The kiawe tree in the yard of Kawaiahao Congregational Church Oct. 8, which grew from a seed from the original kiawe tree in the Catholic mission on Fort Street planted by Sacred Hearts Father Alexis Bachelot, Hawaii’s first Catholic missionary. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
100 years ago this month, the kiawe planted by the first Catholic missionary was cut down. Its descendants live on.
By Father Louis H. Yim
Special to the Hawaii Catholic Herald
This is the story of a tree God had placed in the Hawaiian Islands. Hawaiians call the tree “kiawe.” Some arborists prefer “prosopis chilensis.” And everybody else calls it “algaroba” or “mesquite.”
Our story begins this way.
On July 7, 1827, French Catholic missionaries arrived in these islands. Led by 31-year-old Father Alexis Bachelot, the group of priests and religious brothers belonged to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.
In the thriving village of Honolulu they built a modest chapel and proudly designated it “The cradle of Catholicism in Oceania.” According to the historian Father Reginald Yzendoorn, they laid out a garden with seeds from “the King’s garden in Paris.” But “the heat and the insects” made havoc of the entire planting. That is, except for one seed, which the Hawaiian soil accepted, that managed to grow with each passing day.
It was Hawaii’s first kiawe tree. Its success in the tropics suggests that Yzendoorn might have been mistaken about it coming from the temperate climes of France. Father Bachelot most likely brought the seed from Chile in South America
This photo of Father Bachelot’s kiawe tree, taken around 1902, was published in 1927 in the book “History of the Catholic Mission in Hawaii” by Sacred Hearts Father Reginald Yzendoorn.
After leaving France in November of 1826, the missionaries had landed in Valparaiso, Chile, on Feb. 8, 1827, remaining there for two weeks before continuing on to Hawaii. Tree experts tell us that the particular specie of kiawe in our islands are native of Chile, hence the scientific name “prosopis chilensis.” It is reasonable to conclude that Father Bachelot may have picked some of these strange Chilean seed pods off the ground and brought them with him to his waiting mission.
Protestant missionaries from New England had come to the islands in 1820, seven years before the Catholics. Among their island converts, none was more receptive than Kaahumanu, the favorite wife of the late Kamehameha the Great. She also held the unique title of “kihina nui,” that is, co-ruler of the kingdom along with the youthful Kamehameha III. As a devout Protestant, Kaahumanu had no cordial royal welcome for the Catholics. It was only a matter of time before the Hawaiian queen issued the order for the expulsion of the Catholic priests from Hawaii.
On Christmas Eve, 1831, the Catholic mission’s two priests, Father Bachelot and Father Patrick Short, were ordered to leave the islands. The Sacred Hearts brothers, not being clerics, were allowed to stay and maintain the mission. With a Hawaiian warrior beating on a drum and a large crowd lining the main road in Honolulu (today’s Fort Street Mall), the priests were marched down to the waterfront where they boarded the brig Waverley and set sail for the open sea.
At the dawn of Christmas morning the priests gave glory to God and they prayed trustingly for divine assistance in the uncharted destination that lay ahead. Sailing eastward to the New World, the Waverley arrived at the Mexican port of San Pedro. Here the exiled priests were warmly received by Spanish Catholic missionaries.
A photo of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace taken by Marianist Brother Bertram Bellinghausen toward the end of the 19th century shows the kiawe tree center right. (archives, Diocese of Honolulu)
Back to the Islands
Father Bachelot still considered Hawaii as his primary mission, but he worked hard in North America for almost five years spreading the faith. The French priest was sent to a remote region in California. Today, the Catholic Church in Los Angeles recognizes him as the first Catholic priest in residence in that city, now the largest archdiocese in the United States.
Father Bachelot eventually gained word that Queen Kaahumanu had died and that Hawaii now welcomed Catholics. So, with Father Short, he set out again for the Islands, arriving at the Honolulu mission in April of 1837. Now this is not written up by any historian, but obviously the kiawe tree had been growing all this time. I’m sure its planter was delighted at seeing the tree. After about 10 years of growth, it probably was taller than the first chapel Father Bachelot had put up in 1828.
However, the priests were not welcomed. Once again the Hawaiian Kingdom put pressure on them to leave. Father Bachelot tried to stay on, but in late November of 1837, he is deported again, this time with Sacred Hearts Father Louis Maigret, who had recently arrived at the mission. Father Bachelot was very sick at that time. The ocean voyage did not help. He died at sea on Dec. 5, 1837.
