KS Archives

Home >> Timelines >> Charles Reed Bishop >> Hawai‘i, 1884-94

>> 1884-1894 in the Kingdom of Hawai‘i

1884 April 1 . Pauahi travels to San Francisco where she has surgery on the left side below the arm. She has breast cancer. Niece Emma Bernice Bishop Dunham travels from Stockton, California to the Palace Hotel to remain with her aunt for the duration

1884 May 15. Bishop joins his wife in San Francisco.

1884 June 9. Pauahi returns with Charles from San Francisco aboard the Mariposa. She lives in the Waikīkī hale (present Royal Hawaiian hotel site ) inherited from Kamehameha V (Lot Kapuaiwa).

1884 October 9. Pauahi moves from her Waikīkī residence to Keōua Hale.

1884 October 16. It is Thursday. Pauahi is in excruciating pain unrelieved by painkillers. She slips into a coma. Charles is by her side. At 8-12 minutes past noon, she dies.

1884 November 2. Ke Ali'i Pauahi, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, lies in state at her home, Keōua Hale. Days of mourning end. The funeral procession commences. She is buried at Mauna 'Ala in Nu'uanu. The establishment of Kamehameha Schools is directed by her will. Her husband, Charles Reed Bishop, and trustees carry out the terms of the will. Mr. Bishop will add most his estate to hers when he dies 31 years later in 1915.

1884. Bishop finances the construction of an underground vault to hold his wife's remains and that of the royal Kamehameha 'ohana (family) when it is clear that open storage at the royal mausolem is unfeasible. The vault is completed in 1887. (GIFT)

1884. Following his wife's funeral, Bishop travels to his Moloka‘i ranch for a change of scenery and stays with the Meyer family. He writes that he misses his wife and loathes to return home where she is not. He writes about seeing her again one day. He returns to live at Keōua Hale for 10 years until he leaves Hawai‘i permanently in 1894.

1884. A conservative estimate of Bishop's personal fortune independent of that of his wife's at the time of her death is about USD1million (about USD18 million in 2004 dollars). Throughout his working years, he invested in his own properties on Kaua‘i, Moloka‘i and Hawai‘i. Pauahi wills him life tenancy to an additional 29,069 acres, Haleakalā, Keōua Hale and many historical properties. Beginning in 1890, he gradually gives those gifts to her estate for the Schools.

1884-1915. For the remaining 31 years of his life, Bishop constructs many buildings in Pauahi's memory including the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Memorial Chapel and various buildings on the Kamehameha Schools and Punahou School campuses.

1886 October - December. Bishop visits San Francisco and returns.

1886. Bishop & Company are the first signatories with Castle and Cooke, Ltd., Theo. H. Davies and Company, Ltd, and H. Hackfeld and Company of the new Honolulu Board of Underwriters to support their necessary insurance business.

1886. Bishop makes the first of several contributions to Hampton Institute (now Hampton University) in Virginia, encouraged by his friendship with their major benefactor, George Foster Peabody, and their able founder and kama‘aina, Samuel Chapman Armstrong. (GIFT)

1886 January 21 -1892. Bishop becomes a member of the Social Science Association of Honolulu. All Bishop Estate Trustees and the first principal of Kamehameha Schools, William B. Oleson, are members. Members meet monthly to discuss topics concerning the well-being of society.

1887. Bishop reluctantly supports the Constitution signed by the King. He disagrees with two of King Kalākaua's most influential advisers, Walter Murray Gibson and Claus Spreckels. Bishop prefers a benevolent constitutional monarchy for the benefit of native Hawaiians. Such a government reflects the ancient responsibility of the chiefs (ali'i) as stewards of the land (‘aina) and people (kanaka maoli) in the Hawaiian way.

1887 October 3. Kamehameha School for Boys opens to students.

1887 September - November. Bishop visits San Francisco and returns.

1887 November 9. Twenty one members of the sacred Kamehameha family line are entombed in the newly completed underground vault built by Bishop. (GIFTS)

1888. In answer to Father Damien's request for buildings to house trained nurses from the Sisters of St. Francis and young, unmarried women patients, Bishop builds several buildings at Kalaupapa, Moloka‘i called Bishop Home. (GIFT)

1888 May 18. Bishop and the trustees of his wife's estate, realize that as a result of waves of epidemics, there are many young, homeless Hawaiian boys. He pays for the building of a boarding school for boys under 12 years of age and gives it to the Bishop Estate to manage as a department of the Kamehameha Schools. (GIFT)

1888 October 29. The Preparatory Department opens and is dedicated on Founder's Day, December 19. Miss Carrie Ann Reamer is principal.

1888 December 12. Bishop asks William Tufts Brigham to write an authentic History of Hawaii and to help with his museum. The history is never written, but Brigham becomes the abrasive head of the Bishop Museum.

1888 December 19. On the occasion of the first Founder's Day, Bishop addresses Hawaiian royalty and fellow citizens on the purpose of the School, a foundational message expounding Pauahi and Charles Reed Bishop's' philosophy and intent for the Schools.

1889. Bishop builds a museum on the campus of The Kamehameha School for Boys to house the Hawaiian and other artifacts that he and Mrs. Bishop had collected and inherited including Queen Emma's possessions. (GIFT)

1889. Kohala Girls' School, Waikūpanaha, reopened and Bishop through his personal Trust donates a total of about $56,000. (GIFT)

1889 April - August. Bishop travels to San Francisco, then New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta, Chattanooga, Cincinnati, New York, Boston, Glens Falls, St. Paul, Tacoma before returning to Honolulu. He decides that dusty train travel is not for an old man.

