Kauai Island History, part 1

KAUAI ISLAND HISTORY BY HANK SOBOLESKI AS PUBLISHED IN KAUAI’S THE GARDEN ISLAND NEWSPAPER FROM 2006 TO 2015 PART 1

ISBN # 978-0-9745054-4-2 COPYRIGHT © 2015 BY HANK SOBOLESKI

Koloa’s Maulili Pool

These days, Koloa’s Maulili Pool, located off Waikomo Road, is a deep swimming hole called “Green Pond” by local children.

But in ancient times,this pool was the legendary home of a large dragon goddess.

The steep rock ledge on its eastern bank was called “Pali o Koloa,” from which the Koloa District received its name.

And long ago, two ditches draining from the southern end of the pool watered east and west Koloa.

In 1835, Maulili Pool became the original mill site of Ladd & Company, Hawai‘i’s first successful sugar plantation, which was founded by William Ladd, Peter Brinsmade and William Hooper on 980 acres of land leased from Kamehameha III and Gov. Kaikio‘ewa of Kaua‘i at $300 per year.

However, by 1867, a visitor to Koloa wrote that “not a vestige” remained of the Maulili mill, which had been moved upstream.

Also in the 1800s, Koloa children, both Caucasian and Hawaiian, had great fun swimming, diving and jumping together at Maulili Pool, when the stream had not yet been diverted to irrigate sugarcane, so there was plenty of fresh water flowing through the pool, as is not the case today.

Back in those good old days, “Pahia” jumping, in which the children would jump off a ledge, fold up like a jack-knife on the way down and, just before 1

striking the water, quickly straighten to hit the water with a curve that would skim the water to a feet-first entry, was considered an art.

Close by, the long since vanished millpond’s steep, wet, 10- to 12-foot high banks provided children with a great slippery-slide into the pond and hours of fun.

Nawiliwili

Nawiliwili Circa Early 1900s From the early days of Hawaiian settlement on Kauai to the arrival of Capt.

James Cook in 1778, Nawiliwili was a center of island life, a home to fishing and taro farming.

Then with the advent of westernization in the early 19th century, Nawiliwili Bay also became an important harbor on Kauai’s eastside.

Prior to 1921, anchorage off Kukui Point was the closest inter-island steamers and sailing vessels could proceed into the bay safely. Mooring any closer to shore in the sandy-bottom bay put them at risk of being dashed on the rocks by ocean swells.

In those bygone days, inter-island steamers sailing from Honolulu in the afternoon would arrive at Nawiliwili in the middle of the night. Passengers would climb down the sides of the steamships on rope-and-plank gangways and step into longboats to be rowed to the pier.

It was not until the breakwater was built in 1921, which was financed by sugar baron and philanthropist George Norton Wilcox (1839-1933), that Nawiliwili had 2

a truly safe harbor. In 1927, Wilcox, then 88, directed the construction of the shoreline seawall.

When work wrapped up the following year and fill was later dumped behind the seawall, the Nawiliwili shoreline -- which had run on a direct line from Kalapaki Beach to Niumalu – vanished.

Wilcox owned a beach house on the old shoreline at Papalinahoa, when Wilcox Road -- now well-inland -- skirted the shoreline. His house stood by the now famous banyan tree that he planted long ago and today is on the property the Banyan Harbor Resort.

Another noteworthy resident of Papalinahoa for more than 30 years was Gov. Paul Kanoa. His home, an old-fashioned, Hawaiian-style structure of square rooms atop stilts under a thatched roof, stood at the foot of the bluff, set back from the beach.

Kanoa’s son, Paul P. Kanoa, governor of Kauai from 1882 to 1886, resided at Niumalu, where he hosted many a merry, late-night party during his governorship with guests like King David Kalakaua.

Yet another Kauai governor, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924), owned a beach house at Kalapaki, where the Kauai Marriott now stands and his guests included Queen Liliuokalani.

Eventually, Nawiliwili surpassed Koloa Landing, Port Allen and other landings to become Kauai’s foremost port.

Rice Planter Wong Aloiau

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The “Rice King of Kapa‘a” was actually born in China in 1847. But at the age of 18, Wong Aloiau booked passage on the Golden West, arriving in faraway Honolulu on July 20, 1865.

There he settled within O‘ahu’s Chinese community and found work as an overseer of duck ponds in Moili‘ili and Waikiki and rice fields in Kapahulu.

Five years later, he sailed to Kaua‘i and set himself up in business supplying cut wood to sugar plantations and sailing ships.

Aloiau even brewed and sold okolehao — not the usual fermented ti roots but a more powerful and popular rice gin.

In 1872, he purchased a Moloa‘a property upon which he grew rice and vegetables and raised chickens.

The industrious Aloiau next started a merchandising business, buying goods at one of the established stores, loading them into two baskets balanced on a bamboo pole across his shoulders and peddling them house-to-house on foot.

Peddling was profitable, and by 1880 he’d opened two general merchandise stores, one in Anahola and the other in Kapa‘a.

Meanwhile, Aloiau continued to acquire property suitable for growing rice. By 1885, people were calling him the “Rice King of Kapa‘a.”

Around the turn of the century, however, mechanized rice production in the United States made prices of Hawaiian rice uncompetitive, so he quit the rice business.

Along the way, Aloiau bought the former Kapahi home of King David Kalakaua in 1884 and moved it by oxen onto what is now Huluili Street in Kapa‘a. It was destroyed in the great Kapa‘a fire of 1923 that leveled 25 buildings.

Kapa‘a’s rice king died at home on Aug. 6, 1919. He had three wives, two Chinese and one Hawaiian, and many of his descendants now live in Hawai‘i.

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The 1923 Kapaa Fire

The great Kapa‘a fire of 1923 started in Sam Decker’s Los Angeles Store at about 8:30 in the evening of Dec. 22, and by the time its flames were finally extinguished later that night it had leveled the heart of Kapa‘a around and about today’s Huluili Street, destroying 25 homes and stores with estimated damages in excess of $75,000.

A passerby first discovered the blaze and sounded the alarm, and shortly thereafter, Jonah Cummings and Joe Aguiar tried to extinguish it with chemicals taken off a cart in the nearby Miura Store but to no avail. Decker’s store burnt to the ground.

When the fire alarm reached the theater, several theatergoers panicked and fled to the exit and a couple of others attempted to jump off the balcony, but cool-headed John Hano calmed the remainder with words of reassurance and the theater emptied in orderly fashion.

No water was available to fight the blaze, so hastily assembled volunteers made firebreaks to contain it. A few men used dynamite to demolish endangered buildings. Others chopped support beams with axes and pulled buildings down with ropes. Then the wreckage was hauled out of the way of the approaching fire with a firebreak left in its place.

One gang of men led by Elmer Cheatham, Louis Conradt and Fred Mendes was able to stop the fire’s northward progress just beyond Y. Shido Store when they tore down and cleared away the Kapaa Meat Market.

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To the south, John Victorino supervised volunteers that prevented the fire from spreading any further than Saito cleaning works and the Chinese shoe shop.

Fortunately, only one person was injured, a boy named Fukushima who broke his leg leaping from a building and was subsequently treated by Dr. Yanagihara, and eleven homeless families found shelter with friends.

Scaling Waialeale’s Treacherous Eastern Face

Long ago, Hawaiian chiefs and priests would climb Mount Waialeale’s forbidding eastern face each year to the summit, where they would make offerings of flowers and wreaths and chant praises to their god Kane at a small, stone heiau called Kaawako.

The Hawaiians began their journey near the mouth of the Wailua River, and from there they traveled upstream by canoe, following the northern course of the river until it was no longer navigable.

They would then hike to the base of a ridge, climb to its spine at about 2,300 feet, and make camp for the night.

In the morning, they’d continue their ascent on a steep trail leading to a false summit named Pohakupele, and onward to the northern end of Waialeale’s summit, a steep, slippery, and treacherous route with fearsome drop-offs on either side.

Many years later, when the United States Exploring Expedition led by Navy Lieutenant Charles Wilkes visited Kauai in 1840, it learned that Hawaiians still regularly climbed Waialeale’s eastern face in clear weather simply to view Oahu about 100 miles away.

Historian James Jackson Jarves confirmed this by noting likewise during his observations between 1837 and 1842.

In 1870, Grove Farm Plantation owner George Norton Wilcox also climbed Waialeale to its crest with Hawaiian guides by following the same trail Hawaiians had climbed, but when Wilcox made his ascent, the trail was overgrown and rarely, if ever, used.

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Wilcox repeated the climb in 1874 with George Dole and Fred Smith.

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 successfully scaled the eastern face of Waialeale since 1874, but a handful of experienced Kauai climbers are presently considering an ascent.

Kaua‘i’s German Forest

In the early 1800s, great tracts of Kaua‘i’s ‘iliahi, or sandalwood trees, had been wiped out, roots and all, in trade with China.

And, by the end of the 19th century, much of Kaua‘i’s native lowland forests of lehua, koa, kukui and ahakea had been cut into firewood for local use and for sale to whale ships.

Other forested lands had been cleared to plant sugarcane, and virgin mountain forests had suffered also from foraging wild pigs and cattle and from cuttings.

Consequently, reforestation was needed to replenish firewood supplies and to insure that the land would be able to retain its water holding capacity and check soil erosion.

Under the auspices of Lihue Plantation manager Paul Isenberg, the first sizable reforestation effort in the Hawaiian Islands was begun on Kaua‘i around 1880.

To provide expertise, Isenberg hired a German employed by the Prussian Forest Service named Lange, whose first project was to plant and care for around 300 acres of forest in the sloping valleys and ridges on the Lihu‘e side of Kilohana Crater — an area thereafter called the German Forest.

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Lange selected Pride of India, Australian ironwoods (a tree that George Norton Wilcox had been successful in planting at Grove Farm some years earlier to replace kukui trees) and Albizia, the white-flowering monkeypod.

He also planted one grove of red palms in the forest before returning to Germany within five or six years.

The Pride of India trees did not grow well in the path of trade winds on the eastern slope of Kilohana, so manager Carl Isenberg (Paul’s brother and successor) planted thousands of koa seedlings to replace them. These koa seedlings flourished and matured into a beautiful, dense forest, and a productive one also, since hundreds of its trees were later cut for use as firewood.

Malumalu

Malumalu School Now deserted, Malumalu, Kaua‘i is located south of Hulemalu Road about 400 yards east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads in an area also known as Grove Farm Field #10.

But in 1850, when Judge E. P. Bond and Mrs. Bond, and Mr. and Mrs. William Reynolds made their homes there, several hundred Hawaiians were living in thatched houses in its vicinity.

Judge Jacob Hardy (1827-1915), for whom Hardy Street in Lihue is named, and his wife, Elizabeth, joined the Reynolds and Bond families in 1854, and with latecomers Mr. and Mrs. James Marshall, established a colony of “kindred spirits” at Malumalu.

Modeled after the Brook Farm Colony of Nathaniel Hawthorne, a short-lived (1841-1847) utopian experiment in communal living in Massachusetts, this like-minded community continued its ways until the American Civil War (18611865), when Reynolds and Marshall went off to serve in the United States Navy and Army respectively.

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Hardy resigned from the circuit bench in 1863, sold his Malumalu property, and moved to California, but returned to Kaua‘i in 1877 to resume his circuit court judgeship, a post he would hold for 35 years.

In 1890, the Malumalu Industrial School for Hawaiian boys and girls was founded by Dr. Jared Smith and his sister, Juliet, and until it closed in 1898, the school was housed in a three-story building at Malumalu.

The building has long since vanished, but the grove of trees still to be seen at Malumalu is said to have been planted by Grove Farm sugar plantation founder George Norton Wilcox.

Hidden within this grove can be found the solitary grave of Kaua‘i Sheriff Thomas Harris Marshall (1815-1868).

Marshall purchased Malumalu in 1864 and lived in a thatched house on property until he died and was buried on the place.

Scotsman Joins King Kalakaua For Royal Lu‘au At Niumalu

John Cameron Scotsman John Cameron (1850-1925) was a seafaring man who spent 30 adventurous years at sea, with six years of that service engaged as the first officer or master of Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company of Honolulu steamships James Makee, Iwalani and Planter.

While in Hawai‘i, Cameron made the acquaintance of King David Kalakaua during Kalakaua’s frequent voyages to Kaua‘i, while Cameron was sailing as master in service here, and the two became fast friends and drinking companions, tipping many a glass together at Iolani Palace in Honolulu and at the jolliest of parties elsewhere.

In June 1885, Cameron received an invitation from Paul P. Kanoa, then governor of Kaua‘i, to a royal luau at Niumalu, with King Kalakaua in attendance.

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The lawn at the governor’s residence had been clipped short for the occasion, while a grove of trees provided welcome shade. At 3 p.m., fragrant leis of maile and flowers were presented to the guests. Gin proved to be the most popular beverage, but beer and kava were also available.

A sumptuous luau menu of pig, raw fish, cooked fish, crayfish, turtle, chicken and even dog was served, as well as breadfruit, taro, poi and fruit.

In the evening, while stars shone in a purple sky, men and women laughed, and the melodies of sweet Hawaiian songs could be heard.

Hula dancers appeared at 9 p.m. and they danced gracefully until midnight.

In the wee hours, Cameron received a call to share a nightcap with Kalakaua, whom Cameron once described as “a veritable prince of good fellows.”

He accepted with great pleasure. And at that early hour, the king, even after drinking steadily and feasting throughout the day, seemed as fit and as sober as could be.

Mokupapapa — The Lost Island

After Captain Cook was killed by Hawaiians at Kealakekua on Feb. 14, 1779, Captain Clerke took command of Resolution and Discovery and prepared to resume Cook’s third Pacific voyage by searching for the nonexistent Northwest Passage, a sea route linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans via the Arctic.

But, first he planned to find an island named Mokupapapa, the only Hawaiian Island the English had been told of by Hawaiians that they hadn’t seen — a sandy, low-lying island that Hawaiians on Ni‘ihau, Kaua‘i and Maui had informed several of Cook’s men was located near Kaula.

On March 16, while looking for Mokupapapa southwest of Ni‘ihau, the Discovery came across a few Hawaiians in a canoe who said they were heading to Kaula to catch birds, after which they planned to go to Mokupapapa for turtle.

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The English did not follow these Hawaiians, and after a two-day search, which took them 70 miles from Kaula, they failed to locate Mokupapapa and sailed north to Canada.

Since then, no historical records mention Mokupapapa being seen, and Mokupapapa cannot be found today.

Were the Hawaiians joking or deceiving the English? It’s unlikely, first of all, since the Hawaiians had been sincere and other information they’d shared was generally dependable.

Also, it’s improbable that Hawaiians on three distant islands would be telling the same peculiar joke or lie to several different Englishmen a number of times.

A misunderstanding is more likely the case.

Be that as it may, the English were levelheaded explorers not taken to impetuously chasing will-o’-the-wisps across uncharted seas. They simply would not have searched for Mokupapapa had they not believed and understood the Hawaiians.

Could Mokupapapa have sunk into the sea? No, because geological investigations have found no formations where Mokupapapa was supposed to be to support this hypothesis.

Mokupapapa remains a mystery.

Noboru Miyake, Political Pioneer

Mr. And Mrs. Miyake Born in 1896 on his parents’ rice farm deep within Waimea Valley between the

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Waimea River and Mokihana Stream, Noboru Miyake became the first person of Japanese ancestry to hold public office in Hawai‘i, when voters elected him to the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors in 1930.

Known as the “Father of the Kaua‘i Water Department,” Miyake introduced legislation that eliminated Kaua‘i’s inefficient and unwieldy five-district system of water management in favor of a single, centralized Department of Water, a system still in operation today.

While on the Board of Supervisors, Miyake also proposed a law to improve and pave the Koke‘e Road, at that time a twisting, narrow, dirt pathway, thus opening Koke‘e’s delights to the general public.

With the advent of World War II, anti-Japanese sentiment on the Mainland and in Hawai‘i forced his resignation in 1942.

His immediate reaction was to volunteer for the Army, even though he was already 45 years old and a World War I veteran. During the war, he served on Kaua‘i’s Office of Civilian Defense and the Kaua‘i Morale Committee.

Following the war, Miyake resumed his political career and was elected to the Territorial House of Representatives, where his work led to the construction of the Waimea River breakwater that protects Waimea from perennial flooding, which in 1949 submerged Waimea under 5 1/2 feet of water.

In 1966, an election loss ended his long service as a politician. Widely respected as a lawmaker, Miyake, a Republican, held an elected office for 28 years.

His business interests included the Waimea Garage and Electric Company, Waimea Garage Ltd. and the Kauai Plymouth-Dodge-Honda Agency of Lihu‘e.

Noboru and Yone Miyake had several children.

Political pioneer Noboru Miyake passed away on Jan. 12, 1988.

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The Strange Case Of Alfred F. Turner

In 1852, when Englishman Thomas Brown sold his 1,000-acre Wailua Falls Estate and moved to New York, Alfred F. Turner, 32, became resident manager of the estate’s dairy and grazing business and settled into Brown’s mansion on the bluff high above the junction of the North and South Forks of the Wailua River.

It was not long afterward that Turner fell for an attractive Hawaiian woman living near the entrance to the valley, and in the evenings it was often his delight to hike down the bluff at Konolea, board his canoe and paddle downstream to spend the night with her.

Then, in February of 1854, Turner disappeared.

When authorities questioned Hawaiians in the vicinity, they expressed certainty that “a mo‘o (water supernatural) had dragged him down” into the river.

According to their testimony, Turner had been paddling at sunset in the bend of the river where mo‘o in the form of mermaids lived nearby in an underwater cavern.

Suddenly, many of them appeared swimming in the water all around Turner’s canoe, pleading with him to come with them.

When Turner refused and attempted to escape, they climbed into his canoe, tied him with hau rope, and dragged him beneath the surface into their cavern.

A couple of days later, when Turner’s body was discovered caught in a fish net set across the river, no evidence of foul play was observed — Turner’s pockets

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had not been rifled, nor was his watch taken.

It was reported, however, that Turner probably was the victim of a jealous rival for his girlfriend’s affections, but without proof of this, a coroner’s jury of inquest investigating his death delivered a verdict of death by accidental drowning, case closed, and Turner was buried not far from Brown’s mansion.

Tom Gunn’s Kaua‘i Air Show

Tom Gunn And Friend On Sunday, Jan. 18, 1914, a little over 10 years after the Wright brothers invented the airplane, San Francisco-born, Chinese-American aviation pioneer Tom Gunn (1890-1925) put on a flying exhibition for 1,500 enthralled spectators gathered at a makeshift airstrip on the Panau plateau, about a mile west of Koloa.

Gunn had arrived by steamer at Koloa Landing the previous Wednesday, accompanied by several assistants and a pair of two-seater, 60 horsepower Gunn Biplanes he’d designed and built himself.

On flight day, three delays held up Gunn’s show, one being the late arrival of a plantation train carrying spectators from Makaweli and Port Allen.

The second occurred when tricky crosswinds forced Gunn to postpone his first

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flight.

When the winds calmed down, a third setback, this time for repairs to his aircraft, took place after Gunn crashed into a wagon while taxiing to his takeoff point.

Finally, at 2:10 p.m. he took off and up, heading south toward the ocean and then east to Koloa, before banking westward and landing about five minutes later.

Gunn’s next attempt failed when he could not get the plane off the ground, but on his final try at 3:10 p.m., he rose high into the air, circled round, and landed safely in three minutes.

Gunn’s exhibition was a thrill for all, especially for the many spectators who had never seen an airplane before — on the ground, in flight or on Kaua‘i.

The previous year, Gunn had flown the first airplane passenger and the first paying passenger in Hawai’i. He also flew the first seaplane in the Islands.

American aviation pioneer Tom Gunn eventually settled in China, where he assisted China’s leader, Sun Yat-Sen popularize Chinese aviation.

The Hermit Of Kalalau

The son of a shopkeeper, Dr. Bernard Wheatley was born in the Virgin Islands in 1919, earned a medical degree, served in the U.S. Army, and had practiced medicine in Sweden.

But nothing prepared him as a young man for the deaths of his wife and son in an automobile accident.

Eventually he recovered from his grief, but without his family, the way of life he’d known meant nothing to him.

He then perceived life anew, and in a revelation was convinced of humanity’s immortality. A religious conversion followed.

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He abandoned medicine, gave away his possessions and sought a place where he might seek eternal truth.

In 1957 he found Kaua‘i, hiked into Kalalau Valley after seeing it once from the lookout at Koke‘e, and lived there alone, its only human inhabitant for many years, while he inquired into the fundamental nature of reality.

To survive, Wheatley ate taro and fruits he gathered and became skilled at catching wild goats for meat.

Infrequent hunters and fishermen gave him food.

His shelter was a cave facing the beach that he swept and kept immaculately clean.

Wheatley lived in harmony with the entities of the valley and he became deeply preoccupied with metaphysics, having written a several hundred page manuscript that included his commentaries on the essence of God. When hippies came to Kalalau in the late-1960s with their hallucinogens and lifestyles at odds with his own, he finally left his once solitary home.

A good friend of his said that he had dedicated his life to God, and Kalalau had been his test. By surviving there alone for so long, he had proven that God had taken care of him.

Dr. Bernard Wheatley died on Kaua‘i at 72 on December 3, 1991, and his ashes were scattered in Kalalau Valley.

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Pele On Kauai

Kilauea Crater, Legendary Home Of Pele, Circa Late 1800s Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, has appeared many times to mortals throughout the Hawaiian Islands from ancient times to the present.

Sightings of Pele even made the front page of The Garden Island newspaper back in March and April of 1926.

On March 30th, the newspaper reported that Pele had been seen by several Chinese and Hawaiians at Hanalei in the form of a mysterious haole woman.

In a number of instances, the woman had asked for articles that only elderly Hawaiians could possibly know of. Then she suddenly disappeared.

It was also reported that a haole lady asked a Chinese man a question he did not understand. When he turned to call for assistance, she vanished, and a search found no trace of her.

In April, Pele appeared as an old Hawaiian man to an old-timer named Kahanu at Kilohana, Lihue.

The old stranger spoke to Kahanu in Hawaiian, asking if Kahanu was kamaaina to Lihue, to which Kahanu replied that he was. When Kahanu then asked the old man if he would like to eat, he accepted.

Kahanu stepped into his kitchen to mix poi. When he returned, the stranger was gone. He then searched his house and surrounding property in vain, as did his son and Captain Dick Dias, when they arrived during his search. The

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old man had simply disappeared.

Convinced the stranger was Pele, Kahanu resented notions that he’d seen an hallucination.

These appearances by Pele were believed to be a portent of unusual or disastrous events, but nothing of the kind was later reported.

Another series of Pele sightings, which went unpublished, occurred on Kauai during the mid-1960s, when Pele appeared as an aged Hawaiian woman with long hair walking alongside the road between Anahola and Moloaa. Drivers would offer her a ride. When she exited their vehicles, she would vanish.

Hapai Ko

For many years prior to the 1930s, when cranes with mechanical grabs were first used to load cut sugarcane into train cars in the fields for delivery to sugar mills, large gangs of men harvested sugarcane manually.

These men would cut cane stalks close to the ground with sharp cane knives for hapai ko (to lift sugarcane) men to raise onto their shoulders and carry to cane cars, where they would trudge up wooden ramps to drop the cane inside.

They toiled six days a week, 10 hours a day, week-in and week-out at these tough jobs, all done under the ever-watchful eyes of harvesting lunas (overseers) on horseback, ensuring the work proceeded on schedule.

Still, workers took pride in their labor, and on Kaua‘i, competitions were held to determine which sugar plantation had the best hapai ko men.

One such contest occurred on May 31, 1919, in Lihu‘e, beginning at 3 p.m. before several hundred spectators. Of Kaua‘i’s nine sugar plantations, only Waimea and Kilauea did not compete.

Each competing plantation entered at least one two-man team.

The conditions for the contest were that teams would start at the same time and continue loading cane into their cars for 30 minutes. Two hapai ko ramps 18

were allowed per team, one for each man, which allowed the men to load from two sides of their car. Immediately after the contest, the cars would be weighed at the Lihu‘e mill. The team with the greatest weight would be judged the winner.

McBryde Sugar Company’s team won the contest with more than five tons (10,375 pounds) of cane loaded in 30 minutes.

The official results: McBryde (10,375); Lihu‘e 1 (10,000); Lihu‘e 2 (9,925); Grove Farm 1 (9,850); Koloa (9,800); Grove Farm 2 (9,690); Kekaha (9,580); Make‘e (8,950); Makaweli/Hawaiian Sugar Co. (7,725).

Max Baer Fights On Kauai

On the evening of Oct. 31, 1938, colorful ex-heavyweight champion Max Baer fought Andre Adoree in a four-round exhibition bout in Kekaha, Kauai that topped a good local fight card.

Baer had seen his better days as a boxer when he fought in Kekaha, but the perpetual showman was always a crowd-pleaser.

Only five years earlier, in 1933, Baer had beaten German fighter Max Schmeling before 60,000 fans at Yankee Stadium, and followed that fight up in 1934 by taking the World Heavyweight Championship from giant Primo Carnera in Madison Square Garden.

But in 1935 he lost his title to underdog James J. Braddock — a story made famous by the 2005 movie “Cinderella Man” — after kidding around for 15 rounds, albeit with an injured right hand, and was later knocked out in four rounds by Joe Louis.

Although Baer was tremendously strong and possessed a powerful right, he never lived up to his potential. In the ring his efforts often seemed halfhearted.

He joked and wisecracked his way through fights.

And out of the ring, the fun-loving Baer’s priority was partying with countless

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women, including stars, starlets, chorus girls and Broadway actresses.

Still, Baer compiled a record of 72-12-0 with 53 knockouts and was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

He died in 1959.

The fight fans in Kekaha liked the Baer-Adoree exhibition, which, true to form, was mostly clowning, and roared with laughter when Baer was interviewed at ringside.

When asked how sure he was that he’d beat Louis in a return fight, Baer poked fun at the Kekaha Plantation manager and aspiring politician, replying, “Just as sure as Lindsay Faye is going to be elected senator.”

In the other featured bout, Filipino battler Clever Henry knocked out hard-hitting former featherweight champ Adolph Samuels. Preliminary fight winners were Makaweli’s Kid Perla, Eddie Valente, Rudy Vinigas and Vicente Panit.

Wailua Birthstones Archaeology

Kenneth Emory It was imperative that the kings of Kauai were born at the Birthstones of Wailua, which consist of two large stones, one that supported the back of the woman, while the other was used to position her legs while giving birth.

In 1933, archaeologist Kenneth Emory (1897-1992), assisted by Grove Farm’s Henry Digby Sloggett, made an interesting and important discovery by excavating at the Birthstones.

Their dig uncovered a flat stone that had been cut to about 6 feet long, over 2 feet wide, by 8 to 12 inches thick.

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The stonework was typically Tahitian, and only one stone like it -- part of a stone wall -- had been found in Hawaii at Kailua. Emory also noted that the art of cutting stones like it had been lost by the Hawaiians.

Emory’s Tahitian interpretation of this stone was significant, since the stone substantiated Hawaiian tradition, passed down through the centuries by Hawaiians in the form of myths, legends, and genealogies, which indicated that Tahitians had visited Hawaii in the 1300s.

When Emory and Sloggett dug beneath the stone, they uncovered the remains of a dog or a pig, which implied to Emory that a sacrifice had been made.

At the time of his find, Emory was unwilling to offer an opinion of the purpose of the stone beyond its covering a sacrificed animal, but it is now believed the stone was a kapu warning.

Any commoner found touching or stepping over the stone was put to death.

Prior to Emory’s archaeological work in Hawaii, knowledge of pre-Western Hawaiian history had relied solely on what could be learned by interviewing people who knew ancient myths and legends.

Emory was educated at Punahou and Yale, and learned the Hawaiian language. Adventurous by nature, he’s been referred to as the “Indiana Jones” of Pacific archaeology.

Sometaro Sheba - Founder Of The Garden Island Newspaper

Sometaro Sheba (originally Shiba) was born on the island of Shikoku, Japan in 1870 and was educated at Aoyama Gakuin, an American Methodist college in Tokyo, where he excelled in English language.

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Adventurous, ambitious, and impulsive, Sheba sailed for Hawaii in 1891 and turned his bilingual talent to profit as a sales clerk at the Lihue Plantation Store.

When a branch store opened in Hanamaulu, he was selected to manage it.

After ten years with the plantation, Sheba moved on to work as an interpreter and translator at the Lihue Courthouse and to establish two newspapers: the Kauai Shuho for Japanese readers, and The Garden Island.

The following year, 1902, saw the first edition of the weekly The Garden Island newspaper printed in January in Kapaia using a press Sheba acquired from the Malumalu Industrial School that had closed in 1898.

Subscription cost was $1 per annum, payable in advance.

A year later, Sheba sold his newfound newspapers to a corporation formed on Kauai, yet carried on as publisher and editor.

Determined to continue his success, Sheba obtained a loan in 1907 from merchant C. H. Bishop and left Kauai for Honolulu to buy the Hawaii Shimpo, a daily Japanese-language newspaper.

By this time, word of his publishing acumen -- three papers in five years -earned him local notoriety as the “Hearst of Hawaii.”

But, a tour of Japan with Honolulu businessmen in 1917 -- his first visit there since he’d emigrated 26 years earlier -- left him homesick for the country of his birth and he returned home to Japan with his wife and six children that same year.

At first, he worked as a journalist. Later, Sheba sold Hawaii Shimpo and bought the Japan Times, an English-language daily. Sometaro Sheba retired in 1932 and died in Japan in 1946.

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Anthropologist Tamie Tsuchiyama

In 1947, Kaua‘i’s Tamie Tsuchiyama became the first graduate of Kaua‘i High School (Class of 1933) to earn a Ph.D. and the first person of her gender among the Niseis of Hawai‘i to receive the esteemed honor.

Tsuchiyama was also the first Japanese-American and the first AsianAmerican to earn a doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of California at Berkeley and one of the first, if not the very first, Asian-American to have completed a doctoral program in anthropology in the United States.

Born on Kaua‘i in 1915 to parents that grew vegetables and rice in Nawiliwili Valley, she was a bright and inquisitive little girl, eager to start at Lihu‘e Grammar School. After high school, she attended the University of Hawai‘i, UCLA and Berkeley.

When World War II interrupted her graduate studies at Berkeley, she volunteered for anthropological work under the direction of the University of California among the Japanese- American internees at the Poston, Ariz., relocation camp and from 1942 through 1944 suffered the hardships of an internee while gathering data.

Afterwards, her personal shyness and reserve did not prevent her from enlisting in the Women’s Army Corps (WAC), where her knowledge of German, French and Spanish hastened her assignment to Japanese language school and military intelligence duty translating official Japanese documents.

Honorably discharged in 1946, she completed work for her Ph.D. and served in occupied Japan as a social science field research analyst from 1947 through 1951, translating documents and evaluating the balance sheets of Japanese firms established in Manchuria.

Although no anthropology positions opened for her thereafter, her spirit and resolve remained unshaken. She obtained a bachelor of library science degree and became director of the Oriental Library at the University of Texas at Austin.

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Dr. Tamie Tsuchiyama passed away in Texas in 1984.

The Cow-Eye Sentinel

Tech. Sgt. Campbell On June 30, 1942, Charlie Fern, the editor of The Garden Island newspaper, began publishing a four-page insert in the weekly Tuesday edition of the paper titled “The Soldier’s Page of The Garden Island” for military personnel stationed on Kaua‘i.

That insert, the first edition of the popular The Cow-Eye Sentinel, would, by the early fall of 1942, become a separate weekly paper published on Thursdays with a circulation that exceeded The Garden Island and was distributed across the United States.

Army Pvt. Duncan R. Campbell, later promoted to tech sergeant, was the editor of The Cow- Eye. Campbell also was heard on Fern’s KTOH radio station every Wednesday at 7 p.m. and often on the 6 p.m. daily news broadcast.

The Cow-Eye also sponsored a soldiers’ golf tournament and a cartoon contest. But its biggest and best promotion was the annual Lei Day Queen contest that attracted the interest of local island residents and military personnel alike.

In 1943, the competition was hot, with five island girls vying for the Lei Day crown: Nora Leandro, Catherine Carrillo, Lani Kim, Frances Figueroa and Alberta Carroll.

Miss Leandro won and received her royal crown from Tech. Sgt. Campbell at 24

the coronation festivities held before hundreds of civilians and servicemen at the Isenberg USO center in Lihue on Sunday, May 2, 1943.

The princesses were: Princess Mokihana (Kaua‘i), Miss Carroll; Princess Roselani (Maui), Miss Figueroa; Princess Ilima (O‘ahu), Miss Kim; Princess Lehua (Hawai‘i), Miss Carrillo.

Following the coronation, a holoku parade was held. Judged most outstanding was Miss Marian Ellis. In the modern division, first place went to Lani Kim, and second and third places were won by Frances Figueroa and Alice Sakoda respectively. Mrs. Leila Malina was awarded a prize for the most beautiful oldfashioned holoku.

Hawaiian Legislator John Haalelea Coney

Of royal Hawaiian blood, John Haalelea Coney, known as “Dad” or “Jack” to his many friends and colleagues, was born in Hilo in 1864 to John Harvey Coney, the high sheriff of the Big Island during the reign of Kamehameha IV, and High Chiefess Kekua Kapu o Kalani, a descendent of the Queen of the Puna district, renowned in the meles of Hawaii.

At age 19, Coney had the splendid good fortune to be present at the coronation ceremonies of King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani at Iolani Palace on February 12, 1883.

On that marvelous day, which marked the apex of the Golden Age of the

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Hawaiian monarchy, Coney saw Kalakaua place his crown on his own head and then place Queen Kapiolani’s crown on her head at the Coronation Pavilion near the palace.

In 1893, he accepted a temporary job as construction engineer for George Norton Wilcox, the owner of Grove Farm, and ended up making Kauai his residence for the rest of his life.

His home was in Niumalu, and he also leased the Alekoko fishpond. Coney then served briefly as Kauai Deputy Sheriff and held the office of Sheriff from 1894 to 1905.

Two years later, in 1907, he was first elected to the Territorial House of Representatives from Kauai and served there and in the Territorial Senate, intermittently, through 1929.

His work in the legislature, along with the financial backing of George Norton Wilcox, was primarily responsible for the building of Kauai’s deep-water harbor at Nawiliwili.

Coney’s home in Niumalu was a delightful gathering place for old friends and newcomers, where he and Mrs. Coney entertained many luaus and “Dad” Coney took special pleasure in explaining the customs of Hawaii to malihinis.

He and Mrs. Mary Ellen Coney had four children.

Alii John Haalelea Coney died in 1944.

Kaua‘i’s Train Holdup

On Feb. 11, 1920, around 4:50 p.m., Kaua‘i’s one and only train holdup occurred west of Kekaha when a masked bandit robbed the Kekaha Sugar Company payroll train at the point of a revolver.

The robber stopped the train, forced its occupants off, unhooked the engine 26

from the train, took hold of the controls, and sped off up the track toward Mana with the strongbox containing $11,387, of which $1,000 was in silver.

At Mana, residents were left in a state of shock after they saw the train race by with a masked man holding the engine’s throttle in one hand and a gun in the other.

Further on at Saki Mana, the robber stopped the engine, threw out the strongbox, broke it open with a big wrench, and took out the loot. Then he reversed the engine, opened the throttle, and made his escape. The engine finally stopped on its own a few yards from the site of the robbery.

Later that evening, Mr. Weber of the Mana office located the busted strongbox, and Sheriff Rice and his deputies soon after found a bundle in nearby sugarcane containing the clothes and the mask the robber had worn.

Footprints led to Kaimiola Hali’s house. Hali had been a train engineer at the plantation, was the same build and height as the robber, and a few days before the robbery, had asked when Mana workers would be paid.

He was arrested, and not long afterwards, Weber found the loot hidden in a tin among rushes a couple of hundred feet from Hali’s house. All but $360.35 was accounted for.

On May 20, 1920, Judge W. C. Achi Jr. found Hali guilty in Circuit Court and sentenced him to not less than three years, and not more than 20 years in prison.

The Montgomery Hotel

From 1936 to 1978, Kauai's convicted criminals and persons being held on charges awaiting trial were held in an unmistakable concrete building located across the highway from the Wailua Golf Course that was commonly referred to as the Montgomery Hotel, a moniker taken from Kalei Montgomery, the jail-

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keeper at the time the jail was built in 1936.

Kalei Montgomery had also run the County Jail at its previous location on the bluff overlooking Nawiliwili Bay where the bulk sugar storage warehouse stands.

In the days when fill had not yet been dumped into the bay behind the jetty to create land for modern harbor facilities, Montgomery would stand atop the bluff by his jail and look for schools of mullet swimming in the waters below.

When he saw silver color flash in the bay indicating that mullet were present, he would send an inmate down with a net to where he’d point to catch the jail’s dinner.

Montgomery’s old Nawiliwili jail was decrepit and at least sixty years old when the new Montgomery Hotel at Wailua replaced it.

Sheriff William Henry Rice called it a firetrap. It had no facilities for juveniles and practically none for women inmates. Toilets were of the old-fashioned kind without plumbing.

Honolulu contractor W. S. Ching was the successful bidder to build the new County Jail at Wailua with a bid of $29,809.00 that was $4,500 lower than any other bid.

Architect Fred Fujioka of Honolulu designed the jail to hold fifty inmates.

Construction throughout was of fireproof, reinforced concrete. There were separate cells for women inmates, a general lockup and another lockup for drunkards. A modern kitchen, complete with a refrigerated storeroom and a pantry, was included in the design.

In 1978, the Montgomery Hotel was torn down to make room for the Kauai Community Correctional Center.

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Waimea's Haunted Firehouse

The original Waimea firehouse, once located on Ola Road makai of the present tennis courts and across the road from the Community Hall, had been built upon a path that led from the old village of Waimea by the mouth of the river to burial grounds on the hillside.

And many believed that the spirits that walked the path to visit their former homes in the village, not pleased with having their pathway blocked, haunted the firehouse.

In April 1947, firemen heard a terrific rapping on the bedroom wall of the firehouse three times one early morning.

Yet, when they investigated at daylight, they observed no footprints outside the firehouse, although the ground had been soaked the previous evening while ti plants were watered.

Not long after, William Carreira, one of the firemen, saw a man about seven feet tall with no head inside the firehouse and was hit hard on the back of his neck.

Other firemen on duty saw and heard nothing of the ghost, but they did observe that Carreira’s normally flat, curly hair was standing straight up. This incident was reported to the police.

On another occasion, Carreira, Sam Apo and John Kelekomo were drinking coffee inside the firehouse when they heard a car turn off the main road, drive up to the firehouse and stop outside. But, when one went out to see who it might be, the car was gone.

About a week later, when rapping was heard again at about 3 a. m., firemen went out to check the planted area between the firehouse and the tennis court.

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Although only Carreira saw a woman moving through the dark, all could feel the hair on the back of their necks stand up.

No volunteers came forth after firemen welcomed scoffers to spend a night with them in the firehouse.

Alejandro Llanos, Snake Oil Salesman

Quack, huckster, flimflam man and snake oil salesman are apt descriptions of one Alejandro Llanos, a mysterious and shadowy character engaged in the practice of chicanery on Kauai during the late 1930s.

Llanos once convinced a desperate man to pay him $250 for a pair of good eyes to replace his defective ones, and another poor soul gave Llanos $39 for one good eye, with both men ending up wanting their money back.

And, for a fee of $12 paid in advance, Llanos guaranteed “spiritual contact” at praying sessions featuring 17 skulls kept in a closet.

In yet another episode of trickery, Llanos treated Pablo Batac, an alleged tuberculosis sufferer, by prescribing adrenaline chloride, an asthma medicine.

Llanos’s humbug finally caught up with him after Deputy Sheriff Antone Vidinha received numerous complaints of Llanos’s shady dealings and arrested him.

At Llanos’s trial in Judge Charles Holokahiki’s Lihue District Court in the County Building, it was demonstrated that Llanos had sold Alejandro Mariano a bottle containing a combination of iron, quinine and strychnine to cure his eczema, which Dr. Sam Wallis testified offers no relief for eczema sufferers.

Mr. Llanos also claimed to have removed Ramon Talon’s appendix without making an incision, and had exhibited Talon’s so-called appendix suspended in a bottle of alcohol.

When Dr. Wallis was called again to provide testimony, he established that the 30

object in Llanos’s bottle was not an appendix, and that it was impossible to remove an appendix without making an incision.

On February 16, 1940, Llanos pleaded guilty to two charges of practicing medicine without a license and one charge of gross cheat. Other charges were dismissed. He received a 13 month suspended sentence under condition that he leave Kauai and surrender his permits to peddle and sell patent medicines.

Where Llanos went is unknown.

Samuel Mahelona Memorial Hospital

Samuel Mahelona Tuberculosis (TB), an infectious bacterial disease that mainly affects the lungs, was once a common cause of death. Nowadays, its spread is countered by vaccination, and the pasteurization of milk, drugs and surgery can arrest it.

But, TB was still considered incurable in 1913 when Ida L’Orange was appointed District Tuberculosis Nurse and special emphasis was placed on treating tuberculosis sufferers on Kaua‘i.

In 1914, L’Orange was succeeded by Mabel Wilcox, whose duties took her into rural areas of Kaua‘i to locate and help the afflicted.

Her work was dangerous, since she ran the risk of being infected herself, but she was undeterred, as was her father, Samuel Wilcox, who spoke the Hawaiian language and oftentimes went along to translate for her.

The backcountry Hawaiians she treated welcomed her as “Wilikoki, Kauka Wahine” (Wilcox, the woman doctor), and her prescriptions of bed rest, fresh air, and mild exercise were the most effective measures then available to relieve their suffering at home.

But patients requiring hospital care often had nowhere to go, since Kaua‘i’s sugar plantation hospitals lacked space, personnel and equipment.

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Then, in 1915, Albert Spencer Wilcox and his wife, Emma Mahelona Wilcox, came forth with an offer of $25,000 that they later doubled for the building of a tuberculosis hospital to be named after Samuel Mahelona, a member of their family who’d died of tuberculosis.

Soon after, Charles Wilcox chaired a building committee, a site of 120 acres at Kapa‘a was selected, and Mabel Wilcox’s building plans were chosen.

Construction was completed in 1917.

Mahelona’s first General Manager was Mabel Wilcox. Dr. Kuhns was VisitingPhysician, and Marguerite Castro, Nurse.

The original hospital building was rebuilt in the 1950s, and over the years, Mahelona Hospital grew to include psychiatric, medical, skilled nursing and long-term care, and outpatient and inpatient services.

Kalalau’s Cliff Trails

Kalalau Valley By Ginger Soboleski The ancient Hawaiian trail that led down from Koke‘e into Kalalau Valley began at Puuokila Lookout (4,176 feet), but this trail was wiped out by a landslide sometime after 1860.

Later, a couple of young Kalalau men blazed a new trail up Kalalau Valley to a spot about halfway between Kalehu, located about a half-mile west of the present Kalalau Lookout, and the Puuokila Lookout.

The spot was named the Kilohana of Kalalau, not to be confused with the Kilohana Lookout that overlooks Wainiha Valley within the Alakai Swamp.

In 1887, Makaweli’s Francis Gay and a young, unnamed Hawaiian cowboy who lived in Kalalau Valley also climbed up to the Kilohana of Kalalau on this new trail.

And, during 1893, when the outlaw Koolau was hiding in Kalalau Valley to prevent his deportation to the leper settlement at Kalaupapa, Molokai, a guard 32

was posted at the head of the trail to stop him from escaping the valley.

Early in the 1900s, a Kekaha man named Leluahi regularly climbed down this trail to refill a 5- gallon demijohn of okolehao from Kalalau Valley. Incredibly strong, he’d then climb back up roughly 4,000 feet with the full container on his back.

Then the Kilohana of Kalalau trail slipped away.

Sometime afterwards, Augustus Knudsen, Gerrit Wilder and Herman and Ronald von Holt blazed another new route down a hogback situated approximately in the center of the valley.

A few years later, two Kaua‘i boys, Eddie Cheatham and James Hogg, blazed yet another new trail on the waterfall side of Kalalau Valley.

And, on Oct. 30, 1942, Koke‘e forest ranger Deidrich Prigge and Army Captain Walter Ricker ascended Kalalau Valley on a trail that Prigge said was the original ancient trail.

Staghorn fern has since obliterated all trails to Koke‘e from Kalalau Valley and vice versa.

Sheriff William Henry Rice

Born in Lihu‘e in 1874, the grandson of Kaua‘i missionaries and the eldest son of William Hyde Rice, Kaua‘i’s last governor, William Henry Rice was elected Sheriff continuously from 1905 through 1942. (Elected sheriffs headed Kaua‘i’s police force until Sheriff Edwin Crowell was appointed Chief of Police in 1943.)

When Rice first became Sheriff, the police force numbered only 15 officers and 5 deputies. By 1935, it had grown to just 30 officers with 5 deputies. As of 2007,

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it numbered about 129 officers.

In the early days, pay for police was $30 per month, while Rice earned $175 a month.

And back then, there were about 15 cars on Kaua‘i, but the police department owned none of them. Nor were officers provided with horses. Instead, they traveled about Kaua‘i using their own horses and carriages on roads that were either dusty or muddy, since not one foot of roadway had yet been paved.

It took five or six hours to ride from Lihu‘e to court in Hanalei or Waimea. Rice would start out about four in the morning and would often not return to Lihu‘e until as late as midnight.

Not until 1915 did Rice get his own car, license number 350, the 350th license issued on Kaua‘i.

Rice also became a hotelier in 1894 when he purchased Charles W. Spitz’s Lihue Hotel, Kaua‘i’s first bona fide hotel, which Spitz had opened in 1890.

It was located on property now occupied by Kalapaki Villas on Rice Street, and Rice managed it until not long before his death in 1945.

In 1946, the hotel was sold through Rice’s estate, and its name was changed to the Kauai Inn in 1948. It remained in operation on Rice Street until 1963.

Sheriff Rice and Mrs. Rice had two daughters and three sons.

Old Milolii And Nualolo

Na Pali, Bishop Museum, 1912 Even as late as the 1870s, Hawaiian overseers called konohiki headed ahupuaa within the Na Pali.

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Mokunui, for one, was the konohiki of Kalalau, Nualolo, and Milolii during those years.

And when Mokunui’s wife, Puhaihai, suffered mental illness, he did not take her to a medical doctor; instead, she was treated by a kahuna living at Milolii and she recovered her wits in less than a year.

In those days, about two dozen Hawaiians lived at Milolii, where they grew taro, sugarcane, and bananas. People also grew huge calabash gourds on the beach -- some three feet in diameter -- and decorated them with drawings, and every man had a canoe for fishing -- smaller one-man canoes made of koa and larger ones fashioned from kukui.

When a flood cut off the water sources and destroyed the ditches in the 1870s, the Hawaiians abandoned Milolii.

At nearby Nualolo, Hawaiians lived by the beach at Nualolo Lalo where they fished and at Nualolo Luna in the valley where taro was raised.

These places are separated by a pali. To travel from one to the other, one needed to climb a 40-foot ladder lashed to the pali that leaned outward to sea and took nerve to climb at first.

Nualolo was also renowned for oahi, a Hawaiian fireworks display. In early evening, people would climb a dangerously steep 1,200 foot peak called Puu Maile from Nualolo Luna with lanterns to guide them.

Once on top, after a three-hour climb, they would light piles of long, dry hau sticks and papala that had been placed there during the day. These they threw down to blaze into streaming sparks that zigzagged and fanned out above the beach or became roaring balls of fire before plunging into the sea.

In the early 1900s, Nualolo was deserted, also.

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Judge William C. Achi Jr.

William C. Achi Jr. (1889-1947) was appointed Judge of the Fifth Circuit Court on Kaua‘i in 1919 following his approval by Hawai‘i’s delegate to Congress, Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana‘ole, and by his confirmation in the United States Senate.

Achi thus became the third circuit magistrate for Kaua‘i since Kaua‘i had inaugurated the county government system in 1905, with Judge Jacob Hardy and Judge Lyle Dickey preceding him.

When Achi became judge, court was held in the County Building in Lihu‘e, which, in 1914, had replaced the old courthouse once located on the site of Kaua‘i High School.

Judge Achi resided in Niumalu in the former home of Paul Puhiula Kanoa, governor of Kaua‘i from 1882 to 1886, which is today quiet and serene, and shaded by a giant banyan tree planted by the governor himself.

But, during Kanoa’s day, the home was the site of many a lively, late night party with dancers, singers, musicians, ship captains, dignitaries and Hawaiian royalty, including the “Merrie Monarch” King David Kalakaua, in attendance.

A talented musician and composer, Achi composed “Sons of Stanford Red” at Stanford; later, at Yale, he wrote “Sons of Eli,” and at Michigan, he created “Fight, Men of Michigan.”

He graduated from Michigan with a BA degree and obtained his law degree at Michigan in 1917.

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In 1938, he retired from the Fifth Circuit Court to practice law on Kaua‘i, Hilo and in Honolulu. Judge Achi was also an enthusiastic supporter of canoe paddling and other sports.

He and his wife, Mrs. Rebecca Achi, had four sons and two daughters. One of his sons, Stanford Hokulani Achi (1925-1995), also lived in Governor Kanoa’s house. Like his father, Stanford was active in canoe paddling, having coached the Kauai Canoe Club for 22 years.

Pineapple Company Manager Albert Horner

Albert Horner (1891-1964) was born at Kukaiau, Hawai‘i, where his grandfather had started Kukaiau Sugar Co. some years earlier.

And Kapa‘a’s Hawaiian Canneries, which Horner managed from 1920 until his retirement in 1953, and which closed in 1962, had been organized by Horner’s father in 1914. Its cannery was located where Pono Kai Resort now stands and its fields extended from Kapahi north to Moloa‘a.

It was one of Kaua‘i’s three pineapple plantations, the others being Kauai Pineapple Company of Lawa‘i and Hawaiian Fruit Packers, which operated a cannery on Kawaihau Road.

Horner, his wife Phyllis and their three children lived in a beachfront home in Wailua where Lanikai Condominiums was later built. In 1963, their residence served as a setting in the movie “Donovan’s Reef,” filmed on Kaua‘i, starring John Wayne and Lee Marvin.

