Images of Old Hawaiʻi

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Ko‘olau Railway

As Hawai‘i’s most populous island, O‘ahu has probably the most expansive railway history, other than perhaps arguably the Big Island. The island was home to plantation railroads and military railroads.

Benjamin Franklin (Frank) Dillingham, the same father of the Hilo Railroad, conceived the Oahu Railway & Land Company in an effort to improve transportation on the island.

Beginning service in 1889 between Honolulu and Aiea, the railroad only continued to grow. By 1898, the mainline extended to Kahuku.

It was proposed, although never seriously considered to circumnavigate the island in a circle. Rather, numerous branch lines were constructed.

The development of sugar plantations in the Ko‘olauloa District began at Lā‘ie around 1868, when the first mill in the region was built.

In 1890, the Kahuku Plantation Company was organized, and shortly thereafter took on the processing of both the Lā‘ie and Kahuku crops.

By 1903 a railway between Lā‘ie and Kahuku Mill had been laid out, and James B Castle, partner in the corporation, was also planning his own plantation venture under the Koolau Agricultural Company and Koolau Railway Company, Limited. (Maly)

On July 5, 1905 Castle and others formed an association and filed with the Treasurer of the Territory of Hawaii a petition to incorporate under the name of Koolau Railway Company Ltd. for a term of fifty years.

The line was initially planned to run from the end of the Oahu Railway and Land Company’s track at Kahuku to Heeia, a distance of 25-miles.

By 1905, Castle’s Koolau Agricultural Company and Koolau Railway Company were initiating plans for the laying out of fields and planting sugar, and development of the railway system and support facilities in Kaluanui (‘Sacred Falls’) and other lands between Kahuku and Kahana Valley. (Livingston)

In 1906, Castle also secured a lease from Bishop Estate for more than 125 acres of kula lands in Kaluanui, for the term of 50 years, bringing to a close the tenure of the Hui Hoolimalima Aina o Kaluanui (Bishop Estate Lease No. 1219).

(The total acreage planted in Kaluanui was around 160 acres; and by 1922, cement-lined irrigation channels and flumes were developed to transport water from the Kaluanui-Kaliuwa‘a Stream to the fields – including those of neighboring ahupua‘a.)

The first 10 miles of the rail line to Kahana were completed in 1907 where construction stopped even though surveys were completed all the way to Honolulu.  By late-1908, the Koolau Railway Company, Limited, system was in service between Kahuku and Kahana.

Construction never resumed, probably due to the extremely high cost to build along the windward side of Oahu and a decided lack of traffic.

Joseph F Smith, a missionary whose first Mormon mission to Hawai‘i was in 1854, visited Lā‘ie in 1915, and remarked on the great changes made by the missionaries since his first visit …

“Besides the almost omnipresent automobile, a railroad nearly circumscribes this Island, with vast networks or rails permeating the sugar-cane fields. The old grass-thatched huts have given place to comfortable and pleasant homes and grounds beautified with evergreens and flowers.”

“Modern furniture, comforts, and conveniences of homes have supplanted the gourds, calabashes and pandanus-leaf mats, on which the natives slept, and the native kapa, which furnished their clothing and the covering of their beds. To a great extent the ancient and dim light of the kukui-nut and the oil lamp has given place to the brilliant illumination of modern electric lights.”

In 1916, the Kahuku Plantation leased some of its land for pineapple cultivation to one large grower (C Okayama) and other individual growers on small pieces of land.

The growers were obligated to sell their crop to the Hawaiian Pineapple Company, Libby, McNeill & Libby of Honolulu, and the California Packing Corporation (which later became the Del Monte Corporation).

The Kahuku Plantation remained relatively small, with less than 4,000 acres under cultivation until the early 1900s, when it expanded to the southeast as far as Hau‘ula.

The Kahuku Plantation Company expanded by buying or incorporating other sugar plantation lands. In 1924, it bought the fields of the Koolau Agricultural Company as far south as Kahana Bay.

In 1931, the Laie Plantation Corporation was dissolved and their sugar lands, totally 2,700 acres, were purchased and added to the Kahuku Plantation.

