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LAHAINA WALKING TOUR---INTRO

As you walk and drive and play and sightsee during your visit to our lovely little town of Lahaina, please be sure to take time to reflect on the rich history of this area. When you walk the streets of Lahaina Town, you are walking in the steps of kings and queens who ruled with absolute authority the very same ground you are treading.

There are a total of 31 places of significant historic interest on this tour; many are still-existing structures...and some are historic locations where, if you stand very still, you might actually feel some of what was happening “way back when..”

Your tour will take approximately 1½ hours if you choose to walk where possible...and much less if you drive from point to point.

Throughout this tour, you will want to refer to a map of the Lahaina area. Most all publications here on Maui contain maps of Lahaina.

Now..put on your walking shoes and get ready to step back through time.
 

LAHAINA WALKING TOUR

It is widely held that the first inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands arrived as early as 600 A.D. They came in great double-hulled sailing canoes from the Marquesas, and later from Tahiti.

From that time until 1778, when Capt. James Cook “discovered” the islands, there was no one in Hawaii who knew how to write. Hawaii’s history was dependent upon the accuracy of those who handed it down from one generation to the next in the form of chants.

Most historians agree that from the time of the end of the series of great sea migrations from Tahiti to Hawaii, until the arrival of the English, the history of the islands was carefully preserved because there were no outside influences to contaminate it.

In a culture dominated by men, a woman destined for greatness was preparing to make her presence known. She was born in Hana in March of 1768, and was to become King Kamehameha’s favorite and most powerful wife, Queen Kaahumanu.

She was a decendant of the powerful Kekaulike ruling family of Maui, and began her training for leadership at a young age. She was instructeed in cultural heritage and in her responsibilities as the future wife of a king.

When she was eight years old, Kaahumanu’s parents brought her to the court of Kamehameha the Great, who was then about 22, and she was pledged to him as wife.

Upon King Kamehameha’s death on May 8th, 1819, Kaahumanu became Hawaii’s first kuhina nui, or queen regent. Previously this position was held only by men. However, from that day on, the position was held only by women.

Queen Kaahumanu is best remembered as a champion of women’s rights. As queen regent, she advised three kings and broke the eating kapu..the Hawaiian word meaning taboo..that forbade certain foods to women and prevented women from eating with the men. Soon after, the entire kapu system was overthrown.

Although Kaahamanu did not pay much attention to the first missionaries upon their arrival in Hawaii, she later converted to Christianity. It is largely because of her that Hawaii became a Protestant state.

Under Kaahamanu’s leadership, the Hawaiian government began to develop a semblance of laws and administrative form.

Queen Kaahumanu died just before dawn on June 5, 1832. In her hands she held a newly-printed copy of the New Testament in Hawaiian, given to her by the Rev. Hiram Bingham.

The chief who first united all the main islands under one rule, and made Lahaina the capital of a united island kingdom called Hawaii, Kamehameha I, died in 1819, the year the Yankee whalers started coming regularly to Lahaina.

His sons, Kamehameha II and III, lived in Lahaina and ruled from there as often as they did from Honolulu, whose importance as a shipping center demanded much royal time and attention.

During the reign of the first Kamehamehas, Lahaina was a community of some 2,400 persons living in grass homes along Alanui Moi, stretching from the royal pond at Shaw and Front Streets, north to the neighborhood today known as Mala.

Mala Wharf and the Royal Coconut Grove are still there for your viewing, and are mentioned later.

Honolulu did, in fact, become the royal capital in the 1840s under the reign of Kamehameha III, but not officially until 1865, the year Lahaina’s whaling industry began to decline.

In 1871, what was known as the “Hawaiian fleet” of whalers remained off the coast of northern Alaska until it was too late into the fall, and the entire fleet was trapped in a sudden freeze. The ice destroyed 33 of the fleet of 42 ships...with no loss of life.  All 1,252 men and officers escaped over the ice flows and out of the danger zone.

So...the whaling fleet was disbanded, the Seamen’s Hospital was closed, then reopened as a girls’ school under new owners, and merchants dependent on the whalers had folded...Lahaina was beginning a long slumber until its rebirth as a tourist destination in the late 1960s.
 

MASTERS’ READING ROOM
Site #1

Our tour of Lahaina begins with the first point of interest, the Masters’ Reading Room, located on the corner of Front and Dickenson Streets.

This nicely shaded and peaceful property retains the original landscaping, as laid out by Dr. Baldwin in 1847, and is the home of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.

The first seamen’s headquarters was completed by May 27th, 1834, through the efforts of the missionaries, masters and officers of visiting ships. The Rev. William Richards and Ephraim Spaulding, who were conducting the mission station at that time, appealed to the visitors to help build “suitable reading rooms for the accommodation of seamen who visit Lahaina, as well as a convenient place of retirement from the heat and unpleasant dust of the market.”

Most masters and ships’ officers traveled with families and relished contact with the missionaries.

The mission put up $200, and an appeal was made to the public and even the skippers themselves. The result was a donation of cash and materials that could be used in barter—thousands of yards of cloth and barrels of whale oil, among other things.

The top floor was the reading room, exclusively for the comfort of masters and officers. At one side, above the level of their room’s piazza, was an observatory from which the men could observe ships at anchor, passing boats, and the general activity of the village. The lower portion of this two-story building was used as a storeroom.

The Masters’s Reading Room was popular for at least 10 years. By 1844, however, the number of ships visiting Lahaina annually had risen to 250, and the number of facilities to accomodate the influx increased as well. When these were preferred to the reading room, the mission decided to to sell it to help with the seamen’s chaplain’s salary.

