ISLAND HISTORY: Author, newspaperman Charles Nordhoff visited Kaua‘i in 1873
In 1873, American newspaperman and author Charles Nordhoff (1830-1901) booked passage on the 75-ton sugar schooner, “Fairy Queen,” which sailed one afternoon from Honolulu, bound for Waimea, Kauai.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Hawaiian sugar plantation newspaper era – 1919-83
From 1919, when Kaua‘i’s Hawaiian Sugar Co., aka Makaweli Plantation, first published the “Makaweli Plantation News,” Hawai‘i’s original sugar plantation newspaper, until 1983, when the Waialua Sugar Mill plantation published its final edition of the “Waialua Sugar Scoop,” a total of 55 Hawaiian sugar plantations published their own in-house newspapers.
ISLAND HISTORY: Mabel Wilcox, health care pioneer and philanthropist
The granddaughter of American Protestant missionaries, Abner & Lucy Wilcox, who settled on Kaua‘i, and the youngest of Samuel and Emma Wilcox’s six children, Mabel Wilcox was born in 1882 at Grove Farm, Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: A look at the life of a Kaua‘i-born suffragist
Hawaiian suffragist Wilhelmina Kekelaokalaninui Widemann Dowsett (1861-1929) was born in Lihue, Kauai to parents Hermann A. Widemann (1822-1899) and Mary Kaumana Pilahiulani (1833-1899).
ISLAND HISTORY: Radio announcer Mike Ashman authored ‘Kauai: As It Was In The 1940s and ’50s’
In 1940, with a couple of years experience as a radio announcer at KSAN in San Francisco under his belt, California-born Mike Ashman (1921-2018) joined Kauai’s first radio station – KTOH (Kauai Territory of Hawaii) – which began broadcasting on May 8, 1940 on Ahukini Road.
ISLAND HISTORY: A history of the famous Hamura Saimin restaurant
Kaua‘i’s Hamura Saimin restaurant was opened for business by Mr. & Mrs. Charles Susumu Hamura (1906-1980) and Aiko Hamura (1910-2002) in a converted Army barracks on Kress Street, Lihu‘e in 1952.
ISLAND HISTORY: The famous Club Jetty restaurant and nightclub in Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i
Years ago, when patrons arrived at the Club Jetty restaurant and nightclub in Nawiliwili, Kaua‘i, they were welcomed by a hand-written sign at the door that read, “No Tank Tops, No Shorts, No Bare Feet, And No Bare Feet Dancing!”
ISLAND HISTORY: English shipwreck survivor and Honolulu shipyard owner James Robinson
I first learned of English shipwreck survivor and Honolulu shipyard owner James Robinson (1799-1876) from Kapahi, Kauai resident Beatrice Kauilani Lemke-Newman, who informed me that Mr. Robinson was her great uncle, several generations removed.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Kapa‘a First Hawaiian Church was founded by Queen Deborah Kapule
An ali‘i, Deborah Kapule (1798?-1853), known also as Kekaihaakulou, was born on Kaua‘i, likely at Waimea, her parents being the high chief, Haupu, and the chiefess, Haea.
ISLAND HISTORY: 19th century Kaua‘i medical doctor James W. Smith
Dr. James W. Smith, Kaua‘i’s only medical doctor for much of the 19th century, was born in Connecticut in 1810, educated at the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, and sailed to Hawai‘i from Boston, Massachusetts with the “Tenth Company” of American missionaries, arriving on Kaua‘i with his wife, Melicent, in 1842.
ISLAND HISTORY: Family man and Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors Chairman Raymond X. Aki
Kaua‘i Board of Supervisors (now County Council) Chairman (now Mayor) Raymond X. Aki (1919-2006) was born in Wailua, the son of Henry K. Aki (1891-1967) and Lucy Kupihea Aki (1893-1984).
ISLAND HISTORY: Humehume – prince, world traveler, military veteran, and rebel leader
Humehume, known also as Prince George Kaumualii, was born on Kauai circa 1797, the son of a commoner mother and King Kaumualii, Kauai’s last king.
ISLAND HISTORY: Charles W. Spitz opened Kaua‘i’s first hotel in 1890
A native of Hungary, Charles W. Spitz (1854-1942) immigrated to Hawai‘i in 1880, following a long voyage around Cape Horn, and soon found employment at Kilauea Sugar Plantation on Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: Wailua – one of the most sacred places in Hawai‘i
One of the oldest inhabited and most sacred places in all Hawaii is an area that begins where the Wailua River empties into Wailua Bay, and extends inland up the Wailua River Valley for about 2 miles on the southern and 3 miles on the northern side of the river.
ISLAND HISTORY: Robert Allerton, founder of National Tropical Botanical Garden
In 1937, wealthy sixty-four-year-old patron of the arts and philanthropist Robert Allerton (1873-1964) bought the 125-acre McBryde Estate located on Lawai Bay, Kauai, paying $50,000 for the property that had once belonged to Queen Emma.
ISLAND HISTORY: Eliza Sinclair purchased Ni‘ihau from Kamehameha V in 1864
Eliza Sinclair (1800-1892) had prospered as a rancher in New Zealand after arriving there from Scotland in 1841, but she’d not been content there since the deaths at sea in 1846 of her husband and her eldest son.
ISLAND HISTORY: ‘Akamai’ crewman William Brash’s recollections of 19th century Kaua‘i
Born in New Zealand, the son of William and Mary Brash, William Brash (1842-1929) arrived in Honolulu with his parents on the American whaler “Fame of New London” in 1844.
ISLAND HISTORY: Francis Gay, co-founder of Gay & Robinson, Inc.
Francis Gay (1852-1928), Kauai sugar planter, stock raiser, and co-founder of Gay & Robinson, was born in New Zealand, the son of Thomas Gay and Jane Sinclair Gay.
ISLAND HISTORY: Gov. Paul Kanoa’s famous voyage aboard the schooner ‘Excel’
Gov. Paul Kanoa (1802-1885) was born in 1802 in South Kona, Hawaii and served as clerk to the governor of Oahu, Mataio Kekuanaoa, prior to being appointed governor of Kauai in 1846 by Kamehameha III.
ISLAND HISTORY: Grace Buscher Guslander, renowned manager of Kaua‘i’s Coco Palms Hotel
When Lyle Guslander bought the Coco Palms Hotel and hired Grace Buscher as manager in 1953, the hotel contained only 24 rooms and employed a staff of four.