Images of Old Hawaiʻi

by Peter T Young 2 Comments

Garden Contest

“Impressed with the barrenness of plantation camps, Mr (Frank S) Scudder (editor of The Friend) arranged for a supply of government seeds and shrubs. He then offered prizes … In a few months’ time, districts without grass or trees were converted into what, comparatively speaking, might well be termed veritable beauty spots.” (The Friend, February 1, 1917)

“We desire to furnish plantation laborers with fruit seed so they can have fruit in their own dooryards. If you have fine mangoes, or aligator pears, don’t throw away the seeds, keep them and let us have them to distribute. Any fine strawberry guavas? or any suggestions as to other fruits that can be easily raised?”

“Our ears are open to suggestions as to ways in which hardworking people, without much restful leisure, may be led to improve their home surroundings—to make the camps more delectable places to live in. Any suggestions as to flower or decorative plants? The Friend will be glad to receive Seed Thoughts.” (The Friend, February 1, 1911)

“In 1909 we planned a tree planting campaign. Mr. Ralph W. Hosmer, superintendent of forestry, kindly agreed to raise 2000 trees for free distribution in the camps.”

“The To mo – a Japanese magazine published by the Hawaiian Board – to add zest to the competition, offered four prizes for the best results in tree culture which could be attained in one year. Mr BD Baldwin, of Makaweli, offered $25 in prizes for his plantation.”

“Arbor Day, 1909, was set as the day for delivering and planting the trees. … The awarding of prizes was a delicate task. Some contestants had excelled in securing artistic effects, some in producing the finest trees and some in attaining remarkable results in spite of serious handicaps.”

“The consequence was that instead of giving five prizes as at first promised, the judges had to award eight second prizes as the only possible way out of their dilemma.”

“The writer was so perplexed that his dreams were disturbed by visions of trees and prizes and judges, and he chose as the subject of his prize awarding address the words, ‘I see men as trees, walking.’ The saplings, when set out on Arbor Day, 1909, averaged about 8 inches in height. At the close of the contest Dec. 31, 1910, they ranged from 6 to 15 feet.” (The Friend, March 1, 1911)

“Improved conditions throughout the plantation camps of the islands may be said to be a byproduct of this initial attempt to interest the people in producing a prize winning garden.” (The Friend, February 1, 1917)

Then, the Star-Bulletin sponsored the contest. In January, 1917, the Honolulu Star- Bulletin began an interesting experiment in the form of a school and home garden contest in cooperation with the school department, offering a series of prizes for the best gardens on each of the islands. (Kuykendall)

“With greater financial backing and a more elaborate publicity campaign, the Star-Bulletin can hardly fail to get results. Interest in school gardens has a direct bearing upon the much-mooted question of the small farmer in Hawaii. We bespeak for the campaign a well merited success.” (The Friend, February 1, 1917)

At the close of the contest, three months later, the Star-Bulletin said, with pardonable enthusiasm, “This garden contest has been a remarkable eye-opener, not only to the teachers and pupils, but even to the agricultural experts here, an eye-opener in proving how quickly boys and girls can be trained to raise edible and marketable produce.”

“As a result of this contest, not less than 5,000 boys and girls in Hawaiʻi are becoming producers – are becoming practical gardeners. Twice that number are interested in the gardening.” (Kuykendall)

The Honolulu Advertiser generously acknowledged the good results of this contest, stating that “the management of the Star-Bulletin has, apparently, hit upon a scheme which has accomplished much and promises more. …”

“The best part of the project is that it demonstrates to those who need the knowledge, that vegetables can be produced in all parts of the Territory, if proper care and attention is given them. … The Advertiser congratulates the Star-Bulletin upon the success of its public spirited efforts which are doubly beneficial at this crisis when food production may become one of the vital issues of the day.” (Kuykendall)

“So successful the home and garden contests recently conducted by the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, and so urgent has been the demand for continuation of the work for which the foundation already has been laid, this paper has decided repeat the contests during the coming school year.” (Star-Bulletin, August 17, 1917)

“The Star-Bulletin contest is a splendid thing both in attracting the attention of the public to the subject and in reaching in a practical and effective way those who, I believe, have the first right to be and ought to be encouraged to be, the future farmers in the Islands – the children born in the land.”