Put on the auction block, the reading room became the property of Dr. Dwight Baldwin, in 1846, for $70.

The Rev. Dr. Townsend Elijah Taylor, a seamen’s chaplain, used the room for a study for a short time until Dr. Baldwin’s growing family overflowed from their home into the reading room.

The unique coral block and field-stone construction has been preserved exactly as originally constructed, and the building now serves as the headquarters of the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.
 

THE BALDWIN HOME
Site #2

A missionary and Harvard-trained physician, Rev. Dwight Baldwin of Durham, Conn., and his bride of a few weeks, Charlotte Fowler, sailed from New England for Hawaii in 1830.

After first serving in Waimea, he was assigned as Pastor of Lahaina’s old Wainee Church.

The Baldwins moved into their home in 1838, and lived there until 1871.

The Baldwin home was built in 1834, and is the oldest standing building in Lahaina. It was constructed with thick walls of coral, stone, and hand-hewn timbers. The addition of a bedroom and study in 1840 and a second story in 1849 accommodated six children.

The Baldwin home served as a medical office and as a center for missionary activity, where Dr. Baldwin received members of the royal court, ships’ captains, consuls and weary travelers.

Baldwin began a seamen’s chapel at Lahaina and translated into Hawaiian a tract on temperance and the first five books of the bible for a new edition of the New Testament.

The home was  faithfully restored by the Lahaina Restoration Foundation in the early 1960s, and presents a vivid picture of the life of a missionary, physician and community force.

It is furnished with personal and household items that belonged to the Baldwin family, as well as other period pieces, and is open daily as a museum.
 

RICHARDS HOUSE
Site #3

1819...the Yankee whalers start coming regularly to Lahaina.

1820...the first missionaries arrived in Hawaii; their initial stations on the Big Island, then Honolulu.

1823...the Royal Government, in the person of Queen Kaahumanu, granted the missionaries permission to come to the island of Maui.

They set up shop in the Island Kingdom’s capital, Lahaina.

The Reverends William Richards and Charles Stewart were the first missionaries, along with their wives, to arrive in Lahaina, and the Richards house, built on the site of the present Campbell Park, was the first coral stone home in the Hawaiian Islands.

The efforts of Richards and Stewart were not appreciated by visiting seamen; in 1825 a mob from the whale ship Daniel besieged the Richards home but was driven away by friendly Hawaiians.

Three years later, Richards performed no fewer than six hundred wedding ceremonies within a few months; the grooms of the port often loudly responding “Aye, aye!” in place of “I do.”

The Richards house lasted until the 1920’s, before it deteriorated and was torn down. It had housed a number of missionary families, including that of the Rev. Ephriam Spaulding.

When King Kamahameha III asked Richards to become his advisor and teacher in the Western way of government and economics in 1838, Richards became the first missionary to leave the ministry, and become a part of Hawaiian politics.

Richards helped draft the constitution, and traveled to the United States and England as the king’s envoy to seek recognition of the kingdom’s independence.

Eventually, Richards became the Kingdom’s first Minister of Education, a post that he held until his death November 5, 1847, in Honolulu, at the age of 54. His body was brought to the Wainee Churchyard Cemetary in 1848.
 

TARO PATCH
Site #4

Taro, a staple of the Hawaiian diet, is used to make poi.

Some accounts of Old Lahaina describe it as a “Venice of the Pacific” because of the many waterways, streams, ponds and taro patches which were flooded with water, much like rice paddies.

Occupying the location where the present-day Pioneer Inn was constructed in 1901, there was once a large taro patch.

Actually...this was the king’s personal taro patch, which he personally tended on a daily basis to show the commoners, it is written, “that common work has dignity.”

This taro patch, on the grounds fronting the Baldwin home, was described by both the Richards and the Baldwins in letters to friends, and is shown on maps and sketches of the day.

The natural waterways supplying these taro patches were eventually re-routed to provide fresh water for the community as Lahaina grew.
 

THE HAUOLA STONE
Site #5

Stone is very important to the ways of the Hawaiians.

Healing stones, such as the Hauola Stone, were in areas designated as holding powerful forces of nature that stilled the spirit and healed the soul, thus restoring health.

Kahunas (spiritual leaders) used herbs, diet, massage and healing stones to alleviate their patients’ ills.

Labor pains were eased by sitting on water-washed stones, and umbilical cords were often buried underneath these stones.

This is a beautiful spot for taking photos of Lahaina’s Front Street, or for spreading out a blanket on the lawn and having a picnic, so please feel free to do so.

When you’re finished, we’ll meet at site number 6, the Brick Palace.
 

THE BRICK PALACE
Site #6

Kamehameha came to Lahaina in 1802 to plan an attack on Kauai.

During his yearlong stay, he commanded the construction of the “Brick Palace” to welcome the captains of visiting ships. This was the first European-style building in all the Hawaiian Islands, and was built of bricks made from Maui earth and fired in Lahaina.

As to who actually constructed this “Brick Palace,” there are various stories, but research narrows it down to two Australians, or Englishmen from Australia, who had escaped from an Australian penal colony and were starting fresh in the Sandwich Islands.

A rectangular clearing in the grassy park in front of today’s Lahaina Public Library marks the location. As you can see, it was just a few steps from the royal taro patch we mentioned earlier.

The Brick Palace measured 40 feet by 20 feet, was two stories tall, with two rooms on each floor, and was apparently divided into two rooms on each floor.

