Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum

Mary Vares uses a wooden paddle called a "pa do forno," or baker's shovel, to remove bread loaves from the oven in this 1940's photo. Often, banana or ti leaves would be placed on the pa before putting the dough on it and gently sliding it into the oven. The leaves lent a pleasant aroma to the baking bread.

Portuguese Oven

The Portuguese oven was a necessity for the Portuguese immigrants who came here to work on the plantations. While the oven was sometimes used for roasting meat and chickens, bread was a staple, and the oven's primary purpose was to bake bread for families. Often with as many or more than a dozen children, most families could not afford to eat meat every day. Bread was eaten daily.

This oven was built by Maui Agricultural Company (MACo) in the 1920’s. It was in the backyard of house no. 92 in Skill Village plantation camp in Pā‘ia town. The oven was moved to Sugar Museum grounds in 1984.

Portuguese ovens were not built to be moved. It took 3 days of arduous work to get a steel plate under it, and it required a 15 ton forklift to load it onto a lowboy for its journey to the museum.

The oven had some cracks in it prior to the move so, to minimize further cracking and crumbling, it was wrapped with sheet metal and banded to hold it together. It was restored on the museum grounds in 2008.

The Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum gratefully acknowledges the donated services of Sniffen’s Express, which moved the oven, and Rico Labang, who restored it, assisted by Pauahi Lozano and Keha Clark.

Sugar Museum Newsletters:

Spring 2008 Vol. 5, Issue 1
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The Plantation Camp Registry

The Sugar Museum’s Plantation Camp Registry is a new listing that contains the names of people who lived and worked in the sugar plantation camps on Maui. A number of years ago, the Sugar Museum put maps of the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co.(HC&S) and Maui Agricultural Co. (MACo) plantation camps into its gallery along with a registry form for former camp residents or their families to fill out. This was the start of the Plantation Camp Registry.

People whose family lived in a camp, can fill out the form with information about which camp it was, the number of the house they lived in and for how long, the names of family members, nearby neighbors and other information. The Registry includes plantation camps in Pu‘unēnē, Sprecklesville, Pa‘ia, Hamakua Poko and Kihei. Wailuku and Lahaina were added to the form in 2008. Although the museum does not have the camp maps of these plantations, hopefully they will be obtained in the future.

The total number of people who lived in the camps over the years is unknown. However, The Hawaii Sugar Manual (A.B. Gilmore 1939) provides the following figures: The HC&S plantation census of 1939 reported a grand total population of 7,973, and the MACo Plantation (Pa‘ia) reported a population of about 6,500. HC&S reported occupancy of 1,545 houses and MACo had approximately 1,500 houses.

The completed forms are added into an accessible Plantation Camp Registry database, available to anyone who is interested in this information. It will serve as an important historical record and as a resource for historians, scholars, writers, researchers, students, and all who want a look into the past. Another important function of the Registry will be to help camp “alumni” families to find each other again.

The Plantation Camp Registry listing is still under construction and we hope to have it available on this website at a later date.

Open the Plantation Camp Registry Form
(NOTE: Form is two pages. This form may not be filled out and
sent back online. You must open it, print it and mail it back.)

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