Kilauea's Halemaumau Crater erupted for one hundred years between 1823 and 1924. Since then, its most active eruption took place in 1967, and John W. Hilton was there.
In the mid 1860's, about forty years after the hundred year eruption began, Mark Twain came to the Sandwich Islands, "the loveliest fleet of islands that lies anchored in any ocean." Of his experiences at Kilauea, in his famed Letters from Hawaii, he quipped, "The smell of sulfur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner."
Around 1900, forty some years after Mark Twain's visit, Jules Tavernier, David Howard Hitchcock and Harry Cassie Best all visited and painted the erupting Kilauea. Tavernier's and Hitchcock's paintings hang in the Volcano House on Kilauea's rim, and a photo of Harry Cassie Best's painting resides in the Jaggar Museum at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory located on Crater Rim Drive.