After a few weeks, the priests’ boat made landfall on the island of Pohnpei in Micronesia’s Caroline Islands. Father Maigret buried his companion on the small island of Na, just off Pohnpei.
Meanwhile, back in Hawaii, the French government was getting fed up with the kingdom’s treatment of Catholic priests and citizens, and sent a warship to pressure the monarchy to allow freedom of religion. The Hawaiian government relents and in 1839, by royal decree, the persecution is halted.
The stump of Father Bachelot’s kiawe tree stands on the makai side of the diocese’s chancery building Oct. 8. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
Meanwhile, like the Catholic faith in the islands, the kiawe tree continued its growth. Then, in the new spirit of religious tolerance, as recorded in a visitor’s guide for the Congregational Kawaiahao Church, this happened:
“In the 1840s, scarcely a green spear grew in the parched yard of the new Kawaiahao Church. But not far off a lacy kiawe graced the grounds of Our Lady of Peace Cathedral. Denominational rivalry did not keep Clarissa Armstrong, wife of Kawaihao’s second pastor, Richard Armstrong, from asking their neighbors for seeds. Nor did it deter the Catholic fathers from responding generously.”
Armstrong planted a number of trees along the church ground’s mauka wall. One remains today, nearly 180 years later.
And the original venerable Catholic kiawe? Well, it eventually had to surrender to progress. On Oct. 23, 1919, exactly 100 years ago next week, it was cut down to make way for the three-story Knights of Columbus building being constructed on Fort Street. The immense trunk of the tree, standing about 15 feet, was mounted for posterity in the cathedral courtyard. But with the passing of time it stealthily has been whittled down by souvenir seekers to its present stump tucked alongside the diocese’s downtown chancery building, protected by a plaque giving an account of its historic reputation. On occasion, you may find in a local home a polished kiawe calabash of a mysterious origin.
Story ends 3,200 miles away
Meanwhile, the kiawe tree has propagated across the state. Like the Catholic faith.
The conclusion to our kiawe story concerns the remote South Pacific island 3,200 miles southwest of Hawaii, Pohnpei and its neighbor island of Na where Father Bachelot was buried in 1837.
In January 1977, Bishop John J. Scanlan sent me and Maryknoll Father Joseph Mathies to Pohnpei on an expedition to recover Father Bachelot’s remains. The mission was in conjunction with the diocesan celebration that year of the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the Catholic Church in Hawaii. To make a long story short, the expedition was a failure. We were unable to find Father Bachelot’s remains. But this is a story about the kiawe, so let me go on.
A sprout of a kiawe tree from a seed from the tree at Kawaiahao Church was planted in 1977 by Father Louis H. Yim on the Micronesian island of Pohnpei where Father Bachelot was buried. (Photo courtesy of Father Louis H. Yim)
In late 1976, while preparing my Pohnpei trip, I paid a visit to Rev. Abraham Akaka, pastor of Kawaihao and informed him of my expedition. I requested seeds from their remaining kiawe tree, the one planted by Clarissa Armstrong in the 1840s. Rev. Akaka was gracious and obliging and he offered to pray for the success of my venture.
I sent the seeds to a priest-friend of mine, Jesuit Father Edward Soucie, at the Jesuit trade school in Pohnpei. Father Ed would germinate the seeds so that I would have a seedling to plant when I arrived on the island. My intention was to plant the kiawe at the place where Father Bachelot was buried.
In Pohnpei we searched for Father Bachelot’s grave for nearly three weeks without success. Soon it was time for me to leave. The day before my departure, I asked our local guide, Masao Hadley, to take me to the location on the island where Protestant missionaries from Hawaii had established their mission in the 1850s.
At the site there was nothing but a wilderness of overgrown trees and bushes. I had brought the potted kiawe meant for Father Bachelot’s grave but which I now decided I would plant on the former Protestant mission compound. I felt this was more fitting since this little kiawe had come from Kawaiahao Church in Honolulu.
The next day I took my Continental flight back home.
More than 40 years had gone by and I often think about that kiawe tree on Pohnpei. I am imaging it is, in the immortal words of the Catholic poet Joyce Kilmer, “a tree that looks at God all day,” lifting its “leafy arms to pray.”
And with Kilmer, I would agree, that stories are told by fools like me, “but only God can make a (kiawe) tree.”
