The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-07-18
ONCE DELVEO
IN ARCHIVES
Story Of an Old Time
Attempt to Preserve
Valuable Papers.

The fathers We're alive to the i'm
portance of the preservation Of the
archives of Hawaii and, although as
matter of fact little was done in that
way, much was attempted in the cid
days. And it was not because Of a
lack of money, nor because of lack of
willingness to spend it that the old docu-
ments now being gone over SO carefully
by Curator Lydecker, of the Archives
Commission, were permitted to lie ill
camphor chests and tan boxes Until
they became musty, and until some of
them all but mouldered away.
! On June 80, 1892, the legislative COM
mittee On Foreign Relations submitted
a long report recommending the ap-
propria ton of $4,000 to be expended in
up to that time, and in the prepara-
ton from the papers of a veracious
history Of the Hawaiian group. This
committee consisted of E. c. Macfar-
lane, H. P. Baldwin, Joseph Nawahi, J.
K. Kaumanono and C. o. Berger.
Their report, which turns up in the
form of neatly printed pamphlet, sets
forth that the archives, which then
contained many priceless documents,
among them letters from and to the
kings from various potentates of the
earth. treaties, letters of Minister
Wyllie and many other old time states
men, and Of the celebrated historian,
David Malo.'' The committee found
that in 1878, when the government Of
fees were removed from their old quar-
tiers in Union street to Aliiolani Hale,
the archives were taken from the old
government building and stored in the
basement Of the building then occupied
by the Board of Health. And they were
not taken with a great deal of care,
appear to have been at work in that
early time, even as in later years, and
to nave done lot of damage. In 1886
the Board of Health rooms were cleaned
out, and once more the boxes contain
ing the archives removed, this time to
the basement of the Hale Kapuaiwo.
They seem to have laid there undis-
turbed, excepting by the rats and
cockroaches, until 1891 when Rev.
Roswell Randell Hoes, chaplain of the
United States frigate Pensacola, under
took the task of Strengthening them
out, and preparing the sorry of Ha-
wall spoken of by the committee. He
was not, however, destined to finish the
work, then, although he spoke with the
greatest enthusiasm of it in his letter /
to the committee, because in March, !
1892, Captain Kautz, in command Of the
Pensacola, notified him that the ship /
would return to the United States. and,
of course, the chaplain must go with
her.
However. Chaplain Hoes probably !
came back, or else he got leave Of
a bsence after he wrote his letter to the
because he was here in
revolutionary times, and it seems that
he did finish indexing the records, and i
got his pay for it.
There can be no doubt that Chaplain
Hoes threw a great deal of enthusiasm
into his work, for which he seems to
have been peculiarly fitted, but, /
as a matter of fact, Mr.. Ly- !.
decker has found by few traces in
the archives of anything that he did.
Some of the old letters have been
and classified, and the vari- ,
Gus sorts bundled together, and that is
about all.
However the $4,000 appropriation ask
ed for by the old committee was made,
and doubtless Chaplain Hoes would
have done good work If he had had
time. The point is that the fathers
recognized the value Of the archives,
and took steps to preserve them. It is
a pity that they did not go at it sys-
tema ticaIly instead of in spasms.