OI-T-30Wox #2

lil ts lr rr ,V l()1]i illil

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

BRIGHA}4 YOUNG UNIVERSITY - HAWAII CA}4PUS

Behavi-oral and Social Sciences DivisionLaie, Hawaii 96762

ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

NARRAT9R, William Kaneakald Sproat

TNTERVIEW NO.: 0H-30

DATE OF INTERVIEW: July lB, l97l and July 25, 1978

INTERVIEWER: Kenneth l,il. Ba1 dri dge

SUBJECT: Kohala Ditch; Life Story; LDS in Hawaii

TRANSCRIBER: Karen Maeda and Kenneth l'nl. Baldridge

DATE OF TRANSCRIPTION: Juneo 1980 and August 4, l97B

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

C.

I

I

j

-

BRIGI{AM YOUNG UNIVilRSTTY HAWATI CAMPUSBehavioral and Social Sciences DivisionLaie, Hawaii 96762

ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM o

gna ure o narr r

P.0'. Box 246 Kapaau, Hawai i 96755Address of narrator

erv ewer

a

a

c,

(

T, WILLIAM K. SPROAThistoiic .ll"xl'Y"i5"i::.rily give to BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSTTY-HAWAII cAMPUs the fulluse of the information on the rlescribed tape recordings andtranscripts thereof as a donation for such sciroriiiv -;"aeducational purposes as the university shall determine.

5 December I 980

18 July 197125 July l97B

Date

( KOHALA DiTCH; LIFE STORY; LDS IN HAWAIISubject of tape s)

thpe

y' truntcript

narrator check

L.

L

\-)

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

Thei nformal

I NTRODUCT ION

At this writing, hlilliam Kaneakald Sproat has just retired afterserving more than eight years as chief of the Hawaiian Village of thePolynesian Cultural Center and he is now making plans to return toKohala on the Big Island of Hawaii. Although he was born in Waimea,South Kohala, it was in the rugged va'lleys of North Kohala where hespent forty years of his life as superintendent of the Kohala Ditch.

ortion of the transcript identifjed as A and B represent annterview held following a most informative four-day tri tn

June, 1971, in which Sproat hosted Jerry Loveland, Pat Dalton, E'l uIeremia, and the interviewer, a'l1 faculty menrbers of the Church Collegeof Hawaii. The first day was spent tramp'ing around Pololu Val'ley andthen returning to Sproat's home in Niulii to spend the night. Thenext day, mounted on mu1es, the party left for a three-day cincuitthrough the valleys of North Kohala as Sproat described the f1ora,fauna, geo'logy, and history of the area through which runs 22-mi1eKohala ditch.

Present at this "interview" are Bill Sproat, Jerry Loveland andmyse'lf. l.le are making references to USGS Topographical Map, Honokane,Hawaii in prepanation for a slide-sound show presented by the PolynesianInstitute & Museum under vlhose auspices the field trip was made. Atvarjous timeso I read from the script for that presentation.

Parts C and D of the transcript represent still another "non-interview". 0n July 25, Bill Sproat and I were travelling from Konato Kalae, South Po'int, in the district of Ka'u on the Big Island whereI was go'ing to interview a former teacher of Bill's, t,llilliam Meinecke(0H-46). As we discussed Bill's association with the Church in hisearlier years, I turned on the tape recorder to record what I couldover the noise of the car and the wind. Aga'in, it was an informalounstructured si tuation.

Kenneth l^.l. Ba1 dri dgeDirector, Oral H'istoryl5 December

.1980

p

i p

i

't11

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

TAPE TRANSCRI PT

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Ju'ly 18, l97lIntroduction; family background; variousfami'ly homes.Retraci ng of P Il'l expedi ti on

Coffee raising in AwiniFami'ly home : Pol ol u Va1 I eyHonokane Nui Va'l 1 ey; p1 um trees ;

family leasesHonokane Iki ValleyJapanese man and 1946 tsunami

END OF SIDE A

Loading faci l'i ties--Honokane IkiAwini Val1eyKohal a Di tch ; vegetat'ionKahale 0 M'iluEnd of trip through valleys0verlook into valieys; more on ditch

END OF SIDE B

July 25, 1978En route through KealakekuaBackground of Sproat's life, activity of

his father; meeting of parents; variousoccupations of his father

Father begins employment on Kohala Ditch;description of responsibil i ties

Bi 1 I ' s marri age; h'i s wi fe 's backgroundBoxing career in Hilo; work on the break-

water and in fire departmentReturn to Kohala to take over the ditchConversion to LDS Church in HiloInacti vi ty i n Kohal a ; react'i vati onChurch service (branch clerk, then district

president for twenty-eight years)END OF SIDE C

Di scussi on re: t^Ji I I i am Ftrei neckeBill's work on Kohala Ditchidork as district presidento LDS Churchl4ore on Kohala Ditch (1abor & management)TND OF INTIRVIEt^J

Side AT00-

200

503

Side C-000-031

428

581594667700

725

Page1

l3

26

42?3254417

467477

t112

57

0I

Side B

--ooo027.l40

358422425

579

13l4t621

2323

2727

32

465510

3334

35353737

Side D-Toe-029064158262

3B

383B394041

'lv

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

Iooo]

WS:

INT:

WS:

I NT:

t,.JS:

INT:

July 18, .l97.l. This is Ken Baldridge in Laie interviewing lllilliamSproat of Niuli'i on the Big Island of Hawaii. Well, maybe firstof all before we get into that we'll talk a littte bit about you,and be sure I have all that understanding as well. First of all,maybe just some of the bare biographical data. Where were you bornand when was that, Bill? This map doesn't sho....

I was born actually in hJaimea, in South Kohala.

0h, yes.

I was born in South Kohala on February the lzth,1903, in hlaimea.

Waimea. Alright now. When did you come to North Kohala?

tle moved to North Kohala in .l9.l7. 1917, but my mother was born

and raised in this valley here.

In Pololu? She was born and raised thereo and is that where youmoved in 1917?

No, we moved to .... [looking at map]

Honokane Iki?

No.

Here's the west branch of Honokane Iki; there's the east branch.

hle moved here to Awini; that is the name of the piace. Doesn'tgive the name--this is an o1d map.

Is this on the Waipahi stream?

Yeah, hlaipahi stream, right here.

I see.

) hle had a housei we lived up here. My dad took a job upith the ditch company, back in .l9.l7. I was in school overn Honolulu. i got out of school let's see, in ]919, but we'iving here since 1917.

hJS:

INT:

l,tJS:

INT:

t,tIS:

INT:

l,tIS:

INT:

hJS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

t.W

i1

(conhereherewere

0K, so you were there until l917 and your dad was workinditch company. Now, was this the time you were over ina whi'le?

No, I was Honolulu in Kam School.

for theilo for

g

H

Ah, yes.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

2

WS:

iNT:

trlS:

iNT:

WS:

INT:

tr,lS:

INT:

l,tIS:

INT:

t,rJS:

INT:

tllS;

INT:

ilIS:

Ir oo]

Kamehameha.

And then when did you come back to Awini?

In ]919 oh, we come back in the summer time. l,'le lived here see.Summer time. in the summer of .1919 I came back and stayed therethen

You were throuEh w'ith school by then?

Yes, I was through wi th school and I came back and I took over nty

dad's joh in 1928.

0K. Now in between l9l9 and l92B were you here in Awini most ofthat time, too?

Yes. l,Je lived up here see, our oniy home we had then; we livedup in the mountains. You know where we stayed that night; westayed one niEht at Awint camp, you remember the first night.It's not here, it^s on the other side of the stream. I builtthat since I took over. But we were up here on this flat here,we had a house. But I moved it down here to the camp that welived in that night; you know where we stayed. [He is referringto a mule-trip he made with the interviewer, Jerry Loveland, PatDalton, and Eliu Ieremia in June, 1971.f

That's where this camp is, right? That's where we stayed at thatcamp there. I see. So

.1928 then, you took over your dad's iobon the di tch and

I was there'ti.l .1968

Where were you living? Were you here or did you build a house backhere?

My dad built a place down here [Honokane lki]. [.le had been leasingthis for over 50 years, th'is Honokane Iki. And we had a house therenand we lived down there before he quit, before I took over in l92Band when I took over I lived here [Honokane lki]. Actual'ly, we

didn't live up here [Av'rini, where his fami'ly lived before movingdown into Honokane iki], we ljved here [l.lonokane iki] and we werethere for eight years before I moved out.

So from l92B to 1936, roughly, VOU were here in Honokane Iki andthen you moved....

Out to the Kohala district. I lived outside but I worked up here.[i.e., on the Kohala Ditch in the va'lleys of l.lorth Kohala]

Okay, where? Up to about where you are nown is that? [i.e., Niuli'i]

We'll, no for about one year I lived in Halawa, jt's iust a littlebeyond Niuli'i, it's not on the map here. l,rle lived in Halawa for

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

2J

INT:

I,tlS:

INT:

l,tJS:

INT:

t^lS

INT:

l.'lS:

INT:

l^JS:

INT:

i,tIS:

I NT:

lrlS:

about a year and then I moved to this land [Niuli'i], and I,vebeen there now thirty some-odd years. And then we bought thep'lace; we own it now.

Ah yeso 0k, we1], good. Soo you were then on the ditch then forforty years.

Yeso myself, but before, my dad was there for eleven years beforeI came on.

And now your son [Dale] is taking over after.

Right.

Nowo the time when you were up here, for example, Awini, you callthis, don't you? Okay. This is on top. That isn't in---now that'snot aiong the Ar,rini stream is it?The stream is in the back and the house is kind of on that flat,you see how it is right hereo and this is the tunnel and goes inabove that. You know, we have to go back and go in the siream.l,rle pass the tunnel where the tunnel comes out.

Now, I'm interested ktnd of in the occupancy. Now here in thePololu valley, for exarnple, they show this cemetery here. Now isthat the cemetery where you mentioned that--your mbther, was sheburied here?

No, my grandmother.

Your grandmother, it was.

My grandmother gnd my grandfather and_two of my uncles they, theyhave a burial plot back of the house [There wai an old burial cavefarther up the valieyl. You know up near the litile stream. Iforgot to show you foiks up that day in the back of the house.These last ones we buried them righl here, I don't know why theyp!rt.the cemetery here lon the map]. That's the one they meant

-

alr.ighto I never saw this map before.

Anyway, we were tal_king about that cemetery up there at Pololu Va1'leywhere your two uncl es and your . . . .

Grandmother and grandfather

....are both there.

I don't know who put that there cemetery, I didn,t know they hadthis on the map.

Now, this cemetery here apparently is up there where your wife isburi ed.

INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

4

WS:

INT:

t^JS

WS:

INT:

12I

JL:

00NT

l

0h, yeah, yeah, up on the hil There's two, there's two thereone right on where my wife and one on top there. See, this wholeMakanikahio ahupua'a here belonged to a fellow by the name of Pae.0f course, this is a little different right here. This beiong toPupukaa. But this whole thing belong to Pae one time from thebeach up. Now what we have up there where that house is up thereis only the house lot.

That's up there where the ... the lychee [Sproat home in Makanikahio].

Up on. the hill. R'ight, that's where we went to eat lychee.

