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On October 8, 1840, Kamehameha III granted the first constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which vested the judicial power of government in a Supreme Court, consisting of the King as chief judge, Premier (kuhina nui), and four individuals appointed by the representative body. Island courts held by their respective governors functioned as circuit courts on their respective island. The island governors were given powers to appoint judges who functioned as district magistrates for the island. Chapter XLVII of the Laws of 1842 mandated that the Supreme judges assemble in Honolulu each June and in Lahaina each December to try cases appealed to them. Selection criteria for foreign and native juries were provided for in the Laws of 1842.

The Third Act of Kamehameha III in 1847 titled "An Act to Organize the Judiciary Department of the Hawaiian Islands" created four levels of courts - the Supreme Court, the Superior Court of Law and Equity, four circuit court jurisdictions, and district courts.

The Supreme Court established by the Constitution of 1840 was abolished in December 1852 and reestablished by an 1853 act which mandated the transfer of the civil and criminal jurisdiction from the Superior Court to a new Supreme Court under the former Chief Justice of the Superior Court. Pending cases in both courts were taken up by the new one.

An 1853 act relating to the Judiciary Department empowered the Chief Justice to grant divorces, to hear and determine probate, bankruptcy, admiralty, equity matters, and to decree the foreclosure of mortgages. With this act, the legal, civil, and criminal jurisdiction of the Superior Court of Law and Equity was transferred to the Supreme Court. This allowed the Supreme Court to have original jurisdiction in almost all legal matters on the island of Oahu. By 1864, the First Circuit Court on Oahu was gradually phased out of existence and its judicial powers were transferred to the Supreme Court. In 1865 the circuit court was abolished, but the appellate jurisdictions in chambers remained as a function. Such proceedings were referred to as Intermediary Court, but the person presiding was called the First Circuit Court Judge. In 1874, the intermediary function of the First Circuit Court judge was transferred to the Supreme Court, which now held both original and appellate jurisdiction for the island of Oahu. The term Intermediary Court continued to be used when a Supreme Court Justice presided in that role. In 1892, the functions of the Supreme Court were restricted to those of an appellate court. Its functions as a circuit court were assumed by a reestablished First Circuit Court.

The Kingdom was divided into four judicial districts or circuits. The First Circuit was the island of Oahu, with Honolulu as the seat of justice. The Second Circuit consisted of Maui, Molokai, Lanai and Kahoolawe, with Lahaina as the seat of justice. The island of Hawaii comprised the Third Circuit, with Hilo as the seat of justice. The Fourth Circuit consisted of Niihau and Kauai with Hanalei designated as the seat of justice. In 1853 Nawiliwili was designated the Fourth Circuit seat of justice. In 1892, the Judiciary reorganized. The islands of Kauai and Niihau were designated the Fifth Circuit. The jurisdiction of the Fourth Circuit encompassed the districts of Hamakua, Hilo and Puna on the island of Hawaii. In 1943 the Fourth Circuit was abolished and the entire island of Hawaii was again designated the Third Circuit.

The 1847 Act organizing the Judiciary Department designated the district and police courts as the island courts not of record. The 1892 Judiciary reorganization designated all police justices as district magistrates, who held powers formerly exercised by police justices. The district courts' jurisdiction remained the same when Hawaii became a territory of the United States in 1900. The exception was maritime cases which were not heard in the district courts after 1900. Traffic violations, previously handled by the county police departments, were criminalized and heard in the district courts after 1960.

1835 b. Honolulu Dec.20
1840-47 Boston for schooling, returned Honolulu 1847
1S5U entered business in Honolulu.
went to gold fields in California
1859 m. Mary Elizabeth Ladd, Honolulu.
staff of Advertiser
1872 elected representative
1875 appointed registrar of public accounts
1880 associated with C. Brewer & Co.
1890 Board of Health member
1891 member of Queen Liliuokalani's Privy Council
1894 opened own office as financial agent and served as trustee: Campbell & Bishop estates, Kamehameha School
1898 mission to Washington to oppose annexation
1909 d. Honolulu, Feb.27

Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana‘ole was born in the lands of Kukuiʻula, Kōloa, district of Kona, island of Kaua‘i, Hawaiian Archipelago, on March 26, 1871 to David Kahalepouli Pi‘ikoi—first cousin to Mōʻī (King) Kalākaua—and Kamāli‘i wahine (Princess) Victoria Kūhiō Kinoiki Kekaulike II—granddaughter of the former ruler of Kauaʻi, Kaumualiʻi. In the year 1883, Mōʻī Kalākaua bestowed the title of Kamāli‘i kāne (Prince) upon the 11-year-old Jonah, including him among those in line for the throne. Less than a year later, the young Prince’s mother died. As his father had already passed when Kūhiō was only seven, the King’s wife, Mōʻī wahine (Queen) Kapiʻolani, took legal custody of Kūhiō, and his two brothers—Kamāli‘i kāne David Laʻamea Kawānanakoa and Kamāli‘i kāne Edward Abnel Keliʻiahonui.

Kamāli‘i kāne Kūhiō received his initial formal education at the Royal School and Oʻahu College (later known as Punahou School). At 15, he and his royal brothers continued their education abroad at St. Matthew’s Military Academy in San Mateo, California, where, during a summer break in 1886, they introduced the sport of surfing to the west coast of the United States. The boys returned home after two years in America when Edward fell sick; he would die at ʻIolani Palace soon after returning home. Tragedy once again entered the life of the young Prince when, in January 1891, his adoptive father, the ruling Sovereign of Hawai‘i, died unexpectedly while abroad.

