On June 20, 2023, Kaupo Ranch changed hands for the first time in nearly 100 years when Kamehameha Schools, through the estate of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, took control.
Dr. William Dwight Baldwin purchased the underlying land in 1929 for his son Dwight, who named it Kaupo Ranch. From 1929 until 2023, the ranch was owned in whole or in part by Dwight Baldwin and his descendants. However, the history of the ranch dates back 40 years before the Baldwin era.
Undoubtedly there will be changes in the long term, but according to Kamehameha Schools, current ranch activities will go on as usual. "Kamehameha Schools will continue ranching, food production, guided hunting and ecotourism at Kaupo and explore educational opportunities for our Maui campus and community partners," according to a press release.
As Kamehameha Schools looks ahead, this article looks back at the origin of Kaupo Ranch under Baldwin's predecessor, Antone Vierra Marciel, who founded the ranch in 1889 and ran it until his passing in 1929.
Marciel arrives in Hawaii
Antone Vierra Marciel was born Antonio Vieira Maciel in the village of Prainha on Pico Island in the Azores on March 12, 1848. However, many records, including Marciel's obituary, erroneously date his birth 10 years earlier in 1838.
In the 1870s, Marciel immigrated to California and from there found work on a whaling ship, eventually making his way to Maui. According to family legend, Marciel's whaling ship became icebound in the Arctic and the crew transferred another ship bound for Hawaii. Another account has Marciel's ship being wrecked off Maui rather than in the Arctic.
On Maui, Marciel found work at Kahikinui Ranch, run by Augustine Enos. Enos and Marciel shared a common homeland. Enos was born on Pico Island in 1831, moving to Hawaii in 1853. A number of other Azores natives ranched in Kahikinui during this period, possibly because the area felt like home—there are striking similarities between Haleakala's sheer southern flank and the landscape of Pico Island.
In Kahikinui, Marciel settled down and started a family. On April 20, 1879, he married a local Hawaiian woman named Rose Kailikea. They had four sons and one daughter, all born between 1881 and 1889.
Legend of the Kaupo land purchase
In 1889, Marciel left Kahikinui for Kaupo, where he had purchased over 1,300 acres. Edward Marciel, Antone Marciel's firstborn grandchild, was raised by his grandparents in the Hawaiian punahele (favored child) tradition and provided this description of how his grandfather acquired the Kaupo land:
Antone Marciel received no money for the time he worked for Enos on Kahikinui Ranch. When Marciel needed clothes and other necessities, Enos would provide it for him. In 1889, Enos asked Marciel to get on a horse and go to the courthouse in Wailuku and bid on a land in Kaupo. This was Marciel’s first trip to the county seat in Wailuku. He followed the seashore to Kihei then to Maalaea and inland to Wailuku. Enos told Marciel to bid no higher than $1.25 an acre. A Chinese man named Ah Mi was also bidding for this land, and the price moved up in increments of five cents. Each outbid the other until they reached $0.75 an acre. Then, Marciel upped the bid to $1.25, and Ah Mi did not contest. Marciel asked the sales agent to prepare the sale documents and said that he would return in a week to make payment in cash. Enos told Marciel to take a horse and a mule and go to Kaupo, where a Hawaiian man named Piimauna would show Marciel where the land was located. Marciel was instructed to pick a site for a house to be built. Marciel chose the site on which the Kaupo Ranch house now stands. Enos drew plans for the house and ordered the materials for shipment by boat. The lumber was dropped off the ship and floated ashore at Nuu. The lumber was placed on sleighs and drawn by horses to the home site. A Hawaiian carpenter named Joshua Ahulii and his son, also a carpenter, built the house. Enos authorized Antone to select a specified number of stock cattle to put on the land in Kaupo. Antone now was on his own. He had the land, a house and breeding stock for his ranch. Enos said that he was not giving away anything free to Marciel. Rather, all the years that Marciel had worked for Enos were now being paid back in the form of land, house and breeding stock. Enos told Marciel that they were even and neither owed the other anything.
Unexpectedly, Marciel's auction adversary had a notable role in Chinese history. The real name of Ah Mi was Sun Mei, a pivotal supporter of his younger brother Sun Yat-sen, leader of the revolution against the Qing dynasty. A memorial park to Sun Yat-sen and Sun Mei sits on land in Kula, Maui once owned by Sun Mei.
Land records of the 1889 purchase
Apart from family lore, historical land records also provide detail about Marciel's purchase. In all, Marciel purchased 1,309.9 acres in Kaupo in 1889 from the Hawaiian kingdom, recorded as Royal Patent Grant 3457. The grant consisted of three contiguous government lots: Lot 1 (1,280 acres), Lot 6 (13.4 acres) and Lot 7 (16.5 acres).
The approximate boundaries of the three parcels included in Royal Patent Grant 3457 are depicted on the map below. The lowest area is in the Naholoku region, near the location of the ranch house. The property continues up into Kaupo Gap, ending near the fence line that now marks the border of Haleakala National Park.
Newspapers report that an auction of the Kaupo government lots was held September 26, 1889, at Aliiolani Hale in Honolulu. Presumably, the minimum price was not met, which set the stage for a Wailuku auction in early October, although no newspaper records of this Maui auction have been found.
In any event, by the end of October, Marciel had completed the purchase, as his land grant is dated October 29, 1889. Marciel paid $2,591 for the three parcels. For 1,309.9 acres, this calculates to $1.98 per acre, compared with the Marciel family story of $1.25 per acre.