That's only a house lot now. That's about three and a half acres.But actually all thi's belonged to Pae once upon a time. ThisMakanikahio over here, one and two. He had a mortgage to his cousin;he mortgaged it to his cousin. That's where the plantation got alot of this land, you know, through hook and crook. Cause I wentto court even to, you knowo to give witness that they had usedthe land and they got it on, you known adverse possession. Whichis according to Hoyle; they just took it over and started p'lantingcane, and paying taxes on and eventually they got it through ad-verse possession. They couldn't prove it, if they could prove it,then they didn't have to go to court to prove that they been workingfor ten years you know. [indecipherable] That's a fact. l,rle knewthat they were using it for over ten years and according to thelaw at that ti'me they got it through adverse possession. Becausenow I don't know, see, this went to his cousino that old miser,that owned all Kawaihaeuka before up on top of Kawai:hae, upperKawaihae and then when he died, he had no close relatives and theguy that was working for him claimed that he gave it to him. Ithink they just used that and so they got'it through this guy thatwas working for him. A fellow by the name of Malangi but actua'l'lythey couldn't prove ---No clear title or anything?

0kay, i want to kind of retrace our trip just a little bit andfill in some things that I didn't know or couldn't remember.Nowo you can Just kind of read along here and any place where thereseems to be something in doubt we can discuss that a little bit.

Down to detail. Loveland on Big Boy [laughter. Big Boy was his mule].

Now you mentioned this trail was a county road there, supposedlyanywa1i.. It's maintained now by the county down about 600 feet,would you say that's about right?

It's not maintar'ned by the county now, we're the ones who maintainit, the ditch company. We'r"e the only ones that use it but thecounty did one time rnaintain it. Because it's the county roadfromPololu to Awini. You know, clear up to the house where weslept the first time.

l,\lS

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

5

JL:

bJS:

The county' bui I t that?

tlle11, people lived in there then, you know. Peop'le living 'inHonokane Nui and Honokane lki tlren they, my father-in-law, t,'lalterV. Rodenhursto he''s Englisht he was a ldelshman. Another Scotsmanby the name Tullock, George Tullock and an American, Anna Lindsey'sfather-in-law right nowo her husband's father, a fellow by the nameof Pemy and then a couple of other fellows they made a companyand planted coffee there, 600 acres. Awini Fruit and CoffeeCompany. And then the coffee didn't do well and then they soldout in i895. I got a little clipping of that somewhere in mybelongings there. Then they didn't do well from lB95 til'l about.1904 or 5. See, that's about 10 years now; they found out by thenthat their crops couldn't do so wel'l so they gave up and the ditchconrpany was started in 1904, latter part of 1904; 1906 it wasfinished. See, by that time Perry went work for the ditch company[Perry helped build the ditch and became first superintendent.Sproat's father took over in 19.l71. Then they sold their coffeeland and all that below'that house there right to the beach tothe cliffs down there to the Kohala Sugar Company. So they ownedthat. So, Awini--from the house down belonged to the Kohala SugarCompany, Castle and Cooke. And that is the reason--and then theyhomesteaded the thing up there. bJe used to call this little place

!p there--you know where we stayed !n that_houseo the camp?Just a little ab-ove there jn kind of a swaleo oh

Lrle saw that p'lace di'dn't weo we went through

You just passed thereo but you can't really see it from the road.LJe always refer to it as the Portugee p1ace. I didn't know. Thiswas before. I was just a young squirt then, happened to be downin Pololu one tjme there was a fellow drove up in the car and stopped,a Portuguese guy, and then he started asking me if I knew whereAwini is. I say, "Yeah, we live in Awini." Then he said, "Mydad homesteaded the place up there." DeMello was his name and hewas livinE in Kona. As a boy he was up there. I could see why wegot the narne "Portugee Place". [,rle always referred to that asPortugee place and he said he had lived--he told me just where thespot was and I saido "0hn I can see the why and wherefore of thetitle." That's why the road was county, all the way up there, muletrail. Actually that trail was the original foot trail that theHawaiians used to go clean to Waipio [valley].

I noticed on the rnap here they have it'identified as the AwiniTrai I .

That's right. See this, only thing went up now we go up to theAwini houseo but when you get to here--you know where we went overto look at the old Kamehameha place? We11, that's the old originaltrail hooked up with this other one. That is the same size asit was before but when they made the ditch they widened it out toa mule trail.

INT:

llIS:

INT:

l^JS

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

6

rNT

t,JS:

INT:

t,lS:

INT:

l,{S:

INT:

tnJS:

iNT:

'yJS:

Now some of these he'ights and distances I'm not too sure of; Ithought maybe you could clear me in on that. Let's see, wedescended about 600 feet to the flat valley fioorn is that aboutri ght?

You talkiing about Pololu?

Yes, okay.

Really 800 from the mule station, you knowo then we went down-*850 about from the mule---there's a little bench mark right inthe yard--down to sea level

Now what's this 486 bench mark?

I take'it all back. What did I say? Six? no, 486, not even 500.That's the bench mark right here. Yours is good enough. This600 is up from the house up here. You know the house is quitehigher up.

0kay. How do you refer to that warehouse where we got the mules?Just a mule station? That identifies it, 0K. 0K, then at thefoot of the val'ley floor you pointed out where that old canoe-building operation was. That would be just about here someplaceoI suppose.

This is where we get to the bottom,yes, rimarshes, right in between the marshes, wou

IPololu ValIey].

Now this, of course, is a1l before your

ht along near thesed be right in here

g

i

JL;

t,lS:

JL:

ll'IS:

0h, yes, too bad you didntt come before 1946. That's when thetidal wave changed a1l that. Before that there was a flat inhere and little ditch, lined ditch that went out and drained theswamp a1'l the time cause they had to have water running out allthe time. Nowwhen it runs down it's a natural stream when there'sb'ig water which washes out; when there's not, the sand comes inand blocks it ,p, you know.

There used to be a lined ditch?

Right, lined with rock, right out here.

i,rJho built that?

We11, the taro growers, the rice growers, they used to grow taroone timeo all the taro.

Now, was that here along on the west side of this?

and this is down right after you get to the bottom of theva1ley and then go along a little flat area before you got to the

INT:

lnJS:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

7

di tch. Thearea was o rihere. And tout here one

dighhit

tch is a little out here and this is where the canoet up against the banko you know, the flat area ins flat area went on out here. There was a schoolime. My mother taught school out there.

INT:

ilJS:

JL:

i,.JS:

I NT:

l^JS

INT:

WS:

INT:

l,.JS:

INT:

JL:

Now this again is

Long before my days.

Now, you remember this school house being there?

1,,1e11, by the time we went back there in l9l7 to live, I remembergoing back there once when I was iust a little kid--already my

mother had been married and, you see, she was teach'ing school I

before she got married. That's how she met my father; she wentto summer school, met my dad down there then they got marriednsee. Then we iived jn Honolulu. Thenr my older sister born thenand she came back to Waimea and that's where I was borno in Waimea.But by that ti'me, when we got here, there's no school there butthere was the rock foundation of the school. All that wipedout by the tidal wave.

0K. Now when we went up looking to see if there was a trail wherewe went up along the va1ley, now this line here--that's where Ithink your glass might come in handy there,Jemy. That line isjust the edge of the forest reserve boundary apparently....

Just the bottom of the b'locksn you know. Bu

trail; that's a definite trail because peop'lthere before and they used that trai I . I dodon't show it on this map.

tteln't

here is an oldived al1 along upknow why they

This house where the cemetery is identified, that's where yourgrandmother and grandfather lived, that house right there whereyou came out of the tree? [older, but agi1e, Bill slipped while pickin

And there was another cluster of houseso Vou know where we wentin a little bit where there vlas an old house of refuge, anotherlittle place. Let's see, one of these little places that go downhere right on the marsh, see, here's your marsh right down here,see. And I think one of these places right down here my'great-grandmother had a house there [pololu Valley].

Your great*grandmother?

If you look on the map--Now I just saw a map the other day that hadthat on. You should have gotten that map and showed where thisplot was and this plot here. See this four acres up here and thisdown here belongs to my brother now and even had the name on.

0h, is that right?

That was the tax map you had.

ogos

_l

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

B

lnJS:

JL:

WS:

INT:

l,llS:

INT:

t,lJS:

I I,IT:

his:

I ItT:

tlJS:

INT:

!'JS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

Yes, tax map. That's the one you need, not this kind of a map.Shows the two l'ittle areas here.

Now this is a house of refuge?

For that area that was the house of refuge.

That was about half way that was this little markers here abouthalf way b.etween the beach and your grandparent's p1ace. And thenyour unc'le that later took care of your grandmother, he lived uphere farther up from the va11ey.

No, this is far enough. This is where we went up, we only wentup to hereo you know we were looking around in this area, thiskind of flat area.

Yeah, thjs'is where r,./e were looking around for the heiau and therock walls and all that up in that spot in Polollu.

And there's another trai Iit woud have had it. Thathe va'l1ey. You had to cget up inside and hit thetrail, see the ditch is u

, see this. If you had the proper mapt went up here and went clean up intolinb up to get past the vuaterfall. Andditch trail o wdy up where the ditch

p here and here's the trai I . You come

up and you hit iust about here out of the stream. You have tocross this stream because a couple of waterfalls, you have to go

up. I'low these are flats up here. This is where the Hawaiiansplanted awa and stuff like that, Vou know.

Now we carne up right after leaving the house site here by thecemeteryo and we came on up to about here, and this is where we

were I ooki ng a1 'l around here ['in Pol ol u Val l ey] .

That's right then we cut across the va'l1ey and we went down thats'i de , you know.

And I remember we ran into that fence and we followed the fencefor quite a ways.

That's way down here. lnle went down and we saw some rock wallsthe way down here. Then we got down to the fence, we went rightover the house. The fence took us back .....Back across the va11ey this way?

Yes.

So the fence would be right along'in here some p1ace, huh?

R'ight.

Then we crossed the va11ey.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

9

WS: Then, we had to go through the fence, see? Then we cut backacross the valley here, then went down here and came out on thetrail down here and went home.

INT: That's right, yes.

Yes, we cut across the va11ey and came upo c'limb up here and hitthe trail just where the zig zag starts hereo see?

About like this, then?

That's the o1d place I said where the o1d Spaniard lived up here.

That's right.

The old house si.te I showed you. Then we went back down acrossthe valley and out.

Now when you v\,ere over here at Honokane iki was there anyone'inPololu at that time?

0h, yes: Chinese were planting rice here.

0h, that was the rice period?

Yes, they were stil'l plant'ing rice. A lot of Chinese l'ived rightin here. There was qu'ite a little settlement of houses just onthe edge of-* you know, there was forest here, guava forest, Vouknol and we went through. I cut across there and we went througha little part before we went out into the opening. Right therewhere the stream goes out that's where the houses were. Right inthere.

l,ljS

iNT:

WS:

INT:

lrJS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

|njS:

INT:

idS:

[4001

II'IT:

WS:

INT: Ah yeso I remember that. So rnost of the rjce, however, was out inthis meadowarea now. But the taro."...

i,,,JS: That was all taro one time and the last taro were grohrn on thisside.

0ver here on the west si,de.

That's where the houses were; you knowo we went up and looked atsome house sites right over here. That's where the last housesweres before my grandfolks' place r,ras,fwhich is] still there youknow, but these [were] the last houses over here and my grand-mother had one, had as I said, one of them up in this little....That was THE femphasis] last house besjdes this one that is therenow. This one here but there were others out here. You know,there's a kind of a point out here.