“I am afraid that I have but little sympathy with the idea of encouraging white farmers from the mainland to come to Hawaii.”

“In addition to this work of encouraging the boys and girls to look forward to life on the farm, which the Star-Bulletin is so splendidly helping along, there is need of providing a decent opportunity for them when they are ready to go on the land, and of surrounding their life there with conditions conducive to success and contentment.”

“However, there is cause for much encouragement too. Behind one of the most important measures is the splendid backing of Mr CH Cooke and Mr HA Baldwin, which ensures its passage.” (Edwin C. Moore, Hawaii Agricultural Experiment Station, Star-Bulletin, January 24, 1917) The contest continued for a few more years.

An interesting side note related to the Garden Contest came from a report by J Vincent, Principal of Kealahou School in Kula, “For years the Kula farmers have planted small plots to onions but from any seed they happened to purchase in five-cent jackets in our local stores and no special variety was even thought of.”

“This spelled failure end the majority of our farmers had come to the conclusion that onions could not be successfully grown in Hawaii.”

“Our school experimented with a number of varieties but did not have much success until a representative from Aggeler & Musser (Seed) Company called on us and recommended that we plant Bermudas, which we did.” (Bermuda is a variety of sweet onion.)

“We then succeeded in raising a fair crop and in a remarkably short time, as Bermudas mature very early. The farmers became enthusiastic and purchased over 50 pounds of seed. They also raised a fine crop ….” (Star-Bulletin, April 14, 1917)

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John Meirs Horner

“’You have no wheat here, your share was destroyed by elk, antelope, and other wild animals….’ So we got nothing for our labor. Thus ended my first year’s farming in California.” (Horner)

Whoa, let’s look back …

John Meirs Horner was born on a New Jersey farm June 15, 1821. He attended the public schools and later worked on farms in the summers and taught school in the winters.

“I had been wrought up over the subject of religion. The Methodists were the most persistent in my neighborhood and my preference was for them. In these days came ministers of a new sect calling themselves Latter-day Saints, with a new revelation preaching the gospel of the New Testament with its gifts and blessings.”

“It attracted much attention, people listened and some obeyed thereby enjoying the promised blessing. Members of the Methodist, Baptist and Presbyterian faith as well as non-professors began to join them. Among the latter class were my father, mother and sisters”

“I was the first of the family to obey being baptized by Erastus Snow in the Layawa Creek on the second day of August 1840. In the spring of 1843, … I was introduced to and shook hands with the Prophet Joseph Smith.” (Horner) In 1846 he married a neighbor’s daughter, Elizabeth Imlay.

They headed west.

“The day finally arrived for the Brooklyn to set sail. The wharf was crowded with friends and relatives bidding their good-byes.”

“The Brooklyn set sail and left the New York harbor with 238 passengers including 70 men, 68 women and 100 children. … They took with them agricultural and mechanical tools for ‘eight hundred men,’ a printing press, two milk cows, forty pigs and a number of fowls. Also brought onboard were school books, histories, slates, and other school materials.” (Horner)

Yerba Buena (now known as San Francisco) was their destination, and they arrived there by way of New York, Cape Horn, Juan Fernandez Island and the Hawaiian Islands. It took 6-months and they covered 18,000-miles. The population of Yerba Buena was said to be forty; their company of 268 made an addition to their number of over 600%.

War was raging between Mexico and the US when they arrived in California. The upper part of the territory was already in possession of the US forces. After about 30-days, Horner moved to farm 40-acres of wheat on the lower San Joaquin.

Despite the early quote related to his farming experience, he turned that failure into future success. “Although I got no dollars out of it, I did get experience, which I profited by in after years. I had tested the soil in different places, with several different kinds of farm products and learned the most suitable season for sowing and planting.”

As a pioneer in agriculture, he furnished fresh vegetables and grain to the gold-crazed miners and the people of the growing city of San Francisco, as early as 1849. He fenced and brought under production many hundreds of acres, established a commission house in San Francisco for the sale of produce in 1850, imported agricultural implements from the east and iron fencing from England and built a flour mill.

He became known as “The Pioneer Farmer of California,” “California’s First Farmer” and, due to a speculative real estate venture, “Father of Union City.”