Marciel expands land holdings
Thus, by the end of 1889, Marciel had his ranch in Kaupo, although he never called it Kaupo Ranch, a name given by Dwight Baldwin when he bought the property. Most references from the Marciel period use the name "Vierra's ranch".
Over the following decades, Marciel expanded his ranch through additional land purchases, including parcels in Hikiaupea, Pauku and Puu Maneoneo ahupuaa.
The most significant acquisition was the purchase of a 1/2 interest in Nuu ahupuaa on September 4, 1906, from the estate of Queen Kapiolani. The purchase price was $2,500.
The entire Nuu ahupuaa consisted of 12,140 acres and was originally entirely in the hands of the Hawaiian royal family. At the time of Marciel's purchase, the estate of James Campbell owned the other 1/2 interest in Nuu. Campbell bought his interest an auction of the late King Kalakaua’s land holdings on February 13, 1892, for $4,600. Campbell passed away in 1900.
Although Marciel owned half of Nuu by 1906, he wasn't yet able to use this land for ranching. Remarkably, this was due to Sun Mei, his old auction nemesis, who held a long-term lease on Marciel's Nuu property. As reported by Nupepa Kuokoa on November 12, 1897:
Ua lilo ia S. Ahmi o Kamaole, Kula, Maui, na bipi a ka Moiwahine Kapiolani e holo ala ma Nuu, Kaupo, Maui, a ua lilo pu nohoi na eka aina eono tausani ma ka hoolimalima he umi-ku-mamalima makahiki.
[S. Ahmi of Kamaole, Kula, Maui has purchased the cattle of Queen Kapiolani grazing at Nuu, Kaupo, Maui and leased 6,000 acres of land for 15 years.]
By 1913, Sun's lease had ended, and Marciel and the Campbell estate proceeded to divide Nuu into two separate properties. As reported by Honolulu Star-Bulletin on March 11, 1913 (the day before Marciel turned 65): "Deeds of partition have been exchanged between Cecil Brown et al., trustees of the estate of the late James Campbell, and Antone Vierra Marciel, whereby the Campbell estate takes the western half and Marciel the eastern half of the ahupuaa of Nuu, district of Kaupo, Maui, which they have heretofore owned as tenants in common. Each part contains 5900 acres. A consideration of $1 was paid on each side."
The western half of Nuu that Marciel owned was prize ranching land. The area included Nuu Bay, where cattle were collected and loaded onto ships.
Francis “Tito” Marciel began working his grandfather Antone Marciel when Tito was 13 years old. In a 1977 interview, Tito reminisced about cattle loading at Nuu: "They get the horses and they put a rope on them and drag them in the sand. Take them out. Swim out in the ocean with the horse. The ship is about 400 yards away. They come on a small little boat, put them all on the side, then they oar to the big boat. Then they hoist. They got that winch. They got a rope. Sailors hooked it up. Winchman just rolled down the hook and winched them up. They put them in a hold, like a pen down in the ship."
A frequent host
Throughout the early 1900s, Marciel was a prominent figure in Kaupo as one of the area's largest landowners and head of the main industry.
The location of Marciel's ranch house at the base of Kaupo Gap meant that every party entering or exiting Haleakala Crater looked to Marciel for provisions and lodging. By all accounts, he provided these generously. Marciel played host to politicians (Territorial Governor George Robert Carter in 1904), writers (Jack London in 1915) and researchers (the Bishop Museum's Kenneth Emory and Thomas Maunupau in 1922).
In some ways, Marciel was a strict land manager. An article in Ke Alakai o Hawaii in 1929 noted that Marciel would kill horses and mules found trespassing on his grazing lands. However, the same article added that Marciel set aside farmland for Kaupo residents who had no land of their own to farm.
Marciel also thoroughly embraced his adopted Hawaiian culture. Marciel's grandson Edward recalled that Marciel only allowed business matters to be discussed inside his home if the Hawaiian language was used. Conversations in English had to be held outside.
The end of "Vierra's ranch"
By the mid-1920s, it was likely clear to Marciel that his ranch would not remain in the family after his passing. Two sons, Antone Jr. and Joseph, still lived in Kaupo, but had moved off the ranch property and had their own interests. Sons John and Francis as well as daughter Mary had moved elsewhere on Maui. Marciel's wife, Rose, had passed away in 1914.
After falling off his horse and breaking his pelvis, Marciel moved in with his daughter, Mary, at her home on Mill Street in Wailuku. Marciel passed away July 3, 1929, and "there passed from life’s roster another of Maui’s pioneers," as described in a Maui News obituary.
A few months after Marciel's death, William Dwight Baldwin began looking into buying the ranch. Maui News reported on the process in its issue of September 18, 1929: "Negotiations are in progress for ranch lands purchases that may rank with the most important in the Islands for several years past, the property being in East Maui, lands of the Marciel estate at Kaupo and of R. A. Drummond at Kaupo, Keanae and Nahiku. … Dr. W. D. Baldwin is the prospective purchaser and the Kaupo premises would be for his son Dwight Baldwin."
On December 11, 1929, Maui News reported that the final deeds had been recorded and that Dwight Baldwin had established the name Kaupo Ranch. In addition to Marciel's land, Baldwin's purchase included property owned by Maui politician Romao Augustine Drummond and Drummond's son Henry in Mokulau and elsewhere in Kaupo. Nevertheless, the location of the ranch headquarters would continue to be the site in the Naholoku uplands of Kaupo Gap that Marciel selected in 1889 with his local guide Piimauna.
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