I find myself driving down Judd Street in Nuuanu at least once or twice a week. Recently it occurred to me that the street has a lot of history my readers might enjoy knowing.
It’s not a long street. Only about 1.1 miles in length, it was considered "far out in the country" when the first modern homes were built 150 years ago. Fifty years later it was called Hawaii’s Nob Hill because the finest homes in Hawaii were there.
Mark Twain visited in the 1860s, and Princess Kaiulani played there as a child. ‘Iolani School was there from 1928 until 1953. Legendary ‘Iolani coach Father Kenneth Bray lived where St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is today.
Judd Street was named for Dr. Gerrit Parmele Judd (1803-1873), a missionary doctor who came to Hawaii at age 24. He was an adviser to Kamehameha III, and one of the founders of Punahou School in 1841.
Judd built what he called "Sweet Home" on the Ewa-mauka side of Nuuanu and Judd streets in 1857.
In the late 1700s, Nuuanu Valley was the agricultural breadbasket of Honolulu, but much of it was devastated by Kamehameha the Great’s attack on Oahu. He immediately set about rebuilding it. More than 600 men diverted some of Nuuanu Stream’s water into an auwai, or canal, and the valley was terraced for taro farming down to about Judd Street.
Gerrit Judd and his wife, Laura, had nine children. The oldest girl was born July 5, 1831, at the Mission Houses. Chiefess Elizabeth Kinau, a daughter of Kamehameha I and wife of Kamehameha II, showed up hours later demanding to adopt the first Caucasian girl born in the islands. The parents refused, and the angry princess left in a huff.
Kinau returned at her christening a few weeks later and insisted she be named after her, and this time the parents relented, naming her Elizabeth Kinau Judd. Chiefess Kinau showed much interest in the baby and visited nearly every day.
In 1857 Elizabeth married Samuel G. Wilder at Sweet Home. Mark Twain and King Kamehameha IV attended the wedding. Wilder built a house for them next door on Judd Street, called Eskbank, for a ship he owned.
The house was built from coral, which was cut from the reef by prisoners and hauled laboriously up Nuuanu Lane, over the stream to Judd Street. There was no bridge back then. When the water was too high, workers left the coral blocks on the makai side until the water subsided. The home’s woodwork came from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the doors from Boston.
The six Judd children went to Punahou, two miles away, on horseback or in a little wagon drawn by Old Whitey, their donkey. The animals would graze on the school’s lawn until it was time to go home.
One of the earliest Portuguese residents of the islands, Joseph Paiko, built one of the first houses on the Liliha side of Judd Street. He picked the area to have plenty of room to plant vegetables and raise cattle.
Jim McInerny remembered his father buying the Paiko house in 1872 when Liliha Street was still a trail. The house was a "low, flat, rambling structure with a veranda on three sides. It had a parlor, dining room and two bedrooms, with the kitchen, as was customary, in a separate building."
Judd Street in the 1890s was considered "far out in the country," recalls Mrs. H.M. Von Holt, who owned property on Judd near Liliha. Her friends regretted her moving "so far away." Before cars arrived, it was more difficult to get around.
There were few houses beyond Judd Street but many taro fields, she recalled. Most of the houses caught rainfall in their gutters and stored it in barrels around the house for drinking and bathing. Buckets of water would also be carried from several natural artesian springs makai of Judd Street.
In the early 1900s, Honoluluans called the knoll at the Judd Street summit of Liliha and Nuuanu streets "Nob Hill," Gwenfread Allen wrote in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. She said the finest homes in Honolulu on Judd Street reminded people of the famous neighborhood in San Francisco.
Theo H. Davies built a 12-acre estate on the Diamond Head-mauka corner of Judd and Nuuanu Avenue and called it Craigside. "Craig" means rock in Gaelic. The property extended to Nuuanu Stream. Davies’ company was one of the Big Five sugar producers.
E.B. Scott’s "Saga of the Sandwich Islands" describes one party at Craigside in 1888 that was attended by Queen Kapiolani, Princess (later Queen) Liliuokalani, Charles Reed Bishop, Robert Lewers and Samuel Damon.
Princess Kaiulani was close to the Davieses and often came to play with the children at Craigside.
In 1927 Craigside was sold to ‘Iolani School for $50,000. The house became a residence for instructors and the boys dining room. The gate to the family home became the school’s gate. When ‘Iolani moved near the Ala Wai in 1953, the gate was taken with them, and it’s still in use today.
It was ‘Iolani School’s second time in the neighborhood. It had been located on Bates Street and Nuuanu Avenue, just below Judd Street from 1872 until 1902. Sun Yat-sen, known as the father of modern China, attended and graduated from ‘Iolani in 1882.
Father Kenneth Bray, who founded and ran the school’s athletic program from 1932 until 1953, lived at 45 N. Judd St., where St. Luke’s Episcopal Church is today. ‘Iolani was founded by the Episcopal church at the behest of Queen Emma and Kamehameha IV in Lahaina in 1862.
Bray taught a "one team" philosophy that still inspires many in Hawaii. It garnered the school many championships including a "clean sweep" of the state’s basketball, football and baseball titles in 1950-51.
Judd’s "Sweet Home" passed to the family of Gov. George Carter, and was sold to the Oahu Cemetery around 1913. The cemetery dates to 1844.
Along the cemetery fence across from St. Luke’s Church, someone feeds beautiful wild green parrots that live nearby, each afternoon. It’s idyllic.
Judd Street seems much closer to town today. It’s interesting to think about when it was "so far away" from the city.
Bob Sigall, author of the “Companies We Keep” books, looks through his collection of old photos to tell stories each Friday of Hawaii people, places and companies. Email him at Sigall@yahoo.com.
