Koamalu : a story of pioneers on Kauai, and of what they built in that island garden / by Ethel M. Damon. [Vol. 1, no. 2]

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KOA M A L U

three-fourths of his holding in the plantation, or threefourteenths of the capital stock sold to him by H. A.
Peirce and J. F. B. Marshall. And it was probably
about this time that the Prevosts at last achieved their
ambition of going home to France to live in comfort, or it
may very well have been that their years of frugality
assured them even more than a modicum of luxury as
well.
The books of the plantation, many of them carefully
posted in the fine, clear handwriting of Maria Rice as
early as 1858 and until 1862, show the names of other
young foreigners, many of whom were Germans, even in
those early days. There was Mr. Reinhardt, a carpenter, Mr. Wicke, a blacksmith, Mr. Ausgut, and Mr. Hermann. Later Mr. August Dreier was engineer in the mill.
He had come out about 1860 for Hoffschlaeger and Stapenhorst to install a cotton mill in upper Hanamaulu land.
The combination of a cool temperature with rain and red
dust proved too much for successful cotton growing, but
many wild bushes of it are still found in Kapaia valley.
At one time Charles Griffiths worked on Lihue plantation, the Englishman well known all over the island, who
could turn his hand to anything. Then there was Mr.
Osgood, a blacksmith, who was also a butcher, and
Mr. Mundon, the English carpenter, wheelwright, and
cabinetmaker. Like the sugar boiler, Mr. Prevost, some
of these craftsmen received as much as one hundred dollars a month. During his later years Mr. Rice, as manager, is listed by his daughter on the books as receiving
$125 per month, Maria's own modest recompense for
part-time bookkeeping being $16 a month. On the Koloa
road, a little below where the Grove Farm reservoir now
stands, there lived for many years the cooper, Mr.
Bruns, one of the most valued of the skilled artisans on
the plantation. During the days before jute bags came
into use for marketing sugar packages, kegs and casks