I got this email from my grandson Kapono today:

I was doing some research today in Hawaiian History for a project that we’re doing on Sugar Plantation Days and I found some really interesting info about where our farm is and the history behind it. I hope you find it as interesting as I did.

I did. Here’s the information, which is from Sugar Islands – The 165-year Story of Sugar in Hawaii, by William H. Dorrance and Francis S. Morgan. (Mutual Publishing, Honolulu, Hawaii –
2000):

Kaupakuea Plantation
Sometime between 1857 and 1861, the highly successful Honolulu businessman Chun Afong (1825-1906) acquired the Kaupakuea Sugar Plantation and Mill. It consisted of 1,500 acres ten miles north of Hilo. In addition, in 1879 he acquired Makahaula Plantation on 7,600 acres at the southern border of Kaupakuea Plantation. By 1882 Afong had combined the two into Pepe`ekeo Sugar Mill and Plantation Company.

Chun Afong came to Hawaii from China in 1849 to work in his uncle’s store. He soon became a successful merchant on his own and also invested in sugar and coffee plantations. His stature increased to the point that in 1879 King Kalakaua appointed him a noble of the Kingdom. But a decade later, in 1889, the weary and aging Afong returned to his homeland, leaving his family in Honolulu and his affairs in the hands of his friend Samuel M. Damon (1845-1924), son of the pioneer preacher Samuel C. Damon.

Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company
By 1890, Samuel M. Damon had incorporated Afong’s plantation as Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company and retained 27 percent of the shares for Afong, with Hackfeld and Company holding most of the rest, along with the plantation’s agency contract. In 1893 Hackfeld sold the agency agreement to Theo H. Davies and Afong’s shares were sold to Davies’ associate Alexander Young (1832-1910). In 1904 C. Brewer and Company purchased controlling shares from Young and took over the agency agreement.

The plantation had been profitable under Afong. Much to his credit, the first pioneering vacuum pan used in the sugar-making process was introduced at Kaupakuea mill in 1861. Afong also led the way in providing amenities and good housing for his workers and their families. C. Brewer and Company, Ltd. perpetuated this by improving the housing and providing a model hospital that became a standard for other plantations. Production was 400 tons in 1867, increased to 500 tons in 1872, and to 1,259 tons in 1880.

The lands, however, were acidic and required liming for neutralization. Longtime manager (1905-1936) James Webster and C. Brewer and Company, Ltd. met this challenge in a very unusual way. In 1914 over 20,000 tons of O`ahu’s Wai`anae Coast coral sands were taken by the O.R.&L. railroad to the Honolulu docks, then via the Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company to the Hilo docks, and onward with the Hawaii Consolidated Railway Company to Pepe`ekeo. There the sand was bagged and hauled into the fields by mules to be spread. This remarkable effort turned the acidic soil into a hospitable host for sugarcane and the machinery used to cultivate it.

Pepe`ekeo’s mill was located at the shore to make use of fluming to transport the harvested cane. For many years before 1935 the hydraulic head of mountain ground water (spring water) drove a hydroelectric plant that supplied all of the mill’s needs and also supplied power for housing. Until 1913 product was shipped from a landing near the mill. From 1913 until 1946 sugar went by railroad to the Hilo docks. After the tsunami of 1946, all shipments went by truck.

In 1946, production rose to 25,055 tons when C. Brewer merged Pepee`keo’s fields with the neighboring Honomu Sugar Company. Almost two decades later, in 1962, C. Brewer and Company Ltd. further increased the acreage by merging Hakalau Plantation in to the surviving Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company, Ltd. and reaped the economies of scale. In 1973, C. Brewer and Company, Ltd. merged Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company into Mauna Kea Sugar Company, and the original name was no longer used.

Mauna Kea Sugar Company
In 1972, Mauna Kea Sugar Company and the new United Cane Planters’ Cooperative, representing almost 400 independent farmers, formed a non-profit corporation, the Hilo Coast Processing Company (HCPC), to harvest and grind sugarcane on shares. A year later, in 1973, C. Brewer and Company, Ltd. merged Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company with Mauna Kea Sugar Company, thus combining under one corporate name what had once been five separate plantations: Honomu Sugar Company, Hakalau Sugar Company, Pepe`ekeo Sugar Company, Onomea Sugar Company, and Hilo Sugar Company. For a time the three mills at Pepe`ekeo, Papaikou, and Wainaku were operated by the HCPC, but by 1979 only the large, improved mill at Pepe`ekeo survived.

Even with these consolidations, sugar operations in the wet Hilo Coast area were unprofitable. The number of independent farms dwindled to 22. In 1992, C. Brewer and Co. announced that Hilo Coast Processing Company, and its now-named Mauna Kea Agribusiness Company (formerly Mauna Kea Sugar Company), would shut down after grinding the 1994 harvest. More than 450 jobs were affected. After a run of over 150 years, sugarcane permanently left the Hilo area.

Shortly after, I went to see John Cross, who managed C. Brewer’s lands, to ask about leasing the land for bananas. He let me use 20 acres free of charge for a year, and we started planting bananas.

That was the start of Mauna Kea Banana Company.