Plague and Fire
Page 28
17. Saito to C. B. Wood, January 17, 1900, HBH.
18. C. B. Wood to Saito, January 17, 1goo, HBH; IND, January 19, 1900, 4-
19. PCA, January 13, 1900, 5.
20. For the most recent example, see Hawaiian Almanac and Annual for lgoo (Honolulu, 1900), 171. Previous Almanacs regularly chronicled accidental fires in the area. For an excellent account of the largest of those earlier accidental fires, see Richard A. Greer, "`Sweet and Clean': the Chinatown Fire of 1886," HJH, Vol. 10 (1976), 33-51-
2 1. PCA, January 2, 1900, 9.
22. PCA, January 13, 1900, 1; FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 3; EBU, January 4, 1900, 4-
23. PCA, January 13, 1900, 14, January 11, 1900, 4-
24. PCA, January 11, 1900, 2, 5; KAA, January 13, 1900, 1, January 20, 1900, 1.
25- IND,January 16, 17, 1900, 4; FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 4; EBU, January 14, 15, 16, 1900.
2 6. EBU, January 20, 1900, I.
27. PCA, January 14, 1900, 3, January 16, 1900, I; MBH, January 17, 1900, 181.
28. PCA, January 16, 1goo, 1, January 20, 1900, 9.
29. PCA, January 13, 1900, 1, January 17, 1900, 7; KAA, January 20, 1900, 7; EBU, December 13, 1899, 1, December 14, 1899, 4-
30. PCA, January 15, 1900, 4; January 16, 1900, 4; January 19, 1900, 4.
31. PCA, January 16, 1900, 4.
32. MBH, January 15-19, 1900, 173-86; Chung Kun Ai, My Seventy-Nine Years in Hawaii (Hong Kong, 1960), 192.
33- PCA,January 20, 1900, 1, 9.
CHAPTER 10
i. PCA, January 17, 1900, I.
2. Richard A. Greer, "`Sweet and Clean': The Chinatown Fire of 1886," HJH, Vol. 10 (1976), 35.
3. All of Honolulu's newspapers carried extensive coverage of the fire after the fact. The account that follows is put together from those stories collectively. Only direct quotations will be noted separately.
4. Frank Davey, "Through Plague and Fire in Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands," undated typescript memoir, 4, Ms Doc io8, BMA.
5. Davey, "Through Plague and Fire"; Honolulu Star-Bulletin, April 21, 2001.
6. PCA, January 2 2, 1900, 2; "Detailed Record of the Second Fire of Chinatown [in Chinese]," in [Overseas Penman Club], The Chinese ofHawaii (Honolulu, 1929), 42.
7. EBU, January 20, 1900, 1.
8. Chung Kun Ai, My Seventy-Nine Years in Hawaii (Hong Kong, 1960), 193•
9. EBU, January 20, 1900, 1; Soga Yasutaro, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko [My Fifty Years Memoirs in Hawaii] (Honolulu, 1954), 83•
10. PCA, January 2 2, 1900, 3; EBU, January 20, 19oo, 1; Davey, "Through Plague and Fire," 6 (emphasis in original).
ii. IND, January i9, 1900, 4; PCA, January 22, 1900,3; January 24, 1900, 1o.
12. For the memories of a woman who watched the event from this vantage point when she was a girl, see Helen P. Hoyt, Aloha, Susan! (Garden City, NJ., 1961), 75-82.
13. Soga, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko, 83.
14. Davey, "Through Plague and Fire," 6.
15. PCA, January 22, 1900, 1.
16. Li Ling Ai, Life Is for a Long Time: A Chinese Hawaiian Memoir (New York, 1972), 174-
17. PCA, January 22, 1900, 2 , 6; EBU, January 20, 1900, 1.
18. PCA, January 22, 1900, 3; HIN, 191-93•
19. PCA, January 22, 1900, 3, 6.
20. Gu Jinhui, Tan Dao j'i Shi [Historical Record of Hawaii] (Shanghai, 1907 [reprint 1988]), 145-
21. PCA, January 24, 19oo, 10; petition of Wong Chow, Chun Wing, and others to the Senate investigating committee in HIN, 191-93-
2 2. MBH, January 20, 1900, 189.
2 3. FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 3; Davey, "Through Plague and Fire," 7; EBU, January 20, 1900, 1.
