BY Christine Hitt
May 2, 2010
Princess Kaiulani’s parents were Princess Likelike, younger sister to King Kalakaua and Queen Liliuokalani, and Scotsman Archibald Cleghorn. In the Hawaiian Gazette of 1907, A.S. Cleghorn, then Governor of Oahu Island under the Hawaiian Monarchy, recalled old times. Here are some quotes from the piece:
“I came to Honolulu in June, 1851,” he said, “from Auckland, by way of Tahiti, in the brig ‘Sisters,’ commanded by Captain Clark.” There were no conveniences for docking, of course, in that early day, and the reefs were dangerous, then as now, to those who did not know them…
“There was a fine market, even then, where the business house of Brewer & Co. now stands, at which all sorts of supplies could be bought very cheaply, fruits, vegetables, fowls and general produce… Grass houses constituted by far the greater part of the dwellings, and they were occupied by white people as well as natives…
“Times were very prosperous; there was plenty of money and it was freely spent. Honolulu was an important port, at the time, in the whaling trade. Between 200 and 500 vessels arrived here in the months of October and December… There were then no sugar plantations. The men were paid off here and spent their money freely.” Exports were “Flour and potatoes. Wheat and potatoes were both raised on Maui then, on lands now given over to cane culture, and there was a good mill…
“Honolulu was very bare of vegetation, there being little beside the cocoa palms, algaroba and tamarind trees. From Kawaiahao Church out to Punahou it was a treeless plain. Along Wilder avenue, as late as the time of Kamehameha V, horse racing was a common amusement.”
And, Cleghorn commented on the smallpox epidemic of 1853: “The dead cart went the rounds twice a day,” he said, “night and morning, and it was loaded. The dead were not put into coffins, but merely wrapped up and buried in a trench behind Kawaiahao Church.”
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