The land around it was built up with a stone wall to keep the seawater back and was filled in with earth to make a broad plateau.

The king’s favorite wife, Queen Kaahumanu, refused to live in this stuffy and confining house; they both lived in a house of grass built beside the brick house.

Attached to this compound was an observation tower and a “long house” with a thatched roof, used extensively by his sons in later years.

The Brick Palace stood for more than 70 years and was used as a warehouse, storeroom, and meeting house.

Unfortunately, no complete drawings of the building exist.

We’re through here, so let’s turn around and walk to the brig Carthaginian, over by the little lighthouse.
 

THE CARTHAGINIAN
Site #7

The Carthaginian is an authentically square-rigged replica of a 19th century brig, typical of the small, fast freighters that brought the first commerce to these islands, and is the only authentically-restored brig in the world!

The first Carthaginian, purchased from an Australian or New Zealand person named Tucker Thompson and opened as a whaling museum in 1968, was lost at sea in April, 1972, while on the way to Honolulu for drydock. It was a wooden-hulled Baltic trader built in 1920 and converted by Hollywood to resemble a whaling ship.

It was used in the filming of the epic “Hawaii”  and a second movie called “The Hawaiians” in the mid-1960s.

The carved figurehead from the prow of the original Carthaginian hangs on the wall of the Crazy Shirts T-shirt store, where it washed up with the storm surge. A large wooden hatch cover washed up in front of another Lahaina shop, and is now a table in the shop-owner’s home, overlooking the sea.

The replacement ship, the “Comet”, of German origin, was finally found in Sweden in the fall of 1972. This steel-hulled freighter met the specifications to fit the space at the harbor, but had no rigging.

An all-Lahaina crew of about a dozen took about 110 days to motor-sail the ship by way of the Panama Canal from Denmark to Maui. Although many Lahaina Harbor regulars referred to her as “the rust bucket,” she was to make a welcome replacement for the original Carthaginian.

Converting the ship to resemble a 19th century square rigger was difficult in the middle of the Pacific. In 1979, Ivan Hope and Patricia Langley arrived on the scene and pitched in. Within two years the restoration was completed and the final raising of the mast took place on April 26, 1980.

The riggings were done based on specifications taken from the brig Marie Sophie, a British ship circa 1850.

The sight of this majestic ship silhoutted against the sky is certainly a sentimental reminder of Lahaina’s heritage and the romance of the sea.

The Carthaginian features an exhibit on whales and whaling, with audio-visual displays, and an original whale boat that was discovered in Alaska and brought to Lahaina in 1973.

The exhibit is open daily from 9:00am to 4:30pm.
 

The Pioneer Inn
Site #8

The year was 1901, President William McKinley was shot and succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt; the first transatlantic radio telegraph transmission took place; the Pan-American Exposition was going on in Buffalo, New York; the United States, once again, retained the America’s Cup with the U.S. yacht, Columbia; Queen Victoria died, ending the romantic “Victorian Age;” Emporer Hirohito was born, thus beginning a whole new age for Japan; and, George Freeland built the Pioneer Inn.

Freeland, a 6-foot-5, 300-pound Englishman, migrated to Vancouver and became a Canadian Mountie in the latter part of the 19th century. In 1900, he was sent to Hawaii to “get his man.”

Having failed in his mission, he opted to make Hawaii his new home, rather than go back to Vancouver and face the consequences.

No one knows what brought him to the small plantation town of Lahaina the following year, or how he managed to convince some 60 solid citizens of Maui to put up $7,500 in $50 stock shares to form his Pioneer Hotel Company, Ltd., or what it was about this giant Englishman that could cause a petite Hawaiian woman—who happened to be married to the only doctor in West Maui at the time—to fall in love with him.

Yet, in October of 1901, Freeland built the hotel in the likeness of a plantation structure on neighboring Lanai’i, for a total cost of $6,500, including the land.

It was a time of transition in Lahaina. Fifty years earlier, it had been the capital of Hawaii and, on some days, as many as 500 whaling ships could be seen anchored offshore.

However, with the advent of electricity, the whaling days, being numbered, came to an end in 1865. The revolution on Oahu had been over for 10 years, and Hawaii was now a U.S. Territory.

Almost immediately following the completion of his hotel, Freeland began forming subsidiaries of the Pioneer Hotel Company; the Pioneer Saloon, the Pioneer Theatre, the Pioneer garage, and the Pioneer Wholesale Liquor Company. The Liquor Company stood on the site where the Whale’s Tail Restaurant now stands, and was the only wholesale liquor licensee in the entire West Maui area.

In 1913, Freeman built a theatre next door and began showing silent movies to a packed house of plantation families.

Both the liquor company and the theatre operated on a payroll deduction basis for workers. A customer who worked at the sugar plantation wore a “bunga number” around his neck and his purchases of food stuff, clothes, movie tickets, and liquor were recorded and deducted from his earnings on payday.

George Freeland brought great stage shows and plays never before seen in this area to his theatre and could house the casts in the hotel.

Prohibition being established on the Mainland meant that even though Hawaii was not a state, George was forced to shut down his liquor company. The saloon became the hotel’s business office.

But, once again, George Freeland took a bold step and bought up all the stock to become the single owner of the Pioneer Hotel Company, and all its subsidiaries.

Freeland continued to run the business until he died on July 25th, 1925. He was survived by his wife, George Alan (known as Alan), his eldest son, two other sons and four daughters.

