Henry Augustus Peirce Born in Boston in 1808, H. A. Peirce went to sea at age 18 and by 1828 had settled in Honolulu, where he established himself as a merchant. On a brief visit to Kaua‘i in 1849, he
Henry Augustus Peirce
Born in Boston in 1808, H. A. Peirce went to sea at age 18 and by 1828 had settled in Honolulu, where he established himself as a merchant.
On a brief visit to Kaua‘i in 1849, he saw the hillsides above Nawiliwili and became convinced of their potential for growing sugarcane.
Peirce then formed a partnership in Honolulu with William L. Lee and Charles R. Bishop and founded H. A. Peirce & Company with $16,000 for the purpose of establishing a sugar plantation at Lihu‘e.
The new firm next purchased, by Royal Patent No. 188, 1,870 acres of land in Lihu‘e owned by Princess Victoria Kamamalu for $9,350, and an additional acre for a landing on Nawiliwili Bay.
Honolulu businessman James F. B. Marshall was hired as Peirce Plantation’s (later renamed Lihu‘e Plantation) first manager and laborers were Hawaiians who settled in Pualoki village above the mill.
Native forests were cleared and indigenous seed cane was gathered for planting in 1850 in fields north and east of the present Lihu‘e U.S. Post Office and civic center.
When the first crop was harvested in 1853, oxen hauled the cane to the mill in carts, where granite rollers made in China ground the cane to extract its juice.
Thereafter, the juice was boiled at precise temperatures to produce sugar that was shipped to Honolulu in wooden kegs for sale and further transport.
A year later, Marshall resigned and was replaced by missionary William Harrison Rice.
Peirce sold his interests in Lihu‘e Plantation in 1859, a transaction he may have later regretted when Rice’s successor, Paul Isenberg, transformed the plantation into a veritable gold mine of profit.
H. A. Peirce also served as United States Minister to the Royal Court in Honolulu. He died in San Francisco in 1885.
