Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 1 Comment

Haiku Plantation

On May 31, 1858, H Holdsworth, Richard Armstrong, Amos Cooke, G Robertson, MB Beckwith and FS Lyman (shareholders in Castle & Cooke) met to consider the initiation of a sugar plantation at Haiku on Maui.

Shortly after (November 20, 1858,) the Privy Council authorized the Minister of the Interior to grant a charter of incorporation to them for the Haiku Sugar Company.

At the time, there were only ten sugar companies in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi. Five of these sugar companies were on the island of Maui, but only two were in operation. The five were: East Maui Plantation at Kaluanui, Brewer Plantation at Haliimaile, LL Torbert and Captain James Makee’s plantation at ʻUlupalakua, Hāna and Haiku Plantation.

The mill, on the east bank of Maliko Gulch, was completed in 1861; 600-acres of cane the company had under cultivation yielded 260 tons of sugar and 32,015 gallons of molasses. Over the years the company procured new equipment for the mill.

Using the leading edge technology of the time, the Haiku Sugar Mill was, reportedly, the first sugarcane mill in Hawaiʻi that used a steam engine to grind the cane.

Their cane was completely at the mercy of the weather and rainfall; yield fluctuated considerably. For example it went from 970-tons in 1876 to 171-tons in 1877.

(In 1853, the government of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i had set aside much of the ahupua‘a of Hāmākuapoko to the Board of Education. The Board of Education deeded the Hāmākuapoko acreage which was unencumbered by native claims to the Trustees of Oʻahu College (Punahou) in 1860, who then sold the land to the Haiku Sugar Company (Cultural Surveys))

In 1871 Samuel T Alexander became manager of the mill. Alexander and later his partner, Henry Perrine Baldwin, saw the need for a reliable source of water, and started construction of the Hāmākua ditch in 1876.

With the completion of the ditch, the majority of Haiku Plantation’s crops were grown on the west side of Maliko gulch. As a result in 1879 Haiku mill was abandoned and its operations were transferred to Hāmākuapoko where a new factory was erected, which had more convenient access to the new sugar fields.

Other ditches were later added to the system, with five ditches at different levels used to convey the water to the cane fields on the isthmus of Maui. In order of elevation they are Haiku, Lowrie, Old Hāmākua, New Hāmākua, and Kailuanui ditches.

The “Old” Hāmākua Ditch was the forerunner to the East Maui Irrigation System.   This privately financed, constructed and managed irrigation system was one of the largest in the United States. It eventually included 50 miles of tunnels; 24 miles of open ditches, inverted siphons and flumes; and approximately 400 intakes and 8 reservoirs.

Although two missionaries (Richard Armstrong and Amos Cooke) established the Haiku Sugar Company in 1858, its commercial success was due to a second-generation missionary descendant, Henry Perrine Baldwin. In 1877, Baldwin constructed a sugar mill on the west side of Maliko Gulch, named the Hāmākuapoko Mill.

By 1880, the Haiku Sugar Company was milling and bagging raw sugar at Hāmākuapoko for shipment out of Kuau Landing. The Kuau Landing was abandoned in favor of the newly-completed Kahului Railroad line in 1881, with all regional sugar sent then by rail to the port of Kahului.

By 1884, the partnership of Samuel T Alexander and Henry P Baldwin bought the controlling interest in the Haiku Sugar Company.  (Dorrance)

Baldwin moved from Lāhainā to Hāmākuapoko, he first lived in Sunnyside, in the area of upper Pāʻia, and then moved further “upcountry,” building a family estate at Maluhia, in the area of Olinda.

The largest landowner of the upper Pāʻia region was the Haiku Sugar Company. By 1897, the Haiku Sugar Company and the Pāʻia Plantation had become business partners of Alexander & Baldwin, Ltd. Their company stores offered goods to the population of the plantation towns from Hāmākuapoko to Huelo.  (Cultural Surveys)

Brothers Henry Perrine and David Dwight Baldwin laid the foundation for the company in the late 1800s through the acquisition of land.  Experimentation with hala kahiki (pineapple) began in 1890, when the first fruit was planted in Haʻiku.