One of his sons, Haines, became a famous swimmer and received a scholarship to Nebraska. It was there he met the daughter of the mayor of Omaha, and married her. It was annulled shortly thereafter!

So, off Haines and his other brother, Hogarth, went to Tahiti for eight years, until the French government requested their departure.

When he returned to Lahaina, sans his French Tahitian wife, Haines spent his remaining days enjoying his libation and his chair under the banyon tree at the wharf, across from the hotel. As a matter of fact, he spent so much time there his mail was delivered to a mailbox he had nailed to the tree. The actual stump of the tree, mail box intact, is currently standing at the entrance to the hotel.

Alan eventually acquired the entire estate from his siblings, and ran the business until the early 1960s. In 1964, he leased the Pioneer Inn block and proposed an addition to the Inn. It was most important to Alan that the architecture of the addition be compatible with the original structure.

The addition is now held as an example of current restoration projects.

One casualty of the restoration, however, was the Pioneer Theatre. The only remembrance is a poster which hangs at the entrance to the courtyard, advertising the movie, “Devil at Four O’Clock,” shot on location at the Pioneer Inn.

There are a million stories: like the time one of the bartenders had to “86” a horse and its rider from the bar for being loud, drunk and disorderly, or there’s always the romance of the former “Spencer Tracy & Katherine Hepburn” suite. Whatever story you listen to, whatever myth or legend you believe, you have stepped into Lahaina’s history.

Wouldn’t you just love to hear what stories these walls could tell!

We’re finished here, so let’s walk across the street and take a look at the Banyan Tree.
 

THE BANYAN TREE
Site #9

The banyan tree came to Lahaina from India when it was only 8 feet tall!

William O. Smith was the sheriff of Maui when he planted it in 1873 at a service marking the 50th anniversary of the founding of Lahaina's first Christian mission.

As the little town that was once the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom and the whaling capital of the world developed, the little tree grew—and grew. It provided a leisurely setting where local sugar mill employees and pineapple workers could meet and conduct business.
It was also the scene of many a political rally, luau, dance, concert, festival and celebration. For years it shaded viewers at the elementary school's May Day festivities, whaling sprees and Aloha Week observances.

Some residents still recall swinging Tarzan-like on the aerial roots (and being swatted with a rake by the caretaker).

Lahaina's banyan tree now has 12 major trunks of varying girth, besides the huge core of central trunks. It reaches up ward to a height of about 60 feet and stretches outward over a 200-foot area, shading two-thirds of an acre on the almost 2 acres of land in the courthouse square.

That’s all for the Banyan Tree, so our next historic site is the old Courthouse.
 

THE COURTHOUSE
Site #10

A great  wind from the Kauaula Valley struck the village of Lahaina in February 1858, destroying more than 20 buildings including Hale Piula, the courthouse-palace of King Kamehameha III. Construction of a new courthouse was begun the following May, using stones from the demolished Hale Piula.

The new courthouse became the center of Maui County.

On December  3, 1859, The Polynesian published the following: "The building contains a custom house, a post office, a collector's office in which there is a money vault, an office for the Governor of the island, a Police Court, a courtroom, and a room in which to starve the jury into unanimity ..."

Here, in 1898, the Hawaiian flag was lowered and the American flag raised, marking the formal annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States.

Take some time here to walk through the Courthouse and the jail, in the basement. Both frequently house exhibitions of local art.

We’ll meet up next at the Fort on the Canal.
 

FORT ON THE CANAL
Site #11

Starting in 1819, thousands of whalers came to Maui.

Anxious for female companionship after years of whaling in northern waters, these sailors were furiated by a missionary-influenced ban on such activities, and on two occasions fired cannon at the missionary compound.

As a result, a fort was built on the waterfront in the years 1831-32.

The fort was constructed of coral blocks, hacked and sawed by hand from the reef outside the beach. It covered a 1-acre area and was enclosed by 20 foot walls.

Visitors thought the fort looked as if it were built more for show than force.

As a deterrent to outlandish behavior, cannon raised from the wreck of a warship in Honolulu Harbor circa 1816 were brought to Lahaina and mounted in approximately the spot where they sit today in the harbor.

The fort was used mostly as a prison, and was torn down in the 1850s to supply stones for the construction of Hale Pa’ahao, the stuck-in-irons house, as Lahaina’s prison was referred to by the locals...or those unfortunate enough to spend time there.

Now we’ll take a short walk over to The Canal and Government Market.
 

THE CANAL
Site #12

A fresh-water stream once flowed through central Lahaina to the waterfront.

Lahaina had no natural harbor like Honolulu’s, and the whalers had to come in from the deep-water offshore anchorage in their small "chase boats" to trade and resupply with fresh water.

This was no easy task, and would require them to cross the reef, land on the beach, and drag their boats to the deeper, clearer part of the stream to fill their casks.

This was especially difficult when the surf was up, and they often had trouble beaching...which accounts—at least in part—for the number of young sailors in the Seamen’s Cemetary. You’ll here more about this later.

So..in the early 1840s, the United States consular representative dug a canal to a basin near the market and charged a fee for its use.

After a few years, the government took over the canal and built a thatched market house with stalls...which almost immediately burned down.

Remnants of the canal could still be seen at the turn of the century, but were filled in in 1913.
 

GOVERNMENT MARKET
Site #13

When Lahaina's canal was completed in the 1840s, a government-regulated market was built in the middle of the waterway where all trade between Hawaiians and foreign ships was conducted.

