Molokai - the Little Island Gem of Hawaii: A Historical Guide of Molokai

By Gordon Brownlow

For those who are trying to decide which of the Hawaiian Islands they would like to visit, Molokai might not be your first choice. When looking for places to stay and eat, the options are very limited. With only one hotel, you might not like the options. They do include privately owned condominium complexes and homes for rent throughout the island. If you are able to locate a place to stay on this island, you will be rewarded with some of the best beaches, mountain waterfall hikes, snorkeling, diving, fishing, and surfing in all of Hawaii! This guidebook will guide you to those places as well as give you its fascinating, mystical history!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 12, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887931906

Book preview

Molokai - the Little Island Gem of Hawaii

A Historical Guide of Molokai

Gordon Brownlow

Copyright © 2023 Gordon Brownlow

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88793-180-7 (hc)

ISBN 979-8-88793-190-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Volcanic Beginnings of the Hawaiian Island Chain

Chapter 2

The Historic Trip of the Hōkūle‘a (Star of Gladness) from Hawaii to Tahiti

Chapter 3

Hawaiian Gods and Hawaiian Kings

Chapter 4

Molokai's First Polynesians

Chapter 5

Hālawa Valley

Chapter 6

Petroglyphs and Early Molokai History

Chapter 7

Captain Cook's Voyages

Chapter 8

King Kamehameha's Use of Molokai as a Recruiting and Training Island

Chapter 9

The Whalers and Missionaries Come to Hawaii

Chapter 10

The Sandalwood Trade

Chapter 11

Captain Vancouver Delivers the First Cattle to Hawaii and the Start of the Parker Ranch

Chapter 12

The Wild Mustangs of Hawaii and the Cowboys Who Tamed Them

Chapter 13

The Parker Ranch and the First Paniolos

Chapter 14

The Europeans Find Molokai

Chapter 15

The Molokai Ranch

Chapter 16

The Last Monarch of Hawaii

Chapter 17

Molokai Ranch's Wildlife Park History

Chapter 18

Molokai's Western Beaches and Trails that Run North of Kaiaka Rock

Chapter 19

Molokai's Western Beaches That Run South of Kaiaka Rock

Chapter 20

Northern and East End Molokai Points of Interest

Chapter 21

The Waterfalls of Molokai

Chapter 22

Where to Stay, Camp, Grocery Shop, and Dine Out on Molokai

Chapter 23

Molokai Adventures

Chapter 24

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Movie and Other Movies Known to be Filmed in Hawaii

Glossary of Hawaiian Words and Phrases

Acknowledgments

Bibliography

About the Author

Author Gordon Brownlow on the Big Island in 1974

Preface

Preface: My First Piece of Hawaiian Property

When my father was a mere six years of age in the Rocky Mountains of Montana in 1921, he had no idea that twenty years later, he would be fighting a war against the Japanese in the South Pacific. Thirty years later, I would be fighting a war against the North Vietnamese in the Pacific. Forty-five years after that, I decided to move with my wife from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado to the South Pacific islands of Molokai in Hawaii. The South Pacific kept calling my name.

In the 1930s, the adventurer/writer David Lewis from New Zealand began making outrigger canoe trips in the South Pacific at the young age of seventeen. His first solo trip was a 725-kilometer journey from the island of Wanganui to Auckland, New Zealand. While in medical school in Otago, New Zealand, he began making first ascents of nineteen different peaks and traverses in the New Zealand Southern Alps. He was also the New Zealand University's national downhill ski champion in 1938.

During that same time period, interestingly enough, my father was also downhill ski racing for the Montana State College ski team. In 1941, World War II would sideline my father's college career, and he would find himself as a pilot in the United States Navy in the South Pacific. My grandfather, Gordon Donald, was a captain in the navy also during World War II. He was put in charge of the naval shipyards in Charleston, South Carolina.

When I was a child in the 1950s, my grandfather fueled my interest in sailing history. Together, we built model historic sailing ships, as well as modern diesel-driven World War II navy ships. Later, I found myself competing in downhill and cross-country skiing as a teenager in high school in Montana. In 1971, at the age of twenty-one, I was off to war in Vietnam. The first time I visited Hawaii was when I was on R&R (rest and relaxation) in the middle of my Vietnam tour in 1972. After spending just a short time there, I decided that someday, given a chance, I would like to live there. While walking the streets of Honolulu, I went into a real estate office and purchased my first piece of Hawaiian property in a development called Kalapana Sea View Estates on the Big Island.

I bought it sight unseen because I needed to return to Vietnam to fight the war. After the war, I returned to Montana and went to school at Montana State University. There, I pursued a degree in television broadcasting with a minor in history. In a geology class I took in 1974, the professor spoke about the possibility of lava flowing from the Kilauea volcano down to the ocean. I realized that it could possibly flow over my property. On spring break from college that year, I flew to Hawaii and sold my property. Ten years later a volcanic fissure did open up on Mauna Loa and flowed towards the city of Hilo. It stopped short of the city and spared the Kalapana Sea View Estates property. The most recent fissure that just opened up on Mauna Loa, has, at the writing of this book, followed a similar path and is not supposed to reach the city or the development. Pele is rearing her fiery head once again! Pele is the Polynesian god of volcanoes that the Polynesians most feared and respected, for good reason!

Hawaiians also use the timing of this 2022 volcanic event as a sacred event as it began on the same date as Hawaiian Independence Day, November 28. On that date in 1843 a document recognized their independence and sovereignty and was proclaimed by Great Britain and France. I pursued my television career in Montana, Utah, and finally Colorado. I worked as a news and sports photographer at Denver's Channel 2 News for twenty-two years. After thirty years in broadcasting, I retired from that career and began teaching skiing for the Breckenridge Ski Resort in the winter and the Breckenridge Heritage Alliance as a docent and mining tour guide in the summer. The history-guide job gave me a chance to use my interest in mining history, as well as to get a better understanding of what my Montana family did as miners in the 1800s. I researched this history with the material that the Heritage Alliance gave me, as well as with other resources