Grove Farm Plantation: The Biography of a Hawaiian Sugar Plantation

Significant changes in Hawaii's sugar industry and in the development of Grove Farm Plantation on Kauai are covered in this new, expanded, and updated edition of this colorful history of Grove Farm and biography of its founder, George N. Wilcox, and of his descendants, who played an important role in Hawaii's history. Wilcox, son of missionary teacher Abner Wilcox, began his amazing career as a youthful pioneer sugar planter on the remote island of Kauai in 1864. With other giants of Hawaii's past - Sanford B. Dole, Henry Baldwin. Samuel Alexander, Lorrin B. Thurston, King David Kalakaua, Queen Liliuokalani - he helped build the wealth and the unique social structure that has sustained the islands for more than one hundred years. As an enterprising innovator in sugar culture, a plantation owner who was far ahead of his time in labor relations with his workers, a power in Hawaiian politics who became the last prime minister of the monarchy, and, finally, one of the wealthy men of his day, Wilcox emerges as a warm and captivating character whom readers long have deserved to know. The story is told with depth and humor by Bob Krauss, well-known newspaper columnist and author of Here's Hawaii and Bob Krauss' Travel Guide to the Hawaiian Islands, and by William P. Alexander, former manager of Grove Farm Plantation. They provide a completely fresh and exceptionally readable aspect of Hawaiian history.