An official edict in 1833 strictly forbade “overcharging, under-selling...wrangling, breaking of bargains, enticing, pursuing, chasing a boat, greediness,” and further disallowed women from “going to the market enclosure for the purpose of sightseeing or to stand idly by..”

Despite the decree, some of Lahaina's many grog shops were nearby, and the area was known for its gamy activities.

Visiting seafarers often described the area as “Rotten Row.”

Unless you plan to do a little bargaining with the old spirits from the Government Market, we’ll move along now to the Episcopal Church.
 

EPISCOPAL CHURCH
Site #14

Welcome to the Episcopal Church!

The Episcopal Church in the Hawaiian Islands was founded in 1862.

Lahaina's first Episcopal church was across the street from the present Holy Innocents'.

In 1909 the church moved to its present location, once the site of a grass house built by Kamehameha the Great for his daughter.

The present building dates from 1927, and is known for itsunique paintings, among them a Hawaiian Madonna and scenes depicting local birds and flowers as symbols of Christian belief. They were done by DeLos Blackmar in 1940.
 

HALE PIULA
Site #15

Hale Piula was the first attempt by Hawaiian royalty to construct a palace in the style of European royalty.

Referred to in some reports as the Crystal Palace—because of the glare of the light bouncing off its glass windows—it was more formally called Hale Piula, or House of Iron, because of the metal roof.

"Iron roof house" was built in the 1830s as a palace for Kamehameha III, but he preferred to sleep in a small thatched hut nearby. Work continued on it over the reign  of King Kamehameha III, but he died before it was entirely completed as a palace.

By the mid-1840’s, government representatives were spending more time in Honolulu than Lahaina, and Hale Piula fell into disrepair.

In April, 1857, the journal The Friend carried this notation: “...a stately building but is fast going to ruin with neglect.”

King Kamehameha IV took up his official residence in Honolulu, and Hale Piula was converted to a Court House. It also appears that visiting judges may have used one of the rooms to sleep in.

In April, 1858, it was noted that a strong wind badly damaged the building. It was dismantled and the stone and coral blocks were moved over closer to the port and used to build the court house building which was started in 1857 and completed two years later.
 

MALUULUOLELE PARK
Site #16

We’re now at Malu-ulu-o-lele Park, at the corner of Shaw and Front Streets, one of the most interesting parts of old Lahaina. Here, Hawaii’s most importantarchaeological find in recent history lies buried beneath the most sacred baseball park in the United States.

Here in a hot, dusty county park in the middle of downtown Lahaina, under six tennis courts, two baseball fields, a track, wash rooms  and swings, there was once a massive freshwater fishpond, or loko wai, at the end of a village called Mokuhinia. It was the home of a powerful water spirit in the form of a lizard or dragon, which was worshiped by the royal family as a special guardian.

When Kamehameha the Great conquered Maui, he claimed this sacred spot.

A tiny rock island in the pond  was for decades the home of Maui chiefs, and then a residence of three Kamehameha kings. It was known by the name, Moku-ula.  The acre-long, L-shaped island was located in the middle of an 11-to-17-acre freshwater fishpond, connected by a narrow, gated causeway to front Street near the parking entrance opposite 505 Front Street. Two sentries, dressed in white uniforms, guarded the entrance.

At the narrow tip of the island, under third base, stood the coral and basalt mausoleum that housed the sacred remains of the King’s sister and intended wife, Princess Nahi’ena’ena, her infant son, and their mother, Keopuolani.

The remains of Kamehameha II and his Queen were brought back from England by the English frigate Blonde and deposited there, with the remains of as many as 15 other royal personages.

References describe the walkway out to the center of the island where the young kings Kamehameha II and III kept to themselves, away from the rigors of court life.

Kamehameha III used to receive visitors at the royal tomb in the late 1830s and early 1840s, showing them the large burial chamber with its mirrors, velvet draperies, chairs and kahili (feathered staffs), and ornate coffins. He was the last of the aakua alii or god kings, and Moku-ula was the last of the alii kauhale, or royal residences during a time when Western kapus clashed with traditional beliefs.

The capital was moved from Lahaina to Honolulu in 1845 after the death of the Dowager Queen Kekauluohi, and the relocation there of King Kamehameha III.

Although the King visited Moku’ula occasionally, the mausoleum and the pond eventually fell into disrepair.

By 1858, the open waters had begun to fill with reeds and the fishpond began silting over.

Water was diverted for use by the sugar industry, the ecological balance became disturbed and the wonderful royal pond with its sacred remains became a swamp.

The remains of the alii were removed from Moku’ula and reinterred at the Wainee Churchyard in 1883 by Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last legal heir of the Kamahameha dynasty.

In 1918, with malaria a threat, the pond was destroyed for public health reasons. Temporary railroad tracks were laid to the area and coral rubble and red soil were used to fill in the area.

Perhaps the words of Bishop Museum anthropologist, Paul Klieger, best describe the respect felt for this ancient site, We know it is there. There is no reason to disturb it further.”
 

WAINEE CHURCH
Site #17

We’re now at site number 17, the Wainee Church, the first stone church in the Hawaiian Islands.

Built between 1828 and 1832 for the Protestant mission by Hawaiians, under the direction of their chiefs, it could seat 3,000— packed together on the floor— and had calabash spittoons for tobacco-chewing chiefs and ships' masters.

Wainee was immortalized by Michener in Hawaii as the church that just wouldn't stand—a justly deserved reputation!!

In 1858 a Kauaula Valley whirlwind unroofed the church and blew down the belfry; the bell, once described as "none too sonorous," fell 100 feet but was undamaged.

