Nā Wai ʻEhā

Maui is the second largest of the Hawaiian Islands, and covers about 730 square miles.  Maui consists of two separate volcanoes with a combining isthmus between the two.

The Mauna Kahālāwai (West Maui Mountain) is probably the older of the two; Haleakala (East Maui) was last active about 1790, whereas activity on West Maui is wholly pre-historic.

Nā Wai ʻEhā ("The Four Great Waters") – Waiheʻe River, Waiehu Stream, Wailuku (ʻĪao) Stream and Waikapū Stream are in central Maui.

The headwaters of Waine’e and ‘Īao extend to or near the summit of the Mauna Kahālāwai at Pu‘u Kukui and are among the largest streams, in terms of stream flow, on Maui.

The headwaters of N & S Waiehu Streams are cut off from the summit area by the valleys of Waine’e River to the north and ‘Īao Stream to the south, they later merge to form Waiehu Stream.  Waikapū Stream is the only Nā Wai ‘Ehā stream that drains to the southern coast of Maui.

The abundance of water in Nā Wai ʻEhā enabled extensive loʻi kalo (wetland kalo) complexes, including varieties favored for poi-making such as “throat-moistening lehua poi.” (CWRM)

Nā Wai ʻEhā once “comprised the largest continuous area of wetland taro cultivation in the islands.” Its “complex agricultural system of wetland kalo cultivation,” together with the abundant protein sources in the streams and nearshore waters, supported one of the largest populations on Maui.

The fertile kalo lands, complex system of irrigation ʻauwai (ditches) and abundant fresh water from Nā Wai ʻEhā sustained Hawaiian culture for 1,000-years.

In addition to extensive agricultural production, other practices thrived in Nā Wai ʻEhā, including the gathering of upland resources, such as thatch and ti, and protein sources from the streams, including ʻoʻopu (goby fish,) ʻōpae (shrimp) and hihiwai (snail.)

The waters of Nā Wai ʻEhā were renowned for the practice of hiding the piko, or the umbilical cord of newborn babies. “(T)he spring ʻEleile contained an underwater cave where the people of the area would hide the piko of their babies after birth.”  This practice affirms the individual’s connection to the land.

The practice of hiʻuwai, also known as kapu kai, often occurred here around the time of makahiki, when individuals “would go into the rivers or into the ocean in order to do a cleansing for the new year”.

This type of cleansing, which required immersion in the water, was also conducted “before you start or end certain ceremonies”.  For ceremonies dedicated to Kāne, “having a hiʻuwai in a stream magnifies the mana”.

Given the makeup of the Nā Wai ʻEhā, Waiheʻe River and ‘Īao historically would have flowed continuously to the coast; Waiehu Stream would have flowed continuously to the coast at least 95 percent of the time; and Waikapū Stream would have flowed continuously to the coast less than half of the time.  (USGS)

But the streams were diverted, to quench the thirst of the thirsty sugar plantations.

By 1866, a letter published in the Hawaiian language newspaper Nūpepa Kūʻokoʻa lamented “the current condition of once cultivated taro patches being dried up by the foreigners, where they are now planting sugar cane”.

These diversions and ditch systems historically supplied two sugar plantations: Wailuku Sugar and Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S,) which belonged to the plantation-era “Big Five” companies C. Brewer and Alexander & Baldwin, respectively.

Wailuku Sugar was organized in 1862 by James Robinson, Thomas Cummins, J Fuller and agent C Brewer.  In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company (later known as Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company – HC&S.)

This quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands (in 1898, Spreckels lost control of HC&S and Alexander & Baldwin took over as agents at that time.)

Water wars have been waged way back.

Back in 1882, Wailuku Sugar and Spreckels fought over portions of the ditch system and purported rights to the water in the streams.

Lately, complaints were filed by downstream users arguing public trust, traditional and cultural practices (including kalo farming.)  In part, the diversions and ditches are capable of diverting all of the dry-weather flow available at the intakes – and often times, downstream conditions resulted in dry streambeds.

More recently (March 13, 2008,) the State Commission on Water Resource Management designated Nā Wai ʻEhā a surface water management.

In addition, on August 15, 2012, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court vacated a Water Commission decision and that included instream flow standards.

Instream Flow Standard is “a quantity or flow of water or depth of water which is required to be present at a specific location in a stream system at certain specified times of the year to protect fishery, wildlife, recreational, aesthetic, scenic, and other beneficial instream uses.”

The technical language of the law is complicated; I simplify this to say that the instream flow standard allows a stream to be a stream.  (Lots of information here is from associated court papers and descriptions.)