R'ight near where that place of refuge was.

the outside, before the niarsh starts. They don'ton the map.

Right, righhave the de

tontai l

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

INT:

LIS:

INT:

hJS:

INT:

t{s:

I I.IT:

l,tJS:

II.IT:

l,.jS:

INT:

t.tlS:

INT:

rds:

INT:

i'JS:

INT:

WS:

l0

So at this time, this was occupied by Chinese rice farmers.

Right, all from--let's see--into the .l920s, into the .l920s, even

the I ate 1920s , past the mi ddl e I 920s ; anyhow, they lvere st'i I lthere.

0K. The next day, then, we left the mule statjon (I guess that'swhat we call that now. I donft know quite what to call it.) Leftabout seven, down into Pololu, along the Awini trail through jron-woods up over the ridge. Now that would bring us up to about,let's see, up here on the ridge nowo right up to here.

i,rlait, what are you saying now?

No, that's too far.

No, we went to Flonokane Nui.

I'low the ridge would be, I guesso night along here. This'is the--.

llonokane Nui. This stream we went down here. Kupehau Ridge.Kupehau--see that o'ld ridge, there's a big flat in there, that'swhat this is. And then v're went into Honokane Nu'i .

And down into Honokane Nuj and we walked down the steep west s'lope,stopped at the bottom, observed many taro patches, wa1'ls in goodcond'ition and this was where you had your placeo about one acre,mauka of the trai I .

That's right; we used to take our mules right there on my spotyou know.

Right there where I had that number two marked.

Then we went down below here. ble looked at all theseo the wholeval1ey is terraced out in taro patches and there was some housesright there on the road.

That's where your house site is, right there about where thatnumber three is.

By the road. Theno down here we went and some more houses, youknow, under those plum trees thereo the high trees down there,right above the beach a little ways.

And this is where you ran pigs and cattle.

Right, this whole va11ey.

And that was when? In the thirt'ies, was 'it you sajd?

0h, yes, 1et's see'til I moved down there in '28, I lived inthere'til almost'36 I was liv'ing in the va11ey. I still ran

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

pr 9sstiljust

'in there ' ti I the I 940's . Cause we '

I have the rent on the thing, vre don'go eat 'em"

1t

d seli pigs, there; wet sell any pigs now. lnle

INT:

WS:

INT:

i^lS:

INT:

trJS:

JL:

I,rJS:

INT:

tds:

INT:

WS:

Now were you the oniy occupant 'in there at that time?

liJe were the only ones.

So in your ovvn personal memory--

The last guy moved out of here in 1908.

0h, that's right, I think I do have that down. Last occupied in1908. I do have that.

But do you see now what chased them out, rea11y, vlas no water.You see, in'1906 the ditch was finished, officia'l1y finished inJune of '1906 and then they stayed there. They were still downthere, some of them until 1908, no water two years for taro.

hJeren't they supposed to, wasn't this the place they were supposedto let water in for two years?

That's right. They were supposed to give enough water for theirtaro patches, you know, but they djdn't.

The ditch company by agreement had to wait ten years after thelast settlenent before tapping the water-bearing dikes.

But actually what they left wasn't enough, only left out somesprings to go down there and those springs never reached the sea,not in dry weather. And so in two years the Hav'raiians, the lastllawaiians, moved out in .l908,

two years after the djtch was opened.

So this, now, I have here, you entered the va11ey first'in l9l8,or l917?

l^lei1, my dad didn't rent the valley until several years afterthat, before lve got the va1ley. irle took it for rent. lrle didn'tactually take Honokane l,lui. We got !'lonokane Iki. But HonokaneI'lui was leased to the ditch company because the ditch companytook a lease on the placeo too, so that nobody could move jn andstart claiming water. So they 'leased it--even the lower part,'tjl thejr lease ran out, this 40 or S0-year lease they had. Thatdidn't run out for a long timeo see, then the d'itch let us usethe p1ace, gave us another sub-lease on the p'lace, we sub-leasedon that froni the ditch company. And they leased it to the sea.So we leased the lower area.

0K, then on our way again up out of this valley and over intoFlonokane Iki. I'lou; right there--is that where the house 'is? lalherethis little dot is?

II'IT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

[rJS:

INT:

tis:

INT:

l^lq.

II{T:

JL:

WS:

INT:

lJJS

II.IT:

t,rJS:

INT

12

Right, right on the beach.

Right there. That's the house that's still standing.

l,rlhat you saw was the place we lived in. 1,,le11, you saw where theplace is. i,rle used to be right on ihe beach but my dad moved itup here by the road there about 120 yands.

And you iived there from l92B to about 1936, I seeAnd 'in 1946 this r's where the Japanese fellow was

ou have there.'iving in it.v

I

l,.JS

tdhen the tidal wave came.

Yes.

That's where he cal'led up frorn.

Yes, that's where he called up.

Yeso how about te'l1ing that again just so that I'll have it kindof straight. You were on the phone....

Yes, I was at home in Niuli'i and I had the djtch ljne running into my place and I got a phone call from this Japanese fellow andhe sa'id that the sea was wildo you know, "Kai too much huhu"o hetalking in Hawaiian pidgin, you know. "Ah"o I saido "nd-pjl.!Ljq,no trouble. " l-le said, "This kai house place come in the stream.Little more Alanu'i p'lace come almost up to the trail. " And Isa'id, "Ah, before one time come like this here"--when my motherwas there by herself the sea did come up, brought breadfru'it rightup to the tra'il where we crossed, you knovl, that's quite awaysfrom the beach. I said "No, but one time before come." I saidthis happen before and he was still talking to meo "Haya, thistime house comer me go mounta'in." [laughter] Pau, I never heardfrorn him for three days. l-le djd go mountajn. And he said whenhe urent down into the yard--see, the house is twenty-eight feetabove sea level, he went down the yard and the water was up to hjswaist. He was lucky to get out of there.

0h, I guess he was.

And then he had his mule already saddled out by the gate so hegot on his mule, he couldn't go Awini so he had to go up thisside 'til the sea receded then he went to Aw'ini.

0h. So he got up into the mountains vrhile the waves got backand ....And he went up and stayed up the camp. He d'idn't trust that seano more. I guess I wouldn't either. Ilaughter]

0K. Now what was the name of this shrine to the fish god?INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

t3

r\

[,

WS:

INT:

I^JS:

JL:

[5oo]INT:

JL:

l"JS:

INT:

l,tJS:

[503]

That's a Ku'ula we call it.Kuula? K-U-U-L*A.

How's your picturesi did they come out alright?

Some of them did.

0h, yes, w€'ve got some of them right here.

The ones in the shrjne came out pretty good.

0h yes, herens somebody here. [looking at photographs]

Yeso that's about was that about thirty inches tal1, h'igh,recal 1 it.That's my south end you got here. [laughter]

END OF SIDE A

asI

(

Side B

Iooo]INT:

tiS:

JL:

l,.JS:

INT:

l,rJS:

INT:

t,rlS:

JL:

WS:

Let's see now, I didn't have the tape going for that last littleb'it. So I want to be sure to get this established aga'in. So thiscoffee raising area was up here at about where number five is[Awjni] and they took it then by--was it a kind of cart, that theypuli o down here to Honokane ....Yes, not just right on this flat. It was all the way up prettyclose to the house all this area available.

All the way up to the Awini house then.

Right below the house there was a gate we went through? lrJell,right from that gate down.

They took it down here to Honokane Iki, then loaded it by derrick..

on a boat.

0n boats that would come in--the ship couldtt't come in, the surfboats came in, then the ships took it. lrlhere, around to Kona?

Noo they took it straight to Honolulu. By that time it was pro-cessed. You know when I say process, all the pulp taken off andmay be dried, see?

0h, they would do all this up on ....?

Right, they didn't ship it just raw.

t

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

Ii'lT:

t,llS:

II'IT:

trJS:

iNT:

t{s:

INT:

l,rJS:

iNT:

l.lIS:

INT:

JL:

hJS:

INT:

t',tJS:

I NT:

ltJS:

t4

I see. 0K, now about where was it that we left the mules and wenton dov,rn to the Alvirni Va1'ley?

l,rle went to the Kamehameha place?

Yes, we v{ere along here ....Well, there was a little stream here and we went right about here.There was a 'litt1e, the house--headquarters--was about here. Youknow where those big trees around, that's where the headquartersof the coffee people were.

Now we 'left, as I recal'l , we left the pack mule and then we wenthere ....We left the pack mule on the main trail and we cut over 'til wewere right over the edge of this little stream here.

So that would be about where I'll put number seven then. That'swhere we left our mules.

Our saddle mules and we went downo crossed the I'ittle stream.See the other--one map has the little old Hawaiian trail marks.Then we followed that little Hawaiian trail and we went down intothis and then we climbed the ridgeo you know. The trail wentaround over the ridge but because of the thick brush I climbedstrajght up over the ridge and we went down into this one here.

Right here where this number e'ight is.

And then we went up in this stream, you know.

So it was this stream here that we went up and found those varioussmal I terraces.

0k. This is Awini Stream?

Yes, this the Awini Stream and here's the one rjght behind thehouseo you know.

The Waipahi Stream.

Yeso there was a little one here and another little dry one likeand then we went into the one with water. This is the one thathad the water in where we went up and had some old house s'ites,you know.

0h, we did go a'long this one?

Yes, we went up you know we vrent up to see some littlstone work and house siteso it's up in this one. Thithe water is.

eHsi

awa'r l ans where

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

INT:

'ilS:

INT:

INT:

WS:

INT:

INT:

WS:

II'IT:

t,JS:

[1

NS Yes, and this is the one that they had the first little water youremember where we wal ked down.

Uh huh.

Now, where the house is is right in here this little strearm--onecuts behind the house and one cuts in front of the house and thisis kind of th'is flat area here where the o1d headquartersn thenwe went down here to the first little stream, the first littlevlater. There was ljttle water there, then tte climbed up that ridgeand down to where the water was really running you know, this isthe one. This is the same stream that goes up and right by thehouse we stopped at that night. The stieam'is right down lbelow];next day we crossed i t.

I remenrber you sa'id we could go straight up and get to the housequicker. So this is really what you ca'll the Awini va1'ley thenoright there where this l,'laipahi Stream js. 0K. l,rle1'l , novl wouldthat term Awini apply to where those other little dry beds were,seven and eight also?

00l,\JS Yeah, yeah, this is just like Makanikahio, you know, Awini ahupua'a.

l

t5

Alright, so this is where number eight is and that was a drystream bed, and then vre kept right on going over another ridgethen did we, to get down to where the water was.

Yes, yes this is one little one where we tied the rnule and wecrossed one I i ttl e swal e-l ike o nothi ng in there, you know.

That's where seven is.

0K, so this whole area jn here between oh here we are, that wholearea there [between East Branch of Honokane iki Stream andHonokea Stream].

Right to the beach. I wanted to get this especially not for th'is,but when I was in Maui I went to make the interpretation at thechape'l up there. I had to get these terms all in Hawaiian.Ahupua'a is from the sea to the mountainso you know. Ili is a

smal 1 er p iece 'in that ahupa'a. Mo'os a land sectio

j s a narrow stri p, srnal 1erthan an i I 'i . Pauku i n smaller than a mo'0.

P-A-U. K.U?

