Coffee, arrow-root and ginger

By 1850, some residents of Buchanan were already growing coffee, arrow-root and ginger for export.

In the last half of the 1800s, Liberia became a major exporter of cultivated coffee, which brought significant wealth to individual growers. That revolution was started in Buchanan by Allen Hooper, a freeborn repatriate from New York, who arrived at age 27 in January 1850.

Footnote: J. W. Lugenbeel, “Sketches of Liberia – No. 2,” African Repository, July 1850, p. 207; African Repository, April 1850, p. 26; “Brewerville and the St. Paul’s River,” African Repository, July 1879, p. 55.