In 1894 royalists protesting the annexation of Hawaii by the United States burned the church.

Rebuilt, it burned down again in 1947, was rebuilt, and was demolished by another Kauaula windstorm in 1951.

When the church was rebuilt after the 1951 windstorm, the front door was positioned to face the mighty Kauaula Valley, instead of being at a right angle to the West Maui Mountains. The structure is still standing.

At its dedication in 1953, the church was renamed Waiola, meaning “water of life.”

The ridge of palms on the ocean side is among Lahaina's oldest.

Let’s meet up next at the Wainee Cemetary.
 

WAINEE CEMETERY
Site #18

The Wainee Cemetary...

Here lies some of the incredible early history of Lahaina!

Established in 1823, Wainee was the first Christian cemetery in Hawaii.

Here are buried the great and obscure of Old Lahaina—Hawaiian chiefs and commoners, seamen, missionaries and their families.

Notables include the following:

• King Kaumualii, the last king of Kauai.

• The sacred Queen Keopuolani, the highest royalty by virtue of bloodlines in all Hawaii, born in Wailuku in 1780; she was the first Hawaiian baptized as a Protestant.

• High Chief Hoapili, a general and King Kamehameha the Great's closest friend; Hoapili married two of Kamehameha's queens, Keopuolani and Kalakua.

• Hoapili Wahine (and his wife Kalakua), governor of Maui from 1840 to 1842, who
donated 1,000 acres of land to start Lahainaluna School.

• Kekauonohi, one of the five queens of Kamehameha II, born in Lahaina in 1805, who served as governor of Kauai from 1842 to 1844.

• High Chiefess Liliha, granddaughter of King Kahekili; Liliha visited King George IV with her husband, Boki, Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu. In 1830 Liliha started a rebellion with 1,000 soldiers on Oahu while she was governor there. Her father, Hoapili, forced her to give up her office and return to Maui.

• Princess Nahienaena, darling of the high chiefs and the Hawaiian people, sister to kings Kamehameha II and III.

Many missionary children are buried in Wainee Cemetery, as is Rev. Richards.

The oldest Hawaiian Christian gravestone in the Islands is that of a Mauian who died in 1829 from "fever."

A Hawaiian man who died in 1908 at the age of 104— living through royal rule, the breaking of kapus, constitutional government and the establishment of Hawaii as a U.S. territory—is also buried here.

Visitors should be aware that Hawaiians consider this site sacred.
 

HONGWANJI MISSION
Site #19

Members of the largest Buddhist sect in Lahaina, the Hongwanji, have been meeting here since 1910, when they erected a small temple and language school.

The present building dates from 1927.

Today the mission holds celehrations on New Year's Eve to welcome the new year...in April to commemorate the birth of Buddha...and during the last week of August for the Bon Memorial celebration.

The public is welcome to attend.
 

DAVID MALO’S HOME
Site #20

David Malo's house was near the junction of Prison Road and Wainee Street.

Malo, educated at Lahainaluna Seminary as an adult, was the first renowned Hawaiian scholar and philosopher. He later became a teacher at Lahainaluna High School and an advisor to the King and the Royal Government.

His account of the ancient culture, Hawaiian Antiquities, has become a classic and is considered one of the most important early books written in the Hawaiian language.

This fascinating book was written at the urging of the Americans who realized how rare Malo actually was: here was a highly-educated Hawaiian who could still remember the old ways! The Americans urged him to write down everything he could remember of the old days, and Hawaiian Antiquities was the result.

Bitter about "white people's" increasing control of Hawaii, Malo asked to be buried "above the tide of the foreign invasion" and his grave site is on top of Mount Ball (Paupau), above the school. His tomb is by the giant “L” which can be seen from Lahaina on the hillside above Lahainaluna High School.

David Malo Day is celebrated annually at Lahainaluna High School in late Spring.

Let’s move along now to the Old Prison on the corner of Wainee and Prison Streets.
 

THE OLD PRISON
Site #21

The Hale Paahao, or “the stuck-in-irons house,” was so named because of its  wall shackles and ball-and-chain restraints, used for difficult prisoners.

Before the prison was built, sailors who ignored the warning of the Hawaiian soldiers to return to their ships at sunset were kept overnight in the fort (Site 11).  It had a reputation for being a very uncomfortable place to spend the night, and the jail facilities within the fort weren’t adequate.

In 1851 the fort physician recommended that prisoners not sleep on the ground; it made them ill, and sick prisoners were a liability to the government.

So...the Kingdom of Hawaii decided to build a larger facility to serve Maui, Molokai and Lanai.

Convict laborers stripped the coral block from the demolished waterfront fort and used it to construct the compound. The prison house was built of planks in 1852; it had separate quarters for men and women.

Guards patrolled the grounds from a catwalk that ran the entire length of the walls. Able-bodied seamen who attempted to climb the walls risked being shot!

Most prisoners were there for deserting ship, drunkenness, working on the Sabbath or reckless horse riding. Those jailed for longer than a year were sent to Oahu.

The prison serves a happier function today. It is frequently rented for community use, and there have been many happy gatherings in the now parklike atmosphere.

We’re finished now at the prison, so let’s meet up again at our next-to-last cemetary.
 

THE EPISCOPAL CEMETARY
Site #22

During the reign of King Kamehameha IV, the Kingdom of Hawaii acquired a Victorian flair.

His queen, Emalani Rooke, had strong ties to the British throne.

