OHE March 16, 1998

Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1998 17:14:15 -1000
From: "Dayle K. Turner" (turner@hawaii.edu>
Subject: Dupont or De Ponte?

My students were doing research work in the library today and during lulls between classes I had some time to poke around and look up some hiking articles. I found one in the August 1989 edition of *Honolulu* magazine (pp 74+) titled "The toughest hike on O'ahu." In that piece, the authors, Harold Hall and James Morrow, suggest that the Dupont Trail (their toughest hike) should rightfully be called the De Ponte Trail.

In a short addendum article on page 76, Hall and Morrow offer this tidbit:

	Some hiking books call it the Dupont Trail, but as far as
 	we can tell it should be De Ponte. According to a story in the
	September 1920 *Paradise of the Pacific* magazine, 10 hikers were
	"determined to cut a trail...so that it would be possible to hike
	from Schofield up the slopes of Kaala, across the crater, then
	down a steep ridge to Waialua," wrote one of the hikers, T.P.
	Cadle.  On that hike, "when victory seemed to be ours," continued
	Cadle, "we proceeded to name the trail."  The members of the group
	suggested the writer's name as a fitting one, but he asked the 
	privilege of suggesting a name, and with acclamation and shouting 
	the trail was named The De Ponte Trail, "in honor of Mary De Ponte
	of Honolulu."  We're not certain which Mary De Ponte that Cadle
	was referring to.  Around that time three Mary De Pontes were
	listed in the city directory.  Two were married, and one, a
	student nurse, was not.

--DKT