In 1903 the Baldwin brothers formed Haiku Fruit & Packing Company, launching the pineapple industry on Maui.  Maui’s first pineapple cannery began operations by 1904, with the construction of a can-making plant and a cannery in Haiku.

1,400 cases of pineapple were packed during the initial run. In time, the independent farmers for miles around brought their fruit there to be processed.

Haiku Plantation remained in operation until 1905 when it merged with Pāʻia Plantation, to form Maui Agricultural Company. In 1948, Maui Agricultural Company merged with HC&S (Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company.)

Remnants of the initial Haiku Mill remain on the east bank of Maliko Gulch.  It is partially restored and used in conjunction with various events (engagements, vow renewals, concerts, corporate events and other celebrations.)

The mill operated for eighteen years, from 1861-1879, and then was abandoned. The original structure was 50′ in front by 160′ deep. The front portion measured 50′ x 50′ and rose two stories in height, while the remainder of the structure had ten foot high walls enclosing an excavated interior, with a wooden floor (no longer intact) running the length on either side.

Seventy-five to eighty percent of the walls remain intact, although no roof, or traces of it, remain. The walls are made of basalt stone, with door and window openings framed in cut basalt brick and block, and vary in height from ten feet on the sides to thirty-five feet for the rear wall, and have a thickness of three to four feet.  (Lots of information here from NPS, Cultural Surveys and Haiku Mill.)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Books by Land, Sea and Air

The earliest libraries in Hawaiʻi appear to have been reading rooms provided for ships’ officers and crews.  In Lāhainā, the Seamen’s Chapel and Reading Room was built in 1834 following an appeal by William Richards and Ephraim Spaulding.

In Honolulu, the Sandwich Islands Institute, organized in November 1837, fitted up a room at the Seamen’s Bethel in downtown Honolulu as a library and a museum of natural history and Pacific artifacts.

A newspaper article in October 1840 referred to this as a “Public Library, three to four hundred volumes” and also listed a “Reading Room for Seamen,” presumably at a different location.

In 1879, a group of men founded the Honolulu Library and Reading Room Association.  In the local newspaper, the Commercial Pacific Advertiser, editor JH Black wrote, “The library is not intended to be run for the benefit of any class, party, nationality, or sect.”   From 1879 to 1912, library service was provided by the Honolulu Library and Reading-Room Association.

In 1909, Governor Frear helped pass the “Act to Provide for the Establishment of the Public Library of Hawaiʻi”.  On May 15, 1909 the Honolulu Library and Reading Room and the Library of Hawaiʻi signed an agreement by which the former agreed to turn over all books, furnishings and remaining funds to the latter.

A few months later, the Honolulu Library and Reading Room, Library of Hawaiʻi and the Historical Society jointly signed and submitted a letter to Andrew Carnegie requesting a grant for the construction of the Library of Hawaiʻi.

Governor Frear made a parcel available on the corner of King and Punchbowl Streets; the site was the location of Hāliʻimaile, the residence of Boki and Liliha, and later Victoria Kamāmalu and her father and brothers (before they ascended to the throne as Kamehameha IV and Kamehameha V.)

Ultimately, on February 1, 1913, the Library of Hawaiʻi was completed and its doors opened with free library services to the community.  (After statehood in 1959, the Hawaiʻi State Legislature created the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System, the only statewide system in the United States, with the Hawaiʻi State Library building as its flagship branch.)

In 1921, Laura Sutherland, Assistant Head Librarian in charge of the “Extension Department,” laid the groundwork for a legislative act that established separately-budgeted county libraries on the neighbor islands.

The County Library Law established separate libraries on the islands of Kauaʻi, Maui and Hawaiʻi, under minimal supervision by the Library of Hawaiʻi (which focused its services to Oʻahu.)  With the passage of the law, Sutherland’s duties included the expansion of the Library to the Neighbor Islands.