24. Soga, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko, 83; Davey, "Through Plague and Fire," 6; PCA, January 22, 1900, 6.
25. Scrapbook of Mary Sophronia Whitney, 104-17, HHS.
26. FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 3; Blair D. Taylor to Surgeon General, January 22, 1900, Correspondence Files, MHS.
2 7. EBU, January 21, 19oo, i; PCA, January 22, 1900, 3.
z8. PCA, January 22, 1900, 4. 2 8.
CHAPTER I I
i. PCA,January 22, 1900,4; KAA,January 13, 1900, 2, and January 20, 1900, 2; Richard A. Greer, "`Sweet and Clean': The Chinatown Fire of 1886," HJH, 0. Vol. Io (1976), 40-
2. FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 5-
3. EBU, January 21, 1900, 1.
4. PCA, January 22, 19oo, io; EBU, January 2 1, 1900, I.
5. EBU, January 21, 1900, 1; PCA, January 22, 1900, 1o.
6. MBH, January 22, 1900, 190-93; FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 4; IND, February 26, 1900, 4-
7. FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), 3-4-
8. EBU, January 21, 1.
9. PCA, January 2 2, 1900, 7. For a typical example of the Board's having to deal with such problems, see MBH, February 12, 1900, 248-51-
io. MBH, January 22, 1900, 193; IND, February 12, 1900, 4-
i i. For a fine summary of these efforts, see Lana Iwamoto, "The Plague and Fire of 1899-1 goo in Honolulu," Hawaiian Historical Review, Vol. 2 (1967), 389-90; EBU, February 7, 1900, i; IND, March 9, 1900, 4-
12. PCA, January 22, 1900, 4; D[uncan]. A. Carmichael, "Report of Transactions at the Port of Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii, During the Fiscal Year ended June 30, 1 goo," in Annual Report of the Supervising Surgeon-General of the Marine-Hospital Service of the United States for the Fiscal Year 1900 (Washington, D.C., lgoo), 441.
13. Wong Chow to editor, January 23, 1900, in PCA, January 25, 1900, 3. The paper hinted that the letter may have been written by a white man and merely signed by Wong Chow, but concluded that it probably represented Chinese points of view.
14. MBH, January 27, 1900, 211; EBU, January 30, 1900, 3-
15. Yang Wei Pinto E. A. Mott [Hawaiian Minister of Foreign Affairs], January 15, 1900, Incoming Correspondence, Series 334-26, HBH; M. C. Amana to Editor, January 20, 1900, reprinted in PCA, January 22, 1900, 6, and elsewhere; PCA, January 24, 1900, 4-
16. EBU, February 2, 1900, 2.
17. Li Ling Ai, Life Is for a Long Time: A Chinese Hawaiian Memoir (New York, 1972), 175; MBH, February 8, 1900, 242, February 14, 1900, 266; GuJinhui, Tan Daoji Shi [Historical Record of Hawaii] (Shanghai, 1907 [reprint 1988]), 148-49-
18. IND, January 29, 1900, 4.
19. PCA, February 5, 1 goo, 1; Clarence E. Glick, Sojourners and Settlers: Chinese Migrants in Hawaii (Honolulu, 1980), 230-
20. EBU, March 30, 1900, 1; April 13, 1900, 4; PCA, January 24, 1 goo, 6; January 2 5, 1900, 4.
21. Li, Life Is for a Long Time, 170-71, 174-75-
2 2. Li, Life Is for a Long Time, 177, 178.
23. Telephone interview with James G. Y. Ho, director of the Hawaiian Chinese Multicultural Museum and Archives, November 11, 2002. Ho spent many years gathering oral histories among Honolulu's Chinese residents.
24. See, for example, "Exhibit F" in the separate file of materials from Saito, Incoming Correspondence, Series 334-26, HBH; EBU, February 7, 1900, I; KAA, January 27, 1900, 3, 4-
2 5. Kawata Minoru, ed., Imin Taiken Ki [A Chronicle of Immigrant Experience], Vol. i (Hiroshima, 1974), 9-Jo; Frank Davey, "Through Plague and Fire in Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands," undated typescript memoir, 8; Ms Doc io8, BMA; IND, January 27, 1900, 4-
26. PCA, January 31, 1900, 5; HGZ, January 30, 1900, 1, 5; MBH, February 16, 1900, 272; EBU, January 30, 1, February io, 1900, I.
