Dwight and Charlotte Baldwin had eight children, perhaps the most well known of which was their sixth child, Henry Perrine Baldwin. In the 1870’s, the “Merrie Monarch” King Kalakaua was in power and sugar cane cultivation was just beginning in Hawaii. Henry Baldwin (1842-1911) is credited with developing the Hamakua Ditch system which delivers millions of gallons of water daily from the rain forest of East Maui to the sugar cane fields that you now see growing in Central Maui. Constructing the water delivery system was sort of a contest brought about because sugar competitor Claus Spreckels had obtained a lease from the King for Maui water, which said that, unless Baldwin completed his ditch system by September 30, 1878, all the water would go to Spreckels. The natives and workers had their doubts that water would go down through a pipe and then go “up” the hill on the other side, so it was a rousing day on Maui when Henry’s pipeline crossed Maliko Gulch and brought water out. Because of this system, the Baldwins were on top in the sugar business.

In 1888, Henry Baldwin and a few businessmen in Honolulu put their business interests together and formed the Haleakala Ranch, consisting of 33,817 acres on the slopes of Haleakala Crater. Piiholo Ranch is part of that acreage, but was first known as the Piiholo Plantation under the 1876 partnership of Akanaliilii and Brewer. They owned 1250 acres and leased another 10,500. Of this great land area, they had only 500 acres under cultivation. When Henry Baldwin’s funeral was held, people from all over Hawaii came to pay their respects. Newspaper articles at the time referred to him as the “Father of Maui.”