Waihona Aina

Punahoa 1 Ahupuaa (Jones), District of Hilo, Island of Hawaii, Boundary Commission, Volume A, No. 1; pps 104-109

A portion of the Ahupuaa of Punahoa 1, District of Hilo, Island of Hawaii, 3d Judicial Circuit (No.21)

On this the second day of June A.D. 1873, the Commission of Boundaries for the Island of Hawaii, 3d Judicial Circuit, met at the Office of the Boundary Commissioner at Hilo, Hawaii, after notice of the hearing of the application of G.W.C. Jones for the settlement of the boundaries of a portion of the Ahupuaa of Punahoa 1, situated in the District of Hilo, Island of Hawaii, 3d Judicial Circuit, having been given by advertisement in the Hawaiian Gazette of May 7, 1873, and notice personally served on the owners of adjoining lands.

Present: G.W. Akao Hapai on the part of the applicant, and W.P. Ragsdale for the Crown Commissioners.

Petition read as follows:

Copy
To the Honorable Rufus A. Lyman, Commissioner of Boundaries for the Island of Hawaii, 3d Judicial Circuit
Sir:
I beg to make application to you for the settlement of the boundaries of a portion of the Ahupuaa of Punahoa1st, Hilo, Hawaii, 3d Judicial Circuit.

The lands adjoining Punahoa 1st on the Puna side is Ponahawai, owned by Thomas Spencer, and the mauka portion by the Crown Land Commissioners.

The land on the Hilo side is Punahoa 2d, portions of which have been Patented to D.B. Logman and Charles H. Witmore, notes of survey of Spencer's land filed.

Wherefore your petitioner prays that a time and place may be fixed for the hearing of his petition, and for the taking of testimony in relation to the boundaries of the said land, and for a final settlement of the boundaries of said land according to law.
Signed, G.W.C. Jones
Kahuku, Kau, Hawaii
September 30th 1872

Testimony
Puaa, kane, sworn says, I was born at the time of Keouamua, at Wailau, Kau, Hawaii. Left Kau few years after Kuiwaimaka Lae, and lived at Keaau in Puna for two years; then moved to Waiakea in Hilo, and was living there at time of Kaua o Kekualani (or the battle of Kuamoo) fought four days before the arrival of the first Missionaries at Kailua. I moved to the land of Ponahawai in 1835 and have lived there most of the time since then. I know the land of Punahoe 1st. Waikane, an uncle of mine now dead, pointed out the boundaries of Punahoe and Ponohawai tome. It was at the time when the people were having their kuleana surveyed, and the people on Punahoa were taking part of Ponohawai. He showed me all the boundaries between these two lands from the shore to the woods, and told where the boundaries are in the woods, but I did not go into the woods with him.

Know place called Kukuiula, it is a grove of kukui trees near a clump of bamboos, and is at the mauka corner of land on Ponohawai, formerly owned by R. Pitman, and now owned by Spencer and the makai North corner of the portion of Ponohawai held by the Crown Commissioners, and adjoining Punahoa 1st. From this point the boundarybetween Punahoa 1 [page 105] and Ponohawai runs mauka to an Ahua or small mound called Kilohana on the Hilo side of a spring of water called Punehe. There are banana trees growing around the spring. Thence the boundary runs mauka to a grove of ohia trees at Puumanu; thence mauka a short distance to the kahawai called Alena, at a point where the kahawai turns to the Southeast, and runs onto Ponohawai. Thence the boundary follows up the gulch to Kukuikomo at the edge of the woods; The woods on Ponohawai or the left hand side of the gulch as you go towards the woods, extend some way makai of this point. Kukuikomo is on Punahoa where houses used to stand. This is as far as I know the boundaries from having them showed to me.

Waikane told me that the boundary runs from this point into the woods to a place mauka of Laumaia, where Piihonua and Ponahawai cut both the lands of Punahoa off.
Cross-examined
Waikane was a kamaaina of all these lands.

Kekai, kane, sworn says, I was born at Napoopoo, Kona, Hawaii at the time of the Peleleau, and moved to Hilo at the ti ....