In addition, Sutherland administered a mobile book lending program, taking the books to the people (this eventually became known as the Bookmobile.)  Initially, a travelling book car toured five-days-a-week (the Bookmobile is still in use, today.)

In 1926, the first bookmobile hit the road on Maui – a Ford roadster, complete with rumble seat. The bookmobile got upgraded in 1932 with a half-ton Ford delivery van with shelves and side panels that lifted up to make book-filled counters. By 1938, there was a fleet of bookmobiles delivering books throughout the Islands.  (Honolulu Magazine)

Her work took the books beyond the Neighbor Islands – prior to the establishment of regular naval libraries (just before WWII,) Sutherland shipped out books for use by the construction crews on Palmyra, Johnson and Midway atolls.  Reading rooms also served military posts and units.

Then, a new transportation service hit the islands and Pacific.

The China Clipper (four-engine flying boats built for Pan American Airways) flew the first commercial transpacific air service from San Francisco to Manila in November 1935 (a flying time of over 21-hours from the coast to the Islands.)  From Honolulu it hopped to Midway, Wake and Guam, before arriving in the Philippines.

“The local press described the airplane as the newest and one of the most vital forces in the advancement of civilization.  It was expected that Hawaiʻi was to be the hub of trans-Pacific flying, military and civilian.”  (hawaii-gov)

Shortly after, Pan American initiated regular six-day weekly passenger and cargo service between San Francisco and Manila, via Honolulu, Midway, Wake and Guam.

Sutherland took advantage of these flights and expanded the reach of her “Extension Department” by supplying reading material to residents on Midway and Wake, with the cooperation of Pan Am.

Each week, a new supply of books was added to the flights in what is believed to be America’s only Flying Library Service.  (Acme News Pictures)

This story has an interesting side note (at least for me and the rest of my family.)  Laura Sutherland is my grandmother; her daughter, my mother, was a librarian; her daughter, my sister (Sandy,) has worked as a librarian. 

The lead image shows Librarians Laura Sutherland (left) and Margaret Newland (center) handing over books to the Pan Am airplane transport employees for loading into the plane, June 1936.

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James Campbell Building

A story in the July 26, 1916 Honolulu Star-bulletin had more impact than a simple subject of road widening, “The Hotel street widening project took on new life when Supervisor Charles N Arnold, chairman of the roads committee, requested that it be referred to his committee.”

“We have a new project, or rather we have dug up an old one, and want to carry it through,” he said. “We intend to straighten Hotel street, not only on the Ewa side of Fort street, but also on the Waikiki side.”

“A piece about eight feet deep of the property occupied by the Mott-Smith building will be condemned as well as the 12 foot piece of the Campbell building.  The cost will be distributed among the benefited property owners up and down Hotel street and along Fort street.”  (Honolulu Star-bulletin, July 26, 1916.)

In 1917, buildings housing Hollister & Company, wholesale and retail druggist, tobacconist, and photographic retailer and Benson, Smith & Company, seller of drugs, medicines, and chemicals were demolished to make way for the new James Campbell Building on the makai-ewa corner of Fort and Hotel Streets.  (honolulu-gov)

Then on September 28, 1917, the Honolulu Star-bulletin reported, “On the corner of Hotel and Fort streets, the new Campbell Estate building will soon be under construction.  The workmen are still excavating, and some of the foundation work has been started, but it will be several months before definite results begin to show.”

“The walls of the Hollister Drug company’s buildings are down and the scaffolding that the workmen have erected is practically all that remains of the front of the old building.   When complete: the new Hollister building will be three stories high, with a grey-white exterior, similar in appearance to the new Ehlers’ building.”

It’s not clear if World War I delayed construction, but the building helped with the war effort.  The Hawaiian Gazette on May 14, 1918 noted the Campbell building served as the War Savings and Thrift Stamp committee’s demonstration for its “dig it up in our dug out” campaign.

