Arthur Kinney, Grand Master of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I

Born in ‘Ele‘ele and raised at the McBryde Sugar Co. Mill Camp, Arthur Kailua Kinney Sr. (1904-1986) was the Grand Master of The Royal Order of Kamehameha I from 1959 to 1964.  

Established by King Kamehameha V in 1865, the Royal Order of Kamehameha I is a knightly order of Native Hawaiian men of good moral character.

From its beginnings until the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893, four sovereigns of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i were its Grand Masters: Kamehameha V, Lunalilo, Kalakaua and Lili‘uokalani.

Thereafter, Grand Masters were elected, with Sir Arthur Kailua Kinney Sr. being the sixth of 12 elected Grand Masters to date.

Kinney, active in community affairs, also served as Kaua‘i District President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and was a commercial fisherman.

During his childhood, his father owned a dairy in Wahiawa Valley, just above where the present bridge spans the valley. In the early morning hours before school, he and his brothers would ride horseback to the dairy from McBryde Mill Camp to help milk his father’s 17 cows and store the milk in a cooling room. Then they would walk to Hanapepe School in Hanapepe town, or to ‘Ele‘ele School, following Hanapepe School’s closing in 1911.

After school, they’d assist their father’s dairyman, John Rita, in delivering five-gallon cans of milk in a horse-drawn wagon to Hanapepe and Makaweli, where they sold milk to housewives for 5 cents a quart.

As a boy, Kinney saw the inter-island steamships S. S. Kinau and S. S. Claudine at Port Allen anchored in deep water, while lighters transported goods and passengers between the steamers and shore.

He also recalled eating shave ice covered with strawberry syrup at the horse racing track in Kukuiolono Park, Kalaheo.  

Kinney and his first wife, Lei Watt Kinney, had three children. After Lei Watt died, he married Bessie Wiebke.