Under the caption of “Laie Purchase,” the 1931 Kahuku Plantation Manager’s report for the year comments as follows: “Your company acquired the lease of Zion Securities agricultural lands and the transfer of leases previously held by them through Laie Plantation for a period of 25 years, dating from July 1, 1931.”

“Koolau Railway Company Ltd. was also bought from the Zion Securities Corporation. This railroad will be disincorporated as soon as possible and become purely a plantation railroad.”

The end for the cane hauling railroad at the Kahuku Plantation came in 1972, when this notice in the Honolulu Advertiser appeared: “The company had been losing money on the plantation for the last few years.”

“In 1968, A&B announced the closing of the plantation and the mill. The last crop was harvested in 1968, the last cane was ground at the mill on November 25, 1971, and the final paperwork was completed on February 1972, when the mill was locked to prevent vandalism.”

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Kona Sugar

Kona’s first sugar plantation was started by Judge C. F. Hart in 1869; a small mill was erected and a  dozen horses were used to pull the rollers. The plantation, which covered 50 acres, was unprofitable and soon abandoned. (Social History of Kona)

In 1899, Kona’s first and only sugar mill was built in Wai‘aha.  Sugarcane was grown mauka of a railroad track that was built to support the mill. (Maly)

The Kona Sugar Co, was established for the purpose of cultivating sugar cane and manufacturing sugar and generally to carry on a sugar plantation and general agricultural business. (Hawaii Supreme Court)

In the early 1900s, the Kona Sugar Co, under the auspices of a number of affiliated companies, constructed a railway line from Wai‘aha, North Kona, to Keōpuka in South Kona. The railway was built at approximately the 700-foot elevation. The train that ran on this railroad was a 3 ft. wide narrow gauge. (Birnie, Maly) The railway was intended to run 30-miles.

“The Kona Sugar Company failed completely”.  (Hawaii Supreme Court) In 1906, the West Hawaii Railway and the Kona Development Company were formed. “The Kona Development Company is a successor of the old Kona Sugar Company and will take over its property.” (Hawaiian Star, Apr 5, 1906)

“The Kona Development Co. has its prime field of operations in North Kona, and the Kona Agricultural Co. a corresponding relation to South Kona, the two being closely allied, while the railroad is primarily designed to connect them up and carry sugar cane from their respective plantations to the mill of the Kona Development Co which is situated in North Kona.”

“Seven miles of the track have been built, three miles more is under construction and it is proposed, from the proceeds of the bonds, to build an extension of twenty-two miles, making a total of thirty-two miles. As stated it will be a general public road and do a common carrying business as well as the transportation of cane for its owning companies.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, Oct 30, 1907)

The railway ended up to be a total of about 11-miles.  “they have a railroad track somewhere around – below Kainaliu. From just below Konawaena School, that’s quite a ways down, toward the ocean, they had the railroad. They used to haul the cane on the train to Holualoa. KD [Kona Development Company] Mill. They call KD Mill.”

“That’s where they crush the cane. But until then, they have a station built. They used to slide the cane – bundle up the cane with a chain – and then they slide through the cable, down to the train track.”  (Yosoto Egami; Social History of Kona)

“The cane was cut in the fields. They had a cable wire from way up here or whatever field they had, reach down to the railroad. The railroad had cars. Up here, they bundle the cane, and they hook it on the wire with a roller. The wire had enough slope, so they grease that roller all the time. It went down fast. Then, it went down there [to the railroad]. Had a switch there.”

“The bundle of cane dropped right into the truck [railroad car], see? (And one man would pick up the rollers and take it back up to the field.) Then, the train hauled it back to the sugar mill to grind it. Oh, was quite a job.” (John DeGuair, Sr, Social History of Kona)

“Mr. Kondo was the owner of the railroad … In Kona, the sugar was transported to the railway by means of cables, cultivation took place mauka of the railway. Mr. Ide remembers hearing from Jack Greenwell, that Masao Kuga invented a trigger on the cable from which the sugar would fall when it reached its destination near the railway.” (Maly)

“Although the greater part of the work on the plantations of the [Islands] is done by Japanese, there is but one plantation in the Islands exclusively owned and managed by men of that race.”