“The new headquarters are a replica of a dug out on the western front, copied from a photograph of General Leonard Wood’s conference with Genera) Mandolon of the French army on one of General Wood’s visits to the front.”

“The dug out occupies the corner of the unfinished Campbell Building. It is revetted with sand bags and camouflaged with green boughs but the committee hopes that, in spike of the camouflage, the people of Honolulu will find its range, and the heavier the bombardment, the better.”

“The dug out is the work of Jay Elmont, whose window displays in behalf of the Red Cross at Ehlers, Lewers and Cooke, and the Red Cross Drive headquarters have drawn much attention during the last week.”  It was set up to encourage savings and buying War Savings Stamps and Baby Bonds.  (Hawaiian Gazette, May 14, 1918)

By the next year, merchants in the new Campbell Building were advertising for customers to visit them in the new building.

This building is not to be confused with the “Campbell Block” (which was also on Fort Street, but closer to the Harbor between Queen and Merchant Streets.)

The lower town Campbell Block building started out as Mr. William French’s (the “merchant prince”) Honolulu premises extending from Kaʻahumanu to Fort Street.  It was surrounded by a high picket fence with some hau trees standing just within the line of the fence.

The building was quite a sizable one of wood, with a high basement and large trading rooms above. Mr. French was one of the oldest residents and a person of considerable influence.  (Maly)

The property was sold to James Austin, who sold it in 1882 to James Campbell, who owned the adjacent land on the Diamond Head side (fronting Fort Street.)  He built the “Campbell Block,” a large building that included uses such as storage, shops and offices.

Merchant Street was once the main street of the financial and governmental functions in the city, and was Honolulu’s earliest commercial center.  Dating from 1854, the remaining historic buildings along this road help tell the story of the growth and development of Honolulu’s professional and business community.

A great deal of the economic and political history of Hawaiʻi was created and written by the previous occupants of these buildings. Ranging from banks to bars and post office to newspapers, they have paid silent witness to the creation of present day Hawaiʻi.  (NPS)

Today, we still see these remnants of the past in lower downtown:  Melchers (1854,) the oldest commercial building in Honolulu; Kamehameha V Post Office (1871;) Bishop Bank (1878,) now known as the Harriet Bouslog Building; The Friend Building (1887 and 1900,) the site of the Oʻahu Bethel Church established in 1837; Royal Saloon (1890,) now Murphy’s; TR Foster Building (1891,) forerunner to Hawaiian Airlines;  Bishop Estate Building (1896;) Stangenwald Building (1901,) the tallest structure in Hawaiʻi until 1950; Judd Building (1898;) Yokohama Specie Bank (1909) and Honolulu Police Station (1931,) one of the earliest police forces in the world, dating to 1834.

The Campbell Block survived a fire, but on October 11, 1964, the Sunday Star-Bulletin and Advertiser noted, “Office-Parking Building Planned by Campbell Estate on Fort Street.”

Plans called for a combined office and parking structure to replace the 2-story Campbell Block on Fort and Merchants Streets; this new building was considered an important part of the redevelopment of downtown Honolulu.  (Adamson)   The new building was completed in May 1967.

Back to upper downtown and the “Campbell Building.”  Today, the Campbell building (the same building is still there, however with a slightly different look) is home to Fisher Hawaiʻi (for its downtown facility.)

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by Peter T Young 3 Comments

Closing Years of Spreckelsville in Spreckels’ Hands

Claus Spreckels (1828–1908) was perhaps the most successful German-American immigrant entrepreneur of the late-nineteenth century; he was one of the ten richest Americans of his time.

The career of the “sugar king” of California, Hawaiʻi and the American West consisted of building and breaking monopolies in sugar, transport, gas, electricity, real estate, newspapers, banks and breweries.

The first industry in which Spreckels succeeded was quite typical for German immigrants: beer brewing. In the spring of 1857, together with his brother Peter Spreckels and Claus Mangels, among others, he founded the Albany Brewery, the first large-scale producer of beer in San Francisco.