A curious footnote to Horner’s biography occurred in 1950, when The Garden Island newspaper printed his report of seeing a round glowing object racing

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through Kaua‘i’s skies from Ahukini toward Anahola for about 2 1/2 seconds at 7:25 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 7, while he was standing by All Saints Church in Kapa‘a.

Validity to Horner’s claim came later when Ben Iida, at home in Lihu‘e around 6 p.m. that same evening, called his neighbors’ attention to a faintly glowing object shooting across the sky.

A week later on the 14th, fish and game warden Ben Ohai also reported seeing a glowing round object in the sky around 1:15 a.m. while arresting seven people for fishing violations at Kapa‘a Beach. The violators also witnessed the phenomenon.

And Kumanosuke Fujita of Knudsen’s Gap happened to be in his yard at about 1:30 a.m. that morning when he noticed a rapidly whirling object overhead.

People speculated that the objects were flying saucers.

The Wailua Falls Mansion

Mr. & Mrs. Brown Englishman Thomas Brown (1804-1886) had been a horticulturist at Windsor Castle when ill health compelled him to seek a warmer climate.

He chose Hawai‘i, and soon after arriving in 1846 with his family, he obtained a 99-year royal government lease to about 1,000 acres at Wailua for the purpose of establishing a dairy and coffee plantation.

There, he built an English-style manor house known as the Wailua Falls Mansion, with its frame shipped unassembled from England via China and its timber cut from nearby Kaua‘i forests.

Nestled amidst 85 acres of pasture, orchards, and well-tended gardens, it was situated a few hundred yards east of Wailua Falls on the brink of the high bluff just above the juncture of the North and South Forks of the Wailua River, a 38

place Hawaiians called Kumalu.

The mansion could be reached upriver by canoe, beyond the Fern Grotto where the river becomes unnavigable, followed by a steep climb at Konolea (site of Konolea Rice Plantation that operated many years later into the early 1900s), or overland by fording the flats above Wailua Falls.

Its drawing room, with large windows extending its entire length, overlooked Wailua Valley, and a paneled doorway and spacious reception parlors welcomed visitors into its eight lofty, plastered rooms.

Brown’s mansion even featured a secret chamber that charmed and fascinated guests.

But, after three successive coffee plantings fell prey to caterpillars, Brown quit his lease in 1852 and moved to New York.

Scotsman Duncan McBryde and others lived there for a time, and in the late 1870s, King David Kalakaua had the mansion disassembled and moved into the valley, intending to rebuild it later at Kapahi.

Kalakaua’s plans went nowhere and Brown’s mansion decayed and vanished.

Lost forever, no pictures of it exist.

William Nordmeier’s Account Of Ko‘olau

William Nordmeier In 1939, George Toda of The Garden Island interviewed longtime Kekaha resident William Nordmeier to hear what Nordmeier had to say about the leper Ko‘olau, his wife Piilani, and their only child Kaleimanu, all of whom Nordmeier had known personally.

By all accounts, including Nordmeier’s, theirs is the story of Ko‘olau’s flight from government authorities into Kalalau Valley to prevent Ko‘olau’s 39

deportation to the leper settlement at Kalaupapa, Molokai.

In Kalalau Valley with his wife and son, Ko‘olau had killed Sheriff Louis Stolz, and had held off a company of soldiers and survived for three years before succumbing to leprosy.

But Nordmeier’s version of events also differs from other accounts, including Waimea Judge Christopher B. Hofgaard’s highly regarded 1916 publication “The Story of Piilani.”

For one, Nordmeier states that Kaleimanu contracted the disease at Kekaha before Koolau did, not afterwards in Kalalau Valley.

Nordmeier also told Toda that Ko‘olau, Piilani and Kaleimanu did not flee directly to Kalalau Valley, as is otherwise recorded, but first hid in a cave mauka of the old Knudsen residence, “Waiawa,” then situated at the foot of the pali a mile west of Kekaha.

And Kaleimanu did not die of leprosy in Kalalau Valley, according to Nordmeier.

Instead, he’d secretly returned to Kekaha and lived there for several years before he died. Never seen during the day, Nordmeier had passed by him one night near the site of today’s Kekaha School.

Nordmeier also explained that he’d met Piilani and her second husband later at Mana, where she’d given him a drink of okolehao she called, “Kalalau water.”

She then told Nordmeier that she and Koolau had climbed to the Kilohana of Kalalau during their flight and had seen Nordmeier and others on guard blocking their escape. Ko‘ olau had then asked, “I wonder what Willie is doing here?”

Legislator Clem Gomes

In his boyhood, Hanama‘ulu-born Clem Gomes (1892-1948) quit school to 40

help support his family by working in the sugarcane fields at 25 cents a day, and by the age of 14, he was washing horses and buggies for $1.50 per week at Waimea Stables — a transportation, feed and livery business that rented out drays, carriages, horses and mules, and operated out of branches in Waimea and Nawiliwili.

In 1920, Gomes became manager of Waimea Stables, and when American Factors purchased the firm in 1929 and incorporated it as Nawiliwili Transportation Co., Gomes stayed on as manager. He bought controlling interest in the company in 1940 and was general manager until his death.

Gomes entered politics in 1924 and served as a representative continuously through the 1939 session, except for one defeat in the 1932 campaign.

A colorful character who entertained crowds at rallies with his ‘ukulele, Gomes was elected to the senate in 1940, ran unopposed for reelection in 1944 and served as senate president in 1947, but lost in 1948 to Manuel Aguiar Jr. Although forced by circumstances to leave school as a boy, he made up for his lack of formal education by taking correspondence courses. Self-educated, he particularly appreciated the value of an education.

One outcome of this was his backing in the Legislature of elevating Waimea School (est. 1882) to high school status in 1936. The gymnasium on its campus bears his name.

Gomes’ legislative work also resulted in the construction of today’s Lihu‘e Airport. Its groundbreaking ceremony occurred on the day he died, November 4, 1948.

Clem Gomes, a self-made man and a graduate of the University of Hard Knocks who came up the hard way, was also a veteran of World War I. He and Mrs. Mary Gomes had one son.

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The Kauai Volunteers

Kauai Volunteers Headquarters Staff During World War II, the Kauai Volunteers — a local militia unique in United States military history — was formed on Kaua‘i to supplement the Armed Forces and National Guard in defense of Kaua‘i.

First organized in March 1942, the Kauai Volunteers eventually numbered 2,400 members, with 90 percent being Filipinos employed by Kaua‘i’s sugar plantations.

Volunteers worked at their usual plantation day jobs and trained and performed their volunteer duties in the evenings, with scheduled drills being held on Sundays. Kauai Volunteers could also be inducted into the U.S. Army.

Under the command of Paul Townsley of Lihue Plantation, the Kauai Volunteers consisted of one regiment composed of three battalions.

One battalion included officers and men from Kekaha to Hanapepe, another from Kalaheo to Lihu‘e, and one from Kapa‘a to Kilauea.

Companies representing individual sugar plantations were formed within each battalion.

Basically an infantry unit, the Kauai Volunteers’ mission included beach defense, guard duty, traffic control and riot duty if necessary, and scout and guide duty for Army troops unfamiliar with Kauai’s rough interior.

Mounted troops, such as Troop A commanded by Waimea’s Alan Faye Sr., patrolled ranch lands.

U.S. Army veterans and veterans of the Philippine Army customarily served as officers.

Uniforms were similar to the Army, and Army officers and enlisted personnel served as advisors and instructors in military subjects, and supplied the 42

volunteers with pistols, rifles, other arms and ammunition.

Units were authorized to carry the deadly Filipino bolo, a large, single-edged knife used in the Philippines that was handmade from old automobile springs.

Funding was provided by the volunteers themselves and from the American Legion, sugar plantations, local businesses, the Office of Civilian Defense, and Kauai County.

Similar units were formed on other islands: the Hawaii Rifles, the Maui Volunteers, the Molokai-Lanai Volunteers, the Hawaii Scouts and the Oahu Scouts.

Heroine -- Suemi Serikawa

On Sunday, Aug. 30, 1931, the two Yamamoto sisters, ages nine and five, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. S. Yamamoto of Hanapepe Valley, were walking home across the Hanapepe swinging bridge after finishing an errand, when for some unknown reason the younger girl fell off the bridge into the Hanapepe River.

Ten-year-old Suemi Serikawa, a little girl who was swimming nearby with some of her friends, saw the girl fall and without hesitation picked up an inflated car inner tube and ran about 75 yards along the river bank to a point opposite from where the girl had fallen.

She then plunged into the river and swam to the smaller girl, who was drowning in deep water about 25 yards beyond the shallows.

When Suemi reached her, the girl was at the point of collapse from exhaustion.

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Suemi grabbed hold of her, put her inside the inner tube and told her to hold on. As soon as the girl took hold of the tube, Suemi supported her with one arm while holding onto the tube herself and began swimming to the river bank by paddling her feet.

Meanwhile, Suemi’s friends had called for Mrs. Taro Momohara, who was hanging wash clothes nearby, to come and help, and when Suemi and the girl reached the river bank, Momohara administered first aid to the girl who recovered shortly thereafter.

Unhesitatingly, and without a thought for her own safety, Suemi had saved the life of another.

She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Koichi Serikawa of Hanapepe and was attending ‘Ele‘ele School in the fourth grade.

The Kauai Board of Supervisors later wrote her a letter citing her bravery and her presence of mind in having taken the tube with her in rescuing the Yamamoto girl.

The Kelekomas’ Priest House

In 1933, Henry D. Sloggett, then active in locating, setting aside and restoring heiau and other historic sites in the Wailua River area, asked Charles Lono Kelekoma to construct a grass hut to represent a priest’s house in the Holoholoku Heiau.

The authentic Hawaiian hut Lono built lasted 18 years, until 1951, when the County replaced it. But the County’s hut — not constructed with materials and by methods as was done in old Hawai‘ i — became dilapidated in just a couple of years.

Meanwhile, Lono had passed away, but his nephew and foster child, Franklin Mano Kelekoma, who’d helped build Lono’s hut, agreed in 1953 to build a

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proper hut with his sons and some friends.

Mano used mountain apple — a native redwood that withstands weather, rain and insects — for the upright posts.

For the lighter crosspieces, he selected tough, crawling hau branches — light, sturdy and resistant to insects.

Finally, he lashed pili grass thatching to the wooden frame of hau bark to complete an 8 x 10 model priest’s house that stood for many years.

Long ago, the Holoholoku Heiau in which Lono’s and Mano’s huts were built was a place of monthly human sacrifice.

Entrance was gained through a low opening, and inside were statues, an oracle tower and the priest’s grass-thatched house.

If prisoners of war were unavailable to sacrifice, a priest would select a victim and an executioner would go out at night to strangle the chosen one and carry the corpse to the heiau.

The body would then be hung on the oracle tower until morning, when it would be taken down and lain on a sacrificial stone.

After the flesh had decomposed and had fallen off, the bones would be buried by the Wailua River.

Canoe Racing’s Revival On Kauai

In old Hawai‘i, outrigger canoe racing was a competitive sport, and gambling on races was commonplace.

But, the sport was considered immoral by American Protestant missionaries, most of whom arrived in Hawai‘i in “Companies” between 1820 and 1848, and in accordance with their emphasis on strict religious and moral behavior, especially as regards to sex and pleasure, the missionaries used their influence to ban it.

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It would be not be until 1876 that canoe racing was reinstated by the “Merrie Monarch,” King David Kalakaua, who not only enjoyed gambling, but also took immense delight in balls, parties and other festivities.

By 1908, Hawai‘i’s first outrigger canoe clubs were organized — the Outrigger Canoe Club and Hui Nalu of Honolulu — and in 1950, the Hawaiian Canoe Racing Association was established.

The sport’s revival on Kaua‘i followed in 1955, when crew members of the newly organized Kauai Canoe & Racing Assn., led by association president William Ellis, began serious training at Nawiliwili with two purchased canoes.

Among the first competitors coached by Ray Mant were Madeline Chow, Mildred Chow, Mabel Kaliloa, David Kahaunaele, Clarence Napoleon, Robert Mendonca, William Kolo, Raymond Napoleon, Moses Gardner, Robert Kealoha and Jimmy Burgess.

On Kamehameha Day, June 11, 1955, inaugural races were held at Nawiliwili, and Kaua‘i’s first annual regatta took place there on Sept. 25th. On that day, William Ellis crowned the regatta queen, Shirley Kaiwi, and seven races were held.

Winning crew members were: James Kimokeo, Moses Gardner, Paul Brede, Clinton Makanani, Joseph Kaluahine, Richard Waalani, Helen Hanohano, Dolores Hoopii, Leilani Kanoho, Dolores Viado, Paul Panui, Albert Nakamura, Matthew Kaluahine, John Duarte, Wanda Holt, Colleen Carroll, Eula Holt, Chris Kauahi, Marjorie Kahaunaele, Rose Kaluahine, Rosabelle Paalua, Lihue Alexander, Helen Waiau, Margaret Wong, Harry Kawaihalau, Raymond Napoleon, Eddy Robbins and Hidemi Nakamura.

Hawaiian Artifacts Identified

Eric Knudsen With Hawaiian God In June 1952, archaeologist Dr. Kenneth Emory of the Bishop Museum began 46

identifying and cataloging old Hawaiian artifacts held by collectors on Kaua‘i.

One of these, a 7-foot 4-inch archer’s bow — the only known Hawaiian bow in existence — had been found by Eric Knudsen of Koloa in a cave on Hoea Ridge near Kekaha 30 years earlier, and until Emory correctly identified it, Knudsen had supposed it was a double-ended spear.

Alii practiced the sport of archery with bows, the test of skill being accuracy, not distance. Bowmen would shoot rats to perfect their aim, but warriors never fought with them. Hawaiians battled with spears, and at distance with slings with which they flung small stones.

Emory also noted that Hawaiian arrows and arrowheads were exceedingly rare. The only two arrows known were kept in the British Museum in London, and the one bone arrowhead was at Bishop Museum.

Knudsen’s collection of gods was also examined.

At Hanalei, Emory inspected John Hanohano’s extremely unusual stone statuette of a man supporting a small bowl on his back.

In Waimea, Mr. and Mrs. Goodwin’s collection contained poi pounders in various stages of development, from a simple block of stone with a small handhold carved into it, to a finely carved ring pounder made only on Kaua‘i.

The only known hair lei made partly of white hair and a whale’s tooth ornament was shown to Emory by Hector Moir of Koloa.

And, a 14-inch by 2-inch stone knife owned by Kapa‘a’s Leslie Miller, and two feather leis once belonging to Princess Likelike in the possession of William Moragne of Grove Farm, were also catalogued. Moragne also pointed out an ancient wooden bowl he’d uncovered under the roots of a hau tree.

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Dr. J. M. “Jay” Kuhns

Dr. J. M. “Jay” Kuhns (1884-1964) served as a physician on Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau for 43 years, beginning in 1916 when he joined Makee Sugar Company as resident physician, and ending in 1959, when at age 75, he retired as Ni‘ihau’s doctor.

When Kuhns started at Makee, he was provided with three horses, but by year’s end, the plantation bought him a car —- license number 407, the 407th car on the island. Yet Kaua‘i’s roads got so mired during wet weather in those days that he still often resorted to horseback.

During the flu epidemic of 1920, Kuhns worked for two weeks with practically no rest and caught the flu with pneumonia.

Dr. Edgar Young examined him and assured him he’d be okay, then whispered to a nurse that “He’ll be dead by night.” Kuhns overheard and got so mad, he literally willed himself to health. Meanwhile, word got out erroneously to Honolulu that he’d died, with the result that Dr. L. L. Patterson was sent over as his replacement and stayed on even after Kuhns recovered.

Kuhns once performed an especially complicated Caesarean at the old Kealia hospital with a loaded shotgun in the operating room.

The woman’s husband had vowed to kill Kuhns and anyone else associated with the operation if his wife died.

Kuhns took him at his word and also took the precaution of getting the shotgun, especially after learning that of 174 operations of this particular type, 170 patients had died. Fortunately, the mother (and her baby, Kuhns and the husband) survived.

While serving as Ni‘ihau’s doctor, the Robinsons would inform him of an

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medical emergency on Ni‘ihau — after they’d been notified by carrier pigeon from Ni‘ihau.

Dr. Kuhns delivered hundreds of babies at home on Kaua‘i.

John Webber, Captain Cook’s Artist

Webber’s Drawing Of Heiau At Waimea Valley John Webber (1752-1793) was the official artist for Captain James Cook’s third Pacific voyage (1776-1780). His drawings and those of surgeon’s second mate William Ellis made this voyage the most extensively documented voyage in history prior to the invention of photography.

Webber’s and Ellis’ drawings are the first pictorial records of Hawai‘i. They depict Hawaiians and their homes, sacred sites, dress and adornments, tools and weapons, and relationships with Cook’s men.

Webber often accompanied Cook ashore, where he would make quick, on-thespot drawings he’d finish later aboard ship.

Several of these drawings were made on Kauai following Cook’s discovery of the Hawaiian Islands on Jan. 18, 1778.

One opportunity to sketch occurred at Waimea on the morning of the 21st of January, when Cook went ashore to ensure that work filling barrels of fresh water was underway.

After his inspection, Cook left Lt. Williamson in command at the beach and walked into Waimea Valley with Webber and William Anderson, the ship’s surgeon.

A Hawaiian guide led the way, loudly calling out a warning. When people heard him, they threw themselves on the ground and remained there until Cook (regarded as a highest-ranking ali‘i) and the others had passed.

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In Waimea Valley, they observed irrigated taro patches and groves of coconuts, bananas and paper mulberry trees used in making kapa.

About a half-mile inland, they came to a heiau where human sacrifice was practiced.

Because Webber made a detailed drawing of it, we now know what a sacrificial heiau looked like before the advent of Western influence.

Another of his drawings at Waimea shows Hawaiians and Cook’s crewmen bartering and rolling water barrels. Grass houses stand behind them and mountains are drawn in the background.

Sugar Grower And Legislator Manuel Aguiar Jr.

Hanama‘ulu-born Manuel Aguiar Jr. (1892-1969) was elected to the Territorial Legislature in 1918, served 13 years on the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors and won election to a 4-year term in the Territorial Senate in 1948, while earning his living as an independent sugarcane grower.

As the eldest of eight brothers and six sisters, he was obliged to discontinue his schooling at age 14 in 1906 to work as a steam plowman for Makee Sugar Co. in Kealia to help support his family.

Five years later, the self-educated and self-made popular legislator got his start as an independent grower by borrowing $150 for a down payment on the purchase price of $532.50 for Territorial Lot 76 — 35 1/2 acres at $15 per acre — and planted sweet potatoes.

The following year, 1912, he cleared 18 acres and planted sugarcane.

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Harvested in 1914, the crop netted Aguiar $2,190, of which a half-share went to his father, who demanded payment in gold, but settled for saddlebags filled with 1,190 silver dollars instead.

By purchasing and leasing additional land, Aguiar would eventually have as many as 150 acres in cane and employ several men who lived in Aguiar Camp alongside Kawaihau Road.

Unlike most independent growers, Aguiar worked with his men in the fields, and at harvest time they’d cut the cane and “hapai ko” the cane into cane cars on railroad tracks that Makee, and later, Lihue Plantation would haul by locomotive to their mills.

His final crop was harvested in 1958, when Lihue Plantation quit buying cane from independent growers. At that time, only three independents remained on Kaua‘i, down from over 200 in the Kapahi region alone when he started, and he turned to ranching.

Manuel and Beatrice Aguiar Jr. had three daughters.

More Pele On Kauai

Pele’s Home Kilauea Crater Hawaii One evening shortly after Christmas 1945, truck driver Gilacio Pascual was hauling taro from Hanalei to Kapa‘a, when he was flagged down by a schoolgirl wearing a black dress with white trim near the old Ko‘olau Store on Ko‘olau Road.

The girl asked to be taken to the baseball park makai of Moloa‘a Camp (located on property that would later become the site of a dairy) and Pascual drove on with her aboard until he’d passed the hairpin turn in Moloa‘a gulch. It was then that he noticed she had vanished.

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Worried now and somewhat frightened, Pascual then decided to stop and wait for her a while at the ball park in the hope she might show up, but she did not and he drove off.

When he later shared his story, several listeners reckoned that the girl was none other than Madame Pele, the volcano goddess.

But Eric Knudsen, KTOH radio’s “Teller of Hawaiian Tales,” said he doubted Pele had appeared on Kaua‘i in recent times. However, he noted that Pele’s first home long ago had been above Waimea Canyon at Pu‘u Ka Pele, meaning “Pele’s Hill,” a corruption of Puka Pele, which means “Pele’s Door” or “Pele’s Hole,” the place where she’d exited the netherworld.

Board of Supervisor’s Chairman William Ellis reminisced that as a young man he’d heard several stories of Pele appearing before Hawaiians in the form of a young girl or old woman and wished he had written them down.

And Sam Peahu, a driver for Nawiliwili Transportation Co., recalled the story of a Chinaman driving from Mana to Waimea in the 1920s who’d picked up an old woman on his way. When he neared Kekaha, the woman disappeared. Later, Hawaiians assured him that the woman could only have been Pele.

Lihue Store

Lihue Store, with its unique mascot — a small, carved wooden man holding a spyglass that stood outside on the southwestern edge of the store — was located on a now vanished corner of Rice Street north of and opposite the Isenberg Memorial.

Built of concrete and opened in 1913, it carried general merchandise, hardware, dry goods, groceries and cold storage items and was at the center of the community and a familiar Kaua‘i landmark until it was razed in the mid1960s to make way for the Lihu‘e Shopping Center.

But the original Lihue Store, a 1-1/2 story wooden structure, was built in 1850 at Koamalu above the sugar mill.

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One early storekeeper’s Dickensian handle was Johnny Stubblebean, and sugar planter George Wilcox got his start in business there.

Then in 1876, when Oswald Scholz was manager, the store was moved down into the mill valley and uphill on rollers pulled by ox teams to the corner on Rice Street (then called Government Road).

A framed building replaced this store in 1896, and before construction commenced on the concrete store in 1911, the framed building was moved westward onto the site where the old Tip Top Building would be built in 1915 — approximately where the “round building” of the Lihue Civic Center now stands.

On opening day, Nov. 8, 1913, thousands of customers thronged the new store. Displayed were the latest fashions purchased back East by Mr. De Lacy, Manager Hermann Rohrig’s buyer. But the most popular feature was the soda fountain, crowded with customers throughout the day.

For entertainment, a Hawaiian quintet played upstairs. Flowers and palms decorated the interior, and outside, never before had more cars been seen at one place on Kaua‘i during the course of a single day.

Archaeological Excavations At Nualolo Kai

In 1958 and 1959, teams of archaeologists led by Dr. Kenneth P. Emory of Bishop Museum carried out systematic excavations at Nu‘alolo Kai on Kaua‘i’s Napali Coast — excavations that were meticulously staked and mapped, with tons of soil producing a handful of artifacts per cubic yard.

They learned that Hawaiians had inhabited the area since at least 1389, plus or minus 150 years, a date that was determined after charcoal — the remains of a fire set by Hawaiians long ago — was unearthed and sent to the nuclear laboratories at the University of Michigan for radiocarbon dating.

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Radiocarbon dating is an estimate of age, to a limit of about 50,000 years, based on the amount of a natural radioactive carbon isotope (carbon-14) that remains in any organic matter (formerly living things such as bones and plants and materials made from living things like cloth and leather).

In relating other discoveries at Nu‘alolo Kai, Emory said, “We can now see seven successive occupations in layers from 6 inches to one foot apart. House floors, fireplaces and even posts are visible.”

Emory also mentioned a turtle shell tattooing instrument found there that he had never before seen in Hawai‘i. The needle was a Marquesan type that made multiple dots with 8 points. Bird bone tattoo needles with one point on each were also discovered.

In the old days, Hawaiians tattooed with a dye made of kukui nut soot, which appeared as a bright blue on the skin. “Anything new that impressed them” became the themes for their designs, remarked Emory. After goats were introduced, people tattooed goat necklaces; when guns came along, they became the current fashion.

Digging and screening also yielded fish hooks, adzes, grindstones and bone pickers that Hawaiians used to extract meat from shellfish.

Louis Thiercelin, Whaling Doctor

Waimea 1824 While serving as ship’s surgeon aboard the French whale ship Ville de Bordeaux, Dr. Louis Thiercelin (1809-1884) briefly visited Waimea, Kaua‘i, in September 1839.

When Thiercelin’s ship first appeared off Waimea, Protestant missionaries Rev. and Mrs. Whitney and others initially mistook it for a French warship and were alarmed, since France had been displeased by Hawai‘i’s anti-Catholic policy, but no volunteers would man the Russian Fort’s few cannon and rusty rifles in defense.

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And, as the whale ship drew closer, several hundred Hawaiian men sitting in small, narrow canoes circled the ship, eyeing it with great curiosity.

Abandoning their canoes, they soon crowded the deck, yet when the captain beckoned them to leave, they promptly dived overboard. Meanwhile, their canoes had drifted, but no matter. With ease they swam two miles to shore in about an hour.

Ashore, Thiercelin met Old William, an Englishman who had lived on Kaua‘i for about 30 years. How he had arrived on Kaua‘i, he would not tell, but he had married and lived comfortably.

William’s home, like the other hundred or so homes in Waimea, consisted of three buildings bordered by a wooden fence, and his living quarters contained two rooms separated by a partition of mats, with clean mats layered upon the floor.

On Thiercelin’s way to visit the Whitneys at their cottage, he observed a girl slightly darker than the other Hawaiian children, the daughter of a Sepoy who’d arrived on Kaua‘i from India 20 years earlier and had married a Hawaiian.

Cakes and tea were served at the Whitneys, and later, Keaweamahi, Kaua‘i’s Governess, solemnly welcomed the French visitors, and the Ville de Bordeaux’s captain presented her with a diamond ring.

On Oct. 10, Mrs. Whitney wrote that “the French ship left Waimea several days ago.”

The Kilipakis

Kilipaki Housing Near Lihue Mill Beginning in 1878 and ending anywhere from seven to eight years later, over 2,000 Gilbert Islanders were recruited as labor for Hawai‘i’s sugar plantations.

Of these, a large proportion went to Kaua‘i, with the first group of about 250

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men, women and children arriving on the Garden Island in late 1880.

The Hawaiians named them Kilipakis, and those assigned to Lihue Plantation resided near the mill, while at nearby Grove Farm, owner George Wilcox built three houses in Nawiliwili Valley for them.

But, their aversion to Kaua‘i’s climate, cooler and wetter than that of their native islands, quickly manifested itself on the first morning when all but one were found crowded inside a single house complaining of cold.

The exception was their chief, who had somehow squeezed himself into a storage shelf on the lanai for extra warmth.

The lower temperatures also made the Kilipakis more susceptible to common colds, and the fixed, methodical routines of plantation work did not suit them.

Quarrels were frequent. In one case, one woman bit off another woman’s nose during a fight. The newcomers also angered Hawaiians by digging up skulls in burial grounds for use as war trophies.

During their unhappy sojourn on Kaua‘i, Rev. Joel H. Mahoe of Kilauea, a minister who’d served as a missionary in the Gilbert Islands and knew the Gilbertese language and customs, worked to assist them, but tuberculosis, pneumonia and dysentery took a toll, as did the enervating effects of liquor and opium.

None became permanent residents of Hawai‘i. Those Kilipakis that survived returned to the Gilbert Islands as soon as their contracts expired, with some of these repatriates purchasing rifles in Honolulu beforehand that they promptly used upon their return to annihilate an enemy tribe.

Donovan’s Reef

Lee Marvin And Friends On Kauai

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While filming “Donovan’s Reef”, an action-comedy made on Kaua‘i during July and August of 1962, the cast was rehearsing one day in the banquet room of the old Kauai Inn on Rice Street, when actor, John Wayne, spoke the line, “Ann, bring me some coffee.”

Director John Ford, not pleased with Wayne’s delivery, asked Wayne several times to repeat the line, which Wayne did, but louder each time.

Wayne’s last reading was a shout so loud that Ida Lovell, working in the adjacent bar and hearing a yell for coffee, went to the kitchen to fix a pot to bring to the rehearsal.

When Ford saw her walk in with the coffee and cups a while later, he asked her what was going on and she replied, “I heard someone hollering, ‘Ida, bring some coffee,’ so I brought it.”

Ford burst out laughing and Lovell suggested that since she’d already made the coffee, they might as well take a coffee break.

John Wayne piped in, “We certainly will have a coffee break. We are entitled to it. This is the first time this so and so Ford has so much as smiled, since he got on the island.”

And patrons later joked that the incident surely proved the point that if you holler loud and long enough, you will get service.

“Donovan’s Reef” starred John Wayne, Elizabeth Allen, Lee Marvin, Jack Warden, Cesar Romero, and Dorothy Lamour.

Film sites included the Allerton estate at Lawa‘i-Kai, Ko‘olau, the Horner house in Waipouli, Waimea Canyon, Hanama‘ulu beach park, Smith’s Wailua River boat landing and the Ahukini pier.

After a day’s filming, Lee Marvin relaxed at the old Club Jetty nightclub in Nawiliwili, and John Wayne was seen buying, of all things, a coffee pot at Kress Store on Rice Street.

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Legislator William Ellis

Longtime Kauai Board of Supervisors Chairman William Ellis was born in 1892 at Nawiliwili into a large Hawaiian family, where he was well versed in Hawaiian ways and learned to speak the Hawaiian language beautifully and poetically.

And, prior to his election to the Board of Supervisors in 1930, Ellis attended Kamehameha School, was chief mechanic at Coney Garage in Nawiliwili and proprietor of a Nawiliwili service station.

His political career on the Board spanned three decades (1930-1951), during which time he was designated or elected Chairman seventeen times -- an era of Kauai government marked by an unsurpassed degree of decorum and harmony.

In 1962, when he retired as sub-land agent for Kauai, Ellis commented on the elected officials of his generation and the people they served: “We had no headline makers. Nobody thought about talking for the newspapers. We just tried to do what was right for the people. We discussed things freely and decided.”

And, “In the old days, the people felt they were provided for, and were not demanding everything. People could take care of themselves. They were not always demanding more and more.”

As was the case with the old-time Hawaiians, reality for Ellis was both physical and spiritual, with the latter taken seriously and spoken of only with caution.

When asked once what he knew of kahunas, Ellis’s reply was typically guarded: “Some are good and others are bad,” he said, and he left it at that, quite in contrast to his usual frankness.

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Yet, with his children he shared his Hawaiian values and his hands-on knowledge of Hawaiian culture and customs, and showed them places around Kauai important in the history and legends of his people.

Mr. William Ellis and Mrs. Maria Piihalao Ellis raised seven children. He passed away in 1962.

Kaiana

In 1787, when the British fur trader Nootka, on its way to Canton, China, arrived at Waimea, Kaua‘i, its captain, John Meares, found many Hawaiians eager to sail with him to see “Britannee” and the world beyond Hawai‘i.

Of these, Meares chose the high chief Kaiana (1756?-1795), a brother of both King Kaeo of Kaua‘i and Maui’s King Kahekili.

At Canton, Kaiana met a young Hawaiian woman named Wainee, who’d gone to sea earlier in 1787 as the maid of the captain’s wife of the British ship Imperial Eagle, but had become ill and had been left behind at Canton.

When Nootka sailed on, Kaiana remained with her.

Not long afterwards, the couple sailed off together aboard another fur trader bound for the Pacific Northwest, the first leg of a return voyage to Hawai‘i, but Wainee died and was buried at sea.

In December 1788, Kaiana sailed for Hawai‘i with Captain Douglas in the Iphigenia, along with a cargo containing muskets, cannon and ammunition he’d purchased in Canton — western arms that Hawaiian chiefs throughout the islands sought to gain dominance over their enemies.

Douglas stopped first on the Big Island. There Kaiana learned that Kaua‘i was

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in the midst of civil war and that his jealous brother, King Kaeo, did not favor his return.

Thwarted in his desire to return home, Kaiana then became a chief under Kamehameha, where his armaments and his knowledge of their uses in warfare bolstered Kamehameha’s army.

But, bad blood came between the two in 1793 after Kaiana was suspected of having an affair with Kamehameha’s wife, Kaahumanu.

Fearing a plot against him in 1795, Kaiana deserted Kamehameha, joined the O‘ahu army of Kalanikupule and was killed in the battle of Nuuanu Pali during Kamehameha’s conquest of that island later in the year.

Garden Island Motors

Garden Island Motors, Kuhio Highway, Kauai The old Garden Island Motors building on Kuhio Highway in Lihu‘e was home to Kaua‘i’s Ford dealership from 1923 to 1965, when the business moved to the Lihu‘e Industrial Center.

Prior to 1923, the company had been located in Nawiliwili, where it began in 1908 as Nawiliwili Garage Ltd., an automobile rental and service business.

Ten years later, in 1918, car sales totaled almost 100, and about five times as many were sold in 1923, when the move to Kuhio Highway (then called Isenberg Street) was made and the company was renamed Garden Island Motors Ltd. The Model T, “Tin Lizzie,” was the only car Ford made from 1909 until 1927, when the Model A was introduced, and from 1914 through 1925, it came in only one color — black.

But it was simple, durable and cheap. By 1924, a Model T cost just $290 — inexpensive enough for many Kaua‘i families to purchase.

By the way, until the breakwater was built at Nawiliwili in 1921, ships would 60

anchor off Kukii Point and whaleboats would carry lighter goods to and from ships and the pier. To transport cars, two whaleboats would be lashed together with the car secured atop them.

Kaua‘i businessman Charles W. Spitz was one of the founders of Nawiliwili Garage. Earlier, in 1886, he’d opened a store in Nawiliwili and in 1890, he became proprietor of Kaua‘i’s first hotel, the Fairview, where Kalapaki Villas is now located.

In 1919, Charles A. Baggott became manager of Nawiliwili Garage and by the time of his death in 1930, he’d acquired controlling interest in Garden Island Motors.

A year later, rancher and politician Charles A. Rice obtained ownership.

In 1958, Rice sold the business to his grandson, Holbrook Goodale.

Forty years later, Goodale sold the 90-year old kama‘aina company to Midpac Auto Center.

Historian Samuel Kamakau

Samuel Kamakau (1815-1876) wrote nearly 300 articles on the history and culture of his people.

First printed in Hawaiian language newspapers, many of his articles were later translated into English, edited and published in Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii, The People of Old, The Works of the People of Old, and Tales and Traditions of the People of Old. In Ruling Chiefs, Kamakau describes, from a Hawaiian perspective, the initial reaction on Kaua‘i to the coming of Captain Cook in January 1778.

He wrote that a man named Moapu, fishing at sea at the time, saw one of Cook’s ships sailing by in the dark off Waimea with lights on board.

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Later, when “Resolution” and “Discovery” lay off Waimea, someone on shore asked, “What are those branching things?” Another answered, “They are trees moving about the sea.”

Kamakau also states that Kuohu, a kahuna of Waimea, declared that the ship “… can be nothing else than the heiau of Lono, the tower of Keolewa, and the place of sacrifice at the altar.”

When some Hawaiians went aboard Cook’s ship, they said, “Oh, how much dagger material (pahoa) there is here!” (The Hawaiians did not produce iron, but they knew what it was, since pieces of iron had come ashore from time to time with driftwood).

When Cook’s men shot guns and skyrockets into the night, the Hawaiians called the rockets “the fires of Lono-makua,” the gun flash “the lightening,” and its report “Kane in the thunder.”

And according to Kamakau, Kaeo, the ruling chief of Kauai, “gave to Captain Cook his wife’s daughter Lelemahoalani, who was a sister of Kaumualii. . .,” and “Kaeo caused Lelemahoalani, the chiefess, to sleep on the heiau” -claims refuted by historian John F.G. Stokes in the Hawaiian Historical Society Annual Report for 1930.

Locomotive Driver Antone Orsatelli Sr.

Antone Orsatelli Sr. Antone Orsatelli Sr. worked for McBryde Sugar Co. from 1904 until 1957 — over half a century — and saw the Westside plantation evolve from the days when mules were used to plow and to haul cane to the mill, through the time of locomotives, and lastly, into the truck era.

Born in Puerto Rico in 1892, he emigrated to Kaua‘i with his family in 1900.

When his father and brother died three years later, he left school to support his mother and sisters at McBryde as a water boy.

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Later, he became a mule man at a time when McBryde kept about 80 mules at Wahiawa stable and 50 to 60 mules each at stables in Kukuiula and Lawa‘i.

In the early mornings, he’d hitch up mules to spend long days in the fields. Two men worked a plow; one steered it and the other rode one of several mules to guide it, and every two hours the men would change jobs.

When hauling cane, four mules were used, with one man riding a mule and the other working as brakeman.

In 1919, Orsatelli left mule work for a job as a coal-burning locomotive brakeman, loading the coal box and cleaning the ash pan and smoke stack, often seven or eight times a day, a job that got easier when locomotives were converted from coal to crude oil.

Over the years, he advanced to fireman, whose job it was to keep the steam up, then spare driver and finally, locomotive driver.

When McBryde replaced its six locomotives (Kaulu, Lawai, Sharlelra or “tea pot,” Wainiha, Wahiawa, and No. 6) and its rolling stock with trucks in 1946, Orsatelli switched to truck driver.

Antone Orsatelli Sr. and Mrs. Orsatelli had five children. He passed away in 1969.

Kalapaki

Kalapaki 1890 Kalapaki, the northernmost of three adjoining ahupuaa -- with Nawiliwili at the center and Niumalu to the south -- borders on and extends inland toward Kilohana Crater from Nawiliwili Bay, where many Hawaiians made their homes by the shore long ago.

Then in 1849, a new era of shipping and trade commenced in the area when Lihue Plantation was established and a boat landing was built alongside

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Kalapaki by Nawiliwili Stream.

Thirty years later, William Hyde Rice bought a large section of Kalapaki from Princess Ruth Keelikolani, started Lihue Ranch on it, and erected a beach house overlooking the bay.

Rice’s beach side property was the site, in 1891, of a grand luau attended by 2,000 people honoring Queen Liliuokalani following her royal tour of Kauai.

She’d been Rice’s guest, and at the luau, Rice had sent for drinking water from a spring in Kipukai that was sacred to the Hawaiian gods and royalty.

In 1899, Rice’s son, Charles Rice and his wife Grace made Kalapaki their residence.

And, on April 1, 1946, Rice’s second wife, Mrs. Patricia Rice, was home at Kalapaki with her infant son when a series of 30 to 40 foot tall tidal waves completely destroyed the Rice’s 19-room house. Miraculously, the pair survived, but the Rice’s yardman, Charles Hada, perished while trying to rescue them.

“In the 1950s,” Kauai resident Ginger Beralas Soboleski recently recalled, “when I was a kid, my family spent Easters at Kalapaki Beach, when no hotel had yet been built. There was the beach, the stream, and the ironwood trees that grew on the hill above the beach, and that's it. We were often the only people there.”

The Kauai Surf Hotel opened at Kalapaki in 1960. Westin Kauai replaced it in 1987, and the Kauai Marriott took over in 1995.

Plantation Manager Sinclair Robinson

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Sinclair Robinson, manager of Kauai’s Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation from 1912 until 1964 -- 52 years -- served as manager of a Hawaii sugar plantation longer than anyone in the history of Hawaii’s sugar industry.

And when asked in 1962 at age 76 if he ever planned to retire, “Gay & Robinson has no forced retirement program,” was his droll reply.

Robinson was born at Makaweli in 1886, educated at Harvard and worked as a field luna at Oahu Sugar Co. and as assistant manager at Gay & Robinson before assuming the post of manager.

He recollected that in the old days at Gay & Robinson, sugar was bagged and lightered onto inter-island steamers anchored off the old Makaweli landing.

Later, a railroad connected Makaweli to Port Allen and bagged sugar was transported there, where it was lightered aboard freighters for shipment to San Francisco. Even later, G & R’s bulk sugar was transported by truck to Nawiliwili and loaded aboard a freighter.

In bygone days, he recalled, much work was done on contract or piecework basis, which increased wages above the basic pay of about a dollar a day.

Field workers worked 10 hour days, 6 days a week, and most walked to their jobs from their homes in nearby camps scattered about the plantation.

“The plantation day of early periods started with the mill whistles blowing at 4:30 a.m. Workers were on their way to the fields shortly after 5:30 a.m. A break for breakfast and lunch was taken and the workday ended at 4:30 p.m.

Horses were the means of transportation for lunas, field superintendents and managers,” said Robinson.

Sinclair Robinson was active in community affairs. He and Mrs. Ethel Robinson had four children: Jean (Weir), Marion (Keat), Ruth (LeFiell) and Russell Robinson. He passed away in 1964.

Mrs. Coney’s Reminiscences

King David Kalakaua 65

Mrs. Mary Ellen Coney (1872-1958) of Niumalu, wife of John Haalelea Coney (1864-1944), lived in Honolulu in the days of the Hawaiian monarchy and was privileged to be present at the court of King David Kalakaua.

In 1954 she recalled, “It was my first ball at Iolani Palace and I believe the year was 1890. King Kalakaua was holding a reception for the officers of the ship Charleston. It was a very rare occasion for a man-of-war to come in and the king always made the most of it. Everybody who was anybody was invited and of course, all the aristocracy was there. It was a beautiful sight to see all the women in their Paris gowns being presented to the king and queen, and the officers resplendent in their dress uniforms. These receptions were very sophisticated affairs and the champagne flowed like water. Kalakaua was a very gay monarch.

“Princess Liliuokalani was a very gay, fun-loving young woman. She loved hula and organized her own group of dancers and, of course, she had her own Hawaiian musicians.

“The aristocrats of Honolulu very rarely entered a store to do their shopping, but would drive up to the entrance and wait for the clerks who would bring out the merchandise and display the colorful bolts of cloth to the fashionably dressed women, while a crowd of onlookers would watch with envy and admiration from a respectful distance.

“Kalakaua used to come to the Coney estate across the street from Iolani Palace for coffee every morning after he had finished his constitutional around the block.”

And she laughed when she remembered that “Mashed potatoes were Princess Ruth Keelikolani’s favorite dish and no matter how much the cook prepared, she would eat them all.”

Legends of Wailua

Walter J. Smith 66

Walter J. Smith (1910-1970), the founder with his wife, Emily, of Smith’s Boat Services, wrote a charming booklet of legends and history in 1955 titled “Legends of Wailua.”

A sampling reveals that the first Tahitian settlers led by Moikeha landed on Kaua‘i by the mouth of the Wailua River during the 12th century AD. (Marquesans had settled Kaua‘i in the 8th century, perhaps earlier.)

And criminals could find safety from punishment at the adjacent City of Refuge — provided they could reach it — a daunting task, since it was situated amidst the habitations of Kaua‘i’s alii, from whom they were fleeing.

The nearby Malae Heiau is Kaua‘i’s largest heiau and a sacred place, yet Smith noted that it was used as a cattle pen by Queen Deborah Kapule in the 1830s and 1840s.

Across the river from the Malae Heiau, where a sparse coconut grove now stands, King Kaumualii made his home, and Deborah Kapule’s house was located where Coco Palms Resort is now.

In 1796, during Kaumualii’s reign, Kamehameha launched his first of two failed invasions of Kaua‘i.

When a fierce storm wrecked his fleet in the Kaua‘i channel, killing many of his warriors, most survivors returned to O‘ahu, but some reached Wailua Beach and were taken prisoner, wrote Smith.

Smith also explained that when a king needed more children for his family, or for other ali‘i families, he would order expectant mothers from among the commoners to give birth at the Wailua Birth Stones, the birthplace of Kaua‘i’s chiefs.

After giving birth, the mother was sent home and the newborn’s navel cord was wrapped in kapa and placed in the Navel Rock. If it remained there for four days, the Bell Stone would be rung to announce a chief’s birth; if not, the baby would be executed.

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Ruling Chief Kaeo

Drawing Of A Hawaiian Warrior Circa 1778-1779 By 1786, Kaeo (1748-1794) had become the ruling chief of Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, while his half-brother, Kahekili, was king of Maui and Oahu.

And on the Big Island, three chiefs ruled, one of whom was Kamehameha, the chief who would eventually unite all the Hawaiian Islands under his dominion.

Four years later, Kamehameha conquered Maui, Lanai and Molokai, but when he was forced to abandon his conquests shortly thereafter to return to Hawaii to battle Keoua, the ruling chief of Kau, who was then havocking his homelands in his absence, Kahekili and Kaeo seized the opportunity by retaking Maui, Molokai and Lanai.

They then attacked the Big Island, where they were defeated in 1791 by Kamehameha in the sea battle of Kepuwahaula off the northeastern coast of Hawaii and were forced to withdraw.

Then in 1794, when Kahekili died, Kaeo and one of Kahekili’s sons, Kalanikupule, inherited Kahekili’s kingdom of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Oahu.

Kaeo and Kalanikupule soon turned against each other and their armies engaged in battle on Oahu.

At first, Kaeo was victorious, but when his army moved on Pearl Harbor, a volunteer force from two English ships in the service of Kalanikupule rowed boats close to shore to deliver deadly fire into the ranks of Kaeo’s surrounded army and Kaeo was killed fighting valiantly.

Kalanikupule would not escape Kaeo’s fate, however, for he, too, was killed in 68

battle at Nuuanu Pali during Kamehameha’s conquest of Oahu in 1795.

Kaeo was the father of Kaumualii (1780?-1824), the last king of Kauai and Niihau.

While Kaumualii ruled, Kamehameha launched two failed invasions of Kauai, in 1796 and 1804, and it was not until 1810 that Kaumualii agreed to accept Kamehameha as his sovereign, while still retaining his dominion over Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau, as long as he lived.

Hokuloa’s Story

Kalaupapa, 1895 The true-life story of Koolau and Piilani, which was later fictionalized by writer Jack London in “Koolau the Leper,” is one of Kaua‘i’s best-known tales.

Yet there is another story, practically forgotten nowadays, which is similar to Koolau’s and Piilani’s—the story of Hokuloa of Waimea.

On the one hand, Koolau was a paniolo from Kekaha, who in 1892 was stricken with leprosy, also called Hansen’s Disease.

He fled to Kalalau Valley to prevent his deportation to the leper settlement on Moloka‘i’s Kalaupapa peninsula. At Kalaupapa, he would have been doomed to spend the remainder of his life cut off from his loved ones and the world beyond the peninsula.

While on the run in Kalalau Valley with his wife, Piilani, and their young son, his skills as an expert marksman and hunter enabled him to survive and fight off government authorities, evading capture until he died three years later.

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Similarly, Hokuloa had married and had been an employee of the Kekaha Sugar Company before being afflicted with leprosy in 1929 at age 31.

Faced with being exiled to Kalaupapa, Hokuloa had fled into hiding in Waimea Canyon, taking with him his horse, saddle, rifle and ammunition, and leaving a warning with his family that he would shoot anyone attempting to contact him.

Family and friends dared not approach him, but helped him by leaving food at an agreed upon location.

Then on April 18, 1935, after hiding for over five years, Hokuloa rode into Waimea — weakened, near death and longing to die at home.

He was taken to Waimea Hospital where he died shortly thereafter. He was buried in the Kekaha Cemetery.

Pilikia At The Board Of Supervisors

Dr. Chang All five members of the Kaua‘i County Board of Supervisors — Chairman Manuel Aguiar Jr., Henry Peters, Nick Akana, Dr. Sau Yee Chang and John B. Fernandes — were present on Feb. 7, 1934, when fists flew during their morning board meeting at the Lihu‘e County Building. Also in attendance were County Engineer Daijiro Doi and Sheriff William Henry Rice.

Prior to the heated incident, Chang had asked Doi if he, Chang, had anything to do with the removal of Mrs. Barbara Spalding as caretaker of the Po‘ipu Pavilion.

Doi replied that he and Chang had discussed the removal once in Doi’s office, to which Chang replied that he did not recall that conversation.

Then Chairman Aguiar interrupted their exchange by addressing Chang, “Of course, you had nothing to do with her removal. What about it?”

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Chang then produced an affidavit from Mrs. Spalding, which the clerk read, that indicated Fernandes had informed Spalding in his store in Kapaia of Chang’s intent to replace her.

When the clerk finished, Chang called Fernandes a liar (for telling Spalding that he was behind her removal when he had nothing to do with it, as was substantiated by Aguiar’s earlier remark).

“You can’t call me a liar!” Fernandes shouted, rushing around the table to take a number of wild swings at Chang, one of which made contact, as Chang quickly withdrew toward Aguiar’s chair and Rice and Aguiar managed to restrain Fernandes.

After order was restored, a second clash nearly erupted when Chang insinuated that Doi’s statement regarding their meeting was untrue. Doi had removed his coat and was advancing threateningly toward Chang when Aguiar ordered him to his seat.

Gentlemen that they were, Chang and Fernandes later shook hands and all five supervisors went to lunch together.

Duke Kahanamoku’s First Visit To Kauai

Duke Kahanamoku (1890-1968), legendary surfer and winner of three gold and two silver Olympic medals in swimming and one bronze medal in water polo, first visited Kauai on July 4, 1933 on behalf of the Kauai Young Men’s Buddhist Association’s first island-wide swim meet witnessed by about 5,000 people at Pier 1 in Nawiliwili.

Twenty-two years earlier, Duke had first achieved fame in stunning fashion in his first sanctioned Amateur Athletic Union swim meet at the Alakea Slip in Honolulu Harbor, where he set a new world record in the 100-yard freestyle in the then unbelievable time of 55 2/5 seconds -- 4 3/5 seconds faster than the existing record.

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And his famous over one mile long surf ride off Waikiki one day in 1917 in rare 15 to 20-foot surf is still recalled with awe to this day. (Later, long waves vanished at Waikiki when Kuekaunahi Stream was filled.)

At Nawiliwili, the crowd cheered Duke while he was introduced and performed an exhibition of several swimming strokes.

Although he was past his competitive prime, he was nonetheless still a powerful and stylish swimmer able to give the spectators a glimpse of his championship form. He began with the breaststroke, followed by the old English sidestroke, and finished with the Australian crawl to the delight of all.

