ISLAND HISTORY: Philanthropist Emma Kauikeolani Napoleon Mahelona Wilcox of Kauai
Emma Kauikeolani Napoleon Mahelona Wilcox (1851-1931) was born in Honolulu, the daughter of Mr. Temanihi and Mrs. Pamahoa Napoleon, and was related, through her mother, to King Lunalilo.
ISLAND HISTORY: A history of Kauai’s Kipu Sugar Plantation
In 1866, William Hyde Rice (1846-1924), the son of American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii William Harrison Rice and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice, began leasing land at Kipu from Princess Ruth Keelikolani on which he raised horses and cattle.
ISLAND HISTORY: Visiting historic places on Kauai with Holbrook “Hobey” Goodale
Holbrook “Hobey” Goodale (1923-2014) of Kauai was a descendant of American Protestant missionaries to Hawaii William Harrison Rice and Mary Sophia Hyde Rice; his great-grandfather, William Hyde Rice, had been Kauai’s governor under Queen Liliuokalani; Charles Rice, his grandfather, owned Kipu Sugar Plantation and Kipu Ranch, and his mother, Juliet Rice Wichman, founded the Kauai Museum.
ISLAND HISTORY: The Kekaha Ditch – an engineering marvel since 1907 – and its keepers
When Kekaha Sugar Co. was formed in 1898 with Hans Peter Faye as its manager, his ambition was to tap the mountainous headwaters of the Waimea River with an irrigation system that would transport water many miles downstream to his plantation’s thirsty sugarcane fields on the plain between Waimea and Polihale.
ISLAND HISTORY: Everybody knew “Joe” Shiramizu – Part 2: ‘Lihue Plantation News’ editor
Following his graduation from Kauai High School, “Joe” Shiramizu was hired by Lihue Plantation as a timekeeper in the fields.
ISLAND HISTORY: Everybody knew “Joe” Shiramizu – Part 1: His early years
The son of Japanese immigrants Shigetaro and Yukuyo Shiramizu, “Lihu‘e Plantation News” editor and “The Garden Island” newspaper sports editor Chiyozo “Joe” Shiramizu (1916-1995) was born and raised in Lihu‘e Plantation’s Mill Camp at Hanama‘ulu, Kaua‘i.
ISLAND HISTORY: Grove Farm Plantation engineer Victor Vargas
I first heard of Grove Farm engineer Victor Vargas during the 1980s, when I was employed by McBryde Sugar Co. as a harvesting haul cane truck driver.
ISLAND HISTORY: Historic photographs by John Wehrheim of Kauai
Photographer, filmmaker and author John Wehrheim (b. 1947) arrived on Kauai in 1969 to write and photograph “Paradise Lost,” a three-part series for the Sierra Club, which focused on the rapid and unprecedented extinction of Hawaii’s unique flora and fauna, as well as Hawaii’s increasing water pollution, traffic congestion, and urban-resort sprawl.
ISLAND HISTORY: Forester Albert W. Duvel introduced the Kokee plum to Kauai
Born in Honolulu, Albert W. Duvel (1903-1978) was a 200-pound center and utility lineman on the University of Hawaii football team and the chief forester on Kauai from 1925 to 1963.
ISLAND HISTORY: Theresa Gouveia Cabral’s recollections of bygone days on Kauai
“At Christmastime, the Hawaiians would come to serenade us, and Ma would serve sweet bread, pickle pork and wine.
ISLAND HISTORY: Theresa Gouveia Cabral’s recollections of bygone days on Kaua‘i
Theresa Gouveia Cabral (1908-2011) was 91 years old and a resident of Kaimuki, Oahu in 1999 when she wrote her reminiscences of Kauai.
ISLAND HISTORY: Kaua‘i harbor master ‘Captain Jack’ Bertrand
Born in Colorado, Kauai harbor master John “Captain Jack” Bertrand (1891-1971) ran away from home in Nova Scotia at the age of 12 or 14 to follow the sea as a deckhand and mess boy aboard fishing schooners and cargo vessels plying the Newfoundland banks off Nova Scotia.
ISLAND HISTORY: Master koa canoe builder Tetsuo Sato of Kauai
Born at Kilauea, Kauai, Tetsuo Sato (1909-1979) was a cabinetmaker, finish carpenter and master Hawaiian koa canoe builder noted for the restoration of the prize koa canoes “Kaulupeelani’” and “Princess,” and the building of the “Niumalu” for the Kauai Canoe and Racing Association (KCARA) during the 1950s.
ISLAND HISTORY: The suicide of Kauai sugar planter Henry Harrison Wilcox
The eighth of eight sons of American Protestant missionaries Abner and Lucy Wilcox of Waioli, Kauai, Henry Harrison Wilcox was born at Hanalei in 1858, educated at Punahou, and was for a number of years actively engaged in the management of Hanamaulu Sugar Plantation with his brother, Albert Spencer Wilcox.
ISLAND HISTORY: Aylmer Robinson, legendary owner of the ‘Forbidden Island’
Aylmer Robinson (1888-1967) was born at Makaweli, Kauai into a family that had owned the island of Niihau since 1864, when his great-grandmother, Scottish-born Eliza Sinclair, had purchased it from King Kamehameha V for $10,000.
ISLAND HISTORY: Grove Farm Plantation Manager & Coconut Planter E. H. W. Broadbent
Edward Henry Walton Broadbent (1872-1947) was born in New Zealand and was trained there as a blacksmith prior to his moving to Hawaii in 1891 and finding skilled work at the Honolulu Iron Works.
ISLAND HISTORY: Keokilele Halemanu Punana Ukeke: Grand matriarch of Kaua‘i’s Malina ‘ohana
Keokilele Halemanu Punana Ukeke’s (1839-1913) genealogy, published in 1998, lists nearly 700 descendants by her 20 children from two marriages.
ISLAND HISTORY: A brief history of Makee Sugar Co.
In 1876, Capt. James Makee (1813-1879) and his son-in-law, Col. Zephaniah S. Spalding (1837-1927), founded Makee Sugar Co. on several thousand acres of land at Kealia they’d purchased from the estate of rancher and dairy farmer Ernest Krull for $30,000, and on substantial acreage acquired at Kapaa.
ISLAND HISTORY: Tribute to Pacific magazine and editor Bud Bendix
It was Bud Bendix (1931-2016), the managing editor at Honolulu based Pacific Magazine, who in 1996 gave me my first break as a writer, when he accepted my historical nonfiction article “Surviving Among the Cannibals” for publication in the September-October issue of the magazine.
ISLAND HISTORY: Mrs. Elizabeth Stone Bahr, a descendant of Kauai Governor Paul P. Kanoa
Mrs. Elizabeth Stone Bahr, a resident of Northern Virginia and an attorney with the U.S. Department of Defense specializing in international and treaty law, is a descendant of Kaua‘i Gov. Paul P. Kanoa (1832-1895) and his wife, Kaleipua Kanoa (1843-1897), through their daughter and heir Ho‘omalu Kanoa Kreuter (1880-1945).