Henry Alexander Baldwin - Life

Life

Alexander & Baldwin, one of the "Big Five" corporations that dominated Hawaii economics in the early twentieth century, was started by his father Henry Perrine Baldwin and uncle Samuel Thomas Alexander in 1869. His father was son of early missionary Dwight Baldwin, and his mother Emily Whitney Alexander was daughter of early missionary William P. Alexander. Born January 12, 1871 on the Baldwin house at the Paliuli sugar mill in the Kingdom of Hawaii on the island of Maui, between the towns of Pāʻia and Makawao, Hawaii. Baldwin was educated in Honolulu at Punahou School. His parents sent him to Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts from which he graduated in 1889. In 1894, Baldwin obtained a degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he was a member of the Chi Phi Fraternity.

He returned to work for his father and uncle on the Haiku sugarcane plantation. From 1897 to 1904 he became manager. Sugarcane production became very profitable with increasing trade with the United States and annexation of Hawaii in 1898. Haiku merged with the Pāʻia plantation, and he became president of the combined operation called the Maui Agricultural Company. He served as president of Maui Telephone Company, and Maui Publishing Company. He was a director of Baldwin Bank, which later became part of First Hawaiian Bank. In 1916, during World War I, he served as colonel of the 3rd Regiment of the Hawaii National Guard. On July 19, 1897 he married Ethel Frances Smith (1879–1967), daughter of lawyer William Owen Smith in Honolulu — his younger brother Samuel would later marry sister Katherine Smith. They had one daughter, Frances Hobron (1904–1996) who married J. Walter Cameron (1895–1976), manager of the Pineapple plantation in Honolua. Cameron's company Maui Pineapple Company merged with Baldwin's pineapple business to become the Maui Land & Pineapple Company. The Camerons' son Colin Cameron founded the Kapalua Bay Hotel & Villas resort. The pineapple business continued until 2009.