“This is the Kona Development Company property which has about 2500 acres under cultivation in the Kona district. From an area of 1285 acres this plantation produced 3205 tons of sugar in 1919.”

“The plantation is managed by T. Konno, a Japanese who gained his knowledge of the sugar industry as a contract planter at Papaaloa on the Hilo coast of Hawaii. He, with a number of countrymen, organized a company and took over the property from J. B. Castle and associates in 1915.”

“The cane land of the Kona Development Company lies amidst fields of coffee for which the Kona district is most noted, industrially. The Kona Development Company, with lands cultivated by small farmers, gives employment to several hundred persons.”

“At the end of the last grinding season, the Kona Development Company began making some needed improvements in its mill. The old brick and stone foundations of the power room were removed and a new boiler was installed. The mill has a capacity for making 30 tons of sugar in 12 hours.”

“Arrangements have been made recently for the saving and marketing of all the molasses from the mill. To do this tanks, with a capacity of 100,000 gallons have been erected at the mill, which is situated just above Kailua. Previously the only use made of the molasses was its consumption for feed and fuel.”

“The Kona plantation is favored by the fertility of its soil which does not make replanting at the end of two or three crops necessary. The stools of the cane continue to bear for many years. Under the management of T Konno the planted area has increased 500 acres.”

“Throughout the district under cultivation the plantations operates a narrow gauge railway upon which the cane is hauled to the mill to be ground.”

“The Waterhouse Trust Company are the Honolulu agents of the Kona Development Company.  The skilled employees are as follows: T. Uchimura, bookkeeper; T. Kudo, office Assistant; A.N. Smith, chemist; F. Sato, engineer; N. Tokunaga, sugar boiler; C. Suzuki, mill and railroad superintendent …”

“… D. Tatsuno, head luna; K. Sasaki, Kainaliu section timekeeper; T. Iseri, Holualoa section timekeeper; Manuel Silva & Frank Mederios, lunas; Henry deAguiar, Holualoa section luna; Y. Hatanaka, private secretary to T. Konno.” (Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Centenary Number, April 12, 1920)

The Kona Development Mill quit operations on July 3, 1926.  “As the concern has been bankrupt for some time, the 1927 crop had been entirely neglected”. (Hawaii Tribune Herald, June 25, 1926) The companies went into foreclosure and receivership and the assets were sold at public auction.

“Sugar cane, it is feared, is a thing of the past in Kona, and energies are next to be devoted to raising coffee and cotton more extensively.”  (Hawaii Tribune Herald, June 25, 1926)

Then (1928), the Treasurer of the Territory of Hawaii issued notices of the intent to dissolve the Kona Development Company and West Hawaii Railroad Company.  Shortly thereafter (1931), the County Engineer surveyed the abandoned West Hawaii railroad right-of-way for road purposes.

Today, Hienaloli Road follows the alignment of the West Hawaii Railway and remnants of the sugar mill may be seen along that road (as well as a stacked rock truss near Hualalai Road).

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Kāneʻohe Pineapple

Sugarcane was introduced to Koʻolaupoko in 1865, when the Kingdom’s minister of finance and foreign affairs, Charles Coffin Harris, partnered with Queen Kalama to begin an operation known as the Kāneʻohe Sugar Company.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

By 1865, four plantations were in production, at Kualoa, Kaʻalaea, Waiheʻe and Kāneʻohe, and in the early 1880s, four more at Heʻeia, Kāneʻohe, Kahaluʻu and Ahuimanu, with a total of over 1,000-acres in cultivation in 1880.  (Coles)

After almost four decades of a thriving sugar industry in Koʻolaupoko, the tide eventually turned bad and saw the closures of all five sugar plantations by 1903. The closures were due to poor soil, uneven lands and the start-up of sugar plantations in ʻEwa, which were seeing much higher yields.