In the men’s 100 yard freestyle, the biggest race of the day, Fritz Hayselden and Ah Hing Chow finished in a dead heat time of 1.8.

Other winners included: 50 free men: Poo, 50 free boys under 18: Y. Naito, 100 free boys under 18: Y. Naito, 200 YMBA inter-club relay: Lihue, 50 free girls: C. Holt. Breast stroke, back stroke and medley events were also held.

Kauai’s Sandalwood Trade

In old Hawai‘i, the fragrant wood of the iliahi tree, called sandalwood, had no special cultural significance. It was merely burned as firewood or mixed with coconut oil to perfume kapa.

Yet the Chinese prized it, and beginning in 1811, they obtained a rich supply from American traders at Canton who’d acquired it from Hawaiian chiefs in exchange for Western goods.

The Chinese then made it into boxes, chests, medicine, perfume and incense, while the Americans took on tea, silk, furniture and chinaware for sale in England and America.

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On Kaua‘i, King Kaumuali‘i, enticed by Western merchandise, commanded his commoners to cut iliahi trees, carry the wood to shore, and load it aboard ships.

In time, large forests of iliahi in the highlands above Waimea, Lihu‘e, Koloa, and in Wailua Valley were felled and uprooted.

The commoners suffered from cold in the mountains, and having neglected their farms, were forced to eat herbs and ferns. Many died.

Kaumuali‘i also paid a Captain Rowan in sandalwood to provide for his young son Humehume’s education and welfare in Massachusetts, and when Humehume returned to Waimea in 1820 with the first missionaries aboard the Thaddeus, Kaumuali‘i rewarded its Captain Blanchard with $1,000 worth of sandalwood.

Later, when Humehume got drunk and burned down Captain Masters’ houses in Waimea, Kaumuali‘i made up Masters’ losses with sandalwood valued at $2,500.

In 1816, after the mountebank Georg Anton Schaffer and Kaumualii formed an alliance, whereby Schaffer promised Kaumuali‘i Russian arms and ships in return for trading privileges, property, and a pledge of allegiance to the Russian Empire — all without the blessings of the Russian government — Kaumuali‘i’s subjects began cutting sandalwood for Schaffer and building the Russian Fort at Waimea.

Kaua‘ i’s sandalwood trade continued until its sandalwood was depleted about 1835.

Exorcist Kenneth Yuen

Kahuna Of Old Hawaii In old Hawai‘i and even in more recent times in the Islands, it was believed that sorcerers the Hawaiians called kahuna ana‘ana could pray people to death.

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Still others were skilled at exorcism, which would expel the curses of these evildoers and spare their victims’ lives.

In 1933 on Kaua‘i, a Hawaiian-Chinese exorcist named Kenneth Yuen apparently saved the lives of two young, part-Hawaiian women from what seemed like certain death by kahuna curses.

The first was a pretty German-Hawaiian girl from Makaweli Camp who believed that a disappointed suitor had hired a kahuna to pray her to death.

Plantation doctors diagnosed her condition as an obsessive-compulsive state of hysteria after finding no organic illness. By the time her parents called Yuen, she’d been wasting away for over a year and was near death.

Yuen prayed by her bedside three times a week and within six weeks, the girl recovered.

The second woman, of Portuguese-Hawaiian ancestry, had long been confined to Mahelona Hospital with all the symptoms of tuberculosis, yet strangely, tests revealed that her system was free of the bacillus that causes the disease.

She, too, believed that a jealous lover had cursed her, and from the moment she learned of the curse, her health had declined.

The woman suffered from hallucinations also. Outside her hospital windows she saw dogs with blazing eyes and white fangs. Invisible hands choked her while she slept. From her hospital room during nights of the full moon, she heard the drumming and marching of armies of the dead between Mahelona Hospital and Kealia Beach.

Yuen prayed by her side for nearly a year before the apparitions vanished and her health was restored.

Sometime prior to 1968, Kenneth Yuen moved to the Big Island. He has since died.

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when harvesting operations became 100 percent mechanized. Improvements in irrigation and factory operations were also made during his tenure.

South Pacific

Actress Juanita Hall The 1958 film adaptation of the musical play South Pacific, which was based on stories in James A. Michener’s book Tales of the South Pacific, with music

by Richard Rodgers and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, was filmed on Kauai during August through early October 1957.

Kauai became the setting of an imaginary South Seas island located in the Pacific during World War II, where an American nurse and a wealthy French planter have a romantic affair and a Marine lieutenant falls in love with a beautiful Vietnamese girl on nearby Bali Ha’i, which was portrayed by the reallife island of Tioman in Malaysia.

South Pacific starred Rossano Brazzi as the French planter and Mitzi Gaynor as the American nurse. John Kerr and France Nuyen made a perfect match as Lt. Cable and Liat. Juanita Hall played the role of “Bloody Mary,” a souvenir seller and Liat’s mother. The movie was directed by Joshua Logan.

Scenes were filmed at Haena, Lumahai Beach, Hanalei, Kilauea, Valley House in Keapana, Coco Palms, Barking Sands, Kalapaki and Allerton Gardens.

Many Kauai folks had parts in the movie. Among them were Anna Faye James, who’d performed in the Honolulu Community Theater’s stage production of South Pacific, and Deborah Wilcox, both of whom found parts as dancers.

French planter parts went to Mr. and Mrs. Sam Wilcox and Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Ellis. Charles Kawaihalau, William Brede and Joseph Kahaunaele played island warriors.

David Penhallow, George Huddy and Ethel Carvalho served as stand-ins for John Kerr, Rossano Brazzi and Mitzi Gaynor respectively.

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Plantation Manager Caleb Burns

Caleb Burns, Lihu‘e Plantation’s manager from 1933 until his retirement in 1951, resided with his wife, Florence, from 1934 until 1968, at Iliahi.

A plantation manager’s mansion, Iliahi was built in 1934 about 2.4 miles west of Kapaia in the highlands below Kilohana Crater.

Iliahi, also referred to as Burns House, was alive with many visiting friends and guests the Burnses were fond of entertaining during their long years of residence. “About everyone in the territory has been up there at one time or another,” Burns once said.

When the Burnses moved to Honolulu in 1968, Iliahi became the home of a succession of plantation management employees and their families.

The mansion is now owned by Grove Farm and has been extensively renovated, yet it still retains the stateliness and serenity of Burnses’ original home.

Born in Maine in 1884 and trained at the University of Maine as an agriculturist, Burns began his plantation career in 1909 at Maui Agricultural Company and recalled that “in those days, everything was hapai ko — hauled on the shoulder.”

And when mules were introduced for plowing, with as many as eight mules on a plow, and also for hauling, he remembered “that’s when you got to know how smart those mules were. You added one extra bag to their load and they’d buck it off.”

Oxen were also used for hauling train cars, and they would “push the cars all over the field if they were angered,” he said.

Burns was at the helm of Lihu’e Plantation when its Kealia Mill (formerly the Makee Sugar mill) was dismantled in 1934 and shipped to Lihu’e, and later, 75

Mr. and Mrs. Holbrook Goodale became extras in a party scene in the Birkmyre home above Hanalei. Musicians and servants in the same scene included Sam, Ezra and Asa Pa, Jeremiah Kaialoa, William Brede, Louis Beralas, Charles Kawaihalau and Abraham Kawaihalau.

Lihue Plantation Founder Henry Augustus Peirce

Born in Boston in 1808, H. A. Peirce went to sea at age 18 and by 1828 had settled in Honolulu, where he established himself as a merchant.

On a brief visit to Kaua‘i in 1849, he saw the hillsides above Nawiliwili and became convinced of their potential for growing sugarcane.

Peirce then formed a partnership in Honolulu with William L. Lee and Charles R. Bishop and founded H. A. Peirce & Company with $16,000 for the purpose of establishing a sugar plantation at Lihu‘e.

The new firm next purchased, by Royal Patent No. 188, 1,870 acres of land in Lihu‘e owned by Princess Victoria Kamamalu for $9,350, and an additional acre for a landing on Nawiliwili Bay. Honolulu businessman James F. B. Marshall was hired as Peirce Plantation’s (later renamed Lihu‘e Plantation) first manager and laborers were Hawaiians who settled in Pualoki village above the mill.

Native forests were cleared and indigenous seed cane was gathered for planting in 1850 in fields north and east of the present Lihu‘e U.S. Post Office and civic center.

When the first crop was harvested in 1853, oxen hauled the cane to the mill in 77

carts, where granite rollers made in China ground the cane to extract its juice.

Thereafter, the juice was boiled at precise temperatures to produce sugar that was shipped to Honolulu in wooden kegs for sale and further transport.

A year later, Marshall resigned and was replaced by missionary William Harrison Rice.

Peirce sold his interests in Lihu‘e Plantation in 1859, a transaction he may have later regretted when Rice’s successor, Paul Isenberg, transformed the plantation into a veritable gold mine of profit.

H. A. Peirce also served as United States Minister to the Royal Court in Honolulu. He died in San Francisco in 1885.

Major Leaguers Play Kauai All Stars

Billy Martin And Pee Wee Reese On Kauai On Saturday afternoon, Oct. 18, 1952, a team of major league ballplayers -- four of whom would later be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame -- played a select team of Kauai All Stars before an estimated 4,000 fans at Isenberg Field in Lihue.

Future Hall of Famers Nellie Fox of the White Sox, the Yankees’ Yogi Berra, Brooklyn Dodger shortstop Harold “Pee Wee” Reese and the Cardinals’ Enos “Country” Slaughter graced the big league lineup, along with pitcher Eddie Lopat, outfielder Hank Sauer, right fielder Jackie Jensen, first baseman Eddie Robinson and Yankee infielder Billy Martin.

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Martin, whose Portuguese father, Alfred Manuel Martin, had emigrated to Hawaii from the Azores and had lived in Kalaheo before moving to Oakland, was given a welcoming reception by many friends and relatives during pregame ceremonies.

The big league ballplayers scored 15 runs on 24 hits and no errors in nine innings, including five home runs -- one each by Robinson, Slaughter, Berra, Jensen and Sauer, with Sauer’s traveling at least 420 feet over left-center field.

Despite losing by the lopsided score of 15 to 1, the local players acquitted themselves well, with 8 hits and one error against some of the best players in the world.

The Kauai All Stars scored when Buster Matsumura reached first on a fielder’s choice with Fukunaga thrown out at second. Okino then flied out to right field and Matsumura stole second. When Paul Silva singled Lopat’s pitch between third and short, Matsumura came home.

And the locals pulled a triple play on the professionals in the fourth, with Matsumura, Lefty Hirota and Charlie Hoshino being credited with putouts, and Matsumura, Hirota and Richard Vidinha getting assists.

Kauai All Stars’ Casey Moniz, Lee, Koyanagi, Carvalho, and Nozaki also played.

Kealiiahonui’s Burial

Kaahumanu, Kealiiahonui’s Wife Kealiiahonui (1800-1849) was the son of Kauai’s King Kaumualii and Kapuaamohu, a Kaua‘i princess of the highest rank. Well-proportioned, athletic and tall at six feet six inches, he was regarded as the handsomest chief in all Hawai‘i.

In 1821 he married the Queen Regent, Kaahumanu, and after her death in 1832, he married Kekauonohi, Governess of Kauai from 1840 to 1845. He died 79

in Honolulu on June 23, 1849, and his public funeral was held on June 30th.

His wife, Kekauonohi, then ordered the coffin containing his remains temporarily removed to a cavern at Pu‘uloa, ‘Ewa and planned to have it buried at sea shortly thereafter.

But Kealiiahonui’s niece and kahu, Kapule, was against burial at sea, and to spite Kekauonohi, she and her assistants stole Kealiiahonui’s outer coffin — while leaving the inner coffin containing his remains behind — and buried it near Pu‘uloa.

Kapule had also removed a ring and an earring from the remains and the unihi pili — sacred bones buried with the corpse.

Nevertheless, Kekauonohi’s burial plans were carried out a couple of days later, when six Kaua‘i brothers, all kahus of Kealiiahonui, placed the inner coffin containing Kealiiahonui’s remains in a canoe and paddled to the deep outside Pearl Harbor.

Also with them was Kanepio, one of two men to be put to death and sunk with Kealiiahonui so as to accompanying him into the afterlife. The second man, Opiopio, had run off.

On board, Kanepio pleaded for his life, saying “either both or neither” should be put to death, and having won the brothers over, his life was spared.

When the coffin was heaved overboard, it would not sink. One of the brothers then smashed the glass case over the face of Kealiiahonui and the coffin finally filled with water and sank.

Ahukini

Steamer At Ahukini The first pier on Hanama‘ulu Bay was a concrete block built at Kou on the north side of the bay in 1890. Rowboats would carry freight and passengers between this pier and inter-island steamers anchored offshore.

Not long afterward, a small concrete pier and a short breakwater were also 80

built at Ahukini on the south side of the bay. Ahukini then became the first port on Kaua‘i where inter-island vessels could tie up directly to shore. The original eight houses of Ahukini Camp were also constructed by Lihu‘e Plantation at that time.

When a new pier and breakwater were built at Ahukini in 1921 and 1922, transpacific Matson freighters of that era could likewise tie up directly.

That same year, Ahukini Terminal & Railway Co. was organized to operate a freight railroad linking Ahukini with sugar plantations in the Lihu‘e, Kawaihau and Kilauea districts and the Kapa‘a pineapple cannery. Railroad trackage included the line from Ahukini to Lihu‘e mill and north to Kealia via Kapa‘a.

Between 1922 and 1925, 34 more houses were built at Ahukini on the makai side of the county road and along the coast toward the Nawiliwili Lighthouse.

In 1930, when construction of Nawiliwili Harbor was completed, the bulk of Kaua‘i’s cargo began moving through Nawiliwili and inter-island service to Ahukini stopped. The dismantling of the Makee mill at Kealia in 1934 further reduced shipping at Ahukini.

Matson freighters continued to call regularly at Ahukini until Matson modernized its fleet after World War II with bigger ships. Thereafter, only tank barges called at Ahukini to supply its tank farm.

Port operations at Ahukini closed in 1950, yet excess sugar from the sugar storage plant built at Niumalu that same year was stored temporarily at two warehouses at Ahukini until 1965, the same year Ahukini Camp was razed.

Plantation Owner Zephaniah S. Spalding

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Born in Ohio, Zephaniah S. Spalding (1837-1927) commanded the 27th Ohio Infantry as a lieutenant colonel during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

After the war, he continued in government service and was dispatched to Hawai‘i as a secret agent of the United States with the mission of learning what effects a proposed reciprocity treaty would have on relations between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom.

He arrived in Honolulu in 1867 pretending to be a prospective cotton planter and mailed a number of confidential reports, rejecting reciprocity, to his father, a U.S. congressman.

Spalding later became a sugar planter on Kaua‘i and the owner of Makee Sugar Company, named for his father-in-law Captain James Makee.

Also of interest is Spalding’s Valley House, which was located beyond Hauaala Road in Keapana and was destroyed by fire in 1950.

Valley House featured a great central hall with a wide staircase leading upstairs. Also gracing the interior was an eye-catching crystal chandelier, imported European furniture, and a dining room spacious enough for twentyfour guests. Outside, visitors could play tennis on the estate’s courts or swim in the pool.

Perhaps the greatest luau ever held on Kaua‘i took place at Valley House in September 1912 in celebration of Spalding’s 75th birthday.

Three thousand people came, with many arriving by plantation train.

Sixty-two tables were filled with food and drink. Ten bullocks, twelve pigs, hundreds of chickens and several barrels of poi made up the basics. Fruits, sweets and all anyone could drink were right at hand to enjoy, while a band played lovely melodies.

In 1916, Spalding sold the controlling shares of Makee Sugar to Lihue Plantation for the then phenomenal sum of $1,500,000.

He moved to California in 1924.

Spalding Monument, now defaced, is located on Kealia Road.

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The Lihue Post Office

Lihue Post Office, 1939 The property which the Lihue Post Office occupies was the site of the first buildings in Lihue, which was founded for the purpose of growing sugarcane sometime between 1835 and 1838 by Governor Kaikioewa.

Kaikioewa’s residence and a church were built there and on land now occupied by the Bank of Hawaii, Rice Street and a portion of the County parking lot. The village of Lihue grew around Kaikioewa’s property.

Dedication ceremonies for the Lihue Post Office were held before a large crowd on Saturday, May 6, 1939. Charles Fern, editor of The Garden Island newspaper, was master of ceremonies, Rev. Charles Keahi gave the invocation and Rev. Douglas Magers led the closing prayer.

A flag raising ceremony was presented by Boy Scout Troop 94 and Cub Pack 35, the Kauai Community Orchestra under the direction of Mrs. Henry Wedemeyer played the National Anthem, and the Mokihana Club furnished decorations.

Featured in the dedication was the placing of a copper container in the recess of the cornerstone of the building behind a plaque. The container held a copy of the week’s The Garden Island newspaper, photos of Congressional Delegate Sam Wilder King, the staff of the post office and Postmaster General Farley, and a copy of the dedication program. Postmaster Martin Dreier welcomed all.

Dora Rice Isenberg, whose father, Paul Isenberg, was postmaster during the 1870s, spoke of how she would climb a tree to look out to sea for sailing vessels carrying the Kauai mail, an event that the entire island eagerly awaited.

She said that Mr. Lovell Sr., William Hyde Rice and others would go to the Nawiliwili Landing to get the mail, about a 1/2 bag full in those days, and delivering the mail to Waimea and Hanalei took all day on horseback.

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Bob Hope’s 1944 Kaua‘i USO Tour

Jerry Colonna, Frances Langford, Bob Hope The United Service Organizations (USO) was established at the request of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1941 to provide morale and recreational services for armed forces personnel.

And, by the time Bob Hope’s troupe visited Kaua‘i in 1944 during World War II, the USO operated more than 3,000 clubs worldwide that gave soldiers, sailors and Marines a home away from home and attracted numerous celebrities and volunteer performers.

On Kaua‘i, eight USO clubs were in service during 1944. The Isenberg USO was located in the Lihu‘e Plantation recreation center; the Kapa‘a USO was famous for its waffle breakfasts, and the Waterfront USO at Nawiliwili was housed in a former skating rink. Other USOs were located at Hanalei, Koloa, Kalaheo, Hanapepe and Waimea.

Three Bob Hope shows were performed on Kaua‘i on Monday, July 17, 1944 during a whirlwind visit on his 30,000 mile, 150- performance tour of the Pacific Theater.

Hope’s jokes never failed to create laughter wherever he went and Kaua‘i was no exception.

He and his sidekick, Jerry Colonna, boasting a walrus mustache, pop-eyes, and loudspeaker voice, were a superb comedy team.

In one skit, Colonna was in the audience dressed in uniform and playing the part of a heckler.

When Hope asked, “What were you before you joined the Army?” Colonna’s

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poker-faced reply was, “Happy.”

Frances Langford’s signature song was “I’m in the Mood for Love.”

She was once quoted as saying, “Everywhere I went, it was the same thing. I got up and sang about eight bars, and way in the back, some serviceman would stand up. He’d say, ‘You’ve come to the right place, sister!’ They were such a wonderful audience.”

Hope also stood next to pretty dancer Patty Thomas and wisecracked, “I just want you boys to remember what you’re fighting for.”

The Tip Top building

Tip Top Building, 1965 Lihue’s Tip Top Building, built in 1915, was a Kaua‘i landmark for 50 years — until it was demolished in June 1965 to make way for the circular office building of the Lihu‘e Shopping Center.

The building was located at what was once known as the intersection of the government main road to Kapa‘a and the government road to Koloa — today’s Kuhio and Kaumuali‘i highways.

Friedrich Weber, Lihu‘e Plantation manager from 1900 to 1918, supervised the construction and the renting of the concrete and stucco building, which opened with stores and offices as well as Kaua‘i’s first real motion picture theater.

Plays and musicals also were performed in the theater, and the first “talkies” on Kaua‘i were shown there in 1932.

In 1916, Denjiro Ota’s coffee shop moved from across the street into the Tip Top Building, where it became the Tip Top Café & Bakery.

Local resident Ginger Beralas Soboleski remembers walking past the old Tip Top Café & Bakery during the 1950s on her way to Lihu‘e Grammar School from her house in Lihu‘e Camp and smelling the warm, satisfying aroma of freshly baked bread.

Her mom bought the Tip Top white and brown bread, and Tip Top Café & 85

Bakery also sold other baked goods. The Tip Top Café & Bakery was renowned even then for its delicious macadamia nut cookies.

Another early tenant of the building was the U.S. Post Office, which leased space on the ground floor in the north side of the building.

Famed Kaua‘i photographer W. J. Senda also rented a studio in the Tip Top Building, which was also the home over the years to First Insurance Company, Mokihana and De Luxe Beauty Salons, the Lihu‘e Barber Shop, Dr. Samuel O. Fujii, Dr. Richard Haruki, Dr. Webster Boyden, the Hawaiian Life Insurance Company, Kokichi Isonaga Jewelry, Nakao Tailor, Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce, the Masonic Lodge and many others.

Captain George Vancouver

English Captain George Vancouver (1757-1798) served under Captain James Cook as a midshipman on Cook’s third Pacific voyage (1776-1780) and was therefore present when first contact was made with Hawaiians off Kipu Kai, Kaua‘i, on Jan. 19, 1778, and when Cook first went ashore at Waimea on the afternoon of Jan. 20.

Vancouver also commanded his own voyage of discovery in the Pacific during 1791-1795, visiting Kaua‘i in 1792, 1793 and 1794.

The first of these visits began on March 9, 1792, when Vancouver’s flagship “Discovery” and his supply ship “Chatham” anchored off Waimea.

Ashore, the local chief provided Vancouver with the use of two kapu houses, one for his officers and the other for his marines, and Vancouver met 12-yearold Prince Kaumuali‘i, the future king of Kaua‘i, whom he found to be bright, cheerful and friendly.

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The young prince wished to be called King George, after the English monarch, the same title three Western sailors then living on Kauai addressed him by.

A year later, while crossing the Kaua‘i Channel on his second visit to Kaua‘i, Vancouver came across canoes heading for O‘ahu in search of King Kaeo, Kaumuali‘i’s father.

Aboard one canoe was a curious cargo — the leg bones of two chiefs killed in a failed uprising against Inamoo, Prince Kaumuali‘i’s regent.

Arriving at Waimea in late March 1793, Vancouver returned two Ni‘ihau girls he’d taken on board at Nootka — girls who had some time earlier gone to sea after being hidden aboard the Jenny at Ni‘ihau prior to its sailing to the Pacific Northwest.

Vancouver visited Kaua‘i for a third time in March 1794, mainly to see if the girls were being cared for. They were. He then sailed southward to the Strait of Magellan and home to England.

Early Japanese Immigrant Yonekichi Sakuma

On June 20, 1868, the first group of Japanese emigrants to Hawai‘i arrived at Honolulu aboard the British ship “Scioto” as laborers for Hawai‘i sugar plantations.

Records differ as to how many Japanese were aboard the “Scioto.” One account lists 148, including four married women and several children. Another shows 153.

It’s also unclear how many were sent to Kaua‘i, either 8 or 22. Of these, only two names are now assuredly known — Yonekichi Sakuma and Bunkichi Murata.

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Murata worked for Lihue Plantation, married a Hawaiian girl, and founded a family. Mrs. Mary Ahana of Lihu‘e was his granddaughter.

Somewhat more is known of Yonekichi Sakuma. Born in Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 1840, he applied to emigrate to Hawai‘i at age 28.

After sailing from Tokyo in April 1868 and arriving in Honolulu in June, he and Murata landed at Nawiliwili, where they met Paul Isenberg, manager of Lihue Plantation at that time. Isenberg led them to their housing in the original Lihue Camp, located where the Lihue Shopping Center now stands.

Sakuma worked for Lihue Plantation for a number of years before becoming the cook for sugar planter George Norton Wilcox and Wilcox’s family at Grove Farm, a position he held for over 35 years.

His first wife was a Hawaiian girl and they had three children, two of whom were living in Honolulu as of 1968.

When Sakuma retired after his long and faithful years of service as cook, Wilcox pensioned him and built him a retirement cottage next to his beach house on Nawiliwili Bay at Papalinahoa, which was located near where now is the Kauai Fitness Center.

Yonekichi Sakuma lived there with his second wife, a Japanese woman, until he died in 1927 at age 88. Their daughter was Mrs. George Kondo of Koloa.

Pioneer Japanese Immigrant Bunkichi Murata

Arai Bungo Gravesite Twenty-four-year-old Bunkichi Murata was among the first Japanese emigrants to Hawai‘i, debarking at Honolulu Harbor aboard the British ship Scioto on June 20, 1868, and arriving at Nawiliwili Landing, Kaua‘i shortly thereafter.

On Kaua‘i, he at first worked in the fields of Lihu‘e Plantation at Hanama‘ulu but was later promoted to luna, or supervisor, the first Japanese to attain that position.

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And after eight or nine years with the plantation, he left to become a cook, first in the home of Lihue Plantation manager Paul Isenberg and afterwards at Hale Nani, William Hyde Rice’s estate in Lihue. It was during this time that he took the name Arai Bungo.

While employed at Hale Nani about 1878 or 1879, he met and courted Lucy Hanapi, a Hawaiian girl of royal blood and a cousin of King Lunalilo.

But Lucy’s brother, Rev. Robert Puuiki, the minister of the Waioli Church in Hanalei and the Ko‘olau-Huiia Church at Anahola, and a judge for Lihu‘e and Kapa‘a, strongly objected to the courtship.

He believed Bungo’s station in life was unacceptably below that of his royal sister. Nevertheless, the couple were married in Honolulu and were blessed with four children: Virginia, Mrs. Elizabeth Ewaliko, Mrs. Lily Hugher, and George Bungo.

Arai Bungo also cooked for the Rice family’s Lihue Hotel on Rice Street and at the old Lihue Dispensary, which was located on Ahukini Road.

In his later years, Bungo cooked for George Norton Wilcox at Papalinahoa on Nawiliwili Bay with Yonekichi Sakuma, another 1868 immigrant, and he served as Japanese interpreter at the old Lihue Courthouse, where Kaua‘i High School now stands.

Arai Bungo died in 1925 and is buried in the cemetery on the grounds of the Koolau-Huiia Protestant Church in Anahola.

Judge C. B. Hofgaard

Hofgaard Store, Waimea Born and educated in Norway, Christopher Blom Hofgaard (1859-1931) arrived in Hawai‘i in 1882 to work at Wailuku Sugar Plantation on Maui, but soon after accepted a position at the C. H. Dickey store in Haiku and later managed Dickey’s branch store at Paia, Maui.

In 1885, Hofgaard moved to Kaua‘i to establish his own general merchandise store at Waimea.

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Built that same year, the C. B. Hofgaard & Co. store, located where the Waimea Big Save stands today, was the largest privately owned retail store on Kaua‘i.

Hofgaard sold the store in 1923 to American Factors, which continued to sell general merchandise. Later, during World War II, the store was used by the Army as a quartermaster warehouse.

Businessman H. S. Kawakami bought and renovated the Hofgaard store in 1947 and moved his retail business into it from its original site by the old Waimea Landing.

Kawakami then built a new store building in 1957.

In 1966, the old Hofgaard building was demolished to make way for an even newer building opened by Kawakami in 1967 that would house the Bank of Hawaii, H. S. Kawakami Stores, and Big Save market.

An outstanding amateur historian, Hofgaard was an authority on Hawaiian history and legends.

His “The Story of Pi‘ilani,” although now unheralded, is the preeminent version of the oft told story of Kaua‘i’s Koolau the leper, his wife Pi‘ilani and their son Kaleimanu. In it, Hofgaard tells of their escape from government authorities to prevent Koolau from being deported to the leper colony on Moloka‘i and of their survival in Kalalau Valley.

C. B. Hofgaard was appointed District Magistrate of Waimea in 1904 and served in that capacity until his death. Hofgaard Park, named after him, is located at the center of Waimea town.

Kaua‘i’s Cannibal Tribe

At no time in the history of the Hawaiians did they practice cannibalism.

Yet, according to King David Kalakaua’s “Legends and Myths of Hawai‘i,” nonHawaiians practiced cannibalism on Kaua‘i for about 10 years during the latter part of the 1600s — a tribe of 200 to 300 men, women and children who’d 90

arrived on Kaua‘i in double canoes from an unspecified island south of Hawai‘i.

Their Hawaiian hosts, not knowing that the newcomers were cannibals, welcomed them and let them settle by the mountains behind Waimea, where they at first refrained from their abhorrent practice.

In appearance, dress, manners and lifestyle they were quite similar to the Hawaiians. Their language, on the other hand, was altogether different, as were their gods, but these differences lessened as they learned the Hawaiian language and as the Hawaiians allowed them freedom of worship.

Later, the Hawaiian chief of the Waimea district met Palua, the daughter of the cannibal chief, Kokoa, and was charmed by her beauty. With her consent as well as her father’s, he brought her home as his wife.

But when she refused to follow the eating kapus of the Hawaiians, a high priest, demanding her death in appeasement to the Hawaiian gods, had her strangled and thrown into the sea.

In retaliation, her vengeful father killed a relative of the district chief and prepared a feast of his body for his tribe.

The man-eaters then abandoned Waimea for a sheltered valley in the Ha‘upu Range, where they resorted to cannibalism in secrecy by feasting on solitary Hawaiians captured in remote areas.

When the Hawaiians at last discovered them roasting a victim, they sought to destroy them, but Kokoa’s spies had forewarned him of their plans and he and his followers seized several canoes and escaped to O‘ahu unscathed.

Kauai’s Libraries

County Building And Lihue Library, 1924 Kauai’s first library was founded in Lihue by pastor Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate

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in 1900 in the Sunday school rooms of the old Lihue Union Church, where the Lihue United Church now stands.

The library’s first books were donated by Lydgate from his large personal library and Lydgate’s many friends supplemented these books with donations of their own.

Lydgate’s Sunday school library was operated on a very informal basis.

Church volunteers would sometimes staff it, but oftentimes people would simply come in to charge out and return books on their own.

A familiar sight around Lihue in those early horse and buggy days was a surrey loaded with books drawn by an old white mare -- Kauai’s first traveling library, a service of the library.

In 1921, the library’s growing book collection was temporarily housed in the old Mokihana Hall, which was located where Lihue Chevron is now located on Rice Street.

Three years later, in 1924, the collection was moved again, this time into permanent quarters, the newly constructed Albert Spencer Memorial Building on Rice Street, which was financed by a gift of $75,000 given by Mrs. Albert Spencer Wilcox as a memorial to her late husband.

The Kauai Public Library’s 1925 first annual report listed 1,721 registered borrowers and a circulation of 31,518 in the main library. Ten book deposit stations had been set up in outlying towns and all island schools received large collections twice yearly.

During World War II, the library partnered with the Army to send a bookmobile to troops stationed in out of the way places all over the island.

Branches opened in Waimea and Hanapepe in 1950. Five years later, Kapaa had its own library. The Lihue library moved to Hardy Street in 1969 and in 1976, the Koloa library opened followed by Princeville in 1999.

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Photographer Ray Jerome Baker

From 1908 until 1960, when he retired as a professional photographer, Ray Jerome Baker (1880-1972) photographed countless individuals and scenes throughout the Hawaiian Islands and practically every street, street corner and building in Honolulu, his residence for 62 years.

Baker’s last significant work occurred in 1960, when he decided to revisit and perhaps once again photograph places he’d first photographed during several yearly trips to the Neighbor Islands in the early 1900s, beginning in 1908.

On Kaua‘i, he brought along the same 5-by-7-inch folding view camera with 7 1/2-inch and 12-inch lenses he’d used on a visit to Kaua‘i in 1916 — an antique he declared took better pictures than modern cameras.

While the guest of manager Grace Guslander of Coco Palms Hotel, he recalled that in 1910, he had hiked to the foot of Hanapepe Falls, lugging along a cumbersome box of 11-by-14-inch glass plates and an enormous woodframed camera and tripod.

He’d also rode horseback to many locations and had noted that a ride to Hanalei by buggy from Lihu‘e required an overnight stop along the route.

During Baker’s stay, W.J. Senda, Kaua‘i’s leading photographer during the first half of the 20th century, commented that it was Baker who had inspired him to become a photographer in 1908, when Senda was then a cook at Lahainaluna School on Maui and Baker was traveling from town-to-town taking portraits.

Senda began with a two-dollar box camera and left a heritage of great photography.

Baker also collected and preserved numerous 19th century photos of Hawai‘i.

After he retired, he donated his collection of over 20,000 historic photographs to Bishop Museum — a selection of which can be seen in “Hawaiian Yesterdays,” an oversized book first printed in 1982.

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Reverend Peter Johnson Gulick

Rev. And Mrs. Gulick Kaua‘i missionary Reverend Peter Johnson Gulick (1796-1877) was born in New Jersey, graduated from Princeton College and Princeton Theological Seminary, and sailed for Hawai‘i accompanied by his wife, Fanny (1798-1883), with the Third Company of Protestant missionaries aboard the “Parthian” out of Boston.

He arrived in Honolulu on March 28, 1828 after 148 days at sea.

The Gulicks were then stationed at Waimea, Kaua‘i, where they lived in a grass house provided by Gov. Kaikioewa.

But within two or three years, Reverend Gulick began building a new house made of coral sandstone that was hauled by oxcart from a ledge located makai about a mile away.

Interestingly enough, Gulick paid his Hawaiian laborers partly in goats, then a rare and apparently desired commodity on Kaua‘i.

This house was likely not completed by the time the Gulicks were transferred to Koloa in 1835 to found a new mission, and it was thereafter used by Hawaiians in need of shelter until missionary Reverend George Rowell arrived at Waimea in 1846.

Rowell rebuilt the house and lived in it with his family for many years. He was buried on the property in 1884.

Since then, the house has been renovated several times and occupied over the years by sugar plantation families and skilled plantation workers — its basement was also once used as Waimea’s jail.

Today the Gulick-Rowell house, located on Huakai Road, the only remaining missionary house on “Missionary Row” in Waimea, is owned by Kikiaola Land Co. and is unoccupied.

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The Gulicks were also stationed at Kaluaaha, Molokai (1843-1846), and Waialua, Maui (1846-1857). Rev. Gulick later served in Honolulu as a trustee of Punahou School.

In 1874, Rev. and Mrs. Gulick moved to Kobe, Japan to live with their missionary son Orramel. Both died in Japan.

Sugar Planter And Rancher Lester Robinson (No Picture Available) The first student from the western United States to graduate from Harvard in 3 1/2 years, Lester Beauclerk Robinson (1901-1969) became a highly successful assistant manager of his family’s extensive Kaua‘i sugar lands and its grazing lands on Kaua‘i and Ni‘ihau.

And upon the death of his brother, Aylmer Robinson, in 1967, he inherited ownership of Ni‘ihau.

Extraordinarily fit, his daily exercise regimen, motivated by his concern that he might someday be disabled by accident in a remote area and be unable to recover due to physical weakness, consisted of 100 chin-ups immediately followed by five one-armed chin-ups on each arm.

His son, Keith, remembers his father’s toughness well, particularly the day Lester’s horse fell into a swamp while they were driving cattle. When Lester attempted to free the horse, it kicked him in the head, producing a large gash.

Keith recalls squeezing blood out of a soaking neckerchief, but Lester refused to quit, resolutely stuck his hat on his bleeding head and rode off.

In Lester’s time, Ni‘ihau’s Hawaiian cowboys were inured to hardship as well.

They were amazingly resistant to thirst. To conserve water, they and Lester, who spoke Hawaiian fluently, would drink nothing while working from before sunup until after sundown. Their horses could drink from black water holes, but they abstained.

Lester also possessed a peculiar sense of humor. After his wife accidentally drove over her pet Weimaraner in her carport, causing only a minor pinching of its toes and a loud yelp, Lester and Aylmer, watching curiously nearby, offered first aid.

When Mrs. Robinson later saw the result — her indignant-looking Weimaraner bandaged and splinted from muzzle to tail, lying stiffly by two sober-faced brothers — her remorse was genuine, that is until a suspicious glint in Aylmer’s eye betrayed their prank.

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When Lester Robinson died, ownership of Ni‘ihau passed to his wife, Helen Robinson. Their sons, Bruce and Keith Robinson, now own Ni‘ihau.

Hale Nani

Rice Home At Hale Nani William Hyde Rice’s (1846-1924) beautifully landscaped Lihu‘e estate, Hale Nani, famed as a center of hospitality for many years, was situated on what is today Rice Street from Wa‘a Street to Kalena Street. Its entrance lane began where the west entrance into today’s Ewalu Street is located.

When Rice married Mary Waterhouse in 1872, they moved into a cottage at Hale Nani and later, Rice built the spacious house that served as the Rice family home for several decades.

Queen Liliuokalani was treated royally by Rice during her brief residence at Hale Nani in January 1891. She was so favorably impressed that upon her return to Honolulu she appointed Rice governor of Kaua‘i.

Princess Ruth Keelikolani often stayed at Hale Nani. The Rice’s daughter, Mary, was Ruth’s godchild.

Mrs. Juliet Rice Wichman (1901-1987), granddaughter of William Hyde Rice, once recalled that “Hale Nani was famous for its breakfasts. Guests coming from Honolulu on the overnight boat trip were brought ashore in whaling boats in Nawiliwili Harbor and taken immediately to grandfather’s house where lavish breakfasts were served. We grew our own coffee, and grandfather imported Asian cows which he kept on the tract where Kress Store (on the corner of Rice and Kress streets) now stands. There were no commercial dairies so grandfather gave milk to the community. He put up a building like a post office where people came to get their milk out of boxes. Milk and cream were free to all.”

During World War II, from 1942 to 1945, the house was utilized as a plotting center for a radar station. Mitchell Ota, the owner of the Tip Top Cafe, bought the house in 1947, but sold it that same year. It was later razed to make room for the present business area.

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Kalakaua’s Hui Kawaihau

King David Kalakaua In 1877, King David Kalakaua gave former whaling captain and Honolulu businessman Captain James Makee permission to build a sugar mill on the shore at Kapa‘a and to plant sugarcane on land behind Kapa‘a.

In return, Kalakaua held a 25 percent interest in Makee’s new Kaua‘i sugar enterprise.

And, in that same year, Kalakaua also set up an unlikely band of prospective sugar planters in the sugar business at Kapahi — about three dozen courtiers and members of his recently deceased brother’s (Prince Leleiohoku’s) Honolulu choral society.

Charter members of the Hui Kawaihau (Ice Water Company), as Kalakaua’s business enterprise was named, included Kalakaua, Captain Makee, Gov. John Dominis of O‘ahu (Princess Liliuokalani’s husband), and Koakanu, high chief of Koloa.

Many of the 32 working members of the Hui Kawaihau arrived on Kaua‘i at the mouth of the Wailua River aboard the famous steamer Kilauea in August of 1877 and were rowed ashore, along with their families, tools, lumber, food and tents. King Kalakaua and Gov. Dominis were also present at Wailua that day to kick off the newly founded endeavor.

The hui then built a row of houses and a big octagonal meeting hall in Kapahi about two miles above the shore, in the vicinity of where the pineapple cannery was later built, and contracted Captain Makee to plant 240 acres of sugarcane.

Makee also agreed to grind the hui’s cane at his Kapa‘a mill.

After startup debts were paid, the hui’s first crop netted its members a good $500 profit, but a fire destroyed much of the second crop, which disheartened the hui, and in 1881, when the hui Kawaihau went out of business, its property and leased lands were acquired by Makee’s son in law, American Civil War Col. Zephaniah S. Spalding.

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Governor Burns Had Plans To Take Over Ni‘ihau

Gov. Burns In 1970, then Hawai‘i Gov. John A. Burns proposed that the state of Hawai‘i condemn Ni‘ihau through the courts and buy it from its owner, Mrs. Helen Robinson, for $300,000 in order to transform it into a state recreation area. A cultural park would be built on Ni‘ihau and Ni‘ihau cowboys would be hired to act as park guides.

Burns also intended to plant forests on Ni‘ihau to restore it to the “natural Hawaiian environment that existed before the advent of Western culture.”

Apparently, the fact that no forests existed on Ni‘ihau when first Western contact was made by Captain James Cook in 1778 was of no consequence to the governor, nor was the reality that lack of abundant water would have made it virtually impossible to grow dryland forests on Ni‘ihau.

Nevertheless, Burns persisted, even after the Robinson family issued a press release stating “The island has not, is not, and is not expected to be put up for sale to anybody, anywhere, at any time.”

Ni‘ihau’s Hawaiian residents were also wholly against any takeover by the state. They testified that they were happy living under their present peaceful conditions and resented the governor calling them a forgotten people. Some expressed anxiety that they might be put on exhibit like the Honolulu Zoo. Others stated they were free to make the choice between living on Ni‘ihau or not. They said they frequently traveled between the Islands and were happy to return home to peaceful Ni‘ihau.

The late Reverend Abraham Akaka, pastor of Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu, and his brother, future Sen. Daniel Akaka, were very important in helping to defeat the proposed seizure of Ni‘ihau.

Although Burns continued until his death in 1975 to push the issue, his 98

proposal lacked support and failed.

First Contact

Captain James Cook At dawn on January 18, 1778, English Captain James Cook sailed into the midst of an uncharted group of islands where he observed the island of Oahu first, and then Kauai. The following morning, while sailing toward Kauai, he also saw Niihau on the northwest horizon.

In the afternoon of the 19th, Cook reached the southeast coast of Kauai off Kipu Kai, where Hawaiians launched canoes and paddled out to sea.

These Hawaiians would not come aboard, but they and the English were soon conversing because of the Englishmen’s familiarity with the Tahitian language and its similarity to Hawaiian.

Trading began and brass medals and pieces of iron were lowered to the Hawaiian by rope. They, in turn, sent up sweet potatoes and fish.

Cook observed no anchorage nearby, so he sailed along the southwestern coast of Kauai about 1-1/2 miles from shore in search of one.

Along the way, Cook and his men saw wooded mountains and uplands planted in bananas and sugarcane. In open grassy plains, they noticed steepsided thatched houses, plantations, and gardens. Crowds of Hawaiians gathered near villages in the hills and at the shore to watch the ships sail past.

By nightfall, Cook's ships were close to Waimea, where about 60 houses clustered near the beach and perhaps 40 stood further inland.

On the morning of the 20th, Lieutenant Williamson, aboard a pinnace in search of water and a landing site, shot and killed a Hawaiian man attempting to steal the pinnace’s boat hook.

That same morning, a few Hawaiians came aboard Cook’s ships, and 99

between 3:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m., the Resolution and Discovery anchored off the mouth of the Waimea River.

Cook then went ashore with a guard of 12 armed marines in 3 boats to meet hundreds of Hawaiians awaiting him with offerings of bananas, pigs, and kapa.

Television Comes To Kauai

Iliahi, 1934 The first satisfactory TV reception seen on Kauai occurred shortly after 5:30 p. m. on October 9, 1952 at Iliahi, Caleb Burns’ house in the foothills above Lihue.

And the first person to actually see a television program on Kauai was the Burnses’ cook, Satoru Tanaka. As Tanaka put it, he “turned it on and the cowboy picture came out.”

Although Mrs. Burns commented that “snow” caused her eyestrain (due to the weak signal transmitted to Kauai from KGMB in Honolulu), the Burnses and their guests persisted in watching TV most of the evening.

One guest named Mr. Cherry was able to improve picture quality somewhat by lifting the TV antenna off the lawn and holding it over his head, and hoped for even better reception when the antenna would be permanently located on the roof of the house or on a tall pole.

Another visitor, Zenith factory representative Brian Mahronic, reported that reception for all of Lihue would become available in a few days as soon as KONA-TV began its broadcasting, also out of Honolulu, with 6,000 watts of power -- over ten times the power of KGMB. Yet an RCA television engineer advised patience. He told The Garden Island editor, C. J. (Mike) Fern Jr., that the best advice he had to offer Kauai residents was not to buy a TV until the signal transmitted out of Honolulu really became stronger and allowed for good TV entertainment, hinting that it could be quite some time off in the future.

As it happened, television reception remained chronically snowy for most Kauai viewers until 1960, when Jack Wada led the effort to set up a UHF TV station on

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3,089-foot Mount Kahili above Knudsen’s Gap. Crystal clear cable TV would not become commonplace on Kauai until the 1980s.

Miss Sadie Thompson

Rita Hayworth 1953’s Miss Sadie Thompson, with its exterior scenes filmed on Kauai, and starring Rita Hayworth, Aldo Ray and Jose Ferrer, was based on English writer William Somerset Maugham’s short story masterpiece “Rain,” first published in 1921.

Prior to the making of the ‘53 version of Maugham’s classic, adaptations already produced included one Broadway show in 1922 and another, in 1935, starring Tallulah Bankhead. “Sadie Thompson,” a musical, had also played on Broadway in 1935, and Joan Crawford and Gloria Swanson had performed the heroine’s role in films.

The 1953 rendering has Miss Hayworth in the featured role of Sadie Thompson stranded by a ship’s quarantine at a Marine outpost in American Samoa amid sweltering heat and heavy rains shortly after World War II. There, her vivacious beauty sets the veteran Marines’ hearts aflutter, and one Marine in particular, Sgt. Phil O’Hara, played by Aldo Ray, falls for her and remains steadfastly in love, even after her disreputable past as a call girl at Honolulu’s Emerald Club -- from which she is fleeing -- is exposed by a selfrighteous missionary, Rev. Davidson, portrayed by Jose Ferrer.

About 100 local extras were recruited. Movie sets included a miniature Marine camp built at Kukuiula consisting of two tents and a quonset hut.

At Coco Palms in Wailua, a church, bar, hospital and native village were built, and Grace Guslander, the proprietor of Coco Palms, prepared a Tahitian luau celebration for about 200 technicians and singers on property.

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In Hanalei, scenes at the pier and the Wilcox house were filmed.

Other film locations were Charles Rice’s property at Kalapaki, now the site of the Kauai Marriott, and the nearby Kuboyama Hotel.

Despite having just recovered from a severe cold, Rita Hayworth put forth a typically dynamic performance. Pau hana was May 30th.

Labor Leader Jack Hall On Kaua‘i

It was on Kaua‘i from 1937 through 1940 that labor leader Jack Hall (19151971) learned the skills of union organizing that would later enable him to help direct the big Hawai‘i strikes — sugar (1946), pineapple (1947) and longshoremen in 1949 — and become the ILWU’s Hawai‘i regional director for 25 years.

In 1937, when Port Allen dockworkers went on strike, Hall assisted them in a failed effort, yet succeeded in gaining experience organizing them and workers at McBryde Sugar and Hawaiian Sugar (Makaweli), while living cheaply on $16 a month at the old Watase Hotel by the Hanapepe River Bridge.

A year later, he organized the Kauai Progressive League with the mission of electing candidates supportive of labor. Knocking on doors and talking to voters paid off when labor’s Democratic candidate John B. Fernandes beat Kekaha Sugar manager Lindsay A. Faye for a Territorial Senate seat in the 1938 election.

Meanwhile, he’d become friends with Kaua‘i political boss Charles Rice, who’d endorsed Fernandes, and was often a guest at Rice’s home at Kalapaki. But Hall also aroused the ire of The Garden Island editor Charles J. Fern who backed plantation management and the political status quo.

Hall’s organizing continued into 1939, when CIO Local 76 gained recognition at Kauai Pine in Lawa‘i — the first time a union won recognition in a principal Hawaiian industry.

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Union success on Kaua‘i extended into 1940 when mostly Filipino longshoremen at Ahukini went on strike and mainly Japanese dockworkers at Port Allen supported them by also refusing to unload cargo — the first time races cooperated in a strike in Hawai‘i.

A third first occurred later in 1940 when Local 76 sugar workers at McBryde, led

by Hall, won recognition of their union — the first sugar workers in Hawai‘i to do so.

George Cliff, Kaua‘i’s ‘Johnny Plumseed’

For 48 years, American pioneer John Chapman (1774-1845) planted untold numbers of apple trees along the Ohio and Indiana frontier and became known in folklore as “Johnny Appleseed.”

Chapman’s counterpart on Kaua‘i is George Cliff (1896-1973) — nicknamed “Johnny Plumseed” — who for many years beginning in the late 1920s planted thousands of Methley plum trees in Koke‘e, with over 5,000 planted in the Halemanu area alone.

The Methley plum George Cliff planted was first cultivated in China, then in Japan, and from there it spread throughout the world. In Koke‘e, its juicy, sweet fruit ripens and is picked during summer from George Cliff’s trees and from their progeny.

Born in New York near the Canadian border, Cliff was stationed by the Army in Hawai‘i in 1922. He recalled “My first impression of Hawai‘i was vividly marked by our participation in the funeral parade and services of Prince Jonah Kuhio.

The color, pageantry and wailing of women mourners impressed me greatly. I will never forget it.”

In 1927, he moved to Kaua‘i where he lived and worked in Koke‘e as a mountain guide, museum caretaker and tree planter for nearly 40 years. “In those days, I wanted to see more fruit on the island,” he said, and Koke‘e forest ranger Al Duval initiated the transformation of that vision into reality by giving 103

him a couple of plum trees. When Cliff learned he could propagate plum trees by cutting shoots from their branches and planting them, “Johnny Plumseed” set to work.

George Cliff also knew Koke‘e’s history. To cite just one example, he discovered that the site of the Koke‘e tracking station was once the location of a rest house for Hawaiians traveling on the old trail from Waimea to Kalalau Valley.

Zephaniah Spalding’s Civil War Exploits

7th NY Infantry, Washington, 1861 Zephaniah Spalding (1837-1927), owner of Kauai’s Makee Sugar Co. from 1879 to 1916, enlisted in the 7th New York Regiment in 1861 at the beginning of the Civil War and within 40 days obtained a commission as a major with the 27th Ohio. By the end of the war, he’d commanded the 27th with distinction as a lieutenant colonel.

The 7th New York was one of the first units to reach Washington, where one section was quartered in the Senate chamber and the other in the House, with soldiers going out to hotels and restaurants for meals.

Later, with the 27th Ohio, Spalding was assigned to convey 5,000 Confederate prisoners of war north and at one point came across an onlooker who shouted, “Hurrah for Jeff Davis!”

