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Shore Leave (cont.) The decline of the whaling industry preserves the historic charm of Lahaina. Native Maui elders were also concerned, so they instituted a curfew on sailors and prohibited women from boarding ships. The result was a three-day riot in 1825 as club-wielding mobs from the English whale ship Daniel menaced Lahaina's beaches and waterfront businesses, threatening the life of Reverend William Richards, whom they credited as the strongest advocate of this prohibition. Two years later, it's said, lonely sailors aboard the John Palmer made their disgruntlement with the no-women-on-board rule even clearer by blasting their cannons at Lahaina's missionary compound.
Because it spent most of the next century outside the mainstream of world events, Lahaina managed to hold on to some of the sites and structures that originally gave it character. While the town covers a narrow area two miles long and four blocks deep, squeezed between the blue-green spine of the West Maui Mountains and the coastline, the majority of historical attractions are clustered within only a few central blocks. Looking for remnants of royal heritage, I walk down to the Lahaina Courthouse on Wharf Street beside the Small Boat Harbor. While not terribly impressive on its own, this is a direct link to Kamehameha III, scion of the great Hawaiian conqueror. Storm winds destroyed the king's two-story coral rock palace, called Hale Piula (iron roof house), in 1858, but its materials were scavenged to create the present courthouse. At the south end of the boat harbor is Maluuluolele Park, with a beach that I'm told used to be a favorite surfing spot for the early ali'i, or Hawaiian royalty. Picture a swarm of august figures, men and women both, prone atop 8- or 10-foot planks of light wood as they ride towering breakers to the sandy shore. "At Lahaina, bathing and frolicking in the surf are more practiced than at any other place in these islands," according to Charles Wilkes, who journeyed to Lahaina in 1841 as commander of the United States Exploring Expedition. "The inhabitants take great delight in it, and it is said that the king [Kamehameha III] himself is extremely fond of it." From there, it's a quick jaunt east to expansive Maluuluolele Park at Front and Shaw streets. During the whaling era, this was the most noteworthy location in all of Lahaina, for here stood Kamehameha III's private retreat and a stone mausoleum containing the remains of his mother and other royal kin. The king's residence sat on an island, Mokuula, in the center of an 11-acre fishpond that was believed to be inhabited by a moo, or lizard spirit, named Kihawahine. However, as political and financial power in the islands shifted from Lahaina to Honolulu, Mokuula was allowed to crumble, and the waters surrounding it became a fetid swamp. Mausoleum contents were allegedly moved to the cemetery at Wainee Church (built in 1823), the first Christian burial ground in Hawaii, near the southeast corner of Maluuluolele Park. (That cemetery also holds the graves of luminaries such as Queen Keopuolani, first wife of Kameha-meha I, and the Reverend Richards.) In 1913, local burghers started filling the pond and leveling its island. Only in the last few years has there been talk of returning Mokuula to its former glory, a project that may take 20 years or more and require millions of dollars. Restoration has already been done on a series of landmarks that recall Lahaina's whaling days. Two of these were actually constructed after whaling's decline. The first, found at the north end of the Small Boat Harbor, is a handsomely restored 93-foot brig, the Carthaginian II. Christened in 1920, it didn't arrive at Maui until the mid-1970s to replace an earlier Carthaginian that sank en route to dry-docking in Honolulu. Nearby is the Pioneer Inn, raised in 1901 by George Freeland, who supposedly discovered Lahaina while tracking a criminal to Maui on behalf of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For many years this was the town's single hostelry. It continues to attract guests (mostly those on a budget) but is probably better known now for its vintage bar, the whaling artifacts that trim its dining areas and a giant, much-photographed 125-year-old banyan tree next door.
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