ISLAND HISTORY: A brief history of coffee in Hawaii
Coffee is produced in only one state, Hawaii, where it is cultivated on the Big Island, Maui, Molokai, Oahu and Kauai.
ISLAND HISTORY: A visit to Hauola heiau in Hoea Valley, Kauai
I once hiked to Hauola heiau in Hoea Valley, Kauai during the 1980s while I was residing in Kekaha.
ISLAND HISTORY: Kauai-born publisher and postmaster Henry Martyn Whitney
Born at Waimea, Kauai, the son of American Protestant missionaries Samuel and Mercy Partridge Whitney, Henry Martyn Whitney (1824-1904) graduated from Rochester Collegiate Institute in 1841 and learned the printing trade with Harper & Brothers of New York before returning home to Hawaii.
ISLAND HISTORY: Historic Kaua‘i paintings by James Hoyle
Painter James Hoyle knew he wanted to be an artist at the age of six.
ISLAND HISTORY: Pioneer Kaua‘i rice farmer Kin Moi Ching
Chinese immigrant Kin Moi Ching (1860-1955) arrived in Honolulu aboard the Chinese steamer “Wo Chung” out of Canton, China in 1879, during the reign of King David Kalakaua, and stayed there less than two weeks before continuing on to Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: Ed Sheehan, the author of “Days of ‘41”
Perhaps, my father, Henry Soboleski, and Honolulu radio personality, author and actor Ed Sheehan (1918-1992) knew each other, since they both worked at the Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard during World War II, Henry as a warehouseman and Ed as a shipfitter.
ISLAND HISTORY: Papu’s ghost waits at Puukapele, Kaua‘i
During World War II, teller of Hawaiian tales Eric Knudsen (1872-1957) recalled that long ago a friend had told him that Puukapele, a rock formation overlooking Waimea Canyon beside the Koke‘e Road, was haunted.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Rices entertained Queen Liliuokalani at Hale Nani
On January, 8, 1891, William Hyde Rice and his wife, Mary, entertained Queen Liliuokalani at Hale Nani, their Lihue home once located not far beyond what is today the west entrance into Ewalu Street.
ISLAND HISTORY: McBryde Sugar Co. engineer and yachtsman Joel Cox
“Helen,” the first yacht built entirely on Kaua‘i, was christened and launched by its owner, McBryde Sugar Co. civil engineer and yachtsman Joel Cox, at Wahiawa Beach on February 7, 1927.
ISLAND HISTORY: Kaua‘i teachers braved the stormy Kaieiewaho Channel in 1919
After spending their vacation in Honolulu, Kauai school teachers Miss Jasmine Sidlowski, Miss Thelma Gillen, and Miss Dorothy Ashe of Lihue School, and Miss Kathryn Darcey and Miss Helen Johnston of Koloa School, had planned to return to Kauai aboard the Inter-Island steamer “Mikahala” on Friday, Jan. 3rd or Saturday, Jan. 4th, 1919.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Singing People of Lima Loa and Koke‘e, Kaua‘i
Kama‘aina rancher and legislator Valdemar Knudsen (1819-1898) would often listen to Hawaiians tell him stories of their encounters with the supernatural on Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: The beautiful girl of Pokii, Kaua‘i
Pioneer Kauai rancher Valdemar Knudsen (1819-1898) was konohiki (headman) of over 100,000 acres of western Kauai he leased from the Hawaiian government.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Valley House Hotel, Kealia, Kaua‘i, 1946-1950
Valley House Hotel, once located off Hau‘a‘ala Road in Keapana Valley, Kealia, Kaua‘i, was in operation from its opening day on Dec. 1, 1946, until Oct. 1, 1950, when it was destroyed by fire.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Waipahee Slide at Kealia, Kauai
Waipahee Slide is a naturally created, rock water chute, about thirty feet in length, with a downward angle of some forty-five degrees, located on Kealia Stream within Kauai’s 6,500-acre Kealia Ahupuaa, roughly three miles west of the Spalding Monument.
ISLAND HISTORY: Historic vignettes of good food and good times on Kauai
Mercy Whitney, the wife of Kaua‘i missionary Samuel Whitney, wrote the oldest record of a formal dinner on Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: The ancient rules of hukilau observed on Kaua‘i
In 1882, James H. Hakuole (1872-1937) was sent to Japan by King David Kalakaua to learn the Japanese language, and remained in Japan until he returned to Hawai‘i in 1888.
ISLAND HISTORY: Englishwoman Isabella Bird’s tour of Kaua‘i in 1873
English explorer Isabella Bird (1831-1904) spent nearly seven months of 1873 touring the Hawaiian Islands and published her experiences there two years later in her book “Six Months in the Sandwich Islands.”
ISLAND HISTORY: John Cook’s resurrection plus two more early Kauai medical histories
Firstly, sometime between 1849 and 1854, when James F. B. Marshall was manager of Lihu‘e Plantation, John Cook, an English carpenter who’d built some of Lihu‘e’s earliest buildings, suffered a stroke that rendered him paralyzed and unconscious.
ISLAND HISTORY: Kaua‘i legislator, McBryde Sugar Co. and Kaua‘i Pine administrator Abel Medeiros
Abel Medeiros (1920-2005) was born at ‘Oma‘o Homesteads, the son of John Medeiros, Jr. and Mary Medeiros, and was a great-grandson of Louis Medeiros, who’d immigrated to Hawai‘i from the Azores in 1878.
ISLAND HISTORY: Sgt. “Bowdy” Bowden served on Kaua‘i during World War II
Over 40,000 American soldiers and Marines were stationed on Kaua‘i during World War II, where the Army set up camps, training areas and firing ranges to prepare troops for combat in the Pacific, while the Marine Corps. constructed a camp at Wailua.