As sugar was on its way out in Koʻolaupoko, rice crops began to emerge as the next thriving industry.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)  In 1880 the first Chinese rice company started in the nearby Waiheʻe area. Abandoned systems of loʻi kalo were modified into rice paddies. The Kāneʻohe Rice Mill was built around 1892-1893 in nearby Waikalua.

By 1880, there were five sugar plantations in Kāneʻohe and a plantation and mill in Heʻeia. In the 1890s, the Heʻeia mill had its own railroad. By 1903 the growing of rice took over the production of sugar which had declined in Koʻolaupoko. Rice was grown in the Heʻeia wetland until the early 1920s. (Camvel)

Pineapples are typically grown in large fairly flat tracts of well-drained inter-mountain land that is composed of what is affectionately termed Hawaiian red dirt (the red color is due to the presence of the oxides of Fe). (Rubin, SOEST)

From 1901 to 1925 lands previously unused for agriculture were being covered up with pineapple fields, especially the hillsides and upslopes.  It was estimated that approximately 2500 acres of land throughout the Ko‘olaupoko region was converted to pineapple cultivation. (History of Koʻolaupoko)

The plantation was established in the windward side of O‘ahu around 1900 by the Hawaiian Development Company and became known as Koolau Fruit Company.

JB Castle and Walter MacFarlane were the key promoters of this early pineapple venture. In 1909, the Hawaiian Cannery Co began operating a small cannery at Kahalu‘u.  And by 1910, Castle was in possession of a thousand acres in Ahuimanu which were suitable for pineapple.

The following year, the Hawaiian Pineapple Co, which James D Dole had founded in 1901, bought out Castle’s Koolau Fruit Co., Ltd and sold it five years later to Libby, McNeil & Libby.

Libby, McNeil & Libby, with control of the Kahalu‘u land, built a large-scale cannery on the site; the cannery had an annual capacity of 250,000-cans.  (Thompson, Kahaluu)

Ten years later, the cannery represented a quarter of a million-dollar investment with a maximum of 750 regular employees, plus an additional 125 at the height of the harvesting season.

The company used a narrow-gauge railway to move the canned fruit to a wharf at the Waikāne Landing, from there sampans took the product to Honolulu for transshipment to other ports. (Conde, Light Railways)

The pineapple cannery along with numerous old-style plantation houses popped up and became known as “Libbyville” (named after its owners, Libby, McNeill, and Libby). (St John’s by the Sea now occupies the site.)

At its peak, 2,500 acres were under pineapple cultivation on Windward O‘ahu, and of this a large percentage was in the Kāne‘ohe Bay region.

The change in landscape to the Windward side by 1914 is reflected in the following sentences: “At last we reached the foot of the Pali … Joe and I looked over the surrounding hills, but looked in vain for the great areas of guava through which but a few months ago we had fought and cut our way.”

“As far as the eye could reach pineapple plantations had taken the place of the forest of wild guava.” (Cultural Surveys)  Libby’s pineapple covered the southern portion of Kāneʻohe, what is now the Pali Golf Course, Hawaiian Memorial Park and the surrounding area.

While Libby managed the operation of large tracts of land, it was noted that, “… much of the pineapple production was carried out by individual growers on small areas of five to 10 acres.”

“A man, a mule, a huli plow and a hoe provided most of the power and the equipment for these smaller operations. This was the typical pineapple production pattern in the area of Waikāne, Waiāhole, Kahaluʻu and ‘Ahuimanu.”

By 1923, it was evident that pineapple cultivation on the Windward area could not keep up with that in other O‘ahu areas. Crops on the Windward side were not yielding tonnages as compared with the Leeward side, fields were smaller, with wilt more prevalent, and growing costs considerably higher. Plantings were therefore reduced.

By this time, the condition of the Pali Road had been improved, and trucks with solid tires were available, so that the struggling pineapple operation found it more economical to haul the fresh pineapple to a central Libby Cannery in Honolulu.

The relatively inefficient, high production costs of operating many small, scattered fields resulted in a decision to discontinue pineapple growing on the Windward side.