The image shows a map of Nā Wai ʻEhā (CWRM.)  I added a couple of other images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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William G Irwin

William G Irwin was born in England in 1843; he was the son of James and Mary Irwin.  His father, a paymaster in the ordnance department of the British army, sailed with his family for California with a cargo of merchandise immediately after the discovery of gold in 1849. The family then came to Hawaiʻi.

Irwin attended Punahou School and as a young man was employed at different times by Aldrich, Walker & Co.; Lewers & Dickson; and Walker, Allen & Co.

In 1880, he and Claus Spreckels formed the firm WG Irwin & Co; for many years it was the leading sugar agency in the kingdom and the one originally used by the West Maui Sugar Association.

In 1884, the firm took over as agent for Olowalu Company. William G. Irwin and Claus Spreckels constituted the partnership in the firm, which maintained offices in Honolulu. The role of the agent had greatly expanded by this time.

William G Irwin and Company acted as a sales agent for Olowalu's sugar crop as previous agents had done. It also was purchasing agent for plantation equipment and supplies and represented Olowalu with the Hawaiian Board of Immigration to bring in immigrant laborers.

In addition, Irwin and Company acted as an agent for the Spreckels-controlled Oceanic Steamship Company and required, for a time, that Olowalu's sugar be shipped to the Spreckels-controlled Western Sugar Refinery in San Francisco by the Oceanic Line.

In 1885, Irwin and Spreckels opened the bank of Claus Spreckels & Co., later incorporated under the name of Bank of Honolulu, Ltd., that later merged with the Bank of Bishop & Co.

In 1886, Mr. Irwin married Mrs. Fannie Holladay. Their only child, Hélène Irwin, was married to industrialist Paul Fagan of San Francisco.

A close friend of King Kalākaua, Irwin was decorated by the King and was a member of the Privy Council of Hawaiʻi in 1887.

In 1896, the Legislature of the Republic of Hawaiʻi put Kapiʻolani Park and its management under the Honolulu Park Commission; William G Irwin was the first chair of the commission.

In 1901 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government in recognition of his services as Hawaiʻi’s representative to the Paris Exposition.

By 1909, William G Irwin and Company's fortunes had declined and, reaching retirement age, Irwin reluctantly decided to close the business. In January 1910, the firm of William G. Irwin and Company merged with its former rival C. Brewer and Company.

Irwin moved to San Francisco in 1909 and served as president and chairman of the board of the Mercantile Trust Company, which eventually merged with Wells Fargo Bank.

In 1913, Mr. Irwin incorporated his estate in San Francisco under the name of the William G. Irwin Estate Co., which maintained large holdings in Hawaiian plantations. He had extensive business interests in California, as well as in Hawaiʻi, and was actively associated with the Mercantile National Bank of San Francisco in later years.

William G Irwin died in San Francisco, January 28, 1914.

Irwin had a CW Dickey-designed home makai of Kapiʻolani Park.  In 1921, the Territorial Legislature authorized the issuance of bonds for the construction, on the former Irwin property, of a memorial dedicated to the men and women of Hawaiʻi who served in World War I.  It’s where the Waikīkī Natatorium War Memorial now sits.

The Honolulu Waterfront Development Project, introduced by Governor Lucius E Pinkham and the Board of Harbor Commissioners in 1916, was declared to be the “most important project ever handled in Honolulu Harbor.”

The project began in 1916 with the construction of new docks; it continued in 1924 with the construction of Aloha Tower as a gateway landmark heralding ship arrivals.

On September 3, 1930, the Territory of Hawaiʻi entered into an agreement with Hélène Irwin Fagan and Honolulu Construction and Draying, Ltd. (HC&D), whereby HC&D sold some property to Fagan, who then donated it to the Territory with the stipulation that the property honor her father and that it be maintained as a "public park to beautify the entrance to Honolulu Harbor."

The Honolulu Waterfront Development Project was completed in 1934 with the creation of a 2-acre oasis shaded by the canopies of monkeypod trees (shading a parking lot;) Irwin Memorial Park is located mauka of the Aloha Tower Marketplace bounded by North Nimitz Highway, Fort Street, Bishop Street and Aloha Tower Drive.

The William G Irwin Charity Foundation was founded in 1919 by the will of his wife to support “charitable uses, including medical research and other scientific uses, designed to promote or improve the physical condition of mankind in the Hawaiian Islands or the State of California.”  The 2010 Foundation report for the Foundation indicated its value at over $100-million.

