The Cooke Library Trowel (1908)

This silver trowel was used by Dorothea Alice Cooke to lay the cornerstone of Cooke Library (now Cooke Hall). Dorothea was the great-granddaughter of Amos Starr Cooke, one of eight Hawai‘i missionaries who wrote to the American Board in 1837 requesting support for a new school at Punahou. His son, Charles Montague Cooke, would co-found Bank of Hawai‘i and Castle & Cooke, and was the generous benefactor of Punahou’s first library. In addition to books, the building housed the Cooke family’s extensive private art collection from 1910 until 1927, when it was transferred to the Honolulu Academy of Arts.