P-A-U-K-U. Ko ele is a small unit of land farmed by some tenantfor the chief you knovr. Also called hakuone. That's all theterms in Hawaiian, but ahupua'a is a genera strip frotn themountain to the sea.

Awi n'i , and llonokane , and Pol ol u [are al I ahupua 'a] .INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

bts:

I I'IT:

tlJS:

INT:

l/'JS

INT:

l,'lS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

l,JS:

INT:

t'JS:

INT:

t{S:

l6

And Piakan i kah'i o and al I that, r^/here my mother' s house was .

0K. Now then to back track--vre got our mules again and went onup to Awini and the camp. 0K then, vle'"l1 put a nurnber ten thereat the camp where we stayed. Let's see here we got there aboutfjve o'clock; now that's about 2,000 feet, as I recall.

Yeso a little under 2,000 feet. We can pick up the ----.Contour. Here's 2200. Looks like these are 200' contours so thisrnust be 2,000 and thjs'is .1800 so it looks like it m'ight be 1900.

It's I'ittl e urlder I900 because the di tch i s practi ca'l 1y--the di tchwhere she goes all the way in, lBBl'and she runs up here at l/.l0of 1 percent. So she's not too much higher and we're still a

little higher than the camp.

0K. Then the next day'is when we left the mules there and wecrossed the Honokea Stream. 0k, crossed the Honokea Stream---

Which 'is the boundary between Hamakua and l(ohala, see.

And the d'istrict of North Kohala d'istrict and the Hamakua district.At about ten we arrived at the Honopue Bridge. Now where is that?[looking at map] llere's the flume. Now the bridge is right here;--here's the trail crossing it. 0K, so here at eleven I'll putthe bridge and that's about .l30 feet above the canyon floor as Irecall. Then about 200 yards mauka to the flumeo the twenty:ei ght----.

The tunnel crosses

About 28 feet'long flume across the canyon about 26 nillion gal1oncapac'ity and I got this informat'ion on the ditch. [reading fromthe scriptl The tunnel is about eiglrt feet high and about fivefeet across, tree fenns, then I have i'i'i -- is that the utay 'iti s? Three i 's?

Yes, that's a kind of tree fern.

One iii, the md'oli, many slopes covered by staghorn fern ontop of a coup'le of ridges, ohia forest died out--cause unknown--fern taken over; many varieties of fern also ohja, gardeniaothimble berries along trails, some stretches tra'il paved withstones by ditch company to traverse boggy areas. Then the t'iny'lacy fern used in making blue dye for tapa-- wawaeole?

No.

Ul uhepd?

Ah, noo oloe is the staghorn, this js the---

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

a

a

r'

(

t.,

(

INT:

l,'JS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

t,tJS:

[2oo]II.IT:

l,.JS:

INT:

WS:

INT:

WS:

II'IT:

WS:

I NT:

t,.JS:

17

What's this word I have here?

l,rjawaeole. That's another ....Is that a type of fern?

Yes, it's a kind of like a rat's foot, you know. That's what itmeans there wawaeoie means ratrs foot, it has a kind of a roundishth'ing. Lacy-'looking not as big as your finger.

Is that used in making b'lue dye?

No, no it's not. Paldod is the blue dye. Pala'd.

Pala'd. That's probably what I was trying to spell there. Uluh'E;is that part of the word?

No, Uluhe is the staghorn.

That's the staghorn, ok.

l,rle got about three types of staghorn there. That's the one preventsthe tree from comjng up.

0K. Then from there that's where we stopped. t,rle back tracked andpicked a few rnore lemons and then across the ridge 1et's see, backto ten, wasn't it? Then back to ten. And then we went on thistrai I then?

Yes.

Around here.

And then weforks herebecause onebelow the tone had a iwent up theinto Honoka

crossed Honokane Iki. There's Honokane Iki has twobecause here's iki and iki, the east and rniest iki,has a gauging station and the flume there was down

rail you didn't get down to that. But then the otherittle bridge, uJe crossed the stream, the stream that ,iridge and then got 'into l{onokane Nuj, over the ridge

ne Nui and that 'long stretch we went up.

Now here's where we crossed into the main arm and from about herewe'd be looking down into Honokane I'lui. 0k. And that's aboutwhere we heard Dale? [0a1e Sproat shouted to attract our attention.]

Right on top here. But we didn't hear Dale till we got here, hewas down'in the camp, we were up on top here, you know.

0K. So from about tvlelve on then we were in that canyon. Nowhere's where that camp is right where these three dots are [onHonokane Nui's East Branch].

INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

1B

tJS

I NT:

l,lS:

INT:

i{s:

INT

WS:

INT:

L,IS:

I NT:

l^JS

I NT:

WS:

INT:

Then we lvent clean past the campo then we went down into the valleyup here, right in the intake where the falls....0h, is this v,,here the falls are--here at Awini Weir?

That's right. The falls drop into the va1'ley you know, dropdown for about 850 feet. And the intake is down here where theother one begins, you know.

Yes, so the valley floor is well, an 800 foot contour so the campmust be about 900 feet..l030

where the water goes'into the dam. Lower section starts at.1030 at the intake.

So it's about 2,.100 feet from the top to the bottonr of the canyon,is that right? I,rJell jet's see .... well I can figure that out.

It was still about 'l,500 feet above. l.Jell, it al1 dependsbecause the bottom dnops away fast. But right about here wherethe houses are just on this areao that's about 1500 feet justbelow the bottom of the trail and still not uniform because thatbottom is dropping away, too.

Boy I'1'l say it's dropping alay. 0K, so then camp consists of twohouses, iooks like it might have been three at one tjme.

Three houses, still there.

Are there three there? 0h, yes. 'de lived in the middle; we stayeCin the middle one....

You stayed in the middle and one below and one above....

And then we went into the one above looking for some things, that'sri ght.

Ljke the skunk, now everything comes back to meo the skunk thatsprayed up aga'inst the breeze. Ilaughter]

0K. [reading from script] A'long the trail coming in past severalpukas to which d'irt and the tunnel mucked out, couple of freshslides, the site of a picturesque waterfall for over a half hour,tunnel runs out of mountain at lBBl',26 million ga'l1ons capacity,24 hours, falls to .l030, tunnel p'icks it up againo some thatescapes and water from another fall p'icked up by a pump, pumpedup into the tunnel, very l'ittle continues on downstream. Guava onva11ey floor, ohia and fern on hills, floor also has bananas, taro,ginger. 0K, anyth'ing e'lse there do you think that ought to bementi oned?

WS: I'lo, you got it covered pretty well.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

WS

INT:

JL:

I NT:

JL:

INT:

WS:

Ii{T:

blS:

INT:

INT:

WS:

Il'lT:

WS:

INT:

l,.JS:

[3oo]

l9

Now, Thursday, underway about 8:45; down the stream aways, 1et'ssee. 0K, here we go, down the stream and then we made e'ight"Dangerous Crossjngs" as they were identified.

l,rle had to put those markings up because if anybody gets hurt, theysaid, "If you don't put up that sign that says 'Canger"',.You know.

Is that how many there were, were eight?

I think there were eight.

Sure went back anci forth quite a bit.

I'jl say. And that was down to here andso I'll put number thirteen here then we

looks like we had more switch backs thenshow very many switch backs does it? ble

there a little bjt below, about 600 feet

then we s tarted c'l 'imbi ngstart climbing up. Gosh,that though. That doesn'twere up about 600 feetand then we started uP....

And we went clean up to the top 1600'n .1650

when we go over the top.

R'ight, now where does the trail divide then?

What cio you mean?

lrlell, when Dale and Stanley went back, you sa"id they v'rent back theshort way.

0h, yeah, they went straight down hereo in hereo You know vrherethe iitch goes, goes through here, we went up and across the ridgehere, th'is is the trail.

0h, right here is the trail at fourteen. So, they went straighton back this way and we went this way.

And we went this away.

At fourteen is where the trail d'iv'ided theno then that took us'into upper Pololu right here. Ah, then we could see the valleyand fah|la dtstrict.- Then on the way up we say1 this climb'ing ,

hala,'ie ieo then descent through ohia and kukui trees. StoppedaT onTy open stretch at the djtch. i'low where was that?

Right in the va11ey here. Let's see.

Here's the flume.

Before we got to the flume. Here's the flume and right along inhere. Right a1ong, hoo where we come out of the ridge now? lgt'ssee, wait-a minute, where's that ditch? [r.|e were looking at thetraii--oh, here. That's right. Just as we conte out of hereothere was th'is ridge on thii s'ide there's a little open p"lace and

then we go through and we come to the flume.

l^JS

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

|,^JS

INT:

ll'lS:

INT

INT:

['JS:

i I{T:

JL:

WS:

INT:

i^JS:

INT:

JL:

ln]S:

JL:

lrjS:

INT:

i,JS:

JL:

2A

Now js that about where this stretch--oh, let's see, no, here'sthe di tch tho'ugh, so the di tch woul d be . . . .

Except for that open beach we start going down as soon as we getto the end where she goes under; you known into the ridge, and we

start go'ing dor'rn to the pali, down into the stream, you know.

So this little piece right in the back about here is where thefl ume is"

Yes, when she crosses the main gu'lch. It doesn't show enoughdetail back here because we start down right where the trai'l goesunder, you know, under the flume is'in here and we start down thetrai I .

So thjs little flume right here is where the gaug'ing station wasand that was this whole "rated section" as it's calledo rightaround there.

l,rle caught a house there.[not c]ear what is meant]

0K, so that was right there, I'li put fifteen where that was, 0K.

What's this little house right here?

That's where the camp was before, see, we had a house in there onetime. 'lrJa had ahouse,--oh, I take it all back. Nowo what they say,flumeo here. I take it all back; that's where I'm all....here'swhere the flume is.

0h, over here.

Yeah, this is. Thopen di tch. Thenyard was.

eyth

call this "flume", but it's no flumeat's the camp over there, where that

, it'l'itilsane

l^lhere we stopped?

That's right there. That was what I was wondering.

hle had a camp there one time. A man l'ived there.

Yes, I remember you saying that.

And that's on'ly two houses that are left there. lnie moved the campaway.

So I'll put the fifteen there then.

That's what they call "flume" that ljttle piece of open ditch there.

Yes, this is--open djtch right along here.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

'I^JS

INT:

hts:

INT:

i'JS:

INT:

I"JS:

INT:

i^lS:

iNT:

WS:

That's an old Hawai'ian trail that down the valley a1l the way tothe beach. That's the one I was tel'ling you, if you had the othermap I would show you where you wou'ld come up from down heren Vouknow, where was that now? iilhere we crossed over here and come uphere, where lve turn over here the trail cont'inues up here until itgets k'ind of narrow, then we cljmb up the sides then go up onthese sides here then go clean up till ure hit the dt'ich tra'il here.

INT: That would be quite a climb. I'low Kahale o m'ilu where would thatbe?

inJS:

?1

That's why I didn't undenstand, see, when the trail beg'ins to godown see, then the tunnel goes on a contour here, you know, onthat same contour, and then swings around. There's the flumewhen she goes across up here we have about eighty foot flurne uphere. Goes across and goes'in the other side and goes down.Now, this makes sense.

0K. So right along in here is where we were, then, where westopped and rested a little while. OKo very good.

I'Je didn't go up to the flume; the thing is quite a ways up therein the main gulch; we didn't get to see the flume.

