Plaque in English and Chinese at the Earlville Stockland store ,Cairns, highlights the Hap Wah Company plantation which used to be on the site and in l882 produced the first sugar in the district . The shopping complex is on Mulgrave Road, once known as Hap Wah Road.
In l878 and l879 , Andrew Leon (1840-l920) , born in China, who had been involved in agiculture in the West Indies and spent two years in Cuba, took up 1250 acres of land near Cairns for tropical farming .
He had settled in Queensland in the l860s , and during the later Palmer River goldrush , which involved many Chinese, had dealings with Hong Kong business interests in Cooktown , at one stage manager of Sun Yee Lee and Company.
His involvement with the Chinese community grew and he became a partner in the Cairns trading firm Sun Chong Lee.
The Hap Wah Company consisted of Chinese traders in Hong Kong and local businessmen who invested £45,000 in the plantation , growing cotton and sugar.
With a workforce of up to 200, the plantation was mainly Chinese run , except for a European engineer and sugar boiler.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography says Leon represented the Chinese community in many matters, organising much of their business, acting as an interpreter, and serving as a trustee of the Lit Sung Goong Temple. His achievements and his social status posed great problems for anti-Chinese enthusiasts of the day.
Falling sugar prices and the lack of capital hit the highly regarded Hap Wah Company and the rest of the industry in the mid-1880s, resulting in the plantation land being sold for £15,000 in l886 to the Charters Towers mining magnate, Thomas Mills.
(China. Korea . Australia.)