Though profitable, he sold his beer operation in 1863 and switched to a new field that would make him rich: sugar.  That year, he started the Bay Sugar Refining Company, but sold it three years later.

He then constructed the California Sugar Refinery in 1867 to process sugar.  While grocers, then, sold “sugar loaves,” Spreckels introduced the European process of packaging granulated sugar and sugar cubes (so customers could more easily divide the portions.)

Spreckels came to Hawaii in 1876 on the same ship that brought favorable news of the Reciprocity Treaty with the United States. In effect, the treaty gave Hawaiian sugar planters a price increase of two cents a pound and thus set off an economic boom in the island kingdom.

Spreckels had originally opposed the treaty; but after it passed, he quickly made up his mind to take advantage of it. He decided that the arid central plains would be suitable for a sugar plantation if he could get water. Two years later he returned to Hawaii accompanied by a well-known California irrigation engineer, Hermann Schussler. (Adler)

In 1878, through his friendship with King Kalākaua, Claus Spreckels secured a lease of 40,000-acres of land on Maui and by 1882 he acquired the fee simple title to the Wailuku ahupuaʻa.

That same year, Spreckels founded the Hawaiian Commercial Company, which quickly became the largest and best-equipped sugar plantation in the islands.

As a vehicle for carrying out his plans, Spreckels incorporated the Hawaiian Commercial Company in San Francisco on September 30, 1878. The authorized capital stock was $10,000,000, represented by 1,000 shares having a par value of $10,000 each. Claus Spreckels was the majority stockholder. At par, his holdings amounted to $5,200,000.

His interest and investment prompted the Hawaiian Gazette to say, “With an aggregation of brains, business enterprise and capital, this new company will infuse new life and health into the great sugar industries of Hawaii. …”

“It is more than probable that the Island production can be increased six-fold.” (Hawaiian Gazette. October 30, 1878)  (The six-fold increase in production was realized in 11 years. (Adler))

In 1880 Spreckels engaged Joseph and Andrew Moore of the Risdon Iron Works, San Francisco, to build a mill with a capacity of about twenty tons a day. Construction of three more mills got underway the next year, with improved design based on experience with the first mill.

These mills were completed by 1882, and capacity was thus increased to about 100 tons a day. The crop for that year was estimated at 12,000 tons, a four-fold rise over the yield for 1880. (Adler)

The Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company was incorporated (1882) in San Francisco and went public; it took over the assets of the Hawaiian Commercial Company. Capital stock of the new company consisted of 100,000 shares of $100 par value. Purposes of the company as stated in the charter were much the same as those of Hawaiian Commercial.

After the incorporation of the Hawaiian Commercial Company, Spreckels moved swiftly to make his plantation the most modern and the most productive in the kingdom. (Adler)

Spreckels was the first island planter to achieve nearly complete control of sugar from growing to marketing. In this he set the pattern which the Hawaiian sugar industry.

The plantation, with its vast fields of cane irrigated by the Spreckels ditch, was the first link in the chain of vertical integration.  The second link was the Honolulu firm of William G. Irwin and Company (Spreckels and Irwin), which acted as agent for the Spreckelsville plantation and also for others.

In the 1880’s and 1890’s it was one of the leading sugar agencies of the kingdom.  The Irwin company also acted as agent for the Spreckels Oceanic Steamship Line, which during the last two decades of the nineteenth century dominated the transport of Hawaiian sugar.

Oceanic thus formed the third link in the chain of control. The last link was the Spreckels refinery in San Francisco, where most island sugar was refined.

Besides setting the pattern for vertical integration, Spreckels made many pioneering contributions to Hawaiian sugar technology.

Spreckels was the first to use a five-roller mill, instead of the usual three-roller of the time. (This increased the percentage of juice extraction from the cane, that also resulted in better drying of the bagasse (which could then be used for fuel)).  (Adler)

Spreckels was the first to use electric lights in the mill. (Electric lights permitted the mills to operate night and day, and thereby avoided the expense of shut-down during the height of the grinding season. His use of electric lights in 1881 preceded the lighting in Iolani Palace by five years.) (Adler)

Spreckels was the first to use rail in hauling cane. (An ingenious system of permanent and portable track connected up with the existing railroad running to the port of Kahului.)

