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JOHN YOUNG HOMESTEAD HABS HI-539 Puukohola Heiau National Historic Site HABS HI-539 62-3601 Kawaihae Road Kawaihae vicinity Hawaii County Hawaii PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 1849 C Street NW Washington, DC 20240-0001 HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY JOHN YOUNG HOMESTEAD HABS HI-539 Location: 62-3601 Kawaihae Road, Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, Kawaihae vicinity, Hawaii County, Hawaii The John Young Homestead site is located at latitude: 20.030186, longitude: -155.818784. The coordinate represents the approximate southeast corner of John Young’s house. This coordinate was obtained on April 4, 2014, using Google Earth. The coordinate’s datum is WGS84. The John Young Homestead site location has no restriction on its release to the public. Present Owner: National Park Service Present Use: Historic resource within Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site Significance: The John Young Homestead site is significant for its association with John Young, who was integral to the establishment of the Kingdom of Hawaii by Kamehameha I in 1810 and who became a prominent figure in Hawaiian history. In addition, the structures themselves represent the integration of Western building techniques with traditional Hawaiian ones. Historian: Justine Christianson, Heritage Documentation Programs, 2014 Project Information: The John Young Homestead was documented by the Heritage Documentation Programs of the National Park Service, Richard O’Connor, Chief, as part of the Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site Recording Project. Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site was documented using emergency funding established after a 2006 earthquake damaged several structures in the park. Pu'ukohola and Mailekini heiau and the John Young Homestead were documented before and after restoration work. Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, Daniel Kawaiaea, Superintendent, sponsored the project, and Adam Johnson, Park Archeologist, coordinated the work. The recording team included Todd Croteau, Project Leader, and Lora Cunningham, Dana Lockett, and Ryan Pierce, Architects. Todd Croteau produced the large-format photography, while Jet Lowe produced the aerial photographs. Laura Carter Schuster, Chief of Cultural Resources, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, provided project coordination. JOHN YOUNG HOMESTEAD HABS No. HI-539 (Page 2) For related documentation, see: Pu'ukohola Heiau HALS No. HI-4 Mailekini Heiau HALS No. HI-5 Kikiako'i HALS No. HI-16 Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site HALS No. HI-17 PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. Physical History: 1. Date of erection: 1798 2. Architect: None 3. Original and subsequent owners, occupants, uses: Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, Hawaiian land belonged to the highest chief or king. The whole island was the mokupuni, which would be divided into wedge- shaped pieces called moku. These moku would then be divided into ahupua'a, which were ruled by an ali'i (chief) and managed by a konohiki (headman). Finally, the ahupua'a could be further divided into 'ili'aina, or estates. The ahupua'a was viewed as a “self-sufficient economic unit, cross-cutting the concentric ecological zones of an island.”1 The ideal ahupua'a began in the mountains and extended down towards the coast so that it encompassed a variety of natural resources. An ahupua'a needed to contain land in the uplands, which would provide the wood and plants like koa and maile vines for building, in the plains for agriculture, and along the shoreline for maritime resources and ocean access. The size of the ahupua'a varied depending on the availability of resources, and the boundaries were typically those of the watershed. Kamehameha I, who became ruler of all the Hawaiian islands, except Kauai, in 1791, granted an ahupua'a called Kawaihae Hikina (also referred to as Kawaihae 2) to John Young for his invaluable service. The John Young Homestead was part of the 'ili'aina (or estate) known at one time as Pahukanilua. Young’s property was actually divided into the lower homestead, near Kawaihae Bay and now underwater, and the upper homestead, which is now part of Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site. This report focuses on that portion of the homestead located between State Highway 26 to the west, Makeahua Gulch to the south, Makahuna Gulch to the north, and an abandoned quarry to the east. After Young’s death in 1835, his son, Keoni Ana (also called John Young, Jr.), inherited the entire ahupua'a. However, Young’s second wife, Ka'oana'eha, retained 1 Patrick Vinton Kirch, A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief: The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawai’i (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 140. JOHN YOUNG HOMESTEAD HABS No. HI-539 (Page 3) her residence in the