27- Soga Yasutaro, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko [My Fifty Years Memoirs in Hawaii] (Honolulu, 1954), 84-
28. See, for example, the letter of January 29, 1900, in Outgoing Correspondence, Vol. 23, HBH.
2 9. KAA, January 27, 1900, 4-
30. "Ka Hui Kikua Manawalea Hawaii [Hawaiian Relief Services Association]," KAA, January zo, 1900, 3. For commentary on the flap that arose over where to hold Boardman, see IND, January 18, 1900, 4-
3 1. For Hawaiian protests against that policy, see "Na Hana Kapakahi a ke Aupuni-Hoolilo is ka Hotele Q
ueen i Wahi Hoomalu no na Haole [Mishandling of the Government-Queen Hotel Converted to a Quarantine Facility for Whites]," KAA, January 20, 1900, 5-
32. PCA, February 5, 1900, 5; February 12, 1900, Io.
CHAPTER 12
I. MBH, January 24, 1900, 196-97; PCA, January 25, 1900, 12; January 26, I goo, 9.
2. MBH, January 24, 198-99; "Ke Oili L ilii Nei No-Elua Make a me Hookahi Mai [Cases Spreading Two Deaths One is Sick]," KAA, January 27, 1900, 2.
3. MBH, January 25, 1 9oo, i99; KAA, January 27, 1900, 7.
4. Dion-Margrit Coschigano, "Chinatown: A History of Change," http:// www.chinatownhi.com (accessed March 3, 2003), estimates that there were 81 Chinese stores outside Chinatown and 72 Chinese stores inside Chinatown in 1896; PCA, January 24, 1900, 4; January 27, 1900, 1-2; March 7, 1900, 9.
5. PCA, February 6, 1900, to.
6. IND,January 29, 1900, 4; PCA,January 29, 1900, 1.
7. PCA, January 23, 1900, 5.
8. Sloggett File, MAM.
9. Nathaniel B. Emerson to "Sister Dora and Bro. Joe," January 4, 1900, emphasis in original; Diary of Nathaniel B. Emerson, entry for January 24, 1900, both in HUN.
io. Carmichael File, MAM.
i i. PCA, January 22, 1900, 9; Emerson Diary, entry for January 24, 1900.
12. PCA, January 26, 1900, i; MBH, February 14, 1900, 265-
13. PCA, January 30, 1900, 1, 4; February i, 1900, 9; February 2, 1900, 2.
14. Honolulu Board of Health to Board of Health, Sydney, New South Wales, January 31, 1900, Vol. 23, Correspondence, Outgoing Letters, HBH.
15. Dole referred to Hoffman's ongoing efforts in the wake of the great fire. See PCA, January 2 2, 1900, 10. Though historians can now recount in some detail the story of British experiments with Haffkine's serum, Hoffman and his colleagues knew only what they could learn from United States consular dispatches relayed to them by the United States Marine Hospital Service. See the report of William T. Fee, U.S. consul in Bombay, September 7, 1899, reprinted in PCA, January 31, 1900, 1.
16. Angus Smedley, "Autobiography of an LDS Missionary to Hawaii, 19001904," 67-69, Doc. 216, BMA.
17. On the call for vaccines, see also Wilcox (secretary to the Board of Health) to Saito, March 3, 1900, HBH; and Taylor to Reypren, February i, 1900, Correspondence, Box 645, MHS.
18. Hoffman File, MAM; PCA, January 16, 1900, 1o; February 2, 1900, 10.
19. FRI, Vol. 58, No. 2 (February 1900), i.
20. See PCA, February 3, 1900, 1; February 7, 1900, 5. Robertson boasted that he was king of the rat killers, having dispatched seventeen in his own store. He had also casually handled the bodies of about twenty other dead ratswithout taking any special precautions-while helping fellow workers dispose of them.
21. PCA, February 3, 1900, 2.
2 2. "Bubonic Plague No. 1," 196, 199, 201-2, 206, 209, 217. Public Health Service Scrapbooks, PHS.