The result was the closure of the cannery in 1923.   After the closure of the cannery, the pineapple fields were left to grow over and was then converted to grazing pasture land for cattle.  (History of Koʻolaupoko)

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Sugar/Forestry Connection

The early Polynesian settlers to Hawaiʻi brought sugar cane with them and demonstrated that it could be grown successfully in the islands.

As a later economic entity, sugar gradually replaced sandalwood and whaling in the mid‐19th century and became the principal industry in the islands, until it was succeeded by the visitor industry in 1960.

Hawaiʻi had the basic natural resources needed to grow sugar: land, sun and water. Hawai‘i’s economy turned toward sugar in the decades between 1860 and 1880; these twenty years were pivotal in building the plantation system.

Sugar‐cane farming gained this prestige without great difficulty because sugar cane soon proved to be the only available crop that could be grown profitably under the severe conditions imposed upon plants grown on the lands which were available for cultivation. (HSPA 1947)

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. However, a shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge. The only answer was imported labor.

There were three big waves of workforce immigration: Chinese 1852; Japanese 1885; and Filipinos 1905. Several smaller, but substantial, migrations also occurred: Portuguese 1877; Norwegians 1880; Germans 1881; Puerto Ricans 1900; Koreans 1902 and Spanish 1907.

It is not likely anyone then foresaw the impact this would have on the cultural and social structure of the islands. The sugar industry is at the center of Hawaiʻi’s modern diversity of races and ethnic cultures. Of the nearly 385,000 workers that came, many thousands stayed to become a part of Hawai‘i’s unique ethnic mix.

Hawai‘i continues to be one of the most culturally-diverse and racially-integrated places on the globe. Sugar changed the social fabric of Hawai‘i.

That is not the only influence that sugar production had in the Islands.

Interestingly, it was the sugar growers, significant users of Hawai‘i’s water resources, who led the forest reserve protection movement.

We are fortunate that a little over 100-years ago some forward thinkers had the good sense to set aside Hawai‘i’s forested lands and protected our forest watersheds under the State’s Forest Reserve system. While I was at DLNR, we oversaw these nearly 1-million acres of mauka lands.

The link between tree-planting and the sugar planters can be seen particularly clearly in the career of Harold Lyon, who arrived in Hawai‘i in 1907 as a plant pathologist in the employ of the Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association (HSPA).

Diseases of sugar cane occupied Lyon’s efforts for several years, but his purview gradually broadened to include a variety of problems relating to Hawaiian agriculture, including deforestation. (Woodcock)

Lyon was a strong voice for forests. In an early report, he discussed the water situation on O‘ahu, the insufficient supplies of water available for agriculture, and the role of the forested high-elevation areas of the windward Ko‘olau in recharging the island’s aquifer.

He described the water budget and the action of forested watersheds in slowing the rate of runoff and increasing infiltration and flow of water to groundwater. (Woodcock)

It was evident to Lyon and others that deforestation was increasing runoff – water that was essentially lost to agriculture, since the topography of the islands, with their many short streams, makes impoundment, and in many cases diversion, impractical.

As evidence for the water-conserving role of vegetation, Lyon noted the drying out of many streams that had previously been more continuously flowing, an observation that by this time had been made repeatedly.

Lyon emphasized that the problem was not just increased demand for water but also the conditions determining supply – ‘‘The candle is burning at both ends and we only fan the flames’’ – and argued that resources should be committed to reforest the watersheds with ‘‘healthy, water-conserving forest’’. (Woodcock)

Neglect of the islands’ forests would be ‘‘suicidal,’’ for ‘‘everything fails with the failure of our water supply’’. (Lyon; Woodcock)

After more than a century of massive forest loss and destruction, the Territory of Hawai‘i acknowledged that preservation of the forest was vital to the future economic prosperity of the Islands.

Urged by sugarcane growers and government foresters concerned about the vanishing woodlands, the forest reserve system became the basis for the largest public-private partnership in the history of the Islands. (Last Stand)

On May 13, 1903, the Territory of Hawaiʻi, with the backing of the Hawaiʻi Sugar Planters’ Association, established the Board of Commissioners of Agriculture and Forestry. (HDOA) The next year, Ralph Sheldon Hosmer became the first Superintendent of Forestry in the Islands.