Spalding warned him by saying, “See here, my man, you’re going to get into trouble if you talk like that!” Unfazed, the man cried out, “Hurrah, hurrah for Jeff Davis!” Whereupon Spalding ordered a sergeant standing by to “Take that man in hand and put him in with the rest of the Rebs; that’s where he belongs!”

Yet Spalding was not without sentiment. He once saw a sentry asleep at his post — an offense punishable by death — but did not arrest him. Instead, he took the man’s rifle and moved it a few feet away. If the man awoke before his

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guard came to inspect, he’d have a chance to recover his rifle.

Next morning, Spalding looked the soldier up and said, “So you didn’t get arrested last night!” He then proceeded to give him a stiff lecture, but from then on the soldier performed exemplary.

The 27th Ohio fought a number of engagements and mustered out in July of 1865.

Two years later, Spalding first arrived in Hawai‘i.

Mayor Vidinha And The Haleko Shops Ghost

Mayor Antone “Kona” Vidinha At the beginning of September 1972, Mayor Antone “Kona” Vidinha’s reelection campaign headquarters was located in the second of four Haleko Shops buildings downhill of Rice Street in Lihu‘e.

But less than two weeks later — after several friends informed him that the building was haunted by a ghost — the mayor suddenly announced he was vacating.

Mayor Vidinha conceded he’d been informed it was a friendly ghost, yet nonetheless made it plain that “I still don’t want to have anything to do with ghosts.”

His concern extended to his campaign workers. “Those poor people would be sitting in those offices, looking at the ceiling, just waiting for the footsteps overhead … and then they’d be all gone. I’d lose all my volunteer workers. That wouldn’t be good. It’s no good having spooks around.”

Shirley and Bill Bailey, the previous tenants of the building, admitted that they’d never actually seen the ghost whose habit it was to regularly walk upstairs between the hours of 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m.

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And while they insisted it was friendly, it apparently unnerved them sufficiently enough to request Rev. Alfred Alsop, former pastor of the Lutheran Church, to try to exorcise the ghost, which he did without success.

The Haleko Shops buildings had been built nearly 70 years earlier as homes for German plantation workers and their families.

When news spread that the mayor was leaving the property, a prior resident of the homes came forth to reveal that the parking lot behind the buildings was once an old graveyard.

Tad Miura, Mayor Vidinha’s administrative assistant, added that not only the second building, but the entire Haleko Shops was rumored to be haunted.

Mayor Vidinha (1902-1976), Kaua‘i’s first mayor from 1969 to 1972, was defeated for reelection in 1972.

Prince Kuhio Park Archaeology

Royal Order Of Kamehameha I Seal Prince Kuhio Park, which is owned by The Royal Order of Kamehameha I, is a remarkable example of an ali‘i residential site.

Among its various archaeological structures is a square bed of rocks on its western border that is the base of the grass house where Prince Kuhio was born in 1871.

Further inland is located the cookhouse and the eating place for men that was separated from the eating place for women.

Beyond the cookhouse is situated a family heiau. Within its walls are located the priest’s room, an inner sanctum where the ali‘i family worshiped, the priest’s court, a sacrificial altar and an imu where offerings were burnt.

Behind the heiau, hidden under trees and brush, are located the remains of

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two villages, a heiau used by the villagers and taro patches.

In front near Lawa‘i Road is the royal fish pond. Before Lawa‘i Road was built alongside the shore, the pond extended to the shoreline where a screen allowed small fish to enter but kept large fish from returning to sea.

In back of the pond is an enclosed structure where a guard stood watch over the pond.

Directly inland of the fishpond is located a long wall of rocks and a bench called the royal court. At the royal court, the ali‘i would be entertained, visitors were received and justice was meted out to his subjects.

At the back of the royal court is a dry water well. Nearby to the west is a pigpen with a small opening. When a pig could no longer exit the pen through the opening, it was ready for a lu‘au.

A farm was located at the right rear of the park. Ruins of an irrigation ditch are visible close by.

Prince Kuhio’s Speech At Lihu‘e Hall

Prince Kuhio On Oct. 10, 1912, Prince Kuhio gave a speech at Lihue Hall on Rice Street, while campaigning for reelection as Hawaii’s delegate to the United States Congress.

Lihue Hall stood where Lihue Chevron is now located. Built in 1903 between the properties of William Hyde Rice and C. H. Bishop, it was a long, wooden building with surrounding lanais used for meetings, socials and dances. It was demolished in 1925.

What follows are excerpts of Henry Waiau’s Oct. 15, 1912 report of Prince Kuhio’s speech.

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“To depend on the younger generation of aliens to work on the plantation in the future will be a theory of doubt, for Hawaii is educating them and to go back into the plantation and work will only be a menace to their proper education. What shall they do? They will leave the plantation and start other businesses.

“The distributing of the three, four, five, more or less acres to homesteaders of today is considered a failure. How can any man or men make a living on three acres of land? Why isn’t the full administration of the Territory enforced to its full extent? The homestead law requires each homesteader to acquire 85 acres of land, doesn’t it?

“The introducing of the bill for Nawiliwili Harbor four years ago was a failure in each and every time the bill was presented. The trouble was due to the Kauaiites. They kept on nagging and chewing for two places and consequently the work was delayed. It is this one thing Kaua‘i ought to do. Get together, pull together, and by having a unanimous approach on one certain port, you will get it very quickly.”

Prince Kuhio was reelected in November of 1912. He was Hawai‘i’s delegate to Congress from 1902 to 1922.

Princess Kawananakoa Visits Kaua‘i

On Friday, Feb. 4, 1921, Princess Abigail Kawananakoa (1882-1945), along with her entourage of about 30, arrived at Nawiliwili from Honolulu aboard the steamer “Kinau,” for an 11-day stay on Kaua‘i.

The Princess’s claim to the throne, vacant since the overthrow of 1893, originated when her husband, Prince David Kawananakoa, and her brother-inlaw, Prince Jonah Kuhio, were named by Queen Liliuokalani in 1891 as heirs presumptive, succeeding the heir apparent, Princess Kaiulani (1875-1899).

When Prince Kawananakoa died in 1908, Prince Kuhio remained the only person by right of blood and designation who could have claimed the throne.

After his death in 1922, Princess Kawananakoa assumed the role of heir to the throne.

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Friday was spent resting at the Niumalu home of Judge William C. Achi Jr., which had been the home of Paul P. Kanoa, governor of Kaua‘i from 1882 to 1886. That evening a splendid lu‘au was attended there by many guests.

On Saturday, a 16-car motorcade conveyed the Princess and her party to the Waimea home of Mrs. J. D. Cook, president of the Waimea Ka‘ahumanu Society, where another lu‘au was served.

The Lihu‘e Armory, which was located where the State Building now stands, was the site on Saturday evening of a program of Hawaiian music that evoked heartfelt memories of old Hawai‘i.

At Hanalei on Monday, a complete Hawaiian lu‘au was prepared at Wai‘oli Church. Dancing and music followed at the Lihu‘e Armory.

During her visit, Princess Kawananakoa was also entertained at the home of Charles Rice overlooking Kalapaki Bay and at Hale Nani, his father William Hyde Rice’s home in Lihu‘e. The elder Rice was governor of Kaua‘i from 1891 to 1893.

Princess Kawananakoa returned to Honolulu by steamer on Feb. 15.

Coco Palms Burial Grounds

Burial Ceremony At Coco Palms Beginning where the Wailua River empties into Wailua Bay and extending inland up the Wailua River Valley for about 2 miles on the southern and 3 miles on the northern side of the river, Wailua Nui Hoano (Great Sacred Wailua) is one of the oldest inhabited and most sacred places in all Hawai‘i.

For centuries it was the domain of Kaua‘i’s ali‘i, and within it on the property of the Coco Palms Hotel is located the chiefs burial grounds.

In February of 1973, about 30 skeletons were unearthed at Coco Palms by 109

Louis Rego Trucking Co. workers during their bulldozer and steam shovel excavations for new construction at the hotel.

When the skeletons were unearthed, hotel manager Grace Guslander immediately contacted archaeologist Dr. William “Pila” Kikuchi, who determined that “the bones appear to be prehistoric, or about 300 years old.”

Shortly thereafter, the skeletons were re-interred at Coco Palms according to Hawaiian tradition with Rev. David Kaupu officiating.

In old Hawai‘i, the dead were first prepared for burial by being cut open. Then the inner parts were removed and the cavity was filled with salt preservative.

Next, the knees were drawn up tightly to the chest and the corpse was wrapped in kapa.

Burial took place at night — secretly if the departed was a very high chief — and was completed by daybreak, followed by a purification ceremony performed early in the morning. During the ceremony a temple priest sprinkled salt water mixed with turmeric on the people and prayed.

A portion of the prayer is as follows: “Hasten, O Uli; hasten, O water. Here is Uli, Uli; here is water, water. I fly to thy shrine, O Kane, the approachable one. A rustling in heaven — it rustles with the sprinkling. Light appears. The deity is silent.”

Legislator Manuel S. Henriques

Born in 1888 at Madeira, Portugal, and educated at the College of Notre Dame of Good Hope, Manuel Souza Henriques emigrated from Madeira to Hawai‘i in 1907 on the British ship “Kumeric” with his sister, Ezilda Rocha, and her family.

In Honolulu they were assigned to Waialua Sugar Co., where Henriques rose quickly from water boy to store manager, while teaching himself English by reading bilingual newspapers. He’d already mastered Portuguese, Spanish, French and Latin in Portugal.

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In 1911, he moved to Kaua‘i to become a homesteader and sugar planter on nine acres in Kapa‘a.

Until his first crop was harvested, he also worked as a clerk at the Fernandes Store in Kapaia.

Henriques became a United States citizen in 1917 and a year later completed law correspondence courses that prepared him to obtain a license to practice law as a District Court Practitioner on all Hawaiian islands.

“Manuela Boy,” as he was nicknamed by his friends, entered politics in the mid1940s and served as Kaua‘i representative to the Territorial and later State House of Representatives from 1945 through 1947, 1951, and 1954 through 1968.

A vibrant and colorful speaker in the Legislature, he was recognized as the father of Lihu‘e Airport for sponsoring a bill in 1949 that cleared the way for airport development in Lihu‘e.

Former Kaua‘i Mayor Tony Kunimura remarked that “Manuel Henriques could have been a very rich man if he chose,” which is to say he could have profited by his influence in the Legislature and his knowledge of the law, but for honesty’s sake, he did not.

Manuel Henriques and his first wife, Lucretia, had six children. His second wife, Mary, and he had four children.

He passed away in 1974.

Kauai’s World War Two Victory Celebration

Victory Float On September 2, 1945, World War Two formally ended with Japan’s surrender on the battleship Missouri in Tokyo Bay, and on Kauai the following day, over

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10,000 people from all parts of the island celebrated in Lihue from 2:00 p.m. until midnight with a parade, baseball game, dancing, food concessions, local entertainment and other festivities in what was perhaps the largest public event ever held on the Garden Island.

Crowds lined both sides of Lihue’s main street (now Kuhio Highway) to watch the parade along a route decorated with multicolored naval signal flags that ran from the Lihue Theater to beyond the library (now Kauai Museum).

Hundreds marched and nearly three-dozen floats passed in review. Most outstanding was one representing the famous flag raising on Iwo Jima entered by the Kalaheo community.

Kauai veterans who’d returned from military service marched in the place of honor at the head of the parade, and not to be forgotten that day were the sixtythree men from Kauai who’d died in the armed forces during the war.

Other marchers included a Navy band, Army, Navy and Marine units, Boy and Girl Scouts, Kauai’s 14 ILWU locals, Red Cross, Office of Civil Defense volunteers, World War I veterans, Kauai Volunteers and the Waimea High School band.

The “National Anthem” and “God Bless America” were sung by Miss Margaret Koerte; Lena Machado and her Hawaiian troupe performed; an Army baseball team defeated the Pono Canners, and dancing into the evening in the armory featured jitterbug and waltz contests.

John Rego and Lillian Tung garnered first prize in the jitterbug contest. The waltz was won by Kazue Nishimitsu and Chuck Collins, and first place in the amateur contest went to Gilbert Nunes with his imitation of Carmine Miranda.

Frank Sinatra At The 1952 Kauai County Fair

Singer Frank Sinatra was the featured attraction of the 1952 Kauai County Fair

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held at the old Wailua Fair Grounds and Race Track, situated on what is now the southern portion of the Wailua Golf Course. “The Voice,” as Sinatra was popularly known, held six performances, two on each evening, beginning Friday, May 2nd and continuing through Sunday.

Saturday’s shows were a sellout, with one of the ticket-sellers being drafted from the audience to help handle the big crowds.

Sinatra had first achieved success as a solo performer with the Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands in the late 1930s and early 1940s, recording 23 top10 singles between 1940 and 1943. But by the late 1940s, his popularity had declined and had reached its lowest ebb by the time he performed at the ‘52 Kauai County Fair.

Yet, a year later Sinatra would be back on top following his winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor by playing Pvt. Angelo Maggio in “From Here to Eternity” — a film classic based on James Jones’ brilliant novel set on pre-World War II O‘ahu. The movie also starred Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Deborah Kerr and Donna Reed.

At the fair, stock car races were supposed to have been a hit, but thick clouds of dust churned up by the 16 race cars shipped from Honolulu made for a disappointing show.

By the way, a rather amusing, study in contrasts occurred at the Lihue airport right after Sinatra flew in from Honolulu, when The Garden Island newspaper reporter Matsuo “One-Note” Kuraoka interviewed the star singer.

A droll scene it was to watch “One-Note” question Sinatra, who in stark contrast possessed a remarkable vocal range running from a near-tenor high F to lower register E.

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1929 Kaua‘i Reforestation

“Bird Of Paradise” In Flight On November 15, 1929, the U.S. Army “Bird of Paradise” Fokker C-2 aircraft stationed at Fort Shafter, O’ahu scattered 1,689 pounds of seeds over Kaua’i’s leeward interior to commence a reforestation effort initiated by the Forestry Division of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association and the Territorial Board of Agriculture and Forestry.

Seeds selected included Pride of India, Karaka, ironwood, Java plum, kukui, eucalyptus, Chinese fan palm, African tulip and Hawaiian lolou palm.

Chief forest ranger and head of H. S. P. A. reforestation work on Kaua’i, Albert Duvel, directed the pilot where to fly, while Joe Arita of the Kalaheo nursery, Koke‘e forest ranger A. L. McDonald and a member of the crew scattered the seeds.

Three flights were made from Port Allen Field to scatter seeds from Kalalau to Mt. Wai‘ale‘ale.

On each flight, the Fokker first headed to Kalalau between Pu‘ukapele and the sea. It then changed course to continue sowing seeds in the Makaweli highlands toward Mount Wai‘ale‘ale and over the headwaters of the Wailua and Hanalei rivers before returning to land.

The second flight flew further inland than the first, and the third flight’s course was closer to the mountains than the second.

Two years earlier, on June 28-29, 1927, this very same aircraft, with pilot Lt. Lester Maitland at the controls and Lt. Albert Hegenberger aboard as navigator, made history when it flew from Oakland, California, to Wheeler Field, O’ahu, to complete the first successful flight from the U. S. Mainland to Hawai‘i and the longest distance ever flown up to that time over open ocean, approximately 2,400 miles.

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After its historic flight, the Bird of Paradise was used in Hawai‘i as a transport aircraft for about 10 years, including reforestation flights over Kaua‘i, O‘ahu, and Hawai‘i.

Kauai’s Hannah Maria Rice

Hannah Maria Rice was born at Hana, Maui, in 1842, the eldest of five children of American Protestant missionaries William Harrison and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice. She was raised in Lahaina and Punahou prior to her father’s retirement from missionary service in 1854 to manage Lihue Plantation.

The letters and journals this bright, warm-hearted girl wrote thereafter during her childhood and through the maturing years of her short life — she died at age 25 of tuberculosis — happily portray everyday life on Kaua‘i in the mid1800s.

Portions of her journal for July 4, 1859, are quoted as follows: “Yesterday was the 4th of July and we agreed to celebrate it by a sail up the Wailua River. G. Dole drove Mrs. Burbank in the carriage. The rest were on horseback. I rode a new horse, Victor. In reaching the beach we went into the verandah of a house to wait for the rest.

“We waited until 12 o’clock and went aboard. Then we came upon a beautiful place. Beautiful Kukui trees grew down to the very water’s edge. Governor Kanoa came riding along. Cheers were proposed. One was given.

“At half past two we landed at a pretty place. Sardines, biscuits, three kinds of loaf cake, cookies, sandwiches, melons, oranges, and ale composed the rural feast. Pattie, Mr. Hardy and I passed the food. Mr. Widemann, McBryde, Melchers, Isenberg, and Marshall together. Miss Knapp and Mrs. Burbank, the Governor and Dr. Smith on a settee. Papa and Mr. Pomeroy by the table and the girls and boys together. Thirty in all.

“When we were pau we were all ferried over and climbed up the bank and found our horses.”

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Hannah Maria Rice married sugar planter Paul Isenberg in 1861 and had two children.

Captains Portlock and Dixon

Nathaniel Portlock Following the departure of Captain Cook’s “Resolution” and “Discovery” from Hawaii in March 1779, no foreign ships sailed to the Hawaiian Islands until 1786.

In that year, a couple of vessels commanded by the French explorer Jean Francois La Perouse and a pair of English ships, the “King George,” under the command of Captain Nathaniel Portlock, and the “Queen Charlotte,” Captain George Dixon commanding, visited Hawaii.

The English were engaged in exploring the possibility of establishing a British fur trade between the Pacific Northwest and China, whereby seal and sea-otter pelts taken on the northwest coast of North America would be traded in China for tea and other items at good profit.

Hawaii, ideally situated en route between North America and China, would provide trading ships with a convenient rest stop and place where fresh water, food, salt and firewood could be acquired in exchange for iron.

Iron was prized by the Hawaiians, who fashioned it into tools and weapons.

They produced none themselves, but prior to Cook’s discovery they had found it in driftwood, and they’d also gotten iron from Cook. During Portlock and Dixon’s stay, an eight-penny or ten-penny nail could fetch several taro roots and coconuts traded at five for an eight-penny nail.

Portlock and Dixon visited Kauai twice in 1786 and once again in 1787.

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At Waimea in 1786, Dixon observed taro fields irrigated by ditches connected to the Waimea River and raised paths that linked fields and houses, which were commonly surrounded by paper mulberry trees.

On December 25, 1786, the first Christmas was celebrated on Kauai at Waimea aboard the “King George” and the “Queen Charlotte.” Christmas dinner consisted of roast pig, meat and vegetable pies covered with crust, and a mixture of rum and coconut water. Hawaiians and Englishmen exchanged gifts.

Singer And Actress Carmen Miranda On Kaua‘i

By the time samba singer and motion picture actress Carmen Miranda (19091955) first went to the United States with her band in 1939, she’d been a star in Brazil for a decade.

Noted for her exuberant singing style, her lofty headdresses made of fruit and her high platform shoes, petite Carmen Miranda, at 5 feet tall, starred in 14 U.S. films and her songs sold 10 million copies worldwide.

When she arrived on Kaua‘i at the old Lihu‘e airport terminal north of the present terminal via Trans-Pacific Airlines on Jan. 19, 1951, she was welcomed by Kaua‘i County Chairman Anthony Baptiste (father of former Mayor Bryan Baptiste), who presented her with a ceremonial key to the island.

The vivacious “Brazilian Bombshell” was then bedecked with beautiful flower leis by Willie Duarte, Frances Getler, John Simao and Mrs. Mary Gomes.

Also on-hand to serenade Carmen and her mother with old Portuguese songs were Manuel C. Martins, Mrs. Joe Carvalho Sr., Mrs. Antone Rapozo Sr., Manuel Garcia, Mrs. Alfred Caracoes and Mrs. Joaquin Ferreiro, with Manuel S. Carvalho in charge.

Miss Miranda, who was born in Portugal and raised in Brazil, thanked them very much in Portuguese by saying, “Muito obrigado!” and giving each a big hug.

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Later, when asked if the Portuguese spoken on Kaua‘i was the same as in Brazil, she replied, “No, no, it’s a great deal different. The accent is very different. It’s like in America. Those in the north talk with a different accent from those in the south.”

But as to men, she replied humorously, “Oh, those big bad wolves are alike anywhere you go in the world!”

That evening in the Isenberg Gym at Isenberg Tract in Lihu‘e, Carmen and her cast of 25 delighted audiences with two performances.

Mayor Francis M. F. Ching

Ruth, Rowena, Francis And Francis M. F. Ching Born in Honolulu in 1912, the eldest son and fourth of seven children, Francis M. F. Ching was 11 when his father died.

They were poor, as Ching’s son, Francis, recently recalled.

“I remember my aunty Daisy telling me that after her dad died, that one day after eating dinner she saw her mother with a piece of bread cleaning up the grease from the cooking pan and that was her dinner. She was shocked to see that because she did not know that before. The children were always given food first.”

Yet Francis Ching excelled academically and athletically, and was the president of his class at McKinley High School and the University of Hawai’i.

After graduating from UH in 1936, he married Ruth Alberta Aki, daughter of Kaua‘i legislator Henry Kaiwi Aki.

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They moved to Kaua‘i in 1937 to fill a management position at Kaua‘i Terminal Co., later renamed Kaua‘i Commercial Co. During WWII, Ching, an Army captain, saw action as an infantry company commander during the invasion of Okinawa.

Earlier, at Kwajalein, while in transit to Okinawa, he and another officer convinced the captain of an LST to lend them a landing craft to go trolling with poles and reels they’d carried from Hawai‘i in their duffel bags.

While they fished, soldiers and sailors aboard troopships anchored in Kwajalein’s vast lagoon watched and cheered.

Ching entered politics after the war and was subsequently elected to the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors and the territorial and state Senate before being elected Kaua‘i’s second mayor for one term (1972-1973).

Well liked, admired and a natural leader, he would almost always do favors, but rarely collected on them.

Francis and Ruth Ching had six children. Dolly Ching was his second wife. He passed away in 1975.

Islands In The Stream

Ernest Hemingway, 1941 The movie “Islands In the Stream” (1977), based on Ernest Hemingway’s posthumously published novel of the same title, starring George C. Scott, was filmed on Kaua‘i during October 1975.

Visiting Kaua‘i for the filming was journalist Mary Hemingway, Hemingway’s fourth wife and widow.

At a lu‘au in her honor at Kukui‘ula Harbor, which had been transformed by movie set builders into a Bimini, Bahamas, village, she and friends filled the evening air with sounds of Cuban songs, which the Hemingways had delighted 119

in listening to during the 1940s and 1950s while residing at Finca Vigia, their estate outside Havana, Cuba.

It was at Finca Vigia in the late 1950s that Hemingway began work on “Islands in the Stream.” Mary recalled that he wrote there while standing and wearing only shorts in the early morning coolness before the day warmed.

After he committed suicide in 1961, the manuscript, in three parts, was stored for several years until Mary began editing it for publication. Portions were taken out, but not a word was added, making it entirely Ernest Hemingway’s work.

“Islands in the Stream” was published in 1970.

Set in the late 1930s through 1940 in Bimini, “Islands in the Stream” is the story of artist Thomas Hudson, played by Scott, a study in contrasts much like Hemingway himself — sensitive yet tough and vacillating between erudition and boorishness.

Hudson has exiled himself on Bimini, where he sculpts metal, carouses in the village and fishes for marlin. His attempt to transport Jewish refugees to sanctuary in Cuba by boat through the Cuban Coast Guard costs him his life.

Interestingly, two models of Hemingway’s boat, “Pilar,” built to specifications, were used in the film.

Hemingway’s only visit to Hawai‘i occurred in 1941 with his third wife, war correspondent Martha Gellhorn.

Papalinahoa

George Norton Wilcox During construction of Nawiliwili Harbor, which was completed in 1930, the natural geography of Nawiliwili Bay was transformed.

Notably, the original shoreline between Kalapaki Beach and the cliff atop which the bulk sugar warehouse now stands (built in 1950) was replaced by the seawall.

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This occurred after fill was dumped into the bay between the seawall and the original shoreline.

The approximate location of the original shoreline is indicated today by the portion of Wilcox Rd. that runs directly from The Garden Island Inn toward the warehouse cliff.

Papalinahoa, an old kuleana, occupied that stretch of shoreline and extended inland to the bluff on Kuhiau Ridge, where Kauai High School is now situated.

In the 1800s, boat passengers were landed at Papalinahoa at a point below the warehouse cliff.

Papalinahoa was owned by Koloa chief Opunui while Gov. Paul Kanoa lived there in a small, thatched-roofed house at the foot of Kuhiau bluff from 18461877. When Opunui died, Solomon Kamahalo acquired Papalinahoa and resided in a large grass house.

Grove Farm owner George Norton Wilcox bought Papalinahoa from Kamahalo in 1886 and built a beach house there in 1887.

Wilcox also built a boat house, a wharf and a seawall at Papalinahoa. Three small buildings in back of the beach house and a road passing through the grounds completed Wilcox's layout. Also at Papalinahoa was a large coconut grove, a lily pond, and a waterfall formed by run-off irrigation water from cane fields planted atop Kuhiau Ridge.

George Wilcox later constructed a horse and buggy road to Papalinahoa around Kuhiau Ridge. Part of that road still exists. It forms the upper border of Banyan Harbor Resort. Then it runs past the Wilcox Banyan Tree that was planted by Wilcox in 1895, and continues into the neighboring Kailikea property.

Mayor Antone Kona Vidinha

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Antone Kona Vidinha (1902-1976) served 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.

Vidinha’s greatest challenge during his initial term as mayor was to transition Kauai from the board of supervisors to the mayor-council form of government still in effect on Kauai today.

In contrast, his second term was scandalized by charges of corruption against Kauai County personnel connected with a stadium contract.

Although Mayor Vidinha was never alleged to have been involved in scandal, allegations of collusion, double payments and falsified documents led to temporary suspensions of two county employees, the firing of another couple of county personnel and the dismissal of the police chief.

Then in November 1972, Vidinha’s personal integrity was questioned when he was indicted on charges of Federal income tax evasion. He was convicted in March 1973, but upon appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, his conviction was overturned in September 1973.

He also suffered reelection bid defeats in 1972 and 1974 that effectively ended his political career. Despite his trials and tribulations, nearly everyone who knew him considered him to be a kind, generous, and honest gentleman.

Antone Vidinha had enjoyed superb health for all his 73 years, yet he died suddenly of a heart attack on February 26, 1976. He was survived by his wife Edene.

Throughout the years, Vidinha had bought land on Kauai, which at the time of his death was worth an estimated $10 million. His fortune was later used to establish The Antone & Edene Vidinha Charitable Trust to financially assist Kauai’s churches, hospitals, health organizations, and college students.

Vidinha Stadium in Lihue is named after him.

The Great Flood of 1940

Article From The Garden Island Newspaper 122

Exceedingly heavy rainfall on East Kaua‘i during May 13-14, 1940 caused some of the worst flooding in the history of Kaua‘i. Precipitation for a 24-hour period during the flood ranged from 25.43 inches in Lihu‘e to 14 at Moloa‘a. Although extensive damage was sustained, only one person died, indirectly of heart failure, because of the flood.

Above Niumalu, Puali Stream swelled and washed out Halehaka Bridge, and at Niumalu, its overflowing waters washed away Kazu Tsuchiyama’s house, car and garage.

Nawiliwili Stream’s flood waters washed out several homes at Kilipaki Camp by the Lihue Mill and at Rice Camp in Lihu‘e town.

In Nawiliwili itself, two homes, one being T. Naito’s, were swept into the stream and Nawiliwili Transportation Co. lost tools and an overhauled diesel engine.

While Lihue Plantation employee Gisa Tateishi was driving his truck toward Kapaia down the Wailua Falls road with passengers Jimmy Nogami and Salvador Esplana, he could see about three inches of water rushing across the main Kapaia road. But while crossing it, the water suddenly rose into a torrential three foot wall.

Esplana jumped clear onto an embankment. Nogami also leapt but was swept away into shallow waters, while Tateishi remained trapped inside. He was able to force his way out and onto a little island, however, where he was later rescued.

In Kapaia, the flood cut a 75-foot deep by 150-foot wide gorge near the bottom of the main Kapaia road.

Some of the severely flooded sites in Kapa‘a were Roxy Theater, All Saints Church and nearby homes, and the Hawaiian Church and adjacent streets.

Nawiliwili’s Namino Kai Club members, M. Morita’s Hawaiian Canneries truck crews, Deputy Sheriff Henry Sheldon’s police and some Pono area boys were noted for rendering aid and assistance.

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Captain Broughton

British Captain William Robert Broughton (1762-1821), in command of “Providence,” visited Waimea, Kaua‘i in February of 1796 to discover the island racked by bloody civil war.

When “Providence” had anchored off Waimea, the warrior chief then in military control of Waimea district came on board but quickly departed for shore upon observing a fleet of war canoes heading toward Waimea.

In one of those canoes was 16-year-old Prince Kaumuali‘i, the future and last king of Kaua‘i. Kaumuali‘i came aboard but, along with others, resisted Broughton’s attempts at peacemaking. After Kaumuali‘i disembarked, Broughton sailed for the northwest coast of North America.

The following July, when Broughton returned to Waimea to fill water casks and was told he’d need to pay for the water, he refused and sent an armed party ashore to take what water he required.

A couple of days later, he sailed for Ni‘ihau to collect a supply of yams and dispatched a party of three marines, a mate and a botanist accordingly.

After some time had passed, Broughton fired a rocket to signal his men to return to “Providence” and sent a boat off to pick them up.

While the boat approached Ni‘ihau, the boat’s crew heard shots and observed the shore party withdrawing into the surf while being attacked by Hawaiians. A fight ensued in which two marines were killed. The remaining three Englishmen made it to the boat only by the skin of their teeth.

On shore, Hawaiians danced with delight and displayed the equipment they’d stripped from the dead marines, while taking care to keep out of range of “Providence’s” guns.

Before leaving Ni‘ihau, Broughton ordered more marines ashore to retrieve the dead and to burn all Hawaiian property within a mile of where the skirmish had occurred.

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Governor John E. Bush

In 1877, King David Kalakaua appointed John E. Bush (1843-1906) as governor of Kaua‘i, an office he would occupy through 1880.

While Bush was governor, his family lived at Koloa, but Bush lived in Kapa‘a to be near Kealia, where he planted sugar cane part-time on shares for Makee Sugar Co. But Bush’s principal duty as governor was to provide Kalakaua, Queen Kapiolani, and their retinues with food, lodgings, entertainment and transportation whenever they visited Kaua‘i.

At Koloa, the governor would, without fail, obtain provisions of poi, sugar, bullocks, pigs, turkeys and chickens from Koloa Plantation manager John N. Wright. Likewise, Mrs. Wright supplied such items as butter, eggs, preserves, fruit and vegetables.

Bush later became a participant in Kalakaua’s abortive attempt at Pacific empire building when Kalakaua dispatched him to Samoa in Dec. 1886 to negotiate a treaty of confederation with Samoa.

In Samoa, Bush met chief Malietoa, one of two chiefs claiming title to king of Samoa, and on Feb. 17, 1887, Bush persuaded him to sign an agreement binding Hawai‘i and Samoa in confederation.

Germany, which backed Malietoa’s rival, Tamasese, and desired to annex all of Samoa, was initially annoyed by Hawaiian intervention in Samoa, and eventually threatened war unless Kalakaua withdrew.

By November, when Bush returned to Hawai‘i, the Germans had sent four warships to Samoa, deposed and exiled Malietoa, and had recognized Tamasese as king.

Bush held several ministerships during Kalakaua’s reign.

As a Native Hawaiian, Bush supported Queen Liliuokalani on occasion. Yet, as Liberal Party editor of “Ka Leo o Ka Lahui” newspaper, he usually did not.

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The Rare Stone Plaque

In 1951, ethnologist-archaeologist Dr. Kenneth P. Emory of Bishop Museum examined a rare stone plaque representing a crouching human figure that had been plowed up by tractor driver Kaichi Taida in 1946 in a Wailua cane field and acquired by William S. Barnes, an employee of Lihu‘e Plantation.

The plaque was one of about 100 old Hawaiian stone carvings Barnes had found in the area between Wailua and Kealia — the most populated area of old Kaua‘i, and one with a good number of known heiau — and had sent it to Emory at Bishop Museum on loan.

It was made of light-gray, close-grained volcanic rock and measured 5.2 inches high x 3.8 wide x 1.3 thick, a thickness that included the 1/4 to 1/2 inch height of the relief figure, which had a maximum length of 3.3 inches.

Emory, fascinated by the plaque, commented that “No one at the Bishop Museum has ever seen or heard of such a plaque before.”

It was the only the second stone carving in relief found in Hawai‘i. The first had been discovered on the Sam Damon property at Moanalua, O‘ahu, some years earlier. Emory further stated that he suspected the Kaua‘i carving was some sort of rubbing or grinding stone of archaic use.

The plaque also puzzled Emory. On the one hand, the unusual carving seemed to be something left behind by a pre-Hawaiian people. Yet the object was also “quite within the frame and feeling of Hawaiian culture, particularly that of Kaua‘i,” he explained.

“However, if there had ever been a previous non-Polynesian people on Kaua‘i or in the Hawaiian Islands, by now we should have come across many more traces of them, and these traces would have linked themselves with some other area in the Pacific.”

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The Lone Sea Rover

Thomas Drake After sailing alone from Seattle to Honolulu in 28 days and then sailing from Honolulu to Kaua‘i in 24 hours, Captain Thomas Drake, one of the earliest solo mariners, popularly known as “The Lone Sea Rover,” docked at Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i, on March 25, 1933, aboard his schooner “Progress.”

An Englishman, Drake had years earlier settled in Seattle for a time, where he built and then sold a lumber business before opting for a life of adventure by solo sailing around the world.

Following two failed attempts at circumnavigating the earth in two homemade vessels, he tried again in a third self-built boat — his 35-foot ketch “Pilgrim,” which was later shipwrecked on an island — and succeeded at last in completing a 32,000-mile solo circumnavigation of the earth.

By the time Drake had sailed to Kaua‘i in the “Progress,” a schooner he’d also built, he’d been a lone sea rover for 20 years, having traveled over 100,000 miles and having visited 117 ports.

“Progress” was 37 feet long, with a 12-foot 6-inch beam, a 4-foot draft, a 10-ton register and a Gorham engine used only in ports.

When asked in Nawiliwili how he was able to sleep and pilot at the same time, he replied, “Oh, I get my sleep, yes, sir. Half of the time I sleep and the other half I think of sleeping.”

Drake, who claimed to be a descendant of the famed English explorer and adventurer Sir Francis Drake, planned to take passengers on three- or fourhour cruises about Kauai for 50 cents per person.

He also intended to sail for Seattle after a two-week stay on Kaua‘i, yet he never reached Seattle and went missing some years later while touring the Southwest Pacific in a steamship.

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KTOH Radio Opens On Kaua‘i

KTOH Staff, 1940 KTOH (Kaua‘i Territory of Hawai‘i), Kaua‘i’s first radio station, began broadcasting Wednesday May 8, 1940, at 7 p.m. on Ahukini Road in Lihu‘e.

Deane Stewart was the station’s first manager and Bob Glenn was chief engineer.

A special program of Hawaiian music and short speeches highlighted the evening.

Master of ceremonies was Charles Fern, general manager of KTOH and editor of The Garden Island newspaper. Rev. Charles K. Holokahiki gave the invocation in Hawaiian.

Groups that performed included the Kekaha Parents Club, Mrs. Lydia Wright, director; Annie and Bennett Holt’s Kekaha Singers; Leinaala Glee Club, Mrs. Nora Chang and Miss Margaret Kilauano, directors; Lei Lima Club, Nick Koani and Keawe Aipolani, directors.

The Hawaiian Troubadours, Albert Nahalea, director; Waialeale’s Aloha Hawaiians, Billy Waialeale, director; Lihue Hawaiian Serenaders, Joseph Rapozo, director; Transco Hawaiians, Sam Peahu, director; Henry Sheldon Jr. and his Kapaa Chorus; Latter-day Saints Choir, Mrs. Louise Sheldon, director; Jacob Maka’s Hanalei Singers; C.C.C. Rangers, Eddie Kanoho, director.

Solo musicians David Kealoha, Billy Vidinha and Sam Aipolani also played.

Guest speakers were A. H. Case, Mrs. Dora R. Isenberg, Senator Elsie Wilcox, Sheriff William Rice, Chairman William Ellis, County Treasurer K.C. Ahana, County Auditor K.M. Ahana, County Attorney A. G. Kaulukou and Caleb Burns, manager, Lihue Plantation.

Also, Albert Horner, manager, Hawaiian Canneries; Waimea businessman Noboru Miyake; Eric Knudsen, president, Garden Island Publishing; Fred R. Frizelle, Kauai High School principal; William M. Moragne, John Sheehan and Representative Clem Gomes.

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Commercial programming started the following morning, May 9. A three-hour Japanese program was featured that evening. Director of Japanese programming was Shoichi Hamura, co-director Miss Chitoko Isonaga.

A Filipino show of the same length was broadcast Friday evening with Abraham A. Albayalde, director, and Miss Leonora Curammeng, announcer.

Revolutionist William Owen Smith

W. O. Smith (1848-1929), the eldest son of Kaua‘i missionaries Dr. and Mrs. James W. Smith, was born in Koloa and grew up there when the town was a port of call for whalers.

Years later, Smith recalled that during the boom years of whaling, between 1843 and 1860, as many as forty to sixty whalers called at Koloa each year for supplies of vegetables, fruit, beef, pork, firewood and water.

These whalers lay offshore while Yankee captains in whaleboats were rowed to Koloa Landing to purchase provisions.

Ashore they’d bargain with George Charman, a jovial and sociable soul who acted as middleman for Koloa merchants. Wood sold at $5 per cord; fresh beef cost $.04 per pound; sheep were priced at $3 per head; goats were bought for half that price.

Salt beef was carried aboard in barrels. Pigs and cattle were loaded on board ship to be slaughtered later, and provisioned whalers could be seen with crookneck squashes strung about their sterns and in their rigging.

While growing up, Smith also knew people now generally forgotten in Kauai’s history.

There was Koloa Plantation manager John Burbank, known as “Keoni Lehepala” (John sore lip), since his lips were often burned by the sun. Dr. Wood was nicknamed “Kauka Poalu-maka,” because he’d once removed a patient’s eye.

Gentlemanly E. Lilikalani served as District Judge. David Kealahula taught at the government school. Nakapaahu kept the local jail, and Captain Likeke 129

sailed a schooner running between Koloa and Honolulu.

Although Smith achieved success in Hawai‘i as sheriff, lawyer, legislator, attorney general and Bishop Estate trustee, it was by his leadership in planning the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani and the Monarchy in 1893 that he made his mark in Hawai‘i’s history.

Kauai’s Cattle Egrets

On July 17, 1959, 25 cattle egrets imported from Florida by Charles Rice were released on Kauai at his Kipu Ranch by his grandson, ranch manager Holbrook “Hobey” Goodale, and by Stephen Au of the Board of Agriculture and Forestry -- the first cattle egrets released in Hawaii.

Members of the heron family originating in Africa, southern Asia and Spain that have settled on every continent, except Antarctica, the birds were set free in the hope they would control flies and other insects plaguing cattle.

But when first let go at Kipu Ranch, the birds didn’t eat any flies and Goodale retorted, “Flies! Not a single one. All those birds have done since we turned them loose is gorge themselves on grasshoppers.”

Yet the birds soon proved themselves exceedingly successful in accomplishing their intended purpose by eating great numbers of flies and other insect pests such as grasshoppers, cockroaches, caterpillars, moths and centipedes around cattle and other grazing animals, while shunning bumble bees, wasps and yellow jackets. Egrets also followed farm machinery and mowers that would flush insects they’d then catch and eat.

On the downside, the birds presented problems by preying on young endangered wetland birds.

Still, the egret did a sight better job than the mongoose, which was imported from the West Indies in 1883 into all the major Hawaiian islands -- except Kauai -- in anticipation it would help control rats on sugarcane plantations.

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Scientific experiments performed in 1925 and 1964 demonstrated that rats and mice comprised most of the mongoose’s diet in and around sugarcane fields, in spite of the fact that mongooses are diurnal and rats are nocturnal.

Nevertheless, the mongoose was a failure, because rats reproduce at a faster rate than mongooses can effectively control. The mongoose also causes harm by killing ground-nesting birds.

The Steamship Kilauea

Built in East Boston, Massachusetts, the 414-ton steamship Kilauea arrived at Honolulu in 1860 to commence 17 years of inter-island steamship service in the Hawaiian Islands.

With its home port in Honolulu, Kilauea initially serviced only Hawai‘i and Maui, while Kaua‘i continued to depend on small sailing schooners and the 80-ton steamship Annie Laurie for its inter-island transportation.

It wasn’t until 1872, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed a bill introduced by Kaua‘i’s William Hyde Rice that included a $5,000 subsidy to provide Kaua‘i with bimonthly steamer service, that Kilauea’s Honolulu-Kaua‘i run finally materialized.

Later, in the fall of 1872, newlywed Rice and his bride Mary made a leisurely circuit of Kaua‘i aboard the Kilauea, with stopovers at Hanalei, Waimea, Koloa and Nawiliwili.

The Kilauea also carried King David Kalakaua to Kaua‘i at least twice during his long reign.

In March 1874, Kalakaua embarked at Honolulu aboard the Kilauea on a royal tour of his kingdom, with Kaua‘i being his first destination.

Kilauea called at Hanalei, Waimea, Koloa and Nawiliwili, where Kalakaua was honored with a 21-gun salute, with children tossing flowers at his feet, At Hanalei, Kalakaua enjoyed the Royal Hawaiian Band’s sterling 131

performances, a great luau, showers of gifts, and hundreds of his subjects accompanying him until he steamed off aboard the Kilauea to other islands.

Three years later, in 1877, Kalakaua set up a few courtiers and Honolulu choral society members in the sugar business at Kapahi, an enterprise he named the “Hui Kawaihau.”

Many of the 32 working members of “Hui Kawaihau” arrived on Kaua‘i at the mouth of the Wailua River aboard the Kilauea in August 1877, where they were rowed ashore, along with their families, tools, lumber, food and tents.

Sugar Planter and Philanthophist Albert Spencer Wilcox

The fourth of eight sons of missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox, Albert Spencer Wilcox was born at Hilo in 1844 with a crippling birth defect of the feet that required him to sail to Boston in 1851 with his father for surgery that cured him of his deformity.

Back home and well at last, Wilcox was raised in Hanalei at Wai‘oli Mission and educated at Punahou. By 1863, he was planting sugarcane at Waioli with this brother, George Norton Wilcox.

Yet success eluded him early on. In 1876, he nearly went bankrupt when his small plantation in nearby Waipa Valley failed.

But opportunity came his way in 1877, when a mill at Hanama‘ulu was built and he was able to raise all the cane it required from that year until about 1898, when he retired as a wealthy man.

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Wilcox and his wife, Emma Mahelona Wilcox (1851-1931), lived at Kilohana House in Puhi, a big, white house surrounded by lawns. In the mid-1930s, it was torn down and replaced by the mansion standing at Kilohana today, which was their nephew Gaylord Parke Wilcox’s home for many years.

In 1915, the couple donated $25,000 toward the construction of a tuberculosis hospital in Kapa‘a that was built in 1917 and named after Samuel Mahelona, Emma’s son from a previous marriage who’d died of TB in 1912.

Three years after Albert’s death in 1919, Emma Wilcox donated $75,000 for the building of a public library in memory of her husband. The Albert Spencer Wilcox Memorial Building on Rice Street served as the Lihue Library from 1924, until a new library was built on Hardy Street in 1969.

In 1893, Wilcox, Sanford Dole and W. O. Smith, who were also raised on Kaua‘i, participated in the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani.

Kikiula

Kikiula, 1890 In 1842, Englishman Godfrey Rhodes began planting coffee in Hanalei Valley on land he’d leased from the Hawaiian government, and by 1846, his coffee plantation covered 750 acres.

Rhodes’ mill was situated low on the hillside a short distance east of and just above the site of the Hanalei Bridge, which was not erected until 1912. He also built a cozy, thick-walled stone house by his mill he named Kikiula.

Before the present road into Hanalei Valley was built, a steep, winding switchback road descended downhill into the valley and passed by Kikiula before entering the valley floor at a scow crossing, which was located just upriver of where the Hanalei Bridge was later built.

About 1847, German-born Gottfried Wundenberg built a small wooden house

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at Limanui across the river from Rhodes’ coffee mill, subleased land from Rhodes and planted potatoes and coffee.

When Rhodes sold out to Robert Crichton Wyllie in 1855, Wundenberg became Wyllie’s plantation manager. Wundenberg then moved into Kikiula with his family, attached a clapboard building to it, built a lathed and plastered top story and painted the house white and the roof red.

King Kamehameha IV, Queen Emma, young Prince Albert and his nurse, Madame Namakeha, who would later become Queen Kapiolani, were guests of the Wundenbergs at Kikiula for over two weeks during their visit to Kaua‘i in 1860. Soon after the royal party returned to Honolulu, Wyllie renamed his plantation Princeville to honor the prince.

In 1863, Wundenberg and his family left Kikiula and moved to Honolulu. Kikiula then became home to a succession of plantation and ranch managers and several buildings occupied the area. Kikiula was later known as Princeville Plantation House, then Princeville Ranch House.

What ruins of Kikiula and its outbuildings that may now exist are hidden beneath dense vegetation.

Kaua‘i’s Elithe Aguiar

Born and raised on Kaua‘i, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. August Aguiar of Kapa‘a, and blessed with beauty and musical, singing and dancing talent, Elithe Aguiar was crowned Miss Kaua‘i in 1963 and captured the title of Miss Universe Hawai‘i in 1965.

Earlier, during filming on Kaua‘i of the movie “Blue Hawaii” in 1961, she became good friends with the film’s star, actor and rock ‘n’ roll singer Elvis Presley.

During a break in filming at Coco Palms, The Garden Island reporter “Sidelines” Kuraoka asked Elvis, who was an eligible bachelor at the time, what his idea of an ideal girl was, and Elvis pointed at Elithe.

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Elithe recently shared that, “It took all Elvis could muster to call my father and get permission to date me. People thought that it was his irresistible southern charm that caused my father, a stern, upright, Christian rancher, to relent after a dozen refusals. But it was actually El’s God-fearing ways that finally got his ‘Blue Suede Shoes’ through the door.”

During the 1960s and 1970s, Elithe, who is of Hawaiian-Portuguese-Chinese descent, acted with Jack Lord, William Shatner and Jackie Cooper in the popular TV series “Hawaii Five-O” and played opposite actor Dennis Weaver in the TV series “McCloud.” Her stage career includes performances as the featured entertainer at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Princess Kaiulani Hotel and the Kahala Hilton Hotel.

Today, Elithe Manuhaaipo Kahn is kahu of a health care and healing center located on Merchant Street in downtown Honolulu, where she provides native Hawaiian therapies to balance mental, physical, emotional and spiritual human conditions.

Elithe holds a BA in psychology from Hawaii Pacific University and a MA and Ph.D. in metaphysics. Specializing in Hawaiiana, she has authored several books. Elithe and her husband reside in Honolulu.

Lihu‘e’s Lion Fountain

Lihue’s lion fountain, now located on the mill side of Haleko Road just above the four Haleko Shops buildings, was gifted to the community by Rev. Hans Isenberg in 1911.

But the original site of the fountain was uphill of its present location and closer to the Government Road (now Rice Street).

Another difference is that Isenberg’s fountain initially faced Haleko Road lengthwise, whereas today it is positioned at an angle to the road.

Isenberg bought the fountain for nearly $1,000 in Florence, Italy, where it was crafted by an artist named Scheibert.

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When the fountain was in working order and in prime condition water poured into the trough, which is made of decorated white marble, through two 1-inch pipes that protruded from the mouths of two lion heads, also made of marble.

These lion heads are set into a marble wall behind the trough that is decorated with scrolls and other designs. Two smaller lion heads beneath the trough support it. The smaller lion heads were also originally partly buried in cement.

At that time, the entire fountain stood about 6-feet high by 6-feet wide and when filled held about 60 gallons of water.

West of and bordering upper Haleko Road in those days was an expansive tract of many two-story, concrete homes constructed for German mill workers and their families who were brought to Kaua‘i by Lihu‘e Plantation manager Paul Isenberg, Rev. Isenberg’s older brother. All that remains today of these homes are the four Haleko Shops buildings.

Determined, refined in his mannerisms and austere, Rev. Hans Isenberg (1855-1918) was an ordained Lutheran pastor who ministered the Lutheran Church on German Hill in Lihu‘e from 1887 until his death in 1918. His business interests included Hackfeld & Company and Lihu‘e Plantation.

Kauai’s First Athletic Meet

Sprinter John Fernandes Kauai held its first ever track and field meet on July 4, 1911 at the Lihue Park Athletic Field, which was approximately located in the locale now occupied by the Piikoi buildings and adjacent parking areas.

On that day, the park’s grandstand was filled with spectators, cars were parked around the athletic field, and over 4,000 people from all over the island came to watch the meet and enjoy the day.

Prizes included such items as championship cups, pocketknives, pencils, rulers, pens, dollar-watches and chocolates, which were donated, along with refreshments, by Mrs. Dora Isenberg and George Norton Wilcox.

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Refreshments -- 3,750 ice-cream cornucopias and 600 doughnuts -- were dealt out during the course of the day by Mrs. Rohrig and Mrs. Ralph Wilcox.

Adding to the day’s enjoyment was the spirited playing of the Lihue Band.

John Fernandes, a student a Saint Louis College, now called Saint Louis School, in Honolulu, scored the highest number of points by winning the 50, 100 and 220 yards dashes.

Although Fernandes was penalized 3 ft. in the 100-yard dash and ran on a rough turf track, he still finished in 10.60 seconds.

In the 50 yard dash, Fernandes’ winning time was 5.20 seconds. K. C. Hopper won the standing broad jump with a leap of 9 ft. 4 inches. The 120-yard hurdle race was won by Willie Opunui in 15.60 seconds. Fernandes won his third first prize in the 220-yard dash in 25.80 seconds.

