Captain Brown's Lava Destruction Traditional Cache
Captain Brown's Lava Destruction
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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A marker on the ocean side of the road was erected by the relatives of Captain Robert Brown,(1808~1894) a whaler turned rancher who was probably the first to run cattle on the former Kahuku Ranch. Brown and his family were victims of the earthquake and lava flow that occurred during the great eruption of Mauna Loa in 1868.
Located in Kau region a'a' lava, along route 11, near mm 71, approximately 2000 feet elevation.
- It is difficult to imagine what took place here in 1868 until you read the following excerpt from WD Alexander, historian, book The Great Eruption in Kau, published in 1899. People must have been a whole lot tougher in those days!
"At length, on the 2nd of April, a terrific earthquake took place, which shook down every stone wall and nearly every house in Kau, and did more or less damage in every part of Hawaii.
At Kapapala in eastern Kau, it caused a destructive landslip commonly known as the “mud flow.” An enormous mass of marshy clay was detached from the bluff at the head of the valley, and in a few minutes swept down for a distance of three miles, in a stream about half a mile wide and thirty feet deep in the middle, it moved so swiftly that it overtook and buried thirty-one human beings and over five hundred horses, cattle, and goats.
Immediately after this earthquake, a tremendous wave, forty or fifty feet high, rolled in upon the coast of Kau, sweeping away all of the villages from Kaalualu to Keauhou, and destroying some coconut groves. Over eighty persons perished in a few minutes, and the survivors were left destitute and suffering. At the same time the crater of Kilauea emptied itself of lava through underground fissures toward the southwest. The central part of floor of the crater fell in, forming a pit three thousand feet long and five hundred feet deep, with sloping sides.
On the 7th of April, the lava from the central crater of Mauna Loa burst out of the southwest slope of the mountain, in the land of Kahuku, at a point 5,600 feet above the sea. The lava spouted up in great fountains, several hundred feet high, and flowed to the sea, a distance of ten miles, in two hours. This eruption continued only five days. It destroyed several houses and several hundred head of cattle and overflowed 4,000 acres of good land. Three men were imprisoned for several days on a hill surrounded by lava streams, and Captain Robert Brown and his family were obliged to run for their lives."
Edited by: Jake39
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Oruvaq gur Pncgnva. Ng gur obggbz. Fgnl njnl sebz gur Buvn Gerrf!