Gets about fifty mjllion gallons a day, I have here, from theBishop Estate and state land, "Jusi before reaching the gaugingstation pass a string of eucalyptus planted by Bilf in lrJorld laJarI I " [reading from scri pt].

When I say fifty million gal1ons, I mean the maxinrum capac'ity'isfifty million. But we never take out, hard'ly ever take out--bythat time the water coming all over, take about forty-five is themost they ever take. But we could take fifty million if we wanted.

Now where we stoppedo you showed us 01an, the ilumeric?

0l ena

"0lena, banana-like leafo carrot-like root used for medicine, onfoot to Ka'ha'le o milu. " Now what is that?

Kahale o milu is down. i'lovr we didn!,t,--did we go dovrn to?

i'Je did go down to the pool , had a swim.

i forgot that pa rt, we went down to Kahale o milu , that's right.

Let's see, we went down across the stream dov'ln here and went up alittle u/ay,and then we cut down, down the side, you see the linejs a little wjder parto was not so steep over here. l,Je went downinto the stream bed so down here somewhere.

0K, so I'11 put a sixteen there about where that was. That's onthe Pololu Streamn then?

INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

t^lS

lds:

INT:

I NT:

tt'lS:

INT:

22

Yes, that's on the Pcllolu Stream.

Now right up back here whene u,e crossed that stream is--that whereyou and Pat got off and went looking for--what? I can't rememberwhat it was you were looking for. I renrember you fellows werewandering around and three of us were wa'iting there where we

crossed. It was just a dry stream bed there so that must not havebeen the p1ace. Polo'lu, of course, had water in it.l,.lay down where we went had water, you know, but upper part it washardly any water. When we crossed with the mules no water there,or was there water?

OKo so there's our trail then from--

0h, I know what we were looking for. lile were looking for thestarch p1ant, opi q. That's what we were 'looking. i was wa'lk;ilngaround outside, off the trail looking for it.0K. Then, let's see,2:30 passed into Kapoloa. So it's--here'sthe trail crosses right here, Kapoloa Stream., 0K, so there atseventeen. itle got a"600 foot waterfall, traj'l passed about 250feet below the t<lp and then crossed a long stone brjdge, beautifulmul ti p'le fa1 1 , Kuki ni kal awao" Lif s]

Yeah, the fall is Kalawao but the stream in Waiakalae.

lrjai akal ae?

Yea, the fal I i s Kal awao.

lnlaiakalaeo 0K.

That's there at number seventeen or is that down here?

No, no, no seventeen is Kapo'loa. So, eighteen that'll be

0h, you numbering that one?

Yes .

The Iittle stone bridqe?

Yeah. 0K. And Kukinikalalvao; is that a.v-a-o?

l,rj-a-o.

You don't see that, at least. Is that a common grouping?

INT: No, there was no water there.

l^JS Then we went down--you see, the stream comes in below there....that's where you gof the water to swim in there Kahale o milu pond.

[4oo]

rds:

INT:

l^JS:

INT:

JL:

INT:

WS:

INT:

I,rlS:

INT:

WS:

II'IT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

tlJS:

INT:

l,JS:

INT:

l,lS:

il',lT:

l,'lS:

It'lT:

i,JS:

INT:

l,'JS:

INT:

',,ilell the name, the r{ord v/aokele means forest, Vou know, wet rainforest, vlaokele, Vou pronofnce it vn spe11 it w-a-0.

0K. So that r{as there at e'ighteen there that's the multiple fa11s.

Now you had one Kukini o what do you mean?

I don't know.

23

more Kukini there, just the falls, Kalawao. No Kukini. Thisthe name of the stream . ".

!'Jai akal ae. And then ri ght here--

Near the canefield.

That's about where the gate was that was locked? That's atni neteen .

llois

From there we went down through the fields.

0K, guess that's it then. Now I had hoped, Ithat other map so they could see what we did othink of bringing it a1ong.

shonF

ulid have broughtri day, but I d'idn ' t

WS:

iNT

JL: This is the west branch we're look'ing 'into?

l,JS: That' s ri ght.

!'le went on top, v\tay up here

Now, when ure came up to the Parker Ranch'land past the head ofPoloiu, we arrived at a po'int--where are those pictureso Jerry?We were overlooking the west branch of l'lonokane Nui. Now is thaton here? Yes, that's where we were, there. Now welre lookingdown into Honokane l''lui there, are we? Would you put that on theback there. I'lowo can vve see where v/e were on this map?

No, we cannot; we were just here. tolaybe we couldo here's the trailcoming up along here. I think we were here. You see we wereri ght across . l'lere ' s the ri dge goi ng down i nto the va1 ley. Andour camp is on this ridge here and this is where we were. Yousee the ridge is, 1et's see,--yes, the ridge is high yet here.We.were right across where we couldn't see the waterfall.

Yes, we couldn't see the waterfall. So we would be about in therethen--doesn't show that road though. 0k, then this is the roadoso this would be about where we vJere about here. I'll put numbertwenty.

INT The west branch of Honokane Nuj o and rain forest--

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

iirjS:

INT:

WS:

I NT:

I,JS:

II,IT:

l,rJS:

I NT:

l.JS:

INT

l,rJS:

INT:

WS:

iNT:

irJS:

24

See, this is the one that says "jeep trail" here, but I tirink thisis the road com'ing up here.

Over this other one closer to the top.

This js "jeep trail, Kahua Ranch", see. They come in here too.

I guess that's about all we can see on th'is map then.

Yes. Then we went. l',Ie didn't even see Pololu. You were uJay upabove Pololu. Pololu ends way down here.

I see.

I'low this is the difference I was telljng you about. Honokane Nuiis not any bigger than Honoke'd or Honopu'e. Honopu'e is big herebut because these others 1ost, evidently when they all started,they must have started the sarne time because they all border onthe sea" But because they lost the help of the pressure beh'indthe dikeso you know, they stopped right here, see. 0n1y got thesurface erosion after that, see. You notice when we got intoHonopu'e, what kind jt was? Iiow these, you see where th'is onecoming down, Pololu got left out, see, Pololu stops right here.llonokane I'lui west branch here--that got left out so it ends rightup where we r^Jere. But the east branch goes clean up here andalmost meets with Waip'io. They're the ones drajn the water offthe mountains.

0h, I see.

liJell, they cut the djkes. This Wajmanu, and then th jrteen I ittlegu'lches on top here before llJaipio but you get enough of the waterin Waimanu to get this running a1l the time. More uraterin hlai -manu than this one [Honokane Nui]. There's ten nrillion gallons aday'in Honokane Nuj at the driest time, but in here we have doubleof that amount.

ilrle1'1, those fellows that were over there just a day or two aheadof us, they were making their way across here,no trail huh? lbetweenI,llai kal oa Stream and iila'ipi ol

No, for couple weeks they were lost. They were out there with ahef icopter a couple days looking for [them]. They did get outthou gh

Yes, yes, that was quite an accomp'lishrnent. I'm quite impressedthat they did get out.

They came here, then they went across.

That's the end of the trail there.

Yeah. And then they came up and they can't cross Kaimu unless youhit a little trail that we have here but it's not on this map.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

I NT:

!JS:

JL

INT:

INT:

l^JS

I I'IT:

[rlS:

iNT:

[5oo]I NT:

'$lS

25

And that is cutting because it's so sheero it's like Honopu'e.And then if you don't get that then they have to come r,vay upthere and cross this thing where it's more shallow and gent'le, see.They crossed up here then they went up here and got on a--justlike the west branch comes here, see; then they went down the ridgebetween the west branch of Waimanu and the east branch. They gotinto the valley, went down the sides and out that trail.lrle11, they had a trip they vri'I1 be able to talk about for a while.

They were out there for a couple of weeks. They went all over but,gee they make a lot of humbug for people. They had the firemengoing through.

Yes, that's the pity of it.l,rle'|1, people that are rescued like that, they don't have to pickup the tab for all that, db they?

lio, no, that's all on the house. That's the sad part of it, it'sajl on the house, The government, the fire department, oh, theyget mad.

Let's see, what else do we want to know, Jerry? Those are themain questions and points that I had that I wanted to be sure toclear up.IInterruption. Speaking of carrying ditch equipment 'in by helicopter]

--land up there, they just hovered and just untie the stuff theyhave no p'lace to land.

But you had helicopters land here at the Honokane Nuj camp andhere at the pump, too.

By the pump, yes. Then up above here we couldn't any more, evenure went right up to the falls one placeo we dug here, we bujlt ahole here, but they couldn't land; they just had to hover therewhile we untied the stuff.

l,low that's that stream, lhe stream here in Honokane t"lui?

Yes, I'm talk"ing about way up here by the falls here.

l^JS

JL: Are they going to some digging? This University [of Hauraii] team?

l/JS I guess so, I don't really know mucho see, they don't know them-selves see.

[m'i s recordi ng ]....0n the east bank, she u/as on the west banko just since we beenthere.

0h, I see.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

26

1^lS

INT:

INT:

hlS:

INT:

INT:

hIS:

[51 e]

Up above here. This must have been a big--we go down the palihere this must have come down here r'rhen they filled this narrowplace here. This is where vre dug a hole right here. And wentdown 300 feet Iindecipherable].

th andwe get

l^JS

0h clear up here near where the falls is locatedo is wherethat was.

So I was curious to go down here and dig a hole at the mousee how far down, see this might happen way back when--dofed? [as Delma Baldridge brings in rbtreshirents]

Is this where you say the stream was meandering back and forth?

Yes, and even up all this flat.Down here in the flat at Honokane Nui.

Iintemupt'ion]

--little ditch you know, I drink water by the Honokane Iki sideyou know down by th.e ditch there.

l,rjhere was this l4ormon church? In Honokane Nui? on the HonokaneIki side of the va1ley?

Yes.

END OF SIDE B

tdS

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

51de u

[000]

I NT:

INT:

tr'jS:

l\jS

27

The following interview was made on July 25, 1978, as I, KenBaldridge was traveling with hJilliam Sproat between Kona aridKa Lae, South Pojnt, in the district of Ka'u, on the big i

island of Hawaii.

lrje have just passed through Kealakekua en route [to Ka'u],travelling in a car. I turned the tape recorder on. It'snoisy with the sound of the wind and the sound of the car,but I thought it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.This is Kealakekua here.

Yes o ri ght strai ght bel ow here 'is where Captain Cookrs ffiotlu-ment isu a memorial of when he came into Kea'lakekua Bay, youknow. That's where he died.

Now, Bjll, i just turned the tape recorder on, and I want totry to find out about your background. Irve been wanting tointerview you again when you mentioned your experiences tra-ve'ling throughout as district president, I thought thismight be a good time. First of a'I1, 'identify yourself in thetape giving your ful'l name, telling me where and when youwere born. That would be a good place to start.

0.K. My fu'll name is !'lilliam KaneakalS Sproat. KaneakalS ismy great-g,rrandfather on my mother's side. My great-grandfathenana-nis daughter were the ones that raised my mother. IKane-akald was married to Kauaio the second sister of that name inthe fami'ly. Among their children was Kainoa Kupuna, Bill'sgrandmother. Afterlaw Kahipa, whose wicent'ly passed away.granddaughter of Ka

remembers going wittheir grass house ijust a small child.

