Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives and co-sponsor Oʻahu Cemetery Association will debut a new production of Cemetery Pupu Theatre June 14, 15, 21, 22, 28, and 29, 2024 at Oʻahu Cemetery, 2162 Nuʻuanu Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96817. Tickets are $60 per person and are available at www.missionhouses.org. Ticket purchase includes two drink tickets and a heavy pupu bento. Drinks and pupu begin at 5 p.m. at the cemetery chapel, and performances begin promptly at 6 p.m.
Hawaiian Mission Houses brings history to life with carefully researched and scripted actor
portrayals of figures from Hawaiʻi’s history.
“Cemetery Pupu Theatre: How Sweet It Is” will feature five portrayals focused on the history of the
sugar industry in 19th- and early 20th-century Hawaiʻi. Featured portrayals this year are:
James Campbell (1826-1900) Born in Londonderry, Ireland, Campbell took a ship to Canada at age 13,
met with his brother John in New York City, and worked as a carpenter. In 1841, he joined a whaling
crew and was shipwrecked in the Tuamotu Islands. Making his way to Tahiti, he lived there for
several years before travelling to Lahaina, Maui in 1850. In 1860, in partnership with Henry Turton
and James Dunbar, he founded Pioneer Mill Company in Lahaina and in 1863, the company bought the
Lahaina Sugar Plantation. The company was profitable and Campbell used his proceeds to purchase
land on Hawaiʻi Island and Oʻahu. He sunk the first artesian wells on the ʿEwa Plain, which opened
up Leeward Oʻahu to more expansive sugar plantation operations. He also owned ranches at Honouliuli
and Kahuku on Oʻahu, becoming one of the largest landowners and wealthiest people in Hawaiʻi.
Henry Perrin Baldwin (1842-1911) Born in Lahaina to missionary parents Rev. Dwight Baldwin and
Charlotte Fowler Baldwin, he attended Punahou School on Oʻahu before returning to Maui to become a
farmer. His first plantation manager job was for William D. Alexander’s rice plantation. The
plantation failed and he went to work for his brother’s small sugar cane farm. He worked as a luna
at the Waiheʻe Planation, managed by his future business partner Samuel T. Alexander. In 1869 they
began planting in Hāmākuapoko on Maui. With reciprocity, the sugar industry grew quickly and he
oversaw the construction of the Hāmākua Ditch irrigation system. He oversaw the building of several
mills on Maui such as the Hāmākuapoko Mill, the Haʿikū Mill, and Pāʻia Mill. In 1888, he helped to
form the Haleakalā Ranch. Alexander and Baldwin was officially incorporated in 1900 and is still an ongoing
business today.
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John Adams Kuakini Cummins (1835-1913) Born in Honolulu to Thomas Jefferson Cummins, Jr. and High
Chiefess Kaumakaokane Papaliʻaiʻaina. His father owned much of the land in Waimānalo, Oʻahu and
began ranching there in the 1840s. John Adams Kuakini Cummins converted the ranch to a sugar
plantation in 1877 and built a sugar mill there, forming and becoming president of the Waimānalo
Sugar Company. He was noted for his lavish entertainment of royalty at Mauna Loke, his home. He
served in the Hawaiian Kingdom legislature and in the cabinet of King Kalākaua. He was involved
with the 1895 counter-revolution to restore the Hawaiian monarchy.
William Ladd (1807-1863) Born in Concord, New Hampshire, to John Ladd, a sailor who died at sea
while William was young. He married Lucretia Goodale, a relative of Lucy Thurston, a missionary to
Hawaiʻi. He sailed to Hawaiʻi with his friends and business partners William Hooper and Peter
Brinsmade, arriving in 1833 aboard the Hellespont. They incorporated as Ladd & Company in 1833 and
opened up a dry goods store at Honolulu Harbor. In 1835, the company leased over 900 acres from the
government at Kōloa, Kauaʻi to plant sugar cane. Kōloa Plantation was the first attempt at a
commercial sugar cane plantation in Hawaiʻi. Initially the plantation did well, but the business
partners took on more and more debt to finance improvements to their sugar mill and to obtain more
land. Attempting to shore up their finances Brinsmade went to Europe and struck a deal with the Belgian
Colonization Company which fell through after the Paulet Affair of 1843. Ladd & Company closed its
store in Honolulu in 1844.
Striking sugar worker from the 1920 plantation strike – The 1920 Sugar Strike was the first multi-
ethnic strike in Hawaiʻi’s sugar industry. Previous strikes like the 1904 and 1909 strikes were led
by workers of a single ethnic group. Typically the plantation managers would pit one ethnic group
against another to break the strike. In 1920 Filipino plantation workers began the strike and were
joined by the Japanese Federation of Labor. The strike lasted six months before changes were made
to the wages and living conditions of plantation workers in Hawaiʻi.
For more information or ticket purchases, please visit www.missionhouses.org
