The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1905-09-30

Board of Archives which approved it:
"The Board of Commissioners of
Public Archives: l have the honor to
submit the following report of the
work accomplished to date in connec-
ton with the public archives.
Il entered on my duties May IL, 1905
and began by making a general eXa-
mination and inventory of the trunks
and other containers, and putting up
in packages such material as was found
loose, inventorying these also. The
principal part 1 found stored in the
attic of the Capitol building. Here
there are 1872 trunks, consisting mostly
of Foreign Office and legislative docu-
ments. In addition found two rooms
in the basement containing the docu-
ments of the Interior department, one,
those of the Post Office and customs
house and another, the Chinese bureau
archives In addition to the above
1 found a large quantity of material in
the vault of the land and that of the
tax office.
"After getting a general knowledge
of the material to be handled 1 first
turned my attention to asserting and
placing in trunks the contents Of two
large chests l found in the mauka
tower ROOM These documents had
been thrown in without any regard for
order and were in state of great con
fusion. They were all foreign office
papers, some of them very old and
valuable. After completing this I
was next engaged in one of the base
ment rooms which contained a mass
of interior department books and pa
pers in a loose and disordered state.
These We're put into packages which
were numbered, labeled and inventoried
The same was done with the Chinese
bureau material, the contents of the
two rooms making i'm the neighbOrhood
of $50 packages. With the exception
of moving several trunks containing
foreign office documents from the vault
of the tax office to my office in the
maulza tower of the Executive build
ing L have left undisturbed the pa
pers and books in this, and the land
office vault, to remain until the hal
| of records is completed, as they are
i'm good places and my time being taken
UP with other work, 1 will be unable
to give them attention for some time
| to come. Documents were removed
from the closet in the chief clerks Of
flee and others will be when Mr.. Buck
land returns from the coast. One
| closet in the governors office has beer
| cleared of such papers as were wanted
and at a convenient opportunity the
| nj IN, will
| removed. The contents of a number
of boxes consisting of old postoffict
papers of absolutely no value as re
| cords or otherwise were, by direction
of the secretary of the Territory, takel
to the dump and burned under my
supervision"
After caring for the loose materia
of the Chinese Bureau and Interio
Department, l began a systematic eXa
mnation of the foreign office and exc
cutive documents. These papers ant
books are at present contained in 4
trunks and 81 packages, which will b
added to when the balance of the do
cuments in the governors and Chic
Clerks offices are removed.
THE packages have been numbere
and inventories made of their content
Each trunk has been thoroughly eS
amined duplicate inventories made c
the contents, one of which was place
in the trunk with the documents an
the other filed in my office, by referenc
to which / can tell not only the genera
contents of the trunk but also the elias
of documents in the different package
therein, their dates etc.
For the purpose of facilitating tn
work of segregation and indeXing ii
ventores made others in which al
grouped together all the documents {
any one year. These inventories civ
the number of the trunk ana of IL
package in which the papers of an
year may be found. l found it nece'
sary to do this as the documents
the foreign office are badly scattere
they having been packed i'm the Va
rious trunks, in most cases without +,
gard to chronological order, and it wi
| greatly facilitate the final work. as
will enable me to place my hand {
amy package l may desire. All tn
has been somewhat of a task but it
now nearing completion and l have
very good working idea of the materi
of the foreign and executive Office
and can start on the nnal work
segregation, classification and inde
ing with some degree of intelligence
to the documents / will have to hand
and form my plans accordingly.
1T is my purpose, after finishiI
with the Executive and Foreign Off
documents to make up the legislaiN
This / do not anticipate will be Wo
of such an arduous character as
most cases the papers of the differe
sessions are each in one containC
there are a few of the trunks howev
i'm which several sessions are miX'
these l will sort out first and pla
them where they belong. l shall tn
make inventories of the contents
the different trunks in the same ma
ner as those of the executive and fc
eign offices with the exception of
yearly inventories which can be ON
ted.
THE documents that have been plao
i'm camphor trunks l have found as
rule in very fair state of preservati