Henry Perrine Baldwin was born on August 29, 1842 on the island of Maui, his parents, the Rev. Dwight Baldwin and Charlotte (Fowler) Baldwin, being missionaries from New England. As he was the fourth son and the sixth of eight children in the family, he enjoyed few luxuries in his youth except the pious and cultured atmosphere of his home.
He received his early education from his parents, and for seven years preceding his twenty-first birthday he attended Punahou School (Oahu College) in Honolulu.
His early ambition was to become a physician, but having taken up agriculture as a temporary expedient, he was gradually drawn deeper into it and finally found his career in the sugar industry. After an unpromising start as manager of a small rice plantation, he went to work for his brother, a cane grower at Lahaina. A little later he became head overseer on the Waihee sugar plantation, of which Samuel T. Alexander was manager. In 1869 he entered into partnership with Alexander and established a plantation at Paia on the eastern side of the central plain of Maui. Baldwin became manager of Paia and Alexander of the adjoining Haiku plantation. Years of hard work revealed the need of a water supply more abundant and dependable than the rainfall of this region, and the partners formed a plan to supply the need. In 1876, with a few associates, they obtained from the government a lease authorizing the construction of a ditch to bring water from the northern slopes of the great mountain Haleakala. This Hamakua ditch, the first extensive irrigation project in the Hawaiian Islands and forerunner of many greater, was completed in spite of serious difficulties and largely because of Baldwin's energy and ability. Just before it was begun he lost his right arm in a mill accident. An adequate water supply and the reciprocity treaty between Hawaii and the United States (1876) gave a solid basis for further development.
The Alexander and Baldwin interests expanded until the plantations under their control covered nearly the whole of central Maui, with an offshoot on the island of Kauai. In 1883 Alexander moved to California and thereafter Baldwin was general manager of all their enterprises on the islands; upon the incorporation of Alexander & Baldwin Limited in 1900 he became its president. He was active in the Hawaiian Sugar Planters Association, serving at various times as director, vice-president, and president. As a plantation manager, Baldwin had few equals. He was intensely active, spending days in the saddle; he had great success in handling the difficult problem of labor supply, and he possessed sagacity and skill in financial matters. He became a wealthy man but did not lose touch with or sympathy for the people under him and about him. He gave large sums to aid various churches and other religious and social service institutions, particularly on his home island, and was sometimes called the "father of Maui. " While interested in public affairs, Baldwin took no active part in politics until after 1886. Although he approved the reforms in government sought by the revolutionists of 1887 and 1893, he disapproved some of the methods used by their leaders, but he became a strong supporter of the administrations established by those uprisings. He was a prominent and influential member of the upper house of the legislature in every session from 1887 to 1904, inclusive, and was a delegate to the convention that framed the constitution of the Republic of Hawaii (1894). At two periods he was suggested for the governorship of the Territory of Hawaii but refused to allow his name to be considered.
In the intervals of a busy life he traveled, often with his wife and children, in America, Europe, and Japan. He died at his home at Makawao.
Of a deeply religious nature, he served for many years as church organist, even after the loss of his right arm.
Baldwin was married on April 5, 1870, to Emily Whitney Alexander, sister of his business partner. They had six sons and two daughters: Henry Alexander, Maud Mansfield, William Dwight, Arthur Douglas, Frank Fowler, Frederick Chambers, Charlotte McKinney, and Samuel Alexander.
