By Alton Exzabe
After attending the two-day Trades Training Workshop, Maintenance & Repair of Historic Structures, at Kōke‘e Civilian Conservation Corps Camp, on Kaua‘i in September 2023, I was fortunate to be a part of a team that conducted restoration work at the historic Pua Akala Cabin located at the Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) on Hawai‘i Island. The cabin is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Built in 1883, the cabin is constructed almost entirely of native Koa wood. As an Archaeologist for the USFWS, I had no prior experience performing this type of work but was able to employ the methods taught during the Workshop and work with colleagues to repair and reinstall several damaged windows from the cabin.
The windows had been previously removed from the cabin, so we conducted the repair work at the Hakalau Forest NWR Station workshop. Tasks entailed cleaning and preparing the windows by removing deteriorated putty, light sanding, and the application of linseed oil. We removed broken glass panes and replaced them with new ones, installing glazing points and new glazing putty to secure the panes.
Once the windows were assembled, we reinstalled them in the cabin. We also reglazed the two front porch windows without taking them off the cabin. Additional linseed oil was applied to parts of the exterior window frames to afford protection from the weather.
The wide range of techniques I learned at the Workshop proved practical for these repairs and will come in handy for similar future efforts.
Alton Exzabe, a Wai‘anae native, is Zone Archaeologist on the Cultural Resources Team, Hawai‘i and Pacific at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Learn more about the Pua Akala Cabin, built in 1883, in this article by Leah Messer in the Spring 2022 Newsletter by Friends of Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge.
“The Pua Akala Cabin was built by the Hitchcock family in 1883 and serves as a tangible connection to numerous important historical events in Hawaii’s history as well as to the life of one of its most famous painters, D. Howard Hitchcock.
The following is an excerpt from the 2021 Condition Assessment prepared by Lou Ann Speulda-Drews from the USFWS Cultural Resources Team:
The Cabin was a family retreat and hunting camp on the mountain slopes above Hilo. The Reverend and Mrs. Hitchcock arrived in Hawaii in 1832 as members of the Fifth Company of missionaries from New Bedford, Massachusetts. The cabin was built by their son David who used his skills as a lawyer and outdoorsman to assist the land commission with the task of surveying and marking land claims that were tangled in litigation even 30 years after the Great Mahele of 1848.”