lower part of the homestead. Two land reform programs, the Great Mahele of 1848 and the Land Commission Awards of 1846-1855, resulted in the division of Young’s substantial landholdings. The upper and lower portions of his original homestead were legally separated in 1851, with the lower portion awarded to Ka'oana'eha and Isoba Puna (Ka'oana'eha’s konohiki or headman). Keoni Ana remained owner of the upper portion, still known as the Kawaihae Hikina ahupua'a, but it was not formally occupied after Young’s death. Keoni Ana died in 1857, and his niece Emma Kaleleonālani (who was married to Kamehameha IV and known as Queen Emma) inherited one third of his landholdings, including the ahupua'a of Kawaihae Hikina. With Queen Emma’s death in 1885, one half of her estate was left to the Queen’s Hospital, established in 1860 to provide much needed medical care to Hawaiians, and the other half, including Kawaihae Hikina, went to Prince Albert K. Kunuiakea, her cousin. Kunuiakea’s death in 1903 resulted in the transfer of Kawaihae Hikina to the Queen’s Hospital. By 1958, the Territory of Hawaii had condemned the lots in the lower portion of the homestead in preparation for the construction of the deep water Kawaihae Harbor. In 1973, the Queen’s Hospital donated three parcels to the National Park Service for the newly-established Pu'ukohola Heiau National Historic Site, including Lot 4, totaling almost 2 acres, on which the upper portion of the John Young Homestead site was located.2 4. Builder: John Young 5. Original plans and construction: While John Young’s original diary is not publicly available, National Park Service historian Russell Apple does provide relevant quotes from it.3 Young wrote in his diary in 1798 about the establishment of his homestead and indicated the closeness of his relationship with Kamehameha I. Have begun four buildings. My house, the cook house, and storage room, the house for the child and tahus [guardians] and near the small temple [perhaps referring to Mailekini Heiau] a house for storage. My house at the small rise below the great temple [referring to Pu'ukohola Heiau] more suitable than the ravine which washes away with Whymea floods [perhaps referring to the Makeahua gulch]. The great one [Kamehameha I] comes 2 Mara Durst, “A Cooperative Archaeological Excavation Project at the John Young Homestead,” Publications in Anthropology I (Pacific Island Cluster, National Park Service, U.S. Department of Interior, 2001), 11, 28, 31. Russell Apple completed extensive research into the land records, which is recorded in “Pahukanilua: Homestead of John Young,” Historical Data Section of the Historic Structure Report (Honolulu: National Park Service, Hawaii State Office, September 1978), 8-14, 20-23. See also, Linda Wedel Greene, A Cultural History of Three Traditional Hawaiian Sites on the West Coast of Hawai’i Island (United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Denver Service Center, 1993), 276-277 and footnote 172. 3 Apple notes in his bibliography that the diary was “transcribed by Robert E. Van Dyke, in whose possession diary is. Diary not available for inspection,” see “Pahukanilua,” page 90. JOHN YOUNG HOMESTEAD HABS No. HI-539 (Page 4) to use my cook house several times. I make biskits and cook a lamb. Have all enjoyed feast. 4 Unlike typical Hawaii construction of dry-set stone, these structures were built of stone set in mud mortar and plastered with a coral lime mixture. In March 1799, Young noted in his diary that he had finished plastering the houses and whitewashing the fences around the animal pens, concluding with the intriguing statement: “it is as in Wales.” In September of that same year, he wrote that he had finished repairing a roof with sticks and thatch, indicating that it was thatched in a typical Hawaiian manner. In 1809, Young recorded completion of another structure, possibly a cook house. Archaeological evidence indicates that as completed, the homestead consisted of two residential structures, one storage structure, stone platforms and a terrace, and possibly an oven. The arrangement of the homestead as a cluster of structures fulfilling various functions, like platforms and terraces, storage sheds, canoe sheds, and separate men’s and women’s quarters, was a typical Hawaiian residential pattern.5 The John Young Homestead is described in many contemporary travel accounts because of its unusual appearance in comparison with typical Hawaiian residential structures of dry-set stone platforms with pole-framed and thatched shelters on top. For example, Isaac Iselin, who visited the Hawaiian islands in the early 1800s described his sojourn at the homestead thus, “Mr. Young occupies several stone buildings, which are the best (save those of the king, built on the same plan but now shut) I have seen on this island.”6 Laura Fish Judd, a missionary, had a very different account of Young’s residence from other travelers of the time, although it appears she was describing the structures in the lower portion of the homestead.