The Stitching

Since I started these summary posts, I have received a variety of questions and comments (from many) asking about this or that.

One such included a call from someone at Punahou School who had received the stitching noted in the image; someone saw it for sale in a store on the continent, bought it and gave it to Punahou.

They felt there were Punahou ties.  They asked me what I thought.

First, the center poem: “Friends are like melons; shall I tell you why? To find one good, you must one hundred try.”

I found it was written by Claude Mermet, a French poet who was born in Saint-Rambert-en-Bugey a little before 1550 and died in Saint-Rambert en Bugey in 1620.  (Obviously this is about friends and friendship, but no obvious Hawaiʻi tie … but is there?)
 
Then, the names ... who is listed, who put this together and why was it done?

Some obvious Hawaiʻi ties come up – and lots of association back to Kauai with the likes of Rice, Wilcox and Isenberg … including their connections to Punahou.

It is still an untold story.

So, through this, hopefully more can be known of the Who, Why and When of the piece.  Let us know what you know about this.

It’s interesting … someone finds a piece of stitchery on the continent, sees connections to the Islands, but a mystery remains as to Who, Why and When ….

Here’s a summary and interconnecting linkages between the people noted on the stitchery we have seen thus far:

Wm H Rice
William Hyde Rice (born at Punahou,) son of William Harrison Rice (October 12, 1815-May 27, 1862) (business manager of Punahou School) and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice; husband of Mary Waterhouse Rice)

Mary W Rice
(Mary Waterhouse (July 26, 1846-June 28, 1933;) married William Hyde Rice; Punahou 1861 and 1862) John Thomas Waterhouse Sr., father of Mary.

Mary E Scott
(Mary Eleanor Rice (November 25, 1880-January 22, 1923;) daughter of William Hyde Rice and Mary Waterhouse Rice; married Walter Henry Scott

Anna C Wilcox
(Anna Charlotte Rice (1882- ;) daughter of William Hyde Rice and Mary Waterhouse Rice; married Ralph Lyman Wilcox (son of Samuel Whitney Wilcox and Emma Washburn Lyman Wilcox))

Emily D Rice
(Emily Dole Rice (May 1844 – June 14, 1911;) daughter of William Harrison Rice (1813–1863), and Mary Sophia Hyde; married George De la Vergne) (Punahou 1863 and 1864)

R L Wilcox
(Ralph Lyman Wilcox (1876–1913;) son of Samuel Whitney Wilcox and Emma Washburn Lyman Wilcox;) married Anna Charlotte Rice)

Dora R Isenberg
(Mary Dorothea “Dora” Rice (1862-1949) Maria Rice, sister of William Hyde Rice married Paul Isenberg; Paul and Maria Isenberg had two children, Mary Dorothea Rice Isenberg and Daniel Paul Rice Isenberg (1866-1919).

Emma Wilcox
(Emma Washburn Lyman (September 16, 1849 - July 28, 1934;) daughter of David Belden Lyman (1803–1868) and Sarah Joiner (1806–1885;) married Samuel Whitney Wilcox) (her son, Ralph Lyman Wilcox, married Anna Charlotte Rice)

Susan S Fisher
Harry Fisher (1903-1905) (?)

Rebecca W Watt
Rebecca Waterhouse (?)
Rebecca Wilcox (?)
Rebecca Watt (1803-1915)

It’s ‘all in the family,’ kind of; and, it’s interesting how a piece of fabric can start to call attention to and remind us of stories about people and life in the Islands, especially on Kauai and at Punahou ... but, there is still more to be known about the piece.

I have already done some posts on some of the people noted here, and will be doing some more in the future.  There is an obvious link to Punahou and Kauaʻi.

Any help others can provide on Who, Why and When (or anything more) this was done is appreciated.

The image shows the stitching.  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Waiʻalae Country Club

In 1887, Daniel Paul Rice Isenberg (Paulo Liʻiliʻi) (son of the Paul Isenberg, one of the founders of H. Hackfeld & Co. (Amfac) and one of the organizers of the Līhuʻe Sugar plantation) invested a large part of his inheritance in the development of a 3,000-acre ranch at Waiʻalae, Oʻahu.

He obtained the major part of Kaimuki from the Lunalilo and Bishop estates, and used this land for cattle, alfalfa and race horses.

He was the first ranchman in the islands to demonstrate the growth and uses of alfalfa, a valuable stock feed, but he couldn't realize much of a profit because sugar and rice were top priority, then.