He was a victlm sf circumstances. Maybe he kind of createdthe circumstances himself. When I asked him, I sajd' "NotJ,hor,i in the world did you ever get here from Missouri, cominEfrom the farms of Missouri?" He said, wel1, now as a boy,when he got o1d enough to become adventurous--. He was theyoungest in the family and had two other brothers who weretaking care of the farm. So he thought he'd go out and lookfor a little adventuren and the saying then was NGo west younEmano " so he went west. He got vJest to Cal iforniao sa'id, hewas working on a fruit ranch in California when he met anEngli'shman that had been to the islands. And this English-man told him about Hawaii and he said he got al1 worked up

his deatho Kauai married her brother*in-fe, another of Kauairs sistersn had re-Kahipa and Kauai raised Bill's mother,

eakald and Kauai, as a hanai child. He

his mother to vis'it Kahipa and Kauai inthe Pololu Va'l1ey of Kohala wlten he wasMy mother gave me that name as a nriddle

My dad is a haole; he came in and heipedgnihg monarch 6ere, Queen Liliuokalani.ie intentional]y to do that [l aughter].

nhn

lname when I was born.dethrone the last reiBut he didn't come he

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

2B

It ool

about coming to Hawaii. So he quit his iob and came tothe coasto to San Francisco, looking for a way down hereand as he was walking a'long the waterfront in San Francis-co, he ran into a man who was sjgning up mercenaries to comehere to overthrow the Queen. So he thought that was quitea 1 ucky break because he wanted to come to Hawai i and he gota free trip down here. He signed up as a mercenary, camedown with the sh'ip-load of mercenariesn and how many otherships we don't know.

i was talking to a man--maybe I shouldnrt talk too much aboutit-- at the [Polynesjan Cultural] Center one day and he askedrn€o "Why do you Hawaiians have the British Union Jack on thellawaiian flag?" I could see he was an American so I iustwanted to ja6 him a little bit. I said, t'That's because we

love the giitish more than we love the Americans.t' [laughter]He sai d, "Wh.v i s that? " I sai d, r'l,rlel 1 , the Bri ti sh took overthe islands one timeo but they gave the islands back to theHawaiians. But when you Americans took over you kept us.r'But he said, "hle d'idn't take you over; it was a revolution. r'

I said, "That's whatChicken Little, when

called it," But I said, "Irm likewas asked how she knew the sky was

v9ushe

fa11ing, she said a piece of it fell on her tail. And Isaid a piece of this fel'l on my tail. r'

I asked my dadn he's the haole, how he got to Hawaii, comingfrom Missouri. He satd, nIeTT, when I was a boy I got to theage where the boys become adventurous. hle wanted to go outto look for adveture. So I left home and went on to Califor-nia. And because the saying then was lGo west young man.rI vlas working on a fruit ranch and met this Englishman whotold me about Hawaii and he wanted me to come here,r' So hewent to look for a v,,ay down here. He went to San Franciscoand as he was walking along the waterfront he met a nan whowas signing up mercenaries to come here to overthrow' theQueen, Liliuokalanio and stayed here. They did all kinds ofthings. I almost, maybe, might have become ha]f Tahitianinstead of Hawaiian because he was going to go ts Tahiti. He

and another landlubber from Texas decided they would get thema ship so they earned some money. I don't know just how-theygot a1l of that money, but they got enough to buy themselvesa little schooner. They couldnrt navigaten neither one ofthem because they were both landlubbers so they hired them-selves an old sea captatn and he sailed the boat down therefor them. They thougl'rt that once they got down thereo in thatvtcinity, they could sai'l between the islands. So, they- gqton thei'i way, and when they got down below the equator headingciose to the Tahitian islands, a storm hit them. It was severeenough that it broke both masts of the boat and they dr"ifted,I don$t knowo for almsst two months. They drifted back,almost starved, but they f i'ved by eating raw fish. t'lhen theywere catching those fish at ntght, theytd put up a cloth and alantern, and those f1ying fjsh would f1y up and hit the canvas

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

[2oo]

29

and fall on the deck and they were eating that. We]1, theyfinal]y drifted back; I guess it was fate. He was never toleave Hawaii. He drifted back and wrecked on the Kona coastback in Hawai'i. And there he walked from Kona this here[gesturing out the window], clean back up to Kohala and workedfor a month on the plantation. He was broke but he couldn'tbe any worse off because he had nothing; he iust got out w'iththe clothes on his back. l-le worked for the plantation for a

montho and earned enough money to pay h'is way back to Honolulubecause he didn't know at this time if he wanted to go backto the mainland, so he went back to Honolulu. He got back toHonolulu and oh, he did all kinds of things. Went into theice business and did this and that. And my mother, being a

convert to the church of puritan fathers [i.e., the Congre-gational Church], Boston missionaries who came here and rana seminary over there lat Iole, Kohala] and she went to schoolunder them and became a school teacher, grade schooi. So,she was in Honolu'luo going to summer school when she met himdown there IHonolulu]. That's how they got married [in January,1900]. They stayed down there and my o'lder sister was bornin Honolulu. He was working for some ice business down there.

Where was your mother fromo Kohala?

Kohala. [Aside, referring to area through which t''ie werepassing.] Herets our Ke!ei Branch.

Nice chapel . Now, whatts this vil'lage here?

Ke'ei. [Back to nar.ration] And so they lived in Honoluluand by that time he got tired of town because hers from thecountry. Thought he'd get him some land and so he had afriend who had forty acres over there in Waimea; he wasgoing to buy that. He did and moved over there to Hawaii.That's in lilaimea. That t s where I was born.

0n Kauai.

No, lirlaimea, Hawaiil, Parker Ranch. Just when you turn ovetnand go Hamakua way, you know the upper hJaimea. I was bornthere. Mahiki is the name of the particular spot where I wasborn, tul.nTkTf And that was on Febr"uary 12, 1903,

When your father came over as a mercenaryo whqt did he do gfterhe arrived? b.Jas there anything that required his services?

0h, yes. He was a so'ldier in the PG army, Provisjonal Govern.ment. That's the government that was set up, you know, afterthey overthrew the monarchy. So, he vras in the PG army,served as a soldier. there until they were released, you know. Iguess they didn't need the ar"my any more. So, he was releasedand he went out and did all kinds of other things. As I saidwhen my mother met htmo he was in the ice busi'ness. He didnrt

INT:

[rJS:

INT:

t,'JS:

INT:

WS:

I NT:

l,.jS:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

INT:

hIS:

30

make the ice, he bought and sold ice. That's when they hadto deliver all over. Everybody had those kind of ice boxesthat you buy ice and put in.

You were born in Waimea. Then where were you raised? How

long did you live there?

When we went back to Wai'mea, he worked for the Parker Ranch.Five year"s he was in charge of the saddle area fsr ParkerRanch. Hens a farmer and a ranchero too, his business. Really,he was raised on it. He worked there for five years and heand Alfred Cartero who was the manager of the rancho didnrtsee eye to eye. So he quit the ranch and went to work forthe water systems for the Hamakua p'lantation area. l-ie wasthere for some years and then he got sicko so my mother gothim to Kawa''iahae where it's warm. And he went down there andhe got the idea about going into the fish'ing business so hequit the ditch iob that he had up there, bought himself a

sampan, fixed it up and went into fishing. He was in thefishing business for some years. He was the on'ly outsider infish'ing" All the rest wene Japanese. The middlemen were allJapaneie, so they teamed up on him. He got himself a silentpartner whs was a Japanese, who sold the fish for him. He

owned the outfi't, but the guy was sort of a silent partner,He was the one that sold the fish because all the middlemenwere Japanese salesmen. In them days it was all horse andcarto ybu know. If you don't sell that fish in a hurry you hadno place to stor"e it. And boy they used to catch tuna some-times and come back with a boatload of tuna. You either hadto star"t salting that tuna and dry it or, . . We driedtuna lfke stacks of wood.

Did you go out on the fishing boats?

I went out wi.th them. !Jel1o I was a little guy, too littleto do any good. Then he went back to Honolulu, When theJapanese star"ted teaming up on him, this guy s,tarted tohold out on hi'm wi'th the money. He found out that th'is Euywas pullinq it fast on h'im. 0h, he almost kilied one Japanese,that'time []aughter]. He was kjnd of a bad actor himself.He owned the outfi.t so he sold what he had. He had two canoes;he used to go sut and catch opeluo those old Hav'railian koacanoes like I have down there biily b'igger ones, two sixty-footers-" He soid al'l his nets and everyth'ing and then he

went back to Honolulu. Nhen he went to Honolulu he startedhis business sf takrinE tourtsts out for deep-sea fishing inHonolulu" We stayed there for another ten years. hle wentto s'chool in Honolulu. Then he got disgusted with the ci.tyagain and then he tried to come back tE the countryr H.tsok anothen piece of land in Kohalao thirty acre piece overthere in Haw'i, But you seeo when you Eo back far enoughther e were a lot, you know, big inter"est had a lot 9f connec'tions wjth the government, So they vrent down cut off ftve

iNTr

t,lS:

[300]C

opyr

ight

BYU

-Haw

aii A

rchi

ves

INT:

htS:

I}{T:

WS:

INT:

hJS:

3t

acres from the plantation because they had a rock crusheron the thing. But actually 'it belonged to these thirty acresand he got a1l burned up again and he threw up this pieceof land.

tJhat kind of pressure? hlhat was the word?

Connecti ons.

No, it sounded like water pressuren but Itm sure that wasn'tit. You said they had something on the land.

0h, they had a rock crusher. And it was there already soif they wanted it they would have to move all that off, ifonce the land went to him. So they went and pul1ed some

strings with the state and got them to cut off that fiveacnes. So he got sore about that and he threw that one upagain. Then he went to work for the plantation, as dh ov€r-seer. Then he got this iob up there with the man who wasrunning the water system up there who was a man by the name

of Perry. And his son was working on this plantation, too,Lyman Perryo and when his dad got ready to quit that systemup there--he helped to build that water system. He wentup there and started a coffee plantation at Hawi.

Perry did?

Per"ry did. He and a bunch of them. Buto when coffee didnttdo so wel1n they decided ts quit. Then at that time theditch started and they vranted to build this ditch, So he

lpemy] went up there and helped to build the ditch and be.came the fi'r st superintendent in those days. In "1904 theystarted the di'tch and in 1906 it was finished. It startedrunning in 1906 and he was there until we came and that wasabout tgtS" My dad took over there and he worked there until1928. He had never stayed at one place'long enough to be

retired, but he was a good dad. He sent us all to school,I got one slster who went to the Unrlversity of Pennsylvan'iaafter she f inished the Univers'ity of l-lawaii, Thelmao thatis" Then Mary went to Columbia University. And I have onebrother who took up 1aw, but he didn!t become a full-f'ledgedlawyer because he and I went to work. When my dad retired,we ieti'red [i.e., from previous activitjes]. I went and tookover his job and my brother who was going to the Universitytaking up law decided to go to wot"k. He got a iob withthe Supreme Court, so he was with the Supreme Court forforty-four years, He iust retired net too long ago. I cameback and took over my dad ts job as superi.ntendent. I was

only twenty-fi've then. That was in 1928. And I was therefor"forty years. Itm a r"eal mule-skinner and ditch-digger. l

Nsw where were you just before taking over the ditch? You

went to Hilo for a while, djdnut you?INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

32

Yeso I went over to l-lilo. I was home and when I got mar-ried my dad wanted me to come home and run the ranch,raise cattle and a'11, so I did. I came homeo but my wife(she was part-Hawai'iano too) is from the Rodenhurst family.She was a professional nurse and because she was a coup'le ofyears older than I was, my folks never did look kindly onher. But I must say she was a good wife, in fact she wastoo good for me at the time. hlhy she decided to take me on,I don't know. Anywayo I was a l'ittle hot under the collarwith my parents so, I got into the fight game. I went toHilo for one ftght and I stayed for two or three years. Thenthey had to call me home again. Thatrs when my dad wantedto quit. Ss I came home and gave them the ultimatum. r'IfI go home, you get out. [,le canrt see eye to eye." He wasa good dad but he was a tough egg himself. Didnrt comef rom Mi ssouri for nothi ng. lrlel l , he comes fr om good Ameri -can stock. You see, on his fatherrs side they were Pennsyl.van'ia Dutch, helped sett'le Pennsylvan'ia with l,rljlliam Pennthen--say, I met a Bill Spnoatfrom Redding, Pennsylvaniao[he] came down to look for me the other day. When he lookedin the book and saw my name in there it was the same name

that he had. I guess we're related so, I got some gene-alogy from his wife. She went home and sent it. I said,"l'Jel I , I got to get past Mi'ssouri, you know. But they camefrom Penns,vlvania to Missouri. So, I expect to hook thatal'l up with my genealogy one of these times.

