Lahaina Banyan Court Park is a public park in the town of Lahaina, Hawaii, The park, also known as Lahaina Courthouse Square and commonly called Banyan Tree Park, contains multiple heritage sites. Located at the corner of Front Street and Canal Street, it is part of the Lahaina Historic Districts.
The park occupies the site of the Old Lahaina Fort, originally built in 1831. Hoapili, the Royal Governor of Maui, built the fort to protect the town from riotous sailors when Lahaina was used as an anchorage for the North Pacific whaling fleet. After the fort was demolished in 1854, a courthouse was built on the site. A portion of the old Lahaina Fort was reconstructed in 1964. The old Lahaina Courthouse was recognized as a contributing property of the Lahaina Historic District in 1965, and was used by the Lahaina Arts Society, Lahaina Restoration Foundation and the Lahaina Town Action Committee.
Sheriff William Owen Smith planted an Indian banyan tree in the courtyard square in 1873 to memorialize the 50th anniversary of the first American Protestant mission in Lahaina. The banyan tree was the largest banyan tree in Hawaii, and one of the largest banyan trees in the United States. Its extensive trunk and aerial root system now covers . The park is managed by the County of Maui and the Lahaina Restoration Foundation.
The property, including the courthouse and the tree, were engulfed by the 2023 Hawaii wildfires from August 8–9, which burned the historic town of Lahaina. The banyan tree was damaged and the Old Lahaina Court House was destroyed. Disaster recovery efforts are underway to determine the scope of the damage.
Geography
Lahaina Banyan Court Park is located in the port of Lahaina town on the west side of the Hawaiian island of Maui. The park square comprises on the site of the old Lahaina Fort, directly across the street from the Lahaina small boat harbor. It is bounded by Hotel Street to the north, Canal Street to the south, Wharf Street to the west, and Front Street to the east. Historic sites in the area include the former site of Lahaina's Beach—dredged during the construction of Lahaina's Harbor in 1955, the Pioneer Inn and the Keawaiki lighthouse to the north, and the campus of King Kamehameha III Elementary School—an archaeological site associated with the alii—to the south.
Background
New England whaling ships hunting sperm whales in the Pacific began to arrive in Hawaii in 1819, and many ships anchored in Honolulu and Lahaina. The impact of the whaling fleets on the Hawaiian Islands during the reign of Kamehameha III (1825–1854) shaped the entire Hawaiian economy and was the primary source of income for the islands until the discovery of oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859 and the onset of the American Civil War (1861–1865).
Ships would generally seek repairs in Honolulu, but captains preferred anchoring off Lahaina because of its easy access from the Lahaina Roads and for the fresh provisions available in town. According to Henry L. Sheldon, "the business of the entire population was the furnishing of supplies to whalers and entertaining the crews". Sailors who had been hunting whales for months at a time went to Lahaina to drink grog and meet women. Historian Noelani M. Arista notes that by 1825;
a kapu prohibiting women from going out to ships for the purpose of prostitution was proclaimed by the ali'i (Hawaiian chiefs), altering that familiar traffic of the burgeoning Pacific seaport towns. Enraged that they could not cajole, coax, or coerce Hawaiian women into violating the kapu, the sailors turned their frustrations on the American missionaries, whom they blamed for the emergence of this new unreasonably strict moral law.
Whalers opposed any rules governing alcohol and prostitution, and blamed missionaries for influencing the Kingdom of Hawaii to enforce such rules. Riots broke out at least four times—in 1825, 1826, 1827, and 1843. In the 1827 riots, the whaler fired cannon shots over the home of missionary William Richards and threatened the safety of the community.