(At Spreckelsville, rails radiated in all directions from the mill buildings and also connected them with each other. Thus Spreckels found a solution for intra-plantation cane hauling, inter-mill and intra-mill transport, and for getting sugar directly to the wharf at Kahului.) (Adler)

Spreckels was the first to use a steam plow.  (Among the advantages of the plow were that a greater area could be plowed per day than with oxen or mule teams; more effective plowing increased the sugar yield per acre; and there was a saving of man power.)  (Adler)

Spreckels knew water was key to growing sugar and he built the largest irrigation ditch that had ever been undertaken in the islands.  On his last trip to Spreckelsville, in August, 1893, Spreckels was making plans for an electric power plant to operate pumping stations.  This would enable him to increase the water supply and hence the acreage in cane.  (Adler)

The Advertiser observed, “The company means business. … A vast improvement will be noticeable in the commerce of this kingdom, and ere long, these islands so little known beyond the Coast states will be distributing their staple products all over the American continent.”  (PCA, April 2, 1882)

The Gazette agreed, “Claus Spreckels has certainly made out of what was once considered worthless land a waving plain of cane. One must ride through these acres and acres of cane to fairly understand how great the enterprise is …”

“If this is gathering wealth to the owners and projectors, it is also scattering money among the Hawaiian people. We learned that during the construction of the mills the payroll of the plantation rose … A large portion of this must find its way into the pockets of the Maui people, native and foreign, another portion must come to Honolulu.” (Hawaiian Gazette, August 23, 1882)

In 1892 the plantation was called “the largest sugar estate in the world.” It contained 40,000 acres, of which 25,000 were good cane land. Twelve thousand acres were under cultivation. The fields extended for fifteen miles and were several miles wide.

The mills had a capacity of 30,000 tons a year, and were “fitted with the most perfect machinery and appliances which the ingenuity of man has yet devised.”  (Adler)

But all was not rosy for Spreckels and his sugar plantations.

Upon public issue in 1882, the stock sold around $60.  By the fall of 1884 the company was deep in debt, and the price was down to 25 cents. A personal loan by Spreckels of $1,000,000 and authorization by the directors of a bond issue moved the price up again. Good crop reports in 1885 reinforced this upward movement.

Then, in 1890, the U.S. Congress enacted the McKinley Tariff, which allowed raw sugar to enter the United States free of duty and established a two-cent per pound bounty for domestic producers.

The overall effect of the McKinley Tariff was to completely erase the advantages that the reciprocity treaty had provided to Hawaiian sugar producers over other foreign sugar producers selling in the U.S. market. The value of Hawaiian merchandise exports plunged from $13 million in 1890 to $10 million in 1891 to a low point of $8 million in 1892. (La Croix)

In the 1892 report of the board of directors, the stockholders were told in effect that the stock was valueless and the corporation deeply in debt.

The depressing effect of the McKinley bill on the price of sugar and the lack of water (no rain having fallen on the Hawaiian islands in a long period) were the main reasons given as an explanation for the disastrous turn which affairs had taken. (Adler)

“Fifteen gentlemen representing over eight thousand shares of stock in the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company met yesterday (17th inst.) in the law offices of Blake, Howison & Williams and expressed themselves very freely concerning the board of directors, who had permitted the affairs of the great corporation to become badly entangled”.

“It appears that at a meeting held when the report was ready for presentation several of the stockholders declined to accept the situation and suggested that an assessment might be levied and tile money thus raised be used to carry the corporation through the financial breakers.”

“This was agreed to and it was anticipated that the assessment would be about $1 a share. The good people who had invested their wealth in the Hawaiian Commercial Company were horrified by an invitation to come forward and yield up $5 a share.”

“This, the directors argued, would bring $500,000 into the treasury and would be needed, every cent of it.  The date on which the assessment became delinquent was fixed at January 27th.”

