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Historic History Page 1 |
Historic Plantation Manager's Beach House History Vast sugar plantations, grand houses, visitors from around the world, high ceilings, servants, high ceilings, formal dining, crisp linen and polished silver, immigrant labor toiling in backbreaking work in hot tropical fields, inhuman working conditions, labor unrest, racial prejudice, World War, tsunami, recycling, and life "of the grid," and most particularly, social reform are themes embodied in Robbie and Marjorie Robertson's Plantation Manager's Beach home. William Fraser Robertson In 1920 a young Scotsman, William Fraser Robertson (or "Robbie" as he was known to his friends) came to Hawai'i in search of a better life. He had fought in WWI, first as an enlisted man in the Gordon Highlanders and old and celebrated Scottish Regiment. He was terribly wounded on 1 July 1916 the first day of the Battle of the Somme. He was been shot twice, shell burst behind him inflicting shrapnel wounds from his head all the way to his feet. He was invalided out of the British Army, but in 1918 returned to the war, this time as a member of the Royal Flying Corps. Despite his wounds, he volunteered for and qualified as a fighter pilot. In 1918 he was sent back to the front to fly his Sopwith Camel against the Germans. After the war Robbie found there was little opportunity in Scotland. British companies had interests all over the world. In 1920 the sugar business seemed the most attractive. A pound of sugar was worth more than a pound of gold. Robbie was recruited to come to Hawaii by Mr. James Johnson, a plantation manager on the Big Island. Mr. Johnson drove a nice car, wore silk shirts with diamond suds and gold cufflinks and a diamond ring. Robbie was offered a good job at a high salary, and departed for the Islands. Six months after he arrived, things changed. Sugar prices crashed. His salary was cut from $200 a month to $60. He lived in the men's boarding house. Mrs. Johnson's sold him food from her garden. He worked six days a week, rising at 5:30 a.m. and getting home at dark. Often he had to crawl on his hands and knees through the dense fields of saw toothed sugar cane. Robbie persevered. On 1 January 1933 he became the manager of the Hamakua Mill Company in Paauilo. Only 37 years old, he was the youngest man ever to be made manager of a plantation. Paauilo, as the plantation was called was a poorly run, nearly bankrupt operation. The manager lived in grand style in a large house on acres of lawns, gardens, orchards and trees. He had a full time cook, and maid, a gardener and a yard man. He was expected to entertain guests from all over the world. He was also expected to make a profit, if he did not, he was dismissed. Robbie was given 5 years to make Paauilo profitable. He succeeded. With his success came the opportunity to change living conditions for people that worked on the Plantation. Promotion regardless of race or creed, elimination of the company store, competent health care, raising the level of education in the local public school (most of the kids parents were plantation employees), decent housing, and finally the mechanization of the sugar industry.
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