Charles N. Spencer of HILEA, Ka’u Old Plantation Days, April 2016

The last two articles of Old Plantation Days in the Paradise Post were centered around Captain Thomas Spencer, Hilo, and the Amauulu Plantation in Puueo.  This article will shift to Captain Spencers’ brother Charles.  While we know well how Thomas came to reside in Hawaii after the loss of some of his whaleship crew and the command of the Triton, we can assume that Thomas’ success in the Ship Chandlery business in Honolulu and his sugarcane plantation expanse in Hilo likely lured his brothers Charles and Obediah from the east coast of America to the Big Island of Hawaii.

Plantation archive records that are kept at the Edmund C. Olson Trust No. 2 land office in Papaikou show that Charles Spencer incorporated the Hilea Plantation in 1870, just a few years after his brother Thomas started Amauulu Plantation in Hilo.  Charles along with Alexander Hutchinson, John Smith Walker and William G. Irwin formed a partnership owning the plantation and mill buildings in the ahupua’a of Hilea Iki and Hilea Nui in Ka’u.  It was first referred to as C.N. Spencer & Company, then changed its name to Hilea Plantation.  Charles was the first manager of the company.

Today if you are driving along H-11 in Ka’u just past the Punaluu Seamountain golf course, look mauka and you will see a large fluted hill with pasture grass growing on the top (foremerly sugarcane grew there) of the mountain, this is “Puu Makanau” and sits squarely between the ahupua’as of Hilea iki and nui.  At the base of the hill was the location for the mill and the town of Hilea.  At the time of Charles’ incorporation of the plantation the “Town of Hilea” was the most populous area in all of Ka’u!!  Today you can’t see or even envision that such a village existed.  Local residents Kyle and Nonie Soares own property in the area of the former “town” raising Cattle, Goats and Chickens…all at the base of the remnants of the former Hilea Sugar Mill.  Recently, Kyle took me on an excursion to the concrete foundations where the fire room existed and the reservoirs were.  Huge Kukui nut trees and groves of wild Coffee trees inhabit the site of the Mill.  The Hilea Stream Gulch courses right by the site of the once huge mill.

The Managers house at Hilea where Charles and wife Annie resided was a modest home quite the contrast to Thomas Spencer’s “mansion” that was depicted in last month’s Paradise Post.  The single story house at Hilea was surrounded by a white picket fence and Keawe and Kukui nut trees in the yard.  Characteristic of Ka’u was the dry stack stone walls that lined both sides of the Old Mamalahoa Highway that passed through the town.  I could not use any of the photos I have of the house due to yellow fading of the image, it just would not reproduce well.

Alexander Hutchinson, partner with Charles at Hilea Plantation, was also the owner and manager of Hutchinson Plantation in Naalehu.  Sadly Hutchinson died in 1879 from head injuries sustained when he tried to retrieve two deserting Chinese workers off the waters of Honuapo Bay.  His boat capsized upon returning to shore after getting the workers off a visiting freighter.  In the following year the various small plantations and mills started to merge and consolidate their operations.  By 1889 Charles Spencer sold his shares in Hilea Plantation to Hutchinson Sugar Plantation Company for $210,000 a huge sum of money in that time.  Hutchinson Plantation operated three mills in the district one each at Naalehu, Honuapo and Hilea.  Soon the Hilea Mill was closed and shifted all its cane to Honuapo, then after that Naalehu Mill closed and again all cane from that region went to Honuapo.

The populous “town” of Hilea that Charles Spencer created slowly disappeared into the grass, weeds and trees described earlier.  All that remains to prove the existence of the town, the houses, the Churches, the Store, the Stables, the Roads, etc., are ancient hand drawn maps from the late 1880’s.

Like his brother Thomas, Charles ventured off to Honolulu after their time in sugarcane plantation ownership and management.  Charles was appointed to minister of the Interior by King Kalakaua and served the Kingdom in that capacity until 1892.  Both Thomas and Charles were close friends of Kalakaua and after his death, they both remained loyal subjects to the Kingdom and Queen Liliuokalani.

So as you drive around the island and see or hear of many place names associated with Spencer, you now know how important and influential the Spencer brothers and all their progeny were to the Kingdom and the future of Hawaii.