At the time, his rivals Henry Perrine Baldwin and Samuel Thomas Alexander were building the Hamakua ditch to irrigate their plantation in nearby Haliimaile [REF].
Spreckels then incorporated the Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company (HC&S) with Hermann Schussler, chief engineer of California's Spring Valley Water Works, and others, which joined the "Big Five" to become one of the most powerful entities in Hawaii [REF].