1889 September 11. Bishop is elected Vice-President of Mutual Telephone Company (1889-1893).

1889 October 30. Hawaiian Sugar Company of Kaua‘i near Makaweli, the most important sugar plantation of that era, was incorporated with Bishop as a shareholder and later Director.

1890 November 21. Bishop leaves Honolulu and remains in San Francisco until April when he travels to New York, then to Bohemia, Germany for the summer. He returns to New York in October and returns to Honolulu in December after visiting Washington D.C., Chicago and San Francisco.

1890 February 25. Charles Reed Bishop Deed No. 1 gives 22 parcels of land primarily in Honolulu to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop. (GIFT)

1891 Bishop joins the Pacific Union Club, a social club in San Francisco.

1891 February 20. In this and many other letters, Bishop explains who may attend the Schools. "The Schools were intended to be perpetual, and as it was impossible to tell how many boys and girls of aboriginal blood would in the beginning or thereafter qualify and apply for admissions, those of other races were not barred or excluded."

1891. King Kalākaua dies in San Francisco. Bishop is at his bedside and sends a tender letter of condolence to Lili‘uokalani, Kalākaua's sister with encouragement for her reign as queen.

1891. Bishop is a founder of the Hawaiian Historical Society and the Polynesian Society of New Zealand. The former was an organization to study, preserve and use materials relating to the condition and progress of the Hawaiian and related people. The later is engaged in similar research and publication.

1891. For the 50th anniversary of the founding of O‘ahu College, Bishop commits to donating $50,000 if another matching $50,000 could be found. (GIFT)

1891. Bishop reminds Bishop Estate Trustees to establish the Girls' School.

1891 March 23. Charles Reed Bishop Deed No. 2 gives 7 parcels of land primarily in Kona, Island of Hawai‘i to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop. At the same time, all rights in the Bernice P. Bishop Museum at the Kamehameha School for Boys and his part of the estate of Queen Dowager Emma Kaleleonalani are given to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop. ((GIFT)

1891-93. Bishop contributes to the Hawai‘i Evangelical Association. (GIFT)

1892 May 19. Charles Reed Bishop Deed No. 3 gives to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop the ahupua‘a of Waipi‘o, Island of Hawai‘i for the maintenance and improvement of Bernice P. Bishop Museum on the campus of the Kamehameha School for Boys. (GIFT)

1892 May 24. Bishop leaves for San Francisco and returns on August 10.

1892 October 12. Bishop leaves for a visit to Hampton Institute in Virginia via San Francisco.

1893 January 14. Queen Lili‘uokalani decides to change the Constitution of 1887 (Bayonet) that was forced upon her brother, King Kalākaua. Bishop is touring the United States and does not know exactly what is happening, but writes letters to various friends expressing his views. He knows that a change in the Constitution would result in open strife among all the contentious political factions and in that case, he did not know whether the Queen could survive such turmoil. He expresses a desire for a stable government of an independent Hawaiian nation, but wonders how that could be achieved.

1893 January 17 Queen Lili‘uokalani abdicates under protest to 13 American businessmen, who are Bishop's friends and acquaintances. He chooses to support his late wife's relatives.

1893 February 23. Bishop continues from Hampton, Virginia to Washington D.C. and New York City. He returns to Honolulu on April 18.

1893 April 27. Charles Reed Bishop Deed No. 4 gives to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop all lands at Waikīkī, O'ahu ma kai of the government main road leading to Kapi‘olani Park. (GIFT)

1893 May 6. Bishop states in the Trustees minutes that regardless of politics, the Hawaiian flag should always be the flag of the Kamehameha Schools and should be displayed on occasions when flags are displayed.

1893 May 10. Bishop leaves for San Francisco and remains for the rest of the year.

1893 November 14. Charles Reed Bishop Deed No. 5 gives the ahupua‘a of Kaluakoi, Island of Moloka‘i, and other Moloka‘i properties to the trustees under the will of Bernice P. Bishop for the Kamehameha Schools. (GIFT)

1894 February. Bishop donates $20,000 for building construction at the Kamehameha School for Girls. (GIFT)

1894 February 5. Bishop returns to Honolulu from San Francisco. He is 72 years old.

1894 February 26. Bishop donates $123,000 to O‘ahu College. $50,000 is to be used to build Pauahi Hall in honor of his beloved late wife. (GIFT)

1894 March 2. Charles Reed Bishop leaves Hawai‘i for the last time. He becomes a resident of San Francisco. He continues a firm involvement in the Kamehameha Schools. He is opposed to the Provisional Government declared on July 4.

1894 December 19. The Kamehameha School for Girls opens. Bishop donates furniture from Keōua Hale to furnish the Girls' School. He contributes to the building fund. (GIFT)

1894-95 Bishop's 35 year interest in the need for a Pacific telecommunications cable to Hawai‘i becomes reality when he joins a California corporation that obtains money and a franchise from the U. S. Congress. The business venture is aborted by political machinations in Hawai'i.

Web site maintained by Kamehameha Schools Archives
General photo credit: Kamehameha Schools Archives
©Kamehameha Schools. Statements of copyright, privacy and disclaimer.

1202