Other winners were Hans Fassoth -- running high jump, J. Malina -- shot put 32 ft. 10 in., Hans Fassoth -- pole vaulting 9 ft. 6 in., Sanford Blake -- 440 yard dash, Paul Kahlbaun -- hammer throw, K. C. Hopper -- running broad jump, John Akana -- one mile run in 6 minutes and 6 seconds.

Mr. Broadbent’s Coconut Grove

The tall coconut trees standing alongside Kuhio Highway in Waipouli today are all that remain of a large grove that Edward H. W. Broadbent began planting after he purchased property there in 1912.

By 1914, his grove contained nearly 1,100 fast-growing trees, which at the time was a surprise to many, since the land upon which they flourished had beforehand seemed to be nothing more than acres of unproductive coral deposits.

As Mr. Broadbent explained, “I dug the holes down to the water. To do this, every hole had to be put down through a floor of solid cement of several inches in thickness. The men could do no blasting, so this substance had to be gotten out in small pieces by pick and hand. Once through this, I struck water.

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“In these holes, I placed a square box. I then placed the trees and filled the box with the richest soil I could find. Around the outside of the box, I replaced the coral and soil that had been taken from the original hole. The result has been most satisfactory, and according to Mr. Hills, the coconut planter, the trees have grown faster than any he has ever seen.”

Not all of Broadbent’s trees were planted in this fashion, however. Near the cottage he built in the grove, “the ground is somewhat higher, and there I planted a number of trees where I could not get down to water, and these trees are not doing nearly so well as those I planted elsewhere,” he added.

Mr. Broadbent was born in New Zealand in 1872 and was educated there. In 1891 he settled in Hawai‘i, joined Grove Farm in 1895 and managed it from 1902 until he retired in 1935. He died in Lihu‘e in 1947.

WWI Veteran Hans Peter Faye Jr.

Hans Peter Faye Jr. (1896-1984) was born at Mana, Kaua‘i and was attending Yale in 1917 during World War I when he volunteered for service with the AFS (American Field Service).

Founded in 1914, the AFS was a volunteer unit composed of young Americans who’d left college to serve France as ambulance and military transport drivers during the war. Their motto was “Tous et tout pour la France” (All and everything for France).

Participating in every major French battle of the war, over 2,500 AFS volunteers transported more than 500,000 French casualties and military material.

AFS missions were often dangerous. By the end of the war, some 127 AFS volunteers had been killed in action.

H. P. Faye Jr. served in the AFS during 1917 as a truck driver hauling ammunition to the front lines near Soissons, France.

In December 1917, he wrote, “On the first trip I ever took, way back in July, we

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went up in the daytime, and I got my first sight of actual shellfire, as the Bosches [Germans] were shelling the road and the crest of the hill like the very devil that day. We couldn’t go across the river then because the roads were being too heavily shelled, so we had to drive along a road by the river, but that was near enough. The ‘arrives’ were bursting on the top of the hill first, then they began creeping down the hill, and finally began to land in the river. We left then. Remember, the road ran alongside that river!”

Faye later transferred to the American artillery for the duration of the war and was commissioned an officer.

After the war, Faye went on to become president of American Factors, one of Hawai‘i’s Big Five companies.

Sumo Yokozuna Tachiyama Visits Kauai

On Friday morning, July 31, 1914, Japanese sumo yokozuna (grand champion, the sport’s highest rank) Tachiyama and about forty other top professional Japanese sumo wrestlers arrived at Nawiliwili, Kauai aboard the steamer W. G. Hall to give wrestling exhibitions on Saturday and Sunday at Lihue Park, which was located in the area now occupied by the Piikoi building and adjoining parking lots.

Tachiyama (1877-1941), had made his sumo debut in 1900 and had advanced steadily to become sumo’s 22nd yokozuna in 1911.

At 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighing 330 lb., Tachiyama was celebrated for his enormous strength and skill, recording 195 wins, 27 losses,10 draws, 5 unresolved, and 73 absences during his 18 year sumo career.

Tachiyama never suffered a losing record in Japan’s national sport and as yokozuna lost only three bouts. Between 1909 and 1916 he won 99 out of 100 matches. He also won eleven top division tournament championships before retiring in 1918.

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While on Kauai, Tachiyama and other sumos were quartered at the Hotel Fairview, situated where Kalapaki Villas now stands on Rice Street.

Subsequently renamed twice, it closed as the Kauai Inn in 1963.

Prior to the matches, the Lihue Park athletic field was fenced in, a dirt platform was built near home plate of the baseball field, and seats were extended outward in all directions. The grandstand was also available.

Immense crowds of mostly Japanese attended the matches and a few tested their skill against some of the visiting wrestlers without success.

At the close of the exhibitions on Sunday, Tachiyama wrestled one of his colleagues who “was little more than a boy in the grasp of a giant.”

Later on Sunday, the wrestlers boarded the W. G. Hall and steamed off to Honolulu.

Pilot, Captain’s Spunyarn’s Inter-island Coaster

By the 1820s, small schooners called coasters, owned and run by Hawaiians, had made their appearance in Hawaiian waters and would become the mainstay of inter-island transportation well into the latter part of the 19th century.

Coasters derived their moniker from their practice of following the coastlines around the islands and stopping off at ports of call along the way.

One coaster, the Tahitian-built Pilot, of perhaps fifty tons register, sailed the Honolulu-Kaua‘i run for many years, Capt. Spunyarn, known also as Capt.

Paniani commanding, assisted by his mate and cook.

A superb seaman, whose face at sea was the very picture of inner satisfaction, Spunyarn required no nautical instruments to chart his course. Instead, he relied on his knowledge of every wave by sight and all the variations of wind within the Kaua‘i Channel to navigate Pilot in fair weather or foul.

His many adventures aboard Pilot on the Honolulu-Kaua‘i run included surviving a squall that capsized Pilot, but luckily close enough to land to be towed ashore and righted. Another time, a whale rose alongside causing a surge that nearly swamped Pilot, but she survived that also.

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Passenger fare between Honolulu and Koloa aboard Pilot about mid-century was $5. Accommodations consisted of deck space crowded with passengers and livestock. Straw mats provided cover from the elements and travelers brought their own food, usually calabashes of fish and poi.

The Kaua‘i passage could take a day, or several days, depending on the wind.

When breezes calmed, Pilot would pitch, twist and rock. Seasickness was commonplace. Flies, cockroaches, mosquitoes and fleas compounded one’s misery.

In 1853, inter-island travel improved with the arrival of the 106-foot long, 114-ton side-wheel steamer Akamai. Her first regular run was between Honolulu and Kaua‘i, with stops at Nawiliwili and Hanalei.

Kaeho’s Record Ulua Haul

On Oct. 28, 1923, Hawaiian fisherman Jim Kaeho and his fishing partners netted what was believed to be Kaua‘i’s record single haul of ulua while fishing at the mouth of the Wailua River — 39 big ulua weighing over 1,000 pounds.

It was said at the time that the ulua had been attracted to the river mouth by oopu carried down stream in flood waters caused by heavy rains the previous day. Others contended that the ulua came to rid themselves of parasites that are killed by fresh water.

But older Hawaiians claimed the ulua had arrived to drink from the abundance of fresh river water released into the sea by the flood.

The ulua had advanced to within 15 to 20 feet of shore in the little bay at the mouth of the river when the fishermen — only seven of them — began the struggle to close their net behind the fish. It was grueling work, since the net was heavy, high seas were pounding at their backs and strong river currents surrounded them.

After the fishermen had contained the ulua, they began hauling the net to shore, losing five or six ulua that broke through the net when they entered the shallows. Finally, the net was hauled ashore. The largest fish weighed 67 pounds, the smallest 16 pounds, four were over 60 pounds, six weighed over 50 pounds and a number weighed 40 pounds.

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Before Kaeho and his companions left, they performed a Hawaiian custom peculiar to Wailua to ensure the return of ulua the following year: they cut two pieces off the tail of the largest fish as an offering to the fish god of Wailua and buried the pieces under a nearby stone said to be the home of that god.

Mount Kahili

Long ago, 3089-ft. Mt. Kahili’s lofty peak was used by chiefs of the neighboring area as a lookout from which they could watch afar for the advance of enemy soldiers.

Later, the mountain’s summit became a stronghold of bandits who would raid the lowlands to rob travelers passing through the Koloa (Knudsen’s) Gap. Mt. Kahili also once served as the site of a signal tower above the old trail that ran from the west side, around the base of Mt. Kahili, to the Wailua River.

Whenever the king of Kauai journeyed on that trail, a conch blower would climb Mt. Kahili beforehand, and when he saw the king approaching in the distance, he’d signal the people below with blasts of his conch.

Forewarned by the sound he made, the people would then avoid the trail to prevent breaking the kapu of having contact with or even looking at the king -the consequence of which was death.

Mt. Kahili was also a sacred burial ground for Kauai’s alii. To make their sepulchers, post-holes were first bored into solid rock with stone hand tools at the mountain’s highest point. Next, 12-foot posts of kauwila wood were inserted into these holes, upon which a platform was constructed.

The corpse of an alii would then be left on the platform until the flesh decomposed and fell from the bones. Then the bones were secretly dropped into the ocean deep, so that no one could ever discover them.

Even in fairly recent times, Hawaiians have buried their dead in the Kahili area.

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In 1960, J. J. Marques of Kalaheo reported an incident of his boyhood many years earlier of a Hawaiian said to be of royal lineage dying in the Kalaheo district, whose family insisted he be buried by Mt. Kahili.

Lihue Plantation’s First Manager James F. B. Marshall

James Fowle Baldwin Marshall (1818-1891) was born in Boston and attended Harvard before sailing to Hawaii in 1839, where by 1841 he’d established a general merchandize firm in Honolulu with Francis Johnson.

Two years later, Marshall became a participant in the “Paulet Episode,” the central event of which was British Captain Lord George Paulet’s provisional annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to Britain by threat of force in February 1843.

Paulet’s action was in response to a complaint made against Kamehameha III

by Richard Charlton, the British Consul in Hawaii, as a consequence of the king not honoring Charlton’s claim to a Honolulu leasehold property.

Marshall became involved when he agreed to secretly carry Kamehameha III’s dispatches concerning the episode from Honolulu to authorities in London, where he, William Richards and Timothy Haalilio were then able to convince the British government to recognize Hawaii’s independence and restore Hawaii’s sovereignty on July 31, 1843.

Marshall returned to Hawaii, was elected to the Hawaiian Legislature, and in 1845 became a partner in C. Brewer and Co., Ltd. When Henry Peirce founded Lihue Plantation in 1849, Marshall became its first manager.

While on Kauai, Marshall and his wife, and the Hardys, Bonds and Reynoldses, lived for a time at and about Malumalu, which is located on the Haupu Range side of Hulemalu Road, about 1/4-mile east of the intersection of Puhi and Hulemalu roads. There they established a settlement based on Brook Farm, a short-lived (1841-1847) utopian experiment in communal living in Massachusetts.

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In 1854, Marshall resigned as manager of Lihue Plantation and was replaced by missionary William Harrison Rice.

He returned to Boston a wealthy man in 1859, served as a Federal brigadier general during the Civil War and later managed Hampton Institute in Virginia.

Prima Donna Honorata “Atang” de la Rama

During late July and early August of 1926, Filipino prima donna Honorata “Atang” de la Rama (1905-1991) sang to sellout crowds at the Tip Top Theater in Lihue, the Kealia Social Hall, Kilauea Hall, Koloa Hall, Makaweli Community Hall and Waimea Hall.

Miss de la Rama had gained fame in her native land as a singer of kundiman, a genre of traditional Filipino love songs with lyrics written in Tagalog that was the customary means of serenade in the Philippines.

And as an actress, she was a star of zarzuela, an operetta of Spanish origin in which spoken scenes alternate with sung scenes combined with dance. In 1919, Atang de la Rama also became the first Filipino film actress in the first Tagalog film, “Dalagang Bukid.”

On Kauai, Atang was accompanied by Vincente Yierro, the Filipino Harold Lloyd (slapstick comedian of the silen film era) and the five member Filipino Jazz Orchestra under the direction of Andres Baclig.

Not only Kauai’s Filipinos, but other nationalities were represented in the record crowds that greeted Atang, Yierro, and Baclig’s musicians, and all found their admissions of $1.50, 99c and 75c a delightful bargain.

Miss de la Rama captivated her audiences with her pleasing personality and charmingly beautiful songs sung in English, Spanish and Tagalog, while

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Yierro’s antics as a comic brought the house down with laughter. His song and dance routine, in which he sang a number of songs in English, was also a hit.

Andres Baclig and his musicians played both jazz and classical numbers.

Especially well received were his marimba and violin solos.

While on Kauai, the Brown Brothers, the local Filipino society, were the hosts of Miss de la Rama and company at dinner in William Henry Rice’s Lihue Hotel on Rice Street.

Mr. Rice’s Hawaiian Grass House

Mr. Rice And Kolohaiole Pictured In Front Of His Grass House.

In January of 1894, former Governor of Kaua‘i William Hyde Rice had an authentic Hawaiian grass house built near his residence on his property in Lihu‘e, which adjoined Rice Street from Waa Road to Kalena Street.

Rice’s grass house was first put to use later in the month as the setting of a luau given by Mr. and Mrs. Rice in honor of the visiting Prince David Kawananakoa.

And, when the 389-ton interisland steamer C. R. Bishop went aground at Nawiliwili on Jan. 31, 1894, some of its survivors were temporarily housed there.

But by 1925, after having been the setting for numerous incidents over 31 years, the grass house had fallen into disrepair and needed fixing.

Mr. Rice had died the previous year, 1924, so Mrs. Rice set about finding Hawaiians who possessed the high level of craftsmanship required to build or

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repair an old-time Hawaiian grass house, and who would be willing to accept a nominal fee.

However, at that time, not only were there few Hawaiians knowledgeable of repairing the house with the expertise with which it had been built, but the payment they expected was more than Mrs. Rice was willing to pay.

For example, a medium-sized grass house then recently built on Oahu cost $1,800, and it was for this reason that she regretfully chose to raze her husband’s house.

At least as late as the 1950s, there were still a handful of Hawaiians on Kaua‘i who’d retained the age-old know-how needed to build a traditional grass house with the identical materials and by same methods as was done in old Hawai‘i.

One of them, Franklin Mano Kelekoma, built a genuine grass house with helpers in 1953 inside the walls of Wailua’s Holoholoku Heiau.

Kauai High School’s First Graduates

The Original Kauai High School Building In 1914, Kauai High School, the island’s first high school, opened for instruction atop Kuhiau Ridge in the newly renovated old Lihue Court House that had once been the official residence of Governor Paul Kanoa.

And five years later, on June 27, 1919, its first graduates, the seven classmates of the Class of 1919, were awarded diplomas in ceremonies at the Tip Top Theater (located approximately where the “round building” of the Lihue Civic Center now stands).

Graduate Goon Fong Chock planned to enter Colorado School Of Mines; Suekichi Uyeda would seek office work on Kauai; Dorothy K. M. Chock intended to matriculate at the College of Hawaii; Margaret Pah On Leong would continue her education at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston; Chicago Technical College had accepted Kenji Horiuchi; Tomo Ouye looked forward to attending a commercial college, and Fusa Mizuno would enter Wilson’s 146

Business College in Seattle.

At the time they graduated, Kauai High School had a staff of 5 teachers and a total of 38 students. The school’s principal was Mr. William McCluskey.

All students were required to take English. The history curriculum consisted of Ancient History, Medieval and Modern History, English History and United States History. Latin and French were offered. Algebra, Plane Geometry, Advanced Algebra and Solid Geometry comprised the college preparatory mathematics courses.

General Science, Biology, Chemistry and Physics made up the science curriculum. The school’s chemistry lab was well equipped and biology students made many field excursions.

Commercial courses -- bookkeeping, typewriting, shorthand, commercial arithmetic and commercial English -- prepared students entering business following graduation.

Kauai High School’s library contained several encyclopedias, reference works, and a growing collection of donated books.

In athletics, the boys baseball and basketball teams played well against offisland competition. Girls competed in basketball.

Lihue Camp And The Santo Nino

Santo Nino Most of the residents of old Lihue Camp, which was razed in the mid-1960s, lived in a tract of perhaps 72 houses situated immediately south of Poinciana Street.

Other residents resided in about 20 houses located in the remaining portion of the camp, which extended southward nearly to the Puhi road by the Lihue mill.

Lihue Camp also contained gardens, a banana and coffee patch, pigpens, a 147

playground, woods, pali, garages, Pake Store, a social Hall, and the Santo Nino building that housed a 24-inch tall, cement statue of the Christ child, called Santo Nino.

For many years, on nine consecutive evenings in January, the Roman Catholic Filipino residents of Lihue Camp honored the child Jesus with a Santo Nino Festival.

Inside the Santo Nino building on each of the nine evenings of the festival, women prayed the rosary by an altar upon which the Santo Nino statue stood.

While the rosary was being recited, men prepared cocoa, coffee, bread and butter in the Hall’s kitchen. After the rosary, the women and children would join the men at the Hall to share the food.

On the 9th evening, a Saturday, all participants gathered at the Hall to join in a street parade.

In front marched a band playing banjos, saxophones, drums and other instruments. Second in line were four men carrying on their shoulders the Santo Nino statue secured atop a wooden carrier, followed by hundreds of men, women and children, each holding a lighted candle.

The parade began at the Hall, proceeded east along a dirt road that entered Kuhio Highway just south of today’s Garden Island newspaper building, then turned left past Lihue Theater, left into Oxford Street and back to the Hall.

Music, singing, dancing and feasting continued until 10:00 p.m.

Missionary Rev. Bingham On Kauai

Rev. Hiram Bingham (1789-1869) and Mrs. Bingham were members of the Pioneer Company of American Protestant missionaries sent to Hawaii, arriving aboard the brig “Thaddeus” on April 4, 1820 at Kailua, Hawaii.

Bingham led in the creation of a written Hawaiian language, established the first church at Kawaiahao, Honolulu and was a trusted advisor to ruling alii. He 148

and his family returned to New England in 1841.

On Kauai, Bingham was at Waimea in September 1821 when Liholiho (Kamehameha II) invited Kauai’s King Kaumualii aboard his brig, “Pride of Hawaii,” anchored off Waimea and kidnapped him. Bingham noted that Haupu, the head man at Waimea, cried in anguish, “Farewell to our King -- we shall see him no more.”

And when “Pride of Hawaii” went aground in Hanalei Bay in April 1824, Bingham observed Hawaiians there weaving hau bark into cables they fastened to the brig’s mainmast. Bingham then witnessed a large number of men right the capsized brig on its keel by pulling on these cables, only to see it become irreparably stuck against underwater rocks.

After Kaumualii died on May 26, 1824 and Liholiho became ruler of Kauai and Niihau, some Kauai chiefs, including Kaumualii’s son, Humehume, opposed his rule. Learning of this, Bingham met Humehume at his camp near the beach at Wahiawa Bay to counsel him against rebellion, but without success.

On August 8th, rebel chiefs led by Humehume launched a failed attack against the Russian Fort at Waimea, near where Bingham and his family were staying.

While musket balls whizzed by and rebels ran past their door, the Binghams prayed for deliverance.

Following the rebels’ defeat in battle later in August, a short distance downhill from today’s Hanapepe Lookout, the rebellion collapsed and Kauai became a dominion of Hawaii’s windward chiefs.

Captain Cook’s Arrow

On the parsonage property of the Waimea United Church of Christ, the figure of an arrow about nine inches long, with two barbs each approximately five inches in length, is chiseled into a stone near the edge of the pali overlooking Waimea Valley.

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Captain James Cook is believed to have ordered it cut during January 1778 to mark the site of his first landing in the Hawaiian Islands by the mouth of the Waimea River earlier that month.

Although Cook’s journals make no reference to the arrow, a 1928 report made

by Kaua‘i Judge Lyle A. Dickey contains circumstantial evidence, principally in the form of a statement written by Francis Gay of Makaweli in August 1926, that indicates the arrow was indeed produced by Cook.

Gay wrote: “I was a resident in the district of Waimea … when the British transit of Venus party came here [in 1874] and selected Kanaana [the parsonage] for their base of operation. They could not find the arrow which they said Captain Cook placed there, so everybody got busy to find it. Many old kama‘ainas knew it was at that place, but one man named Kanakahelela showed the spot, which was covered by a large cactus bush. When the bush was cleared off they found the arrowhead plainly cut in the rock. The old man said his father pointed it out to him when he was a boy. The fact that the party was looking for Cook’s arrow and that they knew it was at Kanaana show they they must have had some data to go on.”

Dickey also wrote that Aubrey Robinson, Gay’s cousin, had confirmed Gay’s story, and that Kaua‘i-born Eric A. Knudsen (1872-1957) had heard the story from his father, Valdemar Knudsen, who’d settled on Kaua‘i in 1857.

The Manila Allstars

Makee Baseball Team Of 1927 In 1927, the year the Manila All-Stars baseball team visited Kaua‘i to play seven games against teams from the Kaua‘i Baseball League, the Kaua‘i league fielded six teams — Port Allen, Makee, Makaweli, Kekaha, Lihu‘e and Hanapepe — with rosters listing men of diverse nationalities.

Their opponents from Manila were a select team of Filipino ball players touring Kaua‘i under the auspices of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I. American soldiers had brought baseball to the Philippines in 1898. In 1902, the 150

Manila Baseball League was formed, and for the first three decades of the 20th century, Filipino baseball was regarded as the best in Asia.

During the nine years the Far Eastern Games were held between 1913 and 1930, the Philippines won the Baseball Championship six times to Japan’s three.

In Game 1, played at Makaweli on Aug. 20, the Manila All-Stars shut out leagueleading Port Allen, 6-0.

The second game, played on Aug. 21 at Waipouli field, saw the Filipinos beat a good All-Japanese squad by the score of 7-4.

Fast and hard-hitting, the Filipinos won a second game, 7-1, against Port Allen on Aug. 22 at Lihu‘e.

Port Allen, which won the Kaua‘i Baseball League championship, lost again, 82, to the Manila team at Makaweli on Sept. 10.

In a rematch on Sept. 11, the Manila All-Stars handed the All-Japanese team a 15-5 loss in Lihu‘e.

The league’s Lihu‘e ball club lost to the Manila team on Sept. 14, 9-3.

And, on Sept. 18, an outstanding All-Portuguese team beat the Filipinos 3-1 at Makaweli for the only Kaua‘i win of the series. Andrew Craveiro posted the win.

P. Craveiro, Jimmy Burgess, John Spalding and Gabriel collected hits for the Portuguese, and Burgess, Spalding and Andrew Craveiro scored.

Kipu’s William Hyde Rice Monument

As its plaque indicates, the William Hyde Rice Monument at the end of Kipu Road was “Erected In Loving Memory By His Japanese Friends” on June 15, 1925, one year after Rice died. Its dedication ceremony occurred on July 23, 1926.

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Held in high esteem by all who knew him, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924) was born at Punahou, Oahu, the only son of missionaries William Harrison and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice.

In 1854, the Rices moved to Kauai, where William Hyde Rice became a rancher and purchased the Kipu ahupuaa from Princess Ruth Keelikolani in 1881. Over the years this land has been the site of Kipu (sugar) Plantation and Kipu Ranch.

In 1891, Queen Liliuokalani appointed Rice Governor of Kauai, and he served her in that capacity until the overthrow of 1893.

The dedication, which was presented by the Japanese of Kipu Plantation and Lihue and was witnessed by about 700 people, took place at the monument.

Charles Keahi, pastor of Lihue Hawaiian Church, opened the ceremony with an invocation. U. Watada then read a brief historical sketch of Rice’s life.

Next, an address in Japanese was given by H. Miwa, principal of Lihue Japanese language school, which was followed by Mr. Murata’s reading of a paper in Japanese on the service of Mr. Rice.

Shortly thereafter, Charles Ishii presented the monument and little Helen Rice, daughter of Sheriff William Henry Rice, unveiled it.

Following the unveiling, Philip L. Rice accepted the monument as a gift, the benediction was given by Rev. Okamoto, pastor of Waimea Japanese Christian church, and refreshments were served.

The monument was designed by Charles Ishii and Fukunaga, and was built by Fukunaga, Hashizumi and Oya with stones gathered near the Koloa Catholic Church.

Ke`e Archeology

Ke’e Archeological Site Map In 1927, ethnologist Kenneth P. Emery (1897-1992) of Bishop Museum visited Ke`e, Haena for the purpose of examining its three archaeological ruins and 152

recording his findings.

The first of these ruins, all of which remain today, is a stone heiau, 100 ft. long by 60 ft. wide, named Kaulu o Paoa, which means “inspiration of Paoa,” that is located on the peninsula beyond Ke`e Beach.

Its namesake, Paoa, was the kahuna nui and friend of Lohiau, a 13th century chief of Haena best known for his participation with Pele, the volcano goddess, and her sister, Hiiaka, in a legendary love story.

Below Kaulu o Paoa is situated a big rock called Pohaku Kilioe, which was created when Kilioe, a female mo`o (water spirit) was turned to stone. In its crevices, Hawaiians still place the excised umbilical cords of their children.

Emery wrote, “Here the umbilical cords of the children of the neighborhood were deposited. . .to be safe from desecration. . . . The navel cord was one of the most sacred parts of the human body, as it was the maternal link with the past along which was communicated the spiritual power of ancestors. To have the cord destroyed was, in a measure, to cut the child off from his spiritual heritage.”

Above the heiau on a large terrace abutting a cliff is located the second ruin, Lohiau’s Ke`ahu o Laka Halau Hula, which was dedicated to Laka, the goddess of dance and the forest. As its name indicates, the ruin was once a long house where dances were performed before an altar to Laka, a simple frame decorated with leaves.

The third ruin, Lohiau’s stone and earth house site, damaged in the 1950s by County workers, lies near the start of the Kalalau Trail.

The S S Waialeale

On the morning of June 18, 1928, the newly commissioned steamship Waialeale completed its maiden voyage from Honolulu to Kaua‘i at Ahukini Landing, where a large crowd had gathered to welcome her.

When Waialeale arrived off port, a fleet of decorated sampans and launches joined the Ahukini tugboat in rough seas to greet the steamship and follow it past the breakwater.

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Once inside the breakwater, all the bells and whistles at Ahukini began blowing, to which the Waialeale responded with three long blasts of her own.

While the steamship was being warped to the dock, a huge 24-foot lei was hoisted aboard and draped on its bow. The gangway, decorated with evergreens and hibiscus, was positioned in place, and six girls, all of different nationalities, went aboard to place leis upon the officers and passengers.

Visitors to the steamship were much impressed by its large staterooms with beds instead of berths, its roomy social hall and immaculate dining room and galley.

Waialeale’s predecessor, which took over the regular Honolulu-Kaua‘i run in 1879, had been the James Makee, named after Captain Makee, the founder of Kealia’s Makee Sugar Co. Its gross tonnage was 223, its length was 120 feet, and it could accommodate only 25 passengers, compared to Waialeale’s 3,092 gross tonnage, 310-foot length, and accommodations for 318 people.

The most historic day in Waialeale’s career occurred at Hilo on August 1, 1938, when 200 unarmed striking workers protesting the arrival of Waialeale and refusing to disband were attacked by 70 police officers, resulting in injury to 50 demonstrators — an incident dubbed the “Hilo Massacre.”

Inter-island passenger steamship service was discontinued in 1947.

Waialeale was then sold to De La Rama Steamship Co. of the Philippines and renamed the S.S. Moleno. It was scrapped in 1956.

The Old Lihue Hotel

Kauai’s first hotel, the Fairview, was built in 1890 by businessman Charles W. Spitz on Rice Street (then called Government Road) about where the banyan trees now stand at Kalapaki Villas.

Four years later, in 1894, Sheriff William Henry Rice bought Spitz’s house-sized hotel and renamed it Lihue Hotel, where a well-appointed room in 1910 cost

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just $2.00 a night.

In 1926, Rice rebuilt Spitz’s original building to include a number of rooms and suites of various sizes, and he also remodeled some existing cottages and constructed new ones, for a total of seven, to accommodate an increasing number of tourists. In doing so, his hotel’s capacity rose to 100 persons.

A brand new building, designed by Rice and facing the government road, was also built. Long, low and painted cool green, with broad lanais, large windows and wide, overhanging eaves, the new structure housed the hotel lobby, dining room and kitchen.

In charge of the hotel’s modern kitchen, with its ice-making and refrigeration plant, was Mr. Horikowa, one of the best cooks on the island and a locally famous cake and pastry maker. Besides supplying the hotel menu, Horikowa catered locally.

Mrs. Rice took charge of landscaping the hotel’s grounds. Shrubs and palms were transplanted and broad beds of flowers and ferns were planted around the new building. In back, beyond a newly constructed pavilion, papaya, banana and bougainvillea provided a tropical setting.

The Lihue Hotel became for many years a popular locale for banquets, dances and parties.

Mr. Rice managed his hotel until not long before his death in 1945. It was then sold in 1946 through Rice’s estate to Inter-Island Resorts for $125,000.

In 1948, Lihue Hotel was renovated and renamed the Kauai Inn, which remained in operation on Rice Street until 1963.

Tamaki Miura, Japan’s First Prima Donna Visits Kauai

On October 16 and 17, 1929, Mme. Tamaki Miura (1884-1946), Japan’s first prima donna, gave two brilliant recitals on Kaua‘i, the first at the Makaweli Community House, where she was accompanied by Mrs. Sinclair Robinson, and the latter at the Tip Top Theater in Lihu‘e.

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Both of her programs featured a number of Japanese folk songs and the Aria from the great Italian opera composer Giacomo Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

When she first met Puccini (1858-1924) at Rome in 1921, he brought her into his study and said, “It was on that piano, it was in this room that I composed Madame Butterfly, and now I have a real butterfly to sing the role.”

“And I am a butterfly,” she confided on Kaua‘i a few days before her performances. “I am here today, New York in a few weeks, then London, Paris, Rome, everywhere. I am the butterfly who has sung before kings and monarchs, presidents and potentates the world over.

“Song is the universal language, and as the first prima donna of Japan, I must give to the world of my ability so long as the world wants it. It will help my country and it will help my people.”

Yet, her country’s press reported her personal conduct as being far too assertive and even scandalous for a Japanese woman of her day, particularly when she divorced her first husband and abandoned her second for her musical career.

Miura made her operatic debut in Tokyo in 1911, and in 1915 in Boston, she first played the part of Cio-Cio-San in Madame Butterfly, a role she would replicate some 2,000 times. She subsequently toured Europe and North America extensively before retiring to Japan in 1932. Her statue, and Puccini’s, stands in Nagasaki’s Glover Garden.

Senator Spark Matsunaga’s Kauai Roots

Hawai‘i’s U.S. Rep. from 1963 to 1977 and U.S. Senator for 13 years beginning in 1977, Spark Masayuki Matsunaga (1916-1990) was born at McBryde Sugar Co.’s Kukuiula Camp and moved to Puolo Road in Hanapepe in the early 1920s after his father hired on as a stevedore at nearby Port Allen.

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While his father worked the docks, his mother made tofu that Sparky delivered in his wagon with Poru, his pet pig, following along.

Sparky later recalled, “Regardless of how poor we were, we’d never steal and we’d never beg. And if there were times when one of the children would receive food of some kind, he [my father] would raise holy hell with us for getting food from others. He thought that would be tantamount to begging.”

Sparky acquired his distinctive nickname while growing up in Hanapepe, when for a time he was younger and slower than his playmates. One day, an older boy declared, “Hey, you slower than ol’ Sparky, the nag,” the nag being the worn-out horse featured in the comic strip “Barney Google and Snuffy Smith” that was continually finishing last in races.

Thereafter, Masayuki was known as Sparky, and he would eventually legally change his name to Spark Masayuki Matsunaga.

Following graduation from Kaua‘i High School in 1933, college was out of the question, since his father had been injured and Sparky was needed at home to help support the family.

But his fortunes changed in 1937 when he won the $1,000 first prize in The Garden Island newspaper’s subscription contest. He gave $600 to his parents and asked their permission to attend the University of Hawai‘i.

When they consented, he packed and left Kaua‘i at Nawiliwili aboard the weekly overnight steamship Waialeale that sailed for Honolulu.

WWII Veteran Lt. Col. Philo J. Rasmusen

When Lt. Col. Philo J. Rasmusen took command of the U.S. Army airfield at Barking Sands, Kaua‘i in March 1943, it had been in operation since 1940, when the Army acquired land there and paved a 6,000-foot runway.

At the time of Rasmusen’s arrival, and for the remainder of WWII, a large number of heavily laden bombers and transport aircraft took off from the airfield — named Mana Airport — to reinforce distant Pacific battle zones. (In 1956 the 157

Navy began operating at Barking Sands. The Pacific Missile Range Facility, established in 1958, supports naval operations.)

Prior to being ordered to Kaua‘i, then-Major Rasmusen had served in combat in the Solomon Islands as commander of a squadron of B-17 bombers.

From August 1942 to February 1943, during the Battle of Guadalcanal, while operating out of Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) and refueling at Guadalcanal’s Henderson Field, Rasmusen’s squadron participated in 26 bombing missions against Japan’s ships, aircraft and shore installations.

The squadron suffered numerous losses in men and aircraft and Rasmusen’s own bomber was often shot with holes from antiaircraft fire.

After attacking an enemy aircraft carrier on Sept. 13, Rasmusen’s bomber became lost in foul weather, forcing him to crash land at sea, which resulted in injuries to Rasmusen and his crew.

Undaunted, the airmen boarded life-rafts, paddled to shore on an unknown island and were rescued within 24 hours.

Then, on Oct. 16, Rasmusen’s bomber sank an enemy troop transport attempting to land troops on Guadalcanal, an action for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.

Following his tour of duty at Barking Sands, Rasmusen returned to service in the western Pacific, survived the war and went home to Salt Lake City. He passed away in California in 1963.

The Kalalau Descent of 1962

Ressencourt And Kam The ancient Hawaiian trail leading down into Kalalau Valley from Koke‘e’s Puuokila Lookout was wiped out by a landslide sometime after 1860.

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Yet people still regularly hiked into Kalalau Valley from Koke‘e, and climbed back up on a new trail that originated in Koke‘e about halfway between Puuokila Lookout and Kalehu.

But that trail slipped away in the early 1900s, and since then, only six ascents or descents have been recorded on other trails: 1) Knudsen, Wilder, von Holt descent, early 1900s; 2) Cheatham, Hogg ascent, sometime thereafter, early 1900s; 3) Prigge, Ricker ascent, Oct. 1942; 4) Joy, Ressencourt, Kam descent, Aug. 1962; 5) Medeiros, Nakamura ascent, circa 1970s, and 6) Piliwale, Hussey ascent, circa 1980s.

Bill Joy, Eugene Ressencourt, and Henry Kam began their trek at the Kalalau Lookout about noon by walking eastward along a jeep road to the Puuokila Lookout. Then they followed a rugged northeasterly trail to a hill named Pihea, meeting wild-pig hunters along the way.

At Pihea they hiked northward along the ridge above Kalalau Valley that also marks the western edge of the uplands of Hanakoa Valley.

Around 5 p.m., they reached a clearing at about a 4,000-foot elevation, where they would descend into Kalalau Valley at daybreak the following morning on a ridge south of twin waterfalls visible from Kalalau Lookout.

By nightfall, they’d completed their descent at an old shack about a mile from the sea.

Of the descent, Ressencourt said, “It was excruciatingly body-wracking and not a little terrifying with what seemed like narrow escapes. It took us ten hours of terribly hard going to reach the shack.”

Next morning, they hiked from the shack to Dr. Wheatley’s, the “Hermit of Kalalau’s,” cave by the sea.

No trails now exist from Koke‘e into Kalalau Valley.

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Judge Lyle A. Dickey’s Hawaiian String Figures

Kini Ainaike Of Koloa, Circa 1915-1917, With String Figure ‘Wailua Nui.’ Although Hawaiians have no legends to account for the origin of Hawaiian string figures, called “hei,” which are made by looping string around and between one’s fingers to form complex patterns, it’s certain that they predate Captain Cook’s discovery of Hawai‘i in 1778.

By 1928, Kaua‘i Judge Lyle A. Dickey had amassed a fairly complete collection of 115 Hawaiian string figures representing love affairs, animal life, turtles, shrimps, fish, crabs, geography, mountains, springs, places, potatoes, stars, bridges, houses, fishnets, calabash nets, eyes, navels, breasts and people in well known stories and legends.

Besides the obvious meaning of these figures, the chants which accompany many of them contain allusions to legends, myths, stories and other chants, as well as figures of speech. However, loss of knowledge of old allusions, old mythology and history has meant that the figurative meaning of most chants is now unknown.

The translated chant of the string figure “Wailua,” which was made on Kaua‘i, says, “Great Wailua hump that stands in the eye of Uluena. Huluena and Manuena and Makakii between. O Nounou. O Aahoaka. O long mountain trail of Kane.”

Uluena was a heiau. Makakii, the location where chiefs were conceived, was situated between the places Huluena and Manuena. Nounou, also known as Sleeping Giant, and Aahoaka are hills between which the Wailua River runs.

The trail of Kane led to the summit of Mount Wai‘ale‘ale and the god Kane.

Another string figure represents Kalalea, the peak above Anahola, and Koananai, the shorter nearby peak that for a long time had a hole in it. Its chant says, “I pity Kalalea living up the mountain embracing Koananai while Koula has a 160

calm place.” “Hula Lumahai,” a simple figure, inspired a chant alluding to the robber Kapuaapilau, who lived by the seacoast at Kealahula between Lumahai and Hanalei.

Kamehameha’s Alleged Defeat On Kauai

Battle Site Map According to long accepted historical accounts, Kamehameha’s first Kauai invasion fleet, which sailed from Oahu in the spring of 1796, encountered a storm in the Kauai Channel that capsized canoes, drowned many warriors and forced Kamehameha to order survivors back to Oahu.

Kamehameha’s second and final invasion of Kauai failed also, in 1804, when his army, encamped on Oahu, was decimated by typhoid or bubonic plague.

Then in 1914, a contradictory version of Kamehameha’s 1796 invasion appeared in the Hawaiian Annual.

It alleged that Kamehameha’s army had actually landed on Kauai and was defeated by King Kaumualii’s forces along the coast on the Koloa sand dunes west of Mahaulepu in Paa near the boundary of Weliweli.

The article also stated that the account of Kamehameha’s fleet having been turned back by a storm was merely an invention of Kamehameha’s warriors intended to conceal their defeat on Kauai.

Its source was a Hawaiian who’d claimed he’d guarded prisoners on Kauai in 1796. He also asserted that the numerous skeletons found in the Koloa sand dunes that he described as “more than a man would care to count in a day” were the unburied remains of fallen Hawaiian warriors.

Although the annual’s story achieved popularity for several years among some locals, tour guides and tourists, experts failed to accept it.

The authoritative accounts of the historians Samuel Kamakau and William DeWitt Alexander had demonstrated that Kamehameha’s invasion fleet was in fact wrecked by storm.

Earlier publications had identified the Koloa sand dunes as the site of exposed 161

burials of ancient cemeteries only, and the journal entries of English trader Charles Bishop and Captain William Broughton, recorded on Kauai in 1796 and considered reliable, confirmed that no battle had taken place on the Koloa sand dunes during that time.

Actor Edward G. Robinson Visits Kauai

Edward G. Robinson (1893-1973), one of Hollywood’s all-time movie “tough guys,” visited Kaua‘i with his wife and son from July 19-21, 1946 during his heyday as a motion picture actor.

The Robinsons stayed at the Lihu‘e Hotel on Rice Street, where Kalapaki Villas is now located, following their arrival on Friday, and Robinson’s appearance at the Hale Aina restaurant that evening in Nawiliwili raised quite a stir.

Manji Ouye, the proprietor of the restaurant, humorously put it this way: “Boy! Was I relieved to see him with the lady and the boy. When he first came in, I was certain he was here to muscle in on my racket.”

Yet, unlike the sinister gangsters he portrayed on the silver screen, Robinson was actually a quiet, sensitive and articulate man noted for his courtesy and generosity. At Hale Aina, he took the time to sign the autographs and shake the hands of each and every person that approached him.

On Saturday morning, while waiting in the courtyard of the hotel before traveling up to Hanalei, he noted that “Your islands have a beauty that is all their own.

There is something about your mountains, your trees and flowers that sets them apart.”

But his main interest was the people of Hawai‘i.

“The harmonious intermingling of all the races you have here is wonderful. The East and the West have met and Kipling’s phrase ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet’ does not apply to Hawai‘i. You can be proud of this accomplishment and I hope that nothing ever mars it.”

Robinson made over 100 films during his long acting career, including “Key Largo” with Humphrey Bogart in 1948, and “The Cincinnati Kid” with Steve 162

McQueen in 1965.

Judge Hofgaard’s Old School Days

In 1916, Kaua‘i Judge Christopher Blom Hofgaard (1859-1931) recalled that when he was Waimea District school agent for a number of years in the early 1890s there were only two teachers in Kekaha, five in Waimea, three in Makaweli and five in Hanapepe.

And the one teacher at Miloli‘i on the Na Pali coast needed to strip and swim around a point twice a day to and from his little school.

On Ni‘ihau, a teacher named Kaomea taught every child on the island from the ages of 7 to 15 every day of the year for one year, and no pupil was ever absent or tardy.

Over in Mana, Diedrich Prigge Sr. taught school in a small bungalow on a patch of salt flat that always flooded in rainy weather and upon which nothing could grow. Still, Prigge persisted in carrying out the orders of the school department that he teach his students agriculture — albeit without success.

Hofgaard said, “One day I was walking up the old road along the foothills (mauka of Kekaha) when I heard strange noises coming from a small house on the makai side under some coconut palms. It was the Kekaha School with David Kua as teacher. The children were spelling in chorus. David asked me inside and handed me a Hawaiian spelling book, from which I acquired the now lost art of spelling Hawaiian words.”

He also remarked that “I used to think that some of these old-time superintendents lacked common sense. I remember one of them had a mania for manual training. The schools were supplied with a lot of good tools and a nice set came to Kekaha School where there was not a teacher who could drive a nail so it would hold anything together.”

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Hawaiian Poetry

Edith Rice Plews Edith Rice Plews (1900-1976) was born at Kalapaki, Kaua‘i and was considered an expert on the subject of Hawaiian poetry.

An abridged account of parts of a lecture titled “Poetry” that she presented at Kamehameha Schools, O‘ahu during the early 1930s is given here.

The equivalent word for poetry in the Hawaiian language is mele, or song. In old Hawai‘i, all meles, or Hawaiian poems, were always chanted, and each had at least four meanings: (1) The meaning that appears to be true, but not necessarily; (2) The vulgar meaning; (3) The mythological, historical and topographical meaning; and (4) The deeply hidden meaning.

And there are at least nine classes of Hawaiian poetry: (1) Mele kaua, the war songs; (2) Mele koihonua, which detail and celebrate the genealogies and exploits of chiefs and heroes; (3) Mele kuo, songs of praise or triumph; (4) Mele olioli, emotional songs in the form of an address to a particular subject; (5) Mele paeaea, vulgar songs; (6) Mele inoa, in praise of some person or some thing; (7) Mele ipo, love songs; (8) Mele kanikau, dirges or laments; and (9) Mele pule, prayers.

In the early 1920s, Ms. Plews helped her grandfather, William Hyde Rice of Kaua‘i, translate a few Hawaiian legends he’d collected into English. His book of legends is considered closest to the original Hawaiian in flavor, phrasing and rhythm, and his translations of Hawaiian poetry are equally literal.

Here is part of a translation made by William Hyde Rice of a mele kaua: “I remember the days when were were young. Swelled now is the limu of Hanalei. Swelled above the eyes is the cloud of morning. In vain is the battle at the hands of children. The great battle will follow as the deep sea follows the shallow water.”

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The Alexander Dam Break

Frank Alexander Frank Alexander was manager of McBryde Sugar Company in 1927 when work began on a dam across Wahiawa Stream mauka of Kalaheo that would create a reservoir large enough to irrigate 1,000 acres of McBryde’s Kalaheo and upper Lawa‘i sugarcane lands and generate hydroelectric power.

Construction material consisted of earth blasted from the sides of adjacent ridges by black powder, which was then washed away by powerful hydraulic nozzles, and sluiced through flumes to the dam site.

In 1929, a preliminary 50-foot-high dam designed to hold sluice water was completed, after which work commenced on building a main dam of huge proportions atop it: height 125 feet, dam crest length 620 feet, base thickness 640 feet, volume 525,000 cubic yards, and capacity over 800 million gallons.

The main dam was nearly finished on March 26, 1930 at 3:45 p.m. when disaster struck. Soaked by a combination of recent heavy rains and by inadequate drainage, the dam suddenly collapsed in less than 30 seconds, causing a massive mudslide that killed 6 workers and injured 2.

The men, who’d been working at the center of the dam, had no time to save themselves. Killed were Y. Ueda, Kumajiro Nakayama, Takeo Yoshimoto, Nemecio Ruis, Nemecio Apaga and Bonifacio Asistin. H. Ueda and Domingo Berasis suffered injuries.

Mr. Alexander, at the dam only an hour earlier, and Mr. Williams, in charge of sluicing, who’d stepped off the flume a minute before it gave way with the dam, narrowly escaped death. And 16 men scheduled to report to work 15 minutes after the mudslide occurred considered themselves lucky.

Fortunately, the 50-foot preliminary dam held, preventing its 60 million-gallon reservoir from wreaking even more havoc downstream.

Alexander Dam, now owned by Kaua‘i Coffee Company, was finally completed in December 1932.

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Cane Fire

W. J. Senda And Actress The first of over 60 feature films made on Kaua‘i was “Cane Fire,” filmed during September of 1933 and released the following year under the title “White Heat.”

A melodrama directed by Lois Weber and written by James Bodrero, “Cane Fire” starred Hardie Albright, Virginia Cherrill, Mona Maris and David Newell.

In “Cane Fire,” sugar planter Hawks’ lover is local girl Leilani, yet he leaves her to marry American socialite Lucille Cheney.

Lucille soon becomes bored with routine plantation life and her hard-working husband. She is about to fall for a handsome kama‘aina when her former lover, Chandler Morris, sails into port aboard his yacht and she resumes her affair with him instead.

When jealous Hawks catches Lucille and Morris together, he attacks Morris.

But Morris is saved when Lucille starts a cane fire by tossing a kerosene lamp.

The movie closes after Leilani rescues Hawks from the inferno and they are reunited.

About 30 actors, staff, and technicians traveled to Kaua‘i for filming. With them came sound and lighting equipment, cameras, and electric generators that were necessary since Kaua‘i’s electric current was unsteady.

Hundreds of local extras were selected for the film. Some Kaua‘i kama‘aina received minor roles: stage actor Peter Hyun of Kapaia, Paul Kamai, Nohili Naumu, Nicholas Kamai, Josephine Kamai, Ruth Helenii, Mrs. Annie Holt, Christobel Holt, Mrs. William Achi III, Mrs. William Makanani, Alice Holt, Harriet Gifford, Becky Holi, Louise Holi, Adelaide Gifford, Frances Kaiawe, Hattie Naea,

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Kila Malina, William Makanani, William Hookano and Mr. Ishii.

Photographer W. J. Senda took still pictures of the movie.

Scenes were shot at Waiawa, which was the old Knudsen homestead located about a mile west of Kekaha, an old Hawaiian house in Waimea Valley, Waimea Sugar Company, Hanalei, Lumahai, Haena, Waimea Canyon, Olokele Falls, Kalalau, and Milolii.

Captain John Meares

In 1787, the British ship “Nootka,” Capt. John Meares (1756?-1809) Commanding, visited Waimea, Kaua‘i in route to Canton, China.

At that time in Waimea, many Hawaiians wished to see the world beyond Hawai‘i and were even willing to pay Meares for the opportunity, their most favored destination being England, where early ships visiting Hawai‘i originated.

Of these, Meares picked just one. He wrote that “Among the numbers who pressed forward with inexpressible eagerness to accompany us to Britannee, Tianna [Kaiana] a chief of Kaua‘i … was alone received to embark with us, amid the envy of all his countrymen.”

Kaiana adapted readily at Canton. Well over six feet tall, handsome, likable, and wearing western clothes, he became the darling of Canton’s British expatriates. When Meares sailed home for England, Kaiana remained.

In the winter of 1787-1788, Meares sailed back to Canton, where he joined Capt. William Douglas for a return voyage to Hawai‘i in 1788. Meares captained the “Felice” and Douglas commanded “Iphigenia,” with Kaiana aboard.

Upon their arrival at the Big Island, Meares sailed to Kaua‘i to inform Kaiana’s brother, King Kaeo, of Kaiana’s forthcoming arrival.

Meanwhile, Kaiana was forewarned on the Big Island that Kaeo didn’t favor his return to Kaua‘i. He therefore remained on the Big Island and gave 167

Kamehameha I muskets and ammunition he’d acquired in Canton that bolstered Kamehameha’s army.

When Meares arrived at Waimea on the 23rd, no canoes came out to greet him, but the next day, two men and a girl paddled out to warn Kaiana (who they presumed was on board) that civil war was raging on Kaua‘i, and Kaeo, envious and jealous of Kaiana, planned to kill him.

Meares then set sail for Nootka Sound in present-day British Columbia, where he established a fur trading post.

Boxers Little Pancho Vs. K. O. Kuratsu

Little Pancho During the 1920s and 1930s, boxing was a popular sport on Kaua‘i, with a number good local boxers fighting before large crowds at the old Lihu‘e Armory, located where the state building now stands.

One of the best fight nights occurred on Saturday, April 9, 1932, when Filipino sensation Little Pancho (1912-1969) fought K.O. Kuratsu of Honolulu before 2,000 fight fans at the armory. Little Pancho has since been ranked No. 11 in the All-Time Filipino Fighter Rankings and Number 20 in the World All Flyweight Ratings.

Born Eulogio Tingson in Manila, his professional boxing record was 42 wins, seven by knockout, 14 losses and 15 draws. He was the younger half-brother of former Flyweight World Champion Pancho Villa — one of the greatest boxers of all time — whose record was 92-8-8.

The record for his opponent, Tadato K.O. Kuratsu, is sketchy. According to boxing records, he fought between 1929 and 1935 and posted a 0-3-1 record.