His birthday was on June 11, Kamehameha Day, the day for horse races at Kapiʻolani, and "rarely did it pass without a luau at Waiʻalae Ranch." King Kalākaua frequently visited Isenberg at his ranch for the evening, for both of them enjoyed the same things, festivities, luaus and singing.

In 1919, after Isenberg’s death, the ranch’s lease was sold to accommodate a dairy by 1924; it was the largest dairy in Honolulu.

Then, in 1927, the Territorial Hotel Co., as part of a promotional program to develop luxury travel trade to Hawaiʻi on the mother company’s Matson Navigation Co. cruise ships, built the Royal Hawaiian Hotel … and with it the Waiʻalae Golf Course.

The hotel and golf course lands were leased from the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate. The Golf Course was opened for play on February 1, 1927.  In July 1927, the Isenberg ranch home near the mouth of Wai‘alae stream became the club house for the Wai‘alae Golf Course.

Local players were able to use the course, and by payment of annual fees for play became "privilege card holders" in the Territorial Hotel Company's Waiʻalae Golf Club.

In 1930, a group of these Waiʻalae players formed a private club within the Waiʻalae Golf Club which they called Waiʻalae Country Club.  It enlarged a small service building close to the main clubhouse, installed showers and had its own clubhouse where the swimming pool is now located.

The great depression of the 1930s severely reduced travel and resulted in bankruptcy of the Territorial Hotel Co. Matson took over the obligations and interests of the Territorial Hotel Co. which included the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, the Moana Hotel and Waiʻalae Golf Club.

By the 1930s, the beachfront along Kahala Avenue was being developed with homes, while farming continued in other areas.  In 1938, more than 50 pig farms were operating in the vicinity of Farmers Road and Kahala Avenues. Residents of the area, citing an increase in rats and mice at Kahala, petitioned the territorial board of health to remove the pig farms (Honolulu Advertiser, December 20, 1938).

During these years, play on the course was mainly by local privilege card holders, most of whom were members of Waiʻalae Country Club.

In August of 1941, fire destroyed the Waiʻalae Pavilion which was used by Waiʻalae Golf Club for dining and dancing, and Matson decided to turn the golf course and remaining buildings over to Waiʻalae Country Club.

Before this plan was consummated, the US had entered World War II, the military had requisitioned the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and numerous military defenses had been installed along Oʻahu's coastline including the golf course at Waiʻalae.

Waiʻalae Country Club was incorporated on September 30, 1942 and became lessee of the golf course acreage and a small section of land owned by Matson on which the old Isenberg home (later The Pavilion) had been located. The military built a replacement for the Pavilion because of the heavy use of the course by military personnel during the war.

The old Waiʻalae Country Club clubhouse was destroyed by fire in 1952, but through the conversion of the military structure into kitchen and dining facilities, and the building of new locker rooms, Waiʻalae was again in full operation within twenty-four months after the fire.

In the 1953 filming of "From Here to Eternity," Private Prewitt is shot near the bunker on the first hole at Waiʻalae.

No major physical changes were made in the golf course layout until 1954 when the 15th hole was lengthened from 320 yards to 435 yards.  (However, in the early-1960s major reconstruction on the front nine was necessitated in order to provide beachfront areas for the Kahala Hilton Hotel and the Kahala Beach Apartments.)

Tennis courts, swimming pool and added parking units were completed in 1958 and Waiʻalae became a Country Club in fact, as well as, name.

Hawaiian Opens (under various sponsorships) have been held at Waiʻalae since 1928.  The First PGA Tour Hawaiian Open Golf Tournament was held in the fall of 1965.  Today, Waiʻalae is home to the Sony Open in Hawaiʻi.  (Lots of images and information here is from the waialaecc-org.)

The image shows the Waiʻalae Golf Course in 1929.  In addition, I have added other images in a folder of like kind in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Germans In Hawaiʻi

The first Oktoberfest, held from October 12–October 17, 1810 in Munich, was to celebrate the occasion of the wedding of Prince Ludwig I of Bavaria and Princess Therese of Sachsen-Hildburghausen.

Because of its success, it was repeated annually, later also with an agricultural fair, dance, music and amusement rides.  The Germans call it “die Wiesn.”

Largely due to coincidence, the festival now generally starts in September and ends on or near October 3.  Since the reunification of Germany on October 3, 1990, the day has been recognized as the Day of German Unity and is a German public holiday.

While I suspect Germans and others in Hawaiʻi celebrated the annual beer-based parties in the past, I have not yet found references to them (I am still looking.)

However, I’ll use this occasion (between my sips of lager) to relate some history of Germans in Hawaiʻi.

