Stories by Hank Soboleski

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: 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: 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 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.