Kokua Line
Kokua Line
McCully’s 122-acre land
grant was subdivided
around 1901Question: I've lived in Honolulu most of my life. Recently, I found a book on the Ward family that was very interesting. I haven't seen anything on the McCully family. Could you tell me who they were, how they were related to the land, how big their properties were, and when the area was subdivided?
Answer: The reason you haven't seen anything about the McCullys is because there isn't much information available about the family for whom the street and district are named.
We checked with the Hawaii State Archives (which produced the most information), as well as with the Hawaii State Library, the Hawaiian Historical Society, the Bishop Museum library and the city Department of Planning and Permitting.
We thank all the librarians and researchers at those organizations for help in tracking down scarce information about Lawrence McCully, who was a first associate justice of the Supreme Court, appointed by King Kalakaua, and a member of the Privy Council of State, at the time of his death on April 10, 1892.
He was 61, leaving behind a wife, Ellen, a brother, Charles, who lived in Calais, Me., and a sister, Anna McCully, of "Tokio" Japan. He had no children.
The State Archives had a copy of an obituary written about McCully in the Pacific Commercial Advertiser on April 11, 1892, which detailed his life in Hawaii.
He was born in New York City on May 28, 1831, and grew up in Oswego, N.Y.
After graduating from Yale University in 1852, he was a tutor for a family in New Orleans and later taught school In Kentucky.
"Without any family, friends or connections in these Islands to call him here, he, as the result of his reading, formed the plan of settling in the Sandwich Islands, and came hither via Panama and California, arriving in December, 1854, just after the death of Kamehameha III," according to the obituary.
Armed with letters of introduction, he got a job in 1855 as "Police Justice" in Hilo.
In 1857, he resigned and moved to Kona, where he bought land and began an orange orchard.
While on the Big Island, he learned the Hawaiian "vernacular which proved of great advantage to him."
When he moved to Honolulu in 1858, he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1859.
In 1860, he was elected to the Hawaii Legislature as a representative of Kohala, then was picked speaker of the House.
At the time, the Legislature consisted of a House of Nobles and a House of Representatives.
Because "the practice of law was not very remunerative in those early days," according to the obituary, McCully became, in 1862, an interpreter to the Supreme Court and the Police Court in Honolulu.
He resigned in 1865 to become Clerk of the Supreme Court, then left that position in 1871 to become a deputy attorney general.
In 1877, Kalakaua appointed him second associate justice of the Supreme Court, then in 1881, to first associate justice.
McCully was described as a man of scholarly tastes, who was fond of the classics and able to read Latin with ease.
"His interest in the land of his adoption was great," according to his obituary.
He also "was a religious man, not ostentatiously so, but reverential in conduct and devoted to his church. His pure habits and stainless life, his unimpeachable integrity and firmness of character afford an example worthy of imitation."
In "Place Names of Hawaii," the entry on McCully says Lawrence McCully "opened the Punahou tract as a subdivision."
According to State Archives' records, McCully had a land grant (3098), showing he owned about 122 acres makai of Algaroba Street to Kalakaua Avenue.
McCully Tract was developed as a residential subdivision by the McCully Land Co. about 1901, nine years after his death. The city Department of Planning and Permitting says its records only show that McCully Street was named prior to 1910. The street doesn't show up in 1900 maps of Honolulu, but does so in 1902.
New streets put in for the subdivision were Banyan, Citron, Date, Fern, Lime, Mango, Orange, Palm and Tamarind. Banyan, Mango, Orange, Palm and Tamarind are no longer there.
One of Hawaii's territorial governors, Lawrence McCully Judd (who was governor from 1929 to 1934), was named for McCully, according to his grandson, Lawrence McCully Judd III (known as "Cully" Judd).
"My grandfather was the youngest of nine children of A.F. Judd," he said. Lawrence McCully Judd was born in 1887.
A.F. Judd served on the Supreme Court with McCully, according to Barbara Dunn, of the Hawaiian Historical Society. A.F. Judd later became chief justice.
Cully Judd's father was Lawrence McCully Judd Jr., but after him, it's "the end of the line" for McCully Judds because "I've been blessed with two beautiful daughters," he said.
Mahalo
To five young men in a pickup truck who helped me when my car had a flat tire as I was driving on the Pali Highway, near the tunnel, about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 19. I had just picked up my sister to have dinner in Waikiki. We are two elderly ladies and don't know how to fix tires. I called my insurance company, but they said it would take an hour for someone to come. So I decided to try to wave down some help. Those boys were driving on the other side, heading toward Kailua, but they turned around to come and help. They changed the tire, then directed me back into traffic. They even followed us part of the way back to Kailua to get my sister's car. We were late, but we made it to dinner. Mahalo to Justin Miller, Joshua Jackson Sr., and Benjamin, Kimo and Kawika Kuahine. -- Sharon Fu
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