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

Haleakalā

On the morning of November 26, 1778, Captain James Cook awoke to the sight of the northern coast of Maui. “Next morning there lay the land, the island of Maui, with its ‘elevated saddle hill’ – the extinct 10,000 foot volcano Haleakala …”

“… rising to its summit above the clouds, and descending gently towards the deep ravines and falling waters of that steep rocky coast, where the trade wind hurled other waters into perpetual surf.” This was the first documented sighting of the island. (Fredericksen)

Haleakalā was thought to have been known to the ancient Hawaiians by any one of five names: “Haleakalā,” “Haleokalā,” “Heleakalā,” “Aheleakalā” and “Halekalā.” (Hawaiʻi National Park Superintendent Monthly Report, December 1939)

Historian Abraham Fornander wrote that “Haleakalā” was a misnomer and that the ancient name for the crater was “Aheleakalā,” which meant “rays of the sun,” and…th[o]se which the demigod Māui snared and broke off to retard the sun in its daily course so that his mother might be able to dry her kapas. Fornander further noted that Lemuel KN Papa, Jr., insisted that the correct name was Alehelā “on account of Māui’s snaring the rays of the sun.” (Fredericksen)

“Of course Haleakalā is the sacred home of our Sun, and the ancient Path to Calling the Sum as depicted in its ancient name: Ala Hea Ka La. Why is this critical to our survival?”

“The Sun’s energy is the source of all life, and governs our most basic rhythm of day and night. Ancient cultures have venerated its being, and we as a human race follow its course without thought and are insignificant in respect of its power.”

“However, our Native Hawaiian Culture praises its existence, until this very day the sun is praised for its cycle.” (Maxwell, Fredericksen)

Haleakalā is best known in stories related of the demi-god Māui; he is best known for his tricks and supernatural powers. In Hawaiʻi, he is best known for snaring the sun, lifting the sky, discovering the secrets of fire, fishing up the islands and so forth. (Fredericksen)

In addition to Māui, Haleakalā stories recall Pele who fled the Big Island and while in exile, Pele stopped for a brief time on Maui, where she dug a pit with her pāoa (divining rod) and started a fire. Haleakala is such a huge pit that she found it difficult to keep the fire going to keep warm.

Sometime later the two sisters (Pele and Namakaeha) engaged in a fierce battle, and Pele was weakened – her body torn to pieces and scattered along the coast into huge mounds of broken lava at the base of Haleakalā, on the east side, near Hāna. This place is now known as “Na Iwi o Pele”—the bones of Pele. (Fornander)

Another deity connected with Haleakala is Poliʻahu—the snow goddess and another rival of Pele. Her younger sister is Lilinoe – goddess of the mists. She is sometimes referred to as the goddess of Haleakalā. She was able to check the eruptions that could break forth in old cinder cones on the floor of the crater. Her presence is noted in heavy mists that shroud the mountain. (Fredericksen)

The slopes of Haleakalā had originally been covered with forests but had been logged out for sandalwood for the China Trade (1788–1838), then for koa, ʻōhia and other indigenous trees for uses ranging from railroad ties to firewood.

The lands were then utilized to grow sugar cane and vegetable crops, or were left as pastureland and served as the locations of a number of small plantation or ranch settlements. (NPS)

“Platforms related to traditional Hawaiian ceremony [were] predominantly found along the crater floor and at high promontory locations. Caves [were] often found on the crater rim.”

“Temporary shelters built against rock outcrops or boulders [were] found scattered along the crater rim and within the crater, but [were] concentrated on the leeward sides of cinder cones such as Pakaoa‘o. Cairns or ahu [were] scattered over Haleakalā.” (Hammatt, NPS)

The first visit to Haleakalā by non-Hawaiians occurred in August 1828 when missionaries Lorrin Andrews and Jonathan Green, along with Dr. Gerrit P. Judd, physician, visited the crater.

They were followed by a US Navy expedition led by Commander Charles Wilkes in 1841, and later, others. Significant public interest was generated by written accounts of these visits that determined that Haleakalā would eventually become a destination for tourism. (NPS)

Homesteading on the slopes of Haleakalā as well as other public lands in Hawai`i had been encouraged by the Territorial Government in 1910. This prompted a “rush for homesteads,” applications which were filed and adjudicated by a land court in Honolulu, including one petition by an unidentified applicant who attempted to acquire the entire “floor of Haleakalā Crater” (Maui News, 8 August 1910) (NPS)