“The levy was considered exorbitant, and a few days ago a number of stockholders, representing 10,000 shares out of a total of 100,000, met and appointed a committee to wait on Claus Spreckels, who is popularly supposed to have possession of 60,000 shares, or a controlling interest in the corporation, and ask him to withdraw the assessment altogether or reduce it to $1.”

“As Attorney Williams explained to the meeting yesterday: ‘Mr. Spreckels declined to listen to a paper which I had drawn up with care, and after investigation of the situation, politely requested them to vacate his office. They left.’” (Hawaiian Gazette, January 31, 1893)

Then, “a bitter family feud erupted, pitting Spreckels and his sons Adolph and John against his sons Rudolph and Claus A. ‘Gus’ Spreckels.” (Hamilton)

“There is litigation in the family of Claus Spreckels, the sugar king.”

“C. A. Spreckels, the youngest son, has begun it by filing a complaint against his father, Claus Spreckels, charging that the latter has conspired with John D. and A. B. Spreckels and other directors of the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company to crowd the plaintiff and other stockholders out of the corporation.”

“Allegations of fraud to secure the desired end are made, with various revelations in connection with the business of the sugar company.”

“Claus Spreckels and the two elder sons are asked to pay $2,500,000 to the corporation as damages for their fraudulent conspiracy, and a demand is made upon the Court for an injunction to prevent the carrying out of the plans.” (Hawaiian Gazette, December 12, 1893)

An out-of-court settlement of the suit in January, 1894, gave Gus Spreckels control of Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company. His brother Rudolph became a director. Claus Spreckels and his other sons, John and Adolph, were ousted.

Hackfeld and Company replaced Irwin and Company as Hawaiian agent for the Spreckelsville plantation.  Control of the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company and of the Spreckelsville plantation thus slipped from the hands of the elder Spreckels.  (Adler)

The upstart triumph was short lived, however, for in 1898 a competing firm bought out the company and ousted the brothers from its management.  (Hamilton)

The buyers of HC&S included James B. Castle, S. N. Castle estate, William R. Castle, Henry P. Baldwin, and Samuel T Alexander.  The firm of Alexander and Baldwin became Honolulu agent for the plantation in place of Hackfeld and Company.

“Stock once 25 cents, is up from $28 to $34 and over and will go to $50.” (PCA, October 13, 1898)  “The stock of the company now passes largely into the hands of residents of Honolulu.” (PCA, October 15, 1989)

At the time of these last events Claus Spreckels was 70 years old. In his declining years, then, he saw the magnificent plantation which he had founded slip not only from his grasp but from that of his family. (Adler)

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by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Bison

Bison had survived for 2 million years until humans arrived.  In the 1500s, an estimated 30-60 million of these shaggy brown beasts roamed widely across the interior of Canada, the United States, and far Northern Mexico.  (BBC, Ogden)

Scientists and historians estimate that there were at least 30 million bison roaming the country before Euro-American settlement of the West. (NPS, McAfee)

Then, Buffalo Started to Disappear

The 1849 discovery of gold in California initiated a relentless stream of prospectors and other settlers through the Platte River Valley. Heavy subsistence hunting along the trail divided the existing bison herd into separate Southern and Northern herds.  (PERC)

In just a few short years, cattle replaced the American bison as the leading, cloven-hoofed, grass-eating mammal on the Great Plains. In 1850, millions of bison ranged the grasslands and were the main natural resource for the region’s American Indians.

By 1850, subsistence hunting and habitat destruction had removed all of the bison east of the Mississippi, leaving perhaps 15 million on the Great Plains. (PERC)

“Buffaloes travel in a straight line. When they were moving and encountered a herd of Texas cattle they invariably bored right through the herd, turning neither to right nor left. It was just the same if but one or a dozen buffaloes were on the move – they walked straight through.” (James H. Cook as told to Eli S. Ricker, May 23, 1907)

In 1868, the steel rails of the transcontinental railroad created a barrier that bison did not like to cross.  (Nebraska Studies)  Construction of the Union Pacific through the valley made the division of the herd permanent, as the wary bison simply evacuated the railroad corridor.  (PERC)

Prior to 1870, hunting pressure on bison west of the Mississippi was modest. Plains Indians effectively managed bison herds as common property, engaging in subsistence hunting and in harvesting the vaunted “buffalo robe” (used for carriage throws and heavy fur coats) for sale to eastern markets.

