If Central Union Church is Honolulu’s “haole church,” then Kawaiahao Church is Town’s “kanaka church.” Designed by Hiram Bingham and built over six years from 1836 to 1842 by Kamehameha II and Kamehameha III, using 14,000 off-shore coral rock slabs from the sea off south Oahu, Kawaiahao Church is historic … Hawaii’s “Westminster Abbey.” It is a member of the United Church of Christ family, descended from the original Congregational missionaries that first brought Christianity to the Islands. The church features a beautiful clock-tower housing a large hand-wound clock with four faces facing makai, mauka, Diamond Head, and Ewa. Hand-wound of course. No electricity in 1836.

Now, almost two centuries later, the clock still tells the correct time. This is because two brothers,
Douglas and Vincent Mulford, faithfully climb into the clock tower every ten days to hand-wind the old
clock. The men stagger any trips off-island so that one of them is always on Oahu. If clock-time needs
adjusting, if a bird flies into a clock face and jams the clock, one of the brothers makes the fix. Every
ten days one of the brothers cranks a 200-pound concrete block 20 feet up a 3/8 inch cable … gravity powers the clock as the concrete block slowly makes its way down the cable. This family tradition has been going on for three generations. Doug’s and Vincent’s mother, Abbie Aulani Mahoe, climbed the clock tower before them, as did their grandfather, Benjamin Hulu Mahoe, before her.

The Mulford brothers are high ali‘i. Benjamin Mahoe, their grandfather, was the son of the Reverend Joel
Hulu Mahoe, grandfather of the kingdom’s last two monarchs, King Kalakaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani. Their mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother are buried in the church cemetery. Small wonder that they accepted the responsibility for the Kawaiahao Church clock. The clock itself was manufactured in New England and was donated by Kamehameha III. Doug Mulford remembers his grandfather Benjamin Hulu Mahoe taking him up to the clock tower in the 1950’s…through a door behind the organ-pipe room, up a metal ladder, then up a ten-foot stairwell.

Doug Mulford now lives in Wahiawa, but has North Shore roots. He helped build Haleiwa’s McDonald’s restaurant and several other buildings. He still works in security at the North Shore Marketplace. I ask Doug what makes him and his brother accept the responsibility for the clock, carrying on his family’s tradition. His answer is a simple one. “It’s our kuleana.” Kuleana: originally a Hawaiian’s small piece of property, has come to mean a person’s responsibility, his authority, his cause. No better term for the Mulford brothers and their relation to the Kawaiahao Church clock.