HONOLULU (KHON2) – In the ahupuaʻa of Honolulu, which lies in the moku of Kona here on Oʻahu, stands a symbol of Hawaiian pride.
We are speaking of King Kamehameha I Statue.
What was originally proposed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Captain Cook’s arrival to Hawaiʻi, an image of a 45-year-old King Kamehameha I was chosen as a monument promoting Hawaiian national pride.
At a cost of $10,000, it was politician Walter Gibson representing Lāhainā who had proposed the idea.
Having been started in Boston and completed in Paris, the 7-foot-tall statue left Germany on a ship in August of 1880.
Six months later, word reached Hawaiʻi that the ship went down off the coast of Falkland Islands, losing all of its cargo.
Following the loss of the original statue, a second statue of King Kamehameha I was commissioned.
But to the government’s surprise, the original was recovered and arrived in Honolulu a couple months prior to its replacement.
Today, there are four.
Molded after the marble Roman scultpure of Augustus Ceasar, King Kamehameha is shown as a “Pacific Hero.”
The replacement statue was installed first on Oʻahu in 1883 at its present location fronting Aliʻiōlani Hale.
The recovered, original statue was unveiled a couple months later in Kohala on Hawaiʻi Island as it is the King’s birthplace.
In 1969, following statehood, a statue of the Father of the Hawaiian Kingdom was installed in the US Capitol Statutory Hall.
The final statue was installed in Hilo in 1997, which was originally for a hotel on Kauaʻi, but Kauaʻi residents said no because King Kamehameha I failed to conquer them.
Did you know? Now you do!