Yet Hawai‘i newspaper accounts of the day have him winning a fight against Alejandro Pazmore and being touted as the best available local fighter to meet Little Pancho.

Although the hard-hitting, confident Kuratsu was outclassed by his much quicker, nearly impossible-to-hit opponent, and took a pounding throughout the

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six-round bout, he fought gamely, putting up the battle of his career and refusing to be knocked out. Referee Ferreiro awarded Little Pancho the decision.

In other bouts, featherweight Kid Short of Kealia defeated Joe Lawrence of Honolulu in a second-round knockout; Freddie Bailey defeated Kid Perla in a six-round decision; flyweight Kid Javellana of Kapa‘a defeated Gabriel Freitas of Honolulu in a sixth-round technical knockout; Tiger Rosa defeated Kid Morinaka of Lihu‘e in a second-round knockout; and Philip Bailey beat Acacio Augustine in a fourth-round technical knockout.

Battleship Tennessee At Port Allen

Over the weekend of May 26-27, 1928, ships making numerous round trips conveyed roughly 3,000 visitors from the dock at Port Allen, Kaua‘i (named in 1909 for Honolulu merchant Samuel Cresson Allen) to the battleship USS Tennessee, moored offshore.

On board, sailors provided their guests with guided tours of the battleship, where features such as her three seaplanes, 12 14-inch guns, antiaircraft guns, machine-guns, torpedoes, anchor chains, each weighing 20 pounds, large kitchen, post office and up-to-date barbershop attracted attention.

Ashore, hundreds of cars were parked dockside, big crowds waited their turns to board the ship, small Japanese and Chinese stores did a thriving business, and sailors dressed in spotless whites and marines in khaki uniforms on liberty could be seen practically all over the Westside of Kaua‘i.

The Kaua‘i Railway Co. furnished a train that took many of them to Lawa‘i Bay for the day. This railroad supplied ‘Ele‘ele’s McBryde Sugar Co., Makaweli’s Hawaiian Sugar Co., Lawa‘i’s Kaua‘i Fruit and Land Co. and Koloa Sugar Co. with rail transportation.

On McBryde’s property, its main track ran from Port Allen to Koloa and included four spurs, one of which extended to a pumping station in Lawa‘i Valley.

Kaua‘i Railway Co. also furnished trucks to take ship’s personnel up to Waimea Canyon, a local welcoming committee drove sailors on sightseeing tours of the Westside in their cars, and the battleship’s officers hosted a

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Saturday night dance aboard ship.

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Tennessee was extensively damaged during Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Following repairs and modernization, she saw action at Kiska, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Eniwetok, New Ireland, Saipan, Guam, Tinian, Anguar, Peleliu, Leyte, Iwo Jima, Okinawa and elsewhere. Tennessee was decommissioned in 1947 and sold for scrap in 1959.

Ancient Hawaiian Agriculture

Juliet Rice Wichman Kaua‘i-born Juliet Rice Wichman (1901-1987), in her day an authority on ancient Hawaiian agriculture, delivered a lecture titled “Agriculture” to students at Kamehameha Schools, O‘ahu during the early 1930s. What follows is an abbreviated account of selected portions of her talk.

In old Hawai‘i, the first night of each of the 12 months of the Hawaiian year was the night of the new moon, named Hilo. Hoaka was the name of the second night, Mohalu the 12th, and Hua the 13th. Plants grown for their leaves were planted on Hilo and Hoaka. Root plants, such as taro, sweet potatoes and yams, were planted on Mohalu and Hua. As the planting date drew near, farmers invoked the moon goddess Hina. At planting time, prayers were said and offerings of produce were made to other gods. Prayers and offerings were made to Lono when dryland taro was planted, to Kane when planting wetland taro, and to the demigod Kanepuaa when planting sweet potatoes.

Offerings were made to Ku, the patron of hardwood trees, when tools were made, Kane was also worshiped to provide sun, as was Lono to give rain.

Laka, the goddess of wild wood and wild growth, was worshiped when farmers cultivated virgin land, which they prepared by turning the natural vegetation

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under the soil or burned to fertilizer the land.

When soil became depleted, young hau branches were placed on the soil and covered with mud to rot and replenish the earth.

After new leaves sprouted in a wetland taro field, Kane was praised: “Kane, great giver of life, Here is the luau, The first fruit of our field. Come thou — eat of it; Preserve me, thy child, thy cultivator, All life is from thee, O Kane, The word is spoken — the prayer is freed!”

Minister And Freedom Fighter Soon Hyun

Kaua‘i Methodist minister and Korean freedom fighter Soon Hyun (1879-1968) was born in Seoul, Korea, and was educated in Korea and Japan, where he converted to Christianity and began theological studies with early Methodist missionaries.

In 1903, he emigrated from Korea to Hawai‘i as an interpreter with a group of 120 Korean contract laborers recruited for work in Hawai‘i’s sugar plantations.

After serving for two years as an interpreter at Kahuku Sugar Co., O‘ahu, and as a roving preacher and minister to O‘ahu’s Korean Christian community, he was sent to Kaua‘i by the Methodist Episcopal Mission to continue his evangelical work.

On Kaua‘i, Rev. Hyun became pastor of those Korean Methodist congregations located from Lihu‘e to Kilauea, while Rev. Lee Kyung Gik ministered on the Westside.

With the financial assistance of Rev. Hans Isenberg, the pastor of Kaua‘i’s Lutheran church, Hyun’s congregation built a Methodist chapel on the hill overlooking Kapaia Valley by what is today Isenberg Tract. The chapel was later moved near the present location of the Lihu‘e Hongwanji.

In 1907, Rev. Hyun returned to Korea, where he felt his Christian ministry was needed more than in Hawai‘i. He completed theological studies there in 1911.

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From 1919 through 1923, Soon Hyun was a leader of the Korean independence movement from Japan, which colonized Korea from 1910 through 1945.

However, a political falling out with Korea’s Provisional Government President Syngman Rhee caused Hyun’s ouster from the movement and forced his return to Hawai‘i in 1923.

Following three years church of service in Honolulu, he returned to Kaua‘i, where he ministered among Kaua‘i’s 400 Koreans until 1940, when he retired to Honolulu.

In 1975, seven years after his death, the Republic of Korea finally recognized his contributions toward Korean independence.

Soon Hyun and Maria Hyun had seven children.

The Wailua River Petroglyphs

Along the shore where the Wailua River joins the sea, about 45 yards mauka of Hauola, the Place of Refuge, is located a cluster of 61 stones, sacred to the ancient Hawaiians, of which eight are marked with petroglyphs.

Usually submerged under sand that ocean and river currents deposit over them, it is believed these petroglyphs were cut into the stones not long after Tahitians first settled on Kaua‘i during the 12th Century A.D. The eight petroglyph stones took the name Ka Pae Ki‘i Mahu o Wailua (the row of homosexual images at Wailua), when Kapoulakinau, the goddess of mental health, became angered at eight chiefs who preferred themselves to her young female companions and turned them into stone.

While the petroglyph’s full significance remains uncertain, Ruth Knudsen Hanner, who had studied Hawai‘i’s petroglyphs for many years, provided a partial explanation in June 1968, when she noted that the Wailua River 172

petroglyphs had definite phallic symbolism and were “typical of the emerging awareness of the male and female share in creation of life, in contrast to the older concept of a maternal goddess as the mother of men.”

That same month, when the stones emerged from the sand, as they occasionally do, Hanner and Thelma Hadley, president of the Kauai Historical Society, accused the County of Kaua‘i of defacing and chipping them when it periodically bulldozes sand deposits to keep the river channel open.

Although Tad Miura, executive assistant to the county chairman, found no basis for the women’s claims, after checking with the supervisor in charge of work on the river mouth, and denied bulldozers had harmed the stones, Hanner and Hadley persisted.

Hadley proposed the erection of an historical marker and Hanner demanded a concrete barrier be constructed to protect the sacred stones.

Rodman’s Raid

Julius Rodman From 1930 to 1940, treasure hunter Julius Scammon Rodman (1912-2001) scoured the caves and ruins of Hawai‘i in search of Hawaiian artifacts and burials that he supplied to collectors such as Honolulu’s Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum.

In 1934, Rodman was informed in Honolulu by an aged Hawaiian named Maui Kaupo of the existence of a royal burial cave at Pueo Point, a 900-foot cliff on Ni‘ihau’s eastern shore.

Certain that Ni‘ihau’s owners, the Robinsons, would forbid him access, Rodman decided on a clandestine raid.

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At dawn one Sunday not long afterwards, while swells swept beneath their sampan, “Saucy Maru,” and crashed against a rocky shore, Rodman and a partner, H. Deuchare, found themselves scanning the cliffs of Pueo Point rising high above them, searching for the cave.

At daylight, Deuchare spotted the cave’s entrance, and after mooring the sampan outside the breakers, they loaded two surfboards with equipment and paddled to shore.

There the men shouldered their gear and scaled the nearly vertical cliff to the summit, where they anchored block and tackle to a boulder almost directly over the cave and lowered themselves with rope to a narrow ledge fronting it, about 200 feet below.

Quickly, they dislodged the entrance stone and went inside with flashlights showing the way. Dust, 3 inches thick, covered everything.

A heap of skeletons lay ahead. Further on were piles of artifacts, a heavy chest and several mummies covered with black kapa and twilled mats.

It was then that Deuchare turned to see the “Saucy Maru” dragging anchor and surging dangerously toward the rocks. There was no time to lose.

When they reached their sampan — without treasure — it was nearing the breakers, but Deuchare steered it sharply away from shore to safety, and Rodman never again attempted a raid on Ni‘ihau.

Frank Kurihara’s Paniolo Days

Kurihara Riding Gooseneck Born and raised on Kaua‘i, Frank Hiroshi Kurihara (b. 1916) hired on about 1934 with his cousins as paniolos to the Robinson brothers — Sinclair, Aylmer,

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Selwyn and Lester — the owners of Ni‘ihau, who at that time ran ranches from Moloa‘a to Ha‘ena.

They paid Frank and his cousins $40 a month for putting up fences, planting grass, clearing brush, breeding mares, castrating and branding young bulls and rounding up cattle.

Lean, tough, and inured to physical hardship, the Robinsons were stern taskmasters who spoke Hawaiian fluently.

One day, while Lester was roping a bull, his horse slipped and fell, and Lester found himself stuck in the saddle on the ground unable to move with one leg pinned under the horse.

Frank and other paniolos jumped off their horses to assist him, but Lester’s three brothers stopped them. Insisting on seeing their brother free himself, they just sat in their saddles and told him to “Get off your horse, Lester!” And he did.

At roundup time, most of the cattle would hide up in the mountains and the paniolos would flush them out with the aid of dogs. The best of them was Frank’s cousin Alan’s dog, Tiger, who Lester took an interest in. On roundup mornings, the first thing Lester would ask was “Ai hea ka Tora?” (“Where’s Tiger?”). He even offered Alan $300 for the dog, but Alan would not part with him.

Another of Frank’s duties was breeding Jackson, the jackass, with mares in estrus to produce mules, which are valued as sure-footed pack animals, but being hybrid are sterile and cannot reproduce.

Frank would back the mares into a special sloping pit, so that their hindquarters were just high enough for the smaller Jackson to perform his sole function on the ranch.

The Shelling Of Nawiliwili Harbor

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At around 1:30 a.m. on the moonlit night of December 30, 1941, an enemy Japanese submarine estimated to be about 4 miles offshore shelled Nawiliwili Harbor with least 15 three-inch shells in what was the only attack on Kauai during WWII. The shrapnel from one shell riddled every room in the home of C. L. Shannon, which was located over the Kauai Marine & Machine Works, Shannon's business, then situated along the stretch of harbor between what are today the Matson and Young Brothers terminals.

Fortunately for the Shannons, they had taken cover downstairs in the machine works after being awakened by the first shell, so none were wounded.

And on the bluff above the harbor, where the bulk sugar storage warehouse stands today, a star shell started a small cane field fire that Joseph (Black) Souza and Kelii Afat and their families and neighbors, who lived nearby, were fighting when another shell landed close by, prompting them to dive into a ditch for safety.

Yet most of the shells were duds. One punctured a Shell Oil Company gasoline storage tank, others created water plumes in the bay, and another was run over by a vehicle traveling on the harbor road later in the morning.

And some time later, when the burned cane field was harvested, the harvesting luna discovered another shell that he dutifully took to Grove Farm manager William Patterson Alexander's house (which still stands, albeit decrepitly, between the Puakea Golf Course and Nawiliwili Rd.) and laid on Alexander's doorstep. When Alexander noticed it afterwards, he was astonished, to say the least.

During the attack, Lihue resident Holbrook 'Hobie' Goodale and his grandfather, Charles Rice, watched the action from their vantage point at Mr. Rice's home, where the pool at the Marriott Resort on Kalapaki Bay is now located.

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The Isenberg Songbirds

White-Rumped Shama By the latter half of the 1800s, introduced grazing cattle and goats, wood cutters provisioning whale ships and supplying the sandalwood trade, and sugar planters had cleared much of Kaua‘i’s original lowland forests, a natural habitat of Kaua‘i’s native forest birds.

As a result, native lowland forest birds had been forced to seek new habitations in Kaua‘i’s upland interior. So few songbirds remained in Kaua‘i’s populated lowlands that residents missed their melodies.

Then, towards the end of the 19th Century, a pandemic disease, probably avian flu brought to Hawai‘i with imported poultry, decimated Kaua‘i’s native bird population, with only Koke‘e and the Alakai Swamp providing refuge for survivors.

In the aftermath, beginning in the early 1900s, Lihu‘e-born Mary Dora Rice Isenberg (1862-1949) began to introduce new songbirds to Kaua‘i to replace native Hawaiian varieties that had been lost.

With Mrs. Isenberg’s financial assistance, her nephew, Alex H. Isenberg, brought to Kaua‘i the Chinese Thrush, Western Meadowlark, White-rumped Shama, Greater Necklaced Laughing-thrush, Northern Cardinal and Redcrested Cardinal. Of these, the colorful White-rumped Shama is considered by many to possess the most pleasant-sounding song.

For years, Mr. Isenberg maintained the largest private aviary in the U.S. at Portola, Calif., where he kept more than 650 birds of some 350 species, of all colors and sizes and representing six continents.

Ornithologists and zoo directors frequently called at his aviary. Although he was not a commercial operator, he supplied birds to zoos throughout the world, including Honolulu.

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Other birds introduced to Kaua‘i by Hui Manu, the avian society of which Mrs. Isenberg was vice-president, include the Japanese White-eye, or Mejiro, and the Northern Mockingbird.

Mrs. Isenberg was also interested in trees and plants. She brought the eucalyptus tree, tulip tree and many varieties of hibiscus and palm trees to Kaua‘i.

Plantation Owner Aubrey Robinson

Born in Canterbury, New Zealand, Aubrey Robinson (1853-1936) immigrated to Hawaii in 1863 with his family -- all surnamed Sinclair, Gay, or Robinson, and led by their matriarch, Aubrey’s grandmother, Eliza Sinclair.

A year later, Mrs. Sinclair purchased Niihau from Kamehameha V, and in 1865 she bought the Makaweli ahupuaa from Princess Victoria Kamamalu, where Aubrey was educated early on at home.

Robinson later attended Boston University law school, was admitted to the bar, and traveled widely for several years in Europe and Asia before returning home to form a partnership with his cousin, Francis Gay, called Gay & Robinson, for the purpose of growing sugarcane and cattle ranching.

In 1889, Robinson expanded his sugar holdings when he organized Makaweli sugar plantation by conjoining Hawaiian Sugar Co. (later Olokele Sugar Co.), which cultivated about 6,000 acres under lease from Gay & Robinson and operated a mill, with roughly 2,000 acres cultivated by Gay & Robinson.

Subsequently, one of the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished in Hawaii, the construction of ditches conveying irrigation water to Makaweli plantation from Olokele and Koula valleys in Gay & Robinson’s mountain lands, was achieved during Robinson’s incumbency.

Aubrey Robinson eventually became sole owner of Gay & Robinson and Niihau, where he supported the traditional lifestyle of its Native Hawaiian residents. To protect their privacy, visitors were allowed access by permit only.

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The Hawaiian language was preserved. Liquor and tobacco were banned, and the people of Niihau retained a simple form of Christianity without dogma or creed.

At the time of his death, his four sons managed the family’s properties on Kauai and Niihau. Sinclair was in charge of Gay & Robinson plantation; Selwyn headed Gay & Robinson cattle ranch; Aylmer was business manager of Gay & Robinson, and Lester managed Niihau.

Judge Carrick Buck

On July 14, 1934, Honolulu attorney Carrick Hume Buck (1900-1959) became the first woman judge in the Territory of Hawaii, when President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her to the bench of the Fifth Circuit Court of Kauai, replacing longtime Judge William C. Achi Jr. Following her appointment, Judge Buck made an overnight boat trip to Kauai, where she was welcomed by members of the local bar and spokesperson Territorial Senator Elsie Wilcox.

As Kauai’s circuit court judge, Buck heard criminal, civil, juvenile, family and equity cases, and was also the fence and boundary commissioner. Serious and highly professional, she administered the law according to the book, but with a social consciousness.

A couple of the peculiarities of holding circuit court on Kauai in those days occurred shortly after Buck formally assumed her duties. The first happened when an elderly Asian man, whose daughter was scheduled to appear in court in divorce proceedings, went to the courthouse with an offering of live chickens for Judge Buck, only to be sent away, of course, after being told his gift was unacceptable.

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Another time, a federal officer and his deputy came to her home on Apapane Street in Lihue at 4:00 a.m. with dozens of bootlegging suspects who noisily milled around her yard until she settled the matter by dawn.

Judge Buck’s tenure as Kauai’s circuit court judge ran from 1934 to 1942, when President Roosevelt appointed her to the First Circuit Court bench in Honolulu, a position she would hold until 1958, when President Eisenhower replaced her.

Carrick Buck’s other firsts included: in 1925, becoming the first woman Assistant U. S. District Attorney in Hawaii and Deputy City-County Attorney in Honolulu; and in 1935, the first woman to sit (as a substitute) on the Hawaii Supreme Court.

Businessman Lex Brodie

Born at Kekaha, Kaua‘i in 1914 and raised in Waimea, Alexander “Lex” Brodie was the only child of Alexander Brodie and Gertrude Hofgaard, daughter of Waimea merchant and District Magistrate C. B. Hofgaard.

He would become famous for the over 1,000 Lex Brodie Tire Co. TV commercials featuring his “Thank You … Very Much!” slogan and his “Little Joe” caveman mascot that he produced between 1964, when he opened for business in Honolulu, and 1990, when he sold his company.

After retiring with Mrs. Brodie on Kaua‘i, Lex reminisced about growing up in Waimea. He recalled that once yearly, lumber for Grandpa Hofgaard’s Waimea store would be off-loaded in bundles from a ship directly into the ocean off Waimea and floated ashore, with children swimming out to snag the loose pieces.

And there was a 20-foot-tall tower at Waimea beach used to spot fish. The lookout would alert the community when a school of fish appeared and townspeople would bring nets to hukilau the fish, which would be shared by all.

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Grandpa Hofgaard made Lex his first surfboard when Lex was five, and Lex remembered riding in his grandpa’s Model “T” Ford loaded with kids to Pakala’s where he learned to surf — a sport he would enjoy for the next 85 years.

Lex’s other memories include his being the only haole in his elementary school class, silent films being shown in a vacant lot with a white sheet as the screen, and “ladies of the evening” from Honolulu waving to passersby from the balcony of the only two-story building in Waimea, across the street from the bank, and Grandma Marie Hofgaard being furious!

At age 12, Lex moved to Honolulu, but spent summers on Kaua‘i with Grandpa Hofgaard throughout his teenage years.

Grove Farm And Koloa Plantation Railroads Joined

On the morning of October 8, 1930, East and West Kauai were joined by railroad for the first time, when workers connected the tracks of Grove Farm and Koloa Plantation at a junction located about a quarter of a mile north of what is today the highway cut on Kaumualii Highway between Halfway Bridge and the Tree Tunnel.

Afterwards at 9:00 a.m., a train from Koloa Plantation consisting of a locomotive and two cane cars decorated with American flags, ti leaves and ginger, with its whistles blowing, steamed onto the junction and stopped.

Waiting there were George Wilcox, the founder and owner of Grove Farm, John T. Moir Jr., the manager of Koloa Plantation, and a large gathering of spectators.

The first cane car carried a large roller destined for repair at the Lihue Plantation mill and the second was fitted as a passenger observation car.

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With Wilcox, Moir and others on board as passengers, the train arrived in Lihue in less than an hour’s time.

On its way, it stopped at Lihue School (then located by today’s Water Co. bldgs.), where school children greeted the passengers and Misses Ann Knudsen and Lorraine Fountain presented them with leis on behalf of the school.

Grove Farm officials and employees cheered as the train passed through its yards, whistles blowing, and a few minutes later the train pulled into the yards of Lihue Plantation at the end of the line to deliver the roller.

Manager Moir then handed a letter to the train’s engineer he’d postmarked in Koloa addressed to Mr. Wilcox, which expressed his satisfaction at the linking of the railroads, and an hour later, the engineer dropped it off at the Lihue Post Office for delivery to Mr. Wilcox at Grove Farm.

The Restoration Of The Holoholoku Heiau

Henry Digby Sloggett In December of 1933, restoration of the Holoholoku heiau -- located just east of the Wailua Birthstones and believed to be the oldest heiau on Kaua‘I -- was completed by a team of volunteers led by Grove Farm director Henry Digby Sloggett, with Kapa‘a resident Charles Lono Kelekoma and Honolulu’s Bishop Museum providing technical expertise.

Using traditional Hawaiian building techniques and native materials, Kelekoma built an authentic 8-by-12 grass hut within the walls of the heiau that represented the building used by the kahuna of the heiau.

An oracle tower was also constructed nearby in like manner based on drawings provided by Bishop Museum.

Long ago, the oracle tower, which the kahuna would climb atop to commune with the gods, was an instrument of monthly human sacrifice at the Holoholoku

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heiau.

If no prisoner of war was available, the kahuna would select a victim from among the commoners, whom his executioner would secretly strangle at night.

The corpse would then be hung from the oracle tower until morning, when it would be placed on a sacrificial stone under the tower. After decomposition had lain bare the corpse’s bones, they would be buried close to the river.

Using Bishop Museum pictures, Sloggett’s team also carved and set three wooden idols like those formerly used in Kaua‘i heiau. In old Kaua‘i, one of these would have been Ku, the Hawaiian god of rain and war and one of the Hawaiians’ four major gods — Ku, Lono, Kane, and Kanaloa.

Three of the heiau’s four walls were in good condition, while the fourth required minor repairs.

Henry Digby Sloggett (1876-1938) was born in England and immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1883. He married Lihu‘e-born Lucy Etta Wilcox in 1904 and they had five children.

The McBryde-Koloa War

McBryde Manager William Stodart In 1908, a conflict known as the McBryde-Koloa War broke out on Kaua‘i between Koloa Plantation Co. and McBryde Sugar Co. over irrigation rights to ‘Oma‘o Stream, its tributaries and branches.

McBryde had claimed a right to ‘Oma‘o waters since 1899, when it had purchased the land upon which ‘Oma‘o Stream flowed from Koloa’s Smith family.

Koloa claimed its right, because it had used the waters long before McBryde’s acquisition.

The prelude to the McBryde-Koloa War occurred between 1902 and 1905, when 183

McBryde implemented a program of water development to divert ‘Oma‘o water and store it by strengthening one dam, constructing new dams and reservoirs, and by removing Koloa Plantation diverting dams — actions that deprived Koloa Plantation of water.

Koloa Plantation manager Ludwig Weinzheimer reacted to restore Koloa’s water on Dec. 2, 1907, by constructing one dam over ‘Oma‘o Stream and another over an easterly branch.

McBryde under manager William Stodart then countered on Jan. 29, 1908 by removing those dams. When Weinzheimer and his Koloa men took action the following night to rebuild the dams, which were guarded by McBryde men, confrontation ensued.

At one dam, Koloa men blasted a portion of the bank into the stream, and while McBryde men began shoveling it out, Koloa men shoveled dirt on top of them, prompting a scuffle, but the dam was rebuilt.

Koloa restored the second dam, also, and when McBryde men attempted to remove it, Koloa men pushed them away.

Thereafter, large numbers of Koloa men kept guard at both dams, with many McBryde men standing nearby ready to remove the dams at first opportunity, but no further conflicts occurred.

The McBryde-Koloa War ended on March 25, 1909, after a compromise agreement was reached that recognized Koloa’s water rights to a tributary of ‘Oma‘o Stream.

The Sloggett Feather Cape

Sir Arthur Sloggett During the British warship Calypso’s three-and-a-half-month stay in Hawai‘i 184

beginning on Oct. 2, 1858, its surgeon, W.H. Sloggett, was presented with a royal feather shoulder cape by King Kamehameha IV in gratitude for medical service he’d rendered the seriously ill King.

The Sloggett cape measures 15.5 inches in depth, 33 inches across at its widest width, and is made of the yellow and black feathers of the ‘o‘o (a now extinct black bird with one yellow feather indigenous to Hawai‘i), with yellow used as the background and black as ornamentation.

‘I‘iwi (a scarlet honeycreeper also indigenous to Hawai‘i) feathers also appear as ornamentation, while a network of olona fiber, intricately knotted, forms the foundation. The cape’s outside surface gleams like satin and its texture is as smooth as velvet.

Dr. Sloggett took the cape home to England, where he framed and hung it upon a wall in his house. Then in 1926, his son, Sir Arthur Sloggett, removed it from the drawing-room wall of his home in England and gave it to his nephew, Grove Farm Plantation director Henry Digby Sloggett, who returned it to Hawai‘i.

Sir Arthur, by the way, was a general in the British Army and the SurgeonGeneral of British forces during World War I. He was knighted in 1914 and made a knight commander of the order of Bath in 1915.

He’d previously served in numerous campaigns, including the Sudan campaign of 1897-1898 when he was badly wounded, and in the South African War. Henry Digby Sloggett passed the cape on to his son, Richard Henry Sloggett Sr., and for a time it was on loan to Honolulu’s Bishop Museum. The Sloggett cape can now be seen in the Kaua‘i Museum.

Kauai’s First County Fair

The Old Lihue Armory Building Kauai held its very first county fair on Saturday May 27, 1922 at the Lihue Armory, which was located where the State Building now stands.

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At the Mokihana Club’s booth inside the armory, ladies passed out frozen sweets, while their fortune-teller assured all a bright future.

Other booths served up laulau, poi, chop suey, ice cream and watermelon.

Sliced pineapple was given away by Kauai Fruit and Land Co. at its booth, and the Women’s Auxiliary of the American Legion had fresh popcorn for sale.

Nearby, Kauai’s sugar plantations, then the island’s biggest employers, displayed their prize sugar cane.

Kealia’s Makee Sugar exhibited the heaviest stalk of cane at 26 pounds. The longest stalk of cane -- 23 feet, 9 inches -- was produced by Lihue Plantation.

Kilauea showed the best collection of cane varieties, while the longest single joint of cane, at 10 3/4 inches, came from a Hanamaulu field.

Koloa Plantation, which possessed the best collection of cane seedlings, also brought along a ram weighing 162 pounds that paraded all over the fair grounds.

Pineapple companies -- Hawaiian Canneries of Kapaa and Kauai Fruit and Land Co. of Lawai -- set up displays of canned pineapples and unusually large pineapple plants, and Mr. Hills, a coconut planter, exhibited copra oils and doormats made from coconut husks.

At the vegetable booths, K. Tomota of Half Way Bridge earned honors with the most complete vegetable exhibit.

Dahlias, African daisies and gloxinia were featured at Mrs. Ralph Wilcox’s flower booth, and potted plants and palms, cut flowers and boutonnieres were offered for sale.

The Hawaiian handiwork booths and public school exhibits of lau hala and bamboo work were also popular attractions.

In the evening there was dancing with music furnished by the Lihue Brass Band led by F. Fernandez.

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Kumu Hula Keahi Luahine

Hula Dancers, 1890s Born in Koloa, Kaua‘i, kumu hula, dancer and chanter Keahi Luahine (18771937) is credited with mastering and passing on to succeeding generations the traditions of the ancient Kaua‘i form of hula.

Her childhood home was located in the center of Wahiawa ahupuaa, and in a nearby taro patch was a stone shaped like the island of Kaua‘i, roughly nine cubic feet in size, called Kauaiiki.

An old saying claimed that you hadn’t journeyed around the island until you’d also walked around this stone, which is presently located in Kukuiolono Park.

As a little girl, Keahi mimicked the hula of her sisters being taught by Naupuaea, whose halau was near the ruins of Kauluolono, one of two heiau associated with hula on Kaua‘i, the other being Keahuolaka at Ke‘e.

According to Thrum’s 1907 Hawaiian Annual, Kauluolono (misprinted Kaunuolono), was a large, square heiau with part of its walls still standing.

But when anthropologist Wendell Bennett surveyed Kaua‘i’s archaeological sites in 1931, Kauluolono was one of 26 referenced in published works and Hawaiian tradition he could not locate.

When Keahi was about eight years old, Queen Kapiolani, after touring Kaua‘i, brought her to Honolulu to be reared by Kapiolani’s sister, and it’s possible that Keahi performed there in the presence of King Kalakaua.

But by age 12, she’d returned to Wahiawa, Kaua‘i and had become a pupil in the halau of Hookano, Piheleo and Piheleo’s wife Kealaula. There she not only learned meles and dances, but also the rites, ceremonies and prayers of the ancient Kaua‘i school of hula.

Keahi was the kumu hula of her grandniece, Iolani Luahine (1915-1978) -regarded as the foremost hula dancer of the 20th century -- and hula masters

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Mary Kawena Pukui (1895-1986) and Kawena’s adopted sister, Patience Wiggin Bacon (b. 1920).

Kauai’s Dairies In 1923

Dairy Farmer, Mr. Sokei Kauai’s last dairy cattle farm, Meadow Gold’s Moloaa dairy, closed in 2000. But in 1923, 34 dairy cattle farms were in operation on Kauai.

H. P. Faye’s Waimea Dairy milked 25 cows and sold 200 quarts daily to the public.

At Makaweli Plantation, 42 quarts a day from 8 cows were sold to plantation employees.

In Hanapepe, W. H. Kinney milked 36 cows and sold 150 quarts daily to the community, while S. Okada’s dairy had 7 cows and sold milk locally.

John G. Abreu’s dairy near the Lawai pineapple cannery bottled 65 quarts a day from a 25-cow herd. At the Koloa Plantation Dairy, milk from its 26 cows was sold to its employees.

William Hyde Rice’s property adjoined Rice Street from Waa Street to Kalena Street in Lihue. Twenty-three cows were milked there and 108 quarts daily were sold at its milk room on Rice Street (where the Salvation Army Thrift Store is now located). Customers came to get the milk placed post-office fashion in boxes.

The Lihue Plantation Dairy milked 24 cows to produce 213 quarts per day sold to the general public.

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Ryoju Sokei’s 3 cows near Waipouli supplied 13 quarts per day. Joe Martins’ 3 cows in Kapaa furnished 20 quarts a day.

Seventeen cows were milked at the Mahelona Hospital dairy in Kapaa, providing 120 quarts per day for hospital use.

M. R. Aguiar Sr. in Kealia had 10 cows, selling 24 quarts per day publicly, and L. K. Agard milked 10 cows and sold 68 quarts a day to the public. At the Kealia Hospital, Dr. Hagood milked 3 cows for hospital use.

Kilauea Plantation Diary owned 15 cows and sold 85 quarts daily mostly for hospital use.

No Vote, No Pig

Wainiha Powerhouse, Circa 1949 In 1903, Kaua‘i’s McBryde Sugar Co. sent Waioli-born William Rowell (18451916) to Wainiha to negotiate a lease with its Hawaiian owners, the Wainiha Hui, for the waterpower rights of Wainiha Stream and a site for a hydroelectric power plant.

Rowell’s proposal, which the president of the hui supported, was to lease the water power of Wainiha from the Wainiha Hui for $1,500 a year, for a term of 50 years, along with sites for a powerhouse, pole lines, roads, etc.

A meeting at which a vote would be taken, to be followed by a luau, was arranged, and on the morning of that day, the president, eager for a favorable resolution to Rowell’s proposal, saw the luau cook and said, “I want you to see to it that this pig is thoroughly cooked! When the resolution is passed, then it will be properly done, not before.” And when he opened his palm to display a gold coin, the cook caught on and said, “sure.”

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During the meeting, one hui member opposed to Rowell’s proposal expressed the opinion of some members when he said, “If you give the haole a foothold, it is good-bye to your independence.”

But others, dissatisfied with small earnings from their shares of Wainiha Hui, sided with another member when he stated, “If he will pay us for it, I say let him have it.”

Still others were more concerned with the unanticipated delay in cooking the pig than in voting, and grew impatient while the cook continued to tell them, one by one, “not done yet.”

At last, the cook informed the hui that the pig would “not be done until the resolution was passed,” and realizing it was a case of “no vote, no pig,” they then passed it.

Deputy Sheriff William Olin Crowell

William Olin Crowell Seated Third From Left.

Deputy Sheriff William Olin Crowell (1873-1935) was Deputy Sheriff of Waimea from 1900 until his death. His record as a police officer was a credit to himself, his superior, Sheriff William Henry Rice, and the police force.

Most notable is Crowell’s participation on Sept. 9, 1924 in a bloody confrontation known as the “Hanapepe Massacre,” which occurred during the sugar plantation strike of that year.

A day or two before, two non-striking Ilocano men from Makaweli had pedaled their bicycles into Hanapepe and were caught by striking Visayans and held in the strikers’ camp at the Japanese Language School.

Friends called police, and Crowell and one policeman went to the camp to get the men released, but they refused to go.

Suspecting that the men had been intimidated into saying they would not leave,

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Crowell then got a court order to arrest them for their own protection.

The following morning, Crowell returned to the camp with an arrest warrant, along with several hunters deputized as policemen.

Following negotiations between the strikers and Crowell, the strikers released both men into his custody.

Crowell, his deputies and the two Ilocanos then walked westward through town on Hanapepe Road toward where their cars were parked, with a large crowd of strikers armed with knives, sticks, and a few pistols pressing upon them.

Then, just east of today’s intersection of Hanapepe and Moi Roads, a furious melee erupted, lasting five minutes, in which two policemen climbed a small bluff that still exists and fired their rifles, massacring many strikers as they fled into a nearby banana patch.

The confrontation left 16 strikers killed and nine wounded; three policemen were killed by gunshot, and three, Crowell included, were wounded by knives, one mortally. Its horror effectively ended the strike.

Rev. John M. Lydgate’s Mentor, Dr. William Hillebrand

Dr, Hillebrand During his teens, Rev. John M. Lydgate (1854-1922), the pastor of Lihu‘e Union Church from 1898 to 1919 and the namesake of Kaua‘i’s Lydgate Park, assisted German physician and botanist Dr. William Hillebrand (1821-1886) on his botanical expeditions in the Hawaiian Islands.

Lydgate’s mentor, Hillebrand, was a man of considerable accomplishment. He was appointed physician to the royal family of Kamehameha IV in 1859, served as chief physician at Queen’s Hospital, and was named to the King’s Privy Council, Board of Health, and Bureau of Education.

In association with the Hawaiian Bureau of Immigration, Hillebrand also made arrangements for the importation of the first Chinese agricultural laborers into Hawai‘i in 1865, and in 1878, at his suggestion, the first Portuguese were 191

brought to Hawai‘i as plantation workers.

His work identifying Hawaiian plants culminated in the posthumous publication of his book, “Flora of the Hawaiian Islands” in 1888, a classic of Hawaiian botany.

Lydgate, a close friend of Hillebrand’s son at Punahou, was keenly interested in his friend’s father’s botanical work and was delighted to help Hillebrand on his island excursions.

Hillebrand, who suffered from tuberculosis, was in turn pleased to have Lydgate along to carry equipment and pitch the tent in exchange for an excellent botanical education.

While on Lana‘i, they met Walter Murray Gibson, who’d swindled Mormons to purchase half of Lana‘i in his own name. Gibson eventually became premier and minister of foreign affairs under King Kalakaua, but when his plans to make Kalakaua “Emperor of the Pacific” failed in 1887, he escaped being lynched and fled the islands.

A fine botanist in his own right, Lydgate discovered several Hawaiian species and varieties whose botanical names include the term lydgatei, and his botanical collections are stored in Honolulu’s Bishop Museum.

Kauai’s Public Schools In The 1880s

Thomas Herbert Gibson In 1914, Thomas Herbert Gibson, former Principal of Waimea School, Kauai (1884-1897) and Chairman of the Board of Education at Waimea (1887-1897), recalled the condition of Kauai’s public schools thirty years earlier.

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In 1884, there were 17 public schools, 22 teachers, and 730 students on Kauai and Niihau. Eleven schools were called common schools, where classes were taught in the Hawaiian language to Hawaiians, and six were select schools -- located in Waimea, Koloa, Lihue, Kapaa, Kilauea and Hanalei -- that taught students in English and charged tuition of $5 per annum. Twelve of Kauai’s teachers taught in select schools.

The majority of students in select schools were Hawaiian, and it was customary for Hawaiian parents to first send their children to the free common schools and transfer them later, particularly the brighter ones, to select schools. A few German, Portuguese and Norwegian children also attended these select schools.

In the 1880s, the school board would appoint a principal and expect him to hire the best available assistants, usually inexperienced and poorly educated girls, and train them to teach at salaries of $25, $30, or $40 per month.

Although Gibson noted that the majority of these teachers could not pass the entrance examinations to the 6th grade in 1914, Kauai schools always stood in the front rank of other islands and cost less, proportionally.

There were five times as many teachers and students on Kauai in 1914 than there were in 1884, and while teachers were better trained and educated and the schools were better organized and equipped in 1914, Gibson said that “the teachers of twenty-five or thirty years ago could give as good an account of themselves as the present corps, whether in the schoolroom, at the association meeting, or in the social hall.”

Lihue’s First Airport

Lihue’s First Airport, Circa 1940s The location of the first Lihu‘e Airport, also known as the Wailua Airport, comprised part of the present site of the Kaua‘i Beach Resort and extended 193

southward on flat land along the coast for about 2,000 feet to where a rest room building and a parking area are now situated.

The airport’s runway was completed by nearly 100 men employed by the federally funded Civil Works Administration, or CWA, between December 1933 and the airport’s opening in March 1934.

The CWA, by the way, was established during the Great Depression under President Roosevelt’s New Deal to provide temporary work for millions of unemployed nationwide.

Other work included construction of a loading ramp by the County of Kaua‘i and an airways station built by local contractors.

Airport operations began on the morning of March 8, 1934, when the first plane landed at the new airport, an eight-passenger Inter-Island Airways Sikorsky S38 amphibian piloted from Honolulu by Chief Pilot Charles I. Elliott.

Greeting it upon its arrival was Hanama‘ulu School’s eighth grade chorus and Mrs. Y. T. Lai, the principal of the school.

The airport’s runway was long enough to accommodate the S-38’s takeoff distance of approximately 2,000 feet, but was too short for the larger, 16passenger Sikorsky S-43 amphibians introduced by Inter-Island Airways in 1935, so in 1938, the Civil Aeronautics Administration restricted use of Lihu‘e Airport to planes no larger than the S-38.

Inter-Island Airways served Kaua‘i thereafter at its Port Allen airfield only, until that airfield was closed for the duration of WWII. The airline then utilized the Barking Sands airfield, in use since the early 1920s.

Operations had ceased at the first Lihu‘e Airport when the modern, present-day Lihu‘e Airport off Ahukini Road opened in 1950.

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Chart Maker G. E. G. Jackson

In 1870, few district maps of the Kingdom of Hawaii existed and maps based on charts of early western explorers were generally inaccurate.

To correct these deficiencies, the Bureau of Government Survey conducted a geodetic survey of the Hawaiian Islands from 1870 to 1898 under the direction of William DeWitt Alexander, who had lived at Waioli, Kauai from 1834 to 1843 with his missionary parents..

One of Alexander’s surveyors was retired British naval lieutenant George Edward Gresley Jackson (b. 1840), who from 1880 through 1885 surveyed and drew charts of thirty-four harbors, landings and anchorages around the islands.

His beautifully drawn charts are rich in detailed historical and cultural information.

Drawn in 1885, Jackson’s Hanalei Bay chart shows several features now nonexistent, such as a Chinese rice mill in Waipa Valley, a Roman Catholic church by the mouth of the Hanalei River and Princeville Plantation sugarcane fields.

Likewise, Jackson’s Nawiliwili Harbor chart of 1881 depicts, for example, a large “Middle Bank” and “North Bank” that have since been filled, and notes that dry rocks and stones appeared on them at low tide.

Jackson’s chart of Waimea, 1885, similarly pictures a well-delineated, roughly star-shaped Russian Fort Elizabeth, a Native school on the hillside, extensive taro patches, a sugar mill and a railroad line to Kekaha.

In 1887, Jackson captained the Hawaiian Navy ship “Kaimiloa” -- a converted guano trader with a crew of sixty-three, twenty-four of whom were reform school boys -- to Samoa on a mission ordained by King Kalakaua and his minister of

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foreign affairs, Walter Murray Gibson, to incorporate Samoa into a Pacific empire led by Kalakaua.

The expedition to establish an “Empire of the Calabash” came to naught, and Jackson -- British naval officer, Hawaiian hydrographic surveyor, and chronic drunkard -- was noted as being habitually inebriated throughout.

Wendell Bennett’s Kauai Archaeology

Wendell Bennett During 1928 and 1929, Bishop Museum anthropologist Wendell C. Bennett (1905-1953) made an archaeological survey of Kaua‘i from which he produced one of the first reports on Polynesian prehistory.

“House sites,” he wrote, “are generally marked by (a) cleared and leveled ground; (b) outlines of stones; (c) terraces; (d) paved areas; (e) raised platforms; (f) walled enclosures; (g) combinations of a-f; (h) a few special houses with several divisions and terraces. The chief features of the house sites are fire places; paved areas of small pebbles; raised platforms within the site; steps; lanais.”

As to irrigation, Bennett reported, in part: “The great engineering skill employed in irrigating is most interesting. . . . When . . . it became necessary to carry water around an out-jutting pali that approached the perpendicular, a fine piece of work like the irrigation of the Koaie Valley, far up the Waimea Valley, resulted.

This ditch carries the water along the face of the pali for several hundred feet. It is built up of rough stone in some places to a height of from 15 to 20 feet, and the stone facing wall is sometimes 5 feet in thickness.” Bennett also located numerous stone-faced, irrigated agricultural terraces.

Bennett cited 124 heiau, classifying the larger heiau into four types: platform,

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enclosure, terraced and miscellaneous (round, unclassified, community house type). “There seems to be many more of the smaller type of heiau, that is those under 50 feet in size, on Kaua‘i, than on the other islands. Of these there is the simple platform, the enclosure and the two-terrace type. They are at all times hard to distinguish from house sites.”

Artifacts unique to Kaua‘i were block grinders, the marked angularity of the Menehune Ditch cut stone that contrasted with later Hawaiian curved stonework, and polished stone knives.

Kauai’s Population In 1778

Authentic Hawaiian House, Kauai, 1912 Following his discovery of Hawaii on January 18, 1778 and his first contact with Hawaiians offshore of Kipu Kai, Kauai on January 19th, Captain James Cook, in estimating Kauai’s population, wrote “Including the straggling houses, there might, perhaps, be in the whole island, fifty such villages as that near which our ships anchored; and if we allow five persons to each house, there would be in every village five hundred, or thirty thousand upon the island.”

These estimated 30,000 people were primarily concentrated in five coastal and adjoining inland areas, all of which were suitable for sustained agricultural development.

One area encompassed Haena, Hanalei and Kilauea, where taro was cultivated in irrigated terraces. Aqueducts were built in Kilauea and the nearby Napali coast provided good deep-sea fishing.

Another heavily populated area was Kapaa-Wailua, with its expanse of mountain streams and irrigation systems watering cultivated taro and breadfruit.

Nawiliwili also contained a good-sized population. Fish were plentiful offshore, and taro and sweet potatoes were cultivated near freshwater fishponds.

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Only a scattering of communities existed along Kauai’s southern coast, except in the irrigated Wahiawa Valley and in the thickly populated Hanapepe Valley, where terraces irrigated by the Hanapepe River and house sites were built as far as seven miles upstream.

At Waimea, the fifth area, the Menehune Ditch watered an expanse of taro plantations, supporting a large coastal population. Extending several miles inland alongside the Waimea River were taro terraces and irrigated plantations, hillside sweet potato patches, and houses. Fishing was excellent offshore of Kekaha and Mana.

Kauai was also home to a population of backlanders (Kua`aina) unknown elsewhere in Hawaii, except in a very few places, who lived deep inside canyons that included Makaweli, Olokele, and Hanapepe-Koula and had, at best, infrequent contact with coastal people.

A Brief History Of Wainiha Valley

Wainiha Valley Circa 1907 In the very early 1800s, a census of Wainiha Valley was taken that began at Naue near the sea and proceeded mauka through the villages of Pa‘ie‘ie, Maunaloa, Pali‘ele‘ele, Maunahina, Pohakuloa, Opaikea, Homaikalani to La‘au, a hamlet seven miles inland.

Upwards of 2,000 persons were counted, and what is most intriguing is that the 65 residents of La‘au reported their race as Menehune.

But these were not the Menehune of legend — the mythical race of sturdy brown little people capable of performing prodigious feats of overnight construction.

Instead, it seems likely they were descendants of Kaua‘i’s aboriginal inhabitants, the Marquesans, who had arrived on Kaua‘i as early as the 8th century AD, and who’d come to be called “Menehune” by Tahitians, who’d settled Kaua‘i during the 12th and 13th centuries.

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At Maunahina was an ancient trail that led up to the Kilohana of Hanalei overlooking Wainiha Valley and on to Koke‘e and Waimea.

In 1821 missionaries Whitney and Bingham hiked this trail from Waimea to the Kilohana, and after descending 4,000 feet into Wainiha on a path that angled steeply at 60 to 75 degrees, they met Hawaiians who had never before seen white men.

By 1847 the population of Wainiha had declined to 154 residents, and in the late 1800s immigrant Chinese had begun planting rice in abandoned taro patches.

In 1903 McBryde Sugar Co. negotiated a 50-year lease for $1,500 a year with Hui Wainiha — an association of 71 Hawaiian shareholders who owned roughly 15,000 acres of Wainiha Valley — for water power rights to Wainiha Stream and a site for a hydroelectric plant.

McBryde eventually bought 48 shares of Hui Wainiha and the Robinson brothers, Aylmer and Sinclair, purchased another 16 shares, so that by 1947, only seven shares were held by heirs of Hui Wainiha.

Waimea Sugar Mill Co.

H. P. Faye Waimea Sugar Mill Co. harvested its first sugar crop in 1884 on 200 acres leased from the family of missionary George Rowell, producing 500 tons of sugar at a mill constructed and operated by its first manager, W. D. Schmidt.

Then in 1903, chief engineer and future manager John Fassoth completed 199

construction of Waimea Ditch, which conveyed 3.5 million gallons per day of fresh water, tapped from the Waimea River four miles above the plantation, to replace brackish groundwater the plantation had been using for irrigation.

A year later, H. P. Fayé (pictured), manager of adjoining Kekaha Sugar Co., bought the Rowell lands and soon gained controlling interest in Waimea Sugar Mill Co. After Fayé paid off the company’s debts by 1909, he offered its lands for sale to the stockholders of Kekaha Sugar Co., but they rejected his offer, leaving him as manager of one plantation and eventual sole owner of another.

Work on bettering Waimea Sugar Mill Co. continued under managers George Ewart and Fayé’s sons Lindsey and Alan.

Waimea Ditch was realigned and its flumes were replaced by tunnels to improve capacity. Acreage was increased by draining a seashore marsh and washing it clean of salt through fresh-water irrigation.

A railroad was built, the original mill reconstructed, higher-yielding cane was introduced, and heavy fertilization, ratoon planting and mechanization was adopted.

As a result, Waimea Sugar Mill Co. became one of Hawai‘i’s most modern and efficient sugar plantations.

By 1935, it had grown to 530 acres and also milled 160 acres of cane grown by small independent growers. In 1957, its fields yielded 14.73 tons sugar per acre, up from 2.5 in 1884.

Alas, in 1969, this small Kaua‘i plantation ceased operations and its cane lands were leased to Kekaha Sugar Co.

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Lihue English School 1883-1886

Elsie Wilcox The original forerunner of Lihue’s Elsie H. Wilcox Elementary School was Lihue English School, established in 1881 during the reign of King Kalakaua above the Lihue Plantation sugar mill, where the Kauai Economic Opportunity offices are located today along Wehe Rd. Its first principal was John Moore and students numbered 54 boys and 33 girls.

In 1936, Henry Townsend, Lihue English School’s second principal, recalled his days as principal during 1883 through 1886, over fifty years earlier.

“The school consisted of three teachers, one of whom was teaching in the Hawaiian language, while two were to use the English language exclusively.”

Townsend went on to explain that pupils taught in English were mostly Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian, and that the school’s enrollment of 98 students in 1883 also included Chinese, Japanese, Norwegian and German children.

Later in Townsend’s tenure a great number of immigrant Portuguese children entered the school, which caused problems since none of the teachers knew Portuguese and the pupils knew no English. “The difficulty of dealing with this problem was colossal -- the new students were graded according to size only.”

Townsend also noted that “Certain pupils living near the heads of the water leads of Lihue Plantation took off the major part of their clothing and floated down a good part of the distance, but complained that they had to walk the whole distance in the hot afternoons.”

In 1921, fifteen years before Townsend’s recollections, Lihue English School, by then called Lihue School, had expanded onto 13 acres west of the original school site, an area that is nowadays occupied by a small central park, government buildings and grounds, and M. Kawamura Enterprises.

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Lihue School moved to Hardy St. beginning in 1957, where it was renamed in 1959 after Kauai educator Elsie Wilcox.

