Harvested in 1914, the crop netted Aguiar $2,190, of which a half-share went to his father, who demanded payment in gold, but settled for saddlebags filled with 1,190 silver dollars instead. By purchasing and leasing additional land, Aguiar would eventually have as many as 150 acres in cane and employ several men who lived in Aguiar Camp alongside Kawaihau Road. Unlike most independent growers, Aguiar worked with his men in the fields, and at harvest time they’d cut the cane and “hapai ko” the cane into cane cars on railroad tracks that Makee, and later, Lihue Plantation would haul by locomotive to their mills. His final crop was harvested in 1958, when Lihue Plantation quit buying cane from independent growers. At that time, only three independents remained on Kaua‘i, down from over 200 in the Kapahi region alone when he started, and he turned to ranching. Manuel and Beatrice Aguiar Jr. had three daughters. More Pele On Kauai
Pele’s Home Kilauea Crater Hawaii One evening shortly after Christmas 1945, truck driver Gilacio Pascual was hauling taro from Hanalei to Kapa‘a, when he was flagged down by a schoolgirl wearing a black dress with white trim near the old Ko‘olau Store on Ko‘olau Road. The girl asked to be taken to the baseball park makai of Moloa‘a Camp (located on property that would later become the site of a dairy) and Pascual drove on with her aboard until he’d passed the hairpin turn in Moloa‘a gulch. It was then that he noticed she had vanished.
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