2 3. PCA, February 5, 1900, 4-
24. PCA, February 5, 1900, 1-2, 4.
25. For information about Honolulu's principal stables, see Edward B. Scott, The Saga of the Sandwich Islands, Vol. i (Lafayette, Ind., 1968), 263; PCA, February 6, 1900, 4; February 7, 1900, 2.
z6. MBH, February 6, 1900, 233-37, February 9, 1900, 244; PCA, February 5, 1900, 1; February 7, 1900, 4; February 9, 1900, 4; February io, 1900, 7; February 12, 1900, 4; Uldrick Thompson Sr., "Reminiscences of Old Hawaii," 135, typescript in HHS.
27. PCA, February 5, 1900, 4, 11; IND, January 30, 1900, 4.
28. PCA, February 7, 1900, 4; EBU, February 7, 1900, 4.
2 9. MBH, February 2, 1900, 2 2 3-2 7; February 3, 1900, 2 2 7-2 9; EBU, February 15, 1900, 1; February 18, 1900, 2.
30. "Bubonic Plague, No. 1," 232, PHS; EBU, February 12, 1900; Tan ShangXi Bao Long ,7i [Hawaiian Chinese News] (Honolulu), February 9, 1900; IND, February 24, 1900, 4; March 3, 1900, 4; Gu Jinhui, Tan Daoji Shi [Historical Record of Hawaii] (Shanghai, 1907 [reprint 1988]), 149-52.
3 1 - "Bubonic Plague No. 2," 1, PHS; PCA, February 9, 1900, 3; March 7, 1900, io; March 8, 1900, 5; KAA, January 27, 1900, 1, 2; EBU, February 7, 1900, 1, 4; February 18, 1900, 2; March 8, 1900, 1.
32. KAA, January 27, 1900, 2; HIN, 127.
33• IND, February 22, 1900, 43 3 -
34• MBH, February 1, 1900, 217-22; PCA, February 12, 1900, 3; February 13, 1900, 3.
900, 3. 35• PCA, February 12. 19oo, u; February 13, 190013-
36. Gulstan, Bishop of Panopolis, to the Damien Institute, February 12, 1900, HMC.
CHAPTER 13
i. For the continued isolationism on Hawaii, see Dr. Moore to Board of Health, April io, 1900, in Bubonic Plague File, MAM; for reports from Maui, see Sabey File and Weddick File, MAM; EBU, December 12, 1899.
2. W[illiam] H. Chickering to Walter Wyman, March 20, 19oo, Correspondence, Box 645, MHS; MBH, February 13, 1900, 252-59; Weddick File, MAM. Weddick, who headed the Kahului physicians' committee, was subsequently presented with a gold watch by the people of Maui for his selfless services during the plague crisis there. Quotes regarding Maui are from EBU, February 12, 1900, 1, 4; February 13, 1900, 1; February 15, 1900, 1, 8; and PCA, February 13, 1900, 5. The complete Maui story and subsequent reports can be followed in any of the Honolulu papers.
3. PCA, February 13, 1900, 1o; February 15-19, 1900, passim; MBH, February 1+1900,264-
4. Forrest J. Pinkerton, "Rat Menace Started Public Health Projects," reprint from Hawaii Magazine, July 17, 1943, MAM; PCA, February 14, 1900, 2; MBH, February 13, 1900, 261, March 6, 1900,327; PCA, February 15, 1900, 6; February 16, 1900, 7.
5. MBH, February 19, 1900, 279; PCA, February 20, 1900, 7. 5-
6. PCA, February 2 3, 19oo, 8.
7- PCA, February 24, 1900, i; EBU, February 26, 1900, 1; IND, February 23, 1900,4; Maj. [Oscar F.] Long to Quartermaster General, February 24, 1900, Correspondence, Box No. 645, MHS.
8. For this debate generally, see PCA, February 22-27, 1900-
0, 1900, 4. 9. MBH, March 1, 1900, 312; EBU, February 20,1900,4-
i o. MBH, February 28, 1900, 308.
i i. IND, March 2, 1900, 4; March 3, 1900, 5; March 6, 1900, 4; MBH, March 5, 1900, 324.
12. An earlier Natural History and Microscopic Society of amateurs had gone defunct by the mid-i88os, and this new society, as the authority on microscopy in Honolulu has noted, "was a new breed of men, with a different purpose in mind ... physicians and `paramedical personnel' . . . members of a generation who were acquainted with the new doctrines and techniques of micro-biology, pathology, and epidemiology. They met not as dilettantes but as scientists, to share their reading and their experiences, in the hope of improving diagnostic procedures in the clinical medicine and public health." 0. A. Bushnell, "Much Ado About Little Things: Microscopes and Microscopists," HJH, Vol. 3 (1969), 101-10.