The Story of Sugar

Steam Plow, McBryde Sugar Company In 1926, Kaua‘i’s 11 sugar plantations — Kilauea, Make‘e, Lihu‘e Plantation, Grove Farm, Kipu, Koloa, McBryde, Hawaiian Sugar at Makaweli, Gay & Robinson, Waimea and Kekaha — employed most of the island’s workforce.

And, as stated in series of newspaper articles written by the Hawaii Sugar Planters Association in 1926 titled “The Story of Sugar,” day laborers received a minimum wage of $1 per day, a 10 percent turnout bonus for working at least 23 days per month, and an additional bonus when the price of raw sugar averaged five cents a pound or more.

About 95 percent of all sugar workers performed their duties under contract. A form of piecework called “short-term” contract enabled laborers who hoed, irrigated, fertilized, cut or loaded cane, and many others to earn from $1.50 to $4 a day.

Workers under “long-term” contract were given acreage already planted in cane. They would then perform all work necessary until the cane matured and were paid a rate per ton of cane produced by their field, minus cash advances.

Skilled employees included chemists, machinists, railway engineers, agriculturists, accountants, timekeepers, blacksmiths, sugar boilers, carpenters, veterinarians, mechanics, dairymen, nurses, physicians, electricians, clerks, civil engineers and storekeepers.

Individual workers and their families lived rent free in wooden houses of a standard design with at least three rooms and usually a small front porch, and many families planted vegetable gardens about their homes. Separate washrooms were also provided. Several neighboring homes formed a camp.

Free running water was supplied to each house, and electric lighting cost the 202

employee about $1 per month. Fuel (either firewood, coal or kerosene) was free.

Staple foods and necessities were sold at plantation stores at cost. Medical attention was free for ordinary laborers and their families, while skilled employees paid a low fee.

Sheriff Samuel Whitney Wilcox

Samuel Whitney Wilcox (1847-1929), the fifth of eight sons of missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox, was born at Wai‘oli, Kaua‘i, attended Punahou School, and worked as a sugar planter and deputy sheriff in Hanalei prior to becoming Kaua‘i sheriff in 1872, a position he held until 1897.

In 1874 he married Emma Lyman and joined his brother George Norton Wilcox at Grove Farm, where he managed ranching operations and where their children Ralph, Lucy, Elsie, Charles, Gaylord and Mabel were born and raised.

Sheriff S.W. Wilcox was off-island in June of 1893 when Deputy Sheriff Louis Stolz of Waimea went into remote Kalalau Valley to round up lepers who had fled there to prevent authorities from deporting them to Moloka‘i’s isolated Kalaupapa peninsula, where the government had designated all sufferers of Hansen’s disease (leprosy) be sent.

One of the lepers in Kalalau Valley, a Kekaha cowboy named Ko‘olau, shot and killed Stolz when Stolz approached him with the intent to take him into custody.

Stolz’s murder prompted Sanford Dole, president of the provisional government of Hawai‘i, to declare martial law in Kaua‘i’s Waimea and Hanalei districts.

On July 2, a steamer landed police and soldiers from Honolulu on the beach at Kalalau with the mission of removing all leprous persons from the valley and apprehending Ko‘olau.

Sheriff Wilcox was with them, as was William Wilcox, his brother, acting as 203

interpreter.

Ko‘olau shot and killed two soldiers, yet by July 4 all leprous persons had been accounted for except for Ko‘olau and his young son, as well as his unafflicted wife, Pi‘ilani, and the landing party left.

When Ko‘olau and the boy later died in Kalalau Valley, Pi‘ilani returned to Kekaha.

Samuel Wilcox also served in the territorial House of Representatives (19011902) and as a territorial senator (1903-1907).

Cecil Gates – Explorer And Boat Builder

The son of a Kaua‘i schoolteacher mother and an engineer father who helped build Nawiliwili Harbor, Cecil Gates was born in Lihu‘e in 1924, and was raised there and in Hanapepe.

Growing up, he rode plantation flumes on homemade canoes, played barefoot football, camped at Ha‘ena’s wet and dry caves and discovered Wailua’s Fern Grotto, in those days vine-covered.

As a teenager, he and friends once hiked into Kalalau Valley for three days on lofty trails that took nerve to traverse, and when freighters anchored at Nawiliwili Harbor during its construction, he swam out to dive for coins tossed by the crews.

From “small-kid time” he built boats — outriggers, double-enders and canoes.

Kama‘aina sugar planter, rancher and politician Charles Rice took interest in Cecil, gave him an old motor for his homemade boat “Flying Cloud,” and hired him to maintain boat engines.

Cecil was attending Kaua‘i High School when the Gates family moved to Honolulu in 1940.

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A year later on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, he was working on an outrigger in his backyard when he noticed warplanes overhead with red ball insignia, heard the thumps of explosions and saw Pearl Harbor under attack, engulfed in black smoke.

Drafted into the Army, he fought in General Patton’s Third Army during the bloody Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to January 1945).

Later, he and his wife, Pat, both retired California school teachers, built a fleet of seven scaled-down ships — four, 18-foot battleships, a 20-foot aircraft carrier, the 36-foot USS Arizona, and the 23-foot RMS Titanic — each navigated from within their superstructures — and spent several years sailing them for thousands of miles on America’s inland waterways and along the East Coast.

He passed away in 2011.

Musician Larry Ramos Of The Association

Larry Ramos And Arthur Godfrey Larry Ramos, lead vocalist and lead guitarist with the band The Association, which produced such hits as “Along Comes Mary,” “Cherish,” “Windy” and “Never My Love” during the 1960s, was born at Waimea, Kaua‘i in 1942, and was raised on Kaua‘i.

He gave his mother, “Pat” Obtinario, an accomplished singer in Filipino bands, credit for his musical talent.

From his father, Larry — a self-taught inventor and owner of a dry-cleaning 205

business in Waimea, who once cleverly modified washing machines to dryclean garments — he inherited his creative gifts.

Larry was 3 or 4 years old when his father presented him with his first musical instrument, a ‘ukulele he’d strung with catgut.

A natural musician, he shortly thereafter played his first song, “My Bonny Lies Over The Ocean.” Quickly learning songs by listening to the radio, he soon honored his father by playing the “Anniversary Waltz” for him with his ‘ukulele.

Larry met fame in 1947 when he and his sister, Carmen, won the Honolulu KGMB radio “Amateur Hour” by his playing ‘ukulele and singing harmony with her.

He then appeared in the film “Pagan Love Song” starring Esther Williams in 1949, won a territory-wide ‘ukulele contest organized by broadcaster Arthur Godfrey and performed nationally on Godfrey’s radio and TV programs in 1950 and 1951. In his teens Larry played the crown prince in the touring company of the musical “The King and I” with actor Yul Brynner.

Before joining The Association in 1967, Larry was an original member of the folk group the New Christy Minstrels.

Notably with The Association, he sang lead with Russ Giguere on “Windy” and “Never My Love” with Terry Kirkman.

He and his wife, Helene, were married for many years.

Larry Ramos died in 2014.

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The Nawiliwili Lighthouse

Nawiliwili Lighthouse, 1967 In 1897, the Republic of Hawaii obtained a lease from Lihue Plantation Co. on Ninini Point in Nawiliwili as the site for the construction of a wooden, 40-foot tall, trestle-frame light tower with a little lamp room set atop it, painted white. A small house for Manuel Souza, the first Ninini Point light keeper, and his wife, Marie, was also built nearby.

Each evening just before sunset, Souza would climb the light tower to light an oil lamp, which he would tend throughout the night. Then about 1/2-hour after sunrise each morning, he would extinguish the light, clean the lamp and polish the reflector, which was visible at sea for 10 miles.

Souza’s other duties consisted of maintaining the tower, his house and the grounds for $6 per month, plus his living quarters.

When Souza resigned in 1903 after complaining about an insufficient salary Carl Blum became Ninini Point light keeper at $8 a month.

In 1906, the original light tower was replaced with a 33-1/2 foot tall, white, wooden mast with a new lamp. At its base, a modest house painted white with lead-colored trimmings and a red roof was built. Both mast and house were rebuilt in 1923 and repaired in 1926.

Oliver Kua, light keeper from 1918 through 1939, the last of seven light keepers at Ninini Point, who would retire when the U. S. Coast Guard took over lighthouse service, would climb that wooden mast each morning, lower the lamp and service it.

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In 1933 a new house was built for Kua with three bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and bathroom, with outbuildings close by, and the 86-foot tall cylindrical concrete lighthouse presently at Ninini Point was also built.

This lighthouse was automated in 1953.

The Early Years Of Kapaa School

Kapaa School Sites Kapaa School’s inception occurred in December 1882, when George H. Dole (brother of Sanford Ballard Dole, a leader of the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893), sent a letter to Board of Education president Charles Reed Bishop recommending Kaahiahi (a now vacant point of land that juts seaward makai of the Roman Catholic cemetery alongside Kuhio Hwy. between Kapaa town and Kealia) as the site for an English language school.

Dole’s recommendation was accepted by Bishop (Princess Bernice Pauahi’s husband), and on January 1, 1883, Bishop and Col. Z. S. Spalding (owner of Makee Sugar Co., of which Kaahiahi was a part) signed a lease agreement that established Kapaa English School at Kaahiahi on .61 acres for 24 years at $.41 per year.

A one-room school house was built there by Makee Sugar Co. in June 1883 for the school’s first class of 43 boys and 34 girls, with Frank Burr principal, assisted by his wife.

Another school building was added in 1887, and by the early 1900s, the school was accessed by crossing a footbridge over a railroad track, now the site of the multi-use coastal path.

Between 1891 and 1894, principal D. W. Kratza instituted a novel method of teaching, whereby students who had completed their assignments were allowed to play.

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In 1896 a recommendation was made to relocate the school due to the lack of room for expansion on the point and the noise of the ocean “whose surf thunders ceaselessly at its base,” its “noise at all times is wearing on the nerves. . . .”

Finally in 1908, following negotiations between the Board of Education and Makee Sugar Co., the school was moved to Makee’s 4.0 acre Field #26, a place Hawaiians called Mailehune, presently at the heart of Kapaa High and Elementary School.

Kaua‘i Kama‘aina Charles A. “Bud” Eldon

The ‘Ele‘ele School Fifth-grade Class Of The 1936-37 School Year Included Teacher Raymond Nakashima, Top Right, And Charles A. ‘Bud’ Eldon, Top, Fifth From Left.

Charles A. “Bud” Eldon grew up at Numila from 1929 to 1939, where his father worked as chief engineer for McBryde Sugar mill, while his mother taught at ‘Ele‘ele School.

Interestingly, of the over 800 students attending ‘Ele‘ele School, he and Dick Hobby, son of the principal, Eleanor Hobby, held the distinction of being the only Caucasians.

Bud recently recalled that he and friends would swim from the old Port Allen

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dock, where bags of sugar were loaded onto boats called lighters, and then hitch rides by hanging onto lighters being towed to freighters anchored in the bay.

Another memorable highlight was hiking barefoot to and from Kalalau Valley as a teenager with Dick Hobby and brothers Cecil and Robert Gates.

Bud also became a professional fisherman one summer as the engineer aboard a sampan on a cruise from Honolulu to Moloka‘i and Maui with a Hawaiian captain and six Filipino crewmen.

On Dec. 7, 1941, while attending Iolani in Honolulu, Bud saw the battleship Arizona sink as he watched Pearl Harbor under attack. The next day, “because I was going to a high school across the street from a cemetery, I and a couple of my friends were volunteered on December 8th to help bury the sailors who were killed in Pearl Harbor,” he said in remembering that traumatic wartime experience.

Following military service in the Navy during WWII, Bud earned a bachelor’s degree in physics and a master’s in business administration at Stanford, and joined the management of the fledgling Hewlett-Packard Co., where he became a pioneer in the development of computerized management systems and received numerous awards and honors, which included being elected president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers for 1985.

Bud and Betty Eldon were married for over 60 years.

He died in 2012.

The Proposed Kokee-Haena Road

In 1949, Kaua‘i Territorial Senator Noboru Miyake sought funds in the territorial senate for the construction of a road that would link the dead-end roads at

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Koke‘e and Ha‘ena and make travel by road completely around Kaua‘i a reality.

Miyake contended that the road would provide Kaua‘i with construction jobs and would facilitate the opening of land for housing and roadside businesses.

Yet, Kaua‘i hotel operators opposed Miyake, arguing that they’d lose business, since an around-the-island road would cause tourists to spend less time on Kaua‘i by enabling them to see Kaua‘i in one day instead of the usual two — one day by driving east and other the by traveling west.

Although Miyake’s request for funds was denied, the territorial legislature persisted. In 1950, it called for a public works feasibility study for a highway serving northwestern Kaua‘i by citing “great potential for development” of tourism, agriculture, ranching and fishing.

The results of the study, published in 1951, sensibly took into consideration the enormous cost of building a road across mountainous terrain and concluded that a Koke‘e-Ha‘ena road would not be economically feasible.

The Kaua‘i Chamber of Commerce also opposed the road in 1953, but the Kaua‘i County Board of Supervisors favored it in 1954, stating the road would open an area of 120 square miles to farming, ranching, hotels and military use.

As a consequence, $10,000 was appropriated from the Territorial Fund for construction of a Koke‘e-Ha‘ena road, and the highway department began clearing the forest in Koke‘e with bulldozers.

But after eight months of bulldozing a four-mile path, the money ran out, leaving the bulldozers mired in the Alaka‘i Swamp.

Public Works then stated that the road “does not appear to be economically feasible because of its high costs,” and further requests for funding were denied.

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Waimea School History

Clem Gomes When Waimea School began as a public elementary school in January 1882, during the days of the Hawaiian monarchy, its 38 students were taught in the English language by Mrs. Stolz, who received her salary from tuition collected from her students.

By 1895, the school’s enrollment had increased to 174 divided as follows: Hawaiian 82, part-Hawaiian 27, German 6, Portuguese 34, Norwegian 7, Chinese 8, and Japanese 10.

And during the following year, three teachers taught in its two-room schoolhouse, one of whom was Mrs. Lucy Wright (1873-1931), the first Native Hawaiian schoolteacher to teach in an English-speaking school, and for whom Waimea’s Lucy Wright Park is named.

Also of note are Thomas Gibson, the school’s principal from 1884 to 1897, who would become territorial superintendent of education in 1913, and Henry Wishard, Waimea School principal during 1899. Wishard later served as chairman of the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors from 1905 until 1930.

Waimea School became the first junior high school in the territory of Hawai‘i in 1921, when a ninth grade was added, followed by a 10th grade in 1923.

And in 1935, Kaua’i Rep. Clem Gomes (1892-1948) introduced House Joint Resolution 12 in the territorial legislature for the establishment of a high school at Waimea, which Gov. Poindexter signed on April 16, 1935.

On June 6, 1937, when commencement exercises for the 60 students of Waimea High School’s first graduating class were held, enrollment for Waimea High and Elementary School had reached 1,051 with 37 teachers, and its campus had expanded since its founding to include 41/2 acres, four new buildings, eight bungalows and additional classroom units.

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Officers of Waimea High School’s first graduating class were Jose Tablada, president; Edward Miyake and Sakae Takahashi, vice-presidents; Shigeru Fujikawa, secretary; Shizuko Nakano, treasurer.

Hotelier W. E. H. Deverill

William Edward Herbert Deverill (1848-1904) and his brother, George, were young Englishmen sent to Hawai‘i by Queen Victoria to deliver a silver urn and other christening gifts to Prince Albert (1858-1862), the son of Kamehameha IV and Queen Emma.

But when the prince, dangerously ill when they arrived in Honolulu on Aug. 22, 1862, died on the 27th, the brothers presented their gifts to Queen Emma instead and then chose to forego the arduous return voyage to England in favor of remaining in Hawai‘i.

George died of tuberculosis, but W.E.H. found employment on Kohala Ranch and as a photographer before moving to Kaua‘i in 1875 to become deputy sheriff under Sheriff Samuel Wilcox. Other jobs Deverill held on Kaua‘i included road supervisor, tax assessor, land manager, coffee planter and steamship agent.

Deverill, who possessed an excellent command of the Hawaiian language, was known to Hawaiians as “Kepolo,” and to Japanese as “Deverill Man.” In 1880, he married part-Hawaiian Sarah Fredenberg of Hanalei and they would have six children.

Their home on Hanalei Bay once stood across from the present Hanalei Pavilion. Originally the Waioli Mission home of missionaries Edward and Lois Johnson, Deverill had it rolled on ‘ohi‘a logs from Waioli and relocated to his homesite 3/4-miles away in 1890.

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With remodeling and additions completed, the Deverill’s Western-style, twostory home with verandahs also served as the Hanalei Hotel until it closed in 1920.

Interestingly, during January 1891, Deverill met Queen Lili‘uokalani 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 Pono.”

W.E.H. Deverill died in Hanalei and is buried in the graveyard by the Waioli Church.

The Hanalei Hotel

The Hanalei Hotel The Hanalei Hotel, known also as the Deverill Hotel for William and Sarah Deverill, who owned, operated and resided on its premises with their six children and a niece, was once located on Hanalei Bay across from the present Hanalei Pavilion.

A Western-style, two-story, timber-framed house with verandahs and accommodations for 15 guests, it remained in service from 1890 until 1920 when it closed.

Originally for many years the Waioli Mission house of missionaries Edward and Lois Johnson, it had been rolled on ‘ohi‘a logs from Waioli to its homesite on Hanalei Bay in 1890 by William Deverill.

There the house was remodeled and extensions were built, and following

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installation of a telephone in 1891, the Deverills would be notified of arriving guests by phone from Lihu‘e in time for them to vacate bedrooms and make preparations.

Attached to the main structure by a lanai walkway was an addition used as a Hawaiian kingdom post office and general business office, and a detached building functioned as a combination medical dispensary, ironing room and living quarters for a man named Kateyama, the hotel’s cook, baker and main helper.

Other structures included rainwater catchment tanks, an outhouse, chicken coop and barn. There was a vegetable garden, and in back were rice paddies.

The Deverills also maintained a boat house on the Hanalei River.

The Deverills were hard workers. Part-Hawaiian Sarah Deverill managed Hanalei Hotel, charging $3 a day for room and board, and was a midwife, a postal clerk and ran a butcher shop.

In addition to his hotel duties, William Deverill, an Englishman who’d arrived in Hawai‘i in 1862 to present christening gifts from Queen Victoria to Prince Albert, worked as a photographer, deputy sheriff, tax assessor, road supervisor, coffee planter, land manager and steamship agent.

Makee Sugar Company Camp Policeman Charlie Fern

For two years prior to being hired as a reporter at The Garden Island newspaper in 1922 and then advancing to become the newspaper’s editor, manager, president and publisher before retiring in 1966, Charlie Fern (18921995) worked as the camp policeman at Makee Sugar Co. in Kealia.

In 1978, he recalled his days working there under manager Herman “Bismarck” Wolters for $75 a month, when Makee’s 1,500 to 2,000 employees lived in Kealia Camp, Mill Camp by the mill, Kumukumu Camp above Kealia, other camps mauka of Kumukumu Camp, and in one camp on the old road to Anahola.

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“In those days I was camp policeman. I had to get the men out to work in the morning. The job was, in those days, if they worked 20 days a month, they’d earned their bonus; then they’d all loaf. And at the end of month, there’d be nobody working in the fields or anywhere. So my job was to pick ‘em up and make ‘em get out and keep a record on them. You’d have to just start and say, ‘If you keep this up, you won’t be working here anymore.’

“And then I’d go out and inspect the camps for sanitation and housing and repairs. It was to keep the houses up. And keep up the sanitation. In those days they had so much washing and things like that. We had ditches for all the wastewater. Most of the toilets were outdoor toilets on the plantation.

“Another job was, I had to take care of the sick; see that they got to the doctors.

If I’d go and find some guy who wasn’t working, and he was in bed sick, well, I’d let the doctor know and I’d get him to the doctors.”

Silent Film Actress Etta Lee

Etta Lee (1906-1956), Hollywood silent-film actress of the 1920s and 1930s, was born on Maui and was the sister of kama‘aina Hanalei resident Barbara Ella Deverill (1887-1987), who taught at Makaweli and Hanalei schools for 26 years until her retirement in 1952.

Stunningly beautiful, Lee acted in exotic roles in many pictures during a movie career that spanned from 1921 through 1935, opposite such stars as Rudolph Valentino, Douglas Fairbanks Sr., and Greta Garbo, with whom she co-starred in the first film production of “Camille.”

In “The Thief of Baghdad,” made in 1924, Lee played the part of an alluring slave with Douglas Fairbanks Sr. as the thief and Anna May Wong as the Mongol slave.

Fairbanks was at his swashbuckling best in this film in which movie goers were further delighted by a marvelous flying horse, a flying carpet, a crystal ball 216

and a magical golden apple, evil sultans, a dragon, and an enchanted army.

The gorgeous Wong, who was the first Chinese-American movie star and the first Asian-American to become an international star, went on to enjoy a long career in silent and sound film, television, stage and radio.

In the 1926 version of “Camille,” an adaptation of a story written by the French author Alexandre Dumas, Etta Lee played Mataloti, while Mexican-born American actor Gilbert Roland co-starred as Armand with Norma Talmadge as Camille.

Lee’s other roles included that of Ah Fah in “A Tale of Two Worlds” (1921), Lui Po-Yat in “The Remittance Woman” (1923), and Ah Moy in “The Untamable” (1923).

A charter member of the Screen Actor’s Guild and the Academy of Arts and Sciences, Lee retired from acting following her marriage to radio commentator Frank Brown and resided in Eureka, Calif.

Princess Liliuokalani Visits Kilauea Sugar Plantation

Kilauea Sugar Mill, Circa 1885 On September 24, 1881, Princess Liliuokalani, who would be crowned Queen Liliuokalani in 1891, visited Kauai’s Kilauea Sugar Plantation to drive the first spike into the first piece of railroad track of the first railroad to be built on Kauai.

She and her entourage had arrived on Kauai by steamer at Hanalei on the 23rd., where she’d been received by Gov. Paul Kanoa and a large concourse of people and had later lodged at the home of Judge Akina.

On the 24th, Liliuokalani traveled by carriage to lunch with Princeville Plantation manager, Mr. Koehling, and then went to Kilauea village, where she was welcomed at Chung Lung store by R. A. Macfie, Jr., manager of Kilauea Sugar

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Plantation. Also present were a number of native Hawaiians and plantation employees.

At the store she kindly consented to drive the first spike, and from there the royal party set off for the plantation.

In her honor, the road to the plantation had been decorated with evergreen boughs, and evergreen arches had been placed above plantation gates, surmounted by two small Hawaiian flags on either side.

Traveling past the mill and a railroad cutting, they stopped by a large crowd gathered at the track and Liliuokalani alighted her carriage to be greeted again by manager Macfie and also by C. V. Housman, engineer of the railroad.

The Hon. John M. Kapena and Gov. Kanoa addressed those present, and after Liliuokalani hit the spike twice with a hammer, Housman declared it driven home. Three cheers were called for and given, Hawaiians advanced one-byone to kiss the princess’s hand, and a choir of Hawaiian girls sang the “Hawaiian National Anthem.”

As Liliuokalani passed by the mill on her way out, Hawaiian, English and American flags were raised in salute.

The Kipu Kai Ostrich Farm

In May 1895, some 13 ostriches from the late Dr. Trousseau’s ostrich farm on O‘ahu were shipped by the interisland steamer Mikahala from Honolulu to Kipu Kai, where entrepreneur Charles M. Cooke (1849-1909) intended to raise them at profit for their feathers.

Ostrich feathers, which were plucked every seven months, had been known to yield $200 per individual plucking, yet Cooke’s venture at Kipu Kai proved to be short-lived and unprofitable, his only unsuccessful business enterprise.

Several ostriches died from stomach parasites shortly after arriving, and two others jumped off a cliff into the sea, where farm manager A. H. Turner was

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able to retrieve only one by boat.

Furthermore, although Turner’s ostriches hatched about three times a year, with about 15 or 16 eggs per setting, the amount of ostrich feathers Turner plucked was inadequate to turn a profit.

Surprisingly, Turner, who lived with his wife in a cottage near the beach, exercised no caution around the 8-foot-tall birds, whose bites amounted to nothing, but whose legs could break human arms and legs and crush skulls with a single kick.

Being slow-witted, the birds allowed him plenty of time to anticipate danger.

“Let a man suddenly enter their pen and the fighting cocks will look at him several minutes as if trying to make him out before either advancing or retreating,” Turner explained.

And, “If one gets frightened he may run until he falls dead, unless he gets to a place where he can stick his head in the sand and imagine he is concealed.

“He is such a fool that if the fence bordering his paddock was removed, he would be three days in making the discovery, and then he would fall over the fence path rather than step over it.”

WWII Private Toshiaki Fujimoto

Private Toshiaki Fujimoto (1917-1943), killed in action at Caiazzo, Italy on Oct. 18, 1943 while serving with the U.S. Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion, was the first person born and raised on Kaua‘i killed in combat during World War II. Another 100th Battalion soldier born on Kaua‘i, Cpl. George F. Ishii, had been killed earlier on Sept. 30, 1943, but he had moved to O‘ahu when he was young and had no close relatives living on Kaua‘i.

At the time of Fujimoto’s death, his unit, which was composed almost entirely of Americans of Japanese ancestry from Hawai‘i, had been fighting German soldiers around Volturno in Italy during the Salerno-to-Cassino campaign.

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In connection with the Volturno fighting, Gen. Mark Clark, allied commander in Italy, later wrote: “I should mention that a bright spot in this period was the performance of the 100th Battalion, which had recently been assigned to the 34th Division. On the march to the Volturno, which was their first time in combat, they acted as an advance guard for a regimental combat team and covered a distance of almost twenty miles in twenty-four hours, despite the extreme difficulties of the mountain road. I sent a cable to Eisenhower on October 8, stating that they had seized their objective and that they were quick to react whenever the enemy offered opposition.”

Fujimoto was born at Koloa, Kaua‘i, the son of Otomatsu and Kane Fujimoto, was educated at Koloa School and had been employed at Koloa Sugar Co. prior to being inducted into the Army in 1941.

He received military training at Schofield Barracks, O‘ahu; Camp McCoy, Wis.; and Camp Shelby, Miss., was awarded the Purple Heart Medal and Combat Infantry Badge among other decorations, and is interred at the Kaua‘i Veteran’s Cemetery in Hanapepe.

Dr. Patrick M. Cockett

Longtime Kaua‘i physician Dr. Patrick M. Cockett (1911-1994) served in the U. S. Army as a medical officer during the Solomon Islands Campaign of WWII — a campaign in which he was awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star medals — and for which he expressed admiration for the courage and resourcefulness of his Army medics in combat.

Cockett wrote: at Munda, “My collecting company did meritorious service on a jungle trail stretching for about four to six miles from the mobile front line aid stations of the combat team they were evacuating. The trail was unguarded throughout its extent. One day the Japanese sent a strong patrol of over 200 men to harass our rear.

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“They ran into our trail and ambushed our medics. They managed to kill some of our wounded on stretchers and used the same stretchers to evacuate their own casualties. Only by devotion to duty did our litter bearers manage to save most of the wounded. By hiding our wounded and finally by detouring along a new route, our courageous litter bearers finally evacuated what they had in hand. Our collecting company lost two men killed and two missing during this ambush.”

Prior to his military service, the Maui-born Cockett had graduated from Kamehameha Schools, the University of Hawai‘i and Washington University Medical School, and had served as an Army doctor on Kaua‘i for nearly two years.

After the war, in 1946, he was hired by Lihu‘e Plantation physician Dr. Sam Wallis.

Over the years, Cockett ran the dispensary at Kealia, took his own X-rays, prescribed medicines, made house calls, performed surgery, delivered many babies and held clinics at Hawaiian Canneries in Kapa‘a where Pono Kai Resort is now located on Kuhio Highway.

Cockett spent his life helping people and was loved by his wife, children and many others.

Whitney’s Hawaiian Guide Book

Hawai‘i’s first tourist guide, the “Hawaiian Guide Book,” which contains a chapter of descriptions about Kaua‘i, was published in 1875 by the Hawaiian Gazette newspaper while Waimea, Kaua‘i-born Henry M. Whitney (1824-1904) was its editor.

In the guide book’s Kaua‘i chapter, Whitney wrote, “By the monthly trip of the inter-island steamer, a fine opportunity is offered for a short visit and a circuit of the island, while regular schooners run weekly between Honolulu and its various ports.”

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The anchorage at Nawiliwili “is open to heavy swells [prior to the breakwater being constructed in 1926]...but Niumalu at the mouth of the river is a safe shelter for small craft in all seasons. This place is the residence of the Governor...”

And, “The roads and bridges on the island of Kaua‘i are said to be the best in the group. It is quite possible to drive in a light vehicle from Hanalei to Mana point, a distance of 65 miles.”

Prior to its south fork being tapped for irrigation in 1876 and its north fork being likewise tapped in 1895, the depth of the Wailua River was “twenty fathoms not far from its mouth, and a ferry of fifty yards takes horse and rider over for five cents.

“At Kealia...is the ranch of Mr. E. Krull, and roaming over the broad pastures may be seen thousands of sleek cattle, which are raised chiefly for their hides and tallow.

“At Kilauea...is the residence of Mr. Chas. Titcomb, whose extensive farm is one of the finest localities for raising sugar cane and coffee to be found on the islands.”

Of neighboring Ni‘ihau, Whitney wrote, “...now the property of Mr. Francis Sinclair. It is used exclusively as a sheep ranch, which numbers about 75,000 head.”

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Battalion Major Jack Johnson

A graduate of Punahou and later, in 1935, the University of Hawai‘i, where he was the captain and star of the football team as well as student commandant of the ROTC regiment, Jack Johnson’s (1913-1944) first job after graduation from UH was agriculturist at McBryde Sugar Co. on Kaua‘i.

Then in 1940, when he was called to active duty with the Hawai‘i National 222

Guard, he became one of the few non-Nisei members of the Army’s famous 100th Battalion.

During WWII near Pozzilli, Italy on Nov. 5, 1943, while attacking German soldiers defending hills 590, 600, and 610, Capt. Johnson, then the 100th’s executive officer, was wounded in the leg by a land-mine explosion, though not seriously.

But later on Jan. 25, 1944, at Cassino, Italy, then Maj. Johnson was badly wounded by machine-gun fire, and as he crawled for cover he detonated a mine at full force and died a few hours later at an aid station while resting against battalion chaplain Israel Yost’s chest. Yost remembered him, saying sometime earlier following a burial ceremony, “You do a nice job. But don’t bother to take much time when my time comes.”

Company A commanding officer Capt. Mitsuyoshi “Mits” Fukuda later said, “His was a great loss for he was well-liked and respected by the men.”

And, whenever 100th Battalion veterans met after the war and recalled Cassino, they would all remember the tough, fair and friendly haole officer who was one of them and would always be.

Major John A. Johnson Jr., 100th Infantry Battalion, is buried on American soil at Nettuno, Italy.

He left a widow when he died, the former Elizabeth Sinclair Knudsen of Kaua‘i, and Johnson Hall at the University of Hawai‘i Manoa campus is named for him.

Rev. Joel Hulu Mahoe

Koloa Hawaiian Church,1859 To 1928.

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The Rev. Joel Hulu Mahoe (1831-1891), for 22 years pastor of Koloa Hawaiian Church and the Hawaiian Congregational Church in Kilauea, Kaua‘i, was born on the Big Island, and was a Hawaiian chief and half-uncle of two of Hawai‘i’s future monarchs, King Kalakaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani.

Having been converted to Christianity at an early age, he became one of missionary the Rev. Hiram Bingham II’s assistants, along with Paul Kanoa, who would later became Kaua‘i’s governor from 1846 to 1877.

In 1857, Mahoe and his wife, Elizabeth, accompanied Bingham and his wife, Minerva, as missionaries to the Gilbert Islands (today’s Kiribati), where the mission gained hold on the islands of Tarawa, Butaritari, Makin and Tapiteuea.

But at Abaiang Island in March 1869, Mahoe was shot and severely wounded by rebel natives attempting to kill him, which forced him to leave Abaiang for Hawai‘i with his family to recover before returning for a short time to conclude his missionary work in the Gilberts.

Later that same year, Mahoe became pastor of Koloa Hawaiian Church, now the site of Koloa Church, and in 1878 was transferred to Kilauea’s Hawaiian Congregational Church, which was once located on the present site of Christ Memorial Episcopal Church.

At Kilauea, Mahoe worked to assist Kaua‘i’s newly arrived Gilbertese sugarplantation workers, but despite his best efforts, the fixed, methodical routines of plantation labor did not suit them, and Kaua‘i’s climate, cooler and wetter than in their home islands, made the Gilbertese more susceptible to common colds.

Tuberculosis, pneumonia and dysentery also took a toll, as did the enervating effects of liquor and opium, and none became permanent residents of Hawai‘i.

At the time of his death at Koloa, Mahoe was pastor of Koloa Hawaiian Church.

He and Mrs. Mahoe had 11 children.

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WWII Pfc. Peter Takashi Miyashiro

Peter Takashi Miyashiro Center Back Row In January of 1944 during WWII, Pfc. Peter Takashi Miyashiro (1918-1994) of Kaua‘i, at that time serving with Company C of the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion in Italy, wrote a letter to his pastor on Kaua‘i, the Rev. Maurice Coopman of St. Catherine Church in Kapa‘a.

“You know Father, you’d be surprised how much praying we here all do.

Especially the one in the front line. I always pray for the ones at home and for everybody. To tell you the truth when I’m up in front I pray about a dozen times a day.

“Our unit before coming here had a lot of unbelievers but now we have none.

Everybody believes in God. You know, everyone is scared.

“They can be Germans, Americans, English or anybody. The longer you stay in the front won’t make you get over the scared.

“But we in our unit have lots of guts so we do our duty no matter what it may be.

We are liked and respected by the other soldiers in Italy and by the Italians.

Lots of Germans we take prisoners cry and shake with fear.

“I could tell you about the battle experiences I have had for weeks. Maybe it was your prayers and the prayers of those I love that made the shell that fell less than a yard away from me a dud. . .Thanks.

“I am now staying in a rest camp in a very big city enjoying myself like I never imagine to do. We have lots to eat — good foods. I’m going to spend four days before returning to my unit. I’m certainly enjoying myself.

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“I miss you and all the dear ones I love and my friends and the little church on the hill. Pray for us always.”

WWII Veteran 1st Lt. Arthur Shak

Crew Of Guardian Angel, Lt. Shak Front Row Left In November of 1944, 1st Lt. Arthur Shak of Kapa‘a was home on furlough after having survived 51 bombing missions with the 15th U.S. Air Force against Axis targets in Europe as the navigator of the B-24 Liberator bomber Guardian Angel.

“You sweat out every mission. There was always heavy flak over Ploesti, Vienna, and Munich,” said Shak.

One bombing mission against the Xenix Oil Refinery at Ploesti, Rumania on Aug. 10, 1944, nearly ended in total disaster.

During that mission, the Guardian Angel was hit many times by flak. One projectile severed its gas lines over the target area and two engines were badly damaged, causing the bomber to drop back alone from its formation but, fortunately, P-51 fighter escorts kept enemy planes away.

Pilot Lowell Davis kept the bomb bay doors open to lessen the danger from gas fumes, which could have set off a fatal explosion with the slightest spark, while flight engineer George Rands slowed the leaking fuel by stuffing his jacket into the holes as fuel poured over his body and into his eyes.

Also, one of the bombs had not released over the target, being jammed in its shackles. It was armed, and it would not have taken much to blow up the plane, but bombardier Dave Bartow and Rands managed to release the bomb.

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Finally, Shak was able to navigate a course, which avoided bright flashes of enemy antiaircraft fire seen on the ground below, to an emergency landing on a very short airstrip on the Yugoslavian island of Vis. After the Guardian Angel taxied to a stop, its fuel tanks were dry.

Shak was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for “extraordinary achievement during aerial flight over enemy territory.”

He now resides in Kailua, O‘ahu.

May Day Queen Kimie Kashiwai

On Sunday afternoon, May 7, 1944, eighteen-year-old Kimie Kashiwai, the vivacious and talented singer, dancer and daughter of Fukujiro and Kana Kashiwai of Pakala, Kaua‘i, was crowned Kaua‘i’s May Day Queen during coronation ceremonies held at Lihu‘e’s Isenberg Field.

Thousands of local folks and military personnel stationed on Kaua‘i witnessed the pageant staged by the Kauai USO and the “Cow-Eye Sentinel,” Kaua‘i’s military newspaper, with its editor, Sgt. Duncan Campbell, narrating the festivities.

In the processional, Kashiwai made a beautiful queen dressed in a trailing white holoku with a blue and white court train.

Her court was comprised of four island princesses: Rose Manandik representing Kaua‘i; Nani Waiamau, Maui; Lani Kim, O‘ahu, and Alma Carroll, the Big Island.

The duty of bearing kahili for Kashiwai fell to John and William Bertrand, Masa Higashiyama, Edward Hamilton, Leslie Ota and Robert West. Maureen West, Jane Hirota, Barbara Amaral and Mary Mizutani served as flower girls.

The queen’s train bearers were Myrna Lee and Joyce Uyeno, while Hatette

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Alexander and Leina‘ana Oana escorted crown bearer Mary Moragne.

Hawaiian warriors Joseph Makanani, Paul Hirota, Antone Martin, Joe Souza, Herbert Apaka and Hiram Alexander attended the queen. Norton Malin and James Panui acted as heralds.

A detachment of eight U. S. Marines made up Kashiwai’s honor guard, and she was crowned by the commanding officer of the Kaua‘i district, Maj. Gen. George Greiner.

After the coronation, a short program of music and hula was performed by the hula troupes of Annie Holt, Irene Kanoho and Margaret Panui, accompanied by Mac Rapozo’s string ensemble, followed by the holoku ball.

Kashiwai married Akira Yamamoto and they had three children. Although she never performed professionally, she entertained at family parties for many years. She passed away in 2004.

WWII Veteran Al Beralas

On Sunday morning, Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Al Beralas of Lihu‘e Camp, Kaua‘i, was a civilian worker building a fuel-storage tank with coworkers on Red Hill overlooking the harbor.

From the heights of Red Hill they watched in astonishment as enemy aircraft zoomed overhead to bomb, strafe and torpedo ships and shore facilities at Pearl Harbor amidst thunderous explosions and towering billows of smoke.

Suddenly, one aircraft veered off and dived toward Al’s position. Instantly, he and his coworkers scrambled for cover beneath their rock-hauling truck, a reaction that likely saved their lives as large-caliber bullets ripped into the

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truck’s bed and cab above them.

Having survived Pearl Harbor, Al returned to Kaua‘i to work as a lookout in the evenings on the high ground above Mana, where his duty was to report violations of the island’s wartime-blackout policy.

Then in 1944, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was assigned to the 1st Filipino Infantry Regiment, comprised almost entirely of soldiers of Filipino descent from the U.S. Mainland and territorial Hawai‘i.

Up to that time, detachments of soldiers from the regiment had penetrated the enemy-held Philippines by submarine to carry out clandestine raids, reconnaissance and intelligence missions.

But it was not until January 1945, that the 1st Filipino Infantry entered the Philippines as a unit to fight for Philippine liberation on Leyte and Samar in the Catarman, Ormoc, Allen and Llorente campaigns.

Al recently recalled mop-up operations on Samar, patrolling with his squad through thick jungle alive with poisonous snakes and crocodiles and clearing the island of its remaining fanatical enemy troops.

Among Cpl. Beralas’s military decorations is the Combat Infantryman Badge.

He and his wife, Julie, had six children.

Al Beralas passed away in 2012.

Koloa School History

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1885 – Koloa School students And Principal J.K. Burkett, (Standing Second From Left); Dr. James W. Smith, (Standing Left); J. M. Neal (Standing Center) And Mary Hardy (Standing Right) In 1877 during the reign of King David Kalakaua, Koloa School, the first public school on Kaua‘i, which is presently named Koloa Elementary School, was established by the Board of Education with Mr. J. K. Burkett as its principal and with its instruction given in both English and Hawaiian.

But the history of schooling in Koloa began much earlier, in 1841, when missionary Rev. Peter Gulick built the first permanent school house in Koloa for Hawaiian children taught in the Hawaiian language, which was likely located just mauka of today’s elementary school.

Then in 1855, the Rev. Daniel Dole opened a boarding school for missionary children in a thatched house with clapboard sides built where the Koloa Public School Library now stands. Dole’s school was moved across the street into a new building about 1857, and moved a second time back to its original site to an even-newer building of two school rooms joined by a smaller “dark room for unruly pupils” in 1860. In 1877, this building continued in use as part of the newly established public Koloa School.

Another earlier school, a boarding school for Hawaiian girls that was located makai of the present Koloa Missionary Church, was conducted by Dr. James W. Smith and his wife, Melicent, between 1862 and 1870.

When Koloa School opened in 1877, Burkett was assisted by Miriam Puniwai and John Unea, the Hawaiian-language teacher.

Its 27 boys and 14 girls were students who had previous attended Koloa district’s four common schools.

When the school day was pau, Burkett would march the students up the road to the corner where the Chevron gas station now stands at the intersection of Koloa and Po‘ipu roads and dismiss them, and he was also known to ride to school on an old black horse, rain or shine.

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WWII Veteran EM1 Merveyn Clifford Nelson

U. S. Navy Electrician First Class (EM1) Merveyn Clifford Nelson (1913-1992) of Grove Farm, Kauai achieved the distinction of being Kauai’s first fighting hero of WWII. He earned this honor during the first year of his wartime service, when he participated in four battles, had two ships sunk from under him, was wounded twice, the second time so badly that he spent the second and final year of his naval service recovering from his wounds in an Australian hospital before being discharged in October of 1943.

Nelson’s battle history began at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, where he was a seaman aboard the battleship USS Oklahoma during Japan’s infamous attack. The Oklahoma was hit by torpedoes and was capsized with hundreds of men locked in watertight compartments. Nelson was wounded and fell overboard, but was pulled out of burning, oil-covered waters, hospitalized briefly and recovered.

Then in February 1942, Nelson was at sea with naval task forces under admirals Halsey and Fletcher, built around the carriers Enterprise and Yorktown, which attacked Japan’s installations in the Marshall and Gilbert islands.

His third battle, the Battle of the Coral Sea, the first naval engagement in history fought without opposing ships making contact, occurred in May of 1942, during which the U. S. Navy stopped an attempt by enemy forces to land at Port 231

Moresby off the coast of Australia.

Nelson’s fourth and final battle, the battle in which he was seriously wounded, took place on August 22, 1943, while Nelson’s ship, the destroyer USS Blue (DD-387), was on patrol in Iron Bottom Sound off Guadalcanal Island and was torpedoed by a enemy destroyer.

The explosion wrecked Blue’s main engines, shafts, and steering gear, killing nine men and wounding 21, and Blue was scuttled the following day.

May Day Queen, Marian Ellis

On Sunday, May 13, 1945, Marian Ellis of Lihu‘e embarked upon her reign as May Day queen following coronation ceremonies held at Lihu‘e’s Isenberg Hall, an occasion generally considered by the huge crowd in attendance to be the most colorful weaving of Hawaiian song, music, hula and flowers ever seen on Kaua‘i.

Escorted by an honor guard of U.S. Coast Guardsmen and attended by her four lovely Princesses: Anna Fayé, Ellen Ahana, Betty Takazawa and Conchita Cagalawan, Ellis, the popular daughter of Board of Supervisors Chairman William Ellis and Maria Ellis, was crowned queen by Army Maj. J.J. Fallon.

Chief Edwin Crowell’s Police Glee Club featuring Helen Ukauka as vocalist provided background music during the coronation procession.

Appearing first in the procession were Hawaiian warriors Stanley Kaluahine, Stanley Kaeo, Paul Hirota, Kenneth Apaka and Hiram Diamond, followed by kahili bearers Robert West, Bill Hadley, Jim Kaufman, Henry Rente, Jimmy Price and Bill Moragne.

Next came the princesses, Ellis and her majesty’s honor guard and little Naomi Meyers, the crown bearer.

Following the queen’s proclamation that all were to enjoy “a day of fun and 232

friendliness,” Eric Knudsen, Kaua‘i’s teller of Hawaiian tales, thanked Dora Isenberg “for building this house where all races of the community can gather for just such joyous occasions as this,” and the May Day sponsor, Garden Island Publishing Co. A graduate of Kaua‘i High School and the University of Hawai‘i Class of 1948, Ellis was awarded a scholarship for a year of advanced study abroad in 1950 by the Kaua‘i Rotary and pursued a course in social studies at Sheffield University, England.

Marian Ellis spent her professional career as a travel consultant in San Francisco and Honolulu.

She passed away in 1997.

WWII Veteran And Board Of Supervisors Chairman Hartwell Blake

Hartwell Blake Of Koloa Is Seen In His College Days At The University Of Hawai‘i At Manoa. He went on To Become Chair Of The Kauai County Board Of Supervisors During July 1945, U.S. Army 1st. Lt. Hartwell Blake (1916-1989) was on furlough at the home of his parents, Judge and Mrs. Henry Blake, in Koloa, following tours of WWII combat duty in New Guinea and the Philippines with the Army’s 123rd Infantry Regiment, 33rd Division.

Also at home with him were his wife, Grace, and their young son, Hartwell.

Of his first combat action in New Guinea during October 1944, he recalled, “It was 6:05 a.m. during a light rain when the Japanese opened up with four, 77millimeter mounted guns on our company patrol still in bivouac. The first 12 rounds were 25 yards over the bivouac area.”

Then 20 rounds exploded short of the area. “In other words,” said Blake, “we were caught between enemy fire, an artilleryman’s dream and the infantry’s 233

nightmare.”

Two days later, Blake and his men encountered an enemy force three times their strength that was reinforced by artillery and three light tanks.

During this engagement, a machine-gun burst shot his cartridge belt off and a second burst glanced off his steel helmet. Then a shell exploded 15 yards from Blake and two of his men, injuring both of them.

Still, American casualties were light. But not so for their enemy, the 224th Imperial Marines, who Blake said suffered heavy casualties from American artillery directed by forward observers flying overhead in Piper Cub aircraft in support of his unit.

Prior to his tours of combat duty, Blake, an ROTC officer and graduate of the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, had been commander of the Army’s Ni‘ihau detachment.

After the war, Blake went on to teach vocational agriculture on Kaua‘i, serve as chairman of the Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors and command the 3rd Battalion, 298th Infantry, Hawai‘i National Guard.

Kauai’s World War Two WACs

Kaua‘i WACs (Women’s Army Corps) Volunteers Stationed At Fort Ogelthorpe, Georgia In 1945 During World War II Pose For A Picture. They Were All Privates When This Picture Was Taken. In Front From Left Are Chitoko Isonaga Of Koloa, Grace Kutaka Of Kapa‘a, Eileen Malterre, Harriet Lum Of Kapa‘a, And Reiko Hanashiro Of Kekaha. Standing From Left Are Hisako Yamashita Of Kekaha, Eunice Kapuniai Of Makaweli, Bernice Bender Of Kapa‘a And Marjorie Hada Of Lihu‘e.

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Over 150,000 American women served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, and members of the WAC were the first women other than nurses to serve within the ranks of the U.S. Army.

They served as armorers, laboratory technicians, teletype operators, file clerks, typists, stenographers, motor-pool drivers, postal workers, weather observers and forecasters, cryptographers, radio operators and repairwomen, sheetmetal workers, parachute riggers, boat dispatchers, bombsight maintenance specialists, aerial photograph analysts, tabulators, electronics technicians and control-tower operators, and many others.

Women’s Army Corps members served in the United States, North Africa, the Mediterranean, Europe, the Southwest Pacific, China, India, Burma, and the Middle East.

During World War II, WACs were awarded one Distinguished Service Medal, 62 Legions of Merit, three Air Medals, 10 Soldier’s Medals, 16 Purple Hearts and 565 Bronze Stars. A total of 657 WACs received medals and citations at the end of the war.

In 1945 General Dwight D. Eisenhower stated, “During the time I have had WACs under my command, they have met every test and task assigned to them. Their contributions in efficiency, skill, spirit and determination are immeasurable.”

One decorated World War II WAC now living on Kaua‘i is longtime Koloa resident Mary Case. As Sgt. Mary Mosher, she served her country in New Guinea and the Philippines during the war.

Sheriff’s Deputy Moke Kua

Kua’s Fellow Deputies: Kaua‘i Deputy Sheriffs Kalei Makawela (Left), Puaokina Taniguchi (Second From Right) And William Kauhane (Right) Stand With Riot Leader Abarista (Second From Left), After The 1924 Riot Of Sugar-Plantation Workers That Left 19 People Dead, Including Deputy Sheriff Moke Kua.

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On Sept. 9, 1924, Hawaiian cowboy, storyteller and sheriff’s deputy Moke Kua was shot and killed at Hanapepe during a bloody confrontation between Deputy Sheriff William Olin Crowell, his deputies and striking sugar plantation workers, which also took the lives of 16 strikers and two other deputies, and wounded nine strikers and three deputies, one of whom who later died of his injuries.

Few people possessed the intimate knowledge of Koke‘e as did Kua, and he shared his knowledge of the names and uses of that woodland’s native plants and trees. He also knew the secret trails and the hidden caves whose entrances it was believed could be opened and closed only by those who possessed the charm.

Kua was renowned also for his grace of movement, when he would dance the hula by the light of smoking lanterns in the evenings on the verandah of the cowboy’s cabin in Koke‘e, while other cowboys played their guitars and ukuleles.

But, best loved were his stories of akua and Menehunes. He said that in the old days, the Menehune were ever ready to help those who knew how to ask them, and they could still be seen in modern times, but only rarely in secluded places.

He claimed he’d once seen one between Kukui, near the present-day radio tower by the Koke‘e Road, and Pu‘uopae above the Mana plain. The little fellow was sitting on a stone with his knees hunched under his chin, and when Kua spoke, he tore the stone from the earth, jumped under it and pulled it over his head.

Then there was the story of the akua with burning eyes watching him in the darkness from across his campfire in a lonely part of Koke‘e after a day of pig hunting.

