Tidbits in time

Taxes in the kingdom

In 1890, the Kingdom of Hawaii had the following taxes, according to the 1900 Thrums Hawaiian Annual:

Poll tax: $1.
School tax: $2.
Road tax: $2.
Carriage owners tax: $5.
Dog tax: $1 for males, $3 for females. This proved to be one of the more controversial taxes after annexation and the majority Home Rule Party in the territorial legislature seized on it as a discriminatory tax.
Real and personal property tax: 1 percent, upon its cash value as of Jan. 1 of each year.

How the banks started

First there was Bishop and Company, the Republic of Hawaii's first bank and forerunner to First Hawaiian Bank.

But when Castle & Cooke found itself in "grave financial difficulties" because of the expenses of Ewa Sugar Plantations, Bishop and Company refused to grant the firm an advance.

Then the bank bounced a $54 Castle & Cooke check, which greatly upset C&C's management, according to the history of First Hawaiian. So when the fortunes of Ewa Plantations turned around, Castle & Cooke decided it was time to teach Bishop and Company a lesson.

Charles Cooke and other company officers, followed by a large Hawaiian gentleman pushing a wheelbarrow, paraded from their offices to the bank, where they delivered a large check made out to cash. Castle & Cooke withdrew all of the firm's funds and walked back through the streets of Honolulu with a wheelbarrow full of gold coins to be deposited in the new Bank of Hawaii.

The Bank of Hawaii went on to finance the Alexander Young Hotel, and the Moana Hotel in Waikiki.

Interestingly, BOH's downtown site is the old Paki house, "Haleakala", onetime home of Charles Reed Bishop and Bernice Pauahi Bishop. Living with them was Liliuokalani, later to be Hawaii's last queen.

"The trustees of the Bishop Estate did not allow sentiment to get in the way of business. They sold the lot, once dear to their patron Bernice Pauahi and her husband, to a bank established with the express intention of competing with Bishop's bank," noted the First Hawaiian history.

Nearly 100 years of cash crops

By 1910, Hawaii had found several diversified cash crops, according to Thrums Hawaiian Annual:

Sisal: 500 acres on the Big Island generating 10 to 11 tons a month of the fiber-like plant used to make cord.
Tobacco: Kona Tobacco Co. produced 150,000 pounds and expected to double that in 1911.
Also producing tobacco were the Keokea Cigar Co., the Hawaiian Tobacco Co and independent tobacco growers in Hamakua.
Rubber: Grown on several Big Island plantations.
Cotton: Also grown here.

New speed record set

By 1910, the sailing time for a trip from Honolulu to New York was 102 days.

About this Series The Honolulu Star-Bulletin is counting down to year 2000 with this special series. Each month through December, we'll chronicle important eras in Hawaii's history, featuring a timeline of that particular period. Next month's installment: August 9. Series Archive Project Editor: Lucy Young-Oda Chief Photographer: Dean Sensui