13. PCA, March 5, 1900, 10-
14. PCA, February 8, 1900, 4-
15. EBU, March 6, 1900, 1.
16. PCA, March 14, 1900, 3.
17. EBU, March 13, 1900, 1; PCA, March 14, 1900, 3.
18. PCA, March 16, 1900, 4; Hoffman File, MAM.
19. IND, April 6, 1900, 4; PCA, March 30, 1900, 3. Some Japanese apparently used inoculation certificates more than once and for more than one person.
20. See Mori File, MAM; YS, 1898-99, passim, and December 23, 1899. I am indebted to Professor Andrew Goble of the University of Oregon for translation of the medical advertisements.
21. See "Reply to `Helper' by a Layman," PCA, April 2, 1900, 10, 15; April 27, 3; EBU, March 21, 1900, 1.
22. PCA, March 2, 1900, 1, 3; MBH, March 2, 1900, 314.
23. IND, March 13, 1900, 4; PCA, April 16, 19oo, i 1; April 26, 1900, 7.
24. PCA, March 7, 1900, 5-
25. PCA, March 6, 19oo, 6; March 7, 9; MBH, March 6, 326.
2 6. PCA, March 9, 1900, 4; March 26, 1900, 6, 14; March 27, 1900, 13.
27. PCA, March 31, 1900, 4; April 2, 1900, 15; April 3, 1900, 9-
28. Claims Submitted; 1900 Fire Losses, Records of the Claim
s Commission, HSA.
29. HGZ, February 27, 1900, I.
30. PCA, April 2-9, 1900; EBU, March 3, 1900, 1; March 5, 1900, I.
31. Soga Yasutaro, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko [My Fifty Years Memoirs in Hawaii] (Honolulu, 1954), 85.
32. Soga, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko, 86.
3 3 • PCA, April 9, 19oo, 6; Soga, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko, 86.
34• PCA, April io, 1900, 10; Soga, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko, 87.
35. EBU, April 7, 1900, 4.
36. PCA, April 13, 1900, 5; April 19, 1900, 3; IND, March 15, 1900, 4.
37. EBU, April 13, 17, and 27, 1900, 1; PCA, April 13 and 20, 1900, 10; April 18, 1900, 9.
38. For earlier jabs of a similar nature, see IND, February 27, 1900, 4.
39. PCA, April 19, 1900, 3, May 17, 1900; EBU, April 17, 1900, 1-
40. PCA, April 20, 1900, 4-
41 - PCA, April 24, 1900, 3; IND, April i 1, 1900, 4-
42. PCA, April 20, 1900, 9.
43. PCA, April 21, 1900, 10, 12.
44. Jobe File, MAM; PCA, April 28, 1900, 1; April 30, 1900, I.
CHAPTER 14
i. U.S. Statutes at Large, 31 (April 30, 1900), 141.
z. New York Times, March 2, 1900, 5; Lanny Thompson, "The Imperial Republic: A Comparison of the Insular Territories under U.S. Dominion after 1898," Pacific Historical Review, Vol- 71, No. 4 (November zooz), 535-74-
3. "Payment of Judgments on Claims Growing out of Suppression of Bubonic Plague in Hawaii," 57th Congress, House Reports, No. 3098.
4. HIN, 420-22, and Part 3. The commissioners maintained that they took each claim on its face and made good-faith estimates. But testimony before a special Senate committee makes clear that their procedures had the practical effect of across-the-board discounting.
5. "Records of the Fire Claims Commission, 1901-1903," HSA.
6. Soga Yasutaro, Gojunenkan No Hawaii Kaiko [My Fifty Years Memoirs in Hawaii] (Honolulu, 1954), 85-92; Tanshan Xin Zhongguo Bao [Hawaiian New China Paper] (Honolulu), n.d.. "The Japanese consul in Hawaii frequently asked the government for the indemnification.... The Japanese consul loves his people as his children" and so forth.
7. Gu Jinhui, Tan Dao 7i Shi [Historical Record of Hawaii] (Shanghai, 1907 [reprint 1988]), 155-58; Tanshan Longii Xin Bao [Hawaiian Chinese News] (Honolulu), February 17, 1900.