ISLAND HISTORY: The sacred burials of Koaia Gulch, Kauai
In early 1939, Honolulu police officer Harry Shupak informed treasure hunter Julius Scammon Rodman (1912-2001) that in 1934, while pig hunting in Waimea Valley, Kauai, he’d discovered a thatched grass house perched high upon a cliff in Koaia Gulch that contained a mummified corpse.
ISLAND HISTORY: William Somerset Maugham’s Hawaiian sorcery tale
“Honolulu,” British author William Somerset Maugham’s (1874-1965) tale of sorcery, is written with such authenticity that one has the impression that Maugham based it on a firsthand account he’d heard while visiting Honolulu in 1916.
ISLAND HISTORY: Herb Kawainui Kane’s 1st contact with Hawaiians painting
In the artwork that accompanies this story, there’s a reproduction of artist Herb Kawainui Kane’s (1928-2011) painting, “Moment of Contact,” his artistic interpretation of the first contact between Hawaiians and English Captain James Cook and his men off Kipu Kai, Kauai on January 19, 1778.
ISLAND HISTORY: Old Hawaiian trail once connected Kokee with Wainiha Valley
For the longest time, and well into the 20th century, there existed a steep, ancient Hawaiian trail that connected Wainiha Valley, at the base of Maunahina Ridge, with the Alakai Swamp at the Kilohana Lookout in Kokee.
ISLAND HISTORY: Nanaulu, the original discoverer of the Hawaiian Islands
According to interpretations of Hawaiian legends and radiocarbon dating estimations, it is speculated that sometime during 300-600 A.D. a Polynesian chief named Nanaulu became the first person to discover the uninhabited Hawaiian Islands.
ISLAND HISTORY: The World War II courtship letters of Yoshiharu and Naoko Ogata
In her book, “In Love and War: The World War II Courtship Letters of a Nisei Couple,” pub. 2015, author Melody M. Miyamoto Walters published the courtship letters of her grandparents Yoshiharu Ogata (1919-2007) of Kauai, and Naoko Tsukiyama Ogata (1917-2022) of Honolulu, which they exchanged during 1941-1943.
ISLAND HISTORY: A sampling of prices on Kauai in the good old days
In his book, “Kauai: As It Was in the 1940s and ’50s,” Mike Ashman (1921-2018) wrote nostalgically about prices on Kauai in 1940, the year he first arrived on the Garden Island to become an announcer at KTOH radio.
ISLAND HISTORY: Hawaiian sugar was refined in California and on Oahu
The California and Hawaiian Sugar Company (C & H) refinery, founded in 1906 at Crockett, CA, refined Hawaii-grown sugar until 2017, the year it refined Maui’s Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.’s final shipment of raw sugar.
ISLAND HISTORY: Hawaii’s independent sugar growers and Manuel Aguiar Jr.
Independent sugar growers in Hawaii worked their land as a joint effort with the sugar plantation in their vicinity.
ISLAND HISTORY: Queen Emma’s sojourn on Kauai during 1870 and 1871
Queen Emma (1836-1885), the wife of King Kamehameha IV, made three visits to Kauai.
ISLAND HISTORY: Queen Liliuokalani’s three hanai children
Queen Liliuokalani (1838-1917) and her husband, John Owen Dominis (1832-1891), had no biological children.
ISLAND HISTORY: The mysterious Malae Heiau at Wailua, Kauai
In 1824, Kaahumanu (1768-1832) ordered the destruction of all vestiges of the old Hawaiian religion on Kauai by burning wooden idols and tearing down heiau, including Kauai’s largest heiau, Malae Heiau, located near the mouth of the Wailua River.
ISLAND HISTORY: Kauai land transactions of Victoria Kamamalu and Ruth Keelikolani
Both Princess Victoria Kamamalu and Princess Ruth Keelikolani sold their Kauai landholdings.
ISLAND HISTORY: Robert Iwamoto Sr. of Kauai, founder of Roberts Hawaii
Born in Wailua, Kauai, the son of Shintaro and Shime Iwamoto, Robert Iwamoto Sr. (1911-1984) was the founder of Roberts Hawaii, the largest tour and transportation company in Hawaii, with branches on Kauai, Oahu, Maui, and Hawaii Island.
ISLAND HISTORY: A history of the Wailua, Kauai Bell Stone
The Wailua Bell Stone, or Pohaku Kani (lava rock sound) is a fairly flat, oblong-shaped stone of roughly 12 square feet in area that produces a bell-like tone when struck with an object such as a hard piece of wood or a stone.
ISLAND HISTORY: A brief history of Puhi Camp, Kauai
Although previously published articles indicate that Grove Farm’s employee housing Puhi Camp (c. 1917-1980s) was built during the 1920s, newspaper accounts I’ve recently uncovered reveal activity at Puhi Camp as early as 1917.
ISLAND HISTORY: South Seas sugar laborers arrived at Koloa in 1859
During King Kamehameha IV’s reign (1855-1863), he proposed “bringing in Polynesian immigrants to … reinvigorate the Native Hawaiian stock.”
ISLAND HISTORY: Martin Mansfield, the haole kahuna of Kaua‘i
In 1932, fifty-one-year old Martin Mansfield first came to Hawai‘i as a cook aboard one of the steamships on the Honolulu-West Coast run.
ISLAND HISTORY: A brief history of Kaua‘i’s Huleia School
Established in 1905, Huleia School was originally located in Huleia Valley.
ISLAND HISTORY: The American military on Ni‘ihau during World War II
Prior to the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, Ni‘ihau had long been a peaceful home to its 130 Hawaiian residents, virtually unknown to the outside world, and was only rarely visited by invited off-island guests of Aylmer and Lester Robinson, its owners.