Though the robes were valuable, they could be harvested only in the winter and only from bison living in high northern latitudes—an arduous and risky undertaking at best. Hence, the western bison continued to thrive.  (PERC)

Then in 1870, a process was developed that so bison hides could be commercially tanned into soft, flexible leather. This happened at the same time there was a high demand for leather to make the belts that powered machines in the Industrial Revolution.

There were huge markets in England, France, and Germany. Bison hunters poured onto the Great Plains.  (Nebraska Studies)

Bison hides from which the hair had been removed (called flint hides) were superb for making the soles of boots and industrial belts.  European armies and factories were a huge market, and within months of the tanning innovation, orders for bison hides poured into America.  (PERC)

Most people tend to think the hides were valued because they made fine robes or coats. But that wasn’t really the case.  During the 1870s,  industrial growth skyrocketed in the US and Europe, and demand for leather industrial belts expanded.

Cowhide tended to stretch and factory workers would have to occasionally stop production to tighten belts by cutting out sections.

The epidermal layer in buffalo hide is up to three times thicker than that of cattle and has wider spaced sub-dermal collagen fibers making it more durable and flexible, and better suited for use in industrial conveyor and drive belts.  (Bell, Dodge City Daily Globe)

The price that hunters received for a flint hide jumped from $0 in 1870 to about $2.80 in 1871, and stayed in the range of roughly $2.30 – $2.80 for the next 15 years.

A good hunter could bring several thousand hides to market in a season, but could expect pay of only about $50 per month as a ranch hand. It is little surprise then, that many hundreds of men quickly entered the business of hunting bison. (PERC)

“Commercial hunting by North American aboriginals and Euroamericans for meat and hides was the primary cause of the decline. Other contributing factors included subsistence hunting, indiscriminate slaughter for sport, and transection of the plains by railroads.” (Isenberg)

“Environmental factors such as regional drought, introduced bovine diseases, and competition from domestic livestock and domestic and wild horses also played a role.”

“Additionally, because bison provided sustenance for North American aboriginals and commodities for their barter economy, the elimination of bison was viewed by Euroamericans as an efficient method to force the aboriginal population onto reserves and allow for continued western development.”  (Isenberg)

In the Islands at this Time – ‘A City in a Grove’

“When the whalers began to frequent (Honolulu Harbor) place in numbers, a town soon sprung up, and by the year 1820, Honolulu contained some six or seven thousand inhabitants.  To-day its population is reckoned at 17,000, a larger number than the capital of the important British Colony of New Zealand could recently boast.”

“The First view of Honolulu, on approaching it from the sea, has been variously described by visitors, some of whom have expressed great disappointment, whilst others have gone into raptures over the scene.

“Unless, however, from exaggerated descriptions the traveler has been led to expect something extremely wonderful and unusual, I do not understand how anyone can fail to be charmed with the view of Honolulu and its surrounding scenery as seen from the deck of an approaching vessel, especially after many days’ confinement on shipboard, with nothing but the waste of waters around him.”

“It is true that the hills of Oahu have not the same luxurious clothing of vegetation that is common in many of the island groups of the Southern Pacific. It is true also that the town has no characteristic buildings of a striking nature to arrest attention.”

“Nevertheless, Honolulu is a prettier place to look at from the sea than nineteen out of twenty port tropics or elsewhere. It has rightly been called ‘a city in a grove.’”

Click the following link for more on Bison and the Islands at the time:

https://imagesofoldhawaii.com/wp-content/uploads/Bison.pdf

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