When Wailua resident Rick Burrell runs over train track or sees a bridge which a train once crossed to bring cane to a mill, Kauai’s history and his own family history rush over him. Burrell is quickly reminded of: l
When Wailua resident Rick Burrell runs over train track or sees a bridge which a train once crossed to bring cane to a mill, Kauai’s history and his own family history rush over him.
Burrell is quickly reminded of:
l His grandfather, John F. Barretto, who either worked, in different capacities, on locomotives for the Makee Sugar Company or Lihu’e Plantation Company, between the 1920s and 1959.
l The history of Kaua’i’s once-thriving sugar industry.
l His Portuguese heritage. In the mid-1880s, his great-grandfather and great-grandmother were part of a continuing wave of Portuguese immigrants who came to Hawai’i for work in the sugar plantation industry.
The information Burrell has so far collected has helped him gain a better perspective of the sugar industry, which has dominated Hawai’i for more than 150 years and of his own roots.
Burrell, 42, said his interest in the research project was sparked a year ago after he rode his dirt bike over tracks in east Kaua’i and in Anahola.
In those areas, Makee Sugar, now defunct, and Lihu’e Plantation, among Kaua’i’s most productive and largest plantations, used trains to bring cane to mills before sugar products were sent to markets abroad.
As part of his research, Burrell was invited for a short ride on one of three trains owned by Grove Farm Company on Kaua’i.
Burrell wants to share the information he has accumulated with the Kaua’i Historical Society, as a way to help educate people about the history of the island, its people and culture. He wants to get in touch with people who might have maps of the location of his grandfather’s old homes in Kealia and Kapahi or photographs of trains he drove.
“It is almost like a treasure hunt. It is a challenge,” Burrell said.
Barretto, the son of Francisco De Freitas and Francisca Barretto, was born in Kealia Camp in 1901 and died in 1987. His interest in trains was sparked when he was in his 20s, first working as a breakman, a fireman and then as an engineer, Burrell said.
An employee of MaKee Sugar Company between 1920 and 1934, Barretto drove trains through thousands of acres of canefields in Anahola, Kealia and Wailua.
Burrell said his grandfather very likely drove trains through Wailua Homesteads. It is the same area where Burrell, a painting contractor, now lives with his wife and two children.
MaKee Company, in which King Kalakaua had an interest, was incorporated in 1877 and owned by George A. Macfarlane and Capt. James MaKee. The company operated until 1934, when it was acquired by Lihu’e Plantation Company, and the MaKee mill was disassembled and was transported to Lihu’e.
Burrell’s grandfather continued driving trains and transporting cane to the Lihu’e mill until 1959.
During his employment with Makee and LIhu’e Plantation, Barretto operated numerous locomotives, including the Kilohana, Number 13, in the 1920s and 1930s and the Col. Spalding, both fitted with steam-powered engines, and the Lei Ilima, a diesel-powered train, in the late 1940s.
One of Burrell’s prized photos is that of his grandfather driving the Lei Ilima.
He said his grandfather loved driving trains and always wore his engineer’s hat.
Like many employees of the sugar industry in those days, his grandfather worked five days a week, ten hours a day, Burrell said.
The first train to operate on Kaua’i was the Fowler, brought to the island from England in 1881 for Kilauea Plantation Company.
Over the next 80 years, some of the island’s largest and most productive sugar companies operated train systems.
They included Koloa Plantation, Grove Farm Company, Makaweli Hawaiian Sugar Company, Kekaha Sugar company, Koloa Sugar Company, McBryde Sugar Company, ‘Ele’ele Plantation and Waimea Sugar Company.
Railways systems also were operated by Ahukini Terminal and Railway Company and the Kaua’i Railway Company.
After the cane was transported to mills for processing, it was shipped out from ports on Kaua’i to markets in Honolulu and abroad.
Trains operated on O’ahu from 1840 to 1947, shutting down to make away for more efficient cane-hauling trucks, according to Jana Kahale, administrator for the Hawaiian Railway Society, formed in 1971 to preserve the history of trains.
Today, only tourist-oriented trains operate on a 16-mile route on O’ahu and in Lahaina, Maui, Kahale said.
The use of all trains on Kaua’i for hauling cane came to an end in 1959. Some west-side sugar companies shut down their systems as early as 1941. Larger companies, such as Lihu’e Plantation, ended the use of trains at a later date because they had invested large amounts of capital in the systems.
After the Lihu’e Plantation trains shut down, Barretto was offered a job to drive trucks, but refused because he loved driving trains, Burrell said.
Burrell said his grandfather lived for his work and his family. Barretto lived with his wife, Ida, who is now in her 90s, and his six children, including John Barretto Jr., a former member of the Kaua’i County Council, in Kealia and then in Kapahi in the mid-1950s.
While at work, Barretto thought of his wife often. At stops along his route, he used to pick up hibiscus plants and flowers to be planted in her garden, Burrell said.
His grandfather, who had an eight-grade education, was always “up on the news and politics of the day,” Burrell said.
During World War II, Barretto had a victory garden, and gave his produce to neighbors and friends. He once spotted what he thought was a Japanese submarine off Kaua’i’s coastline and reported the sighting to the U.S. military, Burrell said.
Barretto also loved baseball, and even though games were broadcast on television, he would rather listen to radio broadcasts.
“He wasn’t one of the leaders of the sugar industry,” Burrell said. “He was a working man who drove trains for a living so he could put food on the table for his family. I am really proud of who he was.”