WWII B-24 Chief Engineer/Gunner Rodney Satoshi Higashi

Before enlisting in the U.S. Army in July of 1941 and then transferring to the

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Army Air Corps, the adventurous, Kaua‘i-born-and-raised Rodney Satoshi Higashi (1915-2008) had been working as a mechanic in charge of the service department of a Buick agency in Grosse Pointe, Mich., and was servicing race cars for the agency on the side.

He then served nearly four years in the Air Corps, after which he went home to spend his first furlough at the home of his parents, Totaro and Kiku Higashi, in Kapa‘a in April 1945.

During World War II, Higashi was a chief engineer/gunner on B-24 heavy bombers, and survived more than 150 combat missions in the Pacific Theater with the Fifth Air Force, 22nd Bombardment Group.

The 22nd Bombardment Group, equipped with B-24s, had bombed Japanese airfields, shipping and oil installations in Borneo, Ceram, and Halmahera, and had begun attacking the southern Philippines in September 1944 to neutralize enemy bases in preparation for the invasion of Leyte.

From December 1944 to August 1945, it had struck airfields and installations on Luzon, supported Australian ground forces on Borneo, and bombed railways and industries in Formosa and China.

During Higashi’s most-recent campaign, the invasion of Luzon, he flew tactical missions beginning on New Year’s Day 1945, and was stationed at Clark Field in the Philippines. He also flew one bombing mission over Formosa.

Higashi made the Air Corps his profession after World War II, and retired as an Air Force master sergeant after a long military career that included tours of duty in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Higashi was survived by his son, Jerry, and his daughter, Jan Sakuma; a brother, Jack; his sister, Sekiko Valpoon, and two grandchildren.

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Kauai Board Of Supervisors, 1931

Luke, Miyake, Knudsen, Ellis, Moragne, And County Clerk Kaneakua On January 2, 1931, The Newly Elected Kauai Board Of Supervisors -- David Luke, Eric A. Knudsen, Noboru Miyake, William Ellis And Joseph H. Moragne -Held Their Initial Meeting In The County Building.

Notable among them was Miyake, whose election to the board had made him the first person of Japanese ancestry to hold public office in Hawaii.

And, during World War Two, chairman Knudsen would become known as the “Teller of Hawaiian Tales” for narrating his Kauai stories over the airwaves of KTOH radio, Lihue.

In them he spoke of journeys into the mountains of Kauai during legendary times when Hawaiians and their gods mingled freely, and of Hawaiian cowboys and the ghosts they came across.

So popular was Knudsen’s program, that its sponsor, the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. of Honolulu, offered to mail reprints of each story he told over the radio.

Over the perioud of one year, 50,000 reprints were mailed.

In the course of a long political career from which he retired in 1932, Knudsen also served in the Territorial House of Representatives and Senate.

William Ellis’ political career on the board spanned three decades (19301951), during which time he was designated or elected Chairman 17 times -an era of Kauai government marked by an unsurpassed degree of decorum and harmony.

The board’s first order of business were appointments of 5 district overseers, 2 park superintendents and 5 water collectors, whose duty it was to receive payments of water users.

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Next, action was deferred on an ordinance drafted by County Attorney A. G. Kaulukou that would have created a county public works department. Headed by the county engineer, this department would have been charged with roadwork, maintenance, waterworks and public parks.

Raises were granted in the treasurer and auditor’s office, but Kaulukou’s request for a $25 monthly raise for his clerk was denied.

WWII Veteran Dr. William “Dick” Hobby

1946 – Kauai Boys Scott Eldon, Cecil Gates, Dick Hobby and Bud Eldon In May of 1945, Mr. and Mrs. William Hobby of ‘Ele‘ele received letters written by their son, U.S. Army Pvt. Richard P. “Dick” Hobby (1925-2006), while he was an infantryman with the Army’s 87th “Golden Acorn” Division in Germany during the final days of World War II in Europe.

Dick wrote in part: “The German countryside is beautiful alright — green and fertile much like Scotland. Yesterday, we passed several farmers ploughing, and each horse carried a white surrender flag on its collar!

“In one town a woman threw her arms around me begging me to help her save her wine, which was fast being consumed. She claimed Hitler was nothing, the Nazis were nothing, but the poor civilians were suffering for something they were not responsible for.

“A big satisfaction is the joyful reception given us by the thousands of French, Russians, Poles and Czechs who have been prisoners for so long here and are now free.

“I’m picking up a little of the German language as I go along and get amusement trying to use it — though the muzzle of a rifle speaks a language these people understand.”

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Dick Hobby was born and raised on Kaua‘i, where his father was an engineer and an assistant manager at Koloa plantation, and where his mother, Eleanor, was principal of ‘Ele‘ele School.

At ‘Ele‘ele School, Dick and his friend, Bud Eldon, held the distinction of being the only Caucasians in a student population totaling 800.

Following his graduation from Punahou in 1944, he enlisted in the Army, where he fought in the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944-Jan. 1945), which cost 19,000 American lives.

After the war, Hobby graduated from Stanford Medical School with a doctorate degree, and practiced medicine in California and as a captain in the Navy.

Rev. Lydgate’s Sermon

Rev. Lydgate And Family Early 1900s On Sunday, March 14, 1915, the Rev. John Mortimer Lydgate (1854-1922), the pastor of Lihu‘e Union Church and the namesake of Kaua‘i’s Lydgate Beach Park, delivered a heretofore virtually forgotten sermon to his congregation, which was composed of Lihu‘e’s elite. Herewith are edited portions of that sermon.

“The condition of the laboring classes, sanitation, condition of life, morals. The victims of ignorance, and vice and crime. Children in our midst, on this island, damned to the world, with lives to live if not souls to save. We don’t want to hear about them. We don’t want to see them.

“But these are people in danger or distress — not people of refinement, culture, or wealth — but they are human beings like ourselves. Surely, if we listened with the keen ear of a sympathetic imagination, we could hear the pitiful cry of

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these helpless victims. It’s up to us to come to their help, because they are human beings.

“Where does disease come from? From the unsanitary, neglected underworld.

We think that it is far away and we are safe. We think that if we can keep the moral plague far away, then it’s all right. Yet it doesn’t stay there. The lines of business and traffic and curiosity run back and forth and you can’t keep any thing contagious anywhere very long. These sources of infection, physical and moral, are generally much nearer than we think. The upper crust of society is always just over the lower, and the distance down isn’t far.

“Now, I recognize the fact that this is emphatically a philanthropic community in no ways deaf to the cry when they hear it, and already carrying on large burdens of this kind.

“I would most heartily commend this generous and efficient philanthropy and would bid you God speed.”

WWII POW Patrick Aki

Patrick Aki And His Father, Henry Aki, 1945 Seventeen-year-old civilian worker Patrick Kahaumea Aki of Wailua was stationed on Wake Island on Dec. 8, 1941, when Imperial Japanese naval forces attacked that isolated atoll.

Although U. S. Marines and civilian volunteers fought valiantly, they were finally overrun on Dec. 23, and Aki with other survivors was taken prisoner.

Ten months later, in October 1942, some 265 Wake Island POWs, including Aki, were shipped to Yokohama, Japan, where they were paraded through the streets and sent on a three-day train journey to a construction camp while being fed only twice a day.

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At the camp, even sick and dying POWs were kicked outside to work at hard labor from daylight to late afternoon building a dam in all weather conditions, because guards “said we were working too slowly and had to make up for lost time,” Aki recalled.

Food consisted of watery soup and some grain. Hunger became endless. If a POW died in the mess hall, others would grab his food and share it among themselves.

All POWs were mercilessly beaten with poles. Once, while being beaten, Aki survived when “I pretended I was knocked out and the beating stopped.”

Aki encouraged his fellow POWs to survive, but grinding work and lack of proper food and medical attention took its toll. Within a year, 52 POWs had died.

After Japan surrendered and American occupation forces began arriving in 1945, Aki noted that “it took some time for us to accept the idea that we were free again.”

Aki arrived home on Kaua‘i on Oct. 21, 1945, and the news from his parents a couple of days later was that he’d been eating his mother’s Hawaiian food without a letup.

Patrick Aki, who said he bears no animosity toward the Japanese, now lives in Mililani, O‘ahu.

Athlete And WWII Veteran Paul Osborn Kahlbaum

Paul Osborn Kahlbaum’s (1926-2005) German grandfather, Carl Ludwig Kahlbaum, first visited Kaua‘i aboard a whaler in 1870, decided to stay, married a Hawaiian woman and eventually became head overseer at Koloa Plantation from 1887 to 1900.

Paul’s father, Paul Kahlbaum, was born on Kaua‘i in 1893 and was an outstanding athlete. At Kaua‘i’s first-ever track and field meet held on July 4, 1911, at the Lihu‘e Park Athletic Field (situated approximately in the locale now

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occupied by the Pi‘ikoi buildings and adjacent parking areas), he won the 440 yard dash. In time, he would become assistant manager at Kaua‘i’s Hawaiian Sugar Co., later known as Olokele Sugar Co. Born at Koloa and raised at Makaweli, Paul Osborn Kahlbaum was educated early on at Makaweli Annex.

Following his graduation from Punahou in 1944, he enlisted in the Army as a private during WWII, fought in the New Guinea and Philippine Campaigns as an infantryman and received a battlefield promotion to second lieutenant.

After the war, he attended Brown University and went on to a successful career with C. Brewer & Co. When he retired, he and his adventurous wife, Maka, with whom he had three children, set off sailing about the South Pacific several times on small, 32passenger Russian ships that could sail into small harbors and fascinating places where larger ships could not enter.

Paul’s boyhood friend, Bud Eldon, recently remembered him “joining with Dick Hobby and me to create ‘countries,’ building toy houses (even towns) for our toy cars and trucks, then having ‘wars’ on paper between our countries. Paul’s were usually the victors, due to his having the best (fake) ‘military’ preparations and equipment. He also was the best when we played ‘knights in armor’ while reading King Arthur stories.”

Sugar Planter Charles Titcomb

Kilauea Sugar Plantation started as a cattle ranch in 1863, when Kaua‘i businessman Charles Titcomb (1805-1883), a former Yankee watchmaker who’d settled on Kaua‘i after his whaler was shipwrecked in Hawaiian waters, purchased the Kilauea land grant that year from Kamehameha IV.

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Titcomb, who’d married Kanikele Kamalenui, had financed his purchase of the land grant from the sale of his 750-acre Hanalei sugar plantation to Robert C. Wyllie earlier in 1863, the lands of which Titcomb had first acquired by lease from Kamehameha III. In 1877, when Titcomb sold his Kilauea ranch to English Capt. John Ross and Edward Adams for the purpose of growing sugar cane, Kilauea Sugar Plantation was founded, with Titcomb staying on to build the plantation’s first sugar mill.

The mill, with improvements and additions made to it over the succeeding years, was located off today’s Kilauea Rd. in the area between today’s Keneke St. and Oka St., and a village grew around it where there had been none.

One highlight of Kilauea Sugar Plantation history occurred on Kamehameha Day, 1881, when the residents of Kilauea celebrated the official opening of Stone Dam, which blocked the streambed just below the convergence of Pohakuhono and Haluanani Streams, creating an irrigation reservoir.

Hawaiian, British and American flags flew from the mill’s smokestack and the residents of Kilauea marched to the new reservoir, led by the local band.

Another celebration happened Sept. 24, 1881, when Princess Liliuokalani, who had at that time been making a royal visit to Kaua‘i, drove home the first spike for the Kilauea Plantation railroad, Kaua‘i’s first.

L.D. Larsen, manager of Kilauea Plantation from 1919 to 1930, built the stone buildings in Kilauea town and Larsen’s Beach at Moloa‘a is named after him.

Kilauea Plantation closed in 1971.

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WWII Veteran John G. Watkins Jr.

John G. Watkins Jr. (1923-2000) was born at Pahoa, Hawai‘i and raised on Kaua‘i, where his father was manager of Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. Its cannery and management office was located in Lawai, while its labor camp, field operations and field office were situated at Kalaheo.

After graduating from Punahou, Watkins attended Harvard until 1943, when he was drafted into the Army and assigned to an artillery battery of the 82nd Airborne Division.

When the 82nd Airborne conducted its fourth parachute assault of WWII into Holland on Sept. 17, 1944 in Operation Market Garden, Watkins was transported from England to the Dutch battlefields in a plywood glider named “Kauai No Ka Oi,” one of an armada of like gliders towed by C-47 aircraft that followed paratroop planes in the division’s assault.

Flak increased as the gliders approached the landing zones, but when they drew closer, Watkins saw the welcome mushroom shapes of the paratroopers open chutes lying on the ground below.

Suddenly, Watkins’ glider cut loose from its tow-plane, and then it banked, descended, and finally landed safely at 60 mph in soft dirt. Quickly, he and his fellow soldiers grabbed their rifles, piled out of the glider and ran to the nearest ditch.

Watkins would go on to win a Bronze Star Medal in the Market Garden operation, an award he earned for coming to the aid of several severely wounded infantrymen under intense enemy fire while his unit was cut off from friendly lines.

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Later, Watkins fought with the 82nd Airborne during the Battle of the Bulge (Dec. 1944 - Jan. 1945), and had the harrowing experience of helping liberate survivors of the Wobbelin Concentration Camp in Germany.

He graduated from Harvard after the war, married, entered the insurance business and raised a family.

The Great McBryde Camp Eleven Cockfight Raid Of February, 1945

McBryde Sugar Co.’s Camp Eleven, now long since vanished, was located atop the western edge of Lawai Gulch above Lawai Bay, alongside the main plantation road about 3/4 of a mile uphill from the bridge that crosses Lawai Stream just north of Pump 6.

On Sunday morning, February 18, 1945, Kauai police raided a good-sized, illegal cockfight taking place at Camp Eleven that sent most of the gamblers fleeing immediately down the nearby high bluff that drops steeply into Lawai Gulch.

In no time, the hillside was practically covered with gamblers on the run, leaping and bounding toward the safety of the sheltering vegetation at the bottom of the gulch.

The younger gamblers seemed to have little trouble making their escapes, but their older, less agile compatriots could not keep up their pace and soon found themselves unintentionally tumbling, rolling and flip-flopping into the gulch.

A number of the older fellows rounded-up by police were so badly hurt that they required first aid before being arrested. In fact, there were so many injuries that police adopted a novel way of identifying captured suspects. They’d make a suspect walk past them, and if the man limped, he was arrested.

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Teodoro S. of Kapaa, for instance, forfeited $200 in bail and suffered two sprained ankles and black-and-blue. Adriano C. of Makaweli was cut up pretty badly and forfeited $150, and Braulio B. of Niumalu could sit only painfully while forfeiting $100.

The net result of the raid was a realization of $1650 for the County of Kauai in forfeited bail, an Eleele Dispensary crowded on that Sunday afternoon with dispensary personnel mending sprains, bruises and contusions, and poor turnout for work at McBryde Sugar Co. on the Monday following.

Kekaha Plantation’s Pah On Camp

Kekaha Plantation’s Pah On Camp (known also as Camp 2), which no longer exists, was located for many years in Mana on the makai side of the old Government Road just below the road leading uphill into Niu Valley and on to Pu‘u ‘Opae Reservoir.

The camp took its name from Leong Pah On (1848-1924), a Chinese immigrant who cultivated rice at Mana from about 1864 through 1924 and is known as “Kaua‘i’s Rice King.”

By the late 1930s, Pah On Camp was comprised mainly of a central community house, several plantation homes, a few outbuildings, gardens and pens for ducks and chickens, and was home to about 50 elderly Chinese men who had immigrated to Hawai‘i during the 1870s, 80s, and 90s.

All of them had worked for Kekaha Plantation for most of their lives, and 26 of them were still employed there.

Among them was their luna, Ah Lui, age 78, who did not actually supervise, but merely recorded the men’s time after they’d labored freely at cleaning limu from canals, or weeding or hoeing.

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A few had come to Hawai‘i as contract men for Leong Pah On in the 1800s and recalled the bitter feud between Pah On and rival rice grower Ah Hoy, in which each side dynamited the other’s water wells.

Others remembered working with sugar planter H. P. Fayé (1859-1928) when he first came to Mana in the 1880s to clear land and plant sugarcane. One oldtimer proudly said he’d plowed with the very same plow Fayé had used.

And Fayé’s son, Lindsay, Kekaha Plantation’s manager during the late 1930s, was looked upon by the Pah On Camp residents as a caring father concerned for their welfare, pensioning them when they were ill and replacing their tumbledown shacks with brand new houses.

Pah On Camp Resident Ah Ton

Ah Ton had immigrated to Kaua‘i from China in the late 1800s, and by 1937, the 72-year-old yardman of Kekaha Sugar Co. office manager E. F. Shackleton had worked at the Kekaha plantation for most of his life.

For many of those years he’d been a resident of the plantation’s 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.

There, Ah Ton held the unofficial title of chairman of his fifty-odd elderly male residents, practically all of whom were Chinese.

His claim to his chairmanship was derived from his singular ability to request and get $5 advances in pay for himself and others from Mr. Shackleton, which in turn inspired the respect and admiration of his Pah On Camp neighbors, particularly when they had money troubles or needed extra cash for a celebration.

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In Shackleton’s backyard, Ah Ton had also built a large poultry ranch and vegetable garden, from which he supplied the Shackleton household, while selling its surplus to neighbors and local merchants for profit.

He and his dogs, Ah Hop and Ah Pike, were seen in Kekaha at the movie theater on almost any evening. They would arrive early and sit on the theater’s steps before the show.

While Ah Ton waited, he would buy two ice cream cones to feed to his dogs outside and peanuts or dried fish to give the dogs inside during the movie.

Following several disturbances his dogs had made in the theater, the theater’s manager would try to convince Ah Ton that a theater was no place for dogs, only to be stopped short in his arguments by Ah Ton’s offer to buy the dog’s tickets.

Singer Marian Anderson Performs On Kauai

A little more than a year after American singer Marian Anderson (1897-1993) had performed a critically acclaimed open-air concert on Easter Sunday 1939, before a crowd of over 75,000 people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., she gave a stirring Friday evening, June 28, 1940 performance on Kaua‘i before a packed house at the Roxy Theater in Kapa‘a.

An enthusiastic reception greeted Miss Anderson at the Roxy, where the celebrated contralto — one of the most renowned singers of the twentieth century — won over her audience with her presentation of religious and dramatic numbers and light and humorous airs, and with her charming manner and unassuming personality. Tremendous ovations called her back for six encores.

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Featured were songs by classical composers Handel, Scarlatti, Bizert, Schubert and Verdi, while African-Amercian spirituals sung by Miss Anderson included “Deep River,” “Heav’n, Heav’n,” “Crucifixion” and “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord.”

The Steinway grand piano played by Miss Anderson’s accompanist, Verne Waldo Thompson of Honolulu, was loaned through the courtesy of Mrs. Kazuma Matsumura.

Mrs. Matsumura’s piano was, according to the Thayer Piano Co., the first of a new style of Steinways in the modern or classic style, and since it was known that it would be used for the first time by Miss Anderson’s accompanist on Kaua‘i, it had been especially selected at the factory, rushed fast rail across the U.S. Mainland, and shipped by boat directly to Kaua‘i, instead of by the usual, slower route through the Panama Canal.

Miss Anderson’s performance was arranged under the auspices of the Lions Clubs of Lihu‘e and West Kaua‘i. She arrived at Nawiliwili from Honolulu aboard the steamship “Haleakala” on Friday morning and returned to Honolulu on the same ship that evening.

Kauai’s Eva Kam Yee Lum Shak

Eva Kam Yee Lum, born 1922, the third of 15 children of Tai Young Lum and Annie Yim, was born on Kaua‘i and raised in the Lum family home, once located in Wailua Homesteads where now stands the third house northeast of the ‘Opaeka‘a and Kamalu Road intersection.

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Bordering the Lum home and occupying an area situated between ‘Opaeka‘a and Kamalu roads was Eva’s father’s 33-acre homestead, where he raised sugarcane for Makee Sugar Co. of Kealia.

Running through the back of the Lum property was a Makee Sugar Co. train track that originated at the Makee mill in Kealia. Its steam engine, named “Makee,” would often stop by a ditch near their house, where its engineer would take on water.

On the adjoining Ching family property, a number of springs flowed into that ditch, which continued on to the Lum property to serve as washing and irrigation water.

Their drinking water was taken from a well in the now-vanished Korean Camp across Kamalu Road, an area presently within Wailua Homesteads Park. The Lums had no electricity; kerosene lanterns were used for lighting.

Rice and a variety of fruits and vegetables grew in their yard to eat, and they raised chickens, ducks and pigs. “Snowball,” their cow, supplied them with milk. Eva and her father caught mullet in the Wailua River, ulua and ‘o‘io offshore of the Catholic cemetery near Kealia, o’opu and ‘opae in freshwater streams, and frogs at night.

Eva attended Olohena School, a three-room grammar school once located on ‘Opaeka‘a Road across from the present Ching family home, and graduated from Kaua‘i High School.

After WWII, she married Kaua‘i-born war veteran Art Shak and they had four children.

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Kapaa Stable Camp Resident Rita Composo Esquirra Sadang

Rita And Agapito Sadang An old plantation house once stood above the left-hand side of Ka‘apuni Road, heading mauka, about 1/4 mile beyond the fork at Olohena and Ka‘apuni Roads.

For nearly fifty years that house, one of several in the long-since torn down Kapa‘a Stable Camp, was the home of Rita Composo Esquirra Sadang (19021976).

She moved there in the early 1920s when she immigrated to Kaua‘i from Cebu, Philippines with her first husband, Bernadino Esquirra, and it was there that they were parents to eleven children.

After Bernadino’s death in 1947, she married Agapito Sadang, and they resided there until he retired from Lihu‘e Plantation in 1972.

The house had a large parlor, a kitchen, four bedrooms and a lanai with wooden benches facing a backyard, a good place for family and guests to sit quietly and talk.

Beyond the lanai, Rita cultivated about an acre as her farm. Fruit trees such as common mango, sweetsop, soursop, manzanita, avocado, Hayden mango, cigar mango, coconut, starfruit, banana, mountain apple, guava, plum and breadfruit grew there.

In her garden she raised bitter melon, eggplant, sweet potatoes, bamboo, mushrooms, okra, corn and much more. Rita also produced herbs she used to cure sicknesses in her family and in others.

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From her hala trees she would weave living room mats for sale. She also fashioned lauhala baskets, while Agapito made lauhala hats.

On her farm there was a pigpen and wild chickens were for the taking.

Rita never bought fish. She caught them in the ocean and in streams, rivers and reservoirs, and a small nearby plantation reservoir and adjacent irrigation ditches provided her with frogs.

Weekends were festive. On occasional Saturdays, Agapito and his friends would prepare a pig to eat, and Sunday was often cockfighting day at Kapa‘a Stable Camp.

Engineer Tuthill Visits Kekaha Sugar Co.

Kekaha Mill, 1910 In November, 1898, the year H. P. Faye became manager of Kekaha Sugar Co., Honolulu engineer James A. Tuthill visited the plantation to survey the mountainous land behind it.

He arrived at Waimea at about 6:00 a.m. on November 23rd following an overnight voyage from Honolulu aboard the barkentine “Albert,” which anchored some 200 yards from the beach, and he was rowed ashore with a dozen other passengers in a surfboat manned by Hawaiians.

Waimea’s population was then around 300, mainly plantation hands, a portion of the hundreds of mostly Japanese and Chinese men and women then working at Kekaha plantation.

Tuthill soon boarded an open flatcar of the Kekaha plantation train with his luggage and engineering instruments for the 4-mile ride to the Kekaha mill.

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The train, comprised of a small German engine, many flatcars and a few boxcars, also carried passengers from the “Albert,” 100 Japanese plantation laborers and freight and mail.

At the mill, the plantation secretary, Mr. Glade, met Tuthill and the pair rode horses to Glade’s home for breakfast, after which Tuthill saw a train by the mill consisting of 30 to 40 railroad flatcars piled high with sugarcane.

He learned that sugarcane entering the mill would be processed into sugar and dropped into 100-pound sacks to be loaded onto flatcars and drawn to Waimea, where the sacks would be rowed to a steamer for shipment to Honolulu and transshipment to the mainland for refining.

Tuthill also rode a train with 30 empty flatcars to Mana, then the site of a plantation village.

There, temporary tracks were laid in the fields, and 6-mule teams pulled cars over it to be loaded with cane and pulled back to the main track for transport to the mill.

Rice Planter Lum Choy

Chang Shee And Lum Choy In 1875, 17-year-old Chinese immigrant Lum Choy (1858-1930) arrived at Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i, following a three-month voyage from China aboard a sampan, his passage to Kaua‘i having been financed by the selling of his aunt’s cow.

On Kaua‘i he had no connections. Penniless and possessing only a little clothing and some rice, he went to work for a Chinese man in the rice fields and taro patches at Hule‘ia.

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By 1885, he’d saved enough cash to lease an acre or two from Hawaiians at Hanama‘ulu, where he planted rice and vegetables for his own use and sold rice to Lihu‘e Plantation for its Chinese laborers.

While farming at Hanama‘ulu, an elderly man named Chang agreed with Lum Choy to send his daughter, Chang Shee (1870-1923), to Kaua‘i from China for Lum Choy to marry. She arrived on Kaua‘i about 1887, married Lum Choy, and they would eventually become the parents of nine children.

Lum Choy and family moved in 1905 to a larger lease of three acres located about six miles up Hanapepe Valley.

As was the case at Hanama‘ulu, their home was a shack without running water or electricity. While Lum Choy worked the fields, 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.

Around 1910, Lum Choy moved again to an even larger farm lease at Waimea, where he sold his rice to Ako Store, now the site of Wranglers Steakhouse.

In 1918, when cheap California rice caused the price of rice to drop in Hawai‘i, Lum Choy left his farm, moved to Honolulu and worked for three years in a Chinese wholesale house before retiring.

Market Owner Dai Yai Lum

Dai Yai Lum (1900-1989), one of nine children of Kaua‘i rice farmer Lum Choy and his wife, Chang Shee, was born in Hanama‘ulu and was raised on his father’s rice farms first in Hanama‘ulu, then at Hanapepe, and later in Waimea.

Each morning, including school days, it was Dai’s job to cut grass or take cuttings from the tops of sugarcane that the plantation did not want and then feed them to his father’s horses.

Every six months prior to planting, Dai would assist his father’s plowing by

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driving a horse while his father held the plow. Planting was done on hands and knees, each seedling spaced four inches apart. Later, weeding was also carried out on all fours.

While the rice crop matured, it was Dai’s task to chase away rice birds day and night by running around banging a tin can.

Rice was harvested when it turned golden brown. Its stalks were cut, dried in the field and carried to a circular, canvas-covered, earthen threshing platform.

The cut rice was placed on the platform and horses would be driven round and round atop the platform, separating rice grains from stalks in the process.

Threshed rice was dried and taken to a mill in 100-pound cloth bags for processing into white rice.

Dai also caught mullet, shrimp and o‘opu, and he would pick wild guava, oranges and other fruits in season to supplement his family’s mainly rice and vegetable diet.

When he was 15, he left his father’s farm in Waimea to seek his fortune in Honolulu, where for 35 years he owned and operated Mac’s Market on the corner of Fort and School Streets, now a part of the Pali Highway.

He married Alice Lee and they had four sons.

Kauai Folklorist Roland Gay

Kaua‘i folklorist Roland Gay (1895-1980) was a great grandson of Eliza Sinclair, who had purchased Ni‘ihau from Kamehameha V and the Makaweli ahupua‘a from Princess Victoria Kamamalu in the 1860s, properties now owned by her descendants.

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His uncles, Aubrey Robinson and Francis Gay, formed a partnership in 1889 called Gay & Robinson that produced sugarcane on Kaua‘i until 2009.

Gay was born at Waimea, Kaua‘i, educated at Punahou and the University of California agricultural college at Davis, and had resided on Lana‘i, Maui, Moloka‘i and O‘ahu before returning to Kaua‘i in 1931 with his wife, Mary.

Gay’s lifelong interest in the folklore of old Hawai‘i first found expression during the 1960s on KUAI’s Sunday evening radio program “Hawaiian Dinner Hour,” in which Gay entertained listeners with Hawaiian tales and music.

Gay, who spoke fluent Hawaiian, also translated Hawaiian songs and stories into English and uncovered little-known facts about old Hawai‘i.

He knew, for instance, of two series of hollow stones called bell stones, each stone located atop successive Kaua‘i ridges, which when struck with a harder stone produced a deep sound heard at a distance and were used long ago for communications between Kaua‘i ali‘i.

One series of 24 stones stretches eastward from Waimea to Wailua and another series of 12 stones extends northward from Waimea into Waimea Valley.

The first bell stone of both series is located on the plateau above the Menehune Ditch. The second bell stone on the way to Wailua is on Nonopahu Ridge and the second stone heading up Waimea Valley is on top of Mokihana Ridge.

Roland Gay also wrote “Hawai‘i — Tales of Yesteryear,” a collection of Hawaiian legends and stories.

His house, built in 1895 by his father Charles Gay, on Gay Rd. in Waimea, is on the National Register of Historic Places.

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First Furlough Home

The 100th Battalion’s Charlie Diamond Of Nawiliwili On Friday morning, August 4, 1944, the first five soldiers of the Army’s 100th Infantry Battalion returned home to Kaua‘i on furlough from combat on the Italian front.

Enjoying their 21-day furloughs on the Garden Island before being reassigned to limited service posts somewhere in Hawai‘i were: Sgt. Charlie Diamond of Nawiliwili, Sgt. Benjamin Hiroshi Tamashiro of Ele‘ele, Pfc. Toshio Kabutan of Makaweli, Pvt. Masatoshi Morita of Hanama‘ulu and Pvt. Tamotsu Nishio of Anahola.

Sgt. Diamond, one of a handful of soldiers of Hawaiian ancestry in the almost entirely Nisei 100th Bn., was a transportation sergeant in charge of getting heavy weapons to the front lines. Diamond said he was very happy to be home, yet sad to have left so many of his fellow 100th Bn. soldiers back in Italy.

Pfc. Kabutan and Pvt. Morita were hit by the same enemy artillery shell during the 100th’s third crossing of the Volturno River. Kabutan said he’d counted five shells explode nearby, when suddenly a big shell struck only three feet away from Morita.

Both he and Morita were knocked unconscious, recalled Kabutan. He’d been hit by shrapnel in the left arm and back, and Morita was wounded by shrapnel in his right leg, left arm and back. They lay where they’d been hit until they were taken first to an aid station and then to a base hospital.

Sgt. Tamashiro said he was first wounded on the same day Maj. Jack Johnson was wounded. Both soldiers had hobbled back to the first aid station and had entered the hospital together. Nearly a month later, they were both discharged and had gone back to the front at the same time. Tamashiro said he was wounded a second time the morning that Maj. Johnson was killed.

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Jailor Kalei Montgomery

Kaua‘i Jailer Kalei Montgomery, Left, Along With Three Prisoners, Center, And Assistant Jailer George Kaiawe, Right.

Kalei Montgomery (1872-1953) was for many years Kaua‘i’s jail keeper, first at the old Nawiliwili jail, once located atop the bluff overlooking Nawiliwili Bay, where the bulk sugar storage warehouse presently stands, and later, at the jail that replaced it in 1936, nicknamed the “Montgomery Hotel,” which was situated on the site of the present Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center and was demolished in 1978.

Prior to his taking on the job of Kaua‘i’s jailer, Montgomery -— who with his cordial smile and sparkling eyes was a most unlikely looking jail keeper — had played clarinet with the Royal Hawaiian Band that had toured the U. S. Mainland during 1895-1896.

Founded in 1836 by Kamehameha III, the Royal Hawaiian Band was led at that time by Prussian-born Henri Berger, a naturalized Hawaiian subject and close friend of Lydia Dominis, even before she became Queen Liliuokalani.

Berger and his 38 musicians sailed from Honolulu to San Francisco on June 15, 1895. Upon their arrival, they marched to the office of California business magnate John D. Spreckels, who’d paid their passage, and began playing in the street, which caused traffic to stop for blocks around, and office workers, charmed by hearing the music, to cease their work in nearby buildings.

In Dallas, Texas, the band alternated playing at a fair with the band of American composer and conductor, John Philip Sousa. Sousa, renowned for his American military and patriotic marches, was impressed by the Hawaiian band’s ability to break off from playing their instruments, sing a chorus or two, and then continue playing.

While in Dallas, the band also played at a rally for politician William Jennings Bryan.

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After touring several cities, the band worked their way back to San Francisco with Ringling Brothers Circus and returned to Honolulu on Dec. 22, 1896.

Pele In Hanamaulu

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, March 30, 1948, William Farias, a troubleshooter in the automotive department of Lihu‘e Plantation, heard the phone ring in his Lihu‘e home, then got out of bed and received what he thought would be a routine trouble call.

He then dressed and drove his car to the plantation’s Hanama‘ulu shop to pick up some needed parts, and as he was completing a right turn off the plantation road at Hanama‘ulu onto the deserted main road to Lihu‘e, he noticed in his headlights a shaggy white dog crossing the road in the distance.

The dog soon walked out of sight, and when Farias reached the spot where he’d observed the dog pass from view, he was startled to see a strange, tall, gray-haired woman, wearing a nightgown and a short black coat, walking alone with her back turned towards him alongside the road to Lihu‘e, near the top of Kapaia hill.

Farias knew the volcano goddess Pele sometimes took the form of a white dog or an old woman. He was also aware of her apparent visit a few weeks earlier at Kapa‘a Bakery in the form of a mysterious caller who’d disappeared without leaving a trace.

If the woman — even if she might have been Madam Pele herself — had signaled him, he would’ve felt obligated to stop and give her a lift, but she gave no sign. Immensely relieved, Farias then sped off to Lihu‘e, his heart thumping in his chest.

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There were doubters who suggested that Farias’ vision might have come out of a bottle, which he denied. To others he replied that he may not have been fully awake when he left Hanama‘ulu shop, but he most certainly was by the time he reached the top of Kapaia hill.

WWII Veteran Henry Norman Watkins

In Europe During World War Two Henry Norman Watkins was born in Koloa, Kaua‘i in 1926 and was raised in Kalaheo where his father, John G. Watkins, managed Kaua‘i Pineapple Co. He attended Lihu‘e Grammar School and Kaua‘i High School before transferring to Punahou for his final three years of high school.

While at Punahou on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, Watkins stood on the hill behind the school and from that vantage point witnessed a sky full of bursting anti-aircraft shells, sheets of flame at Hickam Field and black clouds of smoke rising from bombed warships at Pearl Harbor during Japan’s infamous attack.

Upon graduation from Punahou in June, 1944, Watkins volunteered for induction into the Army, rather than attending Harvard, where he’d been accepted.

The Army enlisted him in September, and following infantry training he was assigned to the 104th “Timberwolves” Infantry Division in Germany as a rifleman.

After several weeks of fighting the Germans, he found himself with his infantry 261

company on the banks of the Elbe River near Dessau, shaking hands with allied Russian soldiers — rugged-looking individuals with shaved heads, carrying submachine guns.

“We had orders to allow no one to cross the river. But as respects women coming from the Soviet side, we ignored the order. Soviet soldiers were raping every woman they could get their hands on,” Watkins recently recalled.

He also remembered “an elderly woman thought she was going to be killed, so in order to stop her crying and shaking, I told her American soldiers don’t shoot civilians like that.”

Watkins finally graduated from Harvard, Class of 1950, and served in the Army during the Korean War as a 2nd Lieutenant platoon leader.

He entered the insurance business in Los Angeles, married, raised three children, retired, and resided in La Jolla, Calif.

Kauai’s First Police Chief

Chief Edwin Crowell Edwin K. Crowell (1901-1978), Kaua‘i’s first Chief of Police and the eldest son of William O. Crowell, the Deputy Sheriff of Waimea from 1900 until his death in 1935, entered the Kaua‘i Police Department as Captain of the Waimea District in 1933 and had held the positions of Deputy Sheriff and Sheriff of the County of Kaua‘i before his appointment to Chief of Police by the Kaua‘i Police Commission, effective July 1, 1943.

Sheriff — the position he’d most recently held, an elected position and long the top law enforcement post on Kaua‘i — was replaced by the position of Chief of

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Police with his appointment.

As Chief of Police, Crowell would therefore not stand for election, but would serve as head of the Kaua‘i Police Department at the will of the Police Commission.

All four members of the Police Commission voted in favor of Crowell’s appointment: Commission Chairman Charles A. Rice; Caleb Burns, Assistant Manager at McBryde Sugar Co.; John F. Ramsay, Manager of Kilauea Sugar Plantation, and Sinclair Robinson, Manager of Gay & Robinson Sugar Plantation.

When Crowell was appointed, Territorial Governor Ingram Macklin Stainback had not yet appointed a fifth member of the commission, but since the commission was required by law to begin functioning by July 1, Stainback had asked the four members to appoint a police chief, regardless.

The commission adopted rules and regulations for the Kaua‘i Police Department pertaining to appointments of deputies and officers selected by Chief Crowell, the setting of salaries of police officers, the establishment of a working budget, the proper training of police officers and the creation of a merit system for their promotions.

Chief Edwin K. Crowell retired in 1968.

He was survived by his wife, Keikilani, and his children William, Oliver and Alethea.

Olohena School

Olohena School, which no longer exists, was established on Opaekaa Road in Wailua, Kaua‘i not long after the first homesteaders — the Ozakis, Gomeses, Lums, Chings, Palmeiras, Santoses, Castillos and others — settled Wailua

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Homesteads, beginning about 1918.

As Mr. Benjamin Lum, age 82, and born and raised nearby, recently recalled, “The school was situated across the road from the Ching family home. In front of the school was a large lawn and row of Norfolk Pines. To start the day, we would gather at the flagpole there, pledge our allegiance and sing the national anthem and ‘Hawai‘i Pono‘i.’

“Olohena School was a three-room schoolhouse in the shape of a T. The longer dimension was divided into three classrooms and in the perpendicular section was the principal’s office, the library and a bathroom for teachers.

“Its first principal was Ada Ching. When she moved to Honolulu she was replaced by Mrs. Elizabeth Pii Sheldon, who was of ali‘i blood, and it was mandatory that when she passed by in her car we were to face the car and bow. She was an excellent music teacher and taught us a lot of Hawaiian songs and poems by Longfellow and Poe. “Each classroom was assigned two grades — grades one and two were taught by Mrs. Aki and three and four by Mrs. Sheldon. Other teachers included Mr. and Mrs. Morishige, Mrs. Nagai and Mr. Yamaura.

“In the rear of Olohena School was a garage and a one-room building that was used for crafts. Further back were outhouses, one for girls and the other for boys.

“Also in the rear there was a ball field, one basketball hoop, a vegetable garden, a big sweet potato plot, avocado trees, a banana patch, coconut trees and a grove of guava.”

Olohena School closed in the mid-1930s.

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Knudsen’s Wild Cattle

In 1885, Standing Are Ida, Maud And Augustus Knudsen. Seated Are Eric, Arthur And Valdemar Knudsen. It Was Valdemar’s Cattle That Headed To The Mountains And Became Wild. Eric Would Become A Great Hunter Of Those Cattle.

A few months before Princeville Plantation owner Robert Crichton Wyllie died in 1865, he left his Kaua‘i estate to his nephew, Robert Crichton Cockrane of Illinois, provided that Cockrane change his last name to Wyllie, which he did.

When Robert Wyllie arrived on Kaua‘i some months later to take over his uncle’s properties, he learned that the plantation’s 100 head of longhorn cattle had hightailed it to the mountains.

After his paniolos had rounded them up and put them in a well-fenced pasture, Wyllie then made an offer to rancher Valdemar Knudsen of Wa‘iawa, near Kekaha, to purchase the herd and drive it to the Westside.

Knudsen agreed and sent paniolos to Wailua to rendezvous with Robert Wyllie’s paniolos, who would drive the herd down from Hanalei.

The cattle were about 60 or 70 of the weakest and thinnest cattle Knudsen’s paniolos had ever seen and only 25 survived the 10-day drive to Wa‘iawa, where they were turned loose in a pasture and forgotten. Within six months, they’d all headed for the mountains and gone wild.

These cattle, never numbering more than a few hundred head, eventually became known as the wild cattle of the Alakai Swamp and acquired a fearsome reputation among hunters.

Marksmen needed to shoot to kill, for a wounded bull was a dangerous animal.

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One hunter was pinned against a tree for the better part of a day after being chased by a wounded bull he’d shot. What saved him from being crushed by the bull’s weight were the bull’s horns, which touched the tree at both ends, leaving space in between for himself.

The famous wild cattle of the Alakai Swamp provided hunters with great sport until 1918, when the U. S. Government killed them all.

WWII Bomb Disposal

During WWII, more than 40,000 American soldiers were stationed on Kaua‘i.

Early on, they were deployed to defend the island against Japanese attack.

Later, the Army established training camps, training areas, firing ranges and artillery impact areas for the purpose of training soldiers for combat in the Pacific.

The Marine Corps also constructed a base and firing range at Marine Camp in Wailua.

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Among the Army units stationed on Kaua‘i during the war were the 298th and 299th Infantry Regiments, elements of the 27th Division, the 40th Division, elements of the 33rd Division and two regiments of the 98th Division.

After the war, beginning in January, 1947, O‘ahu-based Army engineers began clearing dead and live shells from areas the Army had used for target practice during the war.

These areas were located on Gay & Robinson land on the Waimea plateau, at Pu‘u Opae on property leased by Kekaha Sugar Plantation, on Grove Farm lands north of Knudsen’s Gap, and in the mauka areas of Wailua, Anahola and Moloa‘a.

At the 1,300-acre Waimea Impact Area, the first area the engineers tackled, more than 400 shell casings were found lying on the ground. Most of these were 105, 155, and 75 mm, with a few being 90-mm shell casings, which were buried or dumped into the ocean.

More than 115 live artillery shells and nose fuses were also located. These were blown up where they lay by attaching C-2 plastic explosive, setting off a blasting cap and retiring to a safe distance.

Mine detectors were used to recover 37-mm antitank shells and 60- and 80mm mortar shells buried in the ground, which were detonated.

It was also necessary for engineers to construct roads with bulldozers and other equipment to access the Waimea range.

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WWII Veteran Harriett Lum Meid

Harriet Lum Meid (1924-1992), one of 15 children of Tai Young Lum and Annie Yim, was born and raised on Kaua‘i and was educated at Olohena Grammar School in Wailua Homesteads and at Kaua‘i High School, Class of 1942.

In July of 1942, during WWII, Harriet joined the Women’s Air Raid Defense, which had been founded in Hawai‘i on Christmas Day, 1941 as part of the 7th Fighter Command.

WARD personnel were appointed to the civil service with nine pay grades ranging from Plotter to Chief Supervisor, were furnished uniforms with unique insignia and were considered to be officers.

Harriet’s duty in WARD was to plot the movement of aircraft detected by radar in the Hawaiian Islands in the WARD operations center at Hale Nani, then located about the center of today’s Ewalu Street, Lihu‘e, Kauai.

Judge and Mrs. Philip Rice had donated Hale Nani, which had been their home, for the operations center and WARD quarters.

Following her discharge from WARD in January, 1944, she joined the WAC, the Women’s Army Corps, at ‘Iolani Palace on Oct. 3, 1944 with more than 50 other women — the first women to be inducted into the WAC in Hawai‘i.

At Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, she was trained to be a phone operator, was later

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stationed at Frankfurt and Stuttgart, Germany with Company A, 3341st Signal Service Battalion and was discharged in 1946 from the WAC as a Technical Sergeant.

Harriet and fellow veteran Frank Meid were married in Indiana in 1950 and had three sons: Steve, Jeff and Frank Jr. In Indiana, she helped organize the Indianapolis Chapter of the Women’s Overseas League, a national organization of women who have served overseas in or with the Armed Forces, and held several offices during more than 30 years’ service with WOSL. Pvt. Richard Boyden Killed In Action During WWII

The son of Koloa, Kaua‘i physician Dr. and Mrs. A. W. Boyden, Richard Boyden (1926-1944) was born in Kealia, Kaua‘i, and was raised surfing Brenneke’s Beach in Po‘ipu.

During WWII and following his graduation from Punahou in June, 1944 as Class President, he was inducted into the Army, and after combat training was sent to Europe, where he joined General Patton’s 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 3rd Armored Division fighting the Germans.

On April 17, 1944, 18-year-old Pvt. Boyden was killed in action in Germany.

The 3rd Armored Division’s unit history briefly describes the action of Boyden’s 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion on that day.

“At about 1030 on 17 April, a group of about one hundred and fifty enemy troops using commando tactics attacked and captured the Command Post of Task Force ‘Lovelady’, which was in THURLAND, and another day of thrusts and parries was started. Company ‘D’ of the 83rd Reconnaissance Battalion attacked from ZORBIG to retake the town. Late in the afternoon after battling all day against heavy artillery, mortar and small-arms fire, the Reconnaissance Company retook the town. Most of the Task Force Headquarters personnel 269

were recovered.”

Richard Boyden’s good friend, Norman Watkins, who was also born and raised on Kaua‘i and had served as a infantryman in Germany, recently recalled, “I was elated with the end of the war in Europe, but greatly saddened to learn that my former classmate and roommate at Punahou, Richard Boyden, who had been on the same troop ship to Europe as myself, had been killed. Richard had also been admitted to Harvard. His name is now inscribed in Harvard Church on the Memorial Wall in the space for the Class of 1948,” and at Punahou, the Richard Webster Boyden Scholarship has been established in his honor.

Charles Rice Outwits The Bankers

In 1929, the Territory of Hawai‘i was short of cash, so, in keeping with past practice, it wrote warrants on Hawai‘i’s two major banks, anticipating the banks would then cash them as usual to allow the Territory to remain solvent.

However, the banks’ vice presidents informed Governor Judd that their banks would not accept the warrants unless he took action to lower real property taxes.

Their demand was unacceptable to Judd, but without their funding, the Territory risked insolvency.

Judd sought the advice of his attorney general, who informed him that Kaua‘i’s Charles Rice (1876-1964), then chairman of the territorial Senate Ways and Means Committee, was in Honolulu and his advice should be sought.

At that time, Rice dominated territorial politics with his good judgment, quickwittedness and influence.

Charlie Fern (1892-1995), The Garden Island newspaper’s longtime editor, once remarked, “If you had Charlie Rice behind you, you were elected. That was it.”

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Rice came in, listened to Judd and laid out his plan.

The following day, the governor, the attorney general and the territorial treasurer went to the banks with a detail of national guardsmen and withdrew all of the Territory’s cash, which included bond money, current funds, and nonoperational funds.

They then loaded it onto a truck, drove to the treasurer’s office, locked it in a vault and posted an armed guard.

The bankers soon learned they were low on cash, with no chance of quickly replacing it locally, or from the Mainland.

What’s more, these bankers realized that if their customers were to discover that the territorial government had withdrawn its cash, panic could ensue, causing a rush for their banks’ funds and financial disaster.

Thanks to Charles Rice’s counsel, the warrants were finally accepted, thus ending the Territory’s financial crisis.

Pvt. Edwin P. Medeiros Killed In Action During WWII

Pvt. Edwin P. Medeiros (1921-1944) of Port Allen, Kaua‘i became the first Kaua‘i death in the Pacific area during WWII, when he was killed in action on June 30, 1944, while serving with the Army’s Co. G, 105th Infantry, 27th Division during the battle of Saipan, an island 12 miles long and 5.6 miles wide situated in the Mariana Islands.

The battle of Saipan, which took place between June 15 and July 9, 1944, was the bloodiest in the Pacific up to that time for the United States — 2,949 Americans were killed and 10,364 were wounded, nearly 19 percent of the 71,000 who landed.

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Practically all the Japanese troops defending Saipan — at least 30,000 — died.

About 22,000 Japanese civilians died as well, 20,000 by suicide.

Medeiros’ 105th Inf. Regiment landed on Saipan on June 17, 1944 and was responsible for clearing the hilly and well-fortified southern point of Saipan.

The regiment then joined the rest of the 27th Division and the 2nd and 4th Marine Divisions on the bloody assault of 1,554-foot-high Mount Tapotchau.

Near the end of the battle, the 105th suffered the brunt of the largest banzai charge of the entire war, in which it killed 2,295 Japanese.

Edwin Medeiros, who’d volunteered for duty in the Army in 1943, was one of five brothers serving in the armed forces: Joseph Jr., Manuel and Clarence Medeiros in the Navy, and a stepbrother, John Levinthol, in the Army.

The son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph P. Medeiros Sr. of Port Allen, he was born at Port Allen and was educated at Ele‘ele School.

He also left behind his wife, Dorothy Medeiros, and a 16-month-old daughter, Eileen.

Pvt. Edwin P. Medeiros is buried in the American Memorial Park in Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands.

Nawiliwili Harbor Opens

When the inter-island steamship “Hualalai” steamed past the Nawiliwili breakwater shortly after 6 a.m. on July 22, 1930, Nawiliwili Harbor was officially opened to seagoing traffic.

“Hualalai” was escorted by a score of sampans and welcomed by sirens from

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two Navy tenders and a submarine in the harbor, and as she rounded the seawall, fireworks were shot aloft.

About 4,000 people watched while “Hualalai” tied up alongside Pier 1 near the port’s terminal, and it was estimated that 1,300 cars were parked beside the pier.

First off the gangway was Grove Farm founder George Norton Wilcox (18391933), who was practically covered with lei while he walked to his car.

Thereafter, every passenger was presented with a lei by flower girls standing at the foot of the gangway.

Although the first plans for a harbor at Nawiliwili were made by the Hawaiian government in 1881, it was Wilcox who was primarily responsible for establishing a well-protected, deep water port at Nawiliwili.

The breakwater, which was largely financed by Wilcox, was finished in 1921, and in 1927, when he was 88, Wilcox directed building of the seawall that was completed in 1928. Dredging of the harbor and construction of the pier and port terminal followed.

At 8:40 a.m., a flight of eleven Navy seaplanes flying out of Pearl Harbor began landing in Nawiliwili Harbor. Aboard were Territorial Gov. Lawrence M. Judd and 75 other persons arriving for the harbor’s opening. Soon after 10:00 a.m. all the planes had landed and their pilots, crews and passengers had been taken ashore in small boats.

Featured on the pier that morning was a concert presented by the Salvation Army Band and a specially composed song sung by a group of Hawaiian girls directed by Henry Waiau.

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