camp at Nomilu, where they remained until Tuesday evening.

Upon their return to Eleele, the steamer Iwalani brought them to Honolulu, arriving there on Wednesday, March 27.

Although no blame was laid on anyone for the wreck, talk in Honolulu among shipping men had it that Capt. McAllister should not have hugged so close to land.

However, McAllister and the officers of the steamer stated that it had been impossible to see land in the rain and darkness on the night of the shipwreck.

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The Garden Island Newspaper’s First Ever Subscription Contest

On Tuesday, July 9, 1912, The Garden Island newspaper published the results of its first-ever subscription contest.

Miss Etta Lee of Makaweli took first prize — a Ford runabout automobile worth $800 — after totaling 10,785,520 votes.

Second prize winner, Mary Silva of Waimea, received 8,385,520 votes to win a roundtrip to the Kilauea Volcano on the Big Island, along with a two week stopover.

In third place was Daisy Sheldon of Lihue with 3,426,010 votes that earned her a solid gold watch.

Meta Reidell with 2,026,310 votes won $50 cash; E. Kalawe won a nickeltrimmed traveling case with 1,264,235 votes; 738,635 votes earned Eva Akana a Kodak camera, and Abbie Haae with 600,230 votes received a library lamp.

Other top vote-getters were Misses Paschich, Teft, Bryant, Padgett, Sato, Akina and Schumacher.

Judging the contest, which was opened on April, 30, 1912 to single ladies only, were H. D. Wishard, C. W. Spitz and W. H. Grote.

Votes were accumulated in three ways.

First, a nomination ballot, which entered a lady into the contest and was sent to “The Garden Island” newspaper’s contest manager, gave her 1,000 votes.

Also, vote coupons filled out by a member of the public for a particular contestant and sent to the contest manager gave the contestant 10 votes.

But, by far, most votes were earned through the efforts of individual contestants

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selling subscriptions to the newspaper: 6 months, $1.50, 500 votes; 1 year, $2.50,1000 votes; 2 years, $5.00, 10,000 votes; 3 years, $7.50, 20,000 votes; 4 years, $10.00, 40,000 votes; 5 years, $12.50, 100,000 votes, and 10 years, 250,000 votes.

At the close of the contest, Miss Daisy Sheldon wrote a letter to the editor: “I desire to thank The Garden Island for the honest and impartial way in which the contest was conducted from start to finish. I also wish to thank you for the splendid little watch you gave me as third prize.�

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