The largest tracts were held by ranches, among them: Grove Ranch (Kaonoulu Ranch), owned by the Baldwins and later sold to Senator Harold W. Rice; Kaupo Ranch, owned by Dwight Baldwin; Ulupalakua Ranch, owned by J.I. Dowsett and then J.H. Raymond, then was purchased by the Baldwins; and Haleakalā Ranch, owned by Harry A. and Frank F. Baldwin and managed by S.A. Baldwin. (NPS)

Until 1935, the primary means of getting to Haleakalā was on horseback, and this continued to be the case for the first three decades of the twentieth century. As late as 1932, the Inter-Island Steamship Company and the Maui Chamber arranged trips on horseback to Haleakalā Crater. (NPS)

Thomas Vint described the trip by horseback that he made in 1930: “The trip is now made from the town of Wailuk[u] which contains the principle hotel on the island of Maui that caters to tourist travel …The combined auto and horse back trip to the 10,000-foot summit may be made from noon to noon from Wailuku, spending the night at the top.”

“Trips into the crater are made from the rim rest house as a base.” Vint concluded that “another rest house at the far end of the crater is needed. To see the crater properly, one should camp overnight, making a two-day trip from the present rest house.” (NPS)

Haleakalā Road (now known as Haleakalā Highway) was finally completed on November 29, 1935, and the number of visitors increased substantially, reaching 16,300 within a year. In 1938, the numbers decreased slightly to 14,156 because of a maritime and shipping strike, but continued to rise in the following years until reaching 29,935 in 1940. (NPS)

The increase in visitors was “greatly in excess of expectations…compared with the few hundreds who visited the crater before construction of the Haleakalā [R]oad (Hawaii National Park Superintendent Annual Report 1935, NPS)

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) began in 1937, succeeding the Emergency Conservation Work agency, which started in 1933. In 1939, the CCC became part of the Federal Security Agency. It was eliminated in 1943. (UH Mānoa)

From April 1934 until May 13, 1941, the CCC operated a “side camp” in the Haleakalā Section of the Hawaiʻi National Park; CCC participants were housed in tents and moved to where the work areas were. (NPS)

Major park improvements through the CCC program on Haleakalā included the construction of the approximately 11-mile Haleakalā Road, Haleakalā Observation Station, two Comfort Stations (public toilets) and the Checking Station and Office at the park entrance. Several trail projects were completed within the Park. (NPS)

On August 1, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed the country’s 13th national park into existence – Hawaiʻi National Park. At first, the park consisted of only the summits of Kīlauea and Mauna Loa on Hawaiʻi and Haleakalā on Maui.

Eventually, Kilauea Caldera was added to the park, followed by the forests of Mauna Loa, the Kaʻū Desert, the rain forest of Olaʻa, and the Kalapana archaeological area of the Puna/Kaʻū Historic District.

On, July 1, 1961, Hawaiʻi National Park’s units were separated and re-designated as Haleakalā National Park and Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park.

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by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Isabella Bird, Estes Park … and Hawaiʻi

“She was continuously being reminded of experiences in the Sandwich Islands and the event of her travels seemed to have been the ascent of the volcano of Kilauea” … she wanted to climb Long’s Peak (near Estes Park, Colorado.)    (Mills)

Whoa … let’s look back.

Isabella Bird was born in England in 1831. Her father was a Church of England minister.  She was very sick as a child and she spent most of her life struggling with various illnesses.  In 1850 Bird had an operation to remove a tumor from her spine, which was only partially successful.

Her doctor recommended that she travel; so, in 1854, when she was just 23 her father gave her 100 pounds and said she could visit family in the US until her money ran out.  Bird headed to America, and then published her first book about the experience in 1856.

This was just the beginning of her travels, she couldn’t stand the thought of being cooped up at home, she just wanted to travel and write. So she traveled to Canada, then Scotland and Australia.

Bird then spent six months in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaiʻi) – the title to another of her books – she climbed an active volcano and then travelled to Colorado.  (Walsh)

First, her impressions of Hawaiʻi …

“I was travelling for health, when circumstances induced me to land on the group (Sandwich Islands,) and the benefit which I derived from the climate tempted me to remain for nearly seven months.”

“During that time the necessity of leading a life of open air and exercise as a means of recovery, led me to travel on horseback to and fro through the islands, exploring the interior, ascending the highest mountains, visiting the active volcanoes and remote regions which are known to few even of the residents, living among the natives, and otherwise seeing Hawaiian life in all its phases.”

“I had so completely lived the island life, and acquainted myself with the existing state of the country, as to be rather a kamaʻāina than a stranger”.  (Bird, 1875)

“The undeserved and unexpected kindness shown me here, as everywhere on these islands, renders my last impressions even more delightful than my first (“Bright blossom of a summer sea! Fair Paradise of the Pacific!”)