The cemetery of the Episcopal Church, located on Wainee Street between Prison and Hale streets, contains burial sites of many early families on Maui who joined the Anglican Church after the Archbishop of Canterbury in England was specifically requested to form a church in Hawaii by Queen Emma.
 

HALE ALOHA
Site #23

Hale Aloha, The “House of Love” was built by Hawaiian Protestants in "commemoration of God's causing Lahaina to escape the smallpox, while it desolated Oahu in 1853, carrying off 5,000-6,000 of its population."

An existing meeting house, used for the most part as a school, was torn down, and Hale Aloha was completed in 1858 with church funds. It was then acquired by the Government Board of Education, which put more money into it.

Rev. Baldwin wrote, “The whole reminds one more of a good Boston school house than any thing I have met in the Islands.”

It was used some time as a school, although on December 14, 1862, the island’s first Episcopalian services were held there.

 The Episcopalians went on to build their own church, and in the meantime, the original missionaries got Hale Aloha back from the Government and used it for school,  public meetings,  and services over the years.

High winds have twice removed its roof, and the building has fallen as many times into disuse and disrepair. Each time, however, drives have resulted in its restoration. The latest was in 1974,  when the Maui County Historic Commission restored most of it.

The job had to be done with taxpayers' money, and not enough was available to restore the belfry. An early bell is on a stand beside the Waiola Church and dates back to about 1910.

The public restrooms and other things now required of public buildings by law were also not financed, so the building can be used only for gatherings of 16 persons or less!

It has been restored to appear as it did a century ago inside and out—except for that belfry.
 

BUDDHIST TEMPLE
Site #24

Welcome now to the Buddhist Temple.

The Shingnon sect of Buddhism joined the other religious denominations on Maui with the arrival of Japanese laborers hired to work on the sugar plantations.

Small Buddhist churches sprang up around the numerous plantation camps. Sometimes a false "temple front" was added to an existing building to give it some distinction.

With its simple wooden architectural style and green paint, this structure is typical of plantation-era buildings, when Japanese laborers were imported to work in the sugar cane fields.

During the summer, this Buddhist church joins others in holding Bon Memorial celebrations where members perform traditional folk dances.

A bazaar and Bon celebration are held somewhere on Maui most summertime Saturday nights.

Visitors are welcome.

We’ll now move to a street rather than a specific site.
 

LUAKINI STREET
Site #25

We’re now at Luakini Street.

Luakini Street was named during the funeral procession in 1837 of the beloved Princess Harriet Nahienaena, because it was part of the route taken on the way to the Royal Tomb on Moku-ula Island in the royal pond, across the street from what is now the Whaler’s Market Place.

Caught between the ancient and modern worlds, Princess Nahienaena alternately worshipped the Protestant God, and yearned after the old traditions, in which a union with her brother, Kamehameha III, would have preserved the purity of the royal family.

She had a son by the king in August or September, 1836. The boy lived only a few hours, and Nahienaena herself died December 30, 1836.

She was twenty-one.

A path was made through the breadfruit and koa trees for her body to pass.

Luakini refers to the Hawaiian word for a heiau, or temple, where ruling chiefs prayed and human sacrifices were offered, and the grieving Hawaiians named the path "Luakini," comparing her death to a sacrifice to the ancient gods.

For a while after 1836 this was known as Alanui Luakini, alanui meaning “big path” or “big way” in Hawaiian.

Let’s meet next at the Maria Lanakila Church, on Dickenson Street near Wainee Street.
 

MARIA LANAKILA CHURCH
Site #26

Although the arrival of Roman Catholic priests in 1846 was not viewed favorably by other religious denominations, with the influx of Portuguese and Filipino laborers, Catholicism became the largest denomination.

When Fathers Barnabe Castan and Modest Favens, along with Brother Jean Marie Gabriac, formed the first official Catholic Mission on Maui in 1846, they discovered nearly 4,000 Hawaiians already converted to the faith.

Hawaiian laypersons had introduced and spread Catholicism since the late 1830s.

There was a continual rift between Protestants and Catholics, but with the support of influential American and French citizens the first Catholic church was built on this site in 1856, with a larger building dedicated in 1858.

By 1927, 28 Catholic churches reached from Kipahulu to Kahakuloa.

The present church, a concrete replica of the earlier wooden structure built in 1858, dates from 1928.

We’re through here, so let’s move along to our last cemetary.
 

SEAMEN'S CEMETERY
Site #27

The original Seamen's Cemetery was adjacent to its current location and much larger than the small plot that remains, attesting to the rigors of whaling and primitive medical services available on shipboard.

Old records show that many of the deaths occurred among very young men, some of them sailors whose boats were swamped when they tried to make it ashore through the surf at Lahaina.

Over the years, the marked graves of sailors gradually disappeared, until now only one or two are identifiable.

Herman Melville’s cousin is buried here, and one of Melville’s shipmates, as well, who died in the Seamen’s Hospital of a “disreputable disease.”

Now we’ll begin driving up Lahainaluna Road to our next historic site.
 

HALE PAI
Site #28

Lahaina’s first school for commoners was founded by Betsey Stockton, missionary and ex-slave, in 1824.

Within two years, 8000 students attended almost 200 island schools.

With too few teachers to meet the demand, Maui’s missionaries founded Lahainaluna High School in 1831 as a teacher training center.

Reverend Lorrin Andrews, Lahainaluna’s principal and sole instructor in the beginning, recruited “men of piety and promising talents,” to construct the first school buildings in the hills above Lahaina.

Lahainaluna  produced a governor, ministers, lawyers, teachers, and government officials.

