On April 21, 1885, a woman named
Kaluakapu of Kapua, District of North Kohala, Island of Hawaii, gave her
son, George Frederick Beckley, a six-acre parcel of land found within
Royal Patent Grant 748 which she had received from her father. Mr.
Beckley worked and subsisted on this parcel his entire life. By 2002,
neither Mr. Beckley’s heirs nor his six-acre parcel were nowhere to be
found, and the land was now subject to a forced sale brought by a
development company named Surety Kohala Corporation.
This past
July, however, some of Beckley’s great-grand children, along with NHLC
attorney Andrew Sprenger took their first steps on Beckley’s lot, which
will now be preserved and protected by the family.
The long and
winding saga of one family’s journey into discovering their past began
in the state court house in Hilo when Surety Kohala Corporation filed a
Quiet title and Partition lawsuit to sell a 44-acre tract of farm land
which included the 6 acres owned by G.F. Beckley.
Distant
cousins of G.F. Beckley, who were notified of this lawsuit, retained
NHLC to defend their interests. In order to verify their ownership
interests NHLC’s title and genealogy specialist scoured all public and
historical sources such as the 1887 voter registration rolls and 1890
census records for the islands of Hawaii and Maui. The comprehensive
research, however, did not bear good news for these clients. It was
determined that although they were related to G.F. Beckley, the law did
not recognize them as direct descendants to claim an interest to the
land.
The fight to
keep the Beckley property within the family could have ended at this
point, except that NHLC’s clients, as they were exiting the case,
decided to “cold contact” strangers unaware of the lawsuit to which the
Courts may recognize as the heirs of G.F. Beckley. NHLC’s research had
produced enough genealogical information to narrow the search to
potential cousins who they had never met. The efforts paid off and in
March 2003, the first legal heir of G.F. Beckley contacted NHLC’s intake
paralegal to learn more about what his new found relatives were talking
about. Today NHLC represents 11 direct descendants of G.F. Beckley, who
are grateful for their distant cousin’s assistance in contacting them
about this case.
In 2004, the
circuit court confirmed those 11 individuals who were either
grandchildren or great-grandchildren to G.F. Beckley, and therefore
entitled to his six acre-parcel. Unfortunately, G.F. Beckley’s Deed
lacked accurate and discernable boundary descriptions, and further, the
lot was never surveyed. This meant that the Court would have no choice
but to grant Surety Kohala’s request to auction the six-acres as part of
a sale of 44-acre tract. The Heirs of Beckley could then only expect the
equivalent of six acres worth of cash from a public auction. Not only
would the family lose their land, but they would not even receive a fair
market value.
Prior to the order
of sale, NHLC’s title and genealogy researcher, Teri Gomes, found and
reviewed three other historical deeds and maps (recorded in 1876, 1883
and 1886), relating to lands adjacent to the Beckley’s lot. Based upon
this information, determined three out of the four boundaries of the
Beckley lot within the 44-acre tract. NHLC attorney Andrew Sprenger then
presented this historical information to the County of Hawaii, making a
special request to recognize Beckley’s parcel as a legal lot, despite
the fact that it lacked a modern survey.
Approximately eight months later, and
one month before the Court was to order the auction of the Property, the
County certified Beckley’s lot as pre-existing the County zoning code.
When notified of this certification, the Court denied Surety Kohala’s
request for an auction of the property, and ordered the parties to
determine and stake the modern metes and bounds of Beckley’s Parcel.
In July, NHLC
attorney Sprenger and some of the direct descendants of G.F. Beckley
waded through the waist-high grass and shrubbery to walk the land that
had been waiting for them for close to a century. The completion of a
modern survey is all that remains to bring this land into the 21st
century for this family.