After a January 1893 coup that saw a minority white oligarchy take power in the Islands, Kūhiō joined the vast majority of Kanaka ʻŌiwi and their supporters in opposition to the new government and its attempts to have the independent Hawaiian nation annexed to the United States. In January 1895, the resistance launched an attempt to return the Hawaiian monarchy to power. The rebellion failed, and the 24-year old Kūhiō, along with more than four hundred others, was imprisoned. A military tribunal convicted the Prince of “misprision of treason”—knowing of a plot to overthrow the government and failing to inform the authorities—and ordered that “Jonah Kalanianaole be imprisoned at hard labor for the term of one year…” and pay a fine of one thousand dollars. In 1898, as fighting in the Spanish American War turned towards the Philippines, the United States took possession of the Hawaiian Islands.

In 1902, the Republican Party of Hawaiʻi chose Kūhiō as its candidate for territorial delegate to the House of Representatives and he was elected as Hawaiʻi’s second delegate to the US Congress; Robert William Kalanihiapo Wilcox was the first. Kūhiō served ten consecutive terms in the US Congress with his most significant accomplishment being the passing of the “Hawaiian Homelands” Bill in 1920. On July 9, 1921, President Warren G. Harding signed the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act into law.

Another dedicated cause of Kamāli‘i kāne Kūhiō was the nurturing of Kanaka ʻŌiwi leadership and to that end, in 1903, he organized the re-formation of the Royal Order of Kamehameha, a civic organization founded by Mō‘ī Lota Kapuāiwa (King Kamehameha V) in 1865.

Kūhiō died of a heart attack at age 50 while at Pualeilani, the seaside home in Waikīkī given to him by his hānai mother Mōʻī wahine Kapiʻolani. After a State Funeral held at Kawaiahaʻo Church, Kūhiō was buried at Mauna Ala, the Royal Mausoleum in Nuʻuanu, Oʻahu. In 1949, the Territorial Legislature of Hawaiʻi passed Joint Resolution 57 creating “Kūhiō Day” as an official government holiday.

John N Colcord was born in Sanford, Maine.
1821: He arrived in Honolulu for a few days on voyage to west coast. He returned to Honolulu and set up in blacksmith trade.
1823 sailed again to California, July 20 on Waterwitch.
1826 returned to Honolulu, February, bought blacksmith shop.
1839 sailed to United States November 28 aboard Averick taking four sons, after wife's death.
1841 returned to Honolulu May 21.
1844 sold business and left for United States on November 20 on Congaree.
1846 bought a farm in Woburn, Massachusetts.
1852--5-23 died in Woburn.

John Cook was born on June 14, 1824 in Plymouth, England. He arrived in Honolulu on September 16, 1844. He lived in Hawai‘i except for a few months spent in California in 1849 when he became the owner of a historic flag that was raised over Monterey, California by General Fremont. He was a carpenter and builder of ability. He left Honolulu in 1915, to spend the rest of his long life in the Fred Baldwin Memorial Home, he was accompanied by an orphaned grandson. He is survived by two sons, John and Felix Cook, both carpenters.

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
1909 Born John Anthony Burns at Fort Assinneboine, Montana, on March 30, son of Harry Jacob Burns, Sergeant Major, U.S. Army, and Anne Florida (Scally) Burns
1913 Family moved to Fort Shafter, Hawaii
1930 Graduated from St. Louis High School, Honolulu; attended one semester at University of Hawaii
1931 Married Beatrice Majors Van Vleet, June 8th, with whom he had three children: John Anthony, Jr., Mary Elizabeth, and James Seishiro
1945-1953 Became owner of Kalama Store, Kailua, a liquor and sundries store
1946-1948 Elected vice-chairman of Oʻahu County Committee of Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi
1946-1962 President and manager of Burns and Company, Ltd., a real estate firm
1948, 1950, 1954 Campaigned for Delegate to Congress from Hawaiʻi
1948-1952 Chairman, Oʻahu County Committee of Democratic Party of Hawaiʻi for two terms
1950, 1952 Elected chairman, Democratic Party Territorial Conventions of 1950 and 1952
1952-1956 Chairman, (Territorial) Central Committee of Democratic Party for two terms
1952-1968 Delegate to the biennial National Convention of the Democratic Party; in
1956, 1964 and 1968 also chairman of the delegation
1957-1959 Won two terms as Delegate to Congress from Hawaiʻi, serving as a nonvoting member in the U.S. House of Representatives. Appointed to Agriculture, Armed Services, and Interior and Insular Affairs Committees
1959 Returned to Hawaiʻi on June 6 to campaign for governor
1962-1974 Elected governor of Hawaiʻi, November, 1962, serving three terms. First took office on December 3, 1962
Sources:
1975 April 5, died in Hawaii at his Kailua home
Boylan, Dan. John A. Bums: the Man and His Times. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2000.
Burns Papers (M-481 ), Campaign publicity, biographical material and other references within the collection.
Men and Women of Hawaii, Honolulu Star-Bulletin Press, Inc., 1972. (HSA call number: DU624.9 .M4 1972)