Highly-regarded native historian, David Malo, first studied, then taught here.

The school is the oldest educational institution west of the Rockies and now serves as the public high school for the Lahaina area.

The “printing house” (Hale Pai) is the oldest and most interesting structure on the Lahainaluna High School campus, and open Monday through Saturday to visitors.

Here, the first newspaper west of the Rockies was published—in Hawaiian.

There was no written form of the Hawaiian language when the missionaries arrived, so to spread the word of God, a missionary committee devised one.

Presses in Honolulu and here at Hale Pai soon began printing textbooks and other teaching aids. Hundreds of thousands of pages of material in the Hawaiian language were produced.

Under a grant from the State of Hawaii, the printing shop was restored from 1980 to 1982 by the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.

The Wo Hing Temple is our next stop of interest.
 

WO HING TEMPLE
Site #29

Chinese men were imported in great numbers to work in the sugar cane fields.

In 1909 a group of them formed the local Wo Hing Society, a chapter of Chee Kung Tong, a Chinese fraternal society with branches all over the world, dating back to the 17th century.

In 1912, they built a fraternal hall downtown that became the social center for hundreds of Chinese residents, who became a powerful force in the commerce of Lahaina.

In 1983, the Lahaina Restoration Foundation restored the building and installed a display of the history of the Chinese in Lahaina.

The cookhouse was separate from the main building as a precaution against fire.

Authentic utensils, discovered in the attic, are on display.

The fire pits heated huge woks using local kiawe wood as fuel. You would probably know this wood back home as mesquite.

The two fierce-looking jade Fu Dogs on exhibit here were sculpted from one boulder of nephrite “green spinach” jade originally discovered in the headwaters of the Fraser River in British Columbia.

The two dogs weigh 300 pounds each. The male Fu Dog stands on the left and has his left paw firmly placed on the carved orb representing the earth—he is acting as guardian and protector for all the material things of the world. The female Fu Dog stands on the right with her right paw embracing a puppy which represents all life on earth—she is acting as guardian and protector of all plant and animal things of the world.

In addition to the displays, the Cookhouse Theatre shows movies of Hawaii taken by Thomas Edison in 1898 and 1903, an incredible visual history lesson.

The museum and theater are open daily.

Now we’ll take a short drive down Front Street to the U.S. Seamen’s Hospital.
 

U.S. SEAMEN'S HOSPITAL
Site #30

During the reign of Kamehameha the Great, unscrupulous masters of American and English whaling ships began dumping sailors in the Islands to lighten their loads before heading to Canton to trade.

Records from the 1850s refer to 2,000-3,000 destitute sailors on Hawaiian beaches during the month of October. Hungry for food, drink and female companionship, they were an embarrassment to the American government, which persuaded Kamehameha III to lease the building to the U.S. State Department as a center for the sick and disabled seamen of Lahaina.

There was scandalous talk in those days that the doctors at the hospital collected per diem fees from the government for patients long-since buried in the Seamen’s Cemetary.

The hospital is located on Front Street, out of the downtown district and in what is now the first residential district toward Lahaina. In those days, downtown Lahaina did not extend northward (toward Kaanapali) much farther than Dickenson Street, which was then a stream alongside the present Baldwin Missionary House.

The Hawaiian whaling fleet forever disbanded after 1871. Business was in such drastic decline that the Seamen’s Hospital had been closed, then reopened as a girls’ school under new owners. Any whalemen needing medical attention had to go to Honolulu.

In pre-missionary days, important buildings were guarded by the spirits of “permanent guards.” Permanent because they were deliberately killed and their bodies were placed under the foundations of the buildings they were to watch over.

During an overall study of the building and its premises conducted by a team from the Bishop Museum, just such a guardian was discovered.

The skeleton was in exactly the proper place, the northeast corner of the Seamen’s Hospital, half outside and half inside the the building. The skull was uncovered about two feet down.

A Hawaiian minister was called, the remains were blessed and given a proper Christian burial, and remain where they were found—in a constant vigil over the building.

The U.S. Seamen's Hospital was purchased in 1974 by the Lahaina Restoration Foundation and now stands completely restored. Visitors are most welcome.

Let’s head for our very last stop, the Jodo Mission.
 

JODO MISSION
Site 31

The Lahaina Jodo Mission Cultural Park sits on a point of land known as Puunoa Point, "the hill freed from taboo.”

The area was once a small village fronting the royal grove of coconut trees planted by the governor of Maui's wife, Hoapilwahine.

The area was called Mala ("garden") and the adjacent Mala Wharf still bears the name. The park was a pleasant place to the many Japanese laborers who stamped it with their own cultural heritage.

The mission is the best known landmark in the area today and is one of Lahaina's busiest visitor attractions.

The largest Buddha outside of Japan sits majestically and serenely in a small park commemorating the arrival of the first Japanese immigrants in 1868. The compound includes the temple shrine and an extensive outdoor meeting area.

Members of the church are very active in the community, and many outside functions such as wedding receptions and award ceremonies are frequently held here.

As with many other Buddhist temples, the Jodo Mission celebrates the summer Bon Memorial Celebration, a joyous drumdancing festival honoring ancestral souls.
 

IN CONCLUSION

Our last stop, at the Jodo Mission and Mala area, brings our tour of historic old Lahaina Town to a close.

For additional information or assistance with research, the folks at the Lahaina Restoration Foundation are extremely knowledgeable and always willing to help. Their office is open weekdays, and their telephone number is (808) 661-3262.