From his mother Kanoa, he descended from Alapaʻinui and his son Keaweʻōpala, the kings of the island of Hawaiʻi prior to the accession of Kalaniʻōpuʻu.

[1] His father was possibly the same individual as J. H. Heleluhe, who served in the legislature of the kingdom as a member of the House of Representatives for the district of Puna during the legislative assembly of 1855, 1862, 1864, 1866 and 1867.

[5] After the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893, Heleluhe and his wife Wakeke Ululani remained loyal to the royalist cause and supported the deposed Queen Liliʻuokalani.

[6] Following the outbreak of the unsuccessful 1895 Counter-Revolution, Heleluhe was arrested, held as a political prisoner, and temporarily imprisoned by forces loyal to the Republic of Hawaii in order for him to "disclose the queen's treachery.

"[2][7] Queen Liliʻuokalani, who was also imprisoned in the former ʻIolani Palace, described the ordeal Heleluhe had to endure in her 1898 memoir Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen: Mr. Heleluhe was taken by the government officers, stripped of all clothing, placed in a dark cell without light, food, air, or water, and was kept there for hours in hopes that the discomfort of his position would induce him to disclose something of my affairs.

[8][7]Between 1896 and 1900, Heleluhe accompanied Queen Liliʻuokalani on her many trips abroad to the United States and Washington, D.C., to campaign against the American annexation of Hawaii and then assisted her in her attempts to reclaim the crown land after 1898.

[12] Myra, sometimes referred to as Heleluhe's stepdaughter,[13] became a protège of the queen at a young age and accompanied her to Washington, D.C., with her family.

She, her daughter Myra and Lahilahi Webb stood vigil by Liliʻuokalani's casket while her body laid in the Royal Mausoleum prior to her final interment in the vault of the Kalākaua Crypt.