Now, where were you when you were twelve or thirteen? lrJereyou in Honolulu then?

Yeso we had gone to town" Thatts when he had gone back totown; he went into the tsurist business' He was takingtouni'sts out for deep*sea fishi'nEo to start doinE some busi-ness for himself. He worked for the government. When yougo back far enough, the army had a lot of livestocko hot'sesand mules. Havenrt you heard of them speak of army mules?Then the Eovernment got into a big care of stock, He lvasin charge of the stock for the US army for a while. Thenhe got ti'red of tourn, came back and my mothero because hewas such an adventurer, doing this and that, was worried.She thought, n'lilell, I'm going home to my country. t' He

wanted to go back to Missouri, even. It4y mothet" said, "Nooif ysu go, you go by yourseif. Inm not goingo the kids arenot going." She wanted to get close to home. 5o she final'lytalked him into coming back out here. Thatts how he wentback to lbha'la and took on another piece of land and becausethe plantation cut off five act^es, he threw that up. Butohe went to work for the sugar plantation as a cuitivationsuperintendent. And then he got this iob up here urith thedutch company and moved up to the mountains. lnle iived upthere at 2,000 feet.

hlhat kind of house did you live in at that time?

[400]

INT:

tliS:

INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

33

t^iS:

ldS

I NT:

lds:

INT;

hJS:

INT:

l'tS:

Regular house, way u

carry the lumber upthis house. t,{e hadthe conveniences.

n the mountains. lde even had tore on the backs of men to put upour-bedroom house up there wi th al I

potheaf

INT: With running water insjde?

Yes, with running water because we had a lot of springs upthere. They just had to tap one of them right into thehouse.

How about electrtcity?

Noelectrjcity--a'll kerosene 1amps. I liked it up there. Thenwe went to boarding school in Honolulu and then vle went toKam [Kamehameha] School. I'm the guy that quit school as soonas I got out of Kam School. I never went to school again.The rest of them went on. That's why I'm a little shy oneducation. When I took over the superintendent Job, I hadto go take up courses like a little civil engineeringo w'ith alittle surveyi'ng, hydraultcs and measuring water and all that.All that was part of the things I had to know about this job.[rr'e had to know di'fferent vlays of measuring watern hotnl waterflows, build'ing wheels to measure water .

So you just kind of learned that on your own?

Yeso I had to when I took over this job" I worked with theUS Geological Survey. I had to keep a record of what eachstream produced. I had a map of all times of the year s0we could keep records of the rainfall. So we know that atthis period when vre have this rainfall we need to add thismuch water to the streams. Ss all this was an education initself, just learning the job up there,

When did you get married?

0h, I was a father,. at twenty-oh€. ['laughter] Thatf s why myparents didnrt look kfndly on my wife because she was twoyears o'lder than I' was. I was twenty-e11so [laughter] shetricked me into this marriage. She was at Kohala, too.Her father was Engli'sh, he came from ti'la1es, England. Marrieda Hawa'ijan woman here, Rodenhurst was the name. It was agood fam'i1y. When he came to America, he was naturalized andthen came to Hawaii. He was in Cali'fornia, then came to Ha*wailo liked it down here, and then married a Hawaiian woman.And his kids--he married one of these ehu Hawaiians, youknow what that is, sort of 1i'ght HawaiTEfr-s with brownish hair.She was pure l-lawair'an thougho the Manu family" Soo all theirkids:--you wouJdnr't believe it. If you looked at my wife youwould think she was haoJe. They are al1 very light contplected.Everyone i'n that famTTll- You!d never think they had Hawaiianin them, yet they were half.

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

34

hlS:

INT I

t'lS:

0h, yes. They belong here; she was born and raised in Kohala.The father was in charge of a little raiiroad that transportedthe sugar right through the whole district down to the seaport in Mahukona and her father was in charge. In fact, he

helped to build that railroad; he was in charge of the rail-road; that was his iob v'rith the sugar p'lantation. You seeothe railroad was owned not oniy by one plantation but byail the other plantat'ions. You see, they go together andformed a hui and built the railroad. So they had thisHav*rai j raffiay, one of the first railroads built jn Hawaii

Now by this time were you...

I didntt know her because I was born and raised in Waimea,see and I wasn't in school. Even when we moved back to Ko-hala we didn't go to school. lnle were going to school in Hono-lulu so we went to Kamehameha, you know. We didn't know

too many people around. See, I didnrt meet her until I came

out of icnoot; I was grown then. And her father--being English'they belonged to the Episcopal Church and she went to thePriory down there, run by the Episcopal Church' So we

neven met each other until We were grown. She took up nursingand becanre the public health nurse for the State she was up

there taking care; when I met her she was a nurse alneady.i know somehow my parents never thought kindly of her be-cause she was twb years older than I was [laughter]

i t;'lel'l o how d'id you get 'invoived with the Mormons?

lnle'llo when I went to Hilo, I came home and was working with my

dad taking care of the ranch. Thene lvas a fight staged inKohal0--d box'ing match between two Filipinos. One had come

from the mainland and he was supposed to be pretty good andthey couldn't find anyone here to fight him, so they brought

,, in i gry from Maui'. And when they had the fight it.was stagedby some-of the plantation people. In fact, our bookkeeper was

the refenee that night. I didnnt ljke the deal they gave thisother guy; you see, I heard there were a lot of bets on thisguy so they gave this guy from Maui a raw deal, They thoughttfris guy was so good that they bet a lot of money on him. Ithought-the other guy won the fight, but they called it a

drawl you see. Not only that, they had dissention. Fina]1ythey glve the fight to the guy that belonged here, yotl know'

-i wls-at the fjght, r'ing sideo and I got so darned mad that IJumped into the ring and challenged thg guy.- I said, "lllJiight you,u' I was not in a fight but I had learned to fightfrom my dad but I was never did fight professiona'l]V, fnis lvas

before-professiona'l fighting was introduced into the islands.This was all on the quiet side; the police were in on this.They had some crooked deais go'ing on. Anywayo.we postponedthe-fight for^ two weeks. They gave me two weeks time to getready lo fight him. There was so much interest in thatfight that at ring side they decided to take it to Hilo, so

lsool

INT:

hts

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

INT:

35

that they could make more money. So we went to Hilo to fight.And as things happened, urhen I went over there, I went on i,'led-nesday and i was supposed to fight him on Saturday. 0n Thurddaynight when I was sparring with a guy he butted me in the eye andcut my eyen had to put in six stitches in it. So they postponedthe fight for another month. !'lhich made it worse, because therewas more interest now. [laughter] They told me to stay here onemonth and train for the fight, don't go. So my friend who was amember of the Church--Bob Stevens--you know thjs Napua Stevens,her father. He was born and 'raised in Parker Ranch and I knewhim before see, so he was with me. I got him to be my secondo sowhen they postponed the fight for a montho he sa'ido "Why go hometo Kohala?" You're not working, you're just working for your dad;you can quit any time. l,tlhy don't we look forajob here and stayin Hilo?" I said, "Not a bad idea." So I went and looked for ajob and they were filling the breakwater in Hilo, the breakwaterfor the harbor. I went down there and asked for a job and theysaido "Sure, we 've got a job; we got a job in the shop." "',.1e11,I'm a fiachinist by trade. I went to Kam School to take up themachirrist trade." "0h, we need a machinist." 0K, they gave me

the job and I worked for the Hawaiian Dredging Company, he'lp'ingto build that last breakwater.

The time final'ly came when I fought this guy. hle fought to a drawwhich made more interest again. The plot thickened. So I wasthere for three years. And all this professional fighting was notlaw. It was outside of the law. I worked for the breakwater.Then I had a friend who was on the board of directors who ran thecounty. He was a supervisor and he told me that he had a jobcoming up for me. They needed a new fire chief because one wasgoing to be retired. "!,le want to train you now, so you'i1 be thenext chief." So I applied and got into the fire department. Iwas a lieutenant in the fire department after only three months.

My dad sent a note asking me to come home. hlhen I left home Ididn't see eye to eye with him on some things. He was kind of atough egg himself. When I camehome he told me that the plantationpeople wanted to give me his iob. I told him that I'd come home ononly one condition. "lllhen I come home you got to get out of there;I don't want any competition." I'Jhen I sajd to get out of thereyou see, my sister had built a home in Honolulu and wanted him togo down there to live with her. I said, "If you get out, I comehome--not that we won't speak to each other." So I did. I wenthome and took over the jobo January, 1928, that was the agreement.I was there till '68. So, he went to Honolulu and lived with mysister. He used to come up and down to visit me sometirnes. I'vebeen there since '28, digging ditches, riding mu'les.

So this fellow Stevens--was he the first contact you had with theMormons ?

Yes, that's how I got into the church. hlhen I went to Hilo, hebeing a Mormon, took me up to the Mormon gym to train. That wasrny down-fal1. ['laughter] When I had to go up there the missionaries

|tlS;

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

I600l

36

saw me. Knowing that I was not a Mormon, they started working onme 'cause they coul d see how . . . You see I hadn't gone to churchfor over 10 years. I belonged to the church of the Puritan Fathers[i.e., Congregationa] Churchl when I was a kid; I was brought upin that church. My mother raised us in that church. When I wentto Kam School, I got in a little mixup with the minister there.Their re'lig'ion is Congregational and he was a white man. I don'tknow how the thing started, but it wasn't much. He turned meagainst it. You know, when you are young you get turned on easilyand so'I real'ly got down on it... 0h,I know how ... I went toSunday School one morning, that's when we first got started. Andin Sunday School we got into a little argument and from then itwent on. So he started to pick on me from theni on. That's oneof the reasons when I got out of school I never went back to schoolagain. I quit the church. For l0 years I never went into theCongregational Church

So, when I went to Hilo to fight I was really against--I said thatI'm not going to have anything more to do with ministens. I didn'tsay l'd become an aetheisto I said I would just do my praying outin the brush somewhere. Not in church. Let the ministers pray inthe church, I'11 pray outside. So, I never went to church for overten years. When these Mormon missionaries started working on meI was mighty cagey. It took them two years before they could kindof nail me down and talk to me. I would let them talk; I wouldn'tfight. I was kind to them because I was using their gym to train.So, I just kind of listened out of one ear, but most of it was run-ning off of me like water off a duck's back. I didn't tell them.After those two years they were going to put me under water anyhow.