Three Germans were among the sailors and crew aboard Captain James Cook first visit to the islands in 1778.  Johann Heinrich Zimmermann sailed on HMS Discovery and subsequently wrote an account of the voyage (his journals were published 3-years before Cook’s.)

A few years later, on a voyage to China in October 1796, Captain Henry Barber, from Bremen, Germany, sailing the English ship, Arthur, ran aground at Kalaeloa on Oʻahu. Captain Barber and his crew of 22 men took to the life boats. Six drowned.

Today, we refer to the location of where the survivors landed as “Barber’s Point,” however, the traditional name, Kalaeloa, is coming back into more common use.

In 1815, German scholar, Adelbert von Chamisso, was aboard the Russian brig Rurik, which Captain Otto von Kotzebue sailed to Hawaiʻi.  He was one of the first western scholars interested in the Hawaiian language, and reportedly wrote one of the first Hawaiian grammar books.

In a summary of his visit to the Islands, Chamisso noted, “’Arocha’ (Aloha) is the friendly greeting with which each man salutes the other and which is answered by a like expression.  Upon each occasion that one is greeted with ‘Arocha’ one answers ‘Arocha’ and goes ones way without turning around.”

Around this same time, a notorious German, Georg Anton Schäffer, representing the Russian-American Company of Alaska, arrived in Hawaiʻi to recover the cargo of a Russian trading ship wrecked at Waimea, Kauaʻi.

After first attempting to build a fort in Honolulu, he sailed to Kaua‘i and gained the confidence of King Kaumuali‘i.  Kaumuali‘i also used the engineering skills of Schäffer to lay out a plan for a fort (commonly referred to as Fort Elizabeth) which Kaumualiʻi had constructed next to his own residence.

The Russian flag was raised over his fort.  Hearing this, Kamehameha sent Captain Alexander Adams, a Scotsman who served in the navy of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i to gain control of the fort.  Schäffer was forced to leave Hawaii and Adams raised the Kingdom of Hawai‘i flag over the fort in October 1817.

German-born Paul Isenberg came to Kauaʻi in the 1850s to work at Līhuʻe Plantation on Kauaʻi.  He married Hannah Maria Rice, daughter of missionary-turned sugar-plantation owner William Harrison Rice.

Isenberg became manager of Līhuʻe Plantation in 1862. Along with his brothers, Isenberg played a prominent role in developing sugar plantations on Kauaʻi’s west side.

In 1881, Isenberg became a business partner with earlier German merchant Heinrich Hackfeld.  Through his business H. Hackfeld & Company, Hackfeld is one of the most prominent, and prosperous, Germans to Hawaiʻi.

His company would become American Factors, shortened to Amfac, one of Hawaiʻi’s “Big 5” companies (with interests in sugar plantations, shipping and other entities.)  This included the Liberty House department store, originally called "B. F. Ehlers", after Hackfeld’s nephew.

World War I proved catastrophic for the Germans in Hawai'i who with the entry of the United States into the war had become enemy aliens overnight; the Isenbergs and Hackfields lost control of their company during World War I.

Dr. William Hillebrand, a German researcher, played an important role in public health. He was the founding physician of Queen's Hospital in Honolulu during the 1860s.   Hillebrand was an avid collector of plants; his property eventually became Foster Botanical Garden.

Claus Spreckels (1828–1908) was perhaps the most successful German-American immigrant entrepreneur of the late-nineteenth century; he was one of the ten richest Americans of his time.

The first industry in which Spreckels succeeded was quite typical for German immigrants: beer brewing. Though profitable, he sold his beer operation in 1863 and switched to a new field that would make him rich: sugar.

Spreckels founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.  The career of the “sugar king” of California, Hawaiʻi and the American West consisted of building and breaking monopolies in sugar, transport, gas, electricity, real estate, newspapers, banks and breweries.

In more cultural contributions, Captain Henri Berger of Berlin is well remembered in for his decades of conducting the Royal Hawaiian Band. He was called “The Father of Hawaiian Music” by Queen Liliʻuokalani.  Among others, he wrote music to lyrics by King Kalākaua for the state anthem “Hawaiʻi Ponoʻi.”

So, as you celebrate Oktoberfest (yes, while it is not clear if it was celebrated before, it certainly is celebrated here, now,) remember some of the many contributions of the Germans to Hawaiʻi.  In addition, I have added some images related to the German influence in Hawaiʻi in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook page.

http://www.facebook.com/peter.t.young.hawaii

© 2012 Hoʻokuleana LLC