He also acquired part of Rancho San Miguel; it’s now known as Noe Valley in San Francisco. Horner’s Addition still carries some of the streets and names he laid out (among others, Elizabeth is for his wife and Jersey is for the place he was born.)

In the course of his operations, he opened sixteen miles of public road, operated a steamer and a stagecoach line, laid out no fewer than eight towns, built a public schoolhouse, and paid for the services of a teacher.

Missionaries and other brethren traveling through the area always received kind and ready assistance from his hands. Although he never visited Utah, he sent numerous cuttings of fruit trees, vines, and berries to aid the Mormons in establishing themselves there.

Then the Panic of 1857 caused him considerable loss, he sold his land holdings and moved to Maui (arriving on Christmas day 1879.)

At the time, his oldest son was growing sugar cane there; they contracted with Claus Spreckels for shares, with five hundred acres of land allotted to them and farmed under the name JM Horner & Sons.

“Our crop did well. It exceeded our expectations, in both yield and the price for which it sold. … Our crop yielded two thousand pounds of sugar more per acre than the land cultivated by the plantation, which fact fired its manager with jealousy”.

They “left Mr. Spreckels and contracted with the owners of the Pacific Sugar Mill Co. to do one-half of the cultivation for their mill … Here we made considerable sugar, increasing the yield on our half of the plantation from five hundred tons per year to two thousand.” (Horner)

They then “rented in the district of Hawaiʻi-Hāmākua, twelve hundred and fifty acres since increased to twenty four hundred of good, wild cane land with a view to starting a new plantation”.

“Not wishing to carry all our eggs in one basket, we established a stock ranch where we raised all the horses and mules required on the plantation, and some for sale. We have over four hundred head of horses and mules on the ranch, and one hundred and twenty on the plantation.”

“The ranch has some three thousand four hundred head of beef and dairy stock, the plantation and neighborhood are supplied with butter and beef from the ranch, and the surplus is disposed of elsewhere.” (Horner)

“Horner, a man of broad vision and accurate foresight, was quick to appreciate the possibilities of the sugar industry and was a big factor in its development.”

“At a meeting of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association in the early 80’s he declared that Hawaii eventually would produce 600,000 tons of sugar a year. His prediction was ridiculed then, but in 1924 the Territory’s output was more than 700,000 tons.”

Hawaiian planters were heavily interested in a refinery at San Francisco, operated in competition with the then powerful sugar trust dominated by the Havermeyers. Under pressure, the Hawaiian planters decided to dispose of their refinery to the trust.

Horner fought this move at every stage, asserting that Hawaii should refine its own produce and remain independent, and was the last man to transfer his holdings in the California enterprise. (Nellist)

Public duties also called and he served at two sessions as a Noble in the Hawaiian legislature. Horner died at his home on Hawaiʻi in 1907, at the age of 86 years. (Nellist) (Lots of information here from Nellist and Horner autobiography.) The image shows John Meirs Horner.

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Cane Trash

When we were kids and went fishing (trolling), I remember the frustrating – and repeated – need to pull in and clean the lines from floating bagasse (cane trash) that entangled at the lures.

It wasn’t a new thing, floating masses of bagasse have littered beaches/shorelines, affected fishers, and impacted marine resources for decades before.  Several attempts to use bagasse rather than dump it (fuel to operate the mill, canec, etc) helped, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the dumping finally stopped.

Sugar was a canoe crop; the early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

In pre-contact times, sugarcane was not processed as we know sugar today, but was used by chewing the juicy stalks.  Its leaves were used for inside house thatching, or for outside (if pili grass wasn’t available.) The flower stalks of sugar cane were used to make a dart, sometimes used during the Makahiki games. (Canoe Crops)

The first written record of sugarcane in Hawaiʻi came from Captain James Cook, at the time he made initial contact with the Islands.

On January 19, 1778, off Kauai, he notes, “We saw no wood, but what was up in the interior part of the island, except a few trees about the villages; near which, also, we could observe several plantations of plantains and sugar-canes.”  (Cook)

Cook notes that sugar was cultivated, “The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-canes, or plantains, in the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure; generally as a square or oblong”.  (Cook)

Sugarcane, a tall perennial grass, is grown in tropical and semitropical climates. (USDA)  “Sugar cane, described in botany as Saccharum officinarum, is a giant-stemmed perennial grass that grows from eight to twenty-four feet long. … As a rule, sugar cane consists of about eighty-eight per cent of juice and twelve per cent of fiber”. (Rolph)

The first reported processing of sugar was noted … “in 1802 sugar was first made at these islands, by a native of China, on the island of Lanai.  He came here in one of the vessels trading for sandal wood, and brought a stone mill, and boilers, and after grinding off one small crop and making it into sugar, went back the next year with his fixtures, to China.”  (Torbert; Polynesian, January 31, 1852)

As production grew, the early sugar ventures were either Hawaiian-owned or regulated by Hawaiian rulers.  In most instances, the Hawaiian-owned sugar processing was managed by either Chinese sugar boilers or American shopkeepers in rural districts.  (MacLennan)  Although sugar cane had grown in Hawaiʻi for many centuries, its commercial cultivation for the production of sugar did not occur until 1825.

In that year, John Wilkinson and Governor Boki started a plantation in upper Mānoa Valley. Within six months they had seven acres of cane growing, and by the time Wilkinson died, in September 1826, they had actually manufactured some sugar. The sugar mill was later converted into a distillery for rum, prompting Kaʻahumanu to have the cane fields destroyed around 1829.  (Schmitt)

Shortly thereafter, King Kamehameha III, seeking to encourage commercial cultivation of sugar by native Hawaiians offered the “acre system,” giving “out small lots of land, from one to two acres, to individuals for the cultivation of cane.”

“When the cane is ripe, the King finds all the apparatus for manufacturing & when manufactured takes the half. Of his half one fifth is regarded as the tax due to the aupuni (government) & the remaining four fifths is his compensation for the manufacture. These cane cultivators are released from all other demands of every description on the part of chiefs.”  (Armstrong (1839;) MacLennan)

About this time, the initial signs of commercial sugar are found on Maui, in Wailuku.  In 1840, the King ordered an iron mill from the US, and it was erected by August.  Hung & Co in 1841 advertised the sale of sugar and sugar syrup from its 150-acre plantation in Wailuku. More than likely, this was sugar from the King’s Mill.  (MacLennan)

Early plantations were small and didn’t fare too well.  Soon, most would come to realize that “sugar farming and sugar milling were essentially great-scale operations.”  (Garvin)

Then, the King sought to expand sugar cultivation and production, as well as expand other agricultural ventures to support commercial agriculture in the Islands.  In a speech to the Legislature in 1847, the King notes:

“I recommend to your most serious consideration, to devise means to promote the agriculture of the islands, and profitable industry among all classes of their inhabitants. It is my wish that my subjects should possess lands upon a secure title; enabling them to live in abundance and comfort, and to bring up their children free from the vices that prevail in the seaports.”

“What my native subjects are greatly in want of, to become farmers, is capital with which to buy cattle, fence in the land and cultivate it properly. I recommend you to consider the best means of inducing foreigners to furnish capital for carrying on agricultural operations, that thus the exports of the country may be increased …”  (King Kamehameha III Speech to the Legislature, April 28, 1847; Archives)

A few things helped kick-start this vision – following finding gold in 1848, the California gold rush stimulated a small boom in commercial agriculture for the Islands – particularly in potatoes and sugar.  However, by the end of the 1850s, the boomlet became a depression (California started to supply its own needs.)

The American Civil War virtually shut down Louisiana sugar production during the 1860s.  Hawaiian-grown sugar soon replaced much of this southern sugar through the duration of the conflict.

By the end of the war, over thirty extremely prosperous plantations were in operation and expanded to new levels previously unheard of before the war’s commencement. 

Hawaiʻi’s industrial plantations began to emerge at this time (1860s;) they were further fueled by the Treaty of Reciprocity – 1875 between the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i eliminated the major trade barrier to Hawai‘i’s closest and major market.

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape.  Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system. 

The industry came to maturity by the turn of the century; the industry peaked in the 1930s. Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantations employed more than 50,000 workers and produced more than 1-million tons of sugar a year; over 254,500-acres were planted in sugar.

Sugarcane is crushed in the mill to extract and process the sugar.  Several waste products are produced by the sugar industry – one was bagasse (the fibrous residue that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract the juice), and the mills would flume it out of the mill and simply dump it in the ocean.

Later, some of the bagasse was made into fiber board.  In 1929, Hawaiian Cellulose Ltd, a subsidiary of the Waiākea Mill Company applied for a patent for the manufacture of it.  (County of Hawai‘i)  They made ‘canec.’

Canec was originally the brand name for pressed fiber board made by Hawaiian Cane Products, Ltd, but it became commonly used to refer to all pressed board of this type.

Also, later, “After passing through the last mill, as much cane pulp (bagasse) as needed is fed into the mill fireroom for use as fuel.”  (EPA)  The bagasse was pelletized and fueled the boiler.

In 1971, ecological studies of coral communities along the Hamakua Coast of the island of Hawaii resulted in the instigation of a number of Environmental Protection Agency restrictions regarding ocean disposal by sugar mills.

These included, among other things, the elimination of bagasse discharge into the ocean and significant reductions in total suspended solid (TSS). Compliance with EPA standards was achieved in 1979. (Grigg)

Mats of bagasse no longer clogged and smothered rocky bottom habitats. Also mats of bagasse on the ocean surface no longer fouled fishing boats and fishing gear. (Grigg)

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Maliko Gulch Inverted Siphon

At the time of Haiku Sugar Company’s charter in 1858, there were only ten sugar companies in the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi.  Five of these sugar companies were located on the island of Maui:  East Maui Plantation at Kaluanui; Brewer Plantation at Haliʻimalie; LL Torbert and Captain James Makee’s plantation at Ulupalakua; Haiku Plantation; and Hana.

In 1869, Samuel Thomas Alexander and Henry Perrine Baldwin became business partners and bought 12-acres in Hāmākuapoko (an eastern Maui ahupuaʻa (land division.))  (They later formed Alexander & Baldwin, one of Hawai‘i’s ‘Big Five’ companies – and the only Big Five still in Hawai‘i.)

“The early years of the partnership of Alexander & Baldwin, represented a continual struggle against heavy odds. Haiku plantation had to have water.” (Men of Hawaii)

Then, the government granted Haiku Plantation the right to use the water flowing in streams down the broad slopes of Haleakala to the east of the plantation, and work was at once commenced on a ditch.

“The line, some seventeen miles in extent, with the exception of a few miles near the plantation, passes through the dense forest that covers the side of the mountain, and in running the levels for the work many large ravines and innumerable small valleys and gulches were encountered.”

“In the smaller of these the ditch winds its way, with here and there a flume striding the hollow, while through nine of the larger the water is carried in pipes twenty-six inches in diameter.”

“The digging of the ditch was a work of no small magnitude. A large gang of men, sometimes numbering two hundred, was employed in the work, and the providing of food, shelter, tools, etc, was equal to the care of a regiment of soldiers on the march.”

“As the grade of the ditch gradually carried the work high up into the woods, cart-roads had to be surveyed and cut from the main road to the shifting camps.”

“All the heavy timbers for flumes, etc., were painfully dragged up hill and down, and in and out of deep gulches, severely taxing the energies and strength of man and beast, while the ever-recurring question of a satisfactory food supply created a demand for everything eatable to be obtained from the natives within ten miles, besides large supplies drawn from Honolulu and abroad.”

“At the head of the work many difficult ledges of rock were encountered, and blasting and tunneling were resorted to, to reach the coveted water.” (FL Clarke, Thrum’s Annual, 1878)

Then came Maliko Gulch.

Maliko Gulch was too wide (and it was too expensive) to pipe the water via a bridge. They installed an inverted siphon in order to cross Maliko Gulch.  Maliko Gulch is a deeply incised stream valley with some sections of the valley floor more than 400 ft below the upland surface. (USGS)

“As the East Maui Irrigation Company report notes, Alexander planned to ‘pipe water across the gulch by means of a 1,110-foot-long inverted siphon.” (Witcher, Civil Engineering)

An inverted siphon uses a leakproof pipe that the ditch water flows into; the pipe is laid down, across and back up the Gulch ( and ends at a lower elevation than the where the ditch collects the water) – gravity pushes the water up the other side, into another ditch at the other side of the gulch.

“While work on the ditch was thus progressing, pipe makers from San Francisco were busied riveting together the broad sheets of iron to make the huge lengths of tube fitted to cross the deep ravines.” 

“These lengths had each to be immersed in a bath of pitch and tar which coated them inside and out, preserving the iron from rust, and effectually stopping all minute leaks.”

“The lengths thus prepared being placed in position in the bottom of the ravines, the upright lengths were fitted to each other (like lengths of stove-pipe) with the greatest care, and clamped firmly to the rocky sides of the cliffs.”

“Their perpendicular length varies from 90 feet to 450 feet; the greatest being the pipe that carries the water down into, across, and out of Maliko gulch to the Baldwin and Alexander Plantations.”

“At this point every one engaged on the work toiled at the risk of his life; for the sides of the ravines are almost perpendicular, and a ‘bed’ had to be constructed down these sides.”

“Then each length of pipe was lowered into the ravine and placed carefully in position; after which the perpendicular lengths were built up to the brink.”  (FL Clarke, Thrum’s Annual, 1878)

“When the ditch builders came to the last great obstacle, the deep gorge of Maliko, it became necessary in connection with the laying of the pipe down and up the sides of the precipices there encountered, for the workmen to lower themselves over the cliffs by rope, hand over hand.”

“This at first they absolutely refused to do. The crisis was serious.”

Just a few years before, “In 1876, while engaged in adjusting machinery at the sugar mill at the Pā‘ia plantation. Mr. Baldwin almost lost his life by being drawn between the rolls.”

“The engineer fortunately witnessed the accident and reversed the engine, but not before the right arm had been fearfully mangled almost up to the shoulder blade. The amputation was not followed by any serious results, but the handicap was a severe one to so energetic a worker as was Mr. Baldwin all his life.” (Mid Pacific, February 1912)

Back to the Maliko Gulch inverted siphon installation … while the workers initially refused, “[the one-armed] Baldwin met it by himself sliding down the rope, using his legs and his one arm, with which he alternately gripped and released the rope to take a fresh hold lower done.” (Arthur Baldwin)

“This was done before his injured arm had healed and with a straight fall of two hundred feet to the rocks below! The workmen were so shamed by this exhibition of courage on the part of their one armed manager, that they did not hesitate to follow him down the rope.”

“To keep the heart in them and to watch the progress of the work, Mr. Baldwin day after day went through this dangerous performance.” (Arthur Baldwin)

“Straining their financial resources almost to the breaking point, the young partners [Alexander and Baldwin] succeeded in bringing to completion the Hāmākua-Haiku ditch, the first important irrigation project in the islands.”

“The eventual enormous success of this enterprise made possible the great future of Alexander and Baldwin. Pā‘ia plantation was started and other extensive acreages were added to the partners’ holdings.” (Men of Hawaii)

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Kamalō

“As agriculture developed, the landscape began to transform and has undergone alterations throughout its history of human settlement. Polynesian voyagers stocked their canoes with pigs, chickens, and dogs as well as crops needed for colonization.”

“The native lowland forests were cleared and replaced with taro, sweet potato, yam, banana, sugarcane, breadfruit, and coconut. The land was modified with advanced farming practices that included irrigation from streams, terracing, mulching, and use of green manure.”

“Slash and burn techniques were used to clear land for crops and to encourage the growth of pili grass used in house thatching.” (Kakahai‘a NWR, FWS)

The arrival of Europeans in the 1770s brought the introduction of goats, horses, cattle, and sheep.  The Duke of Edinburgh had deer transported from Japan to Molokai as a gift to Kamehameha V in 1870.

The growing herds quickly increased and endemic plants quickly declined, leaving vast areas barren due to soil compaction that increased runoff and accelerated erosion. (Kakahai‘a NWR, FWS)

“As foreign vessels began to visit the Islands the number of imported cultivated plants and domesticated animals increased rapidly. … Provisioning of ships gave the first foreign stimulus to Hawaiian agriculture.”

“Ships stopping at the Islands during the four decades following discovery were mainly engaged in fur and sandalwood trade

between the Pacific Northwest, China, and Hawaii. … “

“Provisioning of ships gave the first foreign stimulus to Hawaiian agriculture. Ships stopping at the Islands during the four decades following discovery were mainly engaged in fur and sandalwood trade between the Pacific Northwest, China, and Hawaii.”  (Philipp)

Sugar cultivation on Molokai began commercially with the founding of the Kamalō Sugar Plantation in 1873. John C. McColgan established the plantation, leasing land from the estate of King Kamehameha V.  Shortly thereafter came Moanui Sugar Mill and Plantation (established in 1875) and Kalae Sugar Plantation (established in 1876).

The Hawaiian Gazette ran a story in 1873, “New Sugar Plantation. The steamer, on her last trip to windward, landed at Molokai seventy head of bullock, belonging to Mr. J. McColgan, who proposes to start a sugar plantation on land which he has lately leased from the administrators of the late King’s estate.”

“The tract, which Is located between Kaunakakai and Kaluaaha, comprises about four thousand acres [Kamalo Sugar Company controlled the coast from Kamalō to Mapulehu (USGS)] …

“… stretching from the sea to the mountains, and is known as Kamaloo. Of this about one hundred and fitly acres are low land, and believed to be adapted to cane growing.”

“The cane will be cultivated by a farmer who has already gone to work. The mill is the same as that used on Mr McColgan’s Ewa plantation, and will be set up in time to take off the crop, which will be ground on shares. This system divides the risk and the

profit between the planter and manufacturer.” (Hawaiian Gazette, July 23, 1873)

John C McColgan (also known in the Islands as John Kamanoulu and sometimes referred to as John H McColgan) was born in Ireland on December 24, 1814. In 1849, McColgan moved to California to work in the gold mines and, on November 26, 1849, he sailed from San Francisco, California, aboard the American ship Elizabeth Ellen. He arrived in Honolulu on December 13, 1849.

Shortly after his arrival in the Hawaiian Islands, McColgan started work as a tailor. He is credited with bringing the first sewing machines to Hawai‘i on September 12, 1853, and his skill and expertise led to his becoming the personal tailor for King Kamehameha III & IV. (Lynn Kananiu Daue)

“He set up a household, part Hawaiian, part haole style. His wife was a handsome large Hawaiian woman named Kala‘iolele … [they] had 16 children in all. … The fourteenth of these hapa-haole (half white) children was Jennie, whom in Hawaiians called Kini. She grew up to be a famous hula dancer and to marry John H Wilson, mayor of Honolulu.” (Clarice Taylor)

As an infant, Ana Kini Kapahukulaokamāmalu Ku‘ululani McColgan Huhu (aka Kini Kapahu – Jennie Wilson) was adopted by Kapahukulaokamāmalu, who was an expert chanter, hula performer, and friend of Queen Kapi‘olani.  She and her adoptive mother lived on a property adjacent to the royal palace. (Imada)

By 1873, John McColgan owned a sugar cane plantation in ʻEwa on Oʻahu. Later that year, in July, he leased land from the late King Kamehameha V’s estate on Molokai to start a sugar cane plantation which would use the same milling technology employed at the ʻEwa plantation.

In about 1877, John moved to Kamalō on Molokai. His sugar cane plantation, the Kamalo Plantation, did well, producing “rattoons, six months old, from the same place, which measured eight feet in length and nine inches in circumference … “ and “stalks of cane … eleven months old, and measured 10 to 12 feet in length.” (Lynn Kananiu Daue)

In 1878 Kamalo Plantation harvested its first crop. Located on the southern slopes of the island, 44 laborers cultivated about 100 acres of cane. Its mill struggled to produce 250 tons of sugar in any one year.  (Dorrance)

By 1880, John’s cousin Daniel McCorriston (1840-1927) managed the Kamalo Plantation, and his cousin Hugh McCorriston (1836-1926) refined the sugar while John acted as the agent in Honolulu. (Lynn Kananiu Daue)

In the 1880s, nearby sugar planters would load sugarcane onto a small flatbed barge and tow the cargo by draft animals along the shallow shoreline to the mill at Kamalo. (Kakahai‘a NWR, FWS)

By 1884, the Kamalo Plantation was doing well enough to engage in the exportation of refined sugar to the United States, helping lay the foundation for the sugar partnership between California and Hawaii that exists today as C&H Sugar. (Lynn Kananiu Daue)

In 1891 the plantation harvested its last crop. (Dorrance) Kamalo Sugar Plantation, under manager Patrick McLane and Agent, Frank Hustace, started in 1899; it was short-lived and closed in 1900 – signaling the end of sugarcane plantations on Molokai. (Dorrance)

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