One day I was working and running late (I was a machinist for HawaiianDredging) when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned back and therewas this big six-foot missionary, Elder Exeter. We shook hands andhe pointed to a bundle that he had under his arm. He asked if Iknew what he had. I had no idea. He sa'id, "That's clothes webrought to baptize you.t' I saido "Who said I wanted to be baptized?"He said,'lI said." I said, "To te1'l you the truth I don't thinkI'm ready for baptism even after this long period of tjme thatyou've been preaching this to me. Some of the things sounds goodto me;" what I could understand I liked, but there was some of thestuff I didn't understand. Like this business of work for the dead,"I don't believe all of that." I saidn "Nown you want to take me outand baptize?" He said, "Yes." I saido "You mean to say that I'mprepared and ready for baptism?" And he saidn "Yes." I saido "I,.lell,what little...." Seeo I'd been kind of attending church once ina while, but I didn't do it because I wanted tobut I vuas not looking for re1igion. So, he saito be taken out to be baptized. So, I said tol amb to the sl aughter'i .

; I wanted religiond that I was readyhim, "I go 1ike a

So I went out that afternoon. He thoughI was not doinE anything that was reallyWisdom becaus'e I was training for fighti

t that I was such a good guy.good. I kept the trlord of

ng and all of that, but I

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

Izool

37

was not look'ing for religion. hle vrent out and he thought that I wassuch a good guy, as soon as tr had hands'laid on my head and g'iventhe gift of the Holy Ghost I would begin to see the light. Sowhen he took me out, there was no p'lace for baptism. There wereno baptismal fonts anywhere. Then we went out behind the Hiloiron works; they have this big pool in the back there and theybaptized me. When we got out on the bank, his companion, ElderLindo confirmed me. One was in front and the other was in the backof me. [Elder] Exeter was in the front of me. And when ElderLind finished confirming me, Elder Exeter--I was facing him; Ivlas kneeling with my wet clothes on--He put his finger under mychin and pu'lled my face up and looking into my eyes he said, "Howdo you feel now, Bro. Sproat?" I said, "Just like I did ten minutesago." I don't know why they didn't give up hope

Then I went home shortly after that. I was baptized in Augustand I went home in December. Back to Kohala. When I went back toKohala they didn't have a system there where they took care of themembers [i.e.n Home Teaching]--and I was such a tough egg. WhenI was home before, they were scared to come and tell me things'likethat--nobody came near me and I'd go to church once in a while.Soo that went on for a few months--oh, years--almost two years, Ithink.

Then, because I was not going to church I didn't know enough ofthe gospel to know what it was all about, I decided to quit. TheSunday I deci'ded to quit I was visiting somebody. I was living'inthe mountains so when I come out I would be by myself and I wasstaying at this ranch house. This guy owned the ranch, we werefriendly with him--thi's Wood's fami'ly. I was staying up at hisplace and he had a guest cottage outside. I was sleeping in thisguest cottage; The thought came to me that morn'ing as I lay inbed. They were getting ready to go down for a picnic. He had aNegro wahine as a cook. She was fixing up breakfast and fixingup a lunch for us to go out to this picnic. As I lay in bed Ijust had an inspiration, if you can call it thatn to go down andtell them that I quit church. So, I went down to the branch wherethe elders ran everything, to tell them that I quit and it happenedto be the first Sunday of the month. And there was a testimonymeeting goinE on and this old Hawaiiano everything was run inHawaiian then. This old Hawaiian women--sisters were bearing theirtestimonies--and as I sat listening to them, I was rea11y touched.I thought to myselfn "I wish I could believe what they believed--Gee, I came down here to quit. Luckily I didn't tell anybody thatI was going to quit." When I heard them I made up my mind. WhatI was going to d0 is go to church to see if I could learn enoughto believe what they believed. So, I started to go to church.

My wife wasn't a member of the church then. She was an Episcopalian.Soo when I went to church, I went for several Sundays in a row andthe branch president who was pure Hawaiian and couldn't speakEnglish approached me and said he wanted me to become h'is branchclerk, because he needed a good English-speaking clerkn because he

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

Il'lT:

38

said I could speak Hawaiian as well as English and he could talkto me. I took the job and I was his clerk. This branch presidentwas a faithful man; I learned more from that mano Solomon Kapeliela.And so I really ga'ined a testimony. After that, they started torearrange the whole system here and they made five districts onthis island and I was called to be the district president-rfrom a

branch clerk to district president of Kohala district, M'i1o1iiBranch. If we go up there I'11 show you the place; we still ownthe lando but no branch, no buiiding on it now.

Then as time went on they cut the island in two and they made me

district pres'ident of one of the two districts and I was in chargeof the northern half of this island. Another one was for thesouthern half. Then eventua'l1y they made a district out of thewhole island and they still called me to be the district presidentof the whole island. Altogether, I was district president fortwenty-eight years.

How many branches were there when you first started out on theisland?

Every district, now we have eight districts here....

END OF SIDE C

I,,lS:

17251

SIDE D

Iooo]ids:

I NT:

t,'lS:

INT:

l,rJS:

Except in theeighthgrade I went to a school they called the NormalSchool . He was a teacher then, a young man. [lllilliam l'4einecke,whom we were en route to interview at his home in Ka'u]

Where was that?

In Honolulu. He was a teacher there and after that he went tothe UH [University of Hawai'i]. I guess he was a graduate fromNormal School to begin with. And then he taught and went to theuniversity. He taught all of his life; he's a retired school teacher.He's pure haole, but raised over here and speaks Hawaiian betterthan most Hawaiians.

Now when you were on the ditch, did you have anybody working foryou or were you just a one man operation?

0h no, I had a whole crew. I was the superintendent there. tnle

had stations al1 along the mountains. It{en stayed tlrere; we hadto build camps--houses--a1l up theren and they had a'|1 the com-forts of home--even water toi'lets. There was plenty of water upthere. t,lle could make our own water system. No lightingo kerosene'lampso but I put in water toilets in every camp up there. You seethat was there before me, now they had those outhouses before.But when I made those camps I made all water toilets. I rebuilt

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

INT:

iijS

iNT:

rds:

It 00]INT:

hlS:

INT:

irlS:

INT:

idS

39

all the camps and we had stations al1 along there and vre had somepump area to pump water that was too low to get into the ditchby gravity. When we didn't have enough water we had to use that.We had to use water power to pump that up.

Soo you worked five days a week and then spent Saturday and Sundayson your Church work.

Yeah.

Now, while you were district president, were the missionariesstill quite responsible in the branches or were you able to developlocai leadership?

That was the beginning of the development of local leadership.That's why they put us in, guys like us. That's when the changecame... Before the missionaries []ead the branches]. You canimagine, why we csuldn't make too much development becausemissionaries wouldn't be here Ilong enough]. They would be goneand two new ones would come, start all over and have a littledifferent way of doing things. You can't get away from the factthat each individual is going to do things his way, and peoplewho are not too faithful in the 0hurch never can get the hang ofthat sometimeso and it goes on and on. But, once they changedover to local leadershipo then we had more of the same thing.But you couldn't find too many'local peop'le because if you go wayback when I first joined the Church, everything was run in Hawaiian.All the services were conducted in Hawaiian.

How long did that last?

I was 28 when I became a district president '28 to '68. Thingsbegan to change and everything became English then.

hlas there any particular time when the instructions were no moreHawaiian, everything be in English now? 0r was it a gradua'lthi ng?

It had to be gradua'|, because one tjme we had everything in Hawaiianand just the young kids in English. Then the time got to be whenwe had everything in English and we had a Hawaiian class. li'le hadto have a Hawaiian classo because there were some old Hawaiianswho couldn't speak English.

By the start of World War II, were the meetings pretty much con-ducted in English?

0h yes, by that time everything was 'in English.

You were district presidento of course, during the depress'ion.Were there any problems that the depression created here on theBig Island?

INT:

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

40

WS: No, in the country we could pr"actically take care of ourselves--live off the land for si'x months and you know back in the country,like in Kohala, we had alot of water over there. Everybody hadtaro patches. l,'le didn't have to buy our poi and taro, everybodyraised their own. Then the time came when we just bought the taroand pounded it myself. There was enough:taro being so'ld that youcould buy a gunney sack of taro for 50d. Now you buy a little bag

of'poi for $.l.35. I can't afford to eat poi now.

The men that were working for you....

They. were Japanese.

What would be a typical hourly wage at that particular time?

Well, if you go back far enough you get to the time when you workedfor a dollar a day. $:O a month, if you worked every day. Then'it kept going upn then the unions came and more. Heck, now we

have the highest paid agricultural workers in the world.

Now you didn't actually work for the plantation. The ditch companywas separate from the plantation, wasn't it?

Yeah, they owned the ditch though. It belonged to the Hind familywho owned the Hawi plantation. There were five separate plantationsat one time in this one district, and I worked for the Hind's andthe Flind's are the ones that built and owned the ditch. When Ifirst looked for the ditch, I went to our office at the plantationoffices 'cause we had a separate room. Actually, my boss who wasa civi'l engi'neer, was themanagerof the ditch company. So, I wasthe superintendent under him. IFred Koelling]

Now even though the depressi'on didn't cause much hardship to raisefood, what about employment? Did many people lose their jobs?

Out in the country, kind of hard to say there is no job. tl'le alwayshad iobs. The depression didn't bother us too much up here. Theones who ljved in the towns felt the pinch.

I was wondering whether there were more people asking for iobson the ditch during the depression time.

There vvas a time when we did some development on the ditch. Thatwas during the war time. I had a lot of young Hawaiian boys workingfor me, diiving water development tunnels. Then when the war came'they a1l had to go to the army. At one time I had all.Japanesewori<ing for me. -When i became the superintendent up there theytold m6 to try to get Hawaiians, so I did. hJhen these Hawaiian boysstarted to work up there, they liked it. They could out-work theJapanese any time. But you got to develop them to the point.wherethby want tb work. When- thet did want to work they could .out-workthe Japanese any time; the Japanese steady, bu! slow. I did allthe cohstruction work, I always used the Hawaiians because, as I

INT:

l,rJS:

INT:

hJS:

INT:

IIIS:

iNT:

hJS:

[2oo]

INT:

l^JS

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s

t-'

/4,

a

(-

U

INT:

l^JS:

INT:

t,tJS:

INT:

126?l

41

said, when they take pride in their work and start to work theyare hard to hold down. I had some big husky guys up there.

l,rlas employment a problem during the war?

No, well, we had a lot of Filipino laborers, and they were notcitizens. They couldn't go anyhow, so as far as laborers wereconcernedo we had plenty. hle never lost any, because they didn'thave to go in the army. And they were still bringing F'ilipinosfrom the Philippine Islands.

tdas it during that period of time that you had the accident withyour 1eg?

0h, that was rvay back in 1958, it's almost 20 years ago. I,rJon'tbe long 'til we get to the place where we tu.rn down to get toSouth Point. Now, go easy, Meinecke just lives not too far. Here'sthe South Point where the rroad turns to go down to his house onthe upper side of the road.

0K.

END 0F INTERVIETf

Cop

yrig

ht B

YU-H

awai

i Arc

hive

s