“The people are as genial as their own sunny skies, and in more frigid regions I shall never sigh for the last without longing for the first. … Farewell for ever, my bright tropic dream! Aloha nui to Hawaii-nei!”  (Bird)

“The open-air life is most conducive to health, and the climate is absolutely perfect, owing to its equability and purity.  Whether the steady heat of Honolulu, the languid airs of Hilo, the balmy breezes of Onomea, the cool bluster of Waimea, or the odorous stillness of Kona, it is always the same.”

“The grim gloom of our anomalous winters, the harsh malignant winds of our springs, and the dismal rains and overpowering heats of our summers, have no counterpart in the endless spring-time of Hawaiʻi.”  (Bird)

While in the Islands, Bird learned about a place that supposedly was “the most beautiful country in all of the Americas”. She set out for Colorado, heading to the mountain town of Estes Park.

Gold had been discovered in Colorado in 1859. Among the thousands of adventurers who joined the rush was a Missouri native named Joel Estes. Joel moved his wife Patsy and their four other children to the mountains year-round in 1863. His son Milton had married and fathered two sons by then. The first known white child born in Estes Park was Milton’s third son in February, 1865.

The word “park” was in common usage at that time to describe an open area. William Byers, editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News, visited in September, 1864 to attempt a climb of Longs Peak. He wrote an account of his trip which included hospitality extended to him by the Estes family and extolled the virtues of “Estes’ Park.”  (Estes Valley Library)

Like the draw of visitors to the natural wonders of Hawaiʻi, Estes Park drew guests to see the mountain wilderness.  After several sales of the property there, the 4th Earl of Dunraven arrived in late-December 1872.  He opened the area’s first resort, the Estes Park Hotel.

It was about that time the Isabella Bird visited the valley.  As with her other adventures, Bird wrote a memoir of their travels.  Bird had seen Long’s Peak on first arriving in Estes Park “rising above (the other peaks) in unapproachable grandeur”.  (Long’s Peak is named for Major Stephen H Long who came to the mountains on a government scientific expedition in the summer of 1820.)

Fairly soon after her arrival, Bird ascended Long’s Peak with a local guide. Despite her bragging of physical feats and shows of courage elsewhere in her narrative, the difficulty of the climb to Long’s Peak seems to have mastered Bird. She writes: “‘Jim’ dragged me up, like a bale of goods, by sheer force of muscle”.  (DeVine)

“I have dropped into the very place I have been seeking, but in everything it exceeds all my dreams… The scenery is the most glorious I have ever seen, and is above us, around us, at every door.”  (Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains)

Bird’s published letters and book were the first thorough account of a tourist experience in the area that later became Rocky Mountain National Park, and she praised everything from the cool temperatures to the brilliant sunsets and the dark evergreens.  (NPS)

Considering the influence of the book that told the story of her travels in Colorado, Bird might easily merit the label ‘Mother’ of Rocky Mountain National Park.  (The Rocky Mountain National Park was officially formed in 1915.)

Bird’s book sold like hotcakes, mostly in the eastern US and Britain, where a reading public just becoming interested in wilderness travel and conservation was hungry for news of far-flung scenery.  (NPS)  By the middle of the 1880s, there were sometimes 200 tourists a summer in Estes Park.

A giant boost in tourism to Estes Park came after the turn of the century with the arrival of Freelan Oscar Stanley in 1903 (he was co-inventor with his brother of the Stanley Steamer.)

Impressed by the beauty of the valley and grateful for the improvement of his health, he decided to invest his money – and himself – in the future of Estes Park. The first requirement was a first-class hotel; so, in 1909 he opened the Stanley Hotel. (NPS)

(A later guest to Estes Park and the Stanley Hotel was Stephen King (in room #217.)  The story of the Torrence family and the Overlook Hotel is one of the most well-known in horror (“The Shining.”)  The work of fiction was inspired by the Stanley.)

Bird stayed in Colorado for a little while before going home to England; and then a marriage offer that she didn’t want inspired her to travel throughout Japan, China, Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia. She eventually succumbed and married an Edinburgh-based doctor John Bishop.

Bird has been featured in journals, magazines and books.  She has inspired plays, and even during her lifetime she was a legend. She wrote over a dozen books and hundreds of articles. (Walsh)

Again, of Hawaiʻi, it “is at last, as it was at first, Paradise in the Pacific, a blossom of a summer sea.”  (Bird)

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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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