Among other activities, it funds the William G Irwin Professorship in Cardiovascular Medicine, which was created with gifts from the William G Irwin Charity Foundation of San Francisco, and, with a transfer of funds in 2003, the Hélène Irwin Fagan Chair in Cardiology at the Stanford School of Medicine.

The image shows the Irwin home at what is now the Natatorium.     In addition, I have included other related images in a folder of like name in the Photos section on my Facebook and Google+ pages.

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Claus Spreckels

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 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.

The first industry in which Spreckels succeeded was quite typical for German immigrants: beer brewing. In the spring of 1857, together with his brother Peter Spreckels and Claus Mangels, among others, he founded the Albany Brewery, the first large-scale producer of beer in San Francisco.

Though profitable, he sold his beer operation in 1863 and switched to a new field that would make him rich: sugar.  That year, he started the Bay Sugar Refining Company, but sold it three years later.

He then constructed the California Sugar Refinery in 1867 to process sugar.  While grocers, then, sold “sugar loaves,” Spreckels introduced the European process of packaging granulated sugar and sugar cubes (so customers could more easily divide the portions.)

In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he acquired the fee simple title to the Wailuku ahupuaʻa.

That same year, Spreckels founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.

The Spreckelsville Mill was actually four mills in one complex (it was located just to the northeast of the present Kahului Airport, near the intersection of Old Stable Road and Hana Highway.)  The town of Spreckelsville built up around it.

Part of the production innovation was the use of electric lights; the first recorded onshore use of electric lighting in Hawaiʻi was at Mill Number One of the Spreckelsville Plantation on Maui on Aug. 21, 1881.

To satisfy the curiosity of people anxious to see the "concentrated daylight," Capt. Coit Hobron ran a special train from Kahului, and King Kalākaua, Widow Queen Emma and Princess Ruth were among those who came to view the lights.

Spreckels modernized and mechanized the sugar production process, from hauling cane to the mill, to extracting the juice, reducing the juice to syrup and producing sugar grains.  The raw sugar was then packed and shipped to his refinery in San Francisco.  (Miller)

Sugar is a thirsty crop and Spreckels built the Haiku Ditch that spanned thirty miles and delivered fifty million gallons of water daily, irrigating twenty times as much land as had previously been irrigated.

Looking to upgrade from the mule and oxen means of moving sugar to the mill (as well as reduce costs,) Spreckels built a narrow-gauge railroad to haul the sugar from the plantation to the mill.

By 1881, twenty miles of iron track were completed. The rail line also transported the processed sugar to Maui's major port, Kahului. By 1885, Spreckelsville had forty-three miles of railroad, four engines and 498 cars for hauling cane.

Needing transportation to move his Hawaiʻi sugar for refining on the continent, he formed JD Spreckels & Bros. shipping line in 1879, which was incorporated as the Oceanic Steamship Company in 1881.

It was the first line to offer regular service between Honolulu and San Francisco, and his sons managed to reduce travel time immensely. While the sailing ship Claus Spreckels made a record run of less than ten days in 1879, by 1883 the new steam vessel Mariposa needed less than six days.

Spreckels incorporated the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company in 1884; it included four sugar mills, thirty-five miles of railroad with equipment, a water reservoir and the most advanced ditch system in the Pacific region.  (Spiekermann)

Spreckelsville was the largest sugar estate in the world by 1892.

The late-1890s saw internal family conflicts.  Spreckels lost control of HC&S and in 1898; it became a part of Alexander & Baldwin Co.  Following the 1948 merger of HC&S and Maui Agriculture Co., HC&S became a division of Alexander & Baldwin.

Claus Spreckels was a controversial figure.  For friends, he was a man “with a fine presence, an open, pleasant countenance and a cheerful word for everybody.”  Others, however, characterized him as impatient, implacable, and ruthless, driven by “Dutch obstinacy.”  (Spiekermann)

Hawaiʻi served as only one of the venues for the Spreckels holdings.  During the 1880s and early 1890s, he bought and built up several blocks of office buildings in San Francisco.

Claus Spreckels was a financial and an industrial capitalist. Obtaining, investing and multiplying money was his main business, and his role as a pioneer of Hawaiian sugar planting and Californian beet sugar production was merely an outgrowth of his desire to increase his fortune.  (Spiekermann)

Although none of his firms survived, his name today is still mentioned in San Francisco and Hawaiian travel guides as an example of an exceptional self-made man: “The life of Claus Spreckels is one of the interesting and absorbing personal histories of which America is so proud.”  (Spiekermann)

I have added other images related to Claus Spreckels in a folder of like name 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