The forest reserves were useful for two primary purposes: water production for the Territory’s agricultural industries, and timber production to meet the growing demand for wood products. The forest reserve system should not lead to “the locking up from economic use of a certain forest area.” (Hosmer)

Even in critical watersheds the harvesting of old trees “is a positive advantage, in that it gives the young trees a chance to grow, while at the same time producing a profit from the forests”. (LRB)

A main concern was finding an alternative to importing redwood and Douglas-fir from California for construction timbers. In 1904 the government nursery was asked to grow timber tree species instead of its usual ornamental, flowering trees (pines, cypress, cedar and Douglas fir.) (Anderson)

“As an influential board member on the Agriculture and Forestry Commission, Harold Lyon succeeded in persuading the Territorial Commission to import seed of a vast number of alien tree species. … nearly 1,000 alien species were outplanted in Hawaiʻi forest reserves.” (Mueller-Dombois)

Various trees and plants were imported from diverse areas of the world including Madagascar, Australia, India, Brazil, the Malay states, China, the Philippines, southern Europe, the East Indies, the West Indies, New Zealand, Central America and South Africa.

Trees that successfully survived the Mānoa Valley soil conditions and promoted water conservation were then widely planted throughout the arboretum

Eucalyptus species, silk oak, paperbark and ironwood were the most frequently planted trees due to their fast growth and their resistance to adverse environmental conditions. However, these very qualities, as well as their ability to seed profusely, would lead to some species such as tropical ash and albizia. (Iwashita)

The number of trees planted rose to many millions by the 1930s, when the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was available for planting. From 1935 to 1941, with the help of the CCC, an average of close to two-million trees were planted per year in the forest reserves.

Lyon envisioned the plantations as a buffer zone that would be established between the remaining native forests and the lower-elevation agricultural lands to protect the native forests and perform the functions (maintaining input of water to aquifers.)

In his 1949 annual report to the HSPA entitled, ‘What is to be the fate of the arboretum?,’ Lyon declared the Mānoa Arboretum’s mission to test new plant introductions to be essentially complete; he believed that the HSPA should not remain the arboretum’s custodian.

On July 1, 1953, HSPA conveyed the Mānoa Arboretum to the Board of Regents of the University of Hawaiʻi. The regents were individually entrusted with the fiduciary duty of maintaining the arboretum. In 1962, the Board of Regents transferred the arboretum to the University of Hawaiʻi.

Dr. Lyon remained with the arboretum as its first director under the regents’ and university’s stewardship. After Dr. Lyon’s death in 1957, an advisory committee directed the arboretum until 1961, when Dr. George Gillette assumed the directorship on a part-time basis.

When Dr. Lyon died, the Board of Regents renamed the facility the Harold L Lyon Arboretum (Lyon Arboretum) in honor of the man so closely associated with its growth and fruition.

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Hui Kawaihau

When Kalākaua ascended to the throne in 1874, he named his youngest brother, William P Leleiōhoku, the heir apparent.

Leleiōhoku was educated at Saint Alban’s College (forerunner to ʻIolani School.)  An accomplished musician, he founded several choral societies. One of them was called Hui Kawaihau.

The Hui Kawaihau name was based on a nickname for an American missionary woman in town who preferred iced water (‘Kawaihau’) over some of the alcoholic libations the others were enjoying.

Leleiōhoku composed several songs, including, Adios Ke Aloha, Aloha No Wau I Ko Maka, Nani Wali Līhuʻe, Moani Ke Ala, Ke Kaʻupu, He Inoa No Kaʻiulani (a different song from the one with the same name by Liliʻuokalani), Nani Waipiʻo, Hole Waimea (this one was co-written with his singing club.)

He also wrote Kaua I Ka Huahuaʻi (Johnny Noble adapted most of the melody and kept most of the same lyrics of this one, and changed the spelling of the title, for his 1926 song Hawaiian War Chant (Taua I Ta Huahuaʻi.))

The Hui Kawaihau choral group had about fifteen members; it was more social than business.  When Leleiōhoku died in 1877, King Kalākaua reorganized the Hui into a business group.

Among the twelve hui charter organizers were some well-known names, including King Kalākaua; Governor Dominis, the King’s brother-in-law; Colonel George W. Macfarlane; Captain James Makee; Col. Curtis P. ʻIaukea; Governor John M. Kapena of the Island of Oahu; J. S. Walker and C. H. Judd; and Koakanu, a high chief of Kōloa, on Kauaʻi.

Their first order of business was to sign on more members and contract for the cultivation of sugar cane on land in Kapaʻa, on Kauaʻi.

The twelve organizers signed up thirty-two resident members.  About the first of August, 1877, the members of the Hui – over twenty men, with about the same number of women and children – set out from Honolulu, on the steamer “Kilauea,” on the voyage to their new home on Kauaʻi.

At the time, the districts of Hanalei and Līhuʻe shared a common boundary.  Kawaihau was set apart by the King, who gave that name to the property lying between the Wailua River and Moloaʻa Valley.  A bill was introduced into the legislature and the eastern end of Hanalei District was cut out and Kawaihau became the fifth district on the island of Kauaʻi.

About the time the Hui was started, Captain James Makee obtained a concession from the King to build a sugar mill at Kapaʻa and establish a plantation there.  He was the first manager of the Plantation, and had agreed with Kalākaua to grind in his mill all the cane grown by the Hui.

The contract with the Makee Sugar Company (under which each members of the Hui who came to Kauaʻi had signed separately with the plantation) required each of them to plant two hundred and forty acres of cane the first year, and they were to receive, in payment for their cane, two-fifths of the returns from the sale of the sugar obtained from it.

Each planter was required to plow his own portion of the tract and to buy his own seed-cane for planting.  A portion of the seed cane came from the neighboring Līhuʻe Plantation, ten miles to the south, and the balance they brought from Lāhainā.

Upon Makee’s death in 1878, his son-in-law, Col. ZS Spalding took over management of the new sugar venture.  Spalding also started the neighboring Keālia Sugar Plantation.  In the 1880s, Spalding built the “Valley House,” a Victorian-style wooden mansion, one of the finest on the island.

From 1877 to 1881, Hui Kawaihau was one of the leading entities on the eastern side of the Island of Kauaʻi, growing sugar at Kapahi, on the plateau lands above Kapaʻa.

As part of the infrastructure of the new plantation, the Makee Landing was built in Kapaʻa during the early years of the Makee Sugar Plantation.   Today, in place of the old Makee Landing, a breakwater is located on the north side of Mōʻīkeha Canal.

The Hui members all worked their share of the plantation – cultivating, irrigating and weeding the sugar cane under their supervision.  But they were all new to the business of growing cane – being mostly city men from Honolulu – all clerks and office men, etc.

The first crop was quite successful, netting the Hui over $17,000, from which was deducted the expense paid by the King for the Hui’s transportation to Kauaʻi, and the preliminary operations there – about $5000, which left enough to pay the members nearly $500 apiece, after paying the expenses.

In spite of the successful opening of the enterprise, it soon encountered dark days.  For nearly four years, troubles were increasing.

Colonel Spalding advised them to sell out to the Plantation, and thus end all their troubles; but they would not agree.

By 1881, four years after the favorable opening of the Hui’s plantation efforts, the members, disheartened and discouraged, had all drifted away, their property and leasehold rights, etc., passing into the hands of Colonel Spalding, the successor of Captain Makee as the head and principal owner of the Makee Sugar Company.

The Hui Kawaihau of Kauaʻi had passed into history.

In 1933, the Līhuʻe Plantation Co. purchased all of the outstanding Makee Sugar Co. stock and in the next year the mill was dismantled and combined with the Līhuʻe factory.  (Lots of information here from “The Hui Kawaihau” by Charles S Dole and The Friend, April, 1920.)

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