honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, October 20, 2002

OUR HONOLULU
Gulick Avenue is paved with history

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

For years I've wondered why Gulick Avenue is in Kalihi. The Gulicks are a missionary family. Gulick Avenue should be up around Judd Street in Nu'uanu or Damon Street in Manoa.

Gulick Avenue just doesn't have the proper missionary dignity. Whoever heard of missionaries operating Eagle Noodle Factory or Island Manapua? Incongruity makes Our Honolulu interesting.

It's also a lesson in making comfortable assumptions about missionary families. Just because one part of the family is missionary, that doesn't mean the other branches are.

I finally decided to find out why Gulick Avenue is in Kalihi. Guess what? The man Gulick Avenue is named after had a prison record.

So meet Maj. Charles T. Gulick, a blue-collar citizen who started as an apprentice in the Honolulu Iron Works and ended up as a minister in Queen Lili'uokalani's Cabinet with a street named after him.

While the missionary Gulicks were building churches in Micronesia and teaching Christian physical education in New England (they also helped to invent the sport of basketball), Charles T. Gulick arrived in Hawai'i as a boy of 9 in the 1840s. His cousin was the Rev. O.H. Gulick.

After Charles Gulick served his three-year apprenticeship, the Iron Works executives made him bookkeeper. Then he moved up to be chief clerk in the Interior Department.

He joined the old Honolulu Rifles and worked up to lieutenant. When King Lunalilo's Household Guards revolted, Gulick fearlessly marched his men to the barracks and faced down the rebels. King Kalakaua promoted him to major.

Gulick was also a fireman. He served as secretary and treasurer of the Fire Department for 17 years. He was a popular minister of interior under various administrations.

But his participation in Robert Wilcox's revolt in 1895 did Gulick in. The provisional government handed him a 30-year prison sentence, reduced to 20. In 1896, on New Year's Day, he was pardoned. By that time he was sick and he died a year later.

In prison, Gulick nursed an ailing Chinese man who kissed him on the cheek before he died. A witness said it was the most affecting thing he had ever seen. He had no children.

Now I understand Gulick Avenue better. It starts in a dead end at a public housing dormitory, climbs up past the noodle factories and dwindles to one lane before ending up in a garage. Yet it has touches of elegance: ornate balconies like Barcelona, wrought-iron gates like Windsor Castle.

Courtesy on the one-lane street is impeccable